Chapter 14.
Valancy herself made Sissi ready for burial.
No hands but hers should touch that pitiful,
Wasted little body.
The old house was spotless on the day of the funeral.
Barney's maid 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.
Old Yewood and Upback came.
They forgave Sissi splendidly at last.
Mr.
Bradley 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.
Bradley was very tactful.
He avoided all the dubious points,
And it was plain to be seen he hoped for the best.
Six reputable citizens of Dearwood bore Cecilia Gay to her grave in the Corious Dearwood 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 Sissi Gay was dead,
Valancy would come home.
She simply could not stay here with roaring Abel.
That being the case,
The wisest course,
Decreed Uncle James,
Was to attend the funeral.
Legitimize the whole thing,
So to speak.
Show Dearwood 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.
Dead,
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 Celia'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 Noraitis allowed her to come.
Cousin Stickles was there,
Her bonnet ripping all over her face.
Crying was woefully,
As if Sissi had been her nearest and dearest.
Funerals always brought Cousin Stickles' own sad bereavement back.
And Uncle Wellington was all pallbearer.
Valancy pale,
Subdued looking,
Her slanted eyes matched with purple.
In her snuffed brown dress,
Moving quietly about,
Finding seats for people,
Consulting in undertones with minister and undertaker,
Marshalling the mourners into the parlour,
Was so decurious and proper and Stirling-ish 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's maid,
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 was rather strict.
Hadn't had a chance to show what was in her,
So thought the Stirlings.
Aunt Edward Beck,
From the Port Road,
A widower with a large family,
Was beginning to take notice 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,
Though 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 bragging,
Melancholy singing,
Hating Mr.
Bradley's cautious platitudes.
If she could have had her absurd way,
There would have been no funeral at all.
She would have covered Cici 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 upback church,
With a bit of kindly prayer from the old free Methodist minister.
She remembered Cici saying once,
I wish I could be buried deep in the heart of the woods,
Where nobody would ever come to say,
Cici 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,
Miss 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 sleep for supper.
There would be several guests from upback,
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 Miss 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 have a frightful a lot to do.
All those upback people will be here to supper.
Miss 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 of plan,
Just as if nothing had happened.
