Dust to Dust
Page 42
“It is a pit dungeon,” she called upward, her voice echoing. Her outstretched arms could span the width of the chamber. Cut stone glinted in the sweep of her flashlight. A few dismal gray shapes lay heaped in a corner. She knelt and poked warily through the pile.
Old bones. Shreds of cloth. Lead papal seals—those, at least, were on the inventory. A pewter cup. A disintegrating wooden cross. “The relics are here,” she called up at last. “They were valuable to Anne, but only historically interesting to us, I’m afraid.”
Michael landed lightly beside her. “Look there. That’s what happened to the silver plate.” He guided her hand, and the flashlight lit what looked like a tortoise shell. No, it was armor, a breastplate and close helmet in the style of the seventeenth century.
“Rats.” Rebecca looked up at the opening. The circle of heads almost blocked the blue of the sky. “Cromwell was here first. No wonder no one ever recorded the finding of the treasure—the soldier who looted it took off so fast he left his armor. Sheila died, and Tony will spend the rest of his life in prison, for something that—well, that didn’t really exist.”
No one spoke. Rebecca stepped back from the armor, and something turned beneath her shoe. Michael scuffed at the floor. “Another slate.” In minutes he had it up, revealing a dark cavity. Inside was a bundle about the size of a football wrapped in crumbling cloth. He lifted it out.
“Look!” Rebecca gasped. “Oh, Michael, look!”
As she had predicted, the reliquary was shaped like a small house. The leather carrying strap was only a mournful shred, but its elaborate gilt-bronze mounts, decorated with red and yellow enamel, shone through the grime. Gold plates covered the sides, stippled with interlaced animals in Celtic style. Michael pursed his lips and blew. Dust filled the air. An inscription ran along the roof edge. Rebecca read, “Robertus Scotorum Rex.” Her whisper resonated through the vault.
Hilary said, “Robert the Bruce’s heart. That, to Anne, was more important than any amount of gold or silver. It was a sacred trust.”
“What do you want to bet,” said Rebecca, “that the ghost Anne was talking to was Marjory Douglas, who brought the relic here to begin with? Marjory passed the trust on to Anne, who passed it on to…”
For a moment the dungeon was so silent she could hear the mingled breaths of the watchers. The whir of the camera sounded like a jet airplane taxiing for take-off. Finally Michael said, “She passed it on to us.”
“It’ll go to the Museum, where it belongs,” Laurence stated. “Thank God Jerry or Sheila or Tony never got it. They would’ve claimed they found it off the property, that it was treasure trove.”
“It took an expert to find it,” explained Michael. “Gey brilliant, she is.” He swept Rebecca into an extravagant embrace. Everyone clapped and cheered. Dennis, with a fine eye for comedy, went on filming.
Rebecca was reminded forcibly of her various wounds when she started to scramble out of the pit. Michael boosted, and Laurence and Grant pulled, and with a clumsy scramble she regained the open air. She took the reliquary and its moldering cloth and stepped back so they could haul Michael out, too.
They replaced the slate slab and strolled across the lawn toward the road, Nora carrying the reliquary as carefully as a snowflake. “We have to report all finds of ancient objects to the police,” Michael said.
“Consider it reported,” said Grant.
Michael went on, “Noo a committee has to decide whether or not to keep the find for the national collections, and how much compensation to pay the finders—the RDG. You’ll have your restoration and your museum, right enough.”
Laurence and Bridget did a spontaneous dance step around the wheel-cross. The west front of the church looked on, blushing in the sunshine. For a story that had started out a Shakespearean tragedy of death and deceit, Rebecca reflected, the finale was looking like undiluted Gilbert and Sullivan. Except they weren’t quite yet at the final curtain.
1
Chapter Thirty
The Rudesburners carried the reliquary in triumphal procession to the village. The students went grinning into the cottage. Michael pulled Rebecca into the bedroom and shut the door. “Well,” he asked teasingly, “have we solved everything yet?”
“Not quite. Did Graham accept our two-fer deal?”
“No, he didna.” But Michael couldn’t get his face to frown; it kept curling up at the edges, like tissue paper.
Rebecca pushed him down on the bed. “Out with it.”
“Graham’s offered you a job of your own, lass.”
Her heart somersaulted. “You’d better not be kidding.”
“Would I joke aboot something that important?” He pulled her down beside him and placed a proprietary arm around her shoulders. “The RDG has a grant from the Historic Buildings and Monuments lot to sort oot the priory, right? Part of that grant was Jerry’s salary for writin’ up the results. But Jerry got the chop. It’s your job, if you want it.”
“Do I want it? I never thought paperwork could look so good!” Rebecca exulted. “What would you have done if he hadn’t taken the bait today?”
“Stuffed that buckle doon his throat and accused him of theft.”
She laughed. That the problem could turn so swiftly to a benefit was a grace note on their decision made and accepted. “A dig that turned up as many surprises, not to say controversies, as this one will take all winter to write up. Maybe I can find a permanent job by then.”
Michael smiled as smugly as a magician counting the rabbits in his hat. “That you can. The woman who supervises the publications department for the Museum is retirin’ next spring. They’ll be needin’ someone to do guidebooks, press releases—what have you. You’re a teacher; you’d be a natural.”
“Great! I mean, yeah, I’ve taught—I guess I can write… .”
“You can write. Graham wants the Museum press to publish your dissertation to go wi’ the Forbes exhibit this fall. And he’ll be askin’ you to do a popular account of the dig here. We needed the dig to be a success, love, and it is. A good thing Jerry disna realize how many merit badges his behavior earned us.”
“Because we pulled it off in spite of him, and the murder, and… .” Rebecca sat glued to Michael’s side, dazzled. “Oh wow.”
“No one wanted to publish my dissertation,” he concluded.
His face was set in exaggerated sulkiness, tempering resentment with self-mockery. She toppled him onto the pillow and kissed him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
When she came up for air, he said, “You’ve earned it, love. We’ll no be gettin’ rich, you ken, but we’ll have enough to live on… .” She bore down on him again and, laughing, he succumbed.
But the afternoon was wearing into evening. Reluctantly they parted and started getting ready for the evening festivities. “We have so much to do this month already,” Rebecca said around her lipstick. “Closing the infirmary trench, site mapping, soil and ceramic analysis, computer records. And we’ll have to testify at Tony’s trial, won’t we?”
“Only one court in Scotland can try murder cases,” Michael told her. He brushed his kilt and sweater and put them on. “They’ll no be passin’ a verdict of ‘Not proven’, though.”
She firmly shoved aside the matter of Tony, soon to be the Birdman of Dartmoor or some other British prison. “My family doesn’t know about us. They’ve never even met you. And I bet there’s some bureaucrat out there whose sole function is to hassle citizens of different countries who get married.” She brushed at her hair a moment, then gave up; the waves were as unruly as her emotions. “I’ll have to ship my things over; that’ll be expensive. I don’t have a dress. We don’t have a place. We haven’t even chosen a date.”
Michael’s reflection appeared behind hers, dazed but determined. “You’d no consider elopin’ to the nearest registry office, would you?”
“Good heavens no. Some things simply have to be done properly. A church wedding, no two ways about it.”
“Whew. I was imagining Westminster Abbey.” She got up and straightened his collar. “Let’s get to it, then.”
“Aye,” said Michael faintly, and then laughed. “Let’s get to it.”
In Laurence’s office, they consulted a calendar, decided on August twentieth—no need to drag matters out any longer—and added another small fortune to the hotel phone bill by calling Rebecca’s parents. She tried not to giggle as Michael adopted a perfect mid-Atlantic accent and charmed the Reids out of their qualms about their daughter marrying a foreigner. When at last he hung up, sighed, and said, “They decided I might almost be good enough for you,” Rebecca told herself she had been wrong. She had thought her family wanted her to get married so badly they would have welcomed a toad into the family.
Rebecca was charmed in turn when she realized Andrew Campbell’s voice sounded so much like his son’s. By the time she hung up, Caroline was already set to decorate their flat with Laura Ashley fabrics. “You warned them, didn’t you?” Rebecca asked. “They weren’t a bit surprised.”
“I told them all aboot it last winter,” Michael said with a shrug, as though he’d never doubted her. Rebecca tickled him, gave him a kiss, then had to wipe her lipstick from his mouth. A passing waiter did a double take and almost dropped his tray.
Maddy Lewis was ecstatic. August twenty was super. Geoff was on holiday that week, the boys loved the coast at Dornoch, and would Rebecca like to wear her wedding dress? By the time they walked out of the office, it was Rebecca’s turn to feel dazed. She definitely had a new family, and she didn’t feel a bit suffocated.
Arm in arm Rebecca and Michael strolled to the Festival field and plunged into the delectable smells and cheerful noises. Michael swept Mark and his guitar into a Scottish jam session, pipes and flute and accordions wending their way from traditional to contemporary melodies and back again. Rebecca and Hilary sat on the edge of the stage clapping and singing along. I could get used to this, Rebecca thought. I will get used to it.
Michael dedicated solos of “Mo Nighean Donn, Gradh Mo Chridhe,” and “Ferry Me Over” to his bride. Rebecca went scarlet and grinned like a deranged chipmunk. Mark gave her a similar grin and a thumbs-up sign. Hilary hugged her. The crowd roared approval, and Dennis caught everything on videotape.
It was past midnight when the two couples walked back across the priory lawns. One by one the colored Festival lights winked out, leaving the landscape glazed with moonlight. The two cats sat on the porch of the church, heads cocked to the side, ears and whiskers pricked up like radar dishes.
“Gloria tibi,” sang voices from another time. “Gloria tibi, Domine.”
Glory be to God. A gauzy shape, its draperies formed of shimmering mist wafted toward the altar. “Gloria tibi, Domine,” sang the voices, then faded until they were one with the night wind. A gust of cold air sighed through the door and then stilled. The figure spread itself upon moonlight and shadow, thinner and thinner, and was gone.
“Anne fulfilled her trust,” Rebecca murmured. “She’s free. Rudesburn is free. The priory seems lighter already.”
The cats got up, stretched, and regarded the humans with benign contempt. Hilary picked up Guinevere, who immediately voiced her contentment by purring loudly.
“Will Anne’s and Alexander’s and the baby’s bones be brought back here?” Mark asked quietly.
“Oh aye,” replied Michael. “If weddin’s have to be done properly, then so do funerals. But I wonder if they should be buried together?”
“‘Alexander’,” Rebecca quoted, “‘I confess that I have failed, which He has forgiven, God have mercy on our child’.” She shook her head. “We’ll never know the full story. At least Anne felt she was forgiven, there at the end—if it was an end—for whatever she did.”
“Amazing grace,” said Mark under his breath.
Lancelot curled around Hilary’s ankles as she cuddled Guinevere. She said dreamily, “I made up a story for them, for what it’s worth. Anne loved Alexander—she gave herself freely to him. But Thomas killed him for selling out Anne to the English. Realizing he’d lost everything, Thomas put his ring on Alexander’s finger, hid the body, and ran away. He was the one who truly loved Anne. A clean, idealistic, perfect love. That’s why his crest is on the wall, too. She knew.”
“And Thomas knew they killed her?” Rebecca asked, playing along with the fantasy.
“Yes. That’s why he became a highwayman; in his bitterness, he no longer cared whether he lived or died.”
Mark looked at Hilary, his face lopsided with indulgence and rue. “That’s a good story.”
Hilary smiled up at him, put down the cat, and took his arm. Both couples walked on to the cottage and went inside, Mark and Hilary to their separate beds, Michael and Rebecca to anticipate a double bed in Edinburgh.
On Saturday afternoon Dr. Graham formally accepted the Bruce reliquary for Scotland, an event broadcast across Britain. Whether it was greeted with patriotic salutes or yawns of indifference, Rebecca couldn’t say. When Graham reiterated his offers of employment and publication, she confounded the old gentleman by throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him. “Ah, lad,” he said to a delighted Michael as he wiped steam from his glasses, “you have yourself a bonny lass. Welcome home, Rebecca.”
The Festival ended Saturday night with a medieval joust, madrigal singing, and a rousing pipe and drum parade. By the early hours of Sunday, Rebecca and Michael were tipsy from whiskey and music and sex. They agreed that after the twentieth they’d style themselves “Campbell-Reid”. “Because,” said Michael drowsily, “we’re a team.”
“Yes, we are,” she told him. “Just like Abbott and Costello.”
The next morning, Laurence said the Festival had been a roaring success, although he hoped next year to get fewer ambulance chasers. Grant reported that he and his fellow constables had not allowed one hammer, chisel, or spray can of paint to approach the priory. When it became a museum rather than a crime scene, he added, his job would be considerably simplified.
The people who were to have rented the cottage that week must have been the only people in Europe who weren’t interested in the crime scene. They cancelled, leaving the decimated expedition a place to stay during the extra time it took to close down the dig. Dennis’s camera work had to be completed by the end of the week, when an officer from Sheila’s bank would be coming to claim the van and all the equipment. On Monday morning Rebecca hopped up on the column drum and delivered an exhortatory speech modeled on that of General Patton. With assorted nationalistic shouts, they went to work.
On Monday afternoon Harry Devlin rang from Edinburgh to say that Adele had been committed to a mental hospital back in the United States. Rebecca and Hilary packed her things, including the UCLA sweatshirt, and sent them on. No one would ever know, Rebecca thought, whether Adele even cared about the treasure, let alone knew where it was.
In the pub that night Nora told the group that a bobby had brought Elaine round to get her things. “She didn’t want to talk to us?” Dennis asked.
“No—she was on her way back to London. I imagine she’s still afraid of being charged as an accomplice. All she said was that she’d thought Jerry was the murderer.”
“I hope she can find herself a good job,” said Hilary.
Everyone nodded into their drinks. From the bar Laurence said, “Michael, Rebecca—Nora and I want you to take whatever furniture you fancy from the attic. Just to show our appreciation for what you’ve done.”
“But there are antiques up there!” Rebecca protested.
“A cousin of mine wants to sub-let his flat in Edinburgh,” said Nora, overruling her objection. “Pleasance Street, just off the Royal Mile. Nothing posh, but larger than a bed-sitter. I told him you’d ring him.”
“Thank you,” said Michael. “We appreciate all you’ve done for us.”
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On Tuesday Rebecca and Michael took Dennis and Winnie into Galashiels, there to make even more depositions. On Wednesday the crew filled in the infirmary trench and collected the cache of relics from the Law. On Thursday they organized the computer records and maps and material analyses. On Friday Dennis pronounced the filming and photographing a wrap. The finished product would be a jigsaw puzzle, Rebecca told herself, but adequate for academic reference. Only Jerry’s and Sheila’s pretentiousness had intended it for the Academy Awards.
On Friday evening Devlin joined the end-of-dig ceilidh. He mentioned that a judge had ruled that any proceeds from the film and Tony’s postcards and photos should go to the RDG, but Devlin seemed more interested in showing Bridget the pictures of his daughter.
As Mark was putting up his guitar, Rebecca noticed he wasn’t wearing his silver belt buckle. “Oh,” he said to her inquiring look, “I put it in the Oxfam collection box in the lobby. I decided I didn’t need it any more.”
“Amazing grace?” she asked, and he nodded assent.
They spent all weekend packing the excavation supplies and their personal belongings and ferrying them to Edinburgh. It was hard leaving Rudesburn, but not nearly as hard as it would’ve been if Rebecca had been going back to the United States without a home and a job. Moving a walnut secretary, a Queen Anne wing chair, and an oak trestle table, from the hotel to the flat in Pleasance Street was a positive pleasure.
With many promises to keep in touch, Dennis went home. Hilary went to France to interview for an art history fellowship. Mark stayed on at Rudesburn, in a garret in the hotel, to help plot the priory restoration. “See you on the twentieth,” the Bairds and the Johnstons and Bridget called as Rebecca drove the red Fiat down Jedburgh Street and into a gentle Sunday rain. The last sight she and Michael had of the cats were two furry faces pressed against the damp window of the shop, whiskers angled rakishly.