Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

There was a long pause. She could almost hear her words being weighed to see if there was truth in them. There was a weakness there. Fowler might believe Casper knew something threatening was in the wind, but would the other man? Silence. She felt herself relax a fraction, then that cold tip was on her temple again and, hearing the rapid drawing of the bow, she whimpered. The grip on her hand was suddenly released and she threw herself to the ground. There was a sharp song from the bow and a whistling noise, then she heard a thud as the arrow shot into darkness beyond the barricade.

Isaac’s voice was high and keening like his son’s. ‘You said! She told you! Why did you do that?’

There was the sound of a blow, and she heard Fowler grunt. Then a low curse. One set of footsteps quick into the darkness, followed by the scuttle of Fowler’s feet, and his whining complaints fading up the tunnel. Agnes breathed in and at once felt her stomach clench. She stumbled into the far corner to vomit up what little there was in it, then crawled back to the barricade and lay there panting. She hoped she had done the right thing. She had thought of everyone she knew in the village, but they all seemed too vulnerable, too open. The German girl Swithun had mentioned was at the vicarage, he said, surrounded by the protection of the gentry. Swithun and his father couldn’t get close to her. The story of her taking it away made sense, and everyone had seen Casper being friendly towards the girl. Still, Agnes was afraid she had set something bad on her and was scared. She felt fat tears gather behind her eyes and all of a sudden she was shaking so hard her teeth rattled. She gathered the blanket around her and rocked back and forth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the dark. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to die.’

Harriet was not absolutely satisfied with her letter, but she folded and sealed it in any case. On her way downstairs to the post tray in the hall she heard raised voices coming from the library. The door was closed, and although she could not hear the words distinctly, she thought those arguing were Felix and the Vizegrafin. The door swung open and she stepped into the shadows of the dining room a moment, then peered round. It was indeed Felix. He was in the drawing-room doorway, apparently delivering his parting shot to whoever was within.

‘I have made my decision, Mother. ‘We have been very wrong.’

The Vizegrafin now joined him in the light. ‘Felix, listen to me! You shall be ruined! There is no proof — how could there be?’ She placed her hand on her son’s arm. He lifted it to his lips, then let it fall.

‘You cannot dissuade me.’

For a moment the Vizegrafin looked up at him, her bottom lip quivering, then she covered her face in her hands and ran up the stairs, her shoulders shaking. Felix watched her go, then crossed the hall into the billiard room. Harriet emerged from the shadows, dropped her letter onto the salver in the hall, then returned slowly up the stairs.

From the collection of Mr Askew, Keswick Museum

From The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure , December 1752

Extract of a letter from Paris, 15 October:

Reports reached us yesterday of the death of Edmund de Beaufoy, 7th Earl of Greta, and his wife whom he survived for only three days. His poverty after his exile and his grief over his brother’s execution and the forfeiture of his property in Cumberland has been well-documented, but what is perhaps less known is that in his final two years of life, Lord Greta abandoned strong drink and instead drunk deep of his religion. He developed the habit of spending many hours of each day in prayer at his lady’s side, and it is believed that the fever which took both husband and wife was contracted moving amongst the poor doing works of charity. How much comfort this reformation brought him is difficult to judge: though his friends reported he seemed much more at peace in his final months, the last cogent utterance he gave on hearing that his wife had passed was thus, ‘May she find Heaven; the rest of us shall burn together in Hell.’

Saturday, 19 July 1783

There might have been a moon silvering the lake, but the corridor outside Stephen’s room was still so dark he could not make out the shape of his hand when he held it in front of his eyes. He groped his way very gently along the wall, brushing his fingers over the rises and falls of the panelling. This door led to the Vizegrafin’s rooms, then some three yards along was the door to his mother’s chambers. He paused there, and thought how simple it would be to turn the handle and go and shake her awake and tell her what he was about. It was only for a moment though. He knew his mother was clever, but she did not understand everything. Casper had given him a task and he’d perform it as he had been asked.

He continued to trace the panelling forward until it disappeared at the top of the stairs. The atrium of the hall let some of the moonlight in; shadows fell into ashy piles into the corners. Stephen thought of his friend at home, Jonathan Thornleigh, Earl of Sussex. He hated the dark. For the first time Stephen was glad his friend was not with him. Ever since his own father had been killed, Jonathan’s nights were full of monsters. He would have seen creeping cracked faces hiding under the stairs, and thought the witches would be waiting for him in the gardens.

Stephen crept down the stairs and turned towards the kitchens. The back door was unbolted, which he thought strange until he noticed the light coming from the brew house. Even as he watched, he saw Crowther’s narrow profile cross the window. Stephen was comforted that Crowther was awake. He closed the door behind him and, quietly as he could, stole out among the shadows.

The moon just lightened the darkness of the path to the edge of the park. Stephen kept his hand tight round his wooden Luck and trotted down the slope towards Portinscale. The woods seemed to give off stronger scents in the night, and the polished leaves of the ivy glimmered the same silver as the lace on his mother’s sleeves.

Harriet stared at the darkness. She could not think who would have killed Mr Hurst if it were not the young man sleeping a few yards away from her. Or Casper? There seemed to be no alternatives, so she must be wrong about one or other of them. She thought of the great many people there had been at Mrs Briggs’s garden party. Any of them could have disappeared for half an hour, the arrows for the competition on their thigh, disposed of Mr Hurst, thrown branches over him then sauntered down for another ice. Mr Hurst and his daughter had come to Keswick to pursue Felix for debt. Too far, surely? Had they come by coincidence, and Hurst had seen in Felix a way to refill his purse? What then of this letter, and the advertisement from Cockermouth? That could have nothing to do with Felix, surely? It indicated some separate matter. She sat up and hugged her knees. Could Hurst have been behind Casper’s beating, then Casper killed him in revenge? No one other than Sturgess seemed to believe that. She flung herself back onto her pillow with a sigh.

Stephen had received very precise instructions. He crept round the back of the Black Pig and, having checked the windows were dark and quiet, picked his way among the old barrels and broken wood to the grille of the game locker that gave onto the inn cellar. Beyond it he could see the shadows of dead pheasants hanging by their necks, their soft bodies still and warm, their heads falling forward like tired women at the edges of a ballroom. He took the padlock in his hand. It was the size of a coin purse, and light. From his bag he slowly removed the butterknife he had put in his pocket at supper and slid it into the top of the lock, then biting his lip began driving it in where the shackle clicked into its body. His fingers were beginning to sweat and just when he thought the lock might give, the knife slipped and bruised flesh at the base of his thumb. He yelped and the padlock knocked against the bars. He went very still, sucking at the sore spot and glad he had not purloined a sharper knife. He waited, frozen and listening, but heard only the shout of a vixen calling to her cubs and the soft shiver of branches.