After observing it for some minutes Miss Silver prepared to go. She was not very strongly addicted to ruins. Benjy’s remarks about the snails and spiders lingered unfavourably in her mind. If a sense of duty compelled her to wait here for the children, she felt it would be more agreeable to do so on the other side of the wall. Turning from the stone slab, she saw that the ruins had another visitor, and a striking one. A very tall and very large woman in a voluminous dark cape was standing just beyond the gap through which she herself had entered. The cape billowed out on every side, giving in spite of her bulk the impression that it might at any moment spread into wings and carry its wearer away. She had blunt, ugly features, a pair of rolling eyes, and an immense bush of the dark red hair which is usually a product of the dye bottle. Miss Silver found herself quite unable to believe that it was natural, though, being old-fashioned in her taste and preferring the more conventional shades, she was at a loss to imagine why anyone should wish to dye her hair such a distressing colour.
A large hand let go of the cloak to wave at her and then clutched it again. A deep voice hailed her.
‘That place isn’t safe. The masonry flies.’
This inversion of Mr Craddock’s phrase had a very peculiar sound, a peculiarity which was intensified when the stranger continued.
‘Other things too perhaps. You had better not linger.’
Declaimed in that contralto manner, the words were arresting. Miss Silver, having reached the gap in the wall, was arrested. The cloak flapped loose again. Her hand was grasped.
‘You are Emily Craddock’s new governess. I am Miranda! We must know each other! You are psychic?’
Miss Silver coughed a little primly.
‘I do not think so.’
The cloak threatened to engulf them both. Her hand was released.
‘Many people do not know their own powers. We must talk. This place interests you?’
‘It is very desolate.’
‘Ah—you are a sensitive.’ The words were pronounced in a pontifical manner. ‘The burial place of an extinct family. There are emanations from such places. They affect the sensitive. The Everlys once owned all this land. They were rich, they were powerful. They are ruined, they are gone. Sic transit gloria mundi.’
She rolled out the words with the air of making an original statement. A sharp gust of wind blew the cloak right up over her head, disclosing the fact that she wore beneath it a curious short purple garment resembling a cassock which has been cut off at the knees. Comfortable for walking, no doubt, but most unsuitable for so large a figure. When the cloak was under control again the owner went on as if there had been no interruption.
‘That stone—the one over which you were bending—it covers the entrance to their family vault. You could not read the inscription. It has been obliterated for years. Only a letter here and there remains. On my first visit I pored over it. Without success. Later, in trance, I read it clearly.’ She intoned the words: ‘“Here I—Ever Lye.” Spelt with a Y, you know! A play upon the name Everly. Strange mixture of the Pun and the Funeral Pall!’
‘Strange indeed—’
Miss Silver’s murmured words may not have referred entirely to an Elizabethan partiality for punning. Miranda’s eyes, brown and rather prominent, stopped rolling and contemplated her in a fixed manner.
‘You will stay with the Craddocks, I hope. Peveril is Marvellous—an inspiration to all Seekers. You will find it a Privilege to belong to his household. I may say a Great Privilege. Dear Emily, of course, is earthbound. One wonders why—’ She shook her head with the air of a warning Sybil. ‘But he cannot fail to raise her.’
Miss Silver hastened to say,
‘Mrs Craddock is all that is kind.’
‘Oh, kind—’ Miranda let go of the cloak with a free gesture which was obviously intended to dismiss Mrs Craddock’s kindness as irrelevant. By the time she had recaptured it the question of dear Emily’s exact spiritual status or the lack of it had gone down the wind. She reverted to her original theme. ‘You will stay. They will need you. She is frail. And the children—sadly uncontrolled. Peveril believes in the self-expression of the Ego, but I do not follow him all the way. Not with children. For the adult, yes! Undoubtedly! Entirely! But for the untrained child intelligence, no! There must be Leading, Guiding—even at times Discipline! You agree with me?’
‘I do indeed.’
Miranda waved hand and cloak together.
‘We must talk of it. Peveril must be made to see reason. His work must not be disturbed. And Emily requires relief. The young girls whom she has had were useless—no experience, no authority. Miss Dally left after a week because Maurice put a spider down her back and Benjy poured the ink over her hair, and all she did was to burst into tears and pack her bag. Fluffy fair hair and pale blue eyes—most unsuitable! Miss Ball equally so, but a different type. A morose girl. She stayed for a fortnight, and I told Emily at the time that she was a good riddance. I saw her go by to the station, and the words sprang unbidden to my lips. I spoke them aloud. Not to Emily Craddock, because she was not there, but to Augustus Remington. He lives next door to me. You must meet him. A gentle soul—he does exquisite needlework. Have you met Elaine and Gwyneth Tremlett yet?’
‘Not yet. I only came yesterday.’
‘You will do so. Rather earthbound, but pleasant neighbours. They adore Peveril, but it would have been better if they had stayed at Wyshmere. Elaine had a folk-dancing class there—she misses it. Gwyneth, of course, can go on with her weaving. But it would be better if they had not come—I have told them so frankly. I always say just what I think. If it is not received in the same spirit, that is not my fault. What made you come here?’
‘I answered Mr Craddock’s advertisement. Do you know, I believe I hear the children. They undertook to meet me here.’
With a sweeping gesture Miranda folded her arms and her cloak across her capacious bosom.
‘Then I will leave you. But we must meet again. Together we will see what can be done to help Emily. Goodbye!’ She went off with a swinging stride, her dark red hair waving in the wind.
As soon as she was at a safe distance, the children came tumbling downhill out of a patch of scrubby woodland which looked as if it might harbour primroses in the spring. They were in high spirits, laughing and shouting.
‘Did the masonry fly at you?’
‘I’d like to see it fly—I want to see it fly!’
‘I haven’t got any spiders! They go somewhere in the winter!’
‘They climb up drain-pipes and drown themselves in your bath!’
‘Don’t want spiders in my bath!’
Jennifer said,
‘That was Miranda. She thinks we want discipline. Maurice put an earwig in her tea, and she poured the whole cup down the back of his neck.’
‘It’s better to leave her alone,’ said Maurice gloomily. ‘Is it tea-time yet? Shall we go home? I’m hungry.’
They went home.
TEN
THERE WAS A cold wind blowing in the park. Leafless trees made a pattern against the lowering sky. There was a kind of prickle in the air, which generally means that it may begin to snow at any moment. It was not the sort of day to tempt anyone to linger, but Thomasina Elliot and Peter Brandon were not only lingering, they were actually sitting on one of the green park seats. There is, of course, nothing so warming to the blood as a good brisk quarrel. Not that either Peter or Thomasina would have admitted that they were quarrelling. Thomasina was merely refusing to be buillied, while Peter was engaged in pointing out the folly of her ways. In an atmosphere of pure reason no doubt, and without any undignified heat, but he had no right to be doing it. After all, at twenty-one you are of age. You can record a vote or make a will, you can get married without asking anyone’s leave. You are, in fact, an adult human being. And Thomasina was twenty-two. She had been an adult human being for thirteen months and ten days. It was outrageous of Peter to behave as if he was a Victorian parent, or
the sort of guardian that you come across in old-fashioned books. She said so.
‘Thank you—I don’t feel in the least like a parent! And thank God I’m not your guardian!’
Rightly considering that she had scored a point, Thomasina produced an odiously complacent smile.
‘It was rather clever of me really.’
‘Clever!’
‘Well, it was, you know. I don’t suppose I’d heard their names for years and years and years. Well, at least five, because that is when Aunt Barbara was down at that folk-weaving place, Wyshmere. She wanted to learn how to do it so as to teach Tibbie.’
‘Tibbie?’
‘Jeanie’s sister—the one that was crippled in an accident. She got her a little hand-loom, and she made scarves and did quite well with them.’
‘Who got who a loom, and who did quite well with it?’
She exercised an exasperated patience.
‘Aunt Barbara gave Tibbie a loom of course. She never got very good at it herself, but Tibbie did.’
Peter said in the tone of one who wouldn’t agree with himself if he could help it, let alone with anyone else,
‘I don’t remember a thing about it.’
‘Because you were abroad. But that’s where she met the Miss Tremletts—’
‘Tibbie?’
The patience vanished, the exasperation became a good deal more evident.
‘No, of course not! Aunt Barbara—at Wyshmere—I told you! And the minute Inspector Abbott mentioned their names—’
‘Why on earth should he mention their names?’
‘He was telling me about Anna going to Deep End and there being an arty-crafty Colony there. As soon as he said two Miss Tremletts who did weaving and folk-dancing and their names were Gwyneth and Elaine, something went off in my head like striking a match and I remembered Aunt Barbara and Wyshmere. So I thought supposing they were the same—’
‘Supposing who were the same as what?’
Thomasina’s eyes became considerably brighter. Some young men would have been alarmed, but Peter had a good deal of natural resistance.
‘Peter, you are doing it on purpose!’
‘My good girl, if you keep flinging about she’s and who’s and what’s—’
‘I am not your good girl!’
‘Agreed.’
‘You are simply pretending not to understand. I thought if these Miss Tremlett’s were the same as Aunt Barbara’s ones—and they were practically bound to be, because you simply couldn’t imagine two families giving names like Elaine and Gwyneth—’
‘I don’t see why not.’
Thomasina felt very much as she did on the occasion when she took off a shoe and threw it at Peter. The heel had cut his forehead and left a small white scar, and Aunt Barbara had talked to her about Cain, and being a murderess. All very horrifying when you were eight years old. She was twenty-two now, and they were in a public park, so she controlled herself.
‘You just don’t want to see—that’s all! But I did, so I sent Jeanie a wire for Aunt Barbara’s address book, and there they were—Elaine and Gwyneth Tremlett, Wyshcumtru, Wyshmere.’
Peter laughed in a superior way.
‘I don’t believe it. No one could possibly have an address like that.’
‘Elaine and Gwyneth did. So I wrote and said I had just come across their names in Aunt Barbara’s address book, and were they still there and a bit about Tibbie and the hand-loom, and this morning I got a letter from Gwyneth who is the weaving one, and she said they had moved and gone to this place, Deep End. A ‘Colony of Seekers’ she called it, with oh, such a wonderful man at the head of it. And she could never forget dear Mrs Brandon, and they did sometimes take a paying guest so if I ever wanted a country holiday perhaps I would give them the great pleasure of making my acquaintance and renewing what had been very pleasant memories. There was a lot more like that, all underlined and gushing.’
‘Now look here, Thomasina—’
‘It’s no good, Peter—I’m going down.’
‘You can’t possibly!’
‘Oh, but I am. I wrote off at once and said I was yearning for a country holiday.’
‘If you will stop to think for a single instant—’
‘Yes, darling?’
He said with extraordinary violence,
‘Don’t call me darling!’
‘Well, I don’t really want to.’
‘Then don’t do it! What I want you to do is to listen. You are paying this Miss Silver of yours to try and trace Anna Ball—she has gone down to Deep End for that specific purpose. If you go butting in, the odds are you will queer her pitch. To start with, there’s your name. Anna Ball may quite easily have talked about you when she was down there.’
‘Anna never talked about anybody. That was what was wrong with her—she was all shut-up and tight. I don’t see her having a heart-to-heart with Gwyneth and Elaine.’
‘She probably had a photograph of you.’
‘Well then, she didn’t—at least it wasn’t with her. She only had one, and it was in the top of the trunk she sent to me.’
Peter leaned forward and put a strong gripping hand on her wrist.
‘If you don’t make a mess of it one way, you will another. You’ll be going down there under false pretences for one thing, and you’ll be a serious embarrassment to Miss Silver for another. The whole thing is probably a complete mare’s nest. Anna went there and came away again, and just hasn’t bothered to write. But if there is anything wrong about the place—I don’t say there is, but supposing there was—you might be running into something that would make you wish you had listened to reason.’
Thomasina was only waiting for him to take breath. When he did she was more than ready.
‘Why should I be going down under false pretences? I never heard of such a thing I’m not calling myself Jane Smith or Elizabeth Brown, am I? They did know Aunt Barbara, and I am her niece, and if they want a paying guest and I want to learn folk-weaving and have a holiday in the country, why shouldn’t I?’
‘Because you don’t want anything of the sort. You wouldn’t go within twenty miles of these Tremletts if you didn’t want to go snooping round about Anna Ball.’
Thomasina went quite pale with anger.
‘You just said that because it was the nastiest thing you could think of!’
‘Perfectly correct.’
‘And it isn’t true!’
‘You wouldn’t be so angry if it wasn’t.’
‘Yes, I would! I don’t like lies and unfairness! I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with Gwyneth and Elaine. Aunt Barbara wouldn’t have been friends with them if they hadn’t been all right. She liked them, and Gwyneth called her “Dear Mrs Brandon.” So why shouldn’t I go and be a paying guest? If they are all right, and everything is all right, then I just learn a little folk-weaving and come away again. You are not going to pretend there is anything wrong about that, I suppose!’
‘And if everything isn’t all right?’
‘Then the sooner it’s found out about the better!’
There was quite a long pause. Thomasina’s colour came back rather brightly. She had reduced Peter to silence, a thing which had practically never happened before. This was extremely pleasing. But when the silence had gone on for quite a long time it didn’t feel so good. A small cold wind blew about them. The clouds were lower and had the rather horrid leaden look which is a presage of snow. She became aware that her feet were frozen, and that it would be much nicer to go and have tea somewhere instead of sitting mouldering on a park bench without even the satisfaction of saying how much you hated it. She looked sideways at Peter, who was staring gloomily at nothing at all, and was just going to look away again, when he turned with one of his abrupt movements and caught both her hands in his.
‘Tamsine—don’t go!’
It was always dreadfully hard not to weaken when he called her Tamsine, but if you didn’t keep your end up with Peter you would
be a trodden slave before you could turn round. The spirit of all the Border Elliots rebelled. She smiled right into his eyes and said,
‘Darling, of course I’m going.’
ELEVEN
AFTER A WEEK at Deep End Miss Silver had seen no reason to modify her first impressions. What she called her scholastic career had come to an end so many years ago that she might have expected to find it strange to be teaching children again, yet it was not strange at all. By what arts she had brought Jennifer, Maurice and Benjy to accept her teaching was just one of those things which cannot be explained. There are people who can manage children, and people who can’t. There are qualities which compel respect. When they are present they are respected. Miss Silver possessed these qualities. In return she respected the children under her charge—their privacy, their confidence, there rights. These things, though never put into words, are deeply felt. They establish a sense of security and evoke a responsive trust.
It is not to be supposed that the Craddock children became orderly and disciplined in a day or two. Jennifer remained aloof, with flashes of interest. Maurice, sturdy and literal-minded, was discovered to have a passion for trains. His attention was captured and his heart won by the fact that Miss Silver had had the forethought to provide herself with a book which displayed upon its cover the picture of an enormous engine very strikingly coloured in Prussian blue and scarlet, and inside, in addition to many other illustrations of trains and engines all duly named and numbered, a quite extra-ordinary amount of information about railways. Margaret Moray, who had a boy of the same age, had assured her that nothing in trousers between four and eight could possibly resist its lure. Little girls would find it dull, but any normal boy would eat it and ask for more. The number of miles between London and Edinburgh, the number of miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, the history of the Flying Scotsman and the Coronation Scot, innumerable and solid facts about bogies, about fuel, about taking in water—these were meat and drink.
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