“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 toanything...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, gazinghelplessly 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 nightand 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.
When I finally came to the graveyard, I was disappointed. I picked through grave after ancient grave, crumbling, slanted, some ready to fall over. Faded dates, names destroyed by decades of weathering – there was nothing to be gleaned or learned. Nobody had taken care of it. Nettles, brambles, and tall grasses crowded the headstones, long forgotten at the back of the estate. I wasready to give up and return to the house when I spotted them – a row of newer-looking headstones beneath a large oak tree. They were black scrolls with no embellishments, all bearing the surname Crowthorne: Niles, Eliza, and Alexander. Somehow I could tell they were perfunctory, with very few words on the scrolls to reveal any love lost.
I turned and looked back at the orangery, drawn to it once more as I remembered what Maggie said; that Louisa’s ashes were scattered there. I noticed there was a door to it, left ajar, although the door itself was rotting and creaked in the wind. I picked my way through the brambles and entered it, gasping as its expanse opened up before my eyes.
Tall trees were stooping beneath the domed ceiling, with some of their eager branches reaching through the smashed panes of glass, desperate for light. Some bitter orange trees were clustered together in the centre, their fruit shrivelled, black, useless. The stone floor was littered with dying husks of fruit, dark rotting leaves, and pieces of glass. The atmosphere was thick and putrid, and would be difficult to breathe in were it not for the broken panes. I tip-toed through them carefully, eager to see a statue at the back, surrounded by leaves and tangled vines.
The statue took my breath away. It was a stained, once-white statue of a beautiful young woman, holding aloft a butterfly perched on her hand. She wore a long skirt like me, and a blouse, but her hair was long and intricately carved to show it falling down her back. She seemed so slight and angelic, forever young, her kind spirit captured in the butterfly.
I knew it had to be Louisa. Somewhere around thehouse, I would seek out a photograph of her, so I could see her face.
