"We should be very grateful," said the Duke.
"There's three locks to the chest," said Mr. Tuckwell. "One for parson, one for each warden. Wardens is Farmer Pratley and Mr. Hine at the mill. I'll send the girl."
It took an hour to collect the keys; it always did. She spent the hour walking round the churchyard with Robin, reading the stones. They found Bertram's aunt, Dorcas Rendle, schoolmistress, against the south wall, under a slate gone green. And three yards from her, half sunk into the grass and leaning a little toward the yew, there was a small headstone of the local grey stone, very plain, with no ornament on it at all except a line cut round the edge, and Frances knelt down in the wet and pulled the grass away from the lettering with her hands.
PHOEBE, it said. WIFE OF M. S. DIED XIV DECEMBER MDCCLXXXV IN THE XXIII YEAR OF HER AGE. NOT TWO BUT ONE.
Frances sat back on her heels. She did not call the Duke. He had come out of the porch and was standing at the gate, watching her; he came over without being called and stood beside her and looked down at the stone for a long time, and then he took off his hat.
"Wife," he said.
"Yes."
"He put wife on her stone. In the year he came down from Oxford. And then he went home and told his father he'd lost the seal at cards." The Duke's voice was very quiet. "And then he married my mother, and had me christened in the chapel at Halvergate with three bishops present, and paid an attorney in the Turl to send money to a dame school every quarter for eighteen years, and never came back. That is the man I wore black for. That is whose hatchment is over my door."
"He was nineteen," said Frances. "And frightened."
"He was nineteen in 1785. He was fifty-three when he died. He had thirty-four years to be less frightened." The Duke put his hat back on. "Come. The wardens are here."