Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [116]
DRIVING OUT OF Duncarrick, Rutledge was trying to decide how much weight to give to what Dorothea MacIntyre had told him about the brooch. On the whole, he thought, she was honest and without guile. Confronted, as when he’d asked her about McKinstry and Ealasaid MacCallum had asked about her interview with Elliot, she told lies out of a deep-seated fear of provoking anger. The girl wanted so desperately to please. It was her first—and only—need.
Hamish, taking up another matter, said, “I never gave Fiona a ring. I couldna’ tie her to me, going off to war. The bracelet was a gift to remember me by, but didna’ bind her.”
Rutledge had not married Jean in 1914 for the same reason, using the war as an excuse to put off their October wedding. And in the end it had been the right decision. He felt cold now, thinking about living with a woman who hated him—or hated what he had in her eyes become: a broken stranger.
He wondered if Eleanor Gray might have regretted not marrying Robbie Burns when he was home on leave. . . .
There was a woman sitting along the road just by the pele tower. Something about the droop of her shoulders told him she wasn’t well.
He searched for a name and came up with it. Mrs. Holden. Her husband was the sheep farmer. . . . Rutledge braked and came to a stop just beside her. “Are you in trouble?” he asked. “Can I take you somewhere?”
She smiled ruefully.“The doctor tells me to walk if I intend to regain my strength. But I don’t have the strength to walk. . . .”
“Then let me take you home—or to the doctor, if you’d prefer that.”
He got out of the car and helped her up from the low stone she’d found to sit on. Under his hands her shoulders felt frail.
Lifting her into the car, he settled her in the passenger seat. She was white from even that simple exertion.
“I’m so sorry to be such a nuisance!” she said breathlessly. “It’s silly of me to overdo my strength and put strangers to such trouble.”
Shutting her door, he examined her face. And didn’t like what he saw there. “Let me take you into Duncarrick. I think you ought to see your doctor.”
After a moment, her eyes closed, she nodded. “Yes. I need to lie down. He’ll be glad to let me lie down for a while.”
Rutledge backed the car around and said, “Would you like me to find your husband and bring him to you?”
“No, I thank you. He’s in Jedburgh today. Dr. Murchison or one of my friends will see that I get home. Talk to me if you will. And just let me listen. It takes my mind off the weakness.”
How does a policeman make pleasant conversation with a near-fainting woman? He said, “I’ve admired the pele tower. The way it was constructed. I understand it’s on your property. I’d be interested in hearing its story. What role it played in the days of the Border raids.”
She smiled a little. “My father is the person you should have spoken to.”
“Did he write a history of Duncarrick?” It was often the retired gentleman or rector who collected the legends and tales passed down by word of mouth for generations and turned them into a chronicle of sorts.
“He never got around to it, I’m afraid.”
A few sentences more and he’d exhausted the subject of the tower. Rutledge cast about for a new topic. “The name of the inn we’re just passing. The Reivers. I wonder who chose that. Did the MacCallums have riders in their ancestry?” Riders—reivers—raiders, he thought. Euphemisms for the same bloody trade of Border warfare.
Drummond was just coming out of the inn with Ian MacLeod, returning from feeding the cat. The child looked up, eyes shining, and pointed with excitement to the car. Rutledge waved but didn’t stop.
Drummond was glaring after him with murder in his face.
The woman, staring ahead with unseeing eyes, bit her lip. She was in no shape to answer his trivial questions.
“Hold on,” Rutledge said gently, touching her hands where they lay trembling in her lap. “We’re nearly there.”
But he had to carry her into Dr. Murchison’s office, her head against his shoulder and her body so light, it was like a feather in his arms.
The nurse came to meet him, having