The Shivering Sands Read online

  “Was he your teacher too?”

  She nodded and smiled. Then she was suddenly grave. “Of course since ... my marriage I have not been having lessons. Mr. Brown is a very good teacher.” She sighed. “I think you will like him, and the vicar.”

  We reached the vicarage, a lovely old grey stone house standing beside the church with its tall grey tower.

  Mrs. Rendall greeted me like an old friend and said she would take me to the vicar’s study. She looked at Edith questioningly. I noticed that people were unsure how to treat Edith; because, I presumed, she seemed neither a young girl nor a married woman.

  Edith said: “Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Rendall. I’ll go to the schoolroom and join the scholars for a while.”

  Mrs. Rendall lifted her shoulders in a manner which suggested she thought Edith’s behavior a little odd. Then she led the way to the vicar’s study.

  It was a charming room with tall windows looking onto a well-kept lawn sloping down to the churchyard. In the distance I could see the gravestones and I thought it would look a little eerie by moonlight. But I had little time for such contemplation for the vicar was rising from his chair, his spectacles pushed up to his forehead and precariously balanced there, his thinning grey hair combed across the top to hide his baldness; an air of unworldliness about him which I found rather delightful and in great contrast to his energetic wife.

  “This is the Reverend Arthur Rendall,” announced Mrs. Rendall ceremoniously. “And Arthur, Mrs. Verlaine.”

  “Delighted ... delighted!” murmured the vicar; he was looking not at me but at the table and I realized why when Mrs. Rendall barked out: “On your forehead, Arthur.”

  “Thank you, my dear, thank you.” He reached for the glasses, set them in their rightful place and looked at me.

  “It is a great pleasure to welcome you here,” he said. “I am very pleased that Sir William has decided to proceed with the girls’ musical education.”

  “I must discover when it will be convenient for them to have their lessons. There must not be any overlapping.”

  “Oh, we will work that out together,” said the vicar smiling happily.

  “Pray take a seat, Mrs. Verlaine,” put in Mrs. Rendall. “Really, Arthur ... keeping Mrs. Verlaine standing like this. I’m sure the Reverend will want to talk to you about Sylvia. I am anxious that she too shall continue with her music.”

  “I am sure that can easily be arranged,” I said.

  The vicar then began to explain to me the times of the lessons and we decided that I should give the lessons at the vicarage where there was a good piano, one which the girls had used previously. Edith, Allegra and Alice could also practice at Lovat Stacy and Sylvia at the vicarage. It could all be very satisfactorily fitted in.

  Mrs. Rendall left us while we were planning this and when she had gone the vicar said: “I do not know how I should get along without my dear wife. Such a clever manager...” as though excusing his subservience to her. And when we had made our arrangements he began talking to me about the antiquities of the neighborhood and how excited he had been by the discoveries of the Roman remains recently.

  “I often went along to the excavations,” he told me, “and I was always welcome there.” He looked uneasily at the door and I remembered his wife’s observations and pictured the vicar paying secret visits there. “Indeed, I had always believed that something of interest would be discovered here. The amphitheater was found quite a long time ago and as you know amphitheaters were usually built outside the city ... so it seemed reasonable that there would be other remains not far off.”

  I was reminded vividly of Roma and my heart began to beat faster as I said: “Did you meet the archaeologist who disappeared so mysteriously?”

  “Oh dear me, what a terrible affair ... and so extraordinary! Do you know it would not surprise me if she had gone off somewhere faraway ... abroad ... Some project...”

  “But if there had been another project wouldn’t it have been known? She wouldn’t have gone alone. There would have been a party. These things are often organized by the British Museum and...”

  I floundered and he said: “I see you are very well informed on these matters, Mrs. Verlaine. Far better so than I.”

  “I am sure that is not so. But I did wonder about this ... disappearance.”

  “Such a practical young lady,” mused the vicar. “That was what made it seem so strange.”

  “You must have talked to her a great deal because of your common interest in those remains. Did you think she was the sort of woman who...?”

  “Who would take her own life?” The vicar looked shocked. “That was suggested. An accident? It must have been. But she was not the type to have an accidentlike that. I am baffled. And I come back to my opinion that she has gone off somewhere. An urgent call ... No time to explain...”

  I could see that he did not wish me to disturb his pleasant solution of the mystery and, as I guessed he could tell me nothing new about Roma, I gladly accepted his invitation to show me round the church.

  We left the house and crossed the garden, taking a path between the gravestones to the church, through the porch with the wilting notices attached to a green baize-covered board. The habitual hushed cool atmosphere greeted us. The vicar was clearly proud of his stained-glass windows, which, he informed me, had been given to the church by members of the Stacy family. The Stacys were the squires of the neighborhood, the benefactors on whom so many depended.

  He took me to the altar that I might admire the beautiful carvings there.

  “They are really unique,” he told me beaming with pride.

  I noticed a memorial tablet in the wall, set in a niche above which was a statue of a youth in long robes, hands folded together.

  Beneath it said:

  “Gone from us but not forgotten

  Beaumont Stacy.

  Departed this life...”

  While I tried to work out the date in Roman figures the vicar said: “Ah, yes. Sad, very sad.”

  “He died very young,” I said.

  “In his nineteenth year. A tragedy.”

  The vicar’s eyes were misted. “He was shot ... accidentally, by his brother. He was a handsome boy. We were all so fond of him. Ah, it is long ago and now that Napier is home again all will be well.”

  I was already accustomed to the vicar’s optimism, so I wondered whether this was really so. I had only been in the house a day and I was conscious of some brooding melancholy, some remaining aura of a past tragedy.

  “How terrible for the brother.”

  “A great mistake ... to blame him. To send him away like that.” The vicar shook his head and looked sad. Then he brightened: “However, he’s back now.”

  “How old was ... Napier when this happened?”

  “About seventeen, I should say. I think he was the younger by two years. He was quite different from Beaumont. Beaumont had the charm. He was brilliant; everyone loved him. And so ... Well, boys should never be allowed to play with guns. It can so easily happen. Poor Napier, I was sorry for him. I said to Sir William that it could have a very ill effect to blame him in this way. But he wouldn’t listen. So Napier went away.”

  “What a dreadful tragedy! I should have thought that having lost one son he would have felt the remaining one to be doubly precious.”

  “Sir William is an unusual man. He doted on Beaumont, and Napier reminded him of the tragedy.”

  “Very very strange,” I said. And I could not take my eyes from the statue of that youth, palms together in prayer, eyes raised to heaven.

  “I was delighted when I heard that Napier was to come back. And now he is married to Edith Cowan all will be happily settled. At one time it seemed likely that Sir William would make Edith his heiress. There would have been an outcry if he had. But he was very fond of Edith’s parents and he had made her his ward. However, this is the happiest of solutions. Edith will inherit... through her marriage with Napier.”

  The v
icar was beaming like the good fairy who has waved a wand and made everything as it should be.

  At that moment a maid appeared at the church door to say that the churchwarden had called to see the vicar on a matter of some urgency and was waiting in the drawing room. I told the vicar I should like to look round the church by myself and he left me.

  “You will find your way back to the house, Mrs. Verlaine. Mrs. Rendall will be delighted to give you some refreshment ... and then you will be able to meet my curate, Jeremy Brown, and talk of the young ladies’ lessons with him.”

  Left alone I went back to that statue in the wall and thought about the young man who in his nineteenth year had been shot by his brother. But chiefly I thought of the brother who at the age of seventeen had been sent away because of the accident. How could parents have behaved so to a son however much they had loved his brother, unless ... Oh, no, it most certainly would have been an accident.

  I turned away and wandered into the graveyard. The silence all about me moved me deeply. There I stood among those memorials to the dead and I saw from the inscription on some that they had stood there for over a hundred and fifty years—some even longer; they looked as though they were so old they could no longer stand up straight and some of the names and writing on them was half obliterated by time.

  I wondered if that boy was buried here. It was almost certain that he would be; and I was sure I should have no difficulty in finding his grave for surely the Stacys would have the most magnificent of vaults or mausoleums.

  I looked about me and sure enough there was a vault grander than all others. Wrought iron surrounded it and when I saw the name Stacy, I knew this was the family vault. Marble statues of angels with drawn swords had been placed at the four corners as though to guard it from intruders; and there was a gate, padlocked, which led down to the vault Inside the iron railings was a great tablet on which the names of those buried there had been inscribed with the dates of their births and death. The last on the list was Beaumont Stacy.

  As I was turning away I thought of Isabella Stacy in whose room I had sat and played the piano, the mother of Beaumont and Napier. She was dead, but where was her name? It was not on the scroll. Surely she would have been buried here?

  I studied the scroll once more; I walked round the vault; I looked about me as though I could find the answer to this mystery here in the graveyard. I was filled with a burning desire to know where she had been buried and why not here.

  And as I retraced my steps to the vicarage I was reminded once more that the strangeness of this new world into which I had been suddenly launched was occupying my mind as much as the mystery of Roma’s disappearance.

  Mrs. Rendall was waiting for me In the vicarage hall.

  “I wondered what had become of you,” she announced. “I told the Reverend to look after you.”

  I said quickly: “I asked to be allowed to look round the church alone.”

  “Alone!” Mrs. Rendall was surprised, but mollified. “I hope you liked our windows, Mrs. Verlaine. They are some of the best in the country.”

  I hastily said that I was sure they were, and added that I had walked through the graveyard and seen the Stacy vault. Was Lady Stacy not buried there? I had seen no mention of her.

  Mrs. Rendall looked startled, which was a strange position for her to find herself in, I was sure.

  “My word, Mrs. Verlaine,” she said with a touch of asperity, “you are a regular detective.”

  I was sure in that moment that she suspected my motives for coming to this place were not solely to teach music.

  “I was interested naturally to see anything connected with the family,” I said coolly.

  “And I am sure it does you credit,” she replied. “I’ll tell you this: Lady Stacy was not buried in the vault. You probably know that suicides are buried in unconsecrated ground.”

  “Suicides!” I cried.

  She nodded gravely; then her lips formed into lines of disapproval. “Just after Beaumont’s death, she killed herself. It was most unfortunate. She took a gun into the woods ... and died in the same way ... only in her case the wound was self-inflicted.”

  “What a terrible tragedy.”

  “She couldn’t hear life without Beaumont. She doted on the boy. I think the affair turned her brain.”

  “So it was a double tragedy.”

  “It changed everything up at the house. Beaumont and Lady Stacy dead and Napier sent away. Everything was blamed onto Napier.”

  “But it was an accident.”

  Mrs. Rendall nodded mournfully. “He was always up to something. A bad boy ... so different from his brother. It was almost as though they believed it wasn’t an accident after all. But blood’s thicker than water and Sir William didn’t want everything to go out of the family after all. Though at one time we thought he might disinherit Napier. However, he’s back now and married to Edith, which is what Sir William wanted, so it seemed Napier was ready to please his father at last ... for the sake of the inheritance of course.”

  “Well, I hope he’ll be happy,” I said. “He must have suffered a great deal. Whatever he did, he was only seventeen and to banish him in that way seems a terrible punishment.”

  Mrs. Rendall sniffed. “Of course if Beau had lived Napier wouldn’t have inherited. It’s a consideration.”

  I felt rather indignant on behalf of Napier—though I couldn’t think why I should feel so for someone whom I had disliked on sight, except for my sense of justice. I decided that Sir William was an unnatural father whom I was very ready to dislike as much as I already disliked his son.

  I said nothing however and Mrs. Rendall remarked that I might care to come to the schoolroom and meet Mr. Jeremy Brown.

  The vicarage schoolroom was a long room, rather low ceilinged. As in the big house, the windows had the leaden panes which, while they looked charming, let in little light.

  It was a delightful scene which met my eyes as Mrs. Rendall threw open the door without knocking. I imagined she rarely warned people of her approach. There were the girls at the big table—Edith among them, bent over their work; there was a fourth member of the party: Sylvia. And seated at the head of the table a very fair, delicate-looking young man.

  “I have brought Mrs. Verlaine to meet you,” boomed Mrs. Rendall and the young man rose and came towards us.

  “This is our curate, Mr. Jeremy Brown,” went on Mrs. Rendall.

  I shook hands with Mr. Brown, whose manner was almost apologetic. Another, I thought, who stood in awe of this formidable lady.

  “And what is it this morning, Mr. Brown?” asked Mrs. Rendall.

  “Latin and geography.”

  I saw the maps spread out on the table and the girls’ notebooks beside them. Edith looked happier than I had so far seen her.

  Mrs. Rendall grunted and said: “Mrs. Verlaine wants to take the girls through their music. One by one, I suppose, Mrs. Verlaine?”

  “I think that would be an excellent idea.” I smiled at the curate. “If you are agreeable.”

  “Oh yes ... yes ... indeed,” he said. Then I noticed the rapt expression in Edith’s eyes.

  How the young betray themselves! I knew that there was some romantic attachment—however slight—between Edith and this Jeremy Brown.

  As Mrs. Rendall had said, I was a detective.

  In the next day or so I slipped into a routine. There were meals with Mrs. Lincroft when often Alice was present; there were the piano lessons for the girls and some of these were taken at the vicarage where it was often more convenient, as I was able to take the girls one by one while the others were at their lessons with the vicar or Jeremy Brown. There was also Sylvia to be considered. She was a very indifferent pupil but tried hard—I imagined because she feared her mother’s reaction to miserable failure.

  The four girls interested me because they were all so different; and I couldn’t help sensing when they were all together that there was something exceptional about them. I was not s
ure whether it was in themselves or in their relationship towards one another. And I told myself that it was because of their unusual backgrounds—in fact the only ordinary one was Sylvia’s, and her overwhelmingly domineering mother could have an effect on a child.

  Allegra and Alice left each morning at half-past eight for the vicarage to start lessons at nine o'clock; on some days I followed an hour later. Sometimes Edith walked over with me just, she said, for the walk, but I felt it was something more than the walk which attracted her. This gave me an opportunity of getting to know the young Mrs. Stacy.

  She had a gentle and unsubtle nature and I often had the notion that she was longing to confide in me. I wished she would, but somehow she always seemed to draw back just as I thought I was going to hear something of importance.

  I suspected that she was afraid of her husband; but at the vicarage with Jeremy Brown her manner underwent a change and she seemed happy in a furtive way, like a child who is snatching some forbidden yet irresistible treat. Perhaps I was too curious about the affairs of others; I made excuses for myself. I was here to discover what had become of Roma and I must therefore find out everything about the people around me. But what had the relationship between Edith and her husband and the young curate to do with Roma? No, it was plain curiosity, I warned myself, and no concern of mine and yet...

  I can only say that the desire to know was too deep to be dismissed and I felt that Edith would be my best source of information for the reason that she was guileless and easy to read.

  When she offered to take me into Walmer and Deal, the twin towns a few miles along the coast, I was delighted and we set out one morning as the girls were leaving for the vicarage.

  It was a lovely April day with an opalesque sea and the lightest of breezes blowing off it. The gorse bushes were clumps of golden glory; and under hedges I caught glimpses of wild violets and wood sorrel. And because it was spring and I smelt the good scent of the earth and felt the gentle warmth of the sun I was elated. I didn’t quite know why, except that the budding shrubs and bushes and the birdsong and the gentle sunshine all seemed to offer some promise and I experienced that springtime fever which made me believe that there was something symbolic in all nature’s awakening to a new life. Every now and then the song of a bird was on the air—whitethroats and swallows, sedge warblers and martins. There was no sign of the gulls whose melancholy cries I had already noticed in gloomy weather.