Gabriel had been drinking brandy and pacing around the table in his studio, to which Lizzie’s body had been carried. Delivery of the coffin had been promised for the next day.
“Where do we place this mirror—”
“Array of mirrors,” said Maria, “for maximum diffraction.”
“—This array of mirrors?”
“Gabriel, we must place it directly over the statue, which is the kernel of Uncle John’s identity; and that’s in Papa’s throat, in his coffin. We must line the bottom of poor Lizzie’s coffin with these mirrors, facing downward, and then she must be buried directly on top of Papa.”
To Christina’s surprise, Gabriel had not objected to this. He had nodded moodily and said, “It would be a real acknowledgment, finally, that she is — was — a member of our family.”
Both Christina and Maria had stirred, but neither of them spoke; it was true that the rest of the Rossetti family had not ever warmed to Gabriel’s melancholy bride.
Without discussing it, all three of them had known that the blood in the mirror grooves must be Christina’s. And both sisters had insisted, over Gabriel’s initial protests, that smaller etched and inward-facing mirrors must be sewn onto Lizzie’s veil too, just in case poor Lizzie had after all not managed to escape the Nephilim’s domination.
The blood on Lizzie’s mirrors, they all finally agreed, must be Gabriel’s.
THE SMELLS OF HAM and pickle and candle wax in the stuffy, crowded room were beginning to nauseate Christina, and she stood up, intending to go downstairs and stand in the street for a few minutes, when she saw Gabriel straighten from beside the coffin and frown at something behind her.
She turned to scan the crowd, and a moment later she gasped when she saw Adelaide and her veterinarian companion sidling over to the trays of food.
Christina stepped up beside Gabriel and whispered, “You and I both made them part of our family.” He started around the coffin toward the uninvited newcomers, but Christina closed her hand around his black crepe armband. “And because of you and me, their daughter is menaced by what took Lizzie.”
Gabriel exhaled and gave her a smoldering glance, then nodded.
Swinburne was leaning in dizzily behind Gabriel’s shoulder.
“Who are they?” he asked. Christina exhaled through her nose to repel the fumes of rum on Swinburne’s breath. “I must say,” Swinburne went on, “women look fetching when they’re in mourning.”
“Oh, never mind, Algy,” snapped Gabriel. “They’re not important.” He stared into the coffin again. “Nobody is, anymore.”
Swinburne frowned thoughtfully and stepped back, though his eyes followed Christina.
She turned toward the door, consciously put on a smile that should appear at once sad, surprised, and welcoming; and when she felt she’d got it right, she began threading her way through the guests toward Adelaide and Mr. Crawford.
“WE’RE FRIENDS OF MISS Christina,” said Crawford for the third time in two minutes. “No, we didn’t know Mrs. Rossetti.” He was sweating in his black frock coat.
McKee had read about Lizzie Rossetti’s death and impending funeral and had insisted that the two of them attend; Crawford had reluctantly agreed when she promised that this would be their last visit to Highgate Cemetery.
They had made visits to the cemetery on four of the last six days — McKee had gone alone on the days when Crawford’s practice took precedence — and twice they had even climbed the wall, separately, to search the grounds by night; and they had not caught one glimpse of anyone who might have been their daughter, Johanna.
Crawford now looked at McKee, who had her arm linked through his to prevent them being separated in the press of mourners, and he reflected that she looked a good deal more tired and discouraged than she had when she had come to his surgery at dawn eight days ago, even though at that time she had believed Johanna was dead.
He supposed he looked tired too — he’d been staying up late to do accounts that ordinarily would be done in the afternoons. It would be good for both of them when this last cemetery excursion was done, and the two of them would be able to go their separate ways — though probably McKee would spend the rest of her life monitoring the marble-studded lawns at Highgate Cemetery.
Just this funeral to get through, he thought — and then he realized that many of the starkly gas-lit faces he could see around him also seemed to reflect an imperfectly concealed relief. Apparently Gabriel’s friends believed the marriage had been in some ways an ill-advised one.
Through a gap in the milling mourners he caught a momentary glimpse of Lizzie Rossetti’s still profile in the coffin, and though she looked nothing like Adelaide McKee, she brought his thoughts back to McKee; one day McKee too would be dead. Though it was obviously true, the thought troubled him with something like a premonition of guilt. Crawford and McKee had not talked very much during the past week’s expeditions, but they had quickly established an unconsidered partnership, seldom having to discuss who paid for cabs or coffee or spoke first to a cemetery guard or policeman, always understanding from a nod or frown or gesture what was proposed to be done next.
His thought about Gabriel was echoing in his head — an ill-advised marriage.
And across the room he now saw the piping-voiced little bald gentleman they had met at Christina Rossetti’s house last Monday — Crawley or something, his name was.
McKee had noticed him too. “Christina’s suitor, Cayley,” she whispered, “who disapproves of her work with the lower orders.”
Crawford nodded, remembering. Cayley seemed to be registering disapproval today too, blinking across at one of the guests whose coppery red hair could admittedly use cutting, or at least brushing.
From the stairs beyond the doorway at his back Crawford heard someone say, “The hearse is here.” The phrase was repeated in muted tones through the crowded room, and people began bolting the remaining punch in their cups and crouching to set plates down against the walls.
“Pigs,” whispered McKee, and Crawford shook her arm reprovingly.
“Well, they are,” she whispered.
“Artists,” he said quietly. “Poets.” He picked up one of the paper-wrapped funeral cakes from the tray by the door, blinked at the skull imprint in the black sealing wax, and tucked the thing into his pocket.
An old man moved aside from in front of them, and Crawford found himself looking straight into Christina Rossetti’s wide brown eyes. Her face looked both paler and younger by the gaslight, framed by her pulled-back brown hair and the high black neckline of her dress.
“Adelaide!” she said softly. “Mr. Crawford! It was good of both of you to come. I’m terribly sorry I wasn’t able to — Gabriel and I weren’t able to go with you, last week.” She looked at McKee. “And I’m very sorry to perceive that you haven’t found good news.” She glanced back toward Maria and Gabriel, and then whispered, “But we hope to end, today, the peril that we discussed at the zoo.”
“End it?” said McKee. “How?”
The little Cayley fellow had sidled closer and appeared to be trying to hear.
“I—” said Christina, “I’ll tell you after it has been implemented. The arrow is in flight, there’s nothing to be done but wait — for an hour or two.”
The people around them were shuffling toward the door, rocking from side to side the way people always did at solemn events, and Christina took McKee’s elbow in her left hand and Crawford’s in her right and led them forward.
“You came by cab?” she said. “I’m to be in the coach ahead of the hearse, but I’ll get you places in one of the mourning coaches.”