She probably couldn’t understand, any more than Daniel could have understood Deirdre’s preoccupation with wealth and political power; but it was the polite thing to say.
“—but he’s trustee for Uncle Stacey’s widow during her life. That will surely affect his decision?”
The crematorium was a low, cast-concrete building, modeled on a pre-Hiatus temple; there were Corinthian pilasters across the front. The actor dressed as the deceased took his place to one side of the square bronze door flanked by the torch bearers, while the attendant locked the bier against the opening.
The coffin was closed; the last six months had ravaged Stacey beyond what his nephew was willing to display to the world. A touch of a button would roll it through the door into the gas flames.
The clowns had split to either side of the crematorium and waited behind it, still wearing their costumes but talking among themselves in low voices. Their parts were played, but their dressing rooms were trailers behind the chapel, inaccessible until the crowd dispersed.
The troupe of ancestors seated themselves on the triple semicircle of folding chairs, each with a pole holding a card with the name of the character the actor represented. An usher guided Daniel and the widowed Mistress Bergen to their place on the left behind the actors; another usher gestured Adele and Deirdre to the right.
Adele looked across the lines of age-blackened death masks to Daniel Leary, who beamed with pride and the joy of life. Beside and behind her, ushers were arraying the other mourners—admirals and cabinet ministers and merchant princes.
She looked at her companion. “Deirdre,” she said, “your brother will fulfill his duties to the widow in the fashion that seems best to him. I can’t guess what that will be; I’m not Daniel. But—”
She felt herself stiffen to even greater rigidity than usual, and her voice honed itself to a sharp edge.
“—I would be very surprised if it crossed his mind that he should take up the partnership that his father used to degrade Uncle Stacey. And if Daniel did consider that, I would be merely one of his many friends to tell him that the notion was absurd. Am I sufficiently clear?”
Music, an instrumental version of a martial hymn, boomed from speakers beneath the front corners of the crematorium. The coffin began to rumble forward.
“Perfectly clear,” Deirdre said. “I’ll report your thoughts to my principal.”
The bronze door sprang upward and shut behind the coffin; an instant later, Adele felt the throb of the concealed gas flames. Deirdre leaned closer to continue in Adele’s ear, “For what it’s worth . . . Speaker Leary doesn’t respect very many people. I believe that he’ll be more pleased than not that his son is one of those few.”
* * *
Attendants had opened side gates so that spectators could disperse through the park as well as going up the avenue to the chapel the way they’d come. Daniel took off his saucer hat and mopped his face and brow with a handkerchief. He could barely see for sweat and the emotions that’d been surging through him during the morning.
“It went well, Uncle Stacey,” he muttered under his breath. By God it had! All Cinnabar had turned out to cheer the Republic’s greatest explorer off on his final voyage.
Maryam Bergen had left on the arm of Bergen and Associates’ shop foreman, an old shipmate of her husband’s and, not coincidentally, her brother. A mere workman couldn’t be part of the official mourning, of course, but the foreman and most of the other yard employees had been given places just outside the fence where they had an unrivaled view.
“Here you go, master,” Hogg muttered, offering Daniel a silver half-pint flask. He’d already unscrewed the jigger measure that covered the stopper. He eyed the dispersing crowd, wearing an expression of the same satisfaction that Daniel felt.
“What is it?” Daniel said as he plucked out the cork.
“It’s wet and you need it,” Hogg said. “Just drink.”
Not precisely what a gentleman’s gentleman would have said, but Daniel was a country gentleman which was a very different thing from the citified version. He took a swig of what might have been cherry brandy and certainly was strong enough to fuel an engine.