Island of Bones Read Free Page A

kingdom, the peculiar haze or smoky fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within memory of man. By my journal I find that I had noticed this strange occurrence from June 23rd to July 20th inclusive, during which the wind varied to every quarter without making any alterations in the air
.
    Gilbert White
Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne
, 1789
    The universities do not teach all things, so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers and such outlaws and take lessons from them . . . Knowledge is experience
.
    Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493/4–1541), called Paracelsus

PART I
I.1
    Tuesday, 1 July 1783, St Herbert’s Island, Derwent Water, Cumberland
    ‘A N EXTRA BODY ? What do you mean, an extra body?’
    Mrs Hetty Briggs spoke a little more loudly than she had intended and her voice echoed in the stillness of the ruined chapel. Her steward lowered his head. He could not think of what else to add. They were silent a moment, and the hot wind that had so troubled them this summer shook the trees together. In spite of the warmth, Mrs Briggs shivered. She touched her steward’s sleeve and said more quietly, ‘My apologies, Gribben. You had better show me, I think.’
    Turning away from him, she remembered the lady and gentleman who had accompanied her here to this little island, part of her husband’s estate amongst the lakes and hills of Cumberland. They had stood a little apart from her while she spoke to her man, but were now frankly staring at her. The gentleman was the local magistrate, Mr Sturgess, and Mrs Briggs was suddenly very glad indeed that he had decided to come with them. The lady, very beautifully dressed for a trip across the lake and a visit to a ruin, was her house-guest for the summer, the Vizegräfin Margaret von Bolsenheim. Her lips were slightly parted and there was a shimmer in her eye.
    ‘That is,’ Mrs Briggs added, ‘perhaps you should show us all.’
    Mrs Briggs had always considered her ownership of St Herbert’s Island as accidental. It was just another feature of the estate her husband had purchased, like the walled garden behind the main house of Silverside, or the lawns that dropped down in front of it to the lake, and like them she regarded it as purely ornamental. The island was a pleasant spot for a picnic and known for its magnificent views of the surrounding hills. In addition, the ruin of the old chapel added something romantic and picturesque for visitors to the area to discover. It was known that Mrs Briggs had no objection to local people, or travellers from elsewhere, drawing their boats up onto the shingle, therefore many took advantage of her generosity and arrived sketchbooks in hand to sample the scenery. Her one nagging concern about the island had always been that the chapel, disused for a hundred years before Mr Briggs acquired the land, still contained the altar-tomb of Sir Luke de Beaufoy, 1st Earl of Greta, and his wife. There they had lain since the middle of the fifteenth century while the walls decayed around them. On the one hand Mrs Briggs did not think it right that they should be disturbed after resting over three hundred years in one place; on the other she knew the walls of the chapel must give way at some point and when they did, the tomb would be smashed and their bones ground back into the clay. That did not seem fitting either.
    She had given the thought voice one evening a few days previously while playing Quadrille at Silverside with the Vizegräfin, the Vizegräfin’s son, and Mr Sturgess. The Vizegräfin declared she had always thought the place absolutely perfect for a summerhouse. ‘
So
medieval that the local people persist in calling it the Island of Bones,’ she had said, laying down her cards. ‘Let the First Lord Greta and his wife be moved to Crosthwaite Church –