Island of Bones

III.7

‘Ham, I am to pay a visit at the vicarage before we return to Silverside,’ Harriet said. ‘I shall take the path, but will you come and find me there?’

She was distracted from his answer by the sight of a portly gentleman lumbering along the road from Keswick towards them. He was waving something in his hand.

‘Who is that gentleman, Ham? Do you think he wishes to speak to me?’

Ham glanced up the road and nodded. ‘That’s Postlethwaite, madam. Landlord of the Royal Oak. Looks like he does.’

She stepped away from the carriage and walked a few steps to meet him. He was rather red in the face and puffing in the heat. He did not have the figure of a man used to stirring much outside his own house, and though he raised his hand towards her, at first he had only breath to bow and touch his forehead with a rather stained-looking handkerchief.

‘Apologies, madam,’ he wheezed after a minute or so. ‘A man must fight to get air into his lungs in this weather. The news of Mr Hurst has charged about the village like a mad bull. Are you looking into the matter? I hear Mr Sturgess is after Casper. I thought perhaps I should go to him, but I have heard such things about you and Mr Crowther, and Walter my pot boy said he saw the carriage here. .’ He ran out of his store of breath at this point and was forced to break off to replenish it.

‘Indeed, sir, I understand you are the landlord of the Royal Oak?’

‘I am, I am. Might I have a moment of your time? I did not know who best to consult. Mr Sturgess walks the other way every time I see him anyway, in case I might ask him to settle his account, though truth be told, as long as he holds the rights to license my house, he has no fear of me. Might we just sit down a moment, madam? I walked faster than I should have done. .’

Harriet accompanied him to a little bench by the church gate that offered some shade and let him recover himself; however, before he had breath quite enough to speak again, he pulled from under his arm a folded newspaper and put it into her hands, then jabbed at an advertisement in the middle of the page with a fat finger. Harriet began to read.

To Herr Hurst, thought to be travelling in the Northern Counties. Our attempts to contact you in Cockermouth having come to naught, we wish to let it be known the information mentioned is indeed of great interest and humbly request you communicate with us again. Please apply to the firm of Hudson amp; White in Church Street, Cockermouth, who have power to act for us in this matter. Your grateful friend.

Harriet shook her head. ‘This is today’s paper, Mr Postlethwaite! What on earth can this mean?’

‘Just what I thought myself. “Postlethwaite, what can this mean?”’ He dabbed his forehead. ‘Then I thought, “Whatever it means, it means something, that’s certain”, and then Walter came in and said his piece, so I thought, “Well, maybe that’s where I should go then”, and set off while I still had my coat half-on, and have trotted all the way for fear of missing you.’

‘I am happy indeed that you did, Mr Postlethwaite.’

The landlord spread his fingers over his knees and wagged them. ‘I am glad, I am glad. It was no accident then? Oh, it’s a tragedy for our little town! Skeletons are interesting — attractions, even, if it’s a good story — but fresh bodies? Of a travelling man? Who will come look at our hills if they think they might end up buried between them. .’

‘Do you think it likely Casper murdered him?’

The fingers began to waggle quite ferociously. ‘I can’t think it, but then he was seen talking to the young lady, and handing her something, and he is a man. He is a man, a cunning-man and a man of parts, but still a man — and men do as they do.’

Harriet decided it might be best to pick over the philosophy of this statement at a later date.

‘What was his business with the lady?’

The landlord gave the back of his head a ferocious scratch, then lifted his hands to the height of his shoulder.

‘I saw Casper, your young lad and his tutor in company with her yesterday, then early in the day heard her asking Walter where Casper might be found. Hardly day at all it was, but off she set, even though the roads were still thick and dirty from the storm, and her a delicate-looking bird.’

Harriet nodded over the information and read the advertisement again. ‘Can you shed any light on this business, Mr Postlethwaite? Anything you saw in Herr Hurst’s behaviour that might relate. .?’

He lifted his hands and patted his cheeks as he thought — then, as if he had massaged the memories out of them, dropped them again. ‘Well, I might or might not. I shall tell you and you may tell me if I give light or shadow to the business. He was a nosy beggar, I’ll say that. Most ask after the paths and the museum and where they might hire a boat and a man to wield the oars, but his questions were all “Who lives here, and who stays there, and who are these folks?” That might be character, of course. Character. Ha!’ He stared ahead in silence for a moment, then started off again like a rabbit crossing between hedgerows. ‘I know he sent a letter. An express. Only a day or so after he came. On account. Always on account, that fella. And now Mr Crowther has swept his slate clean — well, well. Then Sunday evening he wants a horse ready for the morning and I say he’s welcome to one, but no more of this “on account, on account” until the bill he’s already run up is run off, if you take my meaning.’ Harriet smiled to show the meaning was taken. ‘So he gets himself all “of all the things”, and “shocked, shocked”, and announces he’s off to take one from the Queen’s Head instead if that’s the case, thank you very much. And I say to myself, “Well, fine and dandy to him”. So he takes himself off, then comes back late and full of strong drink and he has no need of a horse at all, thank you.’

‘Did you see him yesterday morning?’

‘Aye. Saw him send off his girl and tell her he had business to do. He spoke awful sharp to that child. Then she’s off and he’s off and he don’t come back for dinner or breakfast. Then the news he’s dead comes, and while I’m still catching my breath from that, I see the advertisement.’

Harriet frowned. ‘Let me see if I have this correct, Mr Postlethwaite.’ He grinned at her, bunching and flexing his fingers. ‘Some time ago, soon after his arrival, Mr Hurst sends a letter. Then on Sunday evening he says he will need a horse the following day, but as far as you are aware, does not take one. Tuesday he waits at the inn. Yesterday he goes out, and does not come back. This morning the advertisement. Is that correct?’

‘Quite so, quite so. I like the look of your boy, madam. Nice lad. Is he to be a sailor like his da?’

Harriet hardly heard him. ‘Yes, yes. . that is his intention. Did any message reach Mr Hurst while he was waiting at the inn? What was his demeanour?’

Mr Postlethwaite seemed to have recovered. He lifted his chin and sniffed the air. ‘None through my hands, but there’s many a way of getting word to someone. I’d say he was happy on Sunday and Monday, grim on Tuesday though he went to bed cheerful, then a peacock on Wednesday as he headed out. Well, ma’am, I have done what I set out to do. If I have been of help, then I’m glad of it. If not, then I am sorry to waste your time and thank you for being so civil.’

They stood and Harriet held out her hand. ‘Thank you, Mr Postlethwaite. You are invaluable. May I keep the newspaper?’

He bowed slightly over her hand. ‘Indeed, indeed. With the compliments of the Royal Oak, Mrs Westerman. With our compliments.’

Some time later, having folded the letter into his pocket, Crowther thought of the last occasion he had stood in this place, which had also been the last time he had seen Casper’s father, Ruben Grace. It was a fleeting encounter; he had looked up from the graveside as his mother’s coffin was lowered into the ground and seen Ruben hovering on the far side of the drystone perimeter of Crosthwaite churchyard. It was winter and the man was bundled up against the damp chill of the valley, standing in the shade of a skeletal oak, one hand on its dragon-scale bark, the other round the shoulders of a girl. It must have been his first sight of Jocasta, as well as his last of Ruben. Crowther remembered her as a thin shadow. He had never had friends among the village children, nor thought to enquire about the families of the servants in the house. Strange to think that that young girl, her grey shawl shrouding her face, had become the remarkable Mrs Bligh, who strode through London in gypsy-coloured skirts with her dog at her heels; who could not read, yet who was brave and intelligent enough to help her King, and to assist Harriet and Crowther discover and destroy a criminal conspiracy that had threatened their country. Had she got that bravery, that intelligence from her father? What was a cunning-man? A person who knew the fears of the people, guided them through them, offered them spells and symbols to make sense of the space around them. Such, it appeared, Ruben had been even while he had added up the columns in Sir William’s accounting books; such now was his son, defending his neighbours from witches; such was his daughter, turning her cards in her London room, offering comfort to the shop-girls and servants, advice to fools.

Crowther was no believer in witches, cards, Lucks or the rest — but he had the grace to wonder if some of those who called themselves his colleagues in science and medicine had anything more valuable to offer than rowan twigs. And Ruben and his son knew herbs. He thought of Ruben standing in the shade of that tree. He had seemed as much a part of the landscape as the stones and water. Where that man had decided to set his foot he would not be moved, whatever blustering winds ripped round him. There must have been bad blood between Ruben and Sir William by that point, or he would have come into the churchyard to pay his respects to Crowther’s mother.

Crowther seemed to feel the thrum of the rain by the grave again, his hands cramping with cold, his own sense of being cut off from everything around him. He could even hear his sister weeping damply into the housekeeper’s cloak as the vicar let the words of Scripture fall from his lips and into the slippery grave. He blinked, and found himself with the grave grown over under his feet and the gasping sun on his back. He picked up his cane and readied himself for the walk to the cottage of Lottie Tyers.

As Kerrick crossed the field towards the stones, the black witch started to chatter at Casper.

‘You know in your bones, what he has to say. He’s come to say Agnes is not home. Sent her out in the storm, girl like that, and nice and close to where you took your beating.’

Casper had clenched his teeth, but Grice continued spitting at him. ‘Maybe she saw you kill that man. Like you, that would be — murder a man in your madness then lecture his daughter about life the next morning! Oh, that makes me laugh! Maybe you killed Agnes too, and buried her better.’

Casper could remember very clearly when the first voice had begun to speak to him. It had been just after the funeral of his father. Funerals had been poor affairs in ’54, the village had seen so many of them, but his aunt had baked the funeral bread and every household in the village was represented by the graveside. Ruben had died helping them through the pox. Then, as they walked away from the church, a young man had touched him on the arm and asked if he might call on him the following day. He wished to marry his girl and wanted to learn the day to do it. He was three years older than Casper, and Casper had always looked on him from the place of a child as they grew. He realised then that the title of cunning-man had fallen over him at his father’s death like a cloak, and could not be given up.

He mumbled some agreement, then went to his aunt’s house to sleep. He could not. He knew something of finding days of fortune in the calendar, but not enough. His father had not planned on leaving him so soon and he was kept awake by the knowledge of his own poor learning. So Casper had risen from his bed and taken his inheritance in his hands, then made his way to the circle of stones. There he had stared into the dark, seeing again the blistered faces of his father and his neighbours till the silence seemed alive with the sounds of their suffering, and under it all he heard the first of the voices. It was a whisper at first, like hearing a conversation through a wall at night. It was soft and friendly, a woman’s voice. It seemed a shape dressed in white; though he could not see it, had come to sit by his side in the darkness and was trying to make itself heard. As the cold night drew on, the voice had become clearer and the shape became a woman dressed in a white gown. She told him he knew all he needed to, and that she would speak to him and guide him when he was in doubt. So she had, through the next day and the ones that followed, and Casper grew to trust her.

There was a price to be paid for her help. The lady had opened some door in his mind and other voices had used to clamber inside: these were the cruel, mocking voices of the bogles and dark witches that liked to tell him when he was foolish or wrong and laughed at him. Then came the affair of Blanche Grice, her death and burying, and she had ruled loudest in his mind for twenty years now. The white lady was still there, but it was hard to catch her whispers. Grice was crowing and flapping her arms now. The young man who had come to find Casper on the day of his father’s funeral was Kerrick himself. Casper watched him now, lumbering across the field to join him.

‘Hast thou seen her, Casper?’ Casper shook his head as he got to his feet. Kerrick gathered up his shirt in handfuls in front of him. ‘She was quiet when you had left, and kissed her mother, then said she had duty to do and set out at dusk.’

Casper put his hand on Kerrick’s shoulder. ‘I’ll find her. Stay close to your place today, in case she makes her own way back.’

Kerrick nodded. Gasped, ‘There was a man killed.’

‘There was. Trust me, old friend.’

Kerrick managed to nod again, then put out his hand and Casper took it, then he turned away and set off back towards Keswick.

‘Trust you? Trust you, when you most like killed the pair of them? Find her? Find where you’ve buried her in your madness, and bring her back all muddy?’ The witch laughed; he could hear her stamp her feet.

Casper came to a stop in the middle of the path and spoke very softly. ‘I shall find her. If she is hurt, I shall punish them that have hurt her. If that were me, I shall drown myself off the Island of Bones, and that’ll be you done with too, hag.’

That stilled her.