Charles Todd - Search the Dark

Rutledge bent to Aurore, touched her shining hair briefly, gently, then forced her to let Simon go, lifting her to her feet, turning her to face him. “He’s dead, Aurore. He’s dead, there’s nothing you can do.”

She buried her face against him then, and he thought she was going to cry, like Elizabeth. But she was only searching for strength, her body at the point of breaking, her mind already broken.

She said, “I was so afraid. I was so afraid that one day-And now I’ll never need to be afraid again.”

She let him lead her out of the room but seemed unaware of the chair he seated her on or the handkerchief he thrust into her hands.

Elizabeth refused to go, clinging to the door, her eyes unable to leave the crumpled shoulders, the untidy fair hair, the great black stain of blood.

Rutledge finally got her to move back into the museum, and that was when she straightened, seeming to tower in her anger, and loosed the storm of it at Aurore.

“It’s your fault, you killed him! You took him away from all he knew and all he wanted, and made him into what you believed he ought to be, and in the end, it killed him. He needn’t have died but for you and your damned, selfish blindness! I hope you’re satisfied, I hope his spirit haunts you every day of life and breath left to you and that you never, never, know what happiness is, ever again!”

Rutledge went to her and shook her hard, until she broke into tears again and sank in the chair he quickly shoved toward her. Burying her head in her hands, she began to moan Simon’s name, over and over, like a litany.

Aurore, white and strained, still hadn’t cried. She looked up at Rutledge, her eyes filled with ineffable pain, and said only, “He didn’t do it.”

“You thought he had. He thought you had. He killed himself because he couldn’t face losing you, he couldn’t face the scandal, he couldn’t face another change in his life. He was trying to protect you.”

“Hildebrand came to him today-”

“I don’t know how Simon knew of the suitcase. Whether he put it there-or found it there. If it’s any comfort to you-”

He broke off as the door opened and Joanna Daulton came through the outer rooms toward them. Her hair still pinned up, the white streak like a blazon, but she was wearing a robe over her nightdress. She looked from Aurore to Elizabeth, saying something about the fire, and then seemed to shrink into herself as she took in what their faces told her as they lifted to hers. “Simon?” she asked Rutledge. “Gentle God! Where!”

He nodded toward the back room, then said, “Don’t go.”

She walked past him without a word and into the small office, staying only for a moment. He thought he heard her saying words of prayer from the service for the dead. Then she turned, her face chalk white, and said, “What can I do?”

“Will you call Hildebrand for me? Ask him to come directly. And then if you would, you might find some help for Miss Napier and Mrs. Wyatt. I think both have been through enough for one night. They need tea, warmth-comfort.”

“I’ll see to it,” she said, but some of her usual efficient crispness was gone. “I loved him,” she added simply, “I watched him grow from childhood. I thought, if I had another son, that’s what I’d want him to be. Someone like Simon.” She shook her head, as if to clear it. “I hope he’s at rest-I hope he’s at peace!” Her voice broke, and she went out the door, leaving him with the two women while she made the necessary arrangements.

Aurore said, “This has changed nothing in our bargain. I will not have this put at Simon’s door. Do you hear me?” It was as if she hadn’t taken in what he’d been saying earlier.

“Aurore-”

“No. He will not be remembered as a murderer. If there is a paper saying so in that room, please, for the love of God, destroy it. Don’t let it destroy him!”

“I can’t destroy evidence!”

“Then I will.”

She got to her feet and was nearly to the door of the smaller room before he caught her, his hands on her arms.

“Aurore. Listen to me. It isn’t over yet. Give me time! If you destroy that letter, you will probably hang. And he died to prevent that. Can you understand me?”

“He died because he couldn’t endure any more pressure from anyone.”

He made a swift and measured decision. “Come with me. Back to the house. I must lock this wing until Hildebrand arrives.” He took Elizabeth’s arm, supporting her, while Aurore-Aurore the widow-walked unaided by his side, one foot placed precisely in front of the other, as if she were half alive. It was always the Elizabeths of this world, he thought in a distant corner of his mind, around whom people gathered in a crisis, offering sympathy and comfort and human warmth. They seemed so vulnerable and helpless. And yet the Elizabeths were often tougher than all the rest, more deeply centered on how the crisis deprived them than moved by unbearable grief. How did you comfort Aurore, when you knew that even touching her was anathema? That beneath the incredible strength lay stark despair.

He locked the museum door with the key he found there and escorted both women across the front gardens. The side of his face was beginning to hurt, where the flames had seared it.

By the time they reached the house, Elizabeth was near to collapse. That spoke volumes to Rutledge-he understood clearly what she had done-and how it would affect the remainder of her life. And so did she. Simon’s death lay at her door as much as at Hildebrand’s. If she hadn’t meddled-if she hadn’t tried to bring him back to her somehow-anyhow-again and again…

When Elizabeth had been settled on the sofa in the quiet parlor, a pillow under her head and the light shielded with a shawl, he turned toward the door.

Aurore said, “Where are you going? I want to know. I want to go with you.”

“I’m not going to London. Only as far as the church. I want to see this hiding place. Aurore, tell me the truth. You found the hat, didn’t you? Where?”

She shook her head, stubbornly adhering to the story she’d given him.

And she stubbornly followed Rutledge to the church, as if afraid he’d leave her, breaking their bargain. Or afraid that left alone, she couldn’t hide from grief any longer?

Inside, the candles still burned and the odor of incense was very strong. It took him some time to find the stairs to the crypt, hidden in a corner of a side aisle. As Simon had done before, he took a candle to light his way down the narrow, crumbling steps and into the cool stone chamber that had once been a small church, its heavy pillars squat, its arches broad and ugly rather than graceful. Sturdy, strong enough to support the building that had been put up over it, windowless and bare, almost spiritually bleak, the crypt now served to house the dead. Wyatts for the most part, but there were others as well, he could see eight or ten tombs spaced unevenly around two walls, leaving the center of the stone-paved floor empty.

Along the other walls were stored a broken pew, bits of stone from rebuilding, boxes of hymnals, shovels and picks for digging graves, containers for flowers, lengths of canvas, buckets-all the oddments of death and burial. You could see, he thought, that nothing could be hidden among or behind them.

Neither he nor Aurore had spoken.

At one end of the crypt was a stone altar with no grace. A monolithic slab with a vine pattern running around it set upon three square, heavy stones. An altar cloth, thin from damp and age, draped the stones, covering them to the floor. In the center of the top was a squat stone cross, powerful in its roughness. A bronze vase, empty, stood to one side, as if waiting for flowers. And under the altar cloth, as it hung like a tent, was a narrow three-sided rectangle, the back open.