The Mask of the Enchantress

After the Masquerade

Three months have passed.

I suppose I am not unfortunate. Mrs. Christopher is good to me. I arise every morning at six-thirty, make her tea, take it in to her, draw the blinds and ask if she has had a good night. Then I have my breakfast, which is brought to me by one of the maids, a little grudgingly, for she does not see why she should be asked to wait on the companion. Then I help Mrs. Christopher with her toilet. She is crippled with rheumatism and finds walking painful. After that I take her out for her morning ride in her Bath chair. I walk along the promenade, for we are in Bournemouth, and she stops and chats with acquaintances while I stand by and sometimes get a bleak good morning addressed to me.

Then I take her back. And in the afternoon while she rests, I exercise the pekinese, who is a bad-tempered creature and about as fond of me as I am of him, which means there is a state of armed neutrality between us which could break into open warfare at any moment. I go to the lending library and choose books—romantic tales of love and passion—which please Mrs. Christopher. These in due course I read to her.

So the days drift by.

Mrs. Christopher is a kindly woman who tries to make life easy for those about her; and I appreciate this, having spent three weeks in the employ of a rich dowager in Belgrave Square. I was what she called her "social secretary," which consisted of a variety of tasks, all of which were expected to be performed with the utmost speed and efficiency all at once. I think I might have endured the work but what I could not stand was the dowager's imperious temper. So I resigned and by great good luck found Mrs. Christopher.

I passed from humiliation to boredom; and I think that the latter was more bearable because I had experienced the former.

I kept my promise and write regularly to Janet. I gave her details of the dowager and Mrs. Christopher and I am sure she was shocked that such a fate should have befallen one of the Mate-lands, even if born on the wrong side of the blanket.

I heard from her what had happened.

It was presumed that Garth and Susannah had gone to the barn for some purpose and had taken a lantern with them. The lantern had overturned and set fire to the dry hay, which had gone up in flames in no time. They had been unable to get out of the barn and had been burned to death. Remains of Garth's body had been found and, although there was no trace of Susannah's, some of her jewelry and a belt she was known to have been wearing that day were identified.

Malcolm had taken over the castle. Cringles' farm was beginning to look as it had in the old days before Saul's death. Leah had her baby—a boy. She had been really upset by the death of Susannah.

That was all the news there was of the castle.

As for myself, I should be grateful that I got off so lightly. All I have to do now is to carry on with the life I'm leading and as time passes that reckless masquerade of mine will recede farther into the past.

As I walked the promenade with the pekinese snapping at my heels, as I brooded over the books in the library, I thought a good deal of Malcolm.

Of course he had been disgusted by my deceit. I was aware of that in the barn. Yet he had rescued me. He had saved Jacob Cringle from unpleasantness, for even though he was innocent of murder he would have had difficulty in proving it. And what could have happened to me? Suppose Garth had killed Jacob, I should have been in a very dangerous position. I could have been implicated in murder. I felt cold with fear when I thought of it It might well have been that I should have been accused. There could certainly have been a strong reason for my wanting to be rid of Jacob. What would Garth have done and said then? He had been completely unscrupulous, I knew. Would he have slipped away and left me to stand accused? But I had been saved ... saved by Malcolm. He had made it possible for the Susannah I had created to die, leaving me, Suewellyn, to go free and pursue my life.

I try not to think of him, but that is impossible. He is always in my thoughts. Sometimes when I am reading I will be saying the words without thinking of their meaning because my thoughts are at the castle in those days, now seeming so far away, when Malcolm and I rode out together and talked so earnestly of castle matters.

How I long to be there again! I want to ride under the gatehouse, to look at those gray impregnable walls, to feel the glow of pride in the home of my ancestors.

But it has all gone. It is all lost to me. I shall never see it again.

"You're dreaming," Mrs. Christopher used to say to me.

"I'm sorry," I would reply.

"Was it a false lover?" she asked hopefully.

"No ... I never had a lover."

"Someone who never spoke?"

She patted my hand. She was romantic. She was living in the books we read; she cried for good people who were wronged and grew angry about the wicked ones.

She said: "You're too young to be shut away looking after an old woman. Never mind. Perhaps you'll meet someone nice on the promenade one day."

I grew fond of her as I think she did of me, and although I did not think she wished to lose me, I knew she would be glad if some handsome hero fell in love with me as I walked the promenade and carried me off to be his bride.

So I should not complain. When I thought of my dowager I was very grateful for the good fortune which had brought me into Mrs. Christopher's path.

It was a cold windy October day. It was always bitterly cold along the front on such days and I had been hard put to it to hold on my hat and keep control of the dog on his leash. He knew of my difficulties, I was sure, and kept sitting down, refusing to budge, so that I had had more or less to pull him along.

When I came in the maid said that Mrs. Christopher wished to see me.

She was excited, her cheeks pink, her hair slightly ruffled, for she had a habit of pulling at it when she was excited.

"There has been someone asking for you," she told me, her eyes round with curiosity.

"For me? Are you sure?"

"Quite. He said your name very distinctly."

"A man ... ?"

"Oh yes." Mrs. Christopher dimpled. "A very distinguished-looking man."

"Where is he?"

"I kept him here. He's in the drawing room. I wasn't going to let him go. I said you'd be coming back soon and I shut him in there with the Lady's Companion."

"Oh, thank you... ."

"You'd better tidy up first, eh? Your hair's untidy ... and perhaps you should put on a prettier blouse."

I tidied up a bit and went along to the drawing room.

Malcolm rose as I entered.

"Hello," he said. And: "Hello," I replied.

He stood looking at me. "So you live here. Companion to the old lady?"

I nodded.

"I should have come before," he said.

"Oh no ... no. ... It's good of you to come now. Is anything wrong?"

"No. Everything is going well."

"I hear from Janet."

"Yes, I found you through her. It worked out as I hoped. It was accepted that Garth and Susannah had gone to the barn together. There had been rumors about their relationship, so it fitted. There was a certain amount of searching for Susannah's body, but they were satisfied with the charred remains of the belt, and the jewelry was found. Janet identified it and others did too. I left your horse there to be discovered with Garth's and I went and got mine the next day. It all worked out just as I planned."

"It was a clever plan."

"So Susannah is now dead," he went on. "Leah Chivers was very sad but she's got her baby boy now and seems content."

"And the castle?"

"All going well. I have left it in Jeff Carleton's capable hands. He'll manage while I'm away."

"So you're going away?"

"I think to Australia."

"That will be interesting."

I wished he had not come. He brought home to me how much I cared for him, how much I wanted to be with him.

"I have a reason," he said. "I'm hoping to get married."

"Well... I wish you luck. Is it to be someone in Australia?"

"No... . But we shall go there after the ceremony ... that's if she agrees."

"I dare say you will persuade her."

I wanted to shout at him: Go away. Why do you come here to taunt me? I said: "I suppose you were very shocked by what I did. You must have despised me for it."

"It was a shock in a way ... but I think I must have known that you couldn't be Susannah."

"So ... I didn't really deceive you."

"I disliked her heartily. I always did ... from the time we were children. The change ... it was too miraculous to be real." He paused. "I think I subconsciously felt that something was going on ... something strange. Susannah could not have changed so much."

"Oh, then ... I wish you well ... in your marriage."

"Suewellyn, surely you see what I'm getting at. It all depends on you."

I stared at him.

"I wanted to come before. I regretted sending you off like that. It seemed the only way out of a difficult situation. Then I discovered dear old Janet knew where you were."

"Dear old Janet," I heard myself say.

"Now I have made a plan."

"You are good at making plans."

Then suddenly the whole world seemed to be singing, for he had taken my hands in his.

"This is the plan," he said eagerly. "I should go to Australia and there by a miraculous coincidence I discover my long-lost relative ... second or third cousin ... or something like that ... Suewellyn anyway. She lived on Vulcan Island with her parents but happened to be visiting friends in Sydney when the eruption took place. She stayed in Sydney and when I was there I met a young woman and I was struck by her resemblance to my own family. We fell in love and married. I persuaded her to leave Sydney and of course you know who she turned out to be. There's one hitch to the plan."

"What is that?"

"We'll marry before we go, but that will have to be secret. We'll go to Australia after our marriage. Perhaps we'll visit Vulcan Island. Or would that make you too sad? We want no more sadness. Then we'll come home ... home to our castle. There's only one thing I have to find out."

"What's that?"

"Whether you agree."

I smiled up at him and I said: "I am not dreaming, am I?"

"No. You are very wide awake."

Then he held me fast and I just wanted that moment to go on forever. Mrs. Christopher's drawing room with its pictures of pugs and pekes who had ruled her in the past was to me the most beautiful place in the world.

So we went and told her and she beamed on us and said it was like one of the romances I read aloud to her and she was so happy for us. She didn't mind in the least having to put another advertisement in the Lady's Companion for someone to walk the dog and change the library books.

Within a month we were married. We left England on the Ocean Queen and most blissfully did I cross the seas to the other side of the world. We were so happy ... more so because we had lost each other for a while.

We stayed in Sydney among the graziers and the successful miners; we went out to Vulcan Island. It was deeply moving to see the crescent-shaped canoes coming out to the ship. I stood there on the sandy beach and looked up at the Giant who had destroyed so much. He was quiet now. He had finished his grumbling. Already there were a few huts dotted about and the palm trees which had escaped the holocaust were fresh and green and laden with fruit. More would be planted. Perhaps Vulcan would be inhabited again.

In due course we came back to England, and there was the castle the same as it had been for hundreds of years. The servants came out to greet the master and the new Mateland bride whom he had discovered in Australia and who had turned out to be his kinswoman, a Mateland herself.

Janet was there.

As soon as I was in my room she came to me. For the second time she gave way to emotion. That was when I pinned onto her blouse the cameo brooch which I had kept for her.

Then she looked at me.

"So all's well," she said. "You've come through, eh? After all your sins... ."

"Yes, Janet," I said. "After all my sins, I've come through."