Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

‘Is she in the house now?’ he asked. Kerrick nodded. ‘Send her out to me then.’

Kerrick went back to his cottage, his shoulders hunched and his footsteps heavy. Casper sniffed. Then took a seat on the mossy turf, pulled his carvings from his pocket and began to work his knife.

As the evening started to darken, Mrs Briggs’s guests began to make their way around the head of the lake towards Crow Park for the next stage of their day’s entertainment. There, in a roped-off area where the park’s low swell sank gently again to the shore, they found their numbers augmented by the local yeoman farmers and tradesmen and their families who could afford the shillings necessary to watch the fireworks from a comfortable seat and with a glass of punch in their hands, but were not eligible to be invited into the grounds of Silverside Hall.

As they surveyed the ground and assessed the quality of the refreshments, the continual topic was the dousing of Mr Quince. There was much speculation as to whether any of the party resident in Silverside would attend the fireworks at all. Some maintained that Mr Quince would stay away, too humiliated to show his face; others vigorously disagreed and said rather it was Felix who should remain at the Hall. Others still agreed he most certainly should, but reminded their friends that von Bolsenheim was a foreigner by birth, for all the advantages of his heritage and education, so his behaviour would be unpredictable. He had proved himself to be no gentleman by pushing Mr Quince in the lake. He might now do so again by inflicting himself on the company. A certain amount of money changed hands. Several women also remarked they thought Felix’s good looks had been over-rated, and Mr Quince was of a much more English mode. All the men claimed to have spoken to the tutor and thought him a promising young man of great good sense. They also muttered darkly that some ‘foreign manners’ seemed to have rubbed off on the Vizegrafin.

While these opinions were being rehearsed and refined in Crow Park, Mr Quince was sitting in the little room next to his own bedroom which served as a temporary study for Stephen and himself. He was no longer wet, but was perhaps still a little damp around the edges. He had changed his clothing, but still felt the lakewater on his skin.

Harriet sat opposite him.

‘I do think you should come to the fireworks, Mr Quince.’ He did not reply. ‘Please do, for my sake.’

He shifted in his seat and sneezed, then having buried himself briefly in his pocket handkerchief said: ‘I do not wish to be stared at and talked about, Mrs Westerman.’

‘You have my sympathies,’ she replied dryly and when he looked up at her, she saw a glimmer of reluctant amusement in his eyes.

‘Mrs Westerman, I appreciate you have insight into being discussed by a crowd, but nothing you have done has rendered you ridiculous .’ He twitched as he said the word. Harriet wondered if it was difficult for this young, educated man to have an employer like herself. She had never really considered the matter or the man, beyond his abilities to educate her son. She realised that she knew nothing of his ambitions and tried to recall if she had mentioned to him that she intended to send Stephen to school in a year or so.

‘You have not made yourself ridiculous, Mr Quince. He did push you, I suppose?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Quince hung his head again. ‘It was quite deliberate. Though I must count myself lucky he claimed it was an accident and apologised as he did. I should have had to call him out otherwise, and then probably would have ended up dead as well as wet. I have no doubt he is an expert shot. Men such as he always are.’

‘I don’t suppose you would be willing to tell me what passed between you?’

He shook his head, which made the flesh under his chin wobble. ‘It was a private matter, but there was nothing offensive in it to my knowledge. I have never been so surprised in my life as when I found myself spitting up lakewater.’

Harriet laughed softly and saw a smile twitch again on Quince’s face.

‘I am beginning to consider Felix a rather foul young man,’ she said. ‘If he continues like this, Crowther will find some way to cut off his inheritance, I think.’

‘But he is very handsome,’ the tutor said sadly.

Mr Quince would never be handsome, but Harriet hoped very much he would someday find a woman who would make him believe he was, at least from time to time.

‘I would rather have a man like you in the circle of my acquaintance, Mr Quince, than a dozen Felixes,’ she said firmly. ‘Now will you come to the fireworks? Crowther, I know, intends to spend his evening among the boiled bones of the wretch from the island.’ She caught Quince’s look of surprise and lifted her hand. ‘Please, do not ask, Mr Quince. But I would like to go with Stephen. May I take your arm as we walk? Then we may be talked about together, as it were.’

Mr Quince held his head on one side. ‘Does the Vizegrafin intend to go?’

‘Her son will drive her in the phaeton. You and Stephen will travel in the carriage with Mrs Briggs and myself.’

‘I should go. I know it.’ He put his hand to his head and smoothed his hair, then straightened his back and met her eyes. ‘Very well, Mrs Westerman.’

‘I shall see you downstairs in a quarter of an hour then, Mr Quince.’ She stood and made her way to the door.

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly, and she let herself out of the room.

Casper heard the girl approach but continued to carve, listening to the chatter of the witches and spirits arguing with each other, advising, cursing or cajoling him until her shadow fell softly over his work. The black witch, loudest and most vicious of them all in his head, spat and growled.

‘Sit down, Agnes,’ he said without looking up. She did so, just opposite him on the grass with her legs tucked under her and leaning on her arm. He lifted his eyes to her face and the black witch howled. She was a good-looking girl. Thick dark hair hung round her shoulders in a sheet; grey eyes with a sharp edge to them. She was paler than she should be, and her lips had a whiteness to them. He knew then.

‘Well?’ he demanded. Her chin started to tremble and she put her arms around her knees. Casper continued to carve. ‘Who began it?’

‘ She did.’

‘What occurred? Steal your beau, did she?’

The girl had started to rock a little. ‘I thought she was my friend, but then at the Greeup wedding in May she wouldn’t leave him alone. She’s not even pretty.’

Casper sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘Such things occur, girly. No reason to start playing games you shouldn’t. You know those games have a price. Tell me what you did.’

The girl pushed back her hair from her face and lifted her eyes towards the horizon. ‘I made a poppet.’

Casper felt the air chill around him and was afraid. ‘You fed it?’

‘Blood and rue.’

‘How do you know such things?’

She looked uncomfortable. ‘They are spoken of.’

His knife ceased work for a moment. ‘So this girl we are speaking of is Stella Giles, who broke her ankle in June?’ The black witch was already howling as he asked.

‘Yes.’ She looked at him, mumbled, ‘I didn’t mean it to be so bad, but she deserved it.’

He leaned forward and pointed at her chest with his knife so that she flinched back. ‘And what do you deserve now, Agnes? This is hateful work. You get snubbed by some lad, then young Stella isn’t able to work for a month. I should have known there was something in it, her taking so long to heal. You might have killed her.’ He spat on the ground. ‘You’ll have to pay it back, my girl, or it’ll go rotten on you — on you and in you.’ He paused, picking up the threads of talk from the arguing voices in his head. ‘Such matters are black. Tonight, no fireworks. Dig up the doll and take it up Swineside. Wash it in running water, and wash it well. Gather rowan and hazel enough to pack round it tight, tight — and bury it. Then you sit and you pray over it for forgiveness and think on what you have done. Never let me hear tell of you playing with such things again. Till dawn, mind — no creeping off. We’ll find a way for you to pay what you owe to Stella too, but first the lines must be straightened out.’