“It came by way of Mrs. Hinson, who had seen Mr. Trask outside the inn on her way to morning service. She then stopped to offer my housekeeper a small pot of the jam she made yesterday. And I was given the news with my tea, along with the jam.”
“What do the gossips of Borcombe have to say about three deaths at the Hall, all in a matter of months?”
“Much as you’d expect. The women felt that Olivia’s writing must have turned her mind. We aren’t used to famous poets in Borcombe. I think they believed somehow it was a proper judgment on her, for writing about things best left unsaid and probably best left unfelt in a woman.”
“And the men?”
Smedley frowned as he stooped to pull a yellowed leaf off the nearest carrot. “The men are of two minds about Olivia Marlowe. She was of course a Trevelyan, and they’re above the common lot, in most eyes. You forgive a Trevelyan much that you might hold against the greengrocer or your neighbor across the road. At the same time, dying by her own hand was an admission that she’d overstepped the bounds, in a manner of speaking, and finally became aware of it. The universe, you might say, is now back in its stable orbit.”
“What about Stephen FitzHugh? And Nicholas?”
“Stephen was a sore loss. Half the village adored him— every female under sixty, and more than a few over that! The other half, the men, admired him. A good man to have on your side, sense of humor, knew how to lose as well as to win. Quite a reputation for courage in the war, was wounded, decorated. Sportsman. Successful in his business, which was banking. Popular with the ladies. Yes, he was admired—and sometimes envied. That’s natural. Nicholas was respected— Rosamund’s son, the natural leader in village affairs, the man you turned to when there was trouble. Pillar of strength. Not the sort you’d expect to choose suicide. The general belief was that he found Olivia dead or dying, and in the first shock of grief, took his own life. That’s romantic nonsense, but they’re more comfortable with it than with the truth—that he might have wanted to die. But this isn’t why you came to see me, I think?”
“I wanted to know what became of Olivia’s papers. The ones she left to Stephen as her literary executor.”
“They’re probably still at the house. Stephen didn’t want to sell, he wanted to keep the Hall as a memorial to his sister. The others took a few personal things, but he was dead set against removing much else. And was prepared to fight a bitter battle to have his way. Have you looked in Olivia’s room? Or her desk?” He read the expression on Rutledge’s face. “No, of course not. Well, I’d start there. It’s not likely, is it, that Olivia sent them off to her solicitor? He’d have guessed something was wrong, and she didn’t want that. Besides, we aren’t sure just how soon after she decided to put an end to her life she acted on that decision. A day? A month? Five years? A few hours?”
“She had straightened up her desk. Nicholas hadn’t cleared away his ships.”
Smedley looked at him. “That’s proof of nothing.”
“Of, perhaps, a state of mind?”
“You’re saying that she knew where she was going, what she was planning to do, and Nicholas didn’t?”
Rutledge watched the light and shadows play on the upper windows of the rectory, a bird’s flight reflected in them, and the movement of the apple tree’s higher branches. “I’m saying that she was prepared. He wasn’t.”
“Or it might be that her poetry was terribly important. And his ships weren’t. He could leave those, in safety.”
Which brought Rutledge back again to those literary papers.
He walked to the Hall after dinner and stood looking up at the house in the golden shadows of the westering sun. He could hear sea birds calling, and somewhere a jackdaw singing lyrically. In his mind’s eye, ghosts of the people who’d made the Hall a home stirred and moved about the lawns, laughing and talking and bringing life to the scene. To the emptiness.
Someone said, behind him, “They’ve not left—”
He turned to find the old woman, and remembered her name this time. Rachel had called her Sadie.
“No,” he said. Then, playing her game, he asked, “Which ones do you see? Is Anne there?”
“Anne was willful, she must have her way or she’d set the nursery on its ear. They said it was a child’s tantrums, but the tree grows as the twig is bent, and if her father had lived, that would have been different. Instead, the women spoiled her and let her do as she pleased, and she wanted to hold tight to everyone’s affection, even the old master’s— Mr. Trevelyan. Miss Rosamund’s father, that was. Sometimes she’d put off her stormy ways, and sit quiet with a book in her lap, and he’d come into the room and mistake her for her sister. There was no telling them apart, unless Miss Anne was being her naughty self. Or she’d tell tales on the others, and once got Master Cormac a hiding for beating a horse, and him never one to abuse the animals. Master Nicholas, now, he stood up to her once, and refused to let her have the little soldiers he’d been given for his birthday. But she found them later and buried them out in the garden, and he never did discover where they were. She died soon after.”
Her words made Rutledge’s blood run cold. Here was a reason for Olivia to have killed her sister. A child’s excuse for murder. He found he didn’t want to know about Anne.
“Why did Richard die out on the moors?”
“There’s none sure he did. ‘Twas no body ever found. Miss Olivia said they fell asleep in the sunshine, and he was gone when she opened her eyes. She thought mayhap he’d wandered off to find the moor ponies. He were a restless child, with the energy of two and a devil in his eyes. Miss Rosamund called him her little soldier, and said he was born to wear a uniform. Like her first husband.”
“And Nicholas?”
“Ah, he was one who always knew more than he said. Kept himself to himself, and you never guessed at what rivers ran inside him, or how deep. Bookish, some thought, but if you want to know my mind on that, he was waiting with a dreadful patience to grow up. As if there was something waiting for him. If there was, we never knew of it. He was content to stay by Miss Olivia and keep her spirits high when the pain was hard. But if you looked into his eyes when he stared out at the sea, you knew there was a roamer inside him. Not like Master Richard, but a man who saw distant places in his soul.”
“How did you come to know the Trevelyan family so intimately?”
There was roguish laughter in her eyes as she stared back at him, giving a bawdy twist to his words. “Even the mighty use bedpans, like ordinary mortals,” she told him. “I nursed the living when needful, and laid out the dead. Dr. Penrith sent for me when Miss Olivia had the crippling disease and was like to die. He didn’t trust the London nurses they wanted.”
She seemed today to be clear-minded and aware of what she was saying. Testing it, he repeated, “You laid out the dead?”
A wariness moved behind her eyes, though her expression didn’t change. He took a chance and asked her, “Was there a killer in that house?”
But her eyes clouded as he watched her lined face, and she said, “I told you there were a Gabriel Hound in that house, and you’d hear him running some nights, before something bad happened. Running through the rooms, in the dark, looking for his soul. On those nights, the wind howled in the trees and rattled the windows, and I kept the coverlet over my head. Miss Olivia warned me once, when I spoke to her of it, and I knew to heed her. I’d die too if I told what I heard or saw. Which is why I’ve outlived them all but two, and Miss Susannah’s safe enough in London.”
“What about Cormac FitzHugh?”
“He’s not a Trevelyan, is he?” she asked. “There’s no Gabriel hound wants anything he has.”