‘Oh, sah, it’s bad news, it’s bad news.’
Edward patted his shoulder, and walked slowly up the stairs.
‘It’s all right, old fella, I know. You don’t have to say anything.’
Edward caught the first train, and Allard met him at the station. He gave a brief nod and bent almost double to squeeze himself into the car. There were dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, and the inevitable cigar was clamped between his teeth. Allard muttered obscenities as they crept up the steep hill towards the Hall, convinced they were not going to make it. The only time Edward spoke was to remind him that he had a first gear... The car jolted and, with smoke streaming from the exhaust, they eventually made it over the top. Crossing the small humpbacked bridge, they coasted through the village of Helmsley and on to the Hall.
Jinks was waiting, sitting among stacks of furniture.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ was the only greeting Edward gave her as he followed Allard into the kitchen. ‘Kitchen always was the warmest place in the house.’
Jinks followed them and leaned against the door.
‘Congratulations,’ Edward said to her. ‘It’s something to be offered places at both Oxford and Cambridge. Have you made up your mind yet?’
‘I don’t think this is either the time or the place to discuss that,’ she replied. ‘Did Allard tell you about the arrangements? She’s to be cremated. We couldn’t really have a coffin here with the state the place was in so Mr Postlethwaite — he runs the funeral parlour — he’s got her... she’s at his farm. He has some sort of morgue, where he keeps... Oh God, it sounds awful... Is Uncle Alex coming?’
Edward appeared completely unaffected by his wife’s death. He blew on his hands for warmth. ‘No, they’re busy, wouldn’t you know. They’ll probably send an ornate wreath.’ He found it difficult to meet his daughter’s eyes. It had been a long time since he had seen her. She looked older than her seventeen years, with her thick glasses and her thin, pointed nose pink from the cold. Edward tried to make conversation, huddled by the fire in his great fur coat.
‘Right, what’s to be done? Have you arranged everything?’ Somehow he just knew she would have, he could tell.
Jinks found it hard even to talk to him, he dominated the kitchen and her. She didn’t mean it, but her voice sounded brittle, unforgiving. ‘We all go to Mr Postlethwaite’s and follow the hearse to the church. The vicar’s arranged the ceremony, two o’clock, and afterwards we drive to the crematorium. It’s quite a way, almost to York.’
Edward looked at his watch and suggested they get a bite to eat before they left. Jinks declined and said she would wait for the car. He still could not look at her. ‘Fine, I’ll see you later. I’ll walk to the Feathers, be there if you need me.’
As he opened the kitchen door, Jinks blurted out, ‘It was an accident, she never meant to kill herself.’
‘Yes, you said on the phone... Be back at a quarter to two.’
He strode out into Harriet’s vegetable garden. The line of tomato sticks looked like a miniature army lined up for inspection, and he walked slowly past them. He stopped — attached to one of the rods was a piece of paper, flapping in the wind. He trudged across the frozen soil and looked at it. ‘Edward’ — his name was printed clearly in Harriet’s thick, bold writing. He glanced at the house to see if anyone was watching him, then unhooked the note. There was only one line, in the familiar hand: ‘You were never unkind, just the wrong time of year for lettuce — Harry.’
Pocketing the note, he stood for a long time in the bitterly cold garden. He knew it was no accident — she had just walked out across the fields to die. He lifted his eyes to the horizon, remembering the hunched figure so many years ago, striding off into the night — the night she had taken a shotgun to her horse.
‘He’s still there, he’s still standing there.’
Puzzled, Allard looked at Jinks and she got up, walked across to the window. Her father stood with his back to the house, like a giant, his fur coat flapping in the winter wind. She rubbed her cold arms and asked Allard, ‘What do you think he’s doing, he must be frozen?’
His usually crisp, camp voice was soft. ‘I think he’s saying goodbye to her in his own way.’
Jinks wanted to go to her father then, wanted to feel his arms around her, but instead she stared at him through the dusty window.
The car pulled up outside Mr Postlethwaite’s barn, which also served as a morgue. The elderly bearers, in their black morning coats and toppers, carried the coffin to the equally elderly hearse. As they pushed the coffin in, their feet slid on the icy ground. Mr Postlethwaite murmured to the men that they were going to have a hell of a job getting up the hill, it was hard enough just to stand up straight.
Allard was squashed in between Jinks and Edward in the back of the hired Rolls. Nodding wisely, he said to Edward, ‘It’ll never make it up that hill, any money on it?’
The procession moved off, following the hearse, which seemed bowed beneath the weight of Alex and Barbara Barkley’s ‘floral tribute’, an enormous display of white lilies. Edward and Allard couldn’t help but smile. The hearse’s gears began to grind...
‘What did I tell you, it’s in trouble,’ Allard crowed. Jinks gave him a cold stare to shut him up.
Halfway up the hill, the hearse came to a halt and slowly slid backwards until it bumped into the Rolls. Edward started to laugh, and Allard, his hands over his face, tried desperately not to join in. Their chauffeur reversed frantically, then grabbed the handbrake, but the Rolls rolled on and struck the following car, containing the vicar and three of his parishioners, whose faces looked terrified as they slithered downhill... The parishioners screamed in unison, like three little balding birds...
Three times the hearse attempted the hill, only to slide back. Coats were removed and laid under the back wheels, much to the chagrin of Mr Postlethwaite, whose best tails would bear the tyre imprints forever after. But the hearse steadfastly refused to climb the hill. Allard was now laughing openly, and Edward was wiping away tears of mirth.
Jinks, who had tried so hard not to find humour in the situation, biting her lip until it bled, finally caved in. Edward smiled through his tears, ‘That’s it, sweetheart, you know Harry’s engineered this whole thing — she’s up there roaring with laughter. Can’t you hear her?’
Indeed, Harriet would have split her sides if she had seen her last journey, the coffin tied eventually to the roof-rack of Mr Postlethwaite’s new Morris Minor. The hilarity of the journey was echoed halfway through the delayed funeral service when a wedding party arrived. The vicar took their advent as a cue to speed up the service. The poor organist, his frozen fingers struggling with the keyboard, pumped the bellows desperately for the rendering of ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’. He was mortified when his precious organ began to emit what could only be described as a deep, resonant fart.
The bride and groom stood aghast as the coffin was carried from the church, followed by mourners in a state verging on hysteria. Allard, beside himself, had to lean on the door to get his breath, declaring loudly that it was better than any revue he had ever seen.
By this time the hearse had made it to the top of the hill, and Harriet was driven more sedately on the last leg of her journey to the crematorium. In the confusion between wedding and funeral, someone had tied a silver horseshoe to the coffin. It trailed behind, but no one laughed. They were all very quiet, subdued, and the bouncing horseshoe somehow reminded them that they would never hear Harriet’s wonderful laugh again.
That night they drank more brandy than they should have, sitting in the freezing Hall. They all needed sustenance, and the vicar had to be helped home as he had already overindulged at the wedding reception. Jinks took the opportunity to excuse herself when he departed, and went up to her room. She had only just closed the door when her father knocked.