Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

Harriet kept her eyes lowered while he spoke. She heard his breathing, and looked up to see him with his back to her, his head lowered and staring across the churchyard into the meadows between Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite. ‘Crowther,’ she said very quietly, ‘let me speak.’ He did not move, so wetting her lips she smoothed out the paper in her hand and began to read.

Dear Mrs Westerman ,

I am well thank you as is Sam, who asks to be remembered to you. We continue just as we were though Boyo does not like the heat of the season. Morgan found me with your note yesterday evening and read it to me. I had the night to think on it and so now will answer you. You ask me to tell you everything I remember about the death of Lord Keswick, and so I shall, though I don’t think Mr Crowther will want to hear it again. Thinking on it seems to stir up all his devils, and he spends half his energy trying to sit on them. Maybe you will have better luck than I at getting him to face them and knock them down .

Harriet glanced up at Crowther’s profile. He remained entirely still, but she could see he was listening. She found her place in the letter again and continued:

I was just thirteen when the Baron died and living with my aunt in Portinscale. She was a hard woman, and not over fond of me so I kept away from her and spent all the hours I could out wandering and listening to the winds talking. On the day Lord Keswick died it was foul enough weather to keep most folks in, so I was surprised to see a gentleman at the edge of the woods. I was on the far side of the field by the lake, some twenty yards away, but I’ll answer for it: there was a man there in a dark green coat. It was the colour made me curious. I thought it might be one of the new footmen the Baron had just lately hired, because he was a burly type like them, but they all wore red like soldiers do, not green. I was told later I might have seen Mr Adair, because he wore green that day, but he was as thin and tall a man as Mr Crowther is now. The magistrate wanted me to say about the man in the green coat that it was Mr Adair, but when I swore it wasn’t, he told me I was a stupid girl. They all thought me stupid since I could never get my eyes round written words. Then he called me a liar and said so to my aunt too. I ran away a while after. But they couldn’t shake that picture from my head. There was a big man in a green coat bent over a man on the ground. I couldn’t see it was Lord Keswick then, but I saw there was something evil in it and let out a yelp. The big man turned round, but I don’t reckon he saw me. I dressed in brown and grey like all the village in them days, so I’d disappear into the woods like water into a stream, but I was scared so I ran away and hid up on Catbells till the cold drove me home .

If you chance to meet with my brother Casper Grace while you are at Silverside, can I ask you for the friendship we have, to give him my greetings and tell him I am well, and if he is in want I would think it most kind if you would put a guinea in his hand from his fond sister who thinks of him still, and I shall certainly send it back to you as soon as you wish it, for I am busy and have it to give. Any note you might send me to tell me how he goes will be held and looked for here at the chophouse in St Martin’s Lane if you put my name on it, and thankfully received by your respectful servant, and Mr Crowther’s too, of course ,

Jocasta Bligh

Written by Thomas Ripley as Mrs Bligh spoke it on this day 9 July 1783 and despatched with his best wishes the same day .

Crowther had not moved at all, and still looking into the distance said in a dull and tired voice, ‘It is just as she described it to myself, Mrs Westerman. I am at a loss to understand why you find the narrative so significant, though it reminds us we must write and tell her of what has befallen her brother today. If Mr Sturgess captures Casper and takes him to Carlisle, he will have need of friends.’

‘That will be a pleasant letter to write. “Dear Jocasta, your brother is considered a madman and hunted through the fells for murder by the local magistrate”.’ Harriet bit her lip and said more gently, ‘There is one thing here though, Crowther, that you have not spoken of to me before. Who are these “burly footmen” your father had lately hired?’

Crowther looked round at her, abandoning for the first time the view over the fields. ‘I cannot say. Mrs Tyers did mention when I arrived that some of the casual servants had been given a month’s wages in lieu of notice. My father became somewhat eccentric after my mother’s death, withdrew from local society, and his former friends tell me they were turned away at the door.’

‘Crowther, do you see yet what I am trying to suggest? A man refuses company and hires new servants notable for their size. Do you think that after your mother’s death, Lord Keswick might have become aware of some threat on his life, and this withdrawal from society, the presence of these men, might have been an attempt to protect himself? Do you think he feared Adair?’

Crowther shook his head. ‘No. Adair he loved. He was angry with him over his debts, over his debauchery with his friends, but I never saw him go in fear of him.’

‘It seems to me he feared something in those months before his death, Crowther. You thought that Adair was responsible for the skeleton on the island. Now the point that came from your father’s swordstick and the letter of Mrs Tyers about the stranger with the snuffbox seem to suggest that your father might have been guilty of that murder. What if Adair were innocent of patricide? What if your father were killed by someone who knew he was responsible for the death of the Jacobite on the island?’

‘And the betrayal of Rupert de Beaufoy.’

Harriet remained very still. Crowther had told her he had attended his brother’s trial and execution. She knew he had always considered his guilt beyond doubt, but wondered if that faith in his brother’s venality had begun to be questioned. To give up a certainty, even when it is a cruel one, is painful. We do not know how firmly we have bound our truths into our lives till we try and rip one free.

‘You are a remarkable woman, Mrs Westerman, to talk to a man of such things as you stand on his mother’s grave.’

Harriet met the coldness of his eyes steadily. ‘You said, Crowther, that she did not hear us.’

For a moment she was afraid she had made him very angry, then he sighed. ‘So I did. Very well. I think we must go our separate ways this afternoon, after all. Today’s events need your attention. Those of some years ago are still demanding mine. I shall look over Jocasta’s letter again, then visit Lottie Tyers and ask her to explain her note. After that a visit to the museum, I think. We shall meet back at Silverside and pick over whatever, if anything, we have learned.’

Harriet felt the relief touch her skin like a breeze. ‘You go to see Mr Askew?’

Crowther smoothed the silver ball at the head of his cane with his right hand. ‘You are right in one way I fear, Mrs Westerman, you and Jocasta. I must continue the battle with the old demons, having begun, and that means discovering more of my own history. For a little while I shall make Mr Askew the Virgil to my Dante.’

The thought of Mr Askew in the habit of an Ancient Roman made Harriet grin, as she was sure was the intention. She began to follow the other ladies slowly out of the graveyard, then before she had reached the angle of the church, she turned round again. Crowther had leaned his cane against his mother’s headstone, and rested his elbow on the same. He was reading Jocasta’s letter again. Harriet continued on her way.