An Indecent Gambit

Chapter Nineteen: Strong Incentive

They held Mr Follet's funeral three days later. It was a relief to Grace that her father's corpse was gone at last, the coffin nailed shut, carried from the black-draped bedroom on the shoulders of black-draped men. James was one of the pall-bearers, standing in for his father. Grace could hardly meet his eyes, haunted by the argument they had had at the ball as her father was dying. In the urgency of rushing home, of waiting hopelessly by her father's bedside, she had forgotten how much James had hurt her. It had come back the next day when James visited with his parents to see what they could do to help and had made her very cold towards him.

Perhaps what made her coldest of all were the things she had said herself. They had felt so very true then. Even now, she was not sure they had been a lie. She was shocked her father was dead, yes, but she was not saddened, she did not think she was grieving. After the first bout of ferocious tears, she had found herself quite calm. The next morning, she had woken up and eaten a full breakfast and felt ashamed of herself for it, for her mother and sisters only nibbled at toast. To make up for it, she had thrown herself into the funeral preparations, doing whatever she could to take the most pressing tasks off her mother's hands. She had been frustrated to find that Mr Redwood, as the executor of the will, was responsible for the funeral arrangements, and almost angry when Uncle Bernard had visited to offer his services as well. They left her with little to do but dress the house and her sisters in black, write letters to relatives informing them of Mr Follet's death, and prepare stalks of rosemary wrapped in black silk as favours for the funeral goers. Such mindless chores could be no distraction from her feelings, and by the time the coffin was carried from the house she was in a state of restless irritability. She paced the floor of the drawing room while Emma and Alice curled up together on the sofa wishing she had something — anything — to do.

In the early evening, the men returned from the church and descended upon the funeral supper at the Follet house. Mrs Follet was very anxious about the supper. Cook had tested her again by refusing to make game birds into pie, so Mrs Follet had had to persuade the cook around to fish and fruit pies instead. She was not sure that was entirely correct for a funeral, but she thought it must be better than several baked pheasants, served hot, when there was no longer a man of the house to carve them.

The men had too much of an appetite to complain about anything, however. They crowded around the Follet's dining room table talking loudly of what a good man old Follet had been and reminiscing about the times they had had together.

"Such a cerebral fellow," one man said. "He once told me he read two newspapers a day."

"A bright mind," another man agreed, shaking his head. "A great loss."

"To his family particularly," Grace's Uncle Bernard said. "We are all so, so very shocked."

But Uncle Bernard did not look particularly shocked. He looked, thought Grace, like he was enjoying the fish pie a great deal.

After the supper, Mr Follet's old friends milled around the house continuing their sad compliments to his character. At intervals, they would draw Mrs Follet or Grace or her sisters aside and offer more personal condolences. Grace fought the urge to squirm whenever anyone touched her shoulder or pressed her hand. She swallowed her feelings and forced herself to be polite, to thank them very nicely for their condolences, even gauche old Uncle Bernard, to try to smile at them, to make sure they were not crowding her mother, who was far too meek-mannered to ever leave a conversation that was paining her. Alice and Emma needed guiding too, direction to speak to this and that cousin or to a friend of their father's, to give out the funeral favours to departing guests, to not cower by themselves in the window seat and avoid their visitors.