Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

‘I am married.’

Casper shrugged. ‘Then you are respectable and all is well.’

‘My husband will not acknowledge me. He says my father tricked him.’

Casper looked up at her. ‘You have proof of the wedding?’ She nodded slowly. ‘And the baby is his? He has lain with you?’ She looked up, her mouth open in shock, and Casper laughed gently. ‘No one tricked him into that . Go to the magistrate then where your husband is, or send your father.’

She started to cry again, and Stephen felt suddenly angry with her. Casper was hurt, and Mr Quince sick, and all she could do was cry. Casper watched her for a while, his knife forgotten in his hand, then patted her awkwardly on her knee. ‘Matter of love, is it? A handsome man. You wish him to come running home from care of you, not fearing the law? If you are free of the child, you think that more like to happen?’

She took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. ‘You think I am foolish.’

‘Foolish as any woman touched by love. And that is a fine fool.’

She picked up one of the half-burned sticks from the old fireplace and began to draw circles in the earth. ‘I was happy. I was only two months out of the convent. I thought my wedding night. . I thought I would be free. .’ She started to draw long vicious lines through the circles. ‘He owed my father money. I think he thought the ceremony a — how do you say it — a “lark”.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘But my father is clever. It was legal. My husband found he was trapped in the morning and left, cursing us both. I want to explain I had no wish to trick him.’

‘Where is your da now?’

‘He says he has business, but he did not come home last night and the landlord says there is money owing. Perhaps he has left me too. I hope he will be at the inn when I return. I want him to take me away from here, but he laughs at me.’ She looked up at Casper, her lip trembling again. ‘I could work! I learned music and languages at the convent — I could teach. I should like to. But I have no money now, and with the child. .’

Casper sniffed. ‘How old are you, lady?’

There was a long pause. ‘Seventeen.’

Casper sighed. ‘Speak no more of herbs, but I shall help you if I can. Where is this man, your husband?’

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, before getting up and saying quickly, ‘Oh, I should not have come. You will not help me!’

‘Sit down, lass. And tell me who this man is and where he bides.’

‘No, I cannot.’ She shook her head. ‘I shall return to the inn, and if my father is not there. . what shall I do? I must get away somehow. If he cannot help me, perhaps someone else might. I need only a little money.’

‘You have an offer of help here, my girl.’

‘Perhaps my father has got hold of some money — I could steal it. And if my father is gone then he must see me. .’

Casper was frowning. ‘These are wild words, girl. The heat is pressing you. Be calm now.’

‘Goodbye, Mr Grace. I thank you for your words, but it is not your help I need.’

Crowther and Harriet rejoined their oarsman on the lakeside in silence and settled into separate contemplation of the movement of the water. Harriet knew Crowther well enough not to interrogate him. Her own thoughts she allowed to empty until the song the oarsman was singing curled round some corner of her mind and tugged on it.

‘What are you singing, Isaiah?’

‘Sorry, madam. It is a habit I fall into when I row.’

She smiled at him. ‘If you would be happy to sing out, I should be glad to give you audience.’

The man nodded and cleared his throat, then in a deep bass that seemed to sing in the wood of the boat, began:

‘And when James came back to his country

And Greta answered his call

The light folk fancied the German King

And must have set their standard for him

For the Luck left Greta’s Castle then

And fortune abandoned them all.’

It was a merry tune for such dark matter. Other verses followed detailing Lord Greta’s escape, and there was a coda that covered his brother’s execution in 1746, but at the conclusion Harriet was still frowning over the first verse. She smiled and patted her hands together as the man finished. He nodded shyly and looked to his oars.

‘So the Luck is lost then?’ she said.

‘Some say Lord Greta dropped it in the lake when he was crossing to meet his men in Keswick, though I don’t believe that. Reckon some bright spark thought that story up so he could get pleasure-seekers leaning out of his boat to look for gleams in the muck.’

‘Why don’t you believe it?’

The man paused in his rowing to point behind him, south along the shore from Silverside Hall. ‘He would ride from there, where the Hall was. Why trouble to cross the lake if you had horse and baggage with you? He’d have just ridden round the top through Portinscale, same as they do every day since from Silverside.’

Harriet leaned forward and put her chin in her hand. ‘Did you ever meet anyone who claimed to have seen the Luck, Isaiah?’

‘Oh aye, madam. There was a woman used to care for me when I was a bairn who served in Gutherscale Hall. She’d seen it — rubbed it clean, she said. Used to love talking on that, she did, and on the love Lord Greta had for his land. Must have tore him up to leave it so.’

Harriet searched in the woodland opposite for any sign of the Hall. Isaiah saw what she was about. ‘Have you seen the ruins yet, madam?’

She nodded. ‘I visited yesterday morning. There is not much of Lord Greta’s home left.’

‘It was all cleaned out by the Crown in the year 1716, then when Lord Keswick, Sir William he was then, bought it we thought he’d be in there, but after the fire he let it rot. Daft to rebuild when he had a house. Careful with his money, he was.’ As he mentioned the 1st Baron his eyes flicked carefully towards Crowther, but the latter gave no sign he had heard his father named.

‘I thought I saw some signs of fire there.’

‘Aye, that was the winter of forty-five. Lit up the sky, it did. You’d remember that, my lord?’

‘I was not at home,’ Crowther said, then fell into silence again.

‘How did it happen, Isaiah?’

‘It was a cold evening, some fool lit a fire there, I suppose to sleep by, and got more warmth than he wished for.’

‘Thank you,’ Harriet said, letting her mind drift again.

‘Glad to oblige, madam,’ he replied, and pulled on the oars with new vigour. Crowther kept his eyes on the haze-clouded hills and did not speak again.

When Fraulein Hurst had left the clearing, Casper called Stephen down to join him without turning his head.

‘How did you know I was there?’ Stephen asked, as he slid down the last of the slope.

‘Joe was sitting on that holly and staring down at you the whole time.’

Stephen turned and saw the grey-headed bird sunning himself just where he had emerged from the undergrowth.

‘He didn’t say anything.’

‘He’s a wise bird.’ Casper examined the herbs that Stephen had gathered then began nipping the buds from some and dropping them into the kettle over his fire. ‘My thanks for this, youngling.’

‘Mr Quince is ill. Will you help him? Mr Crowther sent the physician away.’

Casper looked at him. ‘Your tutor is a young fellow — he might be better for not being meddled with. Nature weaves its ways. What manner of sick is he?’

‘He fell into the lake yesterday. That is, Felix pushed him. He was shivering last night and this morning he is all hot and sweaty and rolls his head about.’

Casper began to pick through the herbs Stephen had gathered again. ‘Have you a handkerchief, lad? A clean one, mind.’