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CHAPTER FOUR
The funeral of Elissa Beck was held the following day, and Monk and Hester attended, although they were unrelated to the deceased. Hester went largely to support Callandra, who would go as someone who had long been a friend of the widower and had worked beside him at the hospital. No one else would know the crushing loneliness she could feel, watching him in this agonizing ritual and excluded by propriety from offering more than a few formal phrases. She must not linger or show more than the usual emotion anyone might feel.
Monk went to observe, in the vague hope that he might see an expression or overhear a word which would lead him closer to the truth. He hoped profoundly it was as Fuller Pendreigh had said: Sarah Mackeson was the intended victim, Elissa only a tragic intrusion at the worst possible moment.
It was a very moving affair, held in the High Anglican Church with all the weight of spectacle accorded the death of someone who had been brave and beautiful, and deeply
loved.
The fog had closed in again, thick yellow-gray in the weak daylight. One of the feathermen waving the black ostrich plumes began to cough as the chill of it caught in his throat. Another stood red-nosed and shivering.
Like everyone else, Hester was dressed in black, not the dead, light-consuming fabric of true mourning, where one was not permitted even a faint gleam in case it should be considered not to be taking bereavement seriously enough. After a year a widow might wear silk, but still black, of course. Petticoats should also be black, and boots and hose, and as plain as possible. If a lady in mourning should lift a skirt to avoid a puddle, there would be considerable talk should she thereby exhibit a petticoat of some lighter shade.
The cortege had not yet arrived, but Kristian and Pendreigh were standing outside the main entrance of the church receiving the mourners and accepting condolences. The magnificent stone archway was carved with angels and flowers. The facade soared above until it faded and all but disappeared in the clinging, motionless fog, only here and there a gargoyle face leering downward.
Pendreigh looked haggard. His fair hair was still smooth and thick, but his face had sunk as if the flesh had withered, and in spite of standing as to attention on parade, there was still something within him that sagged, giving an illusion of emptiness. He was dressed in perfect black, so dark it absorbed even the little light there was, making his hair look the brighter. He spoke with the same gesture to everyone, courteous and mechanical.
Beside him, Kristian also looked stunned and pale. He seemed to be making an effort to say something individual to people, but after a little while he, too, began to repeat himself.
Hester saw Callandra move forward in the line to express her sympathies, and for a moment their eyes met. Callandra was dressed in unrelieved black, but her hat was uncharacteristically stylish, very simple in line, and it became her very much, accentuating the strength in her face, and for once her hair was immaculate. She gave a tiny smile of recognition, but Hester saw the pain of exclusion in her eyes, the misery of not being able to share this whole area of Kristian’s life which cut to the heart. All she could do was offer the same polite words as everyone else. She was merely one of the hospital’s chief benefactors and was possibly representing them all.
She took her turn, speaking first to Kristian, then to Pendreigh. It was brief. In a matter of moments she was followed by Fermin Thorpe, his fleshy face smooth, his manner meticulous. He expressed his horror and his sympathy, shaking his head and looking rather more to Pendreigh than to Kristian. Then he moved on and his place was taken by the next mourner.
The church was filling. The cortege must be due soon. Hester was shivering in spite of her heavy black coat. She moved forward a step, ready to pay her own respects, and found herself immediately behind a very dark man she guessed to be in his forties. His face was striking, with strong, generous features, but she would have paid him no further attention had she not seen Kristian’s reaction to him. To that point his face had been pale and almost expressionless, like that of a man exhausted but unable to sleep, driven to stand upright only by the utmost self-discipline. Now suddenly there was a flash of light in his eyes and something close to a smile.
“Max!” he said with obvious amazement and just as clear pleasure. “How good of you to come! How did you know?”
“I was only in Paris,” Max replied. “I read it in the newspapers.” He clasped Kristian’s hand in both of his. “I’m so desperately sorry. There are too many things to say, a whole world for which there are no words. Something immeasurable has gone out of our lives.”
Kristian nodded without speaking, still clinging to Max’s hand. For the first time he looked close to losing his composure. It cost him a visible effort to turn to Pendreigh, clear his throat, and introduce the two men.
“This is Max Niemann, who stood with us in Vienna in the uprising. He and Elissa and I had a bond. .” He cleared his throat and coughed, unable to continue.
Pendreigh stepped into the momentary silence, his own voice thick with emotion. “How do you do, Herr Niemann. I am deeply grateful for all that you have been to my daughter in the past. She spoke of you with the profoundest admiration and affection. It is a great comfort to me, and I am sure it is to my son-in-law as well, that you should be here. Little in the world matters as much as friends at a time like this.”
Niemann bowed slightly, bringing his heels together, but without sound. He looked up at Pendreigh, met his eyes with the ghost of a smile, then turned away to allow Hester and Monk to offer their condolences also.
Kristian had regained control of himself sufficiently to speak to Monk, who was now side by side with Hester.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. He managed to sound as if he meant it. “It was good of you to come. I know you are doing all you can to help, and we appreciate it.” He did not look towards Pendreigh, but his inclusion of him was obvious. He looked at Hester, and suddenly speech was difficult for him again. Perhaps it was memory of the experiences they had shared, the long nights in the fever hospital, the battles for reform, the victories and the failures they had felt so deeply. She spoke quickly, to save him the necessity. The words did not matter.
“I’m so sorry. You know we are thinking of you all the time.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice cracking.
To spare him, she turned to Fuller Pendreigh, and Kristian introduced them. She would have liked to say something original that would still have sounded sincere, but nothing came to mind except the usual platitudes.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Pendreigh.” She meant it, but there was nothing to add that made it more comforting. She could remember the stunned feeling she had had when she came home to her parents’ empty house, the place where they should have been and were not anymore.
“Thank you,” he murmured. It was five days since Elissa’s death, but she imagined it would be months before it no longer surprised him. It was still new, a wound, not an ache. He would be going through the ritual because it was expected of him. He was a man who did his duty.
Even as she turned to move on, the hearse arrived, drawn by four black horses, hooves muffled by the fog, black plumes waving. It loomed suddenly, as if it had materialized out of the smothering vapor. The undertaker climbed soundlessly to the pavement. Not a breath of air stirred the long, black weepers trailing from his tall hat. Six pallbearers carried the coffin into the church.
Hester and Monk were now obliged to go in by the side door as the music of the organ shivered through the aisles between the columns of stone and echoed high in the Gothic arches above, and the service began.
Charles had taken care of the funeral of their parents. She wondered now if she had ever thanked him properly for that. She looked around her at the ceremony. It was magnificent, almost frightening in its power, and yet as the music swelled, the familiar words pronounced and all the appropriate responses made, it was comforting also. Here at home, death was always a version of something like this, rich or poor, town or country. There was more splendor or less, but the same ritual. It made it decent, allowed people to do the right thing and have some feeling that it was complete.
Except for those whose grief remained.
