Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [100]
He could hear the sense of grief, not for her husband or herself but for the waste of her life on something she hadn’t believed in.
And then as if she’d picked up his earlier conclusion, she said, “Africa’s hard on women. That’s why I persuaded Miss Rachel not to follow Peter Ashford to Kenya. She was all for going. She’d have been left out there a widow, if she hadn’t listened. And—and for many reasons I was right.”
He wondered if Mary Otley knew—or guessed—about Rachel’s feelings for Nicholas. He asked a few more questions that took him nowhere, then stood to go.
Rhodes, caught napping, leaped to his own feet before he was quite awake and scrambled to the attack. Rutledge sidestepped smoothly, and the little dog skidded to a halt by the chair, taking on its already well-chewed skirts instead.
But Mrs. Otley, looking up at Rutledge and ignoring the dog as if used to mock battles, said, “Of course I was back here in Borcombe when Nicholas nearly died. If that’s any help to you, sir. I wouldn’t want Miss Rachel to know of it, but she tells me you’ve an interest in such happenings at the Hail, and I wouldn’t want to be remiss in my duty. But if it serves no purpose, I’d as soon have it left a secret. If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Secret?” Rutledge repeated, as unprepared as Rhodes for the sudden shift in direction.
“Yes, it was kept very quiet at the time. No one wanted it talked about, but I suppose it doesn’t do any harm now, if you’re interested in the family’s history, as they say in the village you are. Though God knows why. They were always perfectly respectable people up at the Hall.”
“Tell me.” He spoke more sharply than he’d intended.
“There isn’t much to tell, actually. He was coming home to the Hall, late one night, Mr. Nicholas. He’d been visiting the rector—this was well before the war, oh, 1907 or thereabouts, and there’d had been rumors at the time about Mr. Nicholas leaving soon to see some of the ships being built up on Clyde Bank, in Scotland. Those liners everyone was talking about, and the prize for the Atlantic crossing speed record. Young Stephen told me he’d overheard Mr. Cormac saying he’d look into finding a place for Mr. Nicholas in one of the fleets, if he was interested. But I don’t know if that’s true or not, nothing came of it. At any rate, on the way home from Rector’s, Mr. Nicholas was stabbed by some drunkard. Too drunk to know what he was about, thank God, because the knife missed Mr. Nicholas’ heart and took a long slash out of his ribs instead. Dr. Penrith sewed him up, ordered him to stay in his own bed and not go wandering off to London or Scotland or anywhere else, and that was the end of that. I don’t think anyone knew about it except Miss Olivia and the doctor, and of course me, because the poor man dragged himself to my door when he couldn’t make it through the wood and up the hill to the Hall.”
“And the drunkard?”
“Oh, he was long gone away by the time Miss Olivia took some of the grooms out to hunt for him. She told them only that the man’d been making a nuisance of himself on the drive. I daresay he fled the minute he’d seen what he’d done. Drunk or not, he’d have known there’d be a hue and cry over it.”
“And Rachel never knew?”
“She was away, and Miss Olivia said she’d be here in a flash, worrying herself to death, and to no good purpose. I agreed, and never said a word to anyone. Mr. Nicholas ran a fever for a day or two, then began to heal. It wasn’t as if Miss Rachel was needed to help nurse him.”
“Did Nicholas get a good look at his assailant?”
“He said he was too rattled at the time to take much notice, except that the man was tall and thin and dressed poorly. Which was very unlike him, to my mind. Not one to lose his nerve, Mr. Nicholas. But men are strange sometimes, when it comes to pride. He wouldn’t have a fuss made over it. Someone dragged up before the magistrate for the attack, everyone talking—”
Rutledge agreed with her first comment.