Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [16]
His sister Frances would know, if anybody did. But looking at the woman in front of him, and remembering the photograph she’d taken from him, Rutledge found himself wondering if Eleanor Victoria Maude Gray was— possibly—the child of a liaison between Lady Maude and the late King Edward VII. The king had had an eye for beautiful women. It wouldn’t have been surprising if she’d come to his notice.
Small wonder, with that heritage, that Lady Maude refused to believe that her daughter had come to die on a desolate Scottish mountainside, or that she had borne a child out of wedlock.
Eleanor was destined for greater things than a career in medicine—if she was the daughter of a King, and heir to this house and the fortune that apparently maintained it, she could take her pick of wealthy and titled men.
But if she was as contrary as her mother wanted him to believe, might she not have rebelled against this golden future and found instead some perverse pleasure in making her mother’s nightmares rather than her dreams come true . . . ?
LADY MAUDE SAT at the broad desk long after the man from London had gone, staring blindly at the closed door.
How had he tricked her into speaking of Eleanor? She had told a policeman what she hadn’t revealed to anyone else—that Eleanor was headstrong, contrary, that her daughter’s heritage had meant so little to her that she had walked away from it and never looked back. She had chosen a common profession instead, one that dealt with poverty and squalor and hideous diseases. It was unspeakably cruel and headstrong.
She would call London straightaway and have that man broken in rank—
Instead Lady Maude went on sitting where she was, reviling him, refusing to acknowledge pain or guilt. Eleanor was not dead. The police were incompetent and stupid. She would not allow them to trouble her again.
Something the Inspector had said came back to her. “Another mother will have to bear that grief . . .”
Then find her and be satisfied. And let there be an end to this!
Sunlight cast long, narrow shadows across the carpet, and still she sat there. She did not need the photograph in the closed drawer to see her daughter’s face, feel the strong presence of her spirit. A mother would know—if anything untoward had happened—
They were trying to frighten her into helping them, these policemen, rather than doing their duty as it should be done!
Finally she stood up, took a deep breath, and walked firmly to the door. By the time she had reached the small room where the telephone had been put in, she had made her decision.
5
RUTLEDGE TURNED OUT OF THE DRIVE BACK ONTO THE main road.
Hamish, reacting to the lessening of tension, spoke after a long silence. “It wasna’ a verra useful interview. But sufficient. A formidable woman, that. I wouldna’ care to grow up in her shadow.”
Was that how Eleanor Gray had felt about her mother?
“My own grandfather was her match,” Hamish was saying, “he could have led the clan into battle, anither time and place. But he had anither side as well, he could recite in a voice that kept the room silent. Verse, and the Old Testament. When it came to the Prophets or Robert Burns, there was none to hold a candle to him. I ken many a night when I lay awake in the loft, listening. Does this one have anither face?”
Thinking it over, Rutledge came to the conclusion that Lady Maude did. If she had been mistress to Queen Victoria’s son, her husband had been willingly, knowingly, cuckolded. Unlike Henry VIII, Edward had chosen his married lovers with great care, to prevent gossip or scandal. And his friends had known which woman to invite to which social engagement. Or had been quietly informed of royal wishes. Still, it must not have been easy for Edward’s wife, Alexandra, or the current favorite herself to live with such an open secret. Or for the favorite to return to her marriage when the Prince’s fancy moved elsewhere.
The problem was, a child seldom recognized a parent’s strength; it saw only stern discipline that couldn’t be easily manipulated