You and I should go sailing again."

He waved to me as he disappeared behind a big, berthed Allied fifty-five footer that I would buy if I had three hundred thousand dollars;

I got some polish from the locker and shined up a brass cleat until it gleamed in the sunlight.

CHAPTER 24

The week after Mr Mancuso and I went sailing, I was helping George Allard plant boxtrees where the central wing of the stables had once been. It was hard work, and I could have had it done professionally, but I like planting trees, and George has an obsession with saving old skinflint Stanhope a few dollars. When men work together, despite class differences, they revert to a natural and instinctive sort of comradeship. Thus, I found I was enjoying my conversation with George, and George himself seemed a little looser, joking and even making an indiscreet remark about his employer. "Mr Stanhope," said George, "offered the missus and me ten thousand dollars to leave the gatehouse. Who's he think is going to do all this work if I weren't here?"

"Mr Stanhope may have a buyer for the entire estate," I said.

"He's got a buyer? Who?"

"I'm not sure he does, George, but Mr Stanhope wants to be able to offer an empty gatehouse if and when he does, or he wants to be able to sell the gatehouse separately."

George nodded. "Well, I don't want to be a problem, but…" "Don't worry about it. I've looked at August Stanhope's will, and it's clear that you and Mrs Allard have lifetime rights of tenancy. Don't let William Stanhope pressure you, and don't take his offer." I added, "You couldn't rent comparable housing for less than twenty thousand a year around here." "Oh, I know that, Mr Sutter. It wasn't much of an offer, and even if he offers more, I wouldn't leave. This is my home."

"Good. We need you at the gate."

It was a hot day, and the work was heavy for a man his age. But men are competitive in this regard, and George was going to show me that he could keep up.

At noon, I said to him, "That's enough for now. I'll meet you back here at about two."

I walked home and had lunch alone as Susan was out, then wrote to my sister, Emily. When I returned to meet George, I found him lying on the ground between unplanted trees. I knelt beside him, but there were no signs of life. George Allard was dead. The gates to Stanhope Hall were unguarded. The wake, held in a funeral home in Locust Valley, was well attended by other elderly estate workers whom the Allards had known over the years. Interestingly, a few older gentry put in appearances as well, ladies and gentlemen of the old vanished world, looking like ghosts themselves, come to pay their respects to one of their own.

The Stanhopes, of course, felt obligated to come in from Hilton Head. They hadn't actually wished George dead, of course, but you knew that the subject had come up in their private conversations over the years, and that it had come up in a way that if you overheard them, you might think they were looking forward to it.

Susan's brother, Peter, still trying to find the meaning of life – this month in Acapulco – could not make it in to contemplate the meaning of death. I was sorry that Carolyn could not be reached in time in Cuba, but Edward flew up from Cocoa Beach.

Many of my family in and around Locust Valley and Lattingtown stopped by the funeral home as they all knew and liked the Allards. My parents, according to Aunt Cornelia, had gone to Europe so I'll never know if they would have driven in for the funeral, and I really don't care, as all gestures on their part are meaningless, I've decided.

There was no reason for Emily to come in from Texas, as she didn't know the Allards that well, but she sent me a cheque to give to Ethel. It is customary when an old servant dies to take up a collection for the widow, this being a holdover, I suppose, from the days before servants had life insurance or Social Security. A good number of people passed cheques or cash to me to give to Ethel. William Stanhope knew this, of course, but didn't come up with any cash of his own. His reasoning, I'm sure, was that he was still obligated to pay Ethel her monthly stipend, as per Augustus's will, and that Ethel was still in the gatehouse, and now George was about to occupy a piece of the Stanhope family plot; though in point of fact, there is more Stanhope family plot left than there are Stanhopes left to occupy it. So he wasn't giving away anything valuable, as usual.

There was no reason for the Bellarosas to come to the funeral home, of course, but Italians, as I've discovered over the years, rarely pass up a funeral. So Frank and Anna stopped in for ten minutes one afternoon, and their presence caused a small stir of excitement, as if they were celebrities. The Bellarosas knelt at the coffin and crossed themselves, then checked out the flower arrangement they'd sent – which incidentally took two men to carry in – then left. They looked as if they did this often.

The Remsens stopped by the funeral home late Friday afternoon – after the closing bell and before happy hour at The Creek – but they pointedly avoided me, though they chatted with Susan for a minute.

One would think that, in the presence of death, people would be compelled into a larger appreciation of life and a sharper perspective of its meaning. One would think that. But to be honest, whatever petty grievances I, myself, had outside the funeral parlour were the same ones I carried inside. Why should Lester Remsen or William Stanhope or anyone be any different? People like the DePauws, Potters, Vandermeers, and so forth, who might have stopped by for a moment as our friends and neighbours out of a sense of noblesse oblige, sent flowers instead. I didn't want to read anything into this, but I could have. I was sure they would make it to my funeral. Jim and Sally Roosevelt did come, and Jim was very good with Ethel, sitting for an hour with her and holding her hand. Sally looks good in black.

So we buried George Allard after church services at St Mark's on a pleasant Saturday morning. The cemetery is a few miles from Stanhope Hall, a private place with no name, filled with the departed rich, and in pharaonic style, with a few dozen loyal servants (though none of them had been killed for their masters' burials), and dozens of pets, and even two polo ponies, one of which was responsible for his rider's death. The old rich insist on being batty right to the end, and beyond.

As I said, George was interred in the Stanhope plot, which is a good-sized piece of land, and ironically the last piece of land the Stanhopes were destined to own on Long Island.

At graveside, there were about fifteen people in attendance, with the Reverend Mr Hunnings officiating; there was the widow, Ethel, the Allards' daughter, Elizabeth, her husband and their two children, William and Charlotte Stanhope, Susan, Edward, and I, plus a few other people whom I didn't know. On the way to the cemetery, the funeral cortege, as is customary, passed by the house of the deceased, and I saw that someone had put a funeral wreath on the gates of Stanhope Hall, something I hadn't seen in years. Why that custom has died out is beyond me, for what could be more natural than to announce to the world, to unwary callers, that there has been a death in the house and that, no, we don't want any encyclopedias or Avon products today. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," said the Reverend Mr Hunnings, throwing a handful of soil atop the coffin. This is when clergy earn their pay. But Hunnings always struck me as a method actor who was playing the part of a priest in a long-running off-Broadway show. Why do I dislike this man? Maybe because he's conned everyone else. But George had seen through him. Hunnings actually delivered a nice eulogy, though I noticed that he never once mentioned the possibility of heaven as a real place. No use talking about a place you've never been to and have no chance of ever going to. Anyway, I was glad, in some perverse way, that I was the last one to see George alive and that we had spoken, and that he died doing what he liked best and where he liked doing it. I had spoken to Ethel and to his daughter, Elizabeth, about our last conversation, and of course, I embellished it a bit in an effort to bring them some comfort. But basically George had been a happy man on the day he died, and that was more than most of us can hope for. I, myself, would not mind dropping dead on my own property, if I owned any property. But better yet, perhaps, I'd like to die on my boat, at sea, and be buried at sea. The thought of dying at my desk upsets me greatly. But if I could choose how and when I wanted to die, I would want to be an eighty-year-old man shot by a jealous young husband who had caught me in bed with his teenage wife. The graveside service was ended, and we all threw a flower on the casket as we filed past on our way to our cars.