August 1838
The pain was unimaginable. Red-hot blades of it shot through Rebecca’s furiously throbbing shoulder, pumping blood across the cellar floor. She lay in agony, groaning, but managed a glance over to where Sarah lay, just a few feet away. The other girl was also bleeding profusely from a shot to her abdomen. The pair of pistols lay discarded on the floor where they had been dropped, their ruby-encrusted stocks glittering in the candlelight.
Rebecca felt strangely detached from the scene. She watched as blood from her shoulder flowed across the floor to meet with the pool that spread from Sarah’s skirts. Their life forces mingled and combined, indistinguishable from each other. It was fitting, she thought, that two women who’d been so close in life should be together as they died. For she was certain they would both die from their wounds. It was better that way. They couldn’t both live. Not after all that had happened between them, after all the hurt they had caused each other.
Sarah moaned in pain, and her eyes flickered open. Rebecca stared at her across the cellar and a wave of compassion flooded through her. She reached out a hand towards her one-time best friend and adopted sister, causing her pain level to escalate yet further. She watched as with a huge effort Sarah shifted her position and reached out too, until their fingers touched. One last heave and Rebecca was able to entwine her fingers with Sarah’s. She felt a weak squeeze in return, telling her the gesture was appreciated. Sarah groaned and sighed, and Rebecca watched as her adored sister’s eyes closed. Only then did she allow her own eyes to close as she slipped into blissful, pain-free darkness.
Spencer, the butler, had heard something. He’d been putting away the glassware used at dinner when he heard the explosion. It sounded like a shot, or rather two shots, coming almost simultaneously. He hurried along the servants’ corridor in search of the source of the noise, and spotted the door to the cellars standing open. It should have been locked shut – they kept a valuable store of wines down there. Spencer snatched up an oil lamp, rushed down the cellar steps and made his way through the labyrinth of rooms and tunnels that made up the cellars of Red Hill Hall. ‘Hello? Is anyone there?’ he called, his voice sounding shaky and nervous even to himself. Another door was standing open – the one that led to the coal store. From there a flight of steps led to the grounds of the hall. Someone could have come in – and then escaped – by that route.
At last, in an empty room beyond the wine cellar, Spencer found the source of the noise. He gasped as he angled the lamplight onto the two mounds on the floor and recognised them as Miss Rebecca and Miss Sarah. His adored Sarah – that wonderful, vivacious girl who could light up a room with her smile. Their fingers were linked together, as though they’d been holding hands when they were shot, perhaps trying to save each other.
‘Oh my word, girls, what has happened?’ he muttered as he approached. His foot kicked something, and looking round he saw one of the old master’s duelling pistols. The other one lay close by as well. He cursed himself for not keeping the pistols under lock and key. Someone had clearly got in, probably via the coal store, stolen them from where they were kept in a cupboard in the first cellar, and shot the two beautiful young ladies, whose whole lives had been ahead of them. But why had the girls been in the cellar? He shook his head. Now was not the time to ponder such things. He knelt down in the pool of still-warm blood and checked for signs of life. One of them had no pulse. There was nothing he could do for her. But the other was breathing and had a faint, if erratic, pulse. If he acted quickly, maybe, just maybe, she could be saved.
April 2015
Not another fossil. Fossils were so darned boring. Gemma sighed as she pulled what must be at least the thirtieth ammonite today from the dusty box. She loved her job at Bridhampton’s little museum, cataloguing their extensive archive, but really, she had seen enough fossils to last her a lifetime. It was inevitable, she supposed, being so close to the Jurassic Coast in Dorset they were bound to have plenty of dinosaur bones and ancient marine creatures in the collection. But fossils did nothing for her. She preferred more recent history and human stories.
‘Cup of tea for my hard worker?’ Roger, the museum curator and her boss, put his balding head around the door.
Gemma nodded. ‘I’d love one, thanks.’ Poor Roger. He was practically another fossil. Well, that was unfair – he was probably only about ten years older than her – but he acted as though he was from the nineteenth century. Or before. She grinned to herself as she measured the ammonite and typed its details into the computer catalogue. He was old-school, that was for sure, but he was also the nicest boss she’d ever had. After leaving university with a history degree and no idea what she wanted to do with her life, she’d had a number of jobs in quick succession until two years ago she’d struck lucky here at the museum in her home town of Bridhampton.
By the time Roger returned with her tea, Gemma had finished cataloguing the contents of the box and was packing it up again to return it to its shelf in the museum basement.
Roger put the tea on the desk beside her, and moved some papers off a chair so he could sit down. ‘Anything interesting in that one?’
‘Half a dozen ammonites. One’s nearly a foot across. Weighs a ton.’ She closed the lid of the box and taped it up before Roger could start poking around in it. He did have a habit of wanting to pull things out and examine them, making the whole job take so much longer.
‘Oh well. Maybe we should use them in a Jurassic Coast display. What do you think?’
Gemma stopped herself from pulling a face. ‘We could, I suppose, but then the museum at Lyme Regis covers that so much better. Everyone goes there because of the Mary Anning connection. I think we should stick to other topics – human stories and Victorian themes.’ So much more interesting, she almost added.
‘You’re probably right.’ He smiled at her, and heaved the sealed box off the table. ‘I’ll fetch you the next one,