Splendors and Glooms (44 page)

He looked over his shoulder at Lizzie Rose, the only person at the funeral who was teary eyed. She stood arm in arm with Clara’s mother. Mrs. Wintermute reached into her muff and brought out a lace-trimmed handkerchief for Lizzie Rose.
Thick as thieves
was Parsefall’s summing up of the situation. Mrs. Wintermute had not expected to have two strange children thrust upon her, but it had taken her less than a fortnight to grow fond of Lizzie Rose. Parsefall fancied that Clara was a little jealous, but he didn’t pity her. From now on, Clara would have him and Lizzie Rose. She would be all right.

It was Lizzie Rose who had insisted that the whole family should attend the funeral, defying the custom that ladies should stay at home. “We
must
go,” Lizzie Rose had said resolutely, “or Madama won’t have anyone but the doctor and the priest.” Her certainty had carried the day, and the three females had followed Cassandra’s casket to the graveside.

The cemetery lay in a hollow near the crest of a hill. From its vantage point, one could see Lake Windermere. Parsefall cared little for scenery unless it was onstage, but the landscape before him compelled his attention. The day of Cassandra’s funeral was windy and perversely bright. The ice on the lake had thawed, and the water reflected the colors of the winter sky. When the wind blew, it was as if a handful of diamonds had been cast over the waves. Parsefall raised his eyes to the sky. Lizzie Rose had once told him that the world was round like an orange and spun in a circle every day. He had thought that she was hoaxing him, but now he wasn’t so sure; as he watched the cloud shadows move over the fells, he felt the earth moving.

“Illuminare his qui in tenebris et in umbra mortis sedent”
— the priest raised his voice, trying to recall the attention of his audience —“
ad dirigendos pedes nostros in viam paci —”

Parsefall yawned. Until Cassandra’s funeral, he had never heard Latin, and he thought it was insane that anyone should preach in a language no one understood. It seemed to him that the priest had a malicious desire to prolong the service as much as possible. The old man had prayed and chanted and paid innumerable attentions to the casket. He had lit candles around it and splashed it with water and fumigated it with smoke from a little teakettle on a chain. Now that the body was at the graveside, he seemed inclined to start all over again, sprinkling more water on the grave and beginning another round of prayers. There was no telling when he would stop. Parsefall tried to catch Clara’s eye, but she was on her best behavior. She stood erect and still, with her hands clasped in front of her. Parsefall was tempted to pick up a handful of slush and slip it down the collar of her dress.

He shifted his weight and sighed heavily. Dr. Wintermute caught his glance. During the church service, Parsefall had tried to amuse himself by rhythmically cracking the spine of his hymnbook. Dr. Wintermute had gazed at him steadily and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. It was a form of rebuke unlike anything Parsefall had encountered, and he hadn’t yet learned how to fight against it. He turned sideways, avoiding the doctor’s eyes. Old Wintermute had said he would have to learn to read. Parsefall wasn’t looking forward to that, but Clara and Lizzie Rose had promised him that it wasn’t hard, and that it would help him to run his theatre one day.

His theatre. At that thought, the priest’s voice receded, and Parsefall fell into a daydream. The thing he had dreamed of was going to come true. Someday he’d have his own theatre — proscenium and backstage and bridge — and in the meantime, Clara had proposed that they should erect a theatre in the nursery. As soon as the Wintermutes returned to London, he would go back to Mrs. Pinchbeck’s and lay claim to Grisini’s old rig-up. Clara was going to stitch the curtains, and he was going to teach her how to work the
fantoccini.
They could begin right away, and in a little while he would be apprenticed to the Royal Marionettes.

If only the funeral would end! He scraped the slush with his toe, admiring the vivid green of the moss underneath. Nothing could be done; no new life could begin, until the priest shut up. His eyes passed from the patch of moss to Grisini’s recently dug grave. He smiled.

Grisini’s tombstone was a small one, ordered in haste and engraved only with his name. There was nothing else to write: Grisini had been no one’s beloved husband or father or brother, and the question of where he would spend the afterlife was best not raised. One did not describe a puppet master’s skill on his tombstone. Nevertheless, Parsefall had a nagging feeling that something was missing. Quite suddenly, he knew what it was, and he snickered, earning a sharp look from Dr. Wintermute.

He would bring Madama’s brass monkey to the grave and let it perch on Grisini’s tombstone. He had known that monkey would come in useful sooner or later. What better than to have it leering over Grisini? It had bent legs; he was fairly certain it would stay in place atop the stone. If not, he could prop it up with rocks.

He wanted to tell Lizzie Rose. He edged closer and whispered into her ear, “The monkey. Let’s bring the monkey ’ere and put it on Grisini’s grave.”

She looked startled.

“On the stone,” he hissed. “Wiv its legs ’angin’ over the edge.”

He saw her consider the idea. After a moment, she whispered, “I suppose he’d like that.”

Parsefall rolled his eyes in exasperation. He wasn’t trying to please Grisini; he was trying to desecrate his tomb. All the same, Lizzie Rose had a point. Grisini’s sense of humor had been unholy; he might like that cruel-faced monkey squatting over his corpse. Parsefall’s forehead knotted and then cleared. The thing was artistically right. He wondered what Clara would think of the idea.

She was still obstinately behaving herself. He stared at her back, frustrated. He remembered when she was a puppet. In those days, all he would have had to do was hook a finger under the string that screwed into her temple, and she would have turned her head —

Her shoulder twitched. After a moment, she twisted around to frown at him.

Parsefall whispered, “I got summink to tell you.”

Clara nodded very slightly. She mouthed the word
later
and jerked her head toward the casket. The priest was making the sign of the cross. The pallbearers came forward to grip the handles of the casket. It seemed that at long last, Cassandra’s body was about to be lowered into the grave.

Parsefall was tempted to fling his cap in the air. It was almost over. There was going to be roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner, and afterward the grown-ups would go off with their newspapers and embroidery. He saw Clara bow her head to hide a smile, and he turned back to wink at Lizzie Rose. They were waiting, all three of them, for the moment when they could be alone again and free to laugh together.

Special thanks to Carol Mason, who helped me with British diction and dialect, and inspired me with her impersonations of Parsefall Hooke and Mrs. Pinchbeck. Special thanks also to Barry Smith, of the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, who shared his encyclopedic knowledge of Victorian burial customs, and sent me photographs of catafalques, coffins, and mausoleums.

I could not have consulted two more generous experts. And any mistakes in the manuscript are my own.