Victoria Holt

by The Shivering Sands

  “There’s always plenty of time, isn’t there, Mamma?” put in Alice eagerly, “sometimes we go into the Park. But I’d rather go to the British Museum.”

  Mrs. Lincroft said: “I don’t see why you shouldn’t have an hour or so there. When did you propose to go, Mrs. Verlaine?”

  “Oh please, I don’t want to force this on you.”

  “It can scarcely be said to be forced,” she replied with a smile. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll go straight to the Museum and then we’ll have luncheon at Brown’s Hotel and afterwards choose the material and catch the four-thirty train home.”

  Thus was my frustration complete but there was worse to come. While I sat back in my seat watching the fields and hedges skim by I was trying to think of some way of diverting their desires from the British Museum, but I dared not seem too disturbed. How had Allegra overheard my talk with Godfrey? We must have been careless.

  At length I realized that there was nothing to be done but take them along with me to the Museum, where I must try to lose them and find my way to the Roman section alone.

  Luck was against me that day. We had alighted from the cab which took us from the Station to the Museum when a voice called me by name.

  “Why…surely…yes it is…Mrs. Verlaine.”

  Fortunately I was a little ahead of my companions so I moved quickly toward the speaker whom I recognized immediately as a colleague of my father’s.

  “A bad business that of your sister,” he said, shaking his head. “What was it all about?”

  “We…we never discovered.”

  “A great loss,” he said. “We always used to say that Roma Brandon would go even farther than your parents. Poor Roma…”

  How resonant was his voice. Mrs. Lincroft was near enough to have heard every word, but the children did not seem to be listening. Alice was standing with her back toward me pointing out something on the road to Allegra. But Mrs. Lincroft must have heard.

  “You must look us up sometime. Same address.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks.”

  He had lifted his hat, bowed and moved off.

  Mrs. Lincroft said: “I’ve never been in this place before. We don’t take advantage of our museum, do we?”

  My heart was beating fast. Perhaps she had not heard. Perhaps I had imagined that his voice was unusually resonant. She had not been so close as I thought her and her mind was on the material for the girls’ dresses.

  “No,” I said and there was a nervous laugh in my voice. “We don’t really.”

  “We are taking advantage now.” Alice had come up with Allegra. “How solemn it all is! How important!”

  They walked beside me exclaiming as they went. I thought of the old days when I had come here so frequently, when my parents had believed that the greatest treat any child could enjoy was within these walls.

  ***

  I had escaped them. I had left them all poring over an illuminated manuscript dating back to the twelfth century while I sped silently over those stone floors and here I was where I had been so many times with Roma.

  I asked one of the guides where I could find any of the Roman relics from the Lovat Stacy site and I was directed immediately.

  To my great joy it was there among other relics. The very mosaic which was so like that broken and battered one Godfrey and I had examined with such care. There was more than one. I had not known of this. Roma had only mentioned one, but perhaps she was so successful with it that she had attempted some sort of restoration of others. In the case with the mosaics was a printed notice describing them and the process used in the reconditioning. The first of them showed a figure—probably a man—who appeared to be without feet, for he stood on a pair of stumps which I realized were meant to be legs. His arms were stretched out as though he were attempting to catch at something which was not there. I looked at the second mosaic. The pictures were less vivid on this one and there were gaps in the scene which had been filled in with some sort of cement; but this was a picture of a man whose legs were cut off to the knee. I realized then that he was standing in something; and in the final one only the man’s head was visible and he had clearly been buried alive.

  I could not take my eyes from them.

  “Why, they’re ours,” said a voice at my elbow. I turned. Allegra and Alice were standing on either side of me.

  “Yes,” I said, “they were discovered on the site near Lovat Stacy.”

  “Oh, but that makes them so very interesting doesn’t it?” said Alice.

  Mrs. Lincroft was coming toward us.

  “Look, Mamma,” said Alice. “Look what Mrs. Verlaine has found.”

  Mrs. Lincroft studied the mosaics with what appeared to be a cursory interest. “Very nice,” she said.

  “But you haven’t looked,” protested Allegra. “They’re ours.”

  “What?” Mrs. Lincroft looked closely. “Well, fancy that!” She smiled at me apologetically. “Now I really do think we must think about getting luncheon.”

  I agreed. My mission was accomplished, though I was not sure how successfully. But I should have a great deal to tell Godfrey.

  We made our way from the Museum and took a cab to Brown’s while the girls chattered about what they would eat and what material they would choose.

  When we came out the news boys were shouting excitedly. “Gentleman Terrall captured. Madam safe.”

  “That’s our Gentleman Terrall,” said Alice.

  “What do you mean…ours?” asked Mrs. Lincroft sharply.

  “We were talking about him, Mamma. We said he must be a little like Mr. Wilmot.”

  “Whatever made you say that?”

  “Because he was a gentleman. We thought he’d look exactly like Mr. Wilmot, didn’t we, Allegra?”

  Allegra nodded.

  “You shouldn’t think about such things.” Mrs. Lincroft sounded quite cross and Alice was subdued.

  No one mentioned the mosaics. More comforting still, none of them showed that they had overheard that conversation outside the Museum. My confidence began to return and by the time we had bought the material and were ready to return home I was convinced that my identity was still a secret.

  ***

  Godfrey was excited about my discovery in the Museum.

  “I’m certain it means something,” he declared.

  We had walked along beside the three baths and he stooped to peer at the mosaic as though he felt that if he looked long enough he would discover some meaning there.

  “Don’t you think they would have found out if it did?” I asked.

  “Who, the archaeologists? It may not have occurred to them. But I’ve a notion that there’s something behind it.”

  “Well, what do you propose to do? Go to the British Museum and lay this information before the powers that be?”

  “They’d probably laugh at me.”

  “You mean because they didn’t discover it. Here is another version of the jealous archaeological theory. It’s fascinating, but it hasn’t brought the solution of Roma’s disappearance any nearer.”

  I heard a little warning cough and turning saw the three girls coming toward us.

  “We’ve come to see the mosaics,” announced Alice. “We saw them in the Museum, you know. Mrs. Verlaine showed us.”

  “I liked the one with just the head showing,” said Allegra. “It looked as if they’d chopped off his head and put it on the ground. It was gruesome, that one.”

  “It made me feel sick,” commented Alice.

  Godfrey straightened up and gazed toward the sea.

  I guessed he wanted to change the subject for he said: “How clear it is. They say that means rain.”

  “It does,” agreed Allegra. “When you can see the masts on the Goodwins it often means rain.”

  Godfrey caugh
t his breath; he seemed to have forgotten the presence of the girls. “It’s just struck me,” he said. These mosaics…they’re meant to portray someone being buried alive.”

  “You mean sinking in quicksand?”

  Godfrey looked inspired. “It was a sort of warning probably. As a punishment they took people out to the Goodwins so that they could gradually sink.”

  “That wouldn’t be possible, would it?” I asked.

  He looked disappointed. “Hardly. There might have been other sands.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere.” He waved his hand vaguely. “But I’m sure that’s what it means.”

  “I think that’s…horrible,” said Sylvia with a shudder. Tancy being…”

  Godfrey stood rocking on his heels, entranced. I don’t think I had ever seen him really excited before.

  “Don’t be a baby, Sylvia,” chided Allegra.

  “We mustn’t keep Miss Clent waiting,” said Alice. Then to me: “Miss Clent is going to fit our dresses this morning.”

  “Oh dear,” sighed Allegra. “I wish I hadn’t chosen that crushed strawberry. The burgundy red would have been so much better.”

  “I did tell you,” said Alice mildly reproachful. “In any case we can’t keep Miss Clent waiting.”

  So they left us to discuss the possibility of Godfrey’s theory regarding the mosaic.

  ***

  “Alice has written a story about the mosaic,” Allegra announced. “It’s really a good one.”

  “That’s very creditable,” I said. “You must show me this one, Alice.”

  “I want to wait until I’m really satisfied.”

  “But you showed Allegra and Sylvia.”

  “I just see the effect on them. Besides they’re only children…well they aren’t much more. Grown-ups would be more critical, wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t see why they should be.”

  “Oh yes, of course they would. They are experienced of the world, whereas we have so much to learn.”

  “So you won’t show me this story?”

  “I will one day…when I’ve perfected it.”

  “It’s about the man in the quicksand,” said Allegra.

  Alice sighed and looked at Allegra who shrugged her shoulders sullenly.

  “I thought you were proud of it,” she said.

  Alice ignored her and turned to me. “It’s about the Romans,” she said. “If anyone did anything wrong they used to put them in this quicksand and it very slowly swallowed them right up. It was slow. That was why they used it. Some quicksands swallow things up quickly…that’s why they call them quicksands. But these were slow sands…it makes it last longer and is more of a punishment. They move and grip…you see…and the victim can’t get away. So the Romans put their criminals into these sands. It was a good punishment. And there was a man in my story who had to make a mosaic of the sands and himself being swallowed up in them…before it happened to him. You see that was what was called refined torture. It was worse than just putting him in and letting him go down…because all the time he was making the mosaic he knew what was going to happen to him. And because he felt all that he made a wonderful mosaic…better than anyone could if they hadn’t been so personally involved.”

  “Alice what ideas you get!”

  “You think it’s a good thing, don’t you?” she asked anxiously.

  “It is, provided you don’t let your imagination run riot. You should let it dwell on pleasant things.”

  “Oh,” said Alice, “I see. But one has to be truthful, doesn’t one, Mrs. Verlaine. I mean one mustn’t shut one’s eyes to truth.”

  “No certainly not but…”

  “I was only thinking that why did they make those pictures on the mosaic if they were thinking of pleasant things? I can’t believe it’s very pleasant being caught in the shivering sands. That’s what I’m calling my story. The Shivering Sands. It made me shiver when I wrote it. And the girls did, too, when I read it to them. But I will try to let my imagination work on pleasant things.”

  ***

  When I came out of my room I ran straight into Sybil who seemed to have been lurking outside waiting for me.

  “Ah, Mrs. Verlaine,” she said, as though I was the last person she expected to see coming out of my own room. “How nice to see you! It seems a long time since I last did. But then you have been so busy.”

  “There are the lessons,” I replied vaguely.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that.” She was looking into my room with excited prying eyes. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Would you care to come into my room?”

  “That would be nice.”

  She tiptoed in as though we were partners in a conspiracy and looked all round the room. “Pleasant,” she commented “Very pleasant. I think you’ve been quite happy here, Mrs. Verlaine,” she said. “You’d be sorry to go.”

  “Yes I should…if I were going.”

  “I saw you with the curate. I suppose some would say he was a very handsome young man.”

  “I suppose some would.”

  “And you, Mrs. Verlaine?” Her archness made me feel uncomfortable.

  “Yes, yes, I suppose so.”

  “I hear he’ll soon be going to a very fine living. Well, it was to be expected. He has the right connections. He’ll get on. A suitable wife is just what he needs.”

  A flicker of irritation crossed my face and she may have noticed it for she said: “I’ve taken a fancy to you. I shouldn’t want you to go away. You seem to have become part of the place.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course everyone here is part of the place. Even people like Edith—who hadn’t much personality, poor girl—she had her effect, didn’t she? And a big one too. Poor child!”

  I wished that I had not asked her in. I could have made my escape easily from the corridor.

  “And of course,” she went on, “it was your playing that startled William and made him so ill.”

  I said with some exasperation: “I’ve already told you that I was only playing what I was given to play.”

  Her eyes brightened suddenly—glinting points of blue light embedded in the wrinkles.

  “Oh yes…but who gave you that particular piece do you think, Mrs. Verlaine?”

  I said: “I wish I knew.”

  She had become so alert that I knew she was about to disclose what she had come to tell me.

  “I remember the day she died…”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Isabella. She played all the day. It was a new piece. She had just found the piano arrangement of it. Danse Macabre.” She began to hum it off-key which made the melody sound supernatural. “The Dance of Death…” she mused. “And all the time she was playing it she was thinking of death. Then she took the gun and went into the woods. That was why he couldn’t bear to hear it played. He would never have put that piece in for you to play, would he?”

  “Someone did.”

  “I wonder who?”

  She began to laugh and I said: “Do you know?”

  She did her mandarin’s nod. “Oh yes, Mrs. Verlaine, I know.”

  “It was someone who wanted to upset Sir William…to shock him. And he a sick man!”

  “Why not?” she said. “Why should he pretend to be so virtuous? He wasn’t. I can tell you that. So why shouldn’t he be shocked?”

  “But it might have killed him. He’s not to be upset.”

  “You thought it was Napier. They quarreled and he threatened Napier that he’d send him off again. Imagine it. There’d be no excitement here then. Why should Napier have to go? Why should Sir William pretend to be so good? There was a time…”

  “Miss Stacy,” I said, “did you put that piece of music among the selection I was to play?”

&
nbsp; She hunched her shoulders like a child and nodded.

  “So, you see,” she said, “you shouldn’t think too badly of Napier, should you?”

  She was mad, I thought, dangerously mad. But I was glad then that she had come to my room. At least he was not guilty of that.

  ***

  The mosaic was constantly in my mind and I could not rid myself of the idea that we had discovered something of importance. I went back again to the remains, and wandered about thinking of Roma, trying to remember what she had told me. One morning I met Napier there.

  “You’ve started coming here again,” he said. “I guessed I’d meet you sometime.”

  “You have seen me then?”

  “Often.”

  “When I was unaware of it? It is a little alarming to be watched when one is not conscious of it.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” he countered, “if you have nothing to hide.”

  “How many of us are as virtuous as that?”

  “It’s not necessarily a matter of virtue. For instance one might be engaged on a very creditable undertaking which required…anonymity, in which case it would be alarming to be secretly observed.”

  “Such as…”

  “Such as coming to a place incognito to solve the mysterious disappearance of a sister.”

  I caught my breath and said: “You know!”

  “It was not so difficult to discover.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Very soon after you came.”

  “But…”

  He laughed. “As I said it was very easy. I wanted to know so much about you, and as you had a famous husband that simplified matters considerably. A famous husband, a sister who was well known in certain circles. Oh come, you must admit it was not a very difficult proposition.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It would have made you uneasy, and I would rather you had told me who you were.”

  “But I should never have been allowed to come had I told.”

  “Told me,” he said. “Not others.”

  “Well what are you going to do about it?”

  “Precisely what I have been doing.”

  “You are annoyed with me?”