The Ely Testament

by Philip Gooden

  Later that evening, over supper with Bella and in between their sporadic conversation, Chase reviewed his relationship with Charles Tomlinson. At one stage he might have called it a budding friendship, but not now. In fact, he was beginning to wish that he had never encountered Tomlinson. That meeting had occurred a few months earlier in the bar of the Lion Hotel, the old Ely coaching inn which sits in the shadow of the great cathedral. The two got chatting – or, more accurately, Tomlinson got chatting to Chase – and the man with the lantern jaw had shown a most flattering interest in Chase’s research and his creations. ‘You will be a benefactor of mankind,’ said Tomlinson, which put into words an idea that Chase did not quite have the nerve or assurance to express for himself. It also struck him, whether by accident or design on Tomlinson’s part, on a vulnerable spot.

  Cyrus Chase lived in the shadow of his late father, rather as the Lion Hotel lives in the shadow of Ely Cathedral. In the 1840s Howard Chase patented a system of hooks, chains and pins for joining railway carriages that came to be known as the Chase Coupler. To his son, he claimed that such a device – functional, potentially ubiquitous – was as elegant as a work of art. Although the Chase Coupler and other patents, mostly to do with the railways, did not achieve worldwide success they were taken up by enough companies to ensure that Cyrus would never be required to work for a living. Rather, he was free. Free, as it turned out, to emulate his father, by creating and patenting devices.

  Cyrus looked not to the railways or the other great iron-and-steel constructions of the age, but to something more elemental. He turned back to the earth, and to interment in the earth, and to the most basic human fear of being buried alive, a fear which had haunted him ever since a terrifying dream in childhood. Cyrus was aware his father had done things that were both profitable and useful. He too hoped to bring a benefit to humanity by easing the fear of death. He believed one could only sleep easily in this life if one was confident of sleeping easily after death. It was one of the reasons why he named his villa Mon Repos.

  The flattering words from Charles Tomlinson about being a benefactor led to a first visit to the Chase home and a trip to the bottom of the garden to inspect his workplace. On this first visit, Tomlinson had also been introduced to Bella, who fluttered and flustered and whose cheeks went red at the gentleman’s gallantry. Chase didn’t mind initially – it gave him a glow to show off his wife in almost the same way as it did to show off his security coffin – but when Bella repeatedly made comments and asked questions about Tomlinson and when she reacted with even more flutter to a second visit and then a third, he grew uneasy. It wasn’t only Bella’s interest; it was the slightly unnerving look of the man, the narrow jaw that gave Tomlinson a predatory appearance, the dark eyes.

  Another cause for unease was that he could not discover what Tomlinson did. The man was an occasional visitor to Ely where he always stayed at the Lion. But why he came to the town, Chase could not discover, since the other batted away any attempt to find out. This riled Cyrus, especially because he had been so open about his own hopes and plans and creations. He resolved to be more guarded in future. Guarded about his creations, guarded about his Bella.

  The Interment of Mr Lye

  David Mackenzie had mentioned that Alexander Lye was a nonconformist so this was perhaps the reason for the choice of Abney Park Cemetery for the funeral. The cemetery, which was half burial-ground, half parkland, was in Stoke Newington, itself half in London and half out of it, and was the preferred resting-place of many nonconformists.

  On a bright morning in October, less than a week after Mr Lye’s death and with weather to match the day when he died, Helen and Tom Ansell stood waiting near the ornamental gates of Abney Park. A few representatives of Scott, Lye & Mackenzie were there too, talking in subdued tones or brushing flecks from their outfits or inspecting the pavement or the sky. There was a cluster of Stoke Newington locals, too, with nothing better to do, drawn by the prospect of a funeral or perhaps just a turn in the sunshine. The air was clearer and fresher here than in the heart of the city.

  Helen was the only woman present in the official party, although others were due to arrive in the funeral carriages, including her mother, Mrs Scott. Helen looked especially fetching dressed in black, Tom thought. Her delicate complexion glowed through the veil she wore. He suppressed the desire to reach out and touch her. He reminded himself that he was here not only to pay his respects to an esteemed member of his firm but also to be introduced to Lye’s brother and sister, the two siblings who lived somewhere near Ely. There was to be a wake afterwards at the Regent’s Park house.

  Helen glanced at the gates to the cemetery. The columnar gateposts were designed after a curious Egyptian style. There were hieroglyphic inscriptions above the single-storey lodges on each side. Tom said, ‘It gives a very un-English feel to the thing, doesn’t it?’

  ‘That is probably the purpose of it,’ said Helen, squinting at the inscriptions in the sun. ‘I wonder what they mean.’

  ‘I can enlighten you, madam.’

  They turned to look at a man who was standing behind them. He was short with a face as wrinkled as a walnut. He too was in funeral garb but professionally so. He made a small bow.

  ‘I am with Willow & Son, undertakers of Camden Town. We are in charge of the exequies today for Mr Lye. I am the advance guard, so to speak. Eric Fort at your service. I have a supply of mourning cards with me. One for you, sir, and for you, madam?’

  The black-lined cards announced the date of Alexander Lye’s death and his age (85) as well as the place and time of his interment at Abney Park. There was a discreet but embossed image of an inverted torch to one side and a willow tree to the other. The weeping willow was an appropriate symbol but it also reminded the recipient of the name of the undertaker’s. Tom thought that a handful of these cards had already been sent to Furnival Street but he took one anyway, as did Helen.

  ‘You were wondering what that queer writing says?’ said the man, indicating the hieroglyphs above the lodges. ‘It says, “The Gates of the Abode of the Mortal Part of Man”. It’s Egyptian.’

  ‘Very un-English,’ said Helen, with a glance at her husband. ‘The idea makes one think of the great pyramids at Giza. I should like to see them one day.’

  ‘Those are funerary monuments too,’ said Eric Fort. He smiled, showing large discoloured teeth, like old tombstones. ‘Just as well the architects did not decide to put down a great pyramid here, eh? It would have obliterated Abney Park.’

  He might have said more but at that moment a hearse rounded the corner, drawn by four horses, followed by several other carriages. The hearse was accompanied by the mutes, walking at a stately pace, with their black sashes and practised doleful faces. The quantity of black velvet on the carriages soaked up the autumn sunlight like a blotter. Everyone waiting by the Egyptian gates became suddenly alert. Their postures stiffened. They stood back to allow the cortège to roll through the entrance.

  As well as the official mourners, paid and unpaid, the gaggle of locals trailed after the procession and along the winding paths towards the chapel. They passed by pines and cedar trees and in between the monuments. Eric Fort, who seemed to have attached himself to Tom and Helen, made occasional comments in a subdued voice. He pointed out a beehive sculpture on one of the tombs.

  ‘It stands for wisdom while the sculpted veil draped over the domed hive represents the dimming of wisdom.’

  ‘Very interesting, Mr Fort,’ said Helen.

  They reached the chapel with its tall, spike-like steeple. Set among trees, and reached by those winding paths, it resembled something out of a fairy story, half enchanted, half sinister. Here the coffin was unloaded from the hearse and taken in by the bearers. The mourners clambered down from their carriages and waited until all had been made ready inside the chapel. Helen greeted her mother. Tom said hello to Mr and Mrs David Mackenzie. Mr Ashley, the senior clerk, was with them. The other men from Scott, Lye & Mackenzie stuck
together, as if by instinct. Some of the Stoke Newington locals examined the carriages and funeral trappings with experienced eyes.

  The Ansells took their places inside the chapel. A dour-faced clergyman was officiating. As the service proceeded, Tom’s attention wandered as he tried to identify the other members of Alexander Lye’s family. There were two ladies who could have been the senior partner’s sisters, but they were so heavily swathed and veiled it was difficult to be sure. A gentleman who was keeping them company might well have been Lye’s brother. He had a touch of the old lawyer’s look.

  Tom thought of another burial, one which he had not attended and which, at the time, he was ignorant of. His father’s death occurred when he was still a small boy, and not on land but at sea. Tom retained almost no memory of his father except for the image of a tall man in a blue uniform. Captain Thomas Ansell had been on his way to take part in the Russian War in the Crimea. He died on board of a fever before he could arrive and he was buried near the Dardanelles. Tom supposed that a military, shipboard burial must be an altogether brisker affair than a landlocked civilian one. A few prayers were intoned, a volley of shots was fired, the body was dropped over the side, the ship sailed on.

  Tom learned of these details from a comrade of his father whom he had met recently. His mother Marian did not talk much about his father, hardly mentioned him at all in fact, although it had of course been many years since the Captain’s death. His most tangible legacy to Tom apart from height and dark hair had perhaps been the form of his given name, since his mother called him Tom from his earliest years to distinguish him from Captain Thomas. After a longish interval Mrs Ansell got married again, to an attorney who behaved towards Tom with distant affection. It was on account of Mark Holford that Tom had decided to make a career in law. His stepfather was dead as well now.

  These musings carried Tom most of the way through the service for Mr Lye. When it was over the congregation followed the coffin outside, where the other carriages were waiting. The coffin was returned to the hearse to be transported to its allotted place in Abney Park. While the chapel bell was tolling, the women left in a separate party since they would not be present for the actual interment, but at the wake later that day.

  The men went on foot after the hearse. Tom was introduced by David Mackenzie to the gentleman who he had assumed, correctly, was Alexander Lye’s brother. Ernest Lye was closer to middle age than old age. He was fairly slight. He had the same penetrating blue gaze as Alexander. The likeness was enhanced when he sneezed and drew out a black-bordered handkerchief. Tom had forgotten until that instant that a sneeze was the final earthly sound he had heard from Ernest’s brother.

  Tom was introduced as a trusted member of the firm. David Mackenzie said to Ernest Lye, ‘He will be visiting you soon on that business we discussed.’

  ‘I’ll be pleased to see you, Mr Ansell,’ said Ernest.

  They spoke in low tones, not merely because they were following a hearse but because the missing will was a delicate topic. They reached the burial place and clustered round the open grave as the bearers brought the coffin out once more. Tom was near the back and found Mr Eric Fort standing next to him. The little undertaker’s man said in a professionally subdued voice, ‘I have to say that I prefer Abney Park to Norwood or Highgate. It is quite my favourite among the London burial grounds. What do you think, sir?’

  ‘I expect you’re right. I have not as much experience as you,’ said Tom in an offhand way which he hoped would finish the conversation. While the dour-faced clergyman was running through his lines on the edge of the grave, Mr Fort sometimes nodded in vigorous agreement and muttered, ‘Very true, very true’. Tom found Mr Fort’s presence unsettling. Perhaps it was the other man’s relish for the whole business. Maybe it was his teeth, which every time that Tom glanced at him seemed more and more to resemble old gravestones, uneven and stained and chipped.

  He was glad to escape the company of the toothy individual from Willow & Son when the interment was over. He travelled back with David Mackenzie, Mr Ashley and another junior member of the firm, a pleasant chap called William Evers, with whom Tom was friendly. The journey in one of the funeral carriages towards the smoky air and clogged streets of north London took some time. There was a general sense of release and relaxation. The mourners were looking forward to the food and drink waiting for them at the Regent’s Park house that belonged to Alexander Lye and his sister Edith. Tom said nothing of his mission to Ely, since Mr Mackenzie had stressed how confidential it all was. But he did make some comment about how Ernest Lye seemed much less, well, old than his brother.

  ‘I can enlighten you there,’ said Mr Mackenzie. ‘I have only just discovered that Mr Lye’s father was twice married. Mr Ernest Lye was the child of his second wife, Mr Alexander of his first, as is Miss Edith. Alexander Lye is a child of the eighteenth century, Ernest is a product of the nineteenth like the rest of us. Therefore the Lyes are stepbrothers.’

  ‘If you’ll allow me, sir,’ said William Evers, ‘I believe that “half-brothers” is the appropriate term for issue who share a parent. Those who do not share a parent are step-siblings.’

  Mr Ashley, who was a stickler for accuracy, nodded in approval. Mackenzie seemed not too put out by the correction. He added, ‘There is more though. Something else I have recently discovered. The lady with Mr Ernest Lye is not his sister but his wife. The Lye brothers have only the one sister, Edith, who we are on our way to visit now. And before you can put me right, Mr Evers, I should of course have said whom we are on our way to visit . . .’

  Tom was sitting next to Evers and he could almost feel the heat of his companion’s blush in the confines of the carriage. Mackenzie, pleased at his little victory, patted his black-clad stomach and ruminated on human behaviour.

  ‘There was no obligation on my late, lamented partner to be clear about his family circumstances, of course, and I do not believe that the brothers – or half-brothers, Mr Evers – were close but it is strange how one may have only the sketchiest notion of people one has spent half a lifetime with.’

  As he said this, he glanced at Tom who was sitting in the opposite seat. Tom had no doubt he was thinking of the missing will.

  The Wake

  The wake at the Regent’s Park house was a quite jolly affair, even jollier than most wakes. Tom wondered whether it was because there was no one there who truly regretted the passing of Alexander Lye. As David Mackenzie said, the half-brothers had not been close. His sister Edith, who had apparently been distraught to hear of his death, now behaved like a puppet. She was guided to a chair by her half-brother Ernest and a glass of port put in her frail grasp. Tom didn’t hear her speak a word or see her take a sip. As far as she was visible, she looked at least as old as Alexander had been – which tended to confirm they were real brother and sister, with no halves or steps involved – but she remained heavily veiled. She possessed a lot of white hair, which came shooting out from under her hat. Her maid fussed about her, despite being nearly as old as her mistress. Age seemed a qualification for the other servants and, like the house itself, they had a faded, worn-out air.

  As for the general mourners, they were either those with a professional connection from Scott, Lye & Mackenzie and a couple of other law firms – although the days when Lye had been a familiar figure in the legal world were long gone – or they were neighbours, who pulled the appropriate faces and uttered the right words but then got on with the business of eating, drinking and chatting.

  There was plenty of port and sherry, as well as tea. Hams, pies, cheeses and cakes were piled high in the dining room and guests wandered between there and the morning room. The women were already at the house, Helen and her mother Mrs Scott and Mrs Mackenzie and others, and pretty soon the rooms were full of noise and even the odd burst of laughter, quickly checked. The cemetery at Abney Park with its burial rites was a distant memory. William Evers cornered Tom by one of the high windows that looked out over the Park. He
seemed anxious.

  ‘I say, do you think I really upset the guv’nor by putting him right about step-brothers and so on? Should’ve kept my mouth shut, I suppose.’

  ‘I think he enjoyed putting you down, Will. In a good-natured way.’

  ‘Then I suppose I’m glad to have been a source of pleasure for him.’

  Tom put a hand on Evers’ despondent shoulder and the junior brightened at once. He took another swig of sherry.

  ‘I hear you are going on confidential business to Ely,’ he said.

  ‘Not confidential enough, it seems.’

  ‘Oh dear, another mistake.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Tom. Yet he was surprised at how quickly things got round an office.

  ‘You are lucky to be in Mr Mackenzie’s confidence.’

  Tom shrugged. To change the subject, he said, ‘Have you seen Mrs Ernest Lye?’

  ‘I have indeed,’ said Evers, looking towards an attractive woman on the other side of the morning room. As Ernest Lye was a lot younger than his brother Alexander, then Mrs Lye was in turn appreciably younger than her husband. Will Evers sighed and Tom thought he knew what the matter was.

  ‘How is Miss Rosamond?’ he said.

  ‘Thriving and . . . and as beautiful as ever,’ said his friend. ‘I must speak to her father next week. I will speak to him.’

  Miss Rosamond Hartley was the daughter of a doctor. Will Evers had been her admirer for some time now. He thought – he hoped – that his feelings were returned. All that remained was for him to approach Dr Hartley, man to man, and ask permission. Tom had lost count of the number of occasions on which the junior lawyer had stated that he intended to speak to the doctor next week. That ‘next week’ never seemed to arrive.