Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

Harriet frowned. ‘You think Mr Sturgess a hypocrite?’

Miss Scales glanced over towards her father’s study rather guiltily. ‘I should make no such charge, but it burns me a little. When Sturgess first arrived in Keswick he sought Casper out! He was in the grips of his fascination with the local history even then, and spoke most respectfully to him in order to find out what he could. That was before he tried to excavate at the stone circle, of course. I believe that when he found he could not ride roughshod over the people in such a matter, it decided him to buy his way into the role of magistrate. Then when he became magistrate and found the people were still as likely to go to Casper as to him for redress against their neighbours he cast himself as a warrior of reason and has sought to condemn him at every turn. Pride. The people of these villages are as good or bad as any, but their respect must be earned. Mr Sturgess seems to think that respect should be his by rights.’

‘So you do believe Casper is innocent of this killing?’

‘Yes,’ Miss Scales said simply.

Harriet hesitated. ‘There was mistletoe in the man’s pockets.’

‘No doubt Casper put it there, to protect the man’s spirit and stop it wandering.’

Harriet shook her head. ‘This mix of pagan and Christian confuses me, Miss Scales. I cannot understand it.’

‘Dear Mrs Westerman, do not even try! Just know this: belief in these old ways, braided as they are with Christian teachings, lie deep in these hills. And belief makes things powerful, very powerful, and we would all do well to respect that. Do not understand it. Respect it. That is all.’

It didn’t take Casper long to find the place where Agnes had reburied the poppet. There was a spot between the roots of a rowan where the earth had been turned. He scraped the loose stuff away until he could see the pale straw figure wrapped in rowan leaves and berries. He lifted it out. It was neatly made. Agnes had set harebells in its face as eyes, the same blue as Stella’s. Clumps of raw dark wool had been worked into the straw for hair and it was wearing a folded blue handkerchief as a dress. It had been washed as he instructed, and he could see no trace of blood on it now. He pulled the handkerchief loose and a handful of leaves fell from it. Henbane and rue. He could feel the power on it. He would burn it on his own fire among healing herbs. Agnes would need guiding, but she would be powerful indeed in time.

Blanche Grice was eavesdropping in his mind. ‘Shame she’s lost then, isn’t it? Shame you most likely went and dropped her in a hole.’

He ignored her, and looked about him. The sudden rain of last night had caused a dozen little riverlets to run, but the earth in which the poppet had been buried was still dust dry, so she had been here before the waters came. He tried to think about the beating. He was sure that the storm had come while they were still at work on him. Yes, it had scared them. There had been a pause, a consultation with another man, then they had dropped him and gone into his cabin. He looked about him again. He had told Agnes to wait here till dawn. Where would she have hidden when the rain came? He turned round slowly. Perhaps she had gone higher first to try and get sight of the fireworks, though missing them was supposed to be part of her penance. He walked up the slope away from the trees then looked towards the lake, then back down the way he had come. He could see the three cabins that made up his summer home.

Blanche Grice had started to sing. She made Joe sound like an angel, but Casper smiled. She did that when she wanted to stop him thinking on something. He went back into his memory of the night before, felt the blow to his ribs, the taste of his own blood in his mouth. In the rain, when they seemed to have it in mind to start in on him again, a shape had come through the woods. He had heard a call, then another blow across his head had made him stupid. The next memory he could find was the heat of morning and Stephen’s voice calling him.

‘I did her no harm,’ he said aloud. ‘She came to my aid.’

The witch gave up singing now that the memory had come back to him. ‘Where is she then?’ she said, sulky and slippery.

‘I shall find her.’

He turned back towards his camp, his fire and his duties.

Mrs Briggs was nothing but welcoming when Harriet arrived in the drawing room finally dressed for dinner, full of apologies and half an hour late.

‘No, Mrs Westerman, you have done quite the right thing.’ She said this with a significant glance at the Vizegrafin and Harriet realised that the town’s display of displeasure with Mrs Briggs’s uncomfortable guests had given her courage. ‘You and I shall speak of all these matters after we have dined, I hope. In the meantime I shall say only I am glad that you are here to aid us in these difficult times. Cook is quite happy to hold dinner for such an insignificant time when you are doing so much for us.’

Harriet thought briefly how pleasant the world would be, were more people in it like Mrs Briggs, and they went into dinner.

‘How did Miss Hurst take the news?’ Felix asked, after they had been seated some time.

‘Calmly,’ Harriet replied. The thought of the girl being insulted and turned away by the Vizegrafin, then Felix’s refusal to deliver word to Sophia himself made her angry. Felix deserved no news about her. She thought of the flat empty voice in which Miss Hurst had told her of her past; it made her hate all men and Felix in particular.

‘Did you know, Felix, that Miss Hurst left the convent in which she had spent most of her life only six months ago, since when her father tried to prostitute her to the men he had gulled into playing cards with him?’ She put some of the game pie onto her plate. ‘She had to fight, and was beaten for her resistance.’

Harriet felt the movement of one of the footmen behind her, and her glass was filled. She cursed inwardly. She had, in her anger, forgotten about the presence of the servants, and here was Mrs Briggs’s footman in the most subtle of ways reminding her of it himself.

‘I did not,’ Felix said. For a moment he sounded almost like Crowther.

Mrs Briggs began to talk about the danger of chills with a certain determination, and went on to say how glad she was Stephen had fetched a brew from Casper.

The Vizegrafin was largely silent, till waving away the joint that Mrs Briggs was offering her, she looked at Harriet and demanded, ‘Where is my brother? Is he cutting up the Austrian?’

Harriet wet her lips slightly. ‘He wished to visit your old housekeeper, then I believe it was his intention to call on Mr Askew.’

‘What — Lottie Tyers?’ The Vizegrafin shuddered. ‘I can’t believe that old woman is still living; she seemed ancient when I was a child.’

Mrs Briggs put down the joint. ‘I told you of her on the first day you arrived, Vizegrafin,’ she said very precisely. ‘I thought you might wish to see a woman so intimately associated with your childhood.’

The Vizegrafin shrugged. ‘She was a servant.’

The rest of the meal passed in silence.

Mr Askew was never absolutely punctual about the hour his museum closed. He lived in fear of shutting his door just as some member of the quality, whose name could add further lustre to his visitors’ book, might be pondering a visit. At around a quarter to the hour advertised of five o’clock he would generally appear in the square, looking up and down the street for any ladies or gentlemen who seemed to be at leisure to let them know his museum was still at their disposal, and in their absence he mourned the looks of his town. He could not help feeling that most of the houses which surrounded his museum looked hunched and low. He wished he could white-wash the whole settlement. The same thought came into his mind every night as the clock-chimes faded, regular as the bells. Only some minutes after the hour had struck would he, with a last look about him and a sigh, confess that he had had all the custom likely in the day, and return to his front door with slow steps and draw it closed. Such were his actions now.