The Haunting of Maddy Clare (37 page)

Our eyes met in mutual surprise. He ran a hand through his hair, and looked sheepishly at me. “Hello.”

I blinked, the pot of milk momentarily forgotten. “What are you doing?” I whispered.

He looked down and shuffled his feet, for all the world like a servant caught napping on the job. “Sarah, don’t be angry. I was with Evangeline.”

I turned back to the stove and resumed stirring, taking this in.

“It’s the only way,” he went on. “We’re both under suspicion, and we’re watched so closely. I can’t not see her. Surely you understand?”

I pursed my lips. I admitted grudgingly to myself that if it were Matthew in that house through the woods, I would be doing the same thing. “How is she?”

“She’s…” He paused, as if finding the words to describe her. “She came to me, you know, after she telephoned for Constable Moores that day. She came to me and sat with me, even though she didn’t know what would happen, if Tom would find out. She didn’t care. Now she’s getting through things. But she’s going to be fine. She’s going to be wonderful, someday.”

I looked back up at him, at the besotted look in his eyes. “Oh, Alistair.”

He smiled at me, his handsome face lighting up.

“Would you like a cup of milk?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Sit down, then.”

But he didn’t. He stood, watching me as I found two mugs and poured a little milk into each. I set his cup next to his hand and as I brushed by him, my body close to his, he put his hands gently on my shoulders. I looked up at him.

“Does he make you happy?” he asked.

I blushed. “Yes.”

He nodded. “I can see it. He loves you madly, you know, though it’s killing him to admit it. But he’s wild for you. The way he looks at you when you’re not looking…”

I blushed hotter.

“I know Matthew,” he went on. “It’s hard to explain. We all went to war, all of us, and we all went to the same war. But it seems that every man went to a different war in the end. Even men who fought in the same battles—it’s as if every man was in a different place. Matthew’s war isn’t the same as mine, or any man’s. He hasn’t let it go. It isn’t going to be easy.”

I looked at the floor. “I know.”

“But he’s worth it, in the end.”

“I know that, too.”

“God.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Sarah. You signed on for a temporary assistant job, and look what I put you through. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t say that.” I looked up at him. Here was the same face I was so familiar with, the face I had first seen across from me in the coffee shop in Soho. The kind eyes, the mussed hair, the handsome smile. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“What an extraordinary girl you are,” he said, and he pulled me gently to him. I put my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, smelling his clean, sweet, lemony smell, feeling his welcome warmth. It was nothing like the powerful heat I felt with Matthew, but it was comforting all the same.

“Be happy,” I said in his ear.

“I mean to try,” he replied.

We stayed there, giving each other quiet comfort, until our milk went cold.

Eventually, there was an inquest. The three of us were summoned to attend. Constable Moores gave evidence, as did the doctor. Evangeline Barry also spoke, her face pale, her clothes somber yet utterly stylish; she testified that she had seen me in the street, and I had begged her to get the police. I feared Roderick Nesbit would take his life, she said, and that Matthew was in danger from her own husband. She testified that she had seen nothing, known nothing, of her husband’s possible crimes, that she could think of no reason for him to drown in the stream.

Matthew and I both gave testimony, Matthew to the fact that Tom Barry had admitted to attacking and attempting to murder Maddy Clare before attacking Matthew himself, and finally I spoke, about being held at gunpoint, struck in the face, locked in the basement. The magistrate took me back and forth over the sounds I’d heard while in the cellar. I told him, again, that there had been no shouts, no screams, and no gunfire. I did not tell him about the birds.

Eventually, the judgment was given that Bill Jarvis had died of a seizure, Roderick Nesbit had committed suicide, and Tom Barry had suffered an accident that made him fall in the stream and die of natural causes. The case was closed. Constable Moores was destined to remain unhappy. We were finally free to go.

We packed our bags, and made our plans. Alistair was going home, for a brief time, to take care of some things before traveling alone to a seaside resort. After a few unsuspicious weeks, Evangeline would claim the need for a respite after all she’d been through, and would quietly join him. They were going to try life as a couple, as best they could. I hoped they would be able to make each other happy.

That left Matthew and me.

He came into my room as I packed my few belongings in my little bag. He paced the room, picking things up and putting them down again, staring out the window and turning away.

I packed and waited for him to speak.

He turned back to the window. “I’m thinking of going back to Kingscherry and paying my parents a visit.”

“That’s nice.”

“What will you do?”

I pretended I didn’t feel a shaft of pain, a flutter of panic. I smoothed my hand over one of my folded skirts. “I haven’t decided.”

“You could go back to London.”

To my dreary flat, my temporary life. “Yes, I suppose I could.”

“You could travel, find somewhere new to live.”

Yes, I could do that. Alistair, determined that his guilt was not assuaged, had given me a sum of money, insisting it was restitution for the ordeal I had been through and the injury I had suffered to my face. It wasn’t riches, but it was plenty to buy me a little time and a train ticket.

“You must be disappointed,” Matthew continued, still looking out the window. “About Alistair.”

I straightened at that, and crossed my arms.

He turned to me. “Am I a fool?”

“Yes,” I replied. “You are an absolute fool.”

He looked down, ran a hand through his hair. I glimpsed the burn scar that showed from under his cuff. I watched his face, the struggle there, his dark eyes so expressive when you learned just how to read them. I watched him struggle with himself, his past, his life. His heart.

Finally he looked up at me. I kept my arms crossed, waiting, feeling the thump of my heart against the inside of my wrist.

Matthew shoved his hands in his pockets. His eyes met mine. “Sarah.”

“Yes?”

“Will you please come to Kingscherry with me?”

So many silly words came to my lips.
Do you promise? Do you mean it?
But there was no need to say those things. If Matthew said it, then he promised. And Matthew never said anything he didn’t mean.

Do you want me?

I didn’t ask that either. I stayed there, with my arms crossed, and looked him in the eye.

“Jesus God, Sarah,” he said as if I had spoken. “You know I do.”

I crossed the room and went to him. I put my hands on his face, smiling.

“Well, then,” I said. “You only had to ask.”

M
y uncle Toby died of a broken neck in the autumn of 1924, just as I was starting the Michaelmas term at Oxford. I was pulled from the back of the lecture hall by a pimpled assistant in oxfords and an ill-fitting skirt who hissed that I had a confidential summons and must go to the Administrative Office at once. She even led me there, though it was just across the quad, so agog was she at the mystery of it.

When I learned what had happened, it was a mystery to me as well, for my uncle had not been spoken of in my family for nearly eight years.

I was shown into an unused office where the solicitor from London gave me the news. He was a compact man in a neat vest, out of place against the scored and mismatched furniture and stacks of books. Still, he bade me sit and spoke to me with quiet courtesy,
as if we were not in a damp, borrowed room whose drafty windows barely kept out the mist from the commons outside.

“I’m sorry,” he said, after he had told me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief. “Do you need a moment before we proceed?”

I looked at the handkerchief, apparently a spare, and the only thought I could muster was that he had come terribly well-prepared. “You must give news like this often,” I said.

Surprise flickered across his face, and he folded the handkerchief again.

“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing how I sounded. “It’s just that I don’t know what to say. I truly have no idea. I didn’t know Toby very well. And I don’t— That is, I’ve never dealt with . . .” I trailed off. How stupid for a philosophy student who had safely debated the concept of death and the immortality of the soul with her fellows to admit she had never known anyone to actually die.

“It will take some time,” the solicitor, who had introduced himself as Mr. Reed, said kindly. “And, yes, I do give such news from time to time. Usually in situations in which the deceased does not have much family.”

I nearly opened my mouth to protest:
But Toby has family
. He had his brother, my father. But perhaps Mr. Reed meant a wife, children. Toby had never had those. And why count family you don’t speak to?

“Does my father know?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Mr. Reed. “I cabled him yesterday.” He gave me a very calm, lawyerly regard, stern but not without gentleness. It was well-perfected for a man under forty. “I’ve come, Miss Leigh, to tell you there is a great deal to be done. Do you understand?”

I nodded, awash with relief. “Yes, yes, of course I understand. My parents will come home.”

He straightened the papers in front of him, running his finger along the edges. “I’m afraid that’s not quite what I mean. I received the reply by cable this morning. It’s why I came up here from London on the first train directly. Your parents are not coming home. They have sent me to you.”

“To me? What can I do?”

“His personal effects will require taking care of. But before any legal issues can be addressed, I’m afraid someone must identify the body.”

I stared at him for a long moment, aghast. “You must be joking.”

He shook his head. “I’m not, I’m afraid.”

“I can’t do that. Identify a body? Are you mad? I simply can’t.”

Again he ran his finger along the edge of his papers. “Miss Leigh, I realize the idea is unpleasant. I admit these aren’t the exact circumstances I would have chosen. But it seems these are the circumstances we’ve been given. Your uncle’s body is currently housed at a magistrate’s office in Devonshire. We can’t move forward with any of his final wishes until the identification is done.”