The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival
Page 10
The funeral train left St. James's Square in the cool grey of a summerdawn. It consisted of but three carriages: the hearse, with all itspompous decorations, and drawn by six post-horses, a coach and sixfor Antonia and her father, and a second coach for the steward, thevalet, Louis, and Mrs. Sophia Potter, who tried to keep her countenancecomposed in a becoming sadness, but could not help considering thejourney a treat, and occasionally forgetting that dismal carriage whichled the procession.
They travelled by the Great Bath Road, halting at Hounslow forbreakfast in the dust and dew of an exquisite morning; and it may bethat Mr. Thornton, sitting at a well-furnished table by an open windowoverlooking all the bustle and gaiety of coaches and post-chaisesarriving or departing, found it almost as hard a matter as Sophy didto maintain the proper dejection in voice and aspect, and not to enjoyhimself too obviously.
It was not so much the unwonted luxury of his surroundings as theunwonted respect of his fellow-men that inspired him. To have innkeeperand waiters hanging about him, as if he had been a prince--he, whommine host of the Red Lion had ever treated on terms of equality; or ifthe scale had turned either way 'twas mine host who gave himself theprivilege of insolence to a customer who was often in his debt.
Antonia, shut in a room abovestairs with her maid, could not asyet taste the pleasures of her altered station. It was her fatherwho derived enjoyment from her title, rolling it in his mouth withindescribable gusto--
"Tell her ladyship, my daughter, that her coach is at the door.Lady Kilrush desires to lose no time on the road. Louis, see thather ladyship's smelling-salts are in the coach-pocket, and that herladyship's woman does not keep her waiting."
Louis, and Mr. Goodwin, the steward, had their little jests about Mr.Thornton; but Antonia had commanded their respect from the moment whenshe gave her instructions about the funeral. The capacity for commandwas hers, a quality that is in the character of man or woman, and whichneither experience nor teaching can impart.
The journey to Bristol occupied four days, and Mr. Thornton enjoyedhimself more and more at the great inns on the Great Bath Road, eatinghis dinner and his supper in the luxurious seclusion of a privatesitting-room, _tete-a-tete_ with an obsequious landlord or a loquacioushead waiter, whose conversation kept him amused; and perhaps drinkingsomewhat deeper on account of Antonia's absence. Throughout the journeyshe had kept herself in strict seclusion, attended only by Sophy. Allthat the inn-servants saw of Lady Kilrush was a tall woman in deepestmourning who followed the head chambermaid to her room, and did notreappear till her coach was ready to start on the next stage.
From Bristol the dismal convoy crossed to Queenstown in a Governmentyacht, with a fair wind, and no ill-adventure. At Queenstown themonotonous road-journey was resumed in hired coaches; and late on thethird evening the _cortege_ drew up before Kilrush House, in the cityof Limerick, a large red-brick house with its back to the river, hardby the bishop's palace, built before the battle of the Boyne.
Entering this melancholy mansion, which had been left in the care of asuperannuated butler and his feeble old wife for nearly thirty years,Mr. Thornton's spirits sank to zero. He had been indisposed duringthe sea-voyage, nor had the accommodation at Irish inns satisfied ataste enervated by the luxuries of the Great Bath Road; but the Irishlandlords had offered him cheerful society, and the Irish grog had senthim merrily to his bed. But, oh! the gloom of Kilrush House in thesummer twilight; the horror of that closed chamber where the form ofthe coffin showed vaguely under the voluminous velvet of the pall; andwhere tall wax candles shed a pale light upon vacant walls and scantyfurniture, all that there had been of beauty and value in the townhouse of the Lords of Kilrush having been removed to St. James's Squarewhen the late lord married.
The funeral was solemnized on the following night, a torch-lightprocession, in which the lofty hearse, with its nodding plumes andpompous decoration of black velvet and silver, showed gigantic in thefitful flare of the torches, carried by a long train of horsemen whohad assembled from far and near to do honour to the last Lord Kilrush.
He had been an absentee for the greater part of his life; but the namewas held in high esteem, and perhaps his countrymen had more respectfor him dead than they would have felt had he appeared among themliving. The news of the funeral train journeying over sea and land,and of the beautiful bride accompanying her dead bridegroom, had gonethrough the South of Ireland, and men of rank and family had travelledlong distances to assist in those last honours. It was half a centurysince such a funeral _cortege_ had been seen in Limerick. And while thegentry came in hundreds to the ceremony, from the Irish town and theEnglish town the rabble poured in throngs that must have been reckonedby thousands, Mr. Thornton thought, as he gazed from the coach windowat a sea of faces: young women with streaming hair, spectral facesof old crones, their grey locks bound with red cotton handkerchiefs,rags, and semi-nakedness--all seeming phantasmagoric in the flickeringlight of the moving torches, all dreadful of aspect to the _habitue_ ofLondon streets.
But even more terrible than those wan faces and wild hair were thevoices of that strange multitude, the wailing and sobbing of the women,the keening of the men, shrieks and lamentations, soul-freezing as thecry of the screech-owl or the howling of famished wolves. Thorntonshrank shuddering into a corner of the mourning coach, which he sharedwith the chief mourner--that mute, motionless figure with shroudedface, in which he scarce recognized his daughter's familiar form.
The horror of the scene deepened when they entered the church,that wild crew pressing after them, thrust back from the door withdifficulty by the funeral attendants. The distance to be traversedhad been short, but the coaches had moved at a foot pace, with a haltevery now and then, as the crowd became impassable. To Thornton theceremony seemed to have lasted for half the night, and it surprised himto hear the church clock strike twelve as they left the vault whereGeorge Frederick Delafield, nineteenth Baron Kilrush, was laid with hisancestors.
It was over. Oh, the relief of it! This tedious business which hadoccupied nearly a fortnight was ended at last, and his daughterbelonged to him again. He put his arm round her in the coach presently,and she sank weeping upon his breast. She had been tearless throughoutthe ceremony in the cathedral, and had maintained a statuesquecomposure of countenance, pale as marble against the flowing folds of acrape veil that draped her from brow to foot.
"Let us get back to London, love," he said. "The horrors of this placewould kill us if we stopped here much longer."
"I want to see the house where he was born," she said.
"Well, 'tis a natural desire, perhaps, for 'tis your own house now,Kilrush Abbey. The Abbey is but a ruin, I doubt; but there is a finestone mansion and a park--all my Antonia's property--but a deucedlyexpensive place to keep up, I'll warrant."
She did not tell him that her only interest in the Irish estate wason the dead man's account. Nothing she could say would check him inhis jubilation at her change of fortune. It was best to let him enjoyhimself in his own fashion. Their ages and places seemed reversed.It was she that had the gravity of mature years, the authority of aparent; while in him there was the inconsequence of a child, and thechild's delight in trivial things.
She had seen the starved faces in the crowd, the grey hairs and scantyrags; and she went next day with Sophy on a voyage of discovery in thesqualid alleys of the English and the Irish towns, scattering silveramong the poverty-stricken creatures who crowded round her as shemoved from door to door. What blessings, what an eloquence of gratefulhearts, were poured upon her as she distributed handfuls of shillings,fat crown pieces, showers of sixpences that the children fought forin the gutters--an injudicious form of charity, perhaps, but it gavebread to the hungry, and some relief to her over-charged heart. She hadnever enjoyed the luxury of giving before. It was the first pleasureshe had known since her marriage, the first distraction for a mind thathad dwelt with agonizing intensity upon one image.