But then why had Vincent been banging his stick in that way on walking towards me through the Old Shed? Why had they come at me in that death march?
I used what remained of the light to fly back through the book looking for any other mentions of Stanley that I had missed. I came upon just one, during the June meeting: the Secretary had been requested to ask Mr Stanley to consider giving his Tuesday address on alternate weeks only, 'it having come to the attention of the Directors that the audience frequently consists of one or two people, and sometimes fewer' – but this, I knew, had not come about; the address had remained weekly.
I closed the book for 1903, and returned it to the shelf. I then stood before the fireplace and looked up at the pictures on the chimney breast, searching for some sign of curiosity in the faces of the Necropolis chairmen, but all that happened was that the clock ticked and the darkness grew.
Ten minutes later I was back on the tracks. The trains had not yet started up again but the lamps were on, showing me that the snow had been replaced by rain, which was coming down slowly. I could have gone into Waterloo in any old way but I marched in on the 'up' side so as to be quite correct, and to keep a little bit of order at least in my life. As I ran back along the great viaduct of Lower Marsh, I thought: I have solved nothing; all that has happened is that I have gone deeper into the mystery. I neared the ladder that would take me down to my lodge, and stopped. I was level with the roofs, and all about were the sleeping, streaming chimney pots, but there was a great clanging from somewhere.
It was only the work of a second to identify the cause and, sure enough, as I walked across to the ladder, the thing was shuddering in time with the clangs. I looked down and there was the human bell, chiming away. I thought: yes, people do like to hit metal with metal; there isn't necessarily any harm in it.
He was shocked to see me, because this was his ladder, after all, but he moved aside for me very meekly. I should have given him a 'Happy Christmas' as I climbed down, and would have done so had there not been so much on my mind and so much more to put in my diary, chiefly concerning Mr Stanley.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Friday 25 December – Tuesday 29 December
At midnight the trains started up, and it was as though the world started turning again, although I just kicked my heels in the lodge for the next three days, my only excursions being across the road to the dining rooms. What requests had Stanley made? What, if anything at all, did they have to do with the deaths that came hard upon those meetings to which the requests had been put? And were the questions in some way connected to the men of the half-link? There was only one way to find out, and that was to wait for the following Tuesday and ask.
At six in the evening on 28 December, the Monday, I walked from Hercules Court to the Necropolis station – by the usual route, this time – and there I saw the poster on the board propped outside the front: 'Extramural Interment: An Address'. It was to happen the next day at 8 p.m. Who wants to hear of cemetery schemes at Christmas? I thought, as I scurried back to my lodge, but it did not matter. I would be there, for one.
The Tuesday ought to have been the day I went back to work, but I did not return, for fear of more meetings with the half-link, and I kept to my room at nine o'clock when there came an awful pounding on the front door of the lodge, in which I had been alone, with no sight of my landlady, since Christmas Eve. The call boy had been sent. He was certainly a great hand at knocking, and it was queer to think that the sound would have once represented to me the greatest nightmare of all.
I took two pints at the Citadel before setting off to the address. They were meant to boost me, like the engine brake handle that was in my coat sleeve once again. It was just before eight, and the rain was coming down hard on my best suit as I walked once again to the Necropolis station. As I came within sight of the place, a black funeral van came swirling out through the gates and away – light and fast and free, having, I guessed, left a body behind. The traps and cabs were all rattling past at a great rate, and throwing out mud onto my suit as they went.
Passing Mr Stanley's sign, I walked through the gates and stood looking into the courtyard, lit by its gas jets, some trembling high up on the walls, some low down, like fireflies that had settled themselves in any old way. I turned towards the door in the arch and saw the board where the forthcoming funerals were posted up. Underneath large black letters spelling out 'In Memoriam' were the details of the burials at Brookwood on the following day – the last ones of the year, I supposed – of a Mrs Lampard and a Mrs Davidson-Hill. Both were to ride out in 'first', as were their mourners, and it struck me that this was why Twenty-Nine had been standing ready on Christmas Day.
I climbed the stairs, passing the trapped flowers, and walked through the double doors on the fourth floor marked 'Address'. Mr Stanley was there under an electric light, sitting at a table upon which were some papers, his bowler hat, a tumbler and a glass jug of water. His big head was dangling down and there was a gap in the black hair on the top of it -but it was not as if his hair had fallen out; it was just as though some of it had been worn away as part of the overall sadness of his life. Before him was a cluster of chairs – every one empty. There was a palm in the corner this time, fluttering in the wind and rain that was flying in through an open window. Stanley looked up as I entered, and I saw the long brown face and wide golden eyes. I took a chair at the front.
Stanley sat still for the next ten minutes while he waited, or pretended to wait, for a crowd to come in. I sat there and did the same, looking, I hoped, like a man without a care; but it was only those two pints and the brake handle that enabled me to pull it off. (I'll take two more besides, I thought, when this business is over.)
It was ten minutes, then, as I say, before I called out: 'Will you carry on with the meeting?'
Stanley made no answer, but rose to his feet and immediately commenced booming in that very unexpected voice: 'As it is appointed unto "all men once to die,'" he began, 'the subject of interment is one of universal interest.'
He looked at all the empty chairs for a while, and I looked at him, gladder than ever of the Red Lion inside me.
'It comes home to every human breast, not only with a solemn but an emphatic closeness,' Stanley continued in his surging voice. 'Whatever, or whosoever, the head of a family in this vast population of London may be – whether high or low, rich or poor, young or old – he knows that sooner or later himself, his wife, his children, his domestics, his associates, must each in rotation pay the great debt of nature and descend into the silent mansions of the tomb.'
He paused here, seeming to shrink rapidly as he did so, and when he next spoke it was in that fast, pernickety mutter he came out with when not speechifying; this mingled with the clattering of the jug against the glass as he poured himself some water.
"These words were written by the founder of our Necropolis Movement some sixty years ago.'
(Stanley might have given out a name for this founder, but I had not caught it.) 'In the same year he also wrote the following…' He breathed in and came out with the big voice again: 'Within numerous and loathsome decomposing troughs, for centuries past in the heart of the capital of a great Christian nation, the most depraved system of sepulture has existed that has ever disgraced the annals of civilisation.'
As Stanley spoke he would rotate a few degrees in one direction then back, his whole huge body – too big for any work it was ever called on to do – rocking gently as he came to rest facing one way or the other. He reminded me of some seaside automaton that I had seen, but his eyes were alive – as beautiful and sad as any woman's.