Chapter 7
Waverly
Traeger Hall
She had not found somewhere else to stay, as Titus Fitzgerald had so insistently urged her to.
There was more at play than he knew, and leaving was not as simple when one had no place to go.
Waverly was still at Traeger Hall the afternoon following her midnight interlude with the undertaker.
Who had no business being in Traeger Hall to begin with—especially in the middle of the night.
Soft footsteps echoed in the vacant front hall of the mansion, and Waverly turned from her position beside her aunt and uncle’s bodies.
“Aveline.” She offered the mousy housemaid a smile that was meant to be comforting.
One needed comfort, didn’t they, when the corpses of their former employers were laid out in their Sunday best, hands crossed over their chests, eyes shut, and cheeks turning hollow?
“Did you need something?” Waverly prompted the maid to speak, noticing Aveline’s stare was fixed on Uncle Leopold’s still form.
She was probably as worried as Uncle Leopold had been hopeful that he would rise from the dead or somehow be alive two days after his murder.
It was not to be.
“Aveline?” Waverly pressed.
“Hmm?” Aveline startled, her blue eyes widening. “Oh, Miss Pembrooke, apologies.” She gave a small curtsy that impressed neither deceased Aunt Cornelia nor Uncle Leopold. Waverly waved the action away.
“We can dispense with that nonsense now. We’re not in England, this isn’t a castle in the countryside, and I’m as unsettled as you are by all of this.
” Waverly felt far more composed around Aveline.
There was no intimidating presence nearby, no bossy undertaker, and no sense of anxiety in speaking to the housemaid.
In fact, speaking to the help was something Waverly thought came quite naturally.
There were no airs to be put on. Well, Aunt Cornelia would argue with her there.
To her aunt, airs were important to maintain even with the help, as it showed you were in authority and they were your inferiors.
Waverly didn’t hold to the same lofty aspirations.
What good could be gained by lording over another woman simply because Aveline dusted the furniture Waverly made use of?
“I wanted to ask what more you might need from me, Miss Pembrooke.” Aveline’s question brought Waverly back to the situation at hand.
She understood that the housekeeper, the valets, and the other maids had not returned to Traeger Hall.
So it was quite admirable that Aveline had come back, even though she’d refused to sleep in her quarters.
“It’s not uncommon for the deceased to remain in their home until their burial,” Waverly stated aloud, not responding to Aveline’s question but trying to answer the one that had been bouncing around in her mind this morning.
“No, miss,” Aveline said.
“Why then have the servants employed by my uncle taken their leave of Traeger Hall?”
“I suppose, miss, it’s because we are afraid.”
Of course they were frightened. Waverly swallowed the sudden anxiety that surged within her. She had found her uncle lying in a pool of blood that night, and her aunt . . . “Yes. No doubt that’s it.” Waverly interrupted her own thoughts. “Aveline?”
“Miss?”
“Have you heard any rumors or suspicions among the staff as to who the killer might be?” Waverly understood that if anyone knew the goings-on in a place like Traeger Hall, it was the help.
Aveline’s expression was impassive. “No, miss.”
“What, nothing?”
“Not a peep, miss.” Then Aveline added, “The detective in charge asked all the pertinent questions of us, so he knows as much as we do.”
Assuming the staff had been forthcoming with their answers.
“And you never saw anyone suspicious yourself?” Waverly pressed.
Aveline shook her head. “Only Cook was confronted by the man, and she said she did not recognize him or see much of his face because of his hat.”
“Is the staff afraid of my uncle and aunt’s killer returning?” Waverly asked.
“Yes, Miss . . . and the length of it.”
“The length of their murders?” Waverly choked out.
She’d assumed death had come quickly. But in retrospect she knew that wasn’t the case at all.
Screaming would have echoed through the halls.
The jab-jab of knife into flesh. Uncle Leopold’s cry to ring the bell.
Waverly could imagine it all. Glassware being shattered as her uncle fought his assailant.
Her aunt’s desperate attempt to reach the bell tower.
The stabbing . . . Aveline was right—the murders would not have been swift.
“No. The length of the wake, miss. They’re lying here with no one but you to watch over them if they were to come back to life.” Aveline’s assessment jerked Waverly from her imaginings.
Oh. Yet resurrection was mainly associated with Christ, or with Lazarus, and weren’t there a few other resurrections mentioned in Scripture? Waverly hadn’t heard of any modern-day resurrections, only the dead not really having been so in the first place.
“And no one is preparing funeral arrangements,” Aveline continued. “You’ve not had the mirrors covered or stopped the clocks—except for the grandfather clock.”
Yes, the grandfather clock had stopped mid-chime. Waverly never asked Titus if he had been the one to cease the clanging.
“Am I supposed to stop all the clocks?” Waverly glanced at the clock sitting on the mantel in the front parlor.
She had not even thought of it. Aunt Cornelia would have, but she was dead.
Waverly had never been a part of someone’s death and funeral or the rituals involved, let alone carried out the vigil of a wake all by herself.
“I suppose we should do what is required then.” Waverly hoped the maid would volunteer to assist her more as an equal for the sake of her uncle and aunt.
Aveline was barely five feet tall, and her petite form was nearly swallowed by the black uniform Aunt Cornelia had insisted the maid always wear. At Waverly’s question, Aveline’s shoulders straightened, the woman’s self-confidence seemingly buoyed.
“That would be wise, Miss Pembrooke. It’s been two days, after all. We can begin by hanging a wreath of boxwood on the front door. I believe Mrs. Braun has a supply of black veils I could use to wrap around it. Out of respect for the Traegers and the community.”
Waverly’s eyes met Aveline’s, and Waverly found some relief in the suggestion of a wreath. “Yes. That would be good.”
“I will cover the mirrors with the veils as well. To avoid Mr. Traeger or the missus from being caught in them.”
“Of course.” Waverly was careful to temper her expression.
The idea of her uncle’s spirit being sucked into a mirror and stuck there for eternity was both laughable and utterly terrifying.
“Cover their portraits as well, please.” There was that awful one of Uncle Leopold glaring from the canvas.
She could accept that being covered quite happily.
Aveline nodded.
Waverly was grateful the maid didn’t ask questions, but Waverly was sure she didn’t want to see her uncle or her aunt staring at her as she passed by them. It was enough to stand over their remains and gawk at them. Dead as they were.
“And shall I send to town for more ice, Miss Pembrooke?”
“Ice?” It seemed the young woman was attempting to nudge Waverly’s sense of responsibility by bringing up another item on the list of things to do.
“Yes, miss. For Mr. and Mrs. Traeger . . .”
Waverly turned to the bodies laid out on cooling boards, balanced over two tubs of ice.
The cooling boards were draped with black coverings, with pots of fresh flowers placed on iron stands—two at their heads, and two at their feet.
The gruesome fact was that the ice and flowers were necessary to put off decomposition and its accompanying stench.
“Please do. As much ice as you think is appropriate,” Waverly answered. “And perhaps more flowers.”
“Yes, miss.” Aveline nodded. “Will there be anything else?”
Waverly considered for a moment. “Do tell the staff it is safe to return.”
But she could see on Aveline’s face that the maid didn’t believe her. How could she? The killer hadn’t been caught, let alone identified. There was no motive known to anyone—well, that wasn’t entirely true. Waverly shoved aside the nagging questions and waved a hand to dismiss the maid.
As Aveline took her leave, Waverly returned to watching over her uncle and aunt.
“You left me seven days plus two to get your affairs in order,” Waverly muttered, recalling the terms of Uncle Leopold’s will.
Forty-eight hours after the burial and Traeger Hall would be sealed shut.
A crypt. With two days having passed since their murders, that left five days remaining until their burial.
But how was Waverly to find the opportunity to go through their belongings if she was bound by the will to stand vigil at her guardians’ coffins?
Or was she bound? Who would know if she left her post?
For though she believed in God’s ability to work miracles, she felt guilty in that she hoped the good Lord would forgo the resurrection of her guardians.
“How awful,” Waverly chided herself. They had been viciously mutilated by a killer’s knife, and here she sat, disrespecting her uncle’s last wishes and wishing that he’d stay dead. “I’m a horrible person,” she concluded, while not believing it at the same time.
Waverly pushed to her feet.
There was a murderer to catch. There was her own life to protect and her future to plan for.
If Uncle Leopold wished to haunt her for leaving her post, then so be it.
His ghost could throttle her while she slept.
But if she didn’t do something—anything—she was likely to be the next on the list to die in Traeger Hall, if from nothing else but boredom.