A Virtuous Death

by Christine Trent

  “So from what did Lady Maud die?” Reese asked.

  “They said she had the consumption something terrible.”

  Reese’s lips carved into the first smile he’d had since before hearing of his sister’s death. His new position at Buckingham Palace mews was already proving quite profitable.

  5

  Sitting before a large map of Great Britain were Detective Chief Inspector Hurst and Detective Second-Class Inspector Pratt. The two had worked for hours to diagram out where all of Great Britain’s coal mines were. Although Mr. Walter was certain the writer was Welsh, given his language and his complaint about a Welsh colliery, it wouldn’t be thorough to survey only those coal mines. You never knew with these unbalanced types. Sometimes they became aggrieved over situations having nothing to do with them. Or perhaps this poor fellow was from a coal-mining village to the north and wanted to give his fellow workers his undying support.

  Pratt cleared his throat. “It seems to me, sir, that we should start with the obvious.”

  Hurst agreed, but wanted to test his junior protégé. “And what would be obvious?”

  “That we should take the writer at his word, and go to Mold in Flintshire, where the riot was that he complained of.”

  Hurst nodded. “Quite correct. And if we get no satisfaction there, we’ll head to the largest colliery on the map, and work our way down in order of size. Do you understand why we will do it that way?”

  “Because they are easier to reach?” Pratt’s voice was hopeful.

  “Inspector, we do not order our work around what is simple, but according to what makes sense. Larger coal mines employ more people, making it more likely that we can find our man more quickly at one of them. We’re going to stop this little fellow from carrying through on any of his blustering threats; this I can promise you.”

  Lady Maud’s funeral was an elegant affair despite the rain and fog of the morning. The duke held up surprisingly well as he stood next to Maud’s younger brother, who seemed completely baffled by the proceedings.

  Fortunately, Violet was the only one who noticed that Harry and Will nearly lost their balance on the wet, slippery ground as they slid the coffin into the family crypt at the cemetery.

  As was customary, Lady Gainsburgh remained at home, surrounded by female friends and family members, until the menfolk returned to report on the funeral.

  At Louise’s request, Violet returned to Buckingham Palace later in the day to help her make mourning jewelry to honor Lady Maud.

  Violet sat at one of four round oak tables inside Louise’s rooms while the princess and several of her friends, including Lady Marcheford, crowded around to watch her demonstrate. From among a collection of tools and supplies she opened a case full of empty crystal-topped brooches, rings, and lockets, all wrought in gold with fancy filigrees, knots, wreaths, and gemstone flowers adorning them. Violet had selected only the finest pieces from Morgan Undertaking’s stock, knowing that the daughters of earls and dukes expected unique and fanciful jewelry.

  Each woman selected an item or two of jewelry that she wanted; then Violet opened the paper box containing Maud’s long tresses, each coiled into a circle tied with a ribbon on both ends. Gently removing one and unraveling it, she said, “This is the lovely Lady Maud’s hair. I have washed, dried, and washed it again to remove any oils. However, as you can see as I remove one of the ribbons holding it together, when I stroke it the hair wants to fly away. Therefore we will lightly moisten the hair before working with it.

  “There are three general ways you can create a memorial piece with hair: working the hair into a piece of jewelry, as I believe most of you wish to do; using the hair to paint a scene on ivory; and, finally, creating a multidimensional bouquet or tableau from the hair and placing it under a glass dome. I must be truthful, though, and tell you that I have very little skill with the tableaux; it requires someone with great artistic talent, and I am but an undertaker. Also, we would probably need the hair of several people and many months in order to make one of these dome scenes. Therefore, we will make tributes to the Lady Maud in either jewelry or painting.”

  “I should like to paint,” said a pale woman, her eyelashes as blond as her hair. Neither of these features, though, compared to her plump figure, straining against her corset and threatening to disgorge itself. Violet noticed that the woman breathed in short, shallow breaths, probably because her laces were entirely too tight.

  “My lady . . .” Violet began.

  “I am Lady Hazel Campden. My father is Earl Littlebury.”

  “I am honored. First, you will need a little piece of ivory. What did you select as your jewelry piece? Ah, I believe a ring will be entirely too difficult. May I suggest this?” Violet pulled a large brooch, encircled with amethysts, from her tray. Lady Hazel nodded her acceptance.

  “This ivory is slightly large for the brooch. Let me just . . .” Working quickly, Violet went through her slivers of ivory, selected one that was approximately the right size, and scraped along the edges gently with a metal file until it fit properly in the brooch. She slid the piece to Lady Hazel. The room was silent except for Violet’s activity as the women watched, enthralled.

  “You need some of this sepia paint. . . .” Violet selected a jar from her supplies and poured a bit out onto a small palette.

  “It’s just a drab, reddish brown,” Louise said.

  “Yes, Princess, made from the ink sac of the cuttlefish, then combined with gum arabic. It’s a very popular medium. Leonardo da Vinci used it for his writings and drawings.”

  Louise frowned. “It still seems a bit dull.”

  “That is the exact point of sepia today. It gives the artwork a somber feeling, very appropriate for mourning jewelry.”

  Violet picked up the unraveled coil of Maud’s hair. “Now I will snip just the barest amount from the end of this lock, and a tiny bit more, and again just as small a clipping as I can make.” She did this over the poured sepia paint, then took a paintbrush and stirred the finely chopped hair into the sepia.

  Sliding the brush and palette to Lady Hazel, Violet said, “You are ready, madam, to create your masterpiece.”

  Lady Hazel stared, dismayed, at what lay before her. “But what shall I paint?”

  “I must confess, madam, that I am not much of an artist myself, but there are several themes that are popular. You might paint a crying angel, or an empty tomb to represent Lady Maud’s ascent to heaven, or perhaps a weeping willow.”

  “What if I were to do all three?”

  “Madam, if you are confident enough in your skill, then what you propose should result in a magnificent piece.”

  Lady Hazel began working and Violet continued her instruction.

  “For those who would like to work Lady Maud’s hair into jewelry, we will need this bottle of plain gum arabic, a pair of scissors, some wire . . .” Violet gathered all of the necessary tools. “I will also need the brazier.”

  The women stared at her.

  “It contains several curling rods.”

  Still no one moved. Violet realized that she was instructing an aristocrat to do a task for her. She pushed her chair back to retrieve the brazier herself. Lady Marcheford giggled, and the rest of the women followed suit.

  “Pardon us, Mrs. Harper. We are so accustomed to the brazier just appearing at our dressing tables and our maids preparing our hair that we weren’t quite sure where to find it. I’ll retrieve it.” Lady Marcheford went to the fireplace.

  “The gloves, my lady, the gloves!” Violet shouted. The woman was about to wrap her bare hands around the heated metal box.

  “Oh, how very silly of me.” Lady Marcheford stretched the gloves hanging next to the fireplace over her hands and brought the brazier to the table. Resting on a grate atop the box were several tiny, wood-handled iron rods, the iron made hot by smoldering coals resting below the grate.

  Violet could only hope one of the women wouldn’t end up with blisters upon her hands.
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  “First I will spread a small amount of gum arabic on the hair to help it stay together as we work with it.” With another paintbrush, she dipped into the solution, then painted it onto the lock of hair. “Notice that I use just the sheerest amount of it, lest it make the hair sticky.”

  “Like the old wigs of the last century,” another of Louise’s friends said.

  “Exactly, Lady . . . pardon me, I’ve forgotten.”

  “Julia Leventhorpe.”

  “Lady Julia’s father is the Duke of Dunwall,” Louise said. “Mother has been almost as interested in her marriage potential as my own.”

  “I see. Yes, Lady Julia, we don’t want the hair to behave as was popular last century, what with bear grease used to stiffen and straighten towers of curls. We simply want to be able to work with it without it flying away from us.”

  Once she was satisfied with her application of the gum arabic, Violet snipped a six-inch length and painstakingly counted out sixty hairs. “Now we will make what is known as a Prince Regent’s curl.” She wrapped the top half of the hair around one of the thin iron rods. A puff of smoke gently drifted upward. After a few moments, she gently slid the rod out. The result was a tightly coiled end, making the hair resemble a letter “b.”

  “That’s all?” Lady Julia said with a sniff. “That doesn’t look like much.”

  “Ah, but we aren’t quite finished. Who would like to donate some of her own hair to our final creation?”

  “I’ll do it,” Lady Marcheford said, quickly undoing pins in her own coif, reaching for a pair of scissors, and clipping a lock of her own blond hair. It had coppery tones to it and was therefore darker than Lady Maud’s.

  “Lottie, you’re so brave!” another girl said.

  Lady Marcheford shrugged indifferently. “My hair is neither admired nor cherished. I much prefer to see it resting with Maud’s. Besides, Maud always appreciated unique artwork. I remember her once dabbling in china painting.”

  Violet nodded. “We don’t have time for multiple washings, but I can see that your hair is quite clean, so we will continue with the same process.” Violet clipped the correct length, applied gum arabic, counted out strands, and curled the hair on the iron rod.

  “I now have both the Lady Maud’s curled lock, as well as Lady Marcheford’s donation. Watch.” The women eagerly bent forward over the table nearly in unison. Atop another piece of ivory Violet laid out Maud’s lock and carefully spread out the curled ends, so that they overlapped one another at an angle to the left. With Lady Marcheford’s hair, she did the same thing, only in reverse, so that the curls pointed to the right.

  “It looks like a plume of feathers,” Louise said. “My mother has one of these made from my father’s hair.”

  Violet quickly tied a thin piece of wire around the base of the two locks of hair to hold them together. From a capped jar she counted out three tiny seed pearls. “These represent the tears you shed for your dear friend.”

  Violet laid the pearls across the joined locks of hair where the wire was, to cover it. The gum arabic on the hair would adhere them. “There is much more you can do: Add a dried flower that was a favorite of Lady Maud’s, or use a larger iron to make bigger curls, or add in a hair ribbon. Anything that makes it feel special so that you can hold her near to your heart.”

  Violet placed a thick piece of creamy writing stationery over the curled hair, then placed a thin block of wood over that, followed by a piece of metal that looked like a miniature brick. “We shall weigh this down for several hours; then it will be ready to be placed under a crystal top. Is everyone ready to try for herself?”

  The women started their projects with great enthusiasm, although Lady Julia became quickly frustrated when her curled section of Maud’s hair quickly frizzed from being wrapped around the iron too long.

  “Please do not worry, my lady. You may try again from another lock of hair, or consider using the frizzed part in this manner.” Violet worked the hair with her thumb and forefinger and laid it back down on Lady Julia’s ivory.

  “It resembles a bouquet of flowers,” Lady Julia said. “Could I place pearls on the curls to represent their center pistils?”

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

  Despite her chubby fingers, Lady Hazel showed remarkable talent wielding a paintbrush over the miniature surface. Already her ivory showed a clear outline of an angel facing left, bending and weeping into a cloth. To the right side of the angel was the narrow trunk of a tree, with leaves yet to be painted, and to the left side was the outline of a Gothic-style tomb. It looked nothing like the Gainsburgh family crypt, but Lady Hazel wouldn’t know what it looked like, since she would have gotten no further than the chapel service, only departing before the men handled the actual interment. The bits of hair mixed into the sepia added depth and dimension to what she was creating.

  “My lady, I am no expert, but I believe your work to be exquisite.”

  The young woman pinked even as she struggled to breathe. “My art tutor once told me . . . that if I wasn’t destined . . . to make a great marriage . . . I might have been a great artist.”

  “Your future husband will be depriving the world of the next Leonardo da Vinci.”

  Lady Hazel blushed again and returned to gasping and painting.

  As the women chattered and worked, periodically crying out triumphantly or groaning in despair at their efforts, Violet moved around their tables, offering suggestions and mentally totaling up what they were using in supplies and jewelry. As she came around to Louise’s spot, the door opened and the queen’s favorite dog, a border collie named Sharp, pranced in, followed closely by the queen herself.

  The chattering stopped as the women jumped up to curtsy. Violet joined them.

  Victoria gave a rare smile over their mourning activities. “We see you are making remembrances over your dearly departed friend. So poignant and so worthy. Louise, you are finally showing the sentimentality you lacked when your dear papa died.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Louise said mechanically, returning to her work. The other women also went back to their seats.

  “Mrs. Harper, a word?” Victoria passed back into the hallway, Sharp at her heels. Violet followed her and pulled the door closed behind her.

  “How may I help you, ma’am?”

  “We approve of what you are doing to assist these young ladies in their grief. Losing a loved one is so very difficult, is it not? You expect that he will be there forever to hold your hand in his dear, strong one, and then one day the one we all loved is gone to his Maker.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “These little remembrances make the loss easier to bear.” Victoria tapped her own mourning brooch. “Did you know that Beatrice is making an eye portrait of her darling father for us?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, she has considerable talent.”

  “She is without equal among my children. A rare orchid. So sweet, so agreeable. However, what we wished to discuss with you concerns the cost for their mourning jewelry. Kindly send the entire bill along to my lord chamberlain for payment. We shall pay for it from our personal purse.”

  “That is very generous, Your Majesty.”

  “No cost is too great in honoring those who have passed before us, Mrs. Harper.” The queen swept away with Sharp, who offered Violet a happy farewell bark before leaping ahead of his mistress down the corridor.

  As Violet turned back to Louise’s rooms, Mr. Brown stepped out from the shadows. Once again, Violet was startled nearly witless, although the appearance of the Scottish ghillie wasn’t nearly as frightening as a dead girl coughing.

  “I’ve been searching for ye, Mrs. Harper.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Sure, and I’ve been wondering if you’ve discovered what the cards mean.”

  “Actually, Mr. Brown, I’ve been a bit too preoccupied with Lady Maud Winter’s death and funeral to be concerned with your roving spirits.”

  Brown seemed to ta
ke no offense and instead nodded his head slowly. Once again, she caught the faint whiff of spirits—the liquid kind. “Aye, and there might be a connection between the Lady Maud and the spirits, dinnae ye think?”

  “A connection between a consumptive young woman and the game of cards you’re playing? I can hardly see what it could be.”

  “ ’Tis not a game, Mrs. Harper; ’tis a very serious matter. I see that we must have another reading.”

  “I hardly think another card reading could possibly—”

  “I’ll suggest it to Her Majesty. Expect an invitation.” Brown sauntered off down the corridor.

  In total exasperation, Violet pressed her head to the door before reentering the room to attend to the mourning jewelry.

  Not again.

  She sighed to exhale the dread that now overcame her each time she encountered the queen’s servant, and turned the knob, returning to the world of hair jewelry, weeping angels, and mourning clothes, the world where she belonged.

  Normally, Violet had little patience for spiritualists and mediums, but at the moment she sincerely wished she knew one who could convince Mr. Brown to fling himself from a window. The queen’s servant sat once again before the ottoman in the queen’s private sitting room, dealing out cards in the form of a cross.

  Besides the queen and Violet, both Beatrice and her sickly brother, Leopold, as well as Bertie and his wife, Princess Alix, sat watching. Bertie’s expression was one of utter boredom, something Violet felt but hoped her face didn’t express. Leopold watched quietly, as if evaluating what was happening, whereas the other women were enthralled.

  Even in the shadows of the dozens of candles Mr. Brown had arranged, which Violet had to admit lent a certain heightened atmosphere of expectation to the proceedings, she could see that Leopold was a very ill boy. He was supposedly sixteen but looked younger. His skin was translucent and papery, as if the slightest touch might tear him into pieces.

  His hemophilia was not going to permit him a long life.