Menfreya in the Morning

9

Bevil had returned and Christmas was upon us. I awoke early to the sounds of bustle, for the servants were all up at dawn to prepare pies, game and poultry. They were so excited that they couldn’t keep quiet, and on Christmas Day no one expected them to.

Bevil gave me a diamond bracelet, and Benedict came racing into our bedroom to show us what he had discovered in the stocking which Jessica had given him to hang on his bedpost.

“Look, Uncle Bevil. Look, Aunty Harriet.”

We looked and admired, and I thought then how pleased Gwennan would have been if she could have seen him; she would smile ruefully though because by doing what she had wished for her son I had brought Jessica into the house.

When I heard Jessica calling him I took him by the hand and led him away; she was in the corridor, wearing a blue twill dressing gown, only elegant because she was wearing it; and her hair hung hi a thick plait down her back. She looked more beautiful every day.

Later in the morning Bevil and Sir Endelion went hunting; the sound of the horns echoed through the house, and when they returned, according to custom, the log fires were blazing —elm and oak, between which the very sweet-smelling bog turf had been spread.

The carol singers visited us, their voices untrained but enthusiastic.

As I sat on a sunny bank,

A sunny bank, a sunny bank,

As I sat on a sunny bank

A Christmas Day in the morning.

The sunlight filled the house, and through the open window came the soft southwest wind. There would be rain very likely before evening. It was typical Cornish Christmas weather—no snow for us. We might see a few snowflakes during the New Year, but there was rarely enough to settle. Our Christmases were warm and damp.

We all gathered hi the hall—decorated with holly and ivy ; —fOT the wassailing, when the bowl of spiced ale was set on the table and Sir Endelion drank from it the health of all who lived in the house; and then passed it round so that we might all drink too.

Bevil held the bowl out to me, and his eyes were wide with affection.

“Happy Christmas, Harriet,” he whispered; and I wondered whether I had been passing through a phase of madness to doubt him.

I wore my topaz gown that evening; and since it was Christmas Day we dined in the great hall, as had been done every Christmas since Sir Endelion and Bevil could remember.

When the guise dancers arrived we danced with them; then we sat and watched while the villagers crowded into the hall to see the guisards perform their play. We of the house handed round the spiced ale and punch, the saffron cake, potato cake, pasties and gingerbread, as Menfreya had been doing for generations. That was a happy day.

There was consternation at Menfreya a few days later.

Fanny told me when she brought up my breakfast tray. Her face was working oddly, so I knew she was upset.

“What is it, Fanny?” I asked.

“That clock’s stopped,” she said tersely. “That tower dock.”

“It’s impossible.”

“No. It’s happened. Stopped at twenty minutes to three.

"There’s a regular row going on downstairs, I can tell you.

"Dawney’s just come up to the house to see Sir Endelion and Wm. They’re in a nice rage, I can tell you. It’s never happened in a hundred years or more … so they say.”

”A great deal of fuss about a clock!” I replied. She gave me an odd glance and set the tray down on the bed. I looked at it with distaste. A boiled egg, thin bread and butter, coffee and marmalade. It was what I usually had since after my cold I took breakfast in bed, but I had little appetite for it this morning.

She stood at the bottom of my bed. “You know what they’re saying. It means a death in the family.”

“Old wives’ tale,” I said. “Still,” she added, “they’re in a state.”

When she left me I tried to eat a little, because I did not want anyone to know how upset I was. How had the clock stopped? It was Dawney’s first duty to see that it never did. It was oiled at the right time, watched over, tended with care just to make sure it continued to work.

It may have seemed foolish to pander to the superstition; but this was Cornwall, and the Menfreys were a Cornish family.

I guessed that the news was already over the neighborhood. Hie clock has stopped! It means one of the Menfreys is threatened.

They would watch us now; they would see death shadowing us. It was obvious that some portentous event was about to take place. We had had the ghost on the island; and now the clock was stopped. In these they would see omens.

It was unnerving to know that people were watching you expectantly. When Bevil or I came riding into the courtyards the grooms would come out to see if we were actually home. I was sure they expected us to be brought home on a stretcher. I had a strange feeling that they had selected me for the victim. Then the uneasy feeling came to me that they knew something which I merely suspected. Did they know more of the relationship between Bevil and Jessica? Was it true that when a man preferred another woman to his wife, everyone knew of this before the wife?

It was all very well to laugh at superstitions, but at heart most of us are susceptible to them. I was becoming nervous. I remembered the two incidents of the barley water, known only to Fanny and myself. But perhaps to others? Those who had tried to poison us? But that was absurd. No one had. It was Fanny’s ridiculous suspicions. Which I shared. Or did I? I was not sure.

Fanny didn’t help. She watched over me with persistence, and if I were home later than she expected me to be I would find her in a state of terrible anxiety. Once I heard her praying … to Billy. In moments of crisis nowadays she always turned to Billy.

Sometimes I wanted to get away from the house and I liked to wander away from Menfreya along the cliff path to Menfrey stow. There I would sit, overlooking the sea, and think about the past—my past with Bevil, being discovered by him on the island when I had run away, the joy of meeting him at Lady Mellingfort’s ball. But chiefly I thought of that occasion when he had come to my Aunt Clarissa’s house to see me and I had stopped to change my dress. That was before Jenny’s death, ‘before I had inherited so much money. If only he had asked me to marry him then I I wanted so much to believe that was what he intended to say to me.

Suspicions colored all my thoughts, all my memories of the past.

And while I was sitting on the wooden bench, which had been set on the cliffs for the use of weary walkers, old A’Lee came along the path and saw me.

He greeted me and I saw his chin wagging involuntarily, which was a sign that he was amused.

“Why, if it’s not Mrs. Menfrey!”

“How are you?” I asked.

“Oh, we’re fighting fit up at Chough Towers, Mrs. Menfrey.”

Fighting fit! He was reminding me of the rivalry between us and on whose side he was.

“Mind if I take a rest awhile, Mrs. Menfrey?” he asked. “It’s long since you and me had a little chat like. Regular friends we was, once upon a time.”

“Why not now?” I asked.

His chin started to wag. “You being one of them, and me being on the other side, like …”

“Mr. Harry and my husband are good friends,” I said.

That made the chin wag more furiously than ever. He changed the subject and nodded to where the island jutted out of the sea.

They say it be haunted by the spirits of men as died violent deaths there.”

“Several men?”

“I did hear it were a regular practice for men to go onto that island and never be heard of no more—but maybe they was, when their bodies were washed up on the shore.”

“How could that have been?”

“The house was said to be used as a dumping ground for smugglers, and that it was the excise men who went searching for contraband in Little Menfreya who never came back again alive.”

“One of your Cornish legends?”

“Like as not. There’s plenty on them. And now this clock have stopped. I don’t like the sound of that, Mrs. Menfrey.”

“Well, you see we’re all still here.”

“Don’t ‘ee laugh at it. Tain’t lucky to laugh. That dock ain’t stopped for years and years. Menfreys wouldn’t let it, so ‘twas said.”

“So it hasn’t stopped before in living memory!”

“There’s stories enough. Don’t ‘ee go out when the weather be rough, Miss Harriet.” He had slipped into the use of my old name, and I fancied his attitude changed towards me when he did. I had become the child for whom he had been sorry and was no longer one of the enemy. “I remember a story my grandfer told me about one of the Menfreys. There was an accident. A gentleman who was staying there was took out in a boat by Sir Bevil, and this fine gentleman couldn’t swim. Sir Bevil, he were a fine swimmer like all the Menfreys. I used to watch young Mr. Bevil … our one, you know, m’dear … darting in and out of the sea. Like a fish he were.”

“Yes, and what happened to this other Bevil?”

“He took the fine gentleman out for a row, and the boat capsized. The fine gentleman were drowned and Sir Bevil swam ashore.”

“He didn’t attempt to save his friend?”

“The sea were high and ‘tweren’t possible … so he said. Though he said he’d tried. But ‘twasn’t so. Years passed and he took to religion. It would have made you split your sides with laughing. He’d have all the girls and boys taken in fornication, as he’d call it, and punished. The boys would be whipped and the girls shamed in the church. That were how religion took him, although some of the girls and boys might have been his own flesh and blood, for he had the Menfrey taste for lovemaking—in his sinful days. Well, it so happened that he came near to death and knew it, and he was afraid that all his latter-day goodness wouldn’t make up for this big sin of his, and on his death bed he confessed. He’d gambled with the fine gentleman who had won his estates from him, and that included Menfreya itself. He wanted the fine gentleman’s wife. So there was only one thing he thought he could do, and that was remove the fine gentleman. So he bored a hole in the boat and filled it with something … he didn’t tell what … be couldn’t go into details, for his breathing were getting shorter and there wasn’t much time left … and he took the gentleman out, and soon the boat started to fill with water. The fine gent panicked and the boat overturned. All Sir Bevil had to do was swim for the land and hope the fine gent wouldn’t be rescued. And if he was, it was an accident … that was all.”

“Is it possible to bore a hole in a boat and make it seaworthy for a time?”

“Certain sure it is. If the hole were filled, well twould be like the bunghole in a barrel, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but it would be obvious if a hole was bored …”

He lifted his shoulders. “Sir Bevil, so ‘twas said, filled up the hole with some’at as would slowly melt.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“Salt packed tight, maybe. Sugar. That would be better. Tight-packed sugar would take a little time to melt in cold sea water.”

“What an idea!”

“Yes, b’ain’t it.”

“Well,” I said, “that happened long ago. Or perhaps it didn’t happen at all.”

“I allus had to make up stories for ‘ee, Miss Harriet, didn’t I now? When you was a little ‘un and come to the Towers … a sad little ‘un on account of your Papa never having the time to be nice to ‘ee … I used to say to myself, 'Now how can I amuse Miss Harriet?'”

“You were good to me, A’Lee.”

“Aye, I were.”

“And it was a good story. Did it really happen?”

“Which one, Miss Harriet. The ghosts on the island or Sir Bevil and the boat?”

“Both.”

“Well, that be a queer thing about us Cornish, m’dear. We do love a tale, and the more ghostly it be the better we do like it I often think on them days when we used to be friends like. Tis a pity …”

“We’re still friends, A’Lee.”

“Yes,” he said. “Nought on ‘em can alter that.” There was some truth hi it, for he was worried, and I knew he was thinking about the clock’s stopping.

There was a knock on my door. It was eleven in the morning. Bevil had gone off to Plymouth for the day on special business.

“Come in,” I said, and Jessica entered, looking coolly beautiful in a gown of lavender cotton and white lace collar and cuffs. I could never see her without imagining her and Bevil together as lovers, and it was difficult to compose myself in these circumstances.

“There is someone asking for Mr. Menfrey.” I saw now that she was paler than usual and that she was greatly disturbed. “It’s most extraordinary.”

She held out a card to me and I read.

“J. HAMFORTH AND SONS, UNDERTAKERS

FORE STREET

LANSELLA”

“I don’t understand it at all,” she went on. “I thought per-haps you…”

I said: “I will go down to see what he wants.”

He was waiting in the library, black-coated and solemn, and when I entered he started and turned pale. We knew each other slightly, for his premises were in Fore Street close to Bevil's chambers, and naturally Bevil and I were well known in the district.

“Mr. Hamforth … what is it?”

“Excuse me, ma’am … I … This was a shock, and I couldn’t believe it when I received the letter.”

“Letter,” I said. “What letter?”

“The letter telling me to call to … er … to see about the … arrangements.”

“What arrangements?”

He bit his lips; he lowered his eyes because he simply could not look at me. I had a feeling that when I had entered the room he looked as though he were seeing a ghost.

A ghost! There was something very strange going on here.

“You came to make arrangements about a funeral?” I said sharply.

“Er … yes, ma’am, Mrs. Menfrey.”

“Whose … funeral?”

He did not answer, but I knew.

“You thought it was to be mine?”

“Well, ma’am, that was what...”

“What you were told?”

“That I was to come at once to Menfreya, that I was to make the arrangements.”

“For me?”

He was embarrassed, poor man. He had never before had to face the task of preparing a woman for burial before she was dead.

“I was upset,” he said. “So were my wife and my clerks. They’d been to some of the meetings and they’d seen you there.”

So they all knew. In Lamella they would be talking about my “death.” It would be all over the town. News like that traveled quickly. I was certain that Mr. Hamforth’s trap would have been seen coming to Menfreya. Death at Menfreya! The clock which had not stopped for a hundred years had stopped recently. And now the undertaker was up at Menfreya.

“This is the most extraordinary affair,” I said.

“I’ve never known anything like it before in all my experience, ma’am.”

“No, I don’t suppose you have. But I want to know how it happened.”

“There was a letter came this morning. It was a queer sort of letter. But I didn’t think of that then.”

“A queer sort of letter? Where is it?”

“I brought it with me and showed it to the young lady.”

“To Miss Trelarken?”

“Yes. She was puzzled and asked to see it. You see, I told her that I had come to make the arrangements, and she couldn’t make out what, so I showed her the letter and she said she would take me to you, as Mr. Menfrey was not at home.”

I was relieved. There was a letter. This was some sort of practical joke, and we could get to the bottom of it if there was a piece of tangible evidence like a letter.

“Give me the letter, please, Mr. Hamforth.”

He took out his pocketbook and fumbled through it. He looked puzzled; then that expression lifted and he said: “Of course, the young lady took it and didn’t give it back.”

I went to the bellrope and when a maid appeared said: “Tell Miss Trelarken to come here without delay.”

She could not have been far away for she came almost immediately.

I said: “We want the letter.”

“The letter?” she repeated.

“The one Mr. Hamforth gave you. The one which was sent asking him to call here.”

“Oh yes. But … I gave it bade to you, Mr. Hamforth.”

“No, Miss, you didn’t,”

“But surely …”

They looked at each other in amazement, and I felt a sick fear rising within me.

“It must be somewhere,” I said sharply to Jessica. “Look in your pocket.”

She tried the two pockets of her gown and shook her head. She appeared to be very distressed—or was she putting on a good act? That was the thought that occurred to me then: She was acting.

What did this mean? Had she and Bevil arranged this? Were they together hi some diabolical plot against me? If I were no longer here, there would be no obstacle in her way … and perhaps his.

“It must be somewhere about,” I said. “I am very anxious to see that letter and to know who wrote to Mr. Hamforth telling him to come and bury me.”

We searched the library, and men Jessica said: “But it was hi the hall. I was about to go out into the garden when you came, Mr. Hamforth, and we stood in the hall for a while. It was after you had given me the letter that we came into the library.”

I led the way to the hall and we searched everywhere, but we could not find the letter.

“It’s very strange,” I said, and the terror was growing in me. “At least, you both saw the letter. How was it worded?”

They looked at each other.

“It was written in a hand I did not recognize,” said Jessica. “It asked Mr. Hamforth to come and make arrangements for the funeral of Mrs. Menfrey.”

“There must have been a signature,” I insisted.

“It was, I thought, written by Mr. Menfrey’s secretary,” said Mr. Hamforth.

“By Mr. Lister?”

“It was not written by Mr. Lister,” put in Jessica. “I know his handwriting well. It was signed for B. Menfrey, and there was an initial which I couldn’t read.” ‘I looked from Mr. Hamforth to Jessica.

Who had done it and why? Could it be that someone had chosen this macabre way of warning me?

Bevil came back from London that night. I was hi bed but not asleep. I had been lying awake, going over the events of the day. I kept seeing Mr. Hamforth’s horrified and bewildered face and Jessica’s, not smiling now, but as unfathomable as ever.

Bevil came into the bedroom.

“Wake up, Harriet. I’ve some exciting news. Balfour has invited me to a weekend party. There’ll be several others there.”

“That’s wonderful. But … have you heard about Ham-forth?”

“Hamforth? What’s Hamforth got to do with the Prime Minister’s invitation?”

“Nothing. He came today to measure me for my coffin.”

“What!”

I explained.

“Good God! Who would do such a thing?”

“I should like to know that There was a letter, but Jessica Trelarken put it down somewhere ... and it was lost.”

“But what was the idea?”

“First the clock stopped … and now this. It’s evident mat I’m the victim.”

“Harriet, for God’s sake, don’t even think such a thing.”

“It seems as though someone’s warning me.”

“Well get to the bottom of this nonsense. Ill go and see Hamforth tomorrow.”

“He can tell you no more. If we could find the letter … But, you see, Jessica had it … and lost it It seems so odd.”

“She must have been as unnerved as you.”

“At least they hadn’t come to measure her for her coffin.”

“What a macabre notion of a joke. My poor Harriet.” He had his arms round me soothingly. I wanted to lie against him, to sob out my fears.

He put out the light and came to bed, and we talked for a long time about the Hamforth affair and of what the Prime Minister’s invitation could mean.

Bevil went to Lansella the next day. I didn’t go. I couldn’t bear to face everyone who I knew would be talking about my “death.” I would wait awhile, I promised myself, until the talk had died down.

Fanny came in with my breakfast tray. She said I shouldn’t hurry to get up.

She looked extraordinarily drawn. I was sure that the Hamforth shock had frightened her as much as it had me.

“Fanny,” I said, “you mustn’t worry.”

“Worry!” she said. “I’m well nigh out of my mind for wondering what’s the right thing to do-“

“Do you think we ought to tell about the lemon barley? Everything seems different now.”

“You needn’t worry about that,” said Fanny nodding at the tray. “I went down to the kitchen and cooked it myself.”

“Oh, Fanny, I’m safe while you’re here.”

“I wouldn’t let no harm come to you.”

“You see, Fanny. I’m being warned. Who would warn me?”

Her face screwed as though she were going to cry.

“Did someone stop the clock to warn me? Did they send that letter to Hamforth’s to warn me? Then it looks as if whoever did these things wants me to be prepared. It wouldn’t be the same one who wanted me dead, would it?”

She spread out her hands and stared down at them, shaking her head.

Suddenly she stopped and looked at me sharply. There’s something I’ve got to tell you. It’s that Miss Trelarken. You can always tell. I can see it in her face. It does something to a woman. I know, I tell you.”

“Know what?”

“I went into her room this morning. The little boy came down to the kitchen before she was up. I took him back, and she was there without her dress. In her petticoat she was. She always wears those full skirts, but in her petticoat you could see.”

I stared at Fanny.

“I swear it’s true,” she said, “that Miss Trelarken is going to have a child.”

“Fanny, it’s not possible.”

“I’d say it was.”

“No,” I said. “No.” I felt sick with the horror of it I couldn’t bear to read the suspicions and conclusions in Fanny’s eyes. “It was growing so like that other story that it was becoming like a nightmare. The pregnant governess. The wife in the way. What had she said? “They would hate each other. They would want to murder each other.”

It couldn’t be so. I had become obsessed by the governess story. And then suddenly I remembered how she had stood dose to me on the parapet before she had fainted.

It was true, of course. Jessica Trelarken, like the governess in the story, was going to have a child.

Evil thoughts crowded into my mind. Was the ghost on the island, seen by the girls, Bevil—keeping a secret tryst with his mistress? Hadn’t he always used the island for his youthful adventures? I imagined the desperation of lovers, the whispered conversations, the hopes, the fears. And then … the poisoned lemon barley. Jenny had died through taking arsenic, which she had presumably procured through her theatrical friends. And Jessica? I knew now that her complexion, so perfectly smooth, so fresh yet somehow translucent, was like Jenny’s had been. Did Jessica have arsenic in her possession, as Jenny had had? How could she get it? Easily. Her father would use it in making up his medicines, and a quantity of it could have been in his dispensary at the time of his death. Jessica would have known what it was. She would have read of Jenny’s experiments and might well have tried some herself. What was more natural than that a woman who saw the effect of her beauty on all around her should attempt to enhance it?

If Jessica had arsenic hi her possession, it was reasonable to suppose that some belonging to her had found its way into my lemon barley.

She had hankered after my position when she came to Menfreya—and now perhaps, if Fanny were right, she desperately needed it And how could she attain it while I stood there to prevent her?

Was Jessica trying to kill me?

Then who had warned me? Surely someone who knew what she was trying to do. But then why not tell me simply. Why go to such lengths as stopping the clock and sending the undertaker to measure me for my coffin?

There was only one answer. Whoever was trying to warn me did not want to disclose his—or her—identity.

A’Lee’s mischievous face came into my mind. Could it be? He had always been my friend. Perhaps he had seen them on the island. Was he not the one who had brought them over on the night they had been caught there? The thoughts whirled around and Fanny sat by my bed, frowning as she pulled at the corners of her apron.

Luncheon was a quiet meal that day. I shared it with Sir Endelion and Lady Menfrey; they were subdued, as we had all been since the Hamforth affair. Jessica had lunch in the nursery with Benedict for which I was glad; I was sure if I saw her my looks might betray the suspicions which Fanny had started in my mind. William Lister did not join us; he was busy in the study, and Bevil had not returned from Lamella. I supposed that the new development hinted at by the Prime Minister’s invitation was being discussed.

I went back to my room after luncheon. Menfreya was quiet at that hour. The servants were all in their own quarters; my parents-in-law were resting. Jessica remained in the nursery with Benedict, and William was at work.

There was a knock on my door, and Fanny came in.

She said: “I’m going over to the island. Would you come with me? I did want to talk to you about some of the work over there. Besides …”

I had talked to Fanny a great deal about my projects for the island house, and she bad been wholeheartedly in favor. I guessed she would be a great help to me when I started my holiday scheme. Perhaps, I thought, she wanted to discuss something with me, but it was more likely that she wanted me to be with her.

“Put on a warm coat,” she said. “The wind’s that chilly. Here. Wrap yourself up welt You go on ahead. Ill catch up.”

Before I had reached the shore she was with me. We pushed out the boat and rowed over.

I smiled sadly at her and said: “Fanny, the fact is you don’t want me out of your sight, do you?”

“That’s about it,” she said. “But there’s things I want you to see over there.”

I tried to draw my thoughts away from fears and think of the summer when the house would be full of children. It seemed a long way in the future.

“I could put up six little beds in the big front bedroom,” I said; “and then there are the other bedrooms. The island will seem a paradise to them. We shall have to make a rule that they don’t attempt to row themselves to the mainland without an adult though.”

Fanny was nodding, pleased to see my thoughts moving in a new direction.

As we walked up to the house Fanny said: “When I was hi the kitchen the other day I noticed this here cellar. You can lift up one of the stone flags. You’d hardly notice it was any different from the others … unless you knew. But that was the idea, of course. You come along and I’ll show you.”

Fanny stood at the door of the house overlooking the sea and Menfreya, as though momentarily reluctant to tear herself away.

“It’s a sight,” she admitted grudgingly.

And a sight it was even on this January day, with the sea a darkish green crimped with frothy waves. I stood with her, looking back to Menfreya—gray, almost menacing in the afternoon light.

Fanny’s eyes were gleaming with an expression I did not understand.

“Come on in. I want you to see this cellar.”

I followed her into the kitchen, where with some effort she lifted the flagstone. “You’ve got to understand it,” she said, “It’s not easy to open.” Having exposed a cavity in the floor, she turned to a cupboard and taking out an iron candlestick stuck in a candle and lighted it.

“There are some stone steps leading down into this cellar,” she said. “I’m going to have a look.”

“You must be careful, Fanny.”

“I’ll be careful all right. It’s where they used to hide the kegs of whiskey, Jem Tomrit told me.”

“He told you?”

“Yes, he told me. You remember how upset he was when he thought there was a ghost on the island. He saw a man there … clear as he saw me, he told me. He said it was a ghost of one of them that had been drowned at sea. Here, hold this candle a minute. Give it to me when I’m down.”

She descended and held out her hand for the candle. I heard her exclamation when I handed it to her. “Oh, I say!”

“I’m coming to have a look.”

“You take care. These steps are steep. Give me your hand.”

I descended four or five steps and saw that Fanny was right. We were in a sort of cellar. I saw there were several more steps to be descended as I peered down.

I went down a few steps to stare into the darkness below me when suddenly there was a thud, and the shaft of light which had come through the trap door from the kitchen disappeared. I looked behind me.

“The trap door has fallen, shutting us in!” I said. “Yes, Miss Harriet” Her voice was soothing. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right”

“It's so dark.”

“Your eyes will get accustomed to the gloom in a minute.”

I descended a few more steps, and it was as though my foot was seized in an icy grip. Water!

“Fanny,” I cautioned. “Be careful. There’s water down here.”

“It gets flooded by the high tides.”

“Well, the thing is to get that door open and let in some light This candle’s not much good.”

“Look over there,” said Fanny. “There’s light over there.”

“Why, yes. It’s coming through a grating.” That grating is in the garden. It was overgrown by brambles till I cleared them away.”

“Why?”

“I thought it best”

”So you knew about this, Fanny?”

“Oh yes, I knew. I told you I went to see Jem Tomrit I used to sit with him and make him talk to me. He was worried. You see, he thought the ghosts had come back to the island … the ghosts of dead men, and he was afraid they’d come to haunt him”

“Why should they?’

“Because he was a murderer of men. This was where they used to bring the smuggled goods, and when the excise men was on their tracks they’d lure them here. They used to let them search the place, and they’d leave the trap door not exactly open but so as it could be seen there was a trap door there. Down they’d go… never to come out alive,”

“It’s a horrible place. I’ve seen enough of it”

“Well, when the tide’s high the water comes in. It comes through that grating, see … That’s what it’s put there for.

This was built with an express purpose, so Jem Tomrit told me. Do you know what today is?”

Today, Fanny?”

“Well, this Jem Tomrit told me a lot, he did. There’s times when the tide comes up higher than ever. It’s called spring tide, and there’s a reason for it. The moon and the sun or something. Don’t ask me. It happens at this time of the year, seemingly. Well, it’ll be tonight at half past eight”

I had begun to shiver—not so much with the cold dampness of this place but by the strangeness of Fanny.

“At spring tide this cellar is flooded right up to the top.”

“Fanny,” I said, “let’s get out of this place. It’s damp and cold. We’ll explore it properly later.”

“How are we going to get out?” she asked.

“The way we came in, of course.”

“It’s a snap lock. It shuts itself. You can only open it from outside. The smugglers saw to that”

“That’s absurd.”

“I’m only saying what Jem Tomrit told me.”

“Then somebody’s shut us in.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “someone’s shut us in.” She sat down on one of the steps and covered her face with the hand which was not holding the candle. “I had to be with you. I couldn’t leave you alone.”

“Fanny,” I said, “you know something you haven’t told me.”

“Yes, Miss Harriet”

“You know that someone is trying to kill me?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re trying to stop them. But what are we doing here? Are you telling me that someone has shut us in this place?”

She rocked herself to and fro.

“You’ll drop the candle,” I said. I was not completely frightened yet, because Fanny was beside me. It was like waking from a strange nightmare during my childhood and screaming. Fanny had come to comfort me then; her presence meant security. She gave me that reassurance now.

“You knew about this place,” I said, “because Jem Tomrit told you. You say it’s flooded at high tide, and tonight there’s a spring tide. That’s at eighty-thirty. It’s not four yet. We’ll get out before high tide. We shall be missed.”

“Who’d think of looking here?”

“There’s another thing that struck me. If the water floods this place at high tide, where does it go afterwards? A certain amount sinks into the sandy floor, I suppose, but wouldn’t there be much more water than this?”

“There was a big stone over the grating. Jem Tomrit told me how they used to take it away when they’d got prisoners here. Then they’d bail out after.”

“There’s no big stone over the grating now,” I said.

“It was hidden by brambles … and it’s been taken away. So now it’s how it used to be when this cellar was used for murder.”

“Fanny,” I said, “you’re not being very clear. You say you cleared the brambles. Then who took the stone away? Who shut the trap door just then? Fanny! Somebody is in this house now. They heard us go into the kitchen. They knew we had come down here and they shut us in!”

“He was here,” she said. “That was what frightened the wits out of Jem Tomrit. He saw him and he thought it was the ghost of a dead excise man, but it weren’t It were my Billy.”

“Your Billy. But Billy died years and years ago … before I was born.”

“Billy loved me true, but there was one he loved better. It was the sea. The sea was his mistress, and he’d leave me for her. You ought to have heard him talk about the sea. You knew then what he loved best. When he went away he said: ‘Don’t be frightened, Fanny. I’ll come back for you … I'll come back one day. I’ll take you to sea with me, one day. You wait for that, Fanny … and you be ready when the time comes. Then suddenly it came to me what he meant. There’d be a sign. And now it’s come.”

“Fanny,” I said, “what has happened to you? Let’s get out of this place.”

“We’ll get out of it in our own good tune. Hell be waiting for us. We’ll be with him … the two of us … safe and sound.”

“You’re not being sensible, Fanny. Do you remember how you used to tell me to be sensible. I’m going to try and open that trap door.”

“You’ll hurt yourself, lovey. I told you it can only be opened from the outside.”

“I don’t think you’re right, Fanny.”

“I am. I made sure. I didn’t want anything to go wrong.”

“Fanny! Fanny! What are you saying?”

I sat down on the cold step beside her. This companion of my youth, this beloved nurse, this woman to whom I had always turned for comfort had become a stranger.

“Fanny,” I said gently, “let’s try and understand what this is all about. Let’s sort it out, shall we?”

“There’s nothing to sort out, my pet.”

I stared into the darkness and wondered how much water there was down there, how much truth there was hi this Story of smugglers and excise men. I thought of Menfreya — my parents-in-law resting till tea, which they would probably take in their own rooms. Bevil would return. Perhaps for dinner? Perhaps after. But surely I should be missed by dinnertime! When I didn’t appear they would send a maid to my room to see if I wanted anything sent up. I should not be there; then they would grow a little anxious. Dinner at eight—high tide at eight-thirty. They would never be in’ time.

But I couldn't believe in death. Not death at Fanny’s hands. In fact I couldn’t believe this was really happening to me. It was like one of those fantastic nightmares which used to haunt my childhood.

I walked to the top of the steps and tried to push open the door. It was unyielding. Of course, it hadn’t been opened for years. It was bound to be difficult. I didn’t believe this story of spring locks.

I could not accept Fanny as a murderess. I sat down beside her. I thought: It must be four o’clock. How soon before the water starts coming in? Slowly at first, and then … the flood. Four hours … to wait for death.

I couldn’t accept it.

“Fanny,” I said, “I want to understand what this means. I want to talk to you.”

She said: “You’re frightened, are you?”

“I don’t want to die, Fanny.”

“Lord bless you, there’s nothing to worry about. Billy talked to me about death by drowning. He said it was the easiest way out. Billy will be there waiting for me … and I couldn’t leave you behind, could I? I couldn’t—not with all them that were trying to hurt you. I didn’t want you to die like your stepmother. Drowning’s better. ‘It’s easy,' I said to myself. You see, they wanted you out of the way … the two of them. They couldn’t fool me. He was never the one for you. I warned you against him. He was too fond of the women … just as Billy was too fond of the sea. I’d have liked Billy to take a nice comfortable job ashore. He wouldn’t. Not him. You see he couldn’t leave it alone. It’s the same thing. With Billy the sea, and with him … women. And since she came … with her wicked ways … I knew I couldn’t leave you … I knew her. She was going to get him; and now she’s carrying the child, she’s desperate. She’d got the stuff for her complexion just like your stepmother … but that poor lady killed herself with it … she was going to kill you.”

“Oh, Fanny, do you believe that?”

“I believe what I see, and I was frightened for you. I used to lie awake and my head would go funny … dizzy like with the worry of it. And then Billy came for me, and I said to myself I can’t leave her. It would be different if he was different, if she wasn’t there. I daren’t go and leave her. You see, when I lost my little ‘un you were my baby. I couldn’t leave you, could I? I’ll take you to Billy with me, and we’ll all be together.”

“Fanny, you stopped the clock.”

“I wanted you warned. You remember how upset you were when your stepmother died? You said, ‘She wasn’t warned.’ So I warned you. I stopped the clock.”

“And then you sent that note to Hamforth’s.”

“Yes, I did. I wanted you to be ready, you see, I didn’t want you to have too big a shock.”

“So you took the note you’d sent.”

“I thought that was best. She laid it down on the table there in the hall, and I found it and took it away. It was best that way.”

I was silent. I thought: She is mad. My dear Fanny is mad. She is going to commit suicide and kill me because she loved me.

I felt hysterically weak. I stood up and began pounding against the trap door.

“There,” she soothed. “There’s nothing you can do. Can’t open it from down here. They fixed that when they used to get the excise men down here. Jem told me all about it You’ll only hurt your poor hands. Don’t you fret. There’s nothing to be done but wait. There’s going to be a gale. A gale and a spring tide. It’ll be easier that way.”

I was frightened. To be sitting here with Fanny had seemed in a way cozy, so that I could not altogether believe in her wild plan.

She was so calm, so certain, sitting patiently waiting for the end. I could not imagine how it would come. The water would rush in through the grating, I guessed, and then what would happen to us? Would it come as high as the top steps? I remembered that I had heard it said that the gardens and kitchens were often flooded at high tide. This was spring tide, a gale was blowing—and we were underground.

I guessed it to be about six o’clock. No one would have missed us yet. High tide would have come and gone before they did.

And here was I shut in a cellar with a madwoman.

I had accepted the truth. Until now she had been only Fanny—dear, familiar, comfortable Fanny. Now she was the woman who wanted to kill me.

“I must get out,” I cried suddenly. “I must get out.”

I stood up and pushed with all my might against the trap door. It was useless. It did not move. Was she indeed right with her talk of spring locks?

The grating! I thought. Was it possible to find a way through that. I had a vision of myself climbing the cellar walls to the grating, forcing it up in some way.

I started down the steps and plunged knee-deep hi water.

Fanny was startled out of reverie.

“What are you doing, you foolish girl! Now you’re wet through. A nice cold you’ll be getting, and we have to stay here in our damp clothes.”

“Fanny,” I cried hysterically. “What is that going to matter?”

“Colds can lead to congestion of the lungs, and that’s no joke.”

“Let’s get out of here. I need dry things …”

“You’re shivering, dearie. Don’t you fret. We’ll soon be with him and past all trouble.”

“Fanny, please listen to me. We’ve got to get out of here, We’ve got to get out…”

“There, ducky,” she said, “don’t you fret. Fanny’s here.”

I sat down helplessly beside her, and she put an arm about me.

“Don’t be frightened. It’s only the wind you hear. By folly, there’s going to be a storm tonight”

The candle was lost. We had dropped it into the water. I heard the plop as it fell and the feeble flame was extinguished.

I had lost all sense of time. I felt as though I had been for hours in this dark, damp place.

I was gradually beginning to understand that I was, in truth, facing death, that the woman beside me meant to murder me; she and I would die together, and the last words I should hear from her would be a heartfelt endearment.

I’m going mad, I told myself. This can’t be true.

I heard the crash of the waves against the rocks. Hie tide was coming in … the spring tide.

High tide at eight-thirty! I thought What was it now? Seven? Later?

I stood up. I would try again. I began to shout for help. I hammered on the stone which shut us down.

Fanny’s voice was dreamy. “You remember how I used to read you stories to send you to sleep? You remember Aladdin and his wonderful lamp? Do you remember how the wicked magician shut him in the cave … This is like it.”

“Fanny, this isn’t a cave. It’s a cellar below sea level, and the tide is coming in.”

“It all came right for Aladdin. It’s all coming right for you.”

“They’ll miss us at the house, Fanny. They’ll look for us.”

“They won’t look here.”

I was silent She was right What could possibly lead them here?

“And even if they knew we were here,” went on Fanny, “they’d be hard put to it to get across if the sea’s anything like as wild as it sounds.”

“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

I began to shout for help. It was foolish. Who could hear me?

Then I heard the water spilling over onto the grating and falling into the cellar.

The tide was almost upon us. I had dragged Fanny to the topmost step. I had turned my back to the grating. I was standing up hammering ineffectually on the trap door.

Fanny was still. I sensed a certain ecstasy.

At any moment now we should be swept from the steps.

This was death. And only now that I stood face to face with it did I know how desperately I wanted to live. I was calling out without knowing what I called. I realized that it was “Bevil! Bevil!”

Here I was trapped with the water rising. A picture of the Christian Martyr flashed into my mind. I remembered that calm face; the hands which were bound at the wrists, palm to palm in prayer, the wooden stake to which she was bound, and the water up to her waist as she awaited the rise of the tide.

With such serenity was poor simple Fanny facing death.

There was a crash as the heavy waves pounded in; the water came tumbling through the grating. I closed my eyes and waited. I was on the top step, but the water was washing about my ankles. In a few minutes the grating would be covered by the sea, and then … the end.

I put my hands over my face.

“Soon now, my love,” whispered Fanny.

“No,” I cried. I hammered on the trap door. “Bevil!” I cried. “Bevil.”

Then, miraculously, Bevil’s arms were about me. There was a faint light above me.

I heard his ejaculation: “Good God!”

And I was not sure what happened next.

I was lying on a bed, and Bevil was beside me. “Hello,” said Bevil, smiling.

I was puzzled. One moment I had been in the horror of the flooded cellar; the next I was in bed. “You look as if you’re … pleased to see me,” I said. “I am,” he answered.

I was in the house on the island. Outside the storm was raging; the tide was receding but the kitchen was flooded. I could hear voices from below.

Bevil was still at my bedside.

I called to him and he took my hand.

“Hello,” he said. “All right now.”

“What happened?”

“You were in that cellar. It must be years since it was opened. But rest now. You’ve had a shock.”

“I want to know, Bevil. The tide was rising, wasn’t it?”

“In a short time the place would have been completely flooded. Thank God we were in time—but only just.”

“The spring tide …”

“Now you’re not supposed to talk.”

“I can’t rest until I know. How did you get there, Bevil?”

“I came looking for you.”

“But why ... why …”

“Good God, you don’t imagine I’d let you get lost, do you?”

“But how did you know?”

“Never mind now. I’m here. I found you. And you’re safe.”

“Bevil, you’re glad?”

He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it passionately. No words could have told me more than that quick gesture. It was enough to set me at rest I closed my eyes.

It was some hours later when they recovered Fanny’s body. They had tried to save her but it was impossible.

When they had opened the trap door she had been with me. They had distinctly seen her. She had slipped, they said, and disappeared; but I knew that she had not wanted to be brought out of the cellar alive.

My poor, loving Fanny! When, I wondered, had the madness started to canker her brain? Was it with those early tragedies—the loss of husband and child? Poor Fanny, the gentle murderess who bad killed for love. I had heard of murder for gain, for jealousy, before, ‘but never for love.

And how had Bevil come in time? Because he had not intended to let the matter of the undertaker pass. He was going to find out who sent it; he wanted to know why. He had questioned Hamforth and come to the conclusion that, if he could find the letter, he would have a piece of tangible evidence in his hands, and he would not rest until he knew who had written it.

Jessica remembered seeing Fanny in the hall when she was talking to Hamforth, so Bevil sent for Fanny, who could not be found.

And where was I? Bevil wanted to know. It was soon discovered that I, too, was missing.

Bevil, Jessica and William Lister had sat in the library talking over the affair of the undertaker.

Why, they asked each other, had Fanny done such a thing?

For they were certain it was Fanny, since it seemed very possible that she had taken the letter. And why should she want to if not to prevent its being traced to her? And why should Fanny write such a letter?

Jessica supplied the information that Fanny had been visiting Jem Tomrit and that Mrs. Henniker, bis daughter, was uneasy about it. The old man talked constantly of the past, since he had had that scare seeing ghosts on the island, and it wasn’t good for him. She had always believed that Jem could live to a hundred as far as his body was concerned; it was his conscience that was worrying her—and him—for it wouldn’t let him sleep at night lately. He talked too—wandering in his mind—and had said that he and his mates had murdered some excise men by locking them in the underground cellar and letting them drown.

Bevil said: “We’re going to see Jem Tomrit”

So they did, and Bevil made him talk. Fanny had been asking questions about the house on the island; again and again he had told her the story of the murdered excise men who had been lured into the cellar and left to drown.

“We’re going to the island … gale or no gale,” said Bevil.

He didn’t know, of course, that Fanny’s plan was that we should die together. Bevil merely thought that we had gone exploring and that the snap lock might have shut us in.

Back to Menfreya, to find one of the boats missing. The sea by this time was high, and the tide coming in fast But they came over somehow. Bevil and William lister and Jessica.

And they brought me out in time.

I lay in bed on the island thinking about it. They say that when you drown, your life passes before your eyes in pictures. Well, I had come near to drowning, and now I lay still, thinking of scenes from the past.

Gwennan had gone, and something of the old life disappeared with her. It would be the same with the passing of Fanny.

But Bevil was left to me. I owed my life to Bevil—to his determination, his energy, his will to save me.

Yet … by saving me he would lose Jessica.

That was the thought which uplifted me like a buoy in a raging sea of doubt.

If he had wanted to be rid of me, what an excellent opportunity he had had!

We had to stay the night on the island, for the storm grew more fierce. Never have I heard such wind, never known such an angry sea.

Bevil came to the room to tell me that there was no hope of leaving for Menfreya till morning.

“In any case,” he said, “you’re not fit to go. You have to rest.”

“I slept in this room once before,” I said. “Years and years ago … It was when I ran away from home.”

He smiled at me indulgently. I could see how glad he was that I was safe. “You seem to have a talent for doing crazy things.”

“And the next evening,” I said, “you came over here. Do you remember? You found me under a dust sheet in this very room.”

He wrinkled his eyes, trying to remember.

“You had brought a girl over. I’m afraid I interrupted that little romance.”

He laughed. “What a memory you have!”

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“For interrupting then … and now.”

“What, hi God’s name … ” His brow was wrinkled, as though he were truly mystified.

“Jessica is very beautiful and she would have made an excellent M.P.’s wife.”

“Let’s hope she doesn’t. It’s odd how people blurt out things at odd moments. While we were coming over in the boat … and I thought we’d never get there and the sea was hell … she told me she was going to marry Leveret That … the marriage was necessarily going to be somewhat soon and quiet.”

“You mean …”

“It’s true. They’ve been using the island as a rendezvous, and that’s the reason for the mysterious lights and figures that have been seen here.”

“So it was Harry!”

“Yes. And she more or less admitted that she’d been helping him for months. A sort of spy in the enemy camp. That time when the boat slipped away it was engineered at Harry’s request, with the help of that old rascal A’Lee … to make a scandal for me … if you please. His tactics will have to be better than that if he ever gets into politics,”

“If,” I said happily.

“Not in Lansella, eh, Harriet Menfrey?”

I could sense his happiness, and it was because I was safe. For a moment I forgot everything else—the terrible loss of my beloved Fanny, the nightmare hours before her death … so much that needed to be explained.

At length Bevil said: “Good God, I believe you thought that I actually …”

“You and Jessica,” I said. “Well, it wasn't such a wild conclusion to arrive at in view of . ..”

He was serious; then he said: “Poor Harriet! I’m afraid you have a lot to put up with. The fact is I’m a very imperfect specimen,”

“L too,” I said.

“Ill take you as you are. Will you, Harriet, take me?”

“It sounds like something out of the marriage service.”

“It’s appropriate. That’s what we’re talking about … being married.”

He bent over and kissed me, and it was as though we had sealed a bargain.

It was sometime afterwards before events fell into place and the picture was clear. I mourned Fanny for a long time—and still do. How I wish that she had not lost her reason. I wish that she could have been the nurse to my children that I always imagined she would be. I think that I could have nursed her through that terrible time if only we could both have been rescued. It was her fear for me which sent her toppling over the edge of sanity into madness. I believe that when her body was poisoned, as it assuredly was, her mind was tampered with too. There was tangible evidence, so we thought, of the desire of someone in the house to kill me, and it was this which had decided Fanny that when Billy was calling her she must take me with her.

When I discovered the truth, I was amazed that the web of suspicion in which I had become entangled was of my own weaving. The unwanted child I had been had always regarded happiness with suspicion; because my father had not cared for me, I had made myself believe that no one ever would. I did not realize until this time that my life was in my own hands. It was a marvelous revelation, because never before had the future become so full of exciting possibilities. And, understanding myself, I became more tolerant of others. I could be tolerant of Jessica’s hopes and fears. Adventuress she may have been; she may have come to Menfreya hoping for an easy life there; she might have hoped to lure Bevil from me or perhaps to marry William Lister until she had seen the more inviting prospects Harry Leveret had to offer. I could not be sure; but the woman I had become was less censorious than the old. Jessica had fought for her own happiness, as I had for mine; and I hoped she would find what she sought with Harry.

By chance I discovered how Fanny and I had been poisoned. It was shortly after Jessica had left when I took tea in the nursery with Benedict and he gleefully put spoonfuls of sugar in my tea.

“You’ve got a sweet tooth,” he chuckled. Then he said: “You like this sugar better than Jessie’s?”

Jessie’s sugar, he told me, had been kept in a bottle in her cupboard, and by standing on a chair he could reach it. He had brought it for my lemon barley when I was sick to make me get well quickly.

I went over to see Jessica at Chough Towers when her child was born. Being a mother had changed her in some way. I myself was pregnant at that time, and I understood the change; it almost made us friends. She admitted that she had read about the arsenic when Jenny bad died and had tried it herself now and then. She was horrified when she heard how Fanny and I might have been poisoned.

Well, that was all long ago, but I often think of that night when, rescued by my husband, I lay in bed in the island house listening to the storm, and how it wore itself out during the night, until the sound of the waves dropped to a murmur.

When it was light I got out of bed and stood at the window to watch the sunrise. Bevil was sleeping in a chair near my bed, and I did not wake him.

The sea was still, and only the brown edge to its skirt was an indication of how violent the storm had been.

And there was Menfreya touched with the faint rosy glow, and as I looked I remembered that morning all those years ago when I had looked and thought that the loveliest sight in the world must be Menfreya in the morning.

I thought of all that had happened there through the centuries and in my own short life and all that was yet to come.

Gwennan was gone; Fanny was gone; but I had Bevil, and we should go through life together.

Bevil had come to stand beside me, and we both remained at the window, looking across the sea.

“Who would believe that’s the same sea as the one that was raging last night?” he said. And he looked at me, and I knew that he read some of the thoughts that were in my mind.

Tragedy had come close, but luck had been with us.

Bevil was still shaken when he considered how miraculously my rescue had been timed.

“It’s like being given a chance,” he said.

“This day is starting well,” I answered. “Look at the sky. Arid look at Menfreya … It’s so beautiful in the morning.”