Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [49]
“Good afternoon, Inspector,” he said, voice still thick with sleep. “Give me two minutes, and I’ll walk in the garden with you.”
Rutledge went around the back, walked along the tidy rows of vegetables and flowers, and was nearly to the small, scummy pond that had once held fish before Smedley stepped out the back door and came to join him. His hair was combed and his shirt neatly tucked into his trousers, his braces in place.
He cast a look at the sky, and said, “It has been a beautiful day. I hear you and Rachel took a boat out.”
Rutledge smiled. “We did. And lived to tell the tale, though she had some doubts in the beginning. Who was the gossip?”
“It came by way of Mrs. Hinson, who had seen Mr. Trask outside the inn on her way to morning service. She then stopped to offer my housekeeper a small pot of the jam she made yesterday. And I was given the news with my tea, along with the jam.”
“What do the gossips of Borcombe have to say about three deaths at the Hall, all in a matter of months?”
“Much as you’d expect. The women felt that Olivia’s writing must have turned her mind. We aren’t used to famous poets in Borcombe. I think they believed somehow it was a proper judgment on her, for writing about things best left unsaid and probably best left unfelt in a woman.”
“And the men?”
Smedley frowned as he stooped to pull a yellowed leaf off the nearest carrot. “The men are of two minds about Olivia Marlowe. She was of course a Trevelyan, and they’re above the common lot, in most eyes. You forgive a Trevelyan much that you might hold against the greengrocer or your neighbor across the road. At the same time, dying by her own hand was an admission that she’d overstepped the bounds, in a manner of speaking, and finally became aware of it. The universe, you might say, is now back in its stable orbit.”
“What about Stephen FitzHugh? And Nicholas?”
“Stephen was a sore loss. Half the village adored him— every female under sixty, and more than a few over that! The other half, the men, admired him. A good man to have on your side, sense of humor, knew how to lose as well as to win. Quite a reputation for courage in the war, was wounded, decorated. Sportsman. Successful in his business, which was banking. Popular with the ladies. Yes, he was admired—and sometimes envied. That’s natural. Nicholas was respected— Rosamund’s son, the natural leader in village affairs, the man you turned to when there was trouble. Pillar of strength. Not the sort you’d expect to choose suicide. The general belief was that he found Olivia dead or dying, and in the first shock of grief, took his own life. That’s romantic nonsense, but they’re more comfortable with it than with the truth—that he might have wanted to die. But this isn’t why you came to see me, I think?”
“I wanted to know what became of Olivia’s papers. The ones she left to Stephen as her literary executor.”
“They’re probably still at the house. Stephen didn’t want to sell, he wanted to keep the Hall as a memorial to his sister. The others took a few personal things, but he was dead set against removing much else. And was prepared to fight a bitter battle to have his way. Have you looked in Olivia’s room? Or her desk?” He read the expression on Rutledge’s face. “No, of course not. Well, I’d start there. It’s not likely, is it, that Olivia sent them off to her solicitor? He’d have guessed something was wrong, and she didn’t want that. Besides, we aren’t sure just how soon after she decided to put an end to her life she acted on that decision. A day? A month? Five years? A few hours?”
“She had straightened up her desk. Nicholas hadn’t cleared away his ships.”
Smedley looked at him. “That’s proof of nothing.”
“Of, perhaps, a state of mind?”
“You’re saying that she knew where she was going, what she was planning to do, and Nicholas didn’t?”
Rutledge watched the light and shadows play on the upper windows of the rectory, a bird’s flight reflected in