Silver, p.39
Silver, page 39
Avery watched me whilst I spoke and I knew from his face that he was jealous. No doubt, he already guessed the ending to my story but I felt I had to finish. It was important to me to explain.
“Each time he returned, he found some time to come and find me but we were careful not to let anyone find us together. I would sneak away on an errand to the orchard or the kitchen garden and Charles would meet me in one of the outbuildings; the summer hours, the orangery, the lake house. I knew mamma would be furious.
“Charles spoke about his future, about his father’s plans for him, about school, about his plans to travel and I felt that these were the only times he talked about the things that troubled him. My life became a routine and each year I looked forward to seeing Charles, to hear about his term and to see how much he had changed. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t spend the whole year pining after him but you have to understand that he was a friend and my life was extraordinarily dull. By the time he came home at the age of seventeen, we were very different people and our summer chats grew shorter and less frequent. I had noticed how each year he had come home taller, broader and his voice deeper. By comparison, I don’t think I changed a bit; perhaps only grew more tired and less interesting!
“But that summer, he came to find me on his first day back. He was pink faced with excitement and he asked me to meet him in the summerhouse. He was so excited; he didn’t even bother to make sure we were alone. My older sister, Eve and one of the scullery maids, Greta were in the yard when he came to see us. You should have seen the look on Greta’s face when the tall young master strode round the side of the kitchen and asked to meet me. She looked as though one of the garden ornaments had broken free of its stony pose and begun talking to her. That alone was enough to make me bold enough to walk straight after him without a further thought. It was reckless but I was carried away with his excitement and wasn’t he a friend?
“He wanted to tell me that his father had agreed for him to study botany at university alongside his classical studies. I was pleased for him but when he presented me with a basket of twisted licorice sticks I was so thrilled. I forgot myself and I ran to hug him. Please don’t look like that, Avery. It was a hundred moons ago and I didn’t feel anything but gratitude to him, honestly. It must have taken him by surprise too because the next thing I knew he had pulled me to him and begun to kiss me.
I stopped as Avery interrupted me.
‘“Please, you don’t need to tell me anymore. So you had a baby with your childhood sweetheart? Do you love him still?”
“Avery. Please. Let me finish,” I paused and the next time I spoke I kept my eyes closed so Avery couldn’t interrupt me. “I was shocked. No-one had ever kissed me before and, if I’m honest, I had never thought about anyone in that way before. I was dazed and I responded. I was flattered and confused but I don’t regret what I did.”
“The kiss lasted a few minutes and when we pulled away I still felt just as confused. He asked me to meet him again that same evening and I agreed. The attention was nice and I half thought we would fall back into our usual talks like we always did but we didn’t. I don’t need to tell you details about that evening but I need you to understand that he didn’t force me.
“Within a week, he was off on a tour of the country to join his school friends and within a few months I knew I was pregnant. I was terrified and so I wrote to him. He had returned to school and the weeks I waited for a reply were the longest ever. I never got the reply, my mother and I were summoned to the mistresses presence and I was dismissed and effectively disowned in the same moment.
I didn’t know what else to say nor whether Avery would still feel the same about me. A few moments passed in silence and I felt relieved to have finally told him my own secret but afraid he would no longer need me or want me.
‘“What happened to Imogen?” he asked eventually.
“I couldn’t keep her,” I said. “I couldn’t keep her.”
I began to cry and in one swift movement he had sat beside me and taken me in his arms, smoothing my hair and quieting me with his calming breath.
‘“We will find her,” he said, and I believed him.
Epilogue
You are becoming accustomed to the way Avery’s face looks in his stiff repose but for the first time he seems truly dead. He is lain out again but this time within his casket. The outside of the coffin is well polished and finely crafted, the oak is crisp and the grain is finely buffed. The brass handles are well shined. The inside is as perfectly arranged as the out with silk lining and a crisp pillow upon which Avery’s head now rests. People often say that the skin of a corpse looks as if it has drained of all colour but you can at once see that this is not true. The face before you has many hues about it from blue to grey and at his neck a yellowing where blood has pooled beneath the surface and is now congealed.
As you stand beside the body of this man you hear the gentle click of the latch behind you, a sallow faced gentleman ambles to the other side of the coffin in which Avery is laid. It is apparent as this man busies himself with the tools of his trade that he is an undertaker and he is now taking a few moments to ensure that he is satisfied with his work. You are at once disconcerted at the resemblance between this man and Silver. They both share the grey silhouette of age and the man’s skin is almost as blue grey as Silvers is at this moment. The man glances up as you think this and for a moment you are staring straight into his dull grey eyes. It is as if a connection has been made and you can see this man’s own life flashing before you. It is a looping series of the same still images just like a zoetrope but ultimately more revealing than any confessional. He is standing before the body of a woman. He is a boy, no older than Sebastian Bancroft. The woman is slumped in an upright winged back chair, the anti-maccassar has been pulled down as she has slumped and it now sits atop her head like a mantilla. Her face is pulled down on one side and drool is slipping from her mouth in a long and silver line which glints in the light from the window. It is as if she has swallowed a necklace which now dangles from her jaws. Her eyes are open and the boy is frozen in fear; his mother. The next image spins around and a younger version of the man is stood at an altar, his upper lip is beaded with sweat and he looks paler than he does today if that can be possible. Over his shoulder there is a figure dressed in white being processed up the aisle. Spin. The man is pacing outside his bedroom; he is anxious and afraid. A door opens and another man with an apron steps out, his hands and shirt are bloodied. Spin. He is working over the body of a woman and his face is wet with tears. Spin. He is standing before a single grave into which two coffins are being lowered. One is smaller than the other. It is raining and he is shaking from the cold. Spin. He is standing before a bed in his nightgown, a nightcap perched snugly on his head. He looks serene. The bed is empty but he has arranged a bolster cushion which he now regards with a look of disappointment.
It is quite a surprise when he looks away from you and you consider if there is the possibility that he can see you. After all, he is a man who works with the dead and whilst he has holds no stock in the silly parlour games that were once rather popular; the psychics and the mediums that purport to make contact with the dead. He knows them only for rogues for he knows that the dead do not need smoke and mirrors to disturb the living. A well placed ice bucket can give any mortal a clammy and deathly cold grip but the fingers of the dead can reach inside you to deliver just such a chill.
He continues busying himself with his work, tidying away some small remnants of the wax and polish he has used to bring up the wood and the brass on the casket. Satisfied with the way the outside of the coffin looks he turns his attention to Avery. For a few moments, he merely toys with the dressing along the interior of the casket, he runs a finger along the creases, sharpening up the corners inside. It strikes you at once how strange this is when the only one who could appreciate such detail is the one man who will never see it. After primping the fabric interior he collects a clothes brush from the bench beside him and proceeds to dust the fabric of Avery’s suit from his shoulders down his arms and then across his chest. Replacing the brush he collects a rag and with a small pot of polish he applies a final sheen to Avery’s shoes. Content at his task, he manages to get the old leather to gleam and this makes him smile a little in satisfaction. After several minutes, he leans back to gain a different viewpoint, a second opinion when working alone and turns his head to one side to consider Avery. You notice immediately that this man is not regarding Avery with any degree of curiosity. He is a man merely intent on doing his job and you watch with fascination as he gently reaches out to brush the hair at Avery’s fringe with a delicate touch of one finger. It is a most intimate of gestures; one so tender after the brutality of the intrusion to his privacy and dignity that you feel your presence here intrusive. The man steps back again and nods once in approval. His work will be appreciated only if no-one notices his hand across Avery’s face and as the few friends and relatives arrive to pay their last respects a few hours later, the undertaker watches from a distance behind a drawn curtain to the rear of the church where the body has now been transferred. And where we now find ourselves.
Look around yourself. There are faces you will recognise and others you won’t. There are many strangers here. Despite the best efforts of the Bancroft’s to keep the funeral a secret, word, as it is want to do, has got out somehow. The cortege is processing from the church to the graveyard to join the huddle of people beside an open grave. You see Imogen immediately, her face is glistening with tear marks but she is not weeping. Instead, she is surveying the faces around her. Some are bold enough to stand beside the grave, they have their hats removed and are showing their respect. Others stand a way off, faces she doesn’t recognize, their necks craned discretely to catch a glance of this side show. You notice that John stands at some distance to his wife. He is uncomfortable, that much is obvious even from your distance.
The readings in the church have been simple as John has requested they ought to be. He was anxious to get Avery buried quickly, out of sight and out of mind. His moustache bristles as he straightens his lip. He is already imagining how tomorrow will play out, business returned to usual. With the boy’s home, his wife will perk up and things may get back to some semblance of normality. Yes, he can see that this miserable mess will be over very soon. His lips twitch upwards into a smile and he only catches himself after a moment. Not the time, dear boy. Not the place. He glances sidelong at Imogen to see if she has seen but Imogen is not watching her husband; indeed I wonder if she will ever look at him the same way again. She scans the assembled congregation, her face hopeful. It is almost as if she is looking for someone. After several scans of the same group, she turns to look beyond the crowd to the graveyard onlookers. She squints a little, studying each person from a distance.
Her two sons stand at her side, the youngest has his hand in hers. He stands still and silent like he has fallen asleep on his feet. His brother is watching his mother and tries to follow her gaze. He asks her something but she either doesn’t hear or she ignores him. Her view is obscured for a moment as the coffin is brought from the church to the graveside, causing her to arch her neck to see around it. The heads of the pall bearers bob alongside the casket as buoys on a barge. The coffin rides unevenly along their shoulders. It is plain but expensively crafted. Everything about a death is about a statement and anyone freshly chancing upon this scene would determine only this. A man of wealth is lost to us. Of course the casket is closed now, as you well imagine it would be and you watch as the four men lower Avery to the waiting planks across the grave, their work is steady but inevitably not smooth and it is not hard to imagine Avery’s head rocking gently from side to side on his last cradle.
Your attention wanders around the assembled crowd and you pick out Heston. He is directly behind Imogen and John, his head is bowed and he holds a hat in his hands. He does not pick at the rim of it like some men nor does he look at the coffin at all. He does not imagine Avery inside the coffin. He has no need to.
You recognise Mrs. Phelps standing some distance from the group. She lingers as if in two minds. She is here for crumbs. She still does not understand how it can be so. Her enquiries have been met with a mixture of lies or contemptuous silence. They think she is seeking a cheap thrill with this information but how can she admit to having had a genuine affection for Avery. She does not believe any of the lies and only half believes he is dead. The tears she is crying are real.
There is a silence settling over the grave and attention is drawn to the vicar who has now assumed a position at the foot of the burial plot. All eyes except for Imogen’s. She is continuing to search the distance for someone until at last her eyes alight on you. She looks relieved. No, don’t panic. She is not looking at you, but rather she is looking through you. You turn around and see another face you recognise. Elizabeth Evesham.
She hesitates at the sight of the grave. She has attended a few burials recently. They are a symptom of age. You grow old, you lose some of your old friends. The old die. It is the death of the young which affects us so. Avery is not young but of course when Elizabeth last saw him, he was in the prime of his youth, a tall muscled and handsome man. It is this Avery she is laying to rest and not the silver-haired man lain inside the coffin. Elizabeth plucks her way carefully closer to the graveside, hanging back a little. John notices his wife’s gaze and he watches Elizabeth curiously. He has made a note but not wishing to make a scene he will ask Imogen later of this woman’s significance. After a few more moments the vicar continues his speech. Imogen has paid handsomely for today’s ceremony. The vicar could not be persuaded to commend Avery to the Kingdom of Heaven explicitly as a man but in the end he would not be so callous as to deny him a resting place alongside his wife, even if God had not allowed it. Whilst he was sure he knew the church’s feelings on the matter, he had allowed for some minor, discretionary amendments to the prayers he sent and he hoped his Father would forgive him. So far, he has managed to avoid making any such prayers gender specific. The cold is intense and people are shuffling to stop their feet from growing numb. The movement seems coordinated and gives the impression of one animal moving, the steam rising from their uniform of black like a steaming hound fresh from the chase.
As the last of the vicar’s words form into visible clouds of steam, everyone watches as they ascend in the cold January air as if they will eventually meet with heaven itself. The pallbearers step forward once more and take the slack of the weight of the casket on two silk ropes and the gravediggers remove the planks. There is a little indignity as the men puff out their cheeks and brace themselves, lowering the rope, little by little, fist over fist until finally the wood has reached the frozen earth below and they collectively breath out a sigh on the thin winters air.
“Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
The vicar is surprised by his slip of the tongue but allows the prayer to rest with Avery. He reaches down, as he has done on many occasions before and no doubt will do again, and collects a handful of the ice-cold earth and scatters this on the top of the coffin. It is a symbol of the dust from which we came and to which we must all return.
The sky is weak with a sunlight diluted with thin yellow smog. Fires are lit all across London and it shows. The ground is full of the earth and the sky is full of dust and Avery is at rest with his wife; her headstone already placed at the head of his grave is fresh with the new inscription of Avery’s internment:
In Veritas Pax – Peace In Truth
Scott Cairns, Silver
