‘My God,’ said Norah.
She spoke the words softly. They recalled her own troubles with Pamela. The service continued. I tried to recompose the mind by returning to Ralegh and Herbert. ‘Whom none should advise, thou hast persuaded.’ Was that true of everyone who died? Of Erridge, eminently true: true too, in its way, of Stringham and Templer: to some extent of Barnby: not at all true of George Tolland: yet, after all, was it true of him too? I thought of the Portraits of Ralegh, stylized in ruff, short cloak, pointed beard, fierce look. ‘All the pride, cruelty and ambition of men.’ Ralegh knew the form. Still, Herbert was good too. I wondered what Herbert had looked like. In the end one got back to Burton’s ‘vile rock of melancholy, a disease so frequent, as few there are that feel not the smart of it’. Melancholy was so often the explanation, anyway melancholy in Burton’s terms. The bearers took up the coffin once more. The recession was slow, though this time uninterrupted.
‘I hope old Skerrett will be all right,’ whispered Isobel. ‘He looked white as a sheet when he passed.’
‘Whiter than Mrs Widmerpool?’
‘Much whiter.’
Outside, the haze had thickened. The air struck almost warm after the church. Rain still fell in small penetrating drops. The far corner of the churchyard was occupied with an area of Tolland graves: simple headstones: solid oblong blocks of stone with iron railings: crosses, two unaccountably Celtic in design: one obelisk. Norah, who had never got on at all well with her eldest brother, was in convulsions of tears, the other sisters dabbing with their handkerchiefs. There was no sign of Pamela in the porch. The mourners processed to the newly dug grave. The old parson, his damp surplice clinging like a shroud, refused to be hurried by the elements. He took what he was doing at a thoroughly leisurely pace. There seemed no reason why the funeral should ever end. Then, all at once, everything was over. The mourners began to move slowly, rather uncomfortably away.
‘I’ll just have a word with Skerrett,’ said Isobel. ‘He’s looking better now. Meet you at the gate.’
Before I reached the lychgate, a tall, rather distinguished-looking woman separated herself from other shapes lurking among the tombstones, and came towards me. She must have sat at the back of the church, because I had not seen her until that moment. She was fortyish, a formal magazine-cover prettiness organized to make her seem not only younger than that, but at the same time a girl not exactly of the present, rather of some years back. Her voice too struck a note at that moment equally out of fashion.
‘I thought I must say hullo, Nick, though it’s years since we met — you remember me, Mona, I used to be married to Peter Templer — what ages. Yes, poor Peter, wasn’t it sad? So brave of him at his age too. Jeff says you’re never the same in war after you’re thirty. We’re weaving about fairly close here, and I’ve got to scamper home this minute, because Jeff’s quite insane about punctuality. We’re living in a horrible house over by Gibbet Down, so I thought I ought to make a pilgrimage for Alf. It’s poor Alf now too, as well as poor Peter, isn’t it? Alf didn’t have much of a time, did he, though he was kindhearted in his way, even if he abominated spending a farthing on drink — one’s throat got absolutely arid travelling with him. I shall never forget Hong Kong. JG used to get so angry in the old days if I complained about the drought when we dined at Thrubworth with Alf, which wasn’t all that often. Lack of drink was even worse when I was alone with him, I can assure you. Fancy JG turning up today too. So unexpected when he does the right thing for once. I hear he lived for a time with someone called Lady Anne Stepney, and then she went off with one of the Free French. That did make me laugh — and Gypsy here too. Do you think she did have a walk out with Alf? He used to talk about seeing her at those awful political conferences he loved going to. I sometimes wondered. Well, we’ll never know now. I just waved to JG and Gypsy. I thought that would be quite enough.’
Isobel reappeared.
‘Your wife? How sad it must be to lose a brother, I never had one, but I’m sure it is. And not at all old either, except we’re all centuries old now, I feel a million, but, of course — well, I don’t know — anyway, I just thought it was my duty to come, even in daunting weather. I’ll have to proceed back now with all possible speed, or Jeff will be having kittens. Jeff’s an Air Vice-Marshal now. Isn’t that grand? Burdened with gongs. He was rather worried about my using the car for a funeral, but I said I was going to a POW camp, and if an Air Vice-Marshal’s lady can’t inspect a POW camp, what in hell can she do? Well, it’s been nice seeing you, Nick, and your wife, not to mention having a word about those poor dears who are no more. That erk will have to drive like stink if I’m not to be late. We’ve got some personnel coming to tea of all things — drink quite impossible to get for love or money these days, anyway to dish out to all and sundry, as well you must know, so I’ll just say bye-bye for now…’
While talking, she had fallen more than once into what Mr Deacon used to call a ‘vigorous pose’. Now, as she walked away, the controlled movement of her long swift strides recalled the artists’ model she once had been. In the road stood a large car, a uniformed aircraftman at the wheel. She turned and waved, then disappeared within.
‘Who on earth?’
‘That’s Mona.’
‘ Not the girl Erry took to China?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why didn’t you indicate that? I could have had a closer look. What a pity the poor old boy didn’t hang on. She might have kept him going.’
As the RAF car drove away, the outlines of Alfred Tolland, picking his way between the graves, came into view. He had been waiting for Mona to move on before he approached. It now struck me that he must have met Widmerpool at the Old Boy dinners of Le Bas’s house, because Alfred Tolland retained sentiments about his schooldays that age had in no way diminished. Except for Le Bas himself, he had always — in the days long past when I myself attended them — been the eldest present by at least twenty years.
‘Uncle Alfred’s a sad case in that respect,’ Hugo had remarked. ‘Personally I applaud that great enemy of the Old School Tie, the Emperor Septimius Severus, who had a man scourged merely for drawing attention to the fact that they had been at school together.’
However, Le Bas dinners could explain why Widmerpool and Alfred Tolland had travelled down together after seeing each other at the station. Widmerpool was, in fact, now revealed as standing close behind, as if he expected Alfred Tolland to make some statement that concerned himself or his party, the rest of whom were no longer to be seen. They could be concealed by mist, or have left in a body after the committal. To make sure his own presence as a mourner was not overlooked by Erridge’s family would be characteristic of Widmerpool, even though the reason for his attendance remained at present unproclaimed. He was looking even more worried than in the church. If he had merely desired to register attendance and go away, he would certainly have pushed in front of Alfred Tolland, whose hesitant, deferential comportment always caused delays, particularly at a time like this. Neat, sad, geared perfectly in outward appearance to the sombre nature of the occasion, Tolland stood, head slightly bent, gazing at the damp grass beneath his feet. He had once admitted to having travelled as far as Singapore. One wondered how he had ever managed to get there and back again. Unlikely he had taken with him a girl like Mona, though one could never tell. Barnby always used to insist it was misplaced to speak categorically about other people’s sexual experiences, whoever they were.