Chapter 6

6

Caroline

Present day, Monday

I shook off the mud from my wet shoe and continued along the edge of the water. As I distanced myself from the rest of the mudlarking tour group, their quiet chatter disappeared, and the soft lapping of the gentle river waves urged me toward the waterline. I glanced upward to the sky; a bruised-looking cloud moved overhead. I shivered and waited for it to pass, but more followed close behind. I feared a storm was fast approaching.

Crossing my arms, I glanced at the ground around my feet, an unvarying band of gray-and copper-colored rocks. Look for inconsistencies, Bachelor Alf had said. I stepped closer to the water, observing the way the low waves seeped toward me and withdrew in a steady, even rhythm, until a boat rushed past, forcing a gush of water close. Then I heard it: a hollow popping sound, like water bubbles caught in a bottle.

As the water receded, I stepped closer to the sound and spotted a glass container, bluish in color, nestled between two stones. An old soda bottle, perhaps.

I knelt down to inspect it and tugged at the narrow neck of the bottle, but its base was lodged firmly between the stones. While I maneuvered it out, I spotted a tiny image on one side of the bottle. A trademark or company logo, perhaps? I pulled one of the larger rocks away, freeing the object at last and allowing me to lift it from its crevice.

The bottle stood no more than five inches tall—more of a vial, given its small size—and was made of translucent, sky blue glass, hidden beneath a layer of caked-on mud. I dipped the vial into the water and used my rubber-gloved thumb to scrub away the dirt, then held it up to inspect it more closely. The image on the side seemed a rudimentary etching, likely done by hand rather than with a machine, and appeared to be an animal of some kind.

Though I had no idea what I’d found, I thought it sufficiently interesting to hail Bachelor Alf. But he’d already begun walking toward me. “Whatcha got?” he asked.

“Not sure,” I said. “Some kind of vial with a little animal etched onto it.”

Bachelor Alf took the vial, lifting it up to his face. He turned the bottle over and scratched his fingernail against the glass. “How odd. Very much like an apothecary’s vial, but typically we’d see other markings—a company name, date, address. Perhaps this is just a household item, then. A way for someone to practice his etching skills. I do hope they improved a bit from this.” He stood silent a moment as he studied the bottom of the vial. “The glass is quite uneven in places, too. It’s not factory-made, that’s for sure, so it must be quite old. It’s yours to keep if you’d like.” He spread his hands wide. “Fascinating, isn’t it? This is the best job in the world, if I don’t say so myself.”

I forced a half smile, somewhat envious that I couldn’t say the same about my own job. Admittedly, plugging numbers into outdated software on an outdated PC at the family farm didn’t often leave me smiling as big as Bachelor Alf did now. Instead, I spent day after day at a wretched yellow oak desk, the same at which my mother worked for more than three decades. Ten years ago, unemployed with a new home, the job opportunity at the farm had seemed too good to pass up—but I sometimes wondered why I’d stayed so long. Just because I couldn’t teach history at a local school didn’t mean I was out of options; surely something more interesting existed than administrative work at the farm.

But kids. With children someday in the picture, the stability of my job was paramount, as James often liked to remind me. And so I’d stayed put, and I’d grown to tolerate the frustration and uncomfortable musings about whether I’d missed out on something bigger. Maybe even something altogether different.

As I stood in the riverbed with Bachelor Alf, I considered the possibility that long ago, he also used to work an uninteresting desk job. Did he finally decide that life was too short to be miserable forty hours a week? Or maybe he was braver than that and bolder than me, and he’d turned his passion—mudlarking—into a career. I considered asking him, but before I had the chance, another member of the tour called him over to inspect a find.

I took the vial back from him and leaned forward, intending to put it back in its spot, but a sentimental, wistful part of me refused. I felt a strange connection with whomever last held the vial in their hands—an inherent kinship with the person whose fingerprints last impressed on the glass as mine did now. What tincture had they blended within this sky blue bottle? And who did they mean to help, to heal?

My eyes began to sting as I considered the odds of finding this object in the riverbed: a historical artifact, probably once belonging to a person of little significance, someone whose name wasn’t recorded in a textbook, but whose life was fascinating all the same. This was precisely what I found so enchanting about history: centuries might separate me from whomever last held the vial, but we shared in the exact sensation of its cool glass between our fingers. It felt as though the universe, in her strange and nonsensical way, meant to reach out to me, to remind me of the enthusiasm I once had for the trifling bits of bygone eras, if only I could look beneath the dirt that had accumulated over time.

It dawned on me then that since touching down at Heathrow this morning, I hadn’t cried once over James. And wasn’t that exactly why I ran off to London, anyway? To cut away, if only for a few minutes, the malignant mass of grief? I fled to London to breathe and that was damn well what I’d done, even if some of that time had been spent in a veritable mud pit.

I knew that keeping the vial was exactly what I should do. Not only because I felt a subtle attachment to whomever this vial once belonged, but because I’d found it on a mudlarking tour that wasn’t even part of the original, fated itinerary with James. I’d come to this riverbed alone. I’d stuck my hands into the muddy crevice of two rocks. I’d staved off tears. This glass object—delicate and yet still intact, somewhat like myself—was proof that I could be brave, adventurous, and do hard things on my own. I dropped the vial into my pocket.

The clouds above us continued to build, and lightning struck somewhere to the west of the bend in the river. Bachelor Alf called us over to him. “Sorry, folks,” he hollered, “but we can’t go on after a lightning strike. Let’s pack it up. We’ll be back out tomorrow, same time, if anyone wants to join again.”

Pulling off my gloves, I walked over to Bachelor Alf. Now that I’d grown somewhat accustomed to my surroundings, I couldn’t help a sense of disappointment about the tour ending early. After all, I’d just had my first real find, and I felt a growing curiosity and the urge to keep looking. I could see how such a pastime might become addictive.

“If you were me,” I asked Alf, “where would you go to learn more about the vial?” Even though it didn’t have the markings Alf expected on a typical apothecary vial, perhaps I could still glean some information about it—especially given the tiny animal etched onto the side, which I thought resembled a bear walking on all fours.

Giving me a warm smile, he shook off my gloves and threw them in a bucket with the others. “Oh, I suppose you could take it to a hobbyist or collector who studies glassmaking. Polishes and molds and techniques change over time, so perhaps someone could help you date it.”

I nodded my head, having not the slightest idea how to find a “hobbyist” glassmaker. “Do you think it’s from here, somewhere in London?” Earlier, I’d overheard Bachelor Alf telling another tour participant that Windsor Castle was about forty kilometers to the west. Who knew how far the vial had traveled, and from where?

He raised an eyebrow. “Without an address or any text to help us? Almost impossible to determine.” Above us, a roll of thunder warned. Bachelor Alf hesitated, torn between wanting to help an inquisitive novice like myself and keeping us both dry—and safe. “Look,” he said. “Try headin’ over to the British Library and ask for Gaynor at the Maps desk. You can tell her I sent you.” He checked his watch. “Not open much longer today, so you best get moving. Take the Underground, Thameslink to St. Pancras. It’ll be fastest—and driest. Plus, it’s not a bad place to wait out a storm.”

I thanked him and hurried off, hoping I still had a few minutes left before the storm let loose. I pulled out my phone, sighed in relief that the station was only a few blocks away, and resigned myself to the fact that if I’d be spending ten days alone in the city, it was due time to learn how to use the Underground trains.

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Leaving the train station amid a downpour, I spotted the British Library just ahead. I started jogging, tugging at my collar in a futile attempt to air out the inside of my shirt. And to make matters worse, my shoe—which had filled with water when I stepped in the puddle along the river—remained soaked through. When I finally stepped into the library, I took one look at my reflection in the window and sighed, fearing that Gaynor may send me away on account of my disheveled appearance.

Pedestrians, tourists and students filled the foyer of the library, all of us taking shelter from the rain. And yet, I felt like the only one without a real reason to be there. Whereas many others carried backpacks and cameras, I’d arrived with only a piece of unidentified glass in my pocket and the first name of someone who may or may not be an actual employee. For a moment, I considered the idea of throwing in the towel; maybe it was time to find a sandwich and plan a realitinerary.

The moment this thought crossed my mind, I shook my head. That sounded exactly like something James would say. As rain continued to batter the glass windows of the library, I willed myself to ignore this voice of reason—the same one that had told me to rip up my Cambridge application and encouraged me to take a job at the family farm. Instead, I asked myself what the old Caroline would do—the Caroline of a decade ago, the zealous student not yet dazzled by a diamond on her finger.

I stepped toward the staircase where a group of wide-eyed tourists milled about, a brochure spread wide in front of them and umbrella bags scattered at their feet. Near the staircase was a desk with a young female attendant; I approached her, relieved when she showed no dismay at my wet, unkempt clothes.

I told her that I needed to speak with Gaynor, but the attendant chuckled. “We have more than a thousand employees,” she said. “Do you know which department she works in?”

“Maps,” I said, at once feeling slightly more legitimate than I did a moment ago. The attendant checked her computer, nodded her head and confirmed that a Gaynor Baymont worked at the Enquiry Desk, Maps Reading Room, Third Floor. She pointed me to the elevators.

A few minutes later, I stood at the Enquiry Desk in the Maps Room, watching as an attractive thirtysomething woman with wavy auburn hair leaned over a black-and-white map with a magnifying glass in one hand and a pencil in the other, her brow twisted in deep concentration. After a minute or two, she stood to stretch her back, startling when she saw me.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I whispered in the near-silent room. “I’m looking for Gaynor?”

Her eyes met mine and she smiled. “You came to the right place. I’m Gaynor.” She set down the magnifying glass and brushed aside a loose hair. “How can I help you?”

Now that I stood in front of her, my request seemed ridiculous. Clearly, the map in front of her—a haphazard mess of tangled lines and minuscule labels—was an important point of research for her at the moment. “I can come back,” I offered, halfway hoping she would seize the idea, send me off and thereby force me to do something more productive with this day.

“Oh, don’t be silly. This map is a hundred and fifty years old. Nothing’s going to change in the next five minutes.”

I reached into my pocket, drawing a confused look from Gaynor: she was probably more accustomed to students hauling in long tubes of parchment rather than rain-soaked women reaching for small objects in their pocket. “I found this a bit ago at the river. I was mudlarking with a group—led by someone named Alf—and he told me to come see you. Do you know him?”

Gaynor grinned widely. “He’s my dad, actually.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, drawing an irritated look from a nearby patron. How sneaky of Bachelor Alf to not tell me. “Well, there’s a small image on the side here—” I pointed “—and it’s the only marking on the vial. I think it’s a bear. I couldn’t help but wonder where it might have come from.”

She tilted her head, curious. “Most people would have no interest in such a thing.” Gaynor extended her palm, and I handed her the vial. “You must be a historian, or a researcher?”

I smiled. “Not professionally, no. But I do have some interest in history.”

Gaynor glanced up at me. “We’re kindred spirits. I see all sorts of maps at my job, but the old, obscure ones are my favorite. Always a bit of room for interpretation, as places evolve quite a bit over time.”

Places and people, I thought to myself. I could feel the change in myself at this very moment: the discontent within me seizing the possibility of adventure, an excursion into my long-lost enthusiasm for eras past.

Gaynor lifted the vial to the light. “I’ve seen a few antiquated vials like this, though normally they’re a bit larger. I always thought them rather off-putting, as you don’t really know what was once inside. Blood or arsenic, I imagined as a child.” She looked more closely at the etching, running her finger over the miniature animal. “It does look like a little bear. Strange there are no other markings, but safe to say it probably belonged to a shop owner at one time, likely an apothecary.” She sighed, handing the vial back to me. “My dad has a heart of gold, but I don’t know why he sent you to me. I really have no idea what this vial is, or where it’s from.” She looked back down at the map in front of her, a gentle way to tell me that our short conversation was over.

It was a dead end, and my face fell as disappointment crept in. I thanked Gaynor for her time, pocketed the vial and stepped away from the desk. But as I turned, she called out after me. “Pardon, miss, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Caroline. Caroline Parcewell.”

“Are you visiting from the States?”

I smiled. “My accent gives me away, I’m sure. Yes, I’m visiting.”

Gaynor picked up a pen and leaned over her map. “Well, Caroline, if there’s anything else I can help with, or if you learn something about the vial, I’d love to know.”

“Of course,” I said, then I pocketed the vial. Somewhat discouraged, I resolved to forget the object and the mudlarking adventure altogether. I didn’t much believe in the fate of finding things, anyway.