But Aunt Sadie was not really listening; she was away in her cloud and merely said,
‘Mm, very naughty and silly, and don’t call me Sadie.’
Aunt Sadie and Davey went off to the funeral together. Uncle Matthew had his Bench that day, and particularly wanted to attend in order to make quite sure that a certain ruffian, who was to come up before it, should be committed to the Assizes, where, it was very much to be hoped, he would get several years and the cat. One or two of Uncle Matthew’s fellow beaks had curious, modern ideas about justice and he was obliged to carry on a strenuous war against them, in which he was greatly assisted by a retired Admiral of the neighbourhood.
So they had to go to the funeral without him, and came back in low spirits.
‘It’s the dropping off the perches,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘I’ve always dreaded when that begins. Soon we shall all have gone – oh well, never mind.’
‘Nonsense,’ Davey said, briskly. ‘Modern science will keep us alive, and young, too, for many a long day yet. Patricia’s insides were a terrible mess – I had a word with Dr Simpson while you were with Sonia and it’s quite obviously a miracle she didn’t die years ago. When the children have gone to bed I’ll tell you.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Aunt Sadie, while the children implored him to go then and there with them to the Hons’ cupboard and tell.
‘It is unfair, Sadie doesn’t want to hear the least bit, and we die to.’
‘How old was Patricia?’ said Aunt Sadie.
‘Older than we are,’ said Davey. ‘I remember when they married she was supposed to be quite a bit older than Boy.’
‘And he was looking a hundred in that bitter wind.’
‘I thought he seemed awfully cut up, poor Boy.’
Aunt Sadie, during a little graveside chat with Lady Montdore, had gathered that the death had come as a shock and surprise to all of them, that, although they had known Lady Patricia to be far from well, they had no idea that she was in immediate danger; in fact, she had been greatly looking forward to her trip abroad the following week. Lady Montdore, who resented death, clearly thought it most inconsiderate of her sister-in-law to break up their little circle so suddenly, and Lord Montdore, devoted to his sister, was dreadfully shaken by the midnight drive with a deathbed at the end of it. But surprisingly enough, the one who had taken it hardest was Polly. It seemed that she had been violently sick on hearing the news, completely prostrated for two days, and was still looking so unwell that her mother had refused to take her to the funeral.
‘It seems rather funny,’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘in a way. I’d no idea she was so particularly devoted to Patricia, had you, Fanny?’
‘Nervous shock,’ said Davey. ‘I don’t suppose she’s ever had a death so near to her before.’
‘Oh, yes she has,’ said Jassy. ‘Ranger.’
‘Dogs aren’t exactly the same as human beings, my dear Jassy.’
But to the Radletts they were exactly the same, except that to them dogs on the whole had more reality than people.
‘Do tell about the grave,’ said Victoria.
‘Not very much to tell, really,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘Just a grave, you know, lots of flowers and mud.’
‘They’d lined it with heather,’ said Davey, ‘from Craigside. Poor Patricia, she did love Scotland.’
‘And where was it?’
‘In the graveyard, of course, at Silkin – between the Wellingtonia and the Blood Arms, if you see where I mean. In full view of Boy’s bedroom window, incidentally.’
Jassy began to talk fast and earnestly.
‘You will promise to bury me here, whatever happens, won’t you, won’t you, there’s one exact place I want, I note it every time I go to church, it’s next door to that old lady who was nearly a hundred.’
‘That’s not our part of the churchyard – miles away from grandfather.’
‘No, but it’s the bit I want. I once saw a dear little dead baby vole there. Please please please don’t forget.’
‘You’ll have married some sewer and gone to live in the Antipodes,’ said Uncle Matthew who had just come in. ‘They let that young hog off, said there was no evidence. Evidence be damned, you’d only got to look at his face to see who did it, afternoon completely wasted, the Admiral and I are going to resign.’
‘Then bring me back,’ said Jassy, ‘pickled. I’ll pay, I swear I will. Please, Fa, you must.’
‘Write it down,’ said Uncle Matthew, producing a piece of paper and a fountain-pen, ‘if these things don’t get written down they are forgotten. And I’d like a deposit of ten bob please.’
‘You can take it out of my birthday present,’ said Jassy, who was scribbling away with great concentration. ‘I’ve made a map like in Treasure Island,’ she said. ‘See?’
‘Yes, thank you, that’s quite clear,’ said Uncle Matthew. He went to the wall, took his master-key from his pocket, opened a safe, and put in the piece of paper. Every room at Alconleigh had one of these wall-safes, whose contents would have amazed and discomfited the burglar who managed to open them. Aunt Sadie’s jewels, which had some very good stones, were never kept in them, but lay glittering about all over the house and garden, in any place where she might have taken them off and forgotten to put them on again, on the downstairs wash-basin, by the flower-bed she had been weeding, sent to the laundry pinning up a suspender. Her big party pieces were kept in the bank. Uncle Matthew himself possessed no jewels and despised all men who did. (Boy’s signet ring and platinum and pearl evening watch-chain were great causes for tooth-grinding.) His own watch was a large loudly ticking object in gun-metal, tested twice a day by Greenwich mean time on a chronometer in the business-room, and said to gain three seconds a week. This was attached to his key-ring across his moleskin
