Gather the Bones Read online

  Helen rubbed her wrist and shuddered inwardly at the memory of that icy touch. If she allowed herself to believe that what happened to her in the dark corridor the previous night was indeed paranormal, then she had to disagree with the last assertion. There had been malice and an intention to hurt in that grip.

  “I think that’s enough talk of ghosts,” she said firmly.

  Sarah smoothed down her apron. “Mrs. Morrow, if you don’t mind, I’ve choir practice tonight. If I leave some soup for you and Miss Alice, will you be able to manage without me? There’s fresh bread and cheese in the larder.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Pollard. What about the Major?”

  “The Major’ll fend for himself if he wants to eat.”

  Helen caught the older woman’s wry smile. “You do worry about him, don’t you?” she observed.

  “Someone has to. He hasn’t got anyone else. My boy, Fred, was in his regiment and there weren’t a man who served under the Major who wouldn’t have put their trust in him.”

  It was the first Helen had heard about Sarah’s son and she sensed the answer even before she asked, “And your son? Where is he now?”

  Sarah stiffened. “He was killed ten days before Armistice,” she replied. “If the Major’d still been with the regiment he’d have seen Fred through to the end.”

  “Oh Sarah,” Helen’s voice broke. “I’m so sorry.”

  Sarah shook herself. “We’re just two of many women in this country, Mrs. Morrow. Mothers, wives, daughters, sisters. We’ve all got someone to mourn but the Major came home, lost and silent just like he was when he first came to this house when he was eight years old.”

  “Eight?”

  “Aye, motherless and fatherless, for all his father was still alive. I don’t think there’d been much room in his folks’ lives for him even before his mother died.” Sarah heaved a theatrical sigh. “Her ladyship tried her best but he wasn’t an easy child to love. Some children aren’t, but here in the kitchen with me and the staff he was a different boy. So yes, I worry about the Major.”

  Helen looked at the door as if she expected Paul Morrow to reappear through it. She rose to her feet and tapped her daughter on the shoulder. Alice, still absorbed in the scrapbook didn’t move.

  “Would Miss Alice like to help me with the baking this morning?” Sarah asked.

  Alice brightened and looked from Sarah to her mother. Helen relented. It suited her to have Alice gainfully employed. She had other plans.

  * * * *

  Paul ran his hand through his hair and contemplated the paper-strewn table, his gaze coming to rest on the Remington. He needed to start typing up the report, but the thought of tying himself to the ancient machine with his laborious two fingered typing did not thrill him. He turned his head at a knock on the library door. Helen stepped into the room, her hands thrust into the pockets of her cardigan.

  “I thought if you didn’t mind, that perhaps I could help you?” she said.

  “Help me?”

  She looked past him at the disorganized mess on the table. “I will die of boredom if I don’t find something useful to do. Is there any typing or filing I can do?”

  “I won’t say no to the offer of help with the typing,” Paul admitted. “As your daughter has already observed, I’m no typist.”

  Helen walked over to the table and picked up the pile of photographs of the recent dig. “This is extraordinary. Who is that man?” She pointed to a figure in one of the photographs.

  Paul stood up and joined her at the table. “Woolley, Leonard Woolley. He believes he has found the ancient Sumerian city of Ur.”

  Helen looked up at him, the wonder shining from her face. “The Ur that is mentioned in the Bible?”

  “The same.”

  She drew an awed breath and replaced the photographs back on the table. “What is your role on these digs?” she asked.

  “Officially, I do what the army trained me to do. I organize things. An archaeological dig is no different from a military operation. People have to be fed, watered, housed, moved around, so that’s what I do. But I have some aptitude with ancient language and I do help out with this sort of thing.” He swept a hand at the tablets in their padded boxes. “I leave the digging work to the others.”

  He made a pretence of shuffling some of the papers on the table to avoid her eyes. While part of him yearned to join the dig, he could not bring himself to descend into the diggings. Woolley had tried to persuade him to join in but he had stood on the edge of the trenches and broken out in a sweat.

  “As interesting as Woolley’s work is, I have no particular passion for ancient Babylonian history.”

  “What is your passion?” She cocked her head and looked at him with a smile.

  “Ancient Greek,” he said without hesitation and then without really knowing why he said it, he added, “In my spare moments in the trenches, I worked on a translation of Homer’s Iliad.”

  As soon as he said it, he regretted the confidence. She looked at him with large gray eyes that invited his trust in a way no one else had for a long time.

  “Tony said you never went to university?”

  Paul felt the old grievance shift on his shoulders. “I’d won a scholarship to Magdalen in Oxford but my uncle insisted that it was my father’s dying wish that I follow him into the regiment. So off to Sandhurst, I went.” He wondered if she could hear the bitterness in his voice.

  Helen’s gaze lingered on his face for a few moments before she squared her shoulders and picked up some papers with his scrawled notes. She squinted at the papers in her hand. “Your writing is atrocious but I am used to my father’s scrawl so it shouldn’t take me too long to decipher this.”

  “Your father?”

  “Yes, I work for my father,” she said. “When I’m not doing the paperwork for Terrala, I type out his speeches for parliament. The boys went to university, I went to secretarial college. Father deemed that a far more useful skill for a woman.”

  He heard the irony in her voice and smiled. “And you would have rather done something else?”

  “I don’t see why I couldn’t have gone to university. They’re taking women now. I could have studied medicine.” He raised his eyebrows and she smiled. “Although it is far more probable I would have ended up a school teacher so maybe secretarial college wasn’t such a bad idea.”

  “This is the administrative report for the season,” he said. “Very boring and unromantic but if Woolley wants the money to continue digging, it must be done. To keep myself amused, I also do some of the more tedious translation work which is why I have these tablets.” He picked up one of the tablets from its box and handed it to her.

  She turned it over, her eyes widening. “How old is this?”

  He shrugged. “Probably older than the stones on the hill.”

  She handed it back to him. “I’d hate to drop it,” she said. “What does that one say?”

  He smiled. “It’s a household inventory.”

  Her face fell. “How dull.”

  “I suppose it is, but at the same time it is like a photograph of their way of life.”

  Helen looked at the Remington. “Well, then let’s get to work,” she said.

  He passed her a stack of handwritten pages and she rifled through them, pulling a face. Paul gave her a rueful smile. “I’m sorry. Just tell me if there is something you can’t read.”

  Helen sat down at the Remington, took two pieces of plain paper and carbon and began to type with a speed and dexterity that left him staring at her in amazement. At this rate the report would be finished in no time.

  With a few stops to decipher his atrocious handwriting, after typing for an hour Helen pushed back her chair and stood up, stretching her arms above her head. She walked over to the enormous mahogany bookcases that flanked the old fireplace and surveyed the books for a moment before pulling one out.

  “Whose crest is this?” she asked pointing to a regal coat of arms on the bookplate. />
  Paul shook his head. “No idea. It’s not the Morrow crest. I suspect you’ll find that most of the books have the same bookplate. One of my illustrious ancestors would have purchased the library as a job lot.”

  Helen replaced the book and pulled out another one. “The pages on this one haven’t even been cut,” she exclaimed.

  “Evelyn’s brother has looked over the books. He seems to think as a collection it’s worth quite a sum these days,” Paul said, sitting back in his chair and tapping his nose with the end of his pencil.

  “Will you sell it?”

  Paul shrugged. “Evelyn has suggested that and I have no great affection for it. It will buy us some time.”

  “Time for what?”

  He sighed. “I suppose you should know, Helen. The estate barely makes ends meet. This house alone,” he looked up at the ceiling, “costs us a fortune. Did you wonder why we live only in a few rooms with two staff? As well as the house, we have eight farms to run and maintain. We need to improve the way we farm but there is no money for new equipment and hardly enough to make running repairs to the farm buildings.” He gave a rueful smile. “Sorry. None of this is your concern.”

  “But it is isn’t it? I’m a Morrow too and I’m only too aware of the difficulties of running a large estate. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  He looked at her. She was involved in the affairs of her father’s property so, yes, she would understand his difficulties but he wouldn’t ask her for help. The trust Charlie had left was for her and the child and he knew little of Helen’s family situation. Holdston was his problem. His alone.“The rents haven’t been raised in twenty years and I can’t do so now, not while the buildings are in such poor condition so that’s why I work. The museum pays me quite well. Enough to keep body and soul and this house together, but we can’t go on this way.”

  “What will you do?”

  He met her gaze. “I want to sell Holdston.”

  Her eyes rested on him for a moment. “Would Charlie have come back and saved Holdston?” she asked.

  Paul shook his head. “No. He told me he had every intention of settling in Australia after the war, and even if he’d wanted to, Holdston is beyond saving. My aunt and uncle lived in another world.”

  “Charlie and I bought some land in the King Valley but I was afraid that once he went home, he’d change his mind.”

  “Evelyn is convinced Charlie would have returned to Holdston but his mind was made up. He would have gone back to Australia. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you with tedious family business.”

  “But I am family, Paul.” She echoed her earlier words. “For better or worse, I’m a Morrow. Generations of your family have lived in this house. Your blood, Charlie’s blood, Alice too. There must have been hard times before, but they still managed to get through them.”

  “You’re quite right, Helen. There have been hard times before. A couple of civil wars and several kings intent on taxing the lifeblood from their subjects, but I doubt any of my ancestors would recognize the world we live in now.”

  Paul rose to his feet and looked out of the window while he fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes. An odd procession was making its way up the drive toward the house. Tony, mounted on his black hunter headed the cavalcade followed by a groom on horseback leading a piebald pony.

  “Good lord,” he exclaimed. “Is that rotund little beast the one Tony is lending Alice?”

  Helen joined him at the window. “Oh it is. I must get Alice. Excuse me, Paul.”

  Paul followed her out of the courtyard door, crossing the bridge over the moat to meet the Wellmore party.

  “Morrow. I heard you were back.” Tony dismounted, greeting Paul with an outstretched hand and a clap on his good shoulder.

  Paul gave the pony a quick appraising glance. “Using me as an agistment stable, I hear?”

  “I didn’t think one more new resident would make much of a difference,” Tony replied.

  Paul glanced back at the house. “Holdston is becoming quite used to new residents,” he observed. “What brings you to the country?”

  “Ma is on the matchmaking path again. She’s intent on filling the house with dismal debutantes for me to make my selection.” Tony gave a mock shudder. “Suitable young women, Anthony. It’s about time you settled down.”

  Paul smiled at the fair impersonation of Tony’s mother.

  “There’s a soiree planned for Friday night. Angela’s coming down for the weekend to lend me support.” Tony continued.

  “Angela?”

  “I thought that would interest you,” Tony said. “Enough to inveigle you to Ma’s party?”

  Paul shook his head. “I can’t imagine anything I would like less.”

  “Oh be a sport. There’s some pretty girls in the herd and if it’s time for me to ‘settle down’, it must be time for you as well.”

  “Uncle Tony.” Alice called out as she ran across the bridge.

  “True to my promise, sprite. One Turnip for you to ride,” Tony said with a mock bow.

  Alice giggled at the joke, and at the sight of the child’s delighted face a rush of regret surged through Paul at his own failure to be the child’s benefactor.

  Obviously brought up around horses, the child did not rush to the piebald pony, but walked over slowly, approaching him from the front. The pony eyed her with his ears pricked. Alice had come prepared. From her pocket, she produced two crumbled and lint-impregnated sugar lumps.

  “So, sprite. Shall we take this lazy beast for a ride?”

  “Oh please can we, Mummy?” Alice addressed her mother who had joined the group, standing beside Paul with her arms crossed.

  “Of course,” she said. “I just need to change and get Minter saddled. You will stay for lunch, Tony?”

  Tony shook his head. “Expected back at Wellmore, I’ll ride with you as far as the crossroads, sprite. What about you, Morrow?” Tony turned to Paul.

  “Please, Uncle Paul?” Alice pleaded.

  Paul shook his head. “I have work to do,” he said, not willing to admit that the ache in his leg made another ride an unattractive prospect, “but you’re welcome to take Hector, Helen. I think you’ll find him easier than Minter.”

  The men watched as Alice scampered back toward the house with her mother following. Tony produced a silver cigarette case and offered it to Paul.

  “I’ve a message from Angela. She said if you didn’t come and relieve the tedium of the party, she would personally ride over and haul you out.”

  Paul laughed. “That’s an invitation I can’t resist,” he said tapping the ash off his cigarette. “She knows how I loathe those sorts of occasions.”

  “We all do,” Tony admitted.

  “Liar,” Paul responded. “All those girls fawning over you, Scarvell?”

  “A title and a large estate do compensate for my lack of good looks,” Tony said with a wry grin. “So, what do you think of Charlie’s widow?”

  Paul coughed on the smoke. “Does it matter what I think?”

  “Charlie did rather paint her as a paragon,” Tony said, “so I thought the reality would be disappointing but I have to say, old man, she’s a beauty.”

  Paul contemplated the exterior of the old house and drew thoughtfully on his cigarette. He’d met many beautiful women but Helen had more than just striking good looks. Even in their short acquaintance, she shone like a beacon in his bleak life.

  Mistaking Paul’s silence, Tony continued. “She’s the most interesting woman I’ve met in years, Morrow.”

  Paul brought his attention back to his friend. “Don’t go falling in love with her. You know your mother would never approve.”

  “Love? What makes you say that?”

  “Because despite all your talk, Scarvell, you fall in love with any woman who looks twice at you.”

  “Unlike you. When was the last time you were ever in love, Morrow?”

  Paul shook his head. “A state of bliss I have avoid
ed,” he said with a smile. Except, perhaps, for Angela. He had loved her once.

  “Here come the girls.” Tony drew a deep breath. “My God, look at those legs. Are all Australian girls such stunners?” He straightened. “See you on Friday night, Morrow.”

  Paul stubbed the cigarette out on the wall. “Tell Ange I’ll think about it,” he replied.

  Chapter 7

  Helen put Alice to bed and read her a chapter of The Railway Children. The weather had changed and the beautiful day had ended in dark clouds and growls of thunder so she pulled the window shut and drew the curtain tight, pretending not to notice the corner of the scrapbook sticking out from beneath the child’s pillow.

  As she straightened, Helen laid a finger on Alice’s cheek, “The holiday is over, Miss Morrow. I have decided you are going to school.”

  Alice’s eyes widened. “Where?”

  “Just to the village school. I’ve spoken to the vicar and I’ve got an appointment to speak to the headmistress tomorrow afternoon. His daughter, Lily, goes to the local school so you will know someone.”

  Alice screwed up her face. “School,” she said with no real resentment in her tone. Helen kissed her daughter’s forehead. It must have been lonely for Alice with just adults for company.

  “You can read until half past seven. I’m going down to the kitchen for supper, if you need me.”

  To her surprise, she found Paul Morrow standing at the kitchen table slicing a loaf of bread. He looked up at her.

  “Would you mind my company for supper? I think it’s soup.”

  “I’d be glad of it,” Helen said, “As long as you have no objection to eating in the kitchen again.”

  “None at all. Bread?”

  “Thank you. I’ll make some tea, is that all right for you?”

  “Fine.” Paul set the bread in the middle of the table.

  Helen put the soup on to reheat and Paul found the kitchen crockery and cutlery.

  “My aunt is still trying to live in the last century,” he said, pulling up a chair at the table. “Back in the days when we had a dozen staff.”