The Shivering Sands

11

I looked in at Mrs. Lincroft’s sitting room to tell her that I was not going to the vicarage that morning and that Sylvia would be returning with the girls for her music lesson now that she had recovered from her spell in bed. The door was slightly ajar and I knocked lightly. There was no answer so I called Mrs. Lincroft softly and pushing open the door, looked in.

To my astonishment she was there, seated at the table, a newspaper spread out before her. She had not heard me, which was strange.

“Mrs. Lincroft,” I said, “are you all right?”

She looked up then, and I saw how pale she was and that there was a strange glazed look in her eyes which could have been unshed tears.

Almost immediately her expression changed, and she was her serene self.

“Oh, Mrs. Verlaine, do come in.”

“Are you feeling well?” I asked as I entered.

“Oh…er…yes. I feel rather sleepy actually. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry. Is that unusual with you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for years.”

“That’s very bad. You’re not worried about something, I hope.”

She looked at me in some alarm and taken off her guard she laid a hand on the paper as though to hide it from me.

“Worried? Oh…no certainly not.”

A little vehement? I wondered.

She laughed but her laughter sounded high-pitched. “Since I came back here I’ve had a very comfortable existence. Nothing to worry about. I can’t tell you what a relief it is when one has a child.”

“I can imagine it. It’s difficult for a woman to bring up a child on her own.”

A faint color came back into her cheeks and I went on: “And you have made an admirable job of it.”

“Dear Alice. I didn’t want her when she was on the way but when she arrived…” She said suddenly: “Alice told you whose child she is, I know. She confessed it to me. She’s apt to boast of it, I believe. Perhaps I can’t blame her. It’s unfortunate in a way that she knew, but it’s hard to keep these things secret…especially with a girl like Alice. She seemed to sense the truth.”

“I think she is proud of her birth, which surely is better than that she should be ashamed.”

“Little to be proud of,” said Mrs. Lincroft. She spread her hands over the newspaper. “You’re a woman of the world, Mrs. Verlaine. You’ve lived abroad and you’ve traveled about, and I daresay you understand better than most how these things come about. I wouldn’t like you to judge me…or Sir William too harshly. He wasn’t enjoying a happy marriage, and I was able to comfort him. I don’t know how it happened, but I suppose one falls into these situations.”

“Of course,” I said. She seemed as though she had to go on and could not stop herself.

“My mother used to say that there was a slippery stone on all doorsteps. She was Scottish and it’s a saying they have up there. It means of course that any of us can slip up if we’re a bit careless…and it’s true to some extent.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“When I came here I was very young. I had been a governess for a few months and then I came as companion to Lady Stacy. My duties were to sit with her, to read to her, to do her hair. It was a comfortable enough position for she was very gentle, very sweet, which somehow makes it worse. She reminded me a little of Edith. Perhaps that’s why Sir William was so fond of Edith.”

As she talked I saw the picture clearly; the beautiful young woman, for she must have been beautiful before she had grown so sad and faded. How appealing she must have been, with her slender willowy figure and beautiful features and those deep-set blue-gray eyes. And Isabella Stacy…the mother of two boys, the adored Beau and Napier who could never quite compare with his brother. I saw the picture clearly. Isabella who was perhaps a little resentful because she had given up her career for marriage, a woman who had not succeeded in holding her husband’s affections completely. And then this beautiful creature appeared on the scene and Sir William fell in love with his wife’s handmaiden.

She went on: “I was there when the accident happened. I shall never forget the day.”

“How was Napier then? The accident must have changed him considerably.”

“He was just an ordinary boy. But for the fact that he must be constantly compared with his elder brother one would scarcely have noticed Nap. We called him Nap then. He was a little wild…as boys will be. I believe he had gone through most of the scrapes that boys do. He had just managed to get through his examination at school, whereas Beau was brilliant. Beau was a social and an academic success; his charm was irresistible. No one could describe Beau. He had to be seen and known to be believed. He had a sunny nature; nothing perturbed him; I never saw him lose his temper, whereas Nap was inclined to be moody. Jealous perhaps…always trying to equal Beau but never succeeding. I think that was why he was so bitterly blamed. Sir William never quite believed that it was entirely an accident.”

“That’s unfair.”

“Life is unfair. I was there at the time when the gypsy girl disclosed the fact that she was pregnant and that Nap was responsible. It had already been decided that he should go.”

“So the gypsy’s condition was discovered before he went.”

She nodded. “I left too because I thought I should. The position was becoming intolerable. Lady Stacy was stricken with grief. I did not wish to add to that so I went away. I discovered that I was going to have a child. I was fortunate. I had an old friend who knew the position and he married me. I thought I would settle down to a quiet life, make a home for my child and never let her know that my husband was not her father. Then Lady Stacy killed herself.”

“What a dreadful tragedy!”

“It was like a series of explosions. In a way each tragedy was connected with the others. Alice was born and I lost my husband. I was desperate. I had no money and a child to think of. So I wrote to Sir William and told him of my predicament. His suggestion was that I return in the capacity I now hold and it was my great good fortune to do so. I was lucky. There are few positions where one can work and bring up a child at the same time.”

I nodded.

“So I was able to care for Alice, and since Allegra was born and deserted by her mother I looked after them both. Then Edith joined the household and I know that I have been of some use. It’s a comfort really for all the sins of the past. You understand that, Mrs. Verlaine.”

“I can’t imagine what they would all have done without you.”

“I can’t imagine why I’m boring you with all this.”

“It is far from boring.”

“But then you’re so interested in people, aren’t you? I’ve noticed that often. You are intensely interested…as few people are.”

“I suppose it’s true.”

“So I don’t have to apologize for talking so much. I’m sure it’s not a failing of mine in the ordinary way. Let me give you some coffee.”

“That would be very nice,” I said.

She went away to prepare it and my natural curiosity urged me to look at the paper for I had a notion that something she had read in it may have disturbed her.

There had been a vote of censure on the government. That occupied most of the space; two trains had collided on the Brighton line; a Mrs. Brindell had been caught teaching her daughter of seventeen to shoplift; one man had escaped from a prison and another from a mental home; a whole family had been burned to death in a fire; a Mrs. Linton, aged seventy, had married a Mr. Grey aged seventy-five. Linton! I thought; it was not unlike Lincroft.

No, I thought, the paper had nothing to do with it. I just caught her in an unusually communicative mood after a bad night.

By the time we were drinking her delicious coffee she had completely recovered her equilibrium.

When I left I asked if I might borrow the newspaper.

“Please do,” she said. “There’s very little interesting news in it, though.”

Alice sat at the schoolroom table reading aloud from the newspaper. It was the same one which I had picked up in her mother’s room. Allegra was listening idly, drawing horses on a pad of paper. Sylvia, who had come over for a music lesson, was leaning her elbows on the table biting her nails and looking dreamily into space. I had come in to collect my music and give Sylvia her session at the piano.

Alice looked up and smiled at me and then went on reading the paper.

“‘Mrs. Linton and Mr. Grey had known each other for sixty years. They were childhood sweethearts and the course of true love did not run smoothly and they each married someone else. Now Romance has come…’”

“Fancy being married at seventy-five,” said Allegra. “That’s the time to be dead.”

“Does anyone ever really believe it’s the time for them to be dead?” asked Sylvia.

“No, but perhaps other people know it,” added Alice.

“Who’s to say it’s the time?” asked Allegra.

“If they did it’s obviously the time,” retorted Alice. “Listen to this: ‘Harry—inverted commas Gentleman—Terrall has escaped once more from Broadmoor where he has been for the last eighteen years. “Gentleman” Terrall is a homicidal maniac.’”

“What’s that?” asked Allegra.

“It means he kills people.”

“And he’s escaped?”

“He’s at large. That’s what it says at the top. ‘Gentleman Terrall is highly dangerous because he behaves normally and with great charm. He is very attractive, particularly to women who become his victims. He has escaped twice before and during one of his bouts of freedom murdered Miss Anna Hassock. He is a man now in his mid forties with charming manners which have earned him his name.’”

“Gentleman Terrall,” breathed Allegra. “I wonder if he’ll come here?”

“We shall know him if he does,” put in Allegra. “If we see a man with good manners…”

“Like Mr. Wilmot,” added Alice.

“Do you think Mr. Wilmot…” began Sylvia, awestruck.

“Silly!” snorted Allegra. “This man’s only just escaped and Mr. Wilmot’s been here ages. Besides we know who Mr. Wilmot is. He’s related to a knight and a bishop.”

“Sounds like a game of chess,” said Alice. “But this Gentleman must look rather like Mr. Wilmot except that he’s older. Like Mr. Wilmot’s father then, if he has a father…which of course he has. But it’s exciting. Imagine this Gentleman prowling about looking for victims.”

“Suppose Edith was one,” suggested Allegra.

There was an immediate silence round the table.

“And,” added Sylvia, “what about that Miss…er…Brandon. Perhaps she was, too.”

“Then he must have been here…” whispered Allegra, looking over her shoulder.

“But what did he do with the bodies?” cried Alice triumphantly.

“That’s easy. He buried them.”

“Where?”

“In the copse. Don’t you remember we saw…”

I said: “This conversation is becoming too gruesome. And it’s all froth and bubble.”

“Froth and bubble,” Allegra giggled.

“It’s all grown out of a paragraph in the newspaper and you have all been talking utter nonsense.”

“I think you rather liked it, Mrs. Verlaine,” said Alice demurely, “because you didn’t try to stop us till we talked of the copse.”

Alice and Allegra were poring over a book at the schoolroom table.

I went closer and saw that it was a fashion book and that it was open at the page of young girls’ dresses.

“I like this,” cried Allegra.

“It’s too fussy.”

“You like things too plain.”

Alice smiled up at me. “We’re going to have new dresses and we’re choosing our patterns. Mamma said we might. Then we shall go up to London and pick the material. We go once a year.”

“I think I’ll have this red,” announced Allegra. “I suppose you’ll have the blue.”

I sat down with them and studied the dresses and we talked of the kind of material which would suit them best.

I met Godfrey in the graveyard by the Stacy tomb. I had never felt quite the same sense of privacy here since the gypsy woman had risen out of the grass and ever after had always had a special feeling of being overlooked in this place. In fact, since the fire I had had many uneasy moments when I was in isolated places. It was a natural reaction in view of my doubts and suspicions.

Godfrey was coming toward me. He was certainly pleasant to look at and I immediately thought of Gentleman Terrall. How absurd! That frivolous conversation of the girls had made me picture the escaped homicidal maniac as Godfrey.

He now seemed a little thoughtful.

“Hello,” I said. “Has anything happened?”

“Happened? What did you think?”

“It is just that you seem unusually pensive.”

“I’ve been down to the site. Those mosaics are very interesting…that pattern running through. I can’t make out what it is, though.”

“But just a pattern!”

“Well, one never knows. It might lead to some fresh light on the Romans.”

“I see.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed. It is interesting…really. Do go and look at it. Of course the stone is so discolored that you can’t see the pattern, but I can make out the similarity all over the pavement and in the baths.”

“I haven’t been there since…”

“No. Naturally you’d feel reluctant. But I was thinking of Roma.”

“In what way?”

“Suppose she’d found something there…some glimmer of a notion and she told it to someone who wanted to develop an idea…”

“You are still harping on the theory of the jealous archaeologist.”

“Surely one should never discard a theory until it’s proved wrong.”

“But it wouldn’t explain Edith’s disappearance.”

“You’ve linked the two disappearances firmly in your mind. It may be you’re wrong there.”

“But the coincidence!”

“Coincidences do occur now and then.”

“I wonder if Roma ever came here…to this graveyard,” I said irrelevantly.

“Why should she? There’s nothing of archaeological interest here.”

I looked over my shoulder.

“You’re nervous today. Why?”

“I just have an uneasy feeling of being watched.”

“There’s no one here but the dead.” He took my hand and held it firmly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Caroline.” And his smile meant: There never will be while I’m there to take care of our lives. And I thought how right he was; and I saw clearly that future of which I had thought now and then: the peace, the security, which I was not sure that I wanted.

Perhaps he was not completely sure either. He would never be impulsive. He would give our friendship a chance to develop; he would never force anything. That was why when he made his decision it would be the right one…from his point of view.

I said: “I’ll go along some time and look at the motifs.”

“Yes, do.”

We came through the graveyard toward the lych-gate and as we did so Mrs. Rendall was standing there. She looked baleful like the avenging angel until she smiled sweetly at Godfrey. She ignored me.

I left them together.

I walked beside the baths and it seemed as though Roma was with me for I was seeing her so clearly. How excited she had been when she had shown me these!

I did not want to look in the direction of the burned-out cottage but I could not prevent my eyes straying there. How eerie it looked—a blackened shell like the chapel in the copse.

Roma seemed very close to me that day. I almost felt that she was trying to tell me something. Danger was very close to me. I could sense it all about me. I tried to shrug off the feeling, but I had been foolish to come here. It was too close to the scene of my terrifying experience. The place was too lonely and there were too many ghosts from the past.

Pull yourself together, I scolded myself. Don’t be so absurdly fanciful. Look at the mosaics and see if you can pick out this pattern.

The color was dingy. Centuries of grime had made it so. Dear Roma, how she had tried to give me an interest in life when Pietro had died and because she had believed that archaeology could provide the panacea for all troubles she had set me fetching and carrying for those who were piecing the mosaic together. Of course the picture on the mosaic would be part of the pattern about which Godfrey was so interested.

I felt as though Roma were applauding me. I had helped work on that mosaic. I must tell Godfrey about this at the earliest possible moment.

I went straight back to the vicarage.

I had to find some way of letting him know I was there and by good luck one of the frightened little maids was polishing the brass knocker so I did not have to knock.

“Mrs. Rendall is in the still room,” she volunteered.

“It’s all right, Jane,” I said, “I just want to go up to the schoolroom. I’ve left some music.”

I went upstairs, where Godfrey was giving a lesson in Latin. He was alert as soon as he saw me.

The girls looked at me in surprise. I knew they missed very little.

“I’ve left some music, I think,” I said, and went across the room to the drawer where I kept a book of elementary studies.

“Can I help you?” Godfrey was beside me, his back to the girls.

I fumbled with the book and taking a pencil wrote on it: “Graveyard in ten minutes.”

“Is that what you’re looking for?” asked Godfrey.

“Yes, I’m sorry to have interrupted the lesson. Only I did need this.”

I went out of the schoolroom, aware of their eyes following me. Down through the hall, quickly, lest Mrs. Rendall emerge from the still room, and out to the graveyard to wait.

In less than ten minutes Godfrey was with me.

“Perhaps I’m being over-dramatic,” I said, “but I’ve remembered something. When I came here and stayed a few days with Roma, they were piecing the mosaic together. It was too precious to move, Roma said, and she had some of her people working on it. I was supposed to be helping…doing nothing important, of course, but it was to give me an interest.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, dispelling all my doubts that what I was telling him was important.

“Well, that mosaic was a part of this pattern, I believe. In fact I’m almost sure of it.”

“We’ll have to look at it,” he said.

“Where is it?”

“If any piecing together was successful it would be in the British Museum. We must take the first opportunity of looking at it.”

“When can you go?”

“There’d be comment if I took a day off at the moment. What about you? You’ve been here some time and haven’t had a day off have you?”

“No, but…”

“I shan’t rest until one of us goes.”

“I believe Mrs. Lincroft is taking the girls to London to buy dress material some time soon.”

“There’s your opportunity. You go up with them and while they buy material you go into the Museum and see if you can find that mosaic.”

“All right,” I said. “If I get the opportunity before you do, I’ll go.”

“We’re getting somewhere,” said Godfrey, his eyes gleaming with excitement. He returned to the schoolroom and I hurried back to Lovat Stacy where I met Mrs. Lincroft in the hall. She said: “You’re later than usual.”

“Yes. I had to go back for this.” I flourished the book and it slipped from my fingers. She picked it up for me and I was aware of “Graveyard ten minutes” written on the cover. I wondered if she had seen it.

The girls were excited as we traveled up on the train.

“What a pity,” said Alice, “that Sylvia couldn’t come.”

“She would never be allowed to choose her own material,” put in Allegra.

“Poor Sylvia! I feel sorry for her,” said Mrs. Lincroft; and she sighed. I knew she was thinking of the births of Alice and Allegra—highly dramatic and unorthodox both of them; and, yet she had managed to give them a happier home than Sylvia’s conventional one. I thought of her remark about the slippery stone and I thought: That woman has done everything she can to make up for her lapse.

“Poor Mrs. Verlaine,” went on Alice. “She isn’t going to buy material for a new dress.”

“Perhaps she is,” said Mrs. Lincroft.

“She is going to the British Museum,” added Allegra, eying me with speculation. I felt vaguely uncomfortable because I had not told them I was going to the British Museum. “I heard you say so to Mr. Wilmot, Mrs. Verlaine,” added Allegra.

“Oh,” I stammered, caught off my guard. “I thought I’d look in there. I used to live near and go in quite a lot.”

“Because your father was a professor,” went on Alice. “I expect he made you work very hard which is why you are so good at the piano.” She looked at Allegra who said: “I should like to go to the British Museum. Let’s all go.”

I was so dismayed that I could find nothing to say for a few seconds. Then I said: “I thought you were all eager to choose your new materials.”

“There’s always plenty of time, isn’t there, Mamma?” put in Alice eagerly, “sometimes we go into the Park. But I’d rather go to the British Museum.”

Mrs. Lincroft said: “I don’t see why you shouldn’t have an hour or so there. When did you propose to go, Mrs. Verlaine?”

“Oh please, I don’t want to force this on you.”

“It can scarcely be said to be forced,” she replied with a smile. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll go straight to the Museum and then we’ll have luncheon at Brown’s Hotel and afterwards choose the material and catch the four-thirty train home.”

Thus was my frustration complete but there was worse to come. While I sat back in my seat watching the fields and hedges skim by I was trying to think of some way of diverting their desires from the British Museum, but I dared not seem too disturbed. How had Allegra overheard my talk with Godfrey? We must have been careless.

At length I realized that there was nothing to be done but take them along with me to the Museum, where I must try to lose them and find my way to the Roman section alone.

Luck was against me that day. We had alighted from the cab which took us from the Station to the Museum when a voice called me by name.

“Why…surely…yes it is…Mrs. Verlaine.”

Fortunately I was a little ahead of my companions so I moved quickly toward the speaker whom I recognized immediately as a colleague of my father’s.

“A bad business that of your sister,” he said, shaking his head. “What was it all about?”

“We…we never discovered.”

“A great loss,” he said. “We always used to say that Roma Brandon would go even farther than your parents. Poor Roma…”

How resonant was his voice. Mrs. Lincroft was near enough to have heard every word, but the children did not seem to be listening. Alice was standing with her back toward me pointing out something on the road to Allegra. But Mrs. Lincroft must have heard.

“You must look us up sometime. Same address.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks.”

He had lifted his hat, bowed and moved off.

Mrs. Lincroft said: “I’ve never been in this place before. We don’t take advantage of our museum, do we?”

My heart was beating fast. Perhaps she had not heard. Perhaps I had imagined that his voice was unusually resonant. She had not been so close as I thought her and her mind was on the material for the girls’ dresses.

“No,” I said and there was a nervous laugh in my voice. “We don’t really.”

“We are taking advantage now.” Alice had come up with Allegra. “How solemn it all is! How important!”

They walked beside me exclaiming as they went. I thought of the old days when I had come here so frequently, when my parents had believed that the greatest treat any child could enjoy was within these walls.

I had escaped them. I had left them all poring over an illuminated manuscript dating back to the twelfth century while I sped silently over those stone floors and here I was where I had been so many times with Roma.

I asked one of the guides where I could find any of the Roman relics from the Lovat Stacy site and I was directed immediately.

To my great joy it was there among other relics. The very mosaic which was so like that broken and battered one Godfrey and I had examined with such care. There was more than one. I had not known of this. Roma had only mentioned one, but perhaps she was so successful with it that she had attempted some sort of restoration of others. In the case with the mosaics was a printed notice describing them and the process used in the reconditioning. The first of them showed a figure—probably a man—who appeared to be without feet, for he stood on a pair of stumps which I realized were meant to be legs. His arms were stretched out as though he were attempting to catch at something which was not there. I looked at the second mosaic. The pictures were less vivid on this one and there were gaps in the scene which had been filled in with some sort of cement; but this was a picture of a man whose legs were cut off to the knee. I realized then that he was standing in something; and in the final one only the man’s head was visible and he had clearly been buried alive.

I could not take my eyes from them.

“Why, they’re ours,” said a voice at my elbow. I turned. Allegra and Alice were standing on either side of me.

“Yes,” I said, “they were discovered on the site near Lovat Stacy.”

“Oh, but that makes them so very interesting doesn’t it?” said Alice.

Mrs. Lincroft was coming toward us.

“Look, Mamma,” said Alice. “Look what Mrs. Verlaine has found.”

Mrs. Lincroft studied the mosaics with what appeared to be a cursory interest. “Very nice,” she said.

“But you haven’t looked,” protested Allegra. “They’re ours.”

“What?” Mrs. Lincroft looked closely. “Well, fancy that!” She smiled at me apologetically. “Now I really do think we must think about getting luncheon.”

I agreed. My mission was accomplished, though I was not sure how successfully. But I should have a great deal to tell Godfrey.

We made our way from the Museum and took a cab to Brown’s while the girls chattered about what they would eat and what material they would choose.

When we came out the news boys were shouting excitedly. “Gentleman Terrall captured. Madam safe.”

“That’s our Gentleman Terrall,” said Alice.

“What do you mean…ours?” asked Mrs. Lincroft sharply.

“We were talking about him, Mamma. We said he must be a little like Mr. Wilmot.”

“Whatever made you say that?”

“Because he was a gentleman. We thought he’d look exactly like Mr. Wilmot, didn’t we, Allegra?”

Allegra nodded.

“You shouldn’t think about such things.” Mrs. Lincroft sounded quite cross and Alice was subdued.

No one mentioned the mosaics. More comforting still, none of them showed that they had overheard that conversation outside the Museum. My confidence began to return and by the time we had bought the material and were ready to return home I was convinced that my identity was still a secret.

Godfrey was excited about my discovery in the Museum.

“I’m certain it means something,” he declared.

We had walked along beside the three baths and he stooped to peer at the mosaic as though he felt that if he looked long enough he would discover some meaning there.

“Don’t you think they would have found out if it did?” I asked.

“Who, the archaeologists? It may not have occurred to them. But I’ve a notion that there’s something behind it.”

“Well, what do you propose to do? Go to the British Museum and lay this information before the powers that be?”

“They’d probably laugh at me.”

“You mean because they didn’t discover it. Here is another version of the jealous archaeological theory. It’s fascinating, but it hasn’t brought the solution of Roma’s disappearance any nearer.”

I heard a little warning cough and turning saw the three girls coming toward us.

“We’ve come to see the mosaics,” announced Alice. “We saw them in the Museum, you know. Mrs. Verlaine showed us.”

“I liked the one with just the head showing,” said Allegra. “It looked as if they’d chopped off his head and put it on the ground. It was gruesome, that one.”

“It made me feel sick,” commented Alice.

Godfrey straightened up and gazed toward the sea.

I guessed he wanted to change the subject for he said: “How clear it is. They say that means rain.”

“It does,” agreed Allegra. “When you can see the masts on the Goodwins it often means rain.”

Godfrey caught his breath; he seemed to have forgotten the presence of the girls. “It’s just struck me,” he said. “These mosaics…they’re meant to portray someone being buried alive.”

“You mean sinking in quicksand?”

Godfrey looked inspired. “It was a sort of warning probably. As a punishment they took people out to the Goodwins so that they could gradually sink.”

“That wouldn’t be possible, would it?” I asked.

He looked disappointed. “Hardly. There might have been other sands.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere.” He waved his hand vaguely. “But I’m sure that’s what it means.”

“I think that’s…horrible,” said Sylvia with a shudder. “Fancy being…”

Godfrey stood rocking on his heels, entranced. I don’t think I had ever seen him really excited before.

“Don’t be a baby, Sylvia,” chided Allegra.

“We mustn’t keep Miss Clent waiting,” said Alice. Then to me: “Miss Clent is going to fit our dresses this morning.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Allegra. “I wish I hadn’t chosen that crushed strawberry. The burgundy red would have been so much better.”

“I did tell you,” said Alice mildly reproachful. “In any case we can’t keep Miss Clent waiting.”

So they left us to discuss the possibility of Godfrey’s theory regarding the mosaic.

“Alice has written a story about the mosaic,” Allegra announced. “It’s really a good one.”

“That’s very creditable,” I said. “You must show me this one, Alice.”

“I want to wait until I’m really satisfied.”

“But you showed Allegra and Sylvia.”

“I just see the effect on them. Besides they’re only children…well they aren’t much more. Grown-ups would be more critical, wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t see why they should be.”

“Oh yes, of course they would. They are experienced of the world, whereas we have so much to learn.”

“So you won’t show me this story?”

“I will one day…when I’ve perfected it.”

“It’s about the man in the quicksand,” said Allegra.

Alice sighed and looked at Allegra who shrugged her shoulders sullenly.

“I thought you were proud of it,” she said.

Alice ignored her and turned to me. “It’s about the Romans,” she said. “If anyone did anything wrong they used to put them in this quicksand and it very slowly swallowed them right up. It was slow. That was why they used it. Some quicksands swallow things up quickly…that’s why they call them quicksands. But these were slow sands…it makes it last longer and is more of a punishment. They move and grip…you see…and the victim can’t get away. So the Romans put their criminals into these sands. It was a good punishment. And there was a man in my story who had to make a mosaic of the sands and himself being swallowed up in them…before it happened to him. You see that was what was called refined torture. It was worse than just putting him in and letting him go down…because all the time he was making the mosaic he knew what was going to happen to him. And because he felt all that he made a wonderful mosaic…better than anyone could if they hadn’t been so personally involved.”

“Alice what ideas you get!”

“You think it’s a good thing, don’t you?” she asked anxiously.

“It is, provided you don’t let your imagination run riot. You should let it dwell on pleasant things.”

“Oh,” said Alice, “I see. But one has to be truthful, doesn’t one, Mrs. Verlaine. I mean one mustn’t shut one’s eyes to truth.”

“No certainly not but…”

“I was only thinking that why did they make those pictures on the mosaic if they were thinking of pleasant things? I can’t believe it’s very pleasant being caught in the shivering sands. That’s what I’m calling my story. The Shivering Sands. It made me shiver when I wrote it. And the girls did, too, when I read it to them. But I will try to let my imagination work on pleasant things.”

When I came out of my room I ran straight into Sybil who seemed to have been lurking outside waiting for me.

“Ah, Mrs. Verlaine,” she said, as though I was the last person she expected to see coming out of my own room. “How nice to see you! It seems a long time since I last did. But then you have been so busy.”

“There are the lessons,” I replied vaguely.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that.” She was looking into my room with excited prying eyes. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“Would you care to come into my room?”

“That would be nice.”

She tiptoed in as though we were partners in a conspiracy and looked all round the room. “Pleasant,” she commented “Very pleasant. I think you’ve been quite happy here, Mrs. Verlaine,” she said. “You’d be sorry to go.”

“Yes I should…if I were going.”

“I saw you with the curate. I suppose some would say he was a very handsome young man.”

“I suppose some would.”

“And you, Mrs. Verlaine?” Her archness made me feel uncomfortable.

“Yes, yes, I suppose so.”

“I hear he’ll soon be going to a very fine living. Well, it was to be expected. He has the right connections. He’ll get on. A suitable wife is just what he needs.”

A flicker of irritation crossed my face and she may have noticed it for she said: “I’ve taken a fancy to you. I shouldn’t want you to go away. You seem to have become part of the place.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course everyone here is part of the place. Even people like Edith—who hadn’t much personality, poor girl—she had her effect, didn’t she? And a big one too. Poor child!”

I wished that I had not asked her in. I could have made my escape easily from the corridor.

“And of course,” she went on, “it was your playing that startled William and made him so ill.”

I said with some exasperation: “I’ve already told you that I was only playing what I was given to play.”

Her eyes brightened suddenly—glinting points of blue light embedded in the wrinkles.

“Oh yes…but who gave you that particular piece do you think, Mrs. Verlaine?”

I said: “I wish I knew.”

She had become so alert that I knew she was about to disclose what she had come to tell me.

“I remember the day she died…”

“Who?” I asked.

“Isabella. She played all the day. It was a new piece. She had just found the piano arrangement of it. Danse Macabre.” She began to hum it off-key which made the melody sound supernatural. “The Dance of Death…” she mused. “And all the time she was playing it she was thinking of death. Then she took the gun and went into the woods. That was why he couldn’t bear to hear it played. He would never have put that piece in for you to play, would he?”

“Someone did.”

“I wonder who?”

She began to laugh and I said: “Do you know?”

She did her mandarin’s nod. “Oh yes, Mrs. Verlaine, I know.”

“It was someone who wanted to upset Sir William…to shock him. And he a sick man!”

“Why not?” she said. “Why should he pretend to be so virtuous? He wasn’t. I can tell you that. So why shouldn’t he be shocked?”

“But it might have killed him. He’s not to be upset.”

“You thought it was Napier. They quarreled and he threatened Napier that he’d send him off again. Imagine it. There’d be no excitement here then. Why should Napier have to go? Why should Sir William pretend to be so good? There was a time…”

“Miss Stacy,” I said, “did you put that piece of music among the selection I was to play?”

She hunched her shoulders like a child and nodded.

“So, you see,” she said, “you shouldn’t think too badly of Napier, should you?”

She was mad, I thought, dangerously mad. But I was glad then that she had come to my room. At least he was not guilty of that.

The mosaic was constantly in my mind and I could not rid myself of the idea that we had discovered something of importance. I went back again to the remains, and wandered about thinking of Roma, trying to remember what she had told me. One morning I met Napier there.

“You’ve started coming here again,” he said. “I guessed I’d meet you sometime.”

“You have seen me then?”

“Often.”

“When I was unaware of it? It is a little alarming to be watched when one is not conscious of it.”

“It shouldn’t be,” he countered, “if you have nothing to hide.”

“How many of us are as virtuous as that?”

“It’s not necessarily a matter of virtue. For instance one might be engaged on a very creditable undertaking which required…anonymity, in which case it would be alarming to be secretly observed.”

“Such as…”

“Such as coming to a place incognito to solve the mysterious disappearance of a sister.”

I caught my breath and said: “You know!”

“It was not so difficult to discover.”

“How long have you known?”

“Very soon after you came.”

“But…”

He laughed. “As I said it was very easy. I wanted to know so much about you, and as you had a famous husband that simplified matters considerably. A famous husband, a sister who was well known in certain circles. Oh come, you must admit it was not a very difficult proposition.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It would have made you uneasy, and I would rather you had told me who you were.”

“But I should never have been allowed to come had I told.”

“Told me,” he said. “Not others.”

“Well what are you going to do about it?”

“Precisely what I have been doing.”

“You are annoyed with me?”

“Why should I be so suddenly when I have known all along.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“I’m admiring you.”

“For what?”

“For coming down here…for caring enough for your sister to put yourself in danger.”

“Danger! What danger should I be in?”

“People who try to discover what became of one who was possibly a murderer’s victim often are.”

“Who said she was murdered?”

“I said ‘possibly.’ You can’t say that she was not.”

“Roma was the last person anyone would want to murder.”

“Most murderer’s victims are believed to be that. But how do you know what secrets she had? You could not know everything in her life.”

“In fact I knew very little.”

“So there you are. You may have rushed boldly into danger, and that is what I admire you for…and other things as well, of course.”

He had taken a step closer to me, gazing at me with an intense longing, and I felt excited and eager to comfort him.

“It has occurred to you,” he went on, “that there are two disappearances…and two is one too many for this to be accidental.”

“It’s an obvious conclusion,” I said, “so it did occur to me.”

“What do you think happened to your sister?”

“I don’t know, except that she would never have gone away without saying where.”

“And Edith?”

“Edith too.”

“And you feel the two are connected?”

“It seems likely.”

“Has it occurred to you that Edith discovered something…some clue that might have thrown light on your sister’s death? If this were so…what of you yourself who are boldly attempting to do the same thing? Shouldn’t you be careful? You should not hunt alone…ah, but then Godfrey Wilmot hunts with you, doesn’t he?”

“You can hardly call it that.”

“But he knows who you are.”

I nodded.

“You told him although you kept the secret from the rest of us.”

I shook my head. “He knew who I was as soon as he saw me.”

“And confessed it? Of course he is frank and open…unlike some.”

“It was all so spontaneous. He knew me at once, and I was grateful that he did not betray me.”

“I have kept the knowledge to myself. Are you grateful to me?”

“Thank you.”

“You know,” he said looking intently at me, “that I would do anything to help you.” I did not answer and he insisted: “You do believe that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad. If we could solve our mysteries there is a great deal I could say to you. You know that too? So that it is as important to me…perhaps more so…to find the answers to these riddles.”

I was afraid suddenly of what he might say next and I was perhaps afraid of my own response. When I was with him I was fascinated by him; it was only when he was not there that I could view him coolly and dispassionately.

He seemed to understand this for he did not pursue it and went on: “I saw your sister once or twice. She was passionately dedicated. She lived in that cottage all alone.”

“I came and stayed with her for a few nights.”

“How strange! You were so close and we did not meet.”

“It was hardly strange. I daresay there were many people on the dig whom you didn’t see.”

“I was not thinking of many people…but of you. And you have come no nearer to discovering what happened to her than you were when you arrived?”

“Godfrey Wilmot thinks she may have made some fantastic archaeological discovery of which some other archaeologist was jealous. I think that is extremely far-fetched.”

He looked at me earnestly. “You must tell me if you discover anything that you think is leading you to the solution. You must let me help you. You must remember that if these two disappearances are connected it is of vital importance to me to discover the connection.”

“Nothing would please me more than to find the truth.”

“Then I can hope that we shall be together…in this?”

“Yes,” I said, “let us be together in this.”

He reached out as though to touch me, but I turned away, pretending not to notice, and said I must return to the house.

Sybil had worked herself into a passion about the gypsies. She could talk of nothing else and seemed even to have forgotten her painting. She stalked about the house murmuring to herself of their shortcomings.

Sir William’s health had improved during the last weeks. I expected a fresh outbreak of that quarrel between himself and Napier, but I heard nothing, and it occurred to me that Sir William realized how useful Napier was on the estate and had decided to make the best of the state of affairs as it stood. Not a very desirable set of circumstances but better than violent quarreling.

My walled garden was a favorite spot of Sir William’s and for that reason I now avoided it. His usual practice was to sit there for an hour every morning. Mrs. Lincroft would bring him out and wrap him about with rugs and precisely an hour later would come out to bring him back into the house.

The first time I discovered him there Sybil was with him. I heard her voice as she talked to him.

“You’ve got to clear them off the land,” she was shouting. “They bode no good. Look at the last time you let them stay. That girl came to work in the kitchens and look where that led us.”

“Sybil, be quiet,” said Sir William. “Don’t raise your voice so.”

“You always said you wouldn’t have them here. What are you going to do about it?”

“Sybil…be quiet. Be quiet.”

I turned away and as I did so I came face to face with Mrs. Lincroft. She gave me a hasty glance and ran into the walled garden.

“Miss Stacy,” she said, “please don’t worry Sir William. He is not well enough.”

“And who are you?” cried Sybil. “Don’t tell me. I know. It’s disgraceful. You regard yourself as mistress of this house, don’t you? But let me tell you this, you may be his mistress but you are not the mistress of this house. You are encouraging those gypsies to stay. Why? Because that girl Serena knows too much, that’s why.”

I walked away thinking: She is mad. Why did I ever listen to her nonsense? I have foolishly allowed her to influence me, when all the time she is living in a fantastic world of her own.

A few minutes later I saw Mrs. Lincroft wheeling Sir William into the house, her face flushed, her eyes downcast.

But Sir William did listen to his sister. He declared that he would not have the gypsies encamping on his land and to Sybil’s delight issued orders that they were to go.

Napier had joined his voice to Mrs. Lincroft’s and there had been a noisy scene which I heard the girls discussing.

“They will go,” Allegra had said, “because Grandfather has said they will. He is the master here. My father and Mrs. Lincroft are both against it.”

“My mother thinks they should go,” said Sylvia. “She says it’s a disgrace to the neighborhood. They spoil the countryside and steal chickens and they ought to go.”

“Well I think it’s a shame,” declared Allegra.

Alice shrugged her shoulders philosophically and said that the gypsies could find another pleasant place to have their camp and it would be better for everyone if they went.

Later when I was alone with Sylvia she looked slyly over her shoulders and whispered to me: “My mother said that the only two who want the gypsies here are Mrs. Lincroft and Mr. Napier and the reason is the gypsy woman is blackmailing them.”

“I shouldn’t spread a rumor like that Sylvia if I were you,” I said quickly.

“I wouldn’t spread it. I’m just telling you, Mrs. Verlaine. But that’s what my mother says. Napier was that woman’s lover once and she is Allegra’s mother. My mother thinks that’s very regrettable and that things like that shouldn’t be allowed to happen. As for Mrs. Lincroft…my mother says she’s a mystery and she doesn’t believe there ever was a Mr. Lincroft.”

“I should keep that to yourself too, Sylvia,” I said; and I thought that she was the least attractive of the girls. “Come along, we’re forgetting your practice.”

The battle with the gypsies continued and Sir William had now committed himself to the attack. Mrs. Lincroft was very uneasy; so was Napier; and I was beginning to believe that the gypsy woman had threatened them with exposure if they did not fight her tribe’s battle for shelter on the Lovat Stacy land.

Then came that morning of revelation.

I was in the walled garden when Mrs. Lincroft wheeled in Sir William. I was about to leave when he detained me and suggested that I remain and talk to him for a while. He wanted me to talk about music.

So I sat beside him and Mrs. Lincroft remained while we conversed. He wanted to assure me how he enjoyed my performances on the late Lady Stacy’s piano. He was often asleep when I finished, he knew; but that meant I had soothed him and that he had found my performance deeply satisfying.

We were talking thus peacefully when I was suddenly aware—one split second before the others—that someone had come into the courtyard. It was Serena, the gypsy.

Then Mrs. Lincroft saw her. She started up with a little cry and said: “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see Sir William. How d’you do, Sir William. It’s not easy to get to see you, but you can’t help that, can you?”

“What does the woman want?” asked Sir William.

“You know who she is?” whispered Mrs. Lincroft.

I rose and started to move away but the gypsy cried: “No, you’re to stay, ma’am. I want you to hear this, too. I’ve got my reasons.”

I looked askance at Mrs. Lincroft who nodded and I sat down again. The color in Sir William’s face had deepened to an alarming purple.

“Now, are you going to stop ordering us off your land, sir?”

“No, I am not,” retorted Sir William. “You’ll be gone by tomorrow night or I’ll have the police on you.”

“I don’t think you will,” said Serena insolently. She was standing with her hands on her hips, her legs slightly apart, her head thrown back. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t stop that order right away and that’s a fact.”

“Sorry!” he demanded. “Is that blackmail?”

“You! To talk of blackmail, you old rogue! I reckon you’re no better than the rest of us.”

Mrs. Lincroft rose. “I can’t have Sir William upset.”

“You can’t? And you can’t have yourself upset either. But you’ve got to do what I want or you will. Oh I know I’m poor. I know I don’t live in this mansion here, but I’ve got a right to live where I want, same as anyone else…and if you try to stop me you’re going to be sorry…both of you.”

Mrs. Lincroft looked at me. “I’ll take Sir William in now,” she said.

I rose but the gypsy waved us both back.

“So you won’t take off your ban?” she asked.

“No, I won’t,” declared Sir William. “You’re going before the week’s out. I’ve sworn I won’t have gypsies on my land and I mean it.”

“I’ll give you one more chance.”

“Be off with you.”

“All right. You’ve asked for it. I’m going to tell you one or two things you won’t like. There’s my girl Allegra, your granddaughter…”

“That’s unfortunately so,” said Sir William. “We have looked after the child. She has had her home here. There our duty ends.”

“Oh yes…and Napier is said to be her father. That suits you, don’t it? But what if I tell you he’s not, eh? That’s what I’m telling you, and you won’t like it. One of your sons was the father of my child but it wasn’t Nap. Oh no, it was your precious Beau…him you build temples to.”

“I don’t believe it,” cried Sir William.

“I thought you wouldn’t. But I ought to know who the father of my child is.”

“It’s lies,” said Sir William. “All lies.”

“Don’t listen to the woman,” said Mrs. Lincroft, rising and putting her hands on the wheelchair.

“Listen to that woman instead!” jeered the gypsy. “She’ll tell you all you want to know. She’ll say yes, yes, yes…like she always has.” Serena thrust her face forward and leered. “Right from the beginning, eh…even when poor Lady Stacy was alive. And why did she kill herself, do you think? Because her son was accidentally shot by his brother? Because she’d lost her boy? That perhaps, but mostly because she hadn’t a husband to comfort her and help her over her loss. She’d discovered that he was far more interested in comforting the pretty companion.”

“Stop it,” cried Mrs. Lincroft. “Stop…at once.”

“Stop it! Stop it!” echoed the gypsy. She turned to me. “Some people don’t like to hear the truth. And can you blame them? I don’t. Because the truth ain’t very nice. Poor old Nap! He was the scapegoat. He’d shot his brother so it was easy to blame him for everything. If I’d said Beau was the father of the child I was going to have I’d have been sent packing. No one would have believed me. So I said it was Nap. Then they believed me all right and accepted their responsibility and I did it for the child’s sake. So I lied…because I knew it was the only way to get a home for her…and when Lady Stacy killed herself and left a note saying why…Not only because she’d lost her beautiful boy but because her husband was unfaithful to her right under her own roof…they blamed Nap for that too and sent him away. That made it all very simple. One villain instead of three.”

“You’re upsetting Sir William,” said Mrs. Lincroft.

“Let him be upset. Let him come out from behind Nap. Let him stop fooling himself that he’s not responsible for his wife’s suicide. And don’t forget…if the gypsies are moved on everyone will know this, not just Madam Music here.”

Mrs. Lincroft looked appealingly at me. “I must get Sir William into the house,” she said. “I think we should call the doctor. Would you see about that please, Mrs. Verlaine.”

I went down to the stables because I knew that Napier would be coming in at that hour. When he arrived I said: “There is something I must tell you. We can’t talk here.”

“Where?” he asked.

“In the copse. I’ll go there now and wait.”

He nodded; he could see by my expression that this was something important.

I walked across the gardens to the copse. I had to talk to him about what I had heard in the enclosed garden; and even as I walked across the lawns on that bright and sunny day I felt that eyes were watching me. I could not rid myself now of the notion that everything I did was being observed, that someone was waiting for the chance to strike at me. It would not be death by fire this time. But there were other alternatives. And the one who was watching me, planning my destruction was, I felt in my bones, the one responsible for the deaths of Edith and Roma.

I was not safe, but I was learning rapidly; and what I had heard this morning—if it were true—was knowledge that made me joyous. And I could not wait to tell Napier what I knew.

I waited in the copse, near the ruin. Destroyed by fire…like the cottage. The first of the fires. I leaned against the walls and listened. A footfall in the woods. How foolish I was to come here alone. What could happen to me in this copse, this haunted copse to which people did not come frequently because they were afraid of ghosts.

But Napier would be here soon.

I looked over my shoulder uneasily. The crackle of undergrowth had startled me. I had a notion that somewhere…among those trees…some alien eyes regarded me. Someone was asking himself—or herself—what is she doing here? Is this the time?

Panic seized me. I called out: “Is that you, Napier?”

There was no answer. Only a rustle of leaves…and again that crackle of undergrowth which might have been a footstep.

And then Napier was coming toward me.

“I’m so pleased to see you.”

I held out my hands and he grasped them warmly.

“I have discovered the truth about Allegra,” I said. “Her mother has just confronted Sir William and told him. I had to see you. I had to…”

He repeated: “The truth about…Allegra?”

“That Beau was her father.”

“She told him that?”

“Yes. In the courtyard a short while ago. He was threatening to evict the gypsies and she came to see him and told him that his precious Beau was Allegra’s father and that she had blamed you because they would have said she was lying and turned her away if she had accused Beau.”

He was silent and I said: “And you let them believe it.”

“I’d killed him,” he said. “I thought it was a way of making amends. He would have hated them knowing about the gypsy. He had always cared so much for their good opinion.”

He was still grasping my hands and I looked up into his face, smiling.

“I was going away,” he went on. “It didn’t seem to matter. One more misdemeanor…when there had been so many.”

“And your mother…she killed herself because she discovered that your father and Mrs. Lincroft were lovers. It was not only because she had lost Beau.”

“It’s all in the past,” he said.

“It is not,” I cried passionately, “when it continues to affect the present and the future.”

“As you know very well.”

I lowered my eyes. Pietro had never seemed so far away as he was at this moment.

“You are a fool, Napier,” I said.

“Has it taken you so long to discover that?”

“We are all foolish. But you have allowed them to blame you.”

“I killed him,” he said. “If you could have seen him…like everyone else you would have loved him.”

“He was clearly not perfect.”

“He was young, virile…full of life.”

“So he seduced the gypsy girl.”

“He was so full of vitality, and if he had lived he would never have disclaimed responsibility. He would have set her up somewhere, looked after her—and kept it from them. On the day I shot him I wished fervently…and most sincerely…that he had been the one to fire first. Then it would have been less of a tragedy. They would have forgiven him.”

“Were you jealous of him?”

“Of course not. I admired him. I wished I were like him. I tried to imitate him because I thought he was wonderful. I followed him and tried to be as much like him as possible. But I didn’t envy him. I was as fond of him as the others were…perhaps more. I thought him perfect.”

“So you took his blame on your shoulders.”

“It was the least I could do after taking his life.”

“If you had killed him deliberately you could not have paid much more fully.”

“So?”

“The affair is finished. You must banish it from your mind.”

“Do you think I can ever do that?”

“Yes, I do. And you shall.”

“Perhaps there is one person who could force me to do that…one person in the world. And you…have you forgotten your past?”

“Perhaps there is one person who could make me do so.”

“And you are not sure…”

“I am becoming more certain of it every day.”

We stood hands clasped but apart, for Edith still stood between us.

But I vowed I would not rest until I had discovered what had happened to Edith. It was imperative that I did. He was cleared of seduction of the gypsy, of causing his mother to kill herself, but he must be cleared of Edith’s disappearance…or death…before either of us could move into that future which was beginning to be so desirable to us both.