A cold treachery - Charles Todd [44]
“Greeley wouldn't let me join one of them.” He turned to Rutledge as if he were to blame. “I don't understand why I can't search for my own son!”
“You're needed here,” Rutledge answered, finishing the last of the apples. “When Josh is found, the news will be brought directly to the hotel.”
“I can't just sit here and wait. There must be something I can do! Even peeling apples, for God's sake!”
Elizabeth Fraser glanced at Rutledge and then said, “You could bring in more coal, if you don't mind. With two extra bedrooms to heat, it would be nice not to have to worry about running out.”
He turned, and said, staring at her chair, “What happened?” It was asked simply, as if acknowledging that something had.
Rutledge began to object, but she set aside the knife she was using to slice the potatoes and answered calmly. “It was an injury. Just before the war. I tripped on my skirts, actually, and nearly went headlong under a train. There's nothing wrong with my spine; I just can't manage to walk.” With a smile she added, “I've quite grown used to it.”
But Hamish said, “She's verra young to accept yon patiently. And she doesna' say where she fell. She doesna' have a northern accent.”
It was true, she didn't. Even though she spoke of the fell country as if she had known it all her life and was happy to live here.
Rutledge said, shifting the subject, “We brought Mrs. Elcott's sister to the hotel an hour ago. She'd made it as far as she could in the storm and stopped with a family some miles from here.”
“Janet?” Robinson asked, as if she hadn't crossed his mind. “Good God—does she know? I mean, I suppose you've told her—”
“Dr. Jarvis did. She's sleeping now.”
“She'll be sick with grief. She and Grace were close—”
“She's living in Carlisle now, she says. Did you know that?”
“Lord, no. I thought—but I haven't kept up with her. I suppose I should have—” He made a face. “There are many things I should have done. I should have seen more of my son and my daughter.”
“Your relationship with Elcott was comfortable?”
Robinson looked away. “I don't know that it was comfortable. He was married to my wife. But that wasn't his fault, it was the bloody Army's.” With an apologetic glance at Miss Fraser he added, “Sorry. But I can't blame Grace or Gerald. We got on well enough for me to visit the children from time to time, and try to close the gap of being away so long. They'd believed I was dead and it was something of a shock to find I wasn't. Hazel had no idea who I was when I came in the door. Grace handled it well. But Hazel and Josh are—were—too young yet to travel to London on their own, to visit me.” He shook his head, remembering. “They won't come at all. Not now. I hadn't gotten around to thinking that far ahead. . . .”
“When you came back to England, how did you know where to find them?” Rutledge asked, curious. “How did you learn they were living here in Urskdale?”
“I made straight for the house where we'd lived. There was another family there, I thought I'd made some mistake. But the woman had corresponded with Grace, over some problem with the drains. And so she had her direction. I didn't know what to think, then. What to write to her. I finally got up the nerve to come north. It was as much of a shock to Grace as it had been to me. I—we managed to settle it amicably. There were twins on the way, that had to be faced. And it was clear she didn't feel the same way about what had been—our marriage and all that. I couldn't hold her to the past. I wasn't sure I wanted that myself. Not anymore.” He broke off and then without realizing it, repeated himself. “We managed to settle it amicably.”
Abruptly getting up from the table, he walked quickly out of the room, leaving silence behind.
Miss Fraser said, “Poor man! If only they can find his son—that will be such a comfort to him.”
But the fells and the precipices and the long cold nights were unforgiving.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the event, only Miss Fraser and Rutledge