The cemetery was emptier than usual, the weather providing an effective deterrent for all but the most determined mourners or the truly morbid. She supposed she was the latter.
A pair of ravens squabbled overhead, then flapped off, cawing as they vanished into a tangle of yew. She counted four carriages waiting along the road but none she recognized.
Good. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
She made her way down the main path, skirts heavy with rain and hem already splashed with mud. The headstones and mausoleums soon surrounded her—great gray stones and pillars looming over her like her disapproving aunts.
Ha. She’d shown them when she’d married respectable Edward.
Beatrice sighed and trudged on. If she went to them to discuss her marriage woes, they’d ask her what else she expected. Marriage was different in their day, they’d sniff. No one married for love.
It wasn’t even love she’d anticipated though. Just something more than people who simply lived in the same house. Some companionship. Some warm kisses perhaps. A little affection. Definitely respect.
Well, she had warmth. Just not in the way she’d hoped. The blasted man made her hot with fury and practically aflame with frustration.
She found her father’s grave. The headstone was modest—a rectangular block with a faint arch at the top, already dappled with green from the damp conditions.
Beloved Husband and Father.
A lie really.
She clutched her folded umbrella and knelt. The damp immediately seeped through her skirts, but she welcomed the cold. It reminded her of how she felt every time her father vanished into the arms of another woman.
That was the trouble with men like her father. Their affections arrived in bursts and vanished just as swiftly, leaving her wondering if anything she’d experienced was real. There were warm summers of laughter and sweet treats. There were trips to the country and new toys for her to play with.
And then the laughter was gone. And she’d return to London, to the smog, to her heartbroken mother, leaving the toys and the laughter behind.
Beatrice reached into her reticule and withdrew the sketchbook. Settling on the stone bench opposite, Beatrice waited, eyeing the headstone as though all the answers to her questions would come to her if she just stared long enough.
Why wasn’t she and her mother enough to keep her father home? Why wasn’t she good enough for Edward either?
The rain eased and Beatrice fished out the stump of charcoal, then angled the book against her knee, ignoring the plop of a raindrop that immediately dropped from the tree above onto the page. She sketched her father’s headstone, then the ivy slowly crawling its way through the cluster of stones, threatening to swallow the place whole, gradually forgetting why she was here.
When she looked up again, the clouds had darkened, and the trees acquiesced to the patter of rain. She closed the sketchbook and rose to press her hand flat against her father’s grave, feeling the indents of the letters. She loved him. She couldn’t deny that. His absence in her life left a raw ache in her chest if she thought too hard about it. But she hated him too. For all the hurt he’d left behind in life. How did one carry both love and hate for someone?
Beatrice straightened, her gaze sweeping the gravestones, and shook her head. She doubted she’d ever know. After all, what answers could the dead possibly give?
On a whim, she placed the piece of charcoal in the nook of the headstone. She liked to think her father would appreciate the gesture. He had always loved watching her draw and relished a touch of disorder. While a piece of charcoal wasn’t exactly chaos, it did slightly disrupt the neatness of the headstone.
She turned away, a sinking feeling settling low in her gut when she remembered she’d have to go home to an empty house and continue her vigil of waiting for her husband.
Beatrice made it three yards before the sky let loose an even heavier flurry of rain, forcing her under the shelter of a stone angel. She huddled under its wing and watched the rain fill the ruts in the path. In the far corner of the cemetery, a huge tomb caught her eye. It wasn’t necessarily the grandest she had seen at Highgate but it was the cracked façade that snared her attention—a jagged fault line from the very front all the way to the slanted eaves.
She moved away from the angel and peered at the faded lettering. It must have been here since the early days of Highgate becoming a cemetery as it was marred by stains of moss and lichen and nearby tree roots had begun to crawl their way around the base.
“Bit grand for the afterlife, isn’t it?” a voice croaked from behind her.
Beatrice started, then turned to find the cemetery’s caretaker watching her from beneath the dripping brim of his battered cap. She’d seen him on her previous visits but they’d never talked before.
“I suppose it helps the family to know their loved ones will be remembered for years to come.”
The old man chuckled, displaying a gap where his front tooth had once presided. “Fancy stonework don’t impress the worms.”
She smiled despite herself. “Has someone been at the grave?” She nodded toward the collapsed soil at the base of the grave.
“Ah, that one. No, no. No grave robbers here, I promise you. I keep a stern watch.”
“I didn’t mean—”
