Adele considered first Michael and then Rebecca; so much for her assumption of polite courtship in the front parlor. With a pained smile she picked up her suitcase and started up the stairs. Michael rushed to help her. Dennis shrugged resignation and followed.
“The last dig I was on,” Mark essayed, “the volunteers had to live in tents. A roof and indoor plumbing—I’m impressed.”
“That’s right,” replied Rebecca, “you’re the only one of us who’s a bona fide archeologist. Where were you digging?”
“Pueblo Bonito. Anasazi snakes and dust. But I’m only a larva—just barely have my Master’s.”
Hilary asked, “Do you play the guitar?”
“I play at it. It’s my pacifier.”
“Michael plays the bagpipes,” said Rebecca. “We’ll have to find something you can play together.”
“Amazing Grace?” Mark suggested, and turned toward the stairs.
Rebecca, too, was impressed; his grin was almost as appealing as Michael’s. And his eyes were very attractive, clear gray and tip-tilted like those of a Tolkien elf. Behind Mark’s back Rebecca and Hilary exchanged a nod, feminine quality control approving the goods.
Hilary had a fresh, open face, even if her purse was real leather, her brown hair was tied with a silk scarf, and her luggage was matched Samsonite. Daddy’s money, Rebecca thought. Lucky girl. “I have trouble just boiling water,” Hilary confided, with a dubious glance around the kitchen, “but I’ll be glad to wash dishes.”
Rebecca smiled. “Thank you. We’ll sit down later on tonight and work out some kind of duty roster.”
Michael bounded down the stairs. “Do you need help wi’ your cases?” Hilary declined and wrestled them up herself, throwing Rebecca a quick smirk indicating Michael also deserved a quality control stamp. Lucky girl, she, too, seemed to say.
In their bedroom Rebecca found Michael mouthing “how now brown cow” to the mirror. “I asked Adele aboot her trip to Whithorn,” he explained, “and she didna—didn’t—understand me.”
“Just when you thought you were safe at home, you’re invaded by American accents. “She slid her empty suitcases, a mismatched and much battered set initialed with her mother’s maiden name, under the bed.
Michael tossed several pairs of socks and his sgian dubh into a dresser drawer and looked at his watch. “Past 1900.”
“I’m ready.” Rebecca combed her hair, applied lipstick, and put on the sweater-vest Caroline Campbell had made for her. It was cozily as warm as Michael’s own, and the cable pattern across the shoulders perfectly fit the shape of the arm he draped around her on their way up the driveway.
Hilary cooed to the sheep, Mark inspected a minuscule chip of flint, and Adele stood mesmerized by the vision of the priory across the burn. Only Dennis, following the scent of food, kept pace with his keepers.
A silver Jaguar with a rental sticker on its bumper was parked half across the curb in front of the hotel. “Our fearless leader?” Michael asked.
“Sssh,” Rebecca hissed, “don’t sow dissension among the ranks.”
The car did belong to Jeremy Kleinfelter. They could hear his professorial voice all the way down the hall that led from the lobby to the bar, the faded prints of grouse-hunters and Highland regiments shivering as the words gusted by. “… Nimrud and Wroxeter. Thought I should try a little place for a change. Quality instead of quantity.”
He was leaning on the bar in a John Wayne pose. In fact, Rebecca thought, he looked like John Wayne, most of his weight carried in the top half of his considerable height. His sandy hair was combed tidily to one side, and his flaring walrus moustache was parted in the middle. He laid down his glass of Scotch and turned to the door with the deliberate confidence of a gunfighter greeting a group of shipping clerks. “There you are!”
A somewhat glazed Laurence made introductions. With an effusive “Call me Jerry,” Dr. Kleinfelter lingered a moment longer than necessary over Rebecca’s and Hilary’s hands, winced perceptibly at Dennis, and bowed to Adele as if offering to help her across the street. He straightened to his full height, demonstrating that of all the men he was the tallest.
“How do you do,” said Michael. “I’m your liaison…”
“… from the Museum,” Jerry finished. “Have to keep on good terms with the local authorities, right?” Before Michael could reply he turned to Mark. “You’re the one studying archeology. Any tips I can give you on getting that Ph.D., don’t hesitate to ask—nothing like expert knowledge.”
Michael, brows arched up his forehead, ordered a beer.
“Thank you,” Mark said. “I’m sure y’all will be very helpful.”
Thank you for that second-person plural, Rebecca told him silently.
A woman sat demurely at a nearby table. She was dark-haired and doe-eyed, and her coral lipstick emphasized pouting lips which smoothed into a smile when Jerry laid a proprietary hand on her shoulder. “This is Elaine Vavra. She’ll be—er—personing the computer.”
Rebecca smothered a groan.
“I can help with that,” offered Dennis. “I’m in the hacker club back in Ann Arbor.”
Jerry eyed him like a biologist inspecting a microbe. “Everyone will have to wear several hats, since this is such a small excavation.”
Laurence started distributing beer and lemonade. Nora bustled through a swinging door and laid bowls and platters on a sideboard. “Food first,” she called. “Business later.”
Rebecca piled a plate high with salmon, potatoes, whiskey-glazed venison and Yorkshire pudding. Sitting next to Michael, she decided, was worth Jerry Kleinfelter’s scrutiny pricking between her shoulder blades. For a moment Hilary and Mark watched fascinated as Michael used his knife to plaster his food onto the back of his fork, eating with tidy two-handed efficiency. Then Mark managed to ascertain with various conversational subtleties that Hilary didn’t have a boyfriend waiting back in Indiana.
While Nora went from table to table pouring coffee and bringing Adele more lemonade, Laurence delivered himself of a welcoming speech. Rebecca, intent on chasing the last green sprig of cress across her plate, managed to not quite pay attention when he mentioned the film crew. Dennis crept with elephantine grace to the sideboard and took another strawberry tart.
Then Jerry stood up. Every eye followed the ritual polishing of his glasses and the lighting of a thin cigar. Finally, expelling a cloud of smoke that tempted Rebecca to dive behind her napkin, he spoke. “All right, class. Rudesburn Priory. Founded as a Benedictine monastery in the eleventh century. Deserted during the Black Death. Re-founded as a Cistercian convent in 1381 by Marjory Douglas. Worked over by Henry VIII’s troops in 1545. Worked over again by Cromwell’s troops in the 1650’s. What we’re doing here is salvage. If we find some of the old medieval relics—body parts and personal belongings of saints—we sing the Hallelujah Chorus and hand them over to Mr.—er—Dr. Campbell here.”
He turned to Michael with a smile. Michael smiled back. “Do you have those geophysical surveys?” Jerry asked.
“They’re in the cottage. We can go over them the morn.”
Rebecca chuckled under her breath. No matter how hard Michael tried to talk “proper”, those burred r’s clung to his words like thistles to a sheepdog.
“I was hoping to look at them this evening,” replied Jerry. With a dismissive gesture he added, “No matter. I’ll check them over tomorrow.”
Michael’s smile was starting to look like the Cheshire cat’s, stiff and disembodied. Beneath the table Rebecca nudged her leg reassuringly against his. She would never understand masculine games of dominance.
Elaine watched Jerry with the dewy-eyed admiration of a candidate’s wife watching a campaign speech. Neither, Rebecca thought, would she understand women’s games of submission.
Adele spoke, leaving Jerry with his mouth open. “Marjory Douglas collected relics of Saint Margaret, who founded the first priory, and Saints Aidan, Wilfred, Kentigern, Ninian, Columba, and Bridget.
Most of the major northern saints except for Cuthbert, who was such a misogynist he’d probably have cursed any convent that tried to appropriate his mortal remains.” Her thin face grew luminous. “The medieval belief in relics shows a belief in the survival of the spirit; the saints’ spirits were believed to remain in the vicinity of their bodies and possessions. Life after death has always been a vital issue. World literature is filled with examples of psychic energies from beyond the grave.”
Jerry cleared his throat. “Thank you, Adele. You aren’t from California, by any chance?”
“No. Pennsylvania.”
“I see.” Jerry turned to an attaché case resting on top of the bar beside the beer spigots. “I have here a cheat sheet of personnel that the University Network sent me. Hilary, you’re studying art history. Could you do the sketching for us?”
“I’d be glad to,” Hilary returned.
“Mark. You helped survey Pueblo Bonito. If you wouldn’t mind… .”
“Not at all.”
“Adele, Rebecca can show you some conservation techniques. And Dennis. You said you’d help Elaine with the computer files.” Adele smiled agreement. Dennis shoved his plate away and nodded. Elaine glanced doubtfully at Dennis. “Of course we’ll all be working with shovels and trowels; you have to get your hands dirty in archeology.”
Under his breath, Michael muttered, “Do tell”.
Laurence offered another round of food and drink. Hilary grimaced and moaned, “No, thank you, I’ve already blown my diet.” Mark’s eye traveled contemplatively down her well-filled but hardly overstuffed corduroy jeans.
Jerry, catching Elaine’s eye, said, “Let’s make it an early night, so we can hit the ground digging tomorrow. Good night, all.”
With attaché in one hand and Elaine in the other—her head barely reached his shoulder—Jerry left. The students thanked Laurence and Nora for their hospitality and went out in an amiable gaggle. Michael lingered to ask, “Did you get a chance to tell Kleinfelter aboot—about—ah bugger it. The coin and the warrant?”
“And this afternoon,” Rebecca added, “we saw where someone had taken a crowbar to William Salkeld’s tomb.”
Laurence’s beard bristled. “Blast, that’s all we need. I’ll mention it to Grant.”
“Yes,” Nora replied, “we did tell Jerry about the theft. He tut-tutted and shook his head. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t publicize.”
With a weary nod of agreement and many thanks, Michael and Rebecca strolled out through the lobby. On an easel by the door was a poster, a bright tartan set of bagpipes overlaid by the words, “Borders Festival, Rudesburn, Roxburghshire, 3 August.”
“That’s your birthday,” Rebecca said.
Michael grumbled, “Dinna remind me.”
“You make it sound as if thirty is over the hill or something.”
“Or something.” They walked out into the pellucid shadows of evening. “You were right aboot Jerry. He’s fair taken on wi’ himsel’, and no mistake.”
“Probably a sign of deep-seated insecurities.”
“That may be his problem, but he disna have to make it ours.” Rebecca glanced up at him warningly as they crossed the road. Once again he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll be behavin’ mysel’. I just hope he does.”
“Amen,” she replied.
They walked around the house and stood on the flagstone terrace outside the back entry. The sun flirted with the horizon, squeezing rich beams beneath the gathering clouds. The priory glowed, polished by the light. Sleeping Beauty’s castle, thought Rebecca, awaiting the kiss of the trowel.
A gray-headed figure knelt at the base of the cross, hands folded, eyes downcast. “Adele?” asked Michael. “The woman’s a wee bit bonkers, I doot.”
“Well, we all are, to some extent.”
A sudden thud rolled across the lawns and the stream, the sound of a massive wooden door shutting. The broad west doors of the priory church must once have sounded like that. Adele looked up and gazed fixedly into the shadowed nave. Something moved, a pinprick of light like a distant candle, an implication of a shape. Slowly Adele raised her hand and beckoned.
“Optical illusion,” Michael murmured. “One of the moggies. You know how cat’s eyes reflect… .”
Adele didn’t move. From inside the house came the cheerful if off-key plunks of a guitar being tuned. A pleasant baritone—Dennis’s, Rebecca realized—started singing, “Beautiful dreamer, waken to me… .” The shape and the tiny light vanished. Adele drooped.
“Let’s go inside, love,” Rebecca said. “I think we’d better fortify ourselves for this.”
“Oh aye, I’m afraid so.” Michael planted a warm beer-flavored kiss on her mouth. They walked into the brightly lit interior of the house and left the evening and its ambiguities behind.
1
Chapter Five
If Michael rolled to the right, he’d fall off the bed; to the left, he’d crash into the wall. He managed a wriggle and heave to one side and lay emitting the contented grumbles of a cooling tea kettle.
Rebecca liked being his tea cozy. She snuggled into the crook of his arm, catching her breath and stroking the damp satin and sinew of his back. Let time stop here, she thought, while I still can’t believe I’m actually with you, while we’re drunk with infatuation, while dawn is polished with possibility, not yet tarnished by truth.
But it had been dawn for several hours. What Rebecca’s drowsy myopia had first interpreted as light delicate as melted silver, she now decided must be overcast and rain. When that hopeful voice from the other bed had asked, “Are you awake then, love?” she’d been dozing uneasily, worrying about something… .That was it. Today was the first day of the dig. She and Michael would have to answer to Jerry. They’d have to deal with Sheila.
No wonder Michael had been so intent on expressing his devotion the last two days. He’d expressed it so energetically she’d be spending the next two days bowlegged. Men! Rebecca thought, and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. He had a nice forehead, high and intelligent, at the moment unlined by anger or worry. “I love you,” she whispered.
His reply was a blurred, “Love you—very much—promise.”
From the depths of the house a door shut and water ran. Rebecca glanced at the travel clock beside the bed. “Time to get up.”
“Right,” he said, and didn’t budge.
Smiling, she kissed him, extricated herself from his embrace, found her nightgown crumpled on the floor and slipped it on. She picked up her bag of toiletries. “Time to get up,” she repeated, but there was no response.
The overhead light was blazing in the kitchen. Adele stood in the nimbus of glare like a haloed saint in an illuminated manuscript, offering the toaster slices of bread. The tea kettle on the Aga was already bubbling, and a percolator was steaming gently. Rebecca inhaled the blessed aroma of coffee. Thank goodness Adele wasn’t trying to convert them to her abstemious habits.
Adele rolled her eyes toward Rebecca and then back to the toaster. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Rebecca padded on across the cool linoleum.
The door to the back entry opened and Mark emerged, a towel draped around his naked shoulders, shaving kit in hand. He stopped as he swung onto the staircase and gave Rebecca what even without her glasses she saw was a broad grin. “Hi,” he said, and disappeared up the stairs.
She must look like she’d crawled out from under a rock. Then she saw the rosy-cheeked, dewy-eyed, tangle-haired apparition in the bathroom mirror, and realized how obvious it was that what she’d crawled out from under was Michael.
She grimaced with wry embarrassment and made what restoration she could with cold water and a hairbrush. When she returned through the kitchen Adele was beating eggs, Hilary was opening a carton of orange juice, and Mark was contemplating a list posted on a cabinet door. “Is this what you two were doing up so late last night?” he asked Hilary and Rebecca both. “Laundry, sweeping, dish
es; what if I get dishpan hands?”
“If you’d prefer cooking…” Hilary replied.
“Sure, if y’all don’t mind grilled cheese sandwiches and salsa.”
Adele poured the eggs into a skillet, standing well away from the cooker as if afraid its raised lid would fall on her. “Ten minutes,” she said. Hilary took a handful of silverware and turned on the dining room light.
Rebecca found Michael sitting blearily on the edge of the bed. “You were after lettin’ me oversleep, were you?”
She threw her towel at him. The kitchen had been warm, but now that her friction-induced glow had dissipated, the rest of the house was cold. Quickly she pulled on jeans, sweater, and socks. By the time she sat down at the dressing table Michael, no doubt scenting tea, had dressed and disappeared.
Rebecca inserted her contact lenses. A little mascara would be enough make-up. There was the matchbook she’d picked up in the attic of the hotel. Edinburgh Pub. This weekend Michael would show her Edinburgh. When she’d spent her twentieth summer studying in Stirling, she’d made more than one weekend visit there. But only her most wishful thoughts had ever checked the place out as a prospective home. She put the matchbook in her cosmetic tray and went in search of coffee.
Adele made a superior omelet. Even Dennis was persuaded to desert his bed and join the round table, although he didn’t remember how to speak English until he’d consumed two cups of sugary coffee. Michael, already wise to the bizarre feeding habits of Americans, didn’t balk at the warm, moist toast or at the omelet served for breakfast instead of for tea.
It was Hilary’s turn to clean up. Rebecca lingered at the table, indulging in more coffee and frowning at a piece of paper. A salutation of “Dear Mrs. Campbell” was stilted, “Dear Caroline” too familiar, “Dear Mother… .” No, that wouldn’t work. And “Hello there” was right out.
She lifted the paper so Hilary could sweep away the crumbs. “Where are you from?” the young woman asked.
“Nowhere. My family lived all over the USA, my father always looking for a better job. Not that he ever found one. You’re an Indianapolis native?”
Dust to Dust Page 6
