Lady of Ashes (15 page)

Against the backdrop of the gently chugging train pulling away from Brighton, neither knew that disaster would overtake them in a few minutes.

A
nondescript, middle-aged woman joined Violet on the wood bench opposite her and Susanna. The woman looked pained and exhausted, in the manner of a servant, despite her fashionable clothing.

Since they would be sharing the space for the next couple of hours, Violet folded the paper up and extended a hand in friendship. “Good morning. I am Mrs. Morgan.”

The other woman grasped it tentatively. “Yes. I’m Mrs. Wil—Mrs. Barrett.”

“Do you live in London, Mrs. Barrett?” Violet asked.

“Yes. No. I’ve spent many years in London. I lost my husband a few months ago and with nothing left for me in Brighton, I’m headed to Lambeth for a housekeeping position that a friend arranged for me.”

The woman was not wearing any phase of mourning clothing, not even a pair of jet earrings or a hair brooch. When in deep mourning, a woman who could afford to do so withdrew from activities for at least a year. During that first year after her husband’s death, a widow wore a black dress covered with crape and a widow’s cap with a veil, in addition to a full complement of jet ornaments. During the next twelve months, or second mourning, a widow’s dress contained less crape and she did away with the cap and jet ornaments. If mourning continued into a third year, it was termed “half-mourning,” and gray or purple was added as a color. Mrs. Barrett was probably just running away from an abusive husband, but it was none of her business. “I see. I trust you will have a pleasant journey.”

“I wish you a pleasant journey, as well. Is your home in Brighton or London?”

“London. My husband and I are undertakers in Paddington.”

Mrs. Barrett reacted like everyone who heard Violet utter those words for the first time, in a mix of disbelief and revulsion, covered over with a falsely bright smile.

“That sounds lovely,” she said.

Violet was tempted to laugh but knew she would offend poor Mrs. Barrett’s attempt at polite conversation. Instead, she tried another subject. “I’ve always been impressed by the efficient and complex system of flags and lamps the railway signalmen use to ensure rail traffic moves smoothly and without incident. There must be thousands of miles of track that crisscross the country.”

“Yes, very impressive.” Which Mrs. Barrett clearly wasn’t. Susanna’s sleeping form seemed to catch the woman’s eye for the first time, and Mrs. Barrett stared curiously at her and back up at Violet. “Surely you aren’t her mother?”

Violet started. “I’m sorry, why would you ask such a thing?”

Mrs. Barrett reddened. “Pardon me, it’s just . . . you and she look so different. She must resemble her father.”

Violet stroked Susanna’s curls. How was the child able to sleep through so much noise?

“Perhaps. I’m caring for her in the absence of her mother.”

Mrs. Barrett nodded knowingly. “She’s a lovely child, though.”

“She is, isn’t she? Unfortunately, she doesn’t speak. I’m not sure if she’s mute or simply refuses to talk.”

“Is that so? So . . . she’s never spoken a single word to you?”

“Never.”

Mrs. Barrett sat back, fanning herself in the August heat, which was considerable even at this early hour, and conversation ceased between them. Susanna chose that moment of silence to awaken from her nap. She sat up next to Violet, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

Violet looked at the girl anew. The past few weeks had been good for her. She’d filled out in her face and extremities. Why, she had the look of a girl soon to blossom into womanhood.

It was the expression on Susanna’s face, though, that really grabbed Violet’s attention. She looked . . . concerned. No, frightened. Of what?

Before she could try to determine what was bothering the girl, the train entered a tunnel and everything went dark, leaving Violet distinctly uncomfortable. Susanna must have realized they were about to enter the tunnel, and that was what made her nervous.

Before Violet could offer the girl a reassuring word, the train slowed to a complete stop inside the tunnel. England’s swelling numbers of trains shared tracks and were forever being signaled to stop and wait for other trains to pass by in the opposite direction, but stopping inside a tunnel was a new and unnerving experience.

The forty or so people in the carriage went completely silent, as though the darkness commanded it. For her part, Susanna laid her head on Violet’s shoulder and clutched her hand. Violet suddenly wished she’d purchased first-class tickets so that they would have the light of gas lamps.

Suddenly they began to move backward, so that Violet and Susanna were themselves facing in a forward direction, and now Mrs. Barrett, wherever she was in the inky black car, was facing backward.

Violet assumed a signaling mistake had been made and they were now backing out of the tunnel to get out of the way for an oncoming train.

Now she saw light seeping in from the tunnel’s end, and as the train curved along a bend in the track, what she saw in the emerging daylight confused her.

It couldn’t be.

She raised a hand and pointed, too shocked to even utter a sound, but it was enough to get the attention of other passengers, who gasped and screamed where Violet could say nothing. Their reaction got the attention of the guard, who turned to see what was bothering his passengers.

It was too late for the man to do anything about it.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,
popped unbidden into her mind.

As they came out of the tunnel, another train was hurtling toward theirs from a different track joining it at a point where the guard’s van would soon pass. The engine driver must have realized what was happening at the moment Violet did, because suddenly the air was split with the terrible shrieking and squealing of a train attempting to stop in far less space than it was physically possible for it to do.

“Dear God in heaven!” someone exclaimed from behind her, scrambling out of his seat and running to the front of the car. Others followed him, trying in the space of seconds to rush as far away from the oncoming train as possible. Human nature demanded that they do whatever they could to preserve themselves, yet it was a futile task. The oncoming engine was twice the length of their railway car. They would be obliterated.

As though time had lost its ability to control movement, everything seemed to slow down into motionless frames, like the pictures created by Mr. Laroche.

Violet’s stomach lurched in a combination of fear and disbelief, while hundreds of thoughts ran simultaneously through her mind. She had to protect Susanna. Were they really to die in a train wreck? She wanted her mother. How badly would it hurt? Surely this wasn’t happening. What undertaker would tend to her when she died?

In a brief moment of clarity, Violet pulled Susanna’s face to her chest and wrapped both arms around her, although she knew it was a futile gesture against several tons of iron intent on devouring them.

The engine car slammed into the rear of the guard car. The explosive strike of metal against metal and wood, combined with the screeching of a train still attempting to brake, was beyond deafening and overcame the terrified screams of terror in the car. Violet watched in horror as the guard was thrown from the van, his eyes already sightless as he was ejected through the side of his carriage and out of view. The guard van tumbled off the track and down the embankment.

Now it was their turn to dance the capricious ballet with death. The engine roared up, still shrieking its desire not to do so, and mounted the rear of their car, pushing the entire train back again toward the tunnel. Violet’s head whipped forward and backward, nearly knocking her unconscious, but she wasn’t fortunate enough to actually go blank.

She looked up again at the engine, which now resembled a mythical monster overtaking them, given that it was already a big beast and was now hitched on top of the end of her car. It was close enough and twisted at such an angle that Violet could see the engine driver’s frantic actions as he stood at the back of the beast he was trying futilely to control.

Heat and steam now flooded the car, burning hot like a roasting jack spit. Boiling-hot water was spraying against them all. Violet felt a searing pain rush up her arm, but there was no time to consider it. She attempted to get up from her seat, but with Susanna in her arms and the wet floor beneath her long, heavy skirts, it was impossible to move. She stayed there, bent over Susanna to cover her as best she could while enduring the endless rain of hot water pelting her head, back, and arms. The pain was so severe she cried out, but the sound was lost in the chaos.

Along with the unbearable heat came an odd smell. It was familiar, but what was it?

Despite her own confusion, she realized that the driver saw something even more fearful than a railway engine climbing on top of defenseless passengers. In an instant, Violet understood the engine driver’s panic. The engine, now lifted too high up in the air, collided with the curved arch of the tunnel they had just entered.

The arch stopped the engine, yet underneath the engine still lay part of Violet’s car that it had been coercing back into the tunnel. The competing forces were too much for Violet’s carriage.

The rear passenger car of the Brighton to London excursion train of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway split to pieces in a tangle of iron, wood, frightened cries, and flailing limbs. Violet was struck in the face by a child’s shoe and out of the corner of her eye saw a man decapitated by a flying piece of metal.

It happened so quickly and the man disappeared from view so fast that she wasn’t sure she’d actually witnessed what she thought she had.

There was no time to think on it, for Violet realized that Susanna was no longer in her arms.

Her final registered thought, though, was recognition of what the terrible odor was. She remembered it from the bodies of those who had been in terrible accidents. It was the stench of burning human flesh.

 

Violet awoke. Rather, she was jerked awake by the sounds of screaming and crying all around her.

She attempted to open her eyes, but only one was functioning. Not that it mattered because the light was so dim. She reached up her left hand. What was smeared all over her face? She put her hand up in front of her good eye. Blood, and a lot of it. She touched around her eye again. Ah, the pain sent shooting stars into her head.

Now gaining enough cognizance to realize she was lying amid gravel and debris next to the track inside the tunnel, Violet pushed herself into a sitting position. The movement nearly caused her to faint.

More realization. There was relentless pain in her right arm. She held it up. The fabric of her dress was charred and molded to her scorched flesh. Despite the number of dead bodies she’d seen in her life, the glimpse of her own burned limb made her ill.

She attempted to work the fingers of her right arm, which sent brilliant lightning flashes of agony up her arm, so she stopped, letting her arm dangle uselessly next to her.
I need help
was her last thought before going unconscious again, a sweet relief from the agony in her arm.

 

Violet awoke once again and gradually became aware of the world around her. So much crying and moaning. When would it stop? She put her hands over her ears, but it did nothing to stop the piteous cries of those who had been burned or injured far worse than Violet had, and only served to remind her that her right arm could not be moved without a torturous sensation.

She was becoming more alert as she realized she was missing something important.

“Susanna?” she whispered, reaching out into the dark. No answer. Someone stumbled past her, calling out for someone named Jane and kicking up a sharp stone against her shoulder. Violet was still too groggy to even cry out from the impact.

Two swinging pinpoints of light came into focus. She squinted her good eye as they approached. It was a railway worker carrying a pair of lanterns, bending down at intervals, as if inspecting something.

“Hello!” Violet croaked. The lights moved up as the worker held the lamps aloft. In a moment, he was next to her. The lanterns shone on the worker’s horror as he gazed into Violet’s face.

“Am I that bad?” she asked.

“Er, no, madam, I’m sure it looks worse than it is. Can you stand?” He offered an arm to lift her up. Her blood rushed downward as she stood, and she grasped his arm with her left hand while gaining her balance.

She reached up her hand gingerly once again to inspect her face. Her right eye was completely swollen shut. Well, there was no telling what the real damage was there, and it was of less importance than finding Susanna, anyway.