Juliet was wide awake in a moment.
“Whatever makes you think that?”
Nick shrugged again.
“That flower on the cover. It’s very pretty – and distinctive. There’s probably no connection – it may just be a pretty flower that the young lady took a fancy to. I don’t know how easy it would be to get it in nineteenth century England. But she may have had relatives who travelled. Brothers, perhaps.”
“Her husband certainly travelled, and in Africa, too. But tell me about the flower. Is it some particular type? As you say, it is very pretty, but I thought that it was just decorative, an invention of the manufacturer of the visitors’ book, which is how the journal started out in life.”
“It’s an Eryngium Planum. A few years ago I spent some time in South Africa, working for a construction company, and while I was there I visited Zimbabwe. They grow everywhere there. When they bloom, they’re really beautiful. I think it’s the country’s national flower now. I don’t know about in the nineteenth century.”
“The country was called Rhodesia then,” said Juliet absent-mindedly. She was trying to think what significance Nick’s identification of the flower might have.
“At the end of the century,” said Nick, with rising indignation, “it was called after an individual who was not a monarch or one of the ruling class, purely for his own self-aggrandisement.”
“Cecil Rhodes. You seem to know a lot about him.”
“I studied politics and history at university. I’m interested in colonialism, in all its forms. The so-called Iron Curtain countries, like Poland, were colonies of a kind.”
“I suppose they were. I hadn’t thought of that,” said Juliet. Nick’s mood had darkened considerably.
“Would you mind passing my tea? I’m very thirsty.”
His gently courteous demeanour returned as quickly as it had disappeared.
“Yes, of course. Here you are. I’m sorry; I got side-tracked. Now I will go and cook.”
Juliet could hear a lot of banging about in the kitchen and the opening and shutting of cupboard doors as Nick searched for crockery and utensils. She decided to leave him to it; she’d probably only irritate him if she tried to interfere. She spent the next half hour luxuriating on the sofa, flicking through the journal and re-reading some of the passages in it. Skimming through it in this way pointed up its falseness more than reading it straight through. The uniformity of the writing and the ink, the recurrent use of certain words and phrases over what was ostensibly a period of several years, all suggested that it had been written during a much shorter period of time than the carefully-inscribed dates indicated.
Nick came in from the kitchen, his face red and dripping with sweat. He was bearing white wine, which he had poured into one of Juliet’s only two delicate crystal glasses. They’d been a present from the one serious boyfriend she’d ever had.
He peered at her anxiously.
“You are fully awake now? Are you allowed to drink wine? I didn’t think: perhaps your pills don’t allow it.”
“I don’t know. I’ll have a look.”
Juliet cast around for the antibiotics and finally found them on the floor, almost hidden underneath the sofa. She must have knocked them down when she’d been sleeping. She inadvertently picked up something else when she was retrieving them. It was a small mauve card with a loop of silver ribbon threaded through its top left-hand corner. She dropped it again deliberately and, with a surreptitious flick of one finger, sent it scudding under the sofa. It looked as if Nick had been telling the truth about the flowers, but she certainly didn’t want to revisit that conversation again. She’d take a look at the card when he’d gone home.
“It doesn’t say anything about alcohol,” she said, turning the packet over and scrutinising the tiny printing on the label. “I think I’ll risk it. I feel like a glass of wine!”
“Well done!” Nick pressed the glass gently into her hand and went back into the kitchen, returning instantly with the other glass. He clinked it very carefully against hers.
“Cheers!” he said.
“Cheers!” Juliet responded, rather more quietly. Her feeling of euphoria was evaporating. She was now apprehensive about where all of this might be leading.
In fact, Nick’s supper proved to be very enjoyable. The dish that he produced was rather like Wiener schnitzel, but made with chicken. It was accompanied by a potato salad, which he had also made, and a large green salad. They laughed and talked while they were eating. Juliet was astonished to see that by the time they had finished eating they had also polished off the whole bottle of wine.
“Do not worry, I have another bottle in my flat,” said Nick. “I will go to fetch it.”
“Certainly not,” said Juliet, laughing. “I may not have been told not to drink alcohol, but I’m sure my doctor didn’t mean me to get drunk on my first night at home.”
Nick shrugged, but good-naturedly.
“As you wish. I think that a bottle of white wine is not much, but I don’t wish to encourage you in bad ways. Let me make coffee instead and you can tell me about your journal.”
Juliet recounted what she knew of Florence’s journal as briefly as she could: where it had come from, what it contained, why Katrin had sent it to her, her suspicions about its authenticity and her conviction that Cecil Rhodes was involved in some way with Florence’s husband. Nick was spellbound all the time that she was talking. She almost told him about the skeletons in the cellar at Laurieston House as well, but decided against it. There had been no public announcement about the skeletons yet and, since nothing that she’d read in the journal linked them to Florence, she realised that to tell him would be an uncalled-for indiscretion on her part. She was equally careful not to mention Jackie Briggs, except in passing. She identified Jackie as the owner of the journal, but didn’t say that she couldn’t get in touch with Jackie at the moment because of Harry Briggs’ disappearance. Instead, she concluded her tale by explaining to Nick that she was hoping that someone at the Archaeological Society would be able to help her to discover what was sandwiched in the cover of the journal without damaging it too much.
“But I can help you with that!” Nick cried. “There’s no need to involve the Archaeological Society. I have craft knives and my hand is very steady.”
Juliet looked doubtful.
“I don’t doubt your skill,” she said, “but I’m not sure that we ought to tamper with the journal until we have Jackie Briggs’ permission. It could get my boss into trouble if it goes wrong.”
“But that means you do doubt my skill!” said Nick with a grin. “Let me fetch my craft knives. I will just try to lift a tiny piece of the paper. If it doesn’t work, we’ll leave it. You want to know what is under there, don’t you? And I would like to know myself, now that you have told me the story.”
Still dubious, Juliet sighed but nodded her head slightly.
“All right. You’ve persuaded me. But promise me you’ll stop if I ask you to.”
Nick was gone before she could change her mind.
Fifty-Five
Nick Brodowski returned to Juliet’s flat within a few minutes, bearing three craft knives, a paperknife, a wooden board, some sheets of blotting paper, scissors, a tube of glue and another bottle of white wine.
“We may be in for quite a long evening,” he said. “But you must tell me if you are getting too tired, and I will leave and return tomorrow.” He raised the bottle. “You will have another glass of wine?”
“Yes, but only a glass,” said Juliet. “The doctor is coming to see me tomorrow. I really don’t want to be hung over.”
She watched as Nick seated himself at the table and placed the journal on the board and opened it.
“Could you sit beside me?”
“Certainly. What do you want me to do?”
“Just hold the fro
nt cover as flat to the board as you can. Hold it down firmly with both hands.”
Juliet seated herself next to him and tried to do as he asked.
“That’s fine, but you need to place both your hands away from where the edges of the cover have been stuck down. Put that hand there, in the middle of the cover, and that one there.” He gently rearranged her hands. “I shall have to come quite close to you with the craft knife, but don’t worry, I won’t let it slip.”
Juliet watched, fascinated, as he carefully prised the paper away from the thick board of the journal, making tiny insertions with the craft knife. After an hour, he had levered up almost half of the top edge of the cover. Juliet’s fingers were aching and she had cramp in the back of her hands from holding them in the same position for so long.
“You would like a rest? Or perhaps to stop now? We can leave it for tonight if you like.”
Her whole body was screaming out for sleep, but she fought off its demands.
“I’d like to finish this today if we possibly can. It’s too exciting to want to give up on it now!”
“A rest, then. Drink some wine.”
She sat back in her chair, flexing her fingers before she picked up her glass and took a couple of sips.
Nick drained his glass and poured himself another. The alcohol seemed to have no effect on his hand-eye co-ordination.
“Ready to start again?”
She nodded. It took the best part of another hour to separate the paper from the whole of the top of the cover. They paused for another break.
“I’m sorry it is taking so long. The glue is very old and stubborn. We’re lucky that the paper is good quality. If it had been cheaper it might just have flaked into powder. Then you would certainly have told me to stop!”
Juliet laughed.
“Yes, I would! Are you ready for another go?”
He nodded. He took hold of her hands and positioned them differently so that he could start work on the side of the cover. Was it her imagination, or had he given her fingers a fleeting caress as he’d guided them into place? She saw that he’d made no further inroads into the wine. She pushed the bottle to one side.
Now their heads were bent so close together that at times they touched. The first time it happened, Juliet drew away gently. She noticed that Nick flinched and decided not to do it again. After a few more minutes, he relaxed completely, completely absorbed in the task.
“I think that this will be a little easier,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be as much old glue here.”
He was working at it intensely now, his movements rapid and sure.
“That’s half of it,” he said, straightening up and wiping his forehead. “I think we might be able to get at the paper now. Do you want to try?”
“No, you do it,” said Juliet. “You have nimbler fingers than I do. Please be careful, though.”
“Here goes!” he grinned. “What do you bet that this will just be scrap paper that’s been used as padding?”
He pushed the loosened paper up so that it formed a kind of envelope and grasped the wad of yellow paper inside it. He was unable to extract it. A fine film of yellow appeared on his fingertips, as if he’d been collecting pollen.
“The paper inside isn’t such good quality. I’m afraid it might disintegrate if I pull too hard. It may also be stuck to the bottom of the board, or wrapped around the whole of it, on both sides.”
Juliet thought for a moment.
“Jackie Briggs doesn’t know about the yellow paper,” she said. “She won’t be upset if we damage it, whereas she might be if we damage the cover of the journal. I think we should risk putting a bit more purchase on it. At least we’ll then be able to tell whether you’re right. Then we’ll know we need to do more work to lift the covering.”
“Do you have some tweezers? And a bulldog clip?”
“Yes, I’ll fetch them.”
When she brought the tweezers, he used them to open out the envelope a little more. Carefully, he dug down to the bottom and ran the tweezers around it and the closed side. He took the bulldog clip and clamped it to the top edge of the wad, causing a small cloud of the pollen-like dust to rise into the air and fall on the board. Gritting his teeth, Nick yanked at the paper.
It slid halfway out before the bulldog clip tore off, taking with it a ten-pence piece sized fragment. Nick reattached the clip and pulled again. This time the whole of the wad emerged. The yellow paper was speckled brown in places and smelt musty, like old hymn books.
“It’s been folded over several times. Unfold it as carefully as you can, while I glue these edges down again. The sooner I do it, the less damage there’s likely to be; I’ll leave a gap for some padding refill.”
Juliet took the wad of paper from him. It seemed at first that it consisted of several sheets stuck together, but there were folds on two sides. Gradually, she managed to open it out, taking off the surface in some places but not actually tearing any holes, until she had spread out in front of her two foolscap-sized sheets of paper. Time had stuck them together, but not firmly. Juliet took one of the craft knives and gradually eased the sheets apart with it. Laying the two sheets side by side, she saw that each was a separate but almost identical document. She was looking at two printed forms, each of which had been written on sparingly in a neat hand in brown-black ink.
“Have you got something interesting there?” Nick looked up from what he was doing. “I’m glad that the pages aren’t just blank, anyway. Do they seem to have any kind of meaning?”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Juliet slowly. “Give me a few minutes to read them.”
“Sure.” He returned to his task. He had cut some blotting paper so that it formed a wad of similar size and thickness to the one that he’d removed and slid it into the envelope. Now he was easing tiny lines of glue on to the edge of the board before smoothing down the cover paper with the flat blade of the paperknife.
Juliet studied the first sheet. Some of the writing was indecipherable or worn away by age or the more recent damage inflicted by herself, but she could read enough of it to see that the document formed some kind of report.
“Louisa Jameson,” she read. “Age: thirty-three. Height: Five feet two inches. Weight: ten stones. Physical features: Strong. Good worker. Excellent teeth. Does not tire easily. Large breasts and buttocks. Neat enough for the house. Illnesses: None recorded. Slight limp. Demeanour: Pleasant. Cheerful. Obedient. Personal hygiene: adequate.” The next printed word was difficult to make out. Pediment? Parchment? The written words offered no clue: they consisted merely of a series of dates. The first one of these was 9th August 1870; the last 24th December 1894. There were about a dozen dates in the list, each one followed by the letters ‘btg’.
“That should do the trick,” said Nick. “We just need to leave a weight on that for twenty-four hours now. Are you having difficulties with that? I’m going to wash my hands. Then I’ll take a look, if that’s OK?”
“Please do,” said Juliet. She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes to midnight! She felt deathly tired now, but she was determined to see this through, get as far as she could with it.
Nick came back.
“Have you come to any conclusions yet?”
“Not exactly. It’s some kind of form. I’m convinced that it belongs to the period of the journal – late nineteenth century. It’s set out like a school report, but it reads like a cross between a doctor’s notes and the kind of stuff that’s written about models in modern celebrity magazines. It could be a kind of checklist for a servant’s reference, I suppose, but it seems less . . . respectful than that, even for the period. Almost as if it’s a prize cow that’s being described. And there’s a word that I can’t make out, with a list of dates written against it.”
“Let me see.”
She handed him the paper. He scrutinised it for a few min
utes and whistled.
“Jeez!” he said. “Do you know what I think this is?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me!”
“I think it’s some kind of slave indenture. Unfortunately the bottom of the sheet is too damaged to read – but my guess is that the owner had signed it. Possibly signed the person concerned over to a new owner.”
“The woman’s name is European.”
“If I’m right, and she was a slave, the surname is almost certainly that of her white owner. He’ll also have given her a European first name.”
“But slavery had long been abolished in England in the late nineteenth century.”
“There’s no proof that she was a slave in England – or where she was from, for that matter.” Nick looked at Juliet curiously. “Unless there’s something else you know?”
Juliet avoided meeting his eyes. “Nothing for sure. I’ve got a few theories, but probably all too far-fetched.”
“Oh, OK. Well, let’s have a look at the other sheet.”
The second piece of paper was lying forgotten on Juliet’s knee. She handed it to him without looking at it.
“This one’s more damaged than that one,” Nick said, holding it up towards the electric light and frowning. “I can certainly make out the surname, which is also Jameson. I can’t read the first name properly, but it looks as if it might also be Louisa.”
“Is it just a copy, then?”
“No, I don’t think so. The age given here is sixteen, the height five foot five inches. And there is a date on this one: it’s January 13th 1896. Both the forms seem to have been filled in at the same time, even though we can’t see the date on the other one.”
“If there were two separate women, why would they have identical names?”
“The second one might be the daughter of the first one. But if they were slaves belonging to the same household, it wouldn’t have been unusual for them to have been called by the same name. There’d have been some way of distinguishing them in everyday life – they might have been called Little Louisa and Big Louisa, for example.”
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