• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Overton smiled, a small, unhappy gesture full of pity. “Not precisely. He left here quite early in the afternoon. I think he took the half past two train to Penrith. He said he intended to see someone, but he did not say who, nor what he meant to say to them. He would have been in Penrith before half past three, and perhaps home by five, if he had a good horse. He wished to go to a recital in the village where he lives. It was something to do with his son, who I understand is remarkably gifted.”

“Yes. Yes, he is.” Henry was still thinking in a daze. He tried to imagine what must have been in Judah's mind as he traveled home that day. He knew that Ashton Gower had been innocent. Was it Gower he had intended to see? Or someone else—someone who was guilty?

Had he been too late to see them before the recital? He would not miss it and disappoint Joshua. Had he planned to see that person after his return home, at the lower crossing? Why there? Closer to the village, but yet private? Closer to the church? The Viking site? Colgrave's house? Or halfway between the estate and someone else's house?

Who was it, and what had transpired? If it was Gower, then had Judah's death been the tragic and idiotic result of an explosion of rage at the injustice of the eleven years Gower had spent in prison for a crime he had not committed?

That was possible.

It was equally possible that it was not Ashton Gower at all, but someone else. Peter Colgrave? Or someone who had intended to buy the estate, and been prevented?

One thing was certain: Henry could not leave the matter secret now. The injustice burned like a fire inside him, demanding reparation. If he permitted Ashton Gower to carry the shame of the first crime, and then the fear of the stigma for the second, he would be more guilty than Gower could ever be, because he knew the truth.

“Why did you not do something when you heard of Judah's death, and knew he could not right it?” he asked Overton.

“My dear Rathbone, I have no proof!” Overton replied, turning up his hands. “I saw the original deed, but it is destroyed now. Only the forgery remains. What could I say, and to whom? Judah Dreghorn could have, but he is dead.”

Of course. Henry should have seen it. Again he felt as if the ground had risen up and struck him, bruising him bone deep. It rested with him. There was no one else.

Slowly and a trifle shakily, he rose to his feet, thanked Overton, and made his way back to the station. He sat in the train all the way to Penrith thinking about it, mulling over anything and everything he could say to the family. None of it stopped the pain in the least, and none of it would be acceptable to them, or dull their anger with him.

He arrived at the house just in time for dinner. It was one of the most miserable of his life. The food was rich, succulent, as if preparing for the taste for the Christmas goose and all the added fare of the season, but it might have been so much stale bread, for any pleasure it gave him.

“We are accomplishing nothing!” Benjamin said miserably. “Gower is still blackening Judah's name. I heard more of it today and I don't see how we can stop him, except by going to law. Antonia?”

She looked sad and frightened. Henry knew her thoughts were even more of Joshua than for herself. Like any woman who had a child, her will, her emotions, her instinct were all to protect him. She must hurt for Judah also, but her first thought would be for the living. She would perhaps do her real mourning after he was safe.

“If it has to be,” she conceded, but Henry heard the reluctance in her voice, and she turned to him for confirmation that this was the only course.

He hesitated. He would have to tell her the truth, but he dreaded it, and he had not the words yet.

Naomi also looked at Henry, but in her eyes was the question formed by knowledge he had been to Kendal today. He had not told her, he had had no opportunity to speak to her alone, but in that glance she understood. Would she have the courage to risk the love of the family, and help him?