Funeral in Blue Page 9

  Pendreigh looked haggard. His fair hair was still smooth and thick, but his face had sunk as if the flesh had withered, and in spite of standing as to attention on parade, there was still something within him that sagged, giving an illusion of emptiness. He was dressed in perfect black, so dark it absorbed even the little light there was, making his hair look the brighter. He spoke with the same gesture to everyone, courteous and mechanical.

  Beside him, Kristian also looked stunned and pale. He seemed to be making an effort to say something individual to people, but after a little while he, too, began to repeat himself.

  Hester saw Callandra move forward in the line to express her sympathies, and for a moment their eyes met. Callandra was dressed in unrelieved black, but her hat was uncharacteristically stylish, very simple in line, and it became her very much, accentuating the strength in her face, and for once her hair was immaculate. She gave a tiny smile of recognition, but Hester saw the pain of exclusion in her eyes, the misery of not being able to share this whole area of Kristian’s life which cut to the heart. All she could do was offer the same polite words as everyone else. She was merely one of the hospital’s chief benefactors and was possibly representing them all.

  She took her turn, speaking first to Kristian, then to Pendreigh. It was brief. In a matter of moments she was followed by Fermin Thorpe, his fleshy face smooth, his manner meticulous. He expressed his horror and his sympathy, shaking his head and looking rather more to Pendreigh than to Kristian. Then he moved on and his place was taken by the next mourner.

  The church was filling. The cortege must be due soon. Hester was shivering in spite of her heavy black coat. She moved forward a step, ready to pay her own respects, and found herself immediately behind a very dark man she guessed to be in his forties. His face was striking, with strong, generous features, but she would have paid him no further attention had she not seen Kristian’s reaction to him. To that point his face had been pale and almost expressionless, like that of a man exhausted but unable to sleep, driven to stand upright only by the utmost self-discipline. Now suddenly there was a flash of light in his eyes and something close to a smile.

  “Max!” he said with obvious amazement and just as clear pleasure. “How good of you to come! How did you know?”

  “I was only in Paris,” Max replied. “I read it in the newspapers.” He clasped Kristian’s hand in both of his. “I’m so desperately sorry. There are too many things to say, a whole world for which there are no words. Something immeasurable has gone out of our lives.”

  Kristian nodded without speaking, still clinging to Max’s hand. For the first time he looked close to losing his composure. It cost him a visible effort to turn to Pendreigh, clear his throat, and introduce the two men.

  “This is Max Niemann, who stood with us in Vienna in the uprising. He and Elissa and I had a bond . . .” He cleared his throat and coughed, unable to continue.

  Pendreigh stepped into the momentary silence, his own voice thick with emotion. “How do you do, Herr Niemann. I am deeply grateful for all that you have been to my daughter in the past. She spoke of you with the profoundest admiration and affection. It is a great comfort to me, and I am sure it is to my son-in-law as well, that you should be here. Little in the world matters as much as friends at a time like this.”

  Niemann bowed slightly, bringing his heels together, but without sound. He looked up at Pendreigh, met his eyes with the ghost of a smile, then turned away to allow Hester and Monk to offer their condolences also.

  Kristian had regained control of himself sufficiently to speak to Monk, who was now side by side with Hester.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. He managed to sound as if he meant it. “It was good of you to come. I know you are doing all you can to help, and we appreciate it.” He did not look towards Pendreigh, but his inclusion of him was obvious. He looked at Hester, and suddenly speech was difficult for him again. Perhaps it was memory of the experiences they had shared, the long nights in the fever hospital, the battles for reform, the victories and the failures they had felt so deeply. She spoke quickly, to save him the necessity. The words did not matter.

  “I’m so sorry. You know we are thinking of you all the time.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured, his voice cracking.

  To spare him, she turned to Fuller Pendreigh, and Kristian introduced them. She would have liked to say something original that would still have sounded sincere, but nothing came to mind except the usual platitudes.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Pendreigh.” She meant it, but there was nothing to add that made it more comforting. She could remember the stunned feeling she had had when she came home to her parents’ empty house, the place where they should have been and were not anymore.

  “Thank you,” he murmured. It was five days since Elissa’s death, but she imagined it would be months before it no longer surprised him. It was still new, a wound, not an ache. He would be going through the ritual because it was expected of him. He was a man who did his duty.

  Even as she turned to move on, the hearse arrived, drawn by four black horses, hooves muffled by the fog, black plumes waving. It loomed suddenly, as if it had materialized out of the smothering vapor. The undertaker climbed soundlessly to the pavement. Not a breath of air stirred the long, black weepers trailing from his tall hat. Six pallbearers carried the coffin into the church.

  Hester and Monk were now obliged to go in by the side door as the music of the organ shivered through the aisles between the columns of stone and echoed high in the Gothic arches above, and the service began.

  Charles had taken care of the funeral of their parents. She wondered now if she had ever thanked him properly for that. She looked around her at the ceremony. It was magnificent, almost frightening in its power, and yet as the music swelled, the familiar words pronounced and all the appropriate responses made, it was comforting also. Here at home, death was always a version of something like this, rich or poor, town or country. There was more splendor or less, but the same ritual. It made it decent, allowed people to do the right thing and have some feeling that it was complete.

  Except for those whose grief remained.

  It had been different in the Crimea. She had seen so much of it, young men in the flower of their lives, broken on the battlefield or rotted by disease. There were too many to hold funerals for, no churches, no music except a few ragged voices singing for courage rather than the glory of sound.

  But the dead went into eternity just the same. This pomp and solemnity, the black feathers and ribbons, the elaborate performance of sorrow, was for the living. Did it really make people feel better, or just that they had done their best and were acquitted?

  As the service proceeded, Hester looked sideways to watch Callandra, to their left and a row in front, next to the aisle. Hester wondered what thoughts teemed inside her. A widow could not marry again for years, but a widower could remarry almost immediately, and no one thought the worse of him. It was expected his new wife would wear black in mourning for her predecessor, and Hester wondered with a note of hysteria inside her if her wedding nightgown should be black as well.

  She must discipline her thoughts. Callandra had said nothing so unseemly. But Hester knew it was in her mind. The very way she spoke Kristian’s name betrayed her.

  Had she any idea what kind of a woman lay in the coffin? Could she imagine the beauty, the vitality and the courage she had had when she was alive, according to Fuller Pendreigh—and Kristian himself?

  The service was over at last, and the mourners must leave in the proper order. There was a ritual to be observed. Only the men would go to the graveside, a custom she was sometimes grateful for, but today she found it both patronizing and irritating. Women were considered good enough to nurse the sick and dying, to wash them and lay them out, but not strong enough in temperament or spirit to watch the coffin lowered into the earth.

  However, she could attend the funeral meal afterwards. It was to be held at Fuller
Pendreigh’s home, not Kristian’s. Had he usurped that right? Or had Kristian yielded it willingly? They had been invited because of the help Monk had offered in attempting to solve the crime.

  It seemed like an interminable wait between leaving the church and arriving at Pendreigh’s house in Ebury Street for the funeral meal. The guests were assembled in the splendid hall and in the even more beautiful withdrawing room. Hester noticed immediately that Callandra was not among them. Perhaps that was better, even if faintly hurtful. She had not known Elissa, and since she was representing the hospital, her only connection was with Kristian. Courtesy had been amply met, and for her to have been there might suggest a personal relationship. As Hester knew very well, funerals, even more than weddings, were places for rumor to abound and all kinds of speculation to be given birth.

  The whole house was hung with crepe. All the servants were in unrelieved black, and their sorrow seemed genuine. Maids had red eyes and looked shocked and tired. Even the footmen, carrying trays of wine and small tidbits for the guests to eat, spoke softly and stood for the most part in silence.

  Hester knew no one else present, other than Monk and Kristian, and it was impossible to speak to Kristian except briefly. This was Pendreigh’s house, but Kristian was equally involved since he was legally Elissa’s closest relative. He had to be seen to speak to everyone, to make them welcome and thank them for their tributes of time and words, and in many cases flowers as well. But standing in the corner, of choice by herself, she watched.

  The people appeared to be largely Pendreigh’s friends. They were grave and polite to Kristian, but it was Pendreigh they knew. When they spoke to him there was emotion in the attitudes of their bodies, their bent heads and solemn expressions. They were his generation, and the cut and fabric of their clothes spoke of great wealth and a certain authority. She even recognized a few of them from photographs in the newspapers. At least two were Members of Parliament.

  Did Kristian feel as much a foreigner as she felt for him? Was his reserve a matter of a grief he could barely control, or did he know few of these mourners at his wife’s funeral?

  The marked exception to that was the striking figure of Max Niemann. While Monk was speaking to Pendreigh and finding himself introduced to varying other people, Hester managed to move closer to Kristian and still unnoticed by him; she listened to their conversation.

  “. . . good of you to come,” Kristian said warmly.

  “For heaven’s sake, man, did you imagine I would stay away?” Niemann said in amazement. “The past means too much not to have come this short distance. It’s absurd, isn’t it, that after all we’ve seen and done together, that one of us should die in an artist’s studio in London?”

  Kristian smiled very slightly, but there was gentleness in it, and no bitterness that Hester could see. “I think she would have preferred something a little . . . more dramatic,” he said wryly. Then his voice dropped. “And to some purpose, not the idiotic accident of calling at an artist’s studio at the wrong moment.”

  Niemann put his hand on Kristian’s arm with only the barest hesitation, just a flicker across his face that vanished again. “I’m sorry,” he said fervently. “Elissa, of all people, should have gone out in a blaze of glory. There’s so much futility in the world, so many idiotic tragedies that strike from nowhere. All I can think of is the emptiness now that she’s gone.” His voice was thick with emotion, and he did not move his hand from Kristian’s arm, as if in touching him he could share some bond which was precious to him.

  “Another day . . . later . . . we must talk about the past,” Kristian responded. “It’s been far too long. Present crises press and I’ve allowed them to crowd out too much.”

  Niemann smiled and shook his head. “Still the same!” He gave Kristian’s arm another swift clasp, then moved on to allow the next person to speak.

  A little later Hester was standing a yard or two from Pendreigh. He was a remarkably striking man. Even in repose his face had power in it, a balance of nose and brow. If he were aware of other people looking at him he gave no sign of it, yet even in his present grief he did not neglect his duty as host.

  “May I offer you something more, Mrs. Monk?” He had remembered who she was.

  “No thank you, Mr. Pendreigh,” she declined. She wanted to say something to draw him into conversation, and yet the tragedy which had brought her there was one which inner decency treated in silence. “You must be very tired of trying to think of courteous things to say to people.” She smiled impulsively. “I imagine you would far rather be alone, and yet custom requires you do all this.” She half gestured to the room full of people all talking, nodding discreetly, murmuring meaningless words no one was really listening to, and drinking Pendreigh’s excellent wine. They all wore black; the only difference was in the cut and the fabric, some denser than others, some softer and more exquisitely cut.

  He looked at her for a moment as if he actually saw her. The spell of retreat was broken, and a bottomless pain filled his face. “Actually, I’m not sure,” he said quietly. “I think this has a . . . a sort of comfort about it. It’s . . . ghastly . . . and yet perhaps it’s better than being alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have spoken so intrusively. I beg your pardon.”

  The formal smile was back again. “You don’t need to, Mrs. Monk. Forgive me, I need to bid Mr. and Mrs. Harbinger good-bye. They seem to be about to leave.” He gave a slight shrug as if he did not know what he wished to say, and with the faintest bow, he left.

  Hester turned to look for Kristian, and saw him standing alone by the door into the withdrawing room. His face was set in a blank, inner concentration that isolated him. He looked utterly confused, as if he had lost sight of the duty Pendreigh strove so hard to fulfill.

  Then an elderly woman approached him, and he recalled his obligation, forcing himself to smile at her and say something trivial and polite.

  Half an hour later, Hester and Monk excused themselves, but all the way home Hester wondered why the reception had been at Elissa’s father’s house and not at her husband’s, which was, after all, where she had lived for the last thirteen years.

  “Perhaps Pendreigh was afraid Kristian would not be well enough to carry the occasion himself,” Monk suggested.

  She looked sideways at him in the hansom as they moved through the streets muffled by fog, passing from the thick, yellow-gray density which caught in the throat and out into a paler, thinner patch where the light broke through and she could see the black lattice of branches above. There was a pallor of tiredness in his face, and he was staring ahead as if half his attention were in his own thoughts.

  “Have you any idea who killed her?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered without turning.

  “But you don’t think Runcorn will imagine it was Kristian, do you?” she pressed.

  The hansom jolted to a stop at the intersection, then started forward again. The vehicles passing in the opposite direction were visible only as shadows in the gloom.

  “He has to consider it,” he replied. “We don’t know yet if Elissa Beck was the intended victim or simply an unfortunate witness.”

  “What do you know about the other woman?”

  “Very little. She was an artists’ model, entirely for Allardyce over the last few years. She was in her middle thirties, already past her prime for such a job. Runcorn’s got men trying to find out as much as possible about her, lovers, anyone to whom she owed money. Nothing that means anything yet.”

  “But surely she was more likely to be the intended victim, and Elissa Beck only a witness?”

  “Perhaps.”

  She wanted to pursue it, but she saw the tight line of his lips and knew it would serve no purpose. She almost had to bite her tongue to keep it still. She had found none of the comfort or assurance she expected. Why had he not said at least that if Runcorn were stupid enough to suspect Kristian, then Monk would prove him wrong? She wanted
to ask him, but she knew she did not want the answer.

  In the late afternoon Monk went out again, without saying where to. He had not changed out of his best black, almost as if for him the funeral were not over.

  Hester waited an hour, trying to make up her mind, then, also still in her black, she took a hansom and gave the driver Kristian’s address in Haverstock Hill. She did not know if he had returned home, but she felt compelled to seek him. Why had he not held the reception in Elissa’s own house? Why had he allowed Fuller Pendreigh to take control of so much? The whole of the funeral arrangements was out of character for the man she knew, or thought she did. She had worked with him as Monk had not. The black feathermen, the ostrich plumes, the hearse and four, were far from the simple dignity of life and death as he had known it in the hospital or the fever wards they had set up in Limehouse. He was a man too used to the reality of physical death to wrap it in ceremony, and too genuine in his emotion. His pity and his grief needed no display to others.

  Was Elissa’s death really so different, so shattering, that he had changed utterly? Or had Hester misread him all the time? Had there always been a ritualistic high churchman beneath the uncluttered man she had known?

  It seemed an endless journey through the fog-shrouded streets, but eventually she reached the house and requested the driver to wait while she ascertained that Kristian was there. She had no intention of having to search for another cab were he not. She rang the doorbell three times and was about to leave when Kristian himself opened it. His face looked eerie and his eyes enormous in the light from the street lamp. The hall behind him was in darkness, except for a single gas bracket burning low at the foot of the stairs.

  “Hester? Is something wrong?” There was an edge of alarm in his voice.