Lady of Ashes (23 page)

Violet placed urns of snow white lilies at the four corners of the bier, as well as placing a variety of sprays around the nave and down the marked path to where the prince’s coffin would finally be interred.

Mr. Rowland continually edited and re-hung the lord provost’s list of guests and dignitaries. The prince consort’s eldest son, Bertie, was to be chief mourner, accompanied by his brother, Prince Alfred.

Representatives from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prussia, and Hesse, along with envoys from a dozen other countries, sent notices that they would be in attendance.

The staff serving the state apartments would be overwhelmed.

Each day, Violet found herself meeting with one florist or another to order more replacements for wilted stems or to place wreath orders on behalf of one group or another inside the castle.

Mr. Rowland gradually accepted her presence and, being thoroughly overcome by his own responsibilities, soon relinquished more tasks to her as the funeral date loomed closer. To satisfy the queen’s requirement for deep court mourning, miles of black cloth were hung inside the castle, exhausting all the stocks Violet could find and requiring more to be hastily dyed.

The most lavish amount of cloth was hung in the choir near the entrance to the royal vault. Mr. Rowland took her down into the burial location, a long corridor constructed entirely of stone and lined with rows of shelves to the ceiling. Some of the shelves held sarcophagi of long-dead royals.

“The prince will be placed near the entrance,” Mr. Rowland said. “As he will be transferred to Frogmore when it is complete, there is no sense in locating His Highness any farther in the vault than that.”

“No, of course not.”

“Only Reverend Wellesley and the pallbearers will accompany the coffin down here.”

Violet nodded her understanding of the solemn task that lay before them.

 

 

 

The day dawned cold but clear. Violet scurried down to the chapel before anyone was awake other than servants relighting fires, opening draperies, and chasing out vermin that had crept in overnight to get out of the cold.

She did a final check on the nave, straightening the black cloth covering the bier and righting some candles that were leaning atop their tall floor candelabra. Everything else in the nave was in order.

She heard coughing farther inside the chapel. Following the sound, she walked east toward the choir, her own heels echoing loudly against the floor.

At the intersection of the north and south ends of the transept was the start of the choir, consisting of parallel rows of stalls facing each other where worship hymns were sung. The coughing was louder.

“Hello?” she called.

“Mrs. Morgan?” came a tremulous voice. It was Mr. Rowland. He rose from a seat in the choir. “Thank heavens you’re here.” His eyes were bright and his skin scarlet.

“Mr. Rowland, you need a physician. I’ll get Dr. Jenner right away.”

“There’s no time. The service will start in a few hours. I’ve managed to finish everything here, but you’ll have to guide the procession. Here are my notes.” He weakly picked up a notebook stuffed with paper scraps and indecipherable scrawls. “It’s all there.”

There was no time to argue with him. Helping the man to his feet, she escorted him back to his quarters, calling out to a servant walking by to fetch Dr. Jenner immediately. After depositing the undertaker in his room, she found a quiet alcove and spilled Mr. Rowland’s notebook onto her lap in order to decipher and absorb his funeral notes.

An hour later, she was ready. She had to be.

 

It was a great pity women weren’t allowed to attend royal funerals, Violet thought, for surely they would have brought some domestic calm and sense to this motley assemblage just inside the royal apartments, all preening and seeking favored placement in the walking retinue. Most had arrived just an hour ago via a special train from London. One ambassador bickered with another over his importance to the royal family, while one of the queen’s ministers argued relentlessly with whoever would take him up on what would happen to future world events now that the prince consort was gone.

She’d had a devil of a time just getting them in their correct order of procession.

The one striking distinction was Edward Albert, or Bertie, the current Prince of Wales, who stood to one side, trying unsuccessfully to contain his emotions. It was well known throughout London that he and his father did not get on well, and it was no secret that his father died shortly after returning from a visit with his son. He repeatedly dug out a handkerchief from his jacket and wiped his eyes.

The man’s guilt was probably oppressive.

It was of no concern to Violet, who merely needed to see the prince consort interred inside St. George’s Chapel without anything disastrous occurring. Mr. Rowland had seen to the prince being sealed inside his simple but elegant coffin, which lay nearby on a bier and was draped in a gold-fringed scarlet and blue cloth of state, waiting to be moved to the church. She had had no dealings with laying out the prince, per the queen’s direction, but it was obvious from the odor wafting from the coffin that he had been waiting entirely too long for his burial and needed to be interred quickly.

The ongoing chatter and quarrelling meant Violet could not make herself heard to issue instructions. Their self-serving was appalling. Even the clergymen hovering around the group were unable to instill a sense of decorum.

Enough was enough.

She took one man’s walking stick from where it was propped against a sofa and thumped it against the floor to get their attention. “Gentlemen!” she said. “I’ll not tolerate your misbehavior any longer. Today we are privileged and humbled to witness our beloved prince consort go to his final resting place. It is not only our privilege, but our
duty,
to see it done properly. I’ll ask you now to pay close attention so we may begin.”

The men were startled enough by her commanding tone to immediately do as she demanded. She quickly reviewed the procession order and nodded that they were in their proper places. Among the royal relatives in attendance were Albert’s brother, the duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; the Duke of Cambridge; the Crown Prince of Prussia; Prince Louis of Hesse; and the queen’s nephew, the Prince of Leiningen.

Under normal circumstances, Violet might be awed by such distinguished persons in her presence. For now, there was a funeral to run.

The pallbearers lifted the prince up gently, stoically pretending there were no objectionable smells coming from within. The prince’s coffin had been resting on a cooling bed with regularly changed ice beneath it, yet it hadn’t prevented the inevitable results of decay.

With two clergymen in their sweeping white gowns at the head of the procession, they walked out, followed by the coffin, with Bertie and his brother walking along one side of the procession. The poor man kept his eyes averted from his father’s coffin.

The group proceeded outside to where a mounted guard of honor from the Grenadiers—of whom Albert had been a colonel—waited next to the funeral carriage, fashioned as a tall, black box with the royal coat of arms emblazoned on both sides. Footmen jumped down and assisted with placement of the coffin inside the carriage, and the entire procession followed the carriage’s walking pace through the wards and down to the chapel.

It was chilly and windy up on the knoll where Windsor Castle rested. Even the walls surrounding the castle environs couldn’t prevent the brisk December air from seeping through jackets and cloaks.

At least there was no rain.

Violet walked far to one side of the procession, nearly hugging the façade of the castle’s wall as she monitored the pace of the funeral convoy.

All was silent now save the creaking of the carriage wheels, the rough clopping of horseshoes, and the occasional wing flapping and chirping of the birds overhead who didn’t realize what a tragic day it was for England.

The procession continued down the long south side of the chapel, moving around the corner and through the archway dividing the chapel from a horseshoe-shaped row of buildings before stopping at the expansive west steps that led to the rear of the nave. The huge bank of clerestory windows above the entrance sparkled brightly as though they, too, were unaware of the calamity occurring before them.

Smartly dressed members of the Foot Guard lined the steps up to the entrance, while two rows of Yeomen of the Guard stood at attention between the carriage and the steps.

Few onlookers were present, just a small gathering of invited guests, a couple of reporters, and a few artists attempting to capture the service with pen and paper. The queen had been adamant that in accordance with Albert’s wishes, this be a private family funeral, as far as was possible with a public figure. No tickets had been issued and only close personal friends, relations, and those who had worked intimately with the prince were permitted attendance.

Violet signaled to the clergymen, who broke away from the stopped procession and mounted the stairs to the nave while the pallbearers removed the coffin from the carriage to bring it up the stairs, surrounded by the mourners. Violet scurried around to the south entrance to meet the group.

At the side entrance, a member of the Osborne House staff was waiting for her with moss wreaths from each of three of the prince’s daughters. Each wreath was ironically woven with violets.

The servant whispered to Violet as they placed the wreaths on waiting stands near the bier, which was already flooded with lilies, “The Princesses Vicky, Alice, and Helena made these themselves.” Normally brisk and businesslike during all funerals, Violet found herself blinking away tears as she imagined the girls’ grief. What would be Susanna’s reaction if something happened to her? What
had
been her reaction when she lost her mother?

The servant also had with him the queen’s offering, a bouquet of violets surrounding a single white camellia, which Violet quickly added to another stand before ushering the servant away from the scene and retreating into a darkened part of the nave.

The procession entered and Albert’s coffin was placed atop the bier. Once the mourners each paused at the coffin for last respects and moved away, four Grenadiers stepped forward to stand guard at the four corners of the bier.

The Dean of Windsor, Gerald Wellesley, gave a short but solemn service, while the choir offered the hymns “I Am the Resurrection and the Life” and “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth,” followed by a reading of the thirty-ninth Psalm to Beethoven’s funeral music. Afterward came a reading from First Corinthians 15, followed by three German chorales interspersed by prayers.

When the service was concluded, the coffin was lifted again and carried to the tunnel to the royal vault, with the mourners following behind. Mercifully, the mechanical apparatus worked without a problem, so the coffin lowered quickly, sparing the onlookers a protracted disappearance of the prince’s remains into his vault. Reverend Wellesley and the pallbearers went down another entrance to the vault to ensure the coffin was placed properly and so that the reverend could say another prayer.

From there, Albert would await his removal to the Frogmore mausoleum when it was completed.

 

The air was particularly heavy with smuts and blacks today, Graham thought as he waited outside Mr. Harper’s hotel. It had been no easy feat figuring out where the man was staying, but Graham’s irritation at the man’s dawdling was such that he was willing to pay someone to figure it out.

He pulled his overcoat closer around him as he paced back and forth. The building’s windows were swathed in black crape, and most of the carriages on the busy street outside also sported either black crape on doors, ebony plumes on horses, or dark armbands on drivers.

For the hundredth time, Graham wondered how Violet had managed to pull off such a glorious coup as the prince consort’s funeral. It didn’t seem feasible that it could have happened just because the prince found Violet competent during Admiral Herbert’s funeral.

Not that he minded, of course. Once the public knew that Morgan Undertaking had been involved in Prince Albert’s funeral, well, there was no telling how their business might expand. They might even become fantastically wealthy from it. Even famous. Combined with what could be accomplished financially and ret-ributively from his alliance with Fletcher, well, there was no telling what neighborhood they might be living in a year from now.

He was just a little prickly over Violet’s ability to secure better funerals than he. It didn’t seem right, somehow. Was she—

Ah, there was Samuel Harper now, paying the newsboy perched outside the front door for this morning’s copy of
The Times
. Graham caught up to Harper and tugged on his coat sleeve as the man was about to step off the curb into a hack.

“One moment, Mr. Harper, I would speak with you.”

Harper turned and frowned at Graham, but waved the hack on. “What is the meaning of this, Morgan?”

“We’ve important business to discuss.”

“Kindly send along a note to set up a place and time, and do not accost me like this.”

Graham was tired of Harper’s stalling and hedging. “No, sir, we will speak now.”

“Where is your brother?”

“Fletcher, unfortunately, doesn’t share my concerns about the progress of our agreement.”

Harper shook his head—was that disgust?—before grabbing Graham by the shoulder and pulling him into an alleyway next to the hotel. “How may I help you, Mr. Morgan?”

“I don’t like the tone of your voice, sir.” Graham shook out of Harper’s grasp, unwilling to admit the man’s grip was powerful and had hurt him.

“That is of no moment to me. What do you want?”