Gather the Bones (6 page)

“The Wellmore hunt is in early December. If you’re still at Holdston I hope you’ll join us.”

Helen smiled. “Oh I doubt I shall still be here by then. I plan to spend some time with Evelyn and then do some touring in Europe over summer.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Hadn’t we better get back to your mother? It’s getting late and she will think I’m terribly rude.”

“Of course she will. My mother is a dreadful snob. The fact you are an Australian is sin enough and even though I have detained you overlong it will, of course, be your fault.”

He laughed when he saw her stricken face. “I’m jesting. Mother will have been quite happy to spend the time moaning about her unsatisfactory children to Evelyn.”

“Are you unsatisfactory?” Helen asked as they walked back along the well tended paths to the house.

“Lord, yes.” Tony said. “Mother wants me married to some simpering debutante with money and a title and as for Angela...”

“Angela?”

“My sister. No sign of any grandchildren there either. Angela is an independent woman of our time and Mother simply can’t cope with that. We are her eternal despair.”

He had been right. As they walked into the drawing room from the terrace the two women appeared immersed in earnest conversation

Evelyn looked up as Alice, forgetting all manners, ran the length of the room toward her exclaiming, “Grandmama, Uncle Tony is going to lend me a pony. He’s the dearest thing. I can’t wait to ride him.”

Evelyn turned to Tony. “Is that correct?”

“I’ve promised her an indefinite loan of Turnip.”

“That’s very generous of you, Tony,” Evelyn said as she rose to her feet. “I hope you thanked your godfather, Alice.”

“Of course she did,” Tony said.

Evelyn pulled on her gloves. “Thank you, Maude. It was delightful to catch up with you. We will look forward to joining you on Friday night.”

Lady Hartfield turned to Helen. “There will be a number of young people coming.”

“Young ladies?” Evelyn suggested, with a meaningful glance at Tony.

Lady Hartfield smiled. “Of course. I am determined to have at least one of my children married by next spring.”

Chapter 4

“Good ride, sir?” Sam Pollard enquired, stepping forward to hold Hector’s head while Paul dismounted.

“Thank you, Pollard,” Paul said, wincing as he took the weight on his bad leg.

The doctors had said he’d never ride again. In fact, the doctors had said a great many things and he’d proved them wrong but his stubborn perseverance came at a price.

“Want me to see to ‘im?” Pollard asked.

Paul shook his head, taking the horse’s reins from the man. “No, leave him to me. It’s the least I can do for him after making him work.”

Hector snorted, as if in agreement and Paul smiled, turning to rub the horse’s ears. “You’ve got lazy while I’ve been away. That’s your problem.”

Paul settled the horse in his stall with a well earned feed, and picking up the grooming brush, fell into the customary, almost hypnotic pattern of the brush strokes, the horse warm and familiar beneath his hand. Hector grunted his appreciation.

A change in the light as someone passed through the door and the sound of light footsteps on the cobbled floor alerted him to another presence in the stable. Without turning around, Paul knew who stood at the door to the stall watching him,

“Good morning, Mrs. Morrow,” he said without missing a stroke of the brush.

“Good morning, Sir Paul,” Helen Morrow replied, stumbling a little on the words.

His mouth quirked with bitter amusement. The title had never sounded right, not like Sir Charles Morrow would have done. Most people got around it by referring to him by his military rank, the Major.

“If you’re going to address me as anything it may as well be Paul,” he said.

“I didn’t wish to appear rude. I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Have you been for a ride already?”

She had an interesting accent. He’d met Australians in the war and generally found their almost cockney accent strident and grating. She had a softer inflection, the vowels were more rounded, but not, definitely not, an English accent.

He straightened and Hector gave a snort and turned to him his ears pricked in enquiry.

“I always get up at seven just to groom my horse,” he said, conscious of the heavy sarcasm in his voice.

“Oh,” she sounded crushed and he instantly regretted his words. “I thought perhaps, if you hadn’t been out yet, you may have been able to show me around the estate?”

Paul ducked under Hector’s head, putting the horse between himself and Charlie’s widow. For the first time he looked at her. A pair of startling light grey eyes met his gaze without flinching. Helen Morrow, Charlie’s beloved Helen, stood leaning on the stall gate, resting her chin on her folded arms.

“You seem quite capable of finding your own way around without my assistance,” he said. He applied himself to Hector’s grooming again, breaking the eye contact with the woman.

“It’s not the same as going with someone who knows the country.”

“I’ve seen you riding Minter. You ride well, although I’m not sure Evelyn approves of young ladies riding astride.”

Helen smiled. “We did have that discussion,” she said. “It’s good of her to allow me the use of Minter.” Helen turned her head to indicate Hector’s stable companion.

“Evelyn hasn’t ridden for years,” Paul said. “However, the fact she’s never been able to bring herself to sell Minter betrays something of her sentimental side.”

Helen smiled. “Just as you can’t part with Hector?”

Paul stopped in his task and straightened. He could have said that the unconditional affection of this animal gave him a greater reason to return to Holdston than his other responsibilities, but he held his tongue.

“We went to Wellmore House yesterday,” Helen said.

“I know,” Paul said brusquely. “Evelyn suggested I should accompany you. I had work to do.”

“Tony Scarvell sends his regards.”

At the mention of Tony’s name, Paul looked up. “Tony’s at Wellmore?”

She nodded. “He’s lending Alice a pony. She’s terribly excited.”

Paul felt a stab of guilt. It should be his responsibility to provide a suitable mount for the child but he could offer her nothing except two ill-tempered trap ponies.

He opened the door to the stall and Hector turned his attention back to the oats. Only a few feet of floor now stood between him and Helen. His eyes rested on her oval face. She had the fresh healthy glow to her skin that came from a life lived in the high country of Victoria, which Charlie had loved so much, and even through the horsey odors of the stable, she smelled clean and fresh.

“Charlie talked about you so much...” she began.

“Then you must have had some dull conversations,” he cut her off, pushing past her to restore the brushes to a shelf outside the stall. “Good morning, Mrs. Morrow. I hope you have a pleasant ride.” He strode off down the line of empty stalls without a backward glance.

* * * *

“Sam says you and Mrs. Morrow met this morning,” Sarah placed the tray with tea and biscuits on the library table.

“Couldn’t avoid her,” Paul replied, looking up from unpacking the first of six neat wooden boxes. He knew Leonard Woolley would not have sent him the most interesting pieces but the fact he trusted him with any of the precious finds, said much for the great archaeologist’s respect for Paul’s talents.

“What’s that?” Sarah indicated the artifact in his hand. “Looks like a lump of dried mud.”

“It is, Sarah,” Paul set the clay tablet down on the table. “And it is my task to translate what is written on it.”

Sarah peered at the cuneiform inscription. “That’s writing? You can read that?”

He picked up the unedifying object and smiled at the pattern of what looked like little arrows that had been pressed into the still damp mud two thousand years ago. “Most of the time.”

Sarah sniffed. “You always were the clever one,” she said. “I’ll leave you in peace. What time do you want lunch?”

“One will be fine,” Paul said, already absorbed in the little tale of domestic life revealed on the ‘lump of dried mud’.

As it always did when he became lost in a task, the morning drifted away and his tea went cold. The clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven and he frowned in annoyance at the sound of some sort of commotion going on above him. Beyond the heavy oak door leading to the narrow, wooden stairs, he could hear a child’s voice raised in what sounded like protestation. What had Sarah said about the joy of a child’s laughter?

Paul leaned back, tipping his chair on to its back legs, and stretched his stiff limbs. He gave the library door a glance as he heard the clatter of small feet on the stairs. The door crashed open with such ferocity that Paul nearly lost his balance.

A small girl, her fair hair done in two plaits stood with her hand on the door latch, staring at him. The child appeared to be frozen in fear, her eyes large orbs in her thin brown face.

He regained his balance and his composure.

“I take it you’re Alice?” he asked.

The girl nodded and her eyes widened even further. “I’m going to get into terrible trouble aren’t I?”

“Why?”

“Grandmama said I was not on any account to make any noise and disturb you or come to the library.”

“Grandmama said that, did she?”

The plaits bobbed on her shoulders as the child nodded.

“Then we’d better not tell her,” he said.

Alice let go of the door latch and took a few steps into the room, looking around as if searching for something.

“I was trying to catch the dog,” she said. “Have you seen it?”

Paul frowned. “What dog?”

“A cocker spaniel. I know he’s a cocker spaniel because Aunt Chloe has one. He ran in here. I saw him.”

Paul closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Now it was dogs
?

“Alice, there are no dogs in here,” he said. “We haven’t had a dog since...”

Since your father’s old spaniel, Reuben, died
.

“But I saw him,” Alice persisted. “He ran right in here.”

“Through a closed door?”

“But the door was open...” She looked back at the door and frowned. “Are you sure you don’t have a dog in here?”

“Quite sure, but I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Alice.”

She smiled and Paul’s fingers tightened on the arm of the chair. She had her father’s bright, disarming smile.

“You’re not scary at all,” she said.

“Did you think I would be?”

“Mummy thinks you’re scary. She makes me tiptoe every time we go past your door.”

“And where is your mother?”

“She’s gone to Birmingham with Grandmama.”

Alice had advanced all the way into the room and stood beside the table, looking down at the clay tablets he had unpacked.

“What are these?”

“Each tablet has writing on it, called Babylonian cuneiform. It’s the oldest writing ever known,” Paul picked up one of the tablets and held it out to her. “That is thousands of years old.”

She lifted her hands to take the object but at the last minute pulled back, looking up at him. “Can I hold it?”

He nodded and Alice took the tablet with a reverence that impressed him. She turned it over, her eyes wide and curious.

“If it’s writing, do you know what it says?”

“Yes. It’s a list of all the grains that this man has in his store house.”

Alice pulled a face. “That sounds very boring.”

“It can be but sometimes you come across little stories, like this one about the boy who wouldn’t go to school.”

He retrieved the tablet from her and tapped another one on the table with the end of his pencil.

“What is the story about?”

He rifled through the notes he had already made that morning and read the rough translation out to her. She rewarded him with a bright beaming smile.

“That’s a funny story,” she said. “It sounds like my cousin, Alf. He doesn’t like to go to school much.”

“People are still the same aren’t they, even though this story is thousands of years old,” Paul said.

“Oh, is that a typewriter?” Alice stood in front of the old Remington Paul had retrieved from the estate office. “Do you know how to type?”

“Not well,” Paul admitted with a rueful smile.

Alice ran her fingers over the keys of the old machine.

“You should ask Mummy. She’s really good. She even showed me how to do it.”

Unbidden, Alice knelt up on the chair facing the typewriter, fed some paper in and began to thrash away at the keys.

“There.” She looked at him. “That’s how you type.”

“Very good,” Paul said. “Maybe I should ask you to do my typing?”

Alice looked down at the papers on the table. “I can’t read your writing,” she said pragmatically. She looked up at the window. “You’ve got a lovely horse.” “Sam lets me feed him carrots. Uncle Tony is going to lend me a pony to ride. His name is Turnip and he’s a piebald.”