by Charles Todd
It buoyed me, that thought, for a very long time. It gave me a sense of purpose in my life, as if in some small measure we could repay all Francis Hatton’s care and love.
But the war came, and then Simon was killed. As if as soon as we left the sanctuary of the Valley some jealous god had remembered us and pointed us in other directions from those we’d expected to take. A silly notion for a grown man to harbor!
And then Freddy was killed. And Robin. I never served with them; I wasn’t there when they died. Although rumor claimed Freddy had been cut down crossing No Man’s Land, Robin had been gassed, and Simon was caught in an artillery barrage, I knew it was leaving the Valley that had killed them.
Peter and I were the only ones left.
Then Peter died with his sappers when the tunnel came down on top of him.
And I was the last one standing.
I was glad that Francesca was a girl and safe. She’d never witness the horrors I’d seen. She wouldn’t watch men die and know that the next shot might find me or the man next to me—or the third down the line. My men, and I couldn’t save them.
I shut my mind to dying, and did what I’d been sent to France to do—defend my country and protect as well as I could the men fighting under me.
Then 1916 broke to find me still alive, and six months into the year I was wounded—and survived. A long, nasty crease across my ribs that cracked three of them. They patched me up, joking about the luck of some men, forced to lie in the comfort of hospital with pretty nursing sisters at my beck and call. Lucky Harry. . . .
Then word filtered down that there was a big push coming. I knew long before my orders were cut that most of us in hospital would be hurriedly pronounced healed and sent back to our units.
I left on the first of July with a dark sense of doom. I was certain I would die, but not of the place or time of dying.
It was as if the curse that had cut down my brothers had got around to me at last.
I wrote to Grandfather, telling him that I was filled with dread—and then tore up the page. Instead I wrote a letter thanking him for his guidance over the years, his strong faith that had become ours, his courage in the face of the blows in his own life, and promised that I, the last of the Hattons in France, would stand bravely and come through the looming battle covered with honor and glory, more than enough to share with my fallen brothers. . . .
I carried that letter with me on the first day of the Battle of the Somme—and on the second day, had it sent behind the lines to be posted.
By that time I knew that there was no hope. And all that was left to me was to show no fear and to give those around me all of my own experience to bring them safely through without me. . . .
And wait for the curse.
CHAPTER 16
“What I can’t understand,” Francesca was saying the next morning after they had settled their account with Mrs. Kenneth and were following their luggage out to the motorcar, “is why you would wish to go back to Willows. You heard what Mrs. Kenneth told us. The woman who arrived there was in some distress, yes, but free to come and go about the house—free to choose to return to London. Hardly a terrified, weeping prisoner! I don’t see Mrs. Perkins putting up with that, if she’s anything like her sister. She’d have had the constable in!”
“It’s true, I grant you. But whether the woman was a prisoner or not, I want to find out who she was!” Leighton had been tense all morning, short and taciturn.
Was he afraid that he’d stumbled on a truth he wasn’t prepared to hear?
“You’re intent on making every bit of information you find into a case for your own obsession, aren’t you!”
“The timing is right.”
Francesca shook her head, but there was nothing she could say that would change his mind.
She herself didn’t want to go back to Willows. She had always been so sure that River’s End had been the center of her grandfather’s life. That his grandchildren were his joy. It hurt to think that the Valley had only clung to the fringes of his real world. How many of the visits to Willows had been disguised as journeys to London? And above all, she couldn’t bear to think that it was Victoria Leighton who had lured him there from his family!
But in the event, the journey back to Willows was unsatisfying for both Leighton and Francesca.
When Francesca asked to see the housekeeper, Ben Perkins informed them that he’d sent no message to his wife. “She isn’t here. Make of that what you will.”
“Willows is my property now, if you remember. I have the power to have you removed from your position,” Francesca told him, angry with everyone.
“It won’t do me any harm,” he answered. “A man like me can find work anywhere these days. But the house will suffer. You’ll find no one to care for it as we did. No one you can trust.”
Leighton broke in. “Do you remember Francis Hatton coming here with a woman? They stayed a week. It was the only time he brought anyone to Willows.”
Ben stared from one to the other of them, arrogance in his manner. “Oh, yes, I remember her. Everyone knew about her in the village. My wife tried to put a proper face on it, saying she was his son’s wife. But she warn’t. I saw her eyes, they looked me over for all I had this foot. He’d brought his whore, you see, to tell her there was an end to the affair.”
Leighton snarled, “Watch your tongue!”
The caretaker considered the taller man in front of him and added in a less aggressive, almost whining voice, “I heard her say if he deserted her she’d kill herself. I expect that’s exactly what she did. Go ahead to Cambridge and ask my wife, if you don’t believe me! I’ll give you her direction, if you like.”
“What was her coloring? I don’t suppose you’d remember that?” Francesca asked.
“Fair. Like him,” Perkins said, jerking his chin toward Leighton. “Slim. Tall for a woman.”
They found Mrs. Perkins in a cottage on the eastern edge of Cambridge, in a quiet street where the houses were a generation older than most in the city but kept well enough until the war. The white fences around front gardens were in need of paint, and the trim was flaking. A huge plane tree, white and moss green, stood by the street, angular limbs spread out in a canopy. Dead leaves clustered around the gate and carpeted the flagstone walk.
Mrs. Perkins’s other sister was a widow and the two women had just come in from doing their marketing. It was hard to tell them apart, and Francesca thought perhaps they were twins.
Something in Francesca’s face struck Mrs. Perkins as introductions were made, and she said, with anxiety, “My Ben was rude, wasn’t he? It’s the foot, you see—I am so sorry I wasn’t there to greet you properly, Miss Hatton, and show you round the house. It’s what you came for, isn’t it? I can’t think what Ben was about, not to send for me at once! I’ll just ask Lydia to put the teakettle on . . .”
“There isn’t time, Mrs. Perkins,” Francesca said. “And besides, we’ve only come to ask about a visitor that my grandfather brought to Willows, years ago.”
“Did Ben tell you about her? He’s got it all wrong, Miss Hatton, if he said unkind things about her! She was a quiet lady, and in trouble. I could tell—there were shadows under her eyes, and I heard her weep a time or two when there was no one to hear. Mrs. Merrill was her name. Mr. Hatton was good to her.”
“How—kind?”
But Mrs. Perkins was still anxious about the impression her husband had made, and it took some patience to turn the subject back to Francis Hatton’s guest.
“He was always kind, Miss. Toward everyone. And I heard him say once that what her husband had done was unforgivable. That he ought to be taken out and horsewhipped! But Mrs. Merrill said he’d been good to her, too.”
“Was Mrs. Merrill her true name, do you think?” Leighton asked, breaking a grim silence.
“I don’t know, sir. But there were times I’d speak to her, and the poor thing wouldn’t answer at first. As if her mind was far away and she didn’t
hear me use the name. It did make me wonder. Whatever was upsetting her, Mr. Hatton couldn’t find a way out of her dilemma, and in the end they left.”
“If you saw a photograph of this woman—after all these years, would you remember her face?” Francesca asked.
Mrs. Perkins shook her head. “I’d doubt that I could. After all this time. But Ben might remember. He’s good with faces. You aren’t thinking of selling up the house, Miss Hatton? Or letting us go because of Ben? He’s a hard worker, I promise you, in spite of his rough ways!”
Francesca sat looking out the window as they drove away from the house. She was thinking about Ben Perkins. She hadn’t liked him. He was arrogant—rude—deliberately insulting. Had he seen something in the behavior of the houseguest that Mrs. Perkins had been blind to? He had relished insinuating that the woman had been attracted to him.
On the other hand—depending on who the woman really was—it could have been true.
How had Mrs. Perkins put it? Mr. Hatton couldn’t find a way out of her dilemma, and in the end they left.
Her dilemma. What had it been? The fact that she’d left her husband and couldn’t go home again?
She thought, That’s assuming it was Victoria! If the houseguest was Margaret Hatton, she might well have sent for her father-in-law, most especially if her problem had concerned her husband’s behavior. And he would have come. It was even likely that he’d have brought her here, where she could work out her dilemma in privacy. The house was quiet, secluded.
Leighton was saying with satisfaction, as he glanced at his pocket watch, “It wasn’t Victoria after all. For one thing, she wouldn’t have flirted with a caretaker. And she certainly hadn’t been mistreated by my father. It was a wild-goose chase, coming here.”
“Well, you needn’t have,” Francesca retorted, pettishly.
And then it struck her.
Simon’s second name was Merrill—how could she have overlooked that?
Because she’d been too busy expecting to find the body of Victoria Leighton!
And that was foolishness. No one could have successfully buried a murder victim under the willful, inquisitive, malicious eye of a man like Ben Perkins! He would have leapt at the opportunity to blackmail Francis Hatton! He would have bled him dry of every penny he possessed!
But something there was, here.
Francesca struggled to bring the pieces of the puzzle together. If Willows had been made into a shrine—then to whom? Certainly not to her uncle Tristan’s wife, Francis Hatton’s own daughter-in-law! Perhaps there was a logical explanation. Perhaps Margaret Hatton, in distress and needing a sanctuary for a few days, had come here, using her maiden name to stave off gossip. And Francis Hatton had seen no conflict in that.
The true mistress of Willows might never have come here at all. Because she couldn’t. Because she was dead.
And that turned full circle back to Victoria Leighton.
CHAPTER 17
In a desperate attempt to rid herself of her own demons, Francesca turned to Leighton and said, “I want to meet your grandfather. I want to hear what he has to say—why he’s been my grandfather’s enemy for so many years. I think he’s hiding something about your mother’s disappearance. I think there’s something that was never talked about, something that you were never told! And I believe it’s time to hear the real truth about this affair!”
“Are you mad? I told you. He’s dying. He won’t see you, and trying will only serve to upset him.”
“It’s convenient, isn’t it, that he’s dying! It spares him from visits by anyone he doesn’t want to see.”
“He’s a lonely man, sitting in his room, living with his memories. I had wanted to bring him a measure of peace, enough peace at least to quietly die. This isn’t the way to do it!”
“Tell me about him. Is he tall and fair—like you?”
“He was. His shoulders are a little stooped. His hair is still thick, and remarkably fair for his age. And his eyes are so blue they seem to see straight through you. It wouldn’t do any good to lie to him. He would know before the words were out of your mouth.”
“Why should I lie to him! Perhaps a dose of truth would rid him of this mad obsession—”
“He’s not a madman. He was one of the finest cricket players in the south of England. He was an angler, with endless patience. There was more to his life than anger. Even if it was the anger that I saw most often—”
“Exactly my point! And there’s something you haven’t considered—”
He waited, silent.
Francesca said, “Whatever you may think, you saw a child’s version of events. It’s possible that your father could never tell you the whole truth. He may not even have told your grandfather. Don’t you see? You both were the innocent victims of whatever it was that had happened—and for that reason alone, he’d have fought to protect you! Even lied to your grandfather for his own sake— Better to leave you in the dark than to destroy something precious.”
“Damn it,” he answered coldly. “I was eight years old—”
But what did that have to say to anything, Francesca wondered. She had been twenty-three when Francis Hatton died, and she was only now discovering all the things he had never wanted her to know.
Luncheon in a small town just north of London was an ordeal. Leighton was still silent and moody. As he shoved aside his plate, he looked up at Francesca and said, “Very well. I’ll take you to visit my grandfather.”
It was such a surprise that for a moment she was speechless, the last bite of food on her fork forgotten. Why had he changed his mind?
Or was it what he had planned from the start?
Had he simply waited to take her to Guildford until she was convinced that it was her decision to visit Alasdair MacPherson? She would never wittingly let herself be lured into such a trap.
It would have been a very clever move . . .
And now she was committed.
He can’t do anything to me, Alasdair MacPherson. No matter how much he hates the Hattons.
Can he?
Another shower of rain peppered the windscreen as they turned toward Guildford.
“Why will you never show anyone your mother’s photograph?” Francesca asked.
Leighton answered, “It’s all I have left of my mother. That and a book she read to me in the evenings. My father allowed me to keep both of them. Everything else he destroyed one night in a drunken rage. I don’t care to hear what you read in her face. I don’t want to look at her likeness for the rest of my life with a thousand people at my shoulder, staring, inquisitive, insensitive. Why should I take any pleasure in that?”
“Even,” Francesca persisted stubbornly, “if it helped you find her?”
But he had no answer to that.
CHAPTER 18
It was late in the afternoon when the motorcar pulled up the steep hill that led to the gates of Alasdair MacPherson’s house.
It was neither grander nor larger than River’s End, but there was a pretentiousness here that mocked the severe style of the house in Devon.
As if Alasdair MacPherson, unlike Francis Hatton, felt free to flaunt his social position, his wealth, and his place in the world at large.
Ornate. That was the word, Francesca thought, looking at the imposing gatehouse, so unlike the Wigginses’ simple cottage, and again at the almost Gothic portico over the drive, where visitors could arrive and descend in any weather. The stone was creamy, as if it had come from Dorset, and the lawns were smooth.
Richard Leighton studied it with warmth in his eyes, and then he glanced at her as if to see how she had responded to his family’s home.
I’d rather live at River’s End than here. . . .
And then another thought followed. Alasdair MacPherson is as alone in this great house as I am in River’s End.
We have that loneliness in common.
An elderly man greeted them at the door. “Welcome home, sir!” His eyes lingered on the bruised woun
d on Leighton’s forehead, but he was too well trained to comment.
“Hallo, Carter,” Leighton replied. “How is my grandfather today?”
“Not well, sir. A little agitated. He’s been waiting to hear from you.”
“Yes. Well. There’s been no news to send him.” He led Francesca into a drawing room done up in cream and a soft spring green. “Wait here. I’ll go and speak with him. Carter, see if you can find some tea for my guest.”
And then he was gone, up the curving staircase in the hall, disappearing down the passage at the top.
It was all of fifteen minutes before Leighton returned. Francesca had barely touched her tea.
“He won’t see you. I’m sorry. And I dared not press.”
That was unexpected. “Did he tell you why?”
“It—isn’t one of his good days. He’s in bed.”
Disappointed, she said, “And it wouldn’t do to go up to him, would it?”
“No. He enjoys his helplessness as little as your grandfather must have done.”
Rising from her chair, she gathered her coat and her gloves and followed Richard Leighton out into the hall. Carter was waiting to see them out, and Leighton stopped to say something to him.
Francesca turned to look up the staircase, as if it called to her somehow.
And then she saw why. At the first landing, nearly out of sight in the shadows, stood a man. She could just pick out the white of his shirt under the smoking jacket he was wearing, and the gleam of his fair hair.
In bed Alasdair MacPherson was not. Whatever he’d told his grandson to say.
Francesca stood there, riveted.
And from the top of the stairs, such a wave of hostility seemed to wash over her that she took a step backward. It was as if she were the living embodiment of Francis Hatton, and the man looking down at her was damning her for all time.
