The Shivering Sands

by Victoria Holt

  She gabbled the last part of her speech expressionlessly almost as though she had learned it off by heart—which she probably had, for if this was true it must have been a strain for the poor girl to harbor such a secret in the face of all the questioning which had been going on.

  I who had heard the lovers in the ruined temple, who had noticed their attitude together readily accepted Sylvia’s story. It was credible.

  Mrs. Lincroft seemed to think so too. Looking very worried she said: “I will go to Sir William at once and see if he is awake. If so I do think he should see you and Sylvia immediately, Mrs. Rendall.”

  It was shocking; it was scandalous; but scandalous things had happened in the neighborhood before.

  Yet it was the most plausible explanation. Young married women did not walk out of their homes and simply disappear without leaving any trace. They had to be somewhere. And Edith had actually confessed to the vicar’s daughter that she was planning to elope with her lover.

  Who would have believed it! Young Mrs. Stacy and the curate! The curate of all people. Well, these things were known to happen.

  “The quiet ones are the worst,” said Mrs. Bury to me. She had formed a habit of miraculously appearing at her door every time I passed; and almost on every occasion she would shake her head at me and tell me that I was the spitting image of one of those digger people. She never forgot a face.

  “And married to him,” she said. “I feel sorry for her. Nice little girl, Miss Edith was. No hoity-toity about her ... not like Miss Allegra. There’s one who wants a good spanking if ever anyone did. But Miss Edith and Miss Alice—always polite and well mannered, the both of them. I was sorry for her, marrying her off like that It was the money. Well, money’s not everything, is it? If she hadn’t been a little heiress they wouldn’t have married her off to that Mr. Nap ... and she, could have fallen in love and married Mr. Brown all nice and respectable.”

  It was the view of the village. They were all sorry for poor little Edith, and Mr. Brown had, they remembered, been such a nice young man, more approachable than the vicar and never prying into their affairs and giving them unwanted advice like Mrs. Vicar.

  Sir William was deeply affected by the news. I did not see him for I did not go to play for him during this period.

  Mrs. Lincroft confided in me: “He’s taken this badly. The thought of a grandchild did wonders for him, gave him a new interest, and now she’s gone and it seems the grandchild might not have been his after all. It’s changed him; he says he’ll never have her in this house again. He doesn’t want to find her and he doesn’t want a lot more talk. He wants to forget about it. He wants it to be as though Edith was never here. He doesn’t want her name mentioned and he wants enquiries stopped.”

  “But,” I protested, “it’s not possible to behave as though something as important as that never happened Napier is here and his purpose in coming was to marry Edith.”

  “It is what Sir William wishes,” said Mrs. Lincroft, as though that explained everything.

  Sylvia’s revelation brought a decided change. The matter in the minds of most people was neatly settled. Edith had done what others had done before her when trapped into an undesirable marriage; she had run away with her lover.

  No one knew on what ship Mr. Brown had left for “I never questioned him,” declared Mrs. Rendall. “I wanted to have no part in his harebrained schemes. And it seems that he must have left the church, for, my goodness, if we are going to let those sort of people stay in what are we coming to?”

  Napier went to London and spent a week there trying to discover some news of Jeremy Brown’s whereabouts; and after a week or so he came back with the news that a Mr. and Mrs. Brown had sailed for Africa on the S.S. Cloverine, but whether this was Jeremy and Edith was not certain. It might be possible to learn more when the ship arrived. Then they could discover through the Missionary Society whether Jeremy had arrived at his destination.

  So Napier came back little wiser than he had gone and I avoided him and was relieved because he seemed to avoid me too. There were times when I thought the wisest thing for me to have done would have been to slip quietly away while he was in London and disappear as irrevocably as Edith and Roma appeared to have done.

  Yet the very next minute I was reminding myself that I had come to solve the riddle of Roma’s disappearance, and Edith’s made me all the more determined to do so. I was in no danger from Napier Stacy, I assured myself—nor from any man. Of course if the reason for Edith’s disappearance was her flight with a lover, it was in no way connected with Roma’s; but it was still an odd coincidence that two women should have vanished in the same place.

  The belief in the cause of the trouble was strengthened when Alice and Allegra made their confessions to Mrs. Lincroft.

  Allegra admitted that she had seen the lovers meeting on more than one occasion. She had said nothing to anyone because she thought it would have been telling tales. Alice admitted to once carrying a note from Edith to Mr. Brown.

  So Edith had gone. Everyone was ready to believe that she had gone off with her lover. But I was not altogether sure; I kept thinking of Roma.

  8

  During the following weeks when I continued to avoid Napier, it occurred to me that everyone was taking the explanation of Edith’s disappearance too much for granted, and I was astonished at the attitude in the house. Mrs. Lincroft was solely concerned with nursing Sir William. Perhaps it was Mrs. Lincroft who jostled everyone into accepting the explanation because she wanted the matter put aside and forgotten—for Sir William’s sake, of course. But the girls were always whispering about it I would catch Edith’s name often when I came upon them; then they would look a little embarrassed and talk of something else.

  In the village they went on discussing the disappearance of Edith; but they were all convinced too that she had gone off with her lover. The story was embellished as the weeks passed.

  I heard Mrs. Bury whispering to one of her customers. “They say she left a note telling them she couldn’t live with that Nap any more. Poor thing!”

  It was amazing how these rumors, which had no word of truth in them, could start.

  ‘It was the curse on the house,” I heard Mrs. Bury say on another occasion. “You see it should have been Master Beau’s by rights. And Mr. Nap came home and took his place. Oh I know she went off with the curate. It’s what they call predestination ... part of the curse, you see.”

  Whenever anyone from the house appeared it would set tongues wagging. Once I saw the three girls in Mrs. Bury s shop I guessed she was talking to them about the curse on Lovat Stacy and Edith’s disappearance. There was an air of guilty conspiracy about them all.

  I thought a great deal about Napier and that conversation when he had told me that he was not indifferent to me. I wondered how sincerely he meant those words. He had seemed genuine but this could be a method of approach. I was a woman and a widow, experienced of life. He was not free to make any honorable declaration—no more now than then. Yet he had made a declaration of a sort, and if I were wise I would stop thinking of him. But it was true that I was struggling out of my own slough of despondency as perhaps he was ... if I could believe him ... and it was partly due to him. Whatever I thought of him he had given me a new interest in life and because I was not thinking of Pietro every hour of the day it was rather like seeing a faint light at the end of a dark tunnel through which one had struggled for a long time—and being afraid of what one might find in the light.

  I had promised myself that I would never be involved again. If I had visualized another life, marriage, children, a home of my own, I had seen my husband as a shadowy figure. I should be fond of him, but I would never give him the power to hurt me as Pietro had hurt me. Not only in dying and leaving me alone, but in our life together. Yes, I was admitting the hurts now, the carelessness, the lack of tenderness, the ruthless squandering of my career for his. This admission was new and—I must face it—it had come through my rel
ationship with Napier. But children ... I longed for children. With them I could build a new life. I might be freeing myself from my past but Napier was chained to his as surely as he had been when Edith was in the house.

  Her memory was more vivid than she had been herself. Her clothes were still in the wardrobe and her room was just as she had left it. There were now Beau’s room and Edith’s room; but Edith’s would not be a shrine as Beau’s had been. I was sure that as soon as Mrs. Lincroft had nursed Sir William back to health something would be done.

  And then the new curate arrived and everyone had something else to talk about. Edith’s “elopement with the curate” was still a topic of conversation but not now of paramount importance. Mr. Godfrey Wilmot had replaced her.

  Mrs. Rendall came over to Lovat Stacy to talk to Mrs. Lincroft and me about Mr. Wilmot. She was clearly delighted with him.

  “What great good fortune! I am glad now that we rid ourselves of that—of that—well, no matter. Mr. Wilmot is here now. The most charming man, and the vicar has taken such a fancy to him.”

  Poor vicar, I thought, obviously he dare do nothing else.

  “Oh yes,” continued Mrs. Rendall, “I have no doubt you will agree we have a find in Mr. Wilmot. Such a charming young man!” She beamed on us both and whispered: “He is thirty. Such good family. His uncle is Sir Laurence, the judge. Of course he will have a very good living in time. The reason he hasn’t one already is because he made a late decision to come into the Church. We shan’t keep him very long, I fear.” She smiled rather coyly. “Though I shall do my best to make him so happy that he doesn’t want to leave us. You must come to the vicarage to meet him. He is delighted, by the way, to help in the instruction of the girls.”

  Mrs. Lincroft said that she was eager to meet the new curate and it was most satisfactory that he should satisfy Mrs. Rendall’s requirements so completely.

  “I believe,” said Mrs. Rendall, “that Mr. Brown’s desertion is going to prove a blessing in disguise.”

  The girls brought back glowing reports of Mr. Wilmot from the vicarage.

  “So handsome!” sighed Allegra. “He’ll never want to marry Sylvia.”

  Sylvia flushed and looked angry.

  I came to her rescue. “Perhaps Sylvia wouldn’t want to marry him.”

  “She’d have no choice,” retorted Allegra. “Nor will he if he stays. Mrs. Rendall has quite made up her mind.”

  “This is nonsense,” I said.

  Alice and Allegra exchanged glances.

  “Good heavens,” I cried. “The poor man has only just arrived.”

  “Mrs. Rendall thinks he’s wonderful though,” murmured Alice.

  “The arrival of a new personality at this place has turned everyone’s head.”

  It was true that people were talking of the new curate.

  “Very different from that Mr. Brown.” “I hear his father’s a lord or something.” “He’s very good looking ... and such nice manners.”

  These were the comments I heard throughout the village in the days before I met him and by this time I was looking forward to making the acquaintance of this paragon. At least his coming took the limelight from Edith’s disappearance. Not that Edith was forgotten. When I saw the constable in the village I stopped and talked to him.

  “The case is still open, Mrs. Verlaine,” he said. “Until it’s definitely proved she’s run off with this young man we’ll keep our eyes open.”

  I wondered what they were doing about the case, but when I asked him, he merely looked mysterious.

  “Come into the drawing room,” Mrs. Rendall greeted us. “Mr. Wilmot is with the vicar in his study.”

  We all followed her into the drawing room where Sylvia was standing by the window.

  “Pray sit down, Mrs. Verlaine, and you too.” She signed to the girls. “Sylvia, don’t stand there so awkwardly.” Anxious maternal eyes surveyed Sylvia. “How untidy you look! That hair ribbon is positively grubby. Go and change it at once.”

  I saw Allegra and Alice exchange glances, and it occurred to me how observant—and critical—the young were.

  “Don’t slouch so,” said Mrs. Rendall to the departing Sylvia who blushed uncomfortably. “And put your shoulders back.” She added in exasperation: “Girls!”

  She talked desultorily of Sir William’s health and the weather until Sylvia returned wearing a blue hair ribbon.

  “H’m!” said her mother. “Now go to the study and tell the vicar and Mr. Wilmot that Mrs. Verlaine is here.”

  She watched her daughter speculatively, but perhaps I thought that because of the girls’ comments. In a few moments the vicar entered the drawing room accompanied by Mr. Wilmot, who was indeed an extremely personable young man—a little more than medium height with a very charming and candid expression. He had perfect white teeth, which were very evident when he smiled, and his manners were easy. He was a contrast to the meek Mr. Brown.

  “Ah, Mr. Wilmot!” I had never heard Mrs. Rendall’s tone so cooingly gentle. “I want you to meet Mrs. Verlaine. You will want to talk about lesson times with her. She is teaching the girls the piano.”

  He came towards me. “Mrs. Verlaine,” he said. “That’s a very famous name.”

  He took my hand; his warm brown eyes looked into mine. “You are referring to my husband,” I said.

  “Ah, Pietro Verlaine ... what an artist!” His expression clouded. He would be remembering that I was a widow. It lightened suddenly. “Why,” he went on, “I knew your sister. It was here...”

  I was unable to control my expression. I was exposed. It had been bound to happen sooner or later. Pietro was too well known; and in her circles so was Roma. Someone would one day be bound to link me up.

  He must have noticed my expression of fear for he said quickly: “Perhaps I am mistaken...”

  “My sister ... is dead,” I heard myself stammer.

  Mrs. Rendall said: “How very sad!” She turned to Mr. Wilmot. “Mrs. Verlaine’s father was a professor. It is sad that her only sister died ... not very long ago, I believe.”

  Mr. Wilmot came gallantly and magnificently to the rescue. “Of course. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Verlaine, for introducing a subject which must be painful.”

  I did not speak, but I think my eyes must have expressed my gratitude.

  “Mr. Wilmot is very interested in our little village,” said Mrs. Rendall archly.

  “Oh yes,” said our new curate, “I find the Roman remains quite fascinating.”

  “They are, I believe, one of the reasons why you decided to come here.”

  He smiled charmingly. “They are just an added attraction,” He turned to me; “I am an amateur archaeologist, Mrs. Verlaine.”

  I swallowed and said: “How very interesting.”

  “At one time I intended to make it my profession. Then ... rather later than usual ... I decided to go into the Church.”

  “How very fortunate for us,” boomed Mrs. Rendall. “I do wish you could persuade Sylvia to show a little interest in our remains, Mr. Wilmot.”

  “I can try,” he said smiling.

  The vicar said: “Ah ... very interesting!” and I could see he was pleased, for now that the curate showed an interest in the Roman remains Mrs. Rendall had discovered how fascinating they were.

  “I don’t think our lessons are going to overlap,” I said, bringing the conversation to the subject we had come to discuss.

  “I’m sure they won’t.”

  I was immediately conscious of his interest and I was not surprised. He must wonder why I was so anxious that he should not betray the fact that I was Roma’s sister.

  I had given Sylvia her music lesson and was crossing the vicarage garden on my way back to Lovat Stacy when I heard my name called, and there was Mr. Wilmot running after me, smiling his engaging smile.

  “I’ve set the girls some work,” he said. "I had to speak to you.”

  “About my sister?”

  He nodded. “I only met her on
ce or twice. She mentioned you then. She was worried about you because of your marriage. She thought it wouldn’t be good for your career.”

  “Thank you for keeping silent,” I said.

  His puzzled gaze met mine. “They don’t know of the relationship obviously.”

  I shook my head. “Let me explain. You know my sister ... disappeared.”

  “Yes. It’s one of the reasons why I could not resist taking the opportunity—when it arose—of coming here. That ... and the finds. And you?”

  “I came here to teach the girls the piano and to try to find out what has become of my sister.”

  “And decided to keep the relationship secret?”

  “Perhaps it was silly of me, but I was afraid they wouldn’t have me if they knew. Roma had come here though they didn’t want her and her party. And then she brought unpleasant publicity here by disappearing. I wanted to find out what had happened to my sister ... so I came here.”

  He gave a deep sigh. “How thankful I am that you stopped me in time. You know I might have mentioned it if I’d heard your name before meeting you.”

  “Yes. It’s difficult to remain anonymous after having been married to a famous man.”

  He nodded. “It’s very ... intriguing.”

  “It’s horribly mystifying. And now Edith has disappeared too.”

  “Oh, that unfortunate affair. She’s run away from her husband, I hear.”

  “I’m not sure. All I know is that , she disappeared and Roma disappeared.”

  He looked at me shrewdly. “I understand your feelings. I wonder if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “At least someone knows who I am...” I began.

  “You can be sure no one else will learn through me.”

  “I’m grateful.”

  He smiled. “I saw the panic in your face. We must have a talk about this. As an archaeologist ... strictly amateur ... I might be of use. Incidentally I’m fond of music. I play the organ.”