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hath but a short time to live.’
    The crows were whirling in the sky again, rising, scattering, falling; on the hillside, the man still ploughed. The sun still shone. The world was quite unchanged.
    ‘In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succour but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?’
    I was holding my breath, as if waiting for something to happen. And soon, of course, it did; they moved forward and began to slip the ropes. I looked up. Maxim was standing a few paces away from me, stock still, a black shadow. We were all black, in that golden sunshine. But it was Giles whose face I watched, as I looked at him across the open grave, Giles, heavy jowled, sunken eyed, weeping and doing nothing to try and restrain his tears. Giles, with Roger beside him. But I could not look at Roger’s face, I slid my eyes away in embarrassment. Now, they were stepping forward.
    ‘For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear sister
     
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    here departed, we therefore commit her body to the ground.’
    Now they were leaning down and scattering their handful of earth. I reached for Maxim’s hand. His fingers were unresponsive and cold, and as I touched them I saw Beatrice again, vividly before me, as I saw her all the time now, Beatrice in her tweed suit and brogues striding towards me across the lawns, her plain, open face curious, interested, full of friendliness. Beatrice, from whom I had never had an unkind or unfair word.
    ‘I heard a voice from heaven say unto me write, from henceforth, blessed be the dead which die in the Lord.’
    I wished that I could weep then. I should have wept, it was not for want of feeling that my eyes were dry. Instead, I thought how glorious the day was and how much she would have revelled in it, riding out somewhere on one of her hunters, or walking the dogs — she had scarcely ever seemed to be indoors during the day, and then I thought again how wrong it had been, how unfair. Beatrice ought to have fallen off a horse in a ripe old age, hunting to the end, and happy, careless on such a day as this, not been enfeebled and humiliated after a stroke when she was not even sixty. Or else it should have been Giles, fat, unhealthy looking Giles, crumpled now, his moon face creased and wet, a great white handkerchief held to his mouth. Or Roger. I glanced at him quickly again as he stood beside his father, and had the appalling thought that death would surely have been preferable to such disfigurement, but knew that that was for our sakes, to spare ourselves the unpleasantness of having to look at him, not for his.
    There was a silence. We stood around the grave, looking
     
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    down on the pale oak coffin and its dark crumblings of earth. They had taken off the golden flowers and laid them on the grass, and now I saw how many others there were, lining the graveside, heaped beside the path, wreaths and crosses and cushions of gold and white and bronze and purple set like jewels in their green setting, and as we turned I saw how many people there were, standing back a little, respectfully, to let us pass, perhaps fifty or sixty of them. How many friends Beatrice had had, how loved she had been, how well known and liked and respected.
    Now, as we went uncertainly forward, back to the cars, the play over, Maxim gripped my own hand very hard. They were staring at us and trying not to stare, they were thinking, wondering, speculating, I felt their eyes, though I cast mine down, I wondered how we would get through it, or how we could face them afterwards, at the house, whether Maxim would be able to cope at all.
    But as my thoughts were swirling in panic, at the worst moment, when we were surrounded by the people like a black forest of trees crowding in upon us, I half stumbled, moving from the grass to the gravelled path, and as I did so, felt a hand steadying me on the other side, away from Maxim, so that I