The Ely Testament (6 page)

‘You think of everything, sir.'

‘I do my best. The tubes and the bell are hardly new, I admit, but I am proud to say that the little bird on top of the coffin is entirely my own device. I believe it will be the deciding factor in making my coffin the choice of the discerning.'

‘They might even name it after you,' said Tomlinson. ‘The Chase cockerel, that sort of thing.'

‘And then there will be something else. An addition that will truly differentiate my invention from anything else on the market. Something that will make the Chase security device unique.'

‘Do tell,' said Tomlinson.

Cyrus Chase seemed about to explain but then he caught sight of Tomlinson's shadow as it was thrown on the wall of the shed by the paraffin lamp. Something about that black shape swelling against the chipped red brickwork caused him to hesitate. Not only that but the light was shining upwards on Tomlinson's face, giving it a strange, almost sinister cast. Chase had made a little progress on the final feature of his security coffin, the thing that would make it as unique as he claimed, but he was suddenly reluctant to give the details to Charles Tomlinson.

‘I would prefer to say nothing further, not until it is more certain.'

‘Very well, Mr Chase,' said Tomlinson. ‘You're in charge, after all.'

‘Yes, I am, aren't I.'

Tomlinson clapped him on the shoulder.

‘A while ago you mentioned tea. What about a drop of something a bit stronger when we return to your abode? It is a cold evening. Fen ague and all that.'

‘I am afraid that I have a prior engagement, an early evening engagement,' said Chase, improvising.

‘Oh, a pity. And Mrs Chase, Bella, she is accompanying you to this engagement?'

‘Yes of course.'

After a final look round, they left the workshop. Chase asked Tomlinson to hold the lamp while he fastened the padlock and then they retraced their steps along the winding garden path. At one point Tomlinson stooped to pick up something from the ground and handed it to Chase. It was the key to the padlock of the workshop. Cyrus was unaware he had dropped it and thanked Tomlinson.

Once inside his house, Chase hoped to get his visitor to the front door and on his way before anyone else in the place was aware of his presence. The maid Mattie appeared but Chase waved her away. Then, as bad luck would have it, his wife Bella began to descend the stairs while Tomlinson was putting on his overcoat.

She halted halfway down, peering uncertainly at the two men. She was short-sighted and the lighting in the hallway was not good.

‘My dear Mrs Chase,' said Tomlinson.

‘Mr Tomlinson, is it?'

‘The very same.'

‘Cyrus, why didn't you tell me we had a visitor?'

‘Mr Tomlinson is on his way,' said Chase, helping Tomlinson on with his coat with one hand and reaching for the front door with the other.

‘In a moment,' said Tomlinson. He turned to face Bella who was walking towards them. Cyrus Chase thought he could detect an extra sway in her movements as she approached. Tomlinson cradled her hand in both of his and lifted it to his lips.

‘
Je suis enchanté
,
madame, comme toujours
.'

He held her hand a fraction longer than necessary and Bella made no attempt to draw it away. Instead, she reddened slightly and said, ‘Such a shame you are leaving us, Mr Tomlinson.'

‘But I understand you are already engaged, Mrs Chase.'

‘Yes, we are,' said Chase, opening the front door so that the autumn mist and chill entered the hall. He wanted to prevent Tomlinson inquiring about that fictitious engagement. Charles Tomlinson took the open-door hint. He also took his hat, which Chase pressed into his hand. Although it had once been a fine top hat, Chase was pleased to note that it was old and battered, the silk covering frayed. Like his overcoat, like the man himself perhaps, it had seen better days.

‘You will visit us again soon, I hope, Mr Tomlinson?'

‘Wild horses could not keep me away, Mrs Chase.'

He made a little bow and wafted his hand in her direction. He said, ‘
Arrivederci
, Bella.'

When their visitor was launched into the gathering darkness and the front door safely closed, Cyrus Chase almost sighed in relief. He glanced at Bella. She was a small, delicate creature, quite a lot younger than her husband. She had a round face, a bit like a doll's and like a doll's there was a spot of red on each cheek. The result of the cold night air or the effect of seeing Mr Charles Tomlinson?

‘What did Mr Tomlinson want, dear?'

‘Oh, nothing much. To see the . . . you know.'

Chase gestured vaguely in the direction of the back of the house and the garden beyond. Fortunately Bella was not very interested in what she called his ‘shed activities'. She rather felt that they were morbid. It suited both husband and wife to keep them at a distance from the house. Bella went off to talk to the cook about dinner. Chase delayed in the hall. He was thinking of the unwelcome spark of warmth between Tomlinson and his wife.

Later that evening, over supper with Bella and in between their sporadic conversation, Chase reviewed his relationship with Charles Tomlinson. At one stage he might have called it a budding friendship, but not now. In fact, he was beginning to wish that he had never encountered Tomlinson. That meeting had occurred a few months earlier in the bar of the Lion Hotel, the old Ely coaching inn which sits in the shadow of the great cathedral. The two got chatting – or, more accurately, Tomlinson got chatting to Chase – and the man with the lantern jaw had shown a most flattering interest in Chase's research and his creations. ‘You will be a benefactor of mankind,' said Tomlinson, which put into words an idea that Chase did not quite have the nerve or assurance to express for himself. It also struck him, whether by accident or design on Tomlinson's part, on a vulnerable spot.

Cyrus Chase lived in the shadow of his late father, rather as the Lion Hotel lives in the shadow of Ely Cathedral. In the 1840s Howard Chase patented a system of hooks, chains and pins for joining railway carriages that came to be known as the Chase Coupler. To his son, he claimed that such a device – functional, potentially ubiquitous – was as elegant as a work of art. Although the Chase Coupler and other patents, mostly to do with the railways, did not achieve worldwide success they were taken up by enough companies to ensure that Cyrus would never be required to work for a living. Rather, he was free. Free, as it turned out, to emulate his father, by creating and patenting devices.

Cyrus looked not to the railways or the other great iron-and-steel constructions of the age, but to something more elemental. He turned back to the earth, and to interment in the earth, and to the most basic human fear of being buried alive, a fear which had haunted him ever since a terrifying dream in childhood. Cyrus was aware his father had done things that were both profitable and useful. He too hoped to bring a benefit to humanity by easing the fear of death. He believed one could only sleep easily in this life if one was confident of sleeping easily after death. It was one of the reasons why he named his villa
Mon Repos
.

The flattering words from Charles Tomlinson about being a benefactor led to a first visit to the Chase home and a trip to the bottom of the garden to inspect his workplace. On this first visit, Tomlinson had also been introduced to Bella, who fluttered and flustered and whose cheeks went red at the gentleman's gallantry. Chase didn't mind initially – it gave him a glow to show off his wife in almost the same way as it did to show off his security coffin – but when Bella repeatedly made comments and asked questions about Tomlinson and when she reacted with even more flutter to a second visit and then a third, he grew uneasy. It wasn't only Bella's interest; it was the slightly unnerving look of the man, the narrow jaw that gave Tomlinson a predatory appearance, the dark eyes.

Another cause for unease was that he could not discover what Tomlinson did. The man was an occasional visitor to Ely where he always stayed at the Lion. But why he came to the town, Chase could not discover, since the other batted away any attempt to find out. This riled Cyrus, especially because he had been so open about his own hopes and plans and creations. He resolved to be more guarded in future. Guarded about his creations, guarded about his Bella.

The Interment of Mr Lye

D
avid Mackenzie had mentioned that Alexander Lye was a nonconformist so this was perhaps the reason for the choice of Abney Park Cemetery for the funeral. The cemetery, which was half burial-ground, half parkland, was in Stoke Newington, itself half in London and half out of it, and was the preferred resting-place of many nonconformists.

On a bright morning in October, less than a week after Mr Lye's death and with weather to match the day when he died, Helen and Tom Ansell stood waiting near the ornamental gates of Abney Park. A few representatives of Scott, Lye & Mackenzie were there too, talking in subdued tones or brushing flecks from their outfits or inspecting the pavement or the sky. There was a cluster of Stoke Newington locals, too, with nothing better to do, drawn by the prospect of a funeral or perhaps just a turn in the sunshine. The air was clearer and fresher here than in the heart of the city.

Helen was the only woman present in the official party, although others were due to arrive in the funeral carriages, including her mother, Mrs Scott. Helen looked especially fetching dressed in black, Tom thought. Her delicate complexion glowed through the veil she wore. He suppressed the desire to reach out and touch her. He reminded himself that he was here not only to pay his respects to an esteemed member of his firm but also to be introduced to Lye's brother and sister, the two siblings who lived somewhere near Ely. There was to be a wake afterwards at the Regent's Park house.

Helen glanced at the gates to the cemetery. The columnar gateposts were designed after a curious Egyptian style. There were hieroglyphic inscriptions above the single-storey lodges on each side. Tom said, ‘It gives a very un-English feel to the thing, doesn't it?'

‘That is probably the purpose of it,' said Helen, squinting at the inscriptions in the sun. ‘I wonder what they mean.'

‘I can enlighten you, madam.'

They turned to look at a man who was standing behind them. He was short with a face as wrinkled as a walnut. He too was in funeral garb but professionally so. He made a small bow.

‘I am with Willow & Son, undertakers of Camden Town. We are in charge of the exequies today for Mr Lye. I am the advance guard, so to speak. Eric Fort at your service. I have a supply of mourning cards with me. One for you, sir, and for you, madam?'

The black-lined cards announced the date of Alexander Lye's death and his age (85) as well as the place and time of his interment at Abney Park. There was a discreet but embossed image of an inverted torch to one side and a willow tree to the other. The weeping willow was an appropriate symbol but it also reminded the recipient of the name of the undertaker's. Tom thought that a handful of these cards had already been sent to Furnival Street but he took one anyway, as did Helen.

‘You were wondering what that queer writing says?' said the man, indicating the hieroglyphs above the lodges. ‘It says, “The Gates of the Abode of the Mortal Part of Man”. It's Egyptian.'

‘Very un-English,' said Helen, with a glance at her husband. ‘The idea makes one think of the great pyramids at Giza. I should like to see them one day.'

‘Those are funerary monuments too,' said Eric Fort. He smiled, showing large discoloured teeth, like old tombstones. ‘Just as well the architects did not decide to put down a great pyramid here, eh? It would have obliterated Abney Park.'

He might have said more but at that moment a hearse rounded the corner, drawn by four horses, followed by several other carriages. The hearse was accompanied by the mutes, walking at a stately pace, with their black sashes and practised doleful faces. The quantity of black velvet on the carriages soaked up the autumn sunlight like a blotter. Everyone waiting by the Egyptian gates became suddenly alert. Their postures stiffened. They stood back to allow the cortège to roll through the entrance.

As well as the official mourners, paid and unpaid, the gaggle of locals trailed after the procession and along the winding paths towards the chapel. They passed by pines and cedar trees and in between the monuments. Eric Fort, who seemed to have attached himself to Tom and Helen, made occasional comments in a subdued voice. He pointed out a beehive sculpture on one of the tombs.

‘It stands for wisdom while the sculpted veil draped over the domed hive represents the dimming of wisdom.'

‘Very interesting, Mr Fort,' said Helen.

They reached the chapel with its tall, spike-like steeple. Set among trees, and reached by those winding paths, it resembled something out of a fairy story, half enchanted, half sinister. Here the coffin was unloaded from the hearse and taken in by the bearers. The mourners clambered down from their carriages and waited until all had been made ready inside the chapel. Helen greeted her mother. Tom said hello to Mr and Mrs David Mackenzie. Mr Ashley, the senior clerk, was with them. The other men from Scott, Lye & Mackenzie stuck together, as if by instinct. Some of the Stoke Newington locals examined the carriages and funeral trappings with experienced eyes.

The Ansells took their places inside the chapel. A dour-faced clergyman was officiating. As the service proceeded, Tom's attention wandered as he tried to identify the other members of Alexander Lye's family. There were two ladies who could have been the senior partner's sisters, but they were so heavily swathed and veiled it was difficult to be sure. A gentleman who was keeping them company might well have been Lye's brother. He had a touch of the old lawyer's look.

Tom thought of another burial, one which he had not attended and which, at the time, he was ignorant of. His father's death occurred when he was still a small boy, and not on land but at sea. Tom retained almost no memory of his father except for the image of a tall man in a blue uniform. Captain Thomas Ansell had been on his way to take part in the Russian War in the Crimea. He died on board of a fever before he could arrive and he was buried near the Dardanelles. Tom supposed that a military, shipboard burial must be an altogether brisker affair than a landlocked civilian one. A few prayers were intoned, a volley of shots was fired, the body was dropped over the side, the ship sailed on.