Among the Darkness Stirs

by Nicola Italia

  “How is Frances?” was the first thing out of her mouth.

  “She’s well. My mother is doting on her so much that I think my existence is unnecessary now.”

  Relief washed through Audrey. “Let’s go inside.”

  Once inside the register office, they asked to see the deaths recorded from the last year, and Audrey came prepared with the names from the diary they had written down. They were given a small room with a desk and two chairs to review the records.

  “Ah. Here’s a familiar name. Marguerite Shirley.” He tapped the entry with his finger.

  “Marguerite?” Audrey looked up.

  Henry met her eyes. “Her death is listed as the black death.”

  The room was filled with silence as they both stared at each other.

  “Impossible,” Audrey said.

  “It’s listed here, Audrey.”

  “It can have the seal of the queen for all I care,” Audrey said impatiently. “It’s impossible. I saw the woman.”

  Several seconds ticked by before either of them spoke. “This is getting more and more interesting,” he said suddenly.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Marguerite was cremated.”

  “Cremated?” She frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was cremated.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Henry said. “Cremations are rarely performed. In my lifetime, I’ve known one, and it wasn’t even here it was London.” Henry continued to look down the ledger. “Here’s Alistair Hillby.”

  “Her gentleman caller?” Audrey asked.

  Henry sat back in his chair. “This is odd. Too odd.”

  “What? The black death?” she asked.

  He nodded. “The black death and also cremation.”

  “It was consumption that killed him,” Audrey said firmly. “He was coughing. Just as my father did. I know the symptoms.”

  “You don’t have to convince me. I am absolutely certain these black deaths are another name for something else.”

  “What else?” she wondered.

  “That’s what I don’t know. And now the cremations?”

  “Cremations.” She said the word slowly. “That means there is no body to dig up.”

  “Exactly.”

  “No evidence,” she said quietly.

  He gave her a look. “And if they were transported to London for cremation, no one would remember if they were or were not there. Clever.”

  They spent the next hour looking up several names and discovered the same thing. The cause of death was the same and all of the inmates had been cremated.

  Henry spotted something. “Here! Look at this!”

  Audrey shifted closer so she could see. “What is it?”

  “This person had a burial here in Norwich. At St. Andrew’s.” He tapped the entry.

  “St. Andrew’s? Do you know it?” she asked.

  “It’s Church of England. I think we should go and visit it and ask the vicar some questions. What do you say?” Henry asked.

  “I say lead the way.”

  A light rain had fallen upon the ground. Mist surrounded the church as they walked towards it.

  “It’s quite old-looking,” she remarked as the dark Gothic-style church came into view.

  “At least three-hundred-plus years old, maybe more.” He nodded. “It was one of the last medieval churches to be built in the city.”

  They walked into the hall church, but no one was about.

  “Hello?” he called out, but no one answered him.

  “No one is here,” Audrey said, looking down the long building at the pews and altar.

  Together they walked through the large church until they came out the side door. Outside, it was damp and overcast. There was a small overgrown cemetery adjacent to the church. A man was inside the gated area, bending over a grave.

  “Hello!” Audrey called out to him.

  The man started. “Oh! You gave me such a shock!” the man said, dressed in a simple dark suit with a collar that indicated he was the vicar.

  “I apologize. We’re looking for the vicar,” she said as Henry came into view.

  “Want to be married, do you?” he asked kindly. Henry grinned as Audrey looked back at him. “I like to tend the graves. Many of their loved ones are long gone, so I try to remember them in my way,” he explained as he pulled out another weed along one old tombstone.

  “Very decent of you,” Audrey said.

  He brushed the dirt from his knees and came towards them. “I’m Bruce Tanner. Vicar of St. Andrew’s. Marriage, is it?”

  “Not today.” Henry stepped forward. “My name is Henry Ryland. This is Audrey Wakefield. We wanted to ask you some questions about someone you might have buried some time ago.”

  Bruce blinked at the words. “A burial some time ago? Hmmm. What is the name?” When Henry gave him the name, Bruce frowned. “When was he buried?”

  Henry gave him the date. “He wasn’t buried. There was a service here for him and then he was cremated.”

  Bruce shook his head. “No. You must have the wrong church.”

  “I’ve been to the register’s office. That was the information I was given.”

  “With that date?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Bruce pondered that for a moment. “They must have written the wrong church name down. During the year you mentioned, I was on a sabbatical in Rome. So, whenever the service was given, it wasn’t by me on that date in this church.”

  Henry frowned, not expecting that answer. “A sabbatical?”

  “That’s right.”

  Henry eyed the vicar. “Would anyone else have performed the service in your absence?”

  “No. As I said, it must have been a different church.”

  Henry looked across at Audrey and then back to the vicar. “You must be correct. The office had the wrong church. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

  “No inconvenience at all, my son. God be with you, my children,” he said.

  Henry took Audrey by the elbow and helped her as she walked along the pebbled path that led back to the front of the church. She glanced back at the vicar, who had already gone back to his tombstones.

  “What’s going on, Henry?” she asked him in a whispered voice.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Henry looked across the table at Audrey. They had stopped at a tea house for refreshments. The proprietress came and poured two cups of tea for them, placed the scones and cakes on the table, and left them alone.

  “What now?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “We need to take all of this apart. We’re missing something. Something is right in front of us, and we’re missing it.”

  Audrey stared at him. “What are we missing? Everything that we’ve come across, we’ve dissected. We’ve gone after everything we could. The diary, the names. I don’t know what else we could have missed.”

  “I’m not altogether certain either, but it’s true. We’ve missed something.”

  Audrey was silent and then looked up at him. “I didn’t want to say anything to you, I didn’t want you to be worried—” she began.

  “What? What is it?” he asked.

  “The chaplain was in my cottage this morning.”

  He frowned. “He paid you a call?”

  Audrey’s lips tightened. “If you can call it that, yes. He was in the drawing room when I came downstairs. He was sitting there, waiting for me.”

  He stared at her, sure he’d heard incorrectly. “He came into the cottage without your knowledge?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s unacceptable.” Henry couldn’t believe the audacity.

  “I think he’s a little odd in the head, Henry. He’s in his own little world.”

  “His own world?” Henry repeated. “He could be behind this, Audrey. Whatever this is.”

  She frowned. “He’s a man of God, Henry.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?�
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  She hesitated. “I didn’t want to worry you. I don’t want to make a big deal of it. But the more I thought about it, the more it unnerved me. It was the reason I decided finally to ask your mother to take Frances. She’s safe there.”

  “You’d be safe there, too.”

  “I’m not moving to the grand house. Frances is one thing but not me.”

  Henry watched her face. “What did the chaplain say?”

  Audrey looked down at her teacup. “He said he wanted to speak to me away from prying eyes.”

  Henry shrugged. “That could be used either way. He’s covering for himself or he thinks something is up.”

  “How long has he been at the workhouse?” she asked.

  “A few years,” Henry remembered.

  Audrey pulled the teacup and saucer to her but didn’t drink it. “He said he was concerned about the workhouse. He said people are up to no good. They don’t fear the deity, he said. But when I asked him to elaborate, he wouldn’t.”

  He leaned back, listening intently. “Go on.”

  “He said the Master was a good Christian man but not Matron.”

  “Not Matron?” he repeated, not understanding. “Elspeth is as Christian as they come. Both the Meachams are.”

  “Maybe the chaplain holds a grudge for something and is bad-mouthing them.” Audrey shrugged. “He said she’s not reverent. Then he went on to complain about the doctor.”

  “Old man Beesley?” he said, teasing her.

  She shook her head. “Yes. He said he was flippant and carefree. So he is, but what’s wrong with that? He’s amiable. He told me to be on my guard. To understand right and wrong. I asked him if he knew of anything happening in the workhouse, and he quoted scripture and left.”

  He tried to piece it all together, but he was struggling. “What scripture?”

  “’To Me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste,’” she told him.

  “Deuteronomy,” Henry mused.

  “It is,” she agreed.

  Henry contemplated her words. “The book of Deuteronomy is mostly about laws and punishment.”

  “I think he senses something isn’t right, but I don’t think he’s genuinely aware,” Audrey told him.

  Perhaps, but Henry didn’t know what to think yet. “How did the conversation end?”

  “As oddly as it began. I asked him if he would take vengeance out on someone and he looked at me as if I was some silly child and said God would take vengeance.”

  Henry paid for their tea, and they stepped outside onto the street. It was getting dark, and he looked about for a hansom cab to hire.

  “I want you to come stay with us, Audrey. I would feel better,” he said.

  “I’ll remain where I am for the time being,” she told him. “But thank you for offering.”

  He shook his head. “You know two people are dead. You know someone hit me wanting to slow us down. Why are you insisting on staying in the cottage?”

  Her back straightened. “You make it sound as if I’m deliberately being irresponsible. As if I’m putting myself in a dangerous path by staying in my home.”

  He looked down at her and felt a strange sensation sweep over him. He loved her. He knew he loved her, and he was frightened to death that he might not be able to keep her safe. “I can’t be with you every moment. But at least in the grand house, you’ll be with my mother, servants—” He saw the tightness in her face and knew she would not be swayed. “You are so stubborn. You wish Frances to be safe, but not yourself.”

  She said nothing as they continued to walk along the street.

  “I must get home. We have a rather long meeting tomorrow with the Board of Guardians,” he explained.

  “Why is it to be rather long?” she asked.

  “We are reviewing the quarterly books. All the monies of the workhouse. It’s tedious but necessary,” he said.

  They were finally able to hail a hansom cab, and he directed the driver to the workhouse first. When they were finally at the workhouse gates, he clasped Audrey to him in a tight embrace.

  “Don’t be brave. Don’t be stupid. Don’t wander around at night, and lock all your doors and windows,” he whispered to her. “I don’t think I could bear if something happened to you.” He pulled away from her and smoothed back a lock of hair from her face. “You’ll do as I ask?”

  “Yes.”

  Once Audrey was inside the cottage, she locked the front door and went upstairs to her room. It was so quiet outside, and inside the cottage, she felt so lonely. It had been different when she had first come to the workhouse. She had had a room at the end of the hall and hadn’t felt so alone with all the inmates surrounding her. Now, in the cottage, she roamed from room to room, looking inside Frances’ room and then her mother’s.

  She stood inside the doorway, staring at her mother’s empty bed and the desk that overlooked the gardens and beyond. She sighed as moved over to the desk and then to the vanity chair and table. She touched her mother’s brush and hand mirror. She should have handled her differently. She should have believed her and been kinder to her. She knew her mother had been hurt, and now, with everything happening, it was possible her mother had seen something that was out of place, and her muddled mind had made it something else.

  She looked out of the window and down into the garden. Her mother must have done the same. She must have been looking down at the audience during the concert just as Audrey was looking down into the garden. She must have seen—

  Suddenly, a thought struck Audrey, and it almost terrified her.

  She took a seat to settle herself. Her mother had said at the theater that she had seen him. No one knew what she was talking about and had thought she was a little mad.

  When Audrey had tried to confront her, Augusta had said, “There’s no mix-up. I’m not simple. I saw him. As plain as I see you.” Then she had gone on to say she had seen the shadow man.

  What if, instead of being mad, her mother had been watching out the window all these months and had already been aware of something going on that they had just now discovered?

  What if she had watched someone going into the morgue for some unknown reason and she had watched this person walk the grounds at night? And as fantastical as it seemed, that night at the concert, her mother had seen that same man in the audience.

  Audrey heard a creak in the house, and even though she knew it was the sound of an old house settling, she quickly moved from her mother’s room to her own and turned the lock on the door the minute she was inside.

  Her heart was pounding. It made so little sense. What was happening in the morgue, and what did the dead inmates have to do with it? She undressed quickly and shivered in the cool autumn air. She must tell Henry what she thought tomorrow when she saw him.

  The next day, Henry listened intently as Audrey told him of her discovery. “Who do we know attended the concert that night?” he asked.

  “That’s no help either.” She shook her head. “I remember talking to Joseph the day after about my mother’s outburst. He told me that most of the staff was there and went on to say that they all often attend and enjoyed the concerts.”

  “We can’t catch a break, can we?” He studied her face in the setting sun. The children had gone on to supper, and they had stayed behind in the classroom to talk.

  “I thought I might visit the hospital to ask her about who she saw,” Audrey said.

  “You might do more harm. She’s very fragile, mentally,” Henry reminded her.

  She sighed. “You’re right. I should leave it for now. It scares me that someone I’m working with, speaking to every day, might be up to no good.”

  He kissed her once and then looked at the large wall clock and saw the time. “I must dash. The meeting starts soon. Let’s meet after.”

  Audrey returned to the classroom and finished grading the child
ren’s work. She was pleased. They had come so far since she had first joined the workhouse, and she was proud of them. The young girl who would soon go into service as a housemaid was becoming more fluent in French, and Audrey had offered to write her a character reference.

  She thought longingly of Frances, safe in the big house, and her mother in the hospital. She hoped they would be together again as a family soon.

  She turned off the gaslights in the room and locked the door behind her. She had missed supper, but she would make herself some tea when she returned home. She walked along the long hallway from the classroom and noticed the gaslights, which were normally brightly lit, were shut off.

  “That’s strange,” she said to herself.

  She began to walk down the long hallway towards the courtyard. Her black, heeled boots echoed on the floor as she walked. She hadn’t taken more than several steps when a figure emerged before her. The figure was in silhouette and too far away to reveal more than that, but she saw it was a man, tall and almost menacing.

  She looked behind her and then before her. The man wasn’t moving but seemed to be waiting for her. Audrey didn’t want to be afraid, but even so, her heart raced with fear. There must be a perfectly sane reason for this.

  “Hello?” she called out to him.

  The figure said nothing. Audrey took a step forward, wondering if she was merely making this up in her head. Maybe the man was lost. Maybe he had a perfectly reasonable purpose for standing motionless in the dark hallway.

  This sounded silly even to Audrey, and she took another step forward. Then she watched as the man took a step forward and pulled an object out of his pocket. It looked like a small club. A billy club! She watched as he took the club and smashed the gaslight next to him, shattering it. Audrey’s eyes widened, and her heart pounded even harder inside her chest.

  He began to move towards her in slow, measured steps, and the glass from the lantern crunched under his heavy boots. Without looking back, she turned in the opposite direction and ran down the hallway, moving as fast as she could. She made it all the way to the courtyard, and when she turned around, it was like a bizarre nightmare. The figure was gone.