A Test of Wills

by Charles Todd

  There were landscapes heavy with paint, storm clouds thrusting upward, wind racing wildly through a high meadow, waves lashing a rocky coast where watchers waited for stormbound ships, to lure them inland.

  He saw enormous control in each work, the sure knowledge of exactly how much and how little made enough. A natural gift of talent honed to a cutting edge by long experience. The same control she had exerted just now.

  But there was not a single still life among them….

  As if the whirlwind in the painter’s mind couldn’t be leashed that far?

  He was finding it hard to relate the woman before him and the art he could see with his own eyes.

  “It’s unwomanly,” Hamish said uneasily. “I’d not take my ease with one of those hanging above my hearth!”

  As if she’d heard him, Catherine seemed to collect herself with an effort. She saw Rutledge examining her work. Brushing the dark hair aside, she said with a sigh, “Yes, I know, no one expects me when the artist is introduced. Everyone thinks C. Tarrant must be a man. Or one of those masculine women who wear trousers everywhere and smoke strong Russian cigarettes. I’ve considered wearing a patch over one eye and walking about with a trained ocelot on a leash. Were you listening at all?”

  “I was listening. And you’re wrong, I would have had no objection to your marriage. Not, at least, on the basis of Linden’s nationality. I didn’t know the man himself.”

  “But I did. And if you believe I might have shot Charles out of some twisted need to revenge Rolf, I suppose I could have. But what good would it have done, I ask you?”

  “A life for a life?”

  Her mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. “Charles Harris for Rolf Linden. Do you think that’s why I came to see you about Mark? To make certain that he didn’t hang for my crime?” She laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “It would be a terrible irony, wouldn’t it, if Mark was punished for what I’d done? The two men I’ve cared for dead because of me.”

  “Who were the women in Charles Harris’s life?”

  The change of direction sobered her. “How should I know? He spent so little time here, and when he was at home, Mallows absorbed him completely.”

  “Was he ever in love with anyone in Upper Streetham? Mrs. Davenant, for instance?”

  “Why on earth do you ask that?”

  “Most soldiers carry a woman’s image in their minds.”

  “Like the photos of Gladys Cooper each man wore next to his heart, in the trenches?” She considered that, head on one side. “I’ve never really understood why Sally married Hugh—yes, he was attractive, if you liked the ne’er-do-well dashing romantic. Enormous fun, always exciting, and he could make your heart absolutely flutter when he wanted to be charming. But as a husband, he was hopeless. For a time Laurence Royston was in love with her, I’m sure of it. I couldn’t believe at first that Mark wasn’t! But Charles?” She shook her head slowly. “I’ll have to think about that….”

  With a smile to take the sting from his words, he asked, “And you? Were you ever in love with Charles Harris?”

  She laughed, this time a contralto laugh that rippled with humor. “Of course. When I was sixteen and went to my first ball. It was at the Haldanes’. And Charles rescued me from the possessive clutches of my father, who thought every man in the room must have designs on my virtue. It would have been far more exciting if they had, but Charles was there, splendid in his dress uniform, and took pity on me. So I promptly fell in love with him and slept with my dance card under my pillow for at least a month afterward. He was a terribly attractive man, not strikingly handsome like Mark, of course, but with something about the eyes, and the mouth, that you remembered.”

  “How much would you say your art was influenced by your relationship with Linden. Before—and after?”

  “Now there’s an interesting question!” she said, biting her lip as she gave it her attention. “I’d say he softened it, if anything. Love teaches you humility—patience—understanding. And acceptance. Charles told me once that I’d have made a good soldier on the battlefield because I didn’t know the meaning of fear. You aren’t afraid until you’ve got something to lose. But when you love someone or something, you’re terrified—there’s so much at stake, then, so much at risk, you see….”

  Driving back toward Upper Streetham, Rutledge saw Laurence Royston coming toward him on a magnificent bay hunter. Royston waved, then drew rein, indicating that he wanted Rutledge to stop as well. Leaning down to speak to him, Royston said, “While you’re out in this direction, come to Mallows with me and I’ll give you that Will.”

  So Rutledge followed him back to Mallows. This time he was taken to a small doorway on the western side of the house nearly hidden by a giant wisteria whose faded blossoms still bore a whisper of lingering scent. Royston unlocked it and then down a short, stone-flagged passage unlocked another heavy door.

  They entered a large room, dark with paneling and bookshelves and tall cabinets, but with a pair of windows behind the desk looking out on a pleasant shrubbery. Royston went to one of the cabinets beside the desk, unlocked that with another key, and brought out several bundles of papers. Sorting them with the swiftness of familiarity, he quickly found what he was looking for and handed over a bundle tied in dark ribbon.

  “Sit down, man. That’s the more comfortable chair over there. I use this one when I’ve got to read the riot act. It’s hard enough to numb the bones! You’ll notice the seal of this document hasn’t been broken. The Will is just as it was when Charles brought it up from London to put in the cabinet.”

  Rutledge examined the seal carefully, and agreed. “No, it hasn’t been touched as far as I can see.” He opened it and began to read. Ten minutes later, he looked across at Royston and said, “It seems rather straightforward. The estate is left as you would expect, and there are the usual bequests in addition to that.”

  Royston smiled wryly. “I hope they include a sum for the church. We’ll have Carfield ranting on the doorstep if there isn’t. He’s very determined to have a new organ, and something has to be done about the roof as well. The old parsonage could come down around his ears for all he cares, but the church is a different matter.”

  A proper setting for a proper man of God.

  “Why isn’t he interested in the parsonage? He lives there, doesn’t he?”

  “To tell you the truth, I always believed that he had his eye on Mallows. By way of Lettice, of course. Charles said he would as soon see her married to a giant slug.”

  Rutledge laughed. It was cruel but apt.

  He retied the ribbons and said, “I’ll keep this if I may. When are the solicitors coming down from London?”

  “Not until after the funeral. I’ve spoken with them, and there are contingency measures to see to the running of the estate, that’s no problem. Frankly, I don’t think Lettice is up to hearing the Will read, and I told them as much.”

  “I expect to have the Inquest tomorrow.”

  “Adjourned, of course?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “For the time being. Yes.” Rutledge considered him. “Did you ever have a falling-out with Harris?”

  Royston shrugged. “We didn’t always see eye to eye on management of the estate. But you don’t kill a man over marrows and hay. Or a new barn.”

  “Did you envy him? After twenty years, Mallows must carry your imprint more than his. But Harris survived his wars. He came home, eager to take charge. If Miss Wood inherited, you’d be master here again. In all but name.”

  “No,” he said tightly. “That’s ridiculous.” But then he glanced away.

  “Are you in financial trouble of any sort?” There was a sizable bequest to Royston in the Will, following the recommendation that he be kept on as agent.

  Royston flushed but said, “No. I don’t gamble, I haven’t time for wasting my money in other pursuits, and I’m well paid.”

  “Have you ever borrowed money from Harris?”

  Unp
repared for that, Royston’s eyes flickered. “Once,” he said tightly. “Many years ago, when I got into the devil of a scrape and couldn’t get out of it on my own. I was twenty-one.”

  “What did you do?”

  Royston hesitated. “I borrowed his car without his knowledge. There was a girl I desperately wanted to see down in Dorset because I thought I was madly in love with her. Colonel Harris—Captain, he was then—was in Palestine, and at the time it didn’t seem like such a crazy thing to do, taking the car.” He stopped, and then added quickly, “There was an accident. I wasn’t a very experienced driver, and so it was my fault, whatever the law said. I paid for what I’d done—in more ways than one. And there were hospital bills. Among other things I’d badly damaged a kidney. That’s what kept me out of the war, later. Charles lent me the money to settle it all. Within five years I’d paid him back every penny.”

  “It must have been a large sum.”

  “Any sum is large when you’re twenty-one and frightened out of your wits. But yes—it was large. The car wasn’t mine, remember. And—someone was hurt. It took every ounce of courage I had to confess to Charles. All he said was, ‘You’ve had a bad experience. But there’s no going back to change it. So try to learn from it. That’s the only restitution you can offer.’”

  “And did you?”

  The eyes meeting his were level and sober. “For eight years or more I had nightmares about it. The accident, I mean. Reliving it. I don’t hold with Freud’s nonsense about dreams, but I can tell you that nightmares strip the soul.”

  Rutledge found no answer for that.

  Sally Davenant watched her cousin for a while, then said, “Mark, that’s the fifth time you’ve read that page. Put the book down, for God’s sake, and tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing,” he said, smiling up at her. “I was thinking, that’s all.”

  “Don’t tell me ‘nothing’ when I know there is something. You’ve walked around like a man in torment for days now. And why aren’t you at Mallows? Lettice must be frantic with grief, and surely there’s something you can do for her, if only to hold her. You did that for me after Hugh died, and it was all that got me through those first ghastly days. And there are practical considerations—who’s arranging the funeral? You can’t leave it to that dreadful man Carfield, he’ll give us a sickeningly long eulogy comparing poor Charles to Pericles or Alexander. And the solicitors in London could do worse, with something coldly formal and military. Lettice will know best what Charles would have wanted—the right scripture, hymns, and so on.”

  “She’s still under Dr. Warren’s care—”

  “Do you think being drugged into helplessness is going to solve anything for her? What’s wrong, I ask you again. Something is! You spent every free moment at Mallows until the day Charles died, and it’s going to look decidedly odd if you aren’t there now!”

  He took a deep breath, then said, “If I’m suspected of the murder—and they wouldn’t have brought in Scotland Yard, would they, if they’d believed it was Mavers, they’d have hauled him to jail and been done with it!—I can hardly go to Lettice with that sort of thing being whispered all through the county.”

  She regarded him thoughtfully, half in amusement and half in exasperation. “Mark, my dear, that’s carrying good manners to absurd extremes! Do you think Lettice will care what the county believes? She’ll want you beside her, and that in itself will silence most of the gossips!”

  There was such desperate grief in his eyes now that she was suddenly appalled. “Mark—,” she began, anxiety changing her voice, making it strained and wary.

  “The first time I went, I was turned away—if I go again, and it happens a second time, what do you think will be made of that?”

  Almost weak with relief, she said, “She’d been given a sedative! Did you expect Dr. Warren to invite you to her bedroom, with no chaperone in the house? Betrothed or not, he wouldn’t have countenanced that!” Rising from her chair, she came to kneel beside his, taking his hands in hers. “My dear. Lettice probably has no idea what’s been said. Who’s going to tell her?”

  “Rutledge for one.”

  She bit her lip. “Yes. Rutledge. The man’s a menace, probing and digging.”

  “He’s no fool, Sally. And he won’t leave until he’s got what he wanted.”

  “If only you and Charles hadn’t quarreled so publicly that last night—”

  “How were we to know that the servants were still about? Besides—” He stopped, then lifted her fingers, kissed the tips, and let them go. She didn’t rise, but stayed there beside him, her hands dropping to her lap.

  “I wish you would tell me what that was all about. How can I help you if I don’t know?”

  He rubbed his eyes, and they burned as if he hadn’t slept for a week. They had felt that way in France, he remembered, when there was a push on, and the planes went up as long as the pilots could stay awake to man them. Until blind exhaustion sent you stumbling back to quarters and the nearest bed. “It wasn’t even a quarrel, come to that. We never got to the point of quarreling. He said something that took me completely off guard, and the next thing we knew, we were both murderously angry.”

  Mark looked at her, his eyes bloodshot from the rubbing, his tiredness there for her to see. “It died with Charles. At least pray God it did,” he added vehemently.

  “But the timing—”

  “Yes, I know, there’s no getting around that, is there, Sally? And Rutledge will have me exactly where he wants me if he ever finds out the whole of it. Hickam was a bloody nuisance, but I could have dealt with him. As it is, Charles might still reach out from the grave and take me with him.”

  She got to her feet and said with conviction, “Then you must go to Lettice! Now, before everyone in Upper Streetham notices that you aren’t there! Mark, don’t you see? You’re being very foolish!”

  Rutledge went to find Johnston before he left Mallows, but instead came face-to-face with Lettice as she slowly descended the main staircase. It was, he thought, the first time she’d left her room since Dr. Warren had taken her there, and she seemed abstracted, her body moving without the volition of her mind, which was turned inward toward private visions no one else could share. Whatever they were, she drew no comfort from them, for she looked tired, empty.

  “I thought you had gone away,” she said, frowning as she saw him and recognized him. “Well? Did you want something—or someone?”

  “I’ve just spoken to Royston. I wanted to let you know that the Inquest will be tomorrow—”

  “I won’t be there,” she said quickly, with an edge of panic. “I won’t attend!”

  “I shan’t expect you to attend. There will be—we must address certain formalities, and then I intend to ask for an adjournment,” he amended, to spare her. There was no need to go into more detail than that, since Royston had identified the body, not Lettice.

  She turned to go back the way she’d come, and he stopped her. “I went to see Catherine Tarrant.”

  With her hand on the banister as if she gained strength from its support, she came down the rest of the stairs. “And?” she asked when she was on eye level with him. It was almost as if she thought he might be tricking her.

  “She told me about Linden.”

  “And?” she repeated.

  “And I understand the debt you referred to this morning—your fiancé’s life for her lover’s. But there’s another aspect of the situation, one less pleasant. Could Miss Tarrant have shot Colonel Harris in revenge for Linden’s death? Brooding over what happened and convincing herself that he might have saved the German if he’d tried? Punishing him—and indirectly, you?”

  Lettice Wood began to laugh, bitterly at first, and then in wild denial. “Oh, God,” she said, “that’s too diabolical to contemplate!” The laughter turned to tremors that racked her body. “No, I won’t think about it! Go away, I don’t want to talk to you anymore!”

  Rutledge had seen soldiers close
to the breaking point begin to shake after a battle, and he moved quickly to lead her to one of the ornate chairs standing against the wall. Once he got her seated, he gripped Lettice’s shoulders firmly and said, “Stop it! That’s enough.” His voice was quiet, but pitched to reach her through the emotional frenzy.

  She fought him, then collapsed in tears, and for a moment he knelt by her chair and simply held her, offering what comfort he could. She smelled of lilies of the valley, and her hair was soft against his face.

  It was not professional, and Hamish was clamoring in the back of his head about the seduction of witches, but there was nothing else he could do.

  When the worst was over, he went into the drawing room to ring for Mary Satterthwaite.

  Waiting for his summons to be answered, he stood by the high back of the chair with one hand on Lettice’s shoulder, knowing from experience that the warmth of human contact was often more important than words.

  And thinking to himself that this rather blew to the four winds his earlier impression that Lettice Wood knew who had killed her guardian….

  9

  Dr. Warren had spent a harried morning in his surgery, and added to that had been a sleepless night attending to Hickam. He was tired, irritable, and behind in his schedule. As he started out on his rounds, he was grumbling about a retirement long overdue and the ingratitude of villagers who seemed to think he was on call twenty-four hours of the day.

  He looked in on the new baby he had delivered and found it flourishing, but tongue-lashed the father when he discovered that the mother had spent her morning bent over a full tub of washing.

  “I’ve told you Mercy had a hard birth,” Warren finished, “and you’d have seen it for yourself if you hadn’t been ten parts drunk that whole day. Now either you find someone from the village to lend a hand in the house or I’ll find a good woman and bill you for her. If Mercy hemorrhages, she’s as good as dead. And then where will you and that child be?”