The Murder Stone

by Charles Todd

  And then he was gone, leaving Francesca sitting there with no answer to his accusations.

  A storm in the night set a shutter to banging, and Francesca got up to do something about it.

  The noise led her to the sitting room, and she lifted the sash to reach out and fasten the shutter again. Afterward she walked through the dark house with the shades of her cousins, living and dead forlornly searching for comfort.

  In the drawing room was the piano that had been dear Freddy’s pride. She touched the case, suddenly inconsolable, wanting more than anything to hear his music again. The fourth-born, tall like all the Hattons, a superb rider, an excellent tennis player, he could coax the most beautiful sounds from any instrument. Francis Hatton had asked him once, jesting, where such a talent had come from. He’d been intensely proud of him, as he was of all his orphaned grandchildren.

  “Nowhere,” the grinning boy had promptly answered. “It’s my very own.”

  It was Peter the engineer who had laid out a tennis court behind the shrubbery, and it had seen hard use. Even her grandfather had played on summer evenings, and they had all worked toward the day they could defeat him.

  Weeds were overtaking the court now.

  There wasn’t, she realized, a single corner of River’s End that didn’t echo with memories. . . . Everywhere they whispered to her, beckoned to her, reached out for her, as if refusing to let go. They offered—comfort.

  In the end she went up to her grandfather’s room and sat in his chair again, looking across at the empty bed where he had spent so many of his last hours.

  “Did you do these things, Grandfather? Or are they lies?” she asked the pristine coverlet and the folded sheets and pillow slips that lay at the foot, where Mrs. Lane had set them after ironing them.

  Francesca could almost picture him lying there, his green eyes fixed on her. . . .

  A memory came rushing back to her, shocking her. Leaning back in the chair, she gasped, as if a hand had slapped her across the face.

  The words that her grandfather had muttered in his half-sleep not a fortnight ago—

  It was late afternoon and Francis Hatton lay quietly as he so often did now. Francesca couldn’t quite be sure what was wakefulness and what was that limbo between sleep and unconsciousness. It didn’t matter; she could feel his presence, and that alone was enough.

  Sitting by the side of the bed, she began to talk to him, a habit she’d fallen into of late, almost like thinking aloud. The post the day before had brought a letter from a friend in London. It had been painful to read. Her own emotions had been raw enough, but the despondency in the letter had overwhelmed her. And as she had done as a child, Francesca found herself pouring out her anguish to the one person who always listened.

  “It’s the endless lists of dead and missing and wounded. There’s always someone we know, someone we met at a party—a brother—a friend. It numbs the heart, until it’s impossible to feel anything any longer. Everyone we meet is in mourning. The newspapers tell us almost nothing—mainly lies. The correspondents who did go over write mostly platitudes about gallantry among the allies or atrocities by the Germans. The Army won’t allow observers at the Front. Even mail is heavily censored! And how can we be winning when the dead go on piling up, and nothing has changed in France? The Exeter newspapers only repeat what they’re told by the War Office, that we’ll soon be victorious on the Somme. But Sally writes that the wounded tell another tale, that we lose as much as we gain. And that the only end we can hope for is stalemate.”

  She turned to look out the window, struggling to regain her composure. But after a moment tears got the better of her. “I can’t bear the thought of going back to London!”

  There was a slight movement on the bed, as if her grandfather had heard her. As if her need had reached him.

  It was unimaginable relief to unburden her soul.

  “It’s not cowardice,” she went on earnestly, trying to explain why she should be so derelict in her duty. If the other women could stand it, why couldn’t she? She answered herself aloud. “It’s helplessly watching so much suffering—I can’t close my eyes to that, try as I will.” But the figure on the bed was still. “I wish it would stop, that’s all. The fighting. I’m no longer sure we shall be able to win!”

  But here at River’s End, where there had always been sanctuary—here was another man slowly, painfully dying before his time. In her dreams, she was beginning to tangle them together—the cousins living and starkly dead, the long trains filled with bloody bandages and white faces, and her grandfather’s helpless body, no longer moving resolutely to his iron will but locked in a silent, hopeless defeat.

  Dr. Nealy had told her two days before that there was no possibility of full recovery—that Francis Hatton’s torment could go on for months—a year.

  Reaching out for something, some response, she cried, “Is it all in vain? Did we lose Freddy and Simon and Peter—did this happen to you—all for nothing?”

  And as if her wretchedness had gotten through the fog of his damaged mind, he seemed to rouse himself, there on the bed, to struggle to answer her . . . to reassure her.

  “Victorious . . . victorious . . .” he said, over and over again, his hand moving a little on the coverlet.

  It nearly broke her heart with joy. For the next several days, it buoyed her spirits and let her sleep a little.

  But what if he hadn’t? she asked herself now.

  What if he wasn’t predicting the outcome of the war? What if, in the darkness that clouded his brain, it wasn’t her words that had reached him? What if somehow her anguish had touched a chord of memory, and sparked an anguish of his own? What if he was saying the name of a woman he had once cared deeply for—or hated enough to kill . . .

  Victoria—Victoria . . .

  Not victorious.

  In the name of God—she couldn’t have mistaken him—

  Yet his words had been dreadfully slurred, the result of his stroke.

  No. No—! She fought the fear now, and felt the doubt drive through the certainty.

  I wish I had never heard her name, she thought. I hate the very sound of it! I wish I had never set eyes on Richard Leighton!

  The room seemed to grow colder, shutting her out.

  As if Francis Hatton was furious with her.

  She got up hastily and went back to her own bedchamber, listening to the storm climbing about the hills as if searching for something. Or someone.

  How long had it taken all those men to comb the Sussex Downs for Victoria Leighton? Days? Weeks? While husband and child waited in desperate hope?

  Had it been difficult to cover the terrain? Had the searchers come back tired and depressed, only to be chivvied by Alasdair MacPherson’s fears into setting out again at first light? Had Richard’s father searched with them, dogged and determined? Had it rained—or had sun reddened their faces? Had it been summer hot, or windswept cold?

  It didn’t matter, Francesca thought, climbing back into bed and drawing the old dog nearer, for the living warmth the devoted creature offered.

  Nothing she, Francesca Hatton, could do now would ever bring Victoria Leighton back again. Whatever had become of her . . .

  Why couldn’t the woman rest in peace?

  Because Victoria’s father and child couldn’t let go.

  THE COUSINS

  Simon . . . the warrior

  I was sixteen that summer. I’d begun to think ahead to Oxford, and I was already of two minds about that. It’s what I’d studied toward, of course, but not what I really wanted. I told myself, if I do well in the first term, I’ll ask to go to Sandhurst. Perhaps then Grandfather will listen to what I have to say and give me permission to become a soldier.

  Would it seem odd, when the time came, to go away from here and live among strangers, leaving behind all that was familiar? My brothers. The house at River’s End. Cousin Cesca. Grandfather . . . The Valley had been the center of my life for so long I’d taken root ther
e. I couldn’t remember any other home. And I’d had a feeling for some time that Grandfather was hoping I’d give up my dream of Sandhurst and take over the estate’s management, training for the day the house would be mine. I wasn’t certain I should inherit it. Peter called me mad. I called it independence. God knows he talked incessantly about building railroads in Patagonia or across Burma. My brother ought to have understood why the Army called to me.

  It was late July, I think, when we finished a hard-fought game of tennis, Robin and I, and we threw ourselves down afterward on the cool, thick grass, looking up into a cloudless summer sky.

  I hadn’t intended to say anything. It wasn’t something I wished to talk about. But the words came out anyway, as I lifted myself to one elbow. “I’m having that nightmare again.”

  Robin was tossing the tennis ball to Maggie, one of the dogs, watching her race across the court and catch it, flinging up her head in glee.

  “I don’t remember when you didn’t have it,” he told me. Ever practical.

  He’d heard me pacing the floor God knows how many times in the small hours of the morning. And being Robin, sometimes he’d come tap at the door, to inquire if I was all right.

  “It stopped for a while,” I said finally. “For nearly six months, in fact. I don’t know why. Now it’s back.”

  “Same as before? The nightmare’s course, I mean?”

  “Yes.” I hesitated. I’d never described it before this. It was as if putting it into words gave it a reality a dream never owned. Robin didn’t press. And after a time I went on. “I see a woman, smeared all over in blood, lying on the Murder Stone. I don’t know who she is—or why she’s there. Or how I came to see her. But I am quite certain she’s dead, and I’m walking into the garden, the sun is high overhead, and there’s no one else about. The dogs are inside—with Grandfather, at a guess. One of the woman’s hands moves, then she’s still. I’m terrified; it’s as if I’ve never seen someone covered in blood before—and the shock is intense. And then Grandfather is striding across the grass, and he says something as he puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me away. And that’s the end of it. No explanation, no sense of when or how or why it happened. All the same, it’s vivid. As if I could touch the woman and feel real flesh.”

  Robin took the ball, smeared with saliva now, and threw it again before wiping his hands on his trousers. Maggie went dashing madly after it. “It wasn’t real to start with, you know. It’s those bloody games you played out there—it’s no wonder you’ve had nightmares!” I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not.

  I didn’t reply.

  “Ever ask Grandfather about it?” Robin turned his head to look at me. I was glad to see only concern in his face.

  “Lord, no!” It was my turn to throw the ball. Maggie was waiting, her body quivering with anticipation. “I never quite screw up my courage somehow. It’s rather like opening a door you know is better left closed. . . .”

  Robin grinned at me. “Old man, you can’t have your cake and eat it! Either you make peace with this wretched dream—or you ask Grandfather what might have triggered it. Simple as that.”

  I returned the grin. But inside I knew it had never been that simple.

  It was not until the night before I left for Oxford that I finally spoke of it to my grandfather.

  He listened intently, his face impassive. When I’d finished, I said, “It would help if I knew whether the nightmare was real or not. Is there any way to explain it?”

  Grandfather said nothing. Then he clapped a hand on my shoulder, as he’d done when I was a child and had pleased him. “I’ve never found a dead body on the Stone. Unless it was one of your ragtag army slain or melodramatically dying. Still, I’m glad you asked,” he said. “If only to set your mind at rest.”

  It did. I couldn’t have said why. But it was as if a great black cloud had been blown away. Perhaps because I’d never known him to lie to me.

  Later, what I remembered most about that conversation was how sad Grandfather’s eyes were.

  I told myself at the time it was because I was leaving River’s End and he knew how much he would miss me.

  On the train to London, I watched my smiling reflection in the rain-streaked window, lighthearted, already pulling away from my childhood. Grandfather sat quietly beside me, as if he understood. He was looking down at his hands clasped quietly in his lap. I was the first to leave; it couldn’t have been easy for him.

  She hadn’t been there. . . . It was only a childhood nightmare that had grown steadily worse because I’d been reluctant—afraid?—to tell anyone.

  And yet that dream had been as vivid as any real memory I possessed. Odd what tricks the mind can play.

  “I’ve never found a dead body on the Stone. . . .” Grandfather had told me.

  So why was I haunted by the certainty that I had?

  CHAPTER 6

  The next morning was cool and clear, with a fresh wind blowing down the long valley of the Exe.

  Francesca was awake and dressed well before Mrs. Lane came walking up the drive.

  The housekeeper was surprised to find her mistress buried in the back of the linen closet, intent on sorting sheets.

  “Miss Francesca!” the older woman exclaimed in dismay. “Whatever are you thinking of!”

  “The funeral is tomorrow. I was restless. I couldn’t sleep—I needed something to keep my mind and hands occupied.”

  “But this will never do—”

  With a sigh, Francesca relinquished the sheets in her arms and let the housekeeper persuade her to come down to the kitchen for a nice cup of tea. The English panacea for everything.

  As if to distract an unruly child, Mrs. Lane launched into an account of her own morning.

  “I was never so surprised,” she prattled, rinsing the teapot with cold water, “to find Mrs. Horner, the rector’s housekeeper, on my doorstep before seven!”

  Mrs. Horner lived in the cottage next but one to Mrs. Lane. Childless, both of them, the two women had found service a way to fill empty lives, and each was loyal to a fault to her employer.

  “That’s usually,” Francesca dutifully answered. “She’s usually at the Rectory by that hour to prepare breakfast for Mr. Stevens.”

  “Indeed she is! But she was that upset she wanted a word with me before she left for the Rectory.”

  Waiting for the water to boil, Mrs. Lane turned a worried face toward Francesca. “That man who was here yesterday—”

  “Mr. Leighton?”

  “That one.” It was a measure of her condemnation that Mrs. Lane refused to use the name. “Just after tea yesterday, Mr. Stevens thought he saw someone walking in the churchyard, and went to discover who it was. And it was that man! Poking about among the graves, first this one and then that, and by the time the rector got to the churchyard wall, he was up the hill where that stump of a cross is, the old one.”

  It had been, once, a fine Celtic cross put up by a Devon family for a son killed in a storm. And the cross itself had been toppled in another tempest in the 1700s. The general opinion was that God had expressed his wrath twice, and no one was willing to risk it a third time by putting the head back on the shaft. Green with old moss, they’d lain side by side ever since.

  “What did she say the man wanted?” Francesca asked with trepidation.

  “He was looking for a grave—or so he said. And he asked the history of that broken cross.”

  “It has nothing to do with the Leightons—for that matter, it’s a good three hundred years old!”

  The teakettle began to whistle. Mrs. Lane turned back to her stove. “He was on about that mother of his being missing, and Mr. Stevens told him roundly that it was not likely he’d find her here in Devon!”

  “So Mrs. Horner reported?”

  “Indeed, and in the end, Mr. Stevens invited the man back to the Rectory and tea, though he’d long since had his own.”

  “And what did they talk about?” Mrs. Horner had long
ears—and a lively imagination.

  “About his mother, mostly. That’s how Mrs. Horner got the whole of the story. Mr. Stevens asked how a son, age eight, could remember whether his mother was a good woman or a bad one. How he could judge in what way her own character might have contributed to her downfall or her death.”

  That was very blunt! Francesca thought. Aloud she asked, “And how did our Mr. Leighton reply?”

  “He said that he was not interested in defining his mother’s character, he only wished to know what had become of her.”

  “Did he make any mention of murder? Or my grandfather?”

  “Mrs. Horner said nothing about that—nor did I wish to ask outright.” It was Hatton business, and not for the ears of the village at large.

  Francesca felt a sweep of relief. “Well, if he’s only telling people that his mother is missing— But who can say what he might reveal if he stays here long enough? I wish he would be satisfied and go!”

  “Not much chance of that, is there?” Mrs. Lane poured two cups, set one before Francesca with a linen serviette, and went on with her account. “Afterward Mrs. Horner asked Mr. Stevens how he could have been so patient with such a one. And Mr. Stevens, good Christian soul that he is, answered that he rather thought the man was ill and needed absolution.”

  “A strange way to go about it. Seeking a murdered woman.”

  “Well, as to that, if he’s ill, it could be his mind is playing tricks with him. You know as well as I do, dwelling on the past because there’s nothing much else to do, day in and day out, can warp his thinking. What angered me the most was Mrs. Horner telling me that Rector had agreed to look through the church records for his mother’s name. Mr. Stevens is a good-hearted man, but in my book he’s being led on!”

  “What, does Leighton believe my grandfather killed her, and then out of a bad conscience gave her Christian burial in St. Mary Magdalene’s churchyard!”