Renny had made up his mind that it was seemly for the brothers to bear the coffin, and bear it they must, though one of them faint. He threw a look, half-harsh, half-affectionate, toward Eden, and, with a curt motion of the chin, indicated that he was to follow. The four took up their burden.
They had lowered her into the ground. Earth had been thrown into the grave. The last words were being spoken: "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." . . . Meggie's soft weeping was mingled with Mr. Fennel's voice. "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body. . . ."
Ernest's face was white and bleak. His jaw had dropped a little. He was inwardly sobbing to himself: "Mama, Mama!" Now she was to be "no more seen." . . .
Augusta, in deepest black, had drawn back her head, facing the concourse with the dignity of sorrow. If she had been isolated from her surroundings, one might easily have been persuaded that her expression was one of profound offence. Was she, perhaps, offended by death? On her next birthday she would be seventy-seven.
The face of Nicholas was like a rock, scarred by the lashings of long-past storms. He stood, massive, looking stoically into the dark aperture before him. But he did not see it. He saw himself, a little lad of five, sitting in the pew he had just left, leaning against his mother, with three-year-old Ernest on her other side, both getting very drowsy. Mama was voluminous in a snuff-coloured, billowing dress, lovely for tiny boys to curl up against, and the broad satin ribbons of her bonnet delightful to fondle. What a fine rich red her hair was then! Strange how it had slipped a generation and struck fire in Renny! Beyond was Papa's stalwart figure, his fresh-tinted stubborn profile that had descended, first to Philip, then to Piers, but not so aristocratic in the last generation. Well, you couldn't do anything about it. You were hurled into this world, floundered about a while, and were hurled out of it. . . . Ernest had taken
