Charles Todd - A long shadow

But Rutledge was nearly sure someone had, at least for a short time, not more than half an hour ago. There was the partial print of a hand in the dust collecting on the win- dowsill beside him. As they came down the stairs and into the kitchen, the kettle was just on the boil. Baylor said, "I won't offer you a cup of tea." It was a clear message to leave. "Thank you for your willingness to help." Rutledge went out the door and heard it shut behind him, almost on his heels. He retraced his steps as far as the rectory, and an exhausted Hillary Timmons opened the door at his knock. She stood aside, almost wary of him, and he remembered his outburst of anger in the kitchen of The Oaks. "How is the rector?" he asked after greeting her. "Tiresome." She smiled a little to take the sting out of the word. "He doesn't feel like doing much of anything, and that drags at his patience." "Perhaps a visitor will help." "Oh, if you would, please. I need to see to his dinner, and there's been no time." He went up the stairs to the first floor and down the passage to the rector's bedroom. Towson greeted him with undisguised relief. "Thank God you're here," he said. "I need so many things, and young Hillary is hopeless." "What would you like?" Rutledge inquired, setting his hat to one side and tossing his coat over a chair. "Tsk! There's a coat-tree in the hall, didn't she point it out?" "It doesn't matter. What can I find for you?" "There are three books by the desk in my study. Paper, pens, and something to write on. Ink. My blotter-" He went on urgently, as if afraid Rutledge would desert him before he'd finished his requests. "I'm surprised Hillary couldn't have helped you earlier," Rutledge said. "It doesn't seem all that complicated."

"She doesn't like touching anything in my study. She never even ventures in there to dust it. You'd think she was afraid of it, as if God lived there, to help me with my sermons."

Rutledge laughed. "Very well, I'll do my best."

He went to the study, a small room overlooking the church, and began to search for the items Towson had listed.

The books were easy enough to find on the shelf by the rector's desk, and the writing materials lay next to the blotter. Rutledge was just looking around the room to find some means of carrying the lot back up the stairs, when he noticed a framed photograph on the small table by the only upholstered chair in the room. A lamp stood on the table as well, next to a book filled with strips of paper to mark various chapters. He crossed the room to look at the photograph, and then was distracted by the book.

It was leather bound, an album of sorts, with cuttings pasted to the pages. He could see the curled edges sticking out.

Rutledge reached to open it, and Hamish said, "I wouldna' pry-"

He ignored the voice.

The cuttings had come from various newspapers, with the name of the paper and the date written in ink on each of them.

Most of them were obituaries. In the front was Mrs. Towson's, short but flowery, identifying her as the beloved wife of our dear rector. Others were of local men killed in the war, each one pasted carefully in the center of a sheet of black paper, as if honoring them. He ran his eye down one or two, thinking as he did that each of these young men hadn't had time to live very far beyond boyhood. The war had given them their only reality; their rank and dates and the battle in which they'd fallen stood out starkly as their only achievement.

Son of… Young men who hadn't married, hadn't had families of their own, had left no mark in the world, and no posterity.

How many of them had he seen go into battle and fall? How many had he tried to remember as individuals, repeating their names to himself as he stood in the trenches during the dark nights of winter and the short ones of summer. MacKay, Sutherland, Gordon, Campbell, Scott, MacIver, MacInnes, MacTaggert, Chisholm, Kerr, Fraser He found himself reminded of Elizabeth Fraser, seeing her against the snow light, her hair so fair, like a crown, her body long and slim. The memory was slipping away from him now, and it hurt him to think that he was beginning to forget.

He made himself return to the album, scanning the names and ages and battles.

And then one name in particular caught his eye.

Robert Baylor, age twenty, son of the late Robert and Ellen Baylor of Dudlington Farm, survived by his brothers Theodore and Joel, and his fiancee, Grace Letteridge.

He closed the album carefully so as not to lose any of the markers.

Hamish said, "It wasna' well done, looking without permission."

"But now I know," he answered. One more of the dead on the Somme. A young man who was engaged to marry one woman-but who had been seen by Constable Markham rolling in the grass near the church with Emma Mason. Rutledge brought the books and writing materials to the rector, and set them on the bed where he could reach them. "I couldn't find anything to write on."

"That small flat handkerchief box over there will work nicely," Towson told him, pointing to it. "I shan't do it any harm."

Rutledge brought it to him and set that within reach also.

"How can you write?"

"I'm accustomed to using either hand. When the rheumatism is worse, I switch. My mother was told when I was a child that I was contrary, using my left hand more than my right. My schoolmaster forced me to use my right, and it took me nearly thirty years to forgive him." He added ruefully, "Now I'm grateful."

"Who will deliver your sermon on Sunday?"

"I shall, of course. Propped in the pulpit like a log. There's nothing wrong with my voice, and as soon as the tenderness in my leg and back has passed, I'm allowed to be up and about."

Rutledge grinned at him. "You must be careful on the pulpit steps."

"I always am, with my robes trailing about my ankles."

"I was just across the way, speaking to Ted Baylor. His windows look out on Frith's Wood, perhaps a better view than yours."

"Baylor told me once that the servants when he was a child hated that view and would refuse to sleep in that room, for fear of seeing something unspeakable in the night."

"What became of the servants?"

"Off to the war, of course, or to the cities, to work in the factories. There were only the three boys, after their parents died, and I expect they fared well enough. The house stood empty for two years, you know. Half of Dudlington helped care for the livestock. It muddled social standings when you were ankle-deep in muck, cleaning out the barns."

"And all three of them survived the war? That's astonishing."

But Hamish was chiding him for misleading the rector.

"Ted did, although he was wounded twice. Robert was killed. Joel came back with strange notions about what had been done to the common soldier. He's not quite right in his head, I'm told. Ted takes care of him, but there's no one to take care of Ted. Life's not always fair." "What do you mean, not quite right in his head?" "I can't say with any certainty. Can you pass me that glass of water? Thank you. Joel never comes to church services, and he never sets foot out of the house, as far as I know. I doubt anyone has seen him at all. We leave him in peace, hoping one day he may heal." Rutledge stood to go as he heard Hillary Timmons coming up the stairs. She thanked him for spelling her and added, "I've found you a nice bit of ham for your dinner, Rector." "You feed me better than I feed myself, my dear." She blushed. "Mr. Keating says I'm a terrible cook. But I've noticed the inn guests never complain." "What did Mr. Keating do, before he bought The Oaks?" Rutledge asked her. "I don't know," she told him simply. "He never talks about himself. If I didn't know better, I'd say he had no other life before The Oaks. But he must've. There's a wicked scar-" She clapped a hand over her mouth, suddenly frightened. "I won't tell him," Rutledge assured her. "It's all right." But she hurried from the room, looking as if she was on the verge of tears. "What was that in aid of?" Towson asked, worried for her. "She's been warned not to talk about Keating. It's worth her job." "Then you shouldn't have pressed her," Towson told him roundly. "She needs the work, to help her family. That's why I pay her to clean for me. As do several others. She's vulnerable." "There's no harm done," Rutledge answered him. "I shan't say anything about it, and neither will you." But when he left, he noticed that the rector didn't ask him to come to visit again.