Charles Todd: Author Interview

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WINGS OF FIRE

The bodies were discovered by Mrs. Trepol, widow, occupation housekeeper and cook to the deceased.

It was not a morning of swirling sea mists and gray drifting sheets of rain, although afterward Mrs. Trepol remembered it that way.

In fact, the clouds had lifted in the night. The sea was gleaming in patchy May sunlight down below the headland, the house cast long shadows across the wet grass, and an unseasonable warmth already touched the light breeze as she came out of the wood at the side of the big kitchen garden. Her eyes jealously studied the cabbages in their neat rows, measuring them against the size of her own, deciding that hers still had an edge. Well, of course they should! She'd always had the finest garden in the village, and hadn't she proved it with ribbons won at every Harvest Festival? The onions were taller—surely they hadn't been that high on Saturday? But anyone could grow onions. Her peas were already straggling up the sticks she'd set beside them, and growing peas was an art. No sticks stood beside these sad little stalks! She'd be cooking hers before these saw their first blossoms. Old Wilkins, who had kept the Hall's gardens and stables since the lads had all gone off to the war, knew more about horses than vegetables.

Not that he didn't crow over his work.

"Your carrots look a mite small, Mrs. Trepol," he'd say, hanging over the rock wall by her front walk. "Compared to mine, that is." Or "Them beans is spindly. Put 'em in late, did ye?"

Nosy old fool!

Her complacency restored, she went up the three steps to the kitchen door and let herself in with her key as she always did. Not that this was her day to clean. Mondays normally were her day off. But tomorrow she wanted to visit her sister—Naomi's husband had offered to take them both to market in the morning—and Miss Livia never minded if occasionally she shifted her time.

The long stone passage was cool and quiet. At the end of it, she took off her coat, hung it on the peg as she always did, pulled her apron over her head, then stepped into the heart of her domain. And noticed at once that the breakfast dishes, usually neatly stacked on the drain board, hadn't been brought down. She looked around the kitchen, saw that it was much as she'd left it on Saturday evening, not even a crumb marring her scrubbed floor, saw too that no one had opened the curtains.

"Oh, my dear!" she thought, pityingly, "Miss Livia must've had another bad night, and she's still asleep!"

Going up to the back parlor, she found that those curtains were also closed. And for the first time she felt a tremor of alarm.

Mr. Nicholas always opened them at first light, to watch the sea. He'd said once that it made him feel alive to see the dawn come and touch the water...

Miss Livia must have had a terrible night, then, if he'd missed the dawn on her account! Mrs. Trepol had never known that to happen in all the years she'd worked in the house. Mr. Nicholas was always up at first light ... always...

She went out into the hall and looked up the curving stairs.

"Mr. Nicholas?" she called softly. "I've come. Is there anything I can do? Would you care for a cup of tea?"

The silence around her echoed her words and she felt very uneasy now. Surely if he was sitting by Miss Livia's bed, he'd have heard her and come out to speak to her?

Unless something was wrong with him—

She hurried up the stairs and went down the passage to Mr. Nicholas' room, tapping lightly on the panel. No one answered. After a moment's uncertainty, she turned the knob and opened the door.

The bed was made. From the look of it, it had not been slept in. Mr. Nicholas could always make it neatly, but never as smoothly as she did. This was her work. Saturday's work...

She went back down the passage and knocked lightly at Miss Livia's door. Again there was no answer. She opened it gently, so as not to disturb Miss Livia, or Mr. Nicholas, if he'd fallen asleep in the chair by his sister's bed, and peered around the edge.

That bed too was untouched. The coverlet was as smooth as glass. Like Mr. Nicholas'. And there was no one in the chairs.

Suddenly very frightened, she listened to the house around her. Surely if Miss Livia had been taken down to the doctor's surgery in the night, there'd be a message left in the kitchen! But this wasn't her day, Mr. Nicholas wouldn't have known she was coming in. Well, then, someone would have mentioned it at services on Sunday morning. Eager to gossip—

Going to the long study at the end of the gallery, which Mr. Nicholas and Miss Livia shared, Mrs. Trepol knocked, and waited, then reached for the knob as she had twice before.

And then fright turned suddenly to terror. She quickly drew her hand back, bringing it to her flat chest almost protectively, her heart thudding uncomfortably beneath her fingertips.