Stolen Remains (13 page)

She couldn’t have been much more than a teenager. Despite the warm day outside, the young woman shivered. She seemed startled to see someone not in a uniform at the door. “Excuse me, my lady, I thought to speak with . . . with . . . another maid, perhaps? I brought this for Mrs. Peet.” She produced a handpicked bouquet of pink-and-white apple blossoms from behind her back.

“Those are lovely, Miss—?”

“Rebecca, madam.” The girl curtsied.

“I am just the undertaker, Violet Harper. How may I help you?”

“I heard about Mrs. Peet. These are for her.”

How in the world had news traveled that quickly?

“Thank you. They will be much appreciated.”

The girl gave no indication that she would leave, instead peering over Violet’s shoulder at what might lie beyond.

“Is there a message I can pass on to the family?” Violet asked.

“Oh no, madam, I would never presume to think the family would have a care what I thought. I was just wondering . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, if perhaps I might be able to say good-bye to Mrs. Peet properly. We’ve all been talking and we agree that we never saw her as the type. She was very kind to me. More than once did she help me carry carpets in and out for beating. She even . . . protected . . . me once.”

“Protected you from what?”

The girl’s eyes grew wide. “I shouldn’t have said that, madam. Forgive me. May I see her, God rest her soul?”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea. She’s not really ready yet.”

“Mrs. Harper, I know what she did to herself and I know she won’t look normal. I grew up on a farm and have strangled and chopped the head off many a hen. I can endure the sight, I promise.”

Violet wasn’t sure about that—a dead human being was a far different sight from slaughtered dinner—and she might have made a mistake by giving in to Mrs. Peet’s demands to see Lord Raybourn’s dead body, but the girl reminded her of a young Susanna, so she let her in anyway. True to her word, Rebecca didn’t act mortified at all to see Mrs. Peet stretched out on the table, but merely gazed sadly at the housekeeper.

“Do you think she felt a lot of pain?” she asked. “It’s always so quick with the chickens.”

“It’s hard to know,” Violet said.

“She must have been very brave to do this to herself, don’t you think? To deliberately put a rope around your neck? To be so brave and yet so sad at the same time.” Rebecca shook her head.

“You said that Mrs. Peet once protected you from something. What was it?”

Rebecca bit her lip. “It was more like some
one,
Mrs. Harper. Would have lost my honor had she not stepped in. Some men think any housemaid is theirs for the taking, don’t they?”

“Was it Lord Raybourn?” Violet asked gently.

Tears filled the girl’s eyes. “I mustn’t talk about this. I promised Mrs. Peet I wouldn’t.” She laid the bouquet on the housekeeper’s chest and fled the house.

Violet turned back to Mrs. Peet. “What other secrets were you and Lord Raybourn hiding? Did you discover Lord Raybourn making advances on Rebecca and kill him in a fit of anger? Was the subsequent guilt too much?”

Violet put a hand to the side of Mrs. Peet’s face and gently pressed. Rigor mortis was passing. “Are you ready now for your beauty treatment?”

As with Lord Raybourn, Violet washed Mrs. Peet’s body, assembling the needed materials from the kitchen and scullery. How ironic that mere days ago, Mrs. Peet had gathered these items up for Violet herself. Unlike her employer’s preparation, Mrs. Peet wouldn’t receive an embalming treatment. Instead, Violet focused first on washing the body, then set to work on improving the housekeeper’s appearance as much as possible through cosmetics and other artifice.

Something had to be done about the eyes. Violet pushed the woman’s lids down with her thumbs, but they refused to stay shut. Should she sew or glue? She’d sewn Lord Raybourn’s eyes shut, but in this case . . .

From her undertaker’s bag, Violet retrieved a small brown bottle and an eyedropper. After undoing the bottle’s seal, she inserted the eyedropper and filled it, then gently squeezed glue along the lid edges of first Mrs. Peet’s right eye, then her left eye. Violet then put her supplies down and gently pressed the lids shut on each eye, using the thumb and forefingers of both hands. Those arresting green eyes would never be seen again.

Satisfied that the lids would remain closed, Violet took out a needle and spool of wiry thread. She threaded about eighteen inches of the filament and stitched an end from a spot behind one ear, down around the chin, then back up and behind the other ear, making several more stitches and tying off the thread. This was another method to prevent the jaw from gaping open. Some undertakers used “invisible” stitches inside the mouth to lock the gums together, but Violet preferred to invade the body as little as possible. With a high-collared bodice or shirt, no one would ever notice what Violet had done.

Violet studied her handiwork. “Just a bit of cosmetic massage will cover it all up, won’t it?”

She retrieved her tray of tinted creams and brushes, holding up various jars to the light drifting in from the transom windows. “I think you need Deep Beige Number Seven, which will help cover some of the remaining bruising on your face.”

She unscrewed the pot and swirled a brush in it, then applied it to the woman’s face with an artist’s eye for symmetry and precision, being careful to daub extra cream along Mrs. Peet’s eyelids to cover a couple of drops of congealed glue that had seeped out. She also applied the cream heavily to the woman’s neck to mask the rope burns in case her clothing would not cover them, as well as more lightly to her shoulders and the tops of her hands.

Having given her as near to a fleshlike appearance as possible given the circumstances, Violet pulled out another tinted pot, this one of rouge, which she brushed heavily across the woman’s cheeks and lips, and more lightly on her forehead, chin, and hands. “Now it almost looks as if blood is flowing through your veins. Your appearance is so much better. Now for the finishing touches.”

Violet shook out the dress she’d selected for Mrs. Peet, examining it and looking down at the body, wondering how long it had been since the housekeeper had worn this dress. She’d gained some weight since she’d purchased it.

With the usual struggle it took to do it by herself, Violet replaced Mrs. Peet’s undergarments, omitting a corset, an item far too difficult to lace up and tighten on a cooperative human being, much less the leaden weight of a corpse.

Mrs. Peet’s dress was even less accommodating.

“No worries, I know just the thing that will have you looking like a society debutante.”

Using a pair of scissors that had fallen to the bottom of her bag, Violet cut a slit down the center of the back of both the skirt and the bodice. She put Mrs. Peet’s arms through the armholes and laid the skirt across her midsection, then, turning her over to one side, then the other, brought the back sides of the dress together as closely as possible.

Time for more needle and thread. This time she selected a heavy cotton thread from her bag, and used large zigzag stitches to loosely connect the ripped edges of the dress. Violet gently brought Mrs. Peet down on her back again.

“Now, why don’t we arrange your hair back into place? Lucky for you, I remember just how you wear it.”

Violet brushed Mrs. Peet’s coarse, graying hair back and tucked in a variety of pins to hold it still.

Violet stepped back once more. “You look lovely, Mrs. Peet. Ready for a fancy tea or a ride through Hyde Park. Just one more thing.”

Violet wrapped Rebecca’s bouquet in Mrs. Peet’s hands and used more thread to tie her fingers around the flowers. “I don’t think anyone can see a bit of this thread, and now you appear peaceful and relaxed.”

After cleaning up and repacking her undertaking bag, Violet patted the woman’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you here to rest, but will be back soon with your coffin and some other things to prepare you for your big day.”

Back upstairs, Violet found Stephen and Katherine in the drawing room, huddled together over Lord Raybourn’s coffin. Katherine was trembling while Stephen soothed her. “I’m sure he didn’t suffer, sweetheart. You must stop thinking about it.”

Violet cleared her throat.

“Ah, we didn’t know you were here,” Stephen said, disengaging from his wife as they both turned to the undertaker. “Mrs. Cooke was here earlier with patterns. The women were quite pleased with her. She said she has some partial-mades that she can finish off by tomorrow. Can you pick them up?”

“Of course.”

“And now I presume you wish to discuss Mrs. Peet?”

“Yes. Actually, I would like to talk to you about her funeral.”

Stephen held up a hand. “Whatever is proper for someone of her station, we’ll cover. I trust your judgment. She was actually a distant family member, you know.”

“She was?” Was Violet wrong in her deduction that the housekeeper and Lord Raybourn were having an affair?

“Yes, but a cousin several times removed from my mother. A part of the family practically unknown to us. We’ve never really acknowledged her as other than a servant.”

Violet nodded. “In that case, then, perhaps you would like to upgrade to a tradesman’s funeral. It would show further respect without recognizing her as a member of the family.”

“Yes, yes, that’s fine.”

“To what cemetery should I direct her remains?”

“I don’t know. What do you think, Kate? Should we inter Mrs. Peet back at St. Margaret’s?”

Katherine’s eyes were red-rimmed. “She would have liked that. She loved Willow Tree House and the surrounding area.”

“That settles it, then. I presume the queen will allow us to bury our housekeeper?”

Violet made another trip to Morgan Undertaking to drop off the trays and to order a pine coffin with an unbleached cotton lining, a thin mattress, and iron fittings, along with a tin inscription plate—all items appropriate for a tradesman’s funeral—for Mrs. Peet.

“Mrs. Harper, we must show you our new carriage, meant just for trade funerals,” Harry said, escorting her around the block to the mews where the carriages were kept. Still smelling of a thick coat of fresh black paint, the carriage was mostly enclosed, with just a small window on either side of it. Unlike with aristocrats, people didn’t care to see who was inside the funeral carriage of a tradesman.

“I think this will do quite well for Mrs. Peet,” she said.

After the stop at Morgan Undertaking, Violet returned to St. James’s Palace. A royal carriage stood in the courtyard, its driver erect and unblinking, like a propped-up corpse awaiting photography.

Stationed outside her apartment was a footman holding a summons from the queen to come to Windsor.

Violet sighed as she quickly changed out of her undertaker garb and into something a little more presentable for being in the queen’s presence.

At Windsor, she was led to the usual room where she met the queen. This time, the queen sat behind her immense mahogany desk, whose top shone from regular waxing. Sitting behind it, Queen Victoria managed to be both regal and sorrowful. To one side of the room, next to the great, yawning marble fireplace, stood an older, serious-looking man, his graying hair in wavy tufts around his ears and what looked like a permanent scowl etched upon his brow.

Violet curtsied once again. “Your Majesty,” she said.

“You may rise, Mrs. Harper. How is your husband?”

“Well, thank you, Your Majesty. He has just departed for Sweden to meet with a man named Nobel, who has invented a safe explosive called dynamite.”

“A safe explosive? Can there be such a thing? What is the purpose of this dynamite?”

“My husband believes it has good application for silver mining back in the United States.”

Victoria shuddered. “Does your husband intend to bring this explosive to England?”

“I don’t know whether—”

“One must think carefully about handling dangerous substances.”

“Yes, my husband is—”

“You know, we have survived more than one assassination attempt. What if our attackers had access to this explosive you speak of? Why, we might be dead. Although we would then be lying peacefully next to Albert at Frogmore, away from the cares of ruling. . . .” The queen’s gaze went to some unknown spot behind Violet.

The tufty-eared man cleared his throat, which brought the queen out of her reverie.

“What? Yes, yes. Mr. Gladstone, this is Mrs. Harper, the undertaker of whom we have spoken to you. Mrs. Harper, I’m sure you know of Mr. Gladstone as our prime minister.”

“Mrs. Harper.” Mr. Gladstone inclined his head toward Violet but did not move from his position. “The queen has told me of your work during the prince’s funeral. Well done.”

“Thank you, sir. It is an honor to meet you.”

“Mrs. Harper, Mr. Gladstone, be seated.” They each sat on matching chairs across from the queen’s desk. The arms were covered by black velvet protectors edged in cream lace.

“I’ve asked you here, Mrs. Harper, to discuss how you are faring with the Raybourn family. As prime minister, Mr. Gladstone has an interest in our esteemed Lord Raybourn, too.”

“Has Scotland Yard spoken to you?” Mr. Gladstone asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“What is their assessment?”

“They believe it was probably suicide. Chief Inspector Hurst says they have leads to follow regarding Lord Raybourn’s activities in Egypt.”

A look that Violet couldn’t begin to fathom passed between the queen and her prime minister.

“Very good,” Gladstone said. “And so you have prepared Lord Raybourn, I presume?”

“Yes. I put a lock on his coffin, as well. You should know—”

“Have all the family arrived?”

“Yes, but the housekeeper—”

“What need was there for a lock?”

“His physical condition precluded viewing, in my professional opinion. Which leads me to—”

“Has anyone in the family insisted that the funeral proceed?”

The queen tapped her fingers on the desk. “Mr. Gladstone, it would seem Mrs. Harper has something important to say. Perhaps we should let her do so.”