The Shivering Sands

3

I dined that night with Mrs. Lincroft and Alice—Mrs. Lincroft herself doing the cooking for she had a small kitchen attached to her little suite of sitting room and bedroom. “I found it made it easier,” she explained, “when the family was entertaining, and now I often do it. It saves the servants trouble and I rather enjoy it. I think now that you have come, Mrs. Verlaine, you might take your meals here with me. Alice will join us when she does not dine with the family. Sir William very kindly invites her now and then. He may suggest you join them occasionally.” It was a pleasant meal and very well cooked. Alice sat quietly with us. I should always think of her as Grave Alice in future.

Mrs. Lincroft spoke of Sir William’s illness and how he had changed since he had had his stroke a little less than a year ago.

“His wife used to play the piano to him. When Mr. Napier came home I suppose he was reminded of the old days and that is why he thought of bringing music into the house again.”

I was silent thinking how much Sir William must have loved his wife since he had banished music from the house after her death.

“There are changes now,” went on Mrs. Lincroft. “And of course now that Mr. Napier and Edith are married there will be more.” She smiled. The one maid who was waiting on us had gone to the kitchen. She added: “It will be more like a normal household. And it is a relief to know that Mr. Napier has taken over the management of the estate since his return. He is very active; a first class horseman; in fact he rides everywhere. He is taking care of everything…magnificently. Even Sir William must agree to that.”

I waited, but she seemed to realize that she had said too much. “Would you care for some more of this pie?”

I thanked her and declined while complimenting her on its excellence.

“Do you ride, Mrs. Verlaine?” she asked then.

“My sister and I went to a riding school, and we rode occasionally in the Row. Living in London didn’t give us the opportunities for riding that the country would have offered and we both had other great interests which absorbed us.”

“Is your sister a musician too?”

“Oh no…no…” There was an expectant pause and I saw how easily I could betray my identity and I wondered how they would react if they knew that I was the sister of the woman who had disappeared so mysteriously.

I added lamely: “My father was a professor. My sister helped him in his work.”

“You must be a very clever family,” she said.

“My parents had advanced ideas on education and although we were girls we were educated as though we were boys. You see there were no boys in the family. Perhaps if there had been it would have been different.”

Alice spoke then. She said: “I should like to be educated in that way, Mrs. Verlaine…like you and your sister. I expect you wish you were with her instead of with us.”

“She’s dead,” I replied shortly.

I thought Alice was about to ask more questions but Mrs. Lincroft silenced her with a look. She herself said: “Oh, I am sorry. That is sad.” And there was a short sympathetic pause which I broke by asking if the girls were good horsewomen.

“Mr. Napier is determined that Edith shall be. He takes her riding every morning. I expect she has improved a great deal.”

“She hasn’t,” put in Alice. “She’s worse. Because now she’s frightened.”

“Frightened!” I echoed.

“Edith is timid and Mr. Napier is trying to make her bold,” explained Alice. “I really believe Edith would rather jog along on poor old Silver than ride the fine horse Mr. Napier arranges for her.”

Mrs. Lincroft again glanced at her daughter and I wondered whether Alice’s demure manner meant that she was suppressed.

When the meal was over I stayed for an hour or so talking to Mrs. Lincroft and then, since as she suggested I was very tired, I went to bed, but I slept only fitfully. My confused thoughts of the day’s experiences kept me awake but I told myself that once I had worked out a routine for the days I should settle down.

Breakfast was brought to my room on a tray and when I had eaten it Edith knocked and asked if she might come in.

She looked very pretty in a midnight blue riding habit and black bowler type hat.

“You are going out to ride?” I asked. She shuddered so faintly that it was scarcely perceptible. She was, I discovered, unable to hide her feelings. “Not yet,” she said, “that will be later, but I may not have time to change. I wanted to talk to you about my tuition.”

“Of course.”

“And then I will take you to the vicarage where the girls are having their lessons. You’ll want to fit yours in with those they get from the vicar, won’t you? I hope I’m not going to disappoint you, Mrs. Verlaine.”

“I don’t think you will. I can see you feel strongly about the piano.”

“I love playing. It…it helps me when I’m…” I waited and she finished lamely, “when I’m a little downcast.”

She took me to the schoolroom adjoining which was a smaller apartment to which she referred as the music room. In it was an upright piano.

There she played for me and we talked of her progress and I quickly got an idea of how advanced she was. I realized that she would be a good pupil—hardworking and eager—that her talent was frail but definitely there. Edith would get a great deal of pleasure from her music but she would never be a great musician. It was what I had expected and I should know how to work with her.

She became animated, talking of music.

“You see,” she said in a rush of confidence, “it’s the only thing I’ve ever really been any good at.”

“And I think you’ll be very good if you work hard.”

She was pleased; and suggested we leave for the vicarage.

“It’s only fifteen minutes’ walk, Mrs. Verlaine. Would you care to walk or would you like the trap?”

I said the walk would be delightful and we set out.

“Mr. Jeremy Brown will be teaching the girls this morning, I daresay. He often does.” She had flushed slightly, which she did often. “He’s the curate,” she added.

“Was he your teacher too?”

She nodded and smiled. Then she was suddenly grave. “Of course since…my marriage I have not been having lessons. Mr. Brown is a very good teacher.” She sighed. “I think you will like him, and the vicar.”

We reached the vicarage, a lovely old gray stone house standing beside the church with its tall gray tower.

Mrs. Rendall greeted me like an old friend and said she would take me to the vicar’s study. She looked at Edith questioningly. I noticed that people were unsure how to treat Edith; because, I presumed, she seemed neither a young girl nor a married woman.

Edith said: “Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Rendall. I’ll go to the schoolroom and join the scholars for a while.”

Mrs. Rendall lifted her shoulders in a manner which suggested she thought Edith’s behavior a little odd. Then she led the way to the vicar’s study.

It was a charming room with tall windows looking onto a well-kept lawn sloping down to the churchyard. In the distance I could see the gravestones and I thought it would look a little eerie by moonlight. But I had little time for such contemplation for the vicar was rising from his chair, his spectacles pushed up to his forehead and precariously balanced there, his thinning gray hair combed across the top to hide his baldness; an air of unworldliness about him which I found rather delightful and in great contrast to his energetic wife.

“This is the Reverend Arthur Rendall,” announced Mrs. Rendall ceremoniously. “And Arthur, Mrs. Verlaine.”

“Delighted…delighted!” murmured the vicar; he was looking not at me but at the table and I realized why when Mrs. Rendall barked out: “On your forehead, Arthur.”

“Thank you, my dear, thank you.” He reached for the glasses, set them in their rightful place and looked at me.

“It is a great pleasure to welcome you here,” he said. “I am very pleased that Sir William has decided to proceed with the girls’ musical education.”

“I must discover when it will be convenient for them to have their lessons. There must not be any overlapping.”

“Oh, we will work that out together,” said the vicar smiling happily.

“Pray take a seat, Mrs. Verlaine,” put in Mrs. Rendall. “Really, Arthur…keeping Mrs. Verlaine standing like this. I’m sure the Reverend will want to talk to you about Sylvia. I am anxious that she too shall continue with her music.”

“I am sure that can easily be arranged,” I said.

The vicar then began to explain to me the times of the lessons and we decided that I should give the lessons at the vicarage where there was a good piano, one which the girls had used previously. Edith, Allegra and Alice could also practice at Lovat Stacy and Sylvia at the vicarage. It could all be very satisfactorily fitted in.

Mrs. Rendall left us while we were planning this and when she had gone the vicar said: “I do not know how I should get along without my dear wife. Such a clever manager…” as though excusing his subservience to her. And when we had made our arrangements he began talking to me about the antiquities of the neighborhood and how excited he had been by the discoveries of the Roman remains recently.

“I often went along to the excavations,” he told me, “and I was always welcome there.” He looked uneasily at the door and I remembered his wife’s observations and pictured the vicar paying secret visits there. “Indeed, I had always believed that something of interest would be discovered here. The amphitheater was found quite a long time ago and as you know amphitheaters were usually built outside the city…so it seemed reasonable that there would be other remains not far off.”

I was reminded vividly of Roma and my heart began to beat faster as I said: “Did you meet the archaeologist who disappeared so mysteriously?”

“Oh dear me, what a terrible affair…and so extraordinary! Do you know it would not surprise me if she had gone off somewhere faraway…abroad…Some project…”

“But if there had been another project wouldn’t it have been known? She wouldn’t have gone alone. There would have been a party. These things are often organized by the British Museum and…”

I floundered and he said: “I see you are very well informed on these matters, Mrs. Verlaine. Far better so than I.”

“I am sure that is not so. But I did wonder about this…disappearance.”

“Such a practical young lady,” mused the vicar. “That was what made it seem so strange.”

“You must have talked to her a great deal because of your common interest in those remains. Did you think she was the sort of woman who…?”

“Who would take her own life?” The vicar looked shocked. “That was suggested. An accident? It must have been. But she was not the type to have an accident…like that. I am baffled. And I come back to my opinion that she has gone off somewhere. An urgent call…No time to explain…”

I could see that he did not wish me to disturb his pleasant solution of the mystery and, as I guessed he could tell me nothing new about Roma, I gladly accepted his invitation to show me round the church.

We left the house and crossed the garden, taking a path between the gravestones to the church, through the porch with the wilting notices attached to a green baize-covered board. The habitual hushed cool atmosphere greeted us. The vicar was clearly proud of his stained-glass windows, which, he informed me, had been given to the church by members of the Stacy family. The Stacys were the squires of the neighborhood, the benefactors on whom so many depended.

He took me to the altar that I might admire the beautiful carvings there.

“They are really unique,” he told me beaming with pride.

I noticed a memorial tablet in the wall, set in a niche above which was a statue of a youth in long robes, hands folded together.

Beneath it said:

“Gone from us but not forgotten

Beaumont Stacy.

Departed this life…”

While I tried to work out the date in Roman figures the vicar said: “Ah, yes. Sad, very sad.”

“He died very young,” I said.

“In his nineteenth year. A tragedy.”

The vicar’s eyes were misted. “He was shot…accidentally, by his brother. He was a handsome boy. We were all so fond of him. Ah, it is long ago and now that Napier is home again all will be well.”

I was already accustomed to the vicar’s optimism, so I wondered whether this was really so. I had only been in the house a day and I was conscious of some brooding melancholy, some remaining aura of a past tragedy.

“How terrible for the brother.”

“A great mistake…to blame him. To send him away like that.” The vicar shook his head and looked sad. Then he brightened: “However, he’s back now.”

“How old was…Napier when this happened?”

“About seventeen, I should say. I think he was the younger by two years. He was quite different from Beaumont. Beaumont had the charm. He was brilliant; everyone loved him. And so…Well, boys should never be allowed to play with guns. It can so easily happen. Poor Napier, I was sorry for him. I said to Sir William that it could have a very ill effect to blame him in this way. But he wouldn’t listen. So Napier went away.”

“What a dreadful tragedy! I should have thought that having lost one son he would have felt the remaining one to be doubly precious.”

“Sir William is an unusual man. He doted on Beaumont, and Napier reminded him of the tragedy.”

“Very very strange,” I said. And I could not take my eyes from the statue of that youth, palms together in prayer, eyes raised to heaven.

“I was delighted when I heard that Napier was to come back. And now he is married to Edith Cowan all will be happily settled. At one time it seemed likely that Sir William would make Edith his heiress. There would have been an outcry if he had. But he was very fond of Edith’s parents and he had made her his ward. However, this is the happiest of solutions. Edith will inherit…through her marriage with Napier.”

The vicar was beaming like the good fairy who has waved a wand and made everything as it should be.

At that moment a maid appeared at the church door to say that the churchwarden had called to see the vicar on a matter of some urgency and was waiting in the drawing room. I told the vicar I should like to look round the church by myself and he left me.

“You will find your way back to the house, Mrs. Verlaine. Mrs. Rendall will be delighted to give you some refreshment…and then you will be able to meet my curate, Jeremy Brewn, and talk of the young ladies’ lessons with him.”

Left alone I went back to that statue in the wall and thought about the young man who in his nineteenth year had been shot by his brother. But chiefly I thought of the brother who at the age of seventeen had been sent away because of the accident. How could parents have behaved so to a son however much they had loved his brother, unless…Oh, no, it most certainly would have been an accident.

I turned away and wandered into the graveyard. The silence all about me moved me deeply. There I stood among those memorials to the dead and I saw from the inscription on some that they had stood there for over a hundred and fifty years—some even longer; they looked as though they were so old they could no longer stand up straight and some of the names and writing on them was half obliterated by time.

I wondered if that boy was buried here. It was almost certain that he would be; and I was sure I should have no difficulty in finding his grave for surely the Stacys would have the most magnificent of vaults or mausoleums.

I looked about me and sure enough there was a vault grander than all others. Wrought iron surrounded it and when I saw the name Stacy, I knew this was the family vault. Marble statues of angels with drawn swords had been placed at the four corners as though to guard it from intruders; and there was a gate, padlocked, which led down to the vault. Inside the iron railings was a great tablet on which the names of those buried there had been inscribed with the dates of their births and death. The last on the list was Beaumont Stacy.

As I was turning away I thought of Isabella Stacy in whose room I had sat and played the piano, the mother of Beaumont and Napier. She was dead, but where was her name? It was not on the scroll. Surely she would have been buried here?

I studied the scroll once more; I walked round the vault; I looked about me as though I could find the answer to this mystery here in the graveyard. I was filled with a burning desire to know where she had been buried and why not here.

And as I retraced my steps to the vicarage I was reminded once more that the strangeness of this new world into which I had been suddenly launched was occupying my mind as much as the mystery of Roma’s disappearance.

Mrs. Rendall was waiting for me in the vicarage hall.

“I wondered what had become of you,” she announced. “I told the Reverend to look after you.”

I said quickly: “I asked to be allowed to look round the church alone.”

“Alone!” Mrs. Rendall was surprised, but mollified. “I hope you liked our windows, Mrs. Verlaine. They are some of the best in the country.”

I hastily said that I was sure they were, and added that I had walked through the graveyard and seen the Stacy vault. Was Lady Stacy not buried there? I had seen no mention of her.

Mrs. Rendall looked startled, which was a strange position for her to find herself in, I was sure.

“My word, Mrs. Verlaine,” she said with a touch of asperity, “you are a regular detective.”

I was sure in that moment that she suspected my motives for coming to this place were not solely to teach music.

“I was interested naturally to see anything connected with the family,” I said coolly.

“And I am sure it does you credit,” she replied. “I’ll tell you this: Lady Stacy was not buried in the vault. You probably know that suicides are buried in unconsecrated ground.”

“Suicides!” I cried.

She nodded gravely; then her lips formed into lines of disapproval. “Just after Beaumont’s death, she killed herself. It was most unfortunate. She took a gun into the woods…and died in the same way…only in her case the wound was self-inflicted.”

“What a terrible tragedy.”

“She couldn’t bear life without Beaumont. She doted on the boy. I think the affair turned her brain.”

“So it was a double tragedy.”

“It changed everything up at the house. Beaumont and Lady Stacy dead and Napier sent away. Everything was blamed onto Napier.”

“But it was an accident.”

Mrs. Rendall nodded mournfully. “He was always up to something. A bad boy…so different from his brother. It was almost as though they believed it wasn’t an accident after all. But blood’s thicker than water and Sir William didn’t want everything to go out of the family after all. Though at one time we thought he might disinherit Napier. However, he’s back now and married to Edith, which is what Sir William wanted, so it seemed Napier was ready to please his father at last…for the sake of the inheritance of course.”

“Well, I hope he’ll be happy,” I said. “He must have suffered a great deal. Whatever he did, he was only seventeen and to banish him in that way seems a terrible punishment.”

Mrs. Rendall sniffed. “Of course if Beau had lived Napier wouldn’t have inherited. It’s a consideration.”

I felt rather indignant on behalf of Napier—though I couldn’t think why I should feel so for someone whom I had disliked on sight, except for my sense of justice. I decided that Sir William was an unnatural father whom I was very ready to dislike as much as I already disliked his son.

I said nothing however and Mrs. Rendall remarked that I might care to come to the schoolroom and meet Mr. Jeremy Brown.

The vicarage schoolroom was a long room, rather low ceilinged. As in the big house, the windows had the leaden panes which, while they looked charming, let in little light.

It was a delightful scene which met my eyes as Mrs. Rendall threw open the door without knocking. I imagined she rarely warned people of her approach. There were the girls at the big table—Edith among them, bent over their work; there was a fourth member of the party: Sylvia. And seated at the head of the table a very fair, delicate-looking young man.

“I have brought Mrs. Verlaine to meet you,” boomed Mrs. Rendall and the young man rose and came toward us.

“This is our curate, Mr. Jeremy Brown,” went on Mrs. Rendall.

I shook hands with Mr. Brown, whose manner was almost apologetic. Another, I thought, who stood in awe of this formidable lady.

“And what is it this morning, Mr. Brown?” asked Mrs. Rendall.

“Latin and geography.”

I saw the maps spread out on the table and the girls’ notebooks beside them. Edith looked happier than I had so far seen her.

Mrs. Rendall grunted and said: “Mrs. Verlaine wants to take the girls through their music. One by one, I suppose, Mrs. Verlaine?”

“I think that would be an excellent idea.” I smiled at the curate. “If you are agreeable.”

“Oh yes…yes…indeed,” he said. Then I noticed the rapt expression in Edith’s eyes.

How the young betray themselves! I knew that there was some romantic attachment—however slight—between Edith and this Jeremy Brown.

As Mrs. Kendall had said, I was a detective.

In the next day or so I slipped into a routine. There were meals with Mrs. Lincroft when often Alice was present; there were the piano lessons for the girls and some of these were taken at the vicarage where it was often more convenient, as I was able to take the girls one by one while the others were at their lessons with the vicar or Jeremy Brown. There was also Sylvia to be considered. She was a very indifferent pupil but tried hard—I imagined because she feared her mother’s reaction to miserable failure.

The four girls interested me because they were all so different; and I couldn’t help sensing when they were all together that there was something exceptional about them. I was not sure whether it was in themselves or in their relationship toward one another. And I told myself that it was because of their unusual backgrounds—in fact the only ordinary one was Sylvia’s, and her overwhelmingly domineering mother could have an effect on a child.

Allegra and Alice left each morning at half-past eight for the vicarage to start lessons at nine o’clock; on some days I followed an hour later. Sometimes Edith walked over with me just, she said, for the walk, but I felt it was something more than the walk which attracted her. This gave me an opportunity of getting to know the young Mrs. Stacy.

She had a gentle and unsubtle nature and I often had the notion that she was longing to confide in me. I wished she would, but somehow she always seemed to draw back just as I thought I was going to hear something of importance.

I suspected that she was afraid of her husband; but at the vicarage with Jeremy Brown her manner underwent a change and she seemed happy in a furtive way, like a child who is snatching some forbidden yet irresistible treat. Perhaps I was too curious about the affairs of others; I made excuses for myself. I was here to discover what had become of Roma and I must therefore find out everything about the people around me. But what had the relationship between Edith and her husband and the young curate to do with Roma? No, it was plain curiosity, I warned myself, and no concern of mine and yet…

I can only say that the desire to know was too deep to be dismissed and I felt that Edith would be my best source of information for the reason that she was guileless and easy to read.

When she offered to take me into Walmer and Deal, the twin towns a few miles along the coast, I was delighted and we set out one morning as the girls were leaving for the vicarage.

It was a lovely April day with an opalesque sea and the lightest of breezes blowing off it. The gorse bushes were clumps of golden glory; and under hedges I caught glimpses of wild violets and wood sorrel. And because it was spring and I smelt the good scent of the earth and felt the gentle warmth of the sun I was elated. I didn’t quite know why, except that the budding shrubs and bushes and the birdsong and the gentle sunshine all seemed to offer some promise and I experienced that springtime fever which made me believe that there was something symbolic in all nature’s awakening to a new life. Every now and then the song of a bird was on the air—whitethroats and swallows, sedge warblers and martins. There was no sign of the gulls whose melancholy cries I had already noticed in gloomy weather.

“They come inland when it’s stormy,” Edith remarked. “So perhaps their absence means it’ll be a lovely day.”

I said that I had never before seen such a magnificent display of gorse to which Edith asked if I knew the old saying that when the gorse was out that meant it was kissing time.

She smiled rather charmingly and went on: “It’s a joke, Mrs. Verlaine. It’s because the gorse blooms all the year round somewhere in England.”

She had become animated and clearly enjoyed introducing me to the country. I realized more than ever that I was a town woman. The parks of London, the Tuileries and the Bois de Boulogne had been my countryside. But this was different and I was reveling in it.

She brought the trap to a standstill and told me that if I looked round I should see the battlements of Walmer Castle. “There were three castles,” she told me, “all within a few miles of each other, but only two of them remain. Sandown is a ruin. It was the encroaching sea which has taken it. But Deal and Walmer Castles are in perfect condition. If you could look down on them you would see that they are built in the shape of Tudor roses. They’re only small castles…fortifications really to protect the coast and shipping in the Downs which is the four miles between the coast and the Goodwins.”

I looked at the gray stone battlements of the castle—the home of the Warden of the Cinque Ports—and then back to the sea.

“You’re looking for the wrecks on the Goodwins,” said Edith. “You should be able to see them today. Ah yes…” She pointed, and I saw them—those pathetic masts no more than sticks at this distance.

“They call the sands the Ships Swallower,” said Edith and she shivered. “I saw them once. My…my husband took me out to see them. He thought I ought to…to overcome my fear of things.” She added half apologetically: “He’s right, of course.”

“So you’ve actually been out there!”

“Yes, he…he said it was safe enough…at the right time.”

“What was it like?”

She half closed her eyes. “Desolate,” she said. She went on hurriedly: “At high water the whole of the sands are covered with the sea…even the highest point when submerged is eight feet or so under the water. You simply would not know they were there. That is why they are so dangerous. Imagine in the past the sailors not suspecting that only eight feet under water were those terrible sands waiting to swallow them.”

“And when you saw them?” I prompted.

“It was at low water,” she said, and I sensed that she did not want to talk of this but could not stop herself. “That would be the only time to see them, wouldn’t it, because if they were covered you wouldn’t see anything, you’d only know they were there. It would have been more horrible, don’t you think, Mrs. Verlaine. Things you can’t see are more frightening than things you can.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “that’s true.”

“But…it was low water and I saw the sands…lovely looking clean golden sand, all rippled. There were deep holes and these were filled with water; and the sand moves as you watch and forms itself into strange shapes, like monsters some of them…with claws…waiting to catch anyone who wandered there and pull them down. There were gulls circling overhead. Their cries were so mournful, Mrs. Verlaine. Oh, it was frightening, so lonely, so desolate. They say the sands are haunted. I’ve talked to one of the men from the North Goodwins Lightship and he says that when he’s on watch he sometimes hears wild heart-rending cries from the sands. They used to say it was the gulls, but he wasn’t so sure. Terrible things have happened there, so it seems likely…”

“I suppose at a place like that one would have the oddest fancies.”

“Yes, but there is something so cruel about the sands. My husband told me about them. He said the more you try to extricate yourself the deeper you go. Long long ago there was no lightship. Now it’s there, and they say that the Goodwins’ lightship is the greatest benefit to sailors ever set on the seas. If you could see those sands, Mrs. Verlaine, you would believe that.”

“I believe it now.”

She pulled gently on the reins and the horse trotted on. I was thinking of Napier taking her out to see the Goodwins. I imagined her reluctance. He would laugh at her cowardice, and tell himself that he must teach her to be brave when all the time it was to satisfy some sadistic desire to hurt her.

She changed the subject and told me how when she was very young her father used to bring her to Lovat Stacy. In those days, it seemed, it had been a kind of El Dorado.

“Everything at Lovat Stacy seemed exciting,” she told me. “Of course Beau was alive then.”

“You remember him well?”

“Oh yes, you’d never forget Beau. He was like a knight…a knight in shining armor. There was a picture of one in a book I had and he really looked just like Beau. I was only about four years old and he used to put me on a pony and hold me there.” Her face hardened a little…“So that I shouldn’t be afraid. Sometimes he put me on his horse and held me. ‘Nothing to be afraid of Edith,’ he used to say. ‘Not while I’m here.’”

Poor Edith, she could not have said more clearly that she was comparing the two brothers.

“So…you were fond of Beau,” I pursued relentlessly.

“Everybody was. He was so charming…never cross.” Again her face puckered. So Napier was often cross, impatient with her simplicity and inexperience.

“Beau was always laughing,” she went on. “He laughed at everything. He seemed about ten feet tall and I was so little. Then suddenly I didn’t visit Lovat Stacy and I was very miserable. After that, when I did come here it was all changed.”

“But when you used to come here your husband was here too.”

“Oh yes, he was here. But he never took any notice of me. I don’t remember him very much. Then a long time after—it seemed a very long time after—my father brought me back and neither of them were here. It was all different. But Alice and Allegra were here and there were the three of as—although they seemed so much younger.”

“At least you had someone to play with.”

“Yes.” She looked dubious. “I think my Papa was worried about me. He knew that he wouldn’t live long because he had consumption, so he arranged with Sir William that he should be my guardian and I came to Lovat Stacy when he died.”

Poor Edith, who had had no hand in forming her own life!

“Well now that you are mistress of the house that must make you very proud.”

“I always loved the house,” she agreed.

“You should be happy now everything is settled.”

A trite and foolish remark, because clearly she was not happy and everything was far from settled.

We had come down to the sea, which was gently rising and falling on the shingle.

“This is where Julius Caesar landed,” said Edith. And she pulled up the trap for a few moments so that I could savor this.

“It didn’t look very much different then,” she went on. “It couldn’t, could it. Of course the castles weren’t there. I wonder what he thought when he first saw Britain.”

“One thing we can be certain of—he wouldn’t have had much time for admiring the scenery.”

Before us lay the town of Deal with its rows of houses almost down on the shingle, and lying on that shingle were many boats so close to the houses that their mizzen booms seemed as though they were running into them.

Edith told me that the yellow “cats,” the smaller luggers, were used for fueling big ships which lay at anchor in the Downs.

We drove past Deal Castle—circular in shape with its four bastions, its pierced portholes, its drawbridge, its battlemented gateway and thickly studded door—set deep down in its grassy moat, and on into the town.

It was a busy sight on that lovely spring morning. Several fishing boats had just come in and were selling their catch. One fisherman was bringing in the lobster pots—another was mending his nets. I caught a sight of Dover soles and cat and dog fish, and the smell of fish and seaweed mingled in the salt sea air.

Edith had come to shop and she drove me away from the coast to an inn where she said she would leave the trap and perhaps I would care to explore the town a little while she visited the shops.

Because I sensed that she wished to be alone I agreed to this and I spent a pleasant hour wending my way through a maze of narrow streets with enchanting names—Golden Street, Silver Street, Dolphin Street. I wandered along by the sea, as far as the ruins of Sandown Castle, that one which had not stood up to time and sea, and I sat for a while on a seat which had been put in a convenient spot where the crumbling rock made a natural alcove. From there I looked across that benign sea and my eyes sought the masts on those ship-swallowing sands—a reminder of how quickly change could come.

When I returned to the inn where I was to meet Edith she was not there, so I sat outside on one of the wicker seats to wait for her. In my anxiety not to be late I had arrived ten minutes early, but it had been a pleasant morning and I felt very contented.

Then I saw Edith. She was not alone. Jeremy Brown was with her, and I wondered whether they had met by appointment. The thought flashed into my mind that I may have been asked to accompany her to divert any suspicion that she was meeting the curate, if suspicion there was.

I think they had been about to say goodbye to each other when Edith caught sight of me. There was no doubt that she was a little embarrassed.

I rose and went over to them. “I’m a little early,” I said. “I was afraid of misjudging the distance.”

Jeremy Brown explained with his frank and disarming smile: “The vicar is taking the girls for their lessons this morning. He feels he should now and then. I had one or two calls to make…so here I am.”

I wondered why he felt he had to explain to me.

“We—ran into each other,” said Edith in the rather painful, breathless way of someone who is not accustomed to telling untruths.

“That must have been very pleasant.” I noticed that she carried no packages, but perhaps whatever she had bought was already in the trap.

“Mrs. Verlaine,” said Edith, “you should try our local cider. It’s very good.”

She looked appealingly at the curate who said: “Yes, I’m thirsty too. Let’s all have a tankard.” He smiled at me. “It’s not very potent and I expect you’re thirsty, too.”

I said that I should like to try the cider and as the sun was shining and we were sheltered from the breeze we decided that we would sit outside and drink it.

As Jeremy Brown went into the inn Edith smiled at me almost apologetically, but I avoided her eyes. I did not want her to think that I was putting any special construction on her meeting with the curate. In fact, it was only her manner which suggested that there might be something to be suspicious about.

The curate rejoined us and in a very short time three pewter tankards were brought out to us. I found it very pleasant sitting in the sun. I did most of the talking. I explained where I had been and how enchanting I found the town and I asked all sorts of questions about the boats which were lying on the shingle. The curate knew a great deal about local history, which is so often the case with people who are not natives. He talked of the smuggling that went on and how many of the boats were forty feet long and hollow; that they had enormous sails which helped them to escape the revenue ships and so bring in safely their contraband brandy, silks, and tobacco. Many of the old inns had secret underground cellars and in these the goods were stored until there was no longer danger from the excise men.

Such activities were by no means rare along this coast.

I found it all very stimulating, sitting there idly in the sunshine while Edith glowed with pleasure, chatting and laughing so that it seemed to me a new personality emerged.

Why could she not always be like this? That very morning I discovered the answer, for as we sat lightheartedly chatting there was the sound of horses’ hoofs in the cobbled yard close by and a voice said: “I’ll be an hour or so.” A well-known voice which made Edith turn pale and my own heartbeats quicken.

Edith had half risen in her seat when Napier came into sight.

He saw us immediately.

“Well,” he said, and his eyes were cold as they swept over Edith. “This is an unexpected pleasure.” Then he saw me: “And Mrs. Verlaine too…”

I remained seated and said coolly: “Mrs. Stacy and I came together. We met Mr. Brown.” Then I wondered why I had felt I had to explain.

“I hope I’m not intruding on a merry party.”

I did not speak and Edith said in a flustered voice: “It’s—it’s not exactly a party. We just happened…”

“Mrs. Verlaine has just told me. I hope you will not object to my joining you for a tankard of that cider.” He looked at me. “It is excellent, Mrs. Verlaine. But I am repeating what you already know, I am sure.” He signed to one of the waiters who were dressed like monks in long dark robes tied about the middle with cords, and said he would have some cider.

As he sat down opposite me with Edith on one side and the curate on the other, I knew he was conscious of the embarrassment of those two, and I wondered whether he guessed at the cause of it.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” he said to the curate. “I always imagined you were so overworked. But sitting outside an inn sipping cider…well, it’s quite a pleasant way of working, don’t you agree, Mrs. Verlaine?”

“We all have to have our leisure moments and I imagine work all the better for them.”

“Right…as I’m sure you always are. Still, I must confess that I’m pleased to see you all at leisure. What do you think of the neighborhood?”

“Fascinating,” I said.

“Mrs. Verlaine has been exploring as far as Sandown,” said the curate.

“What…alone?”

The curate flushed; Edith cast down her eyes. “I had some shopping to do…”

“But of course. And Mrs. Verlaine had no wish to visit our shops. Why should she? I believe you live in London, Mrs. Verlaine, therefore you will find our little shops scarcely worthy of your attention. With Edith it is different. She is constantly driving around to see…” he paused and smiled from Edith to the curate… “the shops. What have you been buying this morning?”

Edith looked as though she was going to burst into tears. “I really couldn’t find what I wanted.”

“Did you not?” He looked surprised and again his glance took in the curate.

“N…no. I wanted to match some…some ribbon.”

“Ah,” he said. “I see.”

I put in: “Colors are so difficult to match.”

“In these little towns, of course,” he said. And I thought: He knows that she has come to meet Jeremy and he is angry about it. Or is he angry? Doesn’t he care? Does he just want to make them uncomfortable? And for myself, why is he harping on my coming from London? Why should he be angry with me?

“Well, Mrs. Verlaine,” he said, “what do you think of our cider?”

“It’s very good.”

“Great praise.”

He finished his and setting his tankard on the table, stood up. “I know you will excuse me if I hurry away. I have business. You didn’t ride in?”

Edith shook her head. “We came in the trap.”

“Ah yes, of course. You wanted to take all those purchases back with you. And you?” He had turned his contemptuous gaze on the curate.

“I came in the vicarage trap.”

He nodded. “Thoughtful of you. You were going to help with the purchases. Oh but of course, the meeting was accidental, wasn’t it?”

For a few moments his eyes lingered on me.

“Au revoir,” he said.

And he left us.

We sat silently at the table. There was nothing to say.

Edith was very nervous during the drive back and once or twice I thought we were going into the ditch.

What an explosive situation, I thought; and I felt very sorry for the young girl beside me—scarcely out of the schoolroom. How would she cope with the kind of disaster to which she could be heading? I wanted to protect her, but I could not see how.

I sat in the vicarage drawing room, Allegra beside me, while I listened with some pain to her performance of scales.

Allegra made no attempt to learn. At least Edith had a little talent, Sylvia was in fear of her parents and Alice was by nature painstaking. But Allegra possessed none of these incentives; and she was not going to bestir herself for anyone.

She brought her hands down on the keys with an abandoned finale and turned to grin at me.

“Are you going to report to Sir William that I’m quite hopeless and you refuse to go on with me?”

“But I don’t consider you hopeless. Neither do I refuse to go on with you.”

“I suppose you’re afraid there won’t be enough work for you here if you let one of your pupils go.”

“That had not occurred to me.”

“Then why did you say you didn’t consider me hopeless?”

“Because no case is hopeless. Yours is a bad one admittedly—largely due to yourself—but not hopeless.”

She regarded me with interest. “You’re not a bit like Miss Elgin,” she said.

“And why should I be?”

“You both teach music.”

I shrugged my shoulders impatiently and picking up a piece of music set it on the stand. “Now!” I said.

She smiled at me. She had beauty of a provocative sort. Although her hair was dark, almost black, her eyes were a slaty color, most arresting under dark brows, and fringed with abundant dark lashes. She was undoubtedly the beauty of the household, but it was sultry beauty, a beauty of which to beware. And she was conscious of it too; she wore a bright red string of coral beads about her neck—long narrow ones strung tightly so that they looked like spikes.

She laughed and said: “It’s no use your trying to be like Miss Elgin because you’re not. You’ve lived.”

“Well,” I said lightly, “so has she.”

“You know what I mean by living. I intend to live. I shall be like my father, I suppose.”

“Your father?”

She laughed again. It was a low mocking laugh which I had already come to associate with her.

“Hasn’t anyone told you of my shocking birth? You’ve met my father. Mr. Napier Stacy.”

“You mean he…”

She nodded mischievously, enjoying my vague discomfiture.

“That’s why I’m here. Sir William could hardly turn away his own granddaughter, could he?” The mockery went out of her face, and fear showed itself. “He wouldn’t. No matter what I did. I mean I am his granddaughter, am I not?”

“If Mr. Napier Stacy was really your father that is certainly true.”

“You say it as if you doubt it, Mrs. Verlaine. You must not do so because Napier himself acknowledges me as his.”

“In that case,” I said, “we must accept the fact.”

“I’m ill-e-git-i-mate.” She spoke the word slowly as though relishing each syllable. “And my mother…you want to hear about her? She was half gypsy and came here to work…in the kitchen it was. I believe I look very like her, only she was darker than I…more of a gypsy. She went away after I was born. She couldn’t live in a house.” She began to sing in a pleasant, rather husky voice:

“She went off with the raggle-taggle gypsies oh.”

She looked at me to see the effect of her words, and was delighted, because I must have shown that I was taken aback by this further revelation of Napier’s character.

“I’ve some gypsy in me but I’m a Stacy too. I’d never give up my goosefeather bed nor pluck off my high heeled shoes—not that I’m allowed to wear them yet. But I’ll have them, and I’ll have jewels in my hair and I’ll go to balls and I’ll never, never…never leave Lovat Stacy.”

“I am glad,” I said coolly, “that you appreciate your home. Now let us try this piece. It’s very simple. Take it slowly at first and try to feel what the music is saying.”

She grimaced and turned to the piano. But she was not attending; her thoughts were far away; so were mine. I was thinking of Napier, the bad boy who had brought such disaster to his home that he had had to be sent away.

“I often wonder,” said Allegra, apropos of nothing, “what became of that woman who disappeared.”

We were having tea in the schoolroom—the four girls and myself, for Sylvia was with us.

I almost dropped my teacup. I had tried to make people talk of Roma and yet it was a shock when they did without prompting.

“Which woman?” I asked—I hoped guilelessly.

“Why the woman who came down here and dug up things,” said Allegra. “People don’t talk about it much now.”

“At one time,” put in Sylvia, “they talked of nothing else.”

“Well, people don’t disappear every day.” I spoke casually. “What did you think happened?”

Sylvia said: “My mother says they arranged it all just to make a lot of talk. Some people are like that.”

“For what purpose?” I demanded.

“To be important.”

“But she wouldn’t have stayed hidden. How could that make her important?”

“It’s what my mother says,” insisted Sylvia.

“Alice wrote a story about it,” said Edith quietly.

Alice blushed and lowered her eyes.

“It was very good,” added Allegra. “It made our hair stand on end…at least it would if hair ever did stand on end. Has yours ever, Mrs. Verlaine?”

I said I could not recall its having done so.

“Mrs. Verlaine reminds me of Miss Brandon,” said Alice.

My heart began to beat fast in dismay.

“How?” I asked. “In what way?”

“Being accurate, as so few other people are,” explained Alice. “Most people would say ‘No, my hair hasn’t stood on end’ or ‘Yes it has’ and then tell some story very exaggeratedly. You say you can’t recall its having done so, which is very accurate. Miss Brandon was very accurate. She said she had to be in her kind of work.”

“You seem to have talked to her quite frequently.”

“We all talked to her at times,” said Alice. “Mr. Napier did too. He was very interested. She was always showing him things.”

“Yes,” said Sylvia. “I remember my mother’s noticing it.”

“Your mother notices everything…especially things that are not very nice,” put in Allegra.

“What wasn’t nice about Mr. Napier’s being interested in the Roman remains?” I asked.

The girls were all silent although Allegra had opened her mouth to say something.

Alice said suddenly: “It’s a very good thing to be interested in the Roman remains. They had catacombs, Mrs. Verlaine, did you know?”

“Yes.”

“Of course she knew!” scolded Allegra. “Mrs. Verlaine knows a great deal.”

“A labyrinth of passages,” said Alice, her eyes dreamy. “Christians used to hide in them and their enemies couldn’t find them.”

“She’ll be writing a story about that,” commented Allegra.

“I have never seen them, so how could I?”

“But you wrote about the disappearance of Miss Brandon,” Edith pointed out. “It was a wonderful story. You should read it too, Mrs. Verlaine.”

“It’s about the gods being angry and turning her into something else,” explained Sylvia.

“They did, you know,” put in Alice eagerly. “They turned people into stars and trees and bulls and bushes when they were offended, so it seems natural that they should turn Miss Brandon into something.”

“What did they turn her into in your story?” I asked.

“That’s the odd thing about it,” said Edith. “We don’t know. Alice doesn’t tell us. In the story the gods take their revenge and they turn her into something, but Alice just doesn’t tell what.”

“It has to be left to the reader’s imagination,” Alice explained. “You can turn Miss Brandon into anything you want.”

“It gives me a funny feeling,” cried Allegra. “Imagine Miss Brandon being turned into something, and we don’t know what it is.”

“Oh…exciting!” squealed Sylvia.

“Even your mother doesn’t know what,” teased Allegra. Then she cried out: “What if it’s Mrs. Verlaine?”

Four pairs of eyes studied me intently.

“Come to think of it,” said Allegra, mocking and mischievous, “she has got a look of her.”

“How do you mean?” I demanded.

“It’s the way you talk perhaps. But something…”

“I think,” said Edith, “that we are embarrassing Mrs. Verlaine.”

I was touched when Edith seemed to find some comfort in my company. It seemed to me reasonable that she should turn to me. Although she was nearer in years to the girls, I had been married and that must draw us together. She seemed to me a pathetic creature and I longed to help her.

One afternoon she asked me if I rode and when I explained that I had done a little riding but was far from proficient in the art she asked me if I would ride with her.

“But I haven’t the necessary clothes.”

“I could lend you something. We aren’t so very different in shape, are we?”

I was taller than she and not so slender but she insisted that one of her habits would fit me very well.

She was pathetically eager. Why? I knew of course. She was a nervous rider; she wanted to improve and she could do so by practice. Why should she not practice with me, so that when she went out with her husband she would be more accustomed to being in the saddle.

I gave in—with some misgivings—and she took me along to her room and I was soon fitted out in a riding habit—a long skirt, a tailored jacket in olive green, and a black riding hat.

“You look elegant,” she cried with pleasure, and I was not displeased with what I saw. “I’m so glad.” Her eyes were anxious. “We can ride often together, can’t we?”

“Well, I have come here to teach music, you know.”

“But not all the time surely. You must have some exercise.” She twisted her hands together. “Oh, Mrs. Verlaine. I’m so glad you’ve come.”

I was puzzled that she should feel so strongly. It was not, I was sure, because of any great affection she felt for me. She had sensed my interest in people; she had a faith in my knowledge of the world; she wanted to confide. Poor Edith, she was a very worried young bride.

We went down to the stables together, and one of the grooms selected horses for us.

I explained that I was something of a novice. “My riding has been confined to a London riding school though I’ve ridden occasionally in the Row.”

“Well you take Honey. She’s as mild as her name. And Mrs. Stacy, madam. I suppose it’ll be Venus.”

Edith said nervously: No, she thought not. She would like a mount as mild as Honey.

As we rode out of the stables Edith said: “My husband likes me to ride Venus. He says that Sugar-Plum…” she tapped her mount gently as she said her name… “is for children to practice on. The girls learned on her. Her mouth is quite insensitive. But I feel very comfortable on her.”

“Then you can enjoy your ride.”

“I am enjoying this with you, Mrs. Verlaine. Sometimes I think I shall never make a rider. I’m afraid I’m a great disappointment to my husband.”

“Well, riding is not the whole meaning of life, is it?”

“No…no. I suppose not.”

“You lead the way. You know it better than I.”

“I’ll take you toward Dover. I think the scenery’s magnificent. The castle on the skyline, and then that drop down to the harbor.”

“I’d like that,” I said.

It was a wonderful day; I saw things about the country which I had never noticed before. I was enchanted by the rich purples of nettles in a field and yellow cowslips in meadows.

“You can see the Roman remains from here,” Edith told me. “If you look back.”

I did, thinking of Roma.

“I suppose we should have heard if they ever found out what happened to that woman,” said Edith. “It’s horrible, isn’t it…to think of someone…just disappearing like that I wonder if there was someone who…who wanted her out of the way.”

“There couldn’t have been,” I said too fiercely.

I turned away from the remains and we went forward, keeping to the coast road.

The sea was a pellucid green and there was scarcely a cloud in the sky; the air was so clear that I could see the outline of the French coast.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. As we came within a short distance of Dover, she pointed out a haunted house on the road. “A lady in gray comes out when she hears the sound of horses’ hoofs. They say she was running away and came out to stop the coach as it passed. The driver didn’t see her and ran her down…and killed her. She was running away from a husband who was trying to poison her.”

“Do you think she will come out when she hears our horses?”

“It has to be by night. Most horrible things happen at night, don’t they? Although they say that woman archaeologist walked out in broad daylight.”

I did not answer. I was remembering standing with Roma not far from this very spot looking at that magnificent castle—the key and stronghold of all England, as it has been called. There it had stood for eight hundred years defying time and the elements, a grim warning to any unwelcome invader. Set proudly on the grassy slope it was a masterpiece in gray stone, dominated by the Keep—holding watch over that narrow strip of Channel. The rectangular Keep, the Constable’s Tower defended by the drawbridge and portcullis, the medieval semi-circular towers, the deep tree-lined moat, the mighty buttresses, the solid walls—all were so impressive that I could not take my eyes from them.

“It’s so strong, is it not?” said Edith, almost timidly. “So formidable.”

“Magnificent,” I replied.

“That’s Peverel’s Tower with the arched gateway, and over there on the northeast wall is the Avranches Tower. There’s a platform there on which the archers used to stand to shoot out their arrows. There are trapdoors in St. John’s Tower and platforms on which there are all sorts of appliances for pouring down molten lead and boiling oil.” She shivered. “It’s rather horrible—but fascinating.”

I was able to point something out to Edith—the remains of the Roman lighthouse which was older than the castle itself. Pharos, I remembered Roma’s calling it.

“Oh yes,” said Edith, “this is indeed Roman country.”

“Isn’t the whole of Britain?”

“Yes, but this is where they came first. Imagine! That lighthouse used to guide them across the sea.” She laughed, a little nervously. “I didn’t think about Romans until those people came. It’s because all that was discovered in our own park.”

And as we looked a horseman came up the hill toward us. I recognized him a second or so before Edith did. She was shortsighted, I learned—so I was able to witness the change in her.

She grew perceptibly paler and then flushed deeply.

Napier swept off his hat and called: “An unexpected pleasure!”

“Oh!” said Edith. It was an exclamation of dismay; he was aware of this, I sensed, and his reply was to give her a sardonic look. “What have they given you to ride?” he demanded. “Old Dobbin from the nursery?”

“It’s…it’s Sugar-Plum.”

“And Mrs. Verlaine? Oh, why didn’t you tell me you wished to ride. I should have seen you had a worthy mount.”

“And one of which I should have been far from worthy. I am no rider, Mr. Stacy. This mount suits me perfectly. I am assured she is mild as her name and that’s what I need.”

“Oh no. You are quite wrong. I shall insist you ride a real horse.”

“I don’t think you understand. I have been so rarely on horseback.”

“An omission you must rectify. Riding is a pleasure you should indulge in frequently. It’s superb exercise and most enjoyable.”

“In your opinion. Perhaps others might find different pursuits more to their taste.”

Edith looked uneasy; she had immediately lost confidence.

“Were you returning to the house?” he said. “Then let us go back together.”

The journey back was not the pleasant meandering one it had been coming, for he was not content to walk his horse quietly through the lanes. He took us across the country; he cantered and we did likewise. When his horse broke into a gallop mine followed and I was not sure whether I could have stopped him had I wished to. I was aware of Edith clinging white-faced to her reins and a great resentment rose up in me against this man who was making her miserable.

We had come out close to the haunted house of the gray lady and Napier looked at Edith to see what effect this had on her. I was conscious that she had kept close to me and I knew how nervous she was. I was angry. He knew too and he deliberately taunted her. He took her out for rides on a horse she feared. I could well imagine his breaking into gallops suddenly which she would have to follow.

A horrible thought occurred to me. It may have been the sight of the derelict house—half a ruin now—from which it was said the gray lady walked. Her husband had tried to poison her. What if Napier wanted to be rid of Edith. What if he brought her for these rides; what if he—skillful horseman that he was—could lead her to places which were dangerous for such a nervous rider. What if he should spur his horse to a gallop suddenly in some dangerous spot and hers should follow…and she be unable to control it…

What a fearful thought and yet…

I had ridden on and he was close beside me. He said: “You would make a good horsewoman, Mrs. Verlaine, with practice. But I daresay you would be good at anything you undertook.”

“I am flattered that you have such a high opinion of me.”

Edith was calling out: “Please…Wait for me…”

Sugar-Plum had bent his head to the hedge and was gripping a piece of foliage with his teeth. Edith was pulling at her reins but the horse would not budge. It was as though some spirit of mischief had got into him and he was as eager to discomfit Edith as her husband was.

Napier turned and smiled.

Poor Edith. She was scarlet with mortification.

Then he said: “Sugar-Plum. Come along.”

And meekly Sugar-Plum released the foliage and began to trot in the direction of the voice, as though to say, you see how amenable I am.

“You shouldn’t ride that practice mount,” said Napier. “You should keep to Venus.”

Edith looked as though she were near tears.

I hate him, I thought. He is a sadist. He enjoys hurting her.

He seemed to sense my feelings for he said to me: “I shall find a better mount for you too, Mrs. Verlaine, no matter what you say. You’ll find Honey only too ready to play the same tricks on you. She’s been plagued too much by children.”

The pleasure had gone out of the morning. I was glad when Lovat Stacy came into sight.

Strangely enough my antagonism toward Napier Stacy made me conscious of my appearance—something in which I had taken little interest since the death of Pietro. I found myself wondering how I appeared to this man. A woman past her first youth—a woman who had had some experience of life, being a widow. Tall, slender with a pale though healthy complexion which Pietro had once likened to a magnolia flower—a description which had delighted me so that I treasured the memory. I had a short, rather pert nose, slightly retroussé, at odds with my big dark eyes which could grow almost black when I was moved to anger or carried away by music. I had thick straight brown hair. I was no beauty but on the other hand by no means unattractive. I was rather pleased about this; and the right colors and the right clothes worked wonders for me. As Essie Elgin once said to me, I “paid for dressing.”

I was thinking of this as I smoothed down a pale mauve dress—one of the colors which became me most—and put on my gray coat. I was going for a walk. There was a great deal about which I wanted to think.

My position here for one thing. I had not played again for Sir William, nor had there been any suggestion of my doing so for his guests; the girls’ lessons did not really occupy me fully. I wondered whether they would decide I wasn’t worth my salt. Mrs. Lincroft had told me that Sir William had plans but that he had not been very well since my arrival, but when he recovered a little I should find myself busier.

I did not want to think too much about Napier Stacy. The subject, I told myself, is unpleasant; but I did wonder a great deal about his relationship with Edith. Roma was constantly in my mind. I longed to press on with my enquiries, but I was afraid that if I did so I should immediately arouse suspicion. Even so, I feared I had made my interest in her too obvious.

Thoughts of her took me to the ruins that day. I wandered about, my memories of her so vivid that it almost seemed that she was there beside me. The place was deserted. I suppose Roma’s discoveries were minor ones compared with many in the country; and after the first excitement few people came to see them. I looked at the baths and the remains of the hypocausts with which they were heated and I could hear Roma’s voice and the pride in it as she had shown me these things.

“Roma,” I whispered. “Where are you, Roma?”

I could picture her so clearly—her eyes alight with enthusiasm, the chunky necklace rising and falling on her somberly clad bosom.

As if she would have gone away without telling me where she was going. She could only be dead.

“Dead!” I whispered; and a hundred scenes from our childhood came to my mind. Dear solid Roma with never a spark of malice, her only fault a certain pitying tolerance toward those who failed to appreciate the joys of archaeology.

I walked to the cottage where she had lived during those days of the excavation and which I had shared with her. During that time I had never seen any of the people who were becoming so familiar to me now; and they had been unaware of me…at least I hoped so. Had Roma mentioned that she had a sister? It was hardly likely. She had never been communicative with chance acquaintances—except on the subject of archaeology, of course; and if anyone had seen me then and recognized me now, I should have discovered it surely. When I had last been here there had been many strangers walking about the “dig.” Why should one of them have been singled out?

The cottage looked more derelict than ever. I pushed open the door for it was not locked. It creaked uneasily on its hinges. Why should I be surprised that it was unlocked? There was nothing to protect here.

There was the familiar room…the table at which I had sat watching the restoration of the mosaic. A few brushes lay about and a pick and a shovel with a pail. An old oil stove on which Roma had done her casual cooking—and a big drum in which she had kept the paraffin. Just enough to show that the archaeologists had passed this way.

And out of this cottage Roma had walked one day and never returned.

Where, Roma, where?

I tried to visualize where she would go. Would she have gone for a walk? She never walked for the sake of walking…only to get from one place to another. Had she gone for a swim? She swam very little; in fact she never had time for it.

What had happened on that day when she had finished her packing and walked out of the cottage?

The answer was somewhere; and I was more likely to find it here than anywhere.

I started up the stairs which led from the room. They twisted round and at the top of them was a heavy door. Opening this, one stepped straight into a small box room and in this room was a door which opened onto a bedroom—which was in fact only a little larger than the box room. It had one tiny window with leaded panes and I remembered how dark it had been even at midday. I had slept in a camp bed in that bedroom and Roma had had her camp bed in the box room.

I pushed open the heavy door and looked inside. The beds had been removed. Roma would have had them ready to be taken away no doubt when she walked out of this cottage.

I shivered. The stone walls were thick and it was cold.

Yet here in the cottage I felt close to Roma. I kept murmuring her name: “Roma! Roma, what happened on that day?”

I thought of her standing at the little window looking out toward the dig. She had been completely absorbed by her work here. She had talked of it while she hastily washed in the water which had been heated on the old paraffin stove downstairs. On that last day, of what had she been thinking? Of her departure? Of new plans?

And then she would put her plain coat over her plain skirt and blouse and her only adornment would be a string of cornelian beads or odd shaped turquoises…and have gone out into the fresh air to which she was addicted. She would have walked across the dig and beyond into…limbo.

I shut my eyes. I could see her so clearly. Where? Why?

The answer could be in the cottage.

Then I heard a sound below. I felt suddenly colder and there was a prickly sensation at the back of my spine. I thought of Allegra’s words: “Has you hair ever stood on end?” And I was immediately aware of the isolated position of the cottage; and the thought entered my head: You came to find out what happened to Roma. Perhaps you could learn if the same thing happened to you.

A footstep in the silence. The creak of a board. Someone was in the cottage.

I looked at the window. I knew from the past how small it was. There was no escape that way. But why should I feel this sense of doom simply because someone else had decided to look at an empty disused cottage?

I was too fanciful perhaps; but it seemed to me that Roma was in this place…warning me.

I crouched against the wall listening. My sudden fear was the result of an over-fevered imagination. It was because Roma had been here, because her spirit still seemed to linger as those who have violently hurried from life are said to linger. Yes, it was the spirit of Roma warning: Danger.

And then I heard the creak of a board, a step on the stair. Someone was coming up to the bedroom. I decided I would go boldly to meet whoever it was, so I thrust my trembling hands into the pockets of my coat and stepped through the bedroom and the box room.

As I did so the heavy door was cautiously pushed open. Napier stood before me. He seemed to loom over me; he seemed so big in this little place; and my heart beat too fast. He smiled, fully aware of my fear, I knew.

“I saw you come into the cottage,” he said. “I wondered what you could find of interest here.” As I did not answer he went on: “You look surprised to see me.”

“I am.” I was struggling for my self-control, angrily demanding of myself why I was being so stupid—and more foolish still to betray it. The man was a bully, I thought; and what he enjoyed doing was frightening people. That was why he had come quietly into the cottage, had crept stealthily up the stairs.

“Did you think you were the only one interested in our Treasures of the Past?” He spoke those words as though they had capitals—as though he knew the ghost of Roma was in this place and mocked it.

“Far from it. I know that many people are interested.”

“But not the Stacys. Did you know that in the first place my father tried to prevent the work being carried out?”

“And couldn’t he?”

“He was over-persuaded. And so…in the name of culture…the Philistines gave way.”

“How fortunate for posterity that he was persuaded.”

His eyes glinted a little. “The triumph of knowledge over ignorance,” he said.

“Precisely.”

I made as though to step past him toward that heavy door; and although he did not exactly bar my way he did not move so that I should have had to brush past him to reach it. So I hesitated, not wishing to betray my desire to escape.

“What made you come here?” he asked.

“Curiosity, I suppose.”

“Are you a very inquisitive person, Mrs. Verlaine?”

“As inquisitive as most people, I daresay.”

“I often think,” he went on, “that the inquisitive are a little maligned. After all, it is really a virtue to be interested in one’s fellow men. Do you agree?”

“Virtues if carried to excess can become vices.”

“I am sure you are right. Did you know that one of the archaeologists lived in this cottage?”

“Oh?” I said.

“The one who disappeared.”

“What happened to her?”

“I don’t accept the view that some Roman god rose in his fury and wiped her off the face of the earth. Do you?”

He moved a step nearer to me. “You remind me of that archaeologist.”

He kept his eyes on my face, and for one moment I thought: He knows. He knows why I have come here. It would be easy to have discovered that I was Roma’s sister, Pietro Verlaine’s wife…It could even have been mentioned in the press. Perhaps he knew that I had come to discover what lay behind Roma’s disappearance. Perhaps…

The wild thoughts that come to one in a lonely cottage when alone with a man…a man who killed his brother…

I said feebly: “I remind you…of her?”

“You don’t look like her. She was not a beautiful woman.” I flushed. “I did not mean, of course…” He lifted his hands feigning embarrassment. He was telling me that I had jumped to the conclusion of thinking he was telling me I was beautiful. How he liked to humiliate! “She had a look of dedication. So sure that she was right.”

“I see, and I too have this look?”

“I did not say that, Mrs. Verlaine. I merely said that you reminded me of the poor unfortunate lady.”

“You knew her well?”

“The dedication was obvious. One did not need to be on familiar terms with her to be aware of it.”

I said recklessly: “What happened to her?”

“You are asking for my theory?”

“If you have nothing better to offer.”

“But why should you imagine I should have more than a theory to offer?”

“You have met her. You saw her. Perhaps you have some notion of the sort of woman she was…”

“Or is,” he said. “No need to speak of her in the past tense. We cannot be sure that she is dead. I’m inclined to think she went off on some project. But it is a mystery. Perhaps it will always be a mystery. There are many unsolved mysteries in the world, Mrs. Verlaine. And this one…perhaps it’s a warning to let the past alone.”

“One which every archaeologist will, I am sure, ignore.”

“I can tell by your tone that you thoroughly approve. So you think it is good to probe into the past?”

“Surely you admit that archaeologists are doing valuable work?”

He smiled at me, that slow maddening smile which I was beginning to hate.

“So you don’t,” I said heatedly.

“I did not say so. I was not in fact thinking of archaeologists. You have become obsessed by this young woman. I merely said do you think it is good to probe the past? Pasts are something we all have. They are not the prerogative of these scrabblers in the dust.”

“Our personal pasts are our own concern, I think. It is only the historic past which should be revealed.”

“A fine distinction—for who made the historic past but the individuals? I was being impertinent—a not unusual habit of mine—and was suggesting that you, like myself, would doubtless prefer to forget the past. Ah, you find me…indelicate. I should not have said that. One does not say such things in polite society. It is ‘What a fine day today, Mrs. Verlaine? The wind is not so cold as it was yesterday.’ Then we discuss the weather of the last few weeks and pass on pleasantly unruffled, and we might just as well never have spoken. So you object to bluntness.”

“You leap to conclusions, do you not? As for bluntness I find that those who pride themselves on being frank usually apply the term to their own plain speaking. They often have another for other people’s—rudeness.”

He laughed—little lights shooting up in his eyes. “I will prove to you that that is not the case with me. I will speak plainly about myself. What have you heard of me, Mrs. Verlaine? I know. I murdered my brother. That’s what you have heard.”

“I have heard there was an accident.”

“That is what is commonly known as being couched in diplomatic terms.”

“I was not attempting to be diplomatic. I was merely speaking frankly. I had heard that there was a fatal accident. I know that these occur.”

He lifted his shoulders and put his head on one side.

“And,” I said, “although they are deeply deplored, they should be forgotten.”

“This was no ordinary accident Mrs. Verlaine. The death of the heir of the house—handsome, charming, well beloved. Shot dead by his brother—who became the heir to the house and was neither handsome, charming, nor well beloved.”

“Perhaps he could have become so…had he tried.”

He laughed and I heard the terrible bitterness in the laughter, and my opinion of him changed a little in that moment. He was cruel, he was sadistic, because he was taking his revenge on a world which had treated him so badly. I was actually sorry for the man.

I said, rather gently I supposed: “No one should be blamed for what was done accidentally.”

He came closer to me—those eyes, so brilliantly blue, so startling in the bronzed face, looked into mine. “But how can you be sure that it was done accidentally? How could they?”

“But of course it was,” I said.

“Such sentiments expressed so forcibly by a sensible young woman are very flattering.”

I opened my coat to look at the watch pinned to my dress.

“I see it is nearly half-past three.”

I moved toward the door, but he remained in his position between me and it.

“You,” he said, “know so much about our family. Yet I know so little about you.”

“I cannot believe that you would wish to. As to what I have learned—I know very little beyond what you have just told me. I am here in the capacity of music teacher, not family historian and biographer.”

“But how interesting it would be if you were here in that latter capacity. Perhaps I should suggest this to my father. What a chronicle you would be able to produce. The shooting of my brother…why even the disappearance of our archaeologist. It all happened hereabouts.”

“Music is my profession.”

“But you have such a vital interest in everything concerning us all. You are fascinated by the disappearing lady…simply because she disappeared here.”

“No…”

“No? You would have been equally interested if she had gone somewhere else to disappear?”

“Mysteries are always intriguing.”

“Far more so, I agree, than a straightforward shooting. There can be little doubts about the motive behind that.”

“Accidents are without motive. They just…happen.”

“So you have very kindly convinced yourself that it was an accident. Perhaps later you will change your mind, when you have listened to what certain people have to tell you.”

He puzzled me. I wondered why my opinion should be of importance to him. My desire to get away had completely left me. I wanted to stay and talk to him. In a strange way he reminded me of Pietro, who would sometimes lash himself into a state of nervous despair over some critical judgment of his work which he declared he didn’t believe.

I must have softened, thinking of Pietro, for Napier went on: “I’ve been away for a long time, Mrs. Verlaine. I’ve been on a cousin’s property in the outback of Australia. So you must forgive me if I lack your English diplomacy. I would like to tell you my version of the…accident. Will you listen to me?”

I nodded.

“Imagine two boys…well, hardly boys. Beaumont was almost nineteen, I was nearly seventeen. Everything Beaumont did was perfect; everything I did was suspect. Quite rightly so. He was the white sheep; I was the black one. Black sheep become resentful—they grow as black as people believe them to be…so this black sheep grew blacker and blacker until one day he picked up a gun and shot his brother.”

If he had shown some emotion I should have felt happier; but he spoke in a calm, cold-blooded way and the thought came into my mind: It was not an accident.

“It happened a long time ago…” I began uneasily.

“There are events in life which will never be forgotten. Your husband died. He was very famous. I am, as you so kindly pointed out, a Philistine, with no drawing-room accomplishments, yet even I have heard your late husband’s name. And you are also talented.” His eyes scanned my face lightly and he said mockingly: “That must have been idyllic.”

And as he spoke I saw Pietro, his eyes full of rage because of some slight to his genius; I heard his voice taunting me…And I thought: This man knows what my marriage was like and he is trying to spoil my memories. He is cruel after all. He likes to destroy. He wants to mutilate my dream…and he wants to hurt Edith. He would hurt me if he could, but I am beyond him except when he sneers at my marriage.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he remarked, and he implied that he understood what I was feeling. It was as though he were peering into my past, that he heard Pietro’s mocking laughter. “I have reminded you of what you would prefer to forget.”

The quietness of his voice was somehow more cutting than his sneers would have been because I was aware of the cynical undercurrents.

I said: “I really must go. I have lessons to prepare.”

“I will accompany you back to the house,” he told me.

“Oh…there is no need.”

“I am walking that way, unless, of course, you would prefer I did not walk with you?”

“I see no reason why I should.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Verlaine.” He gave me a little ironic bow. “My heartfelt gratitude.”

He opened the door and stood aside for me to pass down the stairs. The foolish uneasy feeling remained with me. I did not like to think of his walking close behind me. He had unnerved me by his near confession that he had killed his brother. He seemed to glory in it. Or did he? I was not sure. The man was an enigma. But that was no concern of mine. But was it? He had been here when Roma had been here. He had known her, spoken to her. “You remind me of her, Mrs. Verlaine,” he had said.

I breathed more easily when we had left the cottage.

As we passed close to the excavations he said quite suddenly: “We didn’t hear much about the family. The parents I believed had been killed in the service of archaeology.”

“What?”

“Our mysterious lady, of course. Would it surprise you if she turned up one day…in an absentminded way? It drew attention to her discoveries, you know. People came to see the place where the lady disappeared, not the remains of Roman occupation.”

I said warmly: “You should not credit her with such intention. I am sure she did not deserve them.”

“But how can you be so sure?”

“I…I don’t think those people are like that.”

“You have a kind heart and believe the best of everyone. What a comforting person to have around.”

He began to talk about the discoveries and I gathered that he was well acquainted with them. He mentioned particularly the mosaic pavement. The colors he believed were as bright as anything that had been found in Britain.

I said unthinkingly: “An application of linseed oil and exposure to the sun helps a great deal.” I was unconsciously quoting Roma. “Although, of course, the colors would be brighter still if they had been exposed to a tropical sun.”

“How knowledgeable you are!” Another false step. This man unnerved me in a strange way. He was smiling and I caught the gleam of his teeth—as startling in their whiteness as his blue eyes in that brown face. “You’re not a secret archaeologist, are you?”

I laughed…but uneasily.

“You are not down here on a secret mission, are you?” he pursued the point. “You won’t creep out in the night and begin delving under the foundations of our house?”

I thought: Does he know? And if so what will he do about it? He killed his brother. What does he know about Roma’s disappearance?

I said as calmly as I could: “If you had the slightest knowledge of archaeology you would quickly discover that I know practically nothing. It’s common knowledge that the sun and linseed oil restore color.”

“Not all that common. I was unaware of it. But perhaps I am unusually ill-informed.”

The house loomed before us, magnificent against the background of blue sea.

“One thing my family shared with the Romans,” he said. “They knew how to choose a good building site.”

“It’s wonderful,” I said, softened by the sight.

“I am glad you approve of our dwelling.”

“You must be proud to belong to such a house.”

“I would prefer to say that the house belongs to us. You are thinking of the stories those bricks could tell if they could talk. You are a romantic, Mrs. Verlaine.” Pietro again. The romantic under the facade of worldliness…Did it show so clearly then in spite of all I had done to suppress it since I lost Pietro? “But in fact,” he went on, “it’s a mercy the bricks don’t talk. What they say might be very shocking. But you believe the best of people don’t you, Mrs. Verlaine?”

“I try to…until the worst is proved.”

“A philosopher as well as a musician. What a combination!”

“You are laughing at me.”

“Sometimes it is very pleasant to laugh. But I cannot hope that your beneficent attitude extends to me. When the mark of the beast is as clearly defined, the most kindly philosophers must accept it.”

“The mark of the beast…” I echoed.

“Oh yes, it was put on me when I killed my brother.” He put his hand to his forehead. “It’s there, you know…No one fails to see it. You will if you look, Mrs. Verlaine. And if you do not see it there will be plenty to point it out.”

I said: “You should not talk in that way. You sound…bitter.”

“I?” He opened his eyes wide and laughed. “No…only realistic. You will see. And once the mark of the beast is set upon a man…or woman…only a miracle can remove it.”

The sun was shining on the water and it was as though a giant hand had scattered diamonds over it. Across that dazzling strip of water I could just make out the masts on the Goodwins. I looked down on the towns in the distance and from this spot it seemed as though the houses were falling into the sea.

Neither of us spoke.

He left me in the courtyard and I went up to my room feeling very disturbed by the encounter.

Later that afternoon, having half an hour to spare, I went into the gardens. I had had an opportunity of exploring them and although I admired the terraces and the parterres my favorite spot was the little enclosed garden which I had discovered on my first day. A luscious green Virginia creeper covered one wall and I imagined the splash of scarlet it would be with the coming of the autumn. Inside these four walls there was peace and I felt I needed to be alone to think, for Napier Stacy had disturbed me more than I cared to admit.

I had been sitting on the seat looking into the lily pond for some seconds when I was suddenly aware that I was not alone.

Miss Stacy had been standing by the green shrubs at the far end of the garden, so still, that I had not noticed her; she was wearing a green dress which had seemed like part of the bush. It was an uncanny feeling when I realized that she must have been watching me through those silent seconds.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Verlaine,” she cried gaily. “This is a favorite spot of yours. I know.” She tripped toward me lifting her finger and coyly shaking it at me. I saw the little green bows in her hair—the color of her dress.

She must have noticed my gaze for she touched them lightly. “Whenever I have a new dress I have my bows made at the same time. I have bows for every dress that way.” A look of satisfaction spread across her face as though she were inviting me to comment on her cleverness. Her movements and her voice were so youthful that it was a shock when she came so close that I could see the smudges of brown on her neck and hands and the wrinkles round the blue eyes. In fact then she seemed older than she actually was.

“You’ve changed since you came here,” she announced.

“Oh? Is that possible? In such a short time.”

She sat beside me. “It’s peaceful here. It’s a lovely little garden, don’t you think? But of course you do. You wouldn’t come here if you didn’t, would you? One gets the impression that one is shut away from the world. But one isn’t, you know.”

“Of course not.”

“You would realize that. I think you are very clever, Mrs. Verlaine. I think you know about a lot of things as well as music.”

“Thank you.”

“And…I’m glad you came. I have definitely made up my mind to paint your portrait.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Oh but it might be unkind.” She laughed “Some artists are unkind. At least their subjects think they are…because they paint what they see and it could be something the subject might not want seen.”

“At least I should be interested to discover what you see in me.”

She nodded. “Not yet though…I have to wait a while.”

“We have only met once.”

She began to laugh. “But I’ve seen you many times, Mrs. Verlaine. I’m very interested in you.”

“How good of you.”

“Then again it might not be good. It all depends.”

She clasped her hands like a young girl who is hugging a secret to herself. Here was another member of this household who made me feel uncomfortable.

“I saw you come in today,” she said. And she nodded several times like a mandarin. “With Napier,” she added.

I was glad that my skin did not flush and so betray my embarrassment.

“We met by accident…at the Roman remains,” I said rather hotly and then realized I was foolish to more or less offer an excuse.

She did her three or four little nods which I gathered were to denote wisdom.

“You are very interested in these remains, Mrs. Verlaine.”

“Who wouldn’t be. They are of national interest.”

She turned to me and regarded me coyly from under those shriveled lids. “But some people in the nation are more interested than others. You will agree with that.”

“Inevitably.”

She stood up and clasped her hands together. “I could show you some remains…closer at hand. Would you like to see them?”

“Remains?” I said.

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Come,” She held out a hand and I could do nothing but take it. Hers was cold and very soft. I dropped it as soon as I could.

“Yes,” she said, “we have some remains here. You must see them now that you are becoming so interested in us all.”

She tripped to the wrought-iron gate and opening it stood there poised like an ancient fairy, her expression conspiratorial. I caught her excitement and asked myself why nothing seemed to be ordinary in this house.

“Remains,” she murmured as though to herself. “Yes, you could call them remains. Not Roman though this time. Still, there’s no reason why the Stacys shouldn’t have remains if the Romans had them.” She gave her high-pitched titter.

I passed through the gate; she shut it and was beside me, then she tripped past leading the way and turning to smile at me in her little girl manner.

She took me through a shrubbery to a part of the garden in which I had never been before. We followed a path and came to a little copse of fir trees—thick, bushy evergreens.

There was a path through the trees and as she tripped along this and I followed I wondered whether she was more than slightly mad.

But at last I saw the object of this visit. It looked like a white circular tower; she ran on ahead.

“Come on, Mrs. Verlaine,” she called. “This is the remains.”

I hurried after her and I saw that the tower was gutted and that the inside walls were blackened by fire. It was not large—just a circular wall; the roof had been partially destroyed and it was possible to see the sky.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A shell,” she answered in a sepulchral voice. “A burned-out shell.”

“When was it burned?”

“Not very long ago.” And she added significantly: “Since Napier came home.”

“What was it meant to be?”

“It was a little chapel in the woods…a beautiful little chapel and it was built in honor of Beaumont.”

“You mean as a sort of memorial?”

Her eyes lit up. “How clever you are, Mrs. Verlaine. It was a memorial, a memorial to Beau. After he was killed his father built this chapel so that he could come here…or any of us could…and be silent, shut away in the woods where we could think of Beaumont. It stood here for years and then—”

“It was burned down,” I added.

She came close to me and whispered: “After Napier came home.”

“How was it burned?”

Her eyes blazed suddenly. “Mischief. No…not mischief…wickedness.”

“You mean someone did it purposely? Why should they? For what purpose?”

“Because they hated Beau. Because they couldn’t bear that Beau was beautiful and good. That’s why.”

“Are you suggesting that…” I hesitated and she said slyly: “You should finish, Mrs. Verlaine. Am I suggesting what?”

“That someone did it on purpose. I can’t see that anyone would want to do that.”

“But there’s a great deal you can’t see, Mrs. Verlaine. I’d like to tell you…to warn you.”

“Warn?”

Again that silly wise nod of hers.

“Napier burned this down when he came home because we liked to come here and think of Beaumont and he couldn’t bear it. So he got rid of it…just as he got rid of Beaumont.”

“How can you be sure of that?” I asked almost angrily.

“I remember it well. One evening…it was just dark. I could smell the fire from my room. I was the first to discover it. I came out of the house and I couldn’t tell at first where the smell was coming from. Then I saw…and I ran…I ran to the copse and there was the beautiful chapel…and the sparks flying out…it was terrible. I called everyone, but it was too late to save it. So now it’s just a shell, nothing but a shell.”

“It must have been a very pleasant place,” I said.

“Pleasant! It was beautiful. Such a sense of peace and calm. My beautiful Beau was there. He was. That was why Napier could not endure it. That was why he burned it down.”

“There is no evidence—” I began and stopped myself. I added rather hurriedly: “I have some work to prepare so I suppose I should get on with it.”

She laughed. “You seem as if you’d like to defend him. I told you you were beginning to take his side.”

I said coldly: “It is not for me to take sides, Miss Stacy.”

She laughed again and said: “But we often do things which it is not for us to do, don’t we? You are a widow. In a sense I am too.” Her face looked older suddenly and mournful. “I understand. And he…well, some people are attracted by wickedness.”

I said crisply: “I really don’t understand, Miss Stacy, and I do think I should be working. Thank you for showing me…the ruin.”

I turned and walked briskly away. I found her conversation not only distasteful but distinctly uncomfortable.

Two days later an even more disturbing event occurred.

I went along to the schoolroom in search of Edith and as I was about to open the door I heard her voice raised and distressed. I paused and as I did so she cried out: “And if I don’t, you’ll tell. Oh…how can you.”

It was not only the implication of the words but the agonized tone in which they were spoken that shocked me.

I hesitated, uncertain what to do. I had no wish to play the eavesdropper. I was a newcomer to this house and perhaps I was over-dramatizing a situation. These girls all of them seemed little more than children to me.

That was a more important moment than I realized at the time. How I wished afterwards that I had been bold and walked into that room. Instead of which I went quietly and hastily away.

Edith was quarreling with someone in the schoolroom, someone who was threatening her.

My excuse is that I thought of them as children.

It was half an hour later when I gave Edith her lesson. She played so badly that I thought she was making no progress whatsoever.

But of course she was distraught.