Charles Todd - Wings of Fire

“What made her think she had killed them?” He was fascinated, pretending to drink his tea and over the rim of his cup watching the old face in the lamp’s light, trying to read the eyes.

‘‘Ah, but did she? I wondered about that for the longest time. Miss Olivia, she said it was deeper than that, she thought Mr. Cormac, he was in love with Miss Rosamund. But there was no speaking of it, not to Miss Rosamund. She’d smile and say her spirits were fine, she’d just decided that marriage was not worth the grieving afterward.”

“Then how did she come to die?”

“That were odd, sir. One day she said to Miss Olivia, ‘I think I’ll ask Tom to come for the weekend. I need to speak to him. Legal matters, and perhaps after that’s done, we may find it possible to talk about other things.’ I was on the stairs, helping Mr. Cormac and Mr. Nicholas move a chest down from the attics that Mr. Cormac wanted to take back to his London rooms. You could hear their voices as you came down, talking in the drawing room. Then Miss Rosamund, she came out, she looked up at me, and her face turned that bleak I wanted to weep. I didn’t know what’d unsettled her, but it was there in her eyes. Cold as death. It was Miss Olivia who found the note she left, and burned it in the grate.”

“A note? I was never told that there was a note found when Rosamund died!” Rutledge said, appalled.

Sadie sat down, heavily and with great effort, then asked him to fetch her homemade wine, from the small cupboard by the dry sink. When she’d finished half the glass and got her breath with more comfort, she said, “No. Miss Olivia, she burned it, like I said. It was written in a scrawl you’d hardly recognize, and hidden under the pillow. Just a name. And a warning. ’Twas all Miss Olivia needed. She went whiter than she was and bent over her mother’s body in such grief I couldn’t bear it. So I walked out of the room and went to fetch Mr. Nicholas, The note was never spoken of again. I didn’t need to be told. I’d heard the hounds myself since poor little Richard was taken. I knew who’d put the overdose in Miss Rosamund’s water. Not her, not that woman so full of life and love-she’d not have gone to her God with self-murder on her hands!” It was spoken with a vehemence that brought an angry flush to Sadie’s cheeks. In a stronger voice she added, “The twins, they were still too young to know anything about such things, only that their mother’d taken ill in the night and overdosed herself. Mr. Chambers, he was heartbroken. You’d have thought he was the grieving widower, not the family’s lawyer. It was the Gabriel hounds that whispered in her ear, bending over her as she dropped into that last sleep, and she’d known, she’d known where the danger was!”

“The danger to herself?”

“Oh, aye, that, and the danger to Miss Olivia. Because the truth of the matter was, you see, Mr. Cormac’d set his cap next for Miss Olivia. If he couldn’t become a Trevelyan in one way, he’d do it another. And Miss Rosamund, she wouldn’t marry him. Nor after begging her, how could he ask for Miss Olivia, without it all coming out? She’d have told Mr. Chambers too when he came, sure as God gave her the breath. It was what she’d decided, after all the worry and the sleepnessness. He was in a bind, and the easy answer was to remove the light of that house. Miss Rosamund, she’d used every excuse to put Mr. Chambers off, and he hadn’t run, he still wanted her with all his heart. He’d have done whatever she asked. He’d have questioned Olivia, too, and she might have told him at long last what was on her soul. But when Miss Rosamund died, Mr. Chambers was so sunk in his own pain that there was no way of reaching out to him. Miss Olivia buried her mother and told the world that grief had overwhelmed her in the night. Mr. Smedley, he loved that family, and he wouldn’t hear of suicide. Nor Dr. Penrith. He said her hands had been shaking, she’d been in a muddle from no sleep, and it was easy for her to make such a tragic mistake-dosing herself rather than waking one of the servants from their rest. She was that thoughtful, people believed it was true. And her killer counted on that to go scot-free! Who was there to cry murder? Miss Olivia? Who burned that paper?”

“If it was murder-”

She looked at him pityingly. “I’ve laid out more than half this village in my time, dead of accidents, dead of sickness, dead of broken hearts-it’s common enough, dying. Aye, sometimes murder’s been done too, but Dr. Penrith was a good man, he could find that needle in the haystack. And we all knew each other well enough to guess whose hand had done it: the husband, the lover, the jealous neighbor. But it was different at the Hall. There was none there who didn’t love Miss Rosamund dearly, and Miss Olivia knew they’d fight against her, unwilling to believe any such tale as she could spin. He was careful, and very clever. There was no proof! But that was when Miss Olivia and Mr. Nicholas took Mr. Brian’s children out of their will. No house, and the money tied tight in trust. However long and loud the hound might bay, it wouldn’t be for their blood. But he came for her, anyway, in the end. Because of the poems. Because he has the money now to do as he pleases. Because she knew what she knew, and it was time for him to marry. There’s a new provision in the deed of that house that if Cormac FitzHugh ever chooses to live in the Hall, he must never marry. Mr. Chambers, he thought it was because Miss Olivia loved Mr. Cormac and didn’t want him to bring another bride there. But she said it was her house, she’d do as she liked with it, and nobody could stop her. Which was true enough. And Mr. Cormac, he’s never married. But he’ll live in the Hall, and I hope, with all my heart, that the hounds come for him there, in the dark, when there’s no help to be had!”

She began to weep, tears running down her white, withered face in ugly runnels, as if there had never been places for them to fall before, and now they couldn’t find a way.

Rutledge found himself breathing hard, his body tight with black and wordless rage. He gave her his handkerchief and she took it, fumbling in the blindness of the tears. She touched her face with a dignity that was heart wrenching, because these were not tears for herself. She still hadn’t cried for herself.

After a long silence, Rutledge asked, “Why did Olivia choose to die? And why did Nicholas die with her?”

Sadie shook her head. “If she wanted you to know that, she’d of told you. In her poetry. Somehow.”

And, God help him, she had.

Huskily Rutledge said, “More to the point, did she tell you?”

“She didn’t have to. I may be old and tired and useless, but there was more to me, once, and a heart to match it. I knew without the telling!”

“Was Cormac ever in love with Olivia?”

“He was deathly afraid of her, if I’m a judge. It was the only thing he ever showed fear of, and that fear was nigh on to superstitious! Miss Olivia said he didn’t believe in God, but that he believed with whatever heart he had, her death would surely be his death.”

For the first time in a very long hour, Hamish stirred and spoke as clearly as if he’d sat there at the table with them from the start. Or because of the tension that held him like a vise, had Rutledge himself formed the words aloud? Somehow he was never, afterward, sure.

“She’s wrong there, it was no’ her death that brought him down, but Nicholas Cheney’s. And yon lassie not understanding it, and sending for the Yard.”

Sadie looked up at him, her eyes no longer clear and sharp. “Aye, it’s true enough,” she answered. “It was Mr. Nicholas dying. But how could he have left Mr. Nicholas alive? He’d have come for Mr. Cormac with his bare hands the instant anything happened to Miss Olivia. However carefully it were done. That’s all that saved Mr. Cormac for twenty years, Miss Olivia not wanting to see Mr. Nicholas hanged! No, they had to die together. That was the only chance Mr. Cormac had in this world.”