Chapter LXVI: The Funeral, and Bertha’s Letter

Down in that New England valley was an old-fashioned meeting-house, with a low steeple—a timid imitation of the Episcopal churches which, for a long time, were the only places of worship that sent their spires boldly up toward Heaven, holding the cross of Christ on high. Behind this church lay the graveyard, crowded full of moss-grown stones, buried deep in the uncut grasses, some slanting half out of the earth, others sunk so deep in accumulated vegetation that you could only make out the head of a cherub, carved on the old stone, and a pair of wings, spreading out on either side, to which gray and golden lichens clung like plumage.

This portion of “God’s field” would have been most interesting to a stranger, no doubt; but the villagers, not much troubled with thoughts of their ancestors, were far more proud of the snow-white slabs, and a prim monument or two, which told of their own immediate dead—though some of these were weather-stained, and none of them had retained their pristine whiteness after the first year.

In a part of the ground nearest to the old grave was a low marble slab, over which mould and lichen had crept through years, unnumbered save by one poor heart, which was now lying, cold and still, in the old farm-house down yonder. A name, half choked up with lichen, was on the slab, and was sometimes pointed out as that of a foreign gentleman, who perished in the heaviest flood ever known in the valley, while on his way to be married.

Yes, people remembered it all now. The poor lady—for whom that newly-made grave was dug—was the woman he should have married. Her husband, the clergyman, was buried in Greenwood, and had a monument there; but it was by the side of this stranger the old people had resolved to lay their child, for, it was said, they had no heart to send her out of the valley, and if left there, that was the place for her, close by her first love.

This was village gossip, which never reached Bertha, who was so plunged into bitter grief that she spoke to no one, but spent her time, day and night, with the dead, calling, in her broken-hearted misery, for help to bear her burden of self-reproach; for every impatient word she had given her mother, that night by the roadside, pierced her like an arrow, and so wounded her soul that she cried out with the bitter pain.

At last, when three days had passed, Bertha, pale, grief-stained, and with great, deep-set eyes, that seemed to plead with every one for help, came out of the death-darkness of that chamber, from which all that seemed precious to her in the broad universe must be carried that day, turning the room into an empty sepulchre.

They clothed her from head to foot in black; kind-hearted women whispered words of consolation, that she heard as one listens to the sea afar off; prayers that stirred strangers to tears passed by her with vague meaning. She knew that all these people were pitying her, that one man was praying for her, and she longed to cry as they did, but could not.

Then she went with the crowd, following her whom they had taken away from that chamber in heavy, stifling black, which dragged almost to the ground as four men carried her along. But some one had broken up the blackness with white flowers, that gleamed and gleamed, leading her on to an open grave, from which came a smell of fresh earth that made her faint.

After this, Bertha had a dull sense that some one was reading; this was followed, or preceded—she never could tell which—by strains of music. Then her soul paused and listened, wondering if the music came from angels, or from the people who crowded so close, looking upon her mother’s face, which no stranger had a right to see. Why had they given the beautiful whiteness of that face so broadly to the daylight? There—she had veiled it. Those people should not look upon her again!

Those around the grave were startled when they saw this young girl throw back the cloud of crape from her head, and with her own hand draw the white covering over the marble beauty of that face, before half the neighbors had looked upon it, but no one dared to raise the silvery gauze from the sweet countenance she had veiled forever. So they lifted the coffin up gently, and lowered it into the grave. Bertha was scarcely conscious of this movement, for her veil was down, and her heart was beating wildly at the thought of saving her mother from so many curious eyes; but all at once the dull, hollow sound of falling earth struck upon her ear. She gave one long, wailing cry, and fell upon her knees, shuddering in every nerve with a terrible consciousness of what she had lost.

That night, in the stillness of her room, Bertha wrote to Waldon:

“Come to me, oh, my beloved! come to me, for I am all alone in the
world. Darkness and tears surround me on every side. My mother is
dead. The most beautiful, gentle and loving mother that ever lived was
buried to-day. It seems to me that they have taken the heart from my
bosom, and laid it in the earth with her. I can feel the weight and
deadly coldness of the earth upon it now.

“But out of this pain comes one ray of light. You are left to me. Your
strength will shelter my weakness, your love will awake my soul out of
its anguish and self-reproach; for I was harsh with her—on that very
night, too—and the remembrance kills me! She questioned me about you,
my beloved, and probed my heart for the sweet secret of its love,
wishing to fathom its depths and power, as it seemed to me, with a
persistence that I shrank from, so gave her petulant answers, which
withered her into silence. I, her child, possessed that cruel power,
and used it; but, out of her great love, she sought to fathom my
heart, and learn, no doubt, if it were worthy of you, and, in my
petulant wilfulness, I broke hers.

“She forgave me—thank God, she forgave me! Her arms were around my
neck after that, and she bade me a tender good-night, but in the
morning she was dead!

“I cannot forgive myself. I cannot live, unless you come and help me
to endure existence. She loved you, she was proud of you, more than
you dreamed of, for her sweet, timid nature was never demonstrative,
and to her you were always grand. Oh, how I envy you in this! With no
wilful selfishness, no hard word to remember, you can mourn her
without reproach; but I—. When will you teach me to be
self-sacrificing and noble as you are? When shall I be worthy of you?

“I shall wait for you here. Oh! do not stay long, for I suffer
greatly, and now you are all the world to me. Come! come!

“BERTHA.”