After Bunny’s body is found, Hampden erupts into performative mourning: memorials, counselors, fund-raisers, and public rhetoric from trustees and administrators. Richard, disgusted by the hysteria, reflects on Bunny’s strangely “unreal” appeal—people felt they knew him even when they didn’t—and how death recasts Bunny’s comic constancy into tragedy.

In the days before the funeral the group is scattered. Henry is taken to Connecticut by the Corcorans; Cloke, shaken and drinking heavily, stays with Charles and Camilla; Richard is “looked after” by Judy Poovey and her friends. Francis checks in on Richard, and they panic when Henry reports the Corcorans have ordered an autopsy; the fear eases when Henry learns Mrs. Corcoran’s motive is to disprove rumors that Bunny died drunk. The autopsy finds only minimal alcohol and no drugs, but gossip brands Bunny as a drunken, troubled teen anyway.

Richard receives letters from Julian (saying he is unwell and won’t return until after the funeral) and from Henry (inviting Bunny’s friends to stay at the Corcorans’ house). Richard drives to Connecticut with Francis and Sophie Dearbold; Charles, Camilla, and Cloke go earlier. At Shady Brook, Mr. Corcoran’s loud, Bunny-like voice and sudden sobbing overwhelm Richard with guilt, while Mrs. Corcoran manages appearances obsessively, policing flowers and delivering barbed social remarks. Henry appears pale, ill, and medicated; Mr. Corcoran loudly praises him, then breaks down again, and Bunny’s brothers and their families fill the house.

The night before the funeral is chaotic: relatives, food, drinking, and constant talk. Henry’s headaches worsen and he runs out of medicine, so Richard and Camilla search for painkillers; Cloke later reveals Mrs. Corcoran keeps a well-stocked hidden cache, and he helps Richard steal sedatives and stimulants for Henry. Meanwhile Charles, drunk and unstable, steals Francis’s car keys and drives off in the rain, returning soaked and furious; Francis and Charles clash, and Richard focuses on getting Henry drugged and quiet in the basement.

In the morning, amid rain and tense breakfast, Henry—detached and glassy from pills and Scotch—is one of the pallbearers. The church service is crowded and theatrical: family and coach speeches draw tears, and Henry reads A. E. Housman’s “With Rue My Heart Is Laden,” a poem Bunny loved, which stabs Richard with memory. At the graveside, Julian is present again, the burial feels brutally banal to Richard, and Henry strains to help lower the coffin; when ritual dirt is thrown, Henry lets earth trickle through his fingers and then smears mud across his own lapel and white shirt, shocking the others.