I was aghast, pausing in my step.
“All that way, and you didn’t book a hotel?” I asked, though I knew I was prying.
But if she didn’t have the money to get herself a hotel for the night, then I had to wonder how she was going to afford a service from a Hampstead funeral home.
“I...I had a very late train, and there were no rooms available. I thought I’d see to business first and worry about that afterwards,” she said, in that same, soft, humble voice.
She wasn’t making much sense, and I could tell she was hiding something, but it was better not to ask too many questions of a grieving person.
The girl visibly shivered when we entered the foyer, the grandfather clock ticking softly on the landing. I left her bags by the large mahogany reception desk and ducked into the office to crank the heating up on the thermostat.
“Follow me,” I said, “And you can tell me what brought you here.”
The girl followed me silently into the meeting room; two brocade couches facing one another, with an ornate coffee table and drapes to insulate the door and keep the sound from travelling. A tasteful box of tissues on the table. There was a gas fireplace, which I turned on to flood the room with its warmth and the comforting glow of the flames.
I almost never turned on the fireplace; I didn’t much like fires, not since the one which tore my life apart as I knew it. But it had been a long time since then, and I couldn’t let the girl sit there shivering. I could see she was cold right down to her bones.
“I’m Nicholas Crowthorne, and I’m the director of funereal services here,” I said, gesturing toward thenearest couch.
“Thank you,” said Grace, taking a seat. I noticed how she perched, despite her tiredness, as if she dared not make herself too comfortable.
Her face was an oval with cheeks flushed pink from the cold, her doe-eyes black as the night. Her mouth was small and pink and barely opened at all when she spoke, as if she was worried too many words might come spilling out.
“Tea?”
She sighed with such gratitude that I laughed, and some of the tension between us was broken.
“Please,” she said, as if I’d just offered her a life-saving antidote. “Milk, with two sugars.”
Just like Louisa took her tea, I thought. But so did a lot of people. I forced the idea out of my mind all together; or tried to. Yes, she was very young, and meek, and elfin, but they were not the same person. There was no possible way they could be. Louisa was gone as gone could be.
I opened the wooden panel hiding the hot-water machine, cups and saucers, and the stash of tea, coffee, sugar, and long-life milk. During the day we used fresh milk, but for now, long-life would have to do. I stirred the tea and placed it down in front of her with a saucer.
She sipped it immediately, barely testing the temperature before she committed to drinking. I could see now that her hair, pulled back in a loose bun, was wind-swept and tangled. She’d had a long journey, and a difficult one at that.
“I read that there was snow coming up your way,” I said. “Did you have much trouble with the weather?”
“The wind was the real kicker,” she said, between sipsof her tea. “Icy winds. Autumn comes in fast and takes you by surprise in the dales. The winds did significant damage to my house.”
She spoke in a peculiar way, like somebody much older, I thought.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “I’ve a lot of connections up your way. I’ve a branch out there, in fact. You needn’t have come so far to make your arrangements. I know more than a few contractors. If you like, I could arrange for someone to come and look at the damage.”
Offering help was good for business. If I was helpful, she’d be more likely to enlist our services for her loved one, even at a premium cost...at least, that’s the lie I told myself.
The fact was I’d known her only moments, and I already had a yearning to help her. I wanted to protect her like a young woman I once loved to a painful degree.
“That’s kind of you,” she said. “Actually, the branch you mentioned...that’s why I’m here. They dealt with the burial of my mother just yesterday.”
I sat down on the opposite couch and rested my arms on my knees. I winced, briefly, at the pain pulsing in the small of my back. Her eyes watched my hand as I rubbed the sore spot, and I felt that she was observing and analysing every movement I made.
“The Lockett funeral?” I asked, recalling the entry on my roster. “That was your mother?”
“That’s right,” she said, placing her cup and saucer down on the coffee table. “I was given a card with your contact details. They said you were looking for an assistant. Someone very particular.”
My heart beat away inside my chest in a blind panic,bleating out questions – like why on earth she would turn up in the middle of the night to apply for a job?
She’d understood my needs correctly. I was looking for someone particular; someone I could train and mould to my specifications. Someone who would live in the house, get to understand it and the ways we operated. Someone who could stand working with me, and who could ignore the rumours amongst my peers about my past; about the fire that tore down the west side of the house. Locals, for that reason, tended to steer clear of me.
