Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

‘A little peace perhaps.’ She ran her hand over the strange stone faces. ‘You have found yourself caught amongst all your old family ties like a fish in a net. You must talk to an old woman who knows the misery of your childhood, you must discuss with your estranged sister the possibility that your father was a murderer. I think that was the implication of the note, and your remarks about your father’s swordstick. You must also contemplate the possibility that all your riches will be spent after your death on the card tables of Europe by your nephew.’ She looked up at Crowther. He was studying the pattern of shade on the floor of the chancel. ‘I am only surprised, Crowther, that you have made this temporary escape. I half-expected you to leave Silverside this morning.’

She waited.

‘Ha!’ he said. She felt her jaw tense, thinking she had over-stepped the limits of their friendship in speaking so frankly, then realised he was not speaking to her at all. Instead, he thrust his cane towards her and, with the air of a pointer spotting game, fell to his knees then produced a knife from his pocket and began to work at a gap between two flagstones some feet in front of her.

‘I need my tweezers. I should have brought my instruments with me.’

He rocked back, frowning. Harriet set down his cane and reached into her red hair. She pulled something loose and handed it to him. A silver hairclip, on a steel base, hinged and sprung, tapering to a fine point. He tried it; the two fine points closed neatly and firmly.

‘Excellent,’ he said, and bent forward again. The ornament did its work, the flat points coming together with a satisfying click, and he pulled something free. He dropped it into his palm, handing the clip to Mrs Westerman, and as she wiped it on her glove then with practised fingers worked it back into her hair, he examined his find in the thin light that fell across them from the high overgrown windows, turning it in the whispering shadows of the vines. She knew better than to ask what he was about, instead watching patiently till he turned towards her and lifted his palm. Across it lay an ugly shard of metal roughly the length of Harriet’s thumb. One side worked, the other was rough.

‘Is that the sword tip? How on earth did you find it?’

He stood and brushed the dirt from his knees. ‘Luck, largely, I am grieved to say. If the man had been killed anywhere other than in this church, then it would be as simple to roll his body into the lake. If the shard survived here through forty years, it most likely must have worked its way between the flagstones. Then as you were speaking, the shadows moved and the shape caught my eye.’

‘Lucky indeed.’

‘I had the advantage of knowing exactly what I was looking for.’

‘You seem well content for a man who has just proved his father guilty of murder,’ she said.

‘I have done no such thing, Mrs Westerman,’ he said impatiently. ‘I have shown that the man in the tomb was most likely killed with a thin blade. I have also shown that my father’s swordstick was broken here. That is all. It may still be this man was a victim of Adair.’

‘But Mrs Tyers’s note, Crowther! And why should a man pursuing Adair for debt be carrying a snuffbox — a gift from Lord Greta — as he did so?’

‘My brother was always in want of money. Suppose he knew something of my father’s business and thought he could sell the information to the former owner of these lands, or his agents.’

‘You normally accuse me of wild supposition.’

‘The habit must be catching.’

‘Could your brother have stolen the cane, then?’

Crowther hesitated. ‘It is unlikely. The cane rarely left my father’s side, Mrs Westerman. It was a wedding present from my mother, and he valued it above all things.’

She turned to look at it. The silver bundle of foliage at the head of the cane glowed in the weak and creeping light like an icon placed for the believers to worship. Her mouth was a little dry. His only inheritance; for all these years, Crowther had been leaning his slight weight on an instrument of murder.

‘We must speak to the Vizegrafin,’ she said at last.

Casper gave Stephen very precise instructions on the various herbs he was to gather, and the boy returned to the clearing slowly turning the leaves over in his hands to be sure he had the right ones. His search had taken him higher up Swinside, so he approached the clearing through the trees above it. He was only a few feet from the camp when he heard a woman’s voice, and dropped to his knees.

‘You are hurt, Mr Grace,’ it said, soft and precise. It was the Austrian lady. He hesitated, suddenly shy of joining them, of being a child between adults again.

‘What was that?’ the woman said.

He heard Casper sigh. ‘No creature that will do you harm, I reckon. And I will live through my hurt. Rest for a moment, miss.’

Stephen wondered if he should retreat up the hillside again, but he would not know how long to wait and was impatient to give Casper the herbs he had gathered. Perhaps she would not stay long. He could just make them out through the holly branches. Casper and Miss Hurst were sitting opposite each other on a pair of the low stones by the outside fireplace. The lady was drinking thirstily from a wooden cup. When she was finished, she wiped her mouth with her handkerchief and held the cup out to Casper. He took it from her, looking serious but kind. She smiled at him, but seeing his expression flushed and looked down again.

‘You should not walk so fast in your condition, lady, so very early in the day. You must have had more than an hour in the heat already, and you ladies never dress for walking,’ Casper said, so quietly Stephen had to strain to hear him. Sophia drew in her breath sharply and then began to cry. Stephen frowned, wanting to comfort her, but at the same time wishing she would leave. She wept very quietly, with her head still low.

‘I had thought no one might know it yet,’ she said at last.

Casper drew his bit of wood from his pocket and his knife from his belt and began work before replying. ‘Not many would, from looking at you. It was half a guess. Though you taking sick when you found me says it loud.’

‘You are wise then, in these matters.’

‘There are women in the village better able to tend to you than I.’

‘I heard you spoken of as the cunning-man in these parts. That little boy Stephen said. .’

The mention of his name made Stephen feel suddenly guilty, though he could not say why. He drew up his knees and rested his cheek against them.

‘I do no scrying.’ Casper worked his knife hard into the wood, with his brows drawn together. ‘I shall not look into the water and tell you about your life to come.’

‘But they say you know herbs. There are herbs for what ails me.’

Casper’s knife stopped suddenly. ‘There are. Tansy, Pennyroyal if you know what to do with them, but lady, do not ask me. There might be a thing I’ll do for a sick woman with five little ones to feed already, but I shall not do them for you. It’s playing dice with the Devil and can kill you or take you to Hell first. You are young. And if it is the shame you are thinking of, here you are away from the world, you know.’

Miss Hurst shook her head.

‘There’s life there,’ Casper continued deliberately. His bruises made him look very fierce. ‘And it wants to be. Go to Kendal, call yourself a widow then go back home saying you have picked up an English orphan.’

‘It is not possible! You say it as if it were simple, but it is not.’

Casper took up his carving again. ‘It is simple. Man lies with woman then there comes children and the caring of them.’