Original Sin by P. D. James Page B

of the mourners, unable to help herself she had broken down, Claudia Etienne had looked briefly at her with a mixture of wonder and irritation, as if to say, 'If his daughter and his friends can control themselves, why can't you?' The grief had been made to seem in bad taste, as presumptuous as was her wreath, ostentatious among the family's simple cut flowers. She had remembered overhearing Gerard Etienne's comment made to his sister. 'God, Blackie's overdone it. That wreath wouldn't disgrace a New York Mafia funeral. What's she trying to do, making everyone think she was his mistress?'
    And next day, at a small private ceremony, the five partners had thrown his ashes into the Thames from the terrace of Innocent House. She hadn't been asked to take part but Frances Peverell had come into her office and said: 'You might like to join us on the terrace, Blackie. I think my father would have liked you to be there.' She had stood well back, careful not to be in their way. They had stood a little distanced from each other, close to the edge of the terrace. The white ground bones which were all that remained of Henry Peverell were in a tin which looked to her curiously like a biscuit tin. They passed it from hand to hand, took out a fistful of the grains and dropped or flung them into the Thames. She remembered that it had been high tide with a flesh breeze blowing. The river, ochre-brown, had slapped against the jetty walls, sending out small droplets of spray. Frances Peverell's hands had been damp; the fragments of bone had stuck to them and afterwards she had wiped her hands surreptitiously against her skirt. She had been perfectly calm as she had spoken by heart the words from Cymbeline, beginning:
    Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
    Nor the furious winter's rages;
    Thou thy worldly task hast done,
    Home art gone and ta'en thy wages.
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    It seemed to Blackie that they had forgotten to decide on the order of speaking and there was a short silence before James de Witt moved closer to the edge of the terraceand spoke words from the Apocrypha. 'The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and there shall no torment touch them.' Afterwards he had let his portion of ashes trickle from his hands as if counting every separate grain. Gabriel Dauntsey had read a poem by Wilfred Owen which was unfamiliar to her, but afterwards she had looked it up and had wondered a little at his choice.
    I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair. Along the wharves by the water-house, And through the cavernous slaughterhouse, I am the shadow that walks there.
    Yet I have flesh both firm and cool, And eyes tumultuous as the gems Of moons and lamps in the full Thames When dusk sails wavering down the Pool.
    Claudia Etienne had been the briefest, with just two lines:
    The worst that can befall us, measured right, Is a long slumber and a long goodnight.
    She had spoken them loudly but rather fast with a fierce intensity which gave the impression that she disapproved of the whole charade. After her had come Jean-Philippe Etienne. He hadn't been seen at Innocent House since his retirement a year earlier and had been driven up from his remote house on the Essex coast by his chauffeur, arriving just before the ceremony was due to begin and leaving immediately afterwards without sharing the buffet lunch prepared in the boardroom. But his passage had been the longest and he had read it in a flat voice, holding on to one of the finials of the railings for support. De Witt had told her afterwards that it was from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius but at the time only a brief passage impressed itself on Blackie's mind:
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    In a word all the things of the body are as a river, and the things of the soul as a dream and a vapour; and life is a warfare and a pilgrim's sojourn, and fame after death is only forgetfulness.
    Gerard Etienne had been last. He had flung the ground bones from him as if shaking off all the past, and had spoken words from Ecclesiastes:
    For to him