by Ellen Wood
“Do not fear it. You know where to look for help!” whispered the dean; “you cannot look in vain. Henry, my dear boy, I leave you in peace, do I not?”
“Oh yes, sir, in perfect peace. Thank you greatly for all.”
CHAPTER X.
THE GRAVESTONE IN THE CLOISTERS.
It was the brightest day, though March was not yet out, the first warm, lovely day of spring. Men passed each other in the streets, with a congratulation that the winter weather had gone, and the college boys, penned up in their large schoolroom, gazed aloft through the high windows at the blue sky and the sunshine, and thought what a shame it was that they should be held prisoners on such a days instead of galloping over the country at “Hare and Hounds.”
“Third Latin class walk up,” cried Mr. Wilberforce.
The third Latin class walked up, and ranged itself in front of the master’s desk. “Who’s top of this class?” asked he.
“Me, sir,” replied the gentleman who owned that distinction.
“Who’s ‘me’ sir?”
“Me, sir.”
“Who is ‘me,’ sir?” angrily repeated the master, his spectacles bearing full on his wondering pupil.
“Charles Van Brummel, sir,” returned that renowned scholar.
“Then go down to the bottom for saying ‘me.’”
Mr. Van Brummel went down, considerably chopfallen, and the master was proceeding to work, when the cathedral bell tolled out heavily, for a soul recently departed.
“What’s that?” abruptly ejaculated the master.
“It’s the college death-bell, sir,” called out the up class, simultaneously, Van Brummel excepted, who had not yet recovered his equanimity.
“I hear what it is as well as you,” were all the thanks they got. “But what can it be tolling for? Nobody was ill.”
“Nobody,” echoed the boys.
“Can it be a member of the Royal Family?” wondered the master — the bishop and the dean he knew were well. “If not, it must be one of the canons.”
Of course it must! for the college bell never condescended to toll for any of the profane vulgar. The Royal Family, the bishop, dean, and prebendaries, were the only defunct lights, honoured by the notice of the passing-bell of Westerbury Cathedral.
“Lewis junior,” said the master, “go into college, and ask the bedesmen who it is that is dead.”
Lewis junior clattered out. When he came back he walked very softly, and looked as white as a sheet.
“Well?” cried Mr. Wilberforce — for Lewis did not speak.
“It’s tolling for Henry Arkell, sir.”
“Henry Arkell!” uttered the master. “Is he really dead? Are you ill, Lewis junior? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“But it is an entirely unprecedented proceeding for the cathedral bell to toll for a college boy,” repeated Mr. Wilberforce, revolving the news. “The old bedesmen must be making some mistake. Half of them are deaf, and the other half are stupid. I shall send to inquire: we must have no irregularity about these things. Lewis junior.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lewis junior, you are ill, sir,” repeated the master, sharply. “Don’t say you are not. Sit down, sir.”
Lewis junior humbly sat down. He appeared to have the ague.
“Van Brummel, you’ll do,” continued Mr. Wilberforce. “Go and inquire of the bedesmen whether they have received orders; and, if so, from whom: and whether it is really Arkell that the bell is tolling for.”
Van Brummel opened the door and clattered down the stairs, as Lewis junior had done; and he clattered back again.
“The men say, sir, that the dean sent them the orders by his servant. And they think Arkell is to be buried in the cathedral.”
“In — deed!” was the master’s comment, in a tone of doubt. “Poor fellow!” he added, after a pause, “his has been a sudden and melancholy ending. Boys, if you want to do well, you should imitate Henry Arkell. I can tell you that the best boy who ever trod these boards, as a foundation scholar, has now gone from among us.”
“Please, sir, I’m senior of the choir now,” interposed Aultane junior, as if fearing the master might not sufficiently remember that important fact.
“And a fine senior you’ll make,” scornfully retorted Mr. Wilberforce.
It was Mr. St. John who had taken the news of his death to the dean, and the latter immediately sent to order the bell to be tolled. St. John left the deanery, and was passing through the cloisters on his way to Hall-street, when he saw in the distance Mrs. and Miss Beauclerc, just as the cathedral bell rang out. Mrs. Beauclerc was startled, as the head master had been: her fears flew towards her aristocratic clergy friends. She tried the college door, and, finding it open, entered to make inquiries of the bedesmen. Georgina stopped to chatter to Mr. St. John.
“Fancy, if it should be old Ferraday gone off!” cried she. “Won’t the boys crow? He has got the influenza, and was sitting by his study fire yesterday in a flannel nightcap.”
“It is the death-bell for Henry Arkell, Georgina.”
A vivid emotion dyed her face. She was vexed that it should be apparent to Mr. St. John, and would have carried it off under an assumption of indifference.
“When did he die? Did he suffer much?”
“He died at a quarter past eleven; about twenty minutes ago. And he did not suffer so much at the last as was anticipated.”
“Well, poor fellow, I hope he is happy.”
“That he is,” warmly responded Mr. St. John. “He died in perfect peace. May you and I be as peaceful, Georgina, when our time shall come.”
“What a blow it must be to Mrs. Arkell!”
“I saw her as I came out of the house just now, and I could not help venturing on a word of entreaty, that she would not grieve his loss too deeply. She raised her beautiful eyes to me, and I cannot describe to you the light, the faith, that shone in them. ‘Not lost,’ she gently whispered, ‘only gone before.’”
Georgina had kept her face turned from the view of Mr. St. John. She was gazing through her glistening eyes at the graveyard, which was enclosed by the cloisters.
“What possesses the college bell to toll for him?” she exclaimed, carelessly, to cover her emotion. “I thought,” she added, with a spice of satire in her tone, “that there was an old curfew law, or something as stringent, against its troubling itself for anybody less exalted than a sleek old prebendary.”
Mr. St. John saw through the artifice: he approached her, and lowered his voice. “Georgina, he sent you his forgiveness for any unkindness that may have passed. He sent you his love: and he hopes you will sometimes recal him to your remembrance, when you walk over his grave, as you go into college.”
Surprise made her turn to Mr. St. John: but she wilfully ignored the first part of the sentence. “Over his grave! I do not understand.”
“He is to be buried in the cloisters, near to this entrance-door, near to where we are now standing. There appears to be a vacant space here,” cried Mr. St. John, looking down at his feet: “I dare say it will be in this very spot.”
“By whose decision is he to be buried in the cloisters?” quickly asked Georgina.
“The dean’s, of course. Henry craved it of him.”
“I wonder papa did not tell me! What a singular fancy of Henry’s!”
“I do not think so. It was natural that he should wish his last resting-place to be amidst old associations, amidst his old companions; and near to you, Georgina.”
“There! I knew what you were driving at,” returned Georgina, in a pouting, wilful tone. “You are going to accuse me of breaking his heart, or some such obsolete nonsense: I assure you I never — —”
“Stay, Georgina; I do not care to hear this. I have delivered his message to you, and there let it end.”
“You are as stupid and fanciful as he was,” retorted Miss Beauclerc.
“Not quite so stupid in one respect, for he was blind to y
our faults; I am not. And never shall be,” he added, in a tone of significance which caused the life-blood at Georgina’s heart to stand still.
But she could not keep it up — the assumption of indifference, the apparent levity. The death was telling upon her, and she burst into hysterical tears. At that moment, Lewis junior passed them, and swung in at the cathedral door, on the master’s errand, meeting Mrs. Beauclerc, who was coming out.
“Tell mamma I’m gone home,” whispered Georgina to Mr. St. John, as she disappeared in the opposite direction.
“Arkell is dead, Mr. St. John,” observed Mrs. Beauclerc. “The bell is tolling for him. I wonder the dean ordered the bell to toll for him: it will cause quite a commotion in the city to hear the college death-bell.”
“He is to be buried here, in the cloisters, Mrs. Beauclerc.”
“Really! Will the dean allow it?”
“The dean has decided it.”
“Oh, indeed. I never understand half the dean does.”
“So your companion is gone, Lewis junior,” observed Mr. St. John, as the boy came stealing out of the college with his information. But Lewis never answered: and though he touched his forehead (he had no cap on) to the dean’s wife, he never raised his eyes; but sneaked on, with his ghastly face, and his head bent down.
Those of the college boys who wished it went to see him in his coffin. Georgina Beauclerc also went. She told the dean, in a straightforward manner, that she should like to see Henry Arkell now he lay dead; and the dean saw no reason for refusing. The death had sobered Miss Beauclerc; but whatever feeling of remorse she might be conscious of, was hidden within her.
“You will not be frightened, I suppose, Georgina?” said the dean, in some indecision. “Did you ever see anybody dead?”
“I saw that old gardener of ours that died at the rectory, papa. I was frightened at him; a frightful old yellow scarecrow he looked. Henry Arkell won’t look like that. Papa, I wish those wicked college boys who were his enemies could be hung!”
“Do you, Georgina?” gravely returned the dean. “He did not wish it; he forgave and prayed for them.”
“They were so very — —”
She could not finish the sentence. The reference to the schoolboys brought too vividly the past before her, and she rushed away to her own room, bursting with the tears she had to suppress until she got there.
It seemed that her whole heart must burst with grief, too, as she stood in the presence of the corpse. She had asked St. John to go with her; and the two were alone in the room. Save for the ashy paleness, Henry looked just as beautiful as he had been in life: the marble lids were closed over the brilliant eyes, never to open again in this life; the once warm hands lay cold and useless now. Some one — perhaps his mother — had placed in one of the hands a sprig of pink hyacinth; some was also strewed on the breast of the flannel shroud. The perfume came all-powerfully to their senses; and never afterwards did Georgina Beauclerc come near the scent of that flower, death-like enough in itself, but it brought all-forcibly to her memory the death-chamber of Henry Arkell.
She stood, leaning over the side of the coffin, sobbing painfully. The trestles were very low, so that it was much beneath her as she stood. St. John stood opposite, still and calm.
“He loved you very much, Georgina — as few can love in this world. You best know how you requited him.”
Perhaps it was a harsh word to say in the midst of her grief; but St. John could not forgive her for the past, whatever Henry had done. She bent her brow down on the coffin, and sobbed wildly.
“Still, you made the sunshine of his life. He would have lived it over again, if he could, because you had been in it. You had become part of his very being; his whole heart was bound up in you. Better, therefore, that he should be lying there, than have lived on to the future, to the pain that it must, of necessity, have brought.”
“Don’t!” she wailed, amid her choking sobs.
Not another word was spoken. When she grew calm, Mr. St. John quitted the room to descend — for she motioned to him to pass out first. Then — alone — she bent down her lips to the face that could no longer respond; and she felt, in the moment’s emotion, as if her heart must break.
“Oh! Henry — my darling! I was very cruel to you! Forgive — forgive me! But I did love you — though not as I love him.”
Mr. St. John was waiting for her below, on the landing, near the drawing-room door. “You must pardon the family for not receiving you, Georgina. Mrs. Arkell mentioned it to me this morning; but they are overwhelmed with grief. It has been so unexpected, you see. Lucy is the worst. Mrs. Arkell” — he compelled his voice to a lower whisper— “has an idea that she will not be long behind him.”
The burial day of Henry Arkell arrived. The dean had commanded a holiday from study, and that the king’s scholars should attend the funeral. Just before the hour appointed for it, half-past eleven, some of them took up their station in the cloisters, in silent order, waiting to join the procession when it should come, a bow of black crape being attached to the left shoulder of their surplices. Sixteen of the king’s scholars had gone down to the house, as they were appointed to do. Mrs. Beauclerc, her daughter, and the families of the prebendaries were already in the cathedral; with some other spectators, who had got in under the pretext of attending morning prayers, and who, when the prayers were over, had refused to quit their seats again: of course the sextons could not decently turn them out. Half a dozen ladies took up their station in the organ-loft, to the inward wrath of the organist, who, however, had to submit to the invasion with suavity, for one of them was the dean’s daughter. It was the best viewing place, commanding full sight of the cathedral body and the nave on one side, and of the choir on the other. The bell tolled at intervals, sending its deep, gloomy boom over the town; and the spectators patiently waited. At length the first slow and solemn note of the organ was sounded, and Georgina Beauclerc shrank into a corner, contriving to see, and yet not be seen.
From the small door, never used but upon the rare occasion of a funeral, at the extremity of the long body of the cathedral, the procession advanced at last. It was headed by the choristers, two and two, the lay clerks, and the masters of the college school. The dean and one of the canons walked next before the coffin, which was borne by eight of the king’s scholars, and the pall by eight more. Four mourners followed the coffin — Peter Arkell, his cousin William, Travice, and Mr. St. John; and the long line was brought up by the remainder of the king’s scholars. So slow was their advance, as to be almost imperceptible to the spectators, the choir singing:
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.”
The last time those words were sung in that cathedral, but some three weeks past, it was by him over whom they were now being sung; the thought flashed upon many a mind. At length the choir was reached, and the coffin placed on the trestles; Georgina Beauclerc’s eyes — she had now come round to the front of the organ — being blinded with tears as she looked down upon it. Mr. St. John glanced up, from his place by the coffin, and saw her. Both the psalms were sung, and the dean himself read the lessons; and it may as well be here remarked, that at afternoon service the dean desired that Luther’s hymn should be sung in place of the usual anthem; some association with the last evening Henry had spent at his house no doubt inducing it.
The procession took its way back to the cloisters, to the grave, Mr. Wilberforce officiating. The spectators followed in the wake. As the coffin was lowered to its final resting-place — earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust — the boys bowed their heads upon their clasped hands, and some of them so
bbed audibly; they felt all the worth of Henry Arkell now that he was gone. The grave was made close to the cloister entrance to the cathedral, in the spot where had stood Mr. St. John and Georgina Beauclerc; where had once stood Georgina and Henry Arkell, the day that wretched Lewis had wished him buried there. An awful sort of feeling was upon Lewis now, as he remembered it. A few minutes, and it was over. The dean turned into the chapter-house, the mourners moved away, and the old bedesmen, in their black gowns, began to shovel in the earth upon the coffin. Mr. Wilberforce, before moving, put up his finger to Aultane, and the latter advanced.
“You choristers are not to go back to the vestry now, but to come into the hall in your surplices.”
Aultane wondered at the order, but communicated it to those under him. When they entered the college hall, they found the king’s scholars ranged in a semicircle, and they fell in with them according to their respective places in the school. The boys’ white surplices and the bows of crape presenting a curious contrast.
“What are we stuck out like this for?” whispered one to the other. “For show? What does Wilberforce want? He’s sitting still, as if he waited for somebody.”
“Be blest if I know,” said Lewis junior, whose teeth were chattering. “Unless it is to wind up with a funeral lecture.”
However, they soon did know. The dean entered the hall, wearing his surplice, and carrying his official four-cornered cap. Mr. Wilberforce rose to bow the dean into his own seat, but the dean preferred to stand. He looked steadily at the circle before he spoke; sternly, some of them thought; and they did not feel altogether at ease.
“Boys!” began the dean. And there he stopped; and the boys lifted their heads to listen to what might be coming.
“Boys, our doings in this world bear a bias generally to good or to evil, and they bring their consequences with them. Well-doing brings contentment and inward satisfaction; but ill-doing as certainly brings its day of retribution. The present day must be one of retribution to some of you, unless you are so hardened in wickedness as to be callous to conscience. How have — —”