The Murder Stone

by Charles Todd

When he returned to the inn that afternoon, saying dryly that once more he had trespassed on her hospitality, Francesca loaded the pistol she had taken from Simon’s cupboard, and laid it by her bed next to the torch, ready for the night.

  Tyler was on the floor by the bed as she tried the weight of the barrel and the grip.

  She had never fired a pistol, but Simon’s war games had taught her enough to know that a steady hand mattered more than good aim. A wavering muzzle was the surest way of showing herself to be a novice. . . .

  The night passed uneventfully. And as she finally fell asleep in the first light of dawn, she remembered thinking that marriage had something to be said for it, if only for the comfort of hearing another person breathing quietly next to one when one woke in the night and was frightened.

  To her surprise, Francesca learned over her breakfast that Leighton was gone from the Valley. He had been driven into Tiverton at first light, to take the early train from there.

  He’s gone back to Falworthy and the orphanage, Francesca told herself. He can’t leave it alone, this obsession of his. She felt a flare of anger at the obstinacy that seemed to rule him. But that soon drained away.

  He might have said good-bye, was the next thought. He must have made up his mind yesterday afternoon—

  And on the heels of that—I won’t see him again.

  It was such a strong certainty that she felt a wave of desolation. Even hours of heavy labor, weeding the flower beds, dragging sacks of debris out to the compost heap, digging out young sprouts of trees that had taken root in the spring, she couldn’t shake the bleak mood that had settled, like an ache, in her very bones.

  THE COUSINS

  Robin . . . the practical one

  They tell me I’m practical. It’s rather like calling a person stodgy, dull.

  But I can’t help myself. I see the solution to problems while there’s panic all around me and nobody seems to think straight. The best course of action is to remain calm and think the situation through. I’m good at that.

  Not the most romantic of qualities, but then I’ve never felt much like sweeping a girl off her feet with poetry and flowers and florid speeches. If she likes me, she likes me. And if she doesn’t, there’s not much I can do about it.

  Growing up with four lively brothers gave me more than enough opportunities to learn practicality, I can tell you that. More often than not, they’d rush headlong into whatever game they were playing, and it was left to me to remind them that leaping off the shed roof wearing an old coat for a cloak was silly, unless you were in the market for a broken neck. I had to keep an eye on Francesca, too. Fearless, clever, ready to follow us into whatever mischief was afoot—I’d often have to catch her pinafore strings and hold on tight, to prevent her from drowning herself in the pond or tumbling headlong out of a tree or running herself on the stick swords we’d made for ourselves. She never played a damsel in distress. Simon recruited her to be lionhearted, and she was, even when she got herself bruised more times than I’d like to count.

  I’d always loved her as much as if she’d been my own sister. Her parents died young, like ours. And so we became orphans together and came to live with Grandfather. I couldn’t remember my father and mother. I couldn’t even remember where we’d lived before. Simon said it was flatter and greener, but he was only six and I expect he made up the story. I always intended to ask Grandfather about that, but it never really seemed important enough when the thought crossed my mind.

  Part of being practical is being observant. I was generally the first to notice when one of us was coming down with measles or chicken pox or mumps. I could see the tiredness around the eyes and the lack of spirits. I could tell when one of the servants was unhappy. And sometimes when Grandfather wasn’t aware that I was looking, I’d see a terrible loneliness in his face. I sometimes wondered if that was because we were such a pack of wild beasts and he’d had to put aside his own life to look after us. But his love never was grudging, so I expect I was wrong there.

  Practical doesn’t mean one’s omniscient.

  That there was something worrying him I was certain. And so I tried to keep an eye on my unruly brethren and my little cousin. To help make Grandfather’s life more bearable.

  I listened, too, which is sometimes hard when you’re young and feeling the tug of audacity and rebellion.

  At least twice to my certain knowledge letters arrived in the morning post that abruptly sent Grandfather into his study with the door locked behind him. It would be hours before he emerged, his face strained, and his voice clipped. He would leave for London, then, restless and driven. I thought perhaps it was money—I’m sure we six ate prodigiously, and we outgrew our clothes at a shocking rate.

  Later, as I grew older, I learned there were pressures besides money that drove a man. To my way of thinking, Grandfather appeared to be in his twilight years. I was fearful that he might die soon, and then what would become of us? Robin, ever practical . . .

  But he couldn’t have been more than fifty then, and vigorous. Now that I’m twenty, I realize that he was more than Grandfather to a band of unruly children. He was a man involved in various business matters, his club in London, the charities he supported. He had close friends who valued him, judging from the letters and invitations that arrived for him. I wondered, sometimes, if there were women as well. If there were, he kept that part of his life closed to us.

  I asked him once why people pitied us when they learned we were orphans. I’d been happy enough at River’s End; it hadn’t occurred to me that I might have missed the love of a father and mother.

  “Bill Coachman was an orphan, you know,” he told me then. “His father died at sea, and his mother was never well. When he was ten, he and his younger sister were sent here to earn their living. His mother couldn’t care for them, you see, and in fact she died shortly afterward. They were alone in the world, except for two cousins who were fishermen. My father saw to it that Bill learned to read and write. To do his numbers. He explained to me that education gave even a stable boy dignity, and we who had more were bound by duty to see that those without were cared for.”

  “Did Bill share your tutor?”

  “No, he was sent to the village school.”

  “Did his sister go with him?”

  “For a time.”

  “What became of her?”

  He cleared his throat. “Unhappily, she died.” And then he added with bitterness, “She hadn’t been born a lady, you see, and the English are sticklers for breeding, however learned you are. It’s rather like horse racing—you must know the dam and sire if you’re to value the colt. When she fell in love, the match wasn’t considered—suitable. And so she was destined to become a nursery maid, not a wife.”

  “Was she our nursery maid?” I asked.

  “It was long before your time, I’m afraid. I was barely older than Simon is now. Seventeen, perhaps. Old enough, I thought, to know my own mind.”

  He changed the subject then. As far as I know it was the only time he ever spoke of Beth Trelawny. To me or anyone else.

  I was a child, a practical child at that, and I wanted to hear the end of the story. But I could see it was no good asking Grandfather. Instead I asked Bill about his sister, one evening as we stood by the gates and watched the long shadows descend across the hilltops and bring the day to an end. The smoke from his pipe climbed into the trees over our heads. I liked the masculine fragrance of it.

  For a moment I thought he hadn’t heard me. Then he said, his face barely visible in the gathering dusk, “She was such a pretty little thing, my sister Bethie. And spirited. Everyone at the house adored her. Mr. Hatton—your grandfather, that was—cared for her particularly. And when she—died—he saw to it that she had a proper burial, as if she were a lady. Then he went away for a time and didn’t come home again until his own father was dead. They’d had a falling-out of sorts. I never knew what it was about. I wouldn’t speak of Beth to him, if I were you. It’s no
t a time of his life that he cares to remember.

  “But I’ll tell you something else. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  All ears, I was prepared for some exciting secret.

  Bill tapped out his pipe and prepared to walk back up the drive. “That young cousin of yours—Miss Francesca. She has much the same spirit as my sister Beth. The same little ways. I look at her sometimes and find my heart turning over. I wonder Mr. Hatton hasn’t noticed it as well. It’s like after all these many years Bethie’s come back to us. You must promise to look after her, now, and guard her. Miracles like that don’t happen twice.”

  Disappointed, I promised. I was too young to understand what love was.

  But when I was twenty and saw a young French girl on a road outside Abbeville, I found myself wondering if my grandfather had loved Beth Trelawny and hadn’t been allowed to marry her. Because that French girl’s face had stayed in my mind for weeks afterward. And for the first time, I knew what it was to want something—someone—who was beyond my reach.

  I was a soldier then, and couldn’t go searching for her.

  And being practical, I told myself that she didn’t deserve to become a young widow, if anything happened to me.

  CHAPTER 21

  A week of weeding and trimming the gardens had not spent the nervous energy that drove Francesca Hatton.

  As the sun began to slide over the western hills, she bundled the last of the leaves and pruning debris into an old sack and dragged it to the compost heap that had lived behind the barn for as long as she could remember. Once the rich dark soil had filled pots and perennial beds, but it had not been turned over since the first year of the war and Harry’s departure for his training. Beyond Bill’s ability, beyond hers, it had stagnated like the rest of the gardens, waiting for the peace that never came. Everyone had kept up appearances in the first weeks, the first months, and then the first year of fighting. But the depressing events of 1916, from the bloody Easter Rebellion in Ireland to the heaviest casualty lists yet in the first days of the July Somme offensive, had left everyone dispirited and worried.

  She emptied the last sackful and in the fading light went back for the rose canes and saplings she’d set aside. A thorn in her finger made her swear, and she was trying not to drive it deeper into her flesh as she lugged her armful to the heap and wearily stacked it to one side of another pile. Tomorrow, she thought—tomorrow I’ll rake it over the top, where it belongs. It’s too dark tonight . . .

  But not too dark, apparently, for the shooter.

  A crack! startled her so badly that she tripped over the rake and went down hard, scraping her hands and face against the rough edges of pruned wood.

  She scrambled to her feet and shouted, “Damn you! If you want to kill someone, go shoot the Hun!”

  There was silence from the wood that ran along the top of the hill, and not even the snap of a twig to tell her whether anyone had been standing there to hear her or not. Certainly the shot had not been aimed at her.

  Her arm was beginning to sting rather fiercely, and she pulled at the sleeve of her old sweater to see what was wrong.

  Her hand came away with a smear of blood, and she thought for an instant that she’d been shot after all. Her breath stopped in her throat for a moment, and then let go in a long sigh. No, she’d torn her arm on the sharp point of a branch she’d just cut. It lay upended like a spear and she had fallen on it.

  “I’ll have the constable on the idiot—or the Army!” she fumed.

  The cut would have to be seen to. Well, she’d finished for the day, at least.

  Walking back to the house, she could feel a warm trickle down her arm, and she began to hope that Mrs. Lane had waited for her to come in before leaving for her cottage in the village.

  But there was no one in the kitchen and Mrs. Lane’s wool shawl was gone from its hook by the door.

  The room was still warm from the banked fires, and a lamp had been lit, so that Francesca could readily find her dinner on its covered tray.

  She had no interest in food. Her arm was burning fiercely and she was still a little shaken from the sudden shock of her fall. It was a wonder she hadn’t been more seriously hurt.

  Now, she thought, I know how Richard must have felt. . . .

  She drew some water and heated it on the stove while she tried to strip off her shirtwaist and gauge the damage.

  An oval-shaped bleeding cut ran at an angle just above the elbow.

  She could see bits of debris in the wound, caught in the ragged skin.

  “Oh, bother!”

  Washing it awkwardly, she cleaned it as best she could, and then wrapped a tea towel around it to keep the blood off her undergarments.

  Until now she’d been too preoccupied to notice that her fingers were trembling. Sitting down clumsily in one of the kitchen chairs, she thought, Good Lord! I’m going to faint—

  She put her head down between her knees until the dizziness had passed.

  When she could think clearly again, she was surprised. The arm didn’t hurt terribly; the wound wasn’t all that deep. Half the force had been absorbed by her sweater sleeve, and there hadn’t been an inordinate amount of bleeding—

  Yet the red patch of scraped and torn skin and welling blood had made her physically ill.

  Every time she pictured it in her mind, the dizziness returned in force.

  This is ridiculous! she chided herself. After all the ghastly wounds I’ve tended. It wouldn’t do for Mrs. Lane to come in tomorrow morning and find her mistress lying unconscious on the floor from such a minor scrape!

  Yet it was several minutes before she could calm down enough to gather up her clothing and make her way upstairs. It wasn’t until she had completely dressed again that the dizziness abated. But she could sense that it lurked at arm’s length. She lay down on the bed, where Tyler soon found her.

  The sound of the door knocker rising and falling on its brass plate brought her up sharply. Who on earth would call at such an hour—?

  She slipped into Simon’s room across from hers and looked down at the front steps.

  Miss Trotter stood below, her shawls and scarves like ghostly garments in the pale twilight.

  Feeling a wash of relief, Francesca went down quickly to admit her.

  Miss Trotter came wafting in in that fashion of seeming to drift rather than walk.

  “I heard another shot as I was walking home—I thought perhaps someone had been hurt again—” she said, and looked closely at Francesca.

  “Well, I wasn’t shot,” she answered, summoning a smile, “but I’m afraid I’ve cut my arm.”

  Miss Trotter had her in the kitchen in short order and was soon examining the injury. She removed the tea towel, tut-tutted under her breath, did much better work of cleaning the area, and applied a cool salve before taking out bandages from another pocket somewhere in her garments.

  “That should do,” she decided at length. “Such wounds tend to get infected if they aren’t seen to.” Glancing at her patient’s face, she said, “Does it hurt? I can give you a little something to ease that.”

  Francesca said, “It doesn’t hurt all that much—I just—don’t like looking at it—or—thinking about it.”

  “Hmmm.” It was a noncommittal murmur. It was hard to tell whether it was meant as sympathy, understanding, or disbelief.

  “How did you know that I needed help?” Francesca asked after a moment.

  “I heard the shot. My hearing is quite good, you know. I could tell the direction. And there was Mr. Leighton, of course.”

  “He’s gone back to London,” Francesca replied to an unasked question.

  “I know,” Miss Trotter answered with simplicity. She cleared away the tea towel, setting it to soak in cold water, and rolled up the rest of the bandages with the little pot of salve.

  “How do you know everything?” Francesca asked, looking up at her, the vague eyes meeting hers. It was not the first time she had wondered if this omniscie
nce was true, or an affectation.

  Miss Trotter smiled. “I always have. It’s just—there.”

  “My grandfather—”

  “I laid him out, you know. Before the undertaker’s men came. Miss Honneycutt asked me if I would. And I smelled the dandelion wine on his breath. It was on Miss Honneycutt’s, too. I knew then what you’d done. Put them both to sleep, and only Miss Honneycutt was allowed to wake up.”

  Francesca, her fingertips pressed to her lips, couldn’t speak.

  “Is he at peace?” Miss Trotter said as if reading her mind. “I expect he is. He hated being bedridden, you know. It was a hate that went deep.”

  “I didn’t mean to—to—”

  “No, that’s true, you didn’t wish him harm,” Miss Trotter said quietly. “It was a kindness that took a Hatton’s courage.”

  She washed her hands, dried them, and drew on her ancient gloves, preparing to leave. “You never gave that man any of the wine. I wondered if you would be tempted.”

  “Mr. Leighton?” Francesca shook her head. “I couldn’t—”

  “No. But when the courage is there . . . And you never cared to see anything suffer. Even as a child.” She gathered up her shawls. “Just as well. That one needs to heal before he dies.”

  It was an astute remark. “Yes. I rather think he does,” Francesca replied. “But I don’t expect we’ll witness the change.”

  “Mark my words. You haven’t seen the last of him. If that’s what would please you.”

  Francesca found breath enough to thank her and then saw her to the heavy door, locking it after the frail figure that seemed to vanish into the night.

  That night she dreamed that the wound was alive, writhing and tormenting her like a burn that wouldn’t heal.

  She got out of bed, to walk the passages of the house, Tyler trotting doggedly in her wake as if duty had triumphed over sleep, but only just.

  The house seemed different.

  Francesca couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She went through the rooms, looking at the latches on the windows, touching the photograph of her parents in their wedding finery, sitting once more in its accustomed place, smoothing the covers on each of the beds where her cousins had slept.