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.”