Late Duchess

On December 22 last, the Dowager Duchess of Rutland, a portrait painter famed in Victoria's day as a beauty, breathed her last in the London house of her son. His Grace the Duke of Rutland shut up her corpse in his town house and, telling no one, traveled to Belvoir (pronounced Beaver) Castle, his home in Lincolnshire, to entertain family and friends over Christmas. Not until last week did Britons learn that, ignoring customary burial practices, the Duke had thus kept his mother's death a secret for six days. The Duke hastily explained that he had acted in accordance with his mother's deathbed wish--that her death must not spoil the family Christmas party.

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