Island of Bones

III.8

The door to the cottage had been opened by a flustered middle-aged woman, who became all the more flustered when she discovered Mr Crowther outside. She tried to curtsey and tidy her hair and brush the flour from her dress all at the same moment. Crowther, unnecessarily, gave his name and asked to see Mrs Tyers. The tongue-tied woman nodded, then beckoned Crowther through the rough earth corridor that divided the living chambers from the down-house and into the rear courtyard. There in the shade, with a rolling view of meadows and the glimmer of Bassenthwaite in the haze, he found an old woman at her spinning wheel. She was dressed in black, and had shrunk with age. Crowther felt he could have placed her into his pocket and walked off with her into the hills.

‘You got my note then, Master Charles?’ she said, glancing up. Crowther felt his memories swirl round him like leaves in a sudden gust. He saw in the old lady the stern housekeeper of his childhood, saw her walking the corridors of Silverside with a set of keys on her belt, a notebook and that tiny black pencil with which she used to jab the maids if she felt they needed encouragement in their work. She had a thin scar running across her face from the corner of her eye-socket to her jaw. Crowther had thought that age would have hidden it, but it was bright on her tanned skin and ran against the natural lines of her face. ‘Fetch a stool for the man, Nancy,’ she continued, nodding to the woman who had opened the door. ‘There’s a good girl.’

Crowther cleared his throat. ‘I did get your note, Mrs Tyers. I am glad to see you in health.’

‘Surprised, I should think!’ She laughed to herself and then continued more softly, ‘Eighty-seven summers I’ve seen now, and I hoped I’d lived through all the excitement I needed to. Dare say you didn’t think when you settled ten pounds a year on me for life you’d be paying out so long?’ She looked up from the wheel with a proud glint in her eye. The eyes were the same, as sharp and seeing as they had ever been.

‘I am happy to pay it, Mrs Tyers.’

Nancy emerged from the house, wrestling a large carved oak chair with her. Crowther helped her place it and she fluttered back into the house again, only to emerge red and sweating with a pint-pot which she handed confusedly to Crowther, then dashed back into the dark once more.

Crowther sat down and drank, painfully aware he had eaten nothing since breakfast and the dinner-hour was probably already passed. Mrs Tyers sucked on her gums.

‘You may call me Lottie still, as you did in your father’s time, my lord.’ She shook her head. ‘I said a stool! Daft lass that, but good-hearted. Married my nephew and has bred him three good sons. They’ll all marry on what I’ve saved from your money. Maybe that’s why she thought your backside too good for anything but that monster, Master Charles. No doubt she’ll treat it as a holy relic now.’

Crowther smiled slightly. ‘I go by the name of Gabriel Crowther these days, Lottie.’

‘That’s your choice,’ said the old lady, raising her eyebrows and nodding at her wheel, ‘but my note was to Mr Charles. It was Mr Charles who stole Cook’s knives for his investigations, Mr Charles I clouted round the ear for it, and it is Mr Charles I shall talk to now, thank you.’

Crowther wondered if she had not so much cheated death, as given it a firm talking-to. He recognised an immovable object when he saw it though, and decided to let her call him what she would.

‘Lottie, this note of yours. .’ The old woman turned back to the wheel and began to work the pedal. ‘Who was this man?’

‘That I cannot say, Master Charles.’ Each time she spoke his old name, Crowther felt it push against his chest. ‘I heard tell of the snuffbox, and I remember clear as day seeing one like it. Striped, is it? With a rose on the lid?’ He felt her sharp eye on him again and nodded. ‘Was the day after the fire destroyed Gutherscale and your father’s hopes of living there. The year was forty-five, just as we got news of the Young Pretender beginning his games. You and Master Adair were away at school, Margaret just a tiny child. A man in travelling clothes arrives at the Hall. My age he was, and a strong-looking devil. I opened the door to him, and there he was taking a pinch from that box, and such a look on him. Fierce. Angry. He had bitter eyes.’ She chuckled. ‘Not much left of his looks now, I’ll bet.’

‘Did he give his name?’

‘Not one I trusted.’

‘What was it?’

‘Percival. He wanted speech with your father. Sir William went out and they had words on the lawn.’

Crowther considered. Percival. The name of the knight that went searching for the Grail. ‘What else, Lottie? Did you hear their conversation?’

She was silent for a long time, and Crowther heard nothing but the clack of the wheel. ‘Full of threats and flounce, he was. But you shouldn’t threaten a man’s children, no matter what you’re looking for. Your father took him off to the Island of Bones and I sent Ruben after them. Lord, I ran to him where he was stamping out the embers at Gutherscale.’ The spinning wheel paused for a moment and she stared in front of her. ‘I had served your father from the day I was twelve years old, Master Charles, and I feared for him that day. So I ran to Ruben and set him running to his boat. I thought they’d paid him off. That’s what Ruben said that night when I asked. That the man was paid.’

‘We think he might have been a follower of Lord Greta, over here with Greta’s brother Rupert de Beaufoy.’

She continued to work the pedal on the spinning wheel, and Crowther watched a while as the wool was twisted out from between her fingers.

‘Maybe.’ She glanced up at him. ‘Lord Greta loved Gutherscale, Master Charles. It was the home of his father, and his father’s fathers. Think he’d want to see another man set up house there?’

Crowther felt suddenly cold. ‘Lottie, are you saying this man put the torch to Gutherscale on Greta’s orders?’ he said slowly. ‘What did my father tell you?’

‘Your father was not the sort to confide, Master Charles, you know that. And your ma knew to keep clear and quiet when he was feeling dark. And they were dark days. But there was this man, you say he was Greta’s man and there the day after the fire.’ She sighed. ‘Your father was not the same man after Gutherscale burned. He carried the embers in him.’

Crowther drank again from his pint-pot and leaned back a little, listening to the wheel clicking and turning.

‘Adair was not at home at the time?’

‘I just told you he was away.’

‘Did my father have his cane with him?’

He saw her glance at it, leaning up against the wall of her nephew’s home. ‘He always had it. That is like asking me if he had both hands attached, Master Charles.’

He watched the meadows frothing out below them in wedding finery, all white clover and dog-roses, though this year there were not the poppies he remembered from his youth or the sparkle of cornflowers. He wondered if it were the effect of the strange weather that the fields were weeded of them.

‘I wanted to believe that Adair killed that man.’

‘I know you did, Master Charles.’

Crowther put his hand to his forehead for a moment. ‘Lottie, do you recall Ruben’s daughter, Jocasta?’

The spinning stopped and Lottie looked up with a smile. ‘I do. Wilful lass, but I always liked the ones with a bit of fight in them. Any news of her?’

‘She tells fortunes in London, and is well.’

‘I’m glad. She was wise to go.’

Crowther set his tankard on the ground and felt his weariness rise through him. ‘She made mention of my father having hired some extra footmen — burly types — in his last months. Is that true? Do you know why he did such a thing?’

Lottie shifted her hands to knead the raw fleece while she spoke. ‘Good for the joints, raw wool. I reckon spinning has saved me from rheumatism.’ She reminded Crowther of the housekeeper’s cat in Caveley, pulsing its claws on the kitchen stool. ‘Master Charles, some say grief can make a man do odd things. Lord Keswick shut the doors on Silverside a while after the mistress died, then they came to keep it shut. All business to be done by letter and they let anyone know who came to call that the Master was not receiving.’

‘You think that was a symptom of grief, Lottie?’

She lifted a finger. ‘Some might say that, Master Charles. I think it was the letter.’

‘What letter?’

She shook her head. ‘“What letter?” he says, as if I read my lord’s papers through of an evening. What letter indeed? All I know is with the letters of condolence came one that shook him up. I put it into his hand and saw him freeze solid as he read it. An hour later I saw him stow away something like it in that little hidden safe in the office, and the same day I was told to find two or three more men for the house, men who looked like they could land or take a blow, he said. And I was to arrange to send your sister away for schooling. There was no mention of her leaving Silverside till that day.’

‘I knew nothing of such a safe.’

‘It wasn’t often used, nothing of value in it by then,’ she said vaguely. ‘Nasty brutes those men were, and he paid handsomely for their company. Much good they did. I suppose they did not think to protect him from his own son. I sent them on their way quick.’

Crowther looked up at her. Her eyes were clouded, looking out at the view, seeing something else.

‘You do believe it was my brother who murdered Lord Keswick then?’

The pedal started up again, briskly. ‘Course I do. I found him, didn’t I? In his room, his hands all bloody, weeping and cursing himself. Though he didn’t mean to cut me, Master Charles. Not sure if he meant to cut himself either, just the knife was in his hands and he was so wild. I should not have got so close, but we’d just found Lord Keswick and all of us were a little mad. Poor stupid boy. The coachman got the knife off him, we turned the key and he was still raving when the vicar and the magistrate arrived. But you know that. Told you myself.’ She stopped spinning again, but this time did not look up. ‘He apologised to me, you know. That I didn’t tell you. Yelled it out while they were taking him off to Carlisle — said he was sorry and it wasn’t his fault.’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing was ever his fault though, was it? Wheedling little bully since the day he was born, but I never thought he’d kill the master. I am only glad your mother was dead. Died younger than she merited, but at least it saved her from dying of grief.’

Harriet found Fraulein Hurst in the upper parlour. She was in the windowseat, and so lost in her reading that she did not hear Harriet enter. Mrs Westerman took the opportunity to study her for a moment. She seemed very calm. Harriet found it difficult to stay still even now; at Miss Hurst’s age she would have been out of doors at all hours. Had she herself ever looked so young? She could not believe it. The lines around her eyes had become so familiar in the mirror she could not imagine they had once not been there at all. She sighed, and the Fraulein turned quickly. Harriet thought she saw in her face hope — happiness, even — then it fell away into disappointment. As she set down her book she seemed suddenly more distressed than at the moment she had heard of her father’s death.

‘Mrs Westerman?’ Harriet crossed to a sofa in the centre of the room and took a seat, patting the fabric next to her. Sophia obediently crossed to join her and placed her hands together in her lap, her eyes lowered. ‘Mr Scales has so many fine books. I have not had the chance to read very much since I left the convent.’

‘Forgive me for interrupting you, Fraulein Hurst.’

She flinched as her name was spoken. ‘Please, call me Sophia, madam.’

Harriet watched the soft profile. ‘Sophia then. I asked to speak to you alone for a few moments. I hope you do not mind.’ A slight shake of the head. ‘Sophia, my dear, I wish to find out why your father was murdered.’

The girl looked up quickly, then back to her folded hands. ‘You are certain he was murdered, then? How was he killed?’

Harriet wondered how to respond; then, thinking of all the times she had heard facts frustratingly glossed over with half-truths and euphemism, said simply, ‘It appears that he was stabbed from behind, in the neck.’ Sophia accepted the information calmly. Harriet watched her face with a frown. ‘The blow went up into the brain. There was very little blood. He would have died on the instant.’

Sophia asked nothing further.

‘Did anyone want to harm your father, Sophia? Did he have enemies here?’ The girl shook her head, but it was not clear if she was refusing to answer, or answering in the negative. A tear ran down her cheek. Harriet wished she had learned the trick of weeping so neatly. Whenever she cried for James, she snuffled and sobbed and bit her pillow, leaving her face blotched and her eyes red as demons.

‘Can you tell me something of him, of your father?’

Sophia swallowed and produced a handkerchief from her sleeve, wiped her face and blew her nose in a businesslike fashion.

‘I have little to say of him, Mrs Westerman.’ Harriet did not normally enjoy the sound of an Austrian accent, but in this young woman’s voice it gave her words a frost-like clarity. ‘I only met him six months ago. I was a boarder at a convent school from the time my mother died. That was when I was four years old, and her relatives paid to have me educated. They did not approve of her marriage, but they felt they had a duty not to see me starve. The nuns taught me to write to my father twice every year. I never had any reply. Then, just after my seventeenth birthday, a letter arrived from Vienna. My father wanted me to live with him in his house there. Within a week I had left the only home I had ever had.’

‘And what did you find in Vienna?’

Sophia stood up and went to the window, looking out at the view across the gardens to the lake and the hills beyond. ‘Why do you ask me these questions?’

Harriet watched her with her head on one side. ‘Mr Sturgess thinks it was Casper Grace who killed your father and will track him down and have him hanged if he can. I think he is being rash.’

‘Casper? What reason would Casper have?’

‘That is my question. I have just learned that your father had some kind of dealings in Cockermouth.’

The young woman shrugged her shoulders. ‘I know nothing of Cockermouth.’

‘I am sorry if you find my questions discourteous, but I would find out what I can to make sure the wrong man is not punished.’

‘I do not know this word “discourteous”.’

Harriet extended one arm along the back of the sofa. ‘Rude.’

Sophia gave a short laugh. ‘You are not as discourteous as meine gnadige Frau von Bolsenheim.’

Harriet lifted her arm from the sofa and examined her fingernails. Good Lord, I am becoming Crowther, she thought, and let the arm drop again. ‘I thought you handled that lady rather well.’

Sophia turned away with a toss of the head. ‘I understand she called you a whore,’ Harriet continued. Sophia crossed the room and picked up a romantic little porcelain model of a shepherd and shepherdess from the mantelpiece.

‘Why must you ask questions?’ She said crossly. ‘Why not this Mr Sturgess or the vicar? He does not ask questions, only offers to pray with me for my father. I find I cannot.’

‘There are longer answers, but I shall give you the shorter one. I ask questions because I wish to know the truth. Mr Sturgess does not. The vicar is busy enough with the truths of his parish. Do you not sometimes wish to do what you want to, Sophia?’

The girl’s grip tightened on the figurine. ‘I wish to smash this ugly, lying thing. I wish to dance on its splinters.’ Her breathing slowed and she placed the model back in its place. ‘But I shall not. First because it belongs to Miss Scales and she might be fond of it. Secondly because a good young lady does not do such things. Does not do what she wishes. A whore would smash it.’

Harriet watched her straight spine. She was too thin. Harriet could count the vertebrae of her bare neck and thought of the space on her father’s neck where the blow had been struck.

‘It is my understanding that whores are often expected to do what they are told to, Sophia.’ Sophia turned round and stared at her. ‘My dear, I mean only to say that sometimes, we ladies are not so distant from those poor creatures as we like to think.’

Harriet was not sure what reaction to expect at this, but she did not think the girl would collapse to her knees. She stood very quickly and crossed to her. Sophia was crying again, but more after Harriet’s fashion than the single poetic tear she had shed for her father. Harriet crouched down beside her, her skirts blooming about her, and gathered the dark head onto her shoulder.

‘My dear! Do tell me what has happened. I am so sorry. All will be well, I promise you.’ It was such an easy promise to make. She had made it to her sister years ago, she had made it to her husband and to her son a thousand times. Sometimes it had been a false promise, she knew that. So they sat for a few moments while the birds sang about their business outside and Harriet’s dress developed creases for the maids to despair over.

When Sophia had begun to calm herself and made use of the handkerchief again, she spoke.

‘I was happy to be summoned to my father. I had seen so little in my life. When the carriage entered the city I could not help laughing. All those people. All those fine clothes.’ Harriet stroked her shoulder and was suddenly very glad she was no longer young. ‘The house where the carriage stopped looked so fine, and there was a footman to help me with my trunk. I was afraid, but happy. I wanted my father to love me. He showed me into the parlour. It was pretty. Yellow paint on the walls, and the furniture all new. I was so pleased to arrive at such a house.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘He did not own any of it. It was all hired by the week. When he is in funds the house looks like that, then a few days later men would come to the door and hammer away, then take all of it. There was a little desk in my room. He told me it was mine, but it was a lie. They took that too.’

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 Fraulein 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 Vizegrafin 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 Vizegrafin, 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 Vizegrafin 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?’

Harriet wet her lips slightly. ‘He wished to visit your old housekeeper, then I believe it was his intention to call on Mr Askew.’

‘What — Lottie Tyers?’ The Vizegrafin shuddered. ‘I can’t believe that old woman is still living; she seemed ancient when I was a child.’

Mrs Briggs put down the joint. ‘I told you of her on the first day you arrived, Vizegrafin,’ she said very precisely. ‘I thought you might wish to see a woman so intimately associated with your childhood.’

The Vizegrafin shrugged. ‘She was a servant.’

The rest of the meal passed in silence.

Mr Askew was never absolutely punctual about the hour his museum closed. He lived in fear of shutting his door just as some member of the quality, whose name could add further lustre to his visitors’ book, might be pondering a visit. At around a quarter to the hour advertised of five o’clock he would generally appear in the square, looking up and down the street for any ladies or gentlemen who seemed to be at leisure to let them know his museum was still at their disposal, and in their absence he mourned the looks of his town. He could not help feeling that most of the houses which surrounded his museum looked hunched and low. He wished he could white-wash the whole settlement. The same thought came into his mind every night as the clock-chimes faded, regular as the bells. Only some minutes after the hour had struck would he, with a last look about him and a sigh, confess that he had had all the custom likely in the day, and return to his front door with slow steps and draw it closed. Such were his actions now.

He had his hand on the door when he saw a movement in the shadows of the alley opposite and saw Mr Crowther emerging from the gloom. He started. The man unnerved him at the best of times, and he had seen nothing in Crowther’s behaviour to suggest to him they were likely to become friendly. His manners were cold to the point of incivility. Mrs Westerman seemed a pleasant enough woman; she had praised his fireworks. He had mentioned the fact in his paragraph about the event for the London papers, hoping that the mention of her name and the account of the storm might make the gentlemen in the capital think it worthwhile to set his letter in type. Mr Askew paid her the compliment in his mind of being certain that she would never of her own volition become involved with the sordid business of murder, and was privately convinced Crowther must have some dark power over her to force her to aid him in his investigations. If she had appeared on his doorstep in this way, he would have known what to say, and how to say it. With Mr Crowther before him, Mr Askew felt his tongue stick in his mouth.

‘May I see your museum, Mr Askew?’ Crowther said. Askew opened the door and bowed him in, though the skin on the back of his neck prickled and, given the choice, he would rather have welcomed a devil into his living room. He turned the key in the door behind them, then turned to watch Crowther as he examined the displays. He felt his usual enthusiasm for his little establishment wither like cut grass. He watched Crowther move his gaze from the case of minerals, to the examples of stuffed birds, to the portrait of the Luck, and saw only shabby, provincial attempts at science, at art. He dropped his gaze to the floor, and the dusty toes of his own boots, unwilling any more to see his museum suffer under that cold regard.

‘Mr Askew?’

He looked up like a schoolboy in front of a headmaster.

‘Yes, my lord?’

‘Where are the materials relating to my father’s murder?’

It seemed to Mr Askew that he had tied his cravat with too much enthusiasm this morning, though he had not noticed the pressure on his throat before now.

‘Materials?’

Crowther pointed his stick to the alcove where an unfortunate stuffed fox mouldered.

‘There. I see the engravings and notes you have assembled on the unfortunate history of Lord Greta. If I were in your trade I would relate the misery of his successor to these lands about there. Instead I see areas where I can tell by the brightness of the paint that certain items have been removed, and an example of vulpes vulpes that does no credit to the museum, the art of the taxidermist, or the works of nature herself. So I ask again, where are the materials relating to my father’s murder?’

Mr Askew swallowed. ‘Small display, merely the facts, my lord, tasteful. . Taken down at your sister’s request.’

‘You have them here, however?’ Mr Askew nodded and pointed mutely in the direction of his office. ‘May I examine them, Mr Askew, if that would not inconvenience you?’

The civility of the question brightened Mr Askew considerably. He bustled towards the office door and unlocked it with his usual buoyant stride and then invited Mr Crowther to sit in his own chair, at his own table, before leaning into the press and dragging out a packing case in which any number of papers seemed to have been crammed in haste. It occurred to him that the murder of Mr Hurst might not do as much damage to his trade as he had feared. If Mr Crowther and Mrs Westerman happened to discover the killer, perhaps the loss of Mr Hurst would not be much of a loss at all, especially if they found that some mysterious foreigner had been responsible. That would be an excellent outcome. Their names would be even more closely linked with the area, and he was in a perfect position to describe events for the press. Perhaps even write a little book on their investigation, to be sold exclusively in the museum. He was aware that people enjoyed reading about such things.

‘As you see, sir,’ he said, pulling a framed engraving free, ‘here is our portrait of your father, and one of your brother. It was their marks you noticed on the wall.’ He placed them on the blotter in front of Crowther, and was about to place his other papers over them when Crowther held up his hand. He was staring at the two portraits with steady concentration.

After a significant pause, Crowther let his hand drop. ‘They are faithful likenesses,’ he said, then looking up again added, ‘What else have you there, Mr Askew?’ Askew put down the volume that was in his hand delicately on top of the 1st Baron’s portrait. Crowther examined the first page. A collection of the most remarkable and interesting trials with the defence and behaviour of the criminals before and after condemnation. Mr Askew coughed slightly, then turned the pages till he reached the relevant section. The words swam rather in front of Crowther’s eyes. Mr Askew, however, was beginning to brighten. Mr Crowther had not come to insult him, or his museum. Indeed, he seemed to be seeking his help. Mr Askew was glad to offer it. Mr Askew only wished he could do more. Mr Askew began to say so.

‘I think it vital that little establishments such as my own gather together materials relating to the history, the geography and the personalities in a place such as this. I am sure many guineas have been spread around this town because of our humble display on the Luck of Gutherscale Hall, for instance, which perhaps you noticed; and to those whose interest is more scholarly, we may offer materials to aid them in their own researches. Again I mention our display on the Luck. Mr Sturgess is an enthusiast for the legends of this area and has read every reference I could gather on the fall of Lord Greta.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Oh yes. For an out-comer he has gathered a quantity of information. Indeed, I hope his business will allow him to visit me soon, as I have just taken possession of a rather good likeness of the last Lord Greta, superior to that already in my museum and am keen to share it with him.’ He delved back into the press and emerged with a neatly rolled paper which he unravelled and held aloft.

Crowther glanced up briefly. ‘Very fine.’

‘I am so glad you agree, sir. Yes, this likeness was taken in Lord Greta’s last years in exile in France. They say he was quite poor by that time, though of course the artist has still discovered that aristocratic nature which remained to the last. A fine eye for detail is what an artist requires. . How very strange!’

‘What is strange?’ Crowther asked, without looking up.

‘Oh, nothing — nothing at all,’ Askew said hurriedly. ‘Have you found anything of interest in the volume, my lord?’

Crowther lifted it by one corner. ‘May I take it away with me, Mr Askew? I shall return it tomorrow.’ Mr Askew bowed his consent and Crowther slipped the book into his coat-pocket and stood. Mr Askew watched him; he was staring again at the portraits of his father and brother, but Askew could see no sign of great emotion on his face, only those of quiet study. Then Crowther nodded once, as if to his own thoughts, and with a final bow left the room and the museum to its proprietor’s sole care.

She had been too late to see Stephen before dinner. The extent of Harriet’s information came from Miriam. Her son had been at home for the greater part of the afternoon and had been working at whatever tasks Mr Quince had been fit enough to give him. She had sent word that she looked forward to seeing him in the evening, but by the time she had said all she thought proper to Mrs Briggs, the sky had finally grown dark. She approached her son’s room on tiptoe. His papers were arranged neatly on the desk of the little room between Mr Quince’s closet and his own. She looked at them idly, grateful for the peace. There were phrases in Latin on one sheet, in Greek on another, and rows of calculations on the next. Her own education had been a patchwork of occasional tutors and she had been encouraged to spend more time on needlework than mathematics. She sighed now, thinking of it; she would have made fewer mistakes in her first seasons at Caveley if the rows of figures in the account books had not been such a mystery at first, but at least she had not disgraced herself at the country dances. No doubt the local gentry would have been happier if she had limited herself to quadrilles. There was money enough to hire a steward now, but she had grown to enjoy feeling the condition of her home and lands through those estate books, and they had become almost friends in the months of her widowhood. Another eccentricity for her neighbours to puzzle over. Though she would never be able to keep her papers as neat as her son did. It was the habit of a sailor’s son.

The door to his room was slightly ajar; she crossed to it and pushed it open gently so the light of her candle spilled over Stephen’s bed. He lay very still, and for a few moments she did no more than watch him. His face was turned away, but she could see the gentle rise and fall of his breath under the sheets. She bit her lip, and told herself now was not the time to talk to him of serious matters. They would keep until morning, but if she turned away for her own sake or his she could not say. She did not know that Stephen’s eyes were wide open in the dark.

Crowther began his walk back to Silverside Hall thinking of the portraits. He knew the original paintings. His sister had taken them from the house, and still had them, he supposed, in her possession. He had seen neither face since 1751. They looked better men in the pictures than in his memory. It was only with great effort that he could conjure any image of his brother other than in the cell in the Tower the night before his execution. With a painful clarity he could see Adair on his knees and weeping. He tried to think calmly of the body on the Island and consider Harriet’s suggestions. Had his father been afraid of something before he died? Had the dead Jacobite come to haunt him in some way?

Slowly, the story his brother had told him began to seem plausible, when before it had seemed ridiculous. The man paying him for a moment alone with his father. Adair arranging to talk to his father away from the house, then sending the other man in his stead. Becoming concerned when his father did not return. Discovering his body, pulling out the knife and stumbling back to Silverside half-mad with guilt and grief.

Crowther could see nothing but Addie’s face, the terror of his approaching death consuming him. Crowther began to feel the memory of that evening in the cell creeping towards him like a living thing. He had spent the greater part of his life refusing to think of it; now he could not turn away. The memory suddenly took him, and as if he were living the hours once more, it flooded over him: the smell of the fire in the damp cell, the sound of Addie’s retching, the glint of the coins Crowther left him for the hangman, his own words as he promised he would forgive his elder brother if he could, the snap of the rope.

When he managed to open his eyes once more, the light had bled from the day and the scents in the air had shifted to juniper and evening-rose, gorse, meadow-sweet. It was very quiet. The lake had taken on the colours of the moon and the high mountains had shifted to dark green silhouettes. A gull crossed the field of his vision in search of moths. He let his father’s cane fall onto the path beside him.

‘Oh God, Addie! Who is there to forgive me?’

Harriet had retired to the library to wait for Crowther. She sat watching the darkness outside the window and wondered where Casper Grace might be hiding himself She had no doubt that he could avoid detection if he wished it, but feared that in his innocence, he might approach the village and be taken before he could be warned that he was being hunted. Perhaps his friends among the people would find their ways to let him know of Sturgess’s intentions. She thought of the conversation she had had with Mr Scales as she left the vicarage. She had noticed how two or three of the low doors in the village bore signs of a cross only hours old. One was made of rowan twigs, tied and nailed. The other two showed light, since they had been carved there — an outline that recalled the elegant shape of the Luck. She mentioned it to Mr Scales as he saw her to the carriage.

‘News of this unfortunate gentleman’s demise has spread, Mrs Westerman. The people look to guard themselves.’

She had smiled. ‘You must be glad to see them turn to Christ at such moments.’ The old vicar opened the gate for her to pass through.

‘I am not so naive, madam. They look to the Luck, and as it is lost they draw its shadow on the walls and hope that the memory of it will guard them. It is the fair-folk they ask for protection, though they use the cross to call them. It was the same when the small-pox struck us in fifty-four.’

‘It is a foul disease.’

‘One episode in our history Mr Askew has seen fit to ignore. It cost me my wife and one of my daughters, and my faith.’

Harriet came to a sudden halt. ‘Mr Scales?’

The old vicar smiled at her. ‘I pray every day for its return, and I am grateful that my daughter remains devout. But I can understand why the local people prefer their spirits wilful and cruel; it suggests a better understanding of the way the world treats us. Do not tell the bishop if you meet him, my dear. It would disturb his digestion.’

He had patted her on the arm and nodded to Ham, then turned back up the path.

As Crowther entered the room Harriet stirred and looked up at him enquiringly. He did not speak, but instead placed the volume detailing his brother’s trial in front of her and settled into one of the leather armchairs. She took it up and began to read. At some point, Miriam came into the room and placed wine on the table beside Crowther. The night gathered closely about them. Crowther continued to watch the air, and the only sound to be heard was the occasional flick of paper as Harriet turned a page. The moon had dragged itself up and peered in at them across the lake before she set the book down. He finally shifted his head and looked at her. Then without waiting for her to speak, offered up the substance of his conversation with Lottie Tyers.

Harriet put her chin in her hands. ‘You did not know of this strongbox?’

‘No, or at least I knew nothing of it when I sold Silverside and its lands. All papers relating to my father’s property and possessions were to hand, his personal correspondence was in his desk in the study, my mother’s jewels in the strongbox in the wine cellar. There was nothing else to look for. But I did receive a letter from the solicitor in Keswick some years ago informing me that a strongbox had been found, that Mr Briggs believed to be the property of my father.’

‘And?’ Harriet said.

‘I told them to force it, see there was nothing significant in it and then destroy it,’ he said, staring at the high ceiling above them.

‘Crowther! I wish you had not.’

‘I was not aware it might contain evidence to implicate my father in murder,’ he said. ‘If I had known, I would naturally have asked them to preserve it.’ The room was silent for a while at that, then Crowther continued, ‘However, I suspect if my solicitor is anything like his father, he probably did not destroy it.’ Harriet felt herself brighten and tried to hide it, but suspected she was unsuccessful, judging by the slight lifting of the corner of Crowther’s thin mouth. She looked back down at her lap and the book.

‘So your brother protested his innocence to the last?’ she said.

‘He did.’ Crowther’s smile had disappeared and his skin seemed to have become a little more grey in the candlelight.

‘And you were with him the night before his execution?’

‘I was.’

Harriet tried to imagine it for a moment, then shook the thought from her head. ‘Did no one believe him? Not even your sister?’

‘She was only a child at the time, but yes, at first she believed him and we did make enquiries about this mysterious man. But it was such a fantastic story. I had never heard of Jocasta’s testimony, of course. I am sure that I would have dismissed it even if I had, even as I did in eighty-one when I spoke to her of it in London. I cannot blame the magistrate whom she says called her a liar. She had been a bored and difficult pupil at the parish school, and it was held against her. There was Adair shut into his room with blood on his hands, and scarring Lottie Tyers in his madness.’

Harriet picked at the lace on her sleeves, making the silver threads catch and drop the light. ‘I do not believe you did entirely dismiss Jocasta’s testimony when you heard it for yourself, Crowther. I think we are here in part because of what she told you. Even if the body had not been found on Saint Herbert’s Island I still think you would have found your way here eventually.’

He smiled, slightly. ‘Perhaps you are right, Mrs Westerman. Though, as always, I have needed you to goad me into doing what needs to be done.’

She shrugged. ‘I am so crowded and confused at this moment, I am not sure if I could say what I think needs to be done. If we manage by some miracle to prove your brother innocent. .’

The thought was left to turn in the candlelight, till Crowther seemed to pluck it from the air between his long fingers and turn it over in his hands.

‘I do not believe in spirits, Mrs Westerman. Neither Addie nor my father have visited me to claim justice or confess, and I have been too long in this world to expect it to reward virtue. The world does not care who lives or dies, or why, but I still think we may search for truth, that such a thing exists. That may be the only right thing to do. What follows, we cannot hope to know.’

Harriet watched the yellow flame on the candle. The air was so still it never wavered. ‘Let me ask you this then. Do you still believe that your brother killed your father?’

He slowly shook his head. ‘No, Mrs Westerman. My family have been guilty of many crimes, but I am very afraid now that Addie was innocent. But he could not convince us, and half London saw him hanged.’

‘I am sorry, Crowther.’

‘That my father was a murderer? Or that my brother was not? That my nephew might be?’

‘For all of it.’

His face remained calm, but Harriet could guess what saying those words had cost him. The story on which his life had been founded, unpleasant as it was, he now suspected a fiction. So here they found themselves, in the darkness of the old fells, and the lies had built and climbed one upon the back of the other like the ranges of hills that struggled upwards to the unseeing sky and the pewter moon.

‘Are you tired, Crowther?’

He turned towards her and looked up from under his hooded eyes. ‘I am always somewhat tired, Mrs Westerman. What have you in mind?’

‘I am thinking on the dedication in the snuffbox, and your sister’s immediate idea we were suggesting your father was instrumental in the betrayal of Lord Greta’s brother in forty-five. If the body in the tomb was the reason your father was murdered, then we must learn more than Mrs Tyers has told you and general gossip. Was he indeed Greta’s man? What business had he at Silverside so pressing he would risk his neck by knocking on your father’s door the day after setting light to Gutherscale? What became of Greta and his family? Whom did they blame for the taking of Rupert be Beaufoy? I am wondering if we might have among our friends in London a gentleman likely to know a great deal about the enemies of the King domestic and foreign, and who has a talent for coming by information he does not have immediately to hand.’

Crowther pressed his fingertips together and smiled. ‘I think I know whom you have in mind. Our friend Mr Palmer probably does have more chance of knowing such things than any other man living.’

‘Then write to him, Crowther.’

‘While I do so, perhaps you can tell me of your investigations into the death of Mr Hurst.’ He paused, looking at her. ‘What is it, Mrs Westerman?’

‘I have found nothing but a little misery and many more questions. And I fear we may have to have more dealings with other lawyers in the morning.’

Crowther sighed as he prepared his pen. ‘Explain, if you please.’

From the collection of Mr Askew, Keswick Museum

Letter to The Gentleman’s Magazine, June 1746

Concerning the fire at Gutherscale Hall, last November

Mr Urban,

Though the pages of your worthy periodical have been heavy with reflection on the late Rebellion against our King, now the storm is passed it seems fitting to give you some account of the terrible fire of Gutherscale Hall. The destruction of this mighty house acted as a harbinger of the fates of the family that once dwelled between its walls, as within only a sennight of its being consumed by flames, Rupert de Beaufoy, younger brother of the last Lord Greta who now languishes in exile, was taken on his way to join the Rebellion. It seems his location was betrayed by one of his followers, a man much trusted by the Greta family.

All loyal subjects to the King have, however, suffered a great loss in this fire which consumed a home noble for many generations in the space of a single night. How the fatal conflagration began, none can say, for there was no sign of lightning on the night in question. One must suppose some vagrant managed to start a fire there for his warmth, but a spark spread and consumed the whole. The smoke was first noted by labourers ending their day’s work on the opposite side of the lake, and word and assistance was rushed at once to Silverside Hall, residence of Sir William Penhaligon, current owner of these lands and Gutherscale itself. The loss of this fine house is all the more bitter as, having survived its master’s exile and the forfeiture of his lands for thirty years, it had just been purchased from the state by Sir William, who had declared his intention to refurbish this ancient house and make it his own. Alas, it was not to be!

Sir William was at Silverside when word arrived, and at once raced to the scene to do what he could to halt the flames, but it was already beyond the efforts of any man to save it. Sir William’s distress was extreme, and only the appeals of his young daughter clutching at his coat and begging him not to risk his life prevented him from plunging into the fire as if he could extinguish it with his own hands.

At dawn the ancestral home of the Greta family had been reduced to ashes. Would that the Young Pretender had seen this for the omen it proved to be and removed himself at once again to the court of his father in peace, rather than suffer his followers to feel the mighty wrath through Cumberland of the true King of this country.

Yours c W.L.