The Digger's Rest

by K. Patrick Malone

  He also took it upon himself to teach her how to behave like a manored lady, how to sit and stand, to walk and pour tea with the grace and confidence of a lady more of his time than her own, and she loved every minute of it.

  He truly surprised her one day while in the garden beyond any expectation, when he asked her to pose for him so he could sketch her. Flattered beyond ever possibly declining, she sat for him in the sunshine with her hair up looking down on her lap full of freshly cut flowers, and when he showed her the result, it took her breath away. The stroke may have taken away his legs but it seemed to have no effect on his control of his hands.

  Afterwards, he gave the portrait to Lady Cotswold to have framed for Sandrine as gift that following Christmas.

  As for Lady Cotswold, Sandrine went out of her way to make herself indispensable, and she succeeded. She organized everything for Madeline from her most routine daily appoint-ments to opening her mail and keeping her ever important social calendar. When not officially on duty, they shopped together in the most exclusive stores, never leaving without Lady Cotswold having purchased some small thing for Sandrine as a gift for her hard work; a Chanel scarf, a Stratton compact.

  In the end, their relationship seemed more like an endeared aunt and favored niece combined with Master Class teacher and gifted student rather than employer and employee. They spent hours together talking about the things she’d done and the people she’d met, looking at old photographs and laughing like school girls about some of the famous men Lady Cotswold had been propositioned by in her earlier days, and how bizarre some of those propositions had been, Sandrine’s favorite being the one about a certain member of the current royal family proposing in the early 1970s that Lady Madeline swing naked for him from a velvet swing in his drawing room while he showered her privates with champagne from below. The two of them laughed until their sides ached over that one.

  The three of them had gotten so close that by the time the Devon Project came about there wasn’t any real question in Lord Cotswold’s mind that Sandrine would be included. As much as he would miss the brightness she brought to his life, he knew that Madeline would need her more because, as much as he hated to admit it, Madeline wasn’t the young girl she had been once when she’d accompanied him around the world on their many hot and strenuous digs.

  Even in the few years before his stroke, she depended more and more on the students they’d recruited than she would have when they were in their prime. She might still be a digger in her soul, but she was also fifty-three.

  When Lady Cotswold told Sandrine the news about the Devon Project, Sandrine squealed with delight and hugged her, jumping up and down. “I promise, I won’t let you down, Lady Madeline. I know I don’t have any field experience, but I’ll follow your lead every step of the way,” Sandrine promised, over-flowing with excitement as they left to go out shopping for new digging clothes for the both of them.

  “But I must warn you, my dear. We are sharing this project with men, and you know what that means, and Americans at that. You must always be on your guard with American men, and this man Bramson in particular. I’ve only seen him once in person and never met him officially, but if he’s anything like the man he works for…” Lady Cotswold stopped herself before she gave away too much then continued. “Do not forget, we are sharing this project with them, and that he needs my field experience as much as I need his period-specific knowledge. For you, this could mean the difference between an auspicious beginning to your career and a mediocre one, so stay close,” Lady Madeline said cautiously.

  ***

  A week later, Cotswold Manor was abuzz with a circus of activity; the packing and loading of the excavation equipment and artifact crates, recording devices, cameras. George followed Lady Cotswold around nervously with a pad and pen, taking frenzied notes as she spoke in a stream of both interconnected and disconnected thoughts and instructions.

  Lord Neville just sat by and watched, in some part amused, some part regretful at not being able to go himself, and some part worried as it occurred to him that he and Madeline had never really been separated during the entire time of their marriage. What if he died while she was gone?

  “I do love you, Maddie,” he whispered in her ear as she bent to hug him before they departed.

  “I love you, too, Neville, dreadfully,” she said, her eyes filling with tears as she stood before heading for the door.

  He followed her, George behind him pushing the wheelchair. “You two take good care of each other…my two girls,” he shouted at the car, waving as it passed the door, down the drive toward the gate.

  ***

  “I absolutely cannot wait to find out what all this is about,” Madeline said to Sandrine, brimming with excitement as she drove down the M5 towards Exeter. She’d always been a lifelong Yorkshire girl before she went to London and married Neville. She’d never even been to the West Country. Her work, hers and Neville’s, had always taken them abroad. It never once occurred to her that she would one day be digging virtually in her own backyard, or even that there would be anything left in England that hadn’t already been uncovered.

  What could it be? she wondered as she drove. From the photographs, she knew it was a castle ruin, 8th century, 9th century maybe. But what could it be about it that would interest Jack Edgeworth enough to buy it? He must know something, or suspect something. But what?”

  It was already evening when Lady Madeline and Sandrine pulled into the tiny village of Exton St. Cyres. Dating back to a time well before the Norman Invasion, most of these villages began as little more than parcels connected to feudal estates, hubs created as commerce centers for the surrounding estate; way stations for travelers going between cities, such as Exeter and Plymouth.

  Each then developed into what one might call traditional “village life” after the Norman Invasion and the advent of the Domesday Book. Exton St. Cyres was no different. Consisting of little more than a few winding cobblestone streets dotted with thatched roof cottages, a medieval church, a post office and a grocer added during the time of King George V, the village itself probably hadn’t changed since before the birth of Victoria with the exception of the addition of electricity and all the con-veniences that went along with it. Then there was the inn and the pub, in this instance one and the same.

  ***

  When Lady Madeline pulled up to the front of the large thatched roof and cob building, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Sandrine didn’t get the joke at first so Lady Madeline pointed to the sign lodged in the long area between the two somewhat conical thatched roof towers. “The Digger’s Rest Pub & Inn.” Sandrine still didn’t get the joke until Lady Madeline spoke it. “Sandrine, we’re archaeologists! Don’t you understand? The Digger’s Rest. We’re diggers and this is where we rest,” she said, laughing at the irony of it. Sandrine got it then, thinking it was rather clever after all.

  Then she looked over the road to the opposite side of the inn and saw the decaying medieval church, dimly lit from the inside, casting only shadowy colored light through the large stained glass windows, and next to it, the church graveyard. She pointed so that Lady Madeline would look over. “Oh my..” Lady Madeline said, putting her hand to her mouth with embarrass-ment, a chill suddenly running up her spine. “They meant grave diggers.”

  Chapter IX

  THE FARTHINGS

  At the door there's a man who will greet you Then you go downstairs to some tables and chairs Soon I'm sure you'll be tappin' your feet Because the beat is the greatest there

  I Know A Place

  ……..As performed by Miss Petula Clark

  Mitch and Simon arrived a few hours after Lady Madeline and Sandrine, with much the same reaction to the sign over the inn and the church graveyard across the road. This time Mitch laughed, but it gave Simon the creeps, mostly because he used his visualization skills to take himself back, using the gravedigger scene from Hamlet as a model. Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio, he thought to hims
elf, letting his mind drift into a picture of Mitch in a twelfth century night shirt with a skull in his hand.

  “Okay, come on, let’s see if we can get some help carrying in the bags,” Mitch said as he got out of the rented SUV and headed for the heavy, black wrought-iron and dark-oak door. Simon grabbed a few of the lighter bags and followed him, stopping to stare at the door before he went in. It reminded him of the entrance to a dungeon; the building in general like something from one of the grimmer Grimm’s fairytales.

  Once in, Mitch walked up to the dark oak podium dimly lit by a small lamp, a pale young man standing behind it. About twenty-eight or thirty years old, he had a head of light brown hair, just growing in from recently having it shaved as was the going style with young men. Smallish in stature and wiry looking, he wore a crisp white shirt and was writing in what looked like a reservation book.

  As Mitch approached, the young man looked up, his blue-gray eyes set deeply in sharp, Anglo-Saxon features giving him a stern appearance. The young man smiled as he saw them and his eyes rounded a bit, his features immediately softening to reveal the sparkle of youth in his eyes and a welcoming quality in his smile, lightening his entire countenance to handsome.

  “You must be Doctor Bramson,” he said in an educated English accent, his smile brightening even more in the dim lamplight as he put out his hand cordially. Mitch looked at the young man curiously. The young man smiled again. “It’s not every day someone who looks like you comes in here, Dr. Bramson. I knew you had to be a colonist from either America or Australia, and since Lady Cotswold just checked in and asked if you’d arrived, it was a safe guess. I’m Malcolm Farthing, one of the managers here at Digger’s. Mitch smiled back and shook the young man’s hand.

  “Mitchell Bramson…” he said. “…alive and kicking, fresh from the colony known as New York,” and he laughed.

  Just then another young man appeared behind Malcolm Farthing’s shoulder. He was taller, broader and bigger boned, but his coloring was the same, with longer, spiky hair, another style favored by young men of-the time, somewhere between blonde and light brown, almost wheat colored but with the same blue-gray eyes and pale skin with a smattering of freckles across his nose; wearing a crisp blue-and-white pin-striped shirt. His features were naturally softer and less angled than Malcolm’s because of his larger size, but there was no doubt that they were the product of the same gene pool. He smiled widely at Mitch just as Malcolm went to call over his shoulder, “Dec…”

  Malcolm jumped, not realizing that his brother had been standing so close behind him. “I do wish you would stop doing that, Deck,” he said and smiled, blushing. “Dr. Bramson, this is my brother, Declan; he’s a manager here at Digger’s, too.”

  Declan Farthing reached his long arm past his brother and held his hand out for Mitch to shake.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Bramson. You can call me Deck, everyone ’round here does. We’ve been expecting you,” Deck said with the same educated English accent as his brother, smiling good naturedly. “We don’t get many Americans in here, so after you’ve had the chance to settle in maybe we can talk about your red Indians over a pint. I’ve always loved your Western movies. ‘Giddy up, little doggies’,” he said, sounding like John Wayne by way of Hugh Grant.

  Mitch laughed out loud. “Yes, of course, I’d like that a lot, Deck.”

  “Deck, please… Could you help Dr. Bramson in with his bags and talk about red Indians later,” Malcolm said in an ‘I’m the older brother’ voice he’d probably used a million times before.

  Simon stood back in the shadows and watched, shying away. He couldn’t help it. It always took him longer to get used to strangers, like sticking his toes in the water to judge the temperature. Once he was confident that Mitch had already broken the ice, he stepped forward, and as he had done with Madame Duvalier, Mitch sensed he was there without looking.

  “Malcolm, Deck, this is my assistant, Simon Holly.” The two young men each held out their hands to Simon, Malcolm taking it first, then Deck. “Good to meet you, Simon,” they said simultaneously, feeling free to be less formal with him since he was closer to their age.

  Simon bowed his head slightly, “Same here guys.”

  Then Malcolm was at Deck again. “And please get someone to help you while I show Dr. Bramson and Simon to the bar for a drink,” he said regaining his professional innkeeper composure.

  “Yes, Mal,” Deck said dutifully back to his brother as he came around the podium, catching Mitch’s eye as he went by, whispering, “Red Indians,” before he bent to take the bags.

  Mitch smiled and winked back whispering, “Geronimo,” wondering if he had any of the dollar coins cast with the image of Sacagawea left rolling around somewhere in his luggage to give the kid as he and Simon followed Malcolm around to the bar.

  Once they were comfortably seated around the busy bar and Malcolm had poured them each a beer, another young man appeared behind Malcolm’s shoulder. He was as tall as Deck, not as broad but had the same complexion, features and eye color, except this one had dark hair and looked to be the youngest of the three. “Dr. Bramson, Simon, this is my cousin, Jed; he’s a colonist too, from Australia,” Malcolm said with a mischievous smile. “He’ll be your bartender for the rest of the evening while Deck and I take care of the dining room.”

  The newest young man put out his hand politely and shook both Mitch and Simon’s hands. “A pleasure to meet other fellow colonists,” he said in a thick Australian accent, casting darts with his eyes at Malcolm’s back and smirking as Malcolm walked away.

  Mitch downed his beer quickly, giving him his usual second wind. Simon, on the other hand, was more circumspect about it and took his in sips, remembering his first introduction to alcohol. By the time Simon’s glass was empty, his eyes were dim and droopy. “Would it be alright if I went to our room, Doctor…Mitch? I’m very tired and still need to unpack.”

  “Sure, but leave the unpacking until tomorrow. There’s no rush and you’ll need all your strength when we go out to survey the site tomorrow afternoon. Okay?” Mitch said with his hand on Simon’s back. Simon nodded his agreement, sighing with comfort at the feel of the warm strong hand on his back.

  Ever the skilled bartender, Jed refilled Mitch’s beer and called out to one of the passing waitresses, “Fiona, could you show our guest here the way to the cottage and make sure he finds everything he needs?” A pretty blonde waitress came over to the bar. “Sure, Jed,” she said with a cheeky grin.

  “Simon, just follow our Fi here and she’ll make sure you get there alright,” he said kindly, having seen them arrive and noticing immediately that Simon was…different.

  Mitch made quick work of his second beer and ordered a brandy to go with his third. He had just settled into a leisurely haze by then, and took to his favorite pastime when newly arrived at an unfamiliar location, quietly observing his surroundings.

  On his first scan he examined the structure of the room. The walls were made of thick cob, a substance used for over a thousand years, made from a mixture of limestone, straw, mud and practically anything else they could get their hands on, and coated with a paste of plaster-like whitewash.

  The ceiling was low and ribbed with wide, blackened oak beams and the floor was covered with equally wide and blackened planks of oak. Early Tudor, he thought, having assessed the period instantaneously. He started scanning the faces about the room, making a wide sweep and mentally making a note of anyone who stuck out in particular among the throng of people shifting back and forth from their seats to the bar or chatting animatedly in groups in booths and at tables around the room.

  The first face to catch his attention was of man about his own age with close-cropped, dark-brown hair, a ruddy complexion and a dimple in his chin making him appear younger than he probably was. He was leaning on the bar, smoking a short, thin cigar and staring at him. The large, dapple gray, long-haired hound at the man’s feet made Mitch think, Funny about English pubs, you can s
moke and bring your animals, too. Perfect.

  As he continued scanning, he noticed the wide range of ages of everyone around him. There didn’t seem to be much of a generation gap going on there. Young people were talking to older people with the same ease as they might have with someone their own age and vice versa.

  There was a group of men of mixed ages at one table, some with shaved heads and tattoos on their arms, shouting amiably at one another about something having to do with sports, some of the younger ones looking remarkably like the older ones, Fathers and sons? Brothers?

  At the booth across from the men was a group of twenty something girls, giggling and pointing around at the young men, clearly taking bets or measures.

  When he turned around to take in another angle, there was a very small, old man standing next to him with tiny, piercing black eyes and tufts of pure white hair sticking out from underneath a ragged, knitted blue cap. Jed had just handed the old man a fresh beer when the old man turned to Mitch, staring into his eyes intently, almost hypnotically. He leaned in close to Mitch and said something in a strange language Mitch couldn’t place, and with his knowledge base, that in itself took it out of the ordinary, then the old man walked away.

  When Mitch looked up, a tall shapely woman of about forty, dressed in a tight fitting, all black outfit with a wide rhinestone belt had moved into the spot vacated by the old man. She had black hair that matched her clothing, cut in what might have been called a long shag thirty years ago, giving her an almost owlish appearance. Her features added to the effect.

  She wasn’t so much pretty as sexy in an interesting, alluring sort of way, with a sharp hawk-like nose and dark, deep set eyes beneath finely kept arched black eyebrows. She leaned in close to Mitch, “That’s Amos. He was speaking to you in the old language,” she said softly, a gleam in her dark eyes.