Charles Todd - Watchers of Time

“No.” As if to soften the harsh negative, Sims added, “She found it hard to find common ground with women of her own class, and was too friendly with the servants. They took advantage of her. That’s why she came to the vicarage to talk with me, using whatever flimsy excuse she could think of. Father James and I were safe, you see. Clergymen, not likely to take advantage. In any sense.”

Intrigued, Rutledge asked, “What did she talk about?”

“The flowers. The music. She liked music. Services for the family were usually held at the church on the grounds of the estate. She preferred Holy Trinity because it was so beautiful. She’d spend hours sitting in the nave polishing the benches or mending the cushions. I found her one day on a ladder, cleaning out the cobwebs around the stained-glass windows. Impeccably dressed, her gloves filthy-” He stopped. “They closed the house in East Sherham when Sedgwick went to London, and she was sent back to Yorkshire, then.”

Monsignor Holston said, “Father James met her in London, just after she’d come to England. They served on some committee or other together. He said she was the happiest woman he’d ever seen. And he was the man she turned to when the marriage soured. She was a woman of strong faith, and he tried to bolster that. That’s one reason he wasn’t prepared to believe that she could turn her back on her husband and leave England. He always defended her, and it’s my feeling that he always hoped she might try to get in touch with him.”

The Vicar said unexpectedly, “I thought it was better for her just to go. Father James and I quarreled over that. He wanted to find her, and I told him I’d have no part in it.”

Hamish said, “Aye, it’s the difference in age between the two men. Both wanted to play knight, but no’ in the same fashion.”

Rutledge silently agreed. It was that male vulnerability to their own protective instincts. To save the damsel from the dragon-the dragon, in this case, Arthur Sedgwick’s seeming indifference to his beautiful young wife-and somehow make her life better. Priest or layman, it didn’t matter. Each man had responded to Virginia Sedgwick.

Monsignor Holston pushed his plate away. “There’s a more practical side, you know. It’s my understanding that she had a considerable inheritance, from a grandmother who had heavily invested in railroads among other things. What was the disposition of that, if she died? Or-if she just disappeared? And another question-why didn’t her family in America raise a hue and cry, when she went missing?”

“No one could foresee that her ship would sink!” the Vicar said.

“Father James told me in late 1912 that she wasn’t listed among the passengers,” Monsignor Holston replied. “That is, not until after the inquiry. Sedgwick hired someone to look into the matter for him, and he finally found her name. This would explain why Father James was so interested in what Miss Trent could tell him.”

Rutledge said, “Why was there a problem?”

“There was a record of her purchasing her fare, but none of her boarding the ship. Apparently there was some confusion over names.”

May Trent said unexpectedly, “If I had wanted to get away, and money wasn’t an issue, I’d have paid my fare, and then taken another ship. Or no ship at all. Virginia Sedgwick could very well be alive and still in England.”

Hamish said quietly, “Or dead, having never left England.”

Rutledge, pursuing that thought, asked, “In which case, if Herbert Baker changed his mind on his deathbed, and told Father James the truth about that journey from Yorkshire to King’s Lynn-or even what happened in King’s Lynn itself-it must have been very difficult for Father James to hold his tongue. And it’s quite possible, isn’t it, that someone doesn’t want the truth about Virginia Sedgwick to come out?”

Monsignor Holston replied slowly, “I hadn’t considered that. But it explains why I’ve been uneasy since I saw Father James dead. If you are not a Catholic-if you don’t understand the sanctity of Confession-it would be natural to believe that Father James told me or even the Vicar here whatever he’d learned from Baker…”

Sims spoke up suddenly, his face unhappy, eyes torn.

“There’s another part of the story.”

“Virginia Sedgwick was-a lovely child. I don’t think Arthur Sedgwick realized that when he met her in Richmond. She told me she was always surrounded by cousins, brothers, sisters-they seldom had the opportunity to be alone, she and Arthur. And in company, she was shy, she spoke softly, and she had the gift of listening. What’s more, her grandmother, worried about her future, had left her a fortune. Rich, beautiful-and not-not truly whole.”

They stared at him. In his mind, Rutledge heard Lord Sedgwick’s dismissive words: “Attractive simpleton, that’s what she was.” Rutledge had taken it as hyperbole-but it was the truth.

“They brought her to England for the wedding, you know,” Sims said wearily. “Her family. A very fashionable affair in London. I don’t think Arthur ever realized that she was-simple. Until they went away on their wedding journey. Her family had made certain they were never alone together.”

May Trent asked, “How do you mean? Simple?”

“Virginia-she’d had a fever as a small child. The family blamed it on that. They swore it wasn’t hereditary. But by that time Arthur was married to her, and he discovered that this very pretty, very sweet, very young bride was not simply modest and shy. Her mental development was retarded.”

Rutledge said, “And he didn’t like the feeling of being cheated.”

Sims agreed. “It may explain why he spent so much time in France, racing with his friends. Why he left Virginia behind in Yorkshire, isolated from his friends and from London Society. Reading between the lines, I gathered that this was the reason behind his brother Edwin’s frequent visits when Arthur was away. He was making damned sure that the simpleton didn’t fornicate with the servants or the stableboys, and produce a half-wit bastard who would inherit the family title!”

Monsignor Holston, after much persuasion, agreed to return to Osterley with them and speak to Inspector Blevins.

It had been a heated argument “I can’t see that it will do much good. So much of it is speculation,” the priest protested. “Father James is dead, Baker is dead-for all we know, Mrs. Sedgwick is dead. All we may succeed in proving is that the chauffeur, Baker, was cajoled into letting his passenger flee her husband, there in King’s Lynn. And there’s no crime in that.”

Rutledge argued, “It isn’t a question of convincing Blevins. It’s a matter of strategy. If there is sufficient doubt, he must reopen his investigation.”

“How will you begin?” May Trent asked.

Turning to the Vicar, Rutledge asked him, “Think back. Herbert Baker was your sexton. Can you recall when Mrs. Baker was ill-enough to be placed in a sanitarium for her tuberculosis? You must have visited her then!”

Sims rubbed his eyes. “She was very ill in November 1911, I think, and they didn’t expect her to live through the winter. With sanitarium care, she did.”

“By the spring of 1912 then-when Mrs. Sedgwick went missing-Baker could see that continued care was essential to keeping his own wife alive?”

“He never expected miracles,” Sims corrected Rutledge. “She was dying.”

“Yes. She’d have been dead in November without that care. She survived two years with it. That mattered to a man who loved his wife very deeply.”

Sims responded, “Herbert Baker was a decent man- loyal.”

“How did he define loyalty?” Rutledge persisted. “If someone convinced him he was acting in Virginia Sedgwick’s best interests, would he shut his eyes?”