Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [80]
He could hear her voice change as she drifted back into the past again, caught up in spite of her reluctance.
“What was Richard wearing?”
“I don’t remember—white shirt, long stockings, short trousers, I should think. He did have a jacket too, because he took it off for a time. It was warm in the sun. Rosamund made him put it back on again, when the wind came up. He didn’t want to put it on, and fussed about it. Later, we wondered if that’s why he’d run off, because he was still in a temper. He was so headstrong, sometimes.” She stopped. “Are you sure you want to hear so many little things?”
“Yes. It helps me frame a picture.”
She was one of those rare people who could tell a story coherently. Describing clearly the images she saw in her mind, without backtracking and confusing the threads he needed to follow.
“We’d had our picnic, and Rosamund sat down to rest, James had his head in her lap, I remember thinking how comfortable they looked. Cormac had gone to talk to the guide. He was an old man whose sons left for America twenty years before, to work in the mines there. Cormac wanted to know about them, if they’d prospered, if they’d written home about their new life. I was drowsy, and Olivia sat down beside me, to rest her leg a little. But Richard wanted to go back and see the ponies. He begged her to walk with him, because his mother wouldn’t let him go alone. I don’t know where Nicholas was, he’d wandered off. He did that sometimes, exploring. He always had an unerring sense of direction, no one ever worried about him. Finally Olivia got up and followed Richard, making him promise not to run too fast for her. I was waiting for Nicholas to come back and didn’t want to be bothered with Richard, and I’ve felt very guilty about that ever since ...”
He let the silence drift, and finally her voice picked up the tale again. “I was nearly asleep when Rosamund said we ought to be starting back. She sent Cormac to look for Nicholas and James to find Olivia and Richard. We walked over to the carriages together and put the baskets away. Rosamund was saying something about a house party she was planning, friends from London. I remember that, because they came for the funeral instead. James’ funeral. Then she said, ‘I wonder what’s keeping them!’ “
There was another pause. “Cormac came back alone and said that Nicholas had just seen some of those butterflies you only find out on the moors and didn’t want to leave. He took me off with him to persuade him. But Nicholas wasn’t by the rocks anymore, and we looked for five or ten minutes, Cormac and I. Then we went back to where Rosamund was waiting, and Nicholas was already there. James came back with Olivia, saying they couldn’t find Richard. So Rosamund left Olivia and me in the carnages, while she and James and Cor-mac and Nicholas went out to search for Richard. But he didn’t come back. And they couldn’t find him. And Olivia wasn’t sure what had happened, except that he’d gone to play with the ponies in plain sight, and she’d thought he was still with them. They sent the coachman to the Hall on one of the carriage horses to collect the grooms and servants while they went back again to look. By nightfall, it was clear we weren’t going to find him at all. But James wouldn’t hear of calling off the search. He said Richard was just being naughty, hiding from us. Nicholas came back covered in blood and scratches, from a fall, and said he’d located the ponies, and Richard wasn’t with them, but there’d been some gypsy boys about. He and Cormac went back to look again. They searched with torches. I remember the long shadows they cast, and how black the men looked in the distance, and then Rosamund sent us home in one of