A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [109]
Rutledge was greeted at the door of the Pinter house by a wary Agnes Farrell. Long rays of the sun, still warm at nine-thirty, gave her face a glow that faded as soon as she stepped back to allow him to enter. The thinness of long nights of no sleep, the sallowness of stress were marked in the dimness of the narrow passage between the door and the parlor.
“How is the child?” he asked, smiling down at her, trying to be reassuring.
“Well enough,” she answered doubtfully. “Eating. Sleeping. But grieving somehow, clutching that doll as if it was a lifeline.”
Meg appeared behind her mother, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “Inspector?” she asked anxiously. The child’s illness had worn her too, the confidence of youth lost, the dread of death haunting her, buoyed only by a blind hope that soon it would all be back as it had been, normal and comforting.
“Good evening, Mrs. Pinter. I’ve come to have a look at Lizzie,” he said, as if it was an ordinary thing to do on a Monday evening. “If I may?”
She glanced at her mother and then said, uncertainly, “Yes, sir?” Both women stepped back, allowing him to enter, and from their attitude he gathered that they were alone in the house, that Ted Pinter hadn’t returned from the Haldane stables. He had chosen his time well, he thought with relief.
He began to move toward Lizzie’s small room, saying something about the lovely day that had followed the rain, in an attempt to set them at ease. They followed, close together for comfort. A lamp was burning on the low table, and the child stared up at him as he came in with large, sober dark blue eyes. He wasn’t really sure she saw him, in the sense of comprehending that he was a stranger, someone she didn’t know and wasn’t used to, because there was no spark of curiosity, no quick look at her mother to see if all was well. Instead there was an apathy about her still. But she wasn’t screaming, and he took that as a good sign.
“What did Dr. Warren have to say?” he asked over his shoulder.
Agnes answered, “He said it was what he’d hoped might happen, but didn’t expect. And we’d have to see if this new quietness lasted. In truth, sir, I think he was more than worried she might die, she was wasting so fast.”
Meg added, “She’s not in the clear yet—” as if hoping Rutledge might take the hint and go, now that he’d done what he came to do.
Instead he walked over to the bed. “Lizzie? I’m—er—a friend of Dr. Warren’s. He asked me to come and see you tonight. In his place.”
Her eyes had followed him, watched him, but she said nothing.
He went on, talking to her for several minutes, telling her he’d seen a woman with a basket of strawberries at market, and a man with a dog that did tricks. But nothing touched the blankness on her face.
Rutledge wasn’t accustomed to children. But he’d seen enough of the sad refugees on the roads of France—hungry, frightened, tired—to know that it wasn’t very likely that he’d be able to break through the barrier of her silence on his own. Not without days of careful groundwork to gain her confidence.
He thought about it for a time, watching those blue eyes, wondering what the best way of reaching her might be. He didn’t have days to give.
Hamish said softly, “Your Jean has such eyes; your children might have been fair and very like Lizzie….”
Turning to Agnes, Rutledge said, “Do you have a rocking chair?”
Surprised, she answered, “Aye, sir, a nursing rocker. In the kitchen.”
“Show me.” She did, and he saw that he had come just at the end of their meal; there was a chicken partly carved on the counter, a bowl of potatoes sat on the table next to a half loaf of bread and a plate of pickles, and dishes were stacked in a wash pan in the sink, while a big kettle whistled softly on the stove. The nursing rocker—small and without arms to allow a woman to breast-feed comfortably—stood by the hearth, worn but serviceable.
He carried it back to the bedroom, turned it with its back to the doorway, and said to Meg, “You’ll want to finish