Snare of Serpents

A Thief in the House

I HAD NEVER SEEN ANYONE look less like a governess. I was watching from a window when she arrived. She stood for a moment looking up at the house and I saw her face clearly. Her reddish hair—Titian, I think it was called—was visible under a black hat with a green feather. That air of genteel poverty which her predecessor, Lilias Milne, had had in common with most of her kind was completely lacking. There was a flamboyant quality about this woman. She looked as if she were about to join some theatrical group instead of coming to teach the daughter of one of Edinburgh’s most respected citizens.

Moreover Hamish Vosper, son of the coachman, had been ordered to take the carriage to the station to meet her. It was too long ago for me to remember the arrival of Lilias Milne, but I was sure she had not been brought here by the family carriage. Hamish helped her out of the vehicle as though she were an important guest; then he collected her baggage—of which there was a considerable amount—and brought her to the front door.

At that point I went down to the hall. Mrs. Kirkwell, the housekeeper, was already there.

“It’s the new governess,” she said to me.

The governess was standing in the hall. She had very green eyes, their colour no doubt accentuated by the green feather in her hat and the silk scarf at her throat; but what made her face so startling were the dark brows and eyelashes which contrasted vividly with the colour of her hair; she had a short rather pert nose with a long upper lip which gave her a playful kittenish look. The full red lips made another contrast; they revealed slightly prominent teeth which suggested an eagerness, a greediness for what—I was only just sixteen—I was not quite sure.

She was looking straight at me and I felt I was being closely scrutinised.

“You must be Davina,” she said.

“Yes, I am,” I answered.

The green eyes were speculative. “We’re going to get along,” she said, in a coy voice which did not quite match the look she gave me.

I knew she was not Scottish.

My father had spoken of her only briefly. He had said: “There will be a new governess. I myself engaged her so I am sure she will give satisfaction.”

I had been dismayed. I did not want another governess. I should be seventeen soon and I thought it was time I finished with governesses. Moreover I was still very upset by what had happened to Lilias Milne. She had been with me for eight years and we had become good friends. I could not believe that she was guilty of what they had accused her.

Mrs. Kirkwell was saying: “Perhaps you’d like to show Miss … er …”

“Grey,” said the governess. “Zillah Grey.”

Zillah! What a strange name for a governess! And why did she tell us? Why not say just Miss Grey? It had been a long time before I discovered that Miss Milne was Lilias.

I took her to her room and she stood beside me looking round, studying it intently as a few moments before she had studied me.

“Very nice,” she said. She turned her luminous eyes on me. “I think I am going to be very happy here.”

THE EVENTS which had led up to the arrival of Miss Zillah Grey had been dramatic and the fact that they had burst so unexpectedly into our peaceful existence made them more so.

It began that morning when I went into my mother’s bedroom and found her dead. After that, a sinister influence began to creep into the house—vaguely, insidiously at first until it culminated in the tragedy which threatened to ruin my life.

I had risen that morning as usual and was coming down to breakfast when I met Kitty McLeod, our parlourmaid, on the stairs.

“I cannot get an answer from Mrs. Glentyre,” she said. “I’ve knocked two or three times. I dinna like to go in without her saying so.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said.

We went up the stairs to the master bedroom which for the last year or so my mother had occupied alone, for she had not been in good health and my father sometimes was away on business until late and, not wanting to disturb her, he occupied the room next to hers. There were even nights when he could not get home at all.

I knocked. There was no answer so I went into the room. It was a very pleasant one. There was a large double bed with highly polished brass knobs and flounces which matched the curtains. It had tall windows from which one could look out onto the grey stone, dignified houses on the other side of the wide street.

I went to the bed and there lay my mother—white and very still—with a look of tranquility on her face.

I knew that she was dead.

I turned to Kitty who was standing beside me and said: “Get Mr. Kirkwell at once.”

Kirkwell the butler was there almost immediately with Mrs. Kirkwell beside him.

“We’ll send for the doctor,” he said.

We were shocked and stunned, but we could only wait for the arrival of the doctor.

When he came he told us that she had died in her sleep. “It was very peaceful,” he said, “and not unexpected.”

We could not send for my father because we did not know where he was. We believed he was on a business trip to Glasgow, but that was too vague. He returned later that day.

I had never seen such horror in any face as I saw in his when he heard the news. Strangely enough I had just a fleeting fancy that I detected a look of guilt.

It would be because he had not been at home when it happened, of course. But could he blame himself for that?

THEN THE CHANGE set in.

I had lived the sixteen years of my life in an orderly fashion and could never have suspected that it would change so drastically. I learned that peace, security, happiness, when we have them, are taken for granted and we do not value them highly enough until we have lost them.

Looking back, there is so much to remember: a roomy comfortable house where warm fires appeared as soon as the cold winds of autumn reminded us that winter was on the way. I had no need to fear the cold. I enjoyed the stimulation of going out walking in warm gaiters, coat tipped with fur at the neck and sleeves, woollen muffler, gloves and a fur muff for added protection. There was the knowledge that I was a member of one of the most highly respected families in Edinburgh.

My father was head of a bank in Princes Street, and I always felt a glow of pride when I walked past it. When I was very young I thought that all the money which went into the bank was his. It was a wonderful thing to be a Glentyre—member of such an illustrious family. My father was David Ross Glentyre and I have been named Davina which was the nearest they could get to David. If I had been a boy, which I supposed they would have preferred, I should have been called David. But there was never a boy; my mother had been too delicate to risk a second childbirth.

Such memories there were for me in that house which had become one of mourning.

Until a year or so before her death my mother and I had often ridden out in the carriage to the shops or to visit friends. Much homage was shown to her in all the big shops. Men in black coats came hurrying forward rubbing their hands in unctuous delight because she had deigned to visit them. “When would you like this sent, Mrs. Glentyre? Of course, of course, we can get it to the house today. And Miss Davina … quite the young lady now.” It was all very gratifying.

We would visit friends—people as comfortably situated as ourselves, living in similar houses. We would take tea, bannocks and Dundee cake and I would sit and listen docilely to the accounts of the trials and triumphs of our neighbours; and sometimes there would be hints—although only hints because of my presence, with pursed lips seeming to hold back words which threatened to escape and so sully my ears—that there were fascinating details to come at a more suitable time.

How I loved driving along the Royal Mile from the castle on the rock to that most delightful of all palaces, Holyrood House. Once I had been inside the palace. I had stood in the room where Rizzio had been murdered at the feet of Queen Mary; I had shivered and dreamed of it for months afterwards. It was all so frighteningly wonderful.

Every Sunday I went to church with my mother and with my father if he was not away. In that case my mother and I went alone and after the service we would pause outside the church to chat with friends before we got into the carriage which Vosper, the coachman, would have waiting for us. Then we would drive through the streets with their Sunday quietness to the house and Sunday lunch.

That would have been a solemn occasion but for my mother; she laughed a good deal and could be a trifle irreverent about the sermon; when she talked about people she had a way of imitating them so accurately that it was as though they themselves were speaking. She did this affectionately rather than maliciously; and we were very amused. Even my father allowed his lips to twitch and Kirkwell would put his hand discreetly to his lips to hide a smile; Kitty would smirk and my father would look with mild reproach at my mother who only laughed.

My father was a very solemn man, very religious and anxious that everyone in the house should be the same. He conducted prayers every morning in the library when he was at home, and all must attend, except my mother. She had been told by the doctor that she needed rest, so she did not rise until ten o’clock.

After church Sunday lunches would be going on in all those tall granite houses. Most of them would have the requisite number of servants, similar to ours. We had Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwell, Kitty, Bess and the tweeny. Then there were the Vospers. They did not live in the house but had their own quarters in the mews where the horses and carriage were kept. There were Mr. and Mrs. Vosper and Hamish their son. Hamish was about twenty. He helped his father and if old Vosper was not able to drive the carriage, Hamish did.

There was something about Hamish which puzzled me. He was very dark-haired with eyes which were almost black. Mrs. Kirkwell said: “There’s more than a touch of insolence about young Hamish. He seems to have a notion he’s a cut above the rest of us.”

He certainly swaggered. He was tallish and broad; he towered above his father and Mr. Kirkwell, and had a habit of lifting one eyebrow and the side of his mouth at the same time as he surveyed people. It made him appear supercilious, as though he were looking down on us because he knew so much more than we did.

My father seemed to like him. He said he had a way with horses, and he rather preferred the younger Vosper to the elder when it came to driving the carriage.

I loved those sessions when my mother and I were alone and we talked. She was fascinated by what she called the olden days and talked of them constantly. Her eyes would glow with excitement when she discussed the conflicts with our enemy below the border. She grew passionate about the great William Wallace who had stood against the mighty Edward when he had wreaked such harm on our country that he was known in history as the Hammer of the Scots.

“Great Wallace was captured.” Her eyes would glow with anger and then with bitter sorrow. “They hanged and quartered him at Smithfield … like a common traitor.”

Then there was Bonnie Prince Charlie and the tragedy of Culloden; there was the triumph of Bannockburn; and, of course, the ill-fated and ever romantic Mary Queen of Scots.

Enchanted afternoons they were and I could not bear to think that they had gone forever.

How I loved our grey city—so austere and so beautiful when the sun shone on the grey stone buildings. Such a comfortable, cosy life that was. The affairs of the household ran smoothly, or if they did not it never reached our ears but was sorted out by the excellent Kirkwells. Meals were always on time. Prayers when my father was in residence, with everyone except my mother and the Vospers attending. The Vospers were excused, of course, because they did not live in the house. I was sure no prayer ritual was conducted in the mews rooms.

Until I was fourteen I had taken my meals with Miss Milne. After that I joined my parents. It was as I was beginning to grow up that I became such good friends with Lilias Milne. I learned a great deal about her, and it was through her that I understood something of the precarious and often humiliating life these ladies were forced to live. I was glad Lilias had come to us. So was she.

“Your mother is a lady in every sense of the word,” she said on one occasion. “She has never made me feel that I am a sort of servant. When I first came here she asked me questions about my family and I could see at once that she understood and cared. She took an interest in other people; she saw what their lives were like and could put herself in their places. She always tried not to hurt people in any way. That’s what I call a lady.”

“Oh, I am so glad you came, Lilias,” I said. I was calling her Lilias then when we were alone. I reserved Miss Milne for when we were not. I was sure Mrs. Kirkwell would have objected to my use of the governess’s Christian name—my father, too. My mother would not have cared.

Lilias told me about her family who lived in England in the county of Devon.

“I was one of six,” she said. “All girls. It would have been better if some of us had been boys, although, of course, they would have had to be expensively educated. We were really very poor. We had the big house to keep up. It was always cold and draughty. How I love these warm fires here. You need them up here, of course, where it is so much colder. But in the house I’m warm. That’s what I like.”

“Tell me about the vicarage.”

“Big … draughty … right close to the church. The church is ancient, as so many of them are, and there is always something going wrong. Deathwatch beetle, woodworm and leaking roof. We have it all. It’s beautiful though. It’s in the heart of Lakemere, which is one of our English villages, with the old church, the cottages and the manor house. You don’t have them up here. You notice the difference as soon as you cross the border. I love the English villages.”

“And the draughty old vicarage? You must admit it’s warmer in our house.”

“I do. I do. I appreciate it. Then I say to myself, how long? That’s something I have to face, Davina. How much longer will you be needing a governess? I’ve been wondering that for a long time. They will send you away to school, I suppose.”

“They won’t now. Perhaps I’ll get married and you can be governess to my children.”

“That’s a little way ahead,” she said wryly.

She was ten years older than I and I had been eight when she came to us. I was her first pupil.

She told me about life before she came.

“Six girls,” she said. “We always knew we should have to earn a living if we did not get married. We couldn’t all stay at home. The two eldest, Grace and Emma, did marry. Grace to a clergyman and Emma to a solicitor. I was next and then there were Alice, Mary and Jane. Mary became a missionary. She’s out in Africa somewhere. Alice and Jane stayed at home to help keep house, for my mother had died.”

“And you came here. I’m glad you did, Lilias.”

Our friendship was growing closer. I, too, was afraid that one day my father would decide that I was no longer in need of a governess. When would that be? When I was seventeen? That was not far-off.

Lilias had come near to marriage once. She talked of it sadly, nostalgically. But her lover had “never spoken.”

“I suppose it was all implication,” I said. “How did you know he might … speak?”

“He was fond of me. He was the son of the squire of Lakemere, the younger son. It would have been a good match for the vicar’s daughter. He had a fall when he was riding. It crippled him very badly. He lost the use of his legs.”

“Didn’t you go to him? Didn’t you tell him that you would look after him forevermore?”

She was silent, looking back into the past. “He hadn’t spoken. Nobody knew how it was, you see. There would have been opposition, I daresay. What could I do?”

“I would have gone to him. I would have done the speaking.”

She smiled at me indulgently. “A woman cannot do that.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Because … she has to wait to be asked. He wouldn’t ask me, would he … when he was in that state? It couldn’t be. It was ordained.”

“By whom?”

“By God. By Fate. By Destiny … whatever you like to call it.”

“I wouldn’t have allowed it. I would have gone to him and told him I would marry him.”

“You have much to learn, Davina,” she said, and I retorted: “Then teach me.”

“There are some things,” she said, “which people have to learn through experience.”

I thought a good deal about Lilias and I sometimes wondered whether it was the idea of being married, of not having to be a governess, always wondering when she would be looking for another post in a strange household, that she had been in love with … rather than with the man.

I was growing very fond of her, and I knew she was of me and, during those weeks before my mother died, her fear of what the future held drew her close to me—and after my mother’s death we were more friendly than ever.

But I was growing up. I was facing facts and I knew that Lilias would not be in the house much longer.

Nanny Grant had left only a short time before. She had gone to live with a cousin in the country. Her departure had saddened me deeply. She had been my mother’s nurse and had stayed with her until her marriage and then she had come to this house and eventually nannied me. We had been very close in those early days. She was the one who had comforted me when I had my nightmares and fell and hurt myself. There would always be memories of those days. When the snow came she would take me out into the garden at the back between the mews and the house, patiently sitting on a seat while I made a snowman. I remembered her suddenly picking me up and crying: “That’ll do. Do you want to turn your old nanny into a snowman? Look at you now. Your eyes are dancing at the thought. Ye’re a wee villain, that’s what ye are.”

I remember those rainy days when we sat at the window waiting for it to clear up so that we could go out. We would sing together:

Rainy rainy rattle stanes

Dinna rain on me

Rain on John o‘ Groaties’ hoose

Far across the sea.

And now Nanny Grant had gone, leaving those wonderful memories—all part of a life over which a shutter was drawn on that tragic day I had gone into my mother’s room and found her dead.

”MOURNING FOR A DAUGHTER is a year,” announced Mrs. Kirkwell. “For us I reckon it should be from three to six months. Six for Mr. Kirkwell and me. Three months will be enough for the maids.”

How I hated my black clothes. Every time I put them on I was reminded of my mother lying dead in her bed.

Nothing was the same. Sometimes I had a feeling that we were waiting for something to happen, waiting to emerge from our mourning. Lilias, I knew, was waiting for the summons to my father’s presence to be told that as I was growing up her services would no longer be needed.

As for my father, he was away more than ever. I was glad of this. I dreaded meals with him. We were both too conscious of that empty chair.

Not that he had ever been communicative. He had always seemed encased in a demeanour of formality. My mother, though, had been able to break through it. I thought of how his lips twitched when he felt amusement which he tried hard to suppress. I guessed he had cared for her deeply, which was strange because she was so different from him. She would have thrust aside the conventions to which he adhered so strongly. I remembered his gently reproaching voice when she said something which he considered rather outrageous. “My dear … my dear …” I had heard him murmur, smiling in spite of himself. If it had been left to her, our household would have been a merry one.

Once my mother said: “Your father is a man of high principles, a good man. He tries so hard to live up to his high standards. Sometimes I think it is more comfortable to set them slightly lower, so that one does not have to disappoint oneself.”

I did not quite understand what she meant and when I asked her to explain she just laughed and said: “My mind’s wandering. It’s nothing …” Then she shrugged her shoulders and murmured: “Poor David.”

I wondered why she should be pitying my father. But she would say no more on the subject.

Some three weeks after my mother’s death my father’s sister, Aunt Roberta, came to stay with us. She had been ill at the time of the funeral and unable to attend, but at this time she had recovered her good health.

She was quite unlike my father. He was a reserved man who kept aloof from us. Not so Aunt Roberta. Her voice could be heard all over the house, high-pitched and authoritative. She surveyed us all with the utmost disapproval.

She was unmarried. Mrs. Kirkwell, who greatly resented her presence in the house, said she was not surprised that Miss Glentyre had not been able to find a man bold enough to take her on.

Aunt Roberta announced that she had come to us because my father, having lost his wife, would need a woman to supervise his household. As my mother had never supervised anything this was unacceptable from the start. Moreover it sent shivers of apprehension through the house, for it implied that Aunt Roberta intended to make her stay a permanent one.

From the moment she arrived she began to disrupt the household. Resentment was brewing, and it occurred to me that the servants might soon be looking for new places.

“It’s a good thing that Mr. Kirkwell is a patient man,” Mrs. Kirkwell told Lilias, who imparted the information to me. Lilias added: “I really think that, comfortable as they have all been here, this might be too much for them.”

How I wished she would go.

My father, fortunately, was less patient than Mr. Kirkwell. There was an acid conversation between them one evening at dinner.

The conversation was about me.

“You should remember, David, that you have a daughter,” began Roberta, helping herself from the dish of parsnips which Kitty was offering.

“It is something I am not likely to forget,” retorted my father.

“She is growing up … fast.”

“At the same rate, I have always thought, as others of her age.”

“She needs looking after.”

“She has a perfectly adequate governess. That, I believe, will suffice for a while.”

“Governess!” snorted Aunt Roberta. “What do they know about launching a girl?”

“Launching?” I cried in dismay.

“I was not talking to you, Davina.”

I felt angry that she should consider I was still at the stage of being seen but not heard, yet not too young for launching.

“You were talking about me,” I retorted sharply.

“Oh dear me. What is the world coming to?”

“Roberta,” said my father calmly. “You are welcome to stay here, but I cannot have you attempting to rule my household. It has always been efficiently managed, and I do not care to have it changed.”

“I cannot understand you, David,” said Aunt Roberta. “I think you forget …”

“It is you who forget that you are no longer the elder sister. I know that you are two years older than I, and that may have had some significance when you were eight and I was six. But at this stage I do not need you to look after my household.”

She was taken aback. She shrugged her shoulders philosophically with an air of resignation, murmuring: “The ingratitude of some people is beyond all understanding.”

I thought she might have left the house then, but she seemed to persuade herself that, unappreciated as she was, it was her duty to steer us away from disaster.

Then something happened which shocked me deeply—as it did all of us—and made her decision for her.

Hamish was driving my father almost all the time now. The position in the mews had been reversed. It was not Hamish who now stood in when his father was otherwise engaged, but the father who was called when Hamish was not available. Hamish was swaggering more than ever. He made a habit of coming into the kitchen. He would sit in a chair at the table watching everyone … even me if I happened to be there. It was clear that Kitty, Bess and the tweeny found his presence exciting; and he indulged in condescending flirtation with them.

I could not understand why they liked him so much. I thought his hairy arms were revolting. He seemed to find great pleasure in displaying them, and his sleeves were invariably rolled up to the elbow so that he could stroke his arms caressingly.

Mrs. Kirkwell regarded him with suspicion. He had tried to be jolly with her, but without success. He had a habit of laying his hands on the girls which they seemed to like; but the charm he exerted so easily over them did not extend to Mrs. Kirkwell.

Once he touched her shoulder as she passed and murmured: “You must have been a bonny wench in your day, Mrs. K. A bit of a wee handful, if you asked me … but perhaps not so wee, eh?”

She replied with the utmost dignity: “I’d thank you to remember who you are talking to, Hamish Vosper.”

At which he made cooing noises and said: “So it’s like that, is it? I’ve got to mind me pints and quarts here, I can see.”

“And I can’t have you lying around in this kitchen either,” retorted Mrs. Kirkwell.

“Oh aye. But I’m waiting for the master, you see.”

“Well, the sooner he sends for you the better in my opinion.”

Lilias Milne came into the kitchen at that moment, I remember. She wanted to speak to Bess to ask her if she had seen a packet of pins on her table that morning. She had left them there and now they were gone. She thought Bess might have put them in with the rubbish.

I noticed that Hamish was watching her with a look of speculation—not as he looked at the young girls, but intently … differently.

IT WAS A FEW DAYS LATER when the trouble arose.

It began when I met Aunt Roberta on the stairs. It was after luncheon and I knew she had a rest in the afternoon. It was the one time when the house settled down to a peaceful quietness.

Aunt Roberta had been a little subdued since her altercation with my father, but she still supervised all that went on in the house and her eagle eye constantly alighted with disapproval on most things around her.

I was on the point of hastily returning to my room when she saw me.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Davina? You are dressed for going out?”

“Yes. Miss Milne and I often take a walk at this time of day.”

She was about to pass some comment when she stopped suddenly, listening.

“Is anything wrong?” I asked.

She put her fingers to her lips and I went quietly to stand beside her.

“Listen,” she whispered.

I heard the sound of a stifled laugh and strange noises. They were coming from behind one of the closed doors.

Aunt Roberta strode to that door and threw it open. I was standing beside her and I saw a sight which astonished me. The tangled bodies of Kitty and Hamish were on the bed and both of them were in a state of seminudity.

They started up. Kitty’s face was scarlet and even Hamish looked a little taken aback.

I heard Aunt Roberta’s quick intake of breath. Her first thoughts were for me. “Leave us, Davina,” she cried.

But I could not move. I could only stare in fascination at the two on the bed.

Aunt Roberta advanced into the room.

“Disgusting … I never saw … you depraved …” She was spluttering, for once unable to find the words she needed.

Hamish had risen from the bed and began struggling into his clothes. He assumed an air of truculent bravado. He grinned at Aunt Roberta. “Well,” he said, “it’s only human nature, after all.”

“You disgusting creature,” she said. “Get out of this house. As for you …” She could not bring herself to say Kitty’s name. “You … you slut. You’ll pack your bags immediately and get out … get out, both of you.”

Hamish shrugged his shoulders, but Kitty looked stunned. Her face, which had been as red as holly berries, was now as white as paper.

Aunt Roberta turned and almost fell on me.

“Davina! What is the world coming to? I told you to go. It is quite … disgusting. I knew something was going on in this house. As soon as your father comes in …”

I turned and fled. I shut myself in my room. I, too, was shocked. I felt nauseated. “Human nature,” Hamish had said. I had never been so close to that sort of human nature before.

THERE WAS SILENCE in the house. The servants had congregated in the kitchen. I pictured them sitting round the table whispering. Lilias came to my room.

“There is going to be trouble,” she said. “And you were there.”

I nodded.

“What did you see?”

“I saw the two of them … on the bed.”

Lilias shivered.

“It was so repulsive,” I said. “Hamish’s legs are hairy … just like his arms.”

“I suppose a man like that would have some sort of attraction for a girl like Kitty.”

“What sort of attraction?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I can see that he is … virile. He could be quite overpowering to a young girl. They’ll dismiss her, of course. They’ll dismiss both of them. I wonder where Kitty will go. And what will they do with him? He lives there … in the mews. There’s going to be great trouble over this when your father comes home.”

I could not forget Kitty’s face. There had been such terrible fear there. She had been with us for four years and had been fourteen when she had come to us from the country.

“Where will she go?” I asked. Lilias shook her head.

I knew that when my father came home Aunt Roberta would insist that Kitty left. I could not get out of my mind a picture of her standing on the pavement surrounded by her few possessions.

I went up to the room she shared with Bess and Jenny the tweeny. She was there alone, sent there by Aunt Roberta. She was sitting on the bed looking desperately afraid.

I went in and sat beside her. She seemed like a different person in her skirt and blouse from that half-nude creature on the bed.

“Oh, Miss Davina, you shouldn’t be here,” she said. Then: “Is the master home?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Her?” she asked.

“You mean my aunt? My father has made it clear that she does not run the household.”

“I’ll have to go when he comes.”

“How could you … do that?” I demanded. And added: “With him?”

She looked at me and shook her head. “You don’t understand, Miss Davina. It’s natural like … with him.”

“Human nature,” I said, quoting him. “But it seems so …”

“Well, there’s something about him.”

“All that hair,” I said with a shiver. “On his legs as well as his arms.”

“Maybe …”

“Kitty, what will you do?”

She shook her head and started to cry.

“If they send you away … where will you go?”

“I just don’t know, Miss.”

“Could you go to your home?”

“It’s miles away … near to John o’ Groats. I came down because there’s nothing for me up there. There’s only me old dad now. He couldna keep me up there. There’s nothing. I canna go back and tell him why.”

“Then where, Kitty?”

“Perhaps the master will give me another chance,” she said hopefully, but I could see she thought there was little chance of that.

I thought of his reading the Bible … all the little bits about the vengeance of the Lord, and it occurred to me that he would consider Kitty’s sin too great for forgiveness. I had always liked Kitty. She had been jolly and merry. I wanted to help her. I had a money box in which I put the odd coin saved from my weekly pocket money. She could have what I had there. It was not much, and the problem was where could she go?

“You must go somewhere,” I said.

She shook her head in despair.

What happened to girls who had sinned as Kitty had? They were driven out into the falling snow. There was no snow at this time, but that was small consolation.

I had heard of a nun being walled up for a similar offence. It appeared to be one of the greatest sins. Because of it some girls had babies and were shamed forever.

I did my best to comfort Kitty. I hoped my father would not come home that night, which would give her a little respite— time to think of some solution.

I went to Lilias and told her that I had been with Kitty and what a state of desolation she was in.

“She’s a fool,” said Lilias, “to behave so … and particularly with a man like Hamish. She can’t be quite right in the head.”

“She really is desperate, Lilias. She has nowhere to go.”

“Poor girl.”

“What will she do? She might kill herself. Lilias, what if she did? I should never forget that I hadn’t helped her.”

“What could you do?”

“I could give her the little money I have.”

“I doubt that would last long.”

“I went to talk to her about having to go. You could go back to your vicarage. You do have a home. It’s different for Kitty. She has nowhere to go. They wouldn’t be so cruel, would they, to turn her out when she has nowhere to go?”

“She’s committed the cardinal sin, it seems. They stoned people like that, according to the Bible. I think some people would do the same today.”

“What can we do for her?”

“You say she has nowhere to go.”

“That’s what she says. If they turn her out she will just wander about the streets. Lilias, I can’t bear it. She was so happy here. I can’t forget the way she laughed when he looked at her and joked … and it has all led to this.”

Lilias was thoughtful. She said suddenly: “I feel as you do about Kitty. She’s got caught up with that man. He’s a rake and she … well, she’s a silly flighty girl. He overwhelmed her… and she gave way. It’s easy to understand. And for that her life will be ruined, while he goes merrily on his way.”

“If my father dismisses Kitty he’ll have to dismiss Hamish, so Hamish will have to go away.”

“How can he dismiss the whole family? I’ve thought of something: I’ll send Kitty to my home.”

“To your home? What could they do?”

“My father is vicar of Lakemere. He is a real Christian. By that I mean he practises what he preaches. Few do, you know. He is truly a good man. We’re poor … but he wouldn’t refuse Kitty shelter. He might be able to find a place for her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s helped a girl in trouble. I’ll write and tell him about it.”

“Would he take her in … after what she’s done?”

“If I wrote to him he would understand.”

“Oh, Lilias, wouldn’t that be wonderful!”

“It’s a hope anyway,” said Lilias.

I threw my arms round her neck. “Will you write that letter? Will you tell her where she can go? I’ll see how much money I’ve got. If we could get her fare.”

“I daresay she will be given the wages which are due to her and with what we can muster …”

“I’m going to tell her. I must. I couldn’t bear to see that awful lost look on her face.”

I went and told Kitty what we were planning and I had the pleasure of seeing her abject despair turn to hope.

IT WAS LATE THAT NIGHT when my father returned. Lying in bed, I heard him come in. The storm would not break that night.

The next morning Kitty was sent for. Pale, shame-faced, but not so desperate as she had been, she went to his study. I was waiting on the stairs for her when she emerged. She looked at me and nodded.

I went with her to her room where Lilias joined us.

“I’m to pack my box and leave. I’ve already packed.”

“At once?” I asked.

She nodded. “He said I was a disgrace to the house and he had a young daughter to think of.”

“Oh, Kitty,” I said. “I’m sorry you’re going like this.”

“You’ve been an angel, Miss Davina, you and Miss Milne.” Her voice broke. “I don’t know what I’d have done without your help.”

“Here’s the letter,” said Lilias. “Take that. And here’s some money.”

“I’ve got my wages due to me.”

“Then you’ll have a little. It’ll get you to Lakemere. My father is a good man. He would never turn anyone in distress away. He will pray a lot, but it won’t be all prayers. He’ll do his best to help you. He’s done it for people in trouble before.”

Kitty broke into tears and embraced us both.

“I’ll never forget you two,” she sobbed. “What I’d have done without …”

A cab had been ordered to take her to the station and solemnity reigned over the house. Kitty had been dismissed in disgrace. A lesson to foolish girls. And now it was the turn of Hamish.

He was to go to see the master. He swaggered into the house, hands in pockets. There was no sign of repentance.

He went to my father’s study and the door was shut on them.

Lilias came to my room. “What will happen?” she asked. “It’s going to be very awkward … his family living in the mews.”

“He’ll be dismissed, of course. He won’t be able to come into the house. Well, we shall see.”

The whole house was waiting for what would happen next. The interview was long. No one heard any raised voices coming from the study, and finally Hamish emerged and walked calmly out of the house.

It was not until the following day that we realised that Hamish was to drive my father just as usual, and that the punishment meted out to his partner-in-crime was not to be inflicted on him.

THERE WAS BEWILDERMENT. Hamish went about nonchalant as ever, whistling “Ye Banks and Braes” or “Loch Lomond” just as though nothing had happened. We could not understand it.

Aunt Roberta was not of a nature to allow the matter to rest there.

She raised it at dinner that evening.

“The girl has gone,” she said. “What about him?”

My father pretended to misunderstand. He raised his eyebrows and assumed that cold manner which intimidated most of us. But not Aunt Roberta.

“You know to what I am referring, David, so please don’t pretend you don’t.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “you would be good enough to elucidate.”

“Surely incidents such as that which has recently taken place in this household are not lightly passed over.”

“I understand,” he said, “that you are referring to the maid’s dismissal.”

“She wasn’t the only culprit.”

“The man is one of the best coachmen I ever had. I don’t propose to dispense with his services … if that is what you mean.”

Aunt Roberta forgot her dignity and screamed: “What?”

My father looked pained. “I have dealt with the matter,” he said coldly, “and it is closed.”

Aunt Roberta could only stare at him.

“I cannot believe I am hearing aright. I tell you I saw them. They were caught in the act.”

My father continued to look at her coldly and then gave a significant glance in my direction, meaning that they could not discuss such a matter when I was present on account of my youth and innocence.

Aunt Roberta shut her lips tightly and glared at him.

The rest of the meal was conducted in near silence. But afterwards she followed him into his study. She was there for quite a long time and when she came out she went straight to her room.

The very next morning she left, with the air of the righteous leaving Sodom and Gomorrah before disaster descended.

She could not stay another night in a house where sin was condoned because one of the sinners was “a good coachman.”

THE MATTER was discussed at length belowstairs—not in my presence, but much of what was said was imparted to me by Lilias.

She said: “It’s very strange. No one understands it. Your father sent for Hamish and we thought he was going to be dismissed as Kitty had been. But Hamish came out of that room, even more sure of himself, it seemed. What was said no one knows. But he is just carrying on as usual. And to think that poor Kitty was turned out as she was! It doesn’t make sense. But then they always blame the woman in cases like this, and the men get off, scot-free.”

“I can’t understand it,” I said. “Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t live in the house.”

“He comes into the house. He corrupts the servants.”

“I wonder why … I wish I knew.”

“Your father is not a man to be easily understood.”

“But he is so religious and Hamish …”

“Is a rogue. It didn’t take this to tell me that. We could all see what he was. A pity Kitty was such a little idiot as to be tempted by him. I admit there is something about him. She must have found him irresistible.”

“I know one who thinks he is wonderful.”

“Who?”

“Himself.”

“That’s true enough. If ever a man was in love with himself that man is Hamish Vosper. But the servants don’t like it, you know. Kitty was a good worker … and she was well thought of.”

“I do hope she will be all right.”

“I know she won’t be turned away. My father will do what he can. As I told you, he’s a real Christian.”

“My father is supposed to be one and he turned her out.”

“Your father is good at saying prayers and looking like a Christian. My father is good at being one. There is a difference.”

“I hope so, for Kitty’s sake.” “He’ll write to me and tell me what happened.” “I am so pleased you are here to help, Lilias.” That caused a frown to appear on her brow. For how long? she would be wondering. My father had ruthlessly dismissed Kitty, and Lilias would have to go when her services were no longer required. She was right. My father was very good at showing a Christian demeanour to the world, but he had his own creed of right and wrong. Lilias had summed up his attitude; and I had seen what had happened to Kitty.

But what was the true reason why Hamish had been forgiven? Because he was a good coachman? Because he was a man?

AFTER A WHILE the affair ceased to be talked of continuously. A new parlourmaid was employed to replace Kitty. She was Ellen Farley, a woman of about thirty. My father said she had been personally recommended to him.

Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwell were somewhat put out. The engaging of staff was their province and they did not like members of it to be introduced over their heads, as Mrs. Kirkwell put it. It was a reflection on her and Mr. Kirkwell that Kitty had been their choice. But the main culprit in that affair, if you asked Mrs. Kirkwell, was Hamish Vosper, and why he was allowed to stay on she would like to know.

However, Ellen came. She was quite different from Kitty— quiet, efficient and, said Mrs. Kirkwell, kept herself to herself.

Hamish still came into the kitchen and sat at the table, seemingly amused because Mrs. Kirkwell pretended that he was not there. He had an eye for Bess and Jenny but, remembering Kitty, they were wary.

Hamish’s opinion seemed to be that he was unassailable; he could act in whatever way he pleased because it was natural that he should. It was human nature, as he had once said. A man such as he was, irresistible to the female sex, could not be expected to behave in any way but that which came naturally to him. But I fancied he would have to look elsewhere for his conquests because he would not find them in our house. The example set by Kitty was very fresh in everyone’s mind.

In due course there was a letter from Lakemere vicarage. Lilias took it to her bedroom and I went with her that we might read it together.

Kitty had arrived and the vicar had behaved in exactly the way that Lilias had said he would.

“She is so grateful,” he wrote. “She cannot say enough in praise of you, Lilias, and your charge Davina. I am proud of you. The poor child, for she is little more, was in acute distress. She has been useful to Alice and Jane in the kitchen and about the house. Mrs. Ellington up at Lakemere House needs someone in the kitchen. You remember Mrs. Ellington, a very forceful lady but with a kind heart. I went to see her and told her the story, which of course I had to do. She promised to give Kitty a chance and I am sure the poor child will not slip up again. It seems that one of her maids is leaving in a few weeks to get married so there will be a vacant place. While she is waiting, Kitty can stay and help Alice and Jane. Lilias, I am so glad you did what you did. What would have happened to poor Kitty otherwise I cannot imagine …”

I gazed at Lilias and I felt the tears in my eyes.

“Oh, Lilias,” I said, “your father is a wonderful man.”

“I agree with you,” she replied.

But the response of the vicar of Lakemere set me thinking about my own father. I had always regarded him as an upright and honourable man. But to have dismissed Kitty as he had and inflict no punishment on Hamish, except perhaps a verbal reprimand, had made me change my image of him. He had always seemed so remote, but now he was less so. In the old days I had thought he was too noble to be considered as one of us; now my feelings towards him had begun to change. How could he have cared so little as to what would become of another human being and send Kitty out into a harsh world, while he kept her partner-in-crime because he was a good coachman? He was acting not out of righteousness but for his own comfort. The image of the good and noble man was fading.

If my mother had been there I could have talked with her. But it would not have happened if she had been with us. She would never have allowed Kitty to be sent away having nowhere to go.

I felt bewildered and apprehensive.

My father sent for me one day and when I arrived in his study he looked at me quizzically. “You’re growing up,” he said. “Nearly seventeen, is it not?”

I agreed that it was, terrified that this was a prelude to the departure of Lilias whose services would no longer be required so that she would be as cursorily dismissed as Kitty had been.

However, it was not to be just then, for he turned to a casket which was on the table. I knew it well. It contained my mother’s jewellery. She had shown it to me on more than one occasion, taking out each piece and talking to me about it.

There was the pearl necklace which her father had given her on her wedding day. There was the ruby ring which had been her mother’s. There were the bracelet set with turquoise, a turquoise necklace to match, two gold brooches and a silver one.

“You shall have them all when you are grown up,” she had told me, “and you’ll be able to give them to your daughter. It’s rather pleasant to think of these trinkets going on through the generations, don’t you think?”

I did.

My father picked up the pearl necklace and held it in his hands. My mother had told me that there were sixty pearls in it and the clasp was a real diamond surrounded by seed pearls. I had seen her wear it on several occasions, as I had most of the jewellery in the box.

My father said: “Your mother wished you to have these. I think you are too young for the jewellery as yet, but the necklace is different. You could have that now. They say that if pearls are not worn they lose their lustre.”

I took it from him and my first thought was one of relief. He considered me too young to wear jewellery; therefore I would not yet be ready to dispense with Lilias. But I was pleased to have the pearl necklace.

I put it round my neck and when I thought of my mother I was overwhelmed with sadness.

When I joined Lilias, she noticed the necklace at once.

“It’s beautiful,” she cried. “It really is.”

“It was my mother’s. There are several brooches and things. They are for me, but my father doesn’t think I am old enough to wear them yet. But it’s not good for pearls if they are not worn.”

“I’ve heard that,” she said. She touched the pearls lovingly and I took them off and handed them to her.

“The clasp is lovely,” she said. “That in itself would be worth a good deal.”

“Oh … I shouldn’t want to sell them.”

“Of course not. But I was just thinking … they’d be a nice little nest egg.”

“You mean if I fell on hard times.”

“Well, it’s a comfort to have such things.”

I saw that sad, rather faraway look in her eyes. She was looking into a future where a nest egg would be a great comfort to her, I guessed.

I went down to the kitchen to find out whether my father had said he would not be in for dinner that evening. He usually left a message for Mrs. Kirkwell. There was that uneasy atmosphere down there because Hamish was sitting at the table, sleeves rolled up, pulling idly at the hairs on his arms.

I went over to Mrs. Kirkwell who was stirring something in a basin. She noticed the pearls at once.

“My word,” she cried. “They do look fine.”

“Yes. They are mine now. They were my mother’s. I have to wear them because they get dull if they are shut away too long.”

“Do they now?” said Mrs. Kirkwell.

“That’s what my father said.”

“Well, he would know, would he not?”

“I think I have heard it before.”

“Well, they look very nice. They suit you, Miss Davina.”

“The clasp is valuable, too,” I said. “It’s a diamond with little pearls round it.”

“There now.”

“Miss Milne said it would be a nest egg … if ever I was in need.”

Mrs. Kirkwell laughed. “Oh, not you, Miss Davina. But she would think of that, wouldn’t she? Poor wee soul. Governesses … well, I’ve always said I wouldna be one.”

“Has my father said whether he would be in to dinner tonight?”

Before she could answer Hamish looked up and said: “Nay, he’ll nae be in. I know. I’m driving him.”

Mrs. Kirkwell answered as though he had not spoken.

“He left a message that he would not be in.”

And soon after that, I left.

THE NEXT DAY there was consternation. My necklace was missing. I had kept it in its blue case in the drawer of my dressing table and I could not believe it when I discovered that the case was there but not the necklace. Frantically I searched through all the drawers, but they revealed nothing. The necklace had disappeared. It was a mystery because I would not have dreamed of not putting it away in its case.

Everyone was shocked. When a valuable article like the necklace disappeared, said Mrs. Kirkwell, it was not very nice for those close by.

She was right. The necklace had been in my room. Now it was no longer there. Where was it? “Necklaces don’t walk,” said Mrs. Kirkwell. Therefore the inference must be that someone had taken it. Who? No one could feel entirely free from suspicion.

My father had not returned until late that night, driven home by Hamish, and as the household had retired he had not heard of the missing necklace until the next morning.

I don’t suppose I was the only one in the house who had a sleepless night. We had a thief in the house and my suspicions naturally turned to Hamish. If he were capable of that other thing, might he not believe that it was “human nature” to take a necklace from someone who did not need it and give it to someone who did—himself in this case?

But Hamish did not go beyond the kitchen. Since he was discovered in one of the bedrooms with Kitty it had been a tacit agreement that the upper floors were out of bounds to him unless he was summoned there by my father. Of course, there was always a possibility that he had not kept to the rule; but I had never seen him anywhere except in the kitchen since that affair. Yet it was not impossible that he might have crept up to my room and taken the necklace. If he had been caught there I was sure he would have had a ready explanation for his presence.

During the night when I was trying to sleep I went over what had happened since I last put the necklace on and I was sure I had put it back in the case when I last took it off.

My father was naturally horrified. He ordered that my room be thoroughly searched. He fired questions at me. Did I remember taking off the necklace? Did I remember putting it into the case? Who had been in my room since then? Only the maid to clean and Miss Milne, of course. She came to discuss something with me. I forgot what.

He said that everyone should assemble in the library.

“This is a grievous matter,” he said to the company. “A valuable piece of jewellery is missing. Someone in this house knows where it is. I am going to give that person a chance to hand it over now. If this is done, I will consider the matter. But if it is not brought to me this day I shall inform the police. Is everyone here?”

“Where is Ellen?” asked Mrs. Kirkwell.

“I don’t know,” said Bess. “She was giving me a hand with the rooms. I called out to her when we had the order to come to the library.”

“Someone should be sent to tell her,” said Mrs. Kirkwell. “I’ll go myself.”

Mrs. Kirkwell did not have to go for just at that moment Ellen appeared. In her hand she held the pearl necklace.

“Ellen!” cried Mrs. Kirkwell.

“I heard Bess calling that we were to come here,” said Ellen. “But … I was finding this. I couldn’t shut the drawer … it looked untidy … half open. I thought something in the drawer below might have caught up somehow. So I opened the lower drawer. It was a petticoat. I pulled it out and as I did this fell out. Is it the one that’s been lost?”

“In what drawer did you find this?” demanded my father.

“It was in Miss Milne’s room, sir.”

I looked at Lilias. Her face had turned scarlet; and then it was deathly pale. It was as though a voice was clanging in my head. “A nest egg … a nest egg …”

It could not be Lilias.

Everyone was looking at her.

My father said: “Miss Milne, can you explain how the necklace came to be in your drawer?”

“In … my drawer … it couldn’t have been.”

“But Ellen has just told us it was. And here it is. Come, Miss Milne, an explanation is needed.”

“I … I didn’t put it there. I … can’t understand.”

My father was looking at her severely. “It won’t do, Miss Milne, I want an explanation.”

I heard myself say in a high-pitched hysterical voice: “There must be some reason …”

“Of course, there is a reason,” said my father impatiently. “Miss Milne will give it to us. You took the necklace, did you not, Miss Milne? Unfortunately for you, you did not shut the drawer properly so Ellen saw that something was wrong. That was fortunate for us … but not for you.”

I have never seen such horror in any face as I saw in Lilias’ then.

How could you? I thought. I would always have helped you. Why did you take the necklace? And my father knows! My father is the sort of man who will not tolerate any sin—and stealing is a great sin. “Thou shalt not steal.” It is one of the commandments. Think of Kitty. Hamish, of course, was all right, but then he was a good coachman.

I wanted this nightmare to be over. The silence was terrible. It was broken by my father. “I am waiting for an explanation, Miss Milne.”

“I … I do not know how it came to be there. I did not know it was there …”

My father laughed softly but derisively.

“It will not do, Miss Milne. You have been discovered. I could, of course, hand you over to the police.”

She caught her breath. I thought she was going to faint. I had to restrain myself from going to her and putting my arms around her and telling her that whatever she had done she was my friend.

She raised her eyes and looked at me … pleadingly … asking me to believe her. And in that moment I did. I could not believe that Lilias would ever have stolen my necklace even though she so longed to have some bulwark against a needy future … a nest egg. I marvelled that I could ever have doubted her innocence and loathed myself for having done so.

“This is a crime,” went on my father. “All these years you have been in my household and I have been harbouring a thief. It is very distressing to me.”

“I did not,” cried Lilias. “I did not. Someone put it there.”

“Indeed someone put it there,” retorted my father grimly. “You, Miss Milne. You are the daughter of a vicar. You must have had a religious upbringing. That makes the matter so much worse.”

“You are condemning me without question.” Lilias’ eyes flashed. It was the spirit of desperation. Who could have put the necklace in her room? What was the point of it? If someone had taken it, of what use would it be to steal it and give it up … just to accuse Lilias?

“I have asked you for an explanation,” went on my father, “but you have none.”

“I can only say I did not take the necklace.”

“Then explain how it came to be in your room.”

“I can only say that I did not put it there.”

“Miss Milne, as I said, I could prosecute you. You could then give your explanations in a court of law. But because of your family and the fact that you have been in this house for so many years during which time no thefts have been discovered against you, I am taking a lenient view. I will say that you were overcome by a sudden temptation … and you submitted to it. So … I am going to ask you to pack your bags and leave this house at once. Mrs. Kirkwell will accompany you and make sure that you take nothing with you which does not belong to you.”

She looked at him with hatred. “How can you? How can you judge me so unfairly? I will not be treated like a criminal.”

“You would prefer to have your case judged in court?”

She covered her face with her hands, and then, without another word, turned and went out of the room.

My father said: “This is regrettable but the matter is closed.”

Closed? With Lilias dismissed for theft! Her reputation was tarnished. She would live her life in fear of the fact that she had been accused of stealing would be brought to light.

I went to her room. She was sitting on her bed staring gloomily before her. I ran to her and put my arms about her.

“Oh, Lilias … Lilias,” I cried. “This is awful. / believe you.”

“Thank you, Davina,” she said. “Who could have done this to me? What could be the point?”

“I don’t know. First poor Kitty and now you. It’s as though there is some horrible curse on this house. It’s ever since my mother died.”

“I shall have to go home and tell them. How can I do that?”

“Your father will understand. He will believe you. He is a Christian.”

“I shall be a burden to them. I shall never be able to get another post.”

“Why not?”

“Because they will want to know where I have been … why I left.”

“Couldn’t you say I was getting old. It’s true.”

“They would get into touch with your father.”

“Perhaps he would say nothing.”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Of course he would say something. He would consider it unrighteous not to. He is so holy that he cannot give a woman a chance to defend herself. People like him love to find sin in others. They are so eager to find it that they see it where it does not exist. It makes them feel even more good … thanking God they are not like other men.”

“Oh, Lilias, it is going to be so miserable without you. I wish I had never seen that necklace.”

“I should have stood up for myself. I should never have allowed myself to be accused of something of which I am completely innocent. I should have dared him to prove it.”

“Oh, Lilias, why didn’t you?”

“It could have been even worse. He didn’t believe me. Perhaps others wouldn’t. If he had called in the police … people would have known. The disgrace would have been terrible … for my father. I could see that I had to get away …”

“You must write to me, Lilias. Give me your address. You did tell me, but I want it written down. I’m going to find out who took the necklace out of my room and put it in yours. I know someone did. Perhaps it was Hamish.”

“Why? Just because he was caught with Kitty? This isn’t the same thing. I could understand his stealing the necklace, but if he had done so he would want to sell it right away. There isn’t any reason why he should try to incriminate me.”

“Perhaps he wanted revenge. Had you done something he didn’t like?”

“I hardly know him. He never even looks at me.”

“Someone must have done it. What about Ellen?”

“Why? What would be the point?”

“Whichever way you look at it, there seems to be no reason.”

“Thank you, Davina, for your trust. I shall never forget it.”

“Oh, Lilias. It’s what I’ve dreaded … your going away. Though … I never thought it would be like this.”

“Write to me and I’ll write to you. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“At least you have your family to go to. They’ll be kind and understanding.”

“They will believe in my innocence. They will never believe that I could be a thief.”

Mrs. Kirkwell came in. She looked grim and resolute.

“Miss Davina!” she said reprovingly, surprised, I supposed, to find me there.

“I think this is a great mistake,” I said.

Mrs. Kirkwell ignored that and said: “What about this packing? I see you haven’t begun yet.”

I went back to my room. I thought of all that had happened in a short time: my mother’s death, Kitty’s misdemeanour which had resulted in her dismissal—and now Lilias.

How DREARY the house was without her. She had been my special friend for so long, and I had known that I would miss her; what I had not realised was how much. I felt very melancholy.

A few days after Lilias had left, my father sent for me. He was in his study, unsmiling and forbidding.

“I wanted to speak to you, Davina,” he said. “It is about a governess.”

I stared at him. For the moment I thought he had discovered the real thief and let myself fancy that Lilias was coming back.

“You are not yet fully educated,” he went on. “I had considered the idea of sending you away to a finishing school, but I have decided against that. So there will be a governess.”

“A new governess, but …”

He looked at me with faint exasperation.

“A new one, of course. I myself will make sure that this time I engage someone who is reliable and is not going to shock us all by stealing our property.”

I flushed and began: “I do not believe …”

He went on as though I had not spoken: “This one will be able to teach a great deal you should know. Deportment, good manners. It will not be so much a schoolroom governess as someone who will be able to equip you with social graces.”

I was not listening. How foolish of me to think even for a moment that he was going to say that Lilias was coming back.

“Miss Grey will be arriving at the end of the week.”

“Miss Grey …”

The irritation showed again. “I am sure that Miss Grey will give every satisfaction.”

I came out of the study, dazed and very sad.

I knew I was not going to like Miss Grey. How should I stop comparing her with Lilias?

And a few days later Miss Zillah Grey arrived.

The Governess

THE HOUSEHOLD was in a state of disbelief. Miss Zillah Grey astonished them all; and what was most amazing was that my father had engaged her.

She was the sort of person whom people would turn to look at when they passed her in the street. She had what I can only call a flaunting manner. Her clothes, her gestures, everything about her seemed to be saying “Look at me.”

She was definitely not what Mrs. Kirkwell would call “ladylike” but she was very affable to everyone and within a short time of our acquaintance she was calling me “dear.” I had thought I should hate Lilias’ successor, but I could not hate Zillah Grey. I could only marvel at her.

She had brought a great many clothes with her … all of them quite unsuitable, I should have thought.

When I had taken her to her room on her arrival she had looked round and said she knew she was going to be happy. Then she had taken off her hat and removed the pins from her hair; she shook it out so that it fell in seductive waves about her shoulders like a reddish cloak.

“That’s better,” she said. “You see I’m making myself at home.”

I was amazed by the pots and bottles which were soon arrayed on the dressing table. I had thought there might have been some books in her baggage, but there was no sign of even one. She hung up her clothes and asked for more coat hangers.

Bess was amazed. I could imagine what she was telling them in the kitchen.

When my father came in he asked if Miss Grey had arrived and when he was told that she had, he said he would see her in his study at once.

I saw her going down the stairs. She had piled her hair high on her head, which made her look very tall, and I noticed that she had reddened her lips.

I was certain that he would decide she was most unsuitable. I was sorry in a way for, although I deeply regretted Lilias’ departure, I felt it would be more interesting to have a governess like Miss Grey than the normal kind.

I wondered what the servants were thinking. Lilias was no longer there to tell me what they said. But I was sure there would be marked disapproval from the Kirkwells.

The interview with my father lasted over an hour. I was surprised, expecting it to be brief. When it was over my father sent for me.

He was looking rather pleased, I thought, and I wondered what that meant.

“So,” he said. “Your new governess is here. She has met you, she says.”

“Yes. I took her to her room and we talked a little.”

“Good. I am sure she will be of great benefit to you.”

I was astonished. How could he think that?

He said to me: “She will dine with us. It seems to me the most suitable arrangement.”

“You … er … approve of her?”

He looked pained. “I am of the opinion that she will teach you a great many things you should know.”

It was extraordinary. Was it because I was comparing her with the really rather conventional Lilias that I found her so strange? My father, obviously, did not.

She appeared at dinner that night in a black dress which fitted her figure rather closely. She had what Lilias had referred to as “an hourglass figure.” Her red hair was wound round her head in what was meant to be a severe fashion—but somehow it was quite the reverse on her.

My father was gracious. It was more like having a guest to dinner than a governess.

He said: “Of course, you have not yet had an opportunity to assess Davina’s capabilities, but when you have you will be able to decide what is best for her.”

“Davina and I are going to get along wonderfully,” she replied, smiling at him.

“Her governess left in rather a hurry. I fancy she was not entirely competent.”

I could not resist cutting in. “Miss Milne was a very good governess, Papa. She made learning interesting.”

“And that is what it should be, of course,” said Miss Grey. “And that is how I intend to make it.”

“I suppose my daughter will be having some sort of season. But that, of course, is a little way ahead. We can wait until after her seventeenth birthday before we need to consider that.”

“I am sure you are right.”

The conversation went along on conventional lines. I gathered Miss Grey had recently come to Edinburgh. Her home had been in London.

“And what do you think of our Scottish ways?” my father asked almost playfully.

“I think they are divine,” she answered.

I glanced at him, wondering whether he would think this blasphemous in some way. It was a strange word to use. But she lowered her eyes so that the fanlike black lashes lay demurely against her skin; the full red lips smiled and the little nose and long upper lip looked more kittenish than ever. My father’s look was indulgent. His lips twitched a little as they used to when my mother said something which amused him and at the same time shocked him a little.

“I hope,” he said, “that you will continue to do so.” I left them together over coffee in the drawing room. It was an extraordinary evening. Everything seemed so different now … even my father.

DURING THE NEXT WEEKS, although I spent a good deal of time with Zillah Grey, I felt I did not really learn a great deal about her. She seemed like two different people … no, more than two. She appeared to be able to slip into different personalities with the greatest of ease. With my father she played the ladylike person who is suddenly confronted with the need to earn a living. That was characteristic of most governesses; but with her it was different. They were usually quietly retiring, very much aware of their reduced circumstances, unsure where they belonged, poised between upstairs and down. Zillah Grey, although she had a habit of lowering her eyes, did not strike me as modest. I suspected she did it because it was an excellent way of calling attention to those long thick eyelashes. She was certainly not without guile. She knew exactly how to behave with my father and he approved of her wholeheartedly.

With me her attitude was more volatile. Sometimes she threw off all pretence. She would laugh uproariously and I noticed her accent changed a little—her words became more racy.

It soon became clear that there were to be no set lessons.

“What I have to do is prepare you for society, so your father tells me,” she announced.

I was amazed. I could not imagine her being a great success in Edinburgh society, or even being accepted into it. What was she going to teach me?

I asked her what I needed to know.

“Clothes for one thing,” she said. “You have to make the best of yourself. You could be quite good-looking.”

“Could be?” I said. “Surely one either is or one isn’t?”

She winked at me. She had a habit of doing that when she was in certain moods. “That’s one of the things I’m going to teach you. Oh, we’re going to have a lot of fun together.”

She said I ought to learn to dance. “Ballroom dancing, of course,” she added. “Is there anyone here who can play the piano?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve had lessons. Miss Milne, my last governess, played well.”

“Well, you can’t play and dance at the same time, can you? I’ll have to see what we can do about that. I can knock out a bit of a tune myself. I wonder if there’s someone who could partner you.”

“You mean one of the maids?”

“We’ll see about that. I’ll teach you how to walk.”

“To walk?”

“Gracefully. How to make the best of yourself.”

“What about lessons … books and all that?”

She wrinkled her kitten’s nose and laughed. “We’ll see about that, shall we?”

She made her own rules. Often she went out and stayed out for several hours. I had no idea where she went.

“It’s a funny way of going on, if you ask me,” said Mrs. Kirkwell. “I mentioned it to the master and got a flea in my ear for my pains. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

It was certainly a strange situation.

Only a week after she arrived she asked that the carriage should take her somewhere one afternoon. Hamish arrived at the door just as though she were a member of the family.

The Kirkwells were watching from one of the windows when I came upon them.

“What’s all this about?” she was demanding of her husband, unaware of my presence.

“It’s a wee bit fishy to me,” he replied.

Then they saw me.

“That Miss Grey’s gone off in the carriage,” said Mrs. Kirkwell.

“Yes, I know.”

“Seems to think she owns the place. I wonder what the master will have to say about this.”

She need not have wondered, for nothing was said.

During the carriage drive she must have decided that Hamish would make a dancing partner for me.

When she sent for him I was horrified. I had always found Hamish repulsive and the intimacy of the dance would be most unpleasant. I could not shut out the image of him with Kitty on the bed.

Miss Grey demonstrated the dance, first with me and then with Hamish. She sang as she danced and I had to admit that she did it with the utmost grace. She floated by herself … her arms outstretched, muttering: “See. One two, one two three … the lady turns … the gentleman guides her … there. Let me try it with you, Hamish, while Davina watches. Then I’ll take Davina while you watch … then you two can do it together. Oh dear, I wish we had someone who could play the piano.”

She turned to me and held me loosely. She smelt of musk and attar of roses. I could see her white teeth and greedy lips closely—but it was wonderful to dance with her. It was much less so with Hamish.

He grinned at me. I believe he understood my feelings and they amused him.

I could have enjoyed the dancing lessons but for Hamish.

Mrs. Kirkwell was shocked when she heard that he was my partner in these lessons—so much so that she bearded my father in his study to tell him what was going on.

She was so bemused and indignant when she emerged that she forgot my youth for once and while I was present told Bess what had taken place.

“I said to him, ‘There he was … dancing with Miss Davina … that man who was as much to blame as Kitty for what happened.’ And what do you think he said to me? He said, very cold like, ‘I wish to hear no more of the matter, Mrs. Kirkwell.’ I spoke up bold as brass because I knew it were the right and proper thing to do. I said to him, ‘Well, sir, to see that man holding Miss Davina … as they have to do in this dance … well, it’s more than flesh and blood can stand after …’

He wouldn’t let me finish. He said: ‘I trust Miss Grey to do what is best for my daughter. She needs a dancing partner for the practise apparently and he is the only young man available. That is an end to the matter.’ He was as cold as a fish. Well, there’s nothing more I can do. But I’ve made my feelings known and I reckon I’ve done my duty.”

And Hamish continued to practise with me.

There were a great many demonstrations, though, and Miss Grey danced more often with Hamish than I did.

I had a letter from Lilias.

My dear Davina,

I am very unhappy. I feel I have brought a blight on my family. Sometimes I cannot believe this has happened and I am filled with hatred towards that person who played that trick on me—for I am sure it was a trick. Someone must have hated me almost as much as I hate that person now, although I don’t know whom I am hating.

My father has been wonderful. He makes me pray with him. He says I must forgive this enemy, but I cannot, Davina. I feel this wicked person has ruined my life.

I know you believe me and that gives me great comfort. But I am home now and I shall never be able to take another post. This terrible stigma will hang over me for ever.

I am helping Alice and Jane at the moment and Alice is going to take a post as governess … so I shall step into her shoes. I shall remain at the vicarage. Although my family believe in me, I am very unhappy. I should be grateful for their trust, I know, and I am, but I suffer still from this malicious accusation.

I saw Kitty the other day. She is settling in at Lakemere House, which is one of the two big houses here—the other being the Manor. Kitty seemed to be getting along quite well. We are the two disgraced ones, but I think she will be better able to get over her shameful humiliation, even though guilty, than I, innocent, ever shall be.

My dear Davina, I shall always remember you. Write to me and tell me how you are getting on. Perhaps we shall be able to meet one day.

All happiness to you and my love,

LlLIAS

I wrote back.

Dear Lilias,

Thank you for your letter which I was delighted to receive. I think of you a great deal. I am going to try and find out who did that terrible thing. You know where my suspicions are, but I can’t think of a reason.

I loathe him. He has been brought in by my new governess to partner me. I am learning dancing and need a partner. There isn’t anyone else, Miss Grey says. I could enjoy dancing lessons but for that.

Miss Grey is the new governess. She came very soon after you left. It is hard to describe her because she is more than one person. She is beautiful in a way that makes people look at her. She has reddish hair and green eyes. My father seems to approve of her. That surprised me because we don’t do lessons in the ordinary way. She tells me what to wear … how I should walk … and, of course, I am learning to dance. I think it is a sort of preparation for launching me into society. I’m getting old, I suppose.

Oh, Lilias, how I miss you! I wish you could come back.

My love as ever,

DAVINA

MISS GREY said I was not to wear black anymore.

“It doesn’t become your colouring, Davina,” she said. “You are too dark. Dark hair and blue eyes … an attractive combination, but not for black. I can wear it, though it is not my favourite colour. It’s too sombre. I’m fair skinned, you see. There is hardly any skin fairer than redheads. So I can get away with black … but it is not for you.”

“Mrs. Kirkwell said I should wear it for a year.” She held up her hands in mock horror. “But I say no black … and no black there shall be.”

I was not displeased. I hated the black clothes. I did not need them to remind me of my mother.

Of course, the Kirkwells were very shocked, but my father raised no objection.

I discovered that Miss Grey was very interested in the family. She wanted to hear about my mother and all the relations I had. There was little family except Aunt Roberta, I told her. I found myself talking quite frankly, for she had a way of drawing me out. I was soon telling her how Aunt Roberta had descended upon us after my mother’s death and how she had discovered Hamish and Kitty together in one of the bedrooms. I thought that might make her realise that Hamish was not a fit person to be my dancing partner.

She was thoughtful. “The young devil,” she said at length.

“Yes. It was very shocking. Aunt Roberta and I were together at the time. She opened the door … and there they were.”

“Caught in the act! And you a witness. Oh, Davina, what a sight for you!” She laughed and went on laughing, the greedy mouth open, the green eyes full of tears, so great was her mirth. “And little Kitty was given her marching orders, eh? ‘Don’t darken these doors again.’ “

“It was not very funny for Kitty.”

“No. I suppose not.”

“Lilias … Miss Milne … has a father who is a vicar. He took Kitty in.”

“God’s good man, eh?”

“He was good to Kitty. He found her a post in a house near him.”

“Let’s hope there aren’t any good-looking young men around like Hamish.”

“Do you call him good-looking?”

“He’s got something. There’s no doubt about that. I don’t suppose Kitty was the only one who couldn’t say no.”

I did not want to talk about Hamish. I felt I should say too much and that I suspected him of stealing the necklace and putting it in Lilias’ drawer. I must not tell anyone of my suspicions as I had no proof.

She asked a lot of questions about what had happened when my mother was alive. I told her how we used to go shopping and visiting friends.

“It was not so long ago,” she said.

I discovered that she kept a flask of brandy in her room. It was in a cupboard which she kept locked. She let me into the secret once. She had been out to luncheon on that day. I did not know with whom, but she did now and then make these mysterious excursions and on this occasion she came back rather flushed and extremely talkative. Her speech seemed different and she was more affectionate than ever.

I went to her room on some pretext—I forget what—and found her lying fully dressed on her bed, propped up by pillows.

“Hello, Davina,” she said. “Come and sit down and talk to me.”

I sat down and she told me she had had a very good luncheon … too good in fact … with a very great friend.

“I feel sleepy,” she said. “I could do with a little tonic. Here. Take the key in that drawer and open that little cupboard. There’s a bottle in there and a glass. Just pour out a little, will you? It’s just what I need.”

I could smell that the tonic was brandy.

I poured it out and took it to her.

She drank it quickly.

“That’s better,” she said. “Leave the glass, dear. I’ll wash it later. Put the key back in the drawer. Now sit down. There. Let’s talk. I’ve had a lovely meal … and the wine was delicious. I like people who know how to choose a good wine. It’s one of the things I’ll have to teach you, Davina.”

“I didn’t think I had to learn things like that. I know absolutely nothing about wines.”

“When you’re in a big house with a nice husband and he brings his guests home … you’ll have to know how to entertain them.”

“So that’s what I have to learn as well!”

“Well, it’s as good a reason as any …”

“What do you mean, ‘as good a reason as any’?”

She hesitated. I could see how sleepy she was. She seemed to rouse herself.

“I’m just babbling on. I like to talk to you, Davina. I think we’ve become friends … and that’s nice. That’s how I wanted it. You’re a nice girl … a nice innocent girl, and that’s how young girls should be, shouldn’t they?”

“I suppose so.”

She went on: “What a nice cosy time you must have had, Davina, my dear. Living all your life in this house … with kind Mama and stern Papa, the worthy banker, pillar of society in a great city.” She laughed. “You ought to see London.”

“I’d like to.”

“We’ve got our grand houses, you know. Grander than this even. But we’ve got some which are not so grand.”

“That is so here. I suppose it is like that everywhere.”

“In big cities the contrasts are greater.”

“This is a big city.”

“I was thinking of London.”

“It’s your home, is it?” I asked. “Why did you come up here?”

“I came for a little while and decided to stay … awhile at least.”

She sounded as though she would soon be asleep.

“Were you a governess before?” I asked.

She laughed. “Governess, me? Do I look like a governess?”

I shook my head.

“I was on the boards,” she said.

“Boards?”

She was laughing again. “Music hall,” she said in a slurred voice. “Song and dance act. It went down well for a time … as that sort of act goes. Quite a long time really.”

“You mean you were on the stage?”

She nodded dreamily. “Those were the days …”

“Why did you come here then?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I like a change. Besides … well, never mind. I was in Glasgow with the Jolly Red Heads. Three of us there were … all red-haired. That was what gave us the idea. We’d come on stage with our hair flying loose.

Brought the house down … to start with. People get tired. That’s the trouble. Fickle, that’s what they are. We toured the provinces and then we came to Glasgow. Did quite well there. It’s a hard grind, though. There comes a time when you feel like settling …”

“And are you going to settle, Miss Grey?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“I’ll leave you, then you can sleep.”

“No, don’t go. I like to hear you talking. You’re a nice girl, Davina. I like you.”

“Thank you. I had no idea you were on the stage.”

“Didn’t you, dear? That’s because you’re a nice little innocent.”

She was changing again, but her voice was getting fainter. I was sure she was almost asleep.

I said: “When I first saw you, I thought I had never seen anyone less like a governess.”

“Thank you, dear. That’s a compliment. How am I doing then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Governessing,” she said.

“You are a very strange governess.”

“Hm,” she murmured.

“You are quite different from Miss Milne.”

“The one who stole the necklace?”

“She didn’t steal it. It was put in her drawer … by someone.”

She opened her eyes and some of the sleepiness dropped from her. “You mean, someone planted it?”

“I mean that someone did it deliberately to make trouble for her.”

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody told me. I just knew.”

“How could you know?”

“Because Miss Milne couldn’t possibly have stolen anything.”

“Is that the only reason you know?”

I nodded. “I wish I could find out the truth.”

“You never know people, dear. They do the oddest things. You never know what’s going on inside people. They go on and on … in the same old way and then suddenly they break out and do something you couldn’t have believed they ever would.”

She was growing dreamy again.

“You don’t seem to be interested in the usual things,” I said.

“Like what, dear?”

“Mathematics, geography, English, history. Miss Milne was ever so keen on history. My mother was, too. She knew a lot about what happened in the past and she used to talk to me about it. It was very exciting. Once I went to Holyrood House.”

“What’s that?”

I was astounded.

“Surely you know. It’s the old palace. Mary Queen of Scots was there, Rizzio was murdered there. And then there’s the castle where King James was born … the Sixth of Scotland and the First of England. His mother was Mary Queen of Scots.”

She was almost asleep. Then suddenly she began to sing:

Wasn’t it pitiful what they did to Mary Queen of Scots?

Of her emulsion I have taken lots and lots and lots.

They locked her up in Fotheringay,

Fotheringay was not so gay,

Mary, Mary, Hanover Squarey, Mary Queen of Scots.

I listened in amazement. Then I thought: she is drunk.

How COULD MY FATHER, who was so stern and so conventional, allow such a woman to remain in the house, and moreover to have brought her in in the first place?

Of course, he had never seen her lying on her bed singing “Mary Queen of Scots.” She changed her personality when he was there. She wore the black dress often. It seemed to me that she could adjust herself to fit the occasion.

She did refer to that afternoon.

“I don’t know what I said, dear. You see, I had been to lunch with a dear friend. She’d been in trouble … it was a love affair and suddenly everything came right. I was so happy for her. She wanted to drink. She told me what had happened … how it had nearly gone wrong and then come right. And there was champagne … to celebrate, you see. She made me drink with her. Well, I’m afraid I’m not used to it.”

I thought of the brandy in the locked cupboard and she must have guessed my thoughts for she went on quickly: “I just keep a little something in case I’m off-colour. I know I look robust, but I have my little weakness. Internal, dear. I get quickly upset if something doesn’t agree with me and a spoonful always puts me right. I had to drink with her. It would have been sort of unkind not to. You understand?”

“Oh, yes,” I reassured her.

“I must have said a lot of silly things, did I?”

“You sang a song about Mary Queen of Scots.”

“It was … awful?”

“Well, it was joking about Fotheringay, which was very sad really, and something I didn’t understand about ‘hanover squarey.’ I didn’t know what that meant.”

“It’s a well-known place in London. Hanover Square, actually Squarey, to rhyme with Mary. That’s why that’s there. It was silly. An old music hall song. Was that all? Did I say anything else?”

“Only that you used to be with the Jolly Red Heads.”

She looked a little grave. “People talk a lot of nonsense when they have been so foolish as to be persuaded to drink too much. I’m sorry, Davina, my dear. Forget it, will you?”

I nodded again and she swept me into her perfumed embrace.

“I’m getting very fond of you, Davina,” she said.

I felt a sense of uneasiness and a desperate longing came to me for the old days with Lilias.

Soon after that we were in Princes Street shopping and she said to me: “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Doesn’t the castle look grand? You must tell me about all that history sometime. I’d love to hear.”

Certainly she was the most unusual governess any girl ever had.

She bought a dress that afternoon. It was green with the tightly fitting bodice which she favoured and the skirt billowing out from the nipped-in waist. It was piped with ruby velvet.

She tried it on and paraded before the shop girl and me.

“Madam is … entrancing,” cried the girl ecstatically.

I had to admit that she looked startlingly attractive.

Before we went down to dinner that night she came into my room wearing the dress.

“How do I look?” she asked.

“You look beautiful.”

“Do you think it’s suitable for dinner tonight? What do you think your father will say?”

“I don’t suppose he will say anything. I don’t think he notices one’s clothes.”

She kissed me suddenly. “Davina, you are a little darling.”

A few nights later she wore the dress again and during dinner I noticed that she was wearing a very fine ruby ring.

I could not stop looking at it because I was sure I had seen it before. It was exactly like one my mother had worn.

The next day I mentioned it to her.

I said: “I noticed that lovely ring you were wearing last night.”

“Oh?” she said. “My ruby.”

“It’s a beautiful ring. My mother had one just like it. It’s going to be mine one day. My father just didn’t think I was old enough to wear it yet.”

“Yes … I see what he means.”

“I don’t suppose it’s exactly the same. But it is very like it.”

“I suppose one ring can look like another. There are fashions in rings, you know.”

“Are there?”

“They were probably made about the same period.”

“It is lovely anyway. May I see it?”

“But of course.”

She went to a drawer and took out a case.

“The case is like my mother’s, too,” I said.

“Well, aren’t all those cases rather alike?”

I slipped the ring on my finger. It was too big for me. I remembered there was one time when my mother had been wearing her ruby ring. I had admired it and she had taken it from her finger and slipped it on mine. “It will be yours one day,” she had said. “Your fingers will be a little fatter perhaps by that time.”

Miss Grey took it from me and put it back in the case.

I said: “The ruby matched the piping on your new dress.”

“Yes,” she said. “I thought that. It was the reason why I wore it.”

She shut the drawer and smiled at me. “I think we should practise our dancing,” she said.

The next time she wore the dress I noticed that she did not put on the ruby ring.

THERE WERE TIMES when I felt that I had been thrust into an entirely different world. Everything had changed so much since my mother’s death. The servants were different; they were aloof and disapproving. When my mother was alive it had seemed as though life went on just as it had been doing for generations. Now it was all changed.

Lilias’ departure had helped to change it. Lilias had been what one expected a governess to be. She and I had had a close friendship, but that did not mean that our lives had not been conducted in a strictly conventional way. When I thought of the old days … Sunday church … Sunday lunch … prayers … the amiable but regulated relationship between the upper and lower sections of the house … it was all so natural and orderly … just as it must have been for generations.

Now it was as though a whirlwind had struck the house and left the old order in ruins.

There were prayers every morning; the whole household attended, Miss Grey, discreet and demure, praying with the rest of us. But it was different. My father went to church on Sundays and I went with him, Miss Grey—as Lilias used to—accompanying us. But there was no chatting outside the church, only the occasional “How do you do” from my father and myself.

There was smouldering resentment in the kitchen, often openly displayed by the Kirkwells. They did not understand, any more than I did, why Miss Grey was allowed to remain in the house, or why she was chosen in the first place. She was a disruptive influence, not so much because of the manner in which she behaved—indeed she seemed to want to be on good terms with all of us—but because she was so different and people are suspicious of anything that does not conform to the rules.

It was at this time about nine months after my mother’s death. I felt bewildered. How often I wished that Lilias was with me so that I could have talked frankly to someone. I was caught up in the general uneasiness which pervaded the house; and then suddenly I stumbled on a clue which explained a great deal to me. It was like finding a key which opened a door to … knowledge.

It was night. I was in bed. I could not sleep and lay tossing and turning when suddenly I heard a faint noise. I sat up in bed listening. I was sure I heard light footsteps going along the corridor past my room.

I got out of bed and opened my door very slightly. I was in time to see a figure on the stairs. I tiptoed to the banisters and saw quite clearly that it was Miss Grey. She was in her night attire—very different from mine which buttoned up to the neck. Hers was diaphanous, pale green with lace and ribbons. Her hair was loose about her shoulders.

What was she doing? Walking in her sleep? I must be careful not to wake her. I had heard somewhere that this could be dangerous to sleepwalkers. Very quietly I started to follow her.

She had descended the staircase and was walking along the corridor. She paused at the door of the master bedroom. It was where my father slept.

She opened the door and went in. I stood still, staring after her. What was she doing? What would happen now? She would awaken my father.

I waited in trepidation. Nothing happened. I stood there staring at the door. He must be awake by now.

I waited. My bare feet were cold. Nothing happened.

I mounted the stairs and stood at the top looking down. Minutes passed … and still she was there.

Then I knew, of course, why she had come here … why she was unlike any other governess. The truth came to me in a flash of understanding.

She was no governess. She was my father’s mistress.

I LAY IN MY BED thinking of what this meant. But he was so religious! He had been so outraged by Kitty’s conduct. How could he when he was acting in a similar way himself? How could anybody be so hypocritical? I felt sick with disgust.

So he had brought her here for this. She went to his room at night. He had given her my mother’s ruby ring which was to have been mine. And this was my father—the worthy citizen, whom the people of this city so respected. Already he was putting Miss Grey in the place of my mother.

I did not know how I should act. I wanted to go to that room and burst in on them … as Aunt Roberta had on Kitty and Hamish. I wanted to tell them what I thought of them. Not so much for what they were doing—that was something I knew nothing about—but because it was despicable to stand in judgement against people who did the same.

What could I do? My impulse was to leave the house. How foolish! Where should I go? To Lilias? Again foolish. The Lakemere vicarage was not a home for all those in trouble. In any case, what I suffered from was not that sort of trouble.

I had a home, plenty to eat, comfort, and I felt I could never look my father in the face again.

And Miss Grey. What of her? I did not mind so much about her. She was not a lady. I knew that. That she was exceptionally beautiful and attractive I had to admit. I supposed she would be considered quite fascinating. But my father … how could he?

What should I do? What should I say when I met them? Say nothing, was the wise answer. Certainly not yet … not until I had thought how I must act.

If only Lilias were here how different it would be. But Lilias had gone. If she had not, Miss Grey would not be here.

My father had wanted Miss Grey to come to the house. It was fortuitous that Lilias had been dismissed for a crime of which I was certain she was innocent.

I was getting entangled in the maze of my thoughts. I felt lost, bewildered, completely shaken by this sudden understanding.

I WISHED that I could get away … out of this house. I was writing to Lilias but, of course, I could not mention in a letter what was in my mind. It would have been different if I could have talked to her.

My father did not notice the change in my attitude. It was different with Miss Grey. She noticed at once.

“Is anything troubling you, Davina?” she asked.

“No,” I lied.

“You seem …”

“How do I seem?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Different … as though you have something on your mind.”

I looked at her and I could not stop myself seeing her and my father on that bed as I had seen Kitty and Hamish. I felt sick.

“Do you feel all right?”

“Yes.”

“I think you might be sickening for something.”

Yes, I thought. I feel sick when I think about you and my father.

I hated him more than I did her. I thought: that is her way of life. She wasn’t really so shocked about Kitty and Hamish and didn’t pretend to be. She would say with Hamish: it’s human nature. Human nature for people like her and Hamish … and it seemed my father. He only held up his hands in horror when girls like Kitty succumbed to it. He went to church and prayed and thanked God that he was not as other men.

Then I started to think about Lilias. How strange that she should have been dismissed just when he wanted to bring another governess into the house. But Zillah Grey was not a governess. She was a Jolly Red Head. She was really a loose woman. That was what they called them. She was one of those and my father was by no means the good man he pretended to be.

My mind kept going back to Lilias. Who had put the necklace in her room? The more I thought of it the more strange it seemed. Could it be that my father had wanted Lilias out of the house so that he could conveniently bring Zillah Grey in … so that she could share his bed at night with the greatest ease?

He himself had selected her. He had said that. And it would have been impossible for her to masquerade as an educated woman, a proper governess, one of those genteel ladies who had fallen on hard times. So she had come to teach me the social graces. That was really amusing. I felt waves of bitterness sweeping over me.

What had this done to Lilias? She would have to go through life with that stigma upon her. People would say she had been dismissed for theft because a missing necklace was found in her room. I had always believed that someone had put it there. Now it seemed that someone might have had a reason for it, and I had a burning desire to find out who.

I could not imagine my father’s stealing into my room, taking the necklace and putting it into a drawer in Lilias’ room. That was beyond my imagination. But a short while ago should I have been able to visualise my father in positions which I could not get out of my mind?

I often found Miss Grey looking at me speculatively. I was betraying myself. I was not as skilled at subterfuge as they were.

I wondered whether Zillah Grey had guessed that I had discovered the truth about her relationship with my father. She was clearly a little anxious and I was not subtle enough to hide my feelings.

One afternoon my father arrived home early and very soon afterwards Miss Grey came to my room.

She said: “Your father wants you to go to his study. He has something to say to you.”

I looked surprised. I fancied he had been avoiding me lately. When we dined he seemed determined not to meet my eyes, but as he rarely addressed a remark to me it was not really necessary to do so.

She came with me to the study and shut the door behind us.

My father was standing leaning against his desk. She went and stood beside him.

“Sit down, Davina,” he said. “I want to tell you that Miss Grey has promised to become my wife.”

I stared at them both in astonishment.

Miss Grey came to me and kissed me.

“Dear Davina,” she said. “We have always got on so well. It is going to be wonderful.” She turned to my father. “Wonderful for us all,” she added.

She held out her hand and he took it. He was looking at me rather anxiously I thought.

“The wedding will not take place for another three months,” said my father. “We must wait the full year … and a little more, I think.”

I wanted to laugh at him. I wanted to cry out: “But you did not wait. This is a pretence. It’s all a pretence. There is sham everywhere.”

But “I see” was all I could manage to say.

“I am sure,” he went on, “that you will realise this is the best thing possible. You need a mother.”

And I thought, you need someone … as Hamish did.

It was disturbing how I heard myself speaking inwardly … saying things which I would never have dared say aloud, things which I would never have believed possible a year ago.

How I hated them standing there, pretending … both of them. But I hated him more than I did her.

“There will be a wedding,” I heard myself say stupidly; and that other voice within me said, of course there will be a wedding. A quiet one … all very right and proper … just as it should be … and no one will know.

“A quiet one naturally,” said my father.

“Naturally,” I repeated and wondered whether they noticed the sarcasm.

“Are you going to congratulate us?” asked Miss Grey archly.

I did not answer.

“It is something of a surprise, I have no doubt,” said my father. “But it will be the best thing possible … for us all. You will have a mother …”

I looked at Zillah Grey. She grimaced and somehow I liked her for that. She was not the hypocrite he was, whatever else she might be; and I think at that time it was the hypocrisy which was the greatest sin in my eyes.

“Well then,” said my father. “I want us to drink to the future.”

He opened a cupboard and took out three glasses and a bottle of champagne.

There was a little for me, less than half a glass. I kept thinking of Miss Grey lying on her bed singing “Mary Queen of Scots”; and I began to laugh.

My father smiled quite benignly, not understanding. When had he ever? I asked myself. But I think Miss Grey was aware of my feelings.

AT FIRST the news was received with dismay throughout the household, but after a few days they all seemed to accept it.

Mrs. Kirkwell had a little talk with me.

She said: “A lot has happened in this house lately, Miss Davina. Mr. Kirkwell and I were beginning to look on you as the mistress of the house. Of course, you are young as yet. We had thought that Mr. Glentyre might marry again, but we hadn’t thought it would be so soon.”

“It will be a year since my mother died when they marry.”

“Oh yes. Well, they couldna very well do it before. That wouldn’t have been right and Mr. Glentyre, he’s one who’ll always do what’s right. It’s soon … but it will be the full year. And we shall have a new lady of the house.” Mrs. Kirkwell wrinkled her brows. I knew she was thinking that it would be difficult to imagine Zillah Grey as the mistress of a staid Edinburgh residence.

“There’ll be changes,” she went on. “I’m sure of that. Well, we must take them as they come, I suppose. A man needs a wife … even a gentleman like Mr. Glentyre, and having a daughter to bring up.”

“I think I am brought up by now, don’t you, Mrs. Kirkwell?”

“Well, there’ll be things to arrange and a woman’s best for that even if …”

“I am glad you and Mr. Kirkwell are not too upset by all these changes.”

She shook her head sadly and I guessed she was thinking of the days when my mother was alive. I wondered if she were aware of Miss Grey’s nightly excursions. Mrs. Kirkwell was shrewd and she had always liked to be aware of what was going on in the house.

I imagined she and Mr. Kirkwell might have decided that when there were certain “goings-on” in a respectable house— men being what they were—it was as well to have them legalised.

And so the house settled down to a mood of greater serenity than it had enjoyed since my mother died.

Later I heard Mrs. Kirkwell’s comments on the mistress-of-the-house-to-be. “She’s not the interfering sort. That’s the kind neither Mr. Kirkwell nor me would work for.”

So, unsuitable as the match might seem to outsiders, it was— if somewhat grudgingly—accepted in the house, largely because it was recognised that a man needed a wife and the chosen one in this case was “not the interfering sort.”

THE WEDDING was, as had been decided, quiet—just a simple ceremony performed by the Reverend Charles Stocks who had been a friend of the family all my life.

There were few guests, chiefly friends of my father. Aunt Roberta did not appear, for the feud between her and my father continued. There were no friends of Zillah Grey present. The reception at the house was brief and very soon my father, with his bride, left for Italy.

THE GOVERNESS

I went at once to my room to write to Lilias.

“I have a stepmother now. It seems incongruous. So much has happened in the last year. Sometimes I wonder what is going to happen next …”

Jamie

WHEN THEY HAD GONE the house seemed very quiet and the strangeness of everything that had happened struck me afresh. I could not get out of my mind the fact that just over a year ago my mother had been alive and Lilias had been with me.

I had reached my seventeenth birthday in September and had left my childhood behind me—not only because of my age. I had learned so much—chiefly that people were not what they seemed to be. I had learned that a man like my father—outwardly a pillar of virtue—was capable of urges as powerful as those which had lured Kitty to abandon herself recklessly to disaster. They had carried my father so far that he had not only brought a woman like Zillah Grey into the house but had actually married her. So there was no doubt that I had grown up.

A sense of aloneness came over me. I had lost my best friends. There was no one now. Perhaps that was why I was so ready to welcome Jamie into my life.

I found a great pleasure in walking. In the old days I should not have been going out alone, but now there was no one who could stop me. In the absence of my stepmother I was the mistress of the house. I was on the way to becoming eighteen years old … an age, I supposed, when one could, in some circumstances, take charge. Mrs. Kirkwell had made it clear that she would rather take orders from me than from the new Mrs. Glentyre.

It will be different when they return, I reminded myself.

There was comfort in exploring the city, and the more I saw of it, the more captivated I became by its inimitable charm.

I was struck by the Gothic buildings which had been infiltrated with a touch of the classic Greek which gave an added dignity. In the first place, the situation was impressive. From one point it was possible to overlook the estuary of the Forth flowing into the ocean, and away to the west were the mountains. Such a superb position must be paid for, and the toll demanded was the bitter east wind and the snow from the mountains. But we had grown accustomed to that and it made our warm houses the more luxurious.

The coming of spring was particularly welcome and it was during that delightful season when I was able to indulge in my explorations. How beautiful it was then, with the sun shining on the tall grey buildings lighting them to silver. Sometimes I would sit in the gardens looking up to the castle or along Princes Street; and at others I would wander into the old town and listen for the bell of the university which rang out every hour.

It was a revelation to discover what a great divide there was in our city between the comfortably situated and the wretchedly poor. I suppose it is so in all big cities, but in ours it seemed more marked, I think, because the two were so close together. A few minutes’ walk could take one from the affluent to the needy. One could be in Princes Street where the carriages rolled by carrying the well-dressed and well-fed, and very soon be in the wynds, where dwellings huddled together, where many lived in one small room, where the lines of pitiful garments hung out to dry and bare-footed, ragged children played in the gutters.

It was called the old town; and that was where I met Jamie.

Of course, if I had been wise I should not have been there. A well-dressed young woman could only be visiting such a neighbourhood out of curiosity. But I had become fascinated by my discoveries, and, contemplating on what I saw, I forgot my own dilemma, for my discoveries broke into my brooding on what the future might bring.

When I went out on my walks I carried a small purse with a chain handle which hung on my arm. In it I carried a little money. Since I had visited the poorer parts of the city I liked to have something with me to give to people. There were quite a number of beggars to be encountered and I was very moved to see children in such circumstances.

I knew that I should not venture deep into these streets. For one thing, there was such a maze of them that it was easy to lose one’s way.

I had come to a street which was full of people. There was a man with a barrow selling old clothes, children squatting on the pavement and several people standing at their doors gossiping.

I turned away and started to go back as I thought the way I had come, but I soon realised how unwise I had been to enter these streets. I came to a small alley. At the end of it was a young man; he was just about to turn the corner. He looked respectable, out of place in these streets and I thought I might ask him the way back to Princes Street.

I started after him and just at that moment two young boys darted out of a side alley and approached me. They barred my way. They were poorly clad and obviously undernourished and they said something in an accent so broad that I could not understand them, but I knew they were asking me for money. I took the purse from my arm and opened it. One of them immediately snatched it and ran towards the young man who was about to turn the corner.

“Come back,” I called. The young man turned. He must have guessed what had happened. No doubt it was a common occurrence. He caught the boy with the purse. His companion darted away and disappeared.

The young man came towards me, dragging the boy with him.

He smiled at me. He was young … not much older than I, I guessed. He had light blue eyes and fair hair with a reddish tint; he looked clean and healthy, which struck me as it was such a contrast to the boy he was dragging with him. He smiled; he had very white teeth.

“He has taken your purse, I believe,” he said.

“Yes. I was going to give him some money.”

The boy let out a stream of words, some of which I understood. He was terrified.

“Give the lady her purse,” commanded the young man.

Meekly the boy did so.

“Why did you do it?” I said. “I would have given you something.”

He did not answer.

“Poor little devil,” said the young man.

“Yes,” I said. And to the boy: “You shouldn’t steal, you know. You’ll get into trouble. My mother gave me this purse. It would have hurt me to lose it and it wouldn’t have been worth much to you.”

The boy stared at me. He was beginning to realise that I was not going to be harsh. I saw hope flicker in his eyes. Poor child, I thought.

I said: “You’re hungry, are you?”

He nodded.

I took all the money in the purse and gave it to him. “Don’t steal again,” I said. “You could get caught and someone might not let you go. You know what that would mean, don’t you?”

He nodded again.

“Let him go,” I said to the young man.

He lifted his shoulders and smiled at me. Then he released the boy, who darted off.

“So,” said the young man. “You’ve let a thief loose among the people of Edinburgh. It’s only just postponed his stay in jail, you know.”

“At least I shall not be responsible for it.”

“Does it matter who is? He’ll be there, sure enough.”

“Perhaps he’s learned his lesson. He was hungry, poor child. I felt so desperately sorry for them.”

“But … may I ask what a young lady like you is doing in this part of the city?”

“Exploring. I’ve lived in Edinburgh all my life and I have never seen this part before.”

“Perhaps we should introduce ourselves. I’m James North … known as Jamie.”

“I’m Davina Glentyre.”

“Should I escort you back to a more salubrious part of the town?”

“I wish you would. I’m lost.”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Please do.”

“If I were you I would not venture into these parts alone again.”

“I shall certainly be more careful in future.”

“Then our young vagrant has done some good in his criminal life.”

“Do you live in Edinburgh?”

“I have rooms. I’m at the University.”

“A student?”

“Yes.”

“How interesting. What do you study?”

“Law. But at the moment I’m doing a thesis on this city. I find it the most fascinating project I have ever undertaken.”

“Were you researching in the wynds when you rescued me?”

“Yes. I want to see all aspects of the city—its glories and its horrors. This place reeks of history. You can feel it everywhere you go.”

“Is that why it is called Old Reekie?”

He laughed.

“Why did they?” I asked.

“I am not sure. Perhaps it is because it is set on a hill. It may have started when someone saw the city from a distance with the smoke from chimneys rising over the buildings. That’s the sort of thing I probe for. I want to recreate not only the city as it is today but as it was throughout its history.”

“That must be exciting work. I’m only just starting to know it.”

“Yet you say you have lived here all your life.”

We had come to the end of the narrow streets.

“You know where you are now,” he said.

I was disappointed because I thought he was implying that now he had safely delivered me, he was going to say goodbye.

“It was very kind of you to come to my rescue,” I said.

“Oh aye,” he replied with a laugh. “I did not exactly have to face a fire-breathing dragon, you know. You could hardly call it a rescue.”

“I should have hated to lose my purse.”

“Because your mother gave it to you. And she is dead now?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

We had come to the gardens. “If you are not in a hurry …” he began.

“I’m not in a hurry,” I replied eagerly.

“Shall we sit down for a while?”

“I’d like that.”

So we sat and talked and an hour slipped by. It was the most stimulating hour I had spent for a long time.

I learned that his father was a minister and he had lived all his life in the manse north of Edinburgh—a small place which I had never heard of before—Everloch. Great sacrifices had been made to send him to the University and he was determined to make a success and repay his parents for all they had done for him.

I liked him more every moment. It was so pleasant to talk to someone near one’s own age. I told him about my mother’s death and what a shock it had been. “I had had a governess who was a great friend of mine, but she … left. And now my father has married again.”

“And you are not happy about that?”

“I don’t know. It all happened so quickly.”

“And your stepmother …”

“She is rather … different. As a matter of fact she came as my governess.”

“I see. And your father fell in love with her. I expect he was lonely after your mother died.”

“I don’t know. There are some people one doesn’t understand very well. Whereas this morning I hadn’t met you and now I feel I know quite a lot about you … much more than I do about Zillah Grey.”

“Zillah Grey?”

“She is the governess … my stepmother now.”

He said: “I suppose it all happened so quickly that you are not used to it yet. I think it can be quite a shock when a parent remarries … particularly if you have been close to the one who has departed.”

“Yes, that is so. You see, if my old governess were there …”

“The one who left. Why did she go?”

I stammered: “She … er … she just had to.”

“I see … her family or something, I suppose …”

I was silent and he went on: “Well, it is not as though you are a child. You’ll make your own life.”

“They are going to be away for three weeks,” I said. “One of them has already gone.”

“I expect it will work out all right. These things usually do.”

“Do they?”

“Yes, if you let them.”

“That’s a comforting philosophy. I’m glad we talked.”

“Yes, so am I.”

“Do you have a lot of spare time?”

“For a week or so, yes. It’s a break now. I could go home, but it’s cheaper to stay here. I’m just exploring … making notes, you see … and writing it all up in the evenings.”

“What an interesting life you must have.”

“It has its moments.” He smiled and added, “Like today.” He turned to me suddenly. “You’ve got an interest in the city … exploring the wynds, seeing parts you have never seen before. I’m doing the same. Is it possible … ?”

I looked at him eagerly, questioningly.

“Well,” he went on, “if you have no objection … and when it fits in with your arrangements … I don’t see why we shouldn’t do a little exploring together.”

“Oh,” I cried, “I should love that.”

“Well then. It’s settled. When is your best time?”

“This, I think.”

“Of course, there are some places to which I should hesitate to take you.”

“It would be better for two to go to those places than one.”

“Well, for all those that are not safe there are dozens that are.”

“Let’s go to those places together.”

“It’s a promise.”

“Where shall we meet?”

“Here on this seat.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Ten o’clock. Is that too early?”

“That would suit me very well.”

“Well, that’s settled.”

I thought it better if he did not escort me right to the house. It would be difficult to explain who he was if I were seen by the Kirkwells or any of the servants and, of course, they would start to speculate.

It had been a pleasant morning, the most enjoyable for a long time. I wondered what my father would think if he knew I had talked with a stranger and, moreover, arranged to meet him the following day.

I simply do not care, I told myself.

GETTING TO KNOW JAMIE—we had become Jamie and Davina to each other very quickly—was a wonderful and stimulating experience. The morning after our first meeting we met again and it became a custom.

There was so much to talk about. He had made me see the manse and his younger brother Alex, who was going into the ministry, his father and mother, the aunts and cousins all living close by, the family reunions. It seemed a very jolly life, quite different from mine.

And then there was Edinburgh which came to mean something special to me, probably because of Jamie.

He loved every stone of the place, and memories of those days when we explored the place together will always be with me. I lived through them with an intensity, for I knew they could not last. When my father returned with Zillah there would be enquiries. They could hardly be shocked because I had strayed a little from conventional behaviour. I felt that if this were suggested I should not be able to restrain my anger and I might let him know that I was aware that he had not always kept rigorously to the paths of virtue. But then, of course, I was not facing him.

I shall never forget the banner floating over the castle … the wonderful view we had of the Pentland Hills when the air was clear. I shall always remember strolling along the Royal Mile from the castle to Holyrood House. The cathedral, the house where John Knox had lived. How I hated that man! I could grow angry to think of his thundering abuse at the Queen. Was he such a good man? I wondered. What secret vice had he? I was suspicious of all men who boasted of their virtues. Jamie was amused by the way in which I fulminated against John Knox.

Jamie was entranced by the past. He knew so much more about it than I did. It was wonderful to have my eyes opened by such an exciting companion.

He made me see Bonnie Dundee with his dragoons riding behind him; Queen Mary fresh from the splendour of the French court coming to dour Scotland; those Covenanters who had died there in the Grass Market for what they believed; he told me stories of the fabulous thief Deacon Brodie and Burke and Hare, the body snatchers.

Then my father, with Zillah, returned from Italy. They looked sleek and satisfied. They were affable to everyone. Zillah was excited in a rather childlike way, but I felt in my heart that there was really nothing childlike about her. My father was indulgent, as besotted by her as ever.

She had brought presents for everyone: a blouse from Paris for Mrs. Kirkwell, for they had stopped there on the way home, a statuette for Mr. Kirkwell and embroidered handkerchiefs for the others. They were all delighted and I thought, she certainly knows how to please people.

For me there were clothes. “My dear, dear Davina, I know your size and exactly what suits you. I spent hours choosing, didn’t I, dear?”

My father nodded with an expression of mock exasperation which made her laugh.

“We’re going to try them on at once,” she announced. “I can’t wait.”

And there we were in my room while she fitted the dress on me, the coat, the skirt, the blouses—one frilly, the other plainish but stylish. She stood back admiring.

“They do something for you, Davina. They really do. You’re quite good-looking, you know.”

I said: “It was good of you to remember everyone. The servants are delighted.”

She grimaced. “A little bit of bribery. I sensed disapproval before.” She laughed and the pretence dropped from her. “Governess marries the master of the house! I mean to say … a little bit of a disturbance in the servants’ quarters, eh?”

I found myself laughing with her.

Perhaps, I thought, it is going to be all right after all.

I was right when I thought the gifts from Paris would have a good effect. The servants were almost reconciled now.

I heard Mrs. Kirkwell remark: “Like a pair of turtledoves, they are. Well, there’s no harm in that and she’s not the interfering sort.”

My thoughts were, of course, with Jamie. It was difficult now to slip out of the house without saying where I was going. We had to get messages to each other which was not easy.

I was always afraid that a note from him might come to me at an awkward moment, when my father was present. Fate was perverse and it could happen. I could imagine Kirkwell coming in with it on one of the silver salvers. “A young man left this for you, Miss Davina.” A young man! Suspicions would be aroused. It was easier for me to drop a note into Jamie’s lodgings.

However, we did manage to meet, though it was not the same as it had been in those idyllic weeks.

It was always a joy to see his face light up when I arrived. He would get up and run towards me, taking my hands and looking into my face. And I felt a great exhilaration.

We talked endlessly during those mornings, but I always had to watch the time, which I was sure passed more quickly than it had before.

I believe Zillah was aware that I harboured some secret. I called her Zillah now. She had been Miss Grey in my thoughts, but I could not call her that now. In any case, she was no longer Miss Grey.

“You must call me Zillah,” she said. “I refuse to be called Stepmama.” She appealed to my father. “That would be quite ridiculous, wouldn’t it, darling?”

“Quite ridiculous,” he agreed.

And so she had become Zillah.

She was given to those coy moods, especially when my father was present; but I was always aware of the sharpness beneath them. She was as shrewd and watchful as she had been on the day of her arrival.

I knew there was something not quite natural about her; she had been an actress—well, a kind of actress, if one could call the Jolly Red Heads that. In any case, she would know how to play a part. It seemed to me that she was playing a part now.

She fussed over my father, giving the impression that she was worried about his health.

“Now you must not overtire yourself, dearest. That journey was quite exhausting.”

He shrugged off her cosseting, but he liked it. She continued to play the ingenue when I was certain that a very mature woman lurked beneath.

One day Jamie and I arranged to meet on our seat in the gardens. When he saw me he came hurrying towards me as usual, his face alight with pleasure.

He took my hands. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come … that something might prevent it.”

“Of course I’d come.”

“Well, I’m never sure nowadays. I wish … it weren’t like this. I can tell you’re uneasy. They were wonderful days we had.”

“Yes,” I sighed and we sat down.

He said seriously: “I think we have to do something, Davina.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Your people don’t know you are meeting me.”

“Good heavens, no. My father would think it was quite improper to pick up an acquaintance in the street.”

“Well, what are we going to do about it? I want to call at your house. I don’t like this hole-and-corner business.”

“I don’t like it either. I agree with you. They could discover sooner or later. So far we have kept our meetings secret … but one of the servants might see us … and there would be talk. They would all be wondering who you are and why you don’t call at the house.”

“Davina, do you think it is possible to fall in love in a short time?”

“I think I do,” I answered.

He turned to me and took my hands. We laughed together happily.

“I’d have to pass exams and get out of the University before we could marry,” he said.

“Of course.”

“So would you … will you?”

“I think it would be wonderful,” I said. “But do you know me well enough?”

“I know all I want to know about you. Haven’t we talked and talked … as much in these few weeks as people do in years?”

“Yes, we have.”

“And isn’t that enough?”

“It’s enough for me. I was wondering about you.”

He kissed me then. I withdrew, embarrassed. It was not the kind of behaviour expected on a seat in public gardens in mid-morning.

“People will be shocked!” I said.

“Who cares?”

“Not us,” I said recklessly.

“Then we’re engaged?”

A voice broke in on us. “Davina!”

Zillah was coming towards us. She stood there, her green eyes glowing, her reddish hair bright under a black hat. She looked very elegant in her black coat with the green scarf at her neck.

She was smiling at Jamie. “Please introduce us.”

“This is James North and … er … this is my stepmother.”

She put her face close to his and whispered: “But we don’t usually mention that. I am conceited enough to think I don’t look the part.”

“No … no,” stammered Jamie. “Of course you don’t.”

“May I sit down?”

“Please do,” said Jamie.

She was between us. “You two seem to be good friends.”

“We met while you were away,” I said. “I wandered into the old town and got lost in the wynds. Mr. North rescued me and showed me the way to go home.”

“How interesting! And you became friends.”

“We were both enormously interested in the city,” said Jamie.

“I’m not surprised. It’s fascinating … historically and otherwise.”

I was surprised. She cared nothing about the city. “Mary Mary, Hanover Squarey.” I could hear her singing.

“Well,” she went on. “So you are good friends … apparently. That’s very nice.” She smiled beguilingly at Jamie. “I daresay my stepdaughter has told you all about me.”

“All?” I said.

“Well, I daresay she has mentioned that I have lately come into the family.”

“She did mention it,” said Jamie. “I know you have recently come from your honeymoon in Venice and Paris.”

“Venice! What an enchanting place. Those fascinating canals. The Rialto. Full of wonderful treasures. Paris, too …the Louvre and all that history … Davina, why do you not invite Mr. North to come to the house?”

“Well, I didn’t think … I didn’t know …”

“Oh, you foolish girl! I’m very cross, Mr. North, that I have not met you earlier. Davina has been keeping you to herself. You must meet my husband. He will be delighted to meet you. What about tomorrow evening? Come to dinner. Are you free? Oh … good. It won’t be a big party. Just the four of us. Do say you’ll come.”

Jamie said: “I should like that very much.”

“Wonderful!”

She sat back on the seat and I saw she intended to stay until I left. She talked a great deal with animation and much laughter. Jamie joined in. I was longing to ask him what he thought of her.

Moreover I was a little dismayed to have been so discovered, and also faintly annoyed. She had broken into a moment when we desperately wanted to talk about ourselves.

IT WAS AN UNEASY MEAL. Jamie was clearly a little overwhelmed by the formality. I imagined meals were very different in the manse. My father’s dignified appearance and cool manner did not help.

He was polite. He thanked Jamie for rescuing me when I was lost and asked a great many questions about his studies and his home.

“You must find Edinburgh quite different from your little country village.”

Jamie admitted that he did and that he was quite fascinated by the city.

“Mr. North is doing a thesis on the city,” I said. “It means delving into history.”

“Very interesting,” said my father. “And you were brought up in the manse and your parents are still there?” he went on.

Jamie confirmed this. It was all very stiff and stilted.

Zillah, of course, introduced a light note into the evening and I was glad of her help.

She talked about Venice and Paris, to neither of which places Jamie or I had ever been; but she was so pleasant to him and did her best to make him feel that he was a welcome guest, which softened the ordeal to which my father appeared to be subjecting him.

I knew it was more serious than it appeared to be and that my father was very disapproving of the acquaintance.

He would be thinking that it was very remiss of me to talk to a stranger in the street. I suppose if one had lost one’s way there might be some excuse for doing so; but the proper procedure after that would have been for the rescuer to have taken me back to my home and called the next day to enquire how I was. Then it would have been for my family to decide whether he was worthy to be invited to the house to resume his acquaintance with me.

Jamie was clearly pleased when the ordeal was over and when I asked him what he thought about the meeting he replied: “I don’t think your father approves of me. He doesn’t know, of course, that we are engaged and what his reaction to that will be I can well imagine.”

“I don’t care what he says.”

“Well … I think it would be better for us to say nothing as yet. I am sure he has not reckoned on having the penniless son of a manse as his son-in-law.”

“It is something to which he will have to grow accustomed.”

“He is the sort of man who would want everything according to convention.”

Inwardly I laughed. I thought of Zillah, selected by him, creeping along to his bedroom. I said nothing. But I would remember it if he ever reproached me for unconventional behaviour.

“So,” went on Jamie, “for the moment we’d better plan in secret.”

I knew he was right and we had a wonderful time talking about the future.

He did say during the course of that conversation: “That stepmother of yours … she’s quite different, isn’t she?”

“Different from what?”

“From your father. She’s jolly. Good fun. I don’t think she would be cluttered by conventions. Do you know, I had a feeling that she would be on our side.”

“I never know with her. I have a feeling she is not all she seems.”

“Who of us is?”

We parted with a promise to meet in two days’ time.

Before I saw him again, Mr. Alastair McCrae, who had been a widower for five years, came to dine.

He was between thirty-five and forty, tall, upright and quite good-looking. He was a colleague of my father; and I knew he was wealthy for he had a private income and there was a family estate not far from Aberdeen.

I had seen him once some years before when he had come to the house to dine. I, of course, had not been present at the dinner party, but I had taken a peep through the banisters and seen him arrive with his wife who had been alive at that time.

My mother had mentioned him to me. “Your father has a high respect for Mr. McCrae. He comes of a very good family and I believe the estate he owns is very large.”

I was interested to see the gentleman with the large estate and I must have been quite unimpressed because all thought of the gentleman went out of my mind until the recent mention of his name.

Zillah said: “This is going to be a rather special dinner party. You know that dress I bought for you in Paris? It’s most becoming. Your father has asked me to make sure you are presentable.”

“Why should he be interested in what / look like?”

“Well, you are his daughter and he wants you to grace the dinner party with me.” She grimaced. “Between us, my dear, we’ll open this fine gentleman’s eyes.”

There were two other guests, my father’s solicitor and his wife; and rather to my surprise I was seated next to Alastair McCrae at dinner. He was quite attentive and we talked pleasantly together. He told me about his estate near Aberdeen and how he liked to escape to it whenever possible.

“It sounds delightful,” I said.

He then told me how much land he owned and it seemed considerable. The house itself was quite ancient. “It needs propping up from time to time,” he said, “but what ancient house doesn’t? The McCraes have been there for four centuries.”

“How exciting!”

“I should like to show it to you one day. Perhaps we could arrange something.”

My father was smiling quite benignly at me.

“Davina is very interested in the past,” he said. “History has always fascinated her.”

“There is plenty of that here,” said Alastair McCrae.

“There’s plenty of it everywhere,” I said.

Zillah laughed loudly and everyone joined in. My father was very affable, smiling at me as well as at Zillah. It was very different from that other evening when Jamie had been our guest.

I found Alastair McCrae quite a pleasant man and I was glad to see my father in such a mellow mood. I would ask Zillah if Jamie could come to tea. It would be more friendly than dinner as my father would not be there to assess him.

I asked her the next day.

She looked at me and laughed. “I don’t think your father would approve of that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, dear, we have to face facts, don’t we? You’re what they call of a marriageable age.”

“Well?”

“Young men … particularly young men who meet you in romantic places …”

“In those squalid wynds! You call them romantic?”

“Romance springs up everywhere, dear child. Those streets may not have been romantic, but the rescue was. And then seeing each other every day … looking at each other in such a charming way … well, that tells a good deal … especially to an old warhorse like me.”

“Oh, Zillah, you are very funny.”

“I’m glad I amuse you. To be able to amuse people is one of the gifts from the gods.”

I thought how she changed. I wondered if my father ever saw Zillah as the woman she was now.

“So,” I said, “you want me to ask my father if he can come to tea? This is my home. Surely I can have my friends here?”

“Of course you can and of course you shall. I was merely commenting that your father wouldn’t like it. Let us ask the young man to tea. We won’t worry your father with telling him. That’s all.”

I looked at her in astonishment. She smiled at me.

“I understand, dear. I want to help you. After all, I am your stepmother—only don’t call me that, will you?”

“Of course I won’t.”

I wondered what my father would have said if he had known she was in league with me to keep Jamie’s visit to the house a secret.

Jamie came. It was a very happy time. There was a great deal of laughter and I could see that Jamie enjoyed Zillah’s company.

I saw him the next day. It was easier to arrange our meetings now that Zillah knew and clearly wanted to make things easy for us. He told me how kind he thought her and it was wonderful that she was so helpful.

As for Zillah, she said he was a charming young man.

“He dotes on you,” she said. “He’s clever, too. I am sure he is going to pass all those exams and become a judge or something. You are a lucky girl, Davina.”

“My father doesn’t know we’re meeting,” I reminded her. “I don’t think he will approve of Jamie … not for Jamie himself, but because he isn’t rich like … like …”

“Like Alastair McCrae. Now, there is a fine man and, as we used to say, ‘well padded,’ which in the vernacular of the halls, my dear, means that he has a nice little fortune stacked away. I have to admit that your father would approve of him … most heartily.”

I looked at her in horror. “You don’t think … ?”

She lifted her shoulders. “Fond parents will plan for their daughters, you know. Your future is very important to him.”

“Oh, Zillah,” I said. “He mustn’t. Jamie and I …”

“Oh, he has spoken, has he?”

“Well, it’s all very much in the future.”

She nodded gravely and then a smile curved her lips.

“If my father objected,” I said fiercely, “I wouldn’t let that stand in the way.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t. But don’t you worry. It’ll all come right in the end. Don’t forget you’ve got me to help you.”

Alastair McCrae came to dinner with other friends of my father. He was seated next to me as before and he and I chatted in a very friendly way. He was quite interesting and less dignified than my father and he seemed to want to hear all about me.

The day after he called he asked us to spend the weekend at his country house.

Zillah told me that my father had agreed that it would be an excellent idea to accept.

It was a very pleasant weekend we spent at Castle Gleeson. I was rather taken with the place. It was small as castles go, but because it was of ancient grey stone and had a battlemented tower I thought it worthy of the name. It faced the sea and the views were spectacular. There was a sizeable estate and Alastair was quite proud of it. That was made clear when we drove through it in the carriage which took us from the station to the castle.

He was frankly delighted that we were paying this visit. It was the first time my father had been there in all the years of their friendship. That was significant, of course.

I enjoyed being shown the castle and listening to the history of the place and the part the family had played in the conflicts between Regent Moray and his sister Mary, of the troubles with the English enemy. I was fascinated by the hardy Highland cattle I saw in the fields. The country was grand, majestic and awe-inspiring.

But everything was particularly cosy within the castle. I had a room in a turret and there was a fire in the grate in spite of the fact that it was summer.

“The nights can get cold,” the housekeeper told me. I learned that she had been born in the castle; her parents had been servants to the McCraes; now her son worked in the stables, her daughter in the house. There was an air of serenity about the place. I was not surprised that Alastair was proud of it.

Dinner was served in a dining room which led from a hall which must have been the same as it had been for centuries, with stone flagged floor, whitewashed walls on which ancient weapons hung. It was darkish, for the windows were small and set in embrasures.

“When we are a large company we eat in the hall,” Alastair explained, “but this dining room is more comfortable for small parties.”

“What a pity,” I said, “that you are not here more often. I suppose the greater part of your time is spent in Edinburgh.”

“That has been the case. Business, you know. But I escape on every opportunity.”

“I can understand that.”

He looked at me intently. “I’m so glad you like the old place. I enjoy playing the laird when I can, but mostly the affairs of the estate have to be left to my manager.”

“You have the best of both worlds,” said my father. “It’s a very pleasant house of yours in Edinburgh.”

“But I always think of this as my home.”

Over dinner he asked me if I rode.

I said I greatly regretted that I did not. “There would not be much opportunity in Edinburgh.”

“One needs a horse in the country.”

“It must be wonderful to ride,” I said. “Galloping over moors and along by the sea.”

He smiled and leaned towards me. “Would you like me to teach you?”

“Well, I think that would be most exciting, but I couldn’t learn in one lesson.”

“One can learn the rudiments. It takes practice, of course, before you are able to handle a horse properly. But somehow I think you would be a receptive pupil.”

I laughed. “Well, one lesson will not take me very far.”

“It would be a beginning.”

“What are you two concocting?” demanded Zillah.

“Miss Davina and I are arranging a lesson in riding.”

“What a wonderful idea! An excellent opportunity for you, Davina dear.”

“Miss Davina is protesting that she cannot get very far in one lesson.”

“You never know,” said Zillah slyly, “there might be more.”

The next morning I was in the paddock, seated on a small horse on a leading rein, chosen for its gentleness, with Alastair beside me. He looked very distinguished in his riding coat. The housekeeper had found a riding habit for me. It belonged to Alastair’s sister, who visited the castle occasionally but hadn’t worn it for some time.

“She used to ride all the time,” the housekeeper told me. “The family has always been one for the horses. But since she had her children she doesn’t ride so much. I’m sure she’d be glad for you to use her old habit.”

The fit was not too bad. It was a little large for me, but it served its purpose and I was equipped for the exercise.

I must say I enjoyed it. Round the paddock we went. Zillah and my father walked in the gardens and came to watch us for a few minutes. They seemed very pleased.

At the end of the lesson, Alastair said: “You’re a wonderful pupil. We must have another lesson tomorrow.”

“I think we are leaving tomorrow.”

“I’m hoping to persuade your father to stay another day. Why not? We can travel back together on Tuesday.”

And so it was arranged and the next morning I spent in the paddock with Alastair.

At luncheon Alastair said to my father: “Your daughter will soon be a champion rider.”

I laughed. “You exaggerate. Besides, I shall not have the opportunity for all the practise I should need.”

“You must come again … soon, before you forget what I have taught you. We’ll arrange something.”

“That is most hospitable of you,” began my father.

Alastair raised a hand. “Please … the pleasure is all mine. What about the weekend after next?”

My father hesitated. Zillah gave him a sideways glance. He turned to her and said: “What do you say, my dear?”

“It seems delightful,” she answered.

“Well, Alastair, if you are sure we shall not be encroaching …”

“Encroaching, my dear fellow! As I have told you, the pleasure is all mine.”

“Not all surely,” said Zillah with a little laugh. “David dear, you know we should love to come. The week after next, is it?”

“That is settled then,” said Alastair.

We travelled back to Edinburgh on the Tuesday.

When I was unpacking Zillah came into my room. She sat on the bed regarding me slightly sardonically.

She said: “The McCrae affair progresses with speed. What a charming gentleman he is. Is he beginning to wean you from the impecunious but oh so charming Jamie?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, just is it going to be Papa’s choice or yours?”

I was alarmed. It was obvious, of course, but I had refused to think of it too seriously.

Alastair McCrae would be a suitable husband. He had wealth and standing in the city. Jamie was a humble student. He had his way to make and there was the question as to whether he would make it.

I had been stupid, while I was enjoying my riding lessons under the benevolent eyes of my father, not to accept the fact that this was part of a well-laid scheme.

How incredibly innocent I was! My father disapproved of Jamie, whose existence had brought home the fact that it was time I married and settled in life out of the path of penniless students who in his view were in all probability grasping adventurers.

There would be no questioning that with Alastair McCrae; he was probably more wealthy than my father.

Zillah was watching me through half-closed eyes. There was a smile about her lips.

I should be grateful to her. She was making me see life through her somewhat cynical but highly sophisticated eyes.

IT WAS SOON AFTER OUR RETURN that my father was taken ill. It happened during the night, but I did not hear about it until the morning.

Zillah said he had awakened her at about three o’clock feeling very sick. She had been up with him half the night. She had given him a powder to settle his stomach, she said. It was a well-known recipe for that sort of trouble. It had not been effective immediately, but after a while he had felt better; and now he was sleeping peacefully.

“Shall I send for the doctor, Madam?” asked Kirkwell.

“I think we might wait awhile,” said Zillah. “You know how he hates the thought of the doctor coming. He kept saying he didn’t want him. He’d be better soon. I’ll watch him carefully. And if there is a return of the symptoms … yes, certainly we’ll get the doctor. It’s just that he hates a fuss and we don’t want to upset him. It’s something he’s eaten most likely, so … let’s wait awhile.”

She kept him in bed all day.

I heard Mrs. Kirkwell mutter something about old men’s marrying young wives. Sometimes it was too much for them. “A man’s as old as his years and it’s not going to do him much good to fancy he’s a young one … when he is not. He’s going to pay for it … sooner or later.”

I think everyone was surprised by how assiduously Zillah played the nurse; and he had recovered the next day, except that he felt a little weak, which was natural.

“You were wonderful, my dear,” he told Zillah. “I’d never thought of you as a nurse, but you played the part perfectly.”

“I’m good at playing parts,” she replied lightly. “There’s a lot you have to discover about me, my dear husband.”

The next day I met Jamie.

He was working hard, he said. He had had to forget the thesis for a while. He had to think of passing his exams with honours and setting out on his career as soon as possible.

He asked about the weekend and I told him of the riding lessons.

He was somewhat gloomy.

“What castle was this?”

“It belongs to Alastair McCrae, a friend of my father.”

He wanted to know about Alastair; and I told him we should be going to the castle again the weekend after next.

“If my father is well, of course,” I added. “He has been ill.”

“He’ll recover in time for this visit, I daresay. What is the man like?”

“Alastair McCrae? Oh, he’s quite pleasant. He’s old, of course.”

“Your father’s age?”

“Oh … not quite. Late thirties, I imagine.”

“Oh,” said Jamie with relief. “Some twenty years older than you.”

“About that, I imagine.”

That seemed to satisfy him. I did not tell him of Zillah’s hints and what was becoming more and more obvious to me.

He asked after Zillah. She had clearly made a great impression on him.

I told him how she had looked after my father when he was ill … not seriously ill, of course, only mildly so, but it had left him a little weak. It seemed she had been very efficient in the sickroom.

“There’s something very nice about her,” he said.

“Yes, I’m beginning to think so. I resented her, of course, when she first came. It was because I was so fond of Lilias …”

And then I was telling him about Lilias’ departure.

He listened intently. “Do you really think that someone put the necklace in her room to incriminate her … deliberately?”

“I have to think that because I know Lilias would never have stolen anything. She had been brought up in a religious way. Similar to your upbringing, I should say. She came from an English vicarage … you from a Scottish manse. People like Lilias don’t steal, do they?”

“People do strange things … unexpected things. You can never be sure what anyone will do.”

“Well … she did say something about the necklace’s being a nest egg for me. I keep remembering that. What she wanted desperately was a nest egg for herself, for she was always worried about the future.”

“Most people whose future is insecure worry about it. You mean that perhaps in a moment of temptation she took it? It had not all that material value to you. Sentimental, of course, because it had belonged to your mother. But you were not in need of a nest egg.”

“All that has occurred to me, but nothing will make me believe that Lilias stole the necklace.”

“If she did not, the implication must be that there was someone in the house who did this terrible thing. Ruined her life to a large extent, you could say. Who could have done that?”

“Why should anyone? There seemed to be no reason.”

“Reasons can often be obscure.”

“I can think of nothing. But at the same time I am convinced that Lilias did not take the necklace.”

“It has to be one thing or the other. Either she took it or someone put it there.”

“Oh, Jamie, I can’t bear to think of it. I can’t get anywhere … Don’t let’s talk of it. One just goes over and over the same ground. But I had to tell you. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

“I wish that I were two years older,” said Jamie.

“They say it is foolish to wish your life away.”

“Well, I can’t help wishing the next two years away. If they were over I should be in a different position. I wish we could be at least officially engaged.”

“You mean announce it?”

“I do not think your father would approve. I think he would try to stop us.”

“Zillah is on our side.”

“She knows?”

“She guessed. She’ll help us.”

“I daresay she has a great deal of influence with your father.”

“He dotes on her. I have never seen him with anyone as he is with her. What of your family?”

“I’ve written to tell them.”

“And what do they say?”

“My father has sent me a long letter. He wishes me all that is good. They want to meet you, of course. I am sure you will like them. The manse is a bit shabby.”

I turned to him indignantly. “You think I would care about that?”

“Well, your home is rather grand … and you visit castles …”

“There was only one castle, and that was quite a small one. But tell me about your father.”

“They are all delighted. I told them about our meeting and they enjoyed hearing about that. I said that I had dined at your house. I may have given the impression that I have been accepted by your family.”

“Zillah thinks it better if we don’t say anything just yet.”

“She’s probably right. Oh, how I wish everything was settled. You see now why I wish I were two years older.”

“Are you working very hard, Jamie?”

“Yes, burning the midnight oil. Trying not to think too much of you because that is very distracting.”

“Isn’t it wonderful that we have met? If I hadn’t happened to be in the wynds that day … lost … you would have gone on with your walk and we should not have known each other.”

“You haven’t any regrets?”

“What a foolish question! Everything is going to work out well for us, Jamie. I believe that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I believe it. I’m sure of it … because we are going to do everything to make it come right. And because of that we can’t fail.”

WE WENT TO CASTLE GLEESON for another weekend as we had arranged and the second visit was as successful as the first. I had some riding lessons and Alastair said that during our next weekend he would take me out hacking. If he were with me I should have nothing to fear.

I must say that I did enjoy being in the saddle. He was a wonderful teacher and it gave me a sense of security to have him riding beside me.

“You’re doing amazingly well,” he told me. “You must come down again very soon so that we can continue.”

My father smiled indulgently when he heard this. He said he could think of no way of spending a weekend more agreeably than at Castle Gleeson.

And, of course, when we were in Edinburgh Alastair was frequently asked to dine with us.

Zillah watched it all with an amusement which bordered on the cynical.

“We are working up to an interesting situation,” she said. “I have no doubt of the worthy Alastair’s intentions, have you?”

I was afraid she was right.

“Do you think I ought to let him know that I am secretly engaged to Jamie?” I asked.

“Oh no. That would be most unmaidenly. It would suggest you knew to what he was leading. Society’s rules demand that you, an innocent young girl, know nothing of what is in his mind. Remember the approved surprise of the well brought up young lady when she is confronted with a proposal of marriage. ‘La, sir, but this is so sudden.’ “

She could always make me laugh.

“Perhaps I should not accept invitations …”

“My dear, it is for your papa to accept invitations. We all know they are offered because of you, but modesty forbids you to betray you know.”

“What am I going to do?”

“That is for you to decide. Do you want to be the wife of a doting older husband with a castle in the north of this land and comfortable house in this city? Or do you want to be the wife of a young man who is not yet a struggling lawyer, hungry for briefs which might not come his way with great speed, even when he first sets out for a career at the bar? It lies in your hands.”

“You know I am going to marry Jamie.”

“And renounce the bawbees?”

“Of course. I love Jamie. It’s love that is important, isn’t it?”

“Providing you have the roof over your head to cover you and food to sustain you that you may enjoy it.”

“If there is any difficulty … you’ll help me, won’t you, Zillah?”

She put her hand on my shoulder and, drawing me towards her, kissed my cheek.

“That’s what I want to do, my dear,” she said.

EVER SINCE Zillah had discovered Jamie’s existence she and I had grown closer together. I was getting more and more worried. It was clear now that my father looked upon Alastair McCrae as a suitable husband for me and was delighted that Alastair was paying such attention to me in accordance with the accepted custom. I was sure Alastair would conform as rigorously as my father to the rules and this could only mean that a proposal of marriage was imminent.

My father knew of my friendship with Jamie. Had he not been invited to the house? And after that … nothing. Did my father think the friendship had ceased because I, as a dutiful daughter, recognised his wishes for me? In his opinion we were now waiting for Alastair to make his proposal … and then we should go on from there.

It would all seem so predictable and so suitable to my father. He would dispose of his daughter to a man in a position similar to his own; and she could be expected to continue in that state to which she had been accustomed. What more could any father do or any daughter ask? It was all natural, convenient and traditional.

So I was pleased to have Zillah in the house because she understood my feelings, laughed at the conventions and could advise me what to do.

She often came to my room to talk to me and would sit where she could see herself in the mirror, finding, I was sure, her image of immense interest. I would watch her as she talked.

I said to her one day: “You are very beautiful, Zillah. I am not surprised that you like to see yourself reflected there.”

She laughed. “I am really just looking to make sure everything is all right. You could say that I am conscious of my appearance and not confident about it—that is why I have to keep looking to check up.”

“I don’t believe that. I think you like to look.”

“Well, a little bit of both, I daresay.”

“I think you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen.”

She patted her hair complacently. “I work hard at it,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you don’t think all this is quite what Nature bestowed on me, do you?”

“Well, yes. How else … ?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Mind you, I will say that Nature was kind to me. I came into the world rather well endowed in that respect. But when you have been given special gifts you have to cherish them … cultivate them.”

“Well, naturally. But your hair is a glorious colour.”

“There are means, you know, of keeping it so.”

“Means?”

“My dear, a little something out of a bottle when it is washed.”

“You mean it’s not naturally that colour?”

“It’s not far-off. Inclined more to the ginger. I keep it up to standard, you might say.”

“Oh, I see. And your skin … it is so white and beautiful. What are you laughing at?”

“You are an adorable little innocent, Davina. But I do have a wonderful secret to keep my skin clear and beautiful. It’s daring, but it works.”

“What do you mean … daring?”

“You won’t believe it, but it’s due to arsenic.”

“Arsenic? Is that a poison?”

“In large doses it kills people … but a lot of things if taken to excess are dangerous. In small doses it is beneficial.”

“Where do you get it? Don’t you have to go to a chemist?”

“Well, yes … but there’s a bit of fuss about buying it over a counter. I resort to other methods. Ellen is wonderful at that sort of thing. She gets it from flypapers.”

“Flypapers? Those sticky things you hang up to trap the flies?”

“The very things. She soaks them in boiling water. The result is a liquid which looks a little like weak tea.”

“And you drink that?”

“Only in very small quantities.”

I was looking at her in horror.

She said: “You see what people will do for beauty. But beauty is a weapon. If you’re beautiful people do things for you. It’s a gift, like being born wealthy. You see what I mean?”

“I do. But I believe that without the arsenic and that stuff which makes your hair brighter, you’d still be beautiful.”

“Do you know, I rather imagine I would … but slightly less so.”

“And you think it worth it?”

“If God gives you a gift, He expects you to make the most of it. Isn’t there a parable of the talents or something?”

“Yes,” I said. “I see what you mean.”

“Don’t you start trying things,” she cautioned. “I shouldn’t want you to start soaking flypapers and drinking the solution. It could be dangerous.”

“Perhaps for you, too.”

“I’m wise. I know what I’m about. Ellen’s a bit of an old witch. She knows a lot about this and she’s become an ally of mine. They don’t like her very much belowstairs … and in a way that makes two of us. I know they tolerate me because I don’t bother them, but your father did step out of line when he married the governess. Now you’ve got a nice skin as it is. Yours is untouched … perfect. It won’t need any attention for some time.”

“I’m glad you let me into the secret.”

“Well, didn’t you let me into yours? How is Jamie? Don’t you dare tell him about my aids to beauty. I shouldn’t have confessed to you, but we’re such good friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes, good friends. Jamie’s all right. He’s getting impatient. He doesn’t like those weekends at Castle Gleeson.”

“I’m not surprised. Oh, Davina, I hope it will all come right for you and Jamie.”

“If you were in my place you would marry Alastair McCrae if he asked you.”

“Why should you think that?”

“You would think it was wise.”

“I’m a romantic at heart, dear. That’s why I’d do anything I could for you and Jamie.”

“I think you would have a lot of influence with my father.”

“In some ways, yes. I’m not sure about this matter. He’s a stickler for conventions, you know.”

“Not always,” I said.

She laughed again. “Well, hardly anyone is … always. Sometimes it suits them not to be and then they forget how important they’ve always thought them. But never mind. Trust me. I’ll do my best for you and Jamie.”

SHORTLY AFTER THAT my father was ill again. This time Zillah had a mild form of the illness. She recovered first and gave herself up to the task of looking after my father with my help.

“It must have been something we ate,” said Zillah.

Mrs. Kirkwell was indignant.

“Does she mean something which came out of my kitchen?” she demanded.

I reminded her that they had both dined at the home of one of my father’s business colleagues on the night when they had been taken ill. “It couldn’t have been here,” I added, “because I dined at home on that night and I was all right.”

That mollified her. She said: “I think Mr. Glentyre ought to see a doctor. This is not the first time he’s been taken ill in a little while.”

“I’ll suggest it,” I told her.

When I did, Zillah said: “It might not be a bad idea, although I’m sure it was something we’d eaten, and that sort of thing soon passes. Moreover, I was ill, too. Admittedly I was not very ill, but I eat a good deal less than your father. I think it was the veal we had at the Kenningtons. Veal, I’ve heard, can be a little tricky. I’ll see what he says about seeing a doctor.”

He was firm in his refusal at first, but she managed to persuade him.

When Dr. Dorrington called my father was back to normal. The doctor came at about eleven-thirty and was asked to stay to luncheon. He had been a friend of the family for years. He must have been quite sixty and we had been wondering for the last year when he would retire. There was a young nephew in the offing who was just passing through the last stages of his training and was at the time working in one of the hospitals in Glasgow. It was an understanding that in due course he would take over his uncle’s practise.

I heard my father greeting the doctor in the hall.

“Oh, come on in, Edwin. This is all very unnecessary. But I’ve at last given in to my wife … for the sake of peace.”

“Well, it can’t do any harm to have a little check.”

They went upstairs to the bedroom.

When I went down to lunch, the doctor greeted me warmly. He had, as he was fond of saying and did so almost every time we met, brought me into the world. This seemed to give him a kind of proprietary interest in me. He had attended my mother through her illness and had been very upset when she died.

I could see that he was a little fascinated by Zillah.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

The doctor replied: “Oh yes … yes.” But he did not sound altogether convincing.

However, it was a very pleasant luncheon. Zillah was in good spirits and made much of the doctor. She flirted with him mildly, which he seemed to like, and my father looked on with amusement.

Afterwards I talked to her.

“Is anything wrong with him?” I asked.

“Well, he’s not a young man, is he? But there’s nothing to worry about.”

“You don’t seem very certain.”

“Well, I made old Dorrington tell me the truth … the absolute truth. I made sure he knew that this was the second attack your father had had. It must have been the food the second time … because I had it, too. He said your father should take care. There could be a weakness … an internal weakness. His heart’s all right, but the doctor kept stressing his age.”

“He’s not so very old.”

“He’s not so very young either. People have to be careful as they advance in years.” She laid a hand on my shoulder. “Never mind. I’ll look after him. I’m discovering a hidden talent. Do you think I’m rather a good nurse?”

“My father seems to think so.”

“Oh, he’d think anything I did was good.”

“That’s nice for you.”

“Indeed it is, and I intend to keep it so.”

MATTERS CAME TO A HEAD soon after that when Alastair McCrae came to the house to see my father.

He was taken to the study and was there some time. He left without staying to lunch or seeing anyone else.

My father sent for me and when I arrived in his study he smiled at me benignly.

“Shut the door, Davina. I want to talk to you.”

I did so.

“Sit down.”

When I was seated he went to the fireplace and stood, his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels as though he were about to address a meeting.

He said: “I have some very good news for you. Alastair has been to see me. He has asked my permission to marry you.”

I stood up. “It’s impossible.”

“Impossible! What do you mean?”

“I’m engaged to someone else.”

“Engaged!” He was staring at me in horror, words on his lips which he was too shocked to utter. “Engaged,” he said at length, “to … to …”

“Yes,” I said. “James North.”

“That … that … student!”

“Yes,” I said. “You met him.”

“But … you are a fool …”

“Maybe.” I was feeling bold. I was not going to be intimidated. I loved Jamie. I was going to marry him. I was not going to allow my father to rule my life. How dared he, who had brought Zillah into the house … who had kept her here in the pretence that she was a governess to me? I thought of her creeping into his bedroom. It gave me courage.

“You will forget this nonsense,” he said.

“It is not nonsense. It is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling as though speaking to someone up there. “My daughter is an idiot,” he said.

“No, Father. I am not. This is my life and I will live it as I want to. You have done what you want and I shall do the same.”

“Of all the ingratitude …”

“Gratitude for what?”

“All these years … I have looked after you … made your welfare my chief concern …”

“Your chief concern?” I said.

I thought he was going to strike me. He came towards me and then stopped abruptly.

“You’ve been meeting this young man?”

“Yes.”

“And what else?”

“We have discussed our future.”

“And what else?” he repeated.

I was suddenly angry. I said: “I don’t know what you are suggesting. James has always behaved to me with the utmost courtesy and in a gentlemanly fashion.”

He laughed derisively.

“You must not judge everyone by yourself, Father,” I said.

“What?”

“It is no use playing the virtuous citizen with me. I know you brought your mistress into this house. I know she visited your bedroom before you were married. As a matter of fact, I saw her going to your room.”

He stared at me, his face scarlet.

“You, you … brazen …”

I felt I was in command. I said: “Not I, Father. You are the brazen one. You are the one who poses as virtuous, self-righteous. You have your secrets, do you not? I think you should be the last one to criticise my behaviour and that of my fiance.”

He was aghast. I could see he was deeply embarrassed. I had unmasked him and he knew that I must have known this of him for some time.

His anger burst out suddenly. There was hatred in the look he gave me. I had cracked the veneer. I had exposed him as an ordinary sinful man; the aura he had always tried to create about himself had been destroyed by those few words of mine.

“You are an ungrateful girl,” he said. “You forget I am your father.”

“I find it impossible to do that. I am sorry I shall have to refuse Alastair’s offer, but I shall tell him that I am already engaged to Jamie.”

I opened the door and was about to go. He had lost control. He shouted: “Don’t let that student think he is going to live in luxury for the rest of his life. If you marry him, you’ll not get a penny of my money.”

I ran upstairs to my room and shut the door.

IT WAS ABOUT AN HOUR LATER when Zillah came to me. I was still in my room, shaken by the shock of the encounter and wondering what was going to happen next. I longed to see Jamie and tell him what had taken place between my father and me.

Zillah looked at me in horror.

“What have you done?” she asked. “Your father is raving against you. He says he’s going to cut you out of his will.”

“Alastair McCrae is coming to ask me to marry him. He has asked my father if he might and, of course, my father has said yes. He has already given him his blessing and was prepared to do the same to me. Then I told him I was engaged to Jamie.”

“Yes. I gathered that from him. Rather rash, wasn’t it?”

“What else could I have done?”

“Nothing, I suppose. But what are you going to do now?”

“I shall not marry Alastair McCrae just because my father says I must.”

“Of course you won’t. Oh, Davina, what a mess! You’ll have to talk this over with Jamie.”

“I shall send a note to his lodgings and ask him to see me tomorrow.”

“Give it to me and I’ll send one of the servants over with it.”

“Oh, thank you, Zillah.”

“Don’t fret. It will all come right.”

“I don’t think my father will ever forgive me.”

“He will. He’ll get used to it. These things happen in families.”

“Oh, thank you, Zillah.”

“You know I want to help, don’t you? Besides, I’m a little anxious about your father’s health. I know old Dorrington says there is nothing to worry about, but I don’t want him too upset.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Well, write that note and we’ll get you and Jamie together. See what he has to say. He might suggest a runaway match at Gretna Green.”

“Do you think he might?”

“It would be very romantic.”

“But where should we go? Where should we live?”

“They say love conquers all.”

“I feel I want to get away from my father, and I feel he’d want me to go.”

“What he wants is a nice rich marriage for you with a man of solid worth like Alastair McCrae. After all, that’s what all fathers would want for their daughters.”

“But if the daughter loved someone else …”

“Well, write that letter to Jamie. Tell him what’s happened, and if he suggests Gretna Green, I’ll do all I can to help you get there.”

“Thank you, Zillah. I am so glad you’re here.”

“So you said, dear, and so I am glad I’m here. You want someone to look after you.”

I wrote the letter and it was despatched for me.

THE NEXT DAY Jamie was waiting for me at the seat in the gardens.

When I told him what had happened he was aghast.

“So this man is coming to ask you to marry him and he has your father’s approval?”

“I shall explain to him at once that I am engaged to you.”

“And your father?”

“I don’t know what he’ll do. He might turn me out of the house. He says he will cut me out of his will if I marry you.”

“Good heavens! What a terrible thing to do!”

“He means it. He will never forgive me for what I said to him … even if I agreed to marry Alastair McCrae. Jamie, what are we going to do?”

“I can’t see what we can do.”

“Zillah said we might run away and get married at Gretna Green.”

“Where would we go? You couldn’t live in my lodgings. I’ve yet to go through those two years before I can take my exams. How could we live?”

“I don’t know. I suppose some people manage.”

“You’ve always lived in comfort. You don’t know what it would be like.”

“Perhaps your people would help.”

“They are desperately poor, Davina. They couldn’t help in that way.”

“Well, what are we going to do?”

“I can’t see what we can do.”

I was dismayed. I had thought he would be so delighted that I had admitted to my father that we were engaged and that I had stated so firmly that I would not marry anyone but him. It seemed that romance was crumbling before the mediocre problem of how we were going to live.

“There is only one thing to do,” he said gloomily at length. “We can’t afford to marry. We’ve got to wait until I’m through. I’m taking help from my family now. I can’t ask them to keep a wife as well.”

“I can see that I shall be a burden.”

“Of course you won’t. But you see it simply isn’t possible yet.”

I was deflated. I realised I had been rash.

“What can I do then? I’ve told him now.”

“You’ll have to hold him off for a while. Wait until we can work something out.”

“Zillah said she would help. I think she thought you would suggest our running away together.”

“It’s not practical, Davina. I wish it were. Oh, why did this have to happen now?”

“Things don’t happen when we want them to. How can I go back and refuse Alastair McCrae? My father is furious. He has decided that I shall marry him.”

“Surely he’ll allow you to have some say in the matter.”

“My father never allows anyone—except Zillah—to have any say in any matter. His word is law and he expects everyone to accept that.”

“We must think of something, Davina.”

“But what?”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said: “It’s distasteful, and I hesitate to say it, but … I think you will have to play this fellow along.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, tell him that you can’t give him an answer. You have to think about it. It’s so unexpected and all that. Ask him to give you time to think. It will be giving us time really. I’ll see what can be managed. Who knows, there might be something. We might live in rooms … find something cheap until I’m through. I don’t know whether it’s possible. I’d have to have time to work things out … I need time …”

“You think that you could work something out so that we could be married?”

“I can talk it over with my family. They might come up with something. But I must have time.”

“We must work something out, Jamie.”

“What sort of man is this Alastair McCrae?”

“He’s a very good man, I am sure. He’s pleasant. I quite like him. He’s very courteous and gentlemanly. I think it would be possible … as you say, to hold him off. I don’t like doing it. It seems dishonest because I know I’m not going to marry him … and to pretend I might.”

“I know, I know. But so much depends on this. I’ll soon get us out of it. We’ll be married … but in my position … I have to give a lot of thought to it.”

“Of course. I wish Alastair McCrae would find someone else. I wish he would fall hopelessly in love with someone and forget all about me.”

“We can always hope,” said Jamie.

ZILLAH WANTED TO KNOW what had been said. I told her.

“He’s hardly the reckless knight, is he?” she said. “I thought he’d dash you off to Gretna Green right away.”

“It wouldn’t make sense, Zillah. Where should we live?”

“He has lodgings in the town, hasn’t he?”

“There’s only room for one.”

“Love knows no boundaries, as well as laughing at locksmiths.”

“Oh, Zillah, you must see his point of view.”

“Of course I do. He’s right to be practical. But I thought he might have been carried away by the romance of it.”

“I am sure you would always be most practical.”

“In such circumstances?” she said, as though questioning herself.

“In all circumstances,” I insisted, and I told her what Jamie had said about not giving Alastair McCrae a positive answer.

“It’s a wise plan,” she said. “Alastair will understand. He’ll say he’ll wait. Your father will be mildly placated. He’ll think you’re coming to heel and want to save your pride by taking a little time over it. I’ll drop a little whisper of this into his ear. And in the meantime we’ll go on as normal, hoping something will turn up.”

“I suppose I shall have to see what I can do,” I said.

“You will,” she told me.

And when the time came I did.

Alastair was charming, and I hated deceiving him. He proposed marriage in a dignified manner.

He began by saying: “I have been a widower for over six years, Davina, and never thought to marry again, but when I saw you at Gleeson, I said to myself, ‘It is time I took another wife.’ And I knew that there she was. Will you marry me?”

It was difficult. I drew away and he looked at me tenderly. He went on: “You think I have spoken too soon.”

“We have not really seen a great deal of each other.”

“For me it is enough.”

“I hadn’t thought that you … felt like this,” I forced myself to say untruthfully.

“No, of course not. My dear Davina, forgive me for speaking too soon, but I wanted you to know in what esteem I held you. What do you say?”

What could I say? It was hard enough not to shout out the truth. I shall never marry you. I am engaged to Jamie and as soon as he is able to marry me he will. But I must not say that. There was so much at stake. Jamie needed time and my father in his rage might turn me out. I must prevent that at all costs.

I steeled myself to say: “I can’t … not yet … please.”

“Of course I understand. This has been thrust on you. You need time to consider. My dear Davina, of course you shall have time. And while you are thinking I shall be patient. I shall try to persuade you what a blessing it would be for us both … to marry.”

“You are very kind and understanding, Mr. McCrae.”

“Oh, Alastair, please—and kind and understanding is what I intend to be for the rest of our lives.”

It had been easier than I imagined although I could not help despising myself for what I was doing.

Alastair went up to my father’s study and as I made my way to my room I heard his first words before the door shut on them.

“Davina was a little taken aback. I’m afraid I have been rather hasty. It’s going to be all right. She just needs time.”

I could imagine the look of satisfaction on my father’s face.

I soon discovered that he was not displeased. It was not out of place for a young girl to show a certain amount of hesitancy; and although I must have proved to him that I was not quite the docile innocent daughter he had previously imagined me to be, he did regard me with a little more favour.

My outburst and the fact that I had caught him in a compromising situation could not be forgotten and it would always be there between us; but if I gave in to his wishes and married Alastair McCrae, he would be mollified to a certain extent.

ZILLAH INSISTED that he rest. She made a great show of forbidding him to go out when she considered he was not fit to do so. He protested but obviously liked her attentions.

“You’re making an invalid of me,” he grumbled in mock irritation.

“No. No. I’m nursing you back to the strong man you really are. Give it a little longer. Don’t be impatient like some naughty little boy and I tell you you will soon be quite well again.”

It was extraordinary to hear someone talk to him like that, but he enjoyed it … from Zillah.

She took to going out more frequently, sometimes with me and sometimes in the carriage driven by Hamish. She talked vaguely about shopping or just going for a drive round the wonderful old city. She said she thought Hamish was rather amusing.

One day I went to the kitchen on some pretext. Mrs. Kirkwell was there talking to Ellen when Hamish came in.

He said: “Rats.”

“What’s that?” demanded Mrs. Kirkwell.

“Rats in the mews. I saw one … black it was and nigh on as big as a cat.”

“Get away with ye,” said Mrs. Kirkwell, sitting down and looking shocked.

“Running round the stables,” said Hamish, “having a rare old time. Bold as brass. Saw me and just looked at me … brazen like. I threw a stone at it and it just glared at me.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Mrs. Kirkwell. “I hope they don’t start coming into my kitchen.”

“Dinna fash yeself, Mrs. K. I know how to get rid of the little beggars.”

“How will you do that?” I asked.

“Arsenic, Miss.”

“Arsenic!” cried Mrs. Kirkwell. “That’s poison.”

“You don’t say! Well, that’s what I’m giving to the rats. I’m going to poison the lot of them. That’s what.”

I said: “Where will you get the arsenic?”

He grinned at me and winked. “I can get it from Henniker’s.”

“Will they sell it over the counter?” I asked.

“Yes. You tell them what you want and put your name in a book. That’s it.”

“You can get it from flypapers,” I said unguardedly.

“Flypapers!” cried Mrs. Kirkwell. “Oh, yes. I remember that case. Forgotten who it was. Woman murdered her husband. Soaked flypapers or something like that. It was what gave her away. She said she soaked the flypapers to get stuff for her complexion.”

“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “Some ladies do that.”

“I’m surprised you know about such things, Miss Davina. As for you, Hamish Vosper, you get those things away from me. Rats indeed! I wouldn’t want to see the likes of them in my kitchen, I can tell you.”

“I heard,” said Hamish, touching his forehead. “You leave the rats to me.”

ALASTAIR MCCRAE came to dine with us and we went to dine with him. He had a fine town house in a quiet square similar to our own. It was very comfortable, tastefully furnished and contained the requisite number of servants.

My father was pleased and, I think, becoming a little reconciled to the fact that I knew something of his private life, though of course he would much rather have kept it secret. He believed that I was, as he would say, “coming to my senses.”

The same thoughts were in Zillah’s mind, I guessed from the looks she gave me. I felt ashamed of myself for continuing with this farce. I felt I was betraying myself, Jamie, Alastair … everyone.

I kept reminding myself that I had to do so. Jamie had suggested it. I had to think of our future together. That was more important than anything.

Jamie had changed. Some of the joy had gone out of our relationship. He was thoughtful, a little melancholy. He told me that he hated to think of my meetings with Alastair McCrae and the subterfuge I was forced to practise.

“But what can we do?” he demanded. “It’s this wretched poverty. If only I were as rich as Alastair McCrae.”

“Perhaps you will be one day, Jamie, and we shall laugh at all this.”

“Yes, we will, won’t we? But this happens to be now, when I am as poor as the mice in my father’s kirk. Does he talk to you … about marriage?”

“No. He is very kind really. He thinks that in time I shall agree to marry him. He thinks of my being young … younger than I really am. He wants to wait until I am ready. He is sure that in time I will agree. He’s trying to tell me how good he will be to me. I feel terrible really. It’s all such deceit. How I wish I could get away. I don’t want to stay in the house anymore. I don’t know what it is, but …”

“You get on very well with Zillah, don’t you?”

“Yes. She is a comfort in a way, but … I don’t always feel that I know her very well. I think she’s an actress at heart, and I never quite know when she is acting.”

“She’s a good sort.”

“My father dotes on her.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Oh, Jamie, what are we going to do?”

“Just wait. Something will happen. We’ll think of something.”

We tried to cheer ourselves by talking of what we would do as soon as we were able, but the joy had gone and had been replaced by a deep apprehension; and we could not shake it off, however much we pretended to.

THE NEXT DAY I was on my way to see Jamie and as I came into the hall I met Ellen.

She said: “Oh, I’m glad I’ve seen you, Miss Davina. Are you going out? I don’t like to ask you, but I wonder if …” She hesitated, frowning.

“What is it, Ellen?”

“I’d go myself, but I can’t get out just now, and I don’t want Mrs. Kirkwell to know. It will upset her. She’ll be in a real panic. I did ask Hamish … but he’s run out of it and he asked me to get it. He’ll show me how to use it, he said.”

“What is it you want, Ellen?”

“Well, this morning when I went to the dustbin which you know is just outside the kitchen door, I lifted the lid and a rat jumped out.”

“Oh dear!”

“Yes. I’m glad I was the one who saw it … not Mrs. Kirkwell. I told Hamish and he said he can’t get to the shop today. Mr. Glentyre wants him on duty. But he said it ought to be seen to right away. He’s killed two or three in the mews already and he thinks they are trying elsewhere. He said rats are clever things.”

“Mrs. Kirkwell will be horrified.”

“Yes, Hamish said you have to take prompt action; otherwise they’ll be in the house and they multiply quickly. I thought … as you are going out … you might drop in at Henniker’s and get some of that arsenic.”

“Is that what you ask for? Arsenic … just like that?”

“Yes. Sixpenny worth of arsenic. They’ll ask you what it’s for and you can tell them it’s for the rats. Lots of people use it for that. Then you have to sign a book, I think. That’s what Hamish said.”

“Of course I’ll get it.”

“Oh thanks. Don’t tell anyone. People get so panicky about rats and if it got to Mrs. Kirkwell’s ears she’d be hysterical.”

“All right. Don’t worry. I’ll get it and say nothing.”

“And as soon as you come back, I’ll put it in the dustbin. Thanks so much, Miss Davina.”

I went straight to the drug shop. There was a young man behind the counter. He smiled at me.

“I want sixpennyworth of arsenic,” I said.

He looked at me, faintly surprised. “Oh … er … Miss, I have to ask you what you want it for. It’s a sort of rule … if you know what I mean.”

“Of course. We have rats in the garden. They have been round the mews quarters and seem now to have come closer to the house.”

“It will do the trick,” he said. “But as it’s poison, I have to ask you to sign the book.”

“I understand that.”

He went to a drawer and brought out a book with a red cover. A label had been stuck on it which stated: “Henniker’s Sale of Poisons Registration Book.”

“Do you sell a lot of arsenic?” I asked.

“No, Miss. But people use it for vermin and things like that. It’s very effective. One lick and that’s the end of them. They do say it does something for the complexion and that ladies use it for that. I couldn’t say. Men take it, too.” He looked at me slyly. “They say it has powers.”

“Powers?”

“When they are not so young, you know.”

He opened the book, and wrote the date and my name and address which I spelt out for him. “Sixpennyworth of arsenic for vermin in garden. Now you sign here, Miss.”

I did and came out of the shop with a small packet in the pocket of my skirt.

I found Jamie waiting for me, and we talked as usual and I felt frustrated, for I knew it would be a long time before he could take me out of this difficult situation.

When I came back to the house Ellen was waiting for me. Surreptitiously she took the packet.

“I haven’t seen any more yet,” she said. “I’ll use this right away.”

A FEW DAYS LATER when I saw Ellen she told me that it had worked beautifully, she was sure. She had not seen anything since and Mrs. Kirkwell had no idea that the rats had been so close. She impressed on me not to mention it to her.

It was later that afternoon. Zillah had gone out in the carriage as she often did. She enjoyed going to the shops and sometimes, she told me, Hamish took her for a tour of the town. Listening to my talk of it she had become interested and was finding it fascinating.

Usually she was home before five o’clock when she would change for dinner—by no means a short operation with her.

I fancied my father had been weaker since his last bout of illness. Zillah thought so, too. Sometimes when he came home he seemed very tired and needed little persuasion to have his meal in his own room. Zillah would, of course, take hers with him.

“It makes him feel less of an invalid and he likes me to be there,” she said.

On this particular occasion it was getting late and Zillah had not returned.

I went over to the mews. The carriage was not there. Mr. and Mrs. Vosper were in. They told me that Hamish had taken Mrs. Glentyre out as he often did and they expected him to be back at any moment.

Mrs. Kirkwell was wondering whether to serve dinner. The master was having his in his room, but he would expect Mrs. Glentyre to have it with him there.

“He’ll have to be told,” said Mrs. Kirkwell. “You’d best tell him, Miss Davina.”

I went to his room. He was dressed for dinner and was sitting in a chair.

“Is that you, my dear?” he said with relief.

“No,” I replied. “It is I.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Zillah has not returned.”

“Where is she?”

“I thought she went shopping.”

“In the carriage?”

“Yes.”

“She wouldn’t be shopping at this hour surely?”

“No.”

“Then where is she?”

He was clutching the sides of his chair arid had half risen. I thought how ill he looked. He had lost weight and there were dark shadows under his eyes.

I remembered Mrs. Kirkwell’s saying how he had changed and repeating her conviction that it was not good when old men married young women.

It was just at that moment when I heard the sound of carriage wheels. I rushed to the window.

“It’s the carriage. She’s here.”

“Oh, thank God,” said my father.

In a few moments Zillah rushed into the room.

“Oh, my dears, what an adventure! Were you wondering where I was? The carriage broke down. We had driven out to take a look at Arthur’s Seat. I wanted to see it—hearing you talk about it, Davina …”

“Didn’t Hamish know what was wrong?” asked my father.

“Oh yes. He tried to put it right. He discovered that he needed something … I don’t know what. He said he would get a cab for me to come back … but it was so difficult right out there to get one. Anyway … he managed to fix it up … enough to get us home. But it made this terrible delay.”

“I have been so worried,” said my father.

“Oh, how sweet of you!”

“But of course I was worried.”

“He’s only just heard that you hadn’t come back at the time,” I said.

“I was wondering what could have happened to you,” went on my father.

She ruffled his hair. “Well, here I am. And we are going to have our cosy little meal for the two of us. You’ll excuse us, Davina … I think that’s how it should be tonight.”

“But of course,” I said.

I left them together and went downstairs and ate a solitary meal.

THE NEXT AFTERNOON Miss Appleyard called. Zillah had not gone out. I thought she was a little shaken by the carriage incident of the previous day. She and I were in the drawing room together when Miss Appleyard was announced.

We knew her only slightly. In the old days my mother had exchanged a word or two with her after church. I had heard it said that she was a rather malicious gossip who thrived on scandal. My mother had once said that she was a person from whom one should keep one’s distance.

Why should she come calling on us? I wondered.

Bess said: “She’s asking for Mr. Glentyre. I was sure she said Mr.”

“Doesn’t she know he is at the bank at this hour?” said Zillah.

“I wouldn’t know, Mrs. Glentyre. But that’s what she said.”

“I suppose you’d better show her in.”

Miss Appleyard came into the drawing room and looked abashed when she saw us.

“I asked to see Mr. Glentyre,” she said.

“Good afternoon, Miss Appleyard,” I began.

She nodded in my direction and then looked rather venomously, I thought, at Zillah.

“I wanted to speak to Mr. Glentyre,” she reiterated.

“Is it banking business? He’s at the bank at this time, you know,” said Zillah, regarding her coldly.

“Well, I know he’s home quite a lot.”

Now how did she know that? I wondered. But she was the sort of woman who would make other people’s business hers.

“Can we help?” asked Zillah.

For a few moments Miss Appleyard stood biting her lips as though making a decision.

“I’ll have a word with Mrs. Glentyre,” she said, looking significantly at me.

I said: “I’ll leave you.”

Miss Appleyard nodded approvingly and I went out, wondering what this was all about.

Some ten minutes later I heard her leave the house and I went back to Zillah.

She was sitting in the sofa staring ahead of her. She looked troubled.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Oh, she was indignant about somebody’s ‘goings-on.’ I didn’t know what she was talking about half the time. Silly old fool!”

“She seems to have upset you.”

“Oh no. I just can’t stand that sort of person. They pry into other people’s affairs and try to make trouble.”

“Why did she want to see my father?”

“Oh, it was something about money … I don’t know. Somebody at the bank. I’m glad he wasn’t in. He wouldn’t have much patience with that sort of thing.”

“She evidently thought it was too shocking for my ears.”

“Silly old gossip! What’s the time? Your father will be home soon. I think I’ll go up and have a bath and get ready. Would you tell them to send up some hot water?”

“Of course. You sure you’re all right?”

“Certainly I’m all right.” She sounded a little irritated, which was unlike her. I wondered why Miss Appleyard’s visit had upset her so much.

I left her then and did not see her again until we were at dinner, which we took together in the dining room that night.

My father was unctuous. His anxiety of the previous evening over her late return to the house had no doubt made him feel how very important she was to him.

She remarked that he was looking tired and if he were not better in the morning she was going to insist that he spend a day in his room.

“Zillah!” he said.

“But I shall,” she said firmly. “I shall keep you here … and dance attendance on you all through the day. It’s no use protesting. I shall insist.”

He shrugged his shoulders and looked at her with great tenderness.

I thought what a change she had wrought in him. He was a different man with her.

TRUE TO HER WORD, she insisted on his staying home next day.

“He’s all right,” she said. “All he needs is rest.”

It was mid-morning when Ellen knocked at the door of my room.

She said: “Miss Davina, I must speak to you. I’ve bad news.”

“Bad news?” I echoed.

She nodded. ”From my cousin. She lives near my mother. My mother is very ill … as a matter of fact, not expected to live. I must go to her.”

“But of course, Ellen.”

“I’ll leave today if I can, Miss. There’s a train to London at two-thirty. If I could leave in that …”

“Can you be ready? It’s such short notice.”

“I must.”

“Have you spoken to Mrs. Glentyre?”

“Well, she’s up with the master. I wanted to have a word with her, of course, but I thought I’d tell you and see if it was all right.”

“I’ll go and tell her you want to see her. In the meantime you get on with your packing. Hamish can take you to the station.”

“Oh, thank you, Miss Davina. That’s a great weight off my mind.”

I went to the master bedroom and knocked. Zillah came to the door. I glimpsed my father. He was sitting in his chair in his dressing gown.

I said: “Ellen’s in trouble. Her mother is very ill. She has to leave today for London. She wants to see you.”

“My goodness. Poor Ellen. I’ll go to her right away. Where is she?”

“In her room packing.”

I left and she turned to my father and said something to him.

Ellen left that afternoon.

THAT EVENING I dined with my father and Zillah. He was wearing his dressing gown, but Zillah had said she thought it would be better for him to come to the dining room.

“She treats me like a child,” said my father, pouting like one.

Zillah talked with her usual animation throughout the meal, and it seemed that the day’s rest had been good for my father.

“We shall do this more often,” announced Zillah.

When we had finished eating my father was impatient for his glass of port which he always took at the end of the meal. Kirkwell was not there. After the last course had been served he would disappear and come back later to pour out the port. But on this occasion it seemed we had finished more quickly than usual.

I said: “I’ll get your port wine, Father,” and I went to the sideboard. There was very little left in the decanter. I poured out a glassful and as I did so Kirkwell came into the room.

“Ah,” he said, “you are already at the port. I’m sorry. I noticed the decanter was almost empty, so in case there was not enough I went down to the cellar for another bottle. I have decanted it and here it is. Have you enough in that one, Miss Davina?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Would you like a glass, Zillah?”

“Not tonight,” she said.

Kirkwell looked questioningly at me. I shook my head and said: “No thanks.”

He set the full decanter down beside the empty one.

When my father had finished his port Zillah said: “We’ll say goodnight, Davina. I don’t want your father overtaxed.”

Again that exasperated and loving look.

I said goodnight and went to my room.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN about two o’clock in the morning when there was a knock on my door.

I sprang out of bed and Zillah came in. She was in her nightdress, her hair loose about her shoulders, her feet bare.

“It’s your father,” she said. “He’s very ill. He’s terribly sick and in pain. I wonder whether we ought to send for Dr. Dorrington.”

“At this hour?”

I was seeking for my slippers and putting on my dressing gown.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t like the look of him.”

I went to their bedroom with her. My father was lying on the bed, his face ashen; he was breathing with difficulty and his eyes were glassy. He seemed to be in some pain.

“It’s one of his bad turns again,” I said.

“It’s worse than the others, I think. We must send for the doctor.”

“I’ll wake Kirkwell. He’s very capable. He’ll go for the doctor. We can hardly send one of the maids at this hour.”

“Will you do that?”

I went to the Kirkwells’ room, knocked and went straight in. Kirkwell was already getting out of bed.

“I’m sorry to wake you like this,” I said, “but Mr. Glentyre seems very ill.”

Kirkwell, slightly embarrassed at my seeing him in his nightshirt, was hastily reaching for his dressing gown.

As we went out Mrs. Kirkwell was hastily rising to follow us.

Kirkwell took one look at my father and said he would only stop to put on a few clothes and go for the doctor. He thought it was necessary.

Then Mrs. Kirkwell joined us. There was very little she—or any of us—could do.

It seemed a long time before we heard the sound of the brougham bringing Kirkwell with the doctor. But by that time my father was dead.

The Accused

THAT WAS THE BEGINNING of the nightmare. The weeks which followed seem now to have been quite unreal. I felt I had stepped into a mad world which was full of menace. And it had begun on that night.

The doctor had stayed with my father for a long time and when he finally came out he looked very grave. He did not speak to me. He walked straight past as though he did not see me. He seemed deeply shocked.

I soon realised why.

When he had gone Zillah came to my room. She was a little incoherent, unlike herself.

She stammered: “He … he thinks it could be some sort of poison.”

“Poison?”

“Something he took … or …”

“Or what?”

“Was given to him.”

“Poison given to my father?”

“He says there will be a postmortem. Then … an inquest.”

“But … why … he’d been ill. It was not so unexpected.”

She looked at me fearfully and shook her head. Then she said: “There is nothing for us to be afraid of.” She looked at me intently and added: “Is there?”

“But,” I cried, “it’s horrible. Why … why?”

“They do when people die mysteriously.”

“It’s … horrible,” I said.

She came to my room and lay on my bed with me.

We did not sleep all through that night and spoke little. I guessed she was as preoccupied with her horrified thoughts as I was.

The next day they came and took my father’s body away.

THERE WERE the thick black headlines: “Mysterious Death of Edinburgh Banker. Postmortem on Body.”

It was discussed everywhere. The house had become an object of interest in the town. From my window I glimpsed people passing—and a great many more than did usually—and they would pause and look up at the house staring at the windows. The servants whispered together. I felt they were all watching us furtively.

“It’s horrible,” said Zillah. “I wish they’d get on with it and let us know the worst. It’s the suspense I can’t bear.”

The day of the inquest was fixed. The entire household must attend. Many of us would be called as witnesses.

They were all in a state of nervous tension, fearful yet half-revelling in the excitement of being at the centre of the drama but still dreading it.

Dr. Dorrington gave evidence first. He said he had suspected poison when he had visited Mr. Glentyre and found him dead. Then the doctors who had carried out the postmortem were questioned. Dr. Dorrington had been right. There was evidence of arsenic in Mr. Glentyre’s body. They had found definite inflammation of the stomach and bowels due to an irritant poison. The liver and content of the stomach had been placed in sealed bottles for further investigation, but there was no doubt in the minds of both doctors that doses of arsenic had been taken—or perhaps administered—probably in port wine, and this was the cause of death.

There was a hush in the court.

They had discovered a great deal. They knew that I had bought sixpennyworth of arsenic at Henniker’s. The young man who had served me was there with his red-covered book, and there was my name and the date of the purchase.

He had previously sold sixpennyworth of arsenic to another member of the household, Hamish Vosper. First they wanted to know why Hamish had bought it. There were rats in the mews and Mrs. Vosper had seen them. She had also seen Hamish using the poison. She told the court that she did not like the idea of having poison around but she disliked the rats more. One of the boys who cleaned out the stables had also seen the rats and watched Hamish putting down the poison.

It was my turn. They wanted to know why I had bought the arsenic. I told them it was because there were rats just outside the kitchen. One had been seen in the dustbin. Who else had seen the rat? I told them I had not seen it. It was Ellen Farley who had seen it and asked me to buy the poison that day because she was unable to go out herself. This Ellen Farley was no longer employed at the house. Where had she gone? I did not know and I was muddled about which day it was. I thought it was the day before … or two days before my father had died.

I could see the looks of disbelief and sensed that the coroner was suspicious.

I was asked about a quarrel with my father. I was engaged to marry a student, was I? And at the same time a gentleman of Edinburgh was courting me?

“Well, er … not exactly. We were only secretly engaged …”

“But you liked having two strings to your bow?”

“It was not like that.”

“Your father had threatened to disinherit you if you married your student?”

“Well …”

“Was that so?”

“I suppose so.”

“Did he say in no uncertain terms that the relationship with the student must cease? Was there a scene between you?”

Of course they knew it all. They only asked the questions to trap me.

Hamish Vosper gave evidence. He said he did not know about rats being near the kitchen. They had had them in the mews and he had got rid of them with sixpennyworth of arsenic. Had he used all the arsenic on the rats? Yes, he had. You didn’t get all that much for sixpence and they were quite big rats.

“And you never heard of them being near the house. Did you tell Ellen Farley to get arsenic for rats?”

He looked bewildered and shook his head.

“Did you talk about rats to Ellen Farley?”

“Not special to my recollection. I mentioned them in the kitchen once and Mrs. Kirkwell was all shook up.”

“Was Miss Glentyre there when you mentioned them?”

“Yes … come to think of it, she was.”

I felt they were all looking at me accusingly. Zillah, who was sitting next to me, took my hand and pressed it comfortingly.

She looked beautiful, rather pale and her reddish hair was plaited neatly. It was just visible under the black hat. She looked terribly sad—the tragic widow.

They asked her about the port wine. She said her husband usually took a glass after dinner. He kept some in his bedroom and if he did not feel tired he had a glass. He said it made him sleep.

“Did he take some on the night he died?”

“Not in the bedroom. He was very tired, he said. And then … he started to be ill.”

“So the glass he had was at dinner.”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything special about the wine?”

“Special? I … er … don’t understand. Oh … it was near the end of that in the decanter. I remember Mr. Kirkwell, the butler, came in with another … freshly decanted.”

Kirkwell was called. He told how he had found there was very little in the decanter and had gone down to get another. When he came back I had poured out the wine and given it to my father.

“What about the rest of the wine in the decanter?”

“I threw it away. There was a little sediment and I thought they wouldn’t want that.”

“Where is the decanter?”

“In the cupboard. They are always washed and put away when they are empty … till we want them again next time.”

The coroner’s jury agreed unanimously that my father had died from the administration of arsenic and gave a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown.

As WE DROVE BACK to the house in the carriage, sitting well back lest we should be seen and recognised, both Zillah and I were limp with shock. We did not speak. Our thoughts were too horrifying to be put into words.

A small knot of people were gathered on the other side of the road. When the carriage stopped and we alighted they moved a little closer.

As we went to the door I heard a voice say: “Murderess.” It was terrible.

We went to our separate rooms. I lay on my bed and tried to recall all that had happened, all that had been said in that dreadful courtroom.

How had this happened? Just a sequence of events … which … when fitted together, created a suspicion of guilt. My relationship with Jamie. What was Jamie thinking now? He would not doubt me, I was sure. My quarrel with my father … that outburst which had been heard by the servants. The simple act of pouring out a glass of port wine. And then, of course, the most damning of all—buying the arsenic. It seemed as if some evil spirit were at work, determined to destroy me, turning what had seemed the most insignificant acts into those of vital importance. And where was Ellen Farley, who could have told them that she had asked me to buy the arsenic? Indeed, I could believe some malevolent fate had made her mother ill so that she was spirited away when it was so necessary that she corroborate my story.

What had they implied? That I had bought arsenic that I might kill my father? And all because he had threatened to disinherit me if I married Jamie?

I felt sick and very frightened.

That night I wrote to Lilias. I had always found comfort in writing to her and receiving her letters. She was becoming reconciled to her fate now; she had settled down to village life; one of her sisters had become a governess and Lilias had stepped into her shoes.

Now there seemed a special bond between us. We were both wrongly accused, for there was no doubt in my mind that all in the courtroom had made up their minds that I had murdered my father.

And murder was a far more serious matter than theft.

I was exaggerating, I told myself. They could not believe that of me.

I told Lilias the details, how I had quarrelled with my father, how he had threatened to cut me out of his will.

“I don’t care about the money, Lilias. I really don’t. Nor does Jamie. We just want to be together and we shall be when he is a fully fledged lawyer. We’ll set up in Edinburgh and have lots of children. That’s what I want. But in the meantime there is this thing. People were waiting for us when we came home from the court. I can’t tell you how upsetting it was. The worst thing is the matter of the arsenic. I did go to Henniker’s. I did sign my name. They’ve got it all, Lilias. And Ellen isn’t here to confirm what I tell them. If only she would come back. Perhaps she will …”

Yes, it was comforting to write to Lilias. It was like talking to her.

I sealed the letter and left it to be posted next day.

I went to bed, but sleep was impossible. Scenes from the courtroom kept flashing before my eyes. I could hear the voices droning on, the questions … the answers that seemed like betrayal.

Two days later, on the orders of the Procurator Fiscal, I was arrested on suspicion of having murdered my father.

OFTEN DURING THOSE DARK DAYS which followed, I told myself, if this had not happened I should never have met Ninian Grainger.

I was taken away by two men in a closed carriage. Several spectators saw me leave the house and I sensed the excitement among them. I wondered what the headlines in the papers would be now. I found I did not greatly care. I could not believe that I, hitherto insignificant, could be the subject of headlines in the newspapers. I could not believe that I was not only involved in a case of murder but at the heart of it. It seemed years since my mother and I had ridden out in the carriage together and taken conventional tea in the discreetly curtained rooms of neighbours as prosperous as ourselves. It even seemed a long time since Zillah had come to us. Could such things happen to ordinary people such as I was?

So many unusual events and the most unusual was that I, Davina Glentyre, daughter of a respected banker of Edinburgh, was in custody accused of his murder.

How could this have come about? It began when Zillah came to us—no, before that—when Lilias was dismissed. If Lilias had stayed, Zillah would never have come. My father would not have been married. I should have told Lilias that I had bought the arsenic. She would probably have come with me to the shop. Why hadn’t I told someone? Zillah … Jamie … ?

I was put in a little room. I was glad to be alone, and it was there that Ninian Grainger came to see me.

Ninian Grainger was a tall, rather lean man, about twenty-eight, I should say. There was about him an air of authority and what I needed most at that time—confidence.

“I’m Ninian Grainger,” he said. “Your stepmother has arranged for my firm to defend you. You are going to need someone to help you. I am that one.”

He was pleasantly friendly from the start and I was soon aware of the compassion he felt for a young girl accused of murder before she really knew a great deal about the world. He said that he had been convinced of my innocence from the moment he saw me. At that bewildering and horrifying time, this was what I needed more than anything and I shall never forget he gave it to me.

His approach was, I am sure, quite different from that of most advocates. From the beginning not only did he give me confidence but that fearful feeling of being alone in a hostile world began to disappear. I felt better even after our first encounter.

Oddly enough, he told me a little about himself so it was rather like a social meeting between two people who would become friends. His father was the senior partner in Grainger and Dudley. One day it would be Grainger, Dudley and Grainger and he would be the second Grainger.

“I have been in the business for five years … ever since I qualified. Do you remember the Orland Green case? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Things looked very black against Mrs. Orland Green, but I got her off, and that was a feather in my cap. I’m telling you all this so that you don’t think my firm is sending you an inexperienced fellow.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“Well … let’s get down to facts. You won’t be allowed to go into the witness box. A pity. I’m sure you would have done well. No one looking at you could believe you guilty.”

“That’s because I am not guilty.”

“I know that and you know it, but we have to convince other people of it. You’ll have to make a Declaration. That’s what I want to talk to you about. It’s a pity you bought that arsenic and this Ellen Farley is not around to confirm your story. If we could find her, it would help enormously. It’s too bad she’s disappeared. Never mind. We’ll find her. How long had she been with you?”

“I’m not sure whether she came before or after Zillah. Just before, I think.”

“Zillah is your stepmother, Mrs. Glentyre.”

“Yes. She came as my governess when the previous one left.”

“And married your father. That was rather romantic, wasn’t it? She does not look like a governess.”

“That is what I have always told her.”

“A most attractive lady. I am not sure what impression she will make in court.”

“She will have to be there, I suppose.”

“She’ll be a major witness. She was with your father when he died. Oh yes, she will be very important. But we must try and find this Ellen Farley to confirm that she asked you to buy the arsenic for her. You bought it, you gave it to her, and that was the end of the matter as far as you were concerned.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Then we must find her.”

“I know she went to London. She caught the London train. Hamish Vosper took her to the station.”

“London is a big place, but we must find her. It’s imperative to your case that we do. Now tell me about the student.”

“His name is James North. We met when I was lost in the wynds and we became friends.”

“I see. And it went on from there. You met secretly.”

“It was only my father who did not know of the meetings.”

“Your stepmother knew?”

“Yes, she was very sympathetic. Jamie came to dine. I think she suggested it.”

“And it was then that matters came to a head with your father who wanted you to marry Mr. McCrae?”

“Yes. Mr. McCrae had invited us to his house and was a fairly frequent visitor to ours.”

“He came to see you?”

“Well, he had not come much before.”

“He was the husband your father had chosen for you and he threatened to disinherit you if you married the student. You did not tell Mr. McCrae of your attachment to the student?”

“No … I was afraid of what my father would do and Jamie said we needed time.”

“I see. And this was the state of affairs when your father died of arsenic poisoning?”

He was frowning. I knew he was thinking that the case was black against me.

“Well,” he said, “we’ll get to work on this Declaration. We’ll marshall the facts … just as they really happened. We’ll present them simply and go on from there. The important thing is to find Ellen Farley. I’ll go and see your stepmother.”

He rose, smiled at me and held out his hand. I took it and said: “You do believe me, don’t you?”

He looked at me earnestly and replied: “I do indeed, and I am going to bring you out of this. Never fear.”

WHILE I WAS AWAITING my trial I saw Ninian Grainger frequently and he continued to be of more comfort to me than anyone. He had an air of buoyant confidence. Never once would he allow himself to visualise failure. It meant a great deal to me that he showed his belief in my innocence, though when I considered my declaration of what had led up to the tragedy there was so much which seemed to suggest my guilt.

But that had to be proved and I was awaiting the trial which was to take place two months after my arrest.

One cannot remain in a state of shock forever; and when I awoke in the morning it was no longer to unfamiliar surroundings. There was no longer that feeling of blankness as realisation of what had happened swept over me.

An ordeal lay before me and the passing of each day was a relief to me because it brought it nearer; and I longed for it to be over.

I had no idea what the outcome would be. Ninian Grainger was wonderful. He filled me with hope which I could not entirely believe in unless he was there. In his presence I had the utmost faith in him and myself.

I was allowed visitors, but I was never alone with them. There was a woman with sharp eyes and an alert manner sitting in a corner watching me all the time. She was not unkindly, just impersonal. I never knew whether she thought I was a murderess or an innocent victim of an evil fate.

She saw to my creature comforts to a certain extent, but there was no warmth in her. I began to regard her as an inanimate object, which was just as well in a way because it enabled me to talk more freely to my visitors when I had a chance to do so.

Zillah came. She was full of compassion. “This dreadful, dreadful business,” she said. “But it must come out right, Davina. Your very nice barrister seems to think so. He’s been to see me several times. He’s very eager to find Ellen. I told him that she’d come from London and I thought her mother was there.”

“And London’s a big place,” I said, echoing Ninian Grainger.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Mr. Grainger did go to London. He’s put a notice in the papers to see if he can trace her.”

“Do you think he will?”

“I expect so. These people do a marvellous job, don’t they? Oh, Davina … I do hope you’ll soon be home.”

“There’s the trial first. And do you think they’ll believe me?”

“I think that Ninian Grainger is very good. He’s young and full of energy. It means a good deal to him to get you off.”

“Yes, he’s in his father’s business. He hopes to be a partner and I suppose he wants to prove himself.”

“He wants that, of course. But it’s more than that. He really believes in you.”

“He has been very good to me. I don’t know what I should have done without him.”

She was silent.

“Zillah,” I said. “What’s it like at home?”

“It’s awful. They rush out and get the papers as soon as they hear the boys in the street. They’re always hoping there’ll be some news.”

“And you’re bearing it all!”

“You’re doing very well, Davina.”

“I don’t know. I feel it is all so strange. I feel like another person. I keep going over it all. I keep thinking of everything that happened. Have you seen … Jamie?”

“He did come to the house. He seemed absolutely brokenhearted. He’ll come to see you, I think. He didn’t know whether he should … whether it would be right. He’s just so shocked by the whole thing.”

“Who is not?”

“I wish there were something I could do.”

“They’ll ask you a lot of questions, Zillah.”

“I know. I’m dreading it.”

“I’m longing for it. I think waiting is one of the worst things about it. I want to get it over … even if …”

“Don’t say that,” said Zillah. “I can’t bear it.”

We were seated at a table facing each other, which was according to the regulations, and the watchdog was seated in a corner, her eyes discreetly averted.

Zillah gripped my hands.

“I’m thinking of you all the time,” she said. “It’s got to come out right. It must. Everyone must see that you couldn’t possibly do such a thing.”

JAMIE CAME. He looked like a different person. All the joy had gone out of him. He was pale and there were shadows under his eyes.

“Davina!” he said.

“Oh, Jamie, I’m so glad you came to see me.”

“This is terrible.”

“I know.”

“What will be the outcome?”

“We have to wait and see. The advocate is very optimistic.”

He put his hand to his forehead covering his eyes.

“Davina … they are saying the most terrible things.”

“I know.”

“You bought that arsenic. You signed for it. Your name is in that book with the date and everything … and soon after your father is dead … after you bought it.”

“I know that, Jamie. I’ve explained it all.”

“People are saying …”

“I can guess what they are saying, but Ninian Grainger is going to prove them wrong. He’s going to make them see the truth.”

“Can he?”

“He says he can, Jamie. And he must because it is the truth, Jamie. I believe you think … I did it.”

He hesitated for too long before he protested that of course he did not believe that.

“Your family?” I said. “What are they thinking?”

He bit his lip and did not answer.

“I suppose,” I went on, “it is not good for a minister to be caught up in this sort of thing … even if it is remotely.”

“Oh,” he said after a pause, “it is not good for anyone, is it?”

“I’m sorry, Jamie … so sorry to have involved you in this.”

He said: “I shall be called to give evidence at the trial. Everyone is talking about it. My fellow students … they think I know something. It’s horrible.”

“Yes, horrible things have happened to us both. But Mr. Grainger is sure everything will come right.”

“But … it will always be there, won’t it? People will remember.”

I stared at him in horror. I had not thought of that. I imagined that once Ninian Grainger had made the court agree with him that I was innocent, that would be an end of the matter. I would return home, marry Jamie and this would all become like a dream … not a recurring nightmare.

He had changed. He was remote. He was not the warmhearted lover I had known. Whatever he said there was doubt in his heart. I recoiled from him.

He was aware of this, but there was nothing he could do to hide his true feelings. We had changed towards each other.

The doubt was in his mind. It hung like a cloud between us; and for me there was the knowledge that the love he had had for me was not strong enough to bear this strain.

Jamie’s visit had not made me happier.

Alastair McCrae did not come to see me. I fancied he was congratulating himself that he was not sufficiently involved for the glare of publicity to alight on him; and he wanted to keep it like that.

MY TRIAL TOOK PLACE in the High Court of Justiciary. I felt dazed. The courtroom was crowded and it seemed that the object of everyone present was to scrutinise me. I had been prepared by Ninian Grainger for what I must expect. I should stand at the bar and the Crown would state the case against me when the Defense would endeavour to prove the accusation wrong.

My feelings were so tumultuous that it is impossible to describe them. They changed from moment to moment. Innocence is the greatest defence. It gives courage. If one tells the truth, surely that must prevail. That thought remains with one all the time. It is the greatest ally.

I looked at the members of the jury—those who would decide my fate; and they gave me confidence.

Even at this stage, after the weeks of waiting for this day, there was an element of unreality about it all. I … Davina Glentyre, the young girl who had gone to church with her mother, was now the prisoner at the bar in a court of law accused of murdering her father.

How could it have come about? It must be a wild mad dream.

There was silence through the court while the indictment against me was read.

“Davina Scott Glentyre, now or lately prisoner in the prison of Edinburgh, you are indicted and accused at the instance of Her Majesty’s Advocate for Her Majesty’s interest: that albeit by the laws of this land and of every other well governed realm, the wickedly and felonious administering of arsenic, or other poisons, with intent to murder, is a crime of a heinous nature and severely punishable. Yet true it is that you, Davina Scott Glentyre, are guilty of the said crime …”

It went on detailing the evidence against me—most damning of which was, of course, my buying the arsenic at Henniker’s shop, my signature in the poison book being an important piece of evidence.

Then came the witnesses.

Dr. Dorrington explained how Mr. Kirkwell, the butler, called him in the early hours of the morning. He was not surprised because Mr. Glentyre had, over a few months, suffered from bilious attacks. He had expected to find this just another, perhaps more severe than the previous ones, and he had felt it was unnecessary to call him out at such an hour. However, he had been shocked on arriving at the house to find Mr. Glentyre dead.

“Did you examine him?”

“Briefly. I saw at once that there was nothing I could do for him.”

“Did you suspect poison?”

“I thought there was something unusual about his sudden death.”

Other doctors followed. There was Dr. Camrose, professor of chemistry at the University. He had examined certain of the deceased’s organs and had found undoubted traces of arsenic. Another doctor was called and confirmed this. He said there had been a final dose which had resulted in death and which had obviously been taken in port wine. But there were traces of arsenic in the body which suggested that it had been taken over some little time.

There followed a great many scientific references which I was sure none but the specialists understood; but the fact emerged that my father had died through arsenical poisoning and that he had been taking it in smaller quantities over some time.

The doctors were asked if it were a common practise to take arsenic.

“It is said to have rejuvenating powers,” replied the doctor. He had known men take it for that reason. Women used it here and there, he believed, because it was thought to be good for the complexion. It was a dangerous practise.

At length it was time for the people I knew to take their places. I was alert, watchful of them. It seemed so strange to see them there, though stranger still for them, I supposed, to see me where I was.

On trial for murder! It was not the sort of thing one would think could ever happen to oneself. That sort of drama was for other people. And now here we all were … people who had known each other over the years … ordinary, simple people… all here in the centre of the stage, with the whole of Scotland … and perhaps beyond … watching us.

I could imagine the excitement which people were feeling. A young girl on trial for her life!

Mr. Kirkwell was questioned about being called by me in the early morning and dashing off to get the doctor.

“Did you go to the bedroom where Mr. Glentyre was dying?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did it occur to you that it was strange that he should be so ill?”

“Well, sir, he’d had one or two of these attacks. I thought it was just another … only worse.”

Mrs. Kirkwell followed her husband into the witness box.

“Mrs. Kirkwell, you were worried about the rats which had appeared near the house, were you?”

“Yes, sir. They were in the mews. I never had them in the house, sir.”

“Did you ever see any near the house?”

“Oh no. I couldn’t have borne that. Rats near my kitchen! Horrible things. Dirty. Hamish told me they were in the mews … stables and all that. But he got some arsenic and finished them off.”

“Was there any mention of getting arsenic because he had seen them near the kitchen door?”

“Never in my hearing, sir. I never knew they were in the dustbin. I would have been out of my mind, I can tell you, if I’d heard that.”

“So you would undoubtedly remember. Now I want you to cast your mind back. A young man, a Mr. James North, had been invited to the house, had he not?”

“Yes. He came once or twice. He was sweet on Miss Davina.”

“And Mr. Glentyre did not approve of the young man. Is that it?”

“I don’t reckon he had anything against him, but he was poor and wasn’t what Mr. Glentyre had in mind for her.”

“And there was a scene.”

“Well, sir. I just happened to be on the stairs with Bess …that’s one of the maids. The door of the study opened. I heard them shouting and Miss Davina flounced out. He was going to cut her out of his will if she married Mr. North.”

“And Miss Davina was upset, was she?”

“Oh terribly. She shouted back at him. She said he could cut her out if he wanted to. It wouldn’t change her mind … or something like that.”

Ninian rose and said: “Do you often listen to your employer’s private conversation, Mrs. Kirkwell?”

“No, I do not, sir. I just happened …”

“Just happened to be conveniently placed when Miss Davina flounced—I think you said—out of the study and went to her room. When did you hear all this conversation? It must have lasted more than a few seconds. Yet in that time you hear that Mr. Glentyre is going to cut her out of his will and her saying that she did not care.”

“Well, that’s what I heard.”

“I suggest that you heard voices and as time passed you imagined you heard those words spoken.”

“No, I did not.”

Ninian smiled and said: “That will be all.”

Mrs. Kirkwell, flushed and indignant, left the witness box.

Hamish was next. He looked slightly less jaunty than usual.

“I am Hamish Vosper,” he said, “coachman to the late Mr. Glentyre. At the beginning of this year I saw a rat in the stables. I bought sixpennyworth of arsenic at Henniker’s drugstore and managed to get rid of three of them in a week.”

“Did you mention this in the kitchen to the servants?”

“Yes, I did.”

“To Mrs. Kirkwell and the maids? Was anyone else there when you talked of the efficiency of arsenic?”

He looked across at me and hesitated.

“Was Miss Davina Glentyre there?”

“Well, yes, she was.”

“Did she express interest?”

“I … I don’t remember.”

“Did the maid Ellen Farley tell you she had seen a rat near the kitchen … in the dustbin?”

“No.”

“Did Miss Farley ever speak to you about rats?”

“I don’t think so. She didn’t speak much to me. She wasn’t the talking sort.”

“Are you sure that she did not tell you she had seen a rat jump out of the dustbin?”

“If she did I can’t recall it.”

“That will do.”

Ninian rose.

“Mr. Glentyre was pleased with your services as a coachman, was he not?”

Hamish preened himself. “Oh yes, he reckoned I was very good.”

“So good that you took the place of your father?”

“Well … yes.”

“Excellent,” said Ninian. “And you were naturally proud of your skills?”

Hamish looked pleased. I could see he was enjoying this.

“You like to go out with your friends … in the evenings?” went on Ninian.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I ask the questions, remember, please. There is nothing wrong with it unless you decide to use the family carriage for these excursions … without your employer’s permission.”

Hamish flushed.

“Did you do this on several occasions?” persisted Ninian.

“I … I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember? Then I will assure you that you did and I can produce evidence to prove this. But your memory is not good. You forgot. Might it not be that you could also have forgotten that Ellen Farley mentioned to you that she had seen a rat in the dustbin and you recommended her to try the arsenic which had proved effective?”

“I … I …”

“No more questions.”

I saw how successfully Ninian had planted doubts in the minds of the jury as to the reliability of Hamish’s evidence; and he was, after all, a key witness.

Zillah made a good impression on the court, but I felt it was not the Zillah I knew who stood in the witness box.

She even looked different. She was all in black; her face was pale, her hair simply dressed under the small black hat with the veil. She gave the impression of being a young, beautiful and lonely widow, suddenly bereft of a loving husband, looking out in bewilderment on a cruel world which, with one stroke, had taken her husband and put her stepdaughter in the dock.

She was a superb actress and like all her kind enjoyed having an audience to perform to. On the other hand, so well did she play the part that she did not appear to be acting.

She had I supposed cared for my father. She had always behaved to him most lovingly; she had seemed genuinely concerned about his illness. She had made the last months of his life happy. Yet I wondered.

The Lord Justice Clerk was clearly impressed by her—as I think was the whole court. Her beauty seemed the more outstanding because of the simplicity of her dress and her quietly tragic manner.

“Mrs. Glentyre.” The questioner spoke in a gentle voice. “Could you tell us what happened on that tragic night?”

She told them that her husband had not been well on the previous day and she had insisted on his remaining at home.

“Was he very ill?”

“Oh no. I just thought he should have a restful day.”

“That night at dinner he took a glass of port wine?”

“Yes.”

“The wine was in a decanter on the sideboard?”

“Yes.”

“Your stepdaughter, Miss Davina Glentyre, offered to pour it out?”

“Yes. There was nothing unusual about that. Kirkwell, the butler, was not present.”

“He was usually present, was he?”

“Er … yes, mostly. But he had been bringing up another decanter.”

“You did not take a glass of wine on that occasion?”

“No.”

“Nor your stepdaughter?”

“Neither of us did. We rarely did.”

“So it was just Mr. Glentyre who had his glass from the decanter which was poured out by Miss Glentyre?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that there had been trouble between your husband and his daughter about her determination to marry a young man?”

“Yes … but I didn’t think it was very serious.”

“But he had threatened to cut her out of his will.”

“I just thought it was one of those little upsets that would blow over.”

“Did he talk to you about it?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “He may have mentioned it.”

“Did he want her to marry someone else?”

“Parents do have plans for their children. I think it was all rather vague.”

“And did your stepdaughter speak to you of this matter?”

“Oh yes. We were good friends. I tried to be a mother to her.” She made a little gesture.

“More like a sister, I imagine,” said the Justice Clerk smiling and allowing his admiration for her to show a little.

“And you talked to her about this matter? Did she mention how bitterly she felt against her father?”

“No. Not at all. I convinced her that it would come all right in the end. Parents often disapprove of their children’s marriages.”

It was Ninian’s turn.

“You and your stepdaughter quickly became good friends?”

“Oh yes.”

“You came as governess originally, I believe.”

“That is so.”

“And within a short time you married the master of the house.”

I could see that the court was with her. It was charmingly romantic and the most natural thing in the world that the master of the house should be overcome by her charms. A happy ending for the governess—but, oh, how tragically her happiness had been cut short!

“We have heard that traces of arsenic were found in your husband’s body. Can you give us any idea how they came to be there?”

“I can only say that he must have taken it himself.”

“You have heard that it is a practise among some people to take arsenic for certain purposes. Do you think there is a possibility that your husband may have been one of these people?”

“Well … there is a possibility.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He once told me that some time ago he had taken small doses of arsenic.”

There was tenseness in the court. Everyone was watching her. I felt myself caught up in it. My father … taking arsenic!

“What effect did he say this had on him?”

“It made him better, he said. Someone told him that it was dangerous … and he stopped taking it.”

“Did he tell you where he got this arsenic?”

“I did not ask him and he did not say. He travelled sometimes abroad. He could have got it somewhere on the Continent. He was there on business some years ago. It may have been then.”

“Did he say so?”

“No. I did not think to ask. I was just surprised that he had taken it.”

“This could be important evidence. Why did you not mention it before?”

“I only remembered it when you asked.”

“Did it not occur to you on your husband’s death that the arsenic found in his body might have been taken voluntarily by himself?”

“No … only just now.”

“And now you think that is a possibility?”

“Oh yes, I do.”

There was a hushed silence over the court. I had the feeling that she was lying. I could not believe that my father would take arsenic. It was true that some years ago he had gone to the Continent on business. Could it possibly be that he had acquired the arsenic then? After all, what did I know of his secret life? Much had recently been revealed to me, but there must be so much of which I was ignorant.

I could sense Ninian’s excitement.

The Prosecution wanted to question Zillah further.

“If your husband had a secret store of arsenic in the house, where would he keep it?”

“I don’t know. He had a cabinet in which he kept certain medicines.”

“Did you ever see arsenic there?”

“I hardly looked at it. I had no reason to go there. I don’t think it would have been labelled ‘arsenic’ if it had been there.”

“Was not the bedroom searched at the time of Mr. Glentyre’s death?”

“I think so.”

“No arsenic was found then. If he were taking it, would it not be strange that there was no trace of it in the room?”

“I do not know.”

The Prosecution was shaken; but I could see the dawning triumph in Ninian’s attitude.

I should have been elated, for there was a possibility that my father had killed himself. But was this true? Was Zillah inventing this story in an attempt to save me?

The first day was over. I had an idea that there would be many more to come.

NINIAN CAME TO SEE ME that evening. He was elated.

“It’s a breakthrough,” he said. “This must be our line. If we can prove he has taken the stuff himself, we’ve got the answer. It’s plausible. A man who is no longer young married to a beautiful young wife. Naturally he wants to improve his health. He wants to be young again … so he resorts to this.”

“I cannot believe that my father would ever have taken arsenic.”

“You cannot be sure what people will do. If only we could find this Ellen Farley who would confirm that she asked you to buy the arsenic … we should be in the clear. We could romp home. I can’t think what’s happened to the woman. It’s not easy to find people in London … particularly on such little information. If it had only been some country town … or village … we should have had her by now. They are still searching, of course. But I did think something would have come to light by now. Your stepmother was a wonderful witness. I have the idea that she desperately wants to help you.”

“Yes, I think she does.”

He took my hands and gripped them hard. “Bear up,” he said. “We are going to get there.”

I was thinking: Zillah is my friend, but I never feel I know what is in her mind. As for Jamie, I knew too well what was in his, and it meant that his love was not strong enough to bear this trial.

THE NEXT DAY Jamie went into the witness box.

“You and Miss Glentyre met by chance in the street?” he was asked.

“Yes. She was lost.”

“I see, and she called on you for help?”

“Well … I saw that she was lost.”

“You took her home and arranged to meet again?”

“Yes.”

“And you became engaged to be married?”

“It was not official.”

“Because you, as a student, were unable to support a wife?”

“Yes.”

“What did Miss Glentyre tell you about her father?”

“That he had forbidden her to see me.”

“Yet she continued to do so?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that was becoming conduct?”

“I was upset by it.”

“You hated deceiving Mr. Glentyre?”

“Yes, I did.”

“But Miss Glentyre insisted?”

Ninian was on his feet. “I protest at the question,” he said.

“Miss Glentyre could not force the witness to the tryst. He must have gone willingly.”

“A forceful young lady,” said the Justice Clerk. “But this was a man in love. The court will realise he went to the meeting willingly as Mr. Grainger insists.”

The questions were resumed. “What did you propose to do about the matter?”

“We were to wait until I had finished my training.”

“That would be in two years’ time at least?”

“Yes. Miss Glentyre suggested …”

“What did she suggest?”

“That we elope.”

I paused. I could see the picture the Prosecution was trying to build up of a forceful woman who knew exactly what she wanted and was determined to get it even if it meant eloping with her lover against her father’s wishes … or alternatively murdering her father.

“And you did not fall in with this suggestion?”

“I knew we could not do it.”

“Because you had no money of your own. All you had came from your family and if Miss Glentyre were cut off as her father had threatened she would have nothing either.”

I felt sick, praying for him to stop. I knew that Jamie was regretting that we had ever met; and that was the most cruel realisation of all.

It was Ninian’s turn.

“Had you discussed marriage with Miss Glentyre before you were aware of her father’s disapproval of the match?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that because she was indifferent as to whether you would be poor or rich she wanted to show her loyalty by being prepared to endure a few years of hardship before you could become established in your profession?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

It was the best he could do with Jamie, and I wondered if we had lost the advantage won by Zillah’s evidence.

Two MORE DAYS dragged on. The coming and going of witnesses continued. There were more doctors and a great deal of scientific terms which I could not understand, but I knew that it was not going well for me.

There was no news of Ellen’s whereabouts. I thought: there is only one consolation. It will soon be over.

Then something happened. Ninian visited me and I saw at once that he was excited.

He sat down opposite me and smiled.

“If this works out, we’ve done it,” he said. “Thank God for the divine Zillah.”

“What’s happened?”

“You remember she told the court that her husband had once confessed to taking arsenic?”

“Yes.”

“She has discovered a piece of paper, screwed up, she says, at the back of a drawer in which your father kept things like socks and handkerchiefs. A piece of white paper with the remains of a seal on it. She opened this paper. There was nothing on it … no writing to show what it might have contained, but she thought she detected a few grains of powder on it.”

“Powder?” I echoed.

He grinned at me, nodding. “In her husband’s drawer! She immediately thought … you know what she thought. Wise woman. She took it to the police. It is now being analysed.”

“What does this mean?”

“That if the paper contained what we hope it did, there is a possibility … a great possibility … that the dose that killed your father could have been self-administered.”

“When shall we know?”

“Very soon. Oh, Davina … Miss Glentyre … don’t you see?”

I had rarely seen anyone as overjoyed as he was at that moment; and in the midst of all my muddled thoughts I wondered whether he brought such feeling to all his cases.

EVENTS MOVED QUICKLY from there.

Dr. Camrose was recalled. There was no doubt that the piece of paper had contained arsenic.

The court was astounded. Zillah was recalled.

“Can you explain why this piece of paper was not brought to light before?”

“It was right at the back of the drawer.”

“Can you explain why it was not seen when the room was searched?”

“I suppose because the searchers were not careful enough.”

There was a ripple of mirth throughout the court.

Zillah went on: “You know how things get caught up in chests of drawers? It was not actually lying in the drawer. It had got caught up and really was midway between the upper and lower drawers, if you know what I mean.”

She smiled beguilingly at her questioner who grunted. But there was nothing he could do to spoil the impression she had made on the court.

Ninian said he had no questions to ask.

From that time the atmosphere changed and it was time for the speeches from the Prosecution and the Defense.

The Prosecution was first. The Lord Advocate spoke for a long time. He set out all the facts against me. First there was the disappearance of the elusive Ellen Farley which seemed highly suspicious. Then there was the fact that I wished to marry and my father had threatened to disinherit me if I did. There was motive for murder.

As I listened I thought how strange it was that so much that was innocent could be misconstrued.

When the day ended with this speech I felt that everything had turned against me.

Ninian came to see me.

“You look troubled,” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“No. I am certain that you will soon be free.”

“How can you be so certain?”

He leaned towards me. “Experience,” he said.

“Tomorrow …” I began fearfully.

“Tomorrow is our turn. You shall see.”

He took my hand and put it to his lips and we looked steadily at each other for a few moments.

“This means more to me than anything,” he said.

“I know. There has been a great deal of notice given to the case. If you win you will have that partnership surely.”

“Perhaps. But I wasn’t meaning that.”

Then he released my hand.

“Now you must have a good night’s sleep,” he said. “I’ve asked them to give you a mild sedative. Please take it. It’s necessary. You have been through a trying ordeal and now we are nearing the end. But remember this: we are going to win.”

“You are so certain.”

“I am absolutely sure. We can’t fail. Things looked black at the start, I admit. But it’s working out now in our favour. A good night’s rest … and I’ll see you in court tomorrow. I promise you you won’t be there much longer.”

I fell asleep thinking of him.

He was magnificent. His eloquence carried the jury along with him. He was so confident.

“Members of the jury, can you convict this young woman who is so clearly innocent?” He went through it all. I had met a young man. Most young women meet young men at some time in their lives. I was carried along on the stream of young love. I had been prepared to elope and lose all chance of my inheritance. Was that the attitude of one who could plan cold-blooded murder?

He went on at length about my father. A man who had fallen violently in love with the beautiful woman who had come to the house as a governess. She was many years younger than he was. What would a man do in such circumstances? Who could blame him for trying to recapture his youth? And when he thought he had a chance of doing so, rather naturally he took it. He had admitted taking arsenic. It seems likely he obtained it when he was abroad. He had tried it and knew it was a dangerous practise so he stopped. But then he married a young woman. Let us say that he had a little of the poison stowed away somewhere. He found it and once more experimented.

He had one or two bouts of illness which were obviously due to what he had been taking. This did not deter him, however, and on that fatal night he took the remains of that packet. It was more than he realised. In fact it was a very large dose. He screwed up the paper and put it in the drawer where it became caught up with the drawer above and was missed when the place was searched.

“You, members of the jury, will agree with me that that is a logical explanation of what happened that night.

“Members of the jury, you see before you a young girl. How many of you have daughters of your own? Those of you who have will understand. Think of your own daughter … or the daughter of a friend whom you love well. Think of her caught up in a chain of circumstances over which she has no control … and suddenly finding herself—as this young girl did—in a court of law facing a charge of murder.

“You have heard the evidence. If you have the shadow of a doubt you cannot find this young girl guilty. She is not the perpetrator of crimes but a victim of peculiar circumstances.

“You are observant. You are shrewd and when you think over the evidence, when you consider all we have heard in this court, you will say to yourselves and each other: ‘There is only one verdict we can give. That is Not Guilty.’ “

There followed the summing up by the Justice Clerk. He went through the evidence very carefully.

I was young and that must influence them. But this was an indictment of murder. There was the mysterious Ellen Farley who, according to me, had asked me to buy the arsenic for her and this I had done. The signed book at Henniker’s drug shop was evidence of that. But no one had heard Miss Farley ask me to buy arsenic; no one had seen the rat in the dustbin except— it might be—Ellen Farley. And Ellen Farley was unavailable. So that was a piece of evidence about which the jury would have to come to some conclusion. Did the mysterious Ellen Farley ask the accused to buy arsenic for the rats? Or did the accused buy the arsenic for the purpose of killing her father? She had reason. He was going to disinherit her if she married her lover.

On the other hand, the deceased had confessed to his wife that he had taken arsenic at some time and this he may have procured outside this country, which meant that it was impossible to trace the purchase. Did he find what was left in the packet, misjudge the amount, and so kill himself?

“That is what you have to decide, and only if you are convinced that this is not so and the arsenic was administered from the almost empty decanter by the accused who put it there— only then can you find the accused guilty.”

It was a fair summing up and the Lord Justice Clerk had made the jury’s duty clear to them.

They went out to consider their verdict.

I WAS TAKEN BELOW. How the time seemed to drag. An hour passed and there was no verdict.

What would happen to me? I wondered. Could this be the end? Would they condemn me to death? That was the penalty for murder. I wondered how many innocent people had been sent to their deaths.

I should be taken back to the courtroom. I should see Ninian … tense and waiting. And yet he had seemed so sure.

The Kirkwells would be there … Bess … Jenny … the whole household. Zillah would be waiting. If I were found Not Guilty I should owe my life to her. Jamie had shown me quite clearly that what he had felt for me was not true and lasting love.

I kept remembering incidents from my life, as they say people do when they are drowning. Well, I was—metaphorically— drowning.

I tried to look ahead. Suppose Ninian was right and I came through this? What would it be like? Nothing would be the same. Everywhere I went people would say: “That is Davina Glentyre. Do you really think she did it?”

No … nothing would ever be the same. Even if I walked free out of the courtroom, the memories of it would be with me forever … with others, too.

The jury was out for two hours. It had seemed like days.

As soon as I went up I was aware of a breathless tension in that room.

The jury had filed in. The Lord Justice Clerk asked them if they had reached a verdict and would they let the court know what it was.

I held my breath. There was a long pause. Then I heard a clear voice say: “Not Proven.”

There was a hush in the court. I saw Ninian’s face. For a moment an expression of anger touched it; then he turned to me, smiling.

The Lord Justice Clerk was talking to me, telling me I was dismissed from the bar.

I was free—free to carry with me as long as I lived the stigma of Not Proven.