by Charles Todd
“Besides,” she said aloud, casting about for straws, “your mother was dead long before this child was born. Resemblance or no resemblance.”
Leighton wasn’t satisfied. Finally she touched Bill on the shoulder, asking him to stop the motorcar.
“Shall we turn around and get to the bottom of this business? I don’t mind. It will prove to you that we weren’t conspiring behind your back.”
But the truth was, she did mind. She couldn’t bear to have someone like Alasdair MacPherson, filled with such hatred, coming here on a wild-goose chase and disrupting the serenity and happiness of the Little Wanderers home.
“No. She’ll lie through her teeth to protect her precious orphans—” Then he stopped. “I’m sorry, that’s not fair. Who was the child you were discussing while I was out of hearing? Will you at least tell me that?”
“You heard the beginning of the discussion yourself; it wasn’t behind your back! The rector in Hurley at that time, a Mr. Chatham, knew of the case.”
The anger seemed to be subsiding, but the shoulder just touching hers in the narrow rear seat of the motorcar was still stiff with resentment and uncertainty.
She thought, He’s been different since the night of the Zeppelin raid. Or was something else bothering him? Had the foundation of his search been shaken by something he’d discovered—and she hadn’t?
“What I’d like to know,” Francesca went on, shifting the direction of the conversation, “is how this photograph was taken from River’s End!” She held up the one she’d retrieved from Mrs. Gibbon. “And why?”
“The house is never locked. And you were away for the reading of the will, the funeral—”
“Not the funeral, Mrs. Lane and Mrs. Horner were there most of the morning, preparing the meal.” But not all of the morning. “Unless it was one of the mourners— And if that’s true, how did it end up here?”
It had to be Mrs. Passmore . . . if she hadn’t been to Falworthy and this house of the orphans, how had she heard that tale of the ostriches?
“To other matters—what am I to do with you now?” Francesca asked him. “Dr. Nealy will very likely have my head if I bring you back to Devon.”
What she read in his face was an admission that he was going to do just that—return to the Valley.
Before she quite realized how it would sound, she exclaimed, “But I don’t want you there—”
“No.” He forced a smile. “I don’t suppose you do.”
They had reached the village of Falworthy again, driving down the High Street. Bill was saying, “There’s a tea shop just there, Miss Francesca. It’s well past noon, and we ought to stop.”
She ate with relish, but Leighton morosely drank his tea and had no appetite.
“You don’t remember your mother. You can’t know,” he said after a time, “what it’s like to wonder if she’s safe—if she’s hungry or cold or lost—if it was something that you did that drove her away. If she’s ever coming home.”
Francesca said softly, “I used to wonder about the accident that killed my parents. Why I survived and they didn’t. Whether my mother was holding me and protecting me with her body. Whether my father or my mother died first—or if either of them survived long enough to know that I was safe. I wondered a thousand times what they felt, when the lorry bore down on them—if they had time to be afraid, if they were in agony before they died. It’s what people do when there are no answers.”
Yet another part of her mind was still wrestling with the question of whether Elizabeth Andrews could have been the love child of Victoria Leighton and Francis Hatton. It would have meant a liaison between them that had lasted longer than anyone had realized. Ruin would prevent a woman from returning to her family; it needn’t have been murder. And when the affair was over, she might well have killed herself. It would explain so much.
And with the help of the old rector, Chatham, Francis Hatton had found a safe haven, a loving home for Elizabeth Andrews.
No, it couldn’t be true—there had been no provision in his will for the girl. And Francesca was certain her grandfather would have seen to that.
Turning to Leighton, her own appetite vanished, Francesca said, “If you’re coming back to the Valley, I warn you—I intend to press on. I’ll spell Bill at the wheel, if need be.”
“I won’t hold you up,” Leighton answered. “And I should drive. Bill has done enough. Besides, I need the distraction!” He went to pay the reckoning.
It was Francesca who needed the distraction. Fifteen minutes later as she sat looking out the window, but blind to the rolling landscape of Somerset, pretty, huddled villages in the cup of hills, she was beset with doubts.
Why did Victoria Leighton follow her like a malevolent spirit everywhere she went? Doggedly, as if with intent to disrupt her memories and her security at every turn? It was as if she had come back from the dead to revenge herself on the last of the Hattons . . .
It was well after midnight when the motorcar reached the turning for River’s End. Bill was slumped in the passenger’s seat, deeply asleep. Francesca had taken the robe from the boot and made herself comfortable in the rear seat while Leighton drove, and the only conversation between them was a query now and again about a turning.
Francesca let herself drowse, making an effort to close her mind to everything. But the image of Alasdair MacPherson’s shadowy,
hate-filled figure, standing on the landing watching her, crowded out oblivion, bringing her awake again with a start. She could feel the heat of his ferocious anger still, a living thing that had shocked her. Even though she had done nothing to him, he would gladly have seen her in hell because she was a Hatton.
And each time her eyes flew open, from where she sat she could see the outline of Leighton’s profile as he concentrated on the muddy, rutted roads.
Why had he decided to return to the Valley, ignoring Dr. Nealy’s urgent instructions to see the Army surgeons? Was he afraid to hear what they would tell him about his injury? The stiffness that dragged at him seemed to grow worse each day—although she couldn’t tell how fiercely sitting for long periods in the motorcar might have aggravated it. He was the kind of man who would prefer death to the helplessness of paralysis. . . .
Theirs had become a confused relationship. Adversaries—enemies—and yet she had felt safer the nights he was at River’s End, even though she half suspected him of being the intruder. She had felt more comfortable making this long journey with him sitting beside her in the motorcar, as one of the cousins would have done, even though he had infuriated her at times and she had wished him at the devil. The murky depths of Victoria Leighton’s fate swirled about both of them, threatening to engulf them. She couldn’t imagine the fear that invested his moody silences at times.
Perhaps Miss Trotter had best described it. A fear that his mother had deliberately walked out of her son’s life. He would sacrifice her grandfather to prove that it wasn’t true.
She wasn’t even certain now that he reminded her of her grandfather—it was surely superficial at best, a trick of the mind. And yet there was something of Francis Hatton in this man that she recognized more than any physical likeness. A wounded spirit . . .
Unless Richard Leighton had played on her loneliness and vulnerability. Unless it was all a charade, and she had fallen easy prey to such devious plotting.
There had to be something of Alasdair MacPherson in his grandson, if only the single-minded will to destroy the Hattons.
They had picked up rain shortly after leaving Dunster, and the downpour was intense as they went up the drive at River’s End, the tires splashing to a halt by the steps.
“Give me your key,” Leighton said, “and I’ll open the door for you.”
In the light of the coach lamps she dug into her handbag for it. “It’s the key to the kitchen door. You’ll have to go round to the stableyard.” She reached over his shoulder to put the key into his palm, afraid one of them might drop it in the darkness.
“You were foolish!” Francesca scolded, tired herself and in no mood to be sympathetic. “You should have told me—”
Somewhere in the Valley a gunshot reverberated, and then echoed again. Francesca, startled, jumped.
Leighton sat there, his teeth clenched, his face turned away from
her. But he did not move. Bill, awake now, took his own time climbing stiffly down from the motorcar, and between them, Francesca and her coachman managed to extricate Leighton from behind the wheel.
They were wet through, all three of them, by that time. Francesca sent Bill into the kitchen to rake up the fire, and she herself took a moment in the servants’ hall to divest herself of hat and coat and shoes that were heavy with water. She found a pair of Mrs. Lane’s slippers and put them on, throwing one of the housekeeper’s shawls over her shoulders.
The old dog was staying at night with Mrs. Lane as arranged. Francesca missed his wriggling welcome, the busy tongue trying to lick her face.
Bill had stoked the fire, set the kettle on to boil, and disappeared to his own quarters in the stables. Leighton, left in a chair in the kitchen, was shivering as Francesca came in to help him out of his coat. She could tell she was hurting him, but he made no complaint.
The kitchen was just beginning to warm up again, as Francesca got Leighton back into a chair nearer the stove. He sat there, braced and silent, while she made a pot of tea and put the first cup into his clenched hands.
He drank the hot brew with gratitude, saying at one point, “Thank you!” in a voice not yet quite his own.
“You’ll have to stay the night,” she told him with resignation. “I haven’t the energy to drive you to the inn, and frankly I doubt if you could make it that far. You’ve slept in the guest room before. It won’t hurt to use it again. Or there’s the great armchair in my grandfather’s study, if you don’t want to face the stairs.”
Bill came back into the kitchen, furling his umbrella. “The motor’s under cover, Miss, and I’ve left your baggage by the hall door. I’ll just have a cup of that tea, if you don’t mind, and then be off. Unless Mr. Leighton is going on to the inn?”
“He can’t, not tonight,” she answered. “Sit down, the pot is ready.”
“Just as well not to take the chance,” Bill agreed, and took his place on the far side of the table. “Thank you, Miss Francesca.”
He looked tired and old, and Francesca realized that she had pushed him as well as Leighton and herself. It had been unfair. But Bill had served her grandfather and would serve her as long as he could. It was his nature to be faithful.
Leighton was less gray as he finished a second cup of tea. She had laced it with a little whiskey.
“A wild-goose chase,” he said for a second time, as much to himself as to his silent companions.
“Yes.” And then she said, “No, it wasn’t. I’ve seen the house in Essex. And I’ve learned about the orphans. I told you before, my grandfather has done some good in this world, and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell him so when he was alive!” She thought of Miss Andrews, and was glad now that she herself had provided for the girl. Mr. Branscombe hadn’t approved, but Francesca had felt it was right.
She collected the tea things and set them in the sink. “Well, we needn’t discuss it tonight! Can you make it up the stairs, Mr. Leighton? Or shall we try for the study?”
In the event it took Bill’s strength as well as hers to get him up the steps and onto the high bed. While Bill lit the fire already laid on the hearth, Francesca managed to take Leighton’s wet shoes and socks off, setting them by the fire, and then said, “I’ll bring up your luggage—”
“Don’t. I’ll wait this spasm out, and see to it myself. You’ve done enough.”
“Heaping coals of fire on your head,” she agreed, and followed Bill out of the room.
Looking back at the door, she could see his face, shadowed by the candlelight. Eyes hooded, dark planes for cheeks, nose and chin highlighted, he looked like a villain in an ancient play, masked and painted to portray evil. . . .
It was not a pleasant image to carry with her down the passage.
By the time Francesca awakened, Leighton had gone.
Mrs. Lane had no idea where. “He came through the kitchen in his heavy coat and asked to borrow my umbrella and a pair of your grandfather’s Wellingtons. Then he was off, and when I asked him where to, he told me he was going hunting.” The last was said doubtfully, as if Mrs. Lane wasn’t sure whether he had been serious or not. But she was full of news of the shooter, and how last night Mrs. Tallon had lost a goose to his marksmanship.
It was mid-morning when Leighton returned. Francesca heard him calling her name as she sat at the little walnut desk in the sitting room, going through the mail that had arrived in her absence.
She answered and he appeared on the threshold.
He looked as if he had been digging through the briars and climbing across muddy terrain. The Wellingtons had been left in the entry, but the trousers he wore and the heavy sweater were filthy. Francesca exclaimed, and he said, testily, “I won’t soil the upholstery. But I need to talk to you.”
She gave him the straight-backed chair from the desk and sat down on the sofa near the fire. “All right, I’m listening.”
“It’s hard to tell where the shots we keep hearing are coming from. Echoes in this Valley mask sounds well. And there’s been rain, wiping out most traces of him. Still, I went to see if I could discover any tracks this man’s made, before someone is killed.”
“Did you have any luck?”
“There were no tracks to be found. My first thought was he’d come from one of the farms. But I kept searching and finally I found a lair. A place where someone has been living rough. Our shooter isn’t a local man.”
“The Scots soldier who came here looking for work?” she asked, thinking back.
“I can’t answer that; I never saw him. The place he chose, however, is high up among some boulders a few miles from here. The way they’re set, they could act as a shallow cave with ease. Heavy boots—his tracks everywhere in front of the opening. Snares for rabbits, to feed himself. The remains of a fire. A little tea and a tin to heat water. Some sugar. Other odds and ends, indicating he’d been there for some time. But no sign of him, or what kind of weapon he might be using. He keeps it clean enough. I found oiled rags in a crevice in the driest corner of the cave.”
“Now that you’ve discovered this place, he’ll know, and move on!”
“I left no tracks of my own. He won’t know I’ve been there. Not unless he saw me—or sensed me. It’s something you learn at the Front to survive. That odd feeling that someone has crossed your path.”
“I felt it,” she acknowledged, “the two nights someone got into this house. Do you think it was the same person? I don’t particularly like the sound of that! It’s time to call in the constable, I should think!”
“The constable won’t waste his time on a homeless man hiding in the hills. But the Army might, if he were a deserter.”
“Deserter!” she repeated, appalled.
“He wouldn’t be the first. But I’m reluctant to turn him in. They’re harsh with deserters. God knows I can sympathize!”
“Well, there’s not much sympathy for a man prowling the hills shooting at people and breaking into homes. It’s just a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt. You were lucky, you know. And Tommy Higby as well!”
They went to speak to Mrs. Lane, but she swore nothing was missing from her stores. “I keep a close eye on the pantry, Miss Francesca, you know I do. I’d notice at once if there was food taken. But with the evenings coming down earlier I’m beginning to feel uncomfortable walking back to the village alone. If you wouldn’t mind having Bill drive me, I’d be that grateful.”
“Yes, of course, you need only ask him when you are ready, Mrs. L
ane.” Francesca had been standing with one hand behind her, the framed photograph hidden in her skirts. She brought it out now, and showed the housekeeper.
“Look what’s turned up!”
Mrs. Lane stared at it. “My stars! Now where on earth did you find that!”
“In my desk in the sitting room, of all places. I don’t have any recollection of it, isn’t that silly?” Her eyes met Leighton’s over the housekeeper’s head. “It was quite a shock to put my hand in the drawer and touch the edge of the frame.”
“Well, it’s not too surprising,” Mrs. Lane answered, offering comfort. “You were that distracted in Mr. Hatton’s last hours. I’ve never seen you as upset as you were! But no harm done, and I’ll be happy to carry it upstairs again.”
“No harm done,” Francesca agreed.
Back in the sitting room, Leighton asked, “Why did you lie to her?”
“You’re used to London, you don’t know how these people think. She’ll be afraid to come here, even in daylight, if there’s a housebreaker about, in addition to that man with his gun. And I can’t manage the house without her. If I try to explain how I’d found it in a home for orphaned children in Falworthy, the story will be all over the village before the week’s end. It will just add to my grandfather’s legend, and somehow I don’t think he’d care much for that. No, what’s more important is the fact that nothing is missing from the pantry—which means our intruder wasn’t here foraging for bacon and salt—or picture frames, either!”
“He might have come to take whatever he could find, and sell it. But the dog frightened him off.”
“I don’t know,” she said, “what to believe anymore. Will you send for the constable or shall I?”
To her surprise, he said, “I will.”
But she wondered, afterward, if he would do anything of the sort.
They hanged deserters . . .
