The Greatest Works of E. M. Delafield (Illustrated Edition). E. M. Delafield
her life she would be as miserable as she was now, and if so how she should bear it.
Presently she mechanically took up the broad scarlet ribbon that habitually tied back her brown hair.
"Haven't you a black ribbon, dear ?" asked her aunt softly.
Zella had no black ribbon, and Mrs. Lloyd-Evans told her to plait her hair instead of tying it. It altered her appearance and made her look older.
They went slowly downstairs, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans holding her niece's hand as though she were a small child, and squeezing it convulsively as they passed the closed door of the room which had been Esmée's.
"It's so dreadful to have meals and everything just the same," said poor Zella as they passed through the hall to the dining-room.
"One must be brave, dear," replied her aunt.
Louis de Kervoyou was in the dining-room when they entered, and Mrs. Lloyd-Evans thought that he looked ten years older. When he had spoken the briefest of good-mornings, he looked rather strangely at Zella in her dark clothes and the unaccustomed plaited-back hair, but he said nothing. Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, who had rather dreaded some eccentric objection to conventional mourning, felt relieved, and the moment the silent breakfast was over she hastened to write out a telegraphic order to London for the blackest of garments on Zella's behalf.
This done, she again sought her niece.
"Zella, dear child," she said tremulously, "you know that—that it"—she could not bring herself to use the word "funeral "—" is to be on Thursday. Don't you wish to come with Aunt Marianne and see dearest mother for the last time? I'm afraid that a little later on it won't be possible any longer."
Zella did not understand, and looked up with miserable bewildered eyes.
"Papa said not," she faltered.
"Darling, you must have misunderstood him! Surely he would wish you to go in just for a little while—surely you wish it yourself ?"
"Yes, oh yes! I did ask him, but he said not."
Zella felt a strange shame when she saw Aunt Marianne's disapproval. Of course it was right that she should be allowed to go and say a last good-bye to her dear, dear mother, and evidently Aunt Marianne had expected it.
"Wait here a moment, dear child," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans.
She went downstairs and found Louis de Kervoyou wearily tearing open a number of telegrams of condolence.
"I have put 'No flowers ' in the obituary notice," he said, "but one or two wreaths have arrived. Perhaps you would be goad enough to see to them. And let Zella help you., Anything would be better for her than doing nothing."
"But why have you said 'No flowers,' Louis? It is such a beautiful idea, to give flowers as a token of love and remembrance. I know that Henry is bringing down a cross of lilies on Thursday, for I particularly told him to write for one from Soloman's at once."
"Yes—yes. Of course yours and Henry's shall be there," said poor Louis patiently. "That is not the same thing as a quantity of wreaths, which, though kindly meant, give a good deal of extra trouble."
"She would have liked one from Henry and me," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans tearfully. "But, Louis, I came to speak to you about Zella. I want you to let me take the poor little thing with me into her room, before— before the men come to—to—"
"No!" cried Louis almost violently. "Esmee "— his sister-in-law drew in her breath with a sharp sound of pain at the name—" would not wish the child to remember her lying there, perhaps frightening her and making her ill."
"But Zella wishes to come, and I think she ought to," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans with characteristically unmoved persistence.
"I refuse to allow it. You may take her in there, if you must, when the coffin is closed." His tone was absolutely final. "But, Marianne, I wish that you would take Zella out into the garden, at the back of the house, before eleven o'clock this morning."
"Oh, Louis! out so soon ! the servants—"
"Marianne, I do not want her in the house eitherthen or to-morrow afternoon, and I beg that you willdo as I ask."
Marianne, against her better judgment, as she afterwards told her husband, felt that one could only yield. And so Zella knew nothing of the strange men who penetrated into the closed room that morning, and next day heard nothing of the heavy hammering that seemed to Louis de Kervoyou as though it would never cease.
II
ON Wednesday afternoon Mrs. Lloyd-Evans saw her brother-in-law shut himself into the study, after a morning spent in necessary and painful business, and immediately said to Zella, who had been gazing hopelessly into the small fire for the last hour:
"Will you come upstairs with Aunt Marianne now, darling ?"
Zella understood that she meant to visit her mother's room, and her little drawn face became a shade more colourless than before.
She had scarcely seen her father since Aunt Marianne's arrival, and had clung to the weeping, demonstrative tenderness and ceaseless murmured recollections of dear, dear mother that alone seemed to make endurable the endless hours. She crept upstairs with her little shaking hand in Aunt Marianne's, but at the familiar door, which had suddenly grown terrible, Zella began to sob hysterically.
Aunt Marianne tightened her hold on Zella's hand and gently opened the door.
Such a curious hush pervaded the darkened room that Zella instinctively ceased sobbing. At the foot of the bed was a light oak coffin placed upon trestles. It was closed.
In the gloom Zella could make out the familiar shapes of the dressing-table and the big bed and the old armchair she had always known in the bow-window.
Her aunt moved gently forward, fumbling for her handkerchief as she went.
"Wouldn't you like to kneel down and say a little prayer ?" she whispered to Zella, who stood as though stupefied.
Zella's mother had taught her to pray as a baby, but for- the last three years she had dropped the custom, which was meaningless to her. But, thus prompted, she fell upon her knees beside the strange hard coffin, and leant her aching head against the wood. She felt too sick and bewildered to cry any more.
But what was there to pray for, if God would not bring mother back to life again?
Zella looked across at her aunt, whose head was dropped upon her hands.
Suddenly Zella felt that it must all be a nightmare, and that she would presently wake up and find that mother was here and this dreadful dream gone. It couldn't be true. A horrible sort of impatient fury seized her—the fury of the undisciplined soul against pain. She clenched her hands to prevent herself from screaming aloud, and suddenly found that she wanted to go away from this darkened room as she had never wanted anything before. She looked across at her Aunt Marianne with a kind of suppressed rage, and began to pray wildly and half unconsciously:
"O God, let us go—let Aunt Marianne get up and go— I can't bear it—make her get up—make us go away from here—oh, make her get up and go!"
It seemed to her that she had been calling so, madly and agonizedly, upon an unheeding God for hours, when her aunt rose at last and laid a hand upon her shoulder. Zella's little tense form relaxed suddenly, and she felt curiously weak and spent.
Aunt Marianne stooped solemnly and pressed her lips upon the lid of the coffin. Then she paused a moment, and Zella, rising trembling to her feet, bent also and passionately kissed the senseless wood.
"It is good-bye to mother," she thought desperately; but she did not really feel that the hard wood of the coffin and this cold, darkened room had any connection with the sweet, laughing mother whom she had last seen leaning back against her pillows, and saying