“Yes,” I agreed, “that’s true.”
“But…it was low water and I saw the sands…lovely looking clean golden sand, all rippled. There were deep holes and these were filled with water; and the sand moves as you watch and forms itself into strange shapes, like monsters some of them…with claws…waiting to catch anyone who wandered there and pull them down. There were gulls circling overhead. Their cries were so mournful, Mrs. Verlaine. Oh, it was frightening, so lonely, so desolate. They say the sands are haunted. I’ve talked to one of the men from the North Goodwins Lightship and he says that when he’s on watch he sometimes hears wild heart-rending cries from the sands. They used to say it was the gulls, but he wasn’t so sure. Terrible things have happened there, so it seems likely…”
“I suppose at a place like that one would have the oddest fancies.”
“Yes, but there is something so cruel about the sands. My husband told me about them. He said the more you try to extricate yourself the deeper you go. Long long ago there was no lightship. Now it’s there, and they say that the Goodwins’ lightship is the greatest benefit to sailors ever set on the seas. If you could see those sands, Mrs. Verlaine, you would believe that.”
“I believe it now.”
She pulled gently on the reins and the horse trotted on. I was thinking of Napier taking her out to see the Goodwins. I imagined her reluctance. He would laugh at her cowardice, and tell himself that he must teach her to be brave when all the time it was to satisfy some sadistic desire to hurt her.
She changed the subject and told me how when she was very young her father used to bring her to Lovat Stacy. In those days, it seemed, it had been a kind of El Dorado.
“Everything at Lovat Stacy seemed exciting,” she told me. “Of course Beau was alive then.”
“You remember him well?”
“Oh yes, you’d never forget Beau. He was like a knight…a knight in shining armor. There was a picture of one in a book I had and he really looked just like Beau. I was only about four years old and he used to put me on a pony and hold me there.” Her face hardened a little…“So that I shouldn’t be afraid. Sometimes he put me on his horse and held me. ‘Nothing to be afraid of Edith,’ he used to say. ‘Not while I’m here.’”
Poor Edith, she could not have said more clearly that she was comparing the two brothers.
“So…you were fond of Beau,” I pursued relentlessly.
“Everybody was. He was so charming…never cross.” Again her face puckered. So Napier was often cross, impatient with her simplicity and inexperience.
“Beau was always laughing,” she went on. “He laughed at everything. He seemed about ten feet tall and I was so little. Then suddenly I didn’t visit Lovat Stacy and I was very miserable. After that, when I did come here it was all changed.”
“But when you used to come here your husband was here too.”
“Oh yes, he was here. But he never took any notice of me. I don’t remember him very much. Then a long time after—it seemed a very long time after—my father brought me back and neither of them were here. It was all different. But Alice and Allegra were here and there were the three of as—although they seemed so much younger.”
“At least you had someone to play with.”
“Yes.” She looked dubious. “I think my Papa was worried about me. He knew that he wouldn’t live long because he had consumption, so he arranged with Sir William that he should be my guardian and I came to Lovat Stacy when he died.”
Poor Edith, who had had no hand in forming her own life!
“Well now that you are mistress of the house that must make you very proud.”
“I always loved the house,” she agreed.
“You should be happy now everything is settled.”
A trite and foolish remark, because clearly she was not happy and everything was far from settled.
We had come down to the sea, which was gently rising and falling on the shingle.
“This is where Julius Caesar landed,” said Edith. And she pulled up the trap for a few moments so that I could savor this.
“It didn’t look very much different then,” she went on. “It couldn’t, could it. Of course the castles weren’t there. I wonder what he thought when he first saw Britain.”
“One thing we can be certain of—he wouldn’t have had much time for admiring the scenery.”
Before us lay the town of Deal with its rows of houses almost down on the shingle, and lying on that shingle were many boats so close to the houses that their mizzen booms seemed as though they were running into them.
Edith told me that the yellow “cats,” the smaller luggers, were used for fueling big ships which lay at anchor in the Downs.
We drove past Deal Castle—circular in shape with its four bastions, its pierced portholes, its drawbridge, its battlemented gateway and thickly studded door—set deep down in its grassy moat, and on into the town.
It was a busy sight on that lovely spring morning. Several fishing boats had just come in and were selling their catch. One fisherman was bringing in the lobster pots—another was mending his nets. I caught a sight of Dover soles and cat and dog fish, and the smell of fish and seaweed mingled in the salt sea air.
Edith had come to shop and she drove me away from the coast to an inn where she said she would leave the trap and perhaps I would care to explore the town a little while she visited the shops.
Because I sensed that she wished to be alone I agreed to this and I spent a pleasant hour wending my way through a maze of narrow streets with enchanting names—Golden Street, Silver Street, Dolphin Street. I wandered along by the sea, as far as the ruins of Sandown Castle, that one which had not stood up to time and sea, and I sat for a while on a seat which had been put in a convenient spot where the crumbling rock made a natural alcove. From there I looked across that benign sea and my eyes sought the masts on those ship-swallowing sands—a reminder of how quickly change could come.
When I returned to the inn where I was to meet Edith she was not there, so I sat outside on one of the wicker seats to wait for her. In my anxiety not to be late I had arrived ten minutes early, but it had been a pleasant morning and I felt very contented.
Then I saw Edith. She was not alone. Jeremy Brown was with her, and I wondered whether they had met by appointment. The thought flashed into my mind that I may have been asked to accompany her to divert any suspicion that she was meeting the curate, if suspicion there was.
I think they had been about to say goodbye to each other when Edith caught sight of me. There was no doubt that she was a little embarrassed.
I rose and went over to them. “I’m a little early,” I said. “I was afraid of misjudging the distance.”
Jeremy Brown explained with his frank and disarming smile: “The vicar is taking the girls for their lessons this morning. He feels he should now and then. I had one or two calls to make…so here I am.”
I wondered why he felt he had to explain to me.
“We—ran into each other,” said Edith in the rather painful, breathless way of someone who is not accustomed to telling untruths.
“That must have been very pleasant.” I noticed that she carried no packages, but perhaps whatever she had bought was already in the trap.
“Mrs. Verlaine,” said Edith, “you should try our local cider. It’s very good.”
She looked appealingly at the curate who said: “Yes, I’m thirsty too. Let’s all have a tankard.” He smiled at me. “It’s not very potent and I expect you’re thirsty, too.”
I said that I should like to try the cider and as the sun was shining and we were sheltered from the breeze we decided that we would sit outside and drink it.