Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [76]
The iron door to the warehouse was wide, enabling a coffin to be carried in on two undertakers’ shoulders with ease, and it took some strength for Grace to push it open. Inside, rows of sturdy shelves held three layers of coffins in a similar layout to that of the coffin van on the Necropolis train. There were about thirty coffins which had been collected from the various undertakers around London, and also two empty ones, which Grace had been told were kept to accommodate victims of road-traffic accidents or bodies fished out of the nearby Thames. There were a few candle lanterns about the place as a mark of respect to the dead, but generally the place was not well lit, for no visitors were likely.
Grace was shaking with cold by the time she went into the depository, for the riverwater and fog had seeped into her crêpe clothing and caused the heavy material to cling to her clammily. Quickly looking round, she could see that there was no live person in there, and it didn’t seem as if any coffins had yet been disturbed, for certainly no lids were lying to one side. Perhaps she had arrived first.
She hurriedly moved among the shelves, looking up and down, straining to read the brass nameplates in the dim light. All she could remember from the glance she’d given to the coffin at the Unwins’ was that its occupant had a double-barrelled name – and she found three of these here. One coffin named a woman, however, and one had a flag folded on its top denoting that its occupant had been an officer of the armed forces – she’d seen no such flag at the Unwins’. It had to be Mr Truscot-Divine, at the end of the warehouse, on the top shelf.
Grace stood on tiptoe and, taking a deep breath, prepared to slip her hand into the coffin. It was then that she heard, with absolute horror, the voice of Sylvester Unwin from outside, sounding very irate because they’d had to go right up to London Bridge to cross the river.
‘Open up, you watchman, and quick about it!’
‘Who’s there?’ came the response.
‘Unwin! I have a last-minute addition for a coffin going to Brookwood!’
This not being too unusual an occurrence – for a grieving widow would sometimes want to have a last letter or some such thing put in with her husband – there was a grating noise as the outside gate was opened. By this time Grace was running hither and thither like a terrified animal, unable to find anywhere to hide. Apart from the coffin shelves, the depository was blank and featureless; the door she’d come in at was the only opening, and there were no windows to clamber through.
And then she remembered the two empty coffins. These were soon located, for although they were a conventional coffin shape they were but temporary things made of cheap corrugated cardboard, and were on the lowest shelf just inside the door. Grace quickly ran to the nearest one, climbed inside and pulled the lid over herself. There she lay in complete darkness, striving not to move, shiver or scarcely breathe.
For a moment there was silence, and then Sylvester Unwin crashed through the door, holding a lantern aloft. He stood for a moment, looking around him. Grace, of course, could not see him, but sensed that he was close in the same way that she had sensed his nearness on other occasions: because his proximity caused such terror as to render her faint and nauseous.
Perhaps it was this terrible fear that made her reckless, for she had a sudden urge to confront him, to show him that he could not go through life trampling down those less fortunate than himself. She would not be a silent, faceless victim a moment longer!
So she sat up.
There was a swish as her coffin lid fell to the floor and Sylvester Unwin wheeled around in considerable fright. Grace, seen in the dim light, her head draped in white muslin, made a formidable apparition, for some wisps of fog had penetrated the building and propitiously formed themselves into a mist about her, causing her to look mysterious,