Tom laughed. “Mum, you’ve got to stop worrying about me. A few drinks aren’t going to kill me.”
“I know. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I wonder who’s come,” she said, changing the subject.
“Perish the thought of having to chat to Dad’s dreadful aunts and all the boring relatives we’ve spent years avoiding,” David interjected. “I’m not in the mood for a party.”
“It’s not a party, darling,” his mother corrected. “People just want to show their respect.”
David stared miserably out of the window. He could barely see the hedgerows as they drove down the lane towards the town of Fairfield. “Can’t everyone just bugger off and go home afterwards?”
“Absolutely not. It’s polite to ask your father’s friends and relatives home after the funeral. It’ll cheer us all up.”
“Great,” David muttered glumly. “I can’t think of a better way of getting over Dad’s death than having a knees-up with a bunch of old codgers.”
His mother began to cry again. “Don’t make this any harder for me, David.”
David peered around the seat and softened. “I’m sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just don’t feel like playing the glad game, that’s all.”
“None of us do, darling.”
“Right now, I just want to be alone to wallow in my sorrow.”
“I could kill for a cigarette,” said Tom. “Do you think I have time for a quick one round the back?”
The car drew up outside St. Peter’s medieval church. The chauffeur opened the passenger door, and Antoinette waited for Tom to come round to help her out. Her legs felt weak and unsure. She could see her mother-in-law walking up the stony path towards the entrance of the church where two of George’s cousins greeted her solemnly. She would never cry in public, Antoinette thought bitterly. Antoinette doubted whether she had ever cried in private. Margaret considered it very middle-class to show one’s feelings and turned up her aristocratic nose at the generation of young people for whom it was normal to whine, shed tears, and moan about their lot. She condemned them for their sense of entitlement and took great pleasure in telling her grandchildren that in her day people had had more dignity. Antoinette knew Margaret despised her for continuously sobbing, but she was unable to stop, even to satisfy her mother-in-law. But she dried her eyes before stepping out of the car and took a deep breath; the Dowager Lady Frampton had no patience with public displays of emotion.
Antoinette walked up the path between her two sons and thought how proud George would be of his boys. Tom, who was so handsome and wild, with his father’s thick blond hair and clear denim eyes, and David, who didn’t look like his father at all, but was tall and magnetic and more than capable of bearing his title and running the estate. Up ahead, Joshua disappeared into the church with Roberta. Their middle son was clever and ambitious, making a name for himself in the City, as well as a great deal of money. George had respected his drive, even if he hadn’t understood his unadventurous choice of career. George had been a man who loved natural, untamable landscapes; the concrete terrain of the Square Mile had turned his spirit to salt.
She swept her eyes over the flint walls of the church and remembered the many happy occasions they had enjoyed here. The boys’ christenings, Joshua’s marriage, his daughter Amber’s christening only a year before—she hadn’t expected to come for this. Not for at least another thirty years, anyway. George had been only fifty-eight.
She greeted George’s cousins and, as she was the last to arrive, followed them into the church. Inside, the air was thick with body heat and perfume. Candles flickered on the wide window ledges, and lavish arrangements of spring flowers infused the church with the scent of lilies, freesias, and narcissi. Reverend Morley greeted her with a sympathetic smile. He sandwiched her hand between his soft, doughy ones, and muttered words of consolation, although Antoinette didn’t hear for the nerves buzzing in her ears like badly played violins. She blinked away tears and cast her mind back to his visit to the house just after she had heard the terrible news. If only she could rewind to before . . .
It seemed that every moment of the last ten days had been leading up to this point. There had been so much to do. David and Tom had flown out to Switzerland to bring back their father’s body. Joshua and Roberta had taken care of the funeral arrangements. Antoinette had organized the flowers herself, not trusting her daughter-in-law to know the difference between a lilac and a lily, being a Londoner, and her sister, Rosamunde, had helped choose the hymns. Now the day was upon them Antoinette felt as if she were stepping into a different life, a life without George. She gripped Tom’s arm and walked unsteadily up the aisle. She heard the congregation hush as she moved past and dared not catch anyone’s eye for fear that their compassion would set her off again.