Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [76]
“Pansies.”
“Pansies? A spring flower, mostly. Hardy in the cold, not strong in the sun. Look over there, by the rhododendron.”
He did, and saw the straggling green stalks that flopped across the grass, the small faces lifted to stare at him.
“They’re twice that size in the spring,” she said, reaching for a length of cloth. “But they come back in the autumn, if all’s well. That’s why I put them in the shadow of the taller bush. A little protection.”
“Out on the moor, would they need protection?”
She stopped what she was doing to look at him. “They don’t grow often on the moors. Unless someone sows them there. And that makes no sense. A waste of good plants! But you might find a few at the edge of a wood. Gone wild, you see.”
Which was an interesting thought.
“Tell me,” he said slowly, working it out in his mind as he spoke, “do you know if Stephen FitzHugh ever considered becoming a Catholic? Did the family ever discuss his choice of faith?”
“Not that I know of, sir!” She seemed surprised. “Mr. Brian, now, he was brought up a Catholic, but the children never were. And he went to services with the family regularly, there was no fuss about it that I ever heard. He was a man who wanted to please, not one to set people at odds. But he loved Ireland, and he talked about the country often and often.”
“In what way? Was he a supporter of the Irish rebellions?”
“Oh, no, sir, not to my knowledge! Though he used to tease Miss Rosamund that it was a Trevelyan—not her own family, mind!—that refused to provide money for the victims of the potato famine, back in last century, so as they could emigrate to Canada or America. He had a bad name in Ireland, that one, and caused a great many deaths. Cruel, he was. I heard Mr. Brian say once that his coldheartedness killed as many people as Cromwell and William of Orange put together.”
“Cormac and Stephen never showed any interest in Irish politics? Sympathy for the rebels? For the suffering there?”
“No, sir, Mr. Stephen considered himself an Englishman— he said to me that he was going off to war because it was his duty to the King. And Mr. Stephen was one that always took duty seriously. Mr. Cormac, now, he was in the war too, but I never heard he went to France. Miss Olivia told me he was doing something secret, and I shouldn’t ask.” She smiled. “I never could picture him as a spy, sir! Sneaking about and telling lies. Mr. Stephen, now, he’d see all that as a game, like hide and seek. He were—more light-hearted. The kind of man who’d shrug it off and not be touched by it. But Mr. Cormac was always one to mind appearances. Not to the manor born, you might say.”
Cormac had spent his war breaking codes. Not as exciting as spying. And not as dangerous. But quite as important as shouldering a rifle.
He left her and went to walk through the wood between the village and the Hall, searching along the muddy path for pansies, then looking in small clearings, before giving it up. This was far too close to the village to risk bringing the body of a small boy and burying him. And Olivia hadn’t said anything about trees in her poem.
When he was called to the moors the second time, it was a man who came for him, and they trudged in silence to the place where a small cache of clothes had been found. The shreds were small and dirty and rotting with the damp of the earth, but a boy’s clothing. Short jacket—you could see how the collar lay, and one side seam. Short trousers—part of the waistband and a pocket, part of one leg. What might have been a shirt and underdrawers, mere threads of white that fell apart at the touch. The good wool of the jacket and trousers was tougher, and had lasted while the linen and the cotton had disintegrated. And someone had wrapped it all quite carefully in heavily oiled cloth, which had protected the fabric for a very long time. He couldn’t be sure of the colors. But there was enough of the cloth left to draw conclusions about the shape and general size of the outer garments, as he gingerly spread them out on the