Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [73]
She could not let that happen. No, somehow she had to finish what she’d started: she must hail a hackney cab and try to get to the coffin depository first.
x
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When Sylvester Unwin went into the street where his gig and driver were waiting, he couldn’t find them, for a thick London fog had rolled up and, although the horse and trap were but a few feet away, they were lost to his vision.
‘What-ho!’ Sylvester Unwin shouted. ‘Where the devil are you?’
‘Here, sir!’ the driver said, and coughed as the damp and murky air hit the back of his throat.
‘Damn you, man! Have you moved?’
‘I have not, sir!’ The driver waved his whip. ‘Here I am, sir, sitting in the gig and waiting just where you left me.’
Sylvester Unwin stretched his arms out in front of him and endeavoured to peer through the gloom. The fog was banked up and in some parts looked more substantial than in others, one moment appearing grey, then muddy brown, then a thick and putrid green. Occasionally a thin ray of sun shone through and turned it a pale yellow. No matter the hue, however, it rendered one almost blind, clung to clothing, seeped into limbs and chilled flesh to the bone.
‘It was right as rain here up to an hour ago – then it came off the river. A regular pea-souper,’ said the driver.
‘Keep talking so I can find you!’ called Sylvester Unwin.
‘Here, sir! Straight ahead!’ the driver shouted several times, and finally Sylvester Unwin’s outstretched hand touched the side of the gig and he hauled himself on to the seat beside the driver.
‘Damn fog! Damn city!’
‘Where is it you’re wanting to go now, sir?’
‘Waterloo station. Quick as you like,’ Sylvester Unwin replied.
‘I don’t know about quick, sir,’ the driver said doubtfully. He adjusted his scarf so that it covered the lower part of his face and became a makeshift mask through which to breathe. ‘And I shouldn’t think there would be trains running tonight. Not in this.’
‘I’m not getting a train,’ growled Sylvester Unwin. He breathed in deeply and began coughing. ‘Leave off the chat. Just get me there as damned quickly as you can.’
‘Do you want to pay for a link boy?’ the driver asked, for he could see, ahead of them, boys waving flaming torches and walking before vehicles to help light their way.
‘Get two,’ came the reply. ‘Just get me there.’
‘Aye, sir! Link! Link!’ the driver called into the impenetrable darkness, but the nearby boys were already taken and eventually, after Sylvester Unwin swore that he’d strangle him with his bare hands if he didn’t get going, he flicked his whip.
The horse obediently set off, but his eyes could no more penetrate the pall than those of human eyes, and the creature immediately stumbled upon a wooden crate which someone had discarded in the middle of the street. The horse righted itself, but it had injured its foreleg and its orientation had gone – as had that of the driver – so after some confusion and a wrong turning, the horse found itself lost in the murk and trying to climb a set of slippery marble steps up to a front door.
‘Stupidity!’ Sylvester Unwin roared as the gig’s wheels stuck on the bottom step. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’
‘Can’t see a thing, sir!’ the driver apologised. ‘Worst fog I’ve ever been in.’
‘So what if it is. Get back to the road and get going. Find some link boys! Pay them double!’
Halting, swearing and shouting instructions by turn, Sylvester Unwin began his slow progress towards the building more commonly known to the workers on the Necropolis Railway as the Stiffs’ Storehouse.
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Grace left a full ten minutes after Sylvester Unwin, partly because she couldn’t bring herself to leave the relative safety of the funeral parlour and partly because she greatly feared being in close proximity to the man who had ruined her. Somehow she felt that the evil which emanated from him might still