Graves saw Susan eventually turn to look at them without emotion. Jonathan stared wide eyed at the horses. They were handsome beasts. Graves hoped they would remain long enough to let the little boy get closer and talk to the coachmen. He would give anything to put other images in that gentle, forming mind, than those he had been witness to the previous day. Graves felt he was observing all from a great distance and height. The gathered men and women solemnly shuffling through the funeral service, and the way Susan’s hand contracted around his own as the first shovelful of earth skittered onto the lid of the coffin. He noticed an acquaintance, a Grub Street hack who wrote up news for the Daily Advertiser, lurking at the back of the crowd. He looked as hungry and tired as Graves felt himself, and he could not condemn him as he quietly questioned one of Alexander’s neighbors. The news sheets must be fed, the curiosity of the nation satisfied. He looked up and caught Graves’s eye with a look of inquiry, but Graves shook his head and with a nod the man retreated again.
The priest reached his “Amens” and the crowd began to drift away from the graveside and leave the sexton to fill the hole behind them. Graves made no move himself, content to let Susan watch. He realized Miss Chase’s thoughts were following a similar pattern to his own, however, regarding Jonathan. As soon as the crowd began to shift she led him quietly toward the horses. Graves watched as the coachmen greeted him. The little boy was lifted up onto the box and allowed to hold the reins, then taken down again to pat the noses of the leading pair of the earl of Cumberland. Graves looked down at Susan, and saw she was watching her brother also. Her eyes and cheeks were wet with tears, and he could not help pulling her gently to his side. She wept awhile longer into his coat, then took a great, shuddering sigh and opened her lips.
“Mr. Graves?”
“Yes, Susan?”
“There is a box in the shop. Papa told me to look for it and keep it with me. I’m afraid I forgot it for a while.” Her voice was so dry and whispering, Graves could hardly hear her. “May we go and fetch it? I remember where it is hidden. Papa said.”
“Of course, Susan.”
They walked through the last of the mourners, each of whom muttered their condolences and lifted their hats to the little girl, till they reached Miss Chase, and as Graves told her of their mission, Susan went across to her brother. The adults watched the children negotiate-Jonathan looked around him with wide eyes, alarmed at any separation, then seemed to grow calm under his sister’s caresses and whispers. They saw her pause as if waiting for an answer, and watched Jonathan nod slowly. She then turned and came back to them, and with a composure that almost broke their hearts said, “I am ready, Mr. Graves. May we go?”
He bowed and offered her his arm.
5
Mrs. Westerman, Crowther and Rachel were the only mourners at the burial of Carter Brook. When they arrived in the churchyard the sexton and his men were already shuffling the coffin into the open ground. As they crossed from the path to the church door to the graveside, there was a brief conversation between the men, and the youngest, only a boy really, put down his spade and ran swiftly to the vestry. Crowther smiled thinly as the boy returned a moment later with the vicar on his heels, adjusting his collar and trying to look as if he had meant to be there all along.
Crowther glanced at Miss Trench. It was at her insistence they were there at all. The strange sinuous current that spread news between the households, between the sexton’s boy and the butcher’s, which then found its way into Caveley Park with the beef shanks, meant that Rachel knew that the burial would take place that evening before Harriet and Crowther had even thought of it. When they had returned from the inquest, they found their late dinner already laid out and Rachel determined they should be quick about it as they would have to turn back into the village within the hour. Harriet had protested.
“Rachel, we must have some peace! And some time to talk about what has passed.” She looked up wide-eyed at her sister from the little sofa where she had dropped. “Surely that is the best service we can render to Mr. Brook-that we discover why he died and at whose hand. You don’t think it was an unlucky thief, do you?”
Her sister’s slim frame shone with all the moral conviction that eighteen years, and only eighteen years, can give.
“No. I wish I could, but no. But you can consider later, or tomorrow, Harriet. You too, Mr. Crowther. This poor man will only be buried once, and I think someone should bear witness to that. Would you like to be put in the ground all alone and unmourned?”
“I doubt very much I’d care at that point.” Harriet saw she had lost the argument and abandoned her attempt at reasonable sweetness. She folded her arms and buried her chin in her chest. “And how are we fit to mourn him, anyway? I only met the man when he was cold.”
Rachel clenched her hands, and looked in danger of stamping her foot.
“Harry, it is the right thing to do, and you know it. You are bearing witness to his death-very well, then bear witness to his funeral. Whatever sort of a man he was, he was one of God’s creatures and deserves this courtesy from the rest of us.”
Harriet did not move-except, Crowther noted, to wrinkle her nose when God was mentioned. Rachel narrowed her eyes.
“If you do not come, I shall ask Mr. Crowther to take me alone. Really, Harry, if you are going to be thinking about death all evening, you may as well do it in the peace of a churchyard.”
That made her sister laugh at least, and so it was agreed. Before their supper had time to settle in their stomachs they set off for the village again, this time on foot as Harriet felt the carriage would carry, along with themselves, altogether too much noticeable pomp for such a quiet visit.
Seeing the priest tumble out to the graveside, Harriet was glad her sister had bullied her, and it was a good place to think about death. She had not been surprised by the verdict of the coroner, although she wondered how many of the villagers truly believed it. It had been a very convenient conclusion, plausible enough if one could swallow the notion of robbers pursuing each other in leisurely fashion over a day’s ride for the sake of a ring. For a moment she considered the option of believing it herself. She could then put on the self-satisfied smile of a country matron, play with the baby and go about seeing only what was in front of her, like her sister. She frowned quickly, knowing the characterization was untrue and unfair, and angry with herself for thinking it. The priest caught the expression and looked momentarily confused, checking his prayer book to be sure the fiery Mrs. Westerman had not found him out in some mistake. Reassured, he read on.
Harriet looked across at her sister. She was not self-satisfied in the least, and knew more than Harriet about the pressures and secrets of life in the country. The trouble with Rachel was, she was actually good. It gave her a patience and moral certainty her sister sometimes envied, and sometimes found almost unbearable. When they had finished their prayers, Rachel gave her hand to the priest with a smile that made him look comically proud. Harriet and Crowther made their bows and the little party moved away back onto the road to Caveley, each traveling in their own thoughts to various destinations.
They had not gone far when they saw the figure of a man ahead of them. The evening was still bright enough to see, before they had approached much farther, that it was Hugh Thornleigh. Crowther felt more than saw the slight falter in Rachel’s steps, and from the corner of his eye observed her chin lift in determination. What torture it must be, he thought, to live always in the presence of disappointed love. He wondered why Harriet had not taken her sister away. Perhaps it was Rachel’s own decision to face her demons daily. It would not be Crowther’s recommendation for an easy mind, no matter what the habits of industry and religion did to ease her.