The Burying Ground (10 page)

Luke felt the blush creep up to his hairline. He took another sip of beer and noticed that his hands were shaking.

“I'm right, aren't I?” Perry was looking at him closely. “I haven't made a mistake, have I?”

“I … I don't know what you mean.”

“I'm reasonably sure you do.”

Luke didn't know how to deflect this overture. He had known Ben for many weeks, had lived in the same rooms with him for some time before the subject was even alluded to. It was so patient, so slow, that it seemed like a natural extension of what had already become a warm friendship. And then, after Ben died, Luke vowed to wall off that part of his life. But here it was again, this time offered openly by someone he had only just met. He looked around the taproom, trying to find words to say, and noticed that there were two men in the corner by one of the stinking spittoons who were leaned over very close to each other. A man at the bar slapped his hand on his companion's shoulder, but as Luke watched, he realized that the hand lingered just a little too long. It suddenly became very clear to him that the tavern was full of men just like him. He didn't want to be one of them.

“Look,” Perry said, “I don't mean to press you. You have my card. You can drop me a note anytime. Even if you just want someone to show you around the city, that's fine. It doesn't have to be anything else.” He dropped his eyes to the drink in front of him for a moment, then looked up at Luke. “I'd like it to be, though.”

Luke finished his ale in one gulp, then rose from the table. “I have to get back.”

“Of course. But I'd better walk you out of here. You'll never find your way otherwise.”

When they reached Yonge Street, Perry hailed a passing horse cab. “Do you want to take this?” he asked. “I can get another one.”

“No. You go on. I'm fine,” Luke said. He would catch an omnibus, if any of them ran so late at night.

“I hope we meet again, Dr. Lewis,” Perry said as he climbed into the cab. “Thanks for the drink.”

No buses passed Luke as he walked north, so he just kept walking toward Yorkville. He had covered greater distances delivering books in Montreal. Besides, there wasn't a great deal he needed to get back to, other than Christie's questions about the evening. And, he realized, the accusing skeletal finger of Mul-Sack.

Thaddeus was roused from a very deep sleep by the sound of a knock at the front door. He supposed it was not an unusual noise to hear at a doctor's house. Knocks on the door in the middle of the night must occur occasionally when there were sudden emergencies or turns for the worse. Whoever was knocking must be desperate indeed, however, for there was no let up in the pounding until Thaddeus heard Christie stumble down the stairs and unlatch the door.

To his surprise, he then heard Christie shout “It's for you, Lewis!” Thaddeus assumed this must mean Luke, but when he rose and looked in the other room the bed was empty, the bedclothes undisturbed. Apparently Luke had not yet returned from the Van Hansels' party. Puzzled, he grabbed his jacket and, shrugging it on over his nightshirt, started down the stairs. In his hurry he slipped on the bottom step and his left foot hit the floor hard. He felt something in his knee shift and when he stepped again, a sharp pain shot through it.

Morgan Spicer stood just inside the door. “It's happened again,” he said when Thaddeus reached him.

“What, another desecration?”

Morgan face was red with exertion and anger. “Whoever it was ran this way, but I couldn't catch up with them. Did you see anyone go by?”

“I'm sorry, I was fast asleep,” Thaddeus said.

“My room is at the back of the house,” Christie said. “I can't see the street from there. Nor hear much either.”

“I was afraid of that,” Morgan said. “I wouldn't have seen them myself, except that one of the twins has a fever and I was up with her. I caught a glimpse of them just as they were slipping out the front gate. I ran after them, but they had too much of a head start.”

“Let me put some clothes on and we'll go look at what they did,” Thaddeus said.

“Better you than me,” Christie grumbled. “People who disturb other people in the middle of the night should be hanged.” He scowled at Morgan.

“Sorry,” Morgan said, “I just thought …”

“Never mind, laddie, never mind. Not the first time, won't be the last.” And he plodded back up the stairs.

Thaddeus climbed the stairs behind him, but much more slowly, using the banister to help haul himself up. Once upstairs, he didn't bother with putting on a proper shirt, just pulled on his trousers and found his socks and boots. Morgan waited im-patiently by the door as Thaddeus limped back down the stairs.

Just as they were about to set off for the Burying Ground, Thaddeus spied Luke walking up the street toward them. “What's happened?” Luke asked when they reached him. “Why are you outside at this time of night?”

“There's been another incident at the Burying Ground,” Thaddeus said. “We're just going along to have a look at the damage.”

Luke fell into step beside his father. “What have you done to yourself? You're limping.”

“Stepped the wrong way. How was your party?”

“Disconcerting.” Morgan was leading the way, several steps ahead of them. Luke spoke in a soft voice, so that only Thaddeus could hear. “It turns out that Mrs. Van Hansel is the wife of Mr. Van Hansel.”

“That would stand to reason,” Thaddeus said.

“And Mr. Van Hansel is none other than Hands.”

“Oh.” Thaddeus had also been in the cabinetmaker's yard when Van Hansel was shot. He helped the Irish girl get away afterward. He had also written a letter to the emigration agent, Anthony Hawke, to inform him of the fraud they'd uncovered. If there was anyone in Toronto he didn't want to meet, it was Hands.

“Did he know it was you?” he asked.

“No. Fortunately I saw him first and kept out of the way, so I don't think he noticed me at all.”

If Hands was able to recognize either of the Lewises from that night, it would most likely be Thaddeus. Luke had been crouched over a dead body. It was Thaddeus who urged Hands to call a constable, and Thaddeus who rushed them out of the yard after Hands was shot down. And it had not been Hands, but one of his burly henchmen, who had chased them through the streets of Toronto. With any luck, Thaddeus thought, Hands wouldn't remember Luke at all from that night. But it would be foolish to take a chance on it.

“I hid behind the curtains and left as soon as I could slip away, so I don't think there's any harm done,” Luke said.

“Really? You're awfully late for having left the party early.”

Luke reddened. “I went off with a friend. We talked for a while.”

Thaddeus noticed his son's embarrassment, and wondered if Luke had met a girl. Now that he was finished with school and was more or less settled, there was no reason he shouldn't start looking around for a wife. But now was not the time to ask questions about it. Luke would tell him when he was ready.

Instead, he said, “You didn't mention anything about Hands to your friend, did you?”

“No.”

“Good. The fewer people who know about that night the better. Hands has far too many friends in odd places. If Mrs. Van Hansel ever invites you to her house again, you'll have to make some excuse not to go.”

“I don't intend to go again regardless. I didn't enjoy it much.”

“It's as well we're in Yorkville. He's unlikely to run across either of us as long as we don't venture into the city too often.” Thaddeus couldn't help but be curious, though, about the consequences of that strange night. “So he survived the gunshot wound? I thought he must have.”

“Yes, but his left arm was damaged. He doesn't seem to have much use of it at all.”

“Serves him right.”

As they reached the gates of the Burying Ground, Luke and Thaddeus followed Morgan past the Keeper's Lodge and into the cemetery. This time Spicer led them to a grave near the fence that ran along Tollgate Road.

“It's the same as before,” Morgan said, the dismay evident on his face. The marker was knocked roughly aside, the grave opened, the corpse thrust up onto the bank of dirt. “It's another old grave. This part of the cemetery has been filled up for some time.”

Thaddeus once again looked at the grave, and then in all directions around it, hoping the orientation of the site would give him some clue as to why this coffin in particular had been ripped out of the ground. But there was nothing in the location that offered up any clue, or anything he could see that would connect it with the first violation.

“Where were the men when you saw them?” he asked.

“They slipped out the front gate just as bold as anything. I expect they got in the same way.”

“But the last time they went over the fence.”

“Only because I surprised them.”

Thaddeus peered at the fence that separated the cemetery from the road. There was nothing about it that was out of the ordinary. Nothing to see except the dusty street and the buildings on the other side. “Luke and I will help you set things to rights. Then I want to look at your records.”

“Here, let me,” Luke said, when Thaddeus stooped to grasp one end of the shrouded corpse.

“You don't have to do that,” Morgan said. “I can take care of it later.”

“It's all right. I've handled dead bodies before. This one is less disturbing than most I've seen. At least he was given a proper burial.”

“Is it a he or a she?” Thaddeus asked.

Morgan pointed to the dislodged stone. “Isaiah Marshall.”

“Poor soul. Let's get him back to his resting place then.”

As Morgan and Luke manoeuvred the body back into the coffin, the folds of Isaiah Marshall's shroud ripped open and fell away to reveal an arm and part of his chest. A pungent smell wafted up at them, making Thaddeus's eyes water. The exposed upper arm had a cheesy, whitish appearance, but a section of brown skin was intact over the bony part of the shoulder.

“Was Mr. Marshall a coloured man, or has the skin darkened after death?” he asked.

Luke knelt and pulled the folds of cloth away from the man's head. Here the skin had shriveled, the lips pulled away from the teeth in a grimace, the eyes absent, consumed by insects or maggots. But the man's hair was grey and kinked, the cartilaginous remains of the nose wide and flat.

“I'd say he was. The skin darkens after death, but always on the underside of the body, not on top of the shoulder like that, and the hair looks right.” He opened the grave clothes a little further, recoiling from the smell that was released.

“What are you looking for?” Morgan asked. Thaddeus wished he would stop looking. With every shift of cloth the stench grew worse.

“This body has been dissected,” Luke said.

“How can you tell?” Thaddeus asked.

“The body has decomposed a great deal, but I can still recognize the incisions. He's been more or less put back together again for burial, but rather sloppily, I'd say.”

“He may have come from the Anatomical School,” Morgan said. “A lot of their bodies are sent here. If they're unclaimed to begin with, no one knows where else to send them.”

Luke rewrapped the man as well as he could, then he and Morgan laid him back in his coffin.

“I'll get some tools,” Morgan said and walked over to the lodge to fetch shovels and a hammer and nails.

While he was waiting, Thaddeus picked away some of the moss that had grown over the gravestone and found a date underneath the name: October 15, 1847.

“It's sad, isn't it?” he said. “This is the date he died, but there's no corresponding date of birth.”

“A stranger in the Strangers' Burying Ground,” Luke said. “No one would have known what it should be, I suppose.”

Thaddeus picked away at a little more moss, but there were no other markings. Then he moved the stone to one side, so that they wouldn't trip over it while restoring the grave.

When Morgan returned, he and Thaddeus nailed the coffin shut again, but when they both reached for shovels, Luke stopped his father. “We'll do the heavy work,” he said. Thaddeus was about to protest, when he realized that he was just as happy to let them go ahead. His knee hurt.
I'm such old bones,
he thought.
The younger men take the heavy load now. It won't be long before I join poor old Mr. Marshall. When that happens, I'll see Betsy again. I wonder if there was anyone waiting for this man?

Luke and Morgan mounded the soil over the coffin and tamped it down as best they could, but it looked raw and wrong in such a settled part of the cemetery.

“Shall I say a word or two?” Thaddeus asked.

Morgan looked grateful. “I wanted to before, with the first one, but I didn't think it was right for me to do it.”

Thaddeus nodded, then the three men positioned themselves around the grave, Morgan at the foot, Luke at the head, Thaddeus between them.

“Oh Lord,” Thaddeus began, and then he hesitated. He knew prayers for the newly interred and prayers for those who had experienced a delayed burial. He even knew prayers for those who had never been properly laid to rest. He wasn't sure what he should say for someone who had been committed once and then dug up again.

Finally, he decided that a few simple words were all that was needed. “Dear Lord, we are again giving you the earthly remains of Isaiah Marshall and trust that you remain guardian of his immortal soul.” And then he began the familiar prayer “Our father, who art in heaven …”

Morgan joined him. Luke did not, although he stood with his head bowed respectfully. Thaddeus was aware that Luke professed no great faith, and this saddened him, but even as he intoned the familiar words, he reflected that his son must find his own way. He could only hope that the way led down a righteous path.

At “amen” they all three stood for a moment, then turned and walked slowly back to the lodge. Sally met them at the door.

“I've put the kettle on,” she said. “I thought you might like something after such a horrible chore.” Then she disappeared down the hall and Thaddeus could hear her climbing the stairs.

“She's a good girl,” he said as he slumped into a chair at the kitchen table.

Morgan nodded. “She is. I'd wish a wife like her for every man if I could.”

Luke sat down on one of the wooden stools that had been pulled up to the table, while Morgan fussed with the teapot. When he had served each of them a mug, he reached down a brown ledger from the kitchen shelf and began leafing through it.

“Here it is. Isaiah Marshall. Died October 15, 1847. Birthdate unknown. Cause of death: Congestion. Interred: October 28, 1847.”

“Nothing there to tell us much,” Thaddeus said. “Other than the fact that he was a long time being buried.”

“That would fit with the evidence of dissection,” Luke said. “He may have been taken to hospital, where he died from his illness and was sent on to the Toronto School of Medicine when no one claimed the body. Either that or he died in his bed and no one knew what else to do with him.”

“May I see the entry from the time before?”

Morgan flipped forward a page and handed over the book.

“Abraham Jenkins,” Thaddeus read. “Died: May 4, 1848. Birth date: unknown. Cause of death: Pain in the stomach. Interred: May 15, 1848.' His burial was delayed, as well. Does that suggest that both of the bodies came here via the dissecting rooms?”

“I should think so,” Luke said. “Nobody else would leave a body lying around for ten days. Not in May.”

“So neither of them had family. Or at least no family who cared to go to the expense of burying them. You reburied the first corpse yourself, didn't you, Morgan?”

When Morgan nodded, Thaddeus asked, “Was he a coloured man too?”

“I don't know. I didn't look that closely. Only his arm slid out of the grave clothes and it was mostly bone. I just tucked it in before I put him back.”

“It would be interesting to discover if he was. In any event, we might be able to track down more information for Mr. Marshall if he was a member of one of the African congregations. We could talk to the medical school as well. Do they keep records of where they obtain their corpses?” Thaddeus looked at Luke in expectation of an answer.