“No, you’re right, of course.” She thought of George in the hearse outside and felt her throat constrict. She turned back to the mirror and began to fiddle with her hat again. “Still, everyone will be waiting, and it’s frightfully cold.”
A moment later her middle son, Joshua, emerged from the drawing room with his chilly wife, Roberta. “You okay, Mum?” he asked, finding the emotion of such an occasion embarrassing.
“Just keen to get on with it,” David interjected impatiently. Joshua thrust his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. The house felt cold. He went to stand by the hall fire, where large logs entwined with ivy crackled in the grate.
“What are they doing in there?” his mother asked again, glancing towards the drawing room. She could hear the low voice of her youngest son, Tom, and her mother-in-law’s formidable consonants as she held forth, as usual unchallenged.
“Grandma’s demanding that Tom show her how to use the mobile telephone he gave her,” Joshua replied.
“Now? Can’t it wait till later?” Her chin trembled with anguish.
“They’re finishing their drinks, Antoinette,” said Roberta with a disapproving sniff. “Though I’m not sure Tom should be drinking with his history, should he?”
Antoinette bristled and walked over to the window. “I think today, of all days, Tom is entitled to consume anything he wants,” she retorted tightly. Roberta pursed her lips and rolled her eyes at her husband, a gesture she wrongly assumed her mother-in-law couldn’t see. Antoinette watched her arrange her pretentious feather fascinator in front of the mirror and wondered why her son had chosen to marry a woman whose cheekbones were sharp enough to slice through slate.
At last Tom sauntered into the hall with his grandmother, who was tucking the telephone into her handbag and clipping it shut. He smiled tenderly at his mother, and Antoinette immediately felt a little better. Her youngest had always had the power to lift her high or pull her low, depending on his mood or state of health. A small glass of wine had left him none the worse, and she ignored the niggling of her better judgment that knew he shouldn’t consume any alcohol at all. Her thoughts sprang back to her husband, and she recalled the time he had managed to telephone her from the Annapurna base camp just to find out how Tom was after a particularly bad week following a breakup. She felt her eyes welling with tears again and pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket. George had been a very good man.
“You haven’t turned the heating off, have you?” exclaimed the Dowager Lady Frampton accusingly. “I never let it get so frightfully cold!” In her long black dress, wide black hat, and mink stole Margaret Frampton looked as if she were off to crash a Halloween party rather than attend her only son’s funeral. Around her neck and wrist and dripping from her ears like elaborate icicles was the exquisite Frampton sapphire suite, acquired in India in 1868 by the first Lord Frampton for his wife, Theodora, and passed down through the generations to George, who had loaned it to his mother because his wife refused to wear such an extravagant display of wealth. The Dowager Lady Frampton had no such reservations and wore the jewels whenever a suitable occasion arose. Antoinette wasn’t sure Margaret’s son’s funeral was quite such an occasion.
“The heating is on, Margaret, and the fires are all lit. I think the house is in mourning, too,” she replied.
“What a ridiculous idea,” Margaret muttered.
“I think Mum’s right,” interjected Tom, casting his gaze out of the window. “Look at the fog. I think the whole estate is in mourning.”
“I’ve lost more people than I can count,” said Margaret, striding past Antoinette. “But there’s nothing worse than losing a son. An only son. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. At the very least, one would expect the house to be warm!”
Harris, the old butler who had worked for the family for more than thirty years, opened the front door, and the Dowager Lady Frampton stepped out into the mist, pulling her stole tighter across her chest. “Goodness me, are we going to be able to get to church?” She stood at the top of the stone stair and surveyed the scene. “It’s as thick as porridge.”
“Of course we will, Grandma,” Tom reassured her, taking her arm to guide her down. The Great Danes remained frozen beneath the weight of their sadness. Margaret settled her gaze on the coffin and thought how terribly lonely it looked through the glass of the hearse. For a moment the taut muscles in her jaw weakened, and her chin trembled. She lifted her shoulders and stiffened, tearing her eyes away. Pain wasn’t something one shared with other people.