Funeral in Blue (9 page)

Monk drew his breath in sharply.

Pendreigh looked at him, frowning a little. “You only see him now, Mr. Monk. He seems very quiet, very single-minded in serving the poor and the sick of our city. But thirteen years ago he was as passionate for revolution as anyone.” He smiled very slightly as memory stirred, and for a few moments the present was swallowed in the past. “Elissa used to tell me how brave he was. She admired courage intensely. . . .” A strange expression of pain filled his eyes and pulled his lips tight, as if a bitter memory momentarily drowned out everything else.

Then he moved his hands very slightly. “But she certainly wasn’t foolish or unaware of the dangers of speaking out against tyranny, or of making friends with others who did. She marched with the students and the ordinary people in the streets, against the emperor’s soldiers. She saw people killed, young men and women who only wanted the freedom to read and write as they chose. She knew it could be she at any time. Bullets make no moral choices.”

“She sounds like a very fine lady,” Runcorn said unhappily.

Pendreigh turned to him. “You must suppose me prejudiced in my opinion. Of course I am; she was my daughter. But ask anyone who was there, especially Kristian. He would tell you the same. And I am aware of her failings as well. She was impatient, she did not tolerate foolishness or indecision. Too often she did not listen to the views of others, and she was hasty in her judgment, but when she was wrong she apologized.” His voice softened and he blinked rapidly. “She was a creature of high idealism, Superintendent, the imagination to put herself in the place of those less fortunate and to see how their lot could be made better.”

“No wonder Dr. Beck fell in love with her,” Runcorn said.

Monk was afraid he was beginning to suspect Kristian of jealousy, because he could not keep the thought from his own mind.

“He was far from the only one.” Pendreigh sighed. “It was not always easy to be so admired. It gives one . . . too much to live up to.”

“But she chose Dr. Beck, not any of the others.” Monk made it a statement. He saw Runcorn’s warning look and ignored it. “Do you know why?”

Pendreigh thought for several moments before he replied. “I’m trying to remember what she wrote at the time.” He drew his fair brows into a frown of concentration. “I think he had the same kind of resolve that she did, the nerve to go through with what he planned even when circumstances changed and the cost became higher.” He looked at Monk intently. “He was a very complex man, a disciple of medicine and its challenges, and yet at the same time of great personal physical courage. Yes, I think that was it, the sheer nerve in the face of danger. That appealed to her. She had a certain pity for people who wavered, she entirely understood fear. . . .”

Monk looked quickly at Runcorn and saw the puzzlement in his face. This all seemed so far away from an artist’s studio in Acton Street and the beautiful woman they had seen in the morgue. And yet it was easily imaginable of the woman in the painting of the funeral in blue.

Pendreigh shivered, but he was standing a little straighter, his head high. “I remember one incident she wrote about to me. It was in May, but still there was danger in the air. For months there had been hardly anything to buy in the shops. The emperor had left Vienna. The police had banished all unemployed servants from the city, but most of them had come back, one way or another.” Anger sharpened his voice. “There was chaos because the secret police had been done away with and their duties taken over by the National Guard and the Academic Legion. There was an immediate crime wave, and anyone remotely well-dressed was likely to be attacked in the street. That was when she first noticed Kristian. Armed only with a pistol, and quite alone, he faced a mob and made them back down. She said he was magnificent. He could easily have walked the other way, effected not to notice, and no one would necessarily have thought the worse of him.”

“You said he was complex,” Monk prompted. “That sounds like a fairly simple heroism to me.”

Pendreigh stared into the distance. “I knew only what she told me. But even the most idealistic battles are seldom as easy as imagined by those not involved. There are good people on the enemy side also, and at times weak and evil people on one’s own.”

Runcorn shifted position a little uncomfortably, but he did not interrupt, nor did he look away from Pendreigh.

“And battle requires sacrifice,” Pendreigh continued, “not always of oneself, sometimes of others. She told me what a fine leader Kristian was, decisive, farsighted. Where some men would see what would happen one or two moves ahead, he could see a dozen. There was strength in him that set him apart from those less able to keep a cause in mind and understand the cost of victory as well as that of defeat.” His voice was edged with admiration, and now even his shoulders were straight, as if an inner courage had been imparted to him by the thought.

Monk admired it, too, but he was confused. Pendreigh was painting a picture of a man utterly unlike the compassionate and scrupulous person Monk had seen in the fever hospital in Limehouse, or all that he had heard from Callandra. The leader of such inner certainty and strength was of a nature unlike the doctor who labored without judgment of any kind, risking his own life as much for the fever- and lice-ridden beggar as for the nurse like Enid Ravensbrook. How had Hester seen him? A man of compassion, idealism, dedication, moral courage perhaps, but not a man capable of the ruthless leadership Pendreigh described. The Kristian Beck that Hester saw would not have raised his hand against anyone, much less with a sword or a gun in it.

He looked at Runcorn. His face was only slightly puckered. But then he did not know Kristian, he had not even met him until today. This picture that Pendreigh had received from Elissa, and re-created for them, did not contradict any image in his mind.

Could Kristian have changed so much in thirteen years? Or was he a man of two natures, and showed the one that suited his purpose or the need of the time?

Runcorn was staring at him impatiently, waiting for him to say something.

Monk looked directly at Pendreigh. “I’m deeply sorry for your loss, sir. Mrs. Beck was obviously a person of extraordinary courage and honor.”

“Thank you,” Pendreigh said, turning at last to face them fully. “I feel as if the world is darkening, and there will not now be another summer. She had such laughter, such hunger for life. I have no other family left. My wife has been gone many years, and my sister also.” He said the words with very little expression, which made their impact the greater. It was not self-pity but a bleak statement of fact. He spoke with neither courage nor despair but a kind of numbness.

Monk was overtaken by anger on Pendreigh’s behalf, for the profound foolishness of an action which in a moment’s violence had robbed him of so much. He turned to Runcorn, expecting to see him preparing to make their excuses and leave. He was startled to see a confusion of emotions in his face, embarrassment and alarm, an acute knowledge that he was out of his depth. Monk turned back to Pendreigh. “I assume that had you any idea who might be responsible you would have spoken of it?” he asked.

“What? Oh, yes, of course I would. I can only imagine that there was some quarrel with the other poor woman, a lover or whatever, and Elissa was unfortunate enough to witness it.”

“You commissioned the portrait?” Monk continued.

“Yes. Allardyce is a very fine artist.”

“What do you know about him personally?”

“Nothing. But I’ve seen his work in several places. I wasn’t interested in his morality, only his skill. My daughter did not sit alone for him, Mr. Monk, if that is what you are wondering. She took a woman friend with her.”

“Do you know who?”

“No, of course I don’t! I imagine it was not always the same person. If I knew who it was this time, I would have told you. I assume she went to some assignation of her own, and is too shocked and ashamed of having left Elissa to come forward yet.”

Runcorn turned abruptly to Monk, annoyance in his eyes. He should have thought of that himself. “Naturally!” he said, looking back to Pendreigh. “We’ll see if we can learn who it was. We will ask Dr. Beck for a list of possibilities. Thank you, sir. We’ll not disturb you any further.”

“Please . . . let me know what else you learn?” Pendreigh asked, his face stiff with the effort of control.

“Yes sir. As soon as there is anything,” Runcorn promised. “Good day.”

Outside on the pavement, Runcorn started to speak again, then changed his mind and marched down the street in the hope of finding a hansom. Monk followed after, deep in thought.

CHAPTER FOUR

The funeral of Elissa Beck was held the following day, and Monk and Hester attended, although they were unrelated to the deceased. Hester went largely to support Callandra, who would go as someone who had long been a friend of the widower and had worked beside him at the hospital. No one else would know the crushing loneliness she could feel, watching him in this agonizing ritual and excluded by propriety from offering more than a few formal phrases. She must not linger or show more than the usual emotion anyone might feel.

Monk went to observe, in the vague hope that he might see an expression or overhear a word which would lead him closer to the truth. He hoped profoundly it was as Fuller Pendreigh had said: Sarah Mackeson was the intended victim, Elissa only a tragic intrusion at the worst possible moment.

It was a very moving affair, held in the High Anglican Church with all the weight of spectacle accorded the death of someone who had been brave and beautiful, and deeply loved.

The fog had closed in again, thick yellow-gray in the weak daylight. One of the feathermen waving the black ostrich plumes began to cough as the chill of it caught in his throat. Another stood red-nosed and shivering.

Like everyone else, Hester was dressed in black, not the dead, light-consuming fabric of true mourning, where one was not permitted even a faint gleam in case it should be considered not to be taking bereavement seriously enough. After a year a widow might wear silk, but still black, of course. Petticoats should also be black, and boots and hose, and as plain as possible. If a lady in mourning should lift a skirt to avoid a puddle, there would be considerable talk should she thereby exhibit a petticoat of some lighter shade.

The cortege had not yet arrived, but Kristian and Pendreigh were standing outside the main entrance of the church receiving the mourners and accepting condolences. The magnificent stone archway was carved with angels and flowers. The facade soared above until it faded and all but disappeared in the clinging, motionless fog, only here and there a gargoyle face leering downward.

Pendreigh looked haggard. His fair hair was still smooth and thick, but his face had sunk as if the flesh had withered, and in spite of standing as to attention on parade, there was still something within him that sagged, giving an illusion of emptiness. He was dressed in perfect black, so dark it absorbed even the little light there was, making his hair look the brighter. He spoke with the same gesture to everyone, courteous and mechanical.

Beside him, Kristian also looked stunned and pale. He seemed to be making an effort to say something individual to people, but after a little while he, too, began to repeat himself.

Hester saw Callandra move forward in the line to express her sympathies, and for a moment their eyes met. Callandra was dressed in unrelieved black, but her hat was uncharacteristically stylish, very simple in line, and it became her very much, accentuating the strength in her face, and for once her hair was immaculate. She gave a tiny smile of recognition, but Hester saw the pain of exclusion in her eyes, the misery of not being able to share this whole area of Kristian’s life which cut to the heart. All she could do was offer the same polite words as everyone else. She was merely one of the hospital’s chief benefactors and was possibly representing them all.

She took her turn, speaking first to Kristian, then to Pendreigh. It was brief. In a matter of moments she was followed by Fermin Thorpe, his fleshy face smooth, his manner meticulous. He expressed his horror and his sympathy, shaking his head and looking rather more to Pendreigh than to Kristian. Then he moved on and his place was taken by the next mourner.

The church was filling. The cortege must be due soon. Hester was shivering in spite of her heavy black coat. She moved forward a step, ready to pay her own respects, and found herself immediately behind a very dark man she guessed to be in his forties. His face was striking, with strong, generous features, but she would have paid him no further attention had she not seen Kristian’s reaction to him. To that point his face had been pale and almost expressionless, like that of a man exhausted but unable to sleep, driven to stand upright only by the utmost self-discipline. Now suddenly there was a flash of light in his eyes and something close to a smile.

“Max!” he said with obvious amazement and just as clear pleasure. “How good of you to come! How did you know?”

“I was only in Paris,” Max replied. “I read it in the newspapers.” He clasped Kristian’s hand in both of his. “I’m so desperately sorry. There are too many things to say, a whole world for which there are no words. Something immeasurable has gone out of our lives.”

Kristian nodded without speaking, still clinging to Max’s hand. For the first time he looked close to losing his composure. It cost him a visible effort to turn to Pendreigh, clear his throat, and introduce the two men.

“This is Max Niemann, who stood with us in Vienna in the uprising. He and Elissa and I had a bond . . .” He cleared his throat and coughed, unable to continue.

Pendreigh stepped into the momentary silence, his own voice thick with emotion. “How do you do, Herr Niemann. I am deeply grateful for all that you have been to my daughter in the past. She spoke of you with the profoundest admiration and affection. It is a great comfort to me, and I am sure it is to my son-in-law as well, that you should be here. Little in the world matters as much as friends at a time like this.”

Niemann bowed slightly, bringing his heels together, but without sound. He looked up at Pendreigh, met his eyes with the ghost of a smile, then turned away to allow Hester and Monk to offer their condolences also.

Kristian had regained control of himself sufficiently to speak to Monk, who was now side by side with Hester.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. He managed to sound as if he meant it. “It was good of you to come. I know you are doing all you can to help, and we appreciate it.” He did not look towards Pendreigh, but his inclusion of him was obvious. He looked at Hester, and suddenly speech was difficult for him again. Perhaps it was memory of the experiences they had shared, the long nights in the fever hospital, the battles for reform, the victories and the failures they had felt so deeply. She spoke quickly, to save him the necessity. The words did not matter.

“I’m so sorry. You know we are thinking of you all the time.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice cracking.

To spare him, she turned to Fuller Pendreigh, and Kristian introduced them. She would have liked to say something original that would still have sounded sincere, but nothing came to mind except the usual platitudes.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Pendreigh.” She meant it, but there was nothing to add that made it more comforting. She could remember the stunned feeling she had had when she came home to her parents’ empty house, the place where they should have been and were not anymore.

“Thank you,” he murmured. It was five days since Elissa’s death, but she imagined it would be months before it no longer surprised him. It was still new, a wound, not an ache. He would be going through the ritual because it was expected of him. He was a man who did his duty.

Even as she turned to move on, the hearse arrived, drawn by four black horses, hooves muffled by the fog, black plumes waving. It loomed suddenly, as if it had materialized out of the smothering vapor. The undertaker climbed soundlessly to the pavement. Not a breath of air stirred the long, black weepers trailing from his tall hat. Six pallbearers carried the coffin into the church.

Hester and Monk were now obliged to go in by the side door as the music of the organ shivered through the aisles between the columns of stone and echoed high in the Gothic arches above, and the service began.

Charles had taken care of the funeral of their parents. She wondered now if she had ever thanked him properly for that. She looked around her at the ceremony. It was magnificent, almost frightening in its power, and yet as the music swelled, the familiar words pronounced and all the appropriate responses made, it was comforting also. Here at home, death was always a version of something like this, rich or poor, town or country. There was more splendor or less, but the same ritual. It made it decent, allowed people to do the right thing and have some feeling that it was complete.

Except for those whose grief remained.

It had been different in the Crimea. She had seen so much of it, young men in the flower of their lives, broken on the battlefield or rotted by disease. There were too many to hold funerals for, no churches, no music except a few ragged voices singing for courage rather than the glory of sound.

But the dead went into eternity just the same. This pomp and solemnity, the black feathers and ribbons, the elaborate performance of sorrow, was for the living. Did it really make people feel better, or just that they had done their best and were acquitted?

As the service proceeded, Hester looked sideways to watch Callandra, to their left and a row in front, next to the aisle. Hester wondered what thoughts teemed inside her. A widow could not marry again for years, but a widower could remarry almost immediately, and no one thought the worse of him. It was expected his new wife would wear black in mourning for her predecessor, and Hester wondered with a note of hysteria inside her if her wedding nightgown should be black as well.

She must discipline her thoughts. Callandra had said nothing so unseemly. But Hester knew it was in her mind. The very way she spoke Kristian’s name betrayed her.

Had she any idea what kind of a woman lay in the coffin? Could she imagine the beauty, the vitality and the courage she had had when she was alive, according to Fuller Pendreigh—and Kristian himself?

The service was over at last, and the mourners must leave in the proper order. There was a ritual to be observed. Only the men would go to the graveside, a custom she was sometimes grateful for, but today she found it both patronizing and irritating. Women were considered good enough to nurse the sick and dying, to wash them and lay them out, but not strong enough in temperament or spirit to watch the coffin lowered into the earth.

However, she could attend the funeral meal afterwards. It was to be held at Fuller Pendreigh’s home, not Kristian’s. Had he usurped that right? Or had Kristian yielded it willingly? They had been invited because of the help Monk had offered in attempting to solve the crime.

It seemed like an interminable wait between leaving the church and arriving at Pendreigh’s house in Ebury Street for the funeral meal. The guests were assembled in the splendid hall and in the even more beautiful withdrawing room. Hester noticed immediately that Callandra was not among them. Perhaps that was better, even if faintly hurtful. She had not known Elissa, and since she was representing the hospital, her only connection was with Kristian. Courtesy had been amply met, and for her to have been there might suggest a personal relationship. As Hester knew very well, funerals, even more than weddings, were places for rumor to abound and all kinds of speculation to be given birth.

The whole house was hung with crepe. All the servants were in unrelieved black, and their sorrow seemed genuine. Maids had red eyes and looked shocked and tired. Even the footmen, carrying trays of wine and small tidbits for the guests to eat, spoke softly and stood for the most part in silence.

Hester knew no one else present, other than Monk and Kristian, and it was impossible to speak to Kristian except briefly. This was Pendreigh’s house, but Kristian was equally involved since he was legally Elissa’s closest relative. He had to be seen to speak to everyone, to make them welcome and thank them for their tributes of time and words, and in many cases flowers as well. But standing in the corner, of choice by herself, she watched.

The people appeared to be largely Pendreigh’s friends. They were grave and polite to Kristian, but it was Pendreigh they knew. When they spoke to him there was emotion in the attitudes of their bodies, their bent heads and solemn expressions. They were his generation, and the cut and fabric of their clothes spoke of great wealth and a certain authority. She even recognized a few of them from photographs in the newspapers. At least two were Members of Parliament.

Did Kristian feel as much a foreigner as she felt for him? Was his reserve a matter of a grief he could barely control, or did he know few of these mourners at his wife’s funeral?

The marked exception to that was the striking figure of Max Niemann. While Monk was speaking to Pendreigh and finding himself introduced to varying other people, Hester managed to move closer to Kristian and still unnoticed by him; she listened to their conversation.

“. . . good of you to come,” Kristian said warmly.

“For heaven’s sake, man, did you imagine I would stay away?” Niemann said in amazement. “The past means too much not to have come this short distance. It’s absurd, isn’t it, that after all we’ve seen and done together, that one of us should die in an artist’s studio in London?”

Kristian smiled very slightly, but there was gentleness in it, and no bitterness that Hester could see. “I think she would have preferred something a little . . . more dramatic,” he said wryly. Then his voice dropped. “And to some purpose, not the idiotic accident of calling at an artist’s studio at the wrong moment.”

Niemann put his hand on Kristian’s arm with only the barest hesitation, just a flicker across his face that vanished again. “I’m sorry,” he said fervently. “Elissa, of all people, should have gone out in a blaze of glory. There’s so much futility in the world, so many idiotic tragedies that strike from nowhere. All I can think of is the emptiness now that she’s gone.” His voice was thick with emotion, and he did not move his hand from Kristian’s arm, as if in touching him he could share some bond which was precious to him.

“Another day . . . later . . . we must talk about the past,” Kristian responded. “It’s been far too long. Present crises press and I’ve allowed them to crowd out too much.”

Niemann smiled and shook his head. “Still the same!” He gave Kristian’s arm another swift clasp, then moved on to allow the next person to speak.