A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [116]
He had some difficulty finding the small house where Sarah Parkinson lived. It stood at the end of a country lane and was no larger than Pockets and far more isolated.
Over a slight rise, he could just see the roof of a barn and tall chimneys.
Why couldn’t the sisters live together? It would have made sense. Especially if money was a problem. Rebecca was protective of Sarah, but there wasn’t the closeness one might expect under the circumstances of their mother’s death and their father’s desertion. Had the ashes been the only problem?
Sarah Parkinson was surprised to see him. She had come to the door at the sound of the motorcar and now stood on the threshold trying to decide whether to tell him to go away or invite him in.
“Good morning,” Rutledge began. “I’ve come to see if you’re all right.”
“Don’t worry, crying over the past won’t lead me to do anything rash.”
“I expect not. Still. May I come in? I’d like to talk to you.”
He could watch the internal debate as she frowned, then said, “I don’t expect I have much choice about it.”
“We can stand here, if you’d rather.”
“No. Come in. But I won’t take your hat. You won’t be staying long.”
Rutledge smiled. “I want to ask you about your parents. If I come in, are you prepared to answer my questions? Otherwise this will be a waste of time for both of us.”
She was disconcerted by his bluntness. “If I don’t like the questions, I’ll tell you.”
“Fair enough.”
The house was old and had seen hard use. But Sarah Parkinson had tried to make it comfortable and pretty, adding paint to the walls and curtains to the bare windows. A fine French carpet lay on the floor, and some furnishings were a little out of date, as if she’d scavenged them from her parents’ attics. They were far better quality than the walls that enclosed them.
“Yes, I’ve come down in the world,” she said, following his gaze. “I only have this house through the courtesy of a friend. It was the best she or I could do.”
“I can understand that you don’t want to live at Partridge Fields again. But what will you do with it?”
“It’s the tomb of my mother. When Becky and I are gone, it can be torn down by people who don’t know why we deserted it. Better that way.”
“The housekeeper still comes to see to it. Who pays her to clean and sweep?”
“My father, I expect. I can’t afford to keep her there.”
“May I ask why you and your sister don’t choose to live together? It would make sense.”
“I think we both prefer the silence. If we were together, we’d talk too much about the past. We wouldn’t be able to help it.”
“Whose motorcar do you drive? Your own? Or Rebecca’s?”
“It belongs to a friend of hers who went to France and came back without his legs. He didn’t want to look at it any more, and told her she could drive it.”
“But you borrow it from time to time?”
“When I can.” She looked away from him, her gaze following a bee at the window. “It’s a long walk for both of us to go anywhere. We trade days. It’s not the life I’d have chosen.”
“You’re young. You’ll marry in time and the past will seem less vivid.”
“After what I’ve seen of marriage,” she retorted, “I want no part of it. It leaves you terribly vulnerable. And in the end you hate each other. My father killed my mother as surely as if he’d held her head under the gas and made her breathe it in. I’ve never understood why he couldn’t love her enough to stop what he was doing. She was so softhearted she couldn’t bear to see a bird suffer. He knew that, but it didn’t matter. He turned his back on her feelings and did what he wanted to do anyway, and in the end she died. When he saw what he had done, it was too late.”
“Was it always that way? You remember your father being kind to you, but was he kind to your mother as well? When you were five, for instance, did you think they were happy?”
“I thought they were. More fool I. It must have been a pretense, for our sakes. I realize that now.”
“They couldn’t have pretended so perfectly that you