The Mourning Bells (9 page)

Roger waited several moments, but there was no response.

Now he pulled incessantly on the bell. Surely someone would answer at any moment.

Yes, at any moment.

He heard a scraping noise. Finally, his rescuers were here. He offered one more gentle
ting-a-ling
to encourage them to hurry. Yet he continued to wait. What had that noise been? It had sounded like . . . like perhaps a tree branch rubbing against the side of metal. What did it mean?

He lay as patiently as his panicked mind would allow for several minutes, then started furiously ringing the bell without stopping. These safety coffins were supposed to prevent anyone from being buried alive.

Why wasn’t anyone answering?

T
hree days after her visit with Mr. Vernon, Violet was once again accompanying a body to Brookwood South station. Every trip was a mental struggle with her distaste for trains, but she was determined to ignore her fears and concentrate on her customer. Today it was a very overweight woman by the name of Mrs. Merriman. Violet had had a devil of a time preparing Mrs. Merriman and fitting her into her coffin. Even with Harry’s assistance, it had been a miserable couple of hours of redressing her and packing her bloated frame into the box.

Bodies like Mrs. Merriman’s were unusual, but perhaps she should talk to Mr. Boyce about creating a larger coffin size for just such situations.

Harry had helped her with getting the body aboard the LNR; then he departed for a meeting with the director of Brompton Cemetery on another matter. Violet and Harry were planning a funeral for an elderly, eccentric man who had wished to be buried with his stuffed parrot. The bird had died years ago, and the man had had its innards removed and stuffed with wool. The thing looked and smelled like stagnant pond water, but if that was what the man wanted . . .

Violet wasn’t sure the cemetery director would permit Mr. Mapleton to be interred with his beloved avian friend, but the family had agreed to offer a substantial donation to the cemetery for its acquiescence. Harry’s job today was to help satisfy the deceased’s—and his family’s—wishes.

Violet boarded the third-class carriage and took her usual seat, hoping she could stay awake for the hour-long ride. She had calmed down considerably after visiting James Vernon, although she was positively baffled as to whether the man had a mental disturbance that caused him to act as he did, or if he was attempting to frighten her and cause her to think she was as mad as a March hare in the process.

Nevertheless, she had chosen not to tell her family what had happened, for fear that their response would be an overreaction of such agitation and objection that she wouldn’t be able to further pursue her investigations. She would tell Sam later, although she wasn’t quite sure when “later” would be.

As the train gave its shrill whistle, indicating that it was ready to depart, another black-clad undertaker jumped aboard and took a seat in the aisle across from Violet. She stole a look at him and almost gasped aloud in surprise.

It was Julian Crugg.

Violet had only met the man twice but would remember him forever. Her first encounter with her fellow undertaker was at the scene of a crime, when Crugg had callously stepped over a dead body that was in his way. The second time was when she’d gone to accuse him of the murder of that same body, and he had retorted that she was slandering him. And, of course, there was the issue of Crugg feeling as though Violet had intentionally pilfered some first-class business, conveniently forgetting that the work had been at the behest of the queen.

The train set off with a lurch and began its musical clacking as it picked up speed along the rails. Just as Violet was about to turn her head to the right to set her thoughts on their outdoor surroundings and away from her queasy stomach, Crugg himself turned toward her. Almost immediately, his face was suffused with rage.

Violet nodded a cool greeting to him, but the man was nearly sputtering. She quickly turned away to view the Tudor-styled Lambeth Palace and Lambeth Field to her right. A group of children was already assembling with cricket bats and balls on part of the expansive lawn, which Archbishop Tait had opened up for sporting events several years ago.

A phlegmy throat-clearing snapped her attention back to the train. Mr. Crugg now sat in the seat across from her, his eyebrows practically knit together in their deep frown.

“Are you here to persecute me further, Mrs. Harper?” he asked without preamble.

Here was another undertaker completely furious with her in the space of a few days. Violet could but hope that he wouldn’t attack her physically.

“Do you think I was aware that you would be here today, sir?” she replied stiffly. Today she was in no frame of mind to trifle with the likes of Julian Crugg.

“You’ve sent your nosy daughter in to see me. Why shouldn’t I think that you’ve been spying on me ever since?” A muscle in Crugg’s jaw ticked rapidly. Violet wished there were other undertakers in the carriage with them.

“I assure you, I’ve had no concern for your whereabouts, Mr. Crugg.”

“Yet you will admit that you sent your daughter in to interrogate me over some foolishness. A cowardly act, if I may say so.”

Violet shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Perhaps it had been a bit spineless of her. “She and I both have an interest in some strange circumstances surrounding two bodies that were recently sent to Brookwood.”

He pinched his lips between two fingers and released them. “What sort of circumstances are these?”

“Susanna didn’t tell you? Two bodies shipped in bell coffins turned out to be alive, their occupants springing up from their boxes on the station platform.”

Crugg stared at her, and Violet wasn’t sure if it was in disbelief or if he was thinking up a lie. “Those are certainly strange circumstances. This happened with two different bodies, you say? Which platform?”

“Actually, it was one at the North station and one at the South station.” She watched his expression carefully, but it stayed frozen in place as he considered what Violet had said. As if he’d suddenly reached a decision, Crugg settled back into his seat and unfurrowed his eyebrows.

“That is certainly peculiar. Let’s hope that none of my bodies fly out of their coffins when we arrive.” He delivered a forced, high-pitched laugh.

“Actually, sir, it is my fervent hope and prayer that I will never see such a thing again,” Violet said, probably a little too primly.

Crugg frowned again at having his comment dismissed. “You have a tart tongue, Mrs. Harper.”

“My apologies. You wouldn’t be the first to inform me of it.”

Crugg softened a little at that. They both turned to observe the scenery as they skirted the edges of Wimbledon House and its surrounding parkland in Richmond.

As if the alternating views of Wimbledon’s lawns and forest had a calming effect on Crugg, he asked casually, “So, you have funerals in Brookwood today?”

“Just one, at the Anglican cemetery.”

“Ah. As for myself, I’m accompanying three bodies.”

“You have three funerals to conduct today?” Violet asked. “That is quite a feat.”

Crugg shrugged immodestly. “My services are very much in demand.”

Perhaps, but how was the man planning to spread himself across three funerals when most of his mourners would arrive on the same train this afternoon? Even if this was a busy day and the LNR decided to add several trains, there still wasn’t enough time to do three of them.

Especially for a man as overwrought as Julian Crugg.

They finished their ride in silence, and Violet noted that Crugg never left his spot across from her. As the train whistled and screeched its way into the South station, he said, “Perhaps we might travel back to London together, Mrs. Harper. So you won’t be a lady traveling alone in the carriage, of course.”

Was this a peace offering, or should she be suspicious? Vivid memories of Mr. Vernon and his solicitousness rose to make her inwardly shudder, but Violet decided to take his offer at face value. “Very well, Mr. Crugg, I shall wait for you on the platform for the two fifteen train.”

At least she had resolved her differences with one undertaker, although she couldn’t be certain that he didn’t wish her as much harm as Mr. Vernon had.

 

Violet stood on the South station platform with Julian Crugg, waiting as coffins were unloaded. Since they had left London, the sky had grown overcast and the wind had picked up. A warm gust swirled her black skirts around her feet and attempted to lift her hat from her head. She retied the silk sash beneath her chin to anchor the hat down more firmly.

The coffins began accumulating around the two undertakers as they waited for the hearse vans to arrive and haul them to either the Anglican chapel or their respective grave sites. Those who had already had services at churches in London would be driven directly to their plots.

“Is that your body?” Crugg asked, nodding at an ebony coffin near Violet.

“No,” she said.

“What of that one?” He pointed to another one.

“No, I don’t believe mine has been unloaded.”

He nodded and clasped his hands behind him. What was his concern over which was hers?

“I’m still awaiting some of mine, as well,” he said. “There seem to be many unaccompanied bodies today.”

A young woman in her early twenties wandered out from the first-class reception rooms and stood off to one side. She was fashionably dressed in a gray-and-lavender-checked gown edged along the hem in black, suggesting that she was in the later stages of mourning, particularly since she was meeting the funeral train. Her matching lavender bonnet was decorated with peacock feathers secured by a pin containing the largest pearl Violet had ever seen. Wispy blond curls hung around her heart-shaped face and Cupid’s bow lips. She literally looked like a drawing from the front of a paper-lace-edged Valentine’s Day postcard.

The woman began walking down the length of the platform, but seemed to be searching the passenger trains, as if waiting for someone to disembark. Realizing that the carriages were now empty, she approached Violet and Crugg, her hat’s feathers waving prettily in the breeze. Apparently the wind had chosen to be kinder to this delicate creature than it was to Violet.

The woman softly said, “How do you do?” to Violet even as she was shifting her attention to the coffins around them. Violet watched as the woman searched among the coffins until she apparently found the one she wanted. It was a darkly stained box made of what Violet immediately recognized as sycamore. It was an expensive wood, typically imported from France or Spain.

After another glance at the woman’s stylish dress, Violet decided it had probably spent time in the hands of a French seamstress and had been just as costly as the coffin.

As her eyes idly assessed the coffin, Violet was disturbed to see that it had a bell mechanism attached to it.

The woman knelt down before the coffin, and her skirts flowed around her in a perfect, unjumbled spread. She tugged on the coffin’s lid, as if it were a crate of imported silks she wanted to investigate. Crugg’s eyes widened in horror, and Violet shouted in alarm, “Miss, don’t!” but the woman had the lid thrown off before Violet could reach her.

The woman began speaking softly to the body, sending a chill down Violet’s spine and freezing her in place. Violet often spoke to the dead, a measure she employed as a means of respect for the bodies under her care. Susanna, too, was wont to speak soothingly to corpses.

Was this woman an undertaker? If so, why was she dressed like one of couturier Charles Worth’s famous models?

All of a sudden, the woman reared back and gasped. “Roger? Roger?” she cried as she moved forward again and touched the shoulder of the coffin’s occupant, a young man of about her age with hair only a shade darker than the woman’s.

Violet caught no more than this glimpse of him because the woman then threw herself on him, sobbing and moaning. Her fashionable hat went askew and covered the man’s face.

To his credit, Crugg immediately stepped in and gently lifted the woman from the corpse. “Madam, please, let me help you,” he said.

The woman struggled from Crugg’s grasp, still reaching down toward the man, but the undertaker managed to dislodge her attentions. “Madam, are you—”

The woman finally noticed Crugg’s attentions and turned on him viciously. “Why is my fiancé dead?” she demanded through her tears. “How did he die? Tell me what happened!”

As the distraught young woman continued railing at Crugg, who did his best to comfort her, Violet knelt down herself to examine the body. At least this one was actually deceased, unlike the others she had lately encountered.

Roger, the woman had called him. He was handsome, even in death, with his hair softly swept back away from his face, and his—

Wait a minute. Taking a covert look back to make sure Crugg and the fiancée were still engrossed in their fuss together and not paying attention to her, Violet reached out a hand and examined Roger’s face. It was still . . . pliable. There was no evidence of cosmetics.

In fact, she would almost swear he was still warm from death, although the August heat and his confinement might have contributed to that.

She gently pushed against his lips. His mouth fell open. It hadn’t been sewn or propped shut. Frowning, Violet probed his eyelids. They easily rolled back.

Had this man’s undertaker not done
anything
to prepare his body? She thought of James Vernon, but this was obviously not some pauper’s corpse bound for a medical school or hospital. What in heaven’s name . . . ?

“Ahem, Mrs. Harper,” Crugg said from behind her. Violet rose quickly and turned, using her body to shield Roger, whose mouth dangled open as if in a silent scream, one eye open with just the white showing. If his fiancée had been hysterical before, the sight of this would send her plunging onto the train track.

The young woman clung to Crugg, weeping against his black coat. With a pained look he said, “I’m going to escort this young lady in for some refreshment and then assist her with finding her fiancé’s burial plot. I’ve managed to pull from her that his family does have a crypt here. I’ll see you again for the two fifteen train.”

With that, he managed to disengage the woman at least a couple of inches, and walked with her into the station. Violet wanted to tell Crugg about the condition of the body but saw that there was now just one coffin left on the platform, hers, and a hearse driver stood waiting patiently next to it. She needed to turn her attentions to her own funeral.