Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

‘Now let me take advantage of meeting a stranger to say all sorts of cutting things about my neighbours, Mrs Westerman.’ Miss Scales folded her hands in her lap. ‘As the daughter of a clergyman I have to be terribly understanding about everybody most of the time, so it would be a great release to me.’

Miss Scales was an amusing guide to Mrs Briggs’s neighbours, but even having claimed the freedom to say what she wished, she said little that was not generous in spirit and humour. Miss Scales had apparently not been driven into solitude by her disfigurement. It became clear while she chattered and Harriet rested that she kept house for her father, went among his parishioners every day, seemed quite happy in the company she found and was confident of her usefulness.

Harriet was still listening to Miss Scales when her son approached and silently climbed into her lap. He was bored, she supposed, or had been eating too many ices. Mr Quince had been shooting arrows with the other men, and she had no doubt that, unsupervised, Stephen would have charmed more rich food than was good for him out of the servants. After a few moments Harriet realised he was staring at the scars on Miss Scales’s hands and hoped the lady did not mark it. Having finished her description of last year’s regatta, however, Miss Scales turned to the boy at her side.

‘You are looking at my hands, Mr Stephen. And so you might, for they are funny-looking things, are they not?’

Stephen nodded. ‘Why are they like that, ma’am?’

‘I had small-pox when I was a young girl.’ She pointed to her dead eye. ‘It cost me this too, you see. But I am thankful. I lived, and whatever other sin I commit, at least I shall never be vain. Think of all those ladies who must suffer so when they lose their looks with age. I shall never be any uglier than I am now, even if I live to be ninety! But I lost far more than what you see. My mother and sister were taken to God by the illness, and I miss them still every day.’

Stephen looked up at her with his clear brown eyes. ‘I think you look kind. And you must be very strong, ma’am, to have lived.’

Harriet saw a flush touch Miss Scales’s face and was proud of her child.

‘I like you almost as much as I do your mother. She has let me clear out my lungs for the last ten minutes and had the courtesy to look amused the whole time. I was saved, my boy.’

‘You are not sad then, ma’am?’

‘No, bless you. Well, perhaps a little when I see a lady as pretty as your mama, but I have the love of my father and my friends, and of God Himself so I am thankful for every day.’

‘Did Mr Casper come and see you when you were sick? He visits sick people, does he not?’ Stephen asked.

‘Casper was very young himself at that time. It was his father, Ruben Grace, who was the cunning-man in those days, though Ruben did service as a steward in this house for many years too, and owned the Black Pig Inn in Portinscale in later times.’ She frowned and lifted her hand to her face. ‘I think I do remember them coming to see me though, Casper and Ruben. Must have been a hard way for the lad to learn his father’s trade. They visited every house where the sickness was, bless them for their kindness, and there were many that year, but I was so ill I hardly know what I saw and what I dreamed.’

Harriet shifted to face them. ‘He brought his son with him? I cannot imagine taking Stephen into a house where the sickness was.’

Miss Scales smiled sadly. ‘They were stuck close together, Mrs Westerman. Ruben had lost his wife some years before and clung to the boy, though he had sent his daughter to live with her aunt. Now what was her name? She was thought of as a troublemaker in the village, though I’m sure she was just injured by the way her father cast her off, and the aunt was never a kind woman. .’ She lifted her hand to the sky, then gave it a sudden flourish. ‘Jocasta! That was it — married a man called Bligh over in Kendal, then we all lost sight of her.’

Harriet smiled widely. ‘Jocasta Bligh! We know her! She lives in London now. I had every intention of making enquiries after her family, but the matter slipped my mind until now. So she is the sister of the famous Casper Grace.’

Miss Scales tilted her head to Harriet. ‘You know her? How remarkable! How came you to be acquainted?’

Harriet’s face clouded. ‘It was in eighty-one.’ She then continued after a moment of silence, ‘As it happens, I hope to hear from her shortly — and Stephen, would you not like to give your new friend news of his sister?’

‘I am sure he would like that. I can tell him of her patchwork skirts and her dog, and Sam.’ Stephen scratched his leg, and when Harriet put her hand over his, he looked a little guilty.

‘Why was she thought of as a troublemaker, Miss Scales?’ Harriet asked. ‘She seemed a good enough woman to me.’

Miss Scales tried to recall. ‘She had some trouble in our little school, I think. Ruben was a reading man, had to be, to rise to the position of steward to Silverside, but Jocasta never got the way of it, and was beaten for it. How does she manage now?’

‘She reads fortunes,’ Stephen declared, never happier than when instructing someone, ‘and helps catch spies.’

Harriet was afraid this might lead to more questions than she cared to answer, so decided to steer the conversation another way.

‘What does your father think of such traditions, Miss Scales? Here is Stephen, brimful with tales of witches and cunning-men.’

Miss Scales grinned. ‘There are enough such stories to fill us all up! Have you heard that the last Lord Greta is said to walk the hills in hard times? And you will find a dozen households that put out bowls of milk and oats for the dobbies, and there are stories of bogles and devils in every village. I ask the people why they believe, and they say the butter is churning and the milk is gone in the morning, so why should they not believe the dobbie has had his feed and blessed them with his aid? For myself, I think butter churning is all in the wrist, and it’s foxes and hedgehogs that drink the milk. As to my father, he tries at least once a month to tell them there are no such things as witches, and he and his parishioners all walk away from the church, each thinking the other foolish and hoping for their enlightenment. Then all agree to say no more about it and carry on just as before. I say let them hear the word of Christ and love Him, and I’m sure the Lord will forgive a few shreds of the pagan hanging on the souls of such good Christian people. And they are good people here. Certainly there are some that take more than they give, but my father says he is blessed by his flock and I agree with him.’

Harriet was surprised. It seemed entirely foreign to her that in her own country there should still be so many who clung to the old ways. She wondered if there was something unusual about this place, or if her own father’s parishioners had held similar beliefs. Her father had been blessed with a firm faith, but he had seen lively debate on matters theological as part of his Christian duty. He confessed his own doubts and confusions honestly and sought through conversation with his wife and daughters and his own careful reading to understand and overcome them. He had felt his efforts to come to a deeper understanding of the Christian message to be part of the same project for the enlightenment of the nation that the natural philosophers continued in their laboratories, or the anatomists in their lecture theatres. Harriet’s father, Mr Trench had believed there was no danger in knowledge, and all enquiry could only lead in the end to a deeper love of God and His works. Harriet could not recall, however, a single occasion where the subject of witchcraft had been mentioned in their home, other than as an historical oddity. Yet here such things blossomed like moss on her lawns at Caveley, and not all the raking and seeding of Church and State could pull it out. However far we come, she found herself thinking, we are at times still all animals huddled round the firelight fearing what moves in the dark.