One of the gardeners was digging, and as I approached he leaned on his spade and looked in my direction.
“Good day to you, Mistress Priscilla,” he said.
I returned his greeting.
“You be. leaving us I hear, mistress.”
“Yes,” I said.
“’Twere a sad matter,” he went on. “There’s many of us here as would like to see that Titus Oates get a taste of his own medicine, that we would. Oh, yes, ’twere a terrible business. If only the mist hadn’t come up so bad you’d a been back that day and your gentleman would have been over the seas afore they got here. Why did you go out, mistress, when I warned you?”
“Warned me? Warned me of what?”
“I’ve lived in these parts all my life and that’s nigh on fifty years. I can tell what the weather’s going to be … and never wrong … well once or twice maybe. I said there’ll be heavy mist long before nightfall. Unless the wind comes up sudden … which it can do, winds being something you can’t count on. Given no wind, though, that mist will be in from the sea and Eyot will be wrapped up in it. ‘Don’t you go out today, mistress,’ I said.”
“You didn’t tell me. I didn’t see you on that day.”
“No. ’Twas the other one. She were going, weren’t she? There was to be the three. Mary said she’d make a hamper for three.”
So he had told Christabel!
“Yes, I see that we shouldn’t have gone,” I said. “Good day to you, Jem.”
“Good day to you, mistress. And I’ll look to see you again in happier times.”
I went into the house. I wondered why Christabel had not told me that she had been warned about the mist. How very strange.
Of course she had a raging headache. Perhaps it had made her forget. Hardly that, though, when the headache was the reason why she had decided not to come. Surely the thought of our going must have reminded her.
It seemed strange, so I sought her out at once and asked her.
She flushed painfully and her mouth moved with emotion.
“I have suffered such remorse,” she said. “I did see Jem and he did mention the mist. My head was throbbing. I only remembered it when you didn’t come back. I feel responsible …”
“It’s no use worrying now,” I said. “It’s over and done. He is dead. He is lost to me forever.”
“But if you had not gone to the island he would have got away in time.”
“Yes. If I had not lost the ring … If I had not taken it in the first place … So many ifs, Christabel. But what is the use of all this remorse? It’s over. There is no going back. I have lost him forever.”
My father was away when I returned to Eversleigh Court. I think my mother was relieved. She was anxious and sympathetic, I knew, but at the same time deeply shocked that I could have become so involved in such a dangerous situation without her knowledge.
The very first day she sought an opportunity to be alone with me and she wanted to hear everything that had happened. I was so distressed that I found it difficult to talk at first.
I could only keep saying: “I loved him. I loved him. And now they have killed him.”
She took me into her embrace as she used to when I was very young, but I did not feel comforted, only impatient. It was almost as though she thought it was a matter of “kiss and make better” as it had been when I had fallen and scratched myself.
“Dearest Cilla,” she murmured, “you are young … so young.”
I wanted to shake myself free of her. I wanted to say: I am not young. I am grown up. Some people are, you know, at fifteen—and I am nearly that. I have loved. I have lived. And I am not a child anymore.
She went on talking. “It seemed very romantic. He was very good-looking, I believe. And the way he came here … He had no right to come.”
“He was looking for Edwin. Edwin was his friend.”
“Edwin should not have tried to hide him.”
“What should he have done? Given him up to that brute Titus Oates?”
She was silent, stroking my hair.
“You know your father is most put out. You know his feelings.”
“He has never shown me much of his feelings,” I said. “All he showed me was indifference.”
“My dear child …”
I cried: “It’s no use talking to you. You don’t understand. Jocelyn came here. We helped him. We’re not ashamed of it. We’d do it again … all of us. He and I fell in love. We planned to marry.”
“Oh, my darling! But it’s all over now. We must try to make you forget.”
“Do you think I shall ever forget!”
“Yes, my dearest, you will. I know how it feels now.”
“You do not know and I wish you would stop talking about it. I have nothing to say to you. You don’t understand in the least. Harriet …”
“Harriet, of course, understood perfectly.”
“Harriet was wonderful to me.”
“And kept him there and sent for you! It’s what one would expect of Harriet. She is completely without thought for others.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Oh, she fascinates you as she does everyone else. I know that.”
“Harriet has been kind to me. I shall never forget what she has done for me. Please, Mother, leave me alone. I want to be by myself.”
The reproachful look she gave me touched me deeply and I threw myself into her arms. She did not say anything. She just held me and it was as it had always been between us.
Carl was very upset by what had happened. It was his first experience of real grief and I loved him for it. He just looked at me blankly and said: “They can’t have done that to Jocelyn!”
I turned away and he came and took my hand and pressed it.
“I wish I’d been there,” he said. “I wouldn’t have let it happen. You ought to have told me he was with Aunt Harriet.”
“There was nothing you could have done, Carl, nothing.”
“I hate Titus Oates.”
“So do countless others.”
Oddly enough Carl comforted me more than my mother had been able to.
My father returned and he was very cool towards me. He hardly addressed me at all during the first evening. During the next day I went into the gardens and he followed me there.
“A nice mess you got yourself into,” he said.
I looked at him defiantly. “In what way?” I asked.
“Don’t be silly. You know what I’m talking about. This romantic adventure of yours. Fools … the whole lot of you. You particularly. Taking an incriminating ring and then leaving it for others to find.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I retorted.
“One would have to be half-witted not to. A pretty young man comes along and you think it would be great fun to hide him and feed him and accept a ring from him with his crest and name on it. And he is suspected of taking part in a plot against the King’s life.”
“You know very well that there was no plot. You know it was fabricated by this friend of yours … this Titus Oates.”
He seized me by the wrist and I cried out in pain. His grip was like iron.
“He is no friend of mine,” he said. “I despise the man. But I have the sense not to entertain those against whom he brings accusations. Who can say who will be the next? And, by God, we might have been! You could have put the whole family into danger. It has not been easy extricating you, I can tell you. All this trouble because of a silly girl’s prank.”
“It was no prank.” I jerked myself free. “And I would do it again.”
“I shall have something to say to the others when I see them. If they want to risk their lives that’s their own affair, but they should not have involved a foolish girl who could bring trouble tumbling about our ears with great risk to our necks, I might tell you.”
“So you blame me for everything?”