The Spring of the Tiger

by Victoria Holt

  "Poor Cobbler." He looked up at me. "He's blind a bit, Aunt Sarah. It was fighting with that mongoose. It would have been the end of him if I hadn't come." Ralph laughed. "I'm looking at him but he can't see me. He's blinded this side."

  I went round and looked down. The cobra had lost one of its eyes. I knelt and saw the dark socket where the eye had been.

  "It'll teach you. Cobbler," said Ralph. "Why, if you lost the other one you wouldn't see at all."

  I hated the sight of the thing. It reminded me so much of what had happened.

  With the perception of children Ralph sensed that I didn't want to touch the cobra. He picked it up and put it carefully under the bush.

  The thought hit me suddenly as we were riding home. No. It was too absurd.

  As soon as I was in the house I went up to the bedroom and opened the little pot on my dressing table. The piece of glass was still there—a small piece of yellow stone.

  Suppose it was! How had the eye of Ralph's cobra come to be on the floor of my bedroom?

  The answer would be: Because the toy cobra had been there.

  I held the glass bead in my hand. I must know.

  I looked at my watch. It was half past five. I would have to wait until morning to see if the piece of glass fitted into the empty socket.

  I was on the point of going to tell Celia what had happened, but something made me hang back. If that piece of glass was indeed the eye of Ralph's cobra it would be interesting to find out how it came to be in my bedroom, but if it turned out to be just a piece of glass they would all think that my excitement about it was another phase of my obsession with cobras.

  I must act cautiously, and although my impulse was to dash over to Ashington's right away that would surely cause comment. Another example of Sarah's odd behavior, they would say.

  I must therefore be patient and wait until tomorrow.

  I put the bead back into the little pot. I must be careful that it was not lost and at the very first opportunity I was going to Ashington's.

  I was a little absent-minded that night. On several occasions I found Celia looking at me anxiously. Clinton appeared not to no-

  tice. His theory was that the best way to cure me of my oddness was to ignore it.

  It was afternoon of the next day—four o'clock, after the heat had subsided a Httle—that I made up my mind to walk through the woods to Ashington's. I would go alone so that I should not have to make an excuse for going.

  The first thing I had done on rising was to assure myself that the glass bead was there. In view of what happened over the last weeks I had rather expected it to have disappeared. But no. There it lay. I put it carefully in a tiny silk purse which I kept in my pocket so that I could feel it every now and then to reassure myself.

  When I arrived Clytie was in the garden as she usually was at this hour with Ralph, surrounded by his animals, beside her.

  Clytie was as glad to see me as ever and went into the house to order tea to be made.

  That left me with Ralph.

  "Ralph," I said. "Come here. I've something to show you."

  He came running, his eyes alight with expectation.

  "I think I've found Cobbler's eye," I told him.

  "Where is it. Aunt Sarah? Where is it?"

  I took it out of the purse, my heart beating with apprehension for I half expected it to have been spirited away.

  It lay in my palm and Ralph peered at it.

  "It's a bead," he said.

  "Yes, but it could also be an eye. Poor Cobbler. We must see if it fits. Where is he? In the garden?"

  Ralph looked at me reproachfully. "I wouldn't let him stay out without an eye. Suppose a mongoose came."

  "Where is he then?"

  "In my room." He started running towards the house and I followed.

  Sheba was in the hall. "Where you running, master boy?" she asked.

  "Shebal Aunt Sarah's got Cobbler's eye."

  "It might only be a glass bead," I said.

  "It's his eyel It is his eye!" cried Ralph.

  "That nasty snake," mumbled Sheba. "Time it was done away with."

  "Come on, Aunt Sarah/* cried Ralph and started up the stairs.

  In his room, on a table beside his bed, stood a giraffe with a dormouse lying beneath its long legs. Ralph dived under the bed and emerged with the toy cobra.

  "Give it to me," I said. "Let's see if it fits."

  My fingers were trembling as I took the glass bead and compared it with that on the other side of the cobra's head. I looked back at the empty socket.

  "Look, Ralph!" I cried triumphantly. "It fits."

  "You've got the shakes. Aunt Sarah."

  "I'm so excited because Cobbler's got his eye back. Now we want some glue."

  Sheba was standing in the doorway.

  "Sheba, bring some glue," cried Ralph. "Cobbler's got his eye back but it's got to be stuck in."

  "I get," said Sheba.

  Ralph looked at me gravely. "Sheba doesn't like Cobbler."

  "Why not?"

  "She wants to take him away. She says he's too like a real snake. Cobbler is a real snake, isn't he, Aunt Sarah?"

  "He is to you," I replied.

  "Sheba says I wouldn't know the difference between a live one and Cobbler. I'd know Cobbler anywhere. He's mine."

  Sheba was silently standing behind us.

  "Here glue," she said. As I took it I was aware of her eyes boring into me. She would know about my outburst. Leila would have told her surely. She would be wondering where I had found the glass bead.

  I took the glue and stuck in the eye. Ralph watched with absorption.

  "Now," I said, "you mustn't touch it until it's dry. Roll him up and put him under the bed. Leave him till the morning. Will you do that?"

  Ralph considered. "I might look at him last thing tonight."

  I shook my head gravely. "The best thing is to forget about him

  until tomorrow morning. Then his eye will be firmly fixed and he'll be just as he was."

  Clytie came into the bedroom. ''What's all this about?"

  I explained: "Ralph's cobra lost his eye and I picked it up. We have just been fixing it."

  There was a moment of tension I believed—or it might have been my imagination. As for myself I felt elated, vindicated.

  "Well, come and have some tea," said Clytie. "Did you come all this way just to bring the eye back?"

  "I thought it was rather important," I said and looked at Ralph, who nodded vigorously.

  "I hope you said 'thank you' to Aunt Sarah," she said to the boy.

  He looked a little surprised. "Did I, Aunt Sarah? Cobbler will thank you. He wanted to when you stuck it on but he's a bit shy."

  "He probably wants to wait to see whether it stays firmly in before he thanks me," I said.

  "I shall make him thank you for bringing it. It'll teach him a lesson. He shouldn't have run away, should he? He went and then he came back. He knew it was naughty."

  Yes, I was beginning to see daylight. He went and came back. Of course he went. He was taken to be put in the bushes and later in my bedroom. That his eye had come oflf was my first piece of luck.

  I was afraid Clytie would ask where I had found it. I didn't want to tell her. I didn't want to talk about it to anyone, not even Clytie, until I had thought more clearly and calmly about it.

  In due course Ralph was carried off by Sheba. I warned him once more about touching the eye and he promised not to.

  Then I said I would go back home so that I should be there before dark.

  Clytie agreed. One must go through the woods in daylight.

  I started out and I was soon deep in thought. I assembled the facts. It was Cobbler whom I had seen under the bushes. I must have been watched when I threw the scent away, and assuming that I might come to look for it, whoever was trying to persecute me had put Cobbler there. The thing I had seen on my bed was the toy, which in the dim light would look like the real thing.

&
nbsp; Nobody in his right mind would investigate too closely with such a creature so it was the easiest thing in the world to pass off the lifelike toy for the real thing. Someone had put it there and hastily taken it away after I had seen it. But in the process the eye had come off and lay on my bedroom floor.

  Oh, what incredible good fortune! Fate was on my side at last. The one who had rapped on my door and opened it was the one who had put the cobra on my bed. The object, of course, was to make me think I was suffering from delusions.

  An old proverb flashed into my mind. "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first made mad."

  Oh, how I thanked God for Cobbler's eye!

  Now I was my old self again. I was gloriously strong and I was going to get to the bottom of this. I was going to find out who had done these things to me and what the motive was behind them.

  I stopped short. Here I was in the heart of the woods. And someone was following me.

  For a moment I was overcome by a terrible fear. Then my newly found confidence came back to me. I was not going to run away. I had made one discovery, I would make another.

  I stood very still and listened. There was silence all around me. The sun was low in the sky. Soon it would drop below the horizon and darkness would descend.

  But I was no longer afraid because this afternoon I had learned that my mind was as lucid as it had ever been and that it was not my weakness which was destroying me, but some human being who was attempting to.

  I made a decision. The position was changed. I would now be the pursuer. I would find out who followed me in the woods. And when I discovered that I would have the answer to everything.

  I started walking in the direction from which I had come. Then I paused to listen.

  There was no doubt. I had turned the tables. Someone was running away from mel

  Relentlessly I pursued. On and on I went. I was almost back at the edge of the woods before I realized that I had lost the scent.

  I stood listening. There was no sound to guide me. I wanted for a while and then I started to walk home.

  I had not discovered who my enemy was, but this was triumph all the same. I was not mad. I was myself.

  They must have noticed the change in me. I had lost a certain hunted look. I was clear-eyed and the fresh color was coming back into my cheeks.

  I realized now how frightened I had been. I suppose there is nothing so alarming as the thought of losing control of one's mind; and that was what I had feared.

  I kept thinking of that proverb.

  Someone wanted to destroy mel

  Who?

  When I went to my room in the heat of the day I would consider everything . . . and everyone. No one must be excluded . . . not even Clytie.

  What could the motive be? Someone wanted to make it appear that I was mad so that when tragedy happened there would be a reason for it.

  "She was mad," they would say. "Remember how she has been behaving for a long time."

  My thoughts must go to Anula. Leila could have done all the things which had been happening. Anula had control of Leila as she had of the rest of the family. Nankeen, Ashraf. They would do as Anula bade them. She had come into the open when she had given me the peacock-feather fan. Oh yes, I could see how horrified she must have been when I arrived. She wished me ill. She wanted to marry Clinton, to live with him as the reigning queen. I was an obstruction. The devious method made me think first of Anula.

  And Clinton? Was it possible that he knew of her plans? What had happened hardly seemed his way. The slow devious methods required to convince a completely sane woman that she was mad was not the sort of thing he would think of. He would make up his mind and want to act promptly. Yet, when he wanted something he was determined to get it. And he would plan in advance. The manner he had set the stage for that night in Parrot Cottage

  had proved that. He had wanted to marry me because he knew that I was going to inherit the plantation.

  Clytie? Nonsense. Not my gentle sister to whom I had felt drawn the moment I saw her. Yet, if I died she would inherit the plantation and it had been after that visit to the solicitor in Kandy that these strange things began to happen.

  These were wild thoughts. How could Clytie have put the cobra in my bed? Unless one of the dark-eyed servants who waited on and watched us was a spy in the household working against me.

  I was surrounded by intrigue but I was now looking it clearly in the face. It was no use trying to pretend I was not in danger.

  I was. All I had to do now was to find out from which direction it was coming.

  Nothing had happened since the return of Cobbler's eye and my turn to the offensive in the woods.

  Naturally not. My pursuer had been warned.

  I must watch constantly. But how relieved I felt.

  i

  Tike AslkniRigtoa

  Clinton was looking forward to our trip. He had said he always wanted to show me the pearl fisheries and this was the time to go.

  Leila had made up my silks and I was delighted with them.

  Clinton was in an affectionate mood when we set out. He was so eager to show me his possessions that he was almost boyish and reminded me a little of Ralph with a new toy which he was adding to his menagerie.

  He seemed so delighted to be traveling with me that I could laugh at the suspicions which had been in my mind over the last days. I felt my spirits rising as we boarded the train which would take us part of the way and Clinton pointed out the beauties of the country to me. He grew quite l'iical, which surprised me, and I felt I was discovering a new Clinton. I was happier than I had been for a long time.

  We should be away for two or three weeks and when I returned I promised myself I should find a letter from Toby awaiting me. I had written to him before I left explaining about the cobra's eye and I myself had posted the letter. I was eager to know what he would think of all this and what his advice would be.

  That I could write to him what I could tell no one near me pointed to the fact that I felt a necessity to keep my counsel and suspect everyone.

  The weather was hot and steamy. We were approaching the hottest time of the year before the summer monsoon came to drench the land and provide the tea with that which was essential to its growth.

  We passed jungle where the trees grew thick together—ever-

  green, tree fems, palms and tufted bamboos. The flowers gave a colorful touch to the landscape—rhododendrons bloomed majestically and orchids of all descriptions flourished there.

  We saw the forests of timber—the calamander, satinwood and ebony. It was an enthralling sight to watch the elephants emerge from the forest pulling their loads or bathing in the rivers as we passed.

  When we left the railway we traveled north by road.

  Clinton was delighted by my pleasure and I could see that he was really excited about showing me the pearl fisheries—that was the real treat which was to be kept until the last

  He sat back watching me in the carriage that carried us northward, his arms folded, a smile of complacency on his face.

  "Do you know," he said, "that some of the most famous pearls in the world come from Ceylon? Of course you did. Didn't the Ashington Pearls come from here?"

  "I wonder where they are now?" I said.

  He shrugged his shoulders. "They say there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out. Let us hope that there are as good pearls in oysters as those we already have. I shall enjoy showing you the fisheries, Sarah. I'm glad you came with me. You're looking better than you have for some time."

  "Thank you."

  "Getting over those jungle nerves."

  "I don't think I ever had them."

  "Oh come, you were getting a bit nervous . . . imagining things."

  I flushed slightly. "Perhaps it wasn't imagination."

  "Oh?"

  I looked away across the country.

  "Secrets?" he said. He was watching me intently.

  I had not meant to speak of it but h
e had always had an uncanny habit of reading my thoughts.

  "Secrets, no. I don't think so. I suppose there are people here who are wishing I had not come."

  "I can tell you of one who is very glad you did."

  "Is that so?"

  "He's sitting opposite you at this moment," he said and, leaning forward, kissed the tip of my nose.

  I said: "I fancy your mistress, Anula, is not so happy to see me here."

  "Rather naturally she wouldn't be."

  "I hope that relationship is at an end, Clinton," I said.

  "I really do believe you are jealous. I'm gratified."

  "Not jealous. Only curious. She is a very strange woman. She would have all sorts of means of . . ." He was waiting but I said: "Oh, it doesn't matter."

  "But it does matter," he insisted. "I'm interested. 'All sorts of means . . .'?" he prompted me.

  "Well," I floundered. "If these people don't like someone . . . if they don't want them here . . . they could attempt to get rid of them."

  "That imagination of yours does run away with you. You are as bad as young Ralph. Anula understands perfectly."

  "That it is all over between you and her?"

  "My dear Sarah, you are my beloved wife. It is up to you to see that you share me with no one."

  "You seem to regard yourself as some sort of prize."

  "Don't you? As a matter of fact that's a rhetorical question. I know the answer. Dear Sarah, you have told it to me a hundred times."

  I felt impatient and angry. I thought: He is cynical and ano-gant. I could suspect him of anything. I wondered what his reaction would be if he knew I had made over the plantation to Clytie. I could imagine his anger and I found it impossible to meet his eyes.

  I suddenly thought of Toby. He would be so concerned for me. He would advise me as he used to in the old days. I was very thankful for his existence and the good fortune which had brought him back into my life.

  Clinton was watching me closely. "You look as if you are harboring some secret which you find rather pleasant," he said.

  I did not answer and he did not press me to explain. Instead he started to give me some idea of what I was going to see.