and death was
emphasized by one of those incongruous incidents that seem to bear on the
character or habits of the deceased. So far from diminishing the nature of the
ceremony, their aptness often increases its intensity, by-passing, so to speak,
ingenuities of ritual and music, bridging with some peculiar fitness the gulf
presented to the imagination by the fact of death. The sensibilities are
brought up with a start to accept what has happened by action or scene,
outwardly untimed, inwardly apposite.
George’s coffin had been
committed to the moss-lined earth, the mourners moving away, when a party of
German prisoners-of-war from the camp, their guard equipped with a tommy-gun
(carried with the greatest nonchalance), straggled across the churchyard on the
way back from a local excursion. They seemed quite unaware of what had been
taking place a moment before, mingling, as it were, with the mourners, at whom
they sheepishly gazed. During the service there had been, in fact, no music, a
minimum of anything that could be called ritual. The POWs seemed in a manner to
take the place of whatever had been lacking in the way of external effects,
forming a rough-and-ready, unknowing guard-of-honour; final reminder of the
course of events that had brought George’s remains to that quiet place.
The church, at the end of the
village, was a few hundred yards from the gates of the park. On the day of
Erridge’s interment, though the weather was not cold for the time of year, rain
was pouring down in steely diagonals across the gravestones. Within the
mediaeval building, large for a country church, the temperature was lower than
in the open, the interior like a wintry cave. Isobel and Norah sat on either
side of me under the portrait medallion, lilac grey marble against an alabaster
background, of the so-called ‘Chemist-Earl’,
depicted in bas relief with sidewhiskers and a high collar, the accompanying
inscription in gothic lettering. A scientist of some distinction and FRS, he
had died unmarried in the eighteen-eighties.
‘My favourite forebear,’ Hugo
said. ‘He did important research into marsh gases, and something called alcohol-radicles.
As you may imagine, there were a lot of contemporary witticisms about the
latter, also jokes within the family about his work on the deodorization of
sewage, which was, I believe, outstanding.’
Heraldry had evidently been
considered inappropriate for the Chemist-Earl, but two or three escutcheons in
the chancel displayed the Tolland gold bezants – ’talents’, in the punning
connotation of the arms – over the similarly canting motto:
Quid oneris in praesentia tollant
. The family’s memorials went
back no further than the middle of the eighteenth century, when the Hugford
heiress (only child of a Lord Mayor) had inhabited Thrubworth; her husband, the
Lord Erridge of the period, migrating there from a property further north. On
the other side of the aisle, almost level with where we sat, a tomb in white
marble, ornate but elegant, was surmounted with sepulchral urns and trophies of
arms.
Sacred to the Memory of
Henry Lucius 1st Earl of Warminster,
Viscount Erridge, Baron Erridge of Mirkbooths,
G.C.B., Lieutenant-General in the Army, etc.
‘Be of good courage and let us
behave ourselves valiantly
for our people, and for the cities of our God:
and let the Lord do that which is good in his sight.’
I. Chronicles, xix. 13.
Even if Wellington were truly
reported in expressing reservations about his abilities as a commander, Henry
Lucius had left some sort of a legend behind him. An astute politician, he had
voted at the right moment for Reform. ‘Lord Erridge made a capital speech,’
wrote Creevey, ‘causing the damn’dest surprise to the Tory waverers, and as I
have heard he is soon to retire with an earldom, he must have decided to
present his valedictions with a flourish before devoting the remaining years of
his life to
emphasized by one of those incongruous incidents that seem to bear on the
character or habits of the deceased. So far from diminishing the nature of the
ceremony, their aptness often increases its intensity, by-passing, so to speak,
ingenuities of ritual and music, bridging with some peculiar fitness the gulf
presented to the imagination by the fact of death. The sensibilities are
brought up with a start to accept what has happened by action or scene,
outwardly untimed, inwardly apposite.
George’s coffin had been
committed to the moss-lined earth, the mourners moving away, when a party of
German prisoners-of-war from the camp, their guard equipped with a tommy-gun
(carried with the greatest nonchalance), straggled across the churchyard on the
way back from a local excursion. They seemed quite unaware of what had been
taking place a moment before, mingling, as it were, with the mourners, at whom
they sheepishly gazed. During the service there had been, in fact, no music, a
minimum of anything that could be called ritual. The POWs seemed in a manner to
take the place of whatever had been lacking in the way of external effects,
forming a rough-and-ready, unknowing guard-of-honour; final reminder of the
course of events that had brought George’s remains to that quiet place.
The church, at the end of the
village, was a few hundred yards from the gates of the park. On the day of
Erridge’s interment, though the weather was not cold for the time of year, rain
was pouring down in steely diagonals across the gravestones. Within the
mediaeval building, large for a country church, the temperature was lower than
in the open, the interior like a wintry cave. Isobel and Norah sat on either
side of me under the portrait medallion, lilac grey marble against an alabaster
background, of the so-called ‘Chemist-Earl’,
depicted in bas relief with sidewhiskers and a high collar, the accompanying
inscription in gothic lettering. A scientist of some distinction and FRS, he
had died unmarried in the eighteen-eighties.
‘My favourite forebear,’ Hugo
said. ‘He did important research into marsh gases, and something called alcohol-radicles.
As you may imagine, there were a lot of contemporary witticisms about the
latter, also jokes within the family about his work on the deodorization of
sewage, which was, I believe, outstanding.’
Heraldry had evidently been
considered inappropriate for the Chemist-Earl, but two or three escutcheons in
the chancel displayed the Tolland gold bezants – ’talents’, in the punning
connotation of the arms – over the similarly canting motto:
Quid oneris in praesentia tollant
. The family’s memorials went
back no further than the middle of the eighteenth century, when the Hugford
heiress (only child of a Lord Mayor) had inhabited Thrubworth; her husband, the
Lord Erridge of the period, migrating there from a property further north. On
the other side of the aisle, almost level with where we sat, a tomb in white
marble, ornate but elegant, was surmounted with sepulchral urns and trophies of
arms.
Sacred to the Memory of
Henry Lucius 1st Earl of Warminster,
Viscount Erridge, Baron Erridge of Mirkbooths,
G.C.B., Lieutenant-General in the Army, etc.
‘Be of good courage and let us
behave ourselves valiantly
for our people, and for the cities of our God:
and let the Lord do that which is good in his sight.’
I. Chronicles, xix. 13.
Even if Wellington were truly
reported in expressing reservations about his abilities as a commander, Henry
Lucius had left some sort of a legend behind him. An astute politician, he had
voted at the right moment for Reform. ‘Lord Erridge made a capital speech,’
wrote Creevey, ‘causing the damn’dest surprise to the Tory waverers, and as I
have heard he is soon to retire with an earldom, he must have decided to
present his valedictions with a flourish before devoting the remaining years of
his life to
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