Arson & Old Lace by Patricia Harwin

Author:Patricia Harwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2004-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The day of George’s funeral started out bright and sunny. A little British robin, smaller and paler than his flamboyant American cousins, sang from the top of a tombstone as Fiona and I walked down the path to St. Etheldreda’s. Patches of violets bloomed in the corners of the churchyard and the buds of the horse-chestnut by the lych-gate looked big and sticky enough to burst open at any moment. The old cross held its ground at the edge of the empty, unmarked grave still surrounded by yellow scene-of-crime tape.

Fiona and I agreed it was a blessing, not having rain. It always makes a funeral seem sadder.

Not that there was going to be a lot of weeping over George. I had tucked a packet of tissues in my bag just in case, but none of the villagers appeared in danger of breaking down. Nor did Arthur. He came with an attractive blonde woman, I assumed Mrs. Arthur.

It brought back memories of Dad’s funeral, although really it couldn’t have been more different. The minister, at least, had been just as bored and preoccupied as Ian Larribee was today. Dad had never been religious, so Joe Jr., my eldest brother, had called the only clergyman he knew, the pastor of the Episcopal Church of Our Savior, where Mother had taken us when we were children. The boys had dropped out as they had reached the uncooperative years. I’d kept going until I was sixteen, in memory of Mother, and I’d never lost a flickering ember of my childhood faith, deep inside. Quin had always been scornful of “organized religion.” I remembered his funny remarks about the minister’s mannerisms after Dad’s funeral, making me laugh in spite of myself. He had always defused emotion with humor.

But my father had been buried in a crowded city cemetery, as great a contrast as could be from the quiet country graveyard where George would be from now on. As different as the two old men themselves, factory worker and gardener, alike only in dismissing me as a nuisance, I thought with a touch of bitterness.

After the cheap pine coffin had been lowered into the grave in the family plot, surrounded by Crockers going back to the sixteenth century, I walked back down the churchyard with Fiona and Alice White, well behind the chief mourner and his wife. They had barely waited for the coffin to hit the bottom of the hole before they were headed for the Bentley.

“I doubt he’ll ever put up a proper gravestone for his dad,” Fiona said as we passed the robin, still singing his little heart out.

“Yes, very mean, Arthur Crocker is,” Alice agreed. “Always was, even as a boy.”

“That’s right, you were the schoolteacher, weren’t you, Alice?” I exclaimed. “You must have taught the Crocker kids.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “I saw them both grow up. Very good scholars both, although in every other way very different. It was hard for them, losing their mother so young, especially for Annie. Their father preferred the boy, and indulged him far too much, I always thought.

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