Bildungsromans; English fiction -- 20th century; Women musicians -- Fiction
From the very insistence of her thoughts she could not fall asleep
until morning was well advanced, but when she did, her sleep was calm
and dreamless....
§ 9
Of course there was a splendid funeral. It was infinitely more gorgeous
than anything that had taken place in Mrs. Weston’s lifetime. Relatives
were summoned to attend the obsequies, relatives that Catherine had
never seen and had not known existed, relatives with black ties and
rubicund faces and Cockney accents, and that deplorable foreign flavour
that comes of dwelling in another London suburb. They all gathered
together in the drab little front room amongst the bamboo furniture,
and gazed curiously at Catherine. Evidently she did not quite realize
their ideal of a bereaved daughter. They were all a trifle nervous of
the undertaker. Finally, they were all squashed into four black coaches
and driven slowly to the cemetery behind a glass hearse. In front of
the horses walked two men, each bearing what appeared to be a mace.
The day was chilly and sprinkled with April showers; the mourners in
the first coach (in which was Catherine) insisted on having all the
windows closed, until the rain-washed panes were dim with the reek of
their breaths. They carried their pocket-handkerchiefs in their hands,
and spoke in tremulous murmurs.... The cavalcade swept on, through
the dreariest and frowsiest streets in all Bockley, out on to the
murky highways where the mud splashes from passing motor-buses reached
the tops of the window-panes. Then past the Town Hall, magnificently
impeding traffic as they crossed the tram-lines at the Ridgeway
corner, on to the outer fringes of the town, where public-houses and
tin-missions indulged in melancholy stares at one another across
cat-haunted waste land. A slow progress past an avenue of cars at
the tram terminus, and at last to the gates of a pretentious but
infinitely dismal burial-ground. The latter was owned and run on
business lines by a limited liability company, and for many years it
had paid twelve per cent, on its ordinary shares. That dying was a
profitable industry could be seen from the great gates, opening far
back from the road, with their ornate metal-work representing winged
angels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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