The Shivering Sands (14 page)

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?”