Chapter Five #2
Maggie looked surprised at the question, blinking rapidly as she smoothed down her apron.
“Her remains were cremated. Her ashes were scattered in the greenhouse,” she said very quickly, as if I’d made her uncomfortable by asking.
I changed the subject back to Nicholas. I knew I shouldn’t pry, but I couldn’t help myself. Maggie put me at ease with her motherliness and I felt I could confide in her, just a little.
“There’s a sadness about Nicholas. He’s so serious,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully.
Maggie smiled. “Brooding. He was always that way, even as a boy. So different from his brother. More contemplative. Quiet.”
“But his sadness...has he had that sadness about him ever since the fire happened?”
Maggie sighed, standing up. She turned her head and gazed out at the drizzle, and the murky view of the gardens beyond.
“People are very cruel about him. Even now, all these years later – they talk. Rival funeral directors from other firms like to spread vicious rumours, implying that Nicholas started the fire on purpose. As if he would tear apart his own home and business, let alone his beloved family, the love of his life, for heaven’s sake –”
I noticed her neck flushing pink, and the fire in her eyes as the anger began to take over. She threw her hands as if to shoo away the thoughts, but they shook as she replaced the cloche on the trolley, her mouth forming a grim line.
“But why would they be so quick to believe he’d do a thing like that?” I asked.
“Because he was adopted. They thought he had no right to inherit the Crowthorne business, seeing as he was Eliza’s nephew and not Niles’, but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference – we weren’t centuries in the past, when a woman had no right to shares or ownership of her husband’s family business.
They had the papers. Nicholas was their son, wholeheartedly and legally,” said Maggie, clenching her hands into fists.
“But they wouldn’t let that fact betray a good story.
They thought he had something he didn’t deserve, and so they sullied his name.
They conjured up a story that Nick had murdered them all to inherit the business and the wealth, all because there was talk of Nicholas and Alexander not getting along.
That’s all they based it on; a bit of sibling rivalry.
“The story spread like a disease for a while, impacting the business. The locals didn’t trust poor Nick after that.
Over the years, though, a few loyal families kept him afloat, and soon his excellent service took over the rumours, and now they’re nothing but spiteful whispers amongst the businesses.
They’re jealous, Grace. That’s what it is. Jealousy is a spiteful, wicked thing.”
I placed my teacup down on the little saucer and placed it back on the trolley. We shared a silence, listening to the rain.
It sounded ghastly, all of it, and beyond cruel. My heart ached for Nicholas and all he must have gone through; how lonely he must have felt through all of it, without his love by his side. Maggie looked so upset that I daren’t press her any further on the subject of the fire.
“What about you?” I asked instead. “If you’ve always lived here, how did you...” Have a family of your own, I wanted to say, but I thought it was a step too far. Too familiar.
Maggie seemed to read my mind, though. She watched the rain on the windows while she answered me, memories dancing in her eyes.
“Decades ago, my husband and our little son were killed on the northbound motorway. Everything I loved...wiped out. Niles had just taken over Crowthorne House; I found his advertisement in the papers. I sat in that parlour downstairs, distraught, begging them to help me. God, I was so lost. He knew I couldn’t possibly pay for it all, not without debts stretching as long as my life, but I felt drawn to this place.
They had to bury my husband and son.” She cleared her throat, toying with the chain at her neck.
“They were looking for a housekeeper. I offered to work for free. Niles wouldn’t hear of it.
He was a stern man, he wasn’t perfect, but.
..he knew a good deal when he saw one. He offered me an enormous discount on the funerals, base costs only, if I agreed to take up the housekeeping job.
“What do you say to childcare?” he asked me, knowing I’d lost my little boy.
“We’ve a baby, Alexander.” And of course, later, came Nick.
“Yes,” I said, “I’d love to take care of him.
” Those little boys mended my broken heart.
I vowed I’d never leave. I knew I belonged here. ”
I watched her silently as I took in the gravity of her words.
“Death brings us all here and keeps us all here,” she muttered, her eyes still fixed on the window. She blinked softly, as if waking up from her memories. “Or so it seems.”
“It does.” I agreed. “But what else could we expect from a funeral parlour?”
Maggie smiled softly. She looked down at her feet first, and then back at me.
“How old did you say you were?”
“I’m twenty-one,” I answered.
“Just like Louisa,” she muttered, shaking her head very slightly.
To be compared to her again stung, though I couldn’t determine why. I barely knew these people, even after staying under their roof for a few days – even after working with Nicholas in the morgue. I had no claim to anything...certainly not to him. Nevertheless, it bothered me.
After Maggie left with the breakfast things, I drew myself a bath and climbed inside the roll-top porcelain tub.
I washed slowly, dreaming of what the day might bring; wondering if I had proved myself yet to Nicholas with my skills in the mortuary.
Even if he didn’t approve me to go for the full funeral director’s licence, maybe he’d still want to keep me around.
Perhaps he’d allow me to be his assistant for good, helping him dress the dead.
Maybe he’d allow me to attend the funerals, to help him guide operations.
A repetitive knocking made me still. I listened hard. The sound came again, softer this time, before increasing.
Knock, knock, knock.
Shaking, I let the water out of the tub and pulled on my robe. A pain in my head made me dizzy. I walked slowly into the bedroom, seeking out the source of the knocking. There, it came again – knock, knock, knock, knock.
Soft, not violent – not like mother’s knocking used to be. It was the softer, subtle knocking of a woman too weak to summon me so urgently. It was the knocking of a woman soon to die.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
More of a tapping, now. Soft and hollow, like a walking cane against rotting wood.
I drew open the terrace doors, creaking on their hinges, the glass panes blurred with rain. I stepped out into the cold, cutting wind, and looked up at the murky grey sky.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
“I can’t help you any more,” I whispered, gazing helplessly out over the gardens.
When the sound came again, I realised, with a shock, that it was coming from outside.
The noise drew my eyes up into the tops of the tall birch trees within the grounds.
I watched while a grey bird with a distinctive read stripe on its head circled the tree trunk, shimmying its way around, before it began to knock repeatedly with its beak.
A greater spotted woodpecker, that was all.
Steadying my breaths, which had become more rapid with my heartbeat, I settled myself down.
There was nothing to be afraid of, after all.
I looked out over the gardens, noting the fountain and the stone bird bath, the landscaping, the abundant mature plants, the dead summer flowers, the overrun greenhouse with its smashed window panes.
I spied a small, crowded graveyard sprawling just beyond my eye’s reach.
To the right, as the greenery faded away to a pebbled driveway, I noticed the Rolls Royce in the garage.
A man was waxing it. Beyond that, there were what looked to be a set of stables.
Yes, definitely the stables Nick had shown me.
Another man walked out with a tall black horse, drawing it along by a rein at its muzzle.
Then I saw him, in a long black woollen coat, his white collar drawn up around his neck, with a maroon tie.
He took long strides and met the man with the horse.
He shook the man’s hand first, and then rubbed the horse’s muzzle.
His mouth was moving, as if speaking soft reassurances to the horse.
Then the man spoke, and they entered some conversation I couldn’t read.
I knew Nicholas would be expecting me soon down in the mortuary.
A new body had been brought in last night and stored in the refrigerator.
They would need preparing before we laid them out in the chapel of rest. After a period of mourning, we would transport them to the funeral service, and then on to whichever resting place they were destined for.
These were the rituals I was to become accustomed to.
While Nicholas was busy in the yard, I decided I’d take a walk. It was a deeply overcast day, the clouds shaded in deep grey, as if by a piece of charcoal in the hand of an artist. My skin could tolerate this weather. My eyes were fixed on the graveyard, deciding I would head for that first.
I dressed in a white blouse – a little grey, now, and the frills tattered – and a long black skirt. Socks, ankle boots. With nobody else to guide me, I still dressed like my mother. I pulled my long white-blonde hair back to the nape of my neck, securing it in a neat bun.
Then I made my way down the mahogany staircase to the ticking of the grandfather clock and outside, taking the stone steps quickly.
I passed the stone fountain with its cherubs curiously playing with the water that poured, not sprayed, from a large jug at the top of the arrangement.
An uneasy feeling came over me as I passed the dark and foreboding orangery, with its many leaves crowding the window panes.