Read Online Speaking From Among The Bones by Alan Bradley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alan Bradley
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face as she realizes that what she is sipping from the pretty glass is more than just orange squash.
I decided to wait a while.
Gladys was standing patiently where I had left her, her fresh-washed livery gleaming handsomely in the morning sunlight from my bedroom windows.
“Avaunt!” I shouted. It was an ancient word meaning “Begone!” which I had learned when Daffy read
The Bride of Lammermoor
aloud to us at one of our compulsory Cultural Evenings.
“Both of us!” I explained, although it wasn’t really necessary.
I leaped into her saddle, pushed off, pedaled out the bedroom door, wobbled along the hall, made a sharp left turn, and moments later was at the top of the east staircase.
From astride a bicycle, stairs appear to be much steeper than they actually are. Far below, in the foyer, the black and white tiles were like winter fields viewed from a mountaintop. I got a firm grip on the front braking handles and started down at an alarming angle.
“Bucketa-bucketa-bucketa-bucketa,” I exclaimed, one for each stair, all the way down, my bones rattling pleasantly.
Dogger was standing at the bottom. He was wearing acanvas apron and holding a pair of Father’s boots. “Good morning, Miss Flavia,” he said.
“Good morning, Dogger,” I replied. “I’m happy to see you. I have a question. How does one go about disinterring a dead body?”
Dogger raised one eyebrow a fraction. “Were you thinking of disinterring a dead body, miss?” he asked.
“No, not personally,” I told him. “What I mean is, what permissions must be obtained, and so forth?”
“If I remember correctly, consent must first be given by the church. It is known as a faculty, I believe, and must be obtained from the Diocesan Council.”
“The bishop’s office?”
“More or less.”
So that’s what the vicar had been talking about. A faculty had already been granted, he told Marmaduke Parr, the man from the bishop’s office. The bishop’s secretary, in fact.
“There can be no going back now,” the vicar had said.
It seemed obvious that a faculty had been granted for the exhumation of Saint Tancred, and then for some reason withdrawn.
Who, I wondered, would stand in the way? What harm could there be in digging up the bones of a saint who had been dead these past five hundred years?
“You’re a corker, Dogger,” I said.
“Thank you, miss.”
Out of respect, I dismounted, and wheeled Gladys discreetly across the foyer, and out the front door.
On the lawn, at the edge of the gravel, was a foldingcamp stool, and beside it, several rags and a tin of boot polish. The day was warmer now, and Dogger had obviously been working outside in the fresh air, enjoying the sunshine.
I was about to push off for the church when I saw a car turn in at the Mulford Gates. It was the odd shape of the thing which had caught my attention: rather boxy, like a hearse.
If I left now, I might miss something. Better, I thought, to stifle my impatience and wait.
I sat down on the camp stool and studied the machine as it came flouncing along the avenue of chestnuts. Viewed head-on, it was certain from the tall Corinthian radiator of gleaming silver that it was a Rolls-Royce landau—in some ways, very like Harriet’s old Phantom II which Father kept stored away as a sort of shrine in the dimness of the coach house: the same broad skirts and the same gigantic headlamps. And yet there was something different.
As the car turned side-on, I saw that its paint was apple green, and that the roof had been peeled away from just behind the driving seat, like a tin of opened sardines. Where the backseats had once been were rows of gray, unpainted wooden boxes, each crammed cheek by jowl with flowerpots, all of them open to the weather, rather like a gallery of cheap seats atop a charabanc from which the seedlings and the growing plants could view the passing world.
Since Father had lectured us so often about the evils of staring, I instinctively
I decided to wait a while.
Gladys was standing patiently where I had left her, her fresh-washed livery gleaming handsomely in the morning sunlight from my bedroom windows.
“Avaunt!” I shouted. It was an ancient word meaning “Begone!” which I had learned when Daffy read
The Bride of Lammermoor
aloud to us at one of our compulsory Cultural Evenings.
“Both of us!” I explained, although it wasn’t really necessary.
I leaped into her saddle, pushed off, pedaled out the bedroom door, wobbled along the hall, made a sharp left turn, and moments later was at the top of the east staircase.
From astride a bicycle, stairs appear to be much steeper than they actually are. Far below, in the foyer, the black and white tiles were like winter fields viewed from a mountaintop. I got a firm grip on the front braking handles and started down at an alarming angle.
“Bucketa-bucketa-bucketa-bucketa,” I exclaimed, one for each stair, all the way down, my bones rattling pleasantly.
Dogger was standing at the bottom. He was wearing acanvas apron and holding a pair of Father’s boots. “Good morning, Miss Flavia,” he said.
“Good morning, Dogger,” I replied. “I’m happy to see you. I have a question. How does one go about disinterring a dead body?”
Dogger raised one eyebrow a fraction. “Were you thinking of disinterring a dead body, miss?” he asked.
“No, not personally,” I told him. “What I mean is, what permissions must be obtained, and so forth?”
“If I remember correctly, consent must first be given by the church. It is known as a faculty, I believe, and must be obtained from the Diocesan Council.”
“The bishop’s office?”
“More or less.”
So that’s what the vicar had been talking about. A faculty had already been granted, he told Marmaduke Parr, the man from the bishop’s office. The bishop’s secretary, in fact.
“There can be no going back now,” the vicar had said.
It seemed obvious that a faculty had been granted for the exhumation of Saint Tancred, and then for some reason withdrawn.
Who, I wondered, would stand in the way? What harm could there be in digging up the bones of a saint who had been dead these past five hundred years?
“You’re a corker, Dogger,” I said.
“Thank you, miss.”
Out of respect, I dismounted, and wheeled Gladys discreetly across the foyer, and out the front door.
On the lawn, at the edge of the gravel, was a foldingcamp stool, and beside it, several rags and a tin of boot polish. The day was warmer now, and Dogger had obviously been working outside in the fresh air, enjoying the sunshine.
I was about to push off for the church when I saw a car turn in at the Mulford Gates. It was the odd shape of the thing which had caught my attention: rather boxy, like a hearse.
If I left now, I might miss something. Better, I thought, to stifle my impatience and wait.
I sat down on the camp stool and studied the machine as it came flouncing along the avenue of chestnuts. Viewed head-on, it was certain from the tall Corinthian radiator of gleaming silver that it was a Rolls-Royce landau—in some ways, very like Harriet’s old Phantom II which Father kept stored away as a sort of shrine in the dimness of the coach house: the same broad skirts and the same gigantic headlamps. And yet there was something different.
As the car turned side-on, I saw that its paint was apple green, and that the roof had been peeled away from just behind the driving seat, like a tin of opened sardines. Where the backseats had once been were rows of gray, unpainted wooden boxes, each crammed cheek by jowl with flowerpots, all of them open to the weather, rather like a gallery of cheap seats atop a charabanc from which the seedlings and the growing plants could view the passing world.
Since Father had lectured us so often about the evils of staring, I instinctively
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