Charles Todd - Wings of Fire

In fact he was waiting for Dr. Penrith, though he didn’t say so. Several women came in, asking for him too, but the retired doctor was not in his usual comer and it appeared he wouldn’t be.

In the end, Rutledge walked down to Dr. Hawkins’ surgery. When Mrs. Hawkins stuck her head out the door, trying to keep the rain out of her hallway, Rutledge asked for her father instead of her husband. Surprised, she said, “He’s through by the fire, sir. His joints are bothering him fiercely in this wet. Will you come this way, please?”

She took him into the part of the house where the family lived, and down a passage to a small room at the back. The fire burned high, a rush of warmth suffocating Rutledge after his brisk walk through the rain. The wool in his coat began to steam gently, giving off a distinct odor of Harris sheep.

Mrs. Hawkins promised them tea shortly, and left them. Dr. Penrith, pleased to see anyone to till his empty hours, profusely welcomed Rutledge and insisted that he take a chair close by the hearth. A small spaniel, resting her nose on her master’s foot, stared at him myopically as he came across the room, and thumped a tail on the hearth rug. Rutledge, feeling like a man unfairly condemned to walk in flames for a time, like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, commiserated with his host on the afflictions of age, and then gently turned the conversation to the Trevelyan family.

Smiling, Dr. Penrith began to reminisce about Adrian Trevelyan, with whom he’d had a running battle over ancient Cornish legends as well as the Arthurian romances. With a chuckle he added, “Half the parish histories in England’ve been written by parish priests and doctors, but that old fool studied at Winchester and Cambridge, and thought himself a scholar. Pshaw! He wanted to track Arthur back to the Romans, but he’s a West Country hero, and nothing to do with the Romans!”

Rutledge could hear the fondness in his voice, and pictured the two men arguing over their port for the sheer joy of contradiction and controversy. In lonely lives, even the smallest battles gave great satisfaction.

“Lancelot came from France,” he pointed out, shifting in his chair as his knees turned to burned toast. Hamish, as always sensitive to Rutledge’s moods, grumbled about hellfire and damnation in the back of his mind.

“Aye, and wasn’t it just like a Frenchman to get around Guinevere! There’d been no whispers of such goings-on until Frogs took up the tales!”

Rutledge stifled a laugh and used the opening to change the direction of the conversation. ‘‘What were the whispers about the Hall, and Adrian Trevelyan’s beautiful daughter?”

“None!” the doctor turned to retort angrily. “Like Caesar’s wife, Rosamund was always above reproach!”

“What happened to Richard Trevelyan?”

The old eyes clouded with pain. “Who can say? If the gypsies had taken him, you’d think he’d have come home when he could get away. But there’s been no boy ringing the doorbell to claim he’s Richard. And no man either.”

“Would Rosamund have believed them if they had come?”

“She was an intelligent woman. She tried to believe he’d been taken away-or run away and been lost, then found and not returned. It kept hope alive in her heart, and she told James the boy would turn up, wait and see! That he’d gone off to join the army, and some farmer or carter would be bringing him back soon enough, tired and hungry.”

“And Miss Olivia?”

Dr. Penrith frowned. “Now there was an odd thing, you know. Miss Olivia never cried. She went out with the searchers, riding a pony because of her bad leg, and was gone all that day and the next, until I met her on one of the roads and sent her home. I’ve never seen a child look so tired; I thought she’d made herself ill again. But she stared at me, then said, ‘Richard wanted a tombstone with an angel on it. He told me so. I want to buy one, just a small one, to remember him by. Can you tell me how much it will cost?’ “

“How did you answer her?” Rutledge asked, intrigued.

“That they don’t put up tombstones until they have the body, and she said, quite seriously, ‘But that’s not true. There are markers in the churchyard for any man lost at sea.’ She had a raging fever by the time they got her home, and I heard no more about angels and tombstones.”

Rutledge found himself thinking of a poem in one of the earlier volumes. It began,

They stood an angel in the churchyard for the man they lost at sea,

But for him I loved so dearly, there was never place for me

To come and mourn his passing, touch the earth beneath my hand,

Or bring him blood-red roses…

He tried to recall the last lines and failed.

But Hamish, the soft Scottish burr clear in his voice, provided them for him.

Alas, a frailer angel watches where you sleep

With pansies-for remembrance – lying at your feet.

Olivia herself had known where Richard lay-find him there, and the case was made!

When tea was brought, Rutledge asked about James Cheney’s death, and Dr. Penrith shook his head sadly. “I couldn’t tell Rosamund how he died. And at least he’d had sense enough to put the barrel to his temple and not in his mouth, for all the world to know what he’d been about! But who can say whether it was accidental or not, whether the thought came to him suddenly and he hadn’t the will to turn it aside. One round was all he had put in the cylinder, and he used it. To end the pain. That was my guess.”

“Who was in the house that day?”

“They all were. Olivia. Nicholas. Rosamund. And Adrian, of course. FitzHugh was there, he’d brought over the new brood mares. It was Cormac came for me, pleading for me to make haste, to do something. But it was useless. I knew that as soon as I saw James’ body.”

“And you never thought of murder?”

“Good God! Self-murder is terrible enough! And who would want to kill James? He was a kind man, a good man. The house had seen enough grief already, who could possibly want to add to Rosamund’s burdens? There’s no one alive that cruel!”

Agitated, he spilled his tea, and Rutledge knelt to mop it up with his napkin, his back to the scorching fire.

“What did Olivia have to say when she was told of James’ death?”

“I don’t remember,” Penrith said testily. “It was a long time ago, and I was not concerned with Olivia, I was worried about Rosamund, and her father. He never recovered his spirits after that, you could see it clear.”

The old eyes, fading into a milky gray, looked back into a past he didn’t want to remember. “I walked behind their coffins,” he said sadly. “Not because they’d been in my care. Not for Adrian’s sake. But because in that house I found something I’ve never felt since under any roof, not even my own. Laughter was there, and happiness. And most of all, a glory. Brian FitzHugh told me once that it was in the very stones of the Hall, that it had been handed down with the Trevelyan blood and the Trevelyan land. That’s romantic nonsense, an Irishman’s blarney. But I knew what it was, I knew from the very first day I set eyes on her. It was Rosamund…”

Emotion had drained him. He began to nod over his tea cup, head sinking slowly until his chin rested on his cravat, and Rutledge gently removed the saucer from the gnarled fingers. Then, with the wet napkin and the tray, he slipped quietly out of the room and into the-by comparison-frigid passage.

Mrs. Hawkins, taking the tray from him, said apologetically, “He slips off to sleep easier every day. I wonder sometimes…” But she left the sentence unfinished, and instead showed him to the door. “Thank you for coming to cheer him a little,” she said. “I don’t expect you’ll be in Borcombe much longer, but I know he’d be glad to see you again before you leave.”