The Greatest Works of E. M. Delafield (Illustrated Edition). E. M. Delafield
"I shall be quite well again to-morrow."
When they had left the room, Aunt Marianne had said, as she seemed to have said so very often since she came:
"Now, if I were you, I should go and lie down for a little while upon your bed, Zella dear. It will do you good. Let Aunt Marianne come and arrange you comfortably."
Zella mechanically followed Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, and passively allowed herself to be divested of her shoes, helped on to her bed, and covered with a quilt. Mrs. Lloyd-Evans kissed her very kindly, said, " Try and have a little sleep now, darling, just till five o'clock," and rustled softly away.
Zella lay still. She had gone to bed very early the evening before, and had slept all night with the heavy slumber of a child exhausted from crying, and she felt no inclination to sleep again now.
She traced the pattern of the wall-paper idly with her finger. When the funeral was over, would things be as dreadful as they were now? Zella felt that, somehow, it would be terrible to be left alone with her father, who must be so very, very unhappy, poor papa ! although he had not cried and did not talk about mother like Aunt Marianne did. Would he never talk about her any more? Some people did not ever talk of their relations who were dead.
Mother was dead.
Zella came back to that thought with an aching wonder that it should bring no greater pang of realization with it. Perhaps that was what people meant by being stunned with grief. Perhaps one only realized later, when one had got used to being without— No, no! it would be impossible ever to get accustomed to it, ever to be happy again, all one's life long. ... "And I'm only fourteen, and perhaps I may live to be very old," thought Zella, and tears of self-pity welled into her eyes.
She cried a little, but her swollen eyelids burnt and smarted so that presently she stopped.
She had been here a long while; it must be five o'clock, and tea would break the miserable monotony of the day. Zella looked at her watch, and thought, as so often during those unspeakably wretched days of inaction, that it must have stopped. It was not yet a quarter 'past four. She held the watch despairingly to her ear, but it was still going.
It seemed unbearable.
Zella tried to make herself cry again by thinking of all the early recollections of her mother that had made her sob so unrestrainedly when she and Aunt Marianne had talked of them yesterday. But the tears would not come.
She turned over and buried her face in the pillow, unspeakably wretched. Only the third day since her mother's death, and she felt as though this life of strained misery had lasted for years. Would nothing ever bring it to an end?
It must be at least ten minutes since she had looked at: her watch. It couldn't be less than twenty-five minutes past four now, thought Zella, half expecting to see that it was even later. She looked at her watch again, and held it to her ear.
Four minutes had passed.
Her eyes fell upon a half-read copy of "Treasure Island" on her bookshelf. She had looked at it that morning and remembered how much excited she had been over reading it only three days ago, and then turned away her eyes with a feeling of shame that she should be capable of such a thought at such a time.
Now she felt that, if only she might read, it would make the time ' less unbearably long. Confusedly she craved any relaxation of the emotional tension to which her mind had been strung during the last three days.
For a few moments Zella battled against the suggestion. It was wicked and heartless to want to read a story-book when mother
How dreadful Aunt Marianne would think it!
But, then, Aunt Marianne needn't know—no one would ever know—and to read for a little while would help her to forget her misery. . . .
Zella crept to the bookshelf in her stockinged feet, casting terrified glances at the door, and pulled down the brightly bound blue and gold book. Then she fled back on to the bed with it.
At first she could understand nothing of what she read, and was only conscious of a sickening sense of guilt and the heavy pounding of her own heart as she strained her ears for the sound of Aunt Marianne's possible approach. But presently the excitement of the story revived, and Zella read eagerly, dimly conscious that unhappiness was waiting in the background to seize upon her, but knowing it to be kept at bay for so long as she should be held absorbed by her book.
When at last she heard the unmistakable rustle of Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's new mourning at the door, Zella, a patch of colour blazing in each pale cheek, thrust "Treasure Island" beneath her pillow.
After that she read eagerly and furtively whenever she could. It was the only means of forgetting for a little while the dull pervading sense of grief which was making life so strange and unbearable.
When Thursday morning dawned serene and cloudless, Zella woke early, and lay in bed reading intently until she remembered, with a sickening pang, that on this day was to take place her mother's funeral.
Then she pushed the book away and began to sob, with a dreary sense of shame and degradation added to her unhappiness.
After the silent breakfast, at which Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, with all the first shock of her grief apparently renewed, had refused everything but a cup of tea, Louis de Kervoyou said abruptly:
"They will be here at two o'clock, Marianne, to fetch"
"I know—I know," she interrupted hurriedly.
"It will take quite an hour to walk down there; they will have to go slowly."
The coffin of Esmée de Kervoyou was to be borne down the hill to the village churchyard by some of the tenants on the estate.
"Will anyone be coming back here afterwards?" asked Mrs. Lloyd-Evans.
"Only old Mr. Oliver and his daughter, who will have a long way to drive," said Louis, with his fixed composure; "and Henry, of course," he added.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's husband was arriving that day.
"Will you be kind enough to see about some refreshment, Marianne ?" said Louis. "They will be back here by four o'cloak."
"I will see to it all. These duties are so dreadful, but one must be brave. Don't think of it, Louis; I will do it all."
Zella listened as though she were in a dream. Presently she turned to her aunt, and whispered: "Am I going to—to—it?"
"Oh yes, darling; you will walk with poor papa," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans aloud.
"What is that ?" Louis looked round, and was struck with compassion at the sight of Zella's colourless face and the great stains round her eyes.
"Why don't you go out into the garden? It is a lovely day," he said gently.
Zella shrank back a little, looking at her aunt, whom she felt to be shocked at the suggestion, and Mrs. Lloyd-Evans interposed tactfully:
"It will be beautifully fine for this afternoon. 'Zella will walk down to the church with you, Louis, I suppose."
He looked at her as though he scarcely understood.
"I had never thought of her coming at all," he said at last. "Why should she? You don't wish to- come, do you, Zella?"
Zella hesitated, thinking that her father wanted her to say no, and that her aunt would think her heartless if she did.
"Whichever you like," she faltered.
"Zella is quite old enough to come to her own
mother's "Mrs. Lloyd-Evans again choked over
the word and left it unspoken. "Indeed, Louis, I think we must consider what people would say, dreadful though it seems to think of these things at such a time; but people would wonder"
"There is nothing to wonder about. She shall do as she wishes. Why should she want to go?"
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans interposed quickly:
"Zella,