A Baby's Bones

by Rebecca Alexander

  Over the round of applause, Sage and Steph repacked the specimens, and the teacher set the class a new activity.

  Before they got to the door, Mrs Hodgkins stopped them, Chloe at her side. ‘Dr Westfield, Chloe wanted a word. Is that OK?’

  ‘Of course.’ Handing Steph the van keys, Sage looked down at the child. ‘What did you want to know?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me about the dead people.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Chloe, but we really couldn’t be sure what had happened at first.’ The child hunched up one shoulder, looking down at her shoes. Sage dropped to one knee, so she could look up into her face. ‘If I tell you everything, will that make you feel better?’

  ‘I’m not a baby.’

  ‘I know.’

  Chloe lifted her gaze to Sage’s. ‘Nobody is telling me about my daddy, and my mummy is acting really funny. People are lying to me all the time, even my nana. I know Daddy is really ill, he keeps going away to the hospice.’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Chloe.’

  ‘Mummy says I might have to go and live with Nana for a while. But I won’t go.’ Expressions raced over her features like clouds across the sky. ‘I want to be here when you have your baby.’

  Sage didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine having a parent die, even now. ‘I’m sorry it’s so tough for you at the moment. All I can tell you about is the dig, OK?’ She stood up and led Chloe out of the classroom into the corridor, where they sat side by side on two child-sized chairs outside the head’s office.

  ‘Tell me about the baby in the well,’ Chloe said. ‘Is it a real baby?’

  ‘It was a very long time ago.’ Sage thought carefully about her wording. ‘Yes, it was a real baby. But now there’s just a few bones, like in the graveyard by the church. We’ve taken all the bones away now, there aren’t any left in your garden.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ Chloe swung her feet, squeaking the edge of her soles on the shiny tiles. ‘I get scared sometimes. There’s a ghost in my cupboard.’

  ‘Ghost?’ Sage was startled.

  ‘The ghost that whispers to me at night.’

  Sage sat back; the matter-of-fact delivery was spookier than the suggestion of a ghost. ‘How does this ghost talk to you, Chloe?’

  ‘It just does.’ Chloe stared up at Sage.

  ‘What does it sound like?’

  The child pressed her chin onto her chest. ‘Like a scary man.’

  24

  9th September 1580

  Candles for the seamstress one shilling and five pence

  Accounts of Banstock Manor, 1576–1582

  I can find no pretext for speaking to Isabeau privately for several days. She seems tired, and my lord’s chamberlain reports that she has asked for extra candles to work late. Finally, I manage to catch her one morning as she steps into the garden.

  ‘Mistress Isabeau.’

  She does not turn, but stands frozen, as if she knows what is to follow. Her hair fills her fine caul, which covers it almost completely. Her long neck curves forward, and I know a wish to spare her pain.

  She turns, her face paler than usual, her hands trembling until she clasps one with the other. ‘Master Vincent.’ Her lips tremble, her eyes filled with tears.

  I am loath to distress her but I have to consider the reputation of the manor and its daughter. ‘I must ask you—’

  ‘I am with child. I cannot conceal it indefinitely, so I must confess.’

  I am shocked and saddened. She looks down, closes her eyes, then looks at me. ‘And this is not your husband’s child?’

  ‘No. Do with me as you will.’ She stands tall, and lifts her face up, like a great lady. ‘When my husband finds me, he will surely kill me.’

  ‘I must know, who is the father?’

  She shakes her head, and smiles a little. ‘It is my sin, and my burden to carry. I will finish my work and then I must leave.’ There is such dignity in her bearing, as if she were not just a servant caught by lust, but some imprisoned princess.

  ‘Madam.’ I take a deep breath. ‘The father must bear some responsibility, and help you. You will find it difficult to support yourself with a bastard child.’

  ‘He is… I cannot ask him.’

  ‘He is married, perhaps?’ I look over the roses, seeing the last heads are blown to rags by the late winds. ‘My mother, too, found herself in your position, though widowed.’

  She looks at me with calm conviction. ‘I shall not tell him, and soon I will be gone.’

  I shake my head and step closer. ‘Mistress Isabeau, let me be your go-between. I shall negotiate on your behalf and mayhap get you a pension for the child.’

  Her smile fades. ‘I cannot, Master Vincent.’ She shakes her head, but slowly, as if she is not convinced herself. I think again of Master Seabourne, who was here when the family was away.

  ‘Then let me guess. The man you lay with was then betrothed, and is again.’

  Her hands tremble, and she covers her mouth with a hand for a moment, as if to prevent a cry. ‘Master Vincent,’ she says, ‘he is betrothed to Lady Viola, and I would not hurt her.’

  Nor I, I think, but it is hard to know how to keep it a secret. ‘I shall speak with Master Seabourne and he shall devise a safe place for you and the child. Far away, where you will never meet again.’

  This brings tears to her eyes, already bright. I am not a hard man, and the woman is love-bitten. But a man must be firm in such cases and this isn’t the first servant I have arranged to have taken care of. Why, even my Lord Banstock supports a few bastards in a quiet way.

  ‘Better I were dead,’ she says, in a low voice.

  ‘To think so is a mortal sin, and with a babe, murder besides!’ I allow my anger to show, and she covers her face with her hands and weeps in distress. ‘Come, Mistress,’ I say, but gently. ‘Sit upon the bench and have your tears before we are observed.’

  She curbs them in a few painful sobs. I wait, the scent of bruised rose petals and drying lavender filling the late summer day. ‘I would not upset Viola,’ she whispers.

  ‘Too late to consider Viola’s feelings,’ I say, perhaps more harshly than I intended. ‘If we are discreet, she may never know,’ I add, more gently. Besides, I think, the offence was against her sister, newly betrothed and now dead.

  I look at the seamstress, but her wide skirts conceal any evidence. I think back to Elizabeth’s betrothal. The woman must be more than six months with child, but her tall slenderness and her heavy clothes do not yet display her shame.

  Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir

  25

  Monday 8th April

  Sage walked into the back garden of Bramble Cottage, already nervous. She hadn’t been able to put Chloe’s description of a ‘scary man voice’ out of her mind over the weekend. Clearly the family weren’t coping very well with James’s illness and the excavation was making it worse.

  Elliott met her at the well, which he had already uncovered. ‘I’ve got to talk to you.’ He was fidgeting with one foot, tracing circles in the mud. He looked away, took a deep breath.

  ‘OK.’ She was wary; he looked even more awkward than usual. She handed the boxes to Steph. ‘Put these in the van for me, will you? It’s not locked.’

  ‘The alembic – which it is, by the way – was an incredibly expensive piece of scientific equipment, possibly made in Bohemia,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some emails out to museums.’

  Sage nodded, her gaze drawn to the blackness in the well. ‘Great.’

  ‘I sent a sample of the glass over to a friend who’s doing a PhD in analytical chemistry, and they found out what was in the bottom of it.’ He dug some sheets of paper from his jeans pocket. ‘Look.’

  Sage unfolded them carefully, allowing Elliott his moment of drama. It had taken a while to take to the shy young man, but he was growing on her. It was good to see some passion for his subject.

  ‘Lead, gold, mercury – there’s a lot of mercury,’ she r
ead. ‘Professor Guichard said Seabourne was trying to make gold from mercury, maybe he succeeded,’ she joked.

  Elliott shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Look at page two.’

  Steph joined them. ‘What are you so excited about?’

  ‘Uranium?’ Sage stepped away from the well involuntarily. ‘There’s uranium down the well? How much? Is it dangerous?’

  Elliott waved away her concerns. ‘No, hardly any, microscopic amounts. There’s a tiny amount fused into the glass.’ He grinned at them. ‘It may be evidence of what they were doing. Actual proof of the experiments alchemists carried out.’

  ‘Uranium’s dangerous stuff. How much is on the glass?’

  ‘Barely enough to trigger their alarm,’ Elliott said nonchalantly.

  ‘What?’ Sage gave him the results and held out her hand. ‘I want the phone number of the lab, now. And you are to leave the glassware alone until I am certain it’s safe.’

  Elliott scowled at her, but pulled out his mobile. ‘Seriously, it is safe, it was a minute amount.’ He read out the number and Sage entered it into her phone.

  She made the call. ‘Hi, I need to speak to someone in charge?’ She watched Steph read the results over Elliott’s shoulder and waved at them. ‘Hey, you two, put the barricade round the well and cover it up – oh, hello. This is Dr Sage Westfield, county archaeologist. I understand one of my students found some uranium?’

  The head of the chemistry department remembered Elliott’s sample, which had caused a ‘minor evacuation’ of the lab but not the building. All Sage could do was apologise, but the chemist was amused rather than annoyed, and was able to reassure her. The amount of actual radioactive material was minimal. He was surprised to see uranium, but even more so the amount of thorium. He promised to look into the anomaly when he had time and run further tests.

  She thanked him and hung up before turning to the waiting students. ‘All right, you can carry on with the spoil. We need to hurry up the process; we probably have all the intact bones.’

  Steph stepped a little toward the edge of the well carrying a plastic hazard barrier, and bent to look down into the depths. ‘It sort of draws you in, doesn’t it? Like standing at the top of a cliff, it makes you lean towards it.’

  ‘Don’t fall in, for God’s sake.’ Sage glanced at the house, seeing a shadowy movement inside. ‘We’ll replace the deposits once we’ve looked at what we can in the time. We’ll just take the sieved-out materials and the pottery. I’d like another few weeks but I’d have to clear it with the Bassetts, and I don’t think they would agree to any more than a fortnight.’

  Steph chewed her lower lip. ‘I have exams coming up. I can’t promise I can keep coming over.’

  ‘Fair enough. Elliott?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘I’d love to keep helping – and I do live on the Island, so it’s easier for me – but I do have part one of my dissertation to get in by the end of June. I’ll still help when I can; you know you can rely on me.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll see if I can round up a few volunteers from the community, or second-year students.’

  Elliott shuffled his feet, studying his trainers. ‘The alembic side fascinates me. I was thinking about refocusing the topic for my PhD. The experiments and practices of alchemy are really interesting.’

  Sage thought for a moment, trying to remember who was supervising his PhD. ‘How about I try and negotiate you a small extension with Dr Borrow and you can do one more week here? We could brainstorm the findings, see if it’s a viable change.’

  ‘That would be great.’ He smiled, locking eyes with Sage. ‘Maybe we could brainstorm over a pizza, and then I could do some basic training for your volunteers.’

  Sage wondered if she had time to fit it in. He had worked hard; the least she could do was buy him a pizza and help him modify his research proposal. ‘Sounds good. You might even be able to look into funding; I think alchemy is a fascinating subject. It reveals so much of the Elizabethan ideas about the world.’ She smiled at the crestfallen Steph. ‘And I’ll give you lab time with the artefacts, after your exams, and I’ll make sure both your names are on the report. This is going to make a terrific paper.’

  Steph smiled, then tilted her head towards the house. ‘Mrs Bassett is waving to you.’

  Sage turned and attempted a smile. ‘Cover me, I’m going in.’ She was only half joking.

  * * *

  Judith was, if anything, even thinner. ‘James wants to speak to you.’ Her hostility crept through the twitch of a smile, and she turned away the moment she had shown Sage into the living room.

  James was dressed in a bright jumper that made him look paper-white.

  ‘Sage.’ He smiled warmly. ‘I was wondering if I could get an update on your investigation, if you have time.’ He waved at the sofa. ‘Ju’s put the kettle on. Is tea all right?’

  As the tea ritual worked its way to a conclusion, and Judith brought in three mugs, Sage looked around the room. It was still cold, although there were logs crackling in rolling flames in the woodburner, and a hand extended to the radiator suggested it was on.

  ‘It’s always cold here,’ James said. ‘It seems to be getting colder, not warmer. I think it’s the chimney. How did the school talk go?’

  Sage drew a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid I have to apologise to you. One of the people who dug out the well for us has told people in the village about the bones. Chloe was a bit upset. I’m surprised she didn’t mention it.’

  Judith lifted her hand to her mouth but didn’t say anything.

  James shrugged, his smile slipping. ‘We guessed something was up, but she didn’t tell us. It had to happen eventually. We can’t protect children from the realities for long, can we?’

  Sage took in his grey lips, and was sad for Chloe, sad for the hostile woman standing by the window blowing on her tea. ‘We do think we’ve found out some more about Solomon Seabourne, who rented this house.’

  ‘Seabourne? We had a thought.’ James turned to Judith. ‘Do you know where the deeds are, love?’

  ‘I’ll get them.’

  He turned to Sage. ‘When we bought the house, they came with a redundant record of the previous owners, most of them just photocopies, but they go back ages. We weren’t sure they were even of this house. To be honest, we couldn’t read most of them. But one stood out, you might be able to decipher it.’

  Judith returned and dropped a heavy folder on the coffee table. ‘I’m going down to the school to pick up Chloe.’

  Sage spread the documents out. Most were Victorian or Georgian, selling off parcels of land. One was bigger and older, a faint copy of an agreement. James got up with difficulty, walked across the room leaning on a stick, and sank onto the sofa beside her.

  ‘That’s the one,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t that say Seabourne?’

  Sage read slowly. ‘“Indenture made on the last day of July, in the seconde and twentieth yeare of the reign of our soveryne lady Queene Elizabeth, between Sir Solomon Seabourne of the county of Sussex, and Lord Anthonie Banstock, Baron of said manoir. Being the lease of the Well House, one garden, one orchard, six acres of good pasture in nine fields, let to Richard Arnesley of Newport, and fourteen acres of woods.” He paid thirty pounds per annum, a reasonable rent, I think.’ She counted the years in her head. ‘The twenty-second year of Elizabeth’s reign makes it 1580.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem much.’

  ‘I think that was probably a good price for land as well, especially with a tenant for the fields paying an income. And he was the fiancé.’

  ‘So this Solomon was really here, then. When the well was filled in?’

  Sage thought through the information she had. ‘It’s too soon to be sure, but there’s evidence that Seabourne could have been here around the time the well was filled in. Seabourne was what they called a “natural scientist”, a mixture of a philosopher, chemist and occultist, who was trying to understand the nature of the universe. We found some glass,
which Elliott thinks is an alembic, laboratory glass. It was deep in the well, around the bones.’

  ‘Occultist?’ James’s tone was flat. ‘I just thought we were haunted.’

  ‘What makes you say that? I mean, Judith mentioned something before.’

  His long hands stretched over the bones of his knees, outlined under the baggy cotton. ‘The wailing, mostly. It started the day we moved in. The dog went crazy; he ran out into the road and was hit by a van, Ju probably told you.’

  Sage shivered, the air running down the nape of her neck. ‘Maeve, who used to live here, said she heard something too.’ She fastened the top button of her plaid shirt over a thermal T-shirt. ‘Would it be a good idea to move out for a few days, get a break? We can finish up here and restore the garden a bit before you come back.’

  He smiled, a sad twist of one side of his mouth. ‘I’ve suggested it, but Chloe’s just settling in at school. I don’t want to believe in ghosts but Judith is right, there is something odd about this place. I’ve heard more than just the howling. A couple of times I’ve heard noises downstairs, at night.’ He shut his eyes for a moment, then turned his head and looked straight at her. ‘I’m leaving Judith here to care for my child, you understand? I want to be sure they are both – safe.’

  ‘I understand.’

  He stood and limped to the fireplace. On the mantelpiece was a wooden box, which he opened, and took out a small spherical wireless camera. ‘I set this up, though I don’t know if there’s anything on it. It’s a nanny cam, activated by movement.’

  ‘OK.’ Sage wasn’t quite sure what response James was expecting.

  ‘Can you have a look at the footage? If there was anyone else in the house… I’m too scared to look at it.’

  Sage took the camera he put into her hand. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’m happy to check it out.’

  ‘Thank you.’ James smiled, looking weary. ‘Maybe we have a photogenic ghost and can make a fortune doing tours of the house.’