Island of Bones (29 page)

Harriet said nothing, but continued to stroke the girl’s back, just as she did to calm her son when he was ill.

‘When my father came in, I thought he looked so handsome. He had me stand up and make my curtsey, then walked around me as if I were a horse for sale. He spoke to me in French, then English, and nodded and smiled at me. I was so glad. I thought I had done well for him. Then he opened the doors to the other room. They were great doors that fold back between rooms, to make two rooms into one . . .’

Harriet nodded. ‘I know the sort you mean, my dear.’

‘It was darker in that room. There were men there, sat round a card table. Bottles everywhere and cards. Their waistcoats were all undone and the floor was filthy where they had dropped their meat. The pisspot was standing on the side. They must have been at play all night.’

She sighed. ‘I did not like the way they looked at me. They whistled and clapped as if I was at the theatre. My father pushed me forward and one of them tried to put his hand on me. I stepped away, and they all laughed. I looked at my father. He was laughing too.’ Harriet closed her eyes, while the voice continued, rather flat, like a child reciting a lesson learned. ‘They said, “Lucky Christoph! You have a
Jungfrau
for a daughter”.’

‘Virgin,’ said Harriet automatically.

‘They said, “A pretty virgin. You will get a thousand Florins for her”. I ran away then. I did not understand, but I knew it frightened me.’

‘My dear girl . . .’

Sophia looked up into her face with her clear dark eyes. ‘You must not ask questions, if you do not like the answers, Mrs Westerman.’ Harriet looked away. ‘My father kept me in my room. Every evening I was brought down and made to stand in the doorway and they would stare at me and talk as if I was stupid and could understand nothing. Then, ten days after I arrived, my father came into my room and told me I need not come down that night. That instead I was to wait in my room, and a friend of his would come and see me, and I must be nice to this man and do whatever he said.’ The voice seemed remorseless now. Harriet could feel it pressing into her skull, leaving some trace there. ‘I fought. I bit him. He went away shouting.’

‘And your father?’

Sophia dropped her chin. ‘He beat me. Then he left me alone for a while. Then he came to tell me he was sorry for hurting me. When the bruises were healed he took me walking in the park. It was there I first met Herr von Bolsenheim. My father bought me a dress. These people we met outside were more polite. At night I was locked into my room.’

Harriet looked at her hands. Her own history seemed to her nothing but a series of lucky chances. A family that fed and cared for her, a husband who loved her and was lucky and talented enough to become rich, and now, even if some regarded her as an oddity, even if her actions raised the sculpted eyebrows of the
haut ton
from time to time, she was swaddled and shielded by the money he had earned.

Sophia suddenly put her hand on Harriet’s, and Harriet realised with shame that she was being comforted by the sufferer. ‘No one is unhappy all the time, Mrs Westerman,’ she said. ‘Though I was afraid. I thought maybe he was showing me off again, that before long there would be another “friend” . . .’

‘But how came you from that life in Vienna to Keswick of all places?’ Harriet asked gently. ‘Did your father rethink his ways? Was this trip an attempt to atone?’

A look of disgust crossed Sophia’s face. She got up rather hurriedly
and went towards the window, her long white hand resting on the frame. Harriet began to clamber to her feet and attempt to straighten her gown.

‘Who is that?’ Harriet saw that Sophia was standing very still and straight. She joined her at the window and looked out into the road. She recognised the figure just turning into the gateway of the vicarage.

‘That is Mr Sturgess, the magistrate whom we have mentioned,’ Harriet said, and pulled at her sleeves. ‘I am sorry, my dear, but he will most likely have questions for you, after all.’

Sophia turned to her. ‘I cannot answer anything else today. I am unwell. Tell him I shall not see him.’ She crossed towards the door very swiftly.

Harriet held out her hand. ‘Sophia, you have not yet told me . . .’ the door closed behind the fleeing woman ‘. . . how you came to be in Keswick,’ she finished to the empty room.

She sighed and thought of the party at Silverside, then pulled her watch into her hand. They had dined at five the day of their arrival, and it wanted only half an hour to that now. She had left poor Mrs Briggs with another corpse in her outhouse and only information of the servants to let her know what had passed. She would have to follow Miss Hurst’s story another time. The most pressing thing was to try and smooth over any offence she had caused at Silverside, and speak carefully to her son.

She met Mr Sturgess and Miss Scales in the hallway. On hearing that Fräulein Hurst wished to be left alone the rest of the day, Miss Scales was nothing but understanding. Mr Sturgess, however, seemed annoyed. His reply, though apparently polite, made it quite clear to Harriet that he was marking this inconvenience up as the first result of her meddling.

‘I am surprised you wish to speak to the girl, Mr Sturgess,’ Harriet said flatly. ‘You are so convinced that Casper is the guilty man. Have you taken him into custody?’ She heard Miss Scales draw in her breath. Mr Sturgess smoothed a hand over his forehead.

‘Casper was no longer at the stone circle when I arrived. The Constable is conducting a search. He will be found. I came here because I wished to express my condolences.’

Miss Scales replied in slightly clipped tones, ‘I shall carry them this evening to Sophia with her supper tray, Mr Sturgess.’

He was forced to bow and depart unsatisfied at that. As soon as the hall was free of him, Miss Scales turned to Harriet. Her face was a little pink, which made her scars look all the more angry.

‘Casper kill a man? Nonsense!’

Harriet replied mildly, ‘Perhaps Casper believed that Hurst attacked him?’

Miss Scales looked as if she were in danger of stamping her foot. ‘Why on earth should he think such a thing? In any case, Casper has dealt with that business in his own way, as you may have heard. And I know for a fact that you would never allow Stephen to keep company with Casper unless you were absolutely certain he had no part in this.’

Harriet blushed a little. ‘Miss Scales, I did not know that Stephen had gone to Casper again after he delivered the body to us.’ There was a pause.

‘I see.’ Her voice had become suddenly colder.

‘I hope, for Stephen’s sake, you do not think Casper might be guilty,’ Harriet said.

‘I cannot think it. I pray he is not – for the sake of our town, as well as for your son. The people trust in him and his abilities; he is part of the fabric of this place. There are other cunning-men and women in the area, but few use their influence with the care that Casper does. We have been friends of a sort since I was a child.’ Miss Scales put her hand out to touch the wallflowers cut and arranged on the side-table of the hall, and Harriet caught a breath of their fragrance.

‘Miss Scales, this walk through town to the Druid circle. What did Casper mean to achieve?’

Miss Scales continued to examine the flower blossoms for a moment before she replied. ‘He is playing Hamlet, Mrs Westerman. As the Prince with the play, so Casper with his march to the stone circle. He will have watched the reactions of the village, and he will have frightened those who hurt him into thinking the fair-folk will be after them for insulting their
friend. Such is the power of a cunning-man.’ She tapped her foot. ‘Those men must have had a powerful motive for doing so bold-faced a thing. Most of all, I am distressed by Mr Sturgess’s hypocrisy in this matter.’

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 Vizegräfin 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 Vizegräfin, 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 Vizegräfin 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?’