Funeral in Blue - Anne Perry [36]
“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