“Jessamine’s feelings are first in my thoughts,” Bram said with an effort at charm that landed like a thrown brick. “It is quite appropriate to use the crypt. It will be Elise’s final resting place.”
“She did always hope to be mistress here,” Hawley remarked. “At least she can be a permanent inhabitant.”
Zeb stared at him speechlessly. Wynn ignored him. “Come. The men are ready.”
“I have armbands,” Jessamine said, holding out strips of black cloth. “Put them on over your coats.”
***
The family crypt added a new terror to death, being a grotesque piece of Gothic that suggested Notre-Dame de Paris was contagious. It had gargoyles like witches had warts.
They walked there in sombre procession: two footmen carrying a stretcher to serve as funeral bier with the swathed burden, and five live Wyckhams walking with Victorian solemnity. They were all Edwardians now, of course, but most of Zeb’s life had been spent under the old queen’s rule, and her culture of mourning was deeply instilled. The decencies had to be observed. Hawley wasn’t even smoking.
They arrived at the crypt, which had two doors: the first aniron grille, the second an old oak door that looked as hard as iron. The combination seemed as secure as the Bank of England. Zeb found it had to believe that they needed such precautions against grave robbers out here.
Wynn drew out a large, ancient-looking key ring and unlocked the rusted grille door, which swung open with a resentful creak, and then the oak. He paused for a dramatic moment, then pulled the second door open.
It was pitch dark inside. Well, it would be: the dead didn’t need windows. Zeb could just make out something that looked like a central slab, and a stairwell going down into the earth, where coffins would take their final place.
“She should be left to her rest by those closest to her,” Wynn said. “Bram, and—” For a hideous second Zeb thought he was going to say Hawley. “Zebedee.”
Bram, moving like an automaton, came to take the ends of the stretcher from one of the footmen. Zeb took the handles at the other end. He wasn’t sure if Elise was unexpectedly heavy or unexpectedly light; he didn’t know what he’d expected.
“Good,” Wynn said. “Carry her in, both of you. Place her there, where she can lie in peace until the final rites can be completed.”
Zeb looked into the cold, lightless space. Somewhere in there, Walter Wyckham’s corpse lay shrivelling to a husk in the darkness. He looked at the two-inch-thick oak door and the iron grille that would close up the vault, and he thought of a mind that had filled his room with spiders and poured blood on a sacrificial stone.
He swung round to look back at Wynn, who was watching,his expression avid.
“Absolutely not,” Zeb said. “The devil I will.”
“Zebedee!” Bram barked.
Wynn’s nostrils flared. “It is only right—”
“I will not be setting foot in there,” Zeb said. “You, take this off me.”
That was to the surly footman’s address. He stepped back, holding his hands up with a mocking smile.
Zeb probably couldn’t drop the end of the stretcher, what with his sister-in-law’s corpse lying on it. “Someone take this end. Wynn, you do it. You can go in there.”
“Are you afraid of the dark?” Hawley said, but it wasn’t quite the sneer it should have been. It had something thready in it, and a little too much emphasis onyou.
“No,” Zeb said. “But I’m reluctant to accept Wynn’s hospitality for whatever period he’s got in mind, so I’m going to put this stretcher down unless someone takes it.”
Wynn made a noise of outrage. “Show respect to the dead. How dare you!”
Nobody was coming to take the handles. Zeb said, “Putting it down, Bram.”
He bent at the knees, lowering his end of the stretcher, which tilted dangerously. Bram gave a squawk as Elise’s weight shifted and hastily bent to lower his end rather than have her slide off. “Zebedee!”
“I’m going,” Zeb said, and walked away, ignoring the outraged cries behind him. His shoulder blades were itching withthe consciousness of being watched, and if he heard feet behind him, he was going to run. He didn’t care how foolish he’d look, or if they laughed; he was going to run like hell because he could imagine, as vividly as if he’d lived it, the feeling of being inside that cold, dank, dark stone building and the door thumping shut, the light gone forever, and Wynn laughing outside.
Twenty-One
Zeb walked back to the house at a painfully fast pace, breath steaming and ears straining, and almost sobbed with relief when he reached the building. As he approached the front, the door swung open and Gideon stood silhouetted in the doorway, as he had that first night, an aeon ago.
“Oh thank God,” Zeb said.
