but on her it seemed dusty, the black of the sweep, rather than the glossy, raven’s-wing black of Jessamyn’s gown. Afton stood to attention by her side, his face expressionless. Whatever he felt, it was beneath his dignity to display it here.
The vicar held up his hand for attention. The faint whisperings stopped. He intoned the familiar words. Charlotte wondered why they intoned. It always sounded so much less sincere than to speak in a normal voice. She had never heard people who were really emotionally moved speak in such a fashion. They were too much consumed in the content to take such pains with the manner. Surely God was the last person to be swayed by dressing up and affecting airs.
She looked up through her veil and wondered if anyone else was thinking the same things, or were they all properly impressed? Jessamyn had her head down; she was stiff, pale and beautiful as a lily, a little rigid, but very appropriate. Phoebe was weeping. Selena Montague was becomingly pale, although to judge from her lips she had not altogether left nature unaided, and her eyes were as bright as fever. She was standing beside the most singularly elegant man Charlotte had ever seen. He was tall and slender, but there was a litheness to him as if his body were hard, far from the foppish, rather feminine grace of so many fashionable people. He was bareheaded, as were all the other men, and his black hair was thick and smooth. She could see when he turned how perfectly it grew in the nape of his neck. She did not need to ask Vespasia who he was. With a little tingle of excitement she knew-that was the beautiful Frenchman-the one Selena and Jessamyn were fighting over!
She could not tell who was winning at the moment, but he was standing next to Selena. Or perhaps she was standing next to him? But it was Jessamyn who was the center of attention. At least half the heads in the congregation were turned toward her. The Frenchman was one of the few who was looking at the coffin as it was lowered clumsily into the open grave. Two men with shovels stood respectfully back, accustomed enough to such rituals to fall into the right attitude without conscious thought.
One of the few others who seemed to be genuinely caught in the turmoil of some emotion was a man on the same side of the grave as Charlotte and Vespasia. She only noticed him at first because of the angle of his shoulders, which had a tightness to them, as if all his muscles were clenched inside. Without thinking, she moved a little forward to catch sight of his face, should he turn when the earth was thrown in.
The vicar’s sing-song voice went through the old words about earth to earth and dust to dust. The man swiveled to watch the hard clay rattle on the lid, and Charlotte saw his profile and then his full features. It was a strong face with skin marred by smallpox and at the moment was in the grip of some deep and twisting pain. Was it for Fanny? Or for death in general? Or was it even grief for the living, because he knew or guessed something of the “whited sepulchers” Fulbert had spoken of? Or was it fear?
Charlotte stepped back and touched Vespasia’s arm.
“Who is he?”
“Hallam Cayley,” Vespasia replied. “Widower. His wife was one of the Cardews. She died about two years ago. Pretty woman, lot of money, but not much sense.”
“Oh.” So that explained his tight body and the confusion of pain in his face. Perhaps she herself was staring around at all these people, occupying her mind with questions to keep it from the memory of other funerals, personal ones that hurt too much to bear recalling?
The ceremony was over. Slowly, with extreme decorum, they all turned as if on a single pivot and began the walk back to the road and the carriages. They would meet at Paragon Walk again at Afton Nash’s for the obligatory baked meats. Then the ritual could be considered accomplished.
“I see you remarked the Frenchman,” Vespasia observed under her breath.
Charlotte considered feigning innocence, and decided it would not work.
“Next to Selena?”
“Naturally.”
They walked, or rather processed, down the narrow path, through the gateway, and out onto the footpath. Afton, as the eldest brother, embarked into his carriage first, then Jessamyn, with Diggory a few moments behind her. He had been talking to George, and Jessamyn was obliged to wait for him. Charlotte saw the flicker of irritation pass across her face. Fulbert had come in a separate carriage for the occasion and had offered a ride to the Misses Horbury, dressed in ornate and antique black. It took them several moments to seat themselves satisfactorily.
George and Emily were next, and Charlotte found herself moving before she was really ready to leave. She looked across at Emily. Emily caught her eye and smiled wearily in return. Charlotte was happy to see that she had slipped her hand into George’s and he was holding it protectively.
The funeral breakfast was very splendid, as she had expected it to be. There was nothing ostentatious-one did not draw attention to a death that had come about in such an appalling manner-but there was enough to feed half of Society on the great table, and Charlotte thought at a quick estimation that every man, woman, and child on her own street could have lived on it for a month, with care.
People split into little groups, whispering together, no one wishing to be the first to begin.
“Why do we always eat after funerals?” Charlotte asked, unconsciously frowning. “I’ve never felt less like it.”
“Convention,” George replied, looking at her. He had the finest eyes she had ever seen. “It’s the only sort of hospitality everyone understands. Anyway, what else could one do? We can’t simply stand here, and we can hardly dance!”
Charlotte suppressed a desire to giggle. It was as formal and ridiculous as an old-fashioned dance.
She glanced around the room. He was right; everyone was a little awkward, and eating eased the tension. It would be vulgar to show emotion, at least for men. Women were expected to be frail, though weeping was frowned upon, because it was embarrassing and no one knew what to do about it. But one could always faint; that was quite acceptable and gave one the perfect excuse to retire. Eating was an occupation that covered the hiatus between obvious mourning and the time when one could decently go and leave the whole matter of death behind.
Emily put out her hand to claim Charlotte’s attention. She turned, to find herself facing a woman in extremely expensive black with a rather heavyset man beside her. “May I present my sister, Mrs. Pitt? Lord and Lady Dilbridge.”
Charlotte responded with the usual courtesies.
“Such a dreadful affair,” Grace Dilbridge said with a sigh. “And such a shock! One would never have expected it of the Nashes.”
“Surely one cannot expect such a thing of anyone,” Charlotte rejoined, “except the most wretched and desperate of people.” She was thinking of the slums and rookeries Pitt had spoken of, but even he had told her little of the real horror. She had only guessed, as much from the hollow look of his face and his long silences as from anything he had said.
“I always thought poor Fanny such an innocent child,” Frederick Dilbridge went on, as if in answer to her. “Poor Jessamyn. All this is going to be very hard for her.”
“And for Algernon,” Grace added, looking out of the corner of her eye to where Algernon Burnon was turning away a baked pie and helping himself to another glass of port from the footman. “Poor boy. Thank God he was not yet married to her.”
Charlotte could not entirely see the relevance.
“He must be very grieved,” she said slowly. “I cannot imagine a worse way to lose one’s fiancee.”
“Better than a wife,” Grace insisted. “At least he is now free-after a decent interval, of course-to find himself someone more suitable.”
“And the Nashes had no other daughter,” Frederick also took a glass as the footman hovered. “That’s something to be thankful for.”
“Thankful?” Charlotte could hardly believe it.
“Of course,” Grace looked at her with raised eyebrows. “You must be aware, Mrs. Pitt, how hard it is to get one’s daughters married well as it is. To have a scandal such as this in the family would make it well nigh impossible! I should not wish any son of mine to marry a girl whose sister was-well-” She coughed delicately and glared at Charlotte for obliging her to put into words something so crass. “All I can say is, I am vastly relieved my son is already married. A daughter of the Marchioness of Weybridge, a delightful girl. Do you know the Weybridges?”
“No,” Charlotte shook her head, and, mistaking her meaning, the footman whisked the tray away and she
