Watchers of Time

by Charles Todd

  “Did she attend church here in Osterley?”

  “Here? No, not very often. There’s a charming little church on the estate in East Sherham. But the Sedgwicks would come to Osterley around once a month, and the Vicar tried to interest Mrs. Sedgwick in good works. She was too shy, and always sent excuses for not showing up.”

  “Did she have many friends in Osterley?” Rutledge asked as he walked with Mrs. Barnett through the French doors into the dining room. He saw her glance quickly over her shoulder as if she would like nothing more than to escape from him to her kitchen.

  “I don’t suppose there was anyone here quite suitable. People generally appeared to like her—I never heard anyone say anything unkind about her. Men found her quite attractive. That soft American accent for one thing, and she seemed—I don’t know—my husband said that she brought out a man’s protective instincts.”

  Mrs. Barnett clucked her tongue at the congealed food on his plate, and added quickly, “I’ll just warm this up.”

  “Did women like her?”

  “I suppose they did. But women of her class are often— you either fit into their circle or you don’t.” She paused, pensive. “It’s odd, I’ve just remembered something. The Sedgwick family came here occasionally for luncheon on market day. My husband’s mother, who is gone now, always called Mrs. Sedgwick the ‘little rabbit.’ Almost as if she imagined her huddled in the midst of the dogs, trying to vanish.” She shook her head. “I never saw that, myself.”

  She took up the plate and started for the kitchen. Then she turned and forced herself to ask, “You won’t upset Miss Trent again, will you? I should hate to lose her as a guest just because you’ve badgered her. There aren’t that many weekly guests this time of year. And it isn’t right that you should use your office to upset her!”

  “She’ll be safe enough, I promise you,” he said, and she walked through the swinging doors to the kitchen without looking back.

  Miss Trent came in reluctantly to join Rutledge. Her face was exceedingly pale, and she seemed uneasy when she realized that they had the vast room to themselves.

  Rutledge said immediately, “I ought to apologize. But I have a job to do, and I try to do it well.”

  It was a more effective apology than an abject capitulation, and she accepted it.

  “I don’t particularly care to take a meal with you,” she said in return. “But it’s probably more comfortable here than at the police station, with everyone staring!” A quirk of sudden humor in her eyes told him she was giving him his own back.

  He laughed. “Yes, I suppose it is. But I promise to talk about Father James, not you.”

  “I didn’t know him well—”

  “You told me once before that he’d wanted something from you that you couldn’t give him. Was it to do with Mrs. Sedgwick?”

  “Yes.” Like a swimmer plunging into cold water, she shivered. “I don’t know how he discovered that I’d—that there was a connection with the ship. But one day as we were having tea, he asked me if I remembered meeting her. I told him I couldn’t even remember sailing. It’s all blacked out, like amnesia, only it was shock that did it.”

  “Do the doctors feel you might eventually remember?”

  “They persuaded me not to try,” she said uncomfortably. “They told me it was better if I didn’t. I’ve had dreams—but they were always terrifying, and I’d make certain not to think about them afterward.”

  “Do you still have those dreams?” He stopped and said, “Sorry. I meant it from the point of view of understanding what you’ve suffered.”

  “Sometimes. Usually. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”

  “And Father James felt that perhaps you could recall some of the voyage. If you tried. Or—given time.”

  “Yes. He was convinced it was important to try. To put it behind me instead of running from it. But I didn’t want to open that door. I thought he was wrong to suggest it. There were other survivors. But he was—wary—about approaching them without some authority.”

  “What was his interest in the Sedgwick woman?”

  May Trent frowned. “I’m not sure. When she disappeared, it was very trying for her family and everyone who knew her. Why this sudden whim, this need to run away? Apparently there wasn’t an answer. And I suppose if Father James found someone like me who might be able to define her state of mind when she took passage, he would have been comforted. No, that’s the wrong word! Satisfied?” Shaking her head, she went on. “I suppose what he really wanted to hear was that she was safe and happy. It was almost as if he needed to know that, to have any peace himself.”

  “What if she hadn’t been on board—what if she’d bought her passage and then changed her mind?”

  “Oh, I can’t believe that—Father James never once suggested that she hadn’t been on Titanic!”

  “After all,” Hamish pointed out sensibly, “the remains were brought back to Norfolk. The proof of death was there.”

  “A coffin was brought back to Norfolk,” Rutledge contradicted the voice in his head. “No one would have opened it to have a look at the contents.”

  “Father James seemed to be uncertain whether this was a planned ‘escape’ or if she just took an opportunity that presented itself. She’d been on her way to East Sherham from Yorkshire, and she decided to spend an hour in the shops in King’s Lynn, because she was planning a party. When she failed to meet the chauffeur at the appointed time, he was patient, he didn’t raise an alarm for several more hours. And later someone remembered seeing her at the railway station. She was seen again in Colchester, on the train to London. She’d taken nothing with her, which I found odd, but of course she could have bought whatever she needed in London shops.”

  “Did Father James tell you the chauffeur’s name?” Rutledge asked.

  “If he did, I can’t recall it.”

  “What I can’t fathom is the relationship between a priest and one of the Sedgwick family,” Rutledge said. “It doesn’t fit into any explanation I can think of.”

  “Actually it was probably nothing more complicated than the fact that Virginia Sedgwick had a grandmother who was Catholic. Father James mentioned that in passing. Mrs. Dabney had been terribly fond of her. If Virginia was homesick, I expect she’d be drawn to something familiar. And Father James had a very practical faith. If she’d come to him, troubled or lonely or just needing comfort, he’d have tried to help her without proselytizing.”

  “The Vicar would have been closer to her age,” Rutledge speculated.

  But Miss Trent was saying, “I wasn’t very attentive, I’m afraid, although Father James did his best to bring her alive for me.” She had the grace to flush. “I didn’t want to be interested in her. I didn’t want to find myself thinking about her, and then starting to dig into the blackness—I couldn’t face it!”

  Her eyes pleaded with him for understanding. “It sounds quite selfish and callous to say that. Especially now that he’s dead. But there was nothing I could do for Virginia Sedgwick, was there? And the thing was, I couldn’t bear to go back. And I couldn’t explain why I couldn’t go back. It’s such a simple question, isn’t it? ‘Do you remember?’ ”

  “I think he must have believed that, given time, you would remember—otherwise he wouldn’t have chosen to leave you that photograph.”

  May Trent said, “Knowing that—now that he’s dead— puts a tremendous burden on me. I don’t quite see how to cope with it. I wish he hadn’t—!”

  “But then he hadn’t expected to die within a matter of days.”

  The shock of that left her silent for a moment. “Yes. I see your way of putting all this together. If he harried me, I must have killed him, just for a little peace. But he didn’t. I know he was the sort of man who believed that good would triumph. That one morning I’d sit up in bed and suddenly remember meeting this woman on the deck or in the dining rooms, the card rooms. Somewhere. After all, women traveling alone tend to gravitate toward each othe
r—it wouldn’t have been so amazing if our paths had crossed.”

  Mrs. Barnett came in with a tray bearing hot platters and trailing an aroma of beef in a wine sauce. She set their plates down with care, studying the faces at the table. “I’m so sorry, Miss Trent, but there isn’t any more soup.”

  “I’m not really hungry. But thank you.” When she had gone, May Trent said, “I don’t think I can swallow a mouthful—what am I going to do . . . !”

  “At least make a show of trying,” Rutledge told her bracingly. “You’ll feel better having eaten.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said irritably. “It’s not something I relish, this black hole in my life. It takes a revenge of its own!”

  “I think I do,” he answered her.

  Their eyes locked. Hers widened in surprise, as if reading the depths of his, and turning away from what she found there. He felt a spreading hurt.

  Her voice trembling, she replied, “Yes. Well, is there anything else you want to know?”

  “Tell me about yourself. What you do, where you’ve been. Why you have stayed so long in Osterley.”

  She grimaced as she tried a forkful of beef, but she persevered. He gave her credit for courage.

  “The last is easy to answer. I’ve been looking at old churches, and I found Osterley to my liking. I prefer to stay here rather than pack my bag every few days and move to another hotel. I like the marshes. They appeal to me. The desolation, perhaps. Or their strange beauty. I’ve never quite decided which it is.”

  “Do you live in London?”

  “Somerset. I grew up there, and I feel at home there.”

  “What took you to America? Is that a safe question to ask?”

  She turned away. “I had the care of an elderly lady who was the aunt of a friend. She was going to New York to visit her son, and I was asked if I’d like to make the journey with her. As a companion, actually. But she was perfectly capable of looking after herself—”

  She broke off and fought to regain her composure, clearing her throat with the effort.

  He knew then that her charge had not survived. Which must have added enormously to the ordeal May Trent herself had suffered. Rutledge said, “Then you’d have come back to England in a few months?”

  “Yes, that was the plan. I’d never been abroad, except to France a time or two, and once to Germany. I saw it as an adventure—” The words caught in her throat. “Can we talk of something else?”

  She soldiered on valiantly through the rest of the meal. He thought perhaps she’d stayed at the table to prove to him that she could. Or because she didn’t want to go upstairs alone.

  Where the ghosts in the night lay waiting for her.

  It was something that they shared, this fear of being alone. . . .

  After a long silence, May Trent put down her fork and considered Rutledge. “How can you bear to question people the way you do? Prying and digging into lives as if none of us possessed a shred of privacy. I should think it would be very wearing, after a time. It’s worse than gossiping or—or eavesdropping.”

  Hamish said, “It’s true, it’s no’ a gentleman’s way.”

  Rutledge winced but said, “If people told the truth the first time they were questioned, we’d have less need to pry. But lying shrouds what people say in layers of darkness. These have to be peeled away, and sifted, and verified, and even set aside as intentional misdirection.”

  Playing with the bread beside her plate, she said, “I can’t believe that! Most people are honest enough, aren’t they?” She had rolled two small marbles of the bread before she realized what she was doing.

  “Were you honest with me, earlier this evening?”

  She flushed and said, “I was protecting my own secrets, not those of Father James.”

  He hesitated. “If I come to you tomorrow and ask you if you killed Father James, will you tell me the truth?”

  “Of course! Why should I not? I’m innocent.”

  “Would you tell me the truth if you had—for reasons I couldn’t fathom—struck him down and left him to die on the floor in his own blood?”

  Something stirred at the back of her eyes. “I’m not mad. I know you’d hang me, if I told you that. But that isn’t the same as prying! It isn’t the same as demanding the name of the woman in that photograph, when—when speaking of that ship digs into my shadows, not hers.”

  She held up a hand to stop him from answering her. “How would you respond if I asked you about the War? You were in the fighting, weren’t you? You did see bodies blown apart and bones protruding from flesh, your friends cut in half by machine-gun fire, and nothing but blood where their chests used to be? You did kill people, didn’t you? How does it feel to watch a man die as you shoot him—?”

  With a sharp intake of breath, Rutledge got up from the table, and went to the window. The street was dark, the last of the light gone, and the quay empty, save for a small marmalade cat, trotting along sniffing the air.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” she began, startled by his reaction. And then she lifted her chin, a little trick she had when she was defiant. “No, that’s not true! I did mean to hurt. I wanted you to know how your wretched questions tormented me!”

  “Touché,” Rutledge told her quietly.

  May Trent did not take her tea in the parlor with Rutledge. She went up the stairs without looking back.

  But something in the set of her shoulders suggested that she was crying.

  Unable to sleep, Rutledge walked out to the quay, to look up at the stars. A whiff of pipe smoke made him turn in time to see Dr. Stephenson coming in his direction.

  “Well met,” Stephenson said, but without sincerity. “I had an emergency delivery, and I’m still too excited to go to bed. Touch and go, but mother and son are going to be all right. What’s your excuse?”

  Rutledge thought, I could tell you I’ve been tormenting two women—at least they feel I have. Instead he answered, “I have a liking for the marshes, I suppose.”

  Stephenson grunted. “What’s the news about Walsh?”

  “Among other issues, Inspector Blevins has been trying to find out if Walsh had encountered Father James in France.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t think that was likely. Besides, what difference would it make? The fact that they’d met wouldn’t change what happened in the rectory, or why.”

  “Blevins has learned that Father James had written a letter from France to his sister Judith. He made some remark in passing about a story she’d liked as a child. About Jack and the Giant. But Judith is dead, and the letter hasn’t survived.”

  Stephenson began to chuckle, deep in his throat. “Sometimes I don’t pretend to understand the policeman’s mind! Jack the Giant, you say?”

  “We can’t leave anything to chance—”

  But Stephenson cut him short. “You’re fools, the lot of you! It wasn’t Jack, it was Jacques. And he was tall and thin as a rail, looked like a beanpole—but he was hardly a giant! Father James told me about this man—felt that I’d be interested in the way he treated wounds. Jacques Lamieux was his name, and he was a French Canadian medical man. He came to France for firsthand experience, and he got his fill of it. We still correspond. He has a practice in Quebec, and a reputation for being the best there is at amputations—a very high percentage of his patients live.”

  Still chuckling, Dr. Stephenson walked away. Then over his shoulder, he said, “You can tell Blevins for me that I can produce letters from Lamieux dated this month. Hard to bash a man’s brains in, from that distance!”

  Rutledge lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, his eyes following the pale ripples of light that clouds threw across the beautifully plastered finish as they moved in front of the half-moon.

  Hamish talked about the War, about the men they’d lived with for days at a time in the trenches and in the holding areas, waiting for their turn. Most read, talked, played cards, wrote letters home, anything to while away the hours of boredom
before the wild wash of fear when they were ordered to fall in. No one spoke of the dead, then. It was not superstition as much as dread that this time their own names would be added to the long rolls of missing, wounded, and killed. This time, they wouldn’t come back. The chances were never good. Luck—sometimes skill—sometimes mere instinct—could change the odds in your favor. But there were so many dead, so many. As if the War were a monstrous beast, hungry for flesh and impatient for bodies.

  No man who had fought in battle remembered it afterward without the rich coloring of his own fears. Scenes replayed themselves in slow motion, unwinding like a ribbon of terror, and a soldier’s greatest fear was that his own gut-wrenching cowardice would let his mates down. And so he was brave in spite of himself, but never brave enough, never able to save them all, and he dragged the unlucky ones back to the trenches while they screamed to him to leave them, it hurt too much, and he held them as they died, and all the while furtively thanked God that he himself was whole. Only to lie awake at night, drowning in guilt because he had lived somehow.

  Was that the fear that May Trent carried with her? That she had let the elderly woman in her care die? That somehow in darkness and terror and confusion, she had let go of a hand, to save herself—hurried too fast, to save herself—been blind, when she should have seen—

  Guilt was what scoured the soul after it was over. And she would protect the darkness because it was comforting. Or because she feared the truth about herself.

  Was that enough to drive her to murder, when Father James pushed her to remember—? He’d have turned his back on her . . . unwitting. Perhaps walk to the window and look out at the night while she found her handkerchief and pretended to wipe away tears. And she would have found it easy to silence the voice that was, somehow, reaching into the depths of her mind and hurting.

  What had Dr. Stephenson said? That Father James had had such a beautiful voice and knew how to use it as a tool of his work.