Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

I’d seen that the captain wore one arm in a sling as well, and I asked him where he’d served. “France,” he answered. “I’m on my way back again.”

“Is your arm healed?”

“Near enough. I don’t have to carry a rifle or a pack. It’ll do. How is yours healing?”

I had to admit it was not doing as well as I’d hoped.

He knew Jack Franklin, as it turned out, and we spent the journey to London in conversation. Jack had been our neighbor before he’d married and gone to live in Warwick. My father had had high hopes for him in the Army, and Captain Banks promised to give Jack our best wishes when next they met.

In London I changed trains for Tonbridge, and we rolled through a dreary rain that lasted almost all the way, lashing the windows and dampening my spirits.

After Sevenoaks, I was alone in the compartment, and I removed my sling, tucking it in the small case beside me. Flexing my fingers, I gingerly tested my arm. If I was careful, it would do.

The early dark caught up with me long before I’d reached my destination, but through the rain-wet windows I could see rolling downs, the lights of farms, and the houses of villages through which we passed with only the briefest of stops.

The fruit trees were bare, but I had seen clouds of blossoms, coming up from Dover the spring we arrived in England from the Colonel’s last posting in India, and their beauty had taken my breath away after the dry featureless expanse of the Northwest Frontier. Now the hop fields were flat and hardly recognizable save for the oast houses, like broken windmills. In one pasture, sheep huddled, backs to the wind and almost invisible in the shelter of a stone wall. A man in a cart crouched wretchedly under his umbrella as he waited for the train to thunder past a crossing. I think my resolution dropped with the weather and I wished myself home again, sitting by the fire in comfort.

In his letter, Jonathan Graham had told me that I would be met. But when the train pulled into Tonbridge the winter dusk had turned to darkness, and there was no one waiting as I stepped out onto the windswept platform. For a mercy the rain had stopped. I could see the station master talking with the engineer, and so I walked into the booking office where it was warmer. It too was as empty. Then through the front window I saw the flicker of a lamp in the street beyond and heard the sound of a horse being turned. I went through to find a small dogcart there, and a driver muffled to the teeth against the cold.

“Miss Crawford?”

“Yes, I’m Miss Crawford.”

He grudgingly got down to fetch my valise and my small case from the platform, then returned to hand me up into the cart. But I shook my head. “I’ll ride with you, instead.” Reaching for the blanket folded on a seat, I realized that it was colder than I was.

Without a word he settled me into the seat next to him. As he climbed up to join me, his bulk blocked the worst of the wind. I huddled beside him and set my teeth to stop them from chattering. In the cold air, my arm ached. Broken bones tend to do that.

The horse snorted and began to walk on, and I said to the man holding the reins, “What is your name, please?”

“Robert.”

It was all the information I got for several miles as we left the lights of Tonbridge behind and the darkness settled around us like a cloak. The blanket across my knees began to unthaw and I kept my gloved fingers cradled in an edge of it. I watched houses and then the occasional farm pass by, windows lit, people no doubt just sitting down to their tea. I felt remarkably alone, and even unwanted. I could sense Robert’s hostility and in a way understood it-it was my fault he’d had to drive out on a night like this.

We must have traveled five miles or more beyond the last village when we came to a large, rambling house set back in the trees behind a high wall. It was brick, and every window seemed to be blazing with light. At first I thought it must be my destination, ready to welcome me, but as we passed by, Robert must have sensed my surprise.

“The asylum,” he said, and fell silent again.

The horse trotted on, the sound of his hooves and the cart wheels filling the night.

Robert reached behind him into the cart and brought out a rug I hadn’t seen in the darkness at the station. He thrust it toward me, and I took it, gratefully wrapping it over my shoulders. The wind seemed to cut straight through my traveling coat, touching my skin with sharp fingers.

Some time later, the cart’s nearside wheels dropped off the road into a deep rut. The jolt caught me off guard, and I was nearly thrown from my seat onto the verge.

Robert’s hand came out in the nick of time and caught me, holding me back as the horse regained the road and the cart stopped rocking wildly. I hadn’t even had time to cry out, it had all happened so fast. But for the quickness of the man beside me, I’d have been pitched out on my head. Or worse, perhaps, on my still-healing arm.

I shuddered at the close call, and Robert said, “Beg pardon. I must have dozed off.”

My heart was racing, and I could still feel his fingers in that bruising grip.

I’d have been happy to see a stoat or a fox along the road, any living thing, by the time I could glimpse the lights of another village ahead of us.

Cottages, houses, then a pub, The Bells, its sign swinging in the wind, a cricket pitch on the other side of the road, and then the tall silhouette of a church set on a slight rise behind a low stone wall. To one side was what must have been the rectory, a lovely tall black and white Tudor house, and through the mullioned windows I could see a comfortable parlor done up in blue and cream, with a pair of china dogs set on the windowsill, their backs to the stormy night.

We turned the other way, under the sheltering limbs of two great trees overhanging the wall, and then another turning brought us into a lane with four or five houses in a row. The largest of them was Georgian and backed up to the far side of the churchyard. Gardens that must have been colorful in summer lay in the shadow of an iron fence, and a gate set into it led up the walk to an elegant door.

A single lamp burned above it, and the horse drew to a halt, as if he knew he had come home.

Robert got down and came around to help me, taking the rugs from me. Then he opened the iron gate for me and carried my valise and case up the walk before lifting the knocker.

A maid answered the summons almost at once, opening the door wide and welcoming me inside. Robert set down my bags, then disappeared into the night as the door shut on him.

“Mrs. Graham asked me to show you directly to your room, Miss Crawford. There’s dinner in half an hour. I’ll come for you to show you the way.”

“And you are?”

“Susan, Miss.” She bobbed a curtsey, smiling in welcome.

“Thank you, Susan.” I was glad not to have to present myself to Arthur’s mother travel worn and with muddy hems.

The hall floor was patterned parquet, and on a gateleg table between two doorways stood a vase with dried flowers arranged in it. Above it was a fine oil painting of a black horse, and I wondered if this was Merlin the Wise. As I followed Susan up the lovely curving stairs and down a wide passage, I thought of my mother’s last words of advice.

If you wish to make an impression, my dear, wear the blue gown.

As always, she was right. The blue gown suited this house very well.

There was a fire on the hearth of the room I was taken to, and warm water in the pitcher on the stand. I washed my face and hands, then changed my clothes. I was just tidying my hair when Susan came to collect me.

We went down to a dining room where only one end of the long table had been set. A woman was standing near it, waiting for me. Arthur’s mother.