Lord of the Far Island

by Victoria Holt

  "Why, it's Miss Ellen Kellaway," he said.

  "I remember you too," I told him.

  "So you are buying 'The Gulls.'"

  "I was completely fascinated by it when I was passing the window and I just felt I had to have it."

  "What was it you liked about it so much?"

  "The color of everything struck me most. And the birds . . . they're so alive. They seem as if they are going to fly right off the canvas. And the sea ... it's so calm and beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen such a perfect sea but I know I shall, and I shall wait for it."

  "You have given me great pleasure," he said. "It is such a joy to talk with someone who sees what one is trying to express. Are you taking the picture with you?"

  "I thought I would. Though I suppose I could have it sent."

  "Did you come over alone?"

  "Yes. I'm keeping an eye on the sea though. I don't want to get caught."

  He laughed. "I have an idea," he said. "They can pack up the picture and you and I will go and drink a cup of tea at the inn. Then I shall carry the picture to your boat. How's that?"

  "It's an excellent idea."

  So that was how I came to be sitting at the Polcrag Inn opposite James Manton drinking Mrs. Pengelly's strong brew and eating scones with jam and clotted cream.

  He asked me how I liked the island life and I replied that sometimes it didn't seem like being on an island, although it would when the sea made one a prisoner there.

  "You're on a bigger one than Blue Rock," he commented. "It makes a difference, you know."

  "You knew my father, I believe," I said, for I was determined to discover all I could and this seemed a heaven-sent opportunity.

  His face hardened. "Yes, I knew him."

  "I can see that you did not like him very much."

  "I would prefer not to talk about him to you, Miss Kellaway."

  "But I want to talk about him and nobody seems to want to."

  "You could hardly hope to hear what you obviously want to from one whom he regarded as his enemy."

  "He regarded you as such? I am sure he was wrong."

  "Your father was a man who thought he was never wrong."

  "I know his first wife died. . . ."

  "He was cruel to her. Had he been different. . ."

  "You're not suggesting that he killed her!"

  "There are more ways of killing people than driving a knife through their hearts or dropping poison into their soup. You can kill with cruelty, and that's what he did. Her life was so wretched with him. He was a jealous and vindictive man."

  I shrank from the vituperation in his voice; he had seemed so placid before, a mild middle-aged man mainly interested in his art. Now his hatred of my father seemed to endow him with new life, a greater vitality than he had shown before.

  "So you knew her well," I went on.

  "I knew her and I knew your mother, too. Your mother was an artist. She could have been a good one but he despised that. She and I had a good deal in common naturally."

  "I see. And she too was unhappy with him."

  "She was and finally left, taking you with her."

  "Did he care very much?"

  James Manton laughed ironically. "Care! He was probably glad."

  "What did he feel about his daughters?"

  "Poor Silva. He hated her. She might have been so different. . . . I wish . . ." He shrugged his shoulders. "Silva was never given a chance. That was why . . ."

  "She disappeared," I put in, as he did not appear to want to continue. "Her life seems to have been a very sad one. She was unbalanced, I gathered."

  "Who wouldn't have been in such an atmosphere? She wasn't very old when her mother died . . . and to be brought up in that place. . ."

  "I remember so little, being only three years old when I left. Did he hate me too?"

  "He wouldn't have had time for children."

  "Do you know what happened after my mother went away with me?"

  "He didn't try to find you. He would never forgive your mother for running away just as he never forgave Effie. . . ." He shook his head. "I shouldn't be speaking to you like this about your own father."

  "What I want is to get at the truth. If it's unpleasant I have to face it. I'd rather know it all and see it clearly than have it dressed up to look pretty to please me."

  "You must forgive me," he said. "I was carried away. Your father and I were not on speaking terms. When he was alive he wouldn't have had me on the Island. If I had put a foot there someone would have been ordered to throw me into the sea."

  "Well, I hope that unhappy situation is over now."

  "Oh, these family feuds get carried on for generations. They exist when the families don't know the original cause of the quarrel. Did we ever know what was the start of the trouble between the Montagues and Capulets? I wouldn't go to Kellaway Island now—just wouldn't dream of it. I'm content to stay at Blue Rock."

  "You enjoy your little island all to yourself."

  "It suits me. I paint most of the time I'm there and then I go up to London to arrange exhibitions and see other people's. I come to the mainland and put my pictures in shop windows hoping that art-conscious, beauty-loving young ladies will come along and buy them."

  "I'm glad I saw "The Gulls' and I'm glad it's yours. I hope my appreciation of your picture has done something to break through a little of the feud."

  He smiled at me. "It's miraculous," he said, "that you could be his daughter."

  It had been an interesting afternoon, and after I had rowed myself back with the picture I set it up in my room and studied it.

  Then I put it away, for if I was going to give it to Jago it would have to be a secret until Christmas.

  It was a golden October and people were talking about an Indian summer. The days were warm and hazy and there was no sign of the gales. Jago said it was hardly possible that we should avoid them altogether and that they had probably delayed their visit until November.

  I took the Ellen out every day. I loved to row round the Island. The place was growing on me. Jago used to talk to me about the troubles of the various people and I was beginning to know a few of them. They accepted me and I was gratified when they appeared to like me, and I felt especially delighted when they hinted what a good landlord Jago was.

  "Stern," said one old woman, "but just. You've got to keep your cottage neat and clean and the garden shipshape, then he'll see your roof's mended if the need arises."

  It was a lovely afternoon with a rather hazy sun visible through the slightly misty atmosphere. My thoughts were with the people of the Island—not so much those who lived there at this time, but those vague figures of the past whom it was so difficult, on the flimsy evidence available, to bring to life.

  Why was I so anxious to know about the lives of people who were gone?

  "Idle curiosity," Philip would have said.

  "Oh, you always want to know everything," I could hear Esmeralda telling me. "Particularly about people."

  Yes, it was true. But there was something more. I could not help feeling that my life was interwoven with those of the people who had lived here and that there was some reason why it was important to me to know what had happened to them.

  Never far from my thoughts was Jago himself. My feelings for him were so varied that he was of perpetual interest to me. I often looked at the pictures in my mother's sketchbook, from which I would not be parted. She, too, had been aware of a dual personality. But then she had felt the same about Silva. Perhaps she had meant to convey that there were two sides—and often more—to everyone's character. My father, for instance. He seemed to have been very difficult to live with and yet both my mother and Effie must have been in love with him at one time to have married him.

  I shipped the oars and drifted on the tide. It was so beautiful with the faint cool breeze on my face and that benign reddish sun up there. The clouds drifting slowly in the wind were taking on weird shapes. There was a face up there—a
woman's face, a nutcracker of a face—and I immediately thought of Tassie. Dark shadows hovering over all of us, she had said. "Be watchful." Had that been an oblique reference to some danger threatening me, or was it just the fortuneteller's jargon? When I was with Jago it had been all the "happy ever after if you take the right turning" theme. Wouldn't that apply to anybody? Wasn't there a "right turning" in everybody's life which if taken at the flood leads on to greatness ... or happiness, which was more to be desired? I was misquoting and mixing metaphors but truth was there.

  I had drifted nearly a mile out from the Island, I should think. Perhaps I ought to go back.

  As I moved the oars I stared at the bottom of the boat in sudden consternation. Water was seeping in.

  I bent forward and felt with my hand. The water was very shallow so the boat had only just started to leak. I touched the bottom of the boat. There was something sticky on my hand. It looked like sugar.

  Even as I looked the water started to come in faster. The whole of the bottom of the boat was covered now. I seized the oars and started to row for the Island as fast as I could.

  The Ellen had sprung a leak. There was no doubt of that. How far off the Island seemed! The boat was going to sink at any moment and I was not a strong swimmer.

  It was sooner than I expected. The Ellen tipped to one side and I was in the water.

  Frantically I sought to get a hold on the boat. By great good luck I managed to clutch at the keel as she turned upside down. She was floating and I was clinging to her with all my might. Temporarily I was safe. . . but it could not last, I was well aware.

  Could I swim to the shore? I could feel the water saturating my skirts and making them heavy. They were dragging me down. I had swum very little; Esmeralda and I had bathed in the sea at Brighton when our governess had taken us for holidays there, but then we had gone into bathing machines set up on the beach and emerged from them straight into the water and just let the waves toss us about as we hung on to the ropes. I could manage a few strokes but could I reach the Island, hampered as I was by my clothes?

  My hold on the boat was precarious. I shouted: "Help!" My voice sounded feeble. Overhead gulls wheeled, screeching in what seemed to me a mocking fashion.

  "Oh, God," I prayed, "let someone find me." And into my mind there flashed an image of Silva in another boat. They never found her but the boat was washed up.

  Oh, this treacherous sea! How powerful it seemed even in its present moderate mood.

  Should I try for the shore? I could feel my wet skirts wrapping themselves around my legs and I knew it would be disastrous to attempt it, and yet with every passing second my hold on the Ellen was becoming more and more slight.

  My hands were growing numb. I can't cling much longer, I thought. Is this the end? It was strange that it should all have led to this. No, no. Someone would come. Jago would come. Yes, it must be Jago. If only I could will him to be taking a stroll along the cliffs.

  "Jago!" I called. "Jago."

  I'm slipping, I thought. I can't hold on much longer. What is it like to drown?

  I would make an attempt to swim. Who knew, I might manage it. It was said that when one was in danger nature provided extra reserves of strength. I wouldn't die, I was going to fight for my life.

  I heard a shout and it was as though my prayer had been answered, but I dared not turn to look towards the shore for fear I should lose my grip on the boat.

  The shout came to me over the water. "Hold on, Miss Ellen. I be on the way."

  Slack!

  He was near to me now. I knew that he swam like a fish; I had seen him twisting and turning in the water, as much at home there as he was on land.

  " Tis all right, Miss Ellen. I be here now. . . ."

  How small he was! How fragile! He had the body of a child, but of course he was not much more.

  "There now. Here I be." His voice was soothing, comforting, as though I were a wounded bird.

  "Now now, I be taking 'ee to the shore."

  I still clung to the boat.

  "I... can't swim . . . very well, Slack."

  "Never 'ee mind, Miss Ellen. I be here."

  I released my grip on the boat and for a moment was submerged. I was on the surface again and I felt Slack's hand under my chin holding my head above the water.

  The boat had moved away from us and the shore seemed a long way off.

  How can this delicate boy bring me safely ashore? I wondered.

  Then I heard Jago's voice.

  "I'm coming."

  Then I knew that everything was going to be all right.

  I remember vaguely being brought onto the land. I remember Jago's strong arms about me as he carried me to the castle. I remember being laid on my bed and soothing drinks being brought to me. I was wrapped in blankets and hot-water bottles were placed round me. I was told I was to stay there for a day or two. I had had a shock which was greater than I would realize at the time. I had come near to death by drowning.

  As I lay in my bed I could not stop thinking of the terrifying moment when I had noticed that the boat was leaking. I knew that could have been the end of me if Slack had not been there—and later Jago. I still wondered whether little Slack could have brought me in; and I rejoiced that Jago had come. The moment I had heard his voice I had ceased to be afraid.

  Jago came and sat by my bed.

  "What happened?" he asked. "Do you feel you can talk about it, Ellen?"

  "Of course. Everything seemed all right until suddenly I noticed that the boat was leaking."

  "That should never have happened. You must have struck something when you brought her in. The boats ought to be thoroughly examined before they are taken out."

  "It was all right at first. I had been in it for about ten minutes. I was drifting away from the shore when suddenly I noticed."

  "It has happened on other occasions. Thank God I came along when I did."

  "Slack too."

  "Yes, he's a good boy but he's a weakling. He might not have been strong enough to bring you in."

  "I felt my wet clothes dragging me down."

  "Yes, that was where the great danger lay. My dear Ellen, if anything had happened to you . . ." His face was distorted with real emotion. "It's a lesson to us though. We have to be very careful in future."

  "Are you going to suggest that I give up rowing alone?"

  "It mightn't be a bad idea. At the moment I'm going to suggest that you stay in bed for a while. The effects of this sort of thing can be greater than you realize."

  "I haven't said 'Thank you' for saving my life."

  He rose and bent over me. "All the thanks I need is to see you safe. Don't forget I'm your guardian."

  "Thank you, Jago."

  He stooped and kissed me.

  I was glad that he went out then for my emotion was hard to hide. I am in a weak state, I told myself. Anyone would be after such an adventure.

  Gwennol came to see me.

  "You had an unpleasant experience," she said. "And you don't swim very well, do you?"

  "How did you know?"

  "You told me. My mother made me take swimming lessons. She said that living on an island everyone should."

  "I was fortunate."

  "Perhaps you were born lucky."

  "I'd like to think I was."

  "Well, you'll be more careful in future, won't you?"

  "I really didn't realize I was being careless. Who would have thought a boat like the Ellen would have sprung a leak?"

  "Any boat might. She hasn't come in yet. I expect she's drifting out to sea. I wonder if she'll ever come back. If we had a gale she would no doubt be broken up. Perhaps one day a spar of wood with just the word 'Ellen' on it will turn up."

  "And people will say: 'Who was Ellen?'"

  "They'll know it was part of a boat and therefore the name of it."

  "Oh, but they might wonder who the Ellen was for whom the boat was named."

  There was restraint between us whic
h we were trying to pretend did not exist. I sensed that she was longing to ask me if I had seen Michael recently. She would want to know what had happened on that day I had spent on the mainland in his company, for I was sure Jenifry had seen us together and would have told her daughter. But Gwennol couldn't bring herself to ask. The rift between us made us both uneasy and she didn't stay long with me.

  Jenifry came, her face puckered into an expression of concern.

  "How are you feeling, Ellen?" she asked. "My goodness, you gave us all a turn. I couldn't believe my eyes when Jago brought you in. For the moment I thought you were dead."

  "I'm very healthy," I said. "It would take a lot to kill me."

  "That's a comforting thought," she replied. "I've brought you a drink. It's a concoction of herbs and things and is said to be very good for shock. My old nurse always gave it to me when she thought I needed it."

  "It's kind of you to bring it to me now."

  "Come, drink it. You'll be surprised how well you'll feel afterwards."

  I took the glass and then I looked up and saw her eyes on me and I had the same uneasy feeling which I had experienced when I had seen her face in the mirror.

  "I couldn't drink anything," I said. "I feel sick."

  "This will make you better."

  "Later," I insisted, and set it down on the table beside my bed.

  She sighed. "I know it will make you feel better."

  "I'm so tired," I said, half closing my eyes but so that I could still see her through my lashes. She looked at me for a few seconds in silence.

  "I'll leave you then," she said. "But don't forget—do take the tonic."

  I nodded sleepily and she went quietly from the room. I lay listening.

  There was something stealthy about her, something which had made me feel uneasy right from the first day 1 had seen her. I heard her footsteps going down the corridor and I picked up the glass and sniffed the liquid. I could smell the herbs and they were not unpleasant. I put it to my lips. Then I thought suddenly of old Tassie and I heard her voice saying: Be watchful.