"I hear we're going to lose you, Father," said Miss Carmichael nastily. He had never looked so remote, so devoid of human feeling as he did that morning in his laceless alb and dull black chasuble with silver cross. It was as if he attended only in body, while his spirit moved far away. But he looked down at Miss Carmichael absently, seemed to recollect himself, and smiled with genuine mirth.
"God moves in strange ways, Miss Carmichael," he said, and went to speak to someone else.
What was on his mind no one could have guessed; it was the coming confrontation with Paddy over the will, and his dread of seeing Paddy's rage, his need of Paddy's rage and contempt.
Before he began the Requiem Mass he turned to face his congregation; the room was jammed, and reeked so of roses that open windows could not dissipate their heavy perfume.
"I do not intend to make a long eulogy," he said in his clear, almost Oxford diction with its faint Irish underlay. "Mary Carson was known to you all. A pillar of the community, a pillar of the Church she loved more than any living being."
At that point there were those who swore his eyes mocked, but others who maintained just as stoutly that they were dulled with a real and abiding grief.
"A pillar of the Church she loved more than any living being," he repeated more clearly still; he was not one to turn away, either. "In her last hour she was alone, yet she was not alone. For in the hour of our death Our Lord Jesus Christ is with us, within us, bearing the burden of our agony. Not the greatest nor the humblest living being dies alone, and death is sweet. We are gathered here to pray for her immortal soul, that she whom we loved in life shall enjoy her just and eternal reward. Let us pray." The makeshift coffin was so covered in roses it could not be seen, and it rested upon a small wheeled cart the boys had cannibalized from various pieces of farm equipment. Even so, with the windows gaping open and the overpowering scent of roses, they could smell her. The doctor had been talking, too.
"When I reached Drogheda she was so rotten that I just couldn't hold my stomach," he said on the party line to Martin King. "I've never felt so sorry for anyone in all my life as I did then for Paddy Cleary, not only because he's been done out of Drogheda but because he had to shove that awful seething heap in a coffin."
"Then I'm not volunteering for the office of pallbearer," Martin said, so faintly because of all the receivers down that the doctor had to make him repeat the statement three times before he understood it. Hence the cart; no one was willing to shoulder the remains of Mary Carson across the lawn to the vault. And no one was sorry when the vault doors were closed on her and breathing could become normal at last. While the mourners clustered in the big dining room eating, or trying to look as if they were eating, Harry Gough conducted Paddy, his family, Father Ralph, Mrs. Smith and the two maids to the drawing room. None of the mourners had any intention of going home yet, hence the pretense at eating; they wanted to be on hand to see what Paddy looked like when he came out after the reading of the will. To do him and his family justice, they hadn't comported themselves during the funeral as if conscious of their elevated status. As goodhearted as ever, Paddy had wept for his sister, and Fee looked exactly as she always did, as if she didn't care what happened to her.
"Paddy, I want you to contest," Harry Gough said after he had read the amazing document through in a hard, indignant voice. "The wicked old bitch!" said Mrs. Smith; though she liked the priest, she was fonder by far of the Clearys. They had brought babies and children into her life.
But Paddy shook his head. "No, Harry! I couldn't do that. The property was hers, wasn't it? She was quite entitled to do what she liked with it. If she wanted the Church to have it, she wanted the Church to have it. I don't deny it's a bit of a disappointment, but I'm just an ordinary sort of chap, so perhaps it's for the best. I don't think I'd like the responsibility of owning a property the size of Drogheda."