The Lie Tree Page 4

  Fourteen years of trained fears broke into full stampede. A strange man. She was a girl, nearly a woman, and of all things she must never be near a strange man without protectors and witnesses. That way lay a chasm in which a thousand terrible things could happen.

  ‘Bang!’ shouted Howard. The man stopped and turned to look at them.

  Faith scooped up Howard and broke into a struggling run towards the house. She burst in through the front door and almost collided with her mother, who was just leaving the drawing room.

  ‘Heavens!’ Myrtle raised her eyebrows. ‘Faith – what is the matter?’

  Faith put Howard down, and panted an explanation. Myrtle hurried to fuss over Howard, who realized that he must be hurt and promptly broke into a wail.

  ‘Look after Howard, Faith – I will tell your father.’

  A few moments later, Faith’s father strode into the parlour, where Faith was distracting Howard.

  ‘Where was this man?’ he demanded.

  ‘Near the folly,’ replied Faith.

  ‘How close did he come?’ demanded her father. Faith had never seen him so grimly agitated. She felt a little pang of warmth at his concern.

  ‘About ten yards – he was walking past, downhill.’

  Mrs Vellet came promptly at the Reverend’s call. There was a slight, unhappy flush in the housekeeper’s cheeks, and Faith wondered whether Myrtle had been ‘taking her to task as promised.

  ‘That sounds like Tom Parris,’ Mrs Vellet answered immediately, when she heard Faith’s description of the stranger.

  ‘Perhaps you would tell me why this Parris was permitted to trespass on this estate?’ The Reverend’s voice was steely.

  ‘My apologies, sir,’ the housekeeper responded swiftly, ‘but these grounds are the shortest way down to the beach. It is the best beach on the island for cockling, so . . .’ She spread her hands, with an increasingly familiar air of self-absolution. There it is, and there is nothing I can do about it.

  ‘No further trespass is to be permitted,’ the Reverend announced starkly. ‘I have the safety of my wife and children to consider, and valuable specimens in the hothouse that I do not intend to leave at the mercy of the larcenous or idly curious. While I am leasing this property, I shall regard all those who trespass on the grounds as poachers. If you know these interlopers, inform them that I shall be investing in gin-traps.’

  How close did he come? At first Faith had gratefully taken this as concern for her safety, and that of Howard. As she calmed herself, however, she started to wonder whether her father had meant something else.

  How close did he come to the folly?

  CHAPTER 4:

  THE SEPULCHRAL CAVERN

  At two in the afternoon, a carriage arrived at the house. A minute or so later a sturdy-looking middle-aged man with red cheeks, black whiskers and strong white teeth was shown into the parlour. He introduced himself as Dr Jacklers and shook the Reverend’s hand with a series of tense little tugs, as if he were trying to pull it loose.

  ‘Reverend! What an honour to meet you – I have read your articles in the Royal Society journal!’

  The doctor shook Uncle Miles’s hand a little more uncertainly, despite Uncle Miles’s insistence that he too dabbled in natural science, and that perhaps the good doctor had heard of his little pamphlet on fossilized shellfish. Myrtle cut her brother short with a cough.

  When Faith was introduced, Dr Jacklers seemed momentarily taken aback.

  ‘Faith – ah, I do remember the story! I had thought . . .’ He trailed off, holding his hand out, just high enough to pat the head of a small imaginary child. ‘Has it been so long? You look quite the young woman now!’

  Faith thanked him, a little uncomfortably. She knew exactly which event he meant, and it was a day she remembered with a jumble of happiness, wistfulness and embarrassment.

  She had been seven years old, and for once her father had suggested of his own accord that she take a walk with him down a beach. Faith had scampered along beside him, dizzily delighted that he wanted to spend time with her. For once his manner had been easy and kind. Now and then he had stooped to gather pebbles for his basket, and he had even paused to show one of them to her. It had been white, with little ruts and bulges that made a pattern.

  ‘Do you think you could find stones like that?’ he had asked her.

  Delighted, Faith had run off and brought him every stone that she hoped might be special, though most simply glistened with seawater and dulled in his hand as they dried. At one point he had taken a sharp detour away from the water and beckoned her towards the base of the cliff.

  ‘Try searching around here, Faith.’

  While he stood staring out to sea, she had scrambled among the boulders. At last she had seen it, a flat piece of stone with a spiral of indentations. She had brought it to him, held carefully in both hands, almost trembling with hope and doubt.

  ‘Well done, Faith.’ Her father had dropped into a crouch. ‘That is a fossil – a very pretty one. Remember this moment. Remember finding your first fossil.’

  Much later, Faith had read newspaper articles about the find. Little Faith, harmlessly frolicking upon a beach, had brought her father a rock that she found pretty, and which he instantly recognized as a fossil of unparalleled interest. The journalists had loved the story, talking of ‘the artlessness of a child’ and ‘an unwitting innocent opening the door to Nature’s marvels’.

  Whenever the Reverend introduced his daughter to fellow natural-science enthusiasts, those that remembered the story expected to see a small, wide-eyed image of innocence. Confronted with a clumsy specimen of not-quite-womanhood, they seldom knew how to react. She had tumbled off the safe, hallowed shore of childhood, and now she was in no-man’s-water, neither one thing nor another, like a mermaid. Until she dragged herself up on the rock of marriage, she was difficult.

  ‘So, young lady, did you ever find any other fossils?’ asked Dr Jacklers with a game attempt at gaiety.

  Faith shook her head. That was the sting. Her first fossil had been her last. Her father had never taken her fossil-hunting again.

  It was as if he had opened a door to her that bright, salt day, but then closed it again. She tried to tell herself that it was not shut forever, that remoteness was just his nature. He let her read books from his library, copy out his notes in longhand and take dictation, and these she took as signs that he still wanted her to share in his private world, and that the door might swing wide again.

  Dr Jacklers’s eye slid off Faith. She understood. As with the wet pebbles, her shine had worn off.

  Howard’s excitement about the family outing plummeted as soon as he learned that it did not involve daring the waves.

  ‘But we found a little boat on the beach, and Faith said we could explore the sea caves!’

  ‘Faith was joking, darling!’ Myrtle gave Faith a look of pure exasperation. ‘The sea currents are far too strong. Howard, don’t you want to see your father at work?’

  Howard eyed his father nervously and clutched Faith’s hand.

  As the Sunderly family trooped down into the courtyard, Faith felt herself burn under the carefully bland gazes of the servants. Her boots felt clumsy and her collar too tight.

  Faith could hear the tinkle of giggles as the front door closed. With the finely tuned instincts of the solitary, she guessed that the servants had already been laughing at her panicky return to the house earlier that day. So far her parents seemed to be engaged in a campaign to alienate everybody in the house, and now she had made herself a butt for resentful jokes.

  The tide had gone down, so it was possible to take the low route around the headlands. On one side of the road rose a rugged cliff, and on the other ran the breakwater, a broad wall some five feet high. Faith wondered how fierce the breakers would need to be to threaten the road, and felt a tingle of excitement at the thought.

  ‘So what has been found so far?’ asked Faith’s father.

  ‘We are b
ringing up hand-flaked flints, Reverend, and bones – pygmy hippo, and a tooth that I think is mammoth.’ The doctor rubbed his hands. ‘I have been hoping for human remains – maybe even a skull. I am a skull man, Reverend.

  ‘But . . . to tell the truth, I am very glad that you are here to set us to rights.’ The doctor cast a shrewd sideways glance at Faith’s father. ‘I fear that those of us involved in the excavation have been getting in one another’s hair. Lambent is a dabbler and has no patience. It is all we can do to stop him blasting his way through the rock at every turn. But the cave is on his land, so we cannot do without him. Then there is our good curate . . .’

  ‘Mr Clay seems most pleasant,’ Myrtle remarked. It was a statement that was really a question.

  ‘Oh, and he is! However, he has some odd, old-fashioned views, for one of his years.’ The doctor smiled a lot, but there was something clenched about his smiles. ‘But he cannot be kept out of the matter either, for he found the cave. Or rather his dog found it. The poor brute fell down the hidden shaft and broke one of its legs – we had the deuce of a time fetching it up again.

  ‘As for myself, I have read the latest works on cave hunting and the others have not, so they cannot do without me either.’ The doctor grinned mirthlessly.

  Faith shifted uncomfortably. Her father had been called in as an expert, but it sounded as though the locals really wanted someone to settle their squabbles.

  The route turned inland, rose gently and then levelled. The carriage halted. Faith alighted with the rest of her family.

  The land all around was craggy and turbulent. Here and there rose rock-crested ridges, with little gorges and dry stream beds twisting between them. On the seaward side, the descent seemed to be a clumsy mixture of level shelves and little cliffs, as if some giant had made a haphazard attempt at carving steps into the side of the island.

  Dr Jacklers led the Sunderly family along a sawdust-strewn path until they could peer down into the nearest gorge. Looking down, Faith saw a cluster of canvas tents. With mounting excitement, she realized that they flanked the mouth of a tunnel, cut into the slope of the hillside between two large boulders. The entrance had been reinforced by a timber lintel, and she could just make out some shadowy wooden struts within.

  A tunnel into the past, she thought.

  When the doctor called out a greeting, five men in earth-covered workman’s clothes stopped what they were doing and stood by politely.

  A sixth man, in gentlemanly dress, looked up at them and shielded his eyes, then bounded up the zigzag path to meet them.

  ‘Mr Anthony Lambent,’ was all the introduction the doctor managed before their host was upon them.

  Lambent was over six feet tall, and seemed even taller as he tore towards them like a blond hurricane. Faith guessed that he was probably in his thirties, but his stride still had a roaring youthfulness. His green coat showed daubs of mud, and his bright yellow cravat was askew.

  ‘Reverend!’ he shouted like a war cry, and pounced upon the Reverend’s hand. Faith’s father recoiled slightly, and briefly seemed to consider defending himself with his walking cane. Lambent barely allowed the doctor to complete his introductions before hurrying them all down the hill. ‘Come, let me show you around!’ There was something unsettled and unsettling about him, like a horse that might kick.

  Myrtle made a face as she edged carefully down the path, and Faith followed with the same caution. It was a difficult route for those who could not see their feet. Eventually Lambent noticed how far he had outpaced his guests, and back-tracked.

  ‘Forgive me!’ he said. ‘I am of a hopelessly restless constitution – I must be on the move all the time.’

  ‘Does that not make sleep uncommonly difficult?’ asked Myrtle.

  ‘Oh indeed – for many years I scarcely slept more than two hours a night, in spite of all the doctors could do. I daresay I should have been forced to rely on laudanum. Thankfully now I have my dear wife, who has a wondrously calming influence on me. As soon as Agatha begins to talk, I find myself yawning.’

  Faith doubted his ‘dear wife’ would thank him for the compliment.

  When they reached the bottom of the hill, Lambent noticed Howard’s wooden gun.

  ‘Hullo!’ He leaned over, bringing his face closer to that of Faith’s brother. ‘Do we have a soldier here? Or is it a sportsman? Are you a hunter of big game, sir?’

  Howard froze, staring up into Lambent’s large, bewhiskered face, and gave an uncertain nod.

  ‘Capital!’ exclaimed Lambent. ‘What is it that you shoot, sir?’

  Howard opened his mouth, and it stayed open. His eyes widened with panic and concentration. Small noises issued from his throat. Some of them were trying to be words.

  ‘Li . . . li . . . li . . .’

  Faith recognized the signs, and knew that shyness and fear had choked off Howard’s voice in his throat. The more people stared at him, the worse it would become. She hurried over and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Lions,’ she said quickly. ‘Howard has been shooting lions.’

  Lambent threw back his head and gave an enormous laugh. ‘Stout fellow! I daresay you are ready to travel the world like your father, eh?’

  Howard blinked nervously, staring at Lambent’s blond mane.

  ‘Crock!’ called Lambent.

  A tawny, broad-shouldered young man approached, and touched his forehead. He was almost as tall as Lambent, but kept his head a little ducked to make his height less intimidating. He moved with the leisurely care of a big man in a flimsy world.

  ‘This is my foreman, Ben Crock. Crock, please look after the ladies while I show the gentlemen the section.’ He gave a smile and wink to show that the ‘stout fellow’ Howard was included among ‘gentlemen’.

  And that was that. A lamp containing a composite candle was fetched, and then Lambent led the way into the tunnel, followed by the Reverend, Uncle Miles and even little Howard, clinging to his uncle’s sleeve. The ladies were left behind to be looked after. Faith felt as if a door had slammed in her face.

  Among the practical canvas tents, a wooden frame had been erected and draped with rich, red tasselled cloths, so that it looked a little like a Bedouin tent with the sides open. Within was a divan, a small table and several chairs, two of which were hastily brushed down so that Faith and Myrtle could sit. An inch of amber tea lurked at the bottom of a bone china cup on the table, a relic from another guest. Evidently this was where visiting ladies were stored.

  Faith was not ready to sit down yet, however. At long last, she was in an excavation! A real scientific excavation. She looked around her, fascinated by everything, even the barrows piled with rubble.

  At the far end of the gorge she could see Clay, fixing a camera to a tripod, while a boy of about Faith’s age held it steady. She recalled that Clay had mentioned having a son.

  In the nearest tent Faith could see a long table, covered in shallow, wooden boxes.

  ‘Mr Crock, can I look?’ She pointed into the tent, too eager to be shy.

  ‘Faith, you should not bother Mr Crock!’ Myrtle gave her a silencing look, but Faith could not be silenced, not at this moment.

  ‘Please!’

  ‘I see no harm in it.’ Crock gave them both a gentle smile, and held aside the tent flap for them to enter. As she drew near the table, Faith found that the boxes were painted with mysterious number sequences and contained tallow-brown lumps and shards of what looked like bone.

  ‘Better not to touch them, miss,’ Crock advised quietly. ‘They would make a mess of your gloves. They are still wet from . . .’

  ‘Seize,’ finished Faith reflexively, and looked up at him. ‘Boiled horses’ hoofs or something like that – to stop the ancient bones crumbling when they dry.’ She had read of ‘seize’ in her father’s books, but this was the first time she had smelt it, and seen it treacle-sticky on bones older than the pyramids.

  ‘Yes, miss.’ Ben Crock gave a slow blink. H
is patient brown eyes did not change expression, but Faith sensed him making a quiet mental adjustment.

  Faith looked over the shards of bone and noticed one bone sliver that was set apart from the rest. She could not help giving a small gasp. At one end it tapered to a point. The wider end had a perfectly round hole bored through it.

  ‘Mr Crock! Is that a needle?’

  ‘That’s right, miss,’ answered Crock promptly. ‘Chiselled from reindeer antler using a stone tool, so the gentlemen think.’

  ‘Glacial era?’

  ‘Dr Jacklers says so.’

  Faith realized she was smiling. Being answered simply and without fuss was a relief that felt almost physical.

  She thought of the needle being chiselled in the distant age of endless ice, when reindeer hoofs had pounded the snow even in Britain. She did wish she could touch it, she realized. She wanted to reach out across countless aeons and hold it, just as its maker had once held it. That would be like touching a star.

  Only as they were walking out of the tent did Myrtle fall into step with her.

  ‘Faith,’ she hissed, ‘must you make yourself so absurd?’

  Before long, Lambent bounded out of the tunnel with the ‘gentlemen’. Howard looked dusty and confused.

  ‘. . . so our tunnel has not broken its way into the cave yet,’ declared Lambent, ‘but that is nothing that a barrel of blasting powder cannot solve. Let me show you how we have been lowering ourselves into the cave from above!’

  While Myrtle remained in the ‘Bedouin tent’, Lambent led the rest of the Sunderly family up a much longer zigzag path. At the crest, Faith found herself staring at a dimpled, grassy plateau, tufted with low bushes.

  ‘Tread carefully!’ Lambent advised cheerfully. ‘This is where our curate’s dog found an unexpected drop, and there may be more!’

  Ahead, in the biggest dimple, was a large, freshly hewn timber platform. Faith realized that there was an oblong hole in the middle. Over the hole was a sturdy frame supporting a great spindle with a thick chain around it, a little like the mechanism for lowering a bucket into a well. Instead of a bucket, however, there hung a sort of roofless cage, with a square metal base and sides three feet high.