Death at the Abbey Page 13

  The danger being Mrs. Bayes, not the venue.

  After Mr. Bayes was situated in the dining room and the driver had gone back to the carriage to wait, the woman continued railing inside her tiny, dark parlor, which contained little more than a threadbare settee and two mismatched chairs under its low, dank ceiling. Several children, all about a year or two apart in age, stood in a doorway leading from the parlor to a corridor beyond, but scattered at the sight of their mother calling down Satan and his minions upon their father.

  “Mrs. Bayes, please, let us talk,” Violet said, in the soothing tone she adopted when faced with the wildly grieving. This woman was a bit more turbulent than most, raging and howling like a storm that rushes in from the coast and batters everything around it.

  “I am terribly sorry for the loss of your husband and what it means for your family.” Violet kept her voice low and remained still. Soon, Mrs. Bayes also quieted down, having expended her rage and fury, at least for the moment. However, the woman still shed no tears of sorrow. Violet knew that some people would not grieve in public, even if “public” meant before one other person inside the privacy of home.

  “I want to assure you,” Violet continued, “that His Grace is devastated by your husband’s death, and will pay the entire cost of the funeral.”

  Mrs. Bayes nodded stonily. The tempest seemed to have blown itself out and was headed back out to sea.

  “Do you want to know . . . what happened?” Violet asked.

  The woman shrugged carelessly. “I can guess. ’E was sotted up and fell in front of a ’orse van, or got ’imself into a fight with a brute ten times bigger than ’e was. I always told ’im ’e’d come to no good end.”

  Violet was in a quandary. Was it better for the woman to believe that her husband had died in a manner that upheld her obvious belief in his waywardness? Would there be an odd comfort in that for Mrs. Bayes? It wouldn’t be a lie to tell her that her husband had been found at the dynamiting site, where it was already believed he had stumbled in drunk. Or should Violet speak truthfully and tell the woman that she had discovered Mr. Bayes with a bloodied head last night and that his body had promptly disappeared, only to resurface at the dynamiting site? What would such a revelation do to this woman’s precarious state?

  Before she could decide what to do, Mrs. Bayes spoke again. “ ’E was gone for a few days, so I didn’t think anything of it. Edward was forever wandering off to ’is own purposes and coming back when it suited ’im. I’m not a bad wife, just so you know. I cook for the children, I clean, I go to market. But ’im, no, Edward wasn’t reliable at all. It would be just like ’im to get ’imself killed and leave me with everything to do.”

  The condition of her home suggested that Margaret Bayes probably put more thought into these activities than actual effort, but Violet wasn’t exactly the best mistress of the house the world had ever known. Besides, she didn’t herself have a passel of children to care for on top of it all, so what did she know?

  As if on cue, a wailing erupted from another room. With a resigned sigh, Mrs. Bayes rose from her chair and disappeared for several minutes, and eventually the crying stopped.

  When she returned, Mrs. Bayes seemed to have forgotten the manner of her husband’s death and was focused on practical things. “I’ve ’eard ’Is Grace ’as a widows’ and orphans’ fund, to pay the family of dead workers a stipend each month. Even if Edward died of ’is own foolishness, will ’Is Grace still make good on the money? I could sure use a few quid each month.”

  Violet was surprised by the hint of craftiness in Mrs. Bayes’s voice, although given the woman’s circumstances, maybe it shouldn’t be that much of a shock.

  “His Grace assured me personally that you and your children are welcome to a cottage on the estate, to occupy for the rest of your life.”

  Mrs. Bayes smiled, while gently shaking her head in disbelief. “Well, ol’ Edward, ’e’s finally doing in death what ’e’s supposed to ’ave been doing in life.”

  Perhaps with that bit of good news for the widow, it was time to discuss Edward Bayes’s funeral. Violet pulled her funeral service book from her large leather undertaking bag. She had had the driver stop by the inn so she could retrieve the bag on their way to visit the widow, and was now very glad she had brought it with her to Nottinghamshire, along with her professional black clothing.

  Violet hovered in the book between the Working Class and Tradesman sections, and finally decided that Portland’s instructions meant that the funeral should be working class, as befitting the man’s station, but well done. She laid the book open in her lap to that section. Each section of the book, which started at Poor and ran up as far as Society and Titled, contained drawings of coffins, mourning fashions, flowers, and memorial stones appropriate for that class of funeral. Violet always felt a twinge of guilt at having to indirectly remind the grieving of their station in life, even in the face of the great equalizer of death.

  “You will have a simple black hearse, containing a small viewing window, with one horse wearing a single black ostrich feather.” Violet pointed to an engraving of the hearse.

  “That’s better ’n just a cart, isn’t it?” Mrs. Bayes asked.

  “Yes, madam, much better. You can also be provided with your own mourning coach for transporting you to the church.” Violet expected Mrs. Bayes to demur, given that she was so close to the church and because she presumably had quite a number of children to manage who would not all fit inside the coach.

  Instead, the widow seemed struck. “Lawd, me in a coach. I never ’ad such good fortune when Edward was alive.”

  Well, if Mrs. Bayes wanted to enjoy the coach, they might as well do the traditional funeral ride through the small town instead of taking the coffin directly from the house to the church. Such a display was typically reserved for only the wealthy or well known, but surely Violet could justify to Portland that Edward Bayes had become instantly famous in a town like Worksop. “Your husband and the entire funeral party will travel from your house through as many streets of Worksop as possible, to give your neighbors an opportunity to offer their blessings.”

  “Yes, that would be fine, most fine.” Violet suspected the widow would struggle to refrain from grinning the entire time.

  “The coffin will be elm, painted black, with a black velvet pall over it. I will place a spray of flowers over the coffin. You will have a coachman and an attendant wearing black gloves, hat bands, and arm bands. You will need six pallbearers, whom I will also outfit similarly, to carry the coffin from the house to the hearse and from the hearse to the grave. They should be chosen from immediate friends of Mr. Bayes’s, and should be near to him in age. Do you know six men who can serve?”

  Mrs. Bayes nodded. “I just need to send one of my boys down to the Lamb and Chalice to ask, and no doubt six of the lushingtons will put down their tankards long enough to do it.”

  Violet dreaded the carnival performance the funeral would surely be. “Would you like the service held here at home or at the church?”

  Mrs. Bayes looked around her tiny parlor and then back at Violet incredulously. “I can’t ’ardly fit my young ones in here, much less the gaggle that will come to stare at Edward.”

  Violet agreed completely and made a note to see Reverend Appleton again, hoping she could do so without engaging in more theological conundrums.

  “Speaking of the clothing to be worn by funeral attendants, I must ask, do you have clothing that will suffice as widow’s weeds, or will you need a dressmaker’s visit?” Violet doubted this woman owned somber garments and was certain the duke would happily pay for a few dresses to carry her through two years of mourning.

  But Violet was once more taken aback when Mrs. Bayes said, “There’s no worries there. I ’ave just the right thing to wear,” and refused to discuss additional accoutrements, such as jet earrings or necklaces, mourning brooches, bonnets, tortoiseshell-handled fans, or any other items that would identify her as a new wido
w.

  Violet gently suggested that she accept a gift of a black-edged handkerchief from the duke, for which, once more, Violet was certain he would happily pay. Sensing that the woman needed more social guidance than most, she also dispensed advice that she would not normally presume to do with any grieving widow.

  “It is, of course, essential that you do not receive or pay visits for at least six months,” Violet said, hating her words, for she remembered how much she had detested that much mourning over her unlamented first husband. “Also, you must not attend the theater or other public places of amusement, unless it is a sedate musical performance.”

  Fortunately, Mrs. Bayes took no offense and shrugged her way through that and the rest of Violet’s suggestions, only finally becoming animated at the idea of an outdoor repast with her friends and neighbors following Mr. Bayes’s interment at Worksop Priory. Violet’s next question, though, sent the widow back to indifferent shrugging.

  “Is there anything the vicar should know about your husband as he prepares the service?” Violet asked.

  “Besides ’is love of Star Brewery porter? What else is there to know?”

  Violet had to tread carefully here, for she didn’t want to send Mrs. Bayes back to howling. “Is there anything about Mr. Bayes’s life—where he was born if not in Worksop, how he came to be employed at Welbeck Abbey—that the vicar could mention to those in attendance at the funeral? I noticed that your husband has a very peculiar tattoo on his right shoulder, and thought you might know—”

  “Oh, that? It’s One Tree ’Ill.”

  It sounded like an address. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s one of them dead volcanoes—the kind that once blew fire—all the way over in New Zealand. It ’ad a single tree in the center of it until some dobbie cut it down in the ’50s.”

  Violet was still confused. “And your husband saw a drawing of it in a picture book?”

  “Of course not. ’E was there. Edward joined ’Er Majesty’s navy to have an adventure, but grew sore tired of it while fighting in the Maori Wars, since all ’e did was sit inside a ship for gobs of time during a blockade at the mouth of the Waikato River.”

  This was interesting, although Violet wasn’t sure it was relevant to anything. “Was your husband born in Worksop, then?”

  Mrs. Bayes shook her head. “No. ’E was from Liverpool. After ’is stint in the navy, ’e wandered about from county to county and job to job, finding me along the way. I traveled with ’im, and we brought our young ones into the world. ’E always thought the next town would be the place where ’e would find ’is fortune. By the time we reached our fourth one, I told ’im it was time for ’im to quit ’is roaming and settle somewhere. ’E learned about Welbeck Abbey and ’ow the duke never turned away work seekers, so we ended up ’ere. Edward thought this might be the place to finally make ’is riches, though I don’t know ’ow the fool expected to do that as a purser.”

  So Edward Bayes distributed the pay for the estate’s workers. Did that mean anything? He must have hidden his love for drink to maintain such a responsible position. How could it possibly be relevant to his death? It probably wasn’t. And yet . . . someone had moved the man’s body, Violet was sure of it. Despite Mrs. Bayes’s insistence that he was an incurable drunkard, it didn’t seem possible that Violet had mistaken him for a corpse, and that he had stumbled off to the dynamiting site.

  “Did your husband have any experience with dynamite?” she asked.

  “With what?” Mrs. Bayes looked genuinely confused.

  “Your husband was found near one of the duke’s tunneling sites, which was being dug for a skating rink for the staff.”

  “Yes, I ’eard about the skating rink. ’Is Grace is always planning up exercises for ’is workers. Edward didn’t think much of it, though. Thought it was an insult to make ’im go rowing and batting cricket balls around.”

  “So your husband had no part in the building of the skating rink?”

  Mrs. Bayes’s expression was wary. “Not so I would know of it, but I didn’t follow the man about every second, Mrs. ’Arper. Wasn’t any of my business what ’e did for ’Is Grace and Mr. Reed.”

  “I see. Do you know of any particular friends or enemies he may have had at Welbeck?”

  “Edward?” Mrs. Bayes laughed. “ ’E could easily be best mates with anyone who could fill his tankard.”

  Violet persisted. “But was there anyone in particular with whom he was especially close? Or with whom he had had a recent argument?”

  The woman shrugged. “’E had his occasional row with the falconer. Said the birds was always stealing coins from ’is money box. Falconer called Edward a nitwitted fool. Can’t say as I disagreed with the bird ’andler. Once they even got to fisticuffs over some missing paper scrap of Edward’s. The falconer promised to poison Edward in ’is sleep.”

  Interesting. “Would you be willing to come to Welbeck to report your story to His Grace?”

  The widow’s eyes widened. “What? Me? No, I could never. It doesn’t mean anything, anyway.”

  “It might be important, Mrs. Bayes. I believe His Grace might wish to know if one of his staff might have had reason to harm your husband.”

  “What difference would it make? Edward lived a fool and died a fool, and the falconer ’ad nothing to do with it. No, I’ll not do it. You just told me I ’ave an income, to be mine from now on. I’ll not be running tales or do anything to make me look unappreciative before ’Is Grace.”

  No matter what Violet said, Mrs. Bayes refused to come with her to Welbeck Abbey.

  Resigned that her work with Mrs. Bayes was complete, Violet rose, intending to return to the dining room where Edward Bayes lay. “I might suggest that you have one of your sons visit the Lamb and Chalice right away to find some men to hold vigil over your husband in shifts until the funeral.” The practice had largely gone out of style, but Violet was still nervous that Mrs. Bayes might exact revenge on Edward once she was alone with him.

  Mrs. Bayes called out for Charlie, and a thin boy of about ten poked his head into the room. Mrs. Bayes curtly told him that his father had died, and that he was to run quickly to the tavern to find men to hold vigil and to serve as pallbearers. Violet’s heart broke over the boy’s confused expression at his mother’s bland pronouncement, but he rushed off to do as he was bid.

  “I’ll prepare your husband now,” Violet said, picking up her undertaking bag, which was full of the supplies she would need.

  On this, Mrs. Bayes became intractable once more. “No, no one touches ’im.” The woman’s lips made a thin, sour line. “ ’E’s my husband and I’ll wash ’im.”

  This was exactly what Violet didn’t want, but she had little choice in the matter. The woman was, after all, the widow, and no matter what Portland was expending, the widow had a right to dictate this.

  “Very well, then, I’ll be on my way.”

  After leaving the gloomy cottage, Violet sent a telegram to Harry Blundell to have him ship yet another coffin and other supplies right away. Afterward, she once more visited Worksop establishments to gather the remaining materials and perform necessary tasks, including a visit to the local newspaper to insert a death announcement in the following day’s edition. Her final stop was at a draper’s for yards of black crape and ribbon, which she took immediately back to the Bayeses’ house, ignoring the driver’s chagrin over so many starts and stops. The ribbon she used on the door knocker, a symbolic indication that the dread visitor—that mercurial beast called death—had entered the house.

  More importantly, she used the crape to cover up the hideous orange door.

  Back at Welbeck, Violet had one final task to perform to put her mind at rest regarding the holes beneath the birch trees, which was to have someone more experienced in earth matters look at them. She quickly learned that the head gardener was Parris, whom she’d passed in the rear gardens when Miles Hudock had escorted her to meet Portland for the first time. That had
only been a few days ago, but it felt as though a lifetime of events had happened since then.

  She found Parris inside a garden shed, its exterior built to resemble the estate’s other cottages. The interior, however, was a single large room, full of dirt-encrusted tools and baskets full of seeds and bulbs being carried over for the winter. He stood before a tall, rough-hewn table, counting out some kind of tree pods.

  “Yes?” he asked, taking in Violet’s black gown and tall black hat with tails trailing behind her. Recognition slowly dawned in his eyes. “You’re the undertaker who buried Burton Spencer.”

  Violet introduced herself and explained her mission, asking if he would accompany her to the birch grove to see if he could identify the holes she’d found.

  Parris nodded slowly, as if deeply contemplating her request. “Yes, I believe I can do that.”

  Violet could hardly imagine the man’s age, so deeply lined were his neck and the skin around his eyes from time spent in the sun. Yet he moved with the spryness of a younger man, despite his leisurely, deliberate speech. He could have been anywhere from thirty to eighty years old.

  They walked out to the copse, with Violet hardly able to keep up with Parris’s stride. She supposed that the work of managing so many plantings required a man to be nimble on his feet.

  She showed him where the holes were, and he squatted down easily before each of them. He spent a few minutes measuring them with his hand and cocking his head to one side to examine them, like the raven that had kept watch over her when she discovered the holes in the first place.

  Parris said nothing as he worked, but finally rose and brushed his hands off on his trousers. Violet expected a pronouncement from him, but still he continued in his silence, staring just past Violet as if in deep thought.

  Should she wait? Should she prompt him? Did everyone at Welbeck have to be so odd in mannerism?