The Digger's Rest (19 page)

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 himself, 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.