Who had buried these articles deep under a bush and covered them with a flat white stone? And why? Or when? There was no way of knowing to whom they’d belonged but it was the first evidence Rutledge had discovered that proved the search mattered. Even Dawlish’s doubts were silenced.

Rutledge put the shreds of wool carefully into a brown sack someone offered him, and carried them back to Bor-combe with him, ordering the men to comb the vicinity again, until they could swear that there was nothing else to be found. And he promised them beer from The Three Bells with their dinner, if they did their work thoroughly.

He had already arranged to meet Rachel after dinner, while the light was still good, and walk over to the Hall to look for Olivia’s papers. It was not all that he had in mind for the evening, but it was an innocuous beginning.

Chapter 15

15

Rachel was tense as they walked through the door of the Hall. “I miss the flowers,” she said, a trace of nervousness in her voice. “The Hall was always full of flowers. You could smell the beeswax polish, the scent of Rosamund’s perfume, and the flowers, whenever you walked through the door. Like a welcome. Now the air’s—I don’t know. Still. Dead ...”

“You have a right to be here,” he said. “Why don’t you cut flowers and put them in vases yourself?”

“No. I was bequeathed a share in the Hall. That was the way they wanted it, Olivia and Nicholas. But I have no right here. No place here.” Her voice trailed off at the end.

“Let’s start with the upper floors and work our way down,” he said prosaically, before she could get cold feet altogether. “The attics?”

“This way,” she said, shaking off her gloomy spirits and leading him towards the stairs.

They made their way up to the attics, warmed by the sun, spared the wind, and still comfortable. There they began looking through trunks of gowns carefully wrapped in tissue paper, and suits of clothes and coats, moving aside rocking horses and doll’s houses, chairs and old bedsteads, cribs and perambulators, canes, odds and ends of lumber, and any number of boxes stored long ago and forgotten, the debris of generations. They found a stuffed fox, ratty with age, glass eyes gleaming in the lamps they’d brought with them, and a wardrobe full of hats that caught Rachel’s fancy.