Island of Bones caw-3

by Imogen Robertson

  The haze in the atmosphere seemed to soften the light, though the heat of the day was already building. It gave even Crowther’s face a glow, and he closed his eyes for a moment as if to drink it into himself.

  ‘Addie was always the favourite with my parents. Then they doted on Margaret as the youngest child. I had some friends of a sort here, and there are places of which I was once fond, but my wish was always to escape. I became myself when I could leave Cumberland, so perhaps yes, I sold the estate in both anger and relief. There was even a certain pleasure at throwing it all to the winds. I never thought I would return.’

  He began to walk towards the old brewery again, and Harriet followed him, deep in thought. Crowther might believe that returning to this house, meeting his nephew for the first time, and his sister after thirty years meant little to him, but he had never said so much to her before about his upbringing and the relations within his family.

  They were met at the entrance to the old brew house by Miriam, the fair-haired and cheerful-looking maid Harriet had met the previous day. She dropped them a quick curtsey and a broad smile. Her face was rather red.

  ‘The range in there is well built up now, Mr Crowther, as you asked, and the coppers bubbling away. They took some finding today!’ She began to flap a breeze into her face with the corner of her apron. ‘My, but that is warm work on a day like today. It’s like Hell itself up by the fire. Though of course they say that is coming to us all now, the sun being all shorn and the meat spoiling on the day it’s butchered, my lord.’ Here she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I’m sorry, I mean to say, Mr Crowther, sir.’

  Harriet looked down and smiled. Crowther said, ‘I prefer the name Crowther, if you would be so kind, Miriam. What was that you said of the sun?’

  ‘Shorn, sir. Does it not look to you as if its beams have been cut off?’ They all three turned towards the east. Harriet found she could stare straight at the sun without pain. It was dull red, like the last embers of wood in a winter fire.

  ‘It does,’ Crowther agreed. ‘But the world will not end today, Miriam.’

  ‘I am glad to hear you say that, sir. For it would be a shame to spoil Mrs Briggs’s party. Nor tomorrow?’

  ‘Not for at least a hundred years. I have it on the best authority.’

  Miriam looked considerably cheered and there was a skip in her step as she headed back to her duties in the main house.

  ‘You were kind to that girl, Crowther.’

  ‘I am practising better manners with my servants. I cannot stand firm under Mrs Heathcote’s stern stares any longer. Who can say? Perhaps I shall become a civilised old man after all.’

  Harriet cast a look at the heavens and pushed open the door to the old brew house.

  It was a large structure with few signs as to the business that used to be done there, other than its name. She supposed that Mrs Briggs had her beer brought in from the village now. She did the same, and at Caveley too there was an outbuilding that had once been full of the yeasty smells of the weekly brewing for the table. The interior walls were roughly plastered and the earthen floor was beaten into an uneven but solid surface by years of use. At the back of the room, a simple stone fireplace had been well stacked with fuel, and there was a healthy fire under it. Harriet was about to ask why Crowther had requested it on such an oppressive day when, as her eyes adjusted to the relative gloom, she noticed an open coffin on the long table on the westerly wall. It was made of unpolished planks. A utilitarian object. The sight of it chilled her. She was at once back in the house where her husband had died, watching him being laid into his own coffin and the lid nailed down. The hammers had seemed unnaturally loud.

  If Crowther noticed anything in her reaction, he chose to ignore it, simply walking over to the rough box and looking inside. She saw him raise a corner of the corpse’s covering and sniff.

  ‘Interesting. The remains seem to have been partially mummified; the tomb obviously provided an efficient seal. We must lower this to the floor, then lift its occupant out onto the table in his winding sheet. I can do nothing, leaning into his coffin.’ Crowther set his cane against the wall. ‘Shall I ask for one of the servants of the house to assist me, Mrs Westerman?’

  Harriet shook out the apron she carried over her arm and started to tie it about her. ‘They are much occupied with the preparations for the garden party. Do you doubt my strength or my stomach, Crowther?’

  ‘Neither,’ he replied. ‘The body is highly desiccated — it should weigh very little.’

  Harriet put her hands on to the coffin. It was indeed very light — the planks were thin. They placed it on the floor between them, Harriet cursing softly under her breath when a splinter caught a thread on her cuffs. She imagined explaining the damage to her housekeeper and grinned as she wondered what Mrs Heathcote’s expression would be. Next they reached forward to grasp the sheet. As she adjusted her grip, Harriet felt the slight weight of the body shift in its shroud and a shiver ran through her.

  ‘Mrs Westerman, I need only call-’

  ‘Enough, Crowther. Let us lift him.’ She was glad enough though when it was done, glad to release her grip as Crowther folded back the rough linen in which the body was wrapped.

  It seemed hardly human — a leathery, twisted form. Unpleasant, unnatural, shocking even at first glance, but she did not turn away — instead, allowed herself to become accustomed to the sight. As she looked, her mind began to understand its contours as those of a human form, and it became under her eyes a corpse rather than a mass of leafmould and rotted clothing. There was the head, and that perhaps was hair framing it. Not a face, a skull wrapped in hessian and ashy paste. It was curled up on itself like a sleeping child. The head though was angled upwards, and the mouth was wide open as though the figure were screaming at someone above it. The head was a deep grey, only holes where the eyes had been. The teeth were visible though, apparently bared by the shrinking flesh around them. For a moment, as if watching from within, Harriet saw the heavy lid of the sarcophagus being shifted into place, the light disappearing with the grinding sound of stone on stone.

  ‘Crowther, is there any chance this person was buried alive?’

  He looked up from his own examination of the body then lifted the matted cloth of the cloak and folded it back to expose the hands. They lay one atop the other in front of the dead man’s chest, shrunk into thin claws.

  ‘I think not. Come here.’

  Harriet crouched down to examine the dead fingers by his side. ‘His nails are still intact,’ she said, and reached out to touch them.

  ‘Take care, Mrs Westerman. The body is delicate.’

  ‘I am being careful. The nails are unbroken.’

  He watched her as she touched the body, lost in concentration, her smooth cheek so close to the skeletal hands that if one finger had straightened it might have brushed her hair from her face. ‘I think we can assume that if he were buried alive, he would have broken them in his struggles for release,’ he said.

  ‘Indeed,’ she replied, then straightened up and smiled, apparently herself again. ‘So in what manner did he die?’

  ‘It is often impossible to answer that question when the body is still warm, madam. I have seen deaths recorded as a result of rage, or grief. On some occasions, all we can say is that a man or woman died because they ceased to live.’ Harriet recognised the rebuke and removed herself a step, her hands crossed in front of her and looking as meek as she might without being suspected of satire. Crowther continued, ‘The position of the mouth, I think we can assume, is a result of natural processes. This man had no one to close his jaw in death.’ Harriet’s mind clouded for a moment with the memory of her husband’s body, but she thrust the thought from her.

  Crowther stood back from the corpse and ran his eyes over it, noting the coloration, the flesh withered rather than rotted away as one might expect in a grave in the earth. Then the degree of degradation of the clothes, which were in a better state than they firs
t appeared. If they were cleaned, the cloak and boots might still be almost wearable, if rather old-fashioned.

  ‘It is remarkable what happens to us after death,’ he said eventually. ‘It would be of interest to document the process. Of course, most human bodies are too valuable for dissection to allow us the luxury of watching them rot, but it might be possible to conduct a useful experiment with pigs.’

  This was too much for Harriet’s meekness. ‘You will be the patron saint of our butcher — though he might resent seeing good meat rot, as might anyone hungry in the village. But is there any way you can say how long this body was in the tomb?’

  Crowther shook his head. ‘We must make those experiments. Of course, it is easier to estimate when a body is relatively fresh. Now we can only say that the process of decay is more or less complete.’

  ‘We have seen the date of the snuffbox, but that only suggests he could not have been so unceremoniously interred before 1742. Though I suppose it is possible he was placed in the tomb a hundred years ago and the snuffbox was dropped in there at some later date.’

  ‘And tucked into his pocket by the opposite of a grave-robber? Unlikely. I do not think I can offer any definitive statement. It was more than ten years ago, I would hazard. I do not think these effects could have occurred in a lesser period.’ Crowther sighed. ‘There is much to be discovered in the area. I wonder if Sir Stephen would be interested in assisting me?’

  Sir Stephen was an acquaintance of theirs in Pulborough who had an all-consuming interest in the insect world. Harriet was confused by his sudden appearance in the conversation.

  ‘I have noted how some insects appear in the flesh at various stages of decomposition,’ Crowther continued comfortably. ‘If Sir Stephen would be interested in making a systematic study. .’

  ‘I have no doubt he would, but you are neither of you in the first flush of youth. You might have to bequeath your work to others before your experiments were complete.’

  The thought did not seem to concern Crowther unduly. ‘From what I have seen of my nephew, it would give me some satisfaction to leave him a field of rotting pigs.’

  Harriet smiled. ‘You do not like Felix. I thought him rather intelligent.’

  ‘Did you? He reminds me of my brother at that age, so I suspect his temper. No, I do not like him.’

  Harriet turned away from the body. ‘I like him less today. I met him this morning in the ruins of Gutherscale Hall. I think he meant to frighten me.’ She hesitated. ‘He seems to fear I might be a threat to his inheritance.’

  There was a silence. ‘I shall horsewhip him myself.’

  She shook her head. ‘You shall do no such thing, Crowther. I believe he regretted saying such things as soon as they were spoken.’

  ‘Are you quite sure, Mrs Westerman?’ Crowther asked, opening his eyes a little wider. ‘I have had the urge to horsewhip him ever since I saw the manner in which he ties his cravat.’

  Harriet shook her head again and tried not to laugh.

  Stephen had bolted his breakfast and was outside as soon as he could persuade his tutor away from the bacon. Mr Quince was pleased to oblige and proposed a walk through the village of Portinscale and into Keswick. ‘Mr West informs me,’ he said, tapping his guidebook, ‘that the best views of the lake are from a point on the other shore. Shall we test him?’

  Stephen was happy to try it, and ran to and fro along the path like a young dog. ‘I was asking Miriam about Casper, sir,’ he said when his first flush of energy was run off and he found himself back at Mr Quince’s side.

  ‘Were you? And what did Miriam have to say?’

  ‘That he lives in the hills almost all year round and sleeps in the charcoalburners’ huts or the woodcutters’ old camps, though he is quite rich.’ Mr Quince looked down at the boy. He obviously saw something to admire in Casper’s sleeping arrangements. ‘And also that he knows all about bogles and dobies and the fair-folk and witches, and comes and visits people when they are sick. He is a cunning-man. They say he has healing powers, but the boggarts pull his hair sometimes and make him strange. But only sometimes.’

  ‘And what are bogles? Or dobies, for that matter.’

  Stephen looked proud. ‘There, now I can tell you something, sir. Dobies are often helpful. Bogles are bad luck and look like dead people. They say Casper’s father saw one once, and that was when the small-pox came upon him.’

  ‘You are very thoroughly informed! How long did you keep that girl from her work?’

  ‘She did not mind.’ He kicked a stone in the path and it skittered across the road, startling a pheasant into flight. They paused to watch it retreat clumsily into the field, clucking in outraged magnificence.

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Stephen?’

  ‘I do not think so. But perhaps I would if they pulled my hair.’

  Quince breathed the air in deeply. ‘I do not think even Mr Crowther could fault your logic on that point, my lad. Now let us not dawdle. I hope we may join one of the boats that leave from Keswick to show the lake, and perhaps visit the museum in the town. They have a picture of the Luck there, and we can compare it to your carving.’

  Distracted by the body itself, Harriet only now remembered to ask Crowther about the fire and the pans steaming above it.

  ‘I intend to boil this gentleman’s bones.’

  Harriet was aware he was watching her for a reaction. ‘Why?’ she managed at last, faintly.

  ‘This body is far too old for me to make use of my usual methods, madam. What little flesh remains is mummified.’ Harriet nodded. It looked like rotted wood to her, as if a touch would turn it to dust in places. In others it was leathery and black. ‘It is very unlikely to tell us a great deal. However, the bones may. To remove the remaining flesh by slow boiling will reveal anything they have to say to us without damaging them further.’

  She frowned at him. ‘You know the body is to be buried in a few days? I understand the vicar has found room in the graveyard at Crosthwaite for him. Mrs Briggs has even picked the verse for the tombstone. Do you think it will please the reverend gentleman to know you have been making soup of the corpse?’

  A smile glimmered across Crowther’s face. ‘We can spare the vicar’s feelings by sealing the coffin before he takes charge of the remains. And by not giving him too many details of the manner of our investigation.’

  No one else would have thought Crowther looked in any way excited, but Harriet could tell he was delighted at the thought of cleaning the bones. She watched him with amused resignation. ‘I am glad the cook has not lent you her best pans.’

  A shadow crossed the edge of their vision, and they looked up to see they were observed from the doorway by Mr Sturgess and another gentleman. He was an oddly dwarfish little man, though powerfully built, purple-faced with very full lips, and was blinking rapidly at them.

  Mr Sturgess advanced when he saw they had been noticed. ‘Good morning, Mrs Westerman, Mr Crowther. Mrs Briggs told us where you were and I am afraid we could not resist disturbing you briefly. I wished to introduce you to Mr Askew.’ The other man shuffled in. ‘He owns our new museum in Keswick.’

  ‘Delighted,’ Harriet murmured and dropped a curtsey. It was peculiar to find herself acting as if she were in a drawing room with the corpse lying exposed between them, but she was unsure what the Lady’s Magazine would advise in the circumstances.

  Mr Askew bowed in return and continued to inch towards them. ‘This is the poor fellow then? How horrible.’ His eyes bulged a little. ‘We put a notice in the window of the museum, you know, but no information has been offered.’

  He craned his neck upwards and stared down at the corpse’s open mouth, his lips opening a little as if he were mimicking the expression of the body. Harriet glanced at Crowther, who was looking at the museum owner very coolly, then she turned to the magistrate.

  ‘Any more ill-gotten treasures for us, Mr Sturgess?’

  He shook his head, but before he could put his rep
ly into words Mr Askew had turned his shining eyes towards Harriet.

  ‘Mr Sturgess mentioned you were in possession of a snuffbox that was found on the body. May I see it?’

  Harriet hesitated, then reached into the pockets of her skirts and handed it to Mr Askew over the remains of its former owner. He licked his lips and turned it over in his hands. Harriet felt the sting of his sweat in her nostrils. ‘Oh, that is very pretty! I hope Mrs Briggs might be persuaded to donate it to the museum in due course. It is just the sort of thing that grabs the interest, you know. Do you not agree, Mr Sturgess?’

  Sturgess stepped forward to view the body. ‘Undoubtedly,’ he said as he examined the corpse’s face, then almost to himself, ‘how these little objects mock us. It so solid and this man. . Alas, poor Yorick. .’ He stepped back again. ‘Forgive us, we are keeping you from your work. We came to invite you to Mr Askew’s entertainment on the shores of the lake this evening.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Askew said with a beam. ‘After the gathering here at Silverside we are to have fireworks launched from Vicar’s Island at the north end of the lake. I hope all of the party at Silverside will grace us with their presence. I have left tickets, with my compliments. There will be punch, and I expect quite a squeeze. The town is full of visitors at the moment.’ He handed the snuffbox back to Harriet. ‘And all of the neighbouring gentry will be in attendance. I had it also in my mind to mention to Herr von Bolsenheim that I chanced upon an acquaintance of his from Vienna in town, visiting with his daughter, but I understand he has left to spend the morning in Cockermouth.’

  Harriet put the box back into her pocket. ‘I think he is already aware. Mrs Briggs mentioned to us there was some such person in town, but I do not think they are closely acquainted.’

  Sturgess seemed ready to take his leave, but Mr Askew was not yet done with them.

  ‘I was also wondering if I might persuade Lord Keswick. .’ he bowed towards Crowther, ‘to address a small meeting at the museum on the unusual atmosphere of this summer at some time during your stay. We should like to take advantage of having such an esteemed Fellow of the Royal Society in our midst.’