The old lady nodded, her mouth too full to speak.
The carriage was called at half-past ten, and Alicia, Verity, and the old lady were helped into it one by one, and then out again at St. Margaret’s Church, where for over a hundred years the family had had its own pew. No one who was not a Fitzroy-Hammond had ever been known to sit in it.
They were early. The old lady liked to sit at the back and watch everyone else arrive, then go forward to the pew at one minute before eleven. Today was no exception. She had survived the deaths of every member of her own blood, except Verity, with the supreme composure required of an aristocrat. The reburial of Augustus would not be different.
At two minutes before eleven she stood up and led the way forward to the family pew. At the end she stopped short. The unthinkable had happened. There was someone else already there! A man, with collar turned up, leaning forward in an attitude of prayer.
“Who are you?” the old lady hissed. “Remove yourself, sir! This is a family pew.”
The man did not stir.
The old lady banged her stick sharply on the ground to attract his attention. “Do something, Alicia! Speak to him!”
Alicia squeezed past her and touched the man gently on the shoulder. “Excuse me-” She got no further. The man swayed and fell sideways onto the seat, face up.
Alicia screamed-at the very back of her mind she knew what the old lady would say, and the congregation- but it tore out of her throat beyond her helping. It was Augustus again, his dead face livid and bloodless, gaping up at her from the wooden seat. The gray stone pillars wavered round her, and she heard her own voice go on shrieking like a quite disembodied sound. She wished it would stop, but she seemed to have no control over it. Blackness descended; her arms were pinned to her sides, and something had struck her in the back.
The next thing she knew she was lying propped up in the vestry. The vicar, pasty-faced and sweating, was crouching next to her, holding her hand. The door was open, and the wind rushed in, in an icy river. The old lady was opposite, her black skirts spread round her like a grounded balloon, her face scarlet.
“There, there,” the vicar said helplessly. “You’ve had a most appalling shock, my dear lady. Quite appalling. I don’t know what the world is coming to, when the insane are allowed loose amongst us like this. I shall write to the newspapers, and to my member of Parliament. Something really must be done. It is insupportable.” He coughed and patted her hand again. “And of course we shall all pray.” The position became too uncomfortable for him; he was beginning to get a cramp in his legs. He stood up. “I have sent for the doctor for your poor mama. Dr. McDuff, isn’t it? He will be here any moment. A pity he was not in the congregation!” There was a note of affront in his voice. He knew that the doctor was a Scot and a Presbyterian, and he disapproved vehemently. A physician to such an area as this had no business to be a nonconformist.
Alicia struggled to sit up. Her first thoughts were not for the old lady, but for Verity. She had not seen death before, and Augustus had been her father, even though they had not been close.
“Verity,” she said with a dry mouth. “What about Verity?”
“Don’t distress yourself!” His voice became agitated at the thought of imminent hysteria. He had no idea how to cope with such a thing, especially in the vestry of the church. The morning service was already a complete disaster; the congregation had either gone home or was standing outside in the rain, impelled by curiosity to watch the last gruesome act of the affair. The police had been sent for, right here to the church, and the whole business was become a scandal beyond retrieval. He dearly wanted to go home and have luncheon, where there would be a fire and a sensible housekeeper who knew better than to have “emotions.”
“My dear lady,” he started again, “please be assured Miss Verity has been taken care of with the utmost sensibility. Lady Cumming-Gould took her home in her carriage. She was most distressed, of course; who would not be-it is all quite dreadful! But we must bear these burdens with the grace of God to help us. Oh!” His face lit up with something akin to delight as he saw the thick figure of Dr. McDuff come in and slam the vestry door. Professional responsibility could be shed at last-perhaps even shifted entirely. After all, the doctor must care for the living, and he himself was duty-bound to see to the dead, because no one else was properly qualified.
McDuff went straight to the old lady, ignoring the other two. He took her wrist and felt it for several seconds, then peered at her face.
“Shock,” he said succinctly. “Severe shock. I advise you to go home and take as much rest as you feel you need. Have all your meals brought up, and don’t receive any visitors except the immediate family, and not them, if you don’t choose. Do nothing strenuous, and do not allow yourself to become upset about anything at all.”
The old lady’s face eased with satisfaction; the fierce color ebbed a little.
“Good,” she said, climbing to her feet with his help. “Knew you would know what to do. Can’t take any more of this-I don’t know what the world is coming to-never had anything like this when I was young. People knew their places then and kept them. Too busy working to go around desecrating graves of their betters. Too much education of the wrong people nowadays; that’s what’s responsible, you know. Now they’ve got curiosities and appetites that are no good for them. It isn’t natural! See what’s happened here! Even the church isn’t safe anymore. It’s worse than if the French had invaded, after all!” With that parting shot she stumped out, banging her stick furiously against the door.
“Poor dear lady,” the vicar muttered. “What a quite dreadful shock for her-and at her age, too. One would think she had earned a little respite from the sins of the world.”
Alicia was still sitting on the vestry bench in the cold. She suddenly realized how much she disliked the old lady. She could never recall a moment since the time she had become betrothed to Augustus when she had felt at ease with her. Until now she had hidden it from herself, for Augustus’s sake. But there was no need any longer. Augustus was dead.
With a lurch she remembered his body in the pew, and on the slab in that bitter mortuary with the little man in the white coat who was so terrifyingly happy all the time in his room full of corpses. Thank goodness the policeman at least had been a little more sober; in fact, quite pleasant, in his way.
As if she had conjured him out of her thoughts the door swung open, and Pitt appeared in front of her, shaking himself like a great wet dog and spraying water from his coattails and off his sleeves. She had not thought of the police coming, and now all sorts of ugly fears crowded into her mind. Why? Why had Augustus risen out of his grave again like some persistent, obscene reminder of the past, preventing her from stepping out of it into the future? The future could hold so much promise; she had met new people, especially one new person, slim, elegant, with all the laughter and charm Augustus had lost. Perhaps he had been like that in his youth, but she had not known him then. She wanted to dance, to make jokes of trivial things, to sing something round the spinet other than hymns and solemn ballads. She wanted to be in love and say giddy and uproarious things, have a past worth remembering, like the old lady who sat rereading her youth from a hundred letters. No doubt there was sadness in them, but there was passion, too, if there was any truth in her retelling.
The policeman was staring at her with bright gray eyes. He was the untidiest creature she had ever seen, not fit to be in a church.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I thought we’d seen the end of it.”
She could think of no answer.
“Do you know of anyone who might be doing this, ma’am?” he went on.
She looked up at his face, and a whole abyss of new horror opened up in front of her. She had presumed it was an anonymous crime, the work of insane vandals of some sort. She had heard of grave robbing, body snatchers; but now she realized that this extraordinary man thought that it might be personal, deliberately directed at Augustus-or even at her!
“No!” She gulped, and the breath caught in her throat. She swallowed hard. “No, of course not.” But she could feel the heat burning up her face. What would other people think? Twice Augustus had been uncovered out of his grave, almost as if someone were unwilling to let him rest-or, more pointedly, unwilling to let her forget him.
Who would do such a thing? The only one she knew was the old lady. She would certainly be annoyed if she thought Alicia could marry again, and so soon, this time for love!
“I have no idea,” she said as calmly as she could. “If Augustus had any enemies, he never spoke of them; and I find it hard to imagine that anyone he was acquainted with, whatever their feelings, would do such a thing as this.”
“Yes.” Pitt nodded. “It is beyond ordinary vengeance, even to us. It’s wretchedly cold in here; you’d better go
