The Shivering Sands Read online

  I was very attracted by the house. There was something menacing about it. It looked so beautiful from a distance and when I was close to that great gateway ... ugh...”

  Essie laughed. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you,” she said. Then she asked me to play something for her and I sat down at the piano and it was like old times when I was young, before I had gone abroad to study, before I had met Pietro, before I threw away my chance.

  “Aye,” she said, “ye’ve a pretty touch. What do you plan?”

  I shook my head at her.

  “Oh come, lassie,” she said. “That’s nae the way. You go back to that Paris school and see whether you can take up where you left off.”

  “Where I left off ... before my marriage?”

  She didn’t answer. Perhaps she knew that although I was a competent pianist, although I could be a good teacher, I lacked the divine spark. Pietro had taken it from me; no, if I had had it I should never have chosen marriage instead of a career.

  Then finally she said: “Think about it ... and come again soon.”

  I walked back to our little cottage and thought about Essie and the old days and the future; but every now and then I would see the big house in my mind’s eye, populated by vague and shadowy figures who were only names to me, and yet seem to have some life of their own.

  I remember those days vividly; sitting in the cottage watching the mosaic emerge from under the skillful fingers of the restorers and sometimes strolling over to Essie’s house for a cup of tea and an hour or so at the piano. I think Essie wanted to warn me to make an effort to pick up the threads; she was telling me that I did not want to find myself in a position such as hers.

  One day she said to me: “The wedding’s on Saturday. Would you like to see it?”

  So I went to the church and saw Napier and Edith married. They came down the aisle together—she fair and fragile, he lean and dark, though I noticed his blue eyes which were startling in his brown face. I was seated at the back of the church with Essie as they went by and the organ was playing Mendelssohn’s wedding march. I felt a strange emotion as they passed—almost a premonition I might have said. But it was not that. Perhaps it was because I sensed the incongruity of the match; they did not belong together, those two, and it was obvious. The girl looked so young, so delicate and could I really have seen the apprehension in her face? I thought: She is afraid of him. And I remembered the day Pietro and I had married, how we had laughed together, how we had teased each other, and how we had loved. Poor child, I thought. And he had not looked too happy either. What was his expression? One of resignation, boredom ... cynicism?

  “Edith makes a pretty bride,” said Essie. “And she’ll continue with her lessons after the honeymoon. Sir William wants her to.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yes. Sir William’s all for music ... now. Although there was a time when he wouldn’t have it in the house. And Edith’s got a pretty talent. Oh nothing great, but she plays well and it’s a shame to drop it.”

  I went back with Essie for a cup of tea and she talked about the young ladies at Lovat Stacy and their music ... how Edith was good, Allegra lazy, and Alice painstaking.

  “Poor little Alice, she feels she has to be. You see, having so much given to her, she has to take advantage of it.”

  Roma agreed with Essie that I should go back to Paris and carry on with my music. “I can see,” she said, “that it’s the right thing for you to finish your studies. Though I’m not entirely sure of Paris. After all it was there...” She fingered her turquoises almost impatiently and decided not to mention my marriage. “If you feel it’s impossible ... we could work out something else.”

  “Oh Roma,” I cried, “you are so good. I don’t know how to tell you what a help you’ve been.”

  “Nonsense!” she retorted gruffly.

  “I’m realizing how good it is to have a sister.”

  “But naturally we stick together in times like these. You must come here more often.”

  I smiled and kissed her. Then I went back to Paris. It was a foolish thing to have done. I should have known that I could not endure to be in a place which was so full of memories of Pietro. It only showed how different Paris was without him, and that it was stupid of me to think that I could start all over again. Nothing could be the same again because the foundations on which I must build my future would be the past.

  How right Pietro was when he had said that one did not beckon the Muse and expect her to return after one had deserted her.

  I had been in Paris some three months when news came that Roma had disappeared..

  It was extraordinary. The dig was finished. They were preparing to pack up and leave within a few days. Roma had been superintending the departure in the morning, and it was evening before she was missed. There was no sign of her. It was as though she had just walked out into nowhere.

  It was a great mystery. She had left no note but had simply disappeared. I came back to England feeling bewildered, melancholy and deeply depressed. I kept remembering how good she had been to me, how she had tried to help me over my grief. I had been telling myself during those difficult weeks in Paris that I would always have Roma and that, through my sorrow, I had discovered a new relationship with my sister.

  I was interviewed by the police. It was thought that Roma had lost her memory and might be wandering about the country; then it was suggested that she might have taken a swim and been drowned, for the coast was dangerous at that point. I clung to the first suggestion because it was more comforting, though I could not imagine Roma in a state of amnesia. Each day I waited for news. None came.

  Some of her friends volunteered the suggestion that she might have had sudden news of a secret project and gone off to Egypt or somewhere like that. I tried to force myself to accept this comforting theory, but I knew it was not like precise and practical Roma. Something had prevented her from letting me know what had happened. Something? What could have prevented her but death?

  I told myself that I was obsessed by death because I had lost my parents and Pietro in such a short time. I could not lose Roma too.

  I was wretchedly unhappy and after a while I went back to Paris to settle up there because I knew I couldn't stay any longer. I returned to London, took rooms in a house in Kensington and advertised that I was a teacher of the pianoforte.

  Perhaps I was not a good teacher; perhaps I was impatient with the mediocre. After all I had had dreams for myself, and had been Pietro Verlaine’s wife. I was not earning my keep. My money was dwindling in an alarming way. Each day I hoped for news of Roma. I felt helpless because I did not know how to set about finding my sister. And then came my opportunity.

  Essie wrote that she was coming to London and would like to see me.

  I saw that she was excited as soon as she arrived; she was a born schemer for other people; I never remembered her scheming very much for herself.

  “I’m leaving Lovat Mill,” she said. “I haven’t been so well lately and I think it’s time I went to my sister in Scotland.”

  “That’s a long way,” I replied.

  “Oh aye, a long way; but what I’ve come to tell you is this. How would you like to go down there?”

  “To go ...” I stammered.

  “To Lovat Stacy. To teach the girls. Now listen. I’ve had a talk with Sir William. He was a wee bit put out when I told him of my plans. You see he wants Edith to continue with her lessons ... and the others too. And then they used to have musical evenings years ago, by all accounts, and he would like to revive them now that there’s a young bride in the house. It was his idea that he should have a resident teacher who would play for his benefit and that of his guests, as well as teach the girls now and then. He broached this subject with me when I told him I was going and I thought at once of you and said that I knew the widow of Pietro Verlaine who was a clever musician herself. Now if you’re agreeable he would like you to write to him and some arrangement could
be made.”

  I felt breathless. “Wait a moment!” I said.

  “Now you’re going to be a coy young lady and say ‘This is too sudden.’ Some of the best things in life are; and you have to make up your mind suddenly or lose them. If you say no, Sir William will be advertising for a resident teacher for the girls, because once I’d put the idea to him that you might come he was eager.”

  I was seeing it so clearly: the dig; the little cottage; the big house and those two coming down the aisle together. And Roma of course ... Roma urging me not to forget her.

  I said abruptly: “Do you believe that Roma is alive?”

  Her face puckered. She turned her head away and said: “I ... I don’t believe she would have gone away without telling someone she was going.”

  “Then she was spirited away ... or she’s somewhere where she can’t let us know. I want to find out ... I must.”

  Miss Elgin nodded.

  “I didn’t tell Sir William that you are her sister. He’s annoyed about the whole affair. There was too much publicity. I’ve heard it said that he declares he should never have allowed them to excavate there. That brought enough limelight and when your sister disappeared ... She shrugged her shoulders. “So I didn’t say you were the sister of Roma Brandon, I merely told him you were Caroline Verlaine, widow of the great pianist.”

  “So I should go there ... incognito as far as my connection with Roma is concerned?”

  “I honestly don’t believe he’d want you if he knew. He’d think you might have some reason for going there other than teaching.”

  “If I went,” I said, “he’d be right.”

  I wanted to think about it and Essie and I walked together in Kensington Gardens where Roma and I used to sail our boats when we were children. That night I dreamed of Roma; she was standing in the Round Pond holding out her hands to me and the water kept rising higher and higher. She called, “Do something, Caro.”

  It may have been this dream which made me definitely decide that I would go to Lovat Stacy.

  I sold the few pieces of furniture I possessed to the landlady in whose house I rented my two rooms. I put my piano in store and packed my bags.

  I had at last found a purpose in life. Pietro was lost to me forever; but I would try to find Roma.

  2

  The train had stopped at Dover Priory and quite a number of people had alighted. There was a halt of five minutes here while the mail was put on and as the last of those who had left the train passed through the barrier I was aware of a woman hurrying along the platform, a young girl of about twelve or thirteen beside her. She saw me for my head was out of the window as she passed; then, halting, she turned and came back, opened the door, and the two came into the carriage.

  She glanced at me covertly, and so did the girl, as they seated themselves opposite me. The woman sighed and said: “Oh, dear, shopping always makes me so tired.”

  The girl said nothing but I knew they were both studying me with curiosity. Why? I wondered. Did I look so odd?

  Then it occurred to me that the train served smaller stations after Dover Priory and it might well be that the people who traveled on this train after that were local people who were known to each other. In which case I would be picked out immediately as a stranger.

  The woman put a few small packages on the seat beside her and when one of these fell to the floor right at my feet and I retrieved it, the opening for conversation was at hand.

  “So tiring these trains,” said the woman. “And one gets so dirty. Are you going as far as Ramsgate?”

  “No, I’m getting off at Lovat Mill.”

  “Oh really. So are we. Thank Heaven it’s not far now ... another twenty minutes and we’ll be there ... providing we’re on time. How strange that you should be going there. But of course we’ve had a lot of activity lately. These people you know who found the Roman remains.”

  “Oh yes?” I said non-committally.

  “You’re not connected with them, I suppose?”

  “Oh no. I’m going to a house called Lovat Stacy.”

  “Dear me. Then you must be the young lady who is going to teach the girls music.”

  “Yes.”

  She was delighted. “Well, when I saw you, it did occur to me. There are so few strangers you see and we had heard that you were coming today.”

  “You belong to the household?”

  “No ... no. We’re at Lovat Mill ... just outside, of course. The vicarage. My husband is the vicar. We’re friends of the Stacys. In fact the girls come over to my husband for lessons. We’re only a mile or so from the House. Sylvia takes lessons with them, don’t you, Sylvia?”

  Sylvia said “Yes, Mamma,” in a very quiet voice. And I thought it not unlikely that Mamma ruled the household— including the vicar.

  Sylvia seemed meek enough but there was something about the line of her jaw and the set of her lips that belied her meekness, and I imagined her humility might evaporate with the departure of Mamma.

  “I daresay the vicar will ask you if you will take on Sylvia at the same time as the Stacy girls.”

  “Is Sylvia interested in music?” I was smiling at Sylvia who looked at her mother.

  “She is going to be,” said that lady firmly.

  Sylvia smiled rather faintly and threw back the plait which hung over her right shoulder. I noticed the rather spatulate fingers which did not look to me like those of a pianist.

  I could already hear Sylvia’s painful performance at the piano.

  “I am so pleased that you are not one of those archaeologist people. I was very much against letting them invade Lovat Stacy.”

  “You don’t approve of this sort of discovery?”

  “Discovery!” she retorted. “Of what use are their discoveries? If we had been meant to know these things were there, they would not have been covered up, would they?”

  This amazing logic was all against my upbringing, but this forceful woman was clearly expecting a reply, and as I did not want to antagonize her because I guessed she could probably tell me a good deal about Lovat Stacy, I smiled non-committally, murmuring an inner apology to my parents and Roma.

  “They came down here ... disturbing everything. Goodness gracious me, one could not move without coming across them. Pails, spades ... digging up the earth, completely mining several acres of the park ... And to what purpose? To uncover these Roman remains! ‘There are plenty of them all over the country,’ I said to the vicar. ‘We don’t want them here.’ One of these people came to a strange end ... or perhaps it wasn’t an end. Who’s to say. She disappeared.”

  I felt a prickling down my spine. I felt that I might betray my relationship with the one who had disappeared; and that was something which I was determined not to do. I said quickly: “Disappeared?”

  “Oh yes. It was all very strange. She was there in the morning ... and no one saw her after that. She disappeared during the day.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “That’s what a lot of people would like to know. Her name was ... what was her name, Sylvia?”

  Sylvia’s spatulate fingers with the bitten nails clenched themselves, betraying her tension, and for a moment I thought she was disturbed because she knew something about Roma’s disappearance; then I realized that she was in awe of her mother, particularly when she asked a question to which she might not be able to find the answer.

  But she had this one. “It was Miss Brandon ... Miss Roma Brandon.”

  The woman nodded. “That was it. One of these unwomanly women...” She shivered. “Digging! Climbing about! Most unnatural, I call it. It was very likely a punishment for meddling. Some people say it was due to that. There’s quite a superstition about it. This ... whatever it was that happened to her ... took place because she had meddled. A sort of curse. I think it ought to be a lesson to these people.”

  “But they’ve all left now?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, yes. They were about to leave when this happened.
Of course, when the fuss started it delayed them. It’s my belief she was taking a bathe and was caught by the currents. A most immodest habit, bathing. It’s the easiest thing to get carried out to sea. A sort of judgment. People should be more careful. But the local people will tell you that it was some sort of revenge. One of these Roman gods or someone who didn’t like his house being disturbed saying: Take that for meddling. The vicar and I try to tell them this is nonsense but at the same time it does seem a rough sort of justice.”

  “Did you ever meet this ... woman who disappeared?”

  “Meet her. Oh no. We didn’t meet those people, although they were rather friendly with some of them up at the House. Then Sir William is a little odd. Mind you, they are a very great family and of course we are friends. People of our sort do tend to stand together in a small community; and because of the girls we are constantly seeing one another. By the way, I don’t think I asked you your name.”

  “It is Caroline Verlaine. Mrs. Verlaine.”

  I watched her anxiously, wondering whether she would connect me with Roma. Although Essie had assured me that Sir William did not know I was Roma’s sister, there had been a great deal of publicity at the time of her disappearance. Roma was after all Pietro’s sister-in-law; he was famous; and this might have been mentioned. I felt ridiculously dismayed. But I need not have worried. It was clear that my name meant nothing to the vicar’s lady.

  “Yes, I heard you were a widow,” she said. “Frankly I had expected someone much older.”

  “I have been a widow for a year now.”

  “Ah, sad, sad.” She allowed a little pause as an expression of her compassion. “I am Mrs. Rendall ... and this is of course Miss Rendall.”

  I bowed my head in acknowledgment of the introduction.

  “I heard that you hold many diplomas and such like.”

  “I have some diplomas.”