Well, it didn’t look like this bell coffin’s occupant was going to be as energetic as the last one she’d seen here. Violet reached her hand up and flicked the bell idly. Ting-a-ling-a-ling, the bell sang. Ting-a-ling-a-ling.
It was ironic how unlike the peal of a church bell it was, yet both were used to announce life.
She hit the bell a little harder to hear its music once more. Ting-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling.
As if in response, there was an immediate knocking from down below. In an instinctive reaction, Violet screeched, loudly and not very much like a demure undertaker at all, falling backward and onto her rump.
She stayed frozen in her awkward position, too frightened by the sound from within the coffin to even breathe. Gathering her wits, she untangled her skirts, went back to the coffin, and began tugging on the lid. To her amazement, she was able to easily remove it; there were no nails holding it in place.
She staggered onto her backside once more when, yet again, a man struggled out of the coffin. He pushed her aside as he crawled out of the coffin, coughing and gasping. He was younger than the first man but just as well attired.
“Sir,” Violet said, once again regaining balance and approaching him with concern, “are you quite all right? May I help . . .”
The man had a hunted, feral expression on his face as he rose up, tottering on his feet. “Who are you?” he demanded. Violet smelled the distinct odor of cloves on his breath.
“I’m Violet Harper, sir, and I believe you have been mistakenly—”
“Where am I?”
“Brookwood North train station, sir. You must let me find a doctor for you. You’ve been—”
The man grunted something unintelligible and began lumbering off.
“Sir!” Violet called, chasing after him and taking his arm when she reached him. “You must let me help you. Surely you need—”
The man pushed Violet away from him, nearly causing her to tumble again. Violet called after him, but he ignored her.
Still bewildered, she took a few steps once more in his direction, but the shock of the experience stopped her in her tracks. She watched helplessly as he stumbled out of the station and into the nearby woods. What was there to do? She couldn’t force him to stay with her. After all, it wasn’t a crime to become undead.
But Violet was once again overcome with the idea that there was something criminal going on. She just wasn’t sure what. How was it possible that two men had popped out of bell coffins, not two weeks apart, before her very eyes? Was this some type of clever huckster’s advertisement for safety coffins?
Perhaps she should go to Magnus Pompey Hurst, detective chief inspector at Scotland Yard, with whom she had dealt on other cases. Violet hesitated. He was usually skeptical of her claims. She could only imagine what he would say to this one. No crime had been committed. He’d probably have a good laugh over it at her expense. After all, who could be arrested for a dead person coming back to life?
With the body of Mrs. Elvira Danforth, a senile old woman who had mistaken rat poison for baking soda and accidentally used it in a sponge cake—apparently not trusting her household help to make it for her—now waiting at the chapel for her services, Violet returned to the North station to greet the mourning party.
Given what Violet had seen of Mrs. Danforth’s kitchen when she went to visit the body, it was no wonder the woman had made the fatal error. It was difficult to discern the difference among her kitchen, her larder, and her scullery. Of course, if Violet didn’t have day help in Mrs. Wren and Ruth, her own small kitchen might be just as catastrophic.
Did that mean if she ever gave up the cook and maid, she ran the risk of doing herself in with rat poison?
She shook her head to clear it of such ridiculous notions. As if she was capable of baking anything edible in the first place!
A distant train whistle alerted her to the imminent arrival of the mourning party. The North station was built on exactly the same plan as the South, intended for Anglican funerals, and Violet posted herself inside the first-class reception room. Railway workers helped people wearing black armbands, hats, gloves, and jewelry off the train and into the reception area, where Violet then greeted them and murmured appropriate words of sympathy. One particularly large woman, who wore the most enormous black ostrich feather in her hat that Violet had ever seen, was fanning herself and mopping her face with a black lace-edged handkerchief, all the while moaning dramatically about “dear Aunt El.”
Once everyone was assembled in the reception room—and already several men had purchased multiple cups of ale for themselves—Violet led them on the somber procession to the chapel. The funeral line was made a little less dignified by the drunken men offering incoherent words of comfort to Mrs. Danforth’s wailing niece.
Violet was mortified. This was not the behavior she expected from first-class patrons. She discreetly moved within the ranks of the mourners making their way to the chapel and whispered to the niece and her companions about the disrespect they were showing Mrs. Danforth. Those words didn’t seem to make a dent in their rude comportment, but a reminder of the special eternal punishments reserved for those who desecrated not just tombs but also funeral processions certainly brought about the desired results.
The niece gaped at her like a strangled flounder, but her tears and howling ceased immediately, and although the men still stumbled along the pathway, they, too, stopped their garrulous talk as the group solemnly walked the remaining hundred feet in reverential silence.
The nonconformist, or dissenters’, chapel looked much like the chapel in the Anglican cemetery, with its faux-Tudor timbering and entry doors with rounded arches above them. The group entered the chapel through the tall doors located in the steeple tower, stepping past the waiting horse-drawn bier to do so. A driver sat on a black-velvet-covered box, as still as if he were made of marble. He would remain there until the service was complete.
The interior was as plain as any of hundreds of modest chapels Violet had worked in before. Mrs. Danforth’s coffin of mahogany, topped with a veneer of elegantly swirled mahogany burl, sat on a folding bier in the center of the chapel, surrounded by urns of lilies that Violet had arranged earlier. Mourners took their places on the long, simple benches arranged in rows around Mrs. Danforth, while the minister came forward to begin the first-class service.
First-class funerals were for the uppermost strata of society, and so, of course, were the most elegant. Glass hearses, fine hardwood coffins, and magnificently adorned horses and mourners could back up traffic in London for hours as people gathered to watch the distinct personage roll by. Mrs. Danforth’s entourage through Brookwood Cemetery was much more sedate than the typical London society funeral procession.
Second-class funerals, intended for wealthy merchants and the like, were toned down a bit, with fewer accoutrements.
Third-class funerals were for the working-class poor, and reflected the status of the deceased, with simple pine coffins, a hearse that was not much more than a black-painted cart, and little embellishment to mark the deceased’s journey to the grave.
Violet had coordinated them all, although third-class funerals were infrequent, as her services were generally unaffordable for them. Violet retreated to an alcove in the rear of the chapel, to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. She shivered. It was strange how the interiors of chapels could be cool even on the warmest of burial days, almost as if they instinctively understood the chill associated with mourning and loss and adjusted themselves accordingly.
Some undertakers used this period of the service to spend time elsewhere, perhaps finding their own cup of ale or a slice of sponge cake, or even smoking and gossiping with cemetery workers. Even now, the hearse driver was undoubtedly swiping at the sweat gathered on his brow before reaching into the driver box for a flask.
For Violet, though, it seemed disrespectful, after the departed’s long and arduous journey of life, to abandon the body under her care, even for
a few moments to satisfy hunger. The thought of food reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since before sunrise this morning, an eternity ago, what with all of the tumult that had occurred since. She willed herself to forget about her appetite and to attend to more important things, such as whether it was pure coincidence that another body had sprung out of a coffin today. This was the second such one in ten days that Violet had seen, and she’d never before witnessed such a phenomenon.
They were both men, and both had been laid inside Putnam Boyce’s bell coffins. Mr. Boyce’s coffins were sold to many undertakers in London, making it difficult to narrow down which undertaker had purchased these two particular coffins.
It suddenly occurred to Violet that the two bodies may have even been cared for by two different undertakers, which would make their individual waking even more bizarre and coincidental.
It had happened at the North station this time, so there was nothing connecting the two bodies by religion. Unfortunately, Violet didn’t know whether either man was destined for a first- or second-class funeral. Each man was obviously too well dressed for a third-class funeral. Besides, a safety coffin was an impossible expense for a lower-class family.
Despite all of her intense puzzling over the situation, her mind continued to come back around to the same problem. No actual crime had been committed. In fact, it was more like two joyous miracles had occurred.
The chapel’s organ began piping Chopin’s haunting funeral march, Violet’s signal to return to the service, where she directed the coffin bearers—none of whom had been drinking earlier, fortunately—to lift the coffin for its final procession. They hefted the box and carried it out of the chapel to the hearse. The driver sat rigidly, staring forward, as the box clunked down hollowly onto the hearse, then slid roughly forward into place. Violet would have to return later for the bier, but meanwhile, she had other male mourners pick up the urns and sprays of flowers to carry to the grave site.
As Violet followed the minister and the male entourage out of the chapel, she saw from the corner of her eye that Mrs. Danforth’s niece was becoming hysterical once again, and the other women in the party were surrounding her with waving fans and solicitous words. That would keep them occupied here until the men buried Mrs. Danforth, as was customary.
Chopin’s protracted dirge emanated from the chapel until Violet and the funeral cortege were well underway, as if it were sympathetically sending them off to their heartbreaking and dismal work. At the grave site, the minister spoke a few more words; then the coffin bearers unloaded Mrs. Danforth and placed her into the harness to be lowered into her grave. This was always a heart-stopping moment for Violet, for even with ropes and pulleys, things could go wrong and a coffin might land badly in the ground.
She breathed an internal sigh of relief when the coffin reached its destination with no fuss. The Presbyterian minister intoned more words from his Book of Common Order as some of the men scooped up spadefuls of dirt and gently tossed them down onto Mrs. Danforth’s coffin.
With Mrs. Danforth buried and her grave covered in flowers, the procession followed the empty hearse back to the chapel, where Violet folded the bier and its cover, and the men comforted the women. The undertaker’s work was now done for this funeral, except to ensure that a headstone was installed since the woman had not been placed inside a family crypt.
Only first- and second-class funerals were entitled to grave markers. A third-class funeral required a paid upgrade for the privilege of a headstone, and, as with a safety coffin, a marker and the cemetery’s fee for it were an unthinkable outlay of money. Rarely did third-class funerals include headstones at Brookwood.
Back at the North station, Violet was handed up into the train while a porter stowed away her bier. Mrs. Danforth’s funeral party was in the first-class carriage, while Violet, of course, rode in the third-class carriage next to the hearse vans. There was no one else in her carriage, much to her relief as she wasn’t in the mood for conversation now that her insides were once again pestering her for sustenance.
What she wanted even more than food, though, was a word of comfort from Sam. Should she forget about the seemingly resurrected bodies at Brookwood, or was there something to be done about it—a trail to follow, advice to seek, more people to question?
Sam would know what to do.
Sam was preoccupied with his investment meetings as they sat together once again in their bedchamber, the only place they had for privacy with Susanna and Benjamin staying with them. Sam had gone back around to all of the potential investors, but in the end they had all declined. He was too inexperienced in coal mining, said one. Too enthusiastic for that foreign fellow, Nobel, said another. One even told him he was too American, despite Sam’s having an English wife.
“What will you do now?” Violet asked as she unpinned her watch from her bodice and removed her jet earrings and necklace.
“I’ll go to Threadneedle Street and talk to the Bank of England, of course. After that, I’ll visit one or two private banks. I’ve made a list and plan to start with White, Ludlow, and Company in Haymarket and London East Bank in Cornhill. Among the three I expect one to bubble up with the funds in short order.”
Poor Sam, to have endured such rejection. However, his optimism, so typical of the Americans, was infectious, and she was soon convinced that he would indeed soon have his coal mine financing in order. Not that she was altogether convinced about the wisdom of owning a mine. The deplorable conditions, the disease, the accidents . . .
But Sam was convinced that a coal mine that used Mr. Nobel’s dynamite would be much safer, and he was determined to prove it so. Violet clamped down on her concerns, equally determined not to be a nagging wife.
Later, at the dinner table, Sam said grace as was his usual habit, then took a bowl of carrot soup, cooked in the liquid from the previous night’s beef bones, from Mrs. Wren’s talons and served everyone. Violet announced what had happened at Brookwood, that yet another body had come out of his coffin, this time fleeing the scene immediately.
“I’m wondering if I should go see Mr. Hurst at Scotland Yard about it.”
Susanna enthusiastically bobbed her head up and down. “Yes, Mother, I think you should. Something very strange is happening. When have we ever seen one body, much less two, arise from coffins? Besides, I still think Mr. Crugg is up to something odious.”
Benjamin eagerly agreed with his wife, patting Susanna on the shoulder. Was Violet mistaken, or had a shadow passed over Susanna’s face as he did so?
Sam, though, shook his head. “I agree that there is something strange going on, but there is nothing criminal in it. Scotland Yard would chuckle, busy with solving crimes involving poor souls that have died, and suggest you visit one of the scandal sheets to have an article written about it, or that you have a medium accompany you next time and hold a séance over the coffin. I imagine the queen would be enthralled with the idea, and demand that Albert be exhumed immediately in case he might still be able to ring a bell.”
“Papa!” Susanna exclaimed, her face a combination of shock and amusement over Sam’s pronouncement.
Violet’s husband continued. “I could easily defend one of these undertakers in court. I would point to their wisdom in recommending safety coffins for their customers, as they now have been proved to work. And, sweetheart, maybe they do work.”
Violet winced as though Sam’s words caused her physical pain. Her greatest fear was that he was right, and that safety coffins deserved a more prominent place in undertaking.
Susanna, though, was insistent that Violet should pursue the situation on her own, as there was certainly an abnormality to it, and no one else was interested enough to investigate.
Sam shook his head in good-natured resignation. “I won’t forbid it, but I sense that somehow this perfectly innocent circumstance will erupt into mayhem as soon as you get involved with tugging on the strings of the truth.”
As she readied for bed that night, Violet
was conflicted. Sam was right, of course, both in that there was nothing to explore and that she did have a way of ending up in trouble. Yet she couldn’t help but think that Susanna was also right. It simply wasn’t normal for bodies to rise from coffins. Why, no one even knew who either man was. Wouldn’t there be relatives and loved ones eager for news?
Sam was already gently snoring as she finished pulling the pins from her hair. Having her body tightly corseted and her tresses firmly pinned each day made the undressing ritual a blissful relief. As she sat before the mirror in her nightdress, firmly ignoring the parts of her that were not quite as trim as they used to be, she gently drew an ivory comb with very fine teeth through her hair, careful not to let it catch in any tangles.
The movement was soothing, and the teeth rubbing against her scalp felt like a rather nice scratching. As Violet combed, she contemplated what to do. Susanna thought the situation deserved attention, but Susanna also seemed enthralled by the excitement of it. If Violet did pursue it, would Susanna want to assist and then never go home to Colorado?
Violet chastised herself for such a disloyal thought. It was joyous to have her daughter with her. Besides, who knew when they might see each other again?
That was no reason to chase phantoms, though. Sam was probably right in his opinion, and she would be wasting precious undertaking time to continue. After all, who chases down a nonmurder? Someone who has lived instead of dying? It was ridiculous.
She put the comb down and stared at the dark liquid in the bowl before her. Susanna had brought several issues of Godey’s Lady’s Book, a popular monthly American magazine, and one issue recommended black tea for ensuring a good head of glossy dark hair.
Violet sighed. She had never cared about such things when she was younger, but now that she was approaching forty, vanity had pushed its way into her life and refused to leave. She’d thought using Castile soap once each week, combined with vigorous nightly brushing to distribute the oils in her hair, was enough, but Mrs. Hale, the magazine’s editor, insisted otherwise.
The Mourning Bells Page 6