The Shivering Sands

by Victoria Holt

  “But you will be soon.” She brought her face closer to mine and I could see the freckles across the bridge of her nose. “I think you’ll be very happy.”

  “Thank you, Alice.”

  “I think Mr. Wilmot is a charming man. I’m sure he’ll make a good husband.”

  “How is it that you can judge a good husband?”

  “But it’s easy to tell in this case. He’s handsome and rich I think ... otherwise Mrs. Rendall wouldn’t want him for Sylvia. And he’s kind and he wouldn’t be cruel to you as some husbands are.”

  “Your knowledge astounds me, Alice.”

  “Oh well,” she said modestly, “I have lived here with Edith and Napier. He was unkind to her. You see I have an example close at hand.”

  “How can you be sure that he was unkind to her?”

  “She used to cry a lot. She said he was cruel to her.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Yes. She used to confide in me a lot. It was because we were both little girls together.”

  “You haven’t a notion why she ... went away?”

  “It was to get away from him. I think she’s gone to London to be a governess.”

  “What gave you that idea? You thought she had run away with Mr. Brown, remember.”

  “So did everybody. But that was silly. She couldn’t run away with him, could she? Any more than a married woman could run away with Mr. Wilmot, because he is a curate and curates don’t run away with people whom they can’t marry.”

  “So you think she has gone off on her own. Oh Alice, as if she would! You remember Edith. She would never be able to stand on her two feet.”

  “Do you know, Mrs. Verlaine, that if a tiger came into this garden you and I would run as we never had run before. We’d have special reserves of strength. Our bodies would provide them. Isn’t that interesting? And it’s true, I read it somewhere. It’s Nature’s provision. That’s what it is. Well, Edith had to get away so Nature gave her the strength to do so.”

  “What a little wiseacre you are.”

  “Wiseacre,” she repeated. “I haven’t heard that word before. I like it. Wiseacre. It makes me sound like a clever piece of land.”

  “If you know anything about Edith you should tell it, Alice.”

  “I only know that she’s run away. I don’t think she’ll ever be found because she won’t want to be. I wonder what she’s doing now. Teaching some children their lessons I expect ... in a house like Lovat Stacy. Isn’t that strange, Mrs. Verlaine?”

  ‘Too strange to be believed,” I said. “I’m sure Edith would do no such thing. It would be wrong and wicked.”

  “But while he has a wife, Napier won’t be able to marry anyone else. I’ve written a story about it, Mrs. Verlaine. There’s a woman who is married to a bad man and she cannot escape from him, so she runs away and hides herself. You see, she has no husband and he has no wife and while she is hidden he can’t take another wife. It’s her big sacrifice. She remains hidden away until she is an old woman. And then she is lonely because she has no grandchildren. But that was her sacrifice.”

  “You must let me see some of your stories, Alice.”

  “Oh, they’re not very good. I have to improve a lot. Shall I tell you a secret, Mrs. Verlaine? It will probably shock you.”

  “I’m not easily shocked.”

  “Mr. Lincroft was not my father.”

  “What?”

  “Sir William is my father. Oh, it’s true. I heard them talking—my mother and Sir William. That’s why I’m here ... living in the house. I’m what is called a love child. I think that’s rather a nice thing to be ... in a way. Love child. It’s like Allegra. She’s one too. Isn’t it strange, Mrs. Verlaine, that there should be two of us? Two love children ... in the same house, brought up together.”

  “Alice, you are romancing again.”

  “No, I’m not. After I heard them talking I asked my mother and she admitted it She loved Sir William and he loved her ... and she went away because she thought it was wrong to stay here. And she had me and she married Mr. Lincroft ... to give me a name. That’s why I’m Alice Lincroft but really I’m Alice Stacy. Sir William is very fond of me. I think that one day he will make me legitimate. You can do it you know. I’m going to write a lovely story about a girl whose father makes her legitimate, but I’m saving that one. It’s going to be the best I’ve ever done.”

  As I looked at the earnest little face beside me I could well believe this would be so.

  The skein of circumstance grew more and more tangled with every hew disclosure.

  It had been raining heavily all day long. The girls had come back from their morning at the vicarage wet through and Mrs. Lincroft insisted that they take off all their clothes and put on dry ones.

  As I saw her efficiently taking charge I thought what a strong sense of duty she had and I believed that she was trying to expiate her misdemeanor. I pictured her coming to the house, a companion for Isabella—a lovely creature she must have been with that quiet grace and beauty. What bitter tensions there must have been, with Sir William falling in love with her and she with him, and Isabella ... poor and tragic Isabella, suddenly growing aware of it.

  No wonder I sensed the sadness in her room.

  And when Mrs. Lincroft was going to have a child she went away and then, but perhaps that was later—married Mr. Lincroft for the sake of the child. I wondered about Mr. Lincroft who had conveniently died so that his wife could come back to Lovat Stacy after the death of Isabella.

  I always had the impression that she was living in the past; there was an aura of “days gone by” about her. It was in those chiffon blouses and the long sweeping skirts which she favored—the greys, the misty blues ... they were hazy, indefinite ... ghostly, I thought and laughed at the word.

  After tea I gave the girls a music lesson.

  “Poor Sylvia! She’s missing hers,” said Alice.

  “A fact for which she’ll be truly grateful to the rain,” declared Allegra. “Listen to it ... pouring. All the gypsies will be in their caravans making pegs and baskets as fast as they can. That’s one thing I wouldn’t be a gypsy for. I’d hate to make baskets.”

  “You hate to work anyway. All you want to do is lie in the sun.

  “ ‘Who doth ambition shun

  And love to lie i’ the sun,’ ”

  sung Alice. “The answer is Allegra. But do you shun ambition? I don’t think you do really. What is your ambition? I know what Mrs. Verlaine’s is.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “To live in a lovely house far away from here ... with a handsome husband and ten children.”

  “It’s not such an unusual ambition.”

  “I think it’s mine too, in a way, always to live in a house like this. Only I’m not sure about the husband. I don’t know what I think about them. I’m too young yet.”

  “Ha!” laughed Allegra. “She’s pretending.”

  “I’m not,” said Alice. “Listen to the rain. Nobody would be out in weather like this. Not even ghosts.”

  “It’s just the time they would come out,” contradicted Allegra. “Don’t you agree, Mrs. Verlaine?”

  “I don’t agree that they come at all.”

  “The ghost will be in the chapel tonight, you see,” said Allegra.

  Alice shivered.

  “I shall watch,” declared Allegra.

  “You can’t watch all night,” Alice reminded her.

  “No, but I shall keep looking. It’ll be easy to see the light flash because it’s so dark.”

  “Now let’s discuss something sensible,” I suggested. “Alice, I’d like to hear you play that minuet again. You weren’t at all bad last time. Of course there’s plenty of room for improvement.”

  Alice arose with alacrity and sat at the piano. As I watched those painstaking fingers picking out the melody, I thought that the two girls were good for each other because they were so different. Alice was a great help in curbing Alle
gra’s wildness; and Allegra put a curb on Alice’s primness. The two little love children.

  The next morning the showers were intermittent and brighter weather was obviously on the way. In the morning I set out with the girls to walk to the vicarage.

  “I was right, Mrs. Verlaine,” Allegra said as we left the house and went along Church Path. “We saw the light last night, didn’t we, Alice?”

  She nodded. “Very bright it was, Mrs. Verlaine, because of the darkness.”

  “Alice wanted to come and tell you but we didn’t because you don’t believe in it.”

  “It was a trap or something on the road most likely,” I said.

  “Oh no, Mrs. Verlaine. The road doesn’t go that way.

  “Then whoever played tricks on a night like that must be in his dotage.”

  “Or dead. The rain wouldn’t worry the dead, would it?”

  “Well, we have a lot of work to get through this morning. I think I’ll take Sylvia first.”

  We had arrived at the vicarage and as we went up the path Mrs. Rendall appeared at the door, her arms folded, in a not unusual attitude.

  “Sylvia,” she answered, looking through me, “will not be available for lessons today. She is not well. In fact I have sent for the doctor.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “I do hope she will soon be well.”

  “I can’t understand what’s wrong. Shivering and sneezing ... it’s a thorough chill.” She turned and we followed her into the vicarage. “Ah!” her tone softened because Godfrey was coming down the stairs. “The pupils are here,” she added. “I was just explaining that dear Sylvia is having a few days in bed.”

  “Doctor’s orders?” asked Godfrey.

  “Mine. The child would go out yesterday to take some soup to poor Mrs. Cory. I said it was too wet but the dear girl insisted and said that it did not matter if she had a soaking and that what was important was that Mrs. Cory should have her soup.”

  “What a little saint she is,” said Godfrey lightly and Mrs. Rendall smiled warmly.

  “She has been brought up to think of others. So many people nowadays...” She threw a baleful glance at me, and I wanted to burst out laughing and I could see that Godfrey did the same.

  I said that as Sylvia would be unavailable for her music lesson there was no point in my staying. I could give Allegra and Alice theirs at Lovat Stacy. This arrangement seemed to please Mrs. Rendall mightily and she smiled almost graciously at me.

  On the way home I thought of poor Sylvia and I wondered if she had caught her cold by going into the copse to shine a light in the ruined walls.

  She would never have the courage. But would she? She was a strange girl—the one I knew least about

  Godfrey was leaning against the Stacy vault. It was afternoon of the same day and my walk had led me there. We had fallen into a habit of being there at certain times of the day in case the other should turn up. The grass grew long between the gravestones and there were trees which gave a certain privacy.

  “How’s the invalid?” I asked.

  “Poor Sylvia! Not very well. The doctor says her temperature is too high and she’s to stay in bed for a few days.”

  “Do you think it might be the result of getting wet in the rain?”

  “She’s had a cold for several days. She often has colds, poor child.”

  “What do you think of Sylvia?”

  “I don’t think of her.”

  “Shame on you after all her mother’s efforts. I’m sorry for her and I wonder what effect it’s having on her.”

  “It?” he said. “Do you mean her mamma?”

  “I do. Sylvia always seems so cowed. Do you think that someone who’s treated as she is might want to assert herself in some way?”

  “I’m sure she would like to assert herself if she could.”

  “What about going to the ruin and waving a lantern about?”

  “As a ghost, do you mean? But ghosts are so anonymous. So where’s the glory?”

  “In knowing that people are afraid to go there because of her. In knowing that she is the one who is making them all uneasy.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t quite see where the glory comes in.”

  I felt a little impatient with him. “Of course you don’t. You’ve never had to make people notice you. You’re so ... so normal.”

  He burst out laughing. “You sound as though there’s something rather disreputable about that.”

  “No, too reputable. But I want to understand Sylvia.”

  “That’s easy. She’s just a mouse of a girl with a great big tom cat of a mother always waiting at the mousehole to catch her.”

  I laughed. “More like a bulldog than a tom cat. And I’m sure we’re both wrong to change her sex. The female of the species is always more deadly than the male.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “In the case of the vicar and his wife ... yes. But I want to think of Sylvia. Do you know it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s the one who is doing the haunting. Frustrated mouse ... seeking self-expression ... seeking to form her own personality ... seeking a chance of gaining power. That’s it: Power. She who is made uncomfortable so often now has the opportunity of discomfiting others. It fits. Besides, how did she become ill? By going out in the rain when she already had a cold.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Godfrey thoughtfully. “When I came in last night after going to visit Mrs. Cory...”

  “The same who had previously received soup through Sylvia’s bounty?”

  “The same. When I returned from visiting her and hung up my clothes in the cloakroom I saw that Sylvia’s boots were there also ... saturated.”

  “So she had been out, too. Could she have done so without her parents knowing?”

  “Yes, if she had retired to bed early as she might have done—having a cold—and slipped out afterwards.”

  “We’re beginning to get somewhere,” I said. “So it’s Sylvia asserting herself, not someone trying to drive Napier away. The very next chance I get I’m going to catch that girl.”

  “Mr. Wilmot. Mr. Wilmot ...” It was Mrs. Rendall’s voice, cooing sweetly yet somehow invincible.

  “You’d better go and take tea with her,” I said. “For if you don’t she will search until she finds you.”

  He grinned and went off.

  I stood for some time looking at the memorial to Beau, thinking that I should be glad if it did prove to be Sylvia asserting herself.

  As I moved through the long grass a voice cried: “Hello!” And the gypsy seemed to materialize before me. She had in fact been lying in the long grass and I wondered if she had overheard my conversation with Godfrey.

  She grinned at me.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked.

  She waved a hand. “I’ve a right, ain’t I? This place is free to the dead and the living alike ... music teachers and gypsies.”

  “You appeared so suddenly.”

  "I was wanting to have a talk with you.”

  “With me?”

  “You look surprised. Why not? I like to know what’s going on up there.” She jerked her head in the direction of Lovat Stacy. “How do you like working there? I worked in the kitchens once. The cook they had ... ran me off my feet, she did ... or tried to. I was always missing when there was taters to peel. I never could abide peeling taters. Lazy good-for-nothing, that old cook used to call me.” She winked at me. “But I found something better to do than peel taters.”

  “I am sure you did,” I said coldly and turned away.

  “Hey. Not so fast. Don’t you want to talk to me about them up there... about Nap, for a start?”

  “I can’t believe you would be able to tell me anything I want to know.”

  She burst out laughing. “Do you know,” she said, “I like you ... in a way. You remind me of myself. Oh that makes you sit up and listen don’t it. How can a high class lady music teacher be like a gypsy? Don’t ask me. Ask Nap.”
<
br />   “If you’ll excuse me I have work to do...”

  “But I won’t excuse you. Don’t you know it’s rude to push a lady off when she wants to talk with you? Tell me about Allegra. She’s a little beauty, wouldn’t you say? A bit different from that Alice. I wouldn’t change Allegra for Alice not for a mint of money. I’ve got four of them now ... girls ... all girls. Now that’s a funny thing. Some has girls and can’t get boys. That’s me. I’ve seen it in the cards every time. ‘It’ll be a girl again’ I say and so it is. But Allegra ... she plays the piano lovely, does she? Do you know she’s the image of what I was at her age. Only I had me wits about me more than she has. Had to. I was a woman at her age. Why it was then I came to work in the kitchens ... What made me do that? Wouldn’t you like to know? Oh, wouldn’t you like to know! But I reckon you can guess ... though you might guess wrong.”

  I had no desire to continue this conversation so I assumed a look of indifference and glanced at my watch.

  She came closer to me and said: “I saw you with me lord from the vicarage just now. Very nice and friendly. I’ve heard talk too the way the wind blows there. Good luck, I says. Why don’t you take that luck, eh, and get out while you can? You’ve been warned, you know. Can’t you take a hint?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You should know after being nearly snuffed out in that old cottage. And would have been but for Miss Alice. I reckon Amy Lincroft was very proud of her daughter on that day.” She laughed aloud. “Oh, very proud.”

  “If you know anything I should be glad if you told me.”

  “Gypsies! They’re an ignorant lot. Don’t know anything, but they can warn you. Ever heard of the Gypsy’s warning?”

  “What do you know about the fire at the cottage?”

  “I wasn’t there. How could I know? But I’ll tell you this much. People are not what they seem. There’s Amy Lincroft for one. Why don’t you get away from here? Why don’t you marry his lordship and go? You won’t though, will you? Not yet. Mettlesome, that’s you. You’ve got to know. But tell me about Allegra.”

  I thought: She is talking as gypsies will talk, feigning some second sight which is denied to the rest of us—and I suppose a woman who has a narrow escape from death seems a good subject.