Mildred Arkell Volume Iii Part 27

"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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sumption 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 antic.i.p.ated."

"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 pa.s.sed. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sociations, 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 a.s.sure 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 your 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 a.s.sumption of indifference, the apparent levity. The death was telling upon her, and she burst into hysterical tears. At that moment, Lewis junior pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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_."