The Shivering Sands

9

Godfrey Wilmot was constantly seeking to be alone with me. This was not easy, for Mrs. Rendall contrived to see that we did not have many opportunities.

Perhaps I should admit to a certain mischievous pleasure in teasing her, hoping it would help to lighten the heavy mood which had settled upon me. I was trying to thrust all thoughts of Napier from my mind and the company of Godfrey helped me to do this more than anything else. There was his knowledge of my identity; there was his love of music and his deep interest in that subject which had enthralled my sister and my parents and had in a way been responsible for their deaths. There was comfort, too, in feeling my friendship growing for a charming man who was open and frank and free of those complexes which while they seemed to cast some sort of spell upon me, could make me uneasy and extremely apprehensive.

Certainly I made no attempt to avoid Godfrey and we used to laugh together about Mrs. Rendall’s attitude and plan how to frustrate her endeavors to prevent our being alone together.

Sometimes we met in the church where Godfrey went to practice the organ. I would slip in while he was playing and this was what I did on the day after my uncomfortable encounter with Napier in the copse.

The church was a beautiful example of fourteenth-century architecture with its gray stone tower and lichen-covered walls. I stood at the door listening to the full tones of the organ and was deeply moved for Godfrey had a masterly touch. I did not want to disturb him so I stood very still while I gazed about me at the stained-glass windows—the one dedicated to Beau; the Stacy pew; the list of vicars engraved on the wall from the first in 1347 to Arthur Rendall in the year 1880. The musty damp smell of age was more apparent when the church was empty, and I imagined generations of Stacys coming here to worship. I thought of Beau and Napier being baptized at the font, of Sybil, dreaming of coming to this altar to her bridegroom. As the music came to its triumphant finale I went over to the organ.

“I’m glad you came,” he said. “I was beginning to be a little worried about you.”

“Worried about me? Why?”

“The idea suddenly came to me. You could be putting yourself into danger.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s the news about Mrs. Stacy. When we thought she had gone off with her lover, looking for your sister seemed a reasonably safe project. But if these two disappearances are linked it appears that someone must be responsible for them. You can’t make two people disappear very well without killing them. It struck me that we have a dangerous murderer in our midst. He wouldn’t be very pleased with someone who probed into his affairs would he? And it may be that when he isn’t pleased with people he…eliminates them.”

“So you’ve marked me down for the next victim?”

“God forbid! But shouldn’t you be careful?”

“I see what you mean. Have you anyone in mind?”

“Oh yes.”

“Who?”

“The husband, of course.”

“Isn’t that too obvious?”

“Good heavens, this isn’t a puzzle. It’s real life. Who would want to be rid of Mrs. Stacy except her husband?”

“There could be others.”

“Think of the reasons. I understand she was an heiress. He gets her money. And he wasn’t very eager to marry her in the first place.”

“He had the money already so why bother to murder her?”

“He was heartily sick of her.”

“I don’t like this conversation. It’s…uncharitable. We have no right to continue with it.”

“But we must be practical.”

“If being practical means maligning innocent people…”

“But how do you know he is innocent?”

“Shouldn’t one presume a man to be innocent until he is proved guilty?”

“You’re talking about British justice. We’re not judges…just amateur sleuths. We have to look at all possibilities.”

“In that case I might suggest that you are guilty, and you me.”

“I might. But where are the motives?”

“I daresay we could think of some. You might be a cousin in disguise who wants to inherit Lovat Stacy so you murder Edith and hope her husband will be accused of the crime and hanged, which will make you the heir.”

“Not bad,” he said. “Not bad at all. And you want to marry into the Stacy family so you murder Edith and leave the way clear for yourself.”

“You see,” I pointed out, “you can make up a case against anyone.”

“But what of your sister? Where does she come into it?”

“That’s what we have to find out.”

It was at this point that I felt certain we were being observed. I looked uneasily about me. Godfrey had noticed nothing. What was it? I couldn’t say. Just an uncanny feeling—the extra sense one gets that somewhere, unseen, someone is watching…malignantly.

What was the matter with me? I could not explain this strange feeling to Godfrey. It sounded so absurd. I heard nothing. I saw nothing; I merely sensed it. And he had thought I was fanciful in the cottage.

“Be careful,” he said. “Don’t forget there may be a murderer among us.”

I looked over my shoulder and shivered.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Oh…nothing.”

“I’ve frightened you. Good! It’s what I intended. You will have to be very careful in future.”

I kept thinking of Napier in the copse and my heart refused to accept the inference which my brain insisted on presenting to me.

“I’m determined to find out what happened to my sister,” I said fiercely.

“We both will,” he assured me, “but we’ll be cautious. We’ll work together. Any little clue one of us discovers should be passed on to the other.”

I said nothing of Alice’s story which had so disturbed me; I said nothing of my encounter with Napier in the copse.

He went on: “I can’t help feeling that the answer is somewhere on the dig. It’s because of your sister. She was the first. I think we’ll find the answer there.”

I let him expound on this—anything to stop him seeking to hang suspicion on Napier.

We were startled suddenly by a little cough behind us.

Sylvia was coming silently up the aisle toward the organ.

“Mamma sent me to look for you, Mr. Wilmot. She says would you care to come to tea in the drawing room.”

The girls had invited me to ride with them. I said I should be delighted and in due course we set out.

“There are gypsies in Meadow Three Acres,” Allegra told me. “One of them spoke to me and said her name was Serena Smith. Mrs. Lincroft was not very pleased when I told her.”

“She was not pleased because she knows Sir William will not be,” said Alice quickly in defense of her mother.

Allegra rode on a little way ahead and called over her shoulder: “I’m going to see them.”

“My mother says they’re a disgrace to the place,” said Sylvia.

“She would!” retorted Allegra. “She hates anything that’s…fun. I like gypsies. I’m half one myself.”

“Do they come here often?” I asked, remembering Mrs. Lincroft’s reaction to the news that they had arrived.

“I don’t think so,” replied Alice. “They roam the country never staying long in one place. Just fancy, Mrs. Verlaine. That must be rather exciting, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure I’d rather stay in one place.”

Her eyes grew dreamy and I wondered whether she would write a story about gypsies. I must see some of her stories one of these days. It could well be that if she had no talent for music she had for literature. She read a great deal; she was extremely industrious and she had undoubted imagination. Perhaps I should speak to Godfrey about her.

Allegra called to us not to dawdle and we broke into a canter. It was not long before we reached the encampment.

There were about four gaily colored caravans in the field which was called Meadow Three Acres. But there was no sign of any gypsies.

“Don’t go too close,” I cautioned Allegra.

“Why ever not, Mrs. Verlaine? They won’t hurt us.”

“They might not like to be stared at. You should respect their privacy.”

Allegra looked at me in astonishment. “They haven’t any privacy, Mrs. Verlaine. People who live in caravans don’t expect to have any.”

The sound of our voices may have carried over the air for as we stood there a woman came out of one of the caravans and toward us.

I could not say what it was but there was a vague air of familiarity about her. I felt I had seen her before, though I could not say where. She was plump and her red blouse was stretched to bursting point over her full breasts; her skirt was a little ragged about the hem, her legs and feet very brown and bare. Big gold-colored Creole earrings dangled in her ears. Her laughter shattered the silence and while it was loud and raucous it suggested that she found life amusing. She had a bush of dark curly hair and was, in a robust and voluptuous way, beautiful.

“Hello,” she called. “Have you come to see the gypsies?”

“Yes,” said Allegra.

I saw a flash of white teeth. “You have a fondness for the gypsies, you there with the black hair. Shall I tell you why? You’re almost a gypsy yourself.”

“Who told you?”

“Ah…that would be telling. But I will tell you your name. A pretty one. It’s Allegra.”

“Are you telling my fortune?”

“Past, present, and future.”

“I think,” I said, “we should be going.”

The girls ignored me and so did the gypsy.

“Allegra from the big house. Deserted by her wicked mother. Never mind, my dear. There’s a charming Prince and great fortune awaiting you.”

“Is there really?” said Allegra. “What about…the others?”

“Let me see…there’s the young lady from the parsonage and the other from the big house…though she doesn’t exactly belong there. Give me your palm, dear.”

I said: “We have no money.”

“Don’t need money from some company, madam. Let me see…” Alice held out her hand which looked very white and small in the gypsy’s brown one.

“A…” said the gypsy. “Alice. That’s it.”

“You’re wonderful,” breathed Allegra.

“Little Alice who lives in the big house and is not quite of it…but will be one day because someone very important is going to see that she is.”

“Oh,” cried Alice, “it’s wonderful.”

“I think we should be going back,” I said again.

The gypsy stood watching me; her hands on her hips.

“Introduce me to the lady,” she said insolently.

“She’s the music teacher,” began Allegra.

“Oh can’t you tell…for her too?” cried Alice.

“The music teacher. Tra la la…” said the gypsy. “Be careful, lady. Beware of a man with blue eyes…”

“And what about Sylvia?” cried Alice.

Sylvia’s face puckered and she looked as though she were going to run away. “She is the vicar’s daughter and takes lessons with us,” Allegra explained.

“You don’t have to tell,” reproached Alice. “She knows.”

The bold gypsy turned on Sylvia. “You’ll always do what your mother tells you, won’t you, ducky?”

Sylvia blushed and Allegra whispered: “She knows…It’s special powers. Gypsies have them.”

I said: “It’s all very interesting and now we must go.”

Allegra began to protest but I signed to Alice to turn her horse and obediently she did so.

“That’s right,” said the gypsy, “when in doubt, run away.”

Alice and I had started to walk our horses away from the encampment. Sylvia followed us but Allegra lingered.

I was thinking: Is it possible that that woman is Allegra’s mother? The likeness was startling and if she were that would account for her knowing who the girls were.

Blowsy, voluptuous, sensuous as she now was, she must have been very attractive fifteen years ago when she was not much more than fifteen herself.

I shivered.

Do I really want to be involved in the affairs of Lovat Stacy? I asked myself as we rode back to the house.

Once again Mrs. Rendall came to Lovat Stacy like a militant general, and Mrs. Lincroft met her in the hall. I was with Mrs. Lincroft at the time but Mrs. Rendall took no notice of my presence.

“It is disgraceful,” she said. “Gypsies here. I remember the last time they came. Making the lanes and fields untidy. They’re everywhere with their baskets and clothes pegs…and cross your hand with silver. I said to the vicar, ‘Something must be done, and the sooner the better.’ It does happen to be Sir William’s land and he is the one to give them their marching orders. That, Mrs. Lincroft, is why I have come to see Sir William…so please tell him I am here and take me to him as soon as possible.”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Rendall, but Sir William is very ill. He is resting now.”

“Resting! At this hour. He’ll want to know that the gypsies are here surely? He hates them on his land. I think he made that pretty clear.”

I rose to go but Mrs. Lincroft signed for me to stay.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Rendall,” she said with the utmost firmness, “but Sir William is really not well enough to be worried with these matters. I think you should see Mr. Napier Stacy. He is managing everything now, you know.”

“Mr. Napier Stacy!” cried Mrs. Rendall. “Certainly not. I shall see Sir William and I’ll thank you, Mrs. Lincroft, to tell him I am here.”

“He would not thank me, Mrs. Rendall. Nor would the doctor on whose orders Sir William is not to be disturbed.”

“The vicar and I are determined that something shall be done.”

“You should, then, speak to Mr. Napier Stacy about the matter.”

Mrs. Rendall cast venomous glances both at me and Mrs. Lincroft and stalked out.

Two days later I found a sealed envelope in my room addressed to me. I opened it and read:

Dear C,

Will you come to the cottage at 6:30 tonight? I have something important to tell you.

G.W.

Terse! I thought. And to the point. It was the first time I had received a letter from Godfrey and I guessed he had thought that six thirty would be a convenient time, for it would enable us to have a quiet chat before we went back—he to the vicarage and I to Lovat Stacy—for dinner.

I slipped out of the house and arrived there a few minutes before the appointed time. It was very quiet and I didn’t see anyone on the way there and it did occur to me even then that this was one of the quietest of times, when the day was not yet over and the evening had not begun.

I went into the cottage and as Godfrey was not there I made my way to the upper rooms to watch for his arrival.

I stood at the little leaded paned window and looked out across the remains and thought of Roma, picturing a hundred scenes from our childhood, and I tried to imagine from all I knew of her what she could possibly have done on that day she disappeared.

Time passed slowly. It was five minutes after the half hour, and it was unlike Godfrey to be late, for I had discovered him to be the most punctual of people. I smiled, visualizing him leaving the vicarage and being detained by Mrs. Rendall.

The minutes were passing. Ten minutes late. How unlike him. I had no premonition of danger until I smelt that fearful acrid smell of burning. Even then I thought at first that it was something outside. I attempted to open the window but the bolt had grown rusty and I couldn’t move it. Then I heard the crackle of flames and I knew that the fire was not outside but inside the cottage.

I went through to the communicating room and saw—though this did not strike me immediately—that the door to the stairs was shut, although I had left it open. I went to it and seized the handle, but I could not open the door.

Then the full horror of the situation came home to me. The door was locked. Someone had been in the cottage when I entered it or followed me in, had crept up the stairs while I was looking out of the window, and locked me in…and then that person had set the cottage on fire.

I hammered on the door. “Let me out!” I cried. “Who’s there?”

I ran to the window and desperately tried to open it. I could not but it would have been no use if I had. I could never have got through it. There was a broom propped up in a corner. I tried to break through those leaden panes but it was not easy to do so.

There was now a haze of smoke in the room and I began to cough and splutter. I could feel the heat below my feet. This was no accident. Someone had deliberately locked me in and set fire to the cottage.

Godfrey! I thought. But no…never, yet the note had come from Godfrey. I had been lured to this place to meet him. I couldn’t believe it. Not Godfrey.

I picked up the broom and through the sheer force of horror smashed one of the little panes.

“Help!” I cried. “Fire!…Fire!”

There was no response to my plea—only silence out there.

I went to the door…that heavy studded door which had so pleased Roma. I hammered on it. I turned the handle and shook it. But the horrible fact remained. I was locked in a burning cottage. Locked in!

I ran back to the window and shouted. I came back to the door and shook the handle. I could scarcely see now for the smoke was so thick that it was suffocating me.

Then my heart leaped with joy for I heard a shout from below.

I shouted out: “Here. I’m up here.”

Then the smoke and the heat were too much for me…I felt the overpowering suffocation.

Suddenly it seemed I was not alone. Something was wrapped about my face. Urgent hands were pulling at me.

“Quick! Run! Run with me. I can’t carry you.”

It was Alice’s voice. Alice’s hands…and I was being dragged through such heat that it was almost unbearable.

I was lying in the cool air and I heard voices.

“You’re all right. You’re all right.”

Then I was being lifted into a carriage I presumed, for I vaguely heard the distant clop-clop of horses’ hoofs.

“If it hadn’t been for Alice, heaven knows what would have become of you,” said Mrs. Lincroft.

I was in bed; the doctor had seen me, given me a sedative and Mrs. Lincroft orders that I was to sleep.

Alice had seated herself by my bed, like my good angel, determined that having saved my life she would continue to protect it.

“All you have to do is rest,” went on her mother. “You’ve had a nasty shock.”

So I obeyed and lay there thinking of Godfrey’s note and of Roma walking out of the cottage and never coming back…and of my being lured there and locked in that I might die.

Godfrey! I thought, and saw his face and it was Napier’s face…and they were both standing over me, laughing at me. “Trust no one,” said a voice in my mind. “No one at all.”

Alice whispered, “It’s all right now, Mrs. Verlaine. It’s all over now. You’re safe in bed.”

Alice was the heroine of the hour. She even looked exalted. But it was not only that; her eyebrows were a little singed and her left hand slightly burned where she had beaten out the flames which had caught my dress.

“She showed admirable presence of mind,” said Mrs. Lincroft, her eyes full of tears. “I’m so proud of my little girl.”

Alice said: “I didn’t do anything that anyone else wouldn’t do. I was going over to the vicarage to get my history book which I’d left there. I wanted it to do my homework. What a blessing that I’d left it behind that morning. And I saw the cottage was on fire so I ran to look…and then I heard Mrs. Verlaine shouting…”

John Downs, one of the gardeners at Lovat Stacy, had been in the neighborhood too. He had heard Alice shout that there was a fire and he had run after her to the cottage, but he would have been too late to save me, although he helped when he saw Alice dragging me from the place.

“Just in time,” everyone was saying it.

“My word, that Mrs. Verlaine has had a lucky escape. As for young Alice Lincroft, I reckon she deserves a medal.”

I was suffering from shock and kept in my bed for several days although otherwise I was not hurt. I had come through the fire miraculously. Alice had saved my life.

She sat by my bed during those days as though guarding me. I would awake from my troubled dozes to see her serene face at my bedside. She glowed; she was clearly delighted with the part she had played in my rescue. Who would not have been?

But there were other matters to consider.

People came to see me, among them Napier and Godfrey. Napier’s eyes haunted me long after he left. He looked so fearful, and the memory was like a dose of healing medicine. Godfrey came too. Godfrey…He too was full of concern but I remembered when I saw him that it was due to his note that I had gone to that cottage.

He sat by my bed and I said to him: “Why did you send the note?”

“What note?” he asked.

“The note asking me to meet you at the cottage.”

He looked helplessly about him.

“It’s been a terrible shock to poor Mrs. Verlaine,” said Mrs. Lincroft. “The doctor says she should rest for some days. She gets…nightmares. Anyone would.”

Godfrey looked bewildered and when I pressed about the note he changed the subject.

In less than a week I was recovered although I still dreamed of the cottage and as I slipped into unconsciousness I would often imagine I was in that upper room…locked in…while below a monster lurked waiting to destroy me. Sometimes I called out in these dreams and would awake in a cold sweat of fear.

The doctor said it was natural. I had had a terrible shock but my nightmares would diminish. In the meantime I should try not to think about my ordeal in the cottage.

I had looked for the note and could not find it but I asked Godfrey again for an explanation.

“I wrote no such note,” he declared.

“But I saw it. It was the reason I went to the cottage.”

He shook his head.

I went on in exasperation: “It was addressed to me and it said as far as I remember: ‘Dear C. Will you come to the cottage at 6:30 tonight? I have something important to tell you. G.W.’”

“I should never have written such a note.”

“Then who did?”

He stared at me in horror. “Where is this note?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I may have left it in my room. I may have put it into my pocket. But I can’t find it now.”

“A pity,” he said. “But you know my writing.”

“It’s the first note you’ve ever written to me. But I’ve seen your writing of course, and it didn’t occur to me that you hadn’t written it.”

“Caroline, if someone forged my handwriting…”

“If?” I demanded. “Are you suggesting that there was no note?”

“No…no…of course not.” He was a little embarrassed. “But…if…I mean someone must have sent that note to get you to the cottage.”

“That inference is obvious.”

“What does it mean?”

“It could mean,” I said, “that I am marked down as the next victim.”

“Caroline!”

“Well, I should have been, but for Alice.”

He nodded. “But, my dear Caroline, it’s…it’s frightening!”

“I agree with you,” I said coolly, for I could not forgive him for merely hinting that I might have imagined that note. “Roma…Edith…and now myself. Where is the connection? Is it because the person responsible for these two disappearances knows that I am trying to find the reason for them?”

“But who knows that you are doing this?” he asked. “I am the only one who does. You don’t think that I…”

I laughed and was almost immediately sober. “But, Godfrey, someone is trying to kill me. What can I do?”

“You could go away from here.”

“Go away!” I visualized my lonely life, shut away from Lovat Stacy, not knowing what was going on in that house which had become the background of my new existence. I knew that whatever happened I did not want that.

“I shall not go away,” I said vehemently. “I’ll take special care and the next time I receive a note suggesting a meeting place I shall insist on confirming it in the presence of witnesses.”

“For heaven’s sake do.”

“Godfrey, I do wonder how that note came to me…”

“And in my handwriting…at least with my initials.”

A cold sensation made me shiver uncontrollably. Where was the note? I was sure I had not destroyed it. I believed I had left it in my room. And there was the mystery of the locked door. Alice had said she had thought it was hard to open; she thought there was something strange about the handle.

“But,” she had said, “I was so frightened that I didn’t take much notice of it. I only knew I had to get Mrs. Verlaine out. I just forced the door open. I can’t remember it clearly. Once I got into the cottage I kept saying to myself: ‘I’ve got to get Mrs. Verlaine out…’ and I don’t even remember running up the stairs.”

Everyone said that was understandable in the circumstances, and that the door had become jammed possibly, after all the rain we had, and finding it difficult to open I assumed it was locked which it obviously could not have been. I had panicked, was the general opinion, although no one said this. I had believed myself to be locked in a burning cottage; it was enough to make anyone get into a panic.

And the cause of the fire? Roma had used paraffin oil with which to cook and there was a drum in the outhouse which had obviously contained the remains of her supply. The theory was that a tramp had been sleeping in the cottage and left a pipe or cigarette smoldering somewhere. Fires could start easily enough.

“Tramps,” said Godfrey. “It’s the answer. And do you remember that day you thought you saw a shadow at the window? That could have been one of them and he hid himself in the outhouse when we came out.”

It was a plausible explanation, but somehow I did not believe it. I was certain the incident had been cleverly and diabolically planned.

If I mentioned this people would say I was letting my imagination run away with my common sense. Godfrey felt this, I was sure; and if he, who knew I was Roma’s sister and had come here to investigate her disappearance thought that, how much more readily would others, who did not know that there was a special reason for my being here.

I knew that but for Alice I should have been burned to death—murdered as my sister and Edith, I was certain now, had been before me.