Island of Bones (38 page)

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

T
HERE 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 Vizegräfin’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.

Drawing in his breath, Stephen began to work at the lock again. This time he slid the knife in at a slightly different angle. It clicked brusquely and the shackle popped outwards. Stephen grinned and looked about him as if he expected the broken barrels to congratulate him, then slid the padlock free and put it in his pocket. The grating swung open. There was a fierce creak and Stephen gritted his teeth. Still nothing. He checked his bag was secure over his shoulder and crawled in among the feathery corpses.

Though Crowther was examining the body of Mr Hurst, it was the mysteries of his own past that went tumbling through his mind that night. His imagination was still filled by the portraits of his father and brother that Mr Askew had so proudly displayed to him. He heard some noise at the back of the house and glanced out of the window. It never became completely dark at this season when the moon was large. He could still see the hunkered mass of St Herbert’s Island, dark on the dull silver of the lake. He thought of what he had learned of his father. Where had that first money come from? Had he managed to steal it somehow from the deserted possessions of Lord Greta? Then this follower of Greta’s, the arsonist, had demanded it back in ’45. Why not simply pay him off? Sir William was a wealthy man by that time.
Instead he had killed the messenger and, most likely, found de Beaufoy’s location from him before the murder and parlayed that information into more influence with his King and his government. Then events had caught up with him. When had Greta died? If he had learned that Sir William had betrayed his brother, Crowther could imagine that Lord expending all his last resources in pursuing him. After all, he had preferred to see Gutherscale burn than let it fall into Sir William’s hands. And Adair – well, Adair was as practised as any weak character in believing what he wished. It would have been easy to persuade him to lead his now reclusive father into the open, especially if Adair thought his father’s seclusion was a result of grief rather than fear, and Sir William would never have admitted to his children that he was afraid.

Sighing, Crowther folded back his sleeves and turned to the patient body of Mr Hurst.

The taproom of the Black Pig smelled sour, but Stephen did not think it unpleasant. It was a manly smell. The wide fireplace gaped on one wall like an entrance to a great cave, the pint pots over it glinting jewel-like. Long clay pipes sat in a rack pinned up on the wall by a long piece of slate, covered in initials and chalk-marks. Stephen picked up one of the pipes, put it into his mouth and sucked on it, as he had seen Casper do. The taste was bitter and made the tip of his tongue sting. He set it back on the rack hurriedly.

He stood as near as he could to the centre of the room opposite the street door, and with his back towards the steps to the cellar and game locker, then looked up to count the roofbeams above him. The third. It was very thick and entirely in shadow. He stared at it and sucked his teeth, then gently lifted a stool from its place by one of the tables and set it under the beam. The ceilings were low in these cottages, designed to hunker down among the winds that swept over from Bassenthwaite. Setting his bag on the floor among the sawdust, he clambered up on top of the stool, standing slowly to feel where the legs might wobble
on the flags. He was not afraid and was proud to realise he was brave, but then this was Casper’s place, and he was here on his orders. The walls and hanging pots approved. He reached above his head and cupped the beam in his palms, looking straight ahead so as not to lose his balance and trusting his fingers to find the place in the wood.

There was the seam in the deep dark under his left hand. He felt along from it with his right, till his fingers felt the straight line going against the curve of the grain. His arms were beginning to burn, but he didn’t dare lower them and shake the blood back into them for fear of losing the place. He began to pull very gently. The wood sighed, then suddenly gave. For a moment Stephen was afraid he was going to fall over backwards, but the stool stood firm under him. He took the rough panel in his left hand and reached back into the hiding-place with his right. He found it at once: the touch of leather under his fingers. He curled them round and pulled it out. Then: footsteps. Outside, on the road from Keswick. Stephen froze, afraid any movement would attract the attention of the passer-by. He could see right out into the road from where he stood, and should anyone look in from the road as they passed, they would be sure to see him. His white shirt would stand out like a flag in the gloom.

The footsteps came closer, someone walking quickly. Stephen remained absolutely still, the leather pouch still held above his head. The shadow of a man passed through the theatre of the window. Stephen willed him to keep walking and held his breath. The walker disappeared and Stephen heard the footsteps retreat. Not till they had faded completely in the stillness did he dare move again. He lowered the pouch and stuck it into his waistband with his arms tingling painfully. All he wanted now was to be gone. The wooden panel he worked back into its place as well as he could, then he knelt down to get off the stool and moved it back beside the table before he dared take out the pouch again. It was deep brown and stitched into a cross. He smiled. There had been no dragon perhaps, but he had it in his hands, the gift of the fair-folk, the charm of the valley, the Luck of Gutherscale Hall. His fingers touched
the fastening. Would it be wrong to look? Casper had not told him not to, but then it did not seem right. It was more honourable, somehow, to hand it to Casper unopened. He lifted the case and tilted it to see what he could of the fastening. It was tied well and the string looked old and dirty. He returned the pouch to his waist, headed back for the cellar and game locker, then out into the night.

The padlock would not click back together again, and he was wondering what to do about it when he heard a door open and whispering. He crept to the shadow of one of the old barrels and peered round it. It was the man Casper had told him to look out for, and his mother. By the light of her candle Stephen could see Swithun’s shirt was torn. It looked like it had blood on it. His mother did not seem happy to see him – she was shaking her head and he had his hands lifted. Then she stepped aside and let him in. Stephen wondered what to do. His first impulse was to run away, but then he could tell Casper nothing about where Swithun might be hiding. He waited. It was not long till Swithun came out again, in a clean shirt this time. Stephen watched as he tried to kiss his mother, but she shut the door in his face. Swithun hesitated and put his hand to his shoulder, then turned away and set out across the fields behind Portinscale. North. Stephen started to breathe again and touched the leather case of the Luck. He was certain it felt warm.

When he returned to Silverside, the light in the brew house was still burning, and the back door unbolted. He tucked the pouch into his pillowcase and fell asleep dreaming of dragons.

It was only two hours later that the landlord of the Black Pig called for his wife. She found him by the game locker scratching his head and holding the padlock to the game locker in his hand.

‘Have we had thieves again, Tom?’ she asked, peering past him to where the birds swung in permanent gloom.

He shook his head. ‘I counted. Nothing gone. Just saw the grate was open, and the lock broke and sat on the flag there.’

‘There’s peculiar.’

‘Not the last of it either,’ the man said. ‘I found this sitting beside it – payment for snapping it, I suppose.’ He opened his hand and showed his wife a rather dirty shilling.

‘Casper been here, you think?’ his wife said.

‘Maybe, maybe.’ He scratched his nose. ‘Let’s keep it close, Issy. No need to mention it, I’d say.’

She took the shilling from his hand. ‘No need at all, Tom.’

Harriet left the breakfast table before either Felix or the Vizegräfin had made an appearance, and went to join Crowther in the old brew house. She found him stitching up the torso of Mr Hurst, and was reminded of the sailors mending the sails. He shared their combination of concentration and practised ease. He looked up at her.

‘Is it morning?’

‘There are windows, Crowther. How could you not notice?’ She picked up the lamp from the table and blew out the candle. Crowther paused only to note that the light of the room did not alter considerably, and returned to his stitching. Realising that Crowther did not think the question merited a reply, she asked another.

‘What did you learn from the body? I note you have not opened the skull.’

He cut his thread, and returned needle and scissors to the leather roll.

‘I thought the coroner’s men had better see the wound as it is first,’ he said. ‘Any word on when the inquest is to be held?’ After she shook her head he lifted the sheet from where it lay over Mr Hurst’s waist and drew it up over his face. ‘Sturgess is taking his time about arranging it.’