The Shivering Sands (39 page)

“And what about Roma?” I demanded.

“Roma is dead, I feel sure of it. And if she is, nothing you can do will bring her back.”

“It’s something I have to find out, no matter…”

He understood but he continued to be very uneasy. So was I. I had developed a habit of looking over my shoulder constantly whenever I was alone. I made sure that my door was locked every night. At least I was on my guard.

Now Godfrey was smiling as he saw me. “I escaped the watch dog,” he said. “It is believed that I have gone to play the organ. Little is it known that I’m skulking about the graveyard in the company of that teacher of music who has failed to turn Sylvia Rendall into Clara Schumann.”

“You’re looking pleased with yourself this morning.”

“It’s rather good news.”

“Can it be shared?”

“Certainly it can. I have had a living offered to me.”

“So you’ll be leaving.”

“You look alarmed. How delightfully flattering. It’s not for six months. Ah, now you look relieved. Equally flattering. A great deal can happen in six months.”

“Have you told the Rendalls?”

“Not yet. I fear when I do Mrs. Vicar will bring up the big guns. No one knows yet. I thought it appropriate to tell you first. Though of course I shall have to tell the vicar today. I must give him ample time to find a substitute. And, of course, if he does find someone before I shall retire gracefully.”

“Mrs. Rendall will never allow that.”

He smiled. “You haven’t asked for details.”

“I haven’t had much opportunity yet. Please tell me.”

“The most delightful parish…in the country…not too far from London so that visits will be frequently possible. An ideal spot. I know it well. An uncle of mine held the living at one time before his bishopric. I spent quite a lot of my childhood there.”

“It certainly sounds ideal.”

“It is, I do assure you. I’d like you to see it.”

“And how long do you think you’ll remain there before you become a bishop?”

He looked at me reproachfully. “You make me sound like an ambitious man.”

I put my head on one side. “Some are born to honors, some earn them, and others have them thrust upon them.”

“The quotation is not quite correct but the meaning is clear. Do you believe that some people are born as they say with a silver spoon in their mouths?”

“Perhaps. But it is possible to acquire a spoon even if one hasn’t been born with one.”

“What a lot of effort is saved when it’s already there. You think life is too easy for me.”

“I believe that life is what we make it…for us all.”

“Some of us are lucky though.” His eyes fell on the marble statue of an angel. “We don’t have to look very far. Poor Napier Stacy whose life went wrong through a dreadful accident which could have happened to any boy! He picked up a gun which happened to be loaded and he killed his brother. If that gun hadn’t been loaded his life from then on would have been different. Fantastic, isn’t it?”

“Fortunately chance is not always so cruel.”

“No. Poor Napier!”

It was like him to spare a thought for Napier in his present elation—for elated he was. He was looking to the future with eagerness and I didn’t blame him. While at the moment he was content to dally here, to be amused by Mrs. Rendall’s scheming—how could she possibly think that Sylvia would be a suitable wife for such a man?—to talk with me, to become mildly involved in the mystery of two strange disappearances.

But it was more than that. He was thinking of me as earnestly as I was of him.

Good heavens! I thought. I believe he is considering asking me to share this pleasant life of his. Not immediately, of course. Godfrey would never be impulsive. Perhaps that was the reason for his success. But it was there between us. At the moment an affectionate friendship existed, fostered by our common interests and our desire to solve the mystery. I was aware that life was offering me a chance to build something.

“I’d like you to see the place sometime,” he went on warmly. “I’d like your opinion of it.”

“I do hope you’ll show it to me…one day.”

“You can be sure I shall.”

I could see it clearly in my mind’s eye, a gracious house with a beautiful garden. My home? My drawing room would look onto the garden and there would be a grand piano. I should play frequently but not professionally; music would be my pleasure and my solace but I should not need to teach impossible musicians again.

I would have children. I could see them…beautiful children with placid happy faces—the boys looking like Godfrey, the girls like myself only young, innocent and unmarked by sorrow. I wanted children now as once I had wanted to startle the world with my music. The desire to win fame on the concert platform had gone. Now I wanted happiness, security, a home and a family.

And although Godfrey was not ready to make a declaration yet and I was not ready to give him an answer, it was as though I had really come to the end of that dark tunnel and I was looking at the sunny paths spread out before me.

When Mrs. Rendall heard the news about Godfrey she was not unduly depressed. Six months was a long time and, as Godfrey said, a great deal could happen in that time. Sylvia must grow up; Sylvia must change from an ugly duckling into a swan. Therefore she must pay more attention to her appearance. Miss Clent, the seamstress of Lovat Mill, was sent for and she made a new wardrobe for Sylvia.

Mrs. Rendall saw only one reason why her plans should go awry. A certain scheming adventuress, she believed, had her eyes on the prize.

I was put into the picture by the girls whose remarks, sometimes candid, sometimes oblique, made me aware of what was being attributed to me. Godfrey and I would laugh together over this and sometimes I felt that he considered it only natural that in due course he and I would slip into that relationship for which Mrs. Rendall had convinced herself I was scheming.

Sometimes I would find Alice’s grave eyes fixed on me.

She began embroidering a pillowcase “for a bottom drawer,” she told me.

“Yours?” I asked; and she shook her head and looked mysterious.

She was so industrious and whenever she had a spare moment she would bring out the needlework which she carried in a bag embroidered in wools—her own work, which her mother had taught her.

I knew the pillowcase was for me because she was naive enough to ask my opinion.

“Do you like this pattern, Mrs. Verlaine? It would be easy to do another.”

“I like it very much, Alice.”

“Alice has had a great affection for you, since…” began Mrs. Lincroft.

“Since the fire, yes.” I smiled. “It’s because she saved my life. I think she feels extremely gratified every time she looks at me.”

Mrs. Lincroft turned aside to hide an uncharacteristic display of emotion. “I’m so glad she was there, so…so proud…”

“I shall always be grateful to her,” I said gently.

The other girls had started to make pillowcases.

“It’s very good,” said Alice looking at me almost maternally, “to have a good supply of everything.”

Alice’s work was neat and clean like herself—Allegra’s was quickly grubby. In any case I did not think she would finish it. As for Sylvia, hers was not a success either. Poor Sylvia, I thought, forced to help furnish the bottom drawer for the prospective bride of the man her mother had chosen for
her
!

I watched them, their heads bent over their work, and I felt an affection for all of them; they had become so much a part of my life. I always found their conversation unexpected, often amusing and never dull.

Alice was exclaiming in dismay because Sylvia had pricked her fingers and had made a spot of blood on the pillowcase.

“You would never earn
your
living by sewing,” she reproved.

“I wouldn’t want to.”

“But you might have to,” put in Allegra. “Suppose you were starving and the only way to earn your living was by sewing. What would you do?”

“Starve, I expect,” said Sylvia.

“I’d go off with the gypsies,” put in Allegra. “They neither toil nor do they spin.”

“That was the lilies of the field,” explained Alice. “Gypsies toil. They make baskets and clothes pegs.”

“That’s not toiling. That’s fun.”

“It’s meant…” Alice paused and said with effort: “figuratively.”

“People who make shirts get very little money,” said Alice. “They work by candlelight all day and all night and they die of consumption because they don’t get enough fresh air and food.”

“How horrible!”

“It’s life. Thomas Hood wrote a wonderful poem about it.”

Alice began to quote in a deep sepulchral voice:

“Stitch, stitch, stitch,

In poverty hunger and dirt.

Stitching at once with a double thread

A shroud as well as a shirt.”

“Shroud,” screeched Allegra. “These aren’t shrouds; they’re pillowcases.”

“Well,” said Alice coolly, “they didn’t think they were stitching shrouds. They thought they were shirts.”

I interrupted them and said what a ghoulish conversation. Wasn’t it time Alice put her pillowcase-cum-shroud away and came to the piano?

Neatly she folded her work, threw back her hair and rose obediently.

Lovat Stacy was indeed haunted—by the gypsy Serena Smith. I often saw her near the house, and once or twice strolling across the garden. She did not do this furtively but as if by right and I was becoming more and more convinced that she was Allegra’s mother. That would account for her proprietary air and her insolence.

Coming into the house one day I heard her voice—shrill and carrying.

“You’d better, hadn’t you?” she was saying. “You wouldn’t want to go against me, would you? Ha. There’s people here that wouldn’t like me telling things about them but you more than anyone, I reckon. That’s the way I see it. So there’ll be none of this talk about ‘Get the gypsies off.’ The gypsies are here to stay…see!”

There was silence and I thought sick at heart: Napier, oh Napier. What trouble you have brought on yourself. How could you become involved with a woman like this!

Then the voice again. “Oh yes, Amy Lincroft…Amy
Lincroft
. I could let out some secrets about you and your precious daughter, couldn’t I? And you wouldn’t want that.”

“Amy Lincroft.” Not Napier!

I was about to turn away when Serena Smith came out. She was running and her face was flushed and her eyes sparkling. How like Allegra she looked—Allegra in a mischievous mood!

“Why,” she cried, “if it’s not the music lady! Ear to the ground, eh, lady…or to the keyhole?” She burst out laughing, and I could do nothing but walk into the hall.

No one was there and I wondered whether Mrs. Lincroft had heard her remarks. She must have. But I expected she was too embarrassed to talk to me.

At dinner Mrs. Lincroft was as cool and calm as ever. “I hope you like the way I’ve cooked this beef, Mrs. Verlaine. Alice, take this beef tea up to Sir William, will you? And when you come down I’ll be ready to serve.”

Alice carried the dainty tray out of the room and I said what an obedient child she was.

“It’s a great comfort to me that she should be so,” said Mrs. Lincroft. My thoughts immediately went to the words of the gypsy; and I wondered once again whether there ever had been a Mr. Lincroft or whether Alice was the result of a youthful indiscretion. This could be likely for I had never heard Mr. Lincroft mentioned.