Knaresborough, Yorkshire, 1857
Knaresborough, Yorkshire, 1857George Lupton had been declared dead, but he was not yet buried. His daughter Laura, whose face could just about be seen through black folds of silk and crape and shadow, looked upon the laid-out body from a stool in the corner of the drawing-room. Parcelled up in a cocoon of Knaresborough linen, which threatened to burst open under the weight of his flabby flanks, George had been painstakingly prepared for transit. Laura left nothing to chance. In life, her father always partly attributed his great wealth to what others unkindly called his “superstitions,” and he left strict instructions that she should continue to take account of them after his death. “Always did have money in his eyes,” she thought, looking at the silver coin
