The Burying Ground

by Janet Kellough

  “It seems your first guess about the double burials was the right one,” Morgan said.

  “Yes, but I’m not sure why,” Thaddeus said. “Obviously there was something hidden in the coffins that Hands wanted. But why did he start retrieving them all at once? And who ran away with the metal box?”

  Morgan turned to Luke. “You said right from the start that it couldn’t be Dr. Christie. Why were you so sure?”

  Luke shrugged. “I guess it was a Holy Ann reaction,” he said. “I just didn’t want to credit it.”

  The next morning Dr. Christie insisted that Thaddeus escort him to the Burying Ground and arrange for him to view the unearthed corpse, in spite of the fact that Thaddeus was bone-weary and longing for bed. He and Morgan and Luke had spent the rest of the night sitting vigil over the bodies in the graveyard. He and Morgan spent the hours going over and over each event and each piece of evidence, but at the end of it all Thaddeus felt he was no closer to solving the puzzle. Luke had little to say on the matter, appearing at times to doze off in his chair, but Thaddeus didn’t know if this was because he had no insight to contribute, or if he was simply tired. It was unlikely that he was rattled by the experience of having a man die in his arms. It had happened to him before, and he was far better equipped to deal with it now. He was a doctor, after all, and no doubt had seen far worse during the course of his training. Still, it seemed a little odd that he was so silent about the affair.

  As soon as they returned to Christie’s the next morning, Luke went off in search of Mrs. Dunphy to ask if anything could be done to salvage his stained clothing, leaving Thaddeus as the sole object of Christie’s badgering insistence on viewing the exhumed body.

  When they arrived at the Burying Ground, Thaddeus realized that it was Morgan who appeared to have been most rattled by the events of the previous night. He was red-eyed and bleary, and seemed almost insensible to what was happening around him. Hands’s body had been removed, the coroner having examined it and taken copious notes for the inquest that would be called. Morgan was given permission to rebury the other body, but he had only just taken up a shovel to do this when Christie arrived to waylay him.

  “Dr. Christie wondered if he might have a look at the corpse,” Thaddeus said. “He won’t touch anything, but he thinks an examination of the bones might be useful.”

  Morgan agreed, and he and Thaddeus walked toward the front of the cemetery while Christie climbed down into the grave with every evidence of delight at having been afforded such a unique opportunity.

  “One of the trustees showed up this morning,” Morgan said when they reached the fence. “The board finally took notice of what was going on.”

  “Surely they recognize how diligent you’ve been,” Thaddeus said. “No one else would have sat up all those nights to protect the graves.”

  “Oh yes, I’m a fine fellow,” Morgan said. “Job well done and all that. But the trustee also took the opportunity to inform me that Yorkville is officially starting a petition to close the Burying Ground. He said he thought he should let me know, as he didn’t think it would take long to get the required number of signatures. The board plans to start asking the families to remove bodies to the cemeteries of their choice.” He sighed. “I’m going to have to move on soon, and I don’t want to.”

  “I know, you and Sally are happy here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, we are, but it’s more than that. It’s the job itself. Somehow it’s not just work. It’s something that needs to be done. I wanted to be a preacher because I thought it would make me important. But here … I don’t know …” He screwed up his face and looked off into the distance as he tried to find the elusive words that would describe what he meant. “I’m not important here. But the bodies are, and they need someone to look after them.”

  “I know what you mean,” Thaddeus said. Morgan’s inelegant words described what Thaddeus himself often felt while riding a promising circuit. It was the feeling that was missing on Yonge Street, the idea that he was making a difference to people. Others had reached them before he had had a chance to, and now their spiritual needs were being met in new and different ways. Even Holy Ann was more of a success than he was. He would see it through, complete his appointment, but he had no idea what he was going to do after that.

  He would be sorry if he could no longer spend time with the Spicers. He had been reminded again of the essential worth of the Morgan Spicers of the world, and he was finding pleasure in his interactions with Spicer’s twins. He and Betsy had had so many children and lost nearly all of them, and now there were too few grandchildren to spoil. There was Martha, of course. But Martha was a young lady now and no longer needed him as much as she had when she was little. Other than that there were only the children of his eldest son, Will, and they were in distant Huron, too far for a casual visit. Thaddeus briefly wondered if he should go there, make an effort to get to know them, but he had never got on as well with Will as he did with Luke, and he didn’t know if an extended visit to Huron would be entirely welcome.

  “All I can say, Morgan, is that life changes, and you can never be sure what direction it will take. All you can do is trust in the Lord. He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness and the light dwelleth with him. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

  Morgan nodded, but he still looked glum.

  They waited until Christie, humming happily to himself, had gleaned whatever information he wanted from the dead body, then, once again, Thaddeus rolled up his sleeves to help Morgan restore a grave.

  Thaddeus stuck to his story at the inquest, with the result that Cuthbert Nelson, as Cuddy’s full name turned out to be, was acquitted of criminal responsibility in the death of Phillip Van Hansel, in spite of the fact that Cuddy was a known criminal with prior arrests for assault, robbery, and public drunkenness, none of which, however, had ever resulted in a conviction.

  The jury seemed unconcerned about the desecration of the grave, which was just as well, as Cuddy had no explanation for what he and Hands had been doing in the Burying Ground that night.

  “No, I think this judgment is fair,” Thaddeus said when Luke questioned whether they should have mentioned that Cuddy was, in fact, shooting at someone else when he hit Van Hansel by mistake. “After all, we have no idea who that someone else was, or what motives anyone had. Let it lie. With any luck, Cuddy will be grateful that we backed his story and forget about the incident with the dog.”

  The newspapers, however, were not prepared to be so generous and howled their dismay at the verdict. The Daily Patriot seemed particularly incensed by what they termed the “incompetence” of the jury in failing to ask a number of pertinent questions.

  “What was a prominent businessman like Phillip Van Hansel doing in a remote graveyard with such a ruffian?” Dr. Christie read out at the breakfast table the day after the ruling was handed down. “One can only conclude that Nelson lured him there with the intent to murder, as evinced by his attempt to open a grave so that he could dispose of the body. No one with a sensible mind would countenance the notion that an upstanding citizen like Van Hansel would participate in a crime so odious as grave robbing. There are far more sinister elements to this tragic incident than were revealed at the inquest.”

  “Now that’s a true statement,” Thaddeus remarked. “Although I can’t for the life of me figure out what they are.”

  “Odd business, to be sure,” Christie said. “I’m not convinced we’ll ever know the truth of the matter. And Spicer was so optimistic that you could sort it out for him.”

  “I don’t seem to be able to sort out much of anything for poor Morgan,” Thaddeus said. “I couldn’t make him a preacher, I couldn’t solve his puzzle, and I can’t even give him any practical advice on what to do about his current difficulties.”

  “What difficulties?” Luke asked. “Now that the graves are safe, I thought his troubles would be over.”

  “The Board of Tru
stees at the Burying Ground has notified him that his position may be terminated soon. The village intends to circulate a petition to have the cemetery closed. The trustees will ask the families to move the bodies.”

  Christie was skeptical. “Not that nonsense again.” He shook his head. “People can petition all they like, but nothing can happen until the legislature gives its approval. That will take years, if it happens at all. Not to mention the fundamental flaw in the scheme. It’s a Potter’s Field. Most of the bodies buried there have no family to move them. It could all be done at public expense, I suppose, but someone would have to vote funds for the purpose, and I can’t see anyone being in favour of that. Tell Spicer to stop worrying.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Thaddeus said. “I’ll tell him. I hope it will cheer him up.”

  Chapter 22

  Luke was sure that the majority of his problems were now neatly resolved. He was square with Christie and confident that his position as junior physician was secure. The old doctor didn’t give much credence to Luke’s theory that typhoid fever had come from the millpond, but at Luke’s insistence, he did promise to keep his hunters away from the pond in the summertime, just in case.

  He was also on a far more even keel with his father. Their latest adventure had restored some of the camarad­erie Luke had felt when they’d been chasing the trail that first led them to Hands. He was finding mealtimes entertaining affairs when Thaddeus was in Yorkville. Now that he was no longer so preoccupied with his worries, he felt free to join the spiralling conversations and sometimes even managed to surprise the two older men with an observation or point of view that hadn’t occurred to either of them.

  The source of Lavinia Van Hansel’s complaint — her husband — would no longer be an aggravation to her, and surely she would now find herself in comfortable enough circumstances, if the amounts secreted in the coffins were any indication. Van Hansel had been a rich man. Lavinia would now be a rich widow. She could do whatever she wanted. There was no longer any reason for her to manipulate Perry, or anyone else for that matter.

  Luke still regretted his hasty words to Perry, but he concluded that there was no way to set it right again. There had not been a single word from him in the weeks since Van Hansel’s death. Luke couldn’t blame him for that. Not after the accusations that had been hurled. Even if Perry gave him an opportunity to explain, Luke wasn’t sure that any explanation would be enough to justify what he’d said.

  He tried, as much as possible, to put Perry out of his mind, but now that there was no epidemic to keep him occupied he found that he had only occasional cases to see in the morning and that his afternoons were by and large free. He began to understand why Christie was so absorbed in the reconstruction of skeletons. Luke had no intention of taking up so strange a hobby, but he needed to find something to do.

  One afternoon, just after Mrs. Dunphy cleared away the dinner dishes and Christie disappeared into the shed, Luke wandered into the parlour and was looking idly through the shelves for something to read when he heard a knock at the front door.

  When he opened it, he was surprised to find Cherub Ebenezer standing there.

  “Dr. Lewis! I’m glad it’s you who answered. I need to talk to you.”

  “By all means, come through to the office.” He could think of no reason why Cherub would seek him out unless Lavinia had some new demand to make of him. He couldn’t begin to think what it might be, but in spite of his understanding with Christie, he decided that it would be far better to keep their conversation private. He motioned her to a chair and took his place behind the desk.

  “What do you want?”

  She seemed not at all put out by his directness. “Did you find what we asked you to look for?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know why you need it. Surely the problem has been resolved?”

  “Anything but. We need it more than ever. By the time the dust settles Lavinia will be lucky if she has the clothes on her back. The vultures will have picked them all away.”

  “I don’t understand,” Luke said. “Hands was rich. Lavinia should have plenty of money now, shouldn’t she?”

  “Yes, Phillip had a lot of money. But everything he had is tied up somehow. Concealed. So that no finger could ever be pointed at him should anyone come asking questions. He also borrowed a lot to invest in railroads. His creditors are calling in the loans. His partners will make sure that they get their share of what’s left. Lavinia has no call on any of it.”

  Luke had no knowledge of business and how it worked, but he found it hard to believe that Lavinia would be left with nothing. “But surely there was some provision made,” he said. “Hands can’t have left her destitute.”

  “He didn’t intend to. His will left her the use of the house and a yearly amount in maintenance, to be paid from the estate, with his brother Peter as the executor.”

  “Well, there you go then. She’ll be all right, won’t she? With her brother-in-law to look after her?”

  “You really don’t understand what the law does to women, do you, Luke?” Cherub said. “Anything Lavinia gets is on Peter’s sufferance. And Peter Van Hansel is an avaricious bastard. If there’s anything left of Phillip’s estate, he’ll take it.”

  “Can she not go to the courts? Isn’t she entitled to a certain percentage or something?” Luke’s knowledge of property law was even sketchier than his knowledge of business, but he couldn’t believe that the widow of a wealthy man could be left in such dreadful straits.

  “A percentage of nothing is still nothing,” Cherub said. “Peter claims there’s not enough money to pay her anything at all. I’ve been asked to leave. And he’s already put the house up for sale. We need to know what you know, Luke.”

  Luke debated for only a moment before he realized that his course of action was clear. He could get rid of Lavinia Van Hansel with the stroke of a pen. And, for once, the expedient choice also happened to be, as far as he was concerned, the ethical one.

  “I have the names from the Burying Ground. There were eight in all. Hands took two. You already have one. That leaves five. That should be enough, I would think.” He grabbed a piece of paper and found a pen. He was pleased that he had no difficulty remembering the names and was able to write them down quickly. He handed the paper to Cherub, and the look of relief on her face confirmed the truth of her story. “How were you planning to get at them?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “That part we haven’t figured out yet. But at least now we know where to dig.”

  “You won’t get away with digging up more than one, you know. There’s been too much publicity in connection with Van Hansel’s death. If any more graves are tampered with it will be reported in the newspapers and the Board of Trustees will have to investigate. After that, the Burying Ground would be watched far too closely.”

  She took a moment to digest this, then her voice took on an edge of panic as she realized the truth of what Luke was saying. “Are you suggesting we dig them up all at once? How do we do that?”

  “If I tell you how to get them, do you promise me that you and Lavinia will go away?” he said. “And I don’t mean ‘go away’ as in ‘leave me alone.’ I mean ‘go away’ as in you’ll leave the country.”

  “That’s an easy promise to make. That’s what we want to do anyway. Life would be far easier for us in Europe.”

  “Then you should know that there’s a petition to close the Burying Ground. The village wants the land. The trustees are asking families to move the graves.”

  Cherub’s eyes grew wide. “So all we have to do is claim the bodies and take them somewhere else?”

  “Yes. It will cost you a little to have them carted and you’ll have to pay for cemetery plots somewhere else, but it won’t amount to a lot. After all, you’ve already stolen one metal box full of money.”

  “But won’t it look suspicious if we claim all five?”

  Luke shook his head. “Split it up. Lavinia can sign for three of them, you fo
r the other two.”

  “A coloured woman? Will they believe that they’re mine?”

  Luke smiled. “Who’s to say different? One of the bodies that Hands dug up was a coloured man. Far more likely at the Burying Ground than at any other cemetery in the city, I’d say.”

  Her worried face relaxed a little, but Luke could tell that she was still puzzled by something.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “The village is anxious to have the ground closed. There won’t be any argument. And none of the people you’re carting away have any family to ask questions about what you’re doing.”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “I just can’t figure out why Hands went to all the bother of digging in the first place. He could have just marched in and offered to pay for the removal.”

  “There’s been talk of closing the cemetery for years, but no one took it seriously until just recently. He might not have known about it. I was told once that he had his hands in everything, but he may have thought Yorkville wasn’t worth reaching for.”

  “Thank you, Luke.” She rose to leave, but just as she reached the door she turned to him, an odd expression on her handsome face. “You have no idea what this means to us. Or maybe you do. We’re not so different, Lavinia and I, from you and Perry.” And then she let herself out.

  Luke was surprised at her revelation, but then he realized that he shouldn’t have been. He should have seen it before. Poor Lavinia. He could almost feel sorry for her.

  A week later, Luke had just finished checking on old Mrs. Cory and was walking down Yonge Street when he noticed Spicer and his father in the Burying Ground and a carter’s dray rolling slowly along the laneway. Curious, he walked over to the cemetery and down the lane to discover Lavinia Van Hansel perched on the cart beside a very dirty and disreputable-looking driver, who jammed his hat down farther over his face when ordered to stop. As he drew closer, Luke saw that the strain of the last few weeks showed clearly on Lavinia’s face. The lines around her mouth had deepened and there were new ones at the corners of her eyes. Her skin was still porcelain, but she no longer reminded him of a china doll.