Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [4]
‘Are you all right, child?’ There was a man sitting alongside her wearing a shabby frock coat and battered black top hat.
Grace nodded and clutched at her bundle.
‘You’re very young to be travelling on this train alone. Is it a member of your family who’s passed away?’
Grace nodded and, making a gesture as if to say she was too grief-stricken to speak, stared out of the window as the countryside slipped by.
Start again, the rhythm of the train’s wheels seemed to be saying. Start again . . . If she could just get over this day and begin anew, then she would try to make something of her life. She would endeavour to make a different and better life for herself and Lily.
The train shrieked as it went under a bridge and the noise brought Grace out of her reverie. She had to find a last resting place for her child . . .
Some might have recoiled from this duty, fearing the thought of entering a dwelling place of the dead, but Grace had suffered enough misery in her life to know that it was only the living who could hurt you; that one had nothing to fear from those who’d passed to the other side. Tying her shawl more securely about her head, she opened the carriage door and went into the corridor. All was quiet, for each unit of mourners was secluded within its own private carriage (while in the last, the representatives of the funeral companies were sitting together exchanging stories whilst enjoying a nip of whisky).
The train roared, shook and swayed as it rounded a corner, and Grace grasped the window frame and waited until it straightened on its course. Then she pushed open the door to the van containing the coffins and went in.
There were no windows and the only light was from two candles burning in a sconce on the wall, so it took a moment for Grace’s eyes to readjust. When they did, she saw that the van was divided into three sections and each of these contained rows of narrow iron shelves upon which the coffins rested. Even in the poor light it was easy to distinguish between rich and poor, for the third-class caskets were of matchwood, with hand-written cards stating the occupier’s name and date of demise, while those of the first class were of highly polished wood with handles, trims and engraved plaques in brass or silver.
Grace went to the first-class section and read some of these plaques, which listed the corpse’s accreditations like a calling card for Heaven: Sebastian Taylor, devoted Husband and Father; Maud Pickersley, worked to improve the conditions of those less fortunate; Jessy Rennet, lived a life of Piety and Hope.
The train’s brakes gave a squeal and it slowed a little as if it was nearing its destination, and Grace surveyed the coffins quickly and anxiously. How to choose? She wanted her dead child to be placed with a woman, of course, someone who sounded kindly and was from a good family. She paused in front of a box of white oak containing The mortal remains of Miss Susannah Solent, Defender of the Weak, Princess of the Poor.
Miss Susannah Solent. There was no indication as to her age and she was obviously not a mother herself, but she sounded the sort of woman who would be kind to a child and give it shelter.
She must act quickly! She lifted a corner of the lid of the pale-wood casket containing the body of Susannah Solent and, without looking inside, slipped in her bundle.
She felt that some sort of formal farewell was called for and murmured, ‘May you sleep content and one day may we be reunited’, and then moved quickly back into the corridor, dabbing her eyes.
x
Chapter Two
A young couple, Mr and Mrs Stanley Robinson, were in a nursery painted all over with ships in full sail upon a foam-tipped sea. They were bending over a lavishly decorated bassinette with lace curtains, a frilled quilt and pillow threaded with white ribbon, in which slept their new baby. With every stir of their treasure and heir, every sniff and snuffle, they marvelled anew.
‘I don’t suppose he’ll be like this all the time,’ the