Island of Bones

III.6

As the carriage rattled down the slope Harriet bit her lip and stared out of the window.

‘Speak, Mrs Westerman,’ Crowther said at last.

‘What possible motive could Casper Grace have for killing this man? A stranger, a foreigner. .’

‘Perhaps the witches told him to do it.’

‘I have spoken to Mrs Briggs and Miss Scales about Casper Grace. He does believe that witches and spirits speak to him, and they are sometimes cruel, but he has been hearing them for over twenty years! They began soon after his father’s death. Why should he do this now? There have been foreigners and strangers enough to provide sacrifice pouring through Keswick every summer.’

Crowther turned to the view from his side of the phaeton. It did not inspire him. ‘The season is unusual. Perhaps he believes the hills demand a sacrifice to carry off this dry fog. I read in the news-sheet that only last week, the magistrate in Kendal put a man in the stocks who claimed that the end of days was upon us. When the magistrate arrested him, he had already gathered a crowd of acolytes around him.’

She shook her head. ‘Lucky Kendal to have such a magistrate. But Casper does not seem a fool or a zealot.’

‘We do not know the story of his beating. Perhaps this was an act of revenge. To bring the body out of the woods would be an unusual act for a murderer, I concede. However, Casper is eccentric, and the act of killing may fracture a mind already weakened with the chatter of witches. Did not Stephen say that Grace believed that rainstorms protected the stones from the archaeological fervour of Mr Sturgess?’

‘He was repeating a story for their entertainment. And he told Stephen that same day that the traditions of blood sacrifice were long over. .’ She let her sentence trail away.

Crowther cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Westerman, I know you are not simply thinking of Casper Grace. Let it be said.’ She did not answer him. ‘You are wondering if Felix had anything to do with this death. He knew the man. He described him as a cardsharp. Presumably my nephew owed him money. The death was not accidental. Judging by his pocket-watch, Mr Hurst was not robbed, so it is likely his murder was a personal affair We are aware of only one person in the area who knew him, other than his daughter. And that is Felix.’

‘Perhaps his daughter killed him,’ she said, almost sulkily.

‘If so, that was quite a piece of theatrics she gave us this morning.’

‘Many women are accomplished actresses, Crowther. It is a useful skill. Naturally I am wondering about Felix, but I find I cannot speculate freely about these deaths that crowd your family history. How can I say to your face with my usual carelessness that your father or nephew may have murdered?’

‘You need not be so careful on my account, Mrs Westerman.’

She snorted. ‘Nonsense! Your father’s murder and your brother’s execution have haunted you thirty years. We should never have come here. I thought only of escaping my role in Hartswood as the local tragedy for a while. I think you thought only of the same. Now we are caught between old mysteries and new horrors. I cannot build castles of speculation in the air, and expect you to find the evidence to give them foundation here. It is all too close.’

Crowther lowered his chin as he let the truth of what she had said filter through his mind. ‘Perhaps it is time I faced my demons. In their way, they pursue me just as Casper’s do him. I have become too old to outrun them.’

He was speaking almost to himself He felt her hesitate, then she put her hand into her pocket and produced a letter. ‘It is interesting you use that phrase. I received this today. It is Jocasta Bligh’s account of what she saw on the day of your father’s murder.’

‘I have heard it.’

‘I know, Crowther. But I think you should hear it again.’

It was a long hour. But eventually Casper put his pipe back in his pocket and cleared his throat. ‘News will have lapped up all over by now,’ he said.

‘Of the body?’ Stephen asked.

‘Of the body, of my hurts and the Black Pig. Time to take a place in the story.’ He stood carefully with the help of his ash staff. It made Stephen think of Crowther’s polished cane, though he hardly ever saw Crowther put any weight on his stick, and Casper was leaning heavily on his.

‘It is a serious hurt,’ Casper said after a few minutes of silent walking.

‘Your injuries, you mean, Mr Casper?’ Stephen said.

Casper shook his head. ‘They are bad enough. But a man must have a powerful reason to take to robbing or beating me.’ It was said without pride, but rather a concerned curiosity, a serious man thinking through serious matters.

‘Because people are afraid of you?’

Casper smiled, which made him wince. ‘They respect me, just as they respected my father. So they should.’

‘What did they take?’

Casper sniffed. ‘Nothing. But they were looking for something.’

‘But what. .?’

‘Whisht, lad, we’re nearing Portinscale. From here on you say nothing. Walk a few paces behind now, keep silent and keep an eye out. Watch.’

‘What am I watching for?’

‘You’re watching for whatever you see. Now quiet yourself.’

There was something dream-like about the next hour as Casper, with Stephen trailing respectfully behind, made his way through Portinscale, along the road to Keswick and up the hill through the marketplace.

Women began to emerge from their cottages and kitchens, or stopped fussing over their animals or weeding their patches to turn and watch him come. They looked somehow both scared, and happy to see him. Small children joined them from the fields and ran ahead of them like dolphins dancing through the bow wave of a great ship. As they turned into Portinscale, a woman hurried to Stephen’s side and put a cloth wrapped round something that smelled of warm ovens into his hands. Stephen slipped the package into his bag, and smiled at her. She only nodded to him in return, her face serious, then stepped away. When Stephen had walked through the village with Casper the day before, he had seen people smile and raise their hands, give Casper their greetings and turn at once back to their work again. It was not so today. Where the fields ripened between Crosthwaite Church and the town, men laid down their tools and approached the roadside, then, as Casper came close, took off their caps and held them in front of them with their eyes down. It was as if he were a walking church.

The children must have carried the news of their coming in front of them. Before they reached Keswick itself, Stephen had begun to feel as if he were following a parade. The doors of the cottages opened. Fires and animals were abandoned for a little while as men and women emerged to respectfully observe Casper pass. Stephen’s eyes darted about, trying to catch each expression as he passed. Another woman trotted up to him; the flesh of her face was heavy and her hair was thin and greasy. She gave him a narrow package of paper and string. He smelled the tang of hard cheese, nodded his thanks and put it with the loaf.

In Keswick his bag became so heavy the strap was starting to cut into his shoulder. At the bottom of the village he looked up to see Mr Askew in his smart waistcoat emerge from the museum and watch them approach from the top of his neatly swept steps. As they drew level, he ran lightly down them. Like the others he did not approach Casper, but fell into step with Stephen. For a moment he looked as if he might want to say something, but in the end he silently removed from his jacket-pocket a silver flask. It made a little sloshing noise as he tucked it into Stephen’s swollen satchel. He then stepped back to the side of the road and waited for them to pass. At the Royal Oak the landlord came out and stood quietly at the door.

Casper did not pause, or stop to lean on his stick. He kept his eyes on the road in front of him and at the same steady pace led Stephen, and a couple of younger children who seemed to have joined them, up the hill in the shadow of Latrigg. Stephen had guessed where they were going now. His back was aching and he wondered how Casper was managing it, but aware of his duties he kept watching the people who came to see them pass. At last Casper turned off the road and unlatched the gate to the field where the stone circle stood. Stephen glanced about him and followed. The other children hung around the gateway, punching each other on the shoulder, or murmuring as Casper crossed the cropped turf and entered the circle.

Stephen hovered between the gateway stones until Casper had reached the centre of the circle and slowly knelt down. Something stopped the boy from following. Instead he circled round, and slipped between the two stones to the south where there seemed to be a smaller inner oblong of slabs, like a sanctuary within the church. Without taking his eyes off Casper he settled himself on the ground between them and, gratefully, lifted the strap of the satchel over his shoulder.

After some time the children dispersed at the gateway, and Stephen was startled out of his contemplation of the falling ranks of hills around them by Casper’s voice.

‘Come then.’

He took the satchel in his arms, and jogged over, keeping low and quiet as if he were in some holy place. Casper gave him time to settle, then said: ‘Well?’

Stephen drew the flask that Mr Askew had handed him from his pocket and passed it to Casper, who raised his eyebrows at it, then smiled slowly, uncapped it and drank.

‘Everyone looked very grave,’ Stephen said.

‘So they might.’

‘The third cottage on the left in Portinscale. .’

Casper nodded. ‘Thin man in back. Woman at the gate.’

‘He didn’t look up as you went by, just kept turning the muck.’

‘And the woman?’

‘Eyes all over, kept glancing back at him, and her hands were twitching.’

Casper smiled, creasing the sunset of his bruises, then took another swig from the flask. ‘You have sharp eyes. Get them from your mother, did you?’

Stephen hugged his knees and looked at the turf in front of him. ‘Her eyes are green. Mine are blue, like my papa’s.’

Casper pulled at the flask again. ‘As may be, but I reckon you got your manner of seeing with them from her. What else?’

‘There was a man in his stable yard at the Oak kept his back turned.’

Casper was looking north at the curve of Latrigg and the upward swell of Skiddaw. He upended the flask into his mouth and shook the last of the liquor out of it, then screwed the little silver top back on and handed it back to Stephen.

‘Time for you to go now, Master Westerman. Take that food back to my cabin if you would, and untie Joe.’

Stephen looked around him. ‘Are you going to ask the fair-folk for their help? Will they tell you who beat you, or who killed that man?’

Casper gave him a lopsided grin. ‘I’ve already learned what I intended, youngling. I shall sit here for a while longer though.’ Stephen looked very confused, opened his mouth and shut it again. ‘My business is more with people than magic. Herbs, yes. Seeing how people are, knowing them and protecting our faith.’ He frowned suddenly. Stephen followed the direction of his eyes and saw a thin, older man at the entrance to the field. ‘Take the flask back to Mr Askew, and thank him,’ Casper continued. ‘Don’t go in. Just stand at the steps till he comes out. For the rest, say no word and keep your eyes low. And that man by the gate is Mr Kerrick. Tell him he may come to me.’

‘Can I come and see you later, Casper?’

He nodded. ‘Do that. I may have need of you, fool that I am.’

On enquiring at the vicarage, Harriet and Crowther were told that Miss Scales and her guest were taking a turn in the church grounds, so Ham turned the horses down the slope to deliver them to the church gates. The situation of Crosthwaite Church was a splendid one, nestled as it was under the curving arm of Skiddaw. Around the wooded churchyard, fields of well-grown oats rolled down to the main road and the edge of the lake. The church itself was a good-sized building, with a square, crenellated tower and white-washed. Thus it provided both a place of worship for its community, and an appropriate point of interest for Lakers sketching from their rowboats on the water.

Crowther handed Harriet down from the carriage and they left Ham and the horses to enjoy the scenery as they liked while they went in search of Miss Scales and Miss Hurst. Before they could enter the churchyard, however, they heard themselves hailed from the road and turned to see Mr Sturgess just dismounting from a rather showy-looking roan horse, and making his way towards them, leading it by its halter.

‘You let him just walk away?’ Mr Sturgess said at once.

Neither Harriet nor Crowther replied until he was within a pace or two of them.

‘To whom do you refer?’ Crowther said, with a slight drawl.

‘That charlatan, Casper Grace, of course!’ The magistrate was rather red in the face. ‘It is obvious to a child he must have killed this German in the same brawl where he was injured. He brought the body to you and you let him go.’

Crowther shook his head very slightly. ‘The man was Austrian. He did not look guilty, Mr Sturgess.’

‘Look? Look! I have no objection to you and Mrs Westerman amusing yourselves with guessing games over some skeleton, but a murder here and now does great injury to the town. Grace must be taken at once and held in Carlisle till the quarter sessions.’

‘On what evidence?’ Harriet asked.

‘How could it be anyone else? The man is known to be half-crazed, and he delivered himself into your hands. It is nothing but plain sense. Though I do not know why I speak to you of that. Mr Grace is at the Druidic circle. I know this why? Because I saw him from my window processing through the village with your son at his heels, moments before I received your note.’

Harriet would have given a great deal not to appear surprised, but she feared by the satisfied smile on Mr Sturgess’s face that it must have been clear she had known nothing of this. Guiltily, she realised she had not even thought of her son after the moment she sent him into the house for Ham and Isaiah.

‘I am shocked, madam!’ Sturgess said, drawing himself very straight. ‘What would your husband say if he were to know you allowed your son to run around with a person of that type?’

It would have been better for Mr Sturgess if he had simply enjoyed her discomfort and left the matter there. He had now invoked her husband, and that made her angry. Somewhere behind the white light of fury in her mind she was aware that Crowther had very slightly edged away from her.

‘Did you know my husband, sir?’ she demanded. Mr Sturgess began to look a little less sure of himself. ‘Did you serve with him? Were you acquainted in any way? You did not — yet you presume to tell me what he would think of my behaviour! It is the same arrogance which is sending you after Mr Grace, and in my experience, arrogance is seldom rewarded!’

‘Mrs Westerman, a cunning-man with your son. .’

Harriet smiled at him. ‘Get back on your horse, Mr Sturgess. My husband was once cured by a witch-doctor on one of the Polynesia Islands. He would have the greatest respect for Casper Grace.’

Mr Sturgess still managed to retain some of his air of outraged righteousness, but he did as he was ordered and climbed back onto his mount, then with a savage pull at the animal’s mouth, turned it out onto the road again.

‘Was that true, Mrs Westerman?’ Crowther murmured as they watched him retreat.

‘About James? No, though it happened to a friend of his. No, Crowther, I am afraid James would be as shocked as Mr Sturgess that I did not know what Stephen was about. But he was my husband; that would be his right. Mr Sturgess does not have it. I shall speak to Stephen later.’

Crowther offered her his arm and she took it, telling him, ‘I notice Mr Sturgess had no interest in finding Miss Hurst.’

‘He has his suspect, he has no need for the girl. Let us find her ourselves.’

The ladies were among the shade in the walks behind the church itself, hoping to find some relief from the heat. In the heavy stillness of the air it was difficult to imagine the sudden shout of rain the previous evening. Harriet saw the two women arm-in-arm and paused, and with that strange instinct humans have of sensing when they are watched, the women turned and waited for them to approach. Harriet expected to see some sign of either dread or hope on Miss Hurst’s face when she noticed them. She gave no mark of either, however; it was Miss Scales whose ruined face flitted with hope or concern.

‘Miss Hurst,’ Harriet said as she reached them. ‘This morning a man called Casper Grace brought a body to Silverside from the hills. Mr von Bolsenheim recognised it as that of your father. He is dead, I am afraid.’

The girl lowered her head and sighed, murmuring something in her own tongue that Harriet could not catch.

‘Some accident?’ Miss Scales said, clinging tightly onto her companion’s arm.

‘That seems unlikely,’ Crowther replied.

Miss Hurst looked up quickly. ‘When?’

Crowther rested his cane on the ground between them. ‘Some time yesterday before the storm, I believe.’

Miss Hurst watched Crowther for a moment, then said precisely, ‘Thank you, Mr Crowther. I also thank you for your actions this morning. You have been kind to a stranger. Heaven sees what you do.’ She turned to Miss Scales who was trembling on her arm. ‘I should like to return to my lodgings now, Miss Scales.’

‘My dear, there is no question of you returning to the Oak. You shall stay at the vicarage with my father and myself as our guest. But what are you saying, my lord? That Mr Hurst was attacked? Can there be some doubt, some mistake?’

‘I am afraid there is no mistake, Miss Scales.’

‘Oh, how very terrible. How shall we manage?’

For a moment Harriet thought that Miss Hurst was going to refuse the invitation to the vicarage, but as Miss Scales pulled a little on her arm, she yielded. Miss Scales looked very distressed, and Harriet thought she saw the younger woman pat her arm. They turned towards the back way to the vicarage. Harriet watched them go with a confused frown.

‘Miss Hurst seemed a great deal more distressed this morning when her father was only missing,’ she said. ‘Is it some trick of the national character? No screaming, no fainting, no tears. I have never seen such news being taken in a like manner. Shall we follow on, Crowther? I feel a great curiosity to know more of her father. What did she say?’

‘Indeed.’

Harriet turned towards him and saw he was looking at a granite monument before which Miss Scales and Miss Hurst had been standing. She followed his gaze and read the engraving. Julia Penhaligon, wife of William Penhaligon, Baron Keswick, died 5th January 1750 aged 41 years.

‘Your mother’s grave. I am sorry, Crowther.’

He looked at her down his long nose. ‘Why, Mrs Westerman? I do not think she hears us.’ He sighed then continued a little more easily, ‘I think we must speak to the Fraulein. I thought she looked worried rather than grieved. As to what she said, she spoke in her own language but I recognise the quotation. It was a favourite of one of my tutors in Wittenberg, from the Book of Isaiah: For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord.’

Harriet’s eyes lifted to the stirring leaves above them. ‘What might she have had in mind at that, do you suppose?’

‘I cannot say, only that the professor of whom I spoke used the phrase to remind us that God’s works were not readily understandable by men.’

‘So perhaps she finds God’s hand in this. .’

Crowther looked weary. ‘There are those, Mrs Westerman, eager to see God in everything that passes before them. I look at that wound and I see a man with a weapon in his hand and nothing holy in his mind. Shall we follow them?’

Harriet did not move. ‘Let us give them a few moments. Perhaps you might look instead at the letter from Jocasta.’

She saw Crowther frown and hurried on. ‘I wrote to her before I left Caveley and asked her to tell me what she remembered of her time here.’ She flushed faintly. ‘I did not mention it till now, as I did not know how those events might be related to the body on Saint Herbert’s Island, and I had no wish to speak of them until I thought they might be of significance.’

Crowther said coldly, ‘Mrs Bligh claims she saw a man who was not my brother standing over my father’s body and that he wore a green coat. I also told you I believe that she simply saw the first discoverer of the murder.’

‘But she did not recognise the man! Who was it that first discovered Lord Keswick?’

Crowther was silent for a moment. ‘As I recall, it was the coachman from Silverside.’

‘She would know him, surely. She must have seen him every day in the village. Had he been in service with your family long?’

‘Yes, but seeing a body might confuse any person. Certainly a young girl. Often people are wrong about what they have seen. I do not understand what you mean to accomplish by having me hear her account again.’

‘Please just let me read it, Crowther.’

He moved sharply away from her. ‘Mrs Westerman, my brother confessed! Confessed in front of the servants and the Vicar of Crosthwaite in his room at Silverside within an hour of the body being discovered. He came suddenly from London with his debts pursuing him. He had assaulted one of his most pressing creditors in the street only days before. He arranged to see my father and within hours Lord Keswick was dead. My brother was found weeping in his room with a knife in his hands, and only the actions of the servants prevented him ending his own life on the spot! He slashed Mrs Tyers’s face when she attempted to disarm him. Are those the actions of an innocent man? Your perversity is remarkable. The whole world knows my brother murdered his father, so you must believe he did not. Whatever the crimes of my father, he did not murder himself. And what has any of this to do with the body on Saint Herbert’s Island? Explain that to me! You are spinning fictions out of the air and trying to build roads between them!’

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.