For Woman's Love Part 24

When the servant entered with the coffee, Mr. Clarence himself took it from the man's hand, and carried it to his niece and persuaded her to drink it.

The servant meanwhile, mindful of the proprieties, when he saw the front window open, went and closed it, and then pa.s.sed down the room and opened both the back windows, which gave sufficient light to the whole area of the apartment.

Finally he turned off the gas, and taking up the empty coffee service, left the room.

Presently after Mr. Fabian came in, and greeted his niece and his brother in a grave, m.u.f.fled voice.

A little later breakfast was served.

"Some one should go up to see if grandpa will have anything sent to him.

Will you, Uncle Fabian?" inquired Cora, as they seated themselves at the table.

Mr. Fabian left his chair for the purpose, but before he had crossed the room they heard the heavy footsteps of the Iron King coming down the stairs.

He entered the dining room, and all arose to receive him. He came up and shook hands with each of his sons in turn and in silence. Then he took his place at the table. The three younger members of the family looked at him furtively, whenever they could do so without attracting his attention, and, perhaps, awakening his wrath.

Some change had come over him, but not of a softening nature. His hard, stern, set face was, if possible, more stony than ever.

Neither Mr. Clarence nor Cora dared to speak to him; but Mr. Fabian, feeling the silence awkward and oppressive, at length ventured to say:

"My dear father, in this our severe bereavement--"

But he got no further in his speech. Old Aaron Rockharrt raised his hand and stopped him right there, and then said:

"Not one word from any one of you to me or in my presence on this event, either now or ever. It happened in the course of nature. Drop the subject. Fabian, how are matters going on at the works?"

"I do not know, sir," replied Mr. Fabian, speaking for the first and last and only time, abruptly and indiscreetly to his despotic father.

But the Iron King took no notice of the words, nor did he repeat the question. He drank one cup of coffee, ate half a roll, and then arose and left the table, without a word. He did not return to his dead wife's chamber, which he probably knew would now have to be given up to dressers of the dead and to the undertakers.

He went and locked himself in the library, and was seen no more that day.

Cora, with her woman's intuition, understood the accession of hardness that was worn as a mask to conceal grief and remorse.

"Be patient with him, Uncle Fabian. He is your father, after all. And he suffers! Oh, he suffers! Yes; much more than any of us do," she said.

"Do you think so, Cora?" inquired Mr. Fabian, looking at her in surprise.

"I know he does," she answered.

"Well, he has good reason to!" concluded Mr. Fabian. Then, after a pause, he added: "But I am sorry I spoke roughly to my father! I will make it up to him, or try to do so, by extra deference."

Then they all arose from the table.

Mr. Fabian and Mr. Clarence to attend to the business of the mournful occasion, which Old Aaron Rockharrt, in his proud, reserved, absorbed sorrow, seemed to have ignored or forgotten.

Cora stepped away to her grandmother's room, to have a quiet hour beside the beloved dead before the undertaker should come in and take possession.

"It is only her body that is dead, I know. But the hands had caressed me and the lips kissed me; and, right or wrong, I love that body as well as the heavenly soul that lived within it! The flesh cleaves to the flesh.

And so long as we are in the flesh we will, we must, haunt the shrines that contain the bodies of those we love," she thought, as reverently she entered the chamber of death, closed the door, and went up to the bed whereon lay the tenantless temple in which so lately lived the most loving, the most patient spirit she had ever known!

But what is this! Into what strange sphere of ineffable peace has Cora entered? She could not understand the change that came over her. She had a gentle impulse to close her eyes to all visible matters and yield herself up to the sweetness of this sphere. Her dear one was living, was young again, was happy, was sleeping, watched by angels, who would presently awaken her to the eternal life.

Cora knelt down by the bed and lifted up her heart to the Lord of life in silent, wordless, thoughtless, profoundly quiet aspiration. She did not wish to move or speak, or form a sentence even in her mind. She found her state a strange one, but she did not even wonder at it, so deep was the calm that enveloped her spirit.

Not long had she knelt there in this rapt serenity, when she was conscious that some one was rapping softly at the door. This did not disturb her. She arose from her knees, still in deep peace, went to the door, and said:

"Presently. I will open presently. Wait a moment."

Then she went back to the bed, turned down the sheet, and gazed upon the beloved face. How placid it was, and how beautiful. Death had smoothed every trace of age and care from that little fair old face. She lay as if sleeping, and almost smiling in her sleep--

"As though by fitness she had won The secret of some happy dream."

Cora stooped and kissed the placid brow, then covered the face, and went to open the door.

The gray-haired old Jason was waiting outside.

"If you please, ma'am, it is the--"

"I know, I know," said Cora, quietly. "Show them in."

And she pa.s.sed out and went to her own room.

Her front windows were closed; but through the slats of the shutters she saw that it was still snowing fast.

"What a winding sheet this will make for her grave," she thought, as she looked out upon the wintry scene.

There was no wind, the fine white snow fell softly and steadily, giving only the dimmest view of the government house on the opposite side of the square draped in mourning.

The funeral of Mrs. Rockharrt took place on the third day after her death. The snow had ceased, and the winter sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly from a clear blue sky on a white world, whose trees wore pendent diamonds instead of green leaves, and as every house in the city was hung in black for the dead governor, the effect of all this glare and glitter and gloom was very weird and strange, as the funeral cortege pa.s.sed from the Rockharrt home to the Church of the Lord's Peace.

After the rites were over, the family returned to their city home, but only for the night; for preparation had been already completed for their removal to Rockhold, there to pa.s.s the year of mourning.

Old Aaron Rockharrt never changed from his look of stony immobility. If he mourned for his patient wife of more than half a century, no outward sign betrayed his feelings. If his spirit suffered with suppressed grief, his strong frame bore up under it without the slightest weakening.

On the afternoon of his return from his wife's funeral he shut himself up in his library and remained there all the evening, refusing to come to dinner, calling for a bottle of wine and a sandwich and desiring afterward to be left alone.

Later in the evening he sent for Mr. Fabian to come to him, and there opened to his eldest son and partner, in whose business talents he had great confidence, a scheme of speculation so venturous, so gigantic that the younger man was shocked and staggered, and began to lose faith in the sound intellect of the Iron King.

"This will make us twice told the wealthiest men in the United States, if not in the whole world," concluded Old Aaron Rockharrt.

"If it should succeed," said Mr. Fabian, dubiously.

"It shall succeed; I say it. We shall go down to Rockhold to-morrow morning and the next day to the works, and there I shall give my whole mind to this matter and make it succeed, do you hear? Make it succeed!

And place my name at the head of the list of wealthy men of this age."

Mr. Fabian did not dare to raise any objection.

"I am pleased, sir," he said, "that you find in this new enterprise an object of so much interest to engage your mind. Employ me in any way you think fit. I am quite at your service, as it is my bounden duty to be."