Dead Men's s Boots

She tensed, seeming to be about to stand, but the impulse spent itself in a sort of tremor that passed through her. Still she didn’t avoid our eyes: she seemed to me to have made a decision at some point in her life not to duck or flinch from anything.

‘God works in mysterious ways,’ she said, her voice very low. ‘Or so we’re told. But He doesn’t have a monopoly on that, does He, Mister Castor? It was an awful thing. Of course it was. But it spared me. All those deaths . . . spared me. I was twenty years old, and I was hoping to escape this house by getting married, but my father wouldn’t let me out and he wouldn’t let any boys come by.

He said he’d had one daughter go wild on him and he wasn’t going to have another go the same way. So I stayed here, with him. And with my brothers. All the day, and all the night.’ She looked at her hands, spreading the fingers slowly as if she was examining them for scars or imperfections. ‘Somebody had to come and save me. And somebody did.’

Ruth paused, but she didn’t seem to have finished speaking, and neither I nor Juliet jumped into the gap.

After a few moments she took up again in a different tone, softer and more wistful. ‘She only came back to visit a couple of times, and it was always in secret, because she was afraid they’d hold her for Tucker’s murder. But she used to write me letters. About Chicago. About the things she was doing there. They were full of lies – but nice lies. Lies that would make me happy for her. And it did make me happy, to think that she was free of this place.’

‘Why do you stay here?’ Juliet asked. There was no indication in her voice of what she was feeling, but I recognised the look on her face. All things considered, it was probably a lucky break for Lucas Seaforth and his three sons that they were dead already.

Ruth’s eyebrows rose and fell again. ‘It’s my home,’ she said. ‘It’s the only place I know, really. And it’s the only place she’d ever be able to find me, if she wanted to come and see me again.

And I’m too old to start over, anywhere. I could move, if I wanted to. Insurance paid off a lot when my father died, and it all came to me when there was no one else left to lay claim to it. But I don’t really have any use for money. And I don’t really have any use for travel. I’m happy where I am.’

The last sentence was belied by the tears that sprang up in her eyes and overflowed suddenly down her cheeks.