Frankly I was surprised that Mrs Coleman was so keen on seeing the columbarium. I expect the idea appeals to her sense of tidiness and economy, though she made it clear it would never be appropriate for Christians.
At any rate I was relieved to have something to do with her. I always dread her visits, though it is easier than when I was first married. It has taken these ten years of marriage to learn to handle her — like a horse, except that I have never managed a horse — they are so big and clumsy.
But handle her I have. The portraits, for example. As a wedding present she gave us several dark oil portraits of various Colemans from the last century or so, all with the same dour expression that she wears as well — which is remarkable given that she married into the family rather than inheriting the look.
They are dreary things, but Mrs Coleman insisted they be hung in the hallway where every visitor could see and admire them; and Richard did nothing to dissuade her. It is rare he will cross her. His one rebellious act has been to marry a doctor's daughter from Lincolnshire, and he will probably spend the rest of his days avoiding other conflicts. So up went the portraits. After six months I found some botanical watercolours exactly the same size, and hung them instead, replacing them with the portraits whenever Mrs Coleman came to call. Luckily she is not the kind of woman to pay surprise visits — she always announces her arrival the day before, giving me plenty of time to switch paintings.
After several years of swapping I grew more confident, and at last felt able to leave up the watercolours. Of course on arrival she noticed them first thing, before she had even unbuttoned her coat. ‘Where are the family portraits?’ she demanded. ‘Why are they not in their places?’
Luckily I was prepared. ‘Oh, Mother Coleman’ (how it grates to call her that — she is no mother to me), ‘I was concerned that the draughts from the door might damage them, and so I had them rehung in Richard's study, where he can take comfort from his ancestors' presence.’
Her response was typical. ‘I myself don't know why you've left them there all that time. I should like to have said something, but this is your home, after all, and far be it from me to tell you how to run it.’
Jenny almost dropped Mrs Coleman's coat on the floor from giggling — she knew all too well the palaver that had gone on over the pictures, for it had been she who'd helped me switch the paintings each time.
I did have one victory over Mrs Coleman early on, and it has seen me through many a grinding afternoon with her when afterwards I have had to lie down with a dose of Beecham's. Mrs Baker was my triumph. I chose her as our cook because of her name — the frivolity of the reason was irresistible. And I could not help it — I told Mrs Coleman as well.
When she heard she spat out her tea, appalled. ‘Chosen for her name? Don't be ridiculous! What way is that to run a household?’
To my immense satisfaction, Mrs Baker — a small, self-contained woman who reminds me of a bundle of twigs — has turned out to be a gem, a thrifty, able cook who instinctively understands certain things so that I do not need to spell them out. When I tell her Mrs Coleman is coming for lunch, for example, she serves bouillon rather than mulligatawny, a poached egg rather than an omelette. Yes, she is a gem.
Jenny has been more of a trial, but I like her better than Mrs Baker, who has a way of looking at everyone sideways and so appearing constantly suspicious. Jenny has a big mouth and wide cheeks — a face made for laughing. She is always going about her work with a smirk on her face, as if she is about to burst with some great joke. And she does, too — I can hear her laugh all the way up from the kitchen. I try not to think it but I can't help wondering if the laughter is ever directed at me. I am sure it is.
Mrs Coleman says she is not to be trusted, of course. I suspect she may be right. There is something restless about Jenny that suggests one day she will crash, and we will all suffer the consequences. But I am determined to keep her on, if only to annoy Mrs Coleman.
And she has been good for Maude — she is a warm girl. (Mrs Baker is cold like pewter.) Since Maude's nanny left and I am meant to be looking after her, Jenny has become indispensable in keeping an eye on her. She often takes her to the cemetery — a whim of Lavinia's that Maude has unfortunately adopted and which I did not nip in the bud as I ought to have done. Jenny doesn't complain much — I suspect she welcomes the chance for a rest. She always leaves for the cemetery in high spirits.
Maude said the Waterhouses would like to come along to see the columbarium too, which was just as well. I suspected that Gertrude Waterhouse is, if not the class of woman Mrs Coleman would have had her son marry (not that I was either), then at least more compatible with her. They could talk about their mutual adoration of the late Queen, if nothing else.
The columbarium is housed in one of the vaults in the Circle of Lebanon, where a sort of channel has been dug round a big Lebanon cedar and lined with a double row of family vaults. To get to it one walks up the Egyptian Avenue, a gloomy row of vaults overhung with rhododendrons, the entrance done in the Egyptian style, with elaborate columns decorated with lotus flowers. The whole thing is rather theatrical — I am sure it was very stylish back in the 1840s, and now it makes me want to laugh. The tree is lovely, at least, its branches crooked and almost horizontally spread, like an umbrella of blue-green needles. With the blue sky behind it like today it can make the heart soar.
Perhaps I should have prepared the girls more for what they were about to see. Maude is quite phlegmatic and robust, and Ivy May, the younger Waterhouse girl with the big hazel eyes, keeps her thoughts to herself. But Lavinia is the kind of girl who will find any excuse to fall into a faint, which she promptly did the moment she peered through the iron grillwork into the columbarium. Not that there is much to see, really — it is a small, high vault lined with cubicles of about one foot by eighteen inches. They are all empty except for two quite high up which have been covered over with stone plaques, and another with an urn sitting in it, with no plaque as of yet. Given that there are urns everywhere on graves here, it is hard to see what Lavinia made such a fuss about.
It was secretly gratifying too, I must confess, for up until that moment Gertrude Waterhouse and Mrs Coleman had been getting on very well. I would never say I was jealous, but it did make me feel rather inadequate. However, when Gertrude had to attend to her prone daughter, waving smelling salts under her nose while Ivy May fanned her with a handkerchief, Mrs Coleman grew more disapproving. ‘What's wrong with the girl?’ she barked.
‘She's a bit sensitive, I'm afraid,’ poor Gertrude replied. ‘She's not meant to see such sights.’
Mrs Coleman humphed. Her humphs are often more damaging than her words.
While we waited for Lavinia to revive, Maude asked me why it was called a columbarium.
‘That's Latin for dovecote, where birds live.’
‘But birds don't live there.’
‘No. The little cubbyholes are for urns, as you can see, like what we have on our grave except much smaller.’
‘But why do they keep urns there?’
‘Most people when they die are buried in coffins. But some people choose to be burned. The urns hold their ashes and this is where you can put them.’
‘Burned?’ Maude looked a bit shocked.
‘Cremated is the word, actually,’ I said. ‘There's nothing wrong with it. In a way it's less frightening than being buried. Much quicker, at least. It's becoming a little more popular now. Perhaps I'd like to be cremated.’ I threw out the last comment rather flippantly, as I had never really considered it before. But now, staring at the urn in one of the cubbyholes, it began to appeal — though I should not want my ashes placed in an urn. Rather they be scattered somewhere, to help the flowers grow.
‘Rubbish!’ Mrs Coleman interrupted. ‘And it's entirely inappropriate for a girl of Maude's age to be told about such things.’ Having said that, however, she couldn't resist continuing. ‘Besides, it's un-Christian and illegal. I wonder if it is even legal to build such a thing—’ she waved at the columbarium — ‘if it encourages criminal activity.’
As she was speaking a man came trotting down the steps next to the columbarium that led from the upper to the lower level of the Circle. He stopped abruptly when he heard her. ‘Pardon me, madam,’ he said, bowing to Mrs Coleman. ‘I couldn't help overhearing your comment. Indeed, cremation is not illegal. It has never been illegal in England — it's simply been disapproved of by society, and so it has not been carried out. But there have been crematoria for many years — the first was built at Woking in 1885.’
‘Who are you?’ Mrs Coleman demanded. ‘And what business is it of yours what I say?’
‘Pardon me, madam,’ the man repeated, with another bow. ‘I am Mr Jackson, the superintendent of the cemetery. I simply wished to set you straight on the facts of cremation because I wanted to reassure you that there is nothing illegal about the columbarium. The Cremation Act passed two years ago regulates the procedures and practice throughout all of Britain. The cemetery is simply responding to the public's demand, and reflecting public opinion on the matter.’
‘You are certainly not reflecting my opinion on the matter, young man,’ Mrs Coleman huffed, ‘and I am a grave owner here — have been for almost fifty years.’
I smiled at her idea of a young man — he looked to be forty at least, with grey hairs in his rather bushy moustache. He was quite tall, and wore a dark suit with a bowler hat. If he had not introduced himself I would have thought he was a mourner. I had probably seen him before, but could not remember him.
‘I am not saying that cremation should never be practised,’ Mrs Coleman went on. ‘For non-Christians it can be an option: the Hindu and the Jew, atheists and suicides, those sorts who don't care about their souls. But I am truly shocked to see such a thing sited on consecrated ground. It should have been placed in the Dissenters' section, where the ground is not blessed. Here it is an offence to Christianity.’
‘Those whose remains lie in the columbarium were certainly Christian, madam,’ Mr Jackson said.
‘But what about reassembly? How can the body and soul be reunited on the Day of Resurrection if the body has been—’ Mrs Coleman did not complete her sentence, but waved a hand at the cubicles.
‘Burned to a crisp,’ Maude finished for her. I stifled a giggle.
Rather than wilting under her onslaught, Mr Jackson seemed to grow from it. He stood quite calmly, hands clasped behind his back, as if he were discussing a mathematical equation rather than a sticky question of theology. Maude and I, and the Waterhouses — Lavinia having recovered by this time — all stared at him, waiting for him to speak.
‘Surely there is no difference between the decomposed remains of a buried body and the ashes of a burned one,’ he said.
‘There is all the difference!’ Mrs Coleman sputtered. ‘But this is a most distasteful argument, especially in front of our girls here, one of whom has just recovered from a fit.’
Mr Jackson looked around as if he were just seeing the rest of us. ‘My apologies, ladies,’ he bowed (again). ‘I did not mean to offend.’ But then he did not leave the argument, as Mrs Coleman clearly wanted him to. ‘I would simply say that God is capable of all things, and nothing we do with our remains will stop Him if he wishes to reunite our souls with our bodies.’
There was a little silence then, punctuated by a tiny gasp from Gertrude Waterhouse. The implication behind his words — that with her argument Mrs Coleman might be doubting the power of God Himself — was not lost on her. Nor on Mrs Coleman, who, for the first time since I have known her, seemed at a loss for words. It was not a long moment, of course, but it was an immensely satisfying one.
‘Young man,’ Mrs Coleman said finally, ‘if God wanted us to burn our dead he would have said so in the Bible. Come, Maude,’ she said, turning her back on him, ‘it is time we paid a visit to our grave.’
As she led away a reluctant Maude, Mr Jackson glanced at me and I smiled at him. He bowed for the fourth time, muttered something about having a great deal to do, and rushed off, quite red in the face.
Well, I thought. Well.