Free The Constable's Tale by Donald Smith Page A

matter-of-factly, as if addressing a onetime business partner, not a lost darling.
    “The purpose of my visit is simple. In light of our history together, I feel you may have questions that need answering. We need to resolveour situation so we can get on with our lives. We need not have secrets between us, nor lingering mysteries. That, Harry, is the best way.”
    “Suits me,” he said.
    She talked of how she finished her education in Edinburgh, and then Olaf agreed for her to stay in Europe, tour the Continent, with her mother as chaperone. A not-uncommon thing among those of her age and class, she explained. As it turned out, it lasted seven years. Her mother died of a fever about halfway through, and she was on her own. But whenever she ran low on money, the judge would send another note of credit to wherever she was. Venice, Avignon, Brescia. All the fashionable places.
    “It makes me feel bad now to think of how much of his money I spent. But I guess it meant little to one as wealthy as my grandfather.”
    “I tried not to think about you,” Harry said. “But I couldn’t help wondering where you were, what you were doing.”
    “I’ll confess I was curious about you as well. Mail from friends in New Bern caught up with me now and then, and I was much amazed to hear you had come under Grandfather’s tutelage.”
    “I am in his debt for everything he’s done for me. And continues to do.”
    She talked more about her adventures. She had befriended people whose names she seemed to think Harry should recognize, though he could not imagine why. Politicians, poets, diplomats, novelists, essayists. She had written some herself—poems, satires, even a play—under pen names. They were mostly circulated among friends, except for letters to newspaper editors touching on political issues.
    She moved on to the subject of lovers as if she thought this might be something Harry would want to know about, which he did not. A middle-aged banker in Rome. A youthful artist in Geneva. A dark-skinned man in Marseilles who helped unload the ship she had arrived on from Venice. In Padua, a beautiful and intense young Spaniard then visiting the courts and literary circles of Europe. A man, she implied, whose appetites did not stop at women.
    Harry had nothing comparable to tell. He offered a few details about life with his mother and Natty, realizing how boring his adventuressounded. Thinking that matters involving money might impress her, he said how, two years previous, his family had made a fateful financial choice. In response to falling prices they had cut back on the amount of tobacco they were raising and were now shipping much more timber, tar, pitch, and turpentine. Gifts of the seemingly unending legions of pine trees on their property.
    “Well, I don’t want to prolong this any more than necessary,” Maddie said when he started talking about forest products. “I just thought we should speak before we go our separate ways. It felt like unfinished business.”
    “You already said that.”
    “Yes. I wanted us to be clear about where we stand. So we can make the clean break I believe would be best for both of us. You seem happy. I hope you wish the same for me.”
    “Do you love him?”
    Maddie stopped and turned to face him. “Richard? Of course I love him. Why would you think otherwise?”
    “I’m sorry, I had no right to ask. I’m sure he has everything you want in a husband. You should be happy together.”
    “I have to go now.” She resumed her pace. “Olaf is expecting me for supper. And I have to get ready to leave for Williamsburg. Richard has business to look after there before we leave for Canada.”
    “We?”
    “I’m going with him. We’re taking a schooner in the morning, so we don’t have to go anywhere near that awful swamp. What’s its name?”
    “The Great Dismal.”
    “Yes. A good word for it.”
    They walked back to the railing where Maddie had fastened her horse.
    “I . . .” he began,