by Charles Todd
Yet it had been Simon who had always called the white stone in the garden the Murder Stone . . . He’d played his bloodiest games there.
“But why should Victoria Leighton come to my door?”
“How should I know?” he said, his voice strained and bitter. “It was an immoral relationship from start to finish, whatever it was she shared with Mr. Hatton. And in one way or another, its evil has spilled over on to the rest of us.”
“I need your help!” she urged him. “Why has Victoria come back? Why now?”
“Have you told Richard Leighton about this visit?”
“How can I? He’s spent a lifetime searching for her, believing she was torn from a loving family—she’s a victim. Should I say to him, ‘No, that’s wrong, she was tired of you, and wanted my grandfather instead. She didn’t love you, you see—she thought she loved him.’ He would be destroyed!”
When he said nothing, she went on earnestly, “My dilemma is this: To answer my questions, I must hurt him far more than he deserves. And if all she has said to me is true—I’m going to lose him!”
“Sometimes God puts burdens on us for our own sakes. I saw Victoria Leighton only once—that was in the railway station in London. I heard someone call to her and turned, because I recognized the name. She had a quality—God help me, priest or not, I envied the man she was with! And for years afterward I dreamed of her at night—” The words were wrung from him.
“Please—!”
“Do you really want me to answer you?”
Francesca waited.
“If you are asking me if you are Francis Hatton’s child by this woman, I don’t know. I can only say it is—possible. Why did your grandfather love you with such intensity, why did he guard you—and at the end never tell you? Because you were her child? I thought she was dead, you see. I thought you were all he had. I disapproved of Francis Hatton, and I disapproved of you! She taints everything she touches, Victoria Leighton. I wouldn’t put anything beyond her.”
Francesca stared at him, speechless.
“My advice is the same as it was before. Walk away from this marriage and don’t look back!” He set a tea towel to soak up the rainwater creeping under the door. “You’d better go, before the storm worsens.”
“It’s Richard who will be hurt a second time, if I turn my back on him without a word. Is that kinder than telling him why? What must I do about Richard!”
“I can tell you only what I suspect. And such speculation is unwise. I repeat, I have never seen any man love a child as Francis Hatton loved you. I never understood it. What was there about you that drew him so unaccountably? Was it the connection to her?”
“Why does Victoria Leighton hate me so much, if I’m her daughter?”
But he wouldn’t give her a direct answer. And thus she left, unsatisfied.
As they fought the rain on the long drive home, Francesca asked Bill about the woman who had died on the Murder Stone.
He seemed unwilling to answer at first. “It was a long time ago—”
“You must tell me! Who was she? And did she die?”
“I don’t know who she was. I helped your grandfather put her in the barn until dark—in that old wooden blanket chest—when it would be safe to take her away. When I came back later, she was gone. I never asked him what he had done with her. But there were long scratches in the lid, as if she’d tried to lift the lid and couldn’t.”
Long scratches—Francesca had once nicked her own fingertips on them, and never suspected—
“Didn’t it worry you? Didn’t it seem odd that a woman had died in the back garden and then disappeared?”
“It was Mr. Hatton’s business, Miss Francesca. Not mine. If he had ordered me to bury her, I would have done it. And asked no questions. I trusted him to know what was best.”
“Could it have been Mrs. Leighton?”
“I don’t know, Miss. I have wondered sometimes. Listening to you and Mr. Leighton talk as I did, on that journey to Essex. I did wonder.”
“Did Simon see her body?”
“Yes, Miss. But he didn’t understand. Mr. Hatton told Master Simon it was a game and took him away so that the lady could rise up and go home.”
“Almost a fortnight ago, a woman called at the house. Quite early in the morning, before Mrs. Lane had come up the hill. She claimed to be my mother.”
“I’d not let it bother me, Miss. You’re Mr. Edward’s daughter, right enough.”
“How do you know?”
“Mr. Hatton said so, Miss,” he answered simply, and turned his attention to the traffic out of Exeter.
When she reached River’s End, Francesca walked out in the rain to see the stone at the bottom of the garden. Was it possible Victoria had flung herself here, dramatically daring Francis to let her die, blood spreading across the ground and marking the white surface?
Careless of the child watching, bent on her own histrionics and their effect on her audience . . . Had she hoped the servants might see, and take her side?
Would he have let her die? Did he allow her to die? Or had he merely done the expedient thing and got her out of sight, leaving her in the barn while he comforted Simon?
Victoria, furious and thwarted, might well have walked away. Injured, perhaps, but not dying. Had the scars on her wrists been a constant reminder of failure . . . ?
That night Francesca dreamed of Victoria Leighton again.
Dr. Nealy came and pronounced the fractured bone healed sufficiently for Francesca to walk down the short length of the church nave, if she gave her solemn word to use the crutches afterward.
Mr. Branscombe arrived at the church one morning with a mason, and a chest heavy enough to require three men to lift it out of the motorcar.
It held the five memorial tablets she’d commissioned for her cousins, white scrolled marble with deeply incised lettering, giving the names of Simon, Frederick, Harold, Robin, and Peter Hatton, their ranks, their regiments, and the dates of their brief lives.
Why had Francis Hatton never ordered them? Out of grief—or because none of the boys had been his? The Hattons had always been arrogantly proud of their long bloodlines. . . . Surely the cousins deserved their memorial—
Francesca ran a finger over Peter’s name, wondering if it was wise to put that up with the rest. Silly superstition! Yet, if he was still alive—
Already Branscombe was asking why she had taken it in her head to spend money on an ex-soldier in a private clinic in Hampshire. She was wasting her inheritance, he scolded—
He had assumed it was someone she had met in London, on the night trains full of wounded. She didn’t refute it.
She did ask the solicitor if her grandfather had left a box of ledgers in the care of Branscombe and Branscombe. “To do with the Little Wanderers Foundation,” she added.
“It’s possible, Miss Hatton, that his health broke before he could see to it. He was still clear in his mind when I wrote the Codicil about the stone, but soon afterward he began wandering.”
Francesca sat in one of the nave chairs to watch the mason chisel and fit each tablet, then seal it in place in the church wall.
The cousins would be here to watch her marry Richard Leighton. It was somehow a comforting thought. They’d taken to teasing her, when she was sixteen, about the man she would marry. If she smiled at the baker’s son, he was soon mocked unmercifully, until they were all falling down laughing. Peter had fashioned a piece of cheesecloth into a veil, and Harry had been the vicar, while Robin walked Freddy down a make-believe church aisle, swooning with happiness. It had been ridiculous, and the Tallon sons had begged the cousins to do it again. Francesca had vowed to remain a spinster, if she didn’t run away to enter a nunnery first, and the cousins had invented a dozen ways of tormenting her imaginary groom.
When the work was finished, Francesca gave her approval and then Branscombe paid the mason. It was, she thought, as if the boys were now officially dead. . . .
The man hurried off to The Spotted Ca
lf to drink up his profits, and Branscombe escorted her home.
In his case he had brought papers relating to the marriage, and a new will for her to sign.
Francesca shook her head.
“Call it foolishness, if you will,” she said. “I don’t want to sign it now.”
“It would not do to die intestate. You are a very wealthy woman. Property and wealth should be disposed of properly.”
“Yes, I understand. But I don’t want to sign anything.” If Peter was still alive, she must provide for him. And if the marriage fell through—
Branscombe tut-tutted, but in the end, she had her way, and he left with the case under his arm and nothing signed.
There had been no more anonymous letters. There had been no other visits from Victoria Leighton—or anyone else with ill will in mind.
Richard was away for a few days, settling his affairs in London. She missed him terribly.
That was surely not a sister’s love!
She wondered if he’d stop on his way to London and talk again with Alasdair MacPherson. . . .
The afternoon before her marriage, the rector climbed the hill to River’s End and was admitted to the sitting room, where Francesca was testing her leg without its supporting splints. Mrs. Lane was urging her to be careful and not dare rest her full weight on it.
When the rector walked across the threshold, she said, gaily, “Look! An ordinary foot!” She indicated her shoe. “I can even wear my slippers.”
She looked up at him, and saw at once the grim expression on his face.
“What has happened?” she asked, filled with a sudden dread.
“It’s the man in the hospital,” he said, as Mrs. Lane and Miss Trotter stood listening. “I’ve just received a telegram. Francesca—he killed himself yesterday. The doctors called it severe despondency. I think it might have been despair that he would ever be well again.”
She had been standing by the wall, holding on with one hand as she prepared to practice her first steps. “No. It can’t be true.”
“Here’s the telegram. You can see for yourself.”
“Telegrams can be sent by anyone.” Even Victoria Leighton. To spoil her wedding day. But even as she thought it she knew it wasn’t true.
He helped her back to her bed.
“Find someone who is going into Exeter tomorrow. Send a telegram to ask what’s become of Mrs. Passmore—”
I never really had him back, did I? Then why does it feel as if I’ve lost him twice? Dear Peter . . .
Miss Trotter, in the corner of the room behind the bed, whispered something under her breath. It sounded to Francesca as if she’d said “Hanging is a hard way to die.” Their eyes met, and Francesca saw the compassion in the old woman’s face.
To Stevens, she said, “I want him brought to the Valley. She can’t afford his funeral. Tell her it’s for the best, since he liked it so much here. There’s no one else to care.”
“I’ll see to it. Never fear.”
“Thank you. Now then, Mrs. Lane, we’ll walk once across the room again, and then rest. If Mr. Stevens will give me his arm.”
Shortly afterward, Mrs. Lane asked the rector to walk her home, as it was nearly dusk and she was anxious not to linger.
“Miss Trotter can do those splints as well as the doctor can,” Mrs. Lane said. “And your dinner is in the cupboard, Miss Francesca. It needs only to be warmed a bit.”
When they had gone, Francesca sent Miss Trotter to the stables to find Bill and tell him.
She couldn’t have borne to do it herself.
CHAPTER 36
It was just after dawn when Victoria Leighton came back.
“You ignored my warning,” she said, following Miss Trotter into the sitting room where Francesca was waiting this time. “The marriage is going forward.”
“I decided it was all a lie,” Francesca said, facing her down from the bed. “Your son may be dying. He wants to marry me. Why should you throw an impediment in the way?”
“I’d hardly call incest an impediment.”
“I have only your word for that. And papers that any good solicitor can show to be forgeries.”
There was a flicker of shadow in Victoria’s eyes. “Do as you wish, of course! I expect to be in attendance this morning. The uninvited guest. And when the rector asks if there is any objection, I’ll make my own.”
“Why are you going on with this? Do you know how much you’ll be hurting your own son?”
“Revenge, I suppose. Jealousy, perhaps, as you suggested earlier. When I cursed Francis all those years ago, I had no idea how much harm it would do. To him, to his sons, his grandsons—and you. He suffered, I can tell you.”
The words hurt. “I’ve come to the conclusion you’re nothing more than an actress hired to play a role,” she retorted scornfully. “Was it Alasdair MacPherson that put you up to this? You’re worth every penny he paid you.”
“An actress! Well, I’ve been called many things, but never that. Alasdair and Thomas will soon be attesting to who I am. Although Thomas’s daughter will be publicly branded a bastard when he does. I set that at your door, for not heeding me earlier. Why do you insist on this public denunciation? Why not simply call Richard to you and explain that it was a Hatton trick, you don’t love him after all, and don’t expect to marry him? He’ll believe you then. Since you care so much for his feelings, it’s surely the kindest way.”
“Even kinder is for you to go away. Before your family turns on you.”
“When I stand up in that church today, it will be noted that I came forward at great personal sacrifice to set the record straight. And I will be believed. People are always quite moved by sacrifice. I’ll then be brave and ask Thomas for a divorce, and he’ll be delighted to agree. My life will go on just as it did before. Incest is a crime, you know. And morally wrong as well. While there’s more than enough proof that I’m Victoria Leighton, there’s none at all to prove who you are.”
“We’ll cable Canada today—”
“By all means! By the time an answer gets here, the damage will be done. Richard will be gone. You won’t easily persuade him to come back. If you’d walked away from him when I told you the truth, he would never have needed to know I was alive! But you’re just as stubborn as Francis was, and you’ve made your own bed. Will that pompous solicitor of yours demand that you vacate this house? It would break Francis’s heart.”
“I think you’re bluffing.”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life. I didn’t care for Richard when he was eight—I have no reason to care about him now.” There was cold certainty in her voice, and whether she would be speaking the truth at the church, speak she assuredly would.
And Richard would have to stand there, in full public view, as his mother returned from the dead. He would have to listen to this malicious woman destroy his love for her, his love for Francesca, even the fragile happiness he was beginning to build out of the ruins of what his grandfather had made of him.
Or else be told in private that Francesca was calling off the wedding. Deserting him without explanation as Victoria had done when he was a child. Leaving him with silence, bitterness, and confusion.
To watch while the man she cared so deeply for suffered at her hands would be the worst punishment Victoria could inflict on her. Which surely was why Victoria was trying to drive her in that direction.
What’s more, there was no certainty that Victoria would ever be satisfied. When would she come back again with another outrageous demand—holding Richard hostage, forcing Francesca to her will?
I can’t go on like this, she thought.
But incest.
No, it couldn’t be true! If it were, Victoria would enjoy nothing more than waiting until the ceremony was over, before making her appearance.
Or when the first child of the marriage had been born. When the anguish would be beyond bearing.
It has to stop. Somewhere, it has to stop.
France
sca drew her hand out of the blankets that covered her limbs.
It held Simon’s pistol.
“You wouldn’t dare!” There was amusement, not fear, in the attractive face.
“It’s what my grandfather should have done all those years ago. Rid himself of you.”
Victoria stared at her, thoughtful. “Perhaps you have inherited a little of me,” she said. “But will you care to live, for the rest of your life, with the knowledge that you’ve killed your husband’s mother? And your own? So that you might marry your own brother?”
“I won’t think twice about it,” Francesa asserted untruthfully.
Victoria Leighton smiled, but it did not touch her eyes. “Well, I must say I’m proud of you! You can’t know until the service has begun whether I’ll object or not. That’s your punishment for defying me. Not knowing should make you a very flustered bride. The wedding guests will wonder what’s on your conscience. Still, it makes your choice all that more interesting. Shoot me, and you’ll never know how this would have ended. And you still can’t marry your brother. On the other hand, if I walk out of here, I’ll have several hours in which to think about what I’m setting out to do, and whether this is the best time to come forward. Perhaps even I’ll wait and see whether you have the audacity to go through with this ceremony. How shocking that would be!”
“I can’t trust you. The simplest thing would be to lock you away until the service is over.”
“Do that! It will make what I have to tell that much more believable! My God, how Richard is going to hate you!”
Francesca said, “Richard will never know.”
“You’re so like your grandfather, Francesca. Francis always put logic before emotion. That’s why you haven’t the courage to fire, my dear. You think too much. I’m as safe as houses!”
She turned to walk out of the room, confident, her taunt hanging in the air behind her.
The first shot splintered the edge of the door frame.
Victoria laughed. “You’re not as good with a pistol as Francis was—”