“Ask your solicitor,” said Brancepeth.
The remains of the late duke were taken down to Staghurst, his principal place, a vast mansion and a vaster park in a southwest county, his sons and daughter accompanying the corpse; his daughter-in-law went also, taking with her Jack and Gerry; in small things she always did what looked well. If you pay in halfpence in that way the world pays you back in guineas.
The funeral took place on the following morning, on a very disagreeable day, with sleet and rain and wind; and the family vault and monuments were in a churchyard which lay fully exposed to the blasts from the east, with great yews overshadowing it and sepulchral figures by Chantrey and Nollekens and Roubiliac, looking grim and grey in the foggy air.
The late duke had many sincere mourners, for he had inspired many warm friendships in his own world, and respect and regard in all classes. Moreover, the large number of persons who in various ways were connected with, or dependent on, the Duke of Otterbourne could not but view with terror the advent to that title of the small, frail, hectic little man, who had so cynical a smile in his pale eyes and so shocking a reputation in the country. Gossip, too, had not spared that lovely lady in her graceful crape garments, and the beautiful little boys, whose rosy cheeks were a little less bright than usual, as she led them under the darkling yews and the sombre, weird sculptures of the tombs. The people assembled there, especially the tenantry, peasantry, and servants, all felt that the reign of kindness, straightforwardness, and dignity was over, and that the future before them was one clouded and threatening.
“His new Grace do look a mighty poor chap,” said one old laborer to another. “And they do say as his blood’s all brandy, and none o’ the young ’uns is his own.”
“Hold yer gab, Garge, or they’ll hev ye in the lockup,” said his more prudent spouse.
But what the old man said audibly many there present thought.
The ceremony was dreary and tedious; Jack and Gerry were cold and frightened, and everyone else was bored; the clergy alone were, as usual, in all their swelling glory and fussy supremacy, headed by the late duke’s brother, Augustus Orme, who was Bishop of Dunwich and Waton-on-the-Naze.
After the funeral, and reading of the will, the local magnates of county and church dispersed, and everyone else returned to London by the four o’clock express except Cocky and his wife. He was chilly, feverish, sleepy, and disinclined to leave the house, and she wanted to look over the collection of historial laces which had belonged to her mother-in-law, which had never seen the light for many years, Otterbourne having always jealously guarded them as the most sacred heirloom. They could not be sold now, but they might be used, in various ways; at the least they would adorn Drawing-room costumes; there was, she knew, a manteau de cour which had belonged to Henriette d’Angleterre. She was very fond of lace, and she was still more fond of little mauvais tours; she did not forget or forgive many words and acts of the late duke; it was one of those unkind small revenges which were to her pampered taste as cayenne pepper or chutney is to a jaded palate, to unlock the dead lady’s Italian cabinets and Indian boxes and sandal-wood coffers, and to play havoc with the Spanish point, the English point, the Venetian point, the Chantilly, the Flemish, the Dutch, kerchiefs and collars and aprons and flounces and edgings, all fine and rare, many marked with the arms or badges of famous houses or royal wearers of a vanished time.
The poetic interest of the collection was nothing at all to the present duchess; what mattered to her was the value of it in money, though she could not sell it, and the effect it would have if she wore any of it. She did not herself like old lace, it always looked yellow and dingy; but other people did and envied it, and it would all look very nice at some Loan Collection, and make her friends most agreeably jealous. She passed the afternoon hours over it, and in ransacking all the little drawers and boxes in the various cabinets of what had been the favorite sitting-room of the late duchess. Otterbourne, though he had often given his wife cause for jealousy, had been profoundly attached to her and had kept this room untouched, even unentered, except to be swept, dusted, and aired.