Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [55]
The service itself was simple, all the old, familiar words which were both soothing and deeply moving as the mind repeated them over in silent poetry, the terms of brevity of life like a flower in its season. The season was over, and it was gathered into eternity.
What was special about this particular funeral was the number of people who were met, not because it was required of them, but because they wished to be there. The gentry, the men from London, Pitt ignored; it was the villagers and tenant farmers who held the meaning for him.
When it was over they went to the burial in the Desmond family vault, at the far side of the churchyard under the yew trees. It was silent in the shade, even though there were above a hundred people still there. Not one of them moved or spoke as the coffin was placed inside and the door closed again. One could hear the birds singing in the elms on the far side, in the sun.
Next came the long ritual of thanking people, the expressions of sorrow and condolences.
Pitt glanced at Matthew where he stood on the path back towards the lych-gate on the road. He looked very pale, the sun catching the fair streak across his hair. Harriet Soames was beside him, very close, her hand on his arm. She looked somber, as befitted the occasion, but there was also a gentleness in her when she looked up at Matthew, as if she had more than an ordinary understanding of his anger as well as his grief.
“Are you going to stand with him?” Charlotte whispered.
He had been undecided, but in that moment he knew. “No. Sir Arthur was a father to me, but I was not his son. This is Matthew’s time. For me to go there would be intrusive and presumptuous.”
Charlotte said nothing. He was afraid she knew that he also felt he had forfeited his right to do that by his long absence. It was not Matthew’s resentment he feared but that of the villagers. And they would be right to resent him now. He had been gone too long.
He waited a little while, watching Matthew’s face as he spoke to them with great familiarity, accepting halting and deeply felt words. Harriet stood beside him smiling and nodding.
One or two neighbors paid their respects, and Pitt recognized Danforth, who had given evidence so reluctantly. There was a strange play of emotions over Matthew’s face: resentment, caution, embarrassment, pain, and resentment again. It was not possible from where Pitt stood to hear what each of them said before Danforth shook his head and walked away towards the lych-gate.
Others followed, and then the men from London. They looked oddly out of place. The difference was subtle, an unease in the wide spaces with the view of fields beyond the churchyard and giant trees in the sun, the sense of the seasons and the heavy physical labor of turning the earth, plowing and reaping, the comfortable familiarity with animals. It was nothing so obvious as a difference in clothes, but perhaps a more closely barbered head, thinner soles to the boots, a glance as if the road winding away towards the trees and boundaries of the Hall were an enemy and not a friend, a distance one was not happy to walk when one was more accustomed to carriages.
Matthew spoke to them with an effort. It would not have been apparent to any one of them, only to Pitt, who had known him from childhood and could see the boy in the man.
When the last of them had said what was expected, and Matthew had managed to reply, Pitt went over to him. The carriages had been dismissed. Together they walked the bright road back up towards the Hall, Matthew and Pitt in front, Charlotte and Harriet behind.
For the first hundred yards or so it was in agreeable silence, during which Charlotte