Dust to Dust

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  “Oh?”

  “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.” He grinned.

  Rebecca laughed. She took another piece of toast and smeared it with marmalade. Back in the days of her previous engagement, her mother had found Rebecca’s packet of birth control pills. Wringing her hands, Mrs. Reid had wailed, “You’ll never get him to marry you now!” Not that her father would come after Michael with a shotgun. She’d long ago reached an understanding with her family—they lived in their world, she lived in hers.

  “It’s a long way to Rudesburn,” Michael was saying. “A hundred miles. We can stop at Neidpath Castle or Abbotsford, if you like, and at Presto’s in Galashiels to get groceries for the cottage.”

  “Let’s just hope Dennis isn’t too addicted to junk food and Adele doesn’t have to have tofu. Heaven only knows what the other students are like. Mark’s from Texas, maybe he’ll want chili on his corn flakes.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “Laurence is rentin’ the cottage as usual in August—another reason to finish the dig on time. But it’s less expensive for them to have only Kleinfelter and his—well, he was budgeted for a secretary, but I think she’s a groupie—livin’ in the hotel.”

  Rebecca lingered another few moments over her coffee while Michael dawdled over his tea. The real world was lurking impatiently outside. All too soon she was folding her clothes and arranging her toiletries in their compartments. She tried not to wince when Michael blithely stuffed his suitcase every which way, hung the kilt in his garment bag and seemed surprised she wasn’t ready yet.

  *

  They headed away from the coast, into those rolling hills laced with shining water that Rebecca had seen from the plane. Before long she had a crick in her neck from trying to look every way at once. Michael drove with one hand, using the other to wave at passing sights, to shift gears, and to pat different parts of Rebecca’s anatomy, as if assuring himself she wasn’t going to vanish like Thomas the Rhymer’s fairy queen.

  Thomas met his queen on the Eildon Hills, three green mounds rising south of Melrose. By late afternoon Michael’s Fiat skirted the Eildons and descended through thickets of beech and alder into Gowandale. He sang, “Seas between us braid hae roared, sin’ auld lang syne.”

  “Should auld acquaintance be forgot,” Rebecca chimed in, and finished the song just as they entered the village of Rudesburn. The gardens in front of the houses were breathtaking; profusions of every flower Rebecca had ever seen and a few she hadn’t, like some tall, spiky yellow and orange blooms Michael called “red hot pokers”.

  The narrow highway became Jedburgh Street, the only street in town. Rebecca looked appreciatively at the tidy houses built of rose-gray stone and black slate, many with shops on their ground floors. Some of them provided supplies for the local people while others sold antiques, fishing gear, and toys to tourists. A sign before a glistening new whitewashed structure proclaimed “Craft Centre: Hand-knit sweaters, woolens and needlework.” A red phone booth, also freshly painted, stood just in front.

  Michael stopped at a much older building across the street. A swinging sign over heavy wood and glass doors read “Priory House Hotel.”

  “Otherwise known as the old Kerr manor house,” he said, climbing out of the car and stretching. “Built of stones from the old castle on Battle Law and from the Priory itself. Seventeenth through nineteenth centuries.”

  “The Kerrs got a little carried away, didn’t they? Like crazed children with building blocks.” Rebecca peered up at the building. Multiple wings and ells sprawled from a forthright central tower. Windows dotted the facade in eccentric patterns and chimneys sprouted from the roofs like wagging tails. “Friendly place, though,” she added with a smile.

  “Aye,” returned Michael. “This is where the pub is.”

  A white police car with blue lettering pulled up beside them. Two navy blue-clad officers clambered out and hurried into the hotel. Michael looked perplexed. “The local bobby was tellin’ me last month he never had to deal wi’ more than dead car batteries, lost sheep, and the odd drunk.”

  “I can’t see the first two being a problem in a hotel lobby,” returned Rebecca. They stepped into the building.

  A wide staircase swept upward from the center of the lobby. To the right was a registration desk complete with guest book, flower arrangement, and pigeonholes. Just beyond the desk a glass-paned door opened onto an office. To the left a collection of overstuffed chairs and low tables faced a fireplace filled not with logs but with an electric heater. Beyond the chairs was a passageway Rebecca assumed led toward the pub.

  The police constables stood deep in conference with a husky man whose expanse of stomach was encased by a kilt. He had more dark hair on his chin than on his head, as if the follicles were migrating south. His gesture indicated a display case half-concealed in an alcove beneath a stairway. “… broke the lock on the case but ignored the cash box below the counter!”

  The bobbies nodded and made notes. Another policeman stood just behind them, his hat with its checkered band tucked beneath his arm. When he saw Michael and Rebecca, he came toward them, his long mobile face trying valiantly to suppress a smile. But still the affable creases in his cheeks negated the worried frown that puckered his forehead.

  “Hello, Grant,” said Michael. They shook hands. “This is Rebecca Reid. Rebecca, Police Constable Grant Johnston.”

  Grant’s huge hand had a firm, dry grasp; just the sort of reassuring handshake a policeman should have. “Sorry you had tae arrive just as the balloon went up.”

  “What happened?” Rebecca inquired.

  Grant nodded at the kilted man. “Laurence rang me aboot an hoor ago. Sometime the day—he disna ken just when—someone did a bunk wi’ one o’ the big gold coins and a paper. Theft ower a hundred quid—I had tae knock up the Galashiels force.”

  “One of the gold nobles of Edward III?” Michael asked.

  “Why would a thief take only one?” asked Rebecca.

  “That’s just it, miss,” Grant said. “You’d think a proper thief would take both the coins and leave the paper, bonny as it is wi’ a’ those seals.”

  Michael blanched. “You mean the warrant for Anne Douglas’s arrest?” He turned to Rebecca. “The prioress who was tried for witchcraft in 1545; that warrant is all the original documentation we have.”

  “Anne, the spectral nun?”

  Grant glanced furtively at the other officers, and said under his breath, “There’re some as say she walks, right enough.”

  “Just a local legend,” called Laurence Baird. He left the Galashiels force examining the display case. “Hello, Michael. Good to see you again. Sorry about all this—I feel quite the idiot, going in and out all day without ever looking into the alcove.” He made a dismissive gesture, indicative of spilled milk and locked barn doors, and shook Rebecca’s hand. “How do you do, Miss Reid? Did Mr. MacLeod tell you about the film crew?”

  “Aye,” said Michael. “We’ll be needin’ a film record.”

  “We’re lucky to get Plantagenet Productions with their museum experience. Have you seen their documentary about Boadicea and her revolt against the Romans?”

  “I must’ve been in America when that was on.” The tendons in Michael’s jaw twinged.

  “I have,” offered Grant. “The blond lass doin’ the commentary dressed hersel’ in a short tunic and went aboot drivin’ a chariot. First time I’d ever really appreciated history.”

  I’ll bet, thought Rebecca.

  “Miss Fitzgerald has a very creative approach. She hopes to make the excavations more understandable to the general public. It’s a shame, after all, to let the priory just fall to ruins when it could be preserved and appreciated by so many.” Laurence rocked back on his heels, beaming like a snake-oil salesman with a good audience. “The dig’s shaping up beautifully. We were lucky to get Jeremy Kleinfelter. A good omen, wouldn’t you say?”

  Fortunately one of the other officers called, “Sir?
”, and Laurence excused himself before anyone answered that question. Michael asked Grant, “The thief didna turn ower those boxes of Francis Kerr’s in the attic, did he? Laurence has promised the lot to the Museum.”

  “The attic? I didna think aboot that. But no keys have gone missin’.”

  “We’ll make a recce.” Michael leaned over the reception desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a key. He beckoned Rebecca up the staircase.

  Once out of sight they shared the same look of mingled caution and exasperation. The Rudesburners were working with the best of motives, keeping their village alive by preserving its past. They’d hired Kleinfelter and approved his choice of Sheila in the best of faith. The troops in the trenches owed it to them to conduct themselves professionally, which still didn’t stop Rebecca from muttering under her breath, “A chariot?”

  Michael, shaking his head, led the way through a maze of hallways, staircases, and fire doors. At last they emerged in a brightly lit landing at the top of the house. Michael jiggled the knob on the solitary door, then bent to inspect the lock. Threadbare carpet, Rebecca noted, but clean. And the window at her elbow was sparkling. She glanced out.

  Jedburgh Street ran down into the furrow of the Gowan Water, crossed the stone arches of the New Bridge—built in 1747—and disappeared to the east, toward Newtown St. Boswells and Jedburgh itself. Beyond the willows on the far side of the stream rose the priory church.

  Rebecca gasped in delight. Photographs didn’t do it justice. Even half-ruined it was praise sung in stone. The smooth lines of buttress and vault and window tracery guided her eyes toward heaven, as did the bell tower rising above the expanse of remaining roof like a hand lifted in blessing. Its height betrayed the priory’s origins as a Benedictine monastery, only converted into a more austere Cistercian convent in 1381. Low walls, the bones of the convent buildings, shouldered aside the rich green turf that swept down to Battle Law. The craggy knoll’s harshness was softened by flowering broom, yellow cascading among the tumbled stones of the demolished castle. Beyond the Law the land rolled in green and gold waves toward England.

  She leaned so close to the window that her breath fogged the glass and smudged the picture postcard vision. Smiling, she turned away.

  The door beside her was open. She stepped into a long room, its low ceiling made even lower by rough-hewn rafters. Three skylights admitted rays of sun, their brilliant shafts filled with waltzing dust motes. Beyond the stripes of sun the room was dim, the shapes of furniture and boxes indistinct. But the cleanliness of the hotel extended even here, Rebecca noticed approvingly; the wooden floor was neatly swept.

  Except for a matchbook lying to one side of the door. She picked it up. The cover read “Edinburgh Pub”. Michael himself might have dropped it last month, except it, like the floor, wasn’t at all dusty. She put the matchbook in the pocket of her jacket.

  Michael was kneeling beside a stack of cardboard boxes and an ancient trunk. “These should look familiar,” he called.

  “Just like the haystacks at Dun Iain. Are there any needles in these?”

  “I canna say. Kerr’s collections were just like this when the Bairds bought the place fifteen years ago. Laurence said he found some schoolboy copybooks datin’ from the 1880’s and didna look further. He only mentioned them to me last month because I asked aboot the coins and the warrant.”

  “Did Kerr find the coins?”

  “Well, naething’s been disturbed, as far as I can tell.” Michael dusted his hands and stood. “He found them whilst stravaigin’ in the priory grounds, but didna bother to record where. The man meant well, but he was an old-fashioned antiquarian, no a scientist. The best favor he did Rudesburn was to leave the priory to the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission.”

  “Who’ve been prodded by the Rudesburners into finally doing something with it. But the manor house has been a hotel for years, hasn’t it?”

  “Aye. Laurence never met Francis Kerr. The warrant for Anne’s arrest was in Francis’s family archives, along wi’ the coins and Mary Pringle’s history of the priory.” Rebecca waited on the landing while Michael locked the door. He went on, “Francis gave the Museum the history back in the thirties. Or some of the history, it’s turned oot. God himsel’ kens when I can go through the rest of yon boxes—typical, naebody thought they were important.”

  He grimaced and heaved against one of the fire doors, managing to open it far enough for Rebecca to slip through. “The warrant’s been a piece of local lore for years, like the ghost. Laurence put it on display because it looked pretty, as Grant said. It was only when Dr. Graham from the Museum was makin’ a feasibility study last year that he recognized it for what it was. He tried to buy it but Laurence didna want to sell. And it’s well and truly his property, no treasure trove found in a field somewhere.”

  “You made a copy of the warrant, of course.”

  “Of course,” Michael responded indignantly. “Mary’s Pringle’s account—the part we have—skips very lightly ower the issue of Anne.”

  “Must’ve been a heck of a scandal. Whatever happened to her? Was she convicted?”

  “Naebody kens. That’s why I rang the archives at the British Museum, lookin’ for the other side of the story. But all the records were lost. Selfish Sassenach scholars—check something oot and never bring it back.”

  “Maybe we’ll dig up a first person account,” teased Rebecca, “complete with a lurid illuminated cover.”

  Michael laughed. “Pull the other one, lass.”

  The uneven floors creaked beneath their feet. The building smelled faintly of dust and mold, more strongly of furniture polish, disinfectant, and baking bread. Rebecca inhaled, reminded sharply of Dun Iain. Yet this building wasn’t a replica of an old structure; it really was old, and not nearly as hallowed with age as the Priory.

  As they started down the main staircase, a plump red-haired woman didn’t so much walk as propel herself into the lobby. “Laurence? I saw the panda car—what is it?”

  “Nora Baird,” Michael stage-whispered.

  While Laurence explained to his wife what had happened, Grant rejoined Michael and Rebecca. “We’ll talk tae the guests who stayed here the night—only three people, an American couple and an old woman frae Nottingham.”

  The Galashiels officers folded and pocketed their notebooks and with various reassuring if noncommittal mutters, left. Rebecca strolled over to the glass-topped display case. Its lock was a mere formality; it could have been broken with a twist of a letter opener or a knife.

  The remaining gold coin, artfully spotlighted, shone up at her like a miniature sun. It overshadowed the other archeological odds and ends in the case, a rusted arrowhead or two, a few shards of pottery. The crushed nap of the velvet backing, a round shape and a rectangular one, made it only too obvious what was missing. “What a waste,” she said.

  Nora peered over her shoulder. “It certainly is. Some yobbo thinks he can get beer and cigarette money with those. I’d like to see him trying to fence the warrant. And the coin—he’ll only get the weight of the gold, not its worth as an antiquity. We should’ve let the Museum have them.”

  “Maybe the police will find them soon,” said Rebecca, with more courtesy than hope.

  “They’ll alert the antiquities dealers.” The two women turned away from the case and introduced themselves. Nora continued, “At least the excavation is finally getting under way. We’ve been waiting for years. Winnie Johnston—Grant’s wife—and I aired the cottage and put clean linen on the beds. Here you go.” She took a key ring from a pigeonhole above the registration desk and handed it to Rebecca.

  “Thank you.” Rebecca put the keys in her purse.

  “Winnie runs the shop and post office; she’s already set up an account for you and the students. We’ll be having a supper in the bar for everyone tonight, rather an opening ceremony. Except for the film crew—they won’t be here until tomorrow.”

  Rebecca pretended not to hear that las
t statement. “You certainly have everything well organized. We do appreciate it. Michael tells me you also run the Craft Centre across the road.”

  “That I do, with my niece Bridget. Are you interested in crafts?”

  Rebecca visualized Michael’s wounded sweater. “I sew and knit when I get the chance.”

  “Come across then, and we’ll see you get what you need.”

  “Thank you,” Rebecca said again.

  Laurence waved Grant out the door. Michael gestured at Rebecca. “We need to unpack the car.”

  On the way out Rebecca thought she heard Michael mutter, “Just the one coin, bugger it anyway,” but the Bairds’ affirmations of welcome were still ringing in her ears. She sighed—historical thieves were the last thing they needed—and essayed, “No wonder the Rudesburners have gotten their act together with Laurence and Nora at the helm.”

  “Aye. Hard to believe they’re English.”

  Rebecca recoiled in exaggerated horror. “No!”

  “I was born there mysel’, remember? But Nora’s family is from Glasgow, I think, and Laurence has ancestors here. So they’re no really incomers, just comin’ home, like you.”

  “At least incomers have the good taste to move here.”

  “No like the absentee landlords who’re denyin’ us our own land. If no for the incomers, there’d be precious few people left in Scotland. You mind what Samuel Johnson said: ‘The most inspirin’ sight to a Scot is the high road to England.’ Where the jobs are. Which is why Maddy and Geoff are raisin’ my nephews in Sheffield.”

  Laughing, Rebecca turned to the Fiat. Two cats lay in elegant poses on the hood, basking in the sun. “Well,” she said. “Hello there.” She held out her hand, and each velvety nose gravely saluted her fingertips.

  “May I introduce more of the Johnston family?” Michael lifted the completely black cat so that Rebecca could shake his paw. “This is Lancelot, and that is Guinevere. She’s the wee nun in black and white.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Rebecca told them both. And to Guinevere, “Retired to the convent after an exciting life breaking all the commandments? But not to Rudesburn; Cistercian nuns wore all white.”