The ominous, horrifying word brought a little cry of anguish from Mimi. Hilda’s eyes filled with tears at her ineptness.
“Ask your mother if she’ll try and get some candles. And see if she can get a priest for the funeral. Jean would be happiest if he was buried that way,” begged Mimi.
When Hilda had hurried away to execute her wishes, Mimi tried to get up but found herself too weak. She was glad to sink back into the soft pillows. Yes, Jean would be happiest if he had a Catholic burial. He hadn’t been to mass for years now but he had never allowed the narrowness and prejudice of priests who after all were human and with human fear and cowardice and prejudice to destroy his faith. Reverently, Mimi made the sign of the cross. …
The morning passed before she had strength enough to rise. She talked over with Mrs. Daquin, Mrs. Adams and Mr. Hunter plans for the funeral. Jean’s sister in New York whom Mimi had never seen had been telegraphed and had wired she was leaving for Atlanta at once. They decided the services were to be held on Friday. Mrs. Daquin thought it best to have a Protestant service but Mimi was obdurate, immovable. This was the last thing she could do for Jean and she was determined that it should be done, if possible.
Late in the afternoon, in the lull of visitors who were called home by household duties, Carl came. To both it seemed impossible that less than twenty-four hours before they had been so happy together in that very room.
“There’s no use of my saying I’m sorry, Mimi. You know it—I loved your father better than anybody except you. He seemed to understand me—I—I—” His sudden rush of feeling made it impossible for him to speak. His eyes filled with tears as he touched Mimi’s hand, gently and but for a second.
“Yes, Carl, I know …” she whispered. …
By Thursday evening Mimi felt she could no longer stand the torture of greeting people, answering the same questions over and over again, performing the many additional tasks the death had brought. Mrs. Daquin seemed actually to be enjoying after a fashion the new importance which Jean’s death had brought to her as his widow. Not that she let it show on her face. She saw to it her eyes bore the appearance of much weeping and her general air was that of a Christian martyr about to be thrown to the lions. To Mimi she seemed to have donned the atmosphere of the sorely tried and heavily bereaved with full attention to the effectiveness of details, wearing the role as an accomplished actress would. Mimi found all her old antagonism rising again—Jean’s life, she reflected bitterly, would have been much happier had his wife expended some of that energy now used in simulated grief towards happiness for Jean when alive.
There was but one place where Mimi felt at peace, and that sitting beside Jean’s casket. Tomorrow morning Jean’s sister, Mrs. Rogers of New York, would arrive. Tomorrow afternoon the funeral. Mimi crept quietly into the parlour. The room was unlighted save for the illumination from the flickering candles. Through the partly opened windows floated a warm breeze of an unusually balmy late October evening. The lace curtains swayed lazily back and forth as though bidding a languid farewell to the body in the casket just beyond their reach. In the dimness they seemed to Mimi like long slender fingers seeking vainly to caress the sides of the box which held all that remained of Jean.
The house was nearly deserted. One by one they had gone away. Mimi, wearied by the incessant stream, felt a great eagerness to find the peace she could get nowhere else save near Jean. It annoyed her to find she was not alone. Mrs. Plummer and Mrs. King sat near the window conversing in lowered voices. Mimi ignored them, drew a chair close to the casket and sat there gazing at Jean’s face. On it was unmistakable peace—she almost wished that she were there beside him. The extent of her loss was creeping upon her. Without Jean she felt lost, terrified, afraid. To whom could she turn? Mrs. Daquin? Obviously, no. Mrs. Hunter? Hilda? Hilda’s mother? Carl? Each of them had his good points but none of them were so all-inclusive, so gentle, so understanding, so unselfish. Nor even was she herself, she realized. For here I am thinking only of myself—had I done less of that when Jean was alive, I would have made his life and my own far happier.
“… her eyes ain’t even red … if she was so crazy about him as she pretended to be, she’d …”
Mimi suddenly became conscious of the sibilant whispers which came to her from the two women by the window. Lost in the grief bottled up within her like turbulent waters held by a great dam, she had been oblivious of comments during the days since Jean had died. Even to the undoubtedly sympathetic ones she had replied methodically, listlessly, giving little thought to the words, words, words. Now as the sinister, malevolent whisperings came to her, the inevitable reaction to the apathy she had felt flamed into being. She rose from her chair, bitter hatred welling up for the evil-tongued old women. But even as she opened her mouth to speak, an overwhelming sense of the futility of it all came over her, a sense of inappropriateness, the lack of respect for Jean if she were to engage here in what would be but little more than a fishwives’ quarrel. She checked the hot, bitter words that pressed for utterance and rushed from the room.
In the security of her own room she lay on the bed and envied the peace on Jean’s face. Again and again the picture melted into the face of Carl as he had left the house the night Jean died. She wondered if this fantastic trick of her
