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She must take hold of herself. This was disgraceful. She could not stand here beside a dead man…laughing.
She put her hands up over her face. The doctor must be made to think she was shocked, distraught, anything but desperately relieved. She covered her eyes with her fingers, and smelled the scent of his hands on her own. The antiseptic, medical smell made her stomach clench and for an instant she thought she was going to be sick.
She put her hands down again and forced herself to breathe deeply.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said calmly, her voice wavering only very slightly. “I am…I am quite well, thank you. If there is nothing that you require of me, I would like to go home. Of course I shall be at your disposal, should you…” She did not know how to finish. She had been preparing for this day for months, and now that it was here all the things she had thought to say flew out of her mind.
“Of course,” he said gently. “No matter how one is prepared, it is always a great shock. Would you like to sit down in my office for a little while? I can send a nurse to be—”
“No, thank you,” she said, cutting him off. “I will have a great many people to inform…and…I think a memorial service to consider. There will be…I must inform the lawyer…the Bar…his colleagues.”
“Of course,” he agreed. She heard the note of relief in his voice. He had many things to attend to himself. There was nothing more he could do for Ingram York. He must turn his mind to other patients.
She walked alone out of the hospital and found the footman waiting at the curb beside her carriage.
She did not meet his eyes; she did not want him to see her expression when she told him. Perhaps it was cowardly, but her own emotions were so mixed between relief and pity. He had been pitiful in the end, in spite of his last words. It was pitiful for the last thing that you say on earth to be dirty and degrading. There was also anger for all the years, and great relief, as if finally she had been able to take off a heavy garment that had weighed her down, at times almost frozen her movement altogether.
There was also a new freedom, wide, beautiful…frightening! What would she do with it, now that she no longer had an excuse not to try for…anything she wanted? There was no one to stop her. No excuses…all mistakes would be her own fault. Ingram was gone.
The footman was waiting for her, still holding the door open.
“Sir Ingram has passed away,” she told him. “Quite peacefully.” That was a lie. She could still hear the hate in his voice.
There was a moment’s silence.
She had not meant to look at the footman’s face but she did so, and, the second before appropriate pity overtook it, she saw relief.
“I’m very sorry, my lady. Is there anything I can do for you?” There was concern for her in his voice.
“No, thank you, John,” she said with a very slight smile. “There will be people to inform, letters and so on. I must begin to do so.”
“Yes, my lady.” He offered her his hand to steady her as she stepped up into the carriage.
She spent the time of the journey home thinking about what sort of service she should request for him. It was her decision. He had died in circumstances it would be preferable were not made public. She had told those who asked that he was in the hospital. She had allowed it to be presumed that he had had some kind of apoplectic fit, a stroke. No one she knew about had referred to the fact that he had
lost his mind. Certainly Oliver Rathbone had told no one that York had attacked him, except possibly Monk.
Did people lie about the cause of a noted person’s death? Or simply allow people to draw mistaken conclusions? Some people did die in embarrassing circumstances, such as in the wrong person’s bed! This was at least in a hospital.
If he did not have a formal funeral it would raise speculation as to why not. He had been a very public man, a High Court judge of note. Everyone would expect it. She had no choice.
No one else knew what he was really like in his own home, when the doors were closed and the servants retired for the night. How could they? Did any decent person’s thoughts even stretch to imagine such things? Certainly hers had not.
Beata wondered how many other women might have experienced the same fear, humiliation, and pain that she had—and told no one.
She imagined being gowned in black, modest and beautiful with her pale, gleaming hair, the perfect widow, exchanging quiet, sad condolences, and looking into the eyes of someone who knew exactly what he had done to her—and she had not fought back!
For a moment as the carriage swung around a corner and slid a little on the ice, she thought again that she was going to be sick.
—
EVENTUALLY IT WAS A very formal funeral, very somber, and within the shortest time that could be managed. Ingram had grown up on the south side of the Thames and had requested in his will to have his funeral held at St. Margaret’s in Lee, on the outskirts of Blackheath. Edmond Halley, after whom a comet had been named, lay in the same graveyard. Ingram had mentioned that often. She would arrange that for him; it was the honorable thing to do. It was a relief to have it over as soon as possible, as it turned out, barely more than a week.
She had, of course, informed the few members of Ingram’s family still alive, including his two sons from his previous marriage. It was a courtesy. He had not kept in touch with his relatives, nor they with him, and his sons had grown distant over the years. Still, she expected to see one or two, as a mark of respect if nothing else. Their neighbors would know.
The weather on the day of the funeral was pleasant and Beata arrived early at the splendid old church, built in the Gothic Revival style, with soaring towers reaching upward in solemn glory, and an ornate towering steeple. A few ancient trees softened the outlines and added to the beauty.
She was greeted by the minister and led to her seat inside. In other circumstances she would have taken more notice of the vaulted ceilings, great stone arches over the doors, and a rich array of stained-glass windows. The church smelled of age and reverence, as if the odor of prayer could be a tangible thing, like that of flowers long since dead. It should have been a comfort, and yet she struggled to find it so.
