"'Who could endure life if it were not for the hope of death?'" murmured Valancy softly - it was of course a quotation from some book of John Foster's.
"I'm glad I've told you all about it," sighed Cissy. "I wanted you to know."
Cissy died a few nights after that. Roaring Abel was away. When Valancy saw the change that had come over Cissy's face she wanted to telephone for the doctor. But Cissy wouldn't let her.
"Valancy, why should you? He can do nothing for me. I've known for several days that - this - was near. Let me die in peace, dear - just holding your hand. Oh, I'm so glad you're here. Tell Father good-bye for me. He's always been as good to me as he knew how - and Barney. Somehow, I think that Barney - "
But a spasm of coughing interrupted and exhausted her. She fell asleep when it was over, still holding to Valancy's hand. Valancy sat there in the silence. She was not frightened - or even sorry. At sunrise Cissy died. She opened her eyes and looked past Valancy at something - something that made her smile suddenly and happily. And, smiling, she died.
Valancy crossed Cissy's hands on her breast and went to the open window. In the eastern sky, amid the fires of sunrise, an old moon was hanging - as slender and lovely as a new moon. Valancy had never seen an old, old moon before. She watched it pale and fade until it paled and faded out of sight in the living rose of day. A little pool in the barrens shone in the sunrise like a great golden lily.
But the world suddenly seemed a colder place to Valancy. Again nobody needed her. She was not in the least sorry Cecilia was dead. She was only sorry for all her suffering in life. But nobody could ever hurt her again. Valancy had always thought death dreadful. But Cissy had died so quietly - so pleasantly. And at the very last - something - had made up to her for everything. She was lying there now, in her white sleep, looking like a child. Beautiful! All the lines of shame and pain gone.
Roaring Abel drove in, justifying his name. Valancy went down and told him. The shock sobered him at once. He slumped down on the seat of his buggy, his great head hanging.
"Cissy dead - Cissy dead," he said vacantly. "I didn't think it would 'a' come so soon. Dead. She used to run down the lane to meet me with a little white rose stuck in her hair. Cissy used to be a pretty little girl. And a good little girl."
"She has always been a good little girl," said Valancy.
CHAPTER XXIV
Valancy herself made Cissy ready for burial. No hands but hers should touch that pitiful, wasted little body. The old house was spotless on the day of burial. Barney Snaith was not there. He had done all he could to help Valancy before it - he had shrouded the pale Cecilia in white roses from the garden - and then had gone back to his island. But everybody else was there. All Deerwood and "up back" came. They forgave Cissy splendidly at last. Mr. Bradly gave a very beautiful funeral address. Valancy had wanted her old Free Methodist man, but Roaring Abel was obdurate. He was a Presbyterian and no one but a Presbyterian minister should bury HIS daughter. Mr. Bradly was very tactful. He avoided all dubious points and it was plain to be seen he hoped for the best. Six reputable citizens of Deerwood bore Cecilia Gay to her grave in decorous Deerwood cemetery. Among them was Uncle Wellington.
The Stirlings all came to the funeral, men and women. They had had a family conclave over it. Surely now that Cissy Gay was dead Valancy would come home. She simply could not stay there with Roaring Abel. That being the case, the wisest course - decreed Uncle James - was to attend the funeral - legitimise the whole thing, so to speak - show Deerwood that Valancy had really done a most creditable deed in going to nurse poor Cecilia Gay and that her family backed her up in it. Death, the miracle worker, suddenly made the thing quite respectable. If Valancy would return to home and decency while public opinion was under its influence all might yet be well. Society was suddenly forgetting all Cecilia's wicked doings and remembering what a pretty, modest little thing she had been - "and motherless, you know - motherless!" It was the psychological moment - said Uncle James.
So the Stirlings went to the funeral. Even Cousin Gladys' neuritis allowed her to come. Cousin Stickles was there, her bonnet dripping all over her face, crying as woefully as if Cissy had been her nearest and dearest. Funerals always brought Cousin Stickles' "own sad bereavement" back.
And Uncle Wellington was a pall-bearer.
Valancy, pale, subdued-looking, her slanted eyes smudged with purple, in her snuff-brown dress, moving quietly about, finding seats for people, consulting in undertones with minister and undertaker, marshalling the "mourners" into the parlour, was so decorous and proper and Stirlingish that her family took heart of grace. This was not - could not be - the girl who had sat all night in the woods with Barney Snaith - who had gone tearing bareheaded through Deerwood and Port Lawrence. This was the Valancy they knew. Really, surprisingly capable and efficient. Perhaps she had always been kept down a bit too much - Amelia really was rather strict - hadn't had a chance to show what was in her. So thought the Stirlings. And Edward Beck, from the Port road, a widower with a large family who was beginning to take notice, took notice of Valancy and thought she might make a mighty fine second wife. No beauty - but a fifty-year-old widower, Mr. Beck told himself very reasonably, couldn't expect everything. Altogether, it seemed that Valancy's matrimonial chances were never so bright as they were at Cecilia Gay's funeral.
What the Stirlings and Edward Beck would have thought had they known the back of Valancy's mind must be left to the imagination. Valancy was hating the funeral - hating the people who came to stare with curiosity at Cecilia's marble-white face - hating the smugness - hating the dragging, melancholy singing - hating Mr. Bradly's cautious platitudes. If she could have had her absurd way, there would have been no funeral at all. She would have covered Cissy over with flowers, shut her away from prying eyes, and buried her beside her nameless little baby in the grassy burying-ground under the pines of the "up back" church, with a bit of kindly prayer from the old Free Methodist minister. She remembered Cissy saying once, "I wish I could be buried deep in the heart of the woods where nobody would ever come to say, 'Cissy Gay is buried here.' and tell over my miserable story."
But this! However, it would soon be over. Valancy knew, if the Stirlings and Edward Beck didn't, exactly what she intended to do then. She had lain awake all the preceding night thinking about it and finally deciding on it.
When the funeral procession had left the house, Mrs. Frederick sought out Valancy in the kitchen.
"My child," she said tremulously, "you'll come home NOW?"
"Home," said Valancy absently. She was getting on an apron and calculating how much tea she must put to steep for supper. There would be several guests from "up back" - distant relatives of the Gays' who had not remembered them for years. And she was so tired she wished she could borrow a pair of legs from the cat.
"Yes, home," said Mrs. Frederick, with a touch of asperity. "I suppose you won't dream of staying here now - alone with Roaring Abel."
"Oh, no, I'm not going to stay HERE," said Valancy. "Of course, I'll have to stay for a day or two, to put the house in order generally. But that will be all. Excuse me, Mother, won't you? I've a frightful lot to do - all those "up back" people will be here to supper."
Mrs. Frederick retreated in considerable relief, and the Stirlings went home with lighter hearts.
"We will just treat her as if nothing had happened when she comes back," decreed Uncle Benjamin. "That will be the best plan. Just as if nothing had happened."