by Charles Todd
But it had been much more than that.
“Dear God. I shall want to see him.” She dismounted without help and went toward the cottage door. “What are these people doing here?”
“The Sister helped me. My eyesight. I’ve told you.”
“Yes, yes. Where is Warren? Inside?”
Maddie stepped out of the way. Miss Neville went inside, and I could hear her clearly from where we were standing.
“Warren? Can you hear me?”
The miller mumbled something, for the laudanum was taking hold.
“I shall see you right, I promise you. The Major is not himself, or this would never have happened. Meanwhile, I shall see that there is someone to help at the mill while you recover. My estate manager will arrange it. Your family will be all right. Do you understand, Warren?”
I doubt that he did, for after a moment she came back out of the cottage, her expression impatient, a mixture of worry and frustration.
“Have you spoken to his family?” she asked Maddie.
“He was only just brought in,” the old man explained. “Really, you must do something about that revolver. He will kill someone, next time.”
“I have taken it away from him. Several times. Do you think I find this at all amusing?” she snapped. “Now I shall have to speak to Mrs. Warren. It really is too much.”
She walked back to her horse, and said to Simon, “Give me a boost up, if you please.”
He crossed to where she was waiting and lifted her into her saddle, then stepped back.
“I shall count on your discretion,” she said. “This is a very delicate matter, and I should not like to find it the talk of the parish. I’ll not have people clamoring for the poor man to be clapped up in an asylum. He’s not dangerous, he’s simply ill.”
“Beyond Maddie’s skills to cure?” Simon asked, keeping his voice level, although he was very angry. No one ordered Simon Brandon about.
“Beyond anyone’s, sad to say. But not yet gangrene. I am thankful for that blessing.” She cast a measuring glance at me, then turned her horse away and set out for the village.
I hadn’t noticed a mill as we had come through earlier. But then I’d seen no stream to turn the great wheel, which meant that the mill must be down one of the side lanes of the village.
Maddie watched her go, his face unreadable.
I said, “Who is the Major?”
Jim said, his voice low, “The man she’s to marry.” As if that explained everything.
Simon was holding the door of the motorcar for me to step in, and I nodded to Jim as I turned to go with him.
As he walked toward the front of the bonnet to attend to the crank, Simon glanced up at me. I knew he was asking which way to turn.
“Let’s finish what we started,” I said as he joined me in the motorcar. But I could see that he thought it hopeless, and while I was inclined to agree, I wanted to be sure.
We looped back to where we’d crossed into Warwickshire last night. And in the daylight we gained a clearer picture of where we were as we worked our way back to Upper Dysoe.
Coming into the county, we’d made our way in the general direction of Kenilworth, slightly to the north. But of course English roads seldom ran straight, despite the head start the Romans had given us. We’d wandered off the main road in the dark and had been taking country lanes leading us more or less toward Stratford.
Still, in the villages where there was no resident constable, we stopped to ask if anyone recalled seeing a lorry pass through, leaving behind a soldier with a bad limp and a recent head wound.
It was possible that the lorry had made other stops before Kenilworth—general hauling meant just that—taking it across Warwickshire by a roundabout route. And indeed, eventually we discovered where one had crossed the border and delivered a new plow to a farmer. He thought someone, possibly the driver’s helper, had been asleep in the front of the lorry. But he hadn’t actually seen the man.
It was depressing news, because we couldn’t be sure this was Sergeant Wilkins. Of course if it was, we’d been right to follow this lead.
Simon, driving down the road after the last encounter with a villager in what was little more than a hamlet, said, “We’ve assumed that the farmer back in Shropshire had indeed spotted the bay horse. But depending on the time of day—or evening—he saw it, he might have taken a guess at the color. We could very well be looking for one man and actually be tracking two or three.”
“That’s true,” I answered reluctantly. “And yet, there’s enough circumstantial evidence that I find myself hoping.”
“Yes, I know. Shall we move on to Kenilworth, or turn toward Somerset?”
Of two minds, still I said, “Yes, Kenilworth. We’ve come this far. But first I wonder if we could have another look at our patient in Upper Dysoe.”
“It’s not that far out of our way.” There was a silence. Then, “What would you have done if you’d found the man?” Simon asked, glancing across at me.
“I don’t think he was afraid of returning to France. I can usually tell if that’s what is troubling a patient. And considering the nature of his wounds, he’d have been invalided out of the Army before very long anyway. Why didn’t he wait? What was so pressing about killing Henry Lessup that he couldn’t have waited another few weeks? It makes no sense.”
“You told me you thought there was something on his mind. Was it this murder? Or was he feeling guilt about what was about to happen?”
“Sister Hammond told me he’d had nightmares. Perhaps that was what spurred him to act now. In the hope that doing something about them might stop them.”
“Neither Inspector Stephens nor Inspector Jester mentioned the bay horse to you. If you hadn’t met that young woman on the bridge, you wouldn’t have known how Wilkins was recognized at the scene of the murder. We’ve learned of both quite by accident. The Yard might already know what his motive was for murder.”
“That’s a very good point.”
We’d reached that odd formation of rounded hills where the three hamlets called Dysoe were located. The hills looked so much like giant grassy thimbles piled so close together that there was barely room for the road that threaded through them, and in the daylight we could see they appeared to be mostly uninhabited, save for the houses huddled in the only places where the land between them widened slightly.
Lower Dysoe was only a scattering of houses, one tiny pub, and a shop or two in the lee of what appeared to be another ruined barn. Only a sizable wall was left standing. A tithe barn, once, perhaps, placed by the road like this? Last night it had been nearly invisible. Middle Dysoe, a bit larger, boasted a general merchandise store, a greengrocer’s, and a bakery as well as a pub. Cosmopolitan by the standards of its neighbor.
On our way to Upper Dysoe we passed the massive and elegant iron gates to an estate nestled in a natural hollow. We could see the house, and I suddenly had a vision of Miss Neville riding down to the door. Was this where she lived?
Between the gates and the next village was the tumbledown barn where Simon and I had stayed the night. And then we were driving into Upper Dysoe, the largest of the three hamlets, with a pub, shops, and somewhere, the mill owned by Maddie’s patient, Mr. Warren.
This time when we rounded the bend and came upon a flock of sheep spilling down the hillside opposite and already blocking the road, we could see them in time to stop. Looking very much like the sheep we’d met with last night, they milled around us, curious and seemingly unconcerned even when Simon sounded the horn.
Simon was about to get down and move them himself, when someone up on the hill to our left shouted, “They’ve as much right to be there as you do. It’s their land, after all.”
We looked up to see a middle-aged woman in dark brown walking clothes, standing near the crest of the hill just beside us. She had a long walking stick in her left hand, almost as tall as a crook. I might have mistaken her for a shepherd, at first glance.
“T
heir land?” Simon called.
“In truth it belongs to my stepdaughter, but the sheep use it, not she.”
By now the sheep had lost interest in us, moving on to graze at the verge of the road or to disappear down the lane past the barn. Simon closed his door and began to weave slowly through the thinning flock.
The woman was marching down toward us, and I wasn’t sure whether she meant to speak to us or just to walk on.
“Are you lost?” she called as she came nearer.
“We know our way. Thank you,” Simon replied, but she was peering at me.
“Are you the Sister who assisted Maddie with that fool Warren?”
“I did help him. Yes.” I didn’t know where this conversation was going, but I was curious.
“Will he live?”
“Mr. Warren? Yes, I believe so, if infection doesn’t set in.”
She had reached the motorcar now, a straight-backed, graying woman of perhaps fifty, her mouth set in a severe, disapproving line.
“Can you do anything for my stepdaughter’s fiancé?”
“I—don’t know precisely what’s wrong with him.”
“Maddie can do nothing. He says time is the proper healer with head wounds. The leg he can treat. I am not particularly fond of the Major, but I would like to see a change for the better before the wedding.”
I thought at first that she meant this would make the occasion a happier one, and then I saw that her intent was the opposite. That she wanted the Major well sooner for reasons of her own.
“He has no sense of the land, you see,” she went on. “And land matters. It’s not simply the acreage that surrounds a large house, it’s the sustaining force in all our lives. Tenants, landowners, even the village.”
This was very much a Labour position, that industry was wrong, it tore people from the land and made them vulnerable to the wealthy who cared little or nothing for their welfare. That a simpler world would be a happier world. Before the war, several books had been written on that subject. As if we could turn back the tide and return to an England before the rise of industry. Materialism was wicked, Agriculture the savior of mankind.
It was a very odd view for a woman of the wealthier class to take. And from her accent, she clearly belonged to it.
“Never mind,” she went on, “we were discussing the Major.” She placed a gloved hand on the door of the motorcar, where I had let the window down earlier. “What must we do about him?”
“It would be best,” I said, “to send him somewhere for treatment. There are several very good hospitals that deal with head wounds. Dorset, most certainly. Or Surrey.”
She shook her head. “That’s not likely to happen. They’d only clap him up. And I’d say she was besotted with him, if I didn’t know better. He seems docile enough one minute, and angry, withdrawn the next. Hardly the qualities of a lover.”
“What was his regiment?” Simon asked.
“He wears the uniform of a Yorkshire regiment, but he’s not a Yorkshireman. Who are his people? I looked him up in Debrett’s, but he’s not there. What’s more, he didn’t know Nadine’s brother. And he should have, if they were officers in the same regiment. I really can’t think what possessed Barbara to accept his proposal. It must have been pity. And pity is a poor beginning for a happy marriage.”
“He could well be Yorkshire,” Simon told her. “The Army is taking men from elsewhere and putting them in the old line regiments to bring up numbers. And if he were in a different battalion, it isn’t unheard of not to know all the new men.” He didn’t add that at the rate officers were dying, there might be little opportunity to know a man before he was killed or wounded and removed from the active duty roster.
“I hadn’t considered that,” she answered, looking at him straightly. “A very good point.” She had been peering in at Simon. Stepping back now, she added, “At least he doesn’t appear to be a fortune hunter like the last two or three. But I’d feel better if he had any sense of the land. It would be all right then.”
With an abrupt nod, she walked on.
We watched her go, striding down the road with determination. Just then she spotted the tethered goat we had seen only that morning, and stopped short.
“What’s this?” she said, and then she went whipping up the embankment, disappearing into the undergrowth, reappearing shortly leading the reluctant goat down to the road again.
By this time we had drawn nearly level with her, for Simon had driven at a slow pace, some distance behind her. She raised a hand to halt us.
“I must take this creature back to where she belongs,” she said. “Will you give me a lift back to the house?”
Beside me, Simon swore under his breath.
“I’m not sure we can persuade the goat to climb inside,” I said quickly.
She stared at me. “Are you being difficult?” she asked. “Of course not. We’ll tie her lead to the motorcar.”
Easier said than done.
The first problem was reversing on this narrow road. And that upset the goat no end.
Next, it had other ideas about approaching closer than ten feet to the motorcar, taking an instant dislike to Simon’s uniform. It was several minutes before we could persuade it to move near enough to the rear of the motorcar to attach the lead. When she was satisfied that the goat was in no danger, Mrs. Neville took my place, as if by right, beside the driver, and I got into the rear seat.
“Drive slowly. I’ll direct you,” she told Simon, and settled back.
I was looking out the small rear window at the goat as Simon put in the clutch and took off the brake. It dug in for a moment, and then as the motorcar took up the slack in the lead, it seemed to accept the inevitable and began to trot behind us as we drove slowly back the way we’d just come.
“Why was she tethered out here?” I asked our unexpected guest.
“Why? How should I know? You’ll have to ask the Major. Nothing of this sort happened before he came to Windward. But she would have him stay here, wouldn’t she? Duty and all that. Well, where was duty when she was asked to turn Windward into a hospital? I ask you.”
It was rather apparent that Mrs. Neville had little patience with her stepdaughter.
She turned to give Simon directions, and very soon we were passing through the rather ornate gates that we’d just driven by.
The gateposts were brick, and crowned with a griffon. Close to, the gates themselves were lovely examples of wrought iron, tall, graceful, and intended to keep visitors out. The name Windward was engraved on a bronze plaque.
As a rule such approaches led to a looping drive that debouched before the main front. Here it led straight to one of the most beautiful early Tudor brick houses I’d ever seen. Crowned by chimneys and peaked roofs, it was a lovely rose color, windows set off by stone facings, and a large studded door in an arched frame that could have welcomed a King. And probably had.
Mrs. Neville must have heard my gasp of pleasure, for she said over her shoulder, “This doesn’t hold a candle to the house that went with the title. The Nevilles are a cadet branch.”
I stepped out of the motorcar to open the gates and then shut them after we and the goat had passed through. Continuing down the drive on foot gave me time to consider the house and the landscaping that set it off. I almost missed the wooden bench under the specimen maple tree. A man was sitting there, and at first glance my heart lurched. I thought it must be Sergeant Wilkins. Bandages were visible beneath the officer’s cap he was wearing, and there was the bulge of other bandaging just above the knee on his left thigh. Such leg wounds were very common—German machine guns were often set to scythe through the charging line of enemy just at knee height. It stopped a man in his tracks, and made it difficult for him to crawl back to his own lines. This man wasn’t using a sling.
On closer inspection, I realized he wore the smart mustache of an officer. And he was sitting there with the unmistakable air of a man who felt quite at home in these elegant surro
undings. It was indefinable, but it was very real.
Could Wilkins pass himself off as a gentleman so easily? I didn’t know him well enough to say. He’d been well spoken, his voice that of an educated man. That didn’t necessarily mean he could cope with the complexities of a grand house like this one.
As the motorcar pulled up before the steps, Mrs. Neville waited for Simon to come around and open her door, then she called to the officer.
“Really, Major, this is too much. Take the goat back where she belongs.”
He got unsteadily to his feet, starting toward us. I was watching his face, but he seemed not to recognize either Simon or me.
But before he reached us, a housekeeper came to the door and called over her shoulder to a middle-aged footman. Without blinking, the footman walked over and untied the goat’s tether, as if he was doing nothing more than preparing to take our luggage out of the boot. His expression was bland, as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. He disappeared around the corner with the reluctant goat following him, balking every third step.
Meanwhile the Major had stopped. After a moment he returned to the bench and sat down heavily, careful of that leg, as Mrs. Neville said, “And where is your cane? You know you aren’t supposed to go anywhere without it.”
“I don’t know,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t remember where I left it.”
She made a noise of disbelief but said nothing more to him.
Turning to Simon and me, she thanked us for bringing her home, and walked on toward the open door.
It was dismissal. Simon had left the motorcar running, and he helped me into the front seat before coming around to take his place behind the wheel.
“I expect,” I said quietly as the door closed behind Mrs. Neville, “we aren’t presentable enough to be invited in to tea.”
But he didn’t laugh. Unsmilingly letting in the clutch, he went round the small circle and started back to the gates.
“Does that man—the Major—remind you of Sergeant Wilkins?” he asked.
“At first, yes, I thought surely it must be. But he isn’t the sergeant. Is he?”