Beyond the Sea by Melissa Bailey Read Free Book Online

back was a stamp indicating that it came from a Dr MacCallister at the National Museum in Edinburgh. She frowned, wondering what it could be. She had no idea who Dr MacCallister was or why he would be writing to her. Curious, she turned the package over one more time and then ripped it open.
    Inside were a number of typed A4 pages, held together with a bulldog clip, and on the top of the pile was a letter addressed to her. It was dated three months previously. Intrigued, Freya read it.
    Dear Mrs McPherson,
    My name is Rory MacCallister, and I am a curator at the National Museum in Edinburgh. I have long been a friend of your father-in-law, Alister McPherson, and as such I hesitated to write to you, knowing as I do the tragic circumstances of the passing of your husband and son, for which I offer my most heartfelt sympathy. I hope that this letter will not prove to be unwelcome as a reminder of that time. Rather I hope that it will serve as a touchstone to a happy time your husband and son shared together. It is with this in mind that I continue.
    As you may know, last Easter Jack and Sam discovered a Bellarmine jar sandwiched into a crevice in the Torran Rocks while they were sailing in the area. Your husband sent it on to Alister, who in turn passed it to me. A number of these jars – made in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in the Netherlands – have been recovered from shipwrecks off the Scottish coast, the Swan being one of the most famous in the Western Highlands. What was most striking about the jar recovered by your husband was how amazingly well preserved it was, Cardinal Bellarmine’s face – on the outer surface of the jar – being clearly visible and whole, the glaze practically unscathed, the neck of the bottle stoppered and still sealed. It really was quite remarkable given the journey the object must have taken.
    As many of these jars were used as means of carrying liquids, beer and wine in particular, I passed the find on to a colleague of mine who is a specialist in analysing items recovered from wrecks at sea. He carried out a CT scan of the jar – to determine if there was anything inside it – and this revealed what looked like a roll of paper. Now, while the jar had proved remarkably resilient and watertight, after all the time at sea the contents were in fairly bad shape – decayed and decomposed. But my colleague is exceptionally skilled and managed to remove the paper, dry it out and treat it. And he discovered that it was not just a roll of paper but letters. Quite miraculous.
    To cut a technical story short, the letters have been radio-carbon dated for authenticity, treated to preserve them and a lot of the text has been salvaged – although some, as you will see from the pages attached, is missing. The letters have been transcribed into more modern English for ease of reading, but it appears that they were written by a soldier aboard the Speedwell , one of the six ships, including the more famous Swan which I mentioned above, which were part of a flotilla sent by Cromwell to quash Royalist support in the Highlands. It disappeared in a ferocious storm in 1653, presumed sunken, but the wreck was never found. Few records remain about the expedition or what happened to those who took part in it. So they are a remarkable find.
    I wanted to send copies of the letters to you, as without your husband and son they would never have come to light, and I understand Sam, in particular, was fascinated by the jar and what it might contain. Perhaps he would have been as amazed as I am by what was salvaged.
    With kindest regards,
    J. C. MacCallister
    Freya placed MacCallister’s letter on the table and closed her eyes. She remembered her conversation with Sam on the phone on the day he and Jack had found the jar. He had been incredibly excited, stumbling over his words, telling her the story of Cardinal Bellarmine. She vaguely recalled him saying he would give the