and somehow found Fanny, but it is possible. The Frenchman, Paul Alaric, says he was at home alone, and that’s probably true, but again we can’t prove it.”
“How about the servants? After all, they are far more likely.” She must keep it in proportion, not let Fulbert’s words warp her thinking. “Or the footmen and coachmen from the party?” she added.
He smiled slightly, understanding her thoughts.
“We’re working on them. But nearly all of them stayed together in groups, swapping gossip and bragging, or else were inside, getting something to eat. And servants are too busy to have much time unaccounted for.”
She knew that was true. She could remember from the days when she had lived in Cater Street that footmen and butlers did not have spare time in the evenings to go wandering outside. A bell might summon them at any moment to open the door or bring a tray of port or perform any other of a dozen tasks.
“But there must be something!” she protested aloud. “It’s all so-nebulous. Nobody’s guilty, and nobody’s really innocent. Something must be provable!”
“Not yet, except for most of the servants. They can account.”
She did not argue anymore. She stood up and began to serve his meal, placing it carefully, trying to make it look delicate and cool. It was nothing like Emily’s, but then she had made it for a twentieth of the price, all except for the fruit-she had been a little extravagant to buy that.
The funeral was the most magnificently somber affair Charlotte had ever been to. The day was overcast and sultry hot. She was collected by Emily’s carriage before nine in the morning and taken straight to Paragon Walk. She was welcomed quickly, Emily’s eyes warm with relief to see her and to know that the outburst of the other day was forgotten.
There was no time for refreshments or gossip. Emily rushed her upstairs and presented her with an exquisite deep-lavender dress, far more elaborate and formal than anything she had seen Emily wear. There was a sort of grand dame effect to it she could not reconcile with Emily as she knew her. She held it up and stared over its regal neckline.
“Oh,” Emily sighed with a faint smile. “It’s Aunt Vespasia’s. But I think you will look wonderful in it, very stately.” Her smile widened, then she flushed with guilt, remembering the occasion. “I think you are very like Aunt Vespasia, in some ways-or you might be, in fifty years.”
Charlotte remembered that Pitt had said much the same thing and found herself rather flattered.
“Thank you.” She put the dress down and turned for Emily to unbutton her own dress so that she might change. She was all prepared to reach for pins again, but was amazed to find that none were necessary. It fitted her almost as well as any of her own; it could have done with an inch more across the shoulder, but other than that it was perfect. She surveyed herself in the cheval glass. The effect was quite startling, and really very handsome.
“Come on!” Emily said sharply. “There isn’t time to stand there admiring yourself. You must put black over it, or it will hardly be decent. I know lavender is mourning as well, but you look like a duchess about to receive. There’s this black shawl. Don’t fidget! It’s not in the least hot, and it darkens the whole thing. And black gloves, of course. And I’ve found a black hat for you.”
Charlotte did not dare ask where she had “found” it. Perhaps she would be happier not to know. Still, it was church, so it was necessary to wear a hat, apart from the obligations of fashion.
When the hat came it was extravagant, broad brimmed, feathered and veiled. She set it on her head at rather a rakish angle and started Emily giggling.
“Oh, this is awful! Please, Charlotte, do watch what you say. I’m so nervous about it you make me laugh when I don’t mean it at all. Inside I am doing everything I can not to think of that poor girl. I’m occupying my mind with all sorts of other things, even silly things, just to keep the thought of her away.”
Charlotte put her arm around her.
“I know. I know you’re not heartless. We all laugh sometimes when we really want to cry. Tell me, do I look ridiculous in this hat?”
Emily put out both her hands and altered the angle a little. She was already in the soberest black herself.
“No, no, it looks very well. Jessamyn will be furious, because afterward everyone will look at you and wonder who you are. Bring the veil down a little, and then they will have to come closer to see. There, that’s perfect! Don’t fiddle with it!”
The cortege was awe-inspiring in the deadest black: black horses pulling a black hearse, black-crepe- ribboned coachmen and black-plumed harness. The chief mourners followed immediately behind in another black, fluttering carriage, and then the rest of the attendants. Everything moved at the most august walk.
Charlotte sat with Emily, George, and Aunt Vespasia in their carriage and wondered why a people who profess a total belief in resurrection should make a melodrama out of death. It was rather like bad theater. It was a question she frequently had considered, but had never found anyone appropriate to ask. She had hoped one day to meet a bishop, although there seemed little chance of it now. She had mentioned it to Papa once and received a very stiff reply, which silenced her completely but in no way provided an answer-except that Papa obviously did not know either and found the whole matter grossly distasteful.
Now she climbed out of the carriage, taking George’s hand to alight gracefully, without tipping the black hat to an even more rakish angle, then, side by side with Aunt Vespasia, followed Emily and George through the gate of the churchyard and up the path to the door. Inside, the organ was playing the death march, with rather more exuberance than was entirely fitting and with several notes so wrong that even Charlotte winced to hear them. She wondered if the organist were the regular one, or an enthusiastic amateur drafted in ignorance for the occasion.
The service itself was very dull, but mercifully short. Possibly the vicar did not wish to mention the manner of death, in all its worldly reality, in such an unworldly place. It did not belong with stained-glass windows, organ music, and little sniffles into lace handkerchiefs. Death was pain and sickness, and terror of the long, blind, last step. And there had been nothing resigned or dignified in it for Fanny. It was not that Charlotte did not believe in God, or the resurrection; it was the attempt to soothe away the ugly truths with ritual that she hated. All this elaborate, expensive mourning was for the conscience of the living, so that they might feel they had paid due tribute and now could decently forget Fanny and continue with the Season. It had little to do with the girl and whether they had cared for her or not.
Afterward they all went out to the graveyard for the interment. The air was hot and heavy, as if it had already been breathed, and tasted faintly stale. The soil was dry from long weeks without rain, and the gravediggers had had to hack at it to break it. The only damp spot anywhere was under the yew trees, settling lower and lower to the earth, and it smelled old and sour, as if the roots had fed on too many bodies.
“Ridiculous things, funerals,” Aunt Vespasia whispered sharply from beside her. “Greatest fit of self- indulgence in society; it’s worse than Ascot. Everyone seeing who can mourn the most conspicuously. Some women look very well in black and know it, and you’ll see them at all the fashionable funerals, whether they were acquainted with the deceased or not. Maria Clerkenwell was always doing that. Met her first husband at the funeral of his cousin. He was the chief mourner because he inherited the title. Maria had never heard of the dead man before she read it in the society pages and decided to go.”
Secretly Charlotte admired her enterprise; it was something Emily might have done. She stared across the open grave past the pallbearers, red-faced and glistening with sweat, to Jessamyn Nash standing erect and pale at the far side. The man closest to her was less then handsome, but there was something pleasing in his face, a readiness to smile.
“Is that her husband?” Charlotte asked softly.
Vespasia followed her eye.
“Diggory,” she agreed. “Bit of a rake, but always was the best of the Nashes. Not that that is granting him much.”
From what Charlotte had heard of Afton and seen of Fulbert, she could not disagree. She continued to stare, trusting to her veil to disguise the fact. Really, veils were of very practical convenience. She had never tried one before, but she must remember it for the future. Diggory and Jessamyn were standing a little apart; he made no effort to touch her or support her. In fact his attention seemed to be turned rather toward Afton’s wife Phoebe, who looked perfectly awful. Her hair seemed to have slipped to one side and her hat to the other, and although she made one or two feeble gestures to readjust it, each time she made it worse. Like everyone else, she was in black,
