‘It was a lovely service.’ A fat gentleman took her hand and pressed it against his moustache. He reeked of tobacco.
‘Yes. Just – lovely,’ she said for the thousandth time. ‘Thank you for coming. Please, won’t you take a memorial card?’ She slipped her glove out of his sweaty grasp and replaced it with a piece of black-edged card. Then she moved on to the next one.
They looked ridiculous: these men of the City with their fine hatbands, braying voices and cigars, huddled together in a dilapidated graveyard. What must they think of Rupert’s family seat and his factory wife?
The sun had faded to a primrose disc yet still she paraded up and down the line of strangers, thanking them. Handing out Rupert’s life, compressed to a bare set of facts on a monochrome card.
In affectionate remembrance of
Rupert Jonathan Bainbridge
Who departed this life 3 October 1865 in the forty-fifth year of his age
Interred in the family vault, All Souls Church, Fayford
MEMENTO MORI
Jolyon played his part, passing from group to group, accepting their condolences. It was him the guests had come to see – few of them knew her. Would they really notice if she slipped away? Perhaps she should go and find her old companion, the starved cow. At least that miserable creature had shown some interest in her.
She stood for a moment, gazing abstractedly through the net squares of her veil. Birds she did not even have a name for called in the trees beyond. Fat, inquisitive ones that looked like London pigeons except they were beige. Bold, black scavengers. Rooks? Jackdaws? Ravens? She had never really known the difference. One she did recognise – a magpie – rattled at her from the lychgate. The cobalt stripe on his tail pointed to the poorest of the gravestones: lopsided, devoured by lichen and thistle.
‘You are wondering about the gravestones.’ The voice made her start. She swivelled round to see Mr Underwood, standing unobtrusively by her side. His hands were tucked under his surplice; either he was cold or he was hiding the holes in his sleeves.
‘Yes, I was. There seem to be an awful lot with the same names.’
He sighed. ‘There are. And no matter what I say to my parishioners, there continue to be. The people . . . Well. I need not dress it up for you, Mrs Bainbridge. You see how the village is. The people do not have hope. They do not even hope that their babies will live, and so they reuse names. Over there,’ he pulled out a hand and gestured to the Jane Prices she had seen earlier. ‘Those two little girls were alive at the same time. The elder was ailing and the babe was born sickly. They died within a month of each other.’
‘What a terrible thing. Those poor girls! But at least their folk remember them with a stone.’
‘A slim comfort.’
‘You think so? Have you ever been to London, Mr Underwood?’
His brow furrowed. ‘On occasion. Before I took my orders.’
‘Then you will have seen the burying grounds? Twenty-foot shafts, one coffin stacked atop another, all the way to the surface. Horrible places. I’ve heard of bodies being disturbed, even dismembered, to make way for fresh corpses. So I say it is a mercy to be laid in your own plot of land under a stone with a name, even if it is a borrowed one. There are far worse things a parent can do.’
He peered at her, reassessing her. ‘To be sure.’
She judged it prudent to turn the topic. ‘My maid told me that a skeleton was discovered on my own property, years ago. Would you happen to know if that is buried here also, Mr Underwood?’
‘Which skeleton would that be?’
She blinked. ‘I do not understand you.’
‘There have been . . . a few,’ he admitted. ‘But it is a very old house, Mrs Bainbridge. There is no cause to be alarmed.’
Mabel’s words made more sense now. It would be silly for maids to steer clear of the house over a single skeleton, but she could understand they might be put off by multiple discoveries. No one wanted to come across a pile of bones while performing their duties.
‘I am not alarmed, only . . . surprised. My late husband did not know much about the history of the house.’
‘It is a strange one. The estate was left empty during and after the Civil War. Then, with the Restoration, the family began to come back. Never for very long, though. The Bainbridge family had a nasty habit of losing their heirs, and the house often passed to second sons who never returned to claim it.’
‘How very sad.’
‘Business kept them away, I expect.’ He folded his arms. ‘There are many records in Torbury St Jude; I would be happy to fetch some if you have an interest?’
From the sound of it, the history would read like a bad penny dreadful. The last thing she wanted was a tale of death and skeletons. But Mr Underwood looked so earnest as he offered, she did not have the heart to rebuff him. ‘You are most kind.’
They fell silent, watching the graves. No hothouse flowers adorned the ground. Instead, thistles prickled. Their purple blooms were fading, turning to clutches of wispy seed.
‘Perhaps, Mrs Bainbridge, I will go and fetch your cousin for you,’ he said at last. ‘I trust she will be recovered.’
‘Yes. I hope she will. Thank you.’ She inclined her head as he strode away, his blond fringe bouncing around his temples.
The magpie had flown. She stared at the gate where it had sat, thinking of the little Jane Prices. Her veil fluttered in the breeze and made it look as if their graves were undulating. Waving to her.
Elsie awoke in a bad mood. For a second night, she had not slept well. The infuriating hiss had begun again, although it only lasted for an hour. After it stopped she had lain uneasy, teasing her mind for a way to help the village, and remembering poor Rupert in the chill crypt.
The bed was far too large without him. Although she was not the sort of wife that slept curled up around her husband, there was something reassuring about Rupert’s presence beneath the sheets and the occasional creak he made as he turned. It was as though he was guarding her. Without him, the other side of the mattress yawned cold and sinister. So much space, so much opportunity for something else to slip in.
Without any assistance forthcoming from the maids, she dressed herself and managed to pin on her widow’s cap before making her way downstairs.
Mr Underwood’s words continued to trouble her. There must be something she could do for Fayford. She hadn’t seen any of the children, but judging by the state of the cow they would be skin and bones. Who knew what domestic horror they faced? Yet if their parents were afraid of the Bainbridges and their skeleton house, she could hardly go barging in with her goodwill basket and a condescending smile. It would be better to—