earth?
It wasn’t an illogical premise, especially given the concoctions some undertakers had developed—creosote, arsenic, and turpentine being just some of the foundation chemicals used in proprietary formulations. Each undertaker had his own special formula, and they were closely held secrets, Violet’s method included.
She’d settled years ago on a combination of chloride of zinc, alcohol, and water. She reached into her bag and pulled out the ingredients to make a fresh batch.
The only problem was, she always asked permission from the family to embalm. But it was likely that Stephen would refuse, and then what? She didn’t dare go against a family’s desires, especially not one she’d known from childhood. Yet, how else could she delay the funeral? Putting the body over a cooling chest wouldn’t keep him fresh for long.
“Tell me, Lord Raybourn, what am I to do? Would you mind terribly if I went ahead and embalmed you and begged Stephen’s forgiveness?”
Violet shook her head. This just wasn’t how she practiced her craft. She remembered Sam’s tale of two undertakers during the Civil War, Hutton and Williams, who’d gone and scoured battlefields, picking up the dead and embalming them, then writing to the families and refusing to release them unless the families paid an outrageous price for the embalming service they hadn’t requested. The two men had been arrested and charged but later released, their reputations in tatters.
Violet had no desire to follow in their footsteps in any manner.
“I would normally embalm you and then work on you cosmetically, but perhaps we can do this a bit in reverse while I ponder what to do. What do you say?” She returned the embalming fluid to her bag.
“Dear Lord Raybourn, your poor face. What shall I do? I suppose I must first make you clean. Such a shameful job the coroner and officers did on you.”
She sought out Mrs. Peet down in the kitchen, requesting that she bring up a tub of water and several clean cloths, and leave them outside the dining room. “Please, Mrs. Peet, for your own sake, do not enter where I am working.”
A tear rolled down the housekeeper’s face. “No, Mrs. Harper, I won’t. I couldn’t bear it.”
Violet saw the pain in Mrs. Peet’s eyes. “I know you won’t. There is something else you can do to help Lord Raybourn.”
“Yes, madam, however I can be of assistance.”
“After you bring the water and cloths, could you see to the clocks in the house? They haven’t been stopped. I will take care of the one in the dining room.”
“Of course, Mrs. Harper, where is my head? I forgot in all of the . . . difficulties.”
The clock hands needed to be stopped once someone in a household died. The custom demonstrated that for the deceased time stood still, and he could start his new, eternal period of existence in which time did not exist. To permit time to continue unhampered was to invite the deceased’s spirit to linger endlessly.
Violet opened the glass face to the dining room’s mantel clock and adjusted the hands to twelve o’clock. She then turned the clock around and reached inside its works to stop the pendulum bob. Now time was frozen until someone came in and intentionally restarted it.
With the supplies delivered and Mrs. Peet otherwise occupied, Violet dragged them into the dining room and set to work cleaning up Lord Raybourn’s head. It was awful work, and it quickly became clear that not only would she be unable to successfully clean his face and hair, she wouldn’t be able to repair him enough so that visiting mourners could see him.
She threw the cloth into the now-murky water basin. “Perhaps one way I can serve you is to retrieve whatever is lodged in your face. It’s unconscionable that you were probed and mauled without anyone even removing it.”
Violet drew a box from her bag. She unsnapped the latch and reviewed the set of Sheffield-made metal scalpels, nozzles, scissors, and other
It wasn’t an illogical premise, especially given the concoctions some undertakers had developed—creosote, arsenic, and turpentine being just some of the foundation chemicals used in proprietary formulations. Each undertaker had his own special formula, and they were closely held secrets, Violet’s method included.
She’d settled years ago on a combination of chloride of zinc, alcohol, and water. She reached into her bag and pulled out the ingredients to make a fresh batch.
The only problem was, she always asked permission from the family to embalm. But it was likely that Stephen would refuse, and then what? She didn’t dare go against a family’s desires, especially not one she’d known from childhood. Yet, how else could she delay the funeral? Putting the body over a cooling chest wouldn’t keep him fresh for long.
“Tell me, Lord Raybourn, what am I to do? Would you mind terribly if I went ahead and embalmed you and begged Stephen’s forgiveness?”
Violet shook her head. This just wasn’t how she practiced her craft. She remembered Sam’s tale of two undertakers during the Civil War, Hutton and Williams, who’d gone and scoured battlefields, picking up the dead and embalming them, then writing to the families and refusing to release them unless the families paid an outrageous price for the embalming service they hadn’t requested. The two men had been arrested and charged but later released, their reputations in tatters.
Violet had no desire to follow in their footsteps in any manner.
“I would normally embalm you and then work on you cosmetically, but perhaps we can do this a bit in reverse while I ponder what to do. What do you say?” She returned the embalming fluid to her bag.
“Dear Lord Raybourn, your poor face. What shall I do? I suppose I must first make you clean. Such a shameful job the coroner and officers did on you.”
She sought out Mrs. Peet down in the kitchen, requesting that she bring up a tub of water and several clean cloths, and leave them outside the dining room. “Please, Mrs. Peet, for your own sake, do not enter where I am working.”
A tear rolled down the housekeeper’s face. “No, Mrs. Harper, I won’t. I couldn’t bear it.”
Violet saw the pain in Mrs. Peet’s eyes. “I know you won’t. There is something else you can do to help Lord Raybourn.”
“Yes, madam, however I can be of assistance.”
“After you bring the water and cloths, could you see to the clocks in the house? They haven’t been stopped. I will take care of the one in the dining room.”
“Of course, Mrs. Harper, where is my head? I forgot in all of the . . . difficulties.”
The clock hands needed to be stopped once someone in a household died. The custom demonstrated that for the deceased time stood still, and he could start his new, eternal period of existence in which time did not exist. To permit time to continue unhampered was to invite the deceased’s spirit to linger endlessly.
Violet opened the glass face to the dining room’s mantel clock and adjusted the hands to twelve o’clock. She then turned the clock around and reached inside its works to stop the pendulum bob. Now time was frozen until someone came in and intentionally restarted it.
With the supplies delivered and Mrs. Peet otherwise occupied, Violet dragged them into the dining room and set to work cleaning up Lord Raybourn’s head. It was awful work, and it quickly became clear that not only would she be unable to successfully clean his face and hair, she wouldn’t be able to repair him enough so that visiting mourners could see him.
She threw the cloth into the now-murky water basin. “Perhaps one way I can serve you is to retrieve whatever is lodged in your face. It’s unconscionable that you were probed and mauled without anyone even removing it.”
Violet drew a box from her bag. She unsnapped the latch and reviewed the set of Sheffield-made metal scalpels, nozzles, scissors, and other
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