“The house belonged to old Adrian Trevelyan, like I said. Miss Olivia’s grandfather. He left it to her, not her mother— no reflection on Miss Rosamund, you understand, but he wasn’t best pleased with her choice of third husband, and there’re some who say he left the house to Miss Olivia to keep it out of FitzHugh hands. Not to speak of the fact that Miss Olivia was a cripple and it was more likely that she’d have need of a home, unmarried and not apt to be. Í doubt anyone in the family—and certainly no one in the village— knew she was to become a famous poet.”
“Poet? Olivia Marlowe?”
“Aye. O. A. Manning, she was known as. I’ve never read any of her poems. Well, not much in my line, poetry. But the wife has, and she tells me it was very pretty.”
Pretty, thought Rutledge, was an understatement for O. A. Manning’s work. Haunting, lyrical, with undercurrents of dark humor at times, and subtle contrasts that caught people and emotions with such precision that lines stayed with you long afterward, like personal memories. She’d written about the war too, and he’d read some of those poems in the trenches, marveling that anyone could have captured so clearly what men felt out there in the bloody shambles of France. Could have found the courage to put it into words. He hadn’t known then that O. A. Manning was a woman.
But of course the Wings of Fire poems were different, and perhaps it was those that Dawlish’s wife knew. Love poems, and unlike the poems Shakespeare had written to his dark lady, these were light and warmth and beauty intermingled with such passion that they sang in the heart as you read them. Wings of Fire had touched him in a way that few things had.
Hamish growled, his voice a low rumble in the back of Rutledge’s mind. “Thought of your Jean, did you, as you read those lines? She’s no’ worthy of that kind of love! My Fiona was. She gave me the book before I took the troop train to London. They found it in my pocket, wet with my blood, when they dug out my corpse.”
Nearly choking on his tea, Rutledge coughed and said, “Leaving the suicides for the moment, none of the four at the house that last day had anything to gain from killing Stephen FitzHugh?”
“As to Mr. Cormac FitzHugh, nothing. He has no rights in the house. Miss Rachel and Mr. and Mrs. Hargrove will receive a larger share of the sale now, but we looked into that. Their finances are in order, and there’s no reason to think they needed the extra money.”
‘‘Where money’s concerned, people will do strange things. All right, I think you’ve told me all I need to hear for the moment. Where am I staying?”
“I’ve put you at The Three Bells, sir. Not far from the church. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank Mrs. Dawlish for the tea.” Rutledge collected the papers on the table and added a good night. It was raining again, and he dashed to his car, reaching it and climbing inside just as a wind-driven downpour swept over the headland and rattled against the picket fence like distant machine gun fire.
“Do ye think it was witchcraft that made yon woman write as she did?” Hamish asked, still intrigued with Olivia Marlowe. “She knew the war too well, man! It’s unnatural!”
“It wasn’t witchcraft, it was genius,” he answered before he could stop himself. It was a habit too hard to break, responding to Hamish.
Rutledge got out as the squall passed, started the engine, and drove too fast though the slanting rain. The inn came up before he expected it, and he nearly skidded as he came to a splashing stop in front of it. Beyond it he could see the spire of the church rising like a spear against the backdrop of storm clouds and wind-tossed trees.
“With your luck, you’d survive the car crash. And live in a chair for the rest of your days, with no one but me for company,” Hamish pointed out, and Rutledge swore.
The inn was small, sway-backed gray stone under a dark slate roof that seemed to be slowly pushing the whole building deeper into the earth from sheer weight. He was expected, and the landlord gave him a room overlooking a small cultivated enclosure in the back, more a tangle of overgrown roses and rhododendron than anything that could be dignified by the name of ‘‘garden.” He unpacked with swift efficiency and in ten minutes was abed and asleep.
He was never afraid to sleep. Hamish couldn’t follow him there.
But Jean could.
In the darkness, hours later, the wind shifted, and the sea’s breath drifted in the half-open window, bringing with it the softness of summer. Rutledge stirred, turned over, and began to dream of the woman he’d loved—and who’d wanted no part of the shattered remnants of the man she’d promised to marry. Jean, who in her own way haunted him too.
She touched his arm, and led him down a path he remembered, and for a time he thought it was real, that she was there beside him, her hand warm in his, her laughter silvery in the stillness, her skirts brushing lightly against him, and nothing had changed ...
3
Breakfast was hearty the next morning, the innkeeper inquisitive. Rutledge parried his questions and left after his second cup of coffee. Out on the street, he turned and looked at the sky, a habit drilled into him by war, when the direction of the wind could mean the difference between a gas attack and none. He thought it was going to be a fair, warmish day, in spite of the mists that twisted like wraiths around chimney tops and trees, and he decided to walk. There had been a set of keys in the folder Constable Dawlish had given him, and a sketchy map. It gave no indication of distances. A countryman’s map.
It was very early, and although a few people were already in their gardens getting a jump on the day, the streets were still quiet. A smallish village with only one main road coming in, passing the church, and running downhill between the shops to catch up again with the tiny River Bor close to where it met the sea. Houses jostled each other as they spilled down the valley, sometimes roof to porch or separated by lanes and rock gardens. A glimmer of water at the bottom of the road marked the sea, he thought, though it was just as likely to be the little river.
The ironmonger was busy setting out barrels and a plow or two, the sounds of children’s laughter floated from somewhere, and there was an elderly woman limping down the other side of the street. He crossed over and stopped her.
Closer to, she was truly a crone, bent with age, gray hair bundled into an untidy bun at the back of her neck, a black shawl that was so old it was nearly gray over her shoulders, and a gnarled cane that seemed to be no more than an exten-tion of the gnarled hand that held it.
“Please—” he began, not wanting to startle her.
But she looked at him with sharp, watery eyes that seemed to see him—and through him.
“Stranger in Borcombe, are ye?” she demanded, looking him up and down. “If you’re wanting the constable, he’ll not be about for another twenty minutes at best.”
Startled, Rutledge said, “Actually—”
“You want directions, then?”
“To the Trevelyan house. Can you tell me how to find it?”
“Are ye a walker, lad?”
It had been years since anyone had called him lad. “Yes.”
“Ye’ll need to be. Follow this road for a mile, more or less. Ye’ll soon come to a parting of the way, and ye’ll take the right fork. Follow that as far as it goes, and ye’ll see a pair of gates and a drive leading uphill. When you come to the top, ye’ll have the way fine from there.”
As directions went—if they were correct—they were as clear as any he’d ever been given. The crone chuckled hoarsely. “I’ve lived here eighty year and more.”
It was as if she’d read his mind. Hamish stirred uneasily, and the woman’s glance seemed to sharpen. But she said nothing, limping on her way as if the conversation had come to a satisfactory conclusion. He watched her, and she seemed to know it. Old as she was, he thought, a woman feels a man’s eyes.