by Mary Hooper
Now she carefully threaded the needle, positioned her stool in order to get the best light from the small window, and began feather-stitching, very neat and close, shaping the trunk of the willow tree. She would use tiny, tiny chain-stitches for its leaves and the slab monument would be outlined in back-stitch. Thank goodness Mrs Unwin had said no to the man’s name! Besides, the bereaved woman already had two plaited wrist bracelets made from her husband’s hair and an oil portrait painted after his death and surely, Grace thought, these reminders were enough for anyone.
It took the best part of a day, but by late afternoon Grace had finished the embroidery for the brooch and had been given a new task: that of stitching the man’s initials on to what was to be his coffin pillow. Working white embroidery thread into white linen was not nearly as tiring as working in human hair, but WWBH were all quite large initials and, as dusk fell and the candle burned low, embroidering white on white became more and more tedious and Grace began to wish heartily that the corpse’s names didn’t begin with so many and such extravagant letters.
She finished this second task a little after eight o’clock. It was usually about this time that she went into the scullery to warm some soup, eat bread and cheese, or – if she were especially weary – merely went to the room she shared with Jane and, after washing and attending to any personal tasks, fell asleep. This particular evening, however, feeling a need to get out after being hunched up indoors for so long, she left the Unwin building intending to walk towards the Edgware Road, breathe in the dusky twilight and marvel at the traffic in all its noisy, hooting, shouting, neighing muddle.
While she stood watching, the swirling spider’s web of roads that circled around the arch became jammed – a common occurrence – and all the vehicles came to a complete halt. A smart carriage reined in next to where Grace was standing and its four horses stamped their feet, their breath making clouds of steam in the cold air. The carriage had purple-liveried footmen at front and rear, four brass lamps, and was such a glossy black that Grace could see her reflection in it. It also had some sort of shield on the door, and wondering what this might be, Grace bent to look a little closer. Seeing a shield with a lion and a unicorn on either side she realised, with a sudden pounding of the heart, that she was looking at the royal coat of arms.
Astonished, she straightened up and stared in the window, there to see the world’s most famous royal couple, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (she had no doubt it was them, for she’d been admiring daguerreotypes and paintings of them all her life), sitting on opposite sides of the brocade-lined carriage. Victoria appeared to be looking at something in her lap, but Prince Albert was gazing out of the window into the dark streets.
Grace’s eyes locked with Prince Albert’s and she immediately sank into a curtsey. On rising, she blushed scarlet to see that he was nodding in acknowledgement and smiling. Not knowing what else to do, she curtseyed again, and while her knee was still bent, the traffic eased and the royal carriage moved off.
Her heart began beating very fast. Such a handsome and noble face! No wonder the queen was said to be besotted by him.
x
A few days later, Grace found herself putting on her mute’s black garb ready to attend the grand ceremonials of the minor aristocrat for whom she’d already done a considerable amount of work: the Honourable William Wilkins-Boyes-Haig.
The newly fashionable Kensal Green Cemetery, near Paddington, had been landscaped as carefully and beautifully as a park, with neat and elegant walkways along which, on summer Sundays, visitors would promenade to admire the fine statuary and visit their dead loved ones. Arriving with three other mutes by covered carriage ahead of the main funeral procession, Grace, alighting in the central drive, marvelled at the number of lavish private mausolea which had been erected, and the variety of sculpted objects. The corpse of the Honourable was not going into a mausoleum, however, but was to be interred in the catacombs beneath the great columned chapel, so the four mutes booked for the service were taken below by Mr Unwin and put into position at different points along the corridor to mark the passage of the coffin on its way to its final resting place. Grace was at the last position, beside the shelf on which the body would remain.
Waiting in the gloom, she tried not to become affected by her sombre surroundings, but this was difficult for, by the light of the tallow candles on the wall, all she could see were small square cells fronted with cobwebby iron grilles which contained coffins: coffins in pine, mahogany, elm, oak and rosewood, some with names on, some without, some studded with gold nails, some covered in velvet, some with long-dead wreaths of roses atop or bearing a single mouldering bloom. Several had a favourite possession of the dead person placed beside them: a toy, a vase, a mildewed cushion. So many dead, Grace thought in melancholy wonder, and realised, for perhaps the first time, that there were more dead people in the world than live ones.
She stood two hours in the almost darkness, unable to see another living soul and growing colder by the minute, until she felt that she might have turned into a marble statue herself. It was then that she heard, echoing along the stone corridors, a most strange and eerie sound: a mysterious soft whirring which sent shivers down her spine. She didn’t find out until later that the sound was in no way supernatural, but merely the soft drone of the coffin as it travelled by hydraulic power down from the chapel at street level into the depths of the catacombs.
There was a silence, then came a murmur of voices and the shuffle of feet, and in a few moments a black-clad cleric came round the corner, followed by eight men carrying the huge coffin of the Honourable. They were almost buckling under the weight of this, for, having a great sense of his own importance, the Honourable had left instructions that he should be buried in no less than four coffins. The innermost was of pine, then came one of lead, then oak, and the final was of best-quality mahogany. All these were fitted their own locks and keys, for he had also had a fear of his body being taken by bodysnatchers. The Unwins, of course, had been only too pleased to comply with his expensive wishes, and were hoping that others might follow suit. Perhaps, Mrs Unwin had already suggested to her husband, it might become a fashion among the gentry to have four coffins, and they had agreed between themselves that they would mention it, in passing, to anyone planning a grand funeral.
Grace moved slightly to one side to allow the bearers access to remove the iron grille and slide the coffin on to its final resting place. Following this, the cleric gave a last blessing, the members of Wilkins-Boyes-Haig’s family said their own private farewells and, slowly, ushered along by Mr George Unwin, the mourners moved off towards the steps and the upper world of the living.
Apart from one.
‘Forgive me,’ came a whisper, ‘but didn’t we meet at Brookwood?’
Grace, startled and rather alarmed, looked up to see Mr James Solent standing before her, his top hat beneath his arm. Feeling her face turning pink, she was glad that he wouldn’t be able to see it for the veils.
‘I mean, it’s difficult for me to see you properly what with the darkness and the flummery,’ he said, making a gesture to indicate Grace’s veiling, ‘but it is you, is it not? I fear I am at a disadvantage, as you never told me your name.’
Grace gathered herself and curtseyed. ‘It is me. My name is Grace, sir.’
‘Call me James, please. Are you well, Grace?’
‘Thank you, yes.’
‘I’ve often thought about you since that day at Brookwood, for you seemed so frail and vulnerable. I wondered how you were faring.’
‘Thank you for your concern,’ Grace said a little stiffly, thinking of how she’d gone to his chambers and been turned away. She pointed to her mourning clothes. ‘But you see me now in circumstances which have improved somewhat.’
‘Indeed,’ he said, raising an eyebrow. ‘You seem to have joined the death trade.’
Grace nodded, a little embarrassed, for he didn’t sound as if he approved.
‘May I
ask how that came about?’
‘It wasn’t, perhaps, what I might have wished,’ Grace said in a low voice, ‘but my sister and I were turned out of our room and had nowhere to go. We would have been on the streets if the Unwin family hadn’t taken us both in.’
James shook his head, rather surprised. ‘Forgive my lawyer’s curiosity, but what were the circumstances of your losing your home?’ he asked. ‘Did you fall into arrears with your rent?’
‘No, indeed!’ Grace said with some indignation. ‘It merely happened that one day we got back to the house and found it boarded up. I was told that the site is to be developed.’
James sighed. ‘I fear that this is happening all over London: businessmen are buying up the land for railways, offices and industry. They promise to build new homes, but these don’t always appear.’
‘’Tis not right!’ Grace said. ‘What about all those who find themselves homeless? Is there nothing that can be done?’
‘Very little, I’m afraid. There are charities one can apply to; places where you might be taken in.’
‘I could not have abided that,’ Grace said immediately, for he seemed to be suggesting that they could have gone into a workhouse. ‘When it happened – when we were made homeless – I came to ask your advice,’ she said, suddenly deciding to confront him with how she’d been treated.
‘Did you?’
Grace tried to judge whether he was surprised or already knew this, and decided it was impossible to tell. ‘The man who came to the door of your chambers turned me away. He was very abrupt.’
‘Then I can only apologise,’ he said, ‘and I shall tell Meakers that if you ever come again he must show you every courtesy. Believe me when I say that I –’
But before he could finish the sentence there came the sound of footsteps along the corridor and Mr George Unwin appeared out of the darkness. Grace, who had been booked to stand for another two hours beside the coffin, immediately returned to a mute-like silence, eyes lowered, head bowed, hands clasped. James Solent, who looked as if he might have had a lot more to say to Grace, merely nodded at Mr Unwin, replaced his top hat and walked away.
x
Chapter Seventeen
Four Conversations
Miss Charlotte Unwin had never entered a scullery before, and hoped that she’d never have to again. It wasn’t just because it was icy cold that it was so uncongenial, but because it was also dark and cheerless, with a brick floor, ugly lead sink and splintered wooden worktops. A lady might never know such a place existed, and it was only the thought of the smart gig to be gained that made Miss Charlotte even think about entering.
‘How deftly you work,’ she said to Lily, watching as the girl tried to scrape burned and blackened fat from the fire irons. ‘How beautiful and clean you are getting those . . . those things.’
‘Yes, miss,’ said Lily. She felt uneasy when Miss Charlotte came below stairs to speak to her, for she always looked very much out of place, with her lacy trimmings and macassared curls. Today her crinoline skirts were so wide that they barely fitted through the scullery door.
‘You have been with us some time now, have you not?’ Miss Charlotte said, trying to affect interest. The combined smell of ammonia and carbolic was making her feel rather faint, however, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to stay long.
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Some years . . .’
‘Years?’ Lily frowned and shook her head. Surely it couldn’t be years? ‘No, not years, miss. I think it’s just a couple of months.’
‘No, it’s years,’ Miss Charlotte insisted. ‘I told you before. Your own dear mother died about ten years ago when you were just a little girl and my mama and papa took you in, and you’ve been living with us ever since. We are a similar age and I remember playing with you when I was quite small.’
Lily frowned and rubbed a streak of grease across her cheek. ‘No, I don’t think that’s right,’ she said. Miss Charlotte was making up stories again, the way that Grace used to make up stories for them from things she’d read in the newspapers.
‘Yes, my mama and papa adopted you years ago,’ said Miss Charlotte, smiling rigidly.
‘Adopted . . .’ Lily repeated wonderingly. ‘I don’t think so, miss.’ She wasn’t even sure what the word meant. ‘I lived with Grace – she’s my sister. We were in Mrs . . .’ She frowned, trying to remember. ‘Mrs Macready’s house, and then one day it was covered in wood and we couldn’t get in.’
Miss Charlotte steadied herself (the gig would be painted a high-gloss red, she decided, with gold carriage lanterns at each side) and spoke again. ‘Well, we won’t worry about that now, Lily. Er, about your dear mother, didn’t you say that when you lived with her, it was somewhere in Wimbledon?’
‘That’s right,’ Lily said, then, ‘Ow!’ as she cut her thumb on a rough piece of iron.
‘And can you remember the name of the house you lived in?’
‘No, miss.’ Drops of blood fell into the greasy sink and Lily gulped back a sob and put her thumb in her mouth to try and stop the flow. ‘You’ve asked me that before. You keep asking me that.’
Miss Charlotte laughed gaily. ‘Do I really? It’s just that I do love hearing tales about your childhood in the country . . . although, of course, that was well before you came to live here some ten years ago.’
Lily thought for a moment – Miss Charlotte was doing it again. ‘Not ten years, miss,’ she said then. ‘Only about a month or two. And before that me and my sister were selling cresses in the streets. We used to go to Farringdon Market in the morning and buy up what we –’
‘Oh!’ A look of irritation crossed Miss Charlotte’s face that even the thought of having a pure white horse to pull the gig could not dispel. ‘This is hopeless!’
‘What is, miss?’
‘Nothing!’ she snapped. ‘And anyway, don’t just stand there bleeding all over those . . . those iron things. Go and get a piece of rag from the kitchen and clean yourself up.’
By the time Lily returned with her thumb circled round and round with rag so that it was as big as a turnip, Miss Charlotte had gone back upstairs.
‘It’s impossible!’ Charlotte said to her mother. ‘I talk to her, I tell her over and over again that she’s been living with us for years, but she won’t have it! It just doesn’t go in her head.’
‘Oh dear,’ frowned Mrs Unwin, fingering a swatch of curtain material recently sent from the new Marshall and Snelgrove store. ‘I really thought she was dull enough, simple enough, to believe anything she was told. I even promised to buy her a new bonnet if she’d play a game of Let’s Pretend. She said she would, but one can’t rely on her.’
‘Perhaps she’s being deliberately difficult,’ Charlotte said. ‘Maybe a couple of nights of being shut in the cellar would cure her.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Mrs Unwin. ‘Nothing like that works with servants these days. Mrs Ormsby tried it and her maid just walked out as soon as she was released and began spreading dreadful tales about her.’
‘Disgraceful!’ Charlotte sat on the sofa and drummed her heels on the floor. She knew she was being childish but she was really quite desperate to have that gig. ‘I’ve tried everything!’
Mrs Unwin carried the swatch to the window to look at it in a better light. ‘Did you even find out the name of the house they lived in?’
‘No, because she can’t remember it,’ Charlotte said petulantly. ‘I know everything there is to know about watercress, though. I could scream at the amount I know about watercress!’
Mrs Unwin, unable to concentrate on colours, reluctantly put aside the fabric. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we must think of another way of persuading her. I’ll speak to your father.’
Mr George Unwin was first at the usual meeting place in Barker’s the following Saturday afternoon. Having been told of Lily’s stubbornness but being unable to think of a solution, he greeted his cousin with a deep frown and a double whisky.
‘We’re i
n trouble, Sly,’ he said as soon as the other sat down. ‘The girl is being difficult.’
‘What girl?’
‘The pigeon!’
‘I thought she was in the cage, learning her lines.’
‘Oh, she’s safe enough – but she’s too simple to play the part we’ve allocated her. Or not simple enough,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘She won’t play ball. We keep telling her we adopted her years ago but she just denies it. I tell you, the whole scheme is in jeopardy.’
‘Hmmm.’ Sylvester Unwin knocked back his whisky and sat for a moment, thinking deeply.
‘You know, I think we ought to move this on as quickly as we can,’ George Unwin continued. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that some other villains were planning the damn same thing.’
‘Ah, but they wouldn’t have the girl, would they?’
‘For all the good she is,’ said George Unwin in a dispirited voice.
‘No, they wouldn’t have the girl,’ Sylvester Unwin murmured thoughtfully, ‘so they’d have a stand-in.’
George Unwin looked at him.
‘Someone to play her part,’ Sylvester Unwin elaborated. ‘And we could do the same. Why not?’
‘But what would we do with the real one?’
‘Lock her away somewhere.’ He gave a guffaw of laughter. ‘Tell you what, we’ll put the two sisters together – we might get a cheap rate.’
‘But we can hardly just go sending off people willy-nilly.’
‘The simple one can go first – we’ll put it about that she’s run off. Servants do that all the time. And after a decent interval the other one can go, too.’
