CHAPTER XXIV

Valancy herself made Cissy ready for burial. No hands but hers should
touch that pitiful, wasted little body. The old house was spotless on
the day of the funeral. Barney Snaith was not there. He had done all he
could to help Valancy before it—he had shrouded the pale Cecilia in
white roses from the garden—and then had gone back to his island. But
everybody else was there. All Deerwood and “up back” came. They forgave
Cissy splendidly at last. Mr. Bradly gave a very beautiful funeral
address. Valancy had wanted her old Free Methodist man, but Roaring
Abel was obdurate. He was a Presbyterian and no one but a Presbyterian
minister should bury _his_ daughter. Mr. Bradly was very tactful. He
avoided all dubious points and it was plain to be seen he hoped for the
best. Six reputable citizens of Deerwood bore Cecilia Gay to her grave
in decorous Deerwood cemetery. Among them was Uncle Wellington.

The Stirlings all came to the funeral, men and women. They had had a
family conclave over it. Surely now that Cissy Gay was dead Valancy
would come home. She simply could not stay there with Roaring Abel.
That being the case, the wisest course—decreed Uncle James—was to
attend the funeral—legitimise the whole thing, so to speak—show
Deerwood that Valancy had really done a most creditable deed in going
to nurse poor Cecilia Gay and that her family backed her up in it.
Death, the miracle worker, suddenly made the thing quite respectable.
If Valancy would return to home and decency while public opinion was
under its influence all might yet be well. Society was suddenly
forgetting all Cecilia’s wicked doings and remembering what a pretty,
modest little thing she had been—“and motherless, you know—motherless!”
It was the psychological moment—said Uncle James.

So the Stirlings went to the funeral. Even Cousin Gladys’ neuritis
allowed her to come. Cousin Stickles was there, her bonnet dripping all
over her face, crying as woefully as if Cissy had been her nearest and
dearest. Funerals always brought Cousin Stickles’ “own sad bereavement”
back.

And Uncle Wellington was a pall-bearer.

Valancy, pale, subdued-looking, her slanted eyes smudged with purple,
in her snuff-brown dress, moving quietly about, finding seats for
people, consulting in undertones with minister and undertaker,
marshalling the “mourners” into the parlour, was so decorous and proper
and Stirlingish that her family took heart of grace. This was not—could
not be—the girl who had sat all night in the woods with Barney
Snaith—who had gone tearing bareheaded through Deerwood and Port
Lawrence. This was the Valancy they knew. Really, surprisingly capable
and efficient. Perhaps she had always been kept down a bit too
much—Amelia really was rather strict—hadn’t had a chance to show what
was in her. So thought the Stirlings. And Edward Beck, from the Port
road, a widower with a large family who was beginning to take notice,
took notice of Valancy and thought she might make a mighty fine second
wife. No beauty—but a fifty-year-old widower, Mr. Beck told himself
very reasonably, couldn’t expect everything. Altogether, it seemed that
Valancy’s matrimonial chances were never so bright as they were at
Cecilia Gay’s funeral.

What the Stirlings and Edward Beck would have thought had they known
the back of Valancy’s mind must be left to the imagination. Valancy was
hating the funeral—hating the people who came to stare with curiosity
at Cecilia’s marble-white face—hating the smugness—hating the dragging,
melancholy singing—hating Mr. Bradly’s cautious platitudes. If she
could have had her absurd way, there would have been no funeral at all.
She would have covered Cissy over with flowers, shut her away from
prying eyes, and buried her beside her nameless little baby in the
grassy burying-ground under the pines of the “up back” church, with a
bit of kindly prayer from the old Free Methodist minister. She
remembered Cissy saying once, “I wish I could be buried deep in the
heart of the woods where nobody would ever come to say, ‘Cissy Gay is
buried here,’ and tell over my miserable story.”

But this! However, it would soon be over. Valancy knew, if the
Stirlings and Edward Beck didn’t, exactly what she intended to do then.
She had lain awake all the preceding night thinking about it and
finally deciding on it.

When the funeral procession had left the house, Mrs. Frederick sought
out Valancy in the kitchen.

“My child,” she said tremulously, “you’ll come home _now_?”

“Home,” said Valancy absently. She was getting on an apron and
calculating how much tea she must put to steep for supper. There would
be several guests from “up back”—distant relatives of the Gays’ who had
not remembered them for years. And she was so tired she wished she
could borrow a pair of legs from the cat.

“Yes, home,” said Mrs. Frederick, with a touch of asperity. “I suppose
you won’t dream of staying here _now_—alone with Roaring Abel.”

“Oh, no, I’m not going to stay _here_,” said Valancy. “Of course, I’ll
have to stay for a day or two, to put the house in order generally. But
that will be all. Excuse me, Mother, won’t you? I’ve a frightful lot to
do—all those ‘up back’ people will be here to supper.”

Mrs. Frederick retreated in considerable relief, and the Stirlings went
home with lighter hearts.

“We will just treat her as if nothing had happened when she comes
back,” decreed Uncle Benjamin. “That will be the best plan. Just as if
nothing had happened.”