The Mourning Bells (16 page)

In the meantime, her primary concerns were to keep her husband calm, her daughter safe, and Inspector Hurst at bay.

S
ome visits to customer homes were more difficult than others. Today’s was simply revolting. Violet cringed as she set down the bone china teacup into its saucer. Rowena Westbrook, daughter of the newly deceased Charles Westbrook, was proving to be quite a bitter pill.

“Mama,” the overly primped young woman in black silk said to the serene matron seated across from Violet in what was obviously a lesser parlor in their home, “isn’t that too much expense for his funeral? After all, he will just end up in the crypt. It seems such a waste.”

Children, even adult children, were frequently the most broken up over a parent’s demise. Not in the case of Miss Westbrook, who eyed the undertaker’s book in Violet’s lap as though it were a dead rat. It was opened to the Society section; perhaps the girl thought Violet should have flipped one more section over, to Titled, but that was beyond their station, no matter how much Mr. Westbrook may have made from his cotton mills.

“After all, we have my birthday party next month to think of, and the holiday in Paris. Surely we will still go? Please, Mama? It is my first trip to the Continent.”

“Well,” Rowena’s mother said hesitantly, “the trip was planned for mid-October. . . .”

That was merely two months away! An indecent mourning period by any standard. Even Mary, whose husband had been loathsome, wasn’t this callous. Violet had to step in. “Madam, if I may, the timing of such a trip might be viewed poorly by your neighbors and friends. Perhaps in the spring?” Even that was still obscenely early.

“Yes, I’m sure you’re quite right, Mrs. Harper. We don’t want the neighbors’ tongues wagging, do we, Rowena dear?”

Rowena put her lip out in a spoiled way Violet had seen many times before. “Can’t we just tell them that we are going to France to mourn out of the public eye? That we’re going into seclusion in a little seaside villa in Saint-Tropez?”

“I suppose that might work.” To Violet’s horror, Mrs. Westbrook was visibly working out the idea in her head.

“Madam, would you not be more comfortable mourning here, surrounded by your friends and family, instead of alone in a far-off land?” Violet prompted.

Mrs. Westbrook opened her mouth to speak, but Rowena interrupted. “Here? It’s so boring here. Besides, I’m sure Papa would have wanted us to be happy, right, Mama?”

“Of course, of course.”

Rowena smiled with greater satisfaction than Mrs. Softpaws after triumphing over a cornered rat. “It makes sense then, doesn’t it, that we shouldn’t spend so much for Papa’s funeral, because he would have wanted us to pay for new dresses, and opera boxes, and cathedral tours.”

“Yes, you’re right, my dear,” replied her mother, with an air of distraction. She turned back to Violet. “Have you something less pretentious?”

These two were nothing like the red-eyed butler who had solemnly answered the door, or the sniffling maid who had brought in tea. Even the household cook must have been in mourning, for their lemon cakes had black-sugared crosses atop the white icing.

It was never a good sign when the servants were in deeper mourning than the relations. Violet presumed that Mr. Westbrook was probably kind and generous to a fault with anyone he met. His servants obviously loved him for it, whereas his wife and daughter despised what they perceived as weakness in the man.

Violet loathed funerals such as this. Her first husband, Graham, who had taught her the undertaking business, had once told her these were the best funerals, for there was very little comforting to do since the undertaker was responsible only to the family, not the servants. Violet, however, did not see it this way. What kind of earthly departure was the deceased receiving when the relatives were too bored with the proceedings to agonize over what clothing to bury their loved one in, to worry over whether there were enough lilies surrounding the coffin? Would Mrs. Westbrook and the spoiled Rowena slave tirelessly over a hair bracelet so that it would be ready in time to wear for the funeral?

Did they not consider what their loved one must think if he were looking down upon them?

Violet shoved the thought from her mind and flipped back to the Tradesman section of her book. Most people sought to move ahead inside her undertaker’s book, not go backward. “Of course, madam.”

For the next half hour, she helped Mrs. Westbrook, with plenty of commentary from her daughter, plan a funeral for her husband that was insulting and ill-suited to Mr. Westbrook’s station. Violet left with her temper barely intact. She worked off her irritation as she walked to Scotland Yard to see Inspector Hurst.

Her temper wasn’t much improved after seeing the detective.

“Yes, we visited James Vernon’s shop. Not very impressive, is it? Hard to believe he has as much business as he says he does,” Hurst said, looking to Pratt for confirmation.

Pratt nodded. “Not nearly as well equipped as yours, Mrs. Harper.”

Violet already knew the condition of Vernon’s shop. “Did you learn anything?”

Hurst shrugged. “Except that he might be a shoddy undertaker, which isn’t illegal, I don’t see that he knows anything about the bodies that have you upset. I think you’ve got your dander up about nothing.”

Wasn’t that what Sam had said? Still, she knew something was amiss in the situation; she just didn’t know what.

“That’s all?” she pressed.

She noticed that Pratt shifted uncomfortably. Were they holding something back?

“Nothing of importance,” Hurst said. “I hope you’ve passed on my felicitations to Mrs. Cooke.”

Violet gritted her teeth. “I haven’t seen her yet, Inspector. It has, you understand, been barely twenty-four hours since I was last here.”

“Yes, of course. Right you are.”

Between her visit with the Westbrooks and Inspector Hurst, Violet’s day was proving most unsatisfactory.

 

Violet spent most of the next day in a manner most unusual for her, but it was a good distraction. While Harry handled moving the counters and display items out of the way while the men from Morris, Marshall, and Faulkner worked, Violet supervised them as they cut, glued, and smoothed new wallpaper on the walls of the shop. She hadn’t realized before how uneven the walls of the building were, which she estimated dated back at least to the turn of the century.

Nevertheless, the men deftly matched up the pattern on all of the walls, except for in a small area above the entry door.

The glue was pungent and used in great quantity, leaving Violet with a headache that evening that not even a cup of clover-root tea could banish. At Susanna’s insistence, she lay back on a settee in the parlor while Benjamin read articles to her from the stack of old newspapers Violet kept on hand next to the fireplace for turning into spills. Ruth regularly made up a dozen or so of the twisted pieces of paper and kept them stored in a ceramic jar on the mantel. The jar was nearly hidden among all of Susanna’s things, but poor Ruth managed to find it and keep it filled so that spills were always available for starting fires.

Susanna looked much better after a couple of days of rest. She no longer wore a bandage, and her hair didn’t quite cover the scabbing wound, but she was alert and smiling. Benjamin, too, looked much happier. The two of them must have made up from whatever argument they’d had. Hopefully there would be no further squabbles.

Sam returned home while Benjamin was in the middle of a story about an upcoming event, the first international boat race on the Thames. After inquiring as to everyone’s health, he kissed Violet and sat in a nearby chair. Benjamin continued with his reading, but Sam’s mind was obviously elsewhere, perhaps as far away as the moon.

Violet asked if he would like to talk about his day’s visit with bankers, but he merely shook his head and waved Benjamin on to continue.

Their son-in-law stumbled across the news that on August fifteenth, the Red Sea had joined the Mediterranean under Ferdinand de Lesseps’s plan to build the Suez Canal through Egypt. If the two bodies of water were now flowing to each other, Violet assumed things were presumably on schedule for completion in November.

Benjamin turned the page and, knowing his wife’s and mother-in-law’s interests, began reading from the obituaries. He scanned the usual listings of childbirth deaths, those expiring of diseases in the lungs, and those who had died suddenly in accidents.

A special section was set aside to list workhouse and factory deaths, those deaths relegated to London’s poorest. On the next page—the editors taking care that they not be adjacent—were obituaries for the upper class, complete with engravings of the deceased and lengthy platitudes about their ancestry, clubs, and heirs.

With her eyes closed, Violet only half listened, as though Benjamin were reading a bedtime story to lull her to sleep.

Until he uttered Roger Blount’s name.

“What?” she said, sitting straight up. “Who is that again?”

Benjamin backed up and started again. “ ‘Lord and Lady Etchingham deeply regret to announce the sudden death of their son, the Honorable Roger Blount, which occurred August sixteenth at Etchingham House in Mayfair. He was seized with a fit shortly after dinner, between six and seven o’clock, and was taken by the angels before a physician could arrive. Lord Blount was engaged to the lovely debutante Miss Margery Latham, daughter of the Baron and Baroness Fenton. Miss Latham was presented to the queen last Season, and the grand society wedding between her and Lord Blount was to have occurred in September.’ ”

Violet frowned. “May I see?”

Benjamin handed the paper over. Indeed, the engraving was of the dead man Miss Latham had been in shock over.

This made no sense. Roger Blount had died at home, so surely Miss Latham had been aware of it. Why was she so shocked to find his dead body at Brookwood?

Violet returned the paper to Benjamin and returned to her own thoughts while he continued reading death notices. Everything she’d experienced lately had been undeniably odd and disturbing, and yet, as her husband and Inspector Hurst had pointed out, there was no crime being committed. Except against Susanna, of course. Was she crazy to think that the Brookwood happenings had anything to do with the attack on Susanna? Perhaps they were merely coincidental. Maybe Susanna had simply been the victim of a terrible prankster, or a would-be robber who had been frightened off for some reason.

Or had Susanna angered anyone since arriving in London? She had interviewed several undertakers about Brookwood; had one of them been so irate that he followed Susanna until he found a moment to attempt to murder her? If so, what in the world had he thought she had discovered? The only funeral man she had mentioned expressing temper was Mr. Crugg. It always came back to Mr. Crugg, didn’t it?

Or was it someone Susanna had overlooked?

“Mother Harper, is anything wrong?” Benjamin asked, looking up from the paper. Susanna, too, had a worried look in her eyes.

How worried the girl would be if she really knew Violet’s thoughts. She cast her eyes down and pressed two fingers to her forehead. “No, no, I’m just woolgathering, as they say. Please tell me more about Mrs. Frances Burke and the work she did with the Charity for the Houseless Poor.”

As Benjamin once more bent his head over the paper’s obituaries, Violet, too, returned to her original reclined position, her headache forgotten amid her troubled thoughts. For her closed eyes could not erase the image of what she’d noticed a few moments ago. Atop a trunk in front of the fireplace lay one of Violet’s black gowns, one of the dresses Susanna had borrowed upon arriving in London and assisting Violet in the shop.

Had someone actually been after Violet and grabbed Susanna by mistake in the dark, knocking her out when he realized his error? The idea was a source of relief that Susanna wasn’t the target, but was simultaneously chilling. But if it was true, who was the attacker? Whom had Violet antagonized to the point that he would harm her? Mr. Upton? Or, again, was it the infamous Mr. Crugg? Or had Mr. Vernon’s deranged state of mind returned again, causing him to stalk and attack the woman he thought was Violet?

Violet’s head ached more than ever now. And she dreaded tomorrow, for she had yet another accompaniment to make to Brookwood in the morning.

 

Violet practically collapsed off the train onto the platform at Brookwood. Poor Captain Pagg deserved better than an undertaker who was distracted beyond reason and could hardly remember whether he belonged in the Anglican or nonconformist cemetery. Her headache had abated by morning, but her fear of trains had welled up much stronger than normal, and she had been nervous the entire hour-long, rail-clacking trip.

Now standing on the South platform, for she had remembered that the good captain was to be buried in the Anglican cemetery, she took a deep breath. She was becoming too troubled over what might or might not have been an actual crime. Or crimes. It would do no good for Violet to lose focus on what was important in her life: her family and her work.

She would have to settle her hash, as Sam would say. Resolve the situation or forget about it. She mulled this over as she rode with the driver of the hearse van to the Anglican chapel. An idea came to her as she made the short trip to the chapel with the driver, who was nearly sullen in his desire not to talk and seemed satisfied with the noise of creaking equipage and his horse’s snuffles for company.

Once Captain Pagg was in place in the center of the chapel, Violet asked the man if he knew where Miss Latham was buried. He frowned, then uttered his first words. “Somewheres near the double willow tree, I’m thinkin’.”

Violet thanked the man and set off on foot to find it. She had plenty of time before the captain’s relatives arrived.

The double willow tree was a large, two-trunked tree with great clumps of trailing leaves. They swayed over gravestones, statues, and vaults, as if the tree were standing guard, waving a magical shield of protection over its charges. Violet traversed the area under the tree’s massive canopy but couldn’t find the grave she was looking for. She finally paused near a sepulcher near the base of the willow, dedicated to “the memory of A.G., 1802–1857.” Where was Miss Latham buried?