Then her breathing
grew thicker, and at last and quite suddenly, she realised that she
was about to die; and looking round wildly, not seeing those who were
collected about her bed, she said, "Oh, to die when so much remains
undone! How will they get on without me!"
I helped to write the letters, so melancholy, so conventional, and
expressing so little of our grief, and the while the girls sat weaving
wreaths for the dead, and at every hour wreaths and letters of
sympathy arrived. The girls went upstairs where the dead lay, and when
they returned they told me how beautiful their mother looked. And
during those dreadful days, how many times did I refuse to look on her
dead! My memory of her was an intensely living thing, and I could not
be persuaded to sacrifice it. We thought the day would never come, but
it came. There was a copious lunch, cigars were smoked, the crops, the
price of lambs, and the hunting, which the frost had much interfered
with, were alluded to furtively, and the conversation was interspersed
with references to the excellent qualities of the deceased. I remember
the weather was beautiful, full of pure sunlight, with the colour of
the coming spring in the face of the heavens. And the funeral
procession wound along the barren sea road, the lily-covered coffin on
a trolley drawn by the estate labourers.
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