Lord of the Far Island

by Victoria Holt

"I should hardly think so."

  "So I have to congratulate you on your escape. My dear Ellen, you are not accident prone, are you? I remember something about your falling from a cliff. That was just after Philip's death. I expect you weren't as careful as you should have been on that occasion. It was at Dead Man's Leap, wasn't it? A dangerous spot."

  "That was a terrifying experience. Yes, it does seem as you say that I might be accident prone."

  He smiled and laid a hand over mine as it lay on the grass.

  "You must take greater care obviously, Ellen. Examine your boats before you go out in them and for heaven's sake don't go near the edges of cliffs. Tell me, do you like being here? Are you going to stay long?"

  "It seems to have become my home and I never had a real home before, you know. I could hardly call Cousin Agatha's house that. This place grows on me. I like it more and more every day."

  "It's a rich island, I imagine. The agriculture seems in good form. A very profitable little place. The view from the highest peak is superb. I've been up there to have a look. I was going up there now. Come with me, if you have half an hour to spare."

  "I'd like to."

  "I plan to leave today. I did try to find you yesterday. My main idea was to apologize to you."

  "It's good of you to come out of your way. I daresay you are very busy."

  "As always," he answered, and seeing him there made me think that Jago's notion that the Carringtons were after my little fortune was absurd. "I thought I'd take the opportunity this Truro trip offered and I'm glad I did."

  "I'm glad too. If you see Esmeralda please tell her that I often think of her and that I expect to hear all about her engagement."

  "I will do that."

  We had started to climb and now we were high above sea level.

  "You should be careful here," said Rollo. "One slip and you could go hurtling down."

  "I'm very surefooted."

  "You weren't on another occasion."

  "That was when the rail gave way. Nothing to do with being surefooted. In any case I'm extra careful now. Look, there's old Tassie down there. She's gathering limpets, crabs or something to make her concoctions."

  "She looks like a disreputable old crone."

  "I hope she hasn't heard that. She'd ill-wish you. Oh, she's seen us." I waved a hand.

  "Good day to 'ee, Miss Kellaway," she called. "How be you then?"

  "Very well, Tassie," I replied, "and you too I trust."

  She nodded and went on her way.

  "Whatever she's gathering will go into a love potion for some love-sick girl," I said, "or perhaps it will cure someone's warts or sties."

  "It seems to me you lead a very colorful life on this island. Did she see me with you, do you think?"

  "Certainly she did. Old Tassie sees everything. I think, probably, that's why her prophecies come true. She keeps her eyes open."

  We went down the slope to the spot where I had seen Rollo. He took my hand in his and said: "So I am forgiven? I can go on my way with a good conscience."

  I nodded. "Thank you for coming," I said. "Would you like to call at the castle?"

  He shook his head. "No. I have to leave shortly. I just came to see you. If I have time I might call again on my way back."

  "That would be pleasant," I said.

  As we went our different ways—he to the inn, I to the castle—I thought of Jago's suggestion that the Carringtons needed money to bolster up their empire. That seemed quite ridiculous. What a strange day it had been! And Rollo's coming had taken me right back to the days of my engagement to Philip.

  It was two days later when Slack came to me in a state of great excitement.

  "Miss Ellen," he said, "she have come in. The Ellen have come in."

  "Where is she, Slack?"

  "She's in the cove. I dragged her there and hid her like."

  "Why hide her?" I asked.

  The bewildered look came into his eyes. "I don't rightly know, Miss Ellen. 'Twere like I were told."

  "Does nobody know the boat has come in except you?"

  He nodded. "I were watching for her. I saw her out there bobbing on the water and I swam out to her and brought her in. I brought her to my special cove where nobody goes much. She's there now. Come and look. I have something to show you and it's something I don't like. But we got to look at it, all the same."

  He led the way down to the shore. It was a spot I had not been to before and I guessed that it was often cut off by the tide. There lay the boat.

  "That's not the Ellen," I said at once.

  " Tis and all."

  "Where's her name? This one has no name at all."

  He looked suddenly sly. "I painted her out," he said.

  "Why?"

  He scratched his head and looked lost again. "I can't rightly say. It seemed best."

  "Why are you so mysterious, Slack?" I asked.

  "Look 'ee here, Miss Ellen."

  He directed my gaze to the bottom of the boat. A hole was bored there.

  "How could it have got there?" I asked.

  He seemed to read my thoughts, for he answered: " 'Tis only one way her got there, Miss Ellen. Someone bored a hole in her. You did talk of sugar. Well, if a hole were bored and packed tight with sugar 'twould take a little time to dissolve and that's what it did. 'Tis clear as daylight on a summer's day."

  I can't bear it, I thought, as I tried to shut out the suspicious thoughts which kept coming into my mind. Someone had bored a hole in the boat—my boat, which only I took out. Someone knew I was not a strong swimmer, someone took a chance that I would go out in that boat alone and would not come back alive.

  I stood there staring at the hole and then I was aware of Slack beside me gently laying a hand on my arm.

  "Miss Ellen," he said, "if you do be in trouble will 'ee come to me? Maybe the Power will let me help you. Miss Silva used to talk to me. Will you, Miss Ellen?"

  "Thank you, Slack," I said. "I'm glad you're my friend."

  There was no turning away from the fact which was staring me in the face.

  Someone wanted me out of the way so badly that he or she had attempted to kill me.

  In the Dungeons

  Fear was stalking me. I was certain now that my life was in danger. One possibility occurred to me and it seemed the most likely. Illogically I refused to examine it; I conjured up all sorts of reasons why it could not be true and I refused to listen to the voice of reason within me.

  And there has to be a reason, hasn't there? If some person unknown wants another person out of the way it can only mean that the removal of one brings gain to the other. Could this beautiful, fertile Island be the answer? It was mine—or soon to be—and someone else wanted it. I wouldn't accept that.

  You fool, said my practical self, you mean you don't want to accept it. You won't face facts. If you were out of the way it would be his.

  But he loves me. He has asked me to marry him.

  Yes, and you want to. You want to so much that you deliberately shut your eyes to the truth.

  If he married me, he would have a share in the Island.

  If you died, it would be entirely his.

  It's nonsense, I thought. Just because I went out in a boat. . .

  Then I pictured Slack's face, his eyes bewildered and anxious. Slack knew more than he would admit and this was his way of warning me.

  I could not get Silva out of my mind. Was her story in some way connected with mine? What had happened to her? If she were only here and could tell me!

  I went to that room on the ground floor which led from the hall and which my mother had used and in which I had found her sketchbook. There was a certain comfort in sitting on the old settle and thinking about my mother, who had run away, taking me with her—and thinking of Silva too.

  How unhappy Silva must have been when she took the boat out! Was it really a gesture, as the threat to throw herself from the castle walls had been? It was frustrated love. I gathered that much fro
m the notebooks. For the first time in her life she was loved ... or deceived into thinking she was.

  Could it have been that someone had pretended to be in love with her . . . perhaps because she was her father's daughter ... his eldest daughter, who it was thought would inherit the Island; and had that someone discovered that my father doubted whether she was his daughter and had left the Island to someone else . . . myself?

  Jago's face rose before me, intense, passionate, those heavy-lidded eyes which were not always easy to understand. He fascinated me and excited me; I wanted to be with him, to learn the truth about him—no matter how dangerous that might prove to be. I had always been adventurous and never one to take the safe road; and now it was as though Jago was beckoning me to go to him, to discover how far my suspicions were rooted in truth, to find the vital answer to the question: Does he want me or the Island? The answer to that might be that he wanted us both, which I knew he would freely admit. The real question was: Did he want to be the sole possessor of the Island? What did I really know of Jago except the overwhelming truth that he was exciting to know!

  I almost wished Slack had not found the boat. How much more comfortable it would have been if I had dismissed the idea that I had seen grains of sugar and there had not been the evidence of that drilled hole.

  Don't be a fool, I admonished myself. What's the good of being in love and finding life exciting if someone is planning to remove you from it?

  As I deliberately refused to think of Jago as the one who had drilled that hole in the boat, hoping that I would not return, my thoughts went to Michael Hydrock, who had been so kind to me and seemed to enjoy my company so much. What if Michael had been the one with whom Silva had fallen in love? Then I thought of Jenifry and Gwennol, who had shown so clearly that my friendship with Michael did not please them.

  Gwennol was a passionate girl. She would love fiercely and hate in the same way. They had the Devil in them, this branch of the Kellaway family—Jago's branch. That was how the legend went. Jago might want the Island but Gwennol wanted Michael Hydrock.

  It was all too mysterious and complicated—but I could not rid myself of the thought that I was in danger.

  If only my mother had talked to me! If only I had come to the Island earlier, I might have met Silva.

  I pictured my mother here in this room, going to the cupboard, taking out her painting materials and then going out to paint a scene of the castle or the Island, or perhaps to do a portrait. Where had she seen the dream room? That was yet another mystery.

  And as I sat there brooding I heard a sound and such was the state to which I had reduced myself that immediately a cold shiver ran down my spine. I stared at the door, which was slowly pushed open. I don't know what I was expecting. My fear was due to my conviction that someone was planning to murder me, I supposed, and was therefore understandable. But it was only Slack standing there.

  "Oh, it be you, Miss Ellen," he whispered. "I did wonder. I knew someone was here like. It be a good spot to be when there's trouble about."

  "What an odd thing to say. What do you mean by that, Slack?"

  "Oh, just that it be good to be in this room like."

  "What's so special about this room?"

  "Miss Silva, her did come here. Her'd come and sit on that there settle, just as you be sitting now. I could shut me eyes and it would be like you was Miss Silva sitting there."

  "How did you know she came here?"

  "Me eyes did tell me so."

  "My mother used to come here too. It seems that it's a sort of refuge."

  "What be that, Miss Ellen?"

  "A place you come to when you're pondering about something, when you're not quite sure what you ought to do."

  "Aye," he said. "It be such a place. . . ." He paused and wrinkled his brow. It was as though he wanted to tell me something and did not know how to express it.

  "Yes, Slack," I prompted.

  "You be watchful, won't 'ee?"

  "You've said that before, Slack."

  "Aye, 'tis so. I know you should be watchful."

  "It would be easier if I knew what to watch for."

  He nodded. "If you be feared sometimes, Miss Ellen, you come here. I'll be watchful for 'ee."

  "Come here? To this room?"

  "Come to me first and then come to the room. Then I'd know you was here. That would be best."

  I looked at him intently and again wondered if people were right when they said he was "lacking."

  "Why, Slack?"

  " 'Tis best," he said. " 'Twas what I told Miss Silva."

  "So she came here and you came too."

  He nodded. "Miss Silva, her trusted me, her did. You trust me too, Miss Ellen."

  "I do, Slack."

  He put his finger to his lips. "Here," he whispered. "In this room. That would be best."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "When the time do come."

  Poor Slack, I thought, I really believe he is a little mad.

  "Isn't it time to feed the pigeons?" I asked.

  " 'Tis five minutes off feeding time."

  "Then let's not keep them waiting." I stood up.

  He smiled and repeated: "When the time do come."

  The sea was being roughened up by a wind which was blowing straight in from the southwest and a boat was bobbing about on the waves which were threatening to envelop it. I left the cove and climbed the cliff, where I found a spot among the gorse and bracken. It was easier to think up here away from the castle.

  I was wearing a cape of greenish hue which could be a good protection against the wind and if the sun came out I could throw it open; so it was a useful sort of garment. Sitting there, in this green cape, I merged into the landscape.

  I watched the boat coming in and as a man stepped out into the shallow water the fancy came to me that there was something familiar about him. I was sure I had seen him somewhere before.

  Then I heard Jago's voice and seconds later he rode into the cove and down to the shore.

  He cried out: "How dare you come here like this? What do you want?"

  I couldn't hear the man's answer. He evidently lacked Jago's resonant voice. I could see that Jago was very angry and the notion that I had seen the man before was stronger than ever.

  The wind had dropped for a moment and I heard him say: "I have to talk to you."

  "I don't want you here," said Jago. "You know very well you had no right to come."

  The man was gesticulating and the wind had started to moan again so that I could not hear what he was saying.

  Then I heard Jago's voice again: "I have business to attend to. I'm late now. What can you be thinking of. . .to come here?"

  The man was speaking earnestly and I was frustrated because I could not hear his words.

  "All right," said Jago. "I'll see you tonight. Keep yourself out of the way till then. I don't want you seen at the castle. Wait a minute though. . . . I'll see you in the dungeons. We'll be out of the way there. Make sure you're at the west door at nine o'clock. I'll join you there but you're wasting your time. You'll get nothing more. Where are you going now?" The man said something. "Go back to the inn then," said Jago. "Stay in your room there till tonight. You'll be sorry if you disobey, I tell you."

  With that he turned his horse and rode out of the cove.

  The man stood looking after him. Then he looked up at the cliff. I shrank into the bracken but I was certain he had not seen me; but as he had lifted his face I saw it clearly and with a sudden shock I realized who he was.

  He was that Hawley who had been valet to the Carringtons, the man who had made me uneasy when he had watched Philip and me in the Park.

  I sat still, staring at the sea. What could it mean? What connection was there between Jago and Hawley—for I was sure it was he—the man who had worked for the Carringtons? I wondered about Bessie, who had been in love with him, and what had been the outcome of that affair. But most of all I wondered how the man was concerned with Jago.
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br />   There was no simple explanation that I could think of, but a terrible uneasiness assailed me. I had not, as I had thought, turned my back on the old life when I had come to the Island—Philip's death, Hawley, Jago and everything that had happened since was connected with what had gone before.

  Jago had certainly been angry to see Hawley. And Hawley? There had been something about his manner which had been a little cringing and yet truculent. That he was afraid of Jago was obvious, but on the other hand Jago was so angry at the sight of him that he might have something to be afraid of too. He must have known that he was coming because he had been at the cove to meet him; and the man was to come that night to the dungeons. Why to the dungeons? Because Jago was anxious that Hawley should not be seen. Not be seen by whom? By me perhaps. I was the one who had seen him before and knew that he had worked in the Carrington household. What would Jago say if he knew that I was already aware that Hawley had come to the Island?

  Where is all this leading? I asked myself desperately. What had Jago to do with those horrifying events in London? What did he know of Philip's death?

  Philip found shot. It was not by his own hand, I knew it. I was certain of it. Didn't I know Philip as well as it was possible to know anyone? Philip did not kill himself and if he did not then someone else killed him.

  Why? Did Jago know the answer?

  This was becoming a nightmare. I could not shut out pictures which kept coming into my head. Jago at the Carrington soiree. He had walked in without an invitation because he knew I was there. He wanted to see the family I was marrying into. He could easily have found out what he wanted to know about the Carringtons.

  For what purpose had he been in the empty house in Finlay Square? His explanations had not rung true at the time. Now they seemed more implausible than ever.

  And Philip had died. Suicide, they said.

  But it wasn't suicide; and if that was so, then it was murder.

  And Hawley? What did he know about it? He had come here to ask something of Jago and they were going to meet in the dungeons.

  There was only one thing to be done. I must be there, but neither of them must know it. They would talk frankly together and I must hear what was said, so I must be hidden there somewhere unseen. It was the only way in which I could uncover the truth and begin to unravel this terrifying mystery in which I was entangled.