He drove none the better for her helpfulness in telling him of cars that wished to overtake, warning him of oncoming cars whenever he pulled out to overtake himself, drawing his attention to traffic signals and dogs about to cross the road. They had several near shaves. All were due to his misjudgment, but she made no comment, she did not even suggest that he might like her to take over the wheel for a change. It had to be admitted, Veronica lived up to her cheerful outlook on funerals: there could not be many women so nonchalantly prepared to be shot into eternity. When the car boiled—it boiled twice—she did not fuss. 207There was nothing to suggest that having come all this way to attend the funeral of a husband who for the last twelve years had refused to live with her she would be annoyed if she arrived too late for it. A woman, Archie said to himself, giving Veronica her due, whom one would find congenial in emergencies; especially if one had a taste for emergencies. Hew had no such taste.

‘I suppose it was his low blood-pressure,’ said Archie, who had been thinking about Hew while Veronica had been talking about him.

‘Low blood-pressure? I don’t see why. Why should low blood-pressure make him dislike alabaster?’

‘Dying so suddenly, I mean. Taken ill one day, dead the next. Fearful shock for young Martin. All the more so for happening at Clovie Shaws, miles from anywhere.’

‘I always thought it sounded a most depressing spot. No view, no drains, midges and that gloomy little river. Besides, why should Hew want to live with those farming Baxters, even if he had known them all his life? Still, Martin liked it. He always enjoyed his visits to Clovie Shaws.’

‘I wonder if he’ll keep on going there.’

‘Oh no!’ Veronica spoke with decision. As if she had overheard the exclamation and thought it too trenchant, she added, ‘It was only for Hew’s sake. Martin has been so good about all that, so scrupulously fair to his father. Dear boy! I’ve always said to him, “Darling, you mustn’t judge. You must just love.”’

‘Damn that sheep!’ The car swerved violently away from a sheep that was grazing by the roadside. ‘These sheep are 208a menace, always causing accidents. As I was going to say, Martin seems to have managed admirably, kept his head, thought of everything, even remembered to send a notice to The Times. But I daresay he’ll be feeling a bit shaken. It’s a nasty shock for a boy of seventeen.’

The pretext of the sheep had failed, and Veronica retorted to the waspish anger she had roused.

‘Well, Archie, Martin rather happens to share my quaint outlook on death. He may think that a dead Hew is a happier, safer Hew than a Hew alive, shut up in that miserable self-centred existence, doing nothing, going nowhere, never able to get outside himself.’

If he were self-centred, why should he want to get outside himself? The question was so nearly jerked out of Archie that he appeared to be mastering a hiccup. Veronica gazed ahead. ‘Those hills,’ she murmured. ‘So wonderfully, so forgivingly blue!’