The Spring of the Tiger

by Victoria Holt

  "Letter, Toby? I've been longing for a letter. You didn't answer mine."

  He looked aghast. "I've written twice. I've told you of my suspicions."

  "Suspicions? What suspicions?"

  "Let me tell you. I met the Bonningtons in Delhi . . . quite by chance in a shop. You know the Bonningtons. He was curate for a while at Epleigh and he married Miss Effie Cannon."

  "Of course."

  "I had only seen them briefly at your father's funeral but we remembered each other. Mrs. Bennington told me that her husband had become a missionary and they were staying only a few days in Delhi on their way somewhere. She said how strange it was for only the day before they had met someone else whom they had known in Epleigh. Ceha Hansen, who was traveling with

  her cousin, had been staying at their hotel, the Shalimar. They had only stayed there one night and had gone on to friends, but it had been very pleasant seeing Celia again."

  "Celia never mentioned that she had met the Bonningtons. That was strange because we talked a good deal about hfe at the Grange."

  "This is the strange part. I so much wanted to talk to someone about you that I decided to call on Miss Hansen at the Shahmar. I went there. To my amazement I was told that there was no Miss Celia Hansen staying at the hotel, nor had there been at any time. This was bewildering. I said there must be some mistake. I probed a bit. An English lady staying with a cousin, another English lady? At length I gathered that there had been two English ladies staying there. They had left the day before. They were a Miss Jessica and a Miss Ceciha Herringford."

  "HerringfordI"

  "Once long ago I went to Everard Herringford's country house with my father. I was about thirteen at the time. Everard Herring-ford entertained now and then and there was some project about which my father needed government help. However, we went there for a weekend. I remember there was a daughter, Cecilia. Do you see, Sarah, the woman who came to the Grange as Celia Hansen, the woman who came here, was in fact Cecilia Herring-ford. I thought it was rather strange at the time that she should have come to you as a governess, but she had gone and that seemed the end of it. Then you wrote to me about the strange things that were happening and you mentioned that Celia Hansen was visiting you. Then I began to get alarmed.

  "There is madness in that family through the mother and it occurred to me that there might be a streak of this in the daughter. She had come back to you. Strange things were happening. I wrote to you at once and told you about what I had discovered in Delhi—that your Celia Hansen and Cecilia Herringford were one and the same person."

  "But I never received the letter."

  "Do you think she could have intercepted it? She knew you were writing to me."

  "She didn't know about this encounter in Delhi. She could

  have had no idea of that." I shook my head. "I can't believe this, Toby. Even if she is Everard Herringford's daughter I don't believe she would come here to try to kill me. Why? What had I done? I believe I know who did this. There is a woman here who is Clinton's mistress. She is skilled in making scents and potions and, I am sure, poisons. Her sister works here and she would do all that Anula commanded. But, oh Toby, it is good to see you. And you came all the way from India."

  "I had a presentiment that I must. I came back too late once. I wasn't going to do that again."

  "I'm so glad you came."

  "You should know," he said, "that I would come to you from the other side of the world if you needed me."

  I went to Clinton's bedside. He was very ill. He looked so strange, his eyes glassy, his skin a pale yellow, his blond hair lifeless. He gave me that smile of reckless bravado which I knew so well and which now made me want to weep.

  "Hello, Sarah," he said. "This is the end for me. Who would have believed it?"

  "Listen," I cried firmly, "you're going to throw this off. You're going to get well."

  He shook his head. "It's got me, Sarah. I know this poison. It's what the old kings used to abolish their enemies. It has a strange odor, only detectable if you're aware of it. It's made from poisonous plants that grow in the jungle. There's not much hope once it's entered your blood. You can linger a day or so on antidotes . . . but it's a killer."

  "You knew this . . . and you deliberately. . ."

  "I thought I'd get away with it. I should have done but for this cut. I'd forgotten it. Just a chance, Sarah. If I hadn't nicked myself when shaving . . . But that's life, you know. This is the reckoning. Neat. Fate, that's what it is. If I hadn't been away that night . . . Well, I had had my own way too long. This is Anula's doing. She was determined to be rid of you. Oh, I should never have been any good to you, Sarah. I am not a man for one woman. It would always have been the same and you are not one to endure that. You've too much spirit—look at that will you

  made. That shook me, I can tell you. It would have passed . . . that fiery passion between us. It's a thing for youth . . . and thaf s a stuflP that'll not endure. He's back, I hear. Good old Toby! Marry him, Sarah. He's the one for you. And you don't belong here. You ought to be back home. I can see it all . . . gracious house, gracious living . . . children . . . and that son whose wife vidll sport the Ashington Pearls in time. I gave them to you. They're yours, Sarah. You are the Ashington to whom they should belong."

  "It's not like you to give up, Clinton. I should have thought you would have gone on fighting."

  *Tm a man who faces reality. That's how I've got through. In two days' time I'll be dead. They can't get rid of it. They're only slowing down the process, nothing more."

  "Clinton, listen to me. You always wanted a child, didn't you? I think I am going to have one."

  A gratified smile spread across his face. "Someone to remember me by."

  "I shouldn't need to be reminded even if you weren't there. But you're going to be there."

  "I'm going, Sarah. I want no pretense. I've had a good life. I did what I wanted. I took what I wanted. You'll be happier the way it is. I'm glad he came. All the way from India, I hear. Well, the curtain's going to ring down on this one. Sarah, forgive . . ."

  "There's nothing to forgive, Clinton."

  "Don't give me cliches, Sarah. There's everything to forgive. I made you marry me. I wasn't a good and faithful husband. I never should have been. I'm polygamous by nature, a jungle animal. I took what I wanted when I wanted it . . . and life catches up with us sooner or later."

  "But it was a marvelous thing you did for me. If you die you will have died for me."

  There was a shadow of the old grin. "No nobility intended," he said. "I couldn't do without those love-hate battles of ours."

  I sat by his bed and I thought of our life together. I thought, too, of Anula. She would have lost him now.

  He lay in his coffin in the room next to the bedroom we had shared. I could not believe that he—the vital, virile lover-enemy—

  was dead. I mourned him bitterly, though I knew that what he had said was true. I could never have found an ideal happiness with him. Indeed, had I ever been truly happy with him?

  It was love I needed. I had always needed it, particularly because I had missed it all my life. I wanted tenderness; I wanted a strong foundation on which to build a family life, and I longed for the green fields of home, for a benevolent sun which warmed but did not scorch, for a gentle rain that came unheralded. I wanted fields of buttercups and daisies and yellow celandines. But most of all I wanted a companion on whom I could rely, who would always be there to love and cherish me. I knew exactly what I wanted.

  Yet deeply I mourned Clinton.

  Tomorrow they would bury him, for burials were quick in this land. This room would be empty, the coffin gone, proud Clinton lost to me forever.

  Darkness had come as I stood beside that coffin, and suddenly the door handle started to turn—silently, cautiously.

  The door opened and I felt the hair rise on the back of my head. There was something strange and uncanny about the quietness. I did not know what I expected in t
hat moment. Then I thought: It is Anula come to claim his body.

  I stepped back from the coffin. Someone had come into the room. A muffled figure indistinguishable in the gloom.

  It went to the side of the coffin. Then the hood was thrown back.

  "Celia!" I whispered.

  She did not answer but stood for a few seconds looking down on Clinton's dead face.

  Then she said quietly: "So he was the one who died."

  "I thought you were on the boat. How did you get into the house?"

  Such a practical detail was of the least importance, I supposed, yet it was the first thing that came to my mind.

  "I kept the key of the door. I could not sail. I had to know what happened."

  "What does all this mean, Celia?"

  "It means that you didn't die then. But you will now.'*

  I moved towards the door but she was there before me.

  I could see that she carried a revolver and she was pointing it straight at me.

  "Celia, have you gone mad!"

  'They said I was like my mother. He drove her mad . . . madder than she was at first. He and your mother. That was the end of her."

  "Celia, I know who you are. You are Everard Herringford's daughter."

  "Yes," she said. "Your friend found out, didn't he? I read it in the letter he sent you. My father shot himself because of your mother. But she died for it. I saw to that. You are very gullible to believe your prim old Aunt Martha would commit a murder."

  "You deceived me, Celia. You were always so gentle,"

  She nodded. "I am gentle. There are two of us. Celia Hansen, she's a good mild woman, Hkes people, wants to help them. Cecilia Herringford is different. When her parents died she wanted revenge. They were her life, those two, and she determined that their deaths should be avenged in full. There's a poem you used to like. Do you remember . . . ?" She began to quote and her voice sounded hollow in that room of death. It was a strange macabre scene.

  " 'Alas the love of women! It is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing; For all of theirs upon that die is thrown, And if 'tis lost life hath no more to bring To them but mockeries of the past alone, And their revenge is as the tiger's spring. Deadly, and quick and crushing. . . .'"

  There was a moment's silence, then she burst out: "The poet speaks of the love of a woman for a man. The love of a daughter for her parents can be as great. You see I never had a lover, Sarah, but I know what love is. My parents were my life. I was so proud of my father. He was a very important man. People came from all over the world to consult him. One day he would have been prime minister. When my mother was ill I should have been the hostess. He used to talk to me about it. 'We'll be at number ten Downing Street, you and I, Cecilia,' he used to say. Then he became in-

  volved with this actress—your mother. I found out about it. I came to look at the house once."

  *"! saw you," I said. "I wish ... I wish I'd known. I wish I'd been able to talk to you."

  She shook her head. "My mother was always strange but this finished her. Then he shot himself and she went completely mad. I looked after her and I knew what had driven her to this extreme. She killed herself . . . and I was alone. I'd lost them both. There was only one thing that could make me want to live. Revenge. Vendetta. I came alive planning it."

  "Oh, Celia, I understand your grief. You killed my mother. I am not to blame. I had no part in it."

  "The sins of the fathers are visited on the children " she said.

  "They should not be. I thought you were fond of me. You always behaved as though you were."

  "Part of me was. But I lived for revenge. I could not forget those dreadful days and the scandal and what it did to those two. It was terrible when he killed himself. This is the revolver. I see now that it is what I should use. It makes it more complete."

  "You wanted me to believe I was going mad, didn't you?"

  "Yes . . . mad as she was. It's a terrible thing to lose your mind and know it. I think that's worse than anything. I wanted you to suffer as she had. It was too easy, that other. Your mother died too easily. But then I had thought that she must die . . . and that would be enough. So I came with my false name and my story of needing work. And when it was over and I went away there was an emptiness in my life. I thought of you. I had taken only one life and both my father and mother had died. I wanted a life for a life. But it is a greater tragedy sometimes to lose one's mind than one's life. I know. I've seen it. So I decided you should be mad."

  "So you played tricks on me. The taps, the sandalwood scent . . ."

  "Yes, to throw suspicion on your husband's mistress."

  "And the cobra."

  "Yes, the toy cobra."

  "And finally you decided to kill me."

  "Yes, I began to see it had to be a life for a life. You survived the accident in the dog cart and I thought of the pearls. I was fas-

  cinated by those pearls and I wanted you to think in your last moments that it was your husband's mistress who had done this. You see your mother was my father's mistress. It worked out to a land of pattern. That was what I wanted. . . ."

  "Celia, you are cruel. . . ."

  "Yes, but I loved them. They were my life. There was nothing . . . nothing at all when they had gone. They were taken from me by a wicked woman. I shall be at peace when I have taken my revenge. If I let you live you will marry Toby Mander now. I took the letters he wrote to you. It was a shock to know he had discovered who I was. I knew he was coming from Bombay on the Lankarta. He had said so in his letter. I had to be quick. I should have done it more subtly if I had had more time."

  "Put that revolver away, Celia."

  She shook her head. "There are two bullets here. One for you, one for me."

  "It's crazy," I cried.

  "I am crazy," she answered.

  She lifted the revolver. It was pointing straight at me. Her lips were moving. "Oh my father, my mother ..." I heard her murmur. "This is the end. I am coming to you. They will put me away if I live, as they used to put you away. Mother. But you will be avenged."

  That moment will be imprinted on my memory forever. The shadowy figure of the mad woman and the dead body of Clinton lying in his coffin between us.

  It was almost as though Clinton lived in that moment. I seemed to hear his voice calling to me: "Live. Live. You owe it to me to live. I don't want to have died in vain."

  I threw myself onto the floor as the bullet shot over my head. I heard Celia murmur: "Dead. This is the end. Now, my dearests, I am coming to you."

  I was lying there numb as the second shot rang out.

  POSTSCISIIFT

  It all happened so long ago and looking back it seems like something out of another life. I could almost believe it had never happened if I had not my tall son as living evidence.

  I called him Clinton and he is exactly like his father; he will be such another, I know—strong, ruthless, determined to have his way, egotistical, assured of material success and capable of the utmost heroism. I love him dearly and I know his father would be proud of him.

  He was six months old when I married Toby.

  I have been a very lucky woman. I have experienced two marriages and each gave me a great deal. I have now reached a serenity of love and understanding which I know is the most desirable state in life, but looking back I should not have wanted to miss that turbulent period of searing passion which taught me so much about myself.

  But Toby is the man with whom I was destined to share my life. Together we have raised a family—two boys and two girls— and I am as happy as anyone can hope to be.

  I sent a manager out from England to run the Shaw plantation and it flourishes. I have made over Ashington's entirely to Clytie and Seth. About once every three years Toby and I go out to visit them. It is a strange and haunting experience for me to walk through those woods and recall the tenors I suffered in that house. The servants, I know, will not go singly into the room where Clinton's coffin had stood and Celia kil
led herself. They will remember always. 48 Anula married a wealthy Singhalese businessman whom I

  guessed she had previously refused on account of Clinton. Leila told me: "She very rich lady now."

  The aunts both died and left me the Grange. Toby put the charge of the Indian side of the family business into the hands of one of the managers and he is in London most of the time. We have a town house but the children love the Grange and we are often there.

  My portrait hangs in the galler}' now, complete with pearls. The clasp has been thoroughly cleaned and it was shown to me that the body of the serpent and the stems of the leaves were hollow and that this provided a good storing place for the poison.

  I wear the necklace now and then, for Toby's position in the financial world means that we entertain frequently both in London and at the Grange. I think the aunts would be pleased at the way things have turned out, apart from the fact that there will be no one named Ashington to wear the pearls.

  One day it will be the wife of Clinton's son whose portrait hangs in the gallery.

  I tell myself that he would like that.

  (continued from front flap)

  too, of the extraordinary Ashington Pearls—perhaps the most perfect and beautiful in the world. They have become over the years the stuff of legend, of wild speculation, of obsession and fear. But Sarah Ashington will hold those pearls one day—and know that the web of fate encircling them is no fantasy. For she will face herself the secret powers they summon, the brooding and dangerous passions they inspire.

  Victoria Holt is the author of over fifteen international best sellers. Her most recent successes include My Enemy the Queen, The Devil on Horseback, The Pride of the Peacock, and Lord of the Far Island.

  JACKET ILLUSTRATION BY DAVE CHRISTENSEN JACKET TYPOGRAPHY BY LEWIS FRIEDMAN

  Printed in the U.S.A. 5 »+ 6 3