Imogen Robertson: Island of Bones

The hangman had to hold Adair steady and whispered something to him as he slipped first the hood and then the rope around over his head. To Charles, it seemed at once as if the hood had covered his own face. He saw the fierce triangle of the gallows, the thousands around him, but at the same time it seemed that everything had disappeared — that he saw only black cloth, felt the pinch of the ropes on his wrists behind him, the weight of the slack noose round his neck, his own panting breath drawing the weave to his lips. Its stink that of the sweat of other frightened men.

The rope snapped tight and Charles felt his own breath choked out of his throat as his brother’s legs began kicking free in the air. He put his hand to his collar and struggled to breathe. All around him was this impossible noise, the elation of the crowd. Its roar became one with the rushing of his blood in his ears. His mouth tasted bitter. The hangman grabbed onto Adair’s legs and pulled hard. Charles felt his throat constrict still further; it was as if some invisible beast had its thumbs pressing down on the hyoid bone of his neck and was waiting for the snap. Two minutes, perhaps three. All eternity.

The struggling ceased, the people cheered and whistled, and Charles gasped in air again. He lowered his face, waiting for his heart to slow. The body was cut down, and at once the hangman began to divide the rope into portions and sell them to those in the crowd who had managed to push close enough to reach him.

When Charles could look up again, he saw the body being rolled into the coffin. A man he knew vaguely from the College of Anatomy took a seat on its lid like a dog guarding a bone. Would the men he knew feel troubled about dissecting the body of his brother? Perhaps a little, briefly. But bodies were valuable. He had taken no steps to prevent their taking it. Adair had been wearing the same buff coat and silk waistcoat he had worn the previous evening; they would belong to the hangman now.

Charles took a deep breath and stood. Already the crowd was thinning out. The spectacle was over, so the usual day-to-day business resumed.

A man tapped him on the shoulder. ‘So that makes you Lord Keswick now, sir?’

Charles turned his blue eyes on him. ‘What?’

The man looked unsure and glanced over his shoulder to the place where Carmichael and Goffe had been sitting. ‘Fellow up there said you were the brother — the heir to all that money. It’s an ill wind, your lordship.’ He shook his head. ‘Still, that’s some bad blood to inherit.’ There was a gleam in his eye, a certain wet hunger in his lips.

Charles drew on his gloves, his hands shaking only very slightly. Interesting, the strange effects on the physical body the emotions could have. If he could draw his own blood now, at this moment, what would he find in it, he wondered.

‘They were mistaken,’ he said, looking at the man very steadily. The man’s smile faltered and he began under that gaze to look almost afraid.

‘My apologies, sir. And forgive my asking. Only natural to be curious, I’m sure you’ll agree. Such a tale.’

‘Indeed, and I pity Lord Keswick that he must be associated with it.’

‘Of course, sir. My apologies again, sir.’ Charles took a step away, but the man raised his voice. ‘Your name then, sir?’

Charles paused for a second. ‘My name is Gabriel Crowther,’ he said, and disappeared into the crowd.

The summer of 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and full of horrible phenomena; for besides the alarming meteors and thunderstorms that affrighted many counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze or smoky fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within memory of man. By my journal I find that I had noticed this strange occurrence from June 23rd to July 20th inclusive, during which the wind varied to every quarter without making any alterations in the air .

Gilbert White Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne , 1789

The universities do not teach all things, so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers and such outlaws and take lessons from them. . Knowledge is experience .

Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493/4-1541), called Paracelsus

Tuesday, 1 July 1783, St Herbert’s Island, Derwent Water, Cumberland

‘An extra body? What do you mean, an extra body?’

Mrs Hetty Briggs spoke a little more loudly than she had intended and her voice echoed in the stillness of the ruined chapel. Her steward lowered his head. He could not think of what else to add. They were silent a moment, and the hot wind that had so troubled them this summer shook the trees together. In spite of the warmth, Mrs Briggs shivered. She touched her steward’s sleeve and said more quietly, ‘My apologies, Gribben. You had better show me, I think.’

Turning away from him, she remembered the lady and gentleman who had accompanied her here to this little island, part of her husband’s estate amongst the lakes and hills of Cumberland. They had stood a little apart from her while she spoke to her man, but were now frankly staring at her. The gentleman was the local magistrate, Mr Sturgess, and Mrs Briggs was suddenly very glad indeed that he had decided to come with them. The lady, very beautifully dressed for a trip across the lake and a visit to a ruin, was her house-guest for the summer, the Vizegrafin Margaret von Bolsenheim. Her lips were slightly parted and there was a shimmer in her eye.

‘That is,’ Mrs Briggs added, ‘perhaps you should show us all.’

Mrs Briggs had always considered her ownership of St Herbert’s Island as accidental. It was just another feature of the estate her husband had purchased, like the walled garden behind the main house of Silverside, or the lawns that dropped down in front of it to the lake, and like them she regarded it as purely ornamental. The island was a pleasant spot for a picnic and known for its magnificent views of the surrounding hills. In addition, the ruin of the old chapel added something romantic and picturesque for visitors to the area to discover. It was known that Mrs Briggs had no objection to local people, or travellers from elsewhere, drawing their boats up onto the shingle, therefore many took advantage of her generosity and arrived sketchbooks in hand to sample the scenery. Her one nagging concern about the island had always been that the chapel, disused for a hundred years before Mr Briggs acquired the land, still contained the altar-tomb of Sir Luke de Beaufoy, 1st Earl of Greta, and his wife. There they had lain since the middle of the fifteenth century while the walls decayed around them. On the one hand Mrs Briggs did not think it right that they should be disturbed after resting over three hundred years in one place; on the other she knew the walls of the chapel must give way at some point and when they did, the tomb would be smashed and their bones ground back into the clay. That did not seem fitting either.

She had given the thought voice one evening a few days previously while playing Quadrille at Silverside with the Vizegrafin, the Vizegrafin’s son, and Mr Sturgess. The Vizegrafin declared she had always thought the place absolutely perfect for a summerhouse. ‘ So medieval that the local people persist in calling it the Island of Bones,’ she had said, laying down her cards. ‘Let the First Lord Greta and his wife be moved to Crosthwaite Church — far more suitable — then they can call it something nicer. Briggs Island, perhaps,’ she added, and sniggered a little into her cards. Mr Sturgess had supported the Princess wholeheartedly. The Vizegrafin’s son, Felix, had contributed nothing to the conversation but a yawn.