No Wings to Fly

by Jess Foley

  With a death certificate issued following the postmortem, and Tom’s body released for burial, she made her way to the Corster Town Hall. There, to a sharp-faced clerk, whose demeanour exhibited not an ounce of sympathy, she registered the fact of her brother’s death.

  Outside, on the busy street again, she felt a little wave of relief wash over her. Something more had been achieved; now she could see to his burial.

  There was an undertaker’s not far away – she had noted it on her outward journey – and she went there now. Invited into the director’s office, she sat at a desk opposite the solemn-faced, black-suited man and, after receiving his condolences, set about making arrangements for Tom’s funeral. When she said that Tom’s body was at present lying in the coroner’s mortuary, the man was prompted to ask how he had died. Forcing the words out through her tight lips, she said that her brother, in a moment of great despair, had taken his life.

  The man looked even more grave at this. He said he was very sorry to hear it, and then added, hesitantly, frowning in sympathy, ‘Are you aware that your brother might not be allowed burial in consecrated ground?’

  For a moment she was at a loss for words, then she said, ‘No – I didn’t know.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. It’s not a hard and fast rule, however, and sometimes the church incumbent is not so strict – depending on the circumstances. But I should think the burial will have to be in the Shelbourne cemetery.’

  ‘Not in the churchyard?’

  ‘I doubt it – but you would need to ask the vicar. Go and see the Reverend Mr Sillipson at St Michael’s.’ He gestured with a wave of his hand. ‘Just at the bottom of the hill.’ He paused. ‘He’s quite new to the parish, but I’ve no doubt you’ll find him an understanding man.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes – I’ll go and see him. I’ll go there now.’ She paused. ‘I’d like it if my brother could have a little service.’

  ‘Well,’ the man said, ‘that’s something you’ll have to talk to the reverend about. In any case, I shall write to him today to find out the arrangements. I’ll confirm to you, in a day or two, when the burial will be – the day and the time, and exactly where.’ He went on then to say that the schedules were more full than usual, owing to the increased number of deaths resulting from the smallpox, numerous cases of which were causing much alarm in Corster and the surrounding areas.

  With the arrangements completed as far as was possible, Lily was then asked to choose a coffin for her brother’s body. Drawing on the little money that Miss Elsie had provided, she chose the cheapest available and paid the money into the man’s hand. Then, her business done, she thanked him and left the building.

  Reaching the church, she could see no one about as she entered by the gate and walked up the path between the graves to the porch. Inside, she pushed open the heavy door, stepped into the hushed interior and looked about her. At first she thought the place was empty, but then she noticed movement up near the altar, and saw there a woman in an apron and cap dusting the altar table. She went towards her.

  The woman turned as Lily approached up the aisle, and gave her a little smile. ‘Hello, miss,’ she murmured as Lily came to a stop before her. Lily wished her a good afternoon and asked if the vicar was anywhere about.

  ‘He’s in the vestry, miss,’ the woman said, and pointed off towards a door. ‘Just go and knock.’

  Lily thanked her, moved to the vestry door and tapped upon it. A moment later she heard a voice saying, ‘Come in,’ and she opened the door and stepped inside.

  The Reverend Sillipson was sitting at a desk with three little stacks of tracts before him. A number of them he was holding in his hand. As Lily entered the room he got up from his chair and smiled at her over the top of his spectacles. Dressed in his cassock and dog-collar, he was a man of medium height and very slim build, round-shouldered, with dark, thinning, smoothed-back hair. He appeared to be in his late forties, but his face was unlined, his brow as smooth and pale as paper. He greeted her with a friendly ‘Good afternoon’, after which he added, still with his smile, ‘I’m the Reverend Sillipson. And what can I do for you, miss?’

  Lily gave him her name, and then, holding on to her control, told him that her brother had died. She had, she said, just come from the undertaker’s where she had gone to arrange the funeral. At her words, the cleric’s slightly guarded expression changed to one of sympathy, and he said at once, ‘Oh, you’ve lost your brother. I’m very sorry to hear that. And looking at you, I can only assume that he was a young man.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily said, ‘he was seventeen.’

  The reverend nodded. ‘Oh, it’s sad – it’s very sad.’ He was still holding the tracts. He moved as if to put them on the desk, but then, on an impulse, held them out to her. ‘Take them, please,’ he said. As Lily, a little surprised at the gesture, took them from him, he said, ‘You might find they give some solace in this distressing time.’ Then he added, ‘They’re new. They were just delivered from the printer today.’

  Lily glanced down at the tracts. There were three of them, each bearing a little coloured picture of the iconic Christ figure. Beneath the pictures, printed in ornate script, were written testaments to Christ’s enduring love.

  ‘Anyway,’ the reverend said, ‘you didn’t come here for me to give you tracts – conforting as they are. You’re here to talk about the sad business of your brother’s funeral.’ He gestured to a nearby chair. ‘Would you care to sit down?’

  Lily murmured her thanks and took the seat. He sat down also, and turned his chair to face her.

  ‘Which funeral director did you go to?’ he asked her, and she replied, ‘Mr Scrivener, in Maple Street.’

  He nodded. ‘Excellent. I shall no doubt be hearing from him by first post tomorrow, asking for a time and day for your brother’s funeral. I can probably give you that information now. It’ll be in about a week, or a little more.’ He turned in his chair and pulled a volume across the desk towards him, opened it and scanned the page. ‘Yes. Let’s say next Wednesday – the eighteenth – a week today. Say at eleven-thirty. Would that suit you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Thank you.’

  ‘You would like a little service for your brother, no doubt.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily replied. ‘Oh, yes, if that’s possible.’

  ‘Oh, indeed. And can you tell me where his – his body is lying now? At your home is it?’

  She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘He’s in the mortuary. The coroner’s mortuary.’

  The reverend’s surprise showed in the slight widening of his eyes behind his spectacles. ‘In the coroner’s mortuary? So his passing was – unexpected.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Did he have an accident? Or was it a sudden illness? Surely not a heart seizure at his age.’

  ‘No.’ Lily gave a little shake of her head. ‘No, he had no seizure, no – no accident.’

  The Reverend Sillipson waited.

  ‘I’m afraid he – he took his own life,’ she said. ‘He – fell – from a window.’

  The reverend put a hand up to his cheek. ‘He . . . fell?’

  ‘Yes.’ A moment’s pause, then she added, ‘He – jumped.’

  Silent seconds passed, while the man sat, his lips pursed. ‘I think you should have told me this at the start,’ he said after a moment. His tone had changed now.

  Lily said nothing. She could think of no words.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ the reverend went on, ‘but I’m afraid I cannot preside over any service for the young man – nor officiate at his burial.’

  ‘Please . . .’ she said, ‘just a few words. He had little time to go to church, but – oh, just a few words, a little blessing. It would mean so much.’

  He sat up a little straighter in his chair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but this person has taken his own life, and that being so he has forfeited all right to be received into God’s grace. It is for God, in His wisdom, to take and give life; it’s not for the likes of u
s mortals.’

  Lily felt her heart contract with pain, while sudden tears pricked at her eyes. ‘Oh, but Reverend,’ she burst out, ‘he was only young. He’d just suffered a dreadful calamity – and he’d gone through so much.’ Her throat was so tight that she could barely get her words out. For herself she would not have cared a fig about a service given by this pale-skinned rake of a man, who looked as if he had never had contact with humanity, but for Tom she wanted it. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘don’t deny him this. He was desperate – and not thinking straight. He was afraid and – he didn’t know what he was doing . . . Please – all he needs is a little prayer, just a little blessing.’

  The cleric rose from his chair, at the same time raising a slim hand to stop her passionate flow. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, though there was no touch of regret in his tone. ‘I cannot spare him one single word. He’ll have to be buried in the cemetery – and on the other side of the hedge.’

  Lily frowned. ‘The other side of the hedge? What does that mean?’

  He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘There’s a spot there, in the cemetery. It’s marked off on the other side of a privet hedge. That’s where such as your brother are buried.’ His thin, pink lips were tightly pinched. ‘There’s no room for such a one in Holy ground.’ As he spoke, his voice seemed to be full of pride. He was merciless and invincible in his Goodness, his knowledge of what was right and wrong. ‘I’m here to interpret God’s will,’ he added solemnly, ‘and I must, and shall, do it the way I think best.’

  Lily had also risen to her feet. ‘Is – is that your final word?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a nod. ‘I’m sorry, but it is. If you came here with –’

  Now, suddenly angry, she drew herself up. She no longer felt obliged to listen to any word he spoke. ‘Yes, I’m sorry too,’ she said, cutting into his words. ‘I’m sorry that you, as your God’s representative, have no warmth of understanding in your soul. I’m sorry that you have no compassion for a young man who was in need of simply such a thing. Such a thing that might indeed have saved him.’ She realised that she was still holding the tracts. She held them up, in a glance taking in the pious phrases and the little coloured images of the benevolent Christ figure. She held them out at arm’s length. ‘Would your Jesus have turned away from him?’ And now the tears that she had so far kept at bay came rising up and brimming over. ‘Would He have turned from a young man who was so desperately in need? A young man who was good and whose only failing was to have nothing, and whose future was bleak and without hope?’ Her voice broke on a sob and she added bitterly, ‘If this is so then I would want no part of your god.’

  The man’s mouth opened in disbelief and amazement. ‘You are a blasphemer,’ he said. ‘That you dare to come into God’s house and speak in such a way!’

  ‘Yes, I do dare!’ Lily said through tight lips, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘And I mean what I say. But have no fear – I shall see my brother buried without your mealy-mouthed words.’ She was sobbing. ‘He doesn’t need the likes of you to get into your – your Paradise. If there is a God in heaven then He will see past your mean-spirited little soul – and He will take him to His heart.’ With her final words she drew back her hand and threw the tracts at him. They struck him lightly on the chest and fell to the floor in a little scattering of colour. ‘Keep your pious words,’ she said. ‘We don’t need them.’

  Turning swiftly about, she went from the room, and then, her feet ringing on the stone flags, made her way back out into the grey October day.

  The days passed with little to differentiate one from another, Lily living them as in some dull, waking nightmare. She continued to teach Lavinia in the schoolroom, and gave all she could, but always a part of her mind was detached, off in some other world where she relived, over and over, her last moments with Tom. Always, in her mind, she saw him leaping up, so agile in his desperation, one foot on the seat of the bench as he launched himself forward. The images were always the same. When he throws himself through the glass he plunges head first. There was no changing that memory. In that recurring image there is no suggestion of him putting up his arms to shield his head as he goes through the frame. He goes face foremost, his chin jutting, lips drawn back over his teeth, and the lacerating spears of glass slice into the flesh of his face and his throat, and he is already bleeding to death before he hits the ground . . .

  The funeral, she had had it confirmed by Mr Scrivener, would take place at eleven-forty-five on Wednesday, the eighteenth. It would be in the cemetery and there would be no clergyman to officiate at the graveside. She had written to her stepmother informing her of Tom’s death, but there had been no reply. She was not, after all, so surprised. There had been no word either from Joel since his letter from Brussels. He would be in Paris now. She was sure, though, that she would hear from him soon.

  In Lily’s grief, the only moments that brought her any relief and allowed her a little, precious, touch of happiness, were those when she saw the child, her son. Such moments might by chance occur anywhere, but they usually came when she went into the nursery at midday. Sometimes he lay sleeping in his cot, while on other occasions he was wakeful and energetic. The prospect of seeing him, if only for a few minutes, drew her like a magnet. When she went there on Tuesday, the day before the funeral, she found him awake and bright and talkative. He was in the process of having his clothes changed. As she came across the carpet he struggled in Miss Cattock’s arms and, being let go, ran towards Lily with a smile. At once she crouched, holding out her arms to meet him, and he came to a stop a foot from her outstretched hands. Now she could smile. A few more inches, and he would be in her arms, as he had been on the afternoon of the storm. This time he came no closer, but stayed where he was and looked up at her with his soft smile and his blue eyes wide. He was wearing white linen drawers and a cotton vest that exposed his upper arms. On his naked left arm she saw the half-healed scar from his recent vaccination, the vaccination he had been so proud of. Seeing it, she wanted to draw him to her and press her lips to the little healing wound, but then, with a chuckle, he was turning, moving back to the arms of his nurse. The brief encounter left Lily with a little warmth that touched her aching heart.

  The following day, she caught the train into Corster and from the station took an omnibus to the Shelbourne cemetery. She carried with her a little bunch of carnations that Mr Beeching had cut for her and wrapped in paper. On her arrival she called at the office that was situated just within the gates and there made enquiries regarding the burial of her brother. The clerk consulted a ledger and said, ‘Due at eleven-forty-five, miss, right?’ Lily nodded, ‘Yes’, and the man gave her directions to the spot where the interment was to take place.

  The cemetery was large and Lily made her way along the paths between the graves with their stone slabs, Maltese crosses and carved angels. There were few other people about; she saw only the occasional mourner carrying flowers, and a gardener working here and there. Following the clerk’s directions, she left the main part of the cemetery and passed into another, much smaller section. There were no mausoleums here, no stone angels keeping watch, and what stone slabs there were were altogether more modest and humble.

  She came upon an open grave with a small wooden spar set in the ground in front of it. On it she read the words Thos Clair. The earth from the grave lay next to it in a heap. She stopped beside it, and stood there, waiting. There was a keen wind blowing, and it crept under her collar. She was oblivious to the discomfort. After a while she caught movement from the corner of her eye, and turned and saw pallbearers approaching, carrying a coffin, Tom’s coffin. At a sedate pace the men came to the graveside, followed by an elderly man in a black suit.

  There was no ceremony. In a silence broken only by the little sighs of exertion as the men worked, Lily watched as the pine coffin was lowered into the brown earth. When it was in place the men stepped back, gave the faintest hint of a bow, and retreated. Lily and
the man in the black suit were left alone. After a moment she stepped to the grave’s edge and let fall the carnations onto the coffin lid. Some remained there, while others fell off into the gap at the side. As she stepped back, the man held out his prayer book. There was sympathy in his lined face. Would she, he asked hesitantly, like to say a prayer? She thanked him, deeply grateful for his kindness and understanding, but declined. She did not, she could have said, need prayers from the pens of others; and any prayer that she might make she would make alone.

  She thanked the man again, gave one last look down at the plain lid of the pine coffin and turned away.

  As she deposited her umbrella in the hall stand on her return to The Gables, Lizzie came to her and whispered that the master was back from Scotland. Then, gesturing to the silver tray on the table, she added that a letter had come for Lily while she had been out. Lily thanked her, and while the maid headed back towards the kitchen, she picked up the letter and saw at once that it was from Joel.

  With it in her hand she made her way up the stairs to the top floor, crossed the landing and opened the door to the schoolroom. Lavinia was sitting at her desk writing, working on the history lesson that Lily had set for her, and she looked up with a shy smile as Lily appeared in the doorway. Was all going well? Lily asked her, and Lavinia replied that it was, and that she had nearly finished her written exercise on the Stuart kings of England.

  In her room a minute later, Lily took off her hat and coat, then picked up the envelope again and tore it open. Standing by the window, she looked at the words that Joel had written. Under the address he had given: 23 Rue de Soire, Paris, she saw the date: the eighth of October. It had been written ten days ago. Obviously it had been delayed in its passage. She went on to read:

  My dearest Lily,

  Well, no matter how time might drag, it eventually goes by. And how I’m longing for the time when I can return to England and see you again. I hope that that time will not be long now. After much travelling, I have eventually come to Paris, where I can at least settle in the apartment for a while, and not have to dash about for another train.