The Silent Orphan Page 3

  Chapter 4

  Gid stared at the coffin as the twins carried it from the cold room and placed it on the table in the centre of the parlour. He straightened his back and shuffled towards it, taking his place beside the coffin and plastering a mournful expression on his face. He gripped his wand as Mr Flatley had instructed, holding the long stick out in front of him so the black crepe draped across it fell dramatically towards the floor.

  The dead woman had been in the cold room for the last day. Gid had cleaned and dressed the body, glad to see the woman was without rope burns on her neck. An illness, Able had explained. Not a suicide.

  He had managed to sleep that night without nightmares.

  A crowd of mourners was beginning to gather in Mr Flatley’s parlour. Soon the coffin would be loaded into the hearse and they would begin the procession towards the graveyard. Men in dark suits stood together by the door, along with a few ladies in dark dresses and veils.

  The dead woman had been wealthy, Gid could tell by the mourners’ fine clothes. He had overheard Mr Flatley say she had come from Haverstock House. Gid didn’t know where such a place was, but he imagined it as a grand, three-storey mansion in the wealthiest part of London. Haverstock House would have butlers and lady’s maids and kitchen staff. It would have gardens with rose bushes and pools full of fish.

  Gid watched as a small figure edged towards the coffin. A girl. From her height, Gid guessed her to be perhaps twelve or thirteen. She pressed gentle fingers to the dark wood of the coffin and coughed back a sob.

  How pretty she was, Gid thought. Dressed in a black mourning gown and bonnet, her pale skin seemed almost white. Tendrils of fine blonde hair curled about her cheeks.

  He found himself taking a step closer to her, the crepe hanging from the wand sighing against the floor. The girl turned to look at him.

  Gid’s breath left him.

  Her eyes.

  One blue, one green. He had never seen anything like it.

  Gid remembered a story he had heard once, that girls with green eyes were fairies. Magical.

  And perhaps the story was true. Because looking at this girl, he felt every inch of his skin prickle. He felt at once both hot and cold. He felt breathless. He couldn’t look away.

  Suddenly, the bell atop the coffin tinkled.

  The girl gasped. “Mama!” She whirled around to face one of the men in the suits. “Uncle! Did you hear that! It’s Mama! She’s still alive!”

  The girl’s uncle pushed his way towards the coffin. “Open it!” he told Mr Flatley. “This instant.”

  Mr Flatley shook his head. “It’s naught but a draught, sir. Happens all the time in this place. I’m sorry.”

  The girl looked between the two men, her strange, coloured eyes pleading. “Open it, Uncle,” she begged. “Open it right now!”

  Her uncle pinned Mr Flatley with hard eyes. “Being buried alive was my sister’s greatest fear. I’ll not let such a thing happen to her.” He jabbed a thick finger beneath Mr Flatley’s nose. “Now open the coffin. This instant.”

  Hesitantly, Mr Flatley nodded towards Arthur and Able, gesturing to them to open the casket.

  Gid’s heart began to thunder. He had been the one to wash and dress the body. Had he truly done such a thing while the woman was still alive?

  His eyes darted to the girl who was standing beside the coffin, ringing her thin hands together.

  The twins prised off the lid of the casket, making the bell jangle noisily.

  The woman lay motionless, her skin pallid and lifeless. Dead.

  He heard a sob from the girl. Her uncle tried to reach for her, but she turned abruptly and sprinted out of the parlour.

  Mr Flatley looked back at the twins. “The lid,” he barked. “Quickly.” He looked back at the girl’s uncle as Able and Arthur hurriedly covered the casket again. “Like I said, just a draught. Happens all the time.”

  The girl’s uncle said nothing. He rubbed his chin and looked away, evidently rattled by the sight of his dead sister.

  “Take her to the hearse,” Mr Flatley told the boys. The twins quickly hammered the thin coffin nails into place and heaved the casket from the table and carried it out to the waiting carriage, Gid marching beside them with his wand in hand. Behind him, he was aware of the girl’s uncle and the other men in suits following the procession. The girl was nowhere to be seen.

  He tried to look around for her surreptitiously. He felt Mr Flatley’s eyes on him and hurriedly turned to face the front of the procession, plastering a morose expression on his face.

  And then, there she was. Huddled beside the horses, almost disappearing behind them in her black dress and bonnet. Gid made his way towards her.

  He realised he was staring. She looked up as though feeling his eyes on her.

  “What do you want?” she coughed. Her voice was so full of grief that it made Gid’s heart lurch. He remembered this well; this ache that had come with burying his mother. This feeling that the world would never be right again.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  The girl looked up at him, her mysterious eyes wide. “You can speak,” she breathed.

  Gid managed a small smile. “Yes.”

  The corner of the girl’s lips turned up.

  Gid heard footsteps behind them. He glanced over his shoulder to see Mr Flatley striding towards them. He felt his stomach turn over.

  Mr Flatley gripped Gid’s shoulder with vice-like fingers and marched him away from the girl. “Not a squeak,” he hissed. “Is that so damn difficult to understand?” His eyes bore into Gid’s.

  He swallowed, managing an apologetic nod.

  Mr Flatley looked up at the coachman. “Move on,” he said gruffly.

  Gid gripped his wand and marched beside the hearse, leaving the girl with the coloured eyes to follow close behind.

  Chapter 5

  “I told you, not a sound! Mr Flatley bellowed. His fist came down hard against the side of Gid’s face. Gid stumbled forward, his hands planting themselves in the muck outside the cold room. “How hard is that to understand?”

  A foot to the ribs, and Gid felt his breath leave him. He dropped to his knees, gasping. Mr Flatley grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him to his feet.

  “What you got to say for yourself, boy?”

  Gid coughed down his breath, unable to find the words.

  Mr Flatley gave a roar of humourless laughter. “Now you choose to be silent! You think this funny?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Gid spluttered. “It’s just, that girl… She seemed so sad. And so lonely…” He coughed out a line of spittle.

  “Sad and lonely?” Mr Flatley snorted. “You think she looked sad and lonely? She was about to bury her mother, boy. Of course she was sad and lonely.” He began to pace. “If you’re going to go about speaking to every mourner what looks sad and lonely, you’re no use to me.” He fixed Gid with fierce eyes. “Perhaps I ought to take you back to workhouse.”

  Gid shook his head hurriedly. Even cleaning dead bodies with Able and Arthur was better than at the workhouse. “I’m sorry sir,” he coughed. “It won’t happen again. I swear it.” His words spilled out hurriedly. “You’ll not hear a sound from me. Not a single squeak.”

  Mr Flatley snorted, fixing Gid with his hard-black eyes. “You’d better be telling the truth, boy,” he said slowly. He nodded at the stables. “Now get the hell out of my sight.”

  Wearily, Gid stumbled into the stables. He scrambled up the ladder to the hay loft and his legs gave way beneath him. He sat on the straw, looking down at the monstrous shapes of Midnight and Shadow. The horses looked up at him with large, mournful eyes.

  “I just wanted to make her feel better,” he told the horses. “I knew how sad she must have been.” He reached out a hand towards the animals. From the top of the hay loft he could just touch Shadow’s silky nose. “I know how much it hurts to lose your mama.” The horse nuzzled his fingers, bringing a faint smile to Gid’s lips.


  * * *

  Night fell quickly and Gid curled up in the hay loft. His stomach was groaning with hunger, but, too afraid to ask Mr Flatley for supper, he rolled onto his side and tried to sleep. His ribs were aching, and he could feel the side of his face beginning to swell.

  He must have drifted to sleep, because he was suddenly yanked back to reality by the creak of the stable door. He sat up in fright, his beaten muscles groaning in protest. “Who’s there?” he coughed, disoriented by pain and his sudden awakening.

  “It’s all right.”

  He let out his breath at the sound of Martha’s voice.

  “It’s just me.” She hung her lamp on a hook beside the door and climbed the ladder to the hay loft. She sat cross-legged in front of him. “I saw what Papa did to you,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  Gid nodded.

  Martha squinted at the swelling on the side of his face. She gestured to his shirt. “Let me see.”

  Hesitantly, Gid unbuttoned his coat and slid his shirt over his shoulders. His entire body ached as he lifted his arms. Martha peered curiously at the red welts that were beginning to appear on his chest and sides.

  “I think you’ll mend,” she said, giving him a small smile. She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a crust of bread. “Here. I thought you might be hungry.”

  At the sight of the food, Gid’s stomach groaned.

  Martha giggled, making him laugh too. He took an enormous bite. “Thank you,” he said, swallowing.

  Martha watched him eat, a small smile on the edge of her lips.

  “Why are you being kind to me?” Gid asked finally.

  Martha tilted her head, considering him. She shrugged. Then she slid from the hay loft and back down the ladder. She grabbed the lantern, plunging him back into darkness.

  Gid watched the door for long after she had left. Martha Flatley was a mystery. Sometimes it felt as though she were wildly against her father and brothers’ treatment of him. Other times, she was as cold and distant as the rest of the family. What did she truly think of him? Gid had no thought of it.

  He rolled onto his back, shifting his body in the hay to find the position that hurt the least. Despite his aches, he fell asleep quickly.

  Again, his dreams were vivid. But this time, he did not see his mother in the coffin with a broken neck and swollen tongue. This time, he was standing close to a beautiful girl in a black dress and bonnet, staring into her green and blue eyes.

  Chapter 6

  Slowly, the years crawled by. Life at the Flatley’s funeral parlour began to feel more comfortable. Yes, Gid ate his supper surrounded by coffins every night. Yes, he spent his days wiping the filth from the lifeless bodies that lay in their cold room. But somehow he had managed to detach himself from it. Somehow, this had all become normal.

  Able and Arthur grew more aggressive and impatient as the years passed. Though Gid grew taller and stronger with each passing month, the twins continued to look down on him as though he were nothing more than a fly.

  Gid was careful to keep his word and remained as silent as death as he stood beside the coffins. He was determined to never again be punished for speaking out of place.

  * * *

  Four years after being scooped from the workhouse, Gid stepped into the cold room. There was a body waiting for him on the table. And there was another body lying on the floor.

  Mr Flatley.

  Gid felt a strange twisting inside him. He knelt beside the body. Reached two fingers tentatively towards his neck, feeling for a pulse. Not that he needed to check. Gid had spent enough time around corpses to know when a man was dead.

  He crouched by the body for a long time. Mr Flatley’s dark eyes were glassy, staring up at the roof of the cold room. He lay flat on his back, his arms neatly at his side. It seemed almost as though his years as an undertaker had taught him the neatest, easiest way to die.

  Why, right here in a cold room, of course. What could be simpler?

  Gid felt nothing. Not an ounce of pity or grief. A faint sense of relief, perhaps, but he didn’t dare dwell on that. It felt terribly wrong to feel relief over someone else’s death.

  Finally, he stood. He ought to fetch someone. He swallowed heavily. What a cursed job it would be, to tell the family their father was gone. He didn’t even fancy inflicting such anguish on Able and Arthur.

  He made his way slowly from the cold room and upstairs to the kitchen. He hoped he would find the boys in there. They would be the easiest ones to break the news to. But when he pushed open the door, Martha was alone in the kitchen, hovering over the range.

  Her eyebrows shot up at the sight of him. “What are you doing in here?” Curiosity in her voice, not criticism.

  “Where are your brothers?” Gid’s voice came out husky.

  “They’re not here,” said Martha. She frowned. “Are you all right? You look awful pale. More so than usual.”

  “I’m all right,” Gid told her shakily. “I… Do you know when they’re expected back?”

  Martha put down her wooden spoon and turned to face Gid, a hand on her hip. “No,” she said. “I’ve no idea. You know my brothers. They just do as they wish.” She frowned. “Something’s happened. Tell me what.”

  Gid swallowed. There was nothing for it. He found himself wondering distantly how Martha Flatley would take the news. She was so difficult to read. Would she collapse at his feet in a fit of tears and wailing? Or give him the stony silence he had seen from her so often?

  “Your father,” he said, his voice low. “I’m sorry. He’s dead.”

  For a long time, Martha said nothing. Did nothing. Finally, she lowered her spoon. “Dead?” she repeated.

  Gid nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Where is he? What happened?” Her voice was thin and controlled.

  “He’s in the cold room,” Gid told her. “I don’t know what happened. His heart, perhaps.”

  Martha swallowed heavily. She took the soup pot from the range and made her way out to the cold room. Gid followed, unsure what else to do.

  Martha pushed open the cold room door. Gid waited in the yard, not wanting to intrude. She looked back over her shoulder. “Will you come inside?” she asked, a tremor in her voice. “I’m not sure I could bear to see him on my own.”

  Gid nodded. “Of course.”

  They crouched beside the body. Martha reached up and closed her father’s eyes. For a long time, she didn’t speak. Gid sneaked a sideways glance at her. Her eyes were hard and dry.

  “He’ll have the finest funeral,” she said after a while. “The longest of processions.”

  Gid nodded.

  And then what? Then the business would fall into the hands of Able and Arthur, who couldn’t even carry a corpse into the cold room with the appropriate level of decorum. How long would the Flatley’s funeral parlour survive with the twins at the helm? How long would it be before he was out of a job? He felt the shadow of the workhouse edge its way towards him.

  Martha stood suddenly, smoothing her skirts. She pushed aside a stray tear and pressed her shoulders back.

  “Gid,” she said, forcing a steadiness into her voice, “Will you help me move the body?”

  * * *

  At the end of the week, Gid accompanied Mr Flatley’s coffin through the streets of London. It was a cold, wet day at the end of winter. Wind whipped through the streets and rain drizzled down the back of his neck. A fitting day for a funeral, he thought.

  Behind him, he was dimly aware of Mr Flatley’s family walking in a line behind the hearse. Able and Arthur had done little to arrange the funeral, citing their grief as an excuse to disappear to the local tavern each night. Mrs Flatley had barely left her bedroom.

  Gid had helped Martha make the arrangements as best he could. She had remained steely and dry-eyed throughout the process, her face blank.

  They had planned the most elaborate of funerals for her father— the finished wood and silk lining for t
he coffin, mourning stationery for those who came to pay their respects, a winding, sombre procession through the streets. Gid marched slowly by the hearse with the wand held straight and his eyes straight ahead. Today, for Martha’s sake, he would be the perfect mute. But he could not manage even a scrap of grief at his master’s death.

  * * *

  After the funeral, the family walked back to the house in silence. Gid trailed several yards behind, feeling like an intruder. He watched from the stables as Able and Arthur disappeared from the house. They were heading for the tavern, Gid knew. And he felt sure Mrs Flatley had returned to her bedroom. Martha would be alone in that empty, silent house.

  He let himself inside and tiptoed upstairs. He knew well that he would be punished if he were to be found roaming the house freely, but there was a knot of worry in his stomach for Martha that he was unable to ignore.

  He heard faint sobbing coming from the kitchen. He pushed open the door. The floor creaked beneath his feet and Martha turned abruptly, wiping her eyes.

  “Gid,” she said. “What are you doing in here?” There was surprise in her voice, but no anger. He was glad of it.

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said. The words felt foolish. Martha, clearly, was not all right.

  She wiped her eyes and managed a faint smile. She stirred the soup pot. “I made too much broth,” she said shakily. “Papa was the one who always ate the most. And now he’s not here, I’ve made far too much.” She burst into a fresh rush of tears.

  Hesitantly, Gid made his way over to her and pressed a hand to her shoulder. He was glad when she didn’t pull away. She reached for a bowl from the shelf and filled it from the pot. She handed it to Gid.

  “Here. Eat.”

  Gid nodded his thanks. He took the bowl and headed for the stairs down to the parlour.