“Well, it doesn’t seem as though anything unseemly occurred with these bodies.”
That was what everyone said, so why was Violet the only one who thought otherwise?
They were served cups of chocolate, with assurance that their pastries would be out presently. Their drinks were thick and delectable.
“The only suspicious thing was Mr. Vernon pushing you into a coffin. But he might have just had a spell of madness.” Mary put down her cup and tapped the side of her head. “People get them all the time, dear. I’m sure he is quite mortified over it.”
“Not as mortified as I am.”
Mary laughed unexpectedly, a rare reaction from her these days. It brought color into her wan face. “Oh my, I suppose it was quite an indignity for you.” She turned serious again. “A woman’s indignities should not be treated lightly.”
Violet knew Mary was once again thinking of her wayward husband and how humiliated she had been over his romantic liaison conducted openly in Lausanne. Violet and Sam had never been impressed with George Cooke, but Mary had loved him, so they had begrudgingly accepted him. Violet grieved for her friend’s loss.
As if she knew Violet was also dwelling on the subject, Mary said, “Do you know, I think I am mortified, too? As time goes on, I am less bereaved by George’s loss and more embarrassed by my poor decision in agreeing to become his wife. Do you think ill of me for it, Violet?”
“Of course not! How could you think such a thing? Your love for him was innocent and pure. I’ve made plenty of my own decisions—while assuming that others were acting in good faith—that turned out poorly and sometimes nearly fatally. We don’t always know what sort of evil lurks in the hearts of others, my friend.”
Mary’s eyes welled up, and she took another sip from her cup in order to close her eyes and blink back the tears. “Thank you,” she whispered, as the cup clattered back down on its saucer.
Violet sought for something, anything, to cheer Mary up. A thought occurred to her. “Remember when you were planning to go to Switzerland and I said we would visit Madame Tussauds upon your return to celebrate your happiness? Well, why don’t we go anyway, to, to . . . celebrate our friendship? I understand they are preparing a Suez Canal exhibit in anticipation of November’s opening ceremonies.”
“Didn’t the queen invite you and Sam to attend?”
“Yes. We are deeply honored.” Violet just hoped Queen Victoria wouldn’t require her services during the trip to Egypt. She’d had quite enough royal duty over the past few months.
For now, though, Violet had something else to discuss.
“I’ve been thinking about Morgan Undertaking,” she said. “Now that I’m staying, I’d like to make some improvements. Poor Will and Harry, they did an admirable job in growing the business, but I think the shop’s interior could use some updating. Would you consider making some new draperies for the windows and to separate off the back rooms? I know that I’m once again imposing on you.”
Although Mary’s true expertise was in fashionable mourning clothing, she also had decorating talent. Mary had redecorated her own quarters above her dressmaking shop, then helped Violet with décor for her rooms above the undertaking shop.
“Of course I will help you,” Mary said, her eyes glowing with anticipation. “What fun. We’ll go back to Morris, Marshall, and Faulkner this instant to find you some nice fabrics, and then make some measurements in your shop. I’m sure I can have it done for you in the next two weeks.”
“Shall we agree to go to Madame Tussauds as soon as the draperies are installed?”
They sealed their plan by raising their cups of chocolate to one another.
Changing subjects, Mary asked, “How goes your visit with Susanna?”
This was an uncomfortable topic because of Violet’s conflicted feelings on it. Fortunately, their sweets arrived just then, giving Violet an opportunity to choose her words carefully. “Sam and Benjamin spend a lot of time together, and Susanna has volunteered to work in the shop with me. She has been a big help.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a honeymoon for the two of them.”
There was that feeling of discomfort again, poking at her innards. “No, but Susanna has always been a natural undertaker. She probably misses the shop back in Colorado already.”
“Hmm,” Mary said. “Haven’t they been here a few weeks already? How long are they planning to visit?”
“I don’t know. Susanna seems reluctant to leave. I like to think it’s because she missed us so much, but maybe she missed London?”
Mary raised a pale-brown eyebrow. “Weren’t most of her memories of London those of living in a workhouse and watching her birth family die? I’m sure it’s because she misses you, dear.”
“I’ve missed her, too, but our flat has become a bit overwhelmed. Mrs. Softpaws glares at me every time she sees me, and although I appreciate that she is keeping the place free of spiders and mice, I’m not particularly happy to find her day’s catch on my pillow. Ruth is a sweet girl and says nothing about the extra cleaning work, but Mrs. Wren is grumpy.”
“More so than usual?” Mary asked, cutting into her toasted tea cakes. Butter oozed out from between the layers.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it? You know, I love having my girl with me, but perhaps she and Benjamin need their own quarters if they plan to stay much lon—” Violet stopped abruptly, staring out the window in surprise. A shiver of apprehension crawled up her spine.
A man stared back in at her.
“Violet? What’s wrong, dear?” Mary asked.
Without answering, Violet jumped up from the table and dashed outside, running in the direction that she guessed the man was going. The streets were as crowded as they always were, and within moments she realized she couldn’t make any progress in the throng of people. She was also too short to see much of what was ahead of her. Deflated, she returned to the coffeehouse, where Mary still sat over her tea cakes with an expression of confusion.
“What’s wrong?” Violet’s friend asked.
“I thought I saw Mr. Crugg looking in on us.”
With a fork, Mary swiped her last morsel of cake through the butter drippings on her plate. “The undertaker who doesn’t like you? Why would he be seeking you out? It’s probably just a coincidence. He happened by and noticed you here.”
“Perhaps.” Violet was thoroughly unconvinced but could think of no reason why the undertaker might be clandestinely looking for her, so she let the matter drop.
The rest of the afternoon was spent fingering chintzes, brocades, and velvets, then deciding how to use them in the shop. With Mary’s advice, Violet selected a color palette of mossy green, crimson, gold, and pale cream, inspired by an imaginative wallpaper inside Mr. Morris’s shop that drifted artfully with swirled acanthus leaves and bright flowers. By the time she left his shop, Violet had ordered enough fabric and wallpaper to redo an entire block of shops, not just her own.
It had been pleasurable to bury herself in the colors and textures, leaving behind the disquiet of Brookwood, but the unnerving sensation that something sinister was going on persisted.
5
“A bit to the right, please, Mrs. Harper.” The photographer pointed to the corpse’s face.
Violet positioned the woman’s head farther to the right so that her high cheekbones would be better displayed. A bit of cotton inside the late Mrs. Goring’s cheeks and some Blushing Rose on the outside had helped re-create the look of a middle-aged woman who, her family said, was known for her love of clever jokes and pranks. Once her head was positioned so that the left side of her face faced the camera, Violet held it while she moved the chair Mrs. Goring was seated in, to follow the head’s positioning.
Violet let Mrs. Goring’s head gently rest against the floral-papered wall of the woman’s bedchamber. Her body was already roped to the chair at the shoulders, and the roping was covered over with an elegant shawl. Through the camera lens, it would look as though M
rs. Goring were sitting up on her own.
Hmm. Something wasn’t right.
“Wait,” Violet said to Mr. Robinson, who was ready to begin taking the postmortem daguerreotypes the family had ordered. He was positioned behind a portable table neatly set with all of the tools of his trade, including his square camera box, and didn’t look happy with her interference.
Violet had used Henry Peach Robinson for postmortem photography once before, and they’d had a rocky start together, with Robinson accusing Violet of not being a good businesswoman, and Violet snapping right back that he was cheating his clients. However, she had to admit the man had talent, and although she still preferred Mr. Laroche for photography, Mr. Robinson was an agreeable second.
She stepped back to examine Mrs. Goring, who had obviously been ill a very long time if the deep worry lines and blackened crescents beneath her eyes were any indication.
“Quickly, Mrs. Harper, before she sags.”
Violet hurried over to Mrs. Goring’s dressing table and rummaged through an earring box. It had been a week since Violet’s examination of Roger inside his coffin, and it was good to forget what was not a crime—she had to remind herself repeatedly—and return to simple undertaking.
She found what she wanted in a pair of teardrop-shaped pearl bobs. She took one and affixed it to Mrs. Goring’s exposed ear. The earring’s shape represented mourning, and she knew that the family would appreciate the perfect symbolism.
“Ready,” she said, and stepped out of the way.
Violet waited while Robinson did his work; then, when he arose from behind the camera box, she moved Mrs. Goring again, this time turning the chair so that she faced the camera. Violet rearranged the shawl again to completely cover the rope around her shoulders and attached the second ear bob.
From inside her large black undertaker’s bag, Violet withdrew a slender block of wood. Positioning herself in front of Mrs. Goring so that Robinson could not see what she was doing, she unbuttoned the woman’s shirtwaist, inserted the block of wood beneath her chin to prop it up, then buttoned her shirtwaist all the way up once more.
“Now with your pretty little cheeks and your head held high, you will make a perfect portrait, Mrs. Goring,” Violet said warmly.
“What?” came Robinson’s voice behind her.
“I’m just chatting with Mrs. Goring,” she replied.
Robinson made a half-grunting, half-choking noise to indicate his opinion of Violet’s talking to corpses, but she didn’t care. She’d always done this, from the time she’d started undertaking sixteen years ago. It soothed Violet, and if there was any chance the departed’s soul was still floating about, she thought maybe it assured the soul that the body was well cared for so it didn’t need to stay and worry over the burial.
With Mrs. Goring rearranged once more, Robinson took several more pictures. He pulled each plate from his camera box and set them one at a time over a heated cup of mercury. The mercury’s vapors were noxious but soon resulted in a visible image on the plates. Once each image was finished, he slipped the plate into a developing box to inspect the image through a special glass window to determine when to stop development, then “fixed” the image onto the plate by dipping it into a saturated salt solution. After drying, the photographs would be ready to be sealed in glass cases evacuated of air and filled with nitrogen to stabilize the images.
Violet had always been amazed by this procedure, the creating of an image from thin air. Despite Robinson’s failings and his tendency to overcharge customers, she couldn’t deny that he did do fine work.
Once Robinson was done, he loaded up his van, painted dark green and emblazoned in gold lettering with “Henry Peach Robinson, Quality Photography to the Middle and Upper Classes.” Meanwhile, Violet shifted Mrs. Goring’s chair next to the bed, undid all of the rope and props, and moved the woman into the bed. With a few more words of comfort to the family and confirmation of funeral details, Violet went on to her next destination, that of Mr. Ambrose’s rooms in Surrey.
She found the doctor’s rooms in a quiet side street in Woking, just a few blocks from the train station. Violet twisted the bell latch, and in moments the door was answered by a frazzled middle-aged woman wearing a gray dress. It wasn’t quite a uniform, but it wasn’t quite a day gown, either.
“Have you brought the new stethoscope?” she asked.
“Pardon me?” Violet replied. “My name is Violet Harper, and I am here to—”
“My apologies, madam. I thought you had brought round the new binaural stethoscope Mr. Ambrose ordered. He’s been dealing with several cases of pleurisy and bronchitis up in Pottery Lane and was hoping his new listening device would arrive today. How may I be of help?”
Pottery Lane was a slum in the London neighborhood of Notting Hill. He was quite a distance away for treating patients.
“Mr. Ambrose sees patients that far away?” Violet asked.
The woman smiled. “My cousin is fascinated by every new outbreak or unusual condition he can find. He hopes to one day find a cure for everything from gout to scarlet fever. His mind is so caught up in his research that I do swear if I didn’t come by on occasion to cook and clean for him, he’d starve to death. He rarely—Ah, there he is now.”
The woman opened the door and permitted Violet to enter. The doctor was right on her heels. Before noticing his guest, Ambrose kissed his cousin on the cheek. “Has it arrived, Maddy?”
“Not yet. Byron, you have a visitor.”
Ambrose turned to Violet, who said, “Mr. Ambrose, do you remember me?”
He frowned, then recognition dawned. “Yes, I do. Mrs. Harper, isn’t it? You were the undertaker at Brookwood on that very odd day. . . .” He removed his hat and tossed it on his desk, which dominated this front room. As he sat behind it, he invited Violet to sit down on a leather chair whose seat was ripped and cracked, but at least wasn’t as heaped with clothing and papers as the furniture in Violet’s parlor.
Violet proceeded without preamble. “That’s why I’m here, sir. Do you know who he was? What happened when you assisted him?”
The doctor shrugged. “He came back to my rooms in my brougham with me, babbling nonsensically the entire time. I examined him, could find no physical ailment other than his disorientation. Thank heavens we haven’t adopted that abominable American practice of embalming. It would have killed the man.”
Violet winced. She was an advocate of embalming. Done properly, it preserved bodies to extend visitation time and eliminate the more . . . objectionable . . . aspects of a body laying in for more than a couple of days.
“Did you have him sent home?” she asked.
“I had no opportunity to do so. He refused to give me his name, and eventually barged out to parts unknown. He was fascinating to me in the extreme, though. Imagine what knowledge about life and death the medical profession could have learned from him. Just his insight into what the great passing over is like . . .” Ambrose ended on a note of wistfulness.
Maddy gave Violet an “As I told you earlier” look. Violet could hardly suppress a laugh at the loving exasperation the doctor’s cousin showed.
Ambrose returned to his previous, businesslike demeanor. “Why do you inquire, Mrs. Harper?”
Violet figured she may as well tell him everything and proceeded to detail the second live body she’d discovered on the station platform. She thought it wise to leave out the mysterious Roger, who was a different sort of Gordian knot altogether.
Ambrose shook his head sadly. “Had I known this would happen again so quickly, I would have given chase to the man I assisted. How is it possible that two men have arisen from the dead in so short a time?”
“My thoughts exactly, sir. Have you experienced this before?”
“Never. I’ve been picking up bodies at both stations for years now and have never encountered such a thing.”
Violet stilled as she remembered her conversation with Mr. Vernon. “Pardon me? Are you involved in the
selling of bodies for anatomical experimentation?”
“Sometimes. I also perform anatomical experimentation myself in one of my back rooms, and it distresses me deeply to think there may be something unscrupulous going on. Surely, as an undertaker, you understand that few bodies ‘appear’ to be dead. They are or they are not.”
Violet nodded. “Yes, my thoughts exactly.”
“I applaud your tenacity at discovering what happened. If only my own skills were as proficient as yours.” He put his hands together as if in prayer. “Well, perhaps we have seen the last of these resurrected bodies and can return to our daily practices. My fervent hope is that if another comes to light, we will be able to discover what is causing it, so that doctors are not declaring living people to be dead, and undertakers are not preparing people who are just deeply asleep. These occurrences cast a bad light on both of our professions.”
Violet couldn’t agree more. In any case, whatever undertaker was mistakenly putting live bodies in coffins should at least be chastised for incompetence.
“May I inquire, Mr. Ambrose, as to whether you have ever received bodies from James Vernon? He’s an undertaker back in London.”
Mr. Ambrose mulled over her question and shook his head. “No. I deal with several undertakers, but he isn’t one of them.”
Violet sighed inwardly. Another dead end.
Violet returned to Morgan Undertaking.
Outside the shop, she noticed a grubby boy hawking newspapers and purchased one, wondering why all paperboys seemed to wear ink like a second set of clothes. Did they end up ingesting it, too?
Inside, Harry was cutting lengths of muslin to be used as winding sheets while Susanna folded them. Thus far, Harry had made no comment about Susanna’s continued presence, but it occurred to Violet that she should ask him if he minded. She resolved to talk to him the next time Susanna wasn’t there.
Whenever that might be.
He also hadn’t asked about the progress of her investigations. Hopefully, Harry had forgotten all about it.
The Mourning Bells Page 10