Charles Todd - A test of wills

The Vicar's sermon was on making the best of one's life, using each idle minute with care, recognizing that death might sweep in at any moment to wipe out the hopes and dreams of the future. He never mentioned Charles Harris's name, but Rutledge was sure that every parishioner present knew exactly what his reference was. Rutledge spent most of the long exhortation studying the townspeople in the body of the church. He could see Catherine Tarrant only out of the corner of his eye, but several rows away was Helena Som- mers, with Laurence Royston just ahead of her; Captain Wilton and Sally Davenant were down near the front; and to their left were the two women Rutledge had met near the market cross the day before, Mrs. Thornton and Mrs. Mobley, with their husbands. To his surprise, he caught sight of Georgina Grayson as well, sitting alone in one corner, a very fine hat on her head and wearing a dress of the most conservative cut in a most becoming but decorous summery green.

When the last prayer was said, Rutledge was on his feet and out of the church door, away from the rising tide of people coming toward him. He found a vantage point under a tree in the churchyard and watched for a time.

Catherine Tarrant had also come out almost as quickly as he had, making her way toward a car with a driver waiting by the lych-gate. But the others were taking their time. Laurence Royston came out, strode down the walk, and called to Catherine as she was getting into the car. She waited for him, and he went to speak to her. She shook her head, smiling but firm.

Mavers was lingering behind the lych-gate, watching. Rut- ledge saw him and wondered what had brought him there. Sergeant Davies came out of the church and stopped to speak to Carfield, effectively damming the flow of people for the moment. Royston said good-bye to Catherine Tarrant, and her driver went to the end of the Court to turn the car. Mavers came quickly to Royston and began to speak very earnestly.

Royston listened, head to one side, watching Catherine's departure. Then his attention came back to Mavers, and after a time he began to shake his head.

Mavers's reaction was interesting. A flush of anger spread over his face, and he began to bob almost frantically, demanding something.

But Royston seemed to take pleasure in telling him that it was no use. Rutledge was not close enough to hear, but the movements of both men told enough of the tale.

Mavers was furious. For an instant, Rutledge thought he was going to lash out with his clenched fists, and Royston must have thought so too because he stepped back, wary.

Suddenly Mavers turned toward the church and raised his voice, making himself heard by the fresh flood of people moving out into the mist.

"Has God refreshed your spirits?" he demanded, the fury mounting in him almost slurring his words. "Do you feel sanctified? Or have you seen yon fat toad for what he is, a mountebank, a fool leading other fools down the path of lies and high-flown words covering the emptiness of every soul here?"

With their attention riveted on him, he swung around to where a stunned Royston was standing, watching him, and included him in the fierce denunciation.

"There's not a Christian in the lot of you. Not one soul not already damned, and no one safe from the fires of hell! Here's a murderer of children, hiding behind the coattails of a man who went to wars to do his killing. Aye, you think you see the Colonel's fine agent, but I know him for what he is, a man who paid his way out of the law's clutches, a rich man's money for the bloody deed, and the Colonel, like a pied piper, leading your sons off to war and maiming the lot of them in soul or body! His funeral ought to be a time of rejoicing that he's dead before his time! And yonder's a whore, wearing the dress of a proper lady while you-and you-and you"-he was pointing to a handful of appalled men-"make your way to her bed any chance you've got! Aye, I know who you are, I've seen you there!"

He whirled to face another group of emerging worshipers. "And you, lusting after your cousin, while he's busy with moneyed ladies, sucking up to wealth, and you watching him like a starved woman!"

Sally Davenant's face flushed with a mixture of anger and speechless embarrassment. Wilton started toward Mavers, but the man said, "And the Sergeant, there, the Inspector over yonder, quaking in their boots to arrest the King's friend, who shot down the Colonel in cold blood with a stolen shotgun! And the man from London who lurks in shadows and tackles the pathetic likes of Daniel Hickam instead of doing his duty!"

Almost foaming at the mouth in his terrible need to hurt, Mavers paid no heed to the effect his words were having on the targets of his wrath; he poured them out in torrents, spilling over one another in a tangle. Rutledge began to move toward him, cutting across the churchyard, one eye on Mavers, the other on his feet among the damp, tilted tombstones.

"You, with the feebleminded cousin, who ought to be shut away for her own good! And that artist, the one who took a German to her bed and reveled in it-that other one with the witch's eyes, hiding in her bedchamber, with her lascivious desires, and the Inspector yonder with his cold, sexless wife, and Tom Malone, the butcher, who keeps his thumb on his scales. The bloodless Haldanes dead and not even knowing it. Ben Sanders, whose wife killed herself rather than go on living with him, the Sergeant who-"

But Wilton and Rutledge had reached him by that time, dragging him away from the lych-gate, bending his arms behind him until he choked from pain and stopped lacerating the townspeople with a tongue as sharp as a lash. They hauled him with them down the length of the Court, his aggrieved cries echoing off the facades of the almshouses, raising the rooks in the fields beyond the trees.

The look on Wilton's face was murderous. Behind them, Rutledge could hear Forrest running to catch up and the Sergeant's bull roar, telling everyone at the church to pay no heed, that the fool had run mad, like a rabid dog.

But Rutledge thought he had done no such thing. Stopping at the corner to hand Mavers over to Forrest, Rutledge turned on his heel and went back to the lych-gate, searching for Royston in the crowd gathered there, silent and avoiding one another's eyes, their faces stiff with shocked dismay, unable to think of any way out of the churchyard that wouldn't take them past the rest of the parishioners equally paralyzed with indecision.

As Rutledge scanned their faces, he saw tears in Sally Davenant's eyes, though her chin was high and her cheeks still flushed. Helena Sommers seemed to be trying to find something in her handbag, her expression hidden by the wide-brimmed hat she wore, her hands shaking. Georgina Grayson had moved away from the crowd to the tree where Rutledge had been standing earlier, her back to the churchyard, her head tilted to watch the rooks soaring around the church tower.

Royston was gripping a post on the lych-gate, staring at the worshipers on the other side of the wall, a defensive look in his eyes, his mouth turned down in shame.

As Rutledge reached him, he said, "It's my fault. I shouldn't have told him. I should have thought about what he'd do. And now look what's happened-I'll never be able to face any of them again!"

"What did he want?"

Royston turned to Rutledge as if surprised to find him there. "He wanted to know if we'd read the Will. Charles's Will. He wanted to know if his pension was going to continue."

"Pension?"

"Yes. Charles gave him a pension years ago."

"Why?"

Royston shrugged expressively. "It was his sense of responsibility. The other son-there were two boys and a girl in the family, the mother had worked at Mallows as a maid before she married Hugh Davenant's gamekeeper-the other son died in South Africa. The daughter drowned herself. When Mavers ran off to join the army, Charles had him sent home. He was told that as long as he stayed there and looked after his mother, he'd be paid a pension. After the mother died, Charles didn't stop it, he let it go on. Against my better judgment. He felt he could stop Mavers from getting into worse trouble than he had already. It was threatening to cut off the pension as much as the threat of sending him to an institution that stopped the poisoning of the cattle and Charles's dogs. A lever. But Charles planned to let it end with his death."