The old mistress’s coffin was placed on a table in the magnificent drawing room at Forrester’s Folly, where she lay in state for three days, with the curtains tightly drawn and candles in heavy silver candlesticks shining down on her day and night.
On the day of the funeral, six perfectly matched black stallions with enormous feather plumes rising from their manes attached to the glass hearse that would take Mrs Forrester on her final journey, stood outside impatiently pawing at the ground. Inside, the mourners who wished to pay their final respects filed silently past her casket, their faces wreathed in sorrow, for despite the fact that Maude Forrester had been an abrupt kind of woman, she had also been loved by many. Finally it only remained for the close family to say their goodbyes. Amy was allowed to enter the room with them and as she looked down on the old woman she had come to love, a huge lump formed in her throat. At each corner of the beautiful mahogany coffin stood men in tall black silk hats encircled with purple ribbons, their hands encased in black gloves crossed respectfully in front of them, their heads bowed. This was the first time that Amy had seen the old woman since the night of her death and she knew that it would be the last. Just as she would have wished, Mrs Forrester had been dressed in her most flamboyant gown and she looked so peaceful that Amy could almost believe that she was simply fast asleep. Without their numerous rings, her hands were criss-crossed with veins, and death had kissed her lips with a faint tinge of purple.
They each said their goodbyes in their own way. Josephine bent and kissed the wrinkled cheek. Samuel and Adam stood with bowed heads offering up silent prayers. Eugenie chose to stand in a corner of the room looking totally disinterested in the whole proceedings, whilst Amy reached into the coffin and squeezed the hand that the woman had extended to her in friendship in life. It was as cold as marble but she hardly had time to think of it when a fifth man, who had been standing a respectful distance away, stepped forward. It was time and the family silently filed from the room whilst the coffin lid was nailed into place.
It was a silent procession that wended its way to Caldecote Church. It was some distance from The Folly, but the old woman had loved it there; Samuel’s father – her late husband Charlie – was buried there, and it had been her wish that she should be interred next to him. The snow had begun to fall softly and as each white flake settled on the cheeks of the mourners they mingled with their tears. The white carpet blanketed the sound of the horses’ hooves and the carriage wheels. The tiny church had never seen so many mourners, for the Forresters’ friends and colleagues had travelled from far and wide to attend the funeral. When the pallbearers finally placed the coffin in front of the altar, the church doors had to be left open so that the mourners who were forced to stand outside when the church was full could hear the service.
The vicar’s voice rang from the rafters and out into the snowy churchyard, and once it was over the pallbearers again lifted the heavy coffin on to their shoulders. Each perfectly in step, they bore it to the grave that had taken two gravediggers a whole day to dig in the hard ground of the peaceful little churchyard. There the coffin was lowered into the yawning hole, and by the time the guiding ropes had been removed and the men had respectfully stood aside for the final part of the commitment, the gleaming mahogany lid and the shining brass name-plate were already white over with snow. Loud and clear, the vicar’s voice echoed to every corner of the churchyard as he solemnly intoned the last words of the burial service, his heavily embroidered stole standing out in stark contrast to his crisp white surplice and his black clerical robes.
Amy’s eyes sought Josephine Forrester’s but they were hidden behind a heavy black veil. Samuel Forrester stood beside her, his eyes bottomless pools of pain, but he held himself erect, his shoulders straight and his head high, determined that his mother should enter heaven with the dignity that she deserved. It was unusual for the