Hide Me Among the Graves

Hide Me Among the Graves Page 26

Swinburne and William had taken hold of the coffin lid and had begun to swing it up, but Gabriel stopped them with a raised hand.

"I - I need to leave something of myself with her," he said. His voice was unsteady. "Wait a moment."

He blundered through the mourners and hurried down the hall to the bedroom, and very shortly he had returned carrying a battered octavo-sized notebook.

"All my poems," Gabriel said hoarsely. "I send them with her." He laid the notebook on Lizzie's cold crossed hands and then bent over and rested his head on it.

Swinburne opened his mouth and closed it, blinking at the notebook in the coffin, and then said, "No, Gabriel, that's just rude - she wouldn't want you to sacrifice your poetry."

William had been frowning, but now he said, "It's for you to decide, Gabriel."

Gabriel's face was expressionless, but tears were coursing down his cheeks into his goatee. "My poetry henceforth is for her alone. Close it."

Swinburne exhaled and spread his hands, but he and William nodded and solemnly closed the coffin.

THE HEARSE IN THE street out front was a black carriage with glass sides, and black ostrich feathers waved above the gold trim along the edges of the polished roof. The gold was dull under the gray morning sky. Four black horses were harnessed to it, blowing steam from their nostrils, and in addition to the coachman there were half a dozen attendants and two traditional "mutes," all of them apparently provided by the undertaker and all wearing black silk hatbands and gloves; Crawford reflected that the funeral must have cost Gabriel a fair packet.

The four mourning coaches were designated by black velvet cloths roped over their roofs, and blankets of the same material on the pairs of horses.

Christina led Crawford and McKee down the pavement to the last of the four mourning coaches, behind which stood several cabs and carriages. Christina glanced back, but none of the attendants had followed them, and so with an impatient sigh, she herself stepped up to take hold of the silver handle and pull the door open.

She hopped back down, and, before turning away and returning to her family, she said, breathlessly, "Today I think we will free the world of my uncle."

Crawford and McKee exchanged a wide-eyed glance, and then he helped her up into the coach and followed her in and took the rearward-facing seat.

He took his hat from the seat beside him and set it on his lap when another couple climbed in, and again he had to explain that he and McKee were friends of Christina's but had never met the deceased. The newcomers shook their heads, probably wondering why such comparative strangers should merit seats in one of the mourning coaches, but contented themselves with frowning and staring out the windows. McKee caught Crawford's eye and bobbed one eyebrow.

From where he sat, Crawford couldn't see the pallbearers carry out the coffin and slide it into the hearse, but the line of vehicles eventually began moving and traced a long rattling curve out of the Chatham Place square and proceeded north between the stately old office buildings along Bridge Street.

The procession rolled along at a steady pace onward up Farrington Road, for many of the wagons and omnibuses and cabs gave right of way to the line of black-draped vehicles; and in less than an hour they had crossed the North London Road and were among country roads bordered by leafless trees, and the funeral carriages spread farther apart as the horses were urged into a fast trot. At bends in the road, Crawford could see the attendants who had been walking alongside the hearse now perched on top of it, clutching their hats among the fluttering black ostrich feathers.

The procession slowed and closed up again as the horses pulled the carriages up Highgate Hill, and when the road leveled out, the yard in front of the Highgate Cemetery arches was close by on the right.

McKee and Crawford let the other couple disembark first, and when they had followed them down the coach step and onto the packed sand, McKee led Crawford away from the press of carriages and horses and mourners rearranging their coats and hats.

"Christina aims to do something consequential, here, today," McKee said. "You ever have any dealings with pickpockets?"

Crawford shook his head, looking around at the brick tower and the gates and the lawns beyond, which had become disappointingly familiar sights to him over the past week.

"Well," said McKee, "if your attention is being called to one place, you're often well advised to look in all other directions instead."

Gabriel and five other men were carrying the coffin in through the gates, and Crawford took McKee's arm and started forward across the crowded yard. Under the overcast sky, nobody cast any shadows.

THE CEMETERY CHAPEL WAS drafty, and the gray daylight muted the colors of the tall stained-glass windows. The men among the mourners had removed their hats, but everyone kept their coats. The walls were dark stone, and the ceiling was lost in the shadows of massive crossbeams.

The coffin, draped in a white cloth now, rested on a platform at the front of the central aisle, and Crawford could see the backs of Gabriel's and Christina's heads up in the front pew, along with others who were probably relatives.

The priest standing in front of the shadowed altar had been speaking for several minutes without Crawford being able to make out his words, but now he said more loudly, "'I am the resurrection and the life,' saith the Lord, 'he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.'"

"Bad news for that Lizzie girl," whispered McKee.

"He means 'believeth in God,'" Crawford whispered back, "not - their uncle."

"I hope she caught that distinction."

Crawford nudged her to be quiet, for the priest had stepped down from the railed-off altar and around the coffin and begun walking slowly toward the doors, and Gabriel and the five other pallbearers - one of whom, Crawford noticed, was the fellow with coppery red hair sticking out in all directions - had stood up and taken hold of the coffin handles and begun shuffling down the aisle behind him.

The family members in the front pew stepped out one by one and filed along after it, their footsteps on the stone floor echoing in the arches of the high ceiling, but Christina Rossetti stepped out of the line and into the pew where Crawford and McKee stood.

She had bumped Crawford so that he would make room for her in the pew, and now gave him an awkward smile. He noticed that in spite of the chilly draft, her forehead was misted with perspiration.

"Distract me," she whispered.

An old woman who might have been Christina's mother gave her a wondering frown, but kept moving after the coffin toward the doors.

Crawford nodded. "Uh, puree of veal is the best remedy for general cat malaise," he told Christina quietly. "Chicken or beef, though the cats might relish them, are of no avail."

McKee had heard Christina's whisper and reached into her bag and lifted out three of the little paper-wrapped funeral cakes and began juggling them - to the evident surprised irritation of the few mourners who were still filing past the pew.

Crawford, his face reddening, grabbed her arm to stop her making a spectacle of herself, and though McKee managed to catch one of the cakes and Crawford snatched uselessly at another, two fell down under the padded kneeler at their feet.

Crawford and McKee both bent to retrieve them and knocked their heads together; McKee's bonnet fell down over her face and she sat down, whispering curses as she shoved it back into place.

Crawford sat down too. He had managed to pick up one of the cakes, and he scowled at it while he rubbed his forehead. The wax seal had cracked, and the imprinted skull was split - the smaller piece came off in his palm.

"Here's Death's jawbone," he told Christina, and the ringing in his ears made him speak more loudly than he meant to.

Someone lagging behind the tail end of the mourners' procession was suddenly leaning over him.

"To whom are you referring, sir?" came a harsh whisper.

Crawford blinked up at the speaker and was not very surprised to recognize Trelawny. The old man had hung back from the rest of the crowd and seemed to be more observer than mourner.

Crawford mutely held out the fragment of black wax. "This," he croaked.

"Ah!" said Trelawny scornfully. "You clowns again! Diamonds, you do yourself no service associating with these idiots."

Christina's lips were pressed together, and she nodded solemnly. "But, Samson, can you juggle?" she asked him, crouching to retrieve the third cake and taking the others from McKee and Crawford and holding them all out toward Trelawny.

The old man looked past Christina's shoulder, and apparently saw that the funeral party had all exited the chapel; and then he tossed one of the cakes in the air and followed it with the other two, and in a moment he had all three whirling in a crisscross pattern in front of his face.

When he had done it for enough seconds to demonstrate that he could, he let one hand drop to his side, caught all three cakes in the other, and handed them back to Christina.

"Anybody can do three," he said. "I can do five."

Christina stepped past him into the aisle. "Will you all be so kind as to accompany me to the committal?" She was smiling, but her face was pale. "You are all wonderfully diverting."

Trelawny scowled and rocked on his heels for a moment, then shrugged and took her arm and started for the rear of the chapel. He sniffed the air. "It's you he's paying such intense attention to, isn't it?"

Crawford and McKee shuffled along behind them, listening.

"Yes," said Christina in a strained voice. "It was this way at my father's funeral too - I should have known it would happen again, when I'm - once more within a stone's throw of where the statue which is his core is buried."

"A stone's throw," said Trelawny hollowly, shaking his white-maned head. "And you know where it's buried? I've been here several times, during this past week." He jerked a thumb back at McKee and Crawford. "Saw Rahab and Medicus here once, though I made sure they didn't see me."

"But I can ignore his ... wordless song," Christina went on, "while I have you three to tell me things like ... what cures cat malaise."

"Veal," said Trelawny firmly.

"Just as I said," put in Crawford.

The gray daylight outside seemed bright after the dimness of the chapel, but the air was colder, and Crawford shivered and squinted after the funeral procession. The line of mourners had crossed a gravel-paved yard and was mounting a short stone stairway between high walls with tall green cypress trees beyond.

Christina hurried after them, her boots crunching in the windy silence, and Trelawny and Crawford and McKee lengthened their strides to catch up.

At the top of the steps the funeral party was shuffling and bobbing down a lane between trees and patchy lawns to the left, and Christina stepped after them - but McKee halted and caught Crawford's upper arm in a tight grip.

He glanced at her and noticed her wide-eyed stare - she was looking to the right, away from the funeral procession, and he nervously followed her gaze.

There was a small figure standing in deep shadow between a vine-draped oak and a marble monument with a stone dog on it.

It appeared to be a thin little girl standing there, and Crawford felt his scalp tighten and the backs of his hands tingle before he consciously realized who it might be.

McKee had released Crawford's arm and was hurrying across the gravel path toward the shadowy figure; Crawford looked back - Trelawny had paused, and met Crawford's eye and waved him on impatiently before turning away and following Christina.

Crawford ran after McKee and skidded to a halt when she paused on the verge of the grass.

"Johanna?" called McKee hoarsely, half extending her hands.

It was indeed a girl, Crawford could see now, and she stepped back out of the shadows into the gray daylight - she wore a long-sleeved black shift but her feet were just wrapped in bundled rags; the limp brim of a floppy hat framed and shadowed her face, and her hair was a weedy tangle over enormous dark eyes.

"I'm - your mother," said McKee, her voice breaking.

Crawford took a breath. "And I'm your father," he said.

"We want to take you home," McKee said.

The girl blinked at them in evident confusion, and then she spun and began sprinting away across the hilly grass between the tall tombstones.

McKee hiked up her skirt and went running after her, and Crawford was right behind her.

The girl was shorter than many of the monuments along the lane, and while McKee ran straight after her, Crawford slanted out to the right and ran along the path, hoping to see the girl as she darted between the tall gray tombs and obelisks.

He was sure he was running faster than she was, but after a dozen paces he let himself clop and scuff to a halt.

"She disappeared," he called to McKee, who was running more slowly on the damp grass.

McKee shook her head and kept running. When she had got even with Crawford, though, she stopped, panting and almost sobbing.

"She's close by," she gasped. "We must search among the graves."

What do we do if we catch her? wondered Crawford; but he nodded and began striding through the grass between the gravestones.

He quickly saw that there were only a few corners in the immediate area where even a very small person could hide, and within a minute he and McKee had walked around all the nearby blocks and columns of marble, and peered up into the bare tree branches, and were standing face-to-face.

"She's alive," panted McKee. "She can't have vanished."

Crawford remembered the way the doglike creature that Trelawny had called Miss B. had disappeared in Regent's Park last Tuesday, and he strode around the nearby stones peering more carefully at the damp grass; and at the foot of a chest-high granite tomb set against a low hill he noticed a patch of newly flattened grass blades.