Snare of Serpents (31 page)

“This is delightful,” said Ninian.

I was happier than I had been for a long time—just for a moment; then the thought hit me: I am going right away … out of the old life … out of his life.

He watched me as I poured out the coffee. I wondered what he was thinking and what had really prompted him to come so far to see me before I left.

He said suddenly: “If this should not work out … if you should want to come home for any reason … let me know. I’ll do what I can to arrange it.”

“You are so good. And all because you defended me. There must be so many …”

He shook his head. “It was unfair, that verdict. It rankles.”

“I see.”

“One day perhaps …”

I waited and he shrugged his shoulders. “It has happened, you know. The truth comes out, even after years.”

Then we talked of those young women who, as Lilias and I were doing, had left their homes to go away and work in foreign countries. I told him about the letters we had read in the Society’s offices. He was very interested, but he kept bringing the conversation back to Roger Lestrange.

He stayed to dinner. It was clear to me that he had made a good impression on the vicarage family.

Lilias said, after he had left for the Royal Oak: “What a charming man! It is so kind of him to care about what happens to you.”

I was very happy that night. I dreamed that I was sailing away from England, and Ninian Grainger was standing on the dock watching. Then suddenly he lifted his arms and cried loudly: “Don’t go! Don’t go!”

I knew that I must not go, that it was wrong for me to go. I tried to leap overboard, but someone was restraining me, saying: “You can’t go back. None of us can go back. It’s too late … once you’ve started.”

And that was Roger Lestrange.

T
HE NEXT DAY
my pleasure in Ninian Grainger’s care was dampened.

It was in the morning. Daisy came to my room and said: “There’s a visitor for you, Miss Grey. In the sitting room.”

I went down, expecting to see Ninian. It was Zillah.

She looked even more beautiful than I remembered. She was dressed in a black silk dress with a big green bow at the neck and a black hat with a green feather which tipped down to her eyes, calling attention to their colour.

“My dear!” she cried, embracing me. “How wonderful to see you! I had to come. I’m going to see you off. I’m staying at the Royal Oak.”

“Oh,” I said blankly.

She laughed almost coyly. “Who do you think is staying there? Your Mr. Grainger. Well, it’s the only one, isn’t it? And I couldn’t expect to be put up at the vicarage. I hope you’re pleased to see me. I’m not really very happy about all this, you know. You’ll be so far away. I had hoped we could be together. Oh, I do hope this is going to be the right thing for you.”

“I had to get away,” I said. “And this seems as good a method as any.”

“It’s so sad. But I mustn’t go on about it. We’ve got to make the best of things, haven’t we? How have you been getting on in this place? I’m longing to meet your friend, Lilias. I wonder what she’ll feel about me. I took her place, didn’t I … in the house, I mean.”

“You’ll like her. She’s a wonderful person.”

“Oh, I do hope this is going to be all right.”

She meant well, and it was good of her to take the trouble to come. But she had shattered an illusion.

I did not realise until then how deeply I had been affected by “Ninian’s coming here.

I had been very foolish. I had been so stimulated, so happy because I had thought he had been so apprehensive on my account that he had come down to see for himself what was happening. I had had a ridiculous feeling that he was regretting having introduced me to Mrs. Crown and that he was going to beg me to relinquish the project and go back with him to Edinburgh so that we could fight together to prove I had played no part in my father’s murder.

I was naive. I was reaching out for someone to care for me … someone to fill that bitter void left by Jamie.

Face facts, I admonished myself. You are going away … right away from the old life, from everyone you ever knew— except Lilias.

He came because
she
was coming. You were misled by Jamie once. Be on your guard that it does not happen again.

I saw a good deal of Ninian during the next day. We talked a good deal. I felt that he knew as much about the place to which I was going as I did. Zillah was there, too.

On the morning before the day we were due to leave for Tilbury, I went down to the village to buy a few oddments which I had found I needed and Ninian had said he would accompany me.

Zillah, who happened to arrive at that moment, said she would join us.

It was on our way back from the village that we met Roger Lestrange. He was riding a big grey horse from the Ellington stables and he lifted his hat as we approached.

“Miss Grey. Ah, the last-minute shopping. All ready to sail?”

I introduced them. I could sense Ninian’s interest. He had always wanted to hear all he could about Roger Lestrange.

I noticed that the latter was surveying Zillah with appreciation while she put on that especially seductive air she used for attractive men.

“We are going to see the dear child off on her travels,” said Zillah. “It is going to be very sad for me.”

“I am sure it will be.” He spoke soothingly.

Ninian said: “I understand you are from South Africa.”

“Yes, it’s my home now. I shall be returning to it on the
Queen of the South.”

“Oh yes. I understood you would be sailing on her.”

“Shall you be glad to go home?” asked Zillah.

He looked at her almost slyly. “Well, there are temptations to stay, but alas …”

“And you sail … the day after tomorrow, is it? So it is hail and farewell. How sad.”

“I agree … wholeheartedly. Well …” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll see you on board, Miss Grey.”

“So that is Roger Lestrange,” said Ninian when he had ridden off.

“He seemed to be a most interesting man,” added Zillah.

Then we rode back to the vicarage and the next day we left for London, Tilbury and the
Queen of the South.

As
SOON
as I stepped on board I felt a sense of irreparable loss. Melancholy took hold of me and I was sure that no exciting new experience could dispel it. This was largely due to having said goodbye to Ninian. I had taken this step and there was no going back.

Ninian and Zillah had travelled to the ship with us. So, Zillah had said, that she could spend every possible moment with me. She constantly expressed her sorrow at my departure, but I could not get rid of the notion that she was rather relieved. Perhaps she was thinking what was best for me and was fully aware that while I remained in England I should be constantly on the alert for someone to recognise me. That was no way to live and a sacrifice was worthwhile to change it.

I had to keep remembering that and then I could be reconciled to leaving everything that was familiar to me and going off into the unknown.

I did have a short time alone with Ninian. I think Lilias helped to arrange this by making sure that she kept Zillah
away. My spirits were lifted because I sensed that this was what Ninian wanted, too.

He talked seriously about my future.

“You don’t need to look on it as permanent,” he stressed. “You will come back. But for a time I believe this is the best thing to do. I want you to promise me something.”

“What is that?”

“That you will write to me and tell me everything … however seemingly trivial. I want to know.”

“But surely … ?”

“Please,” he said. “It may be important.”

“Do you still regard me as ‘a case?’ “

“A very special case. Please, I am serious. Give me your word. I know you will keep it.”

“I will write,” I said.

“I shall want to know about the school … and the Lestranges … and how everything works out.”

I nodded. “And you will let me know what happens at home?”

“I will.”

“You sound so serious.”

“It is very important to me. And there is one thing more. If you want to come home, let me know. I will arrange it.”

“You … ?”

“I shall see that you get a passage home at the earliest possible moment. Please remember that.”

“It is comforting to know that you are so concerned about me.”

“Of course I’m concerned about you … Davina.”

I looked at him in alarm.

“I can’t get used to that other name,” he said. “I always think of you as Davina.”

“Well, no one can hear now.”

“One day you will come back.”

“I wonder’”

“You will,” he insisted. “You must.”

I remembered that conversation for days to come and it brought me comfort.

We were on deck as the ship sailed out. The hooters were sounding all round us; the quay was crowded with the friends of passengers come to see the last of them. It was a moving scene. Some people were weeping, others laughing, as slowly the ship glided out of her berth and sailed away.

Lilias and I stood there waving until we could no longer see Ninian and Zillah.

I
SHALL NEVER FORGET
those first days on the
Queen of the South.
I had not dreamed of such discomfort. In the first place we had to share a cabin with two others. The cabin was little more than a large cupboard and there were four berths, two lower and two upper. There was one small cupboard for the use of the four occupants and there were no portholes. We were shut in with many other similar cabins and the noises around us never seemed to cease. We were at the after end of the ship and there were barriers to prevent our leaving that section.

Meals were taken at long tables. I suppose the food was adequate, but eating in such conditions was far from pleasant and neither Lilias nor I had much appetite for it.

Our section of the ship was overcrowded. Washing was not easy. There were communal quarters for this and little privacy.

I said to Lilias: “Can you endure this till Cape Town?”

“We must,” she answered.

When the weather turned rough, as it did very soon, this was an added trial.

The two women who shared our cabin were prostrate in their bunks. Lilias felt queasy, too. She could not decide whether to venture out on deck or withdraw to her bunk.

She decided on the latter and I went on deck. I staggered along as far as the segregating barrier and sat down. I looked at the grey heaving waves and wondered what I had let myself into. The future seemed bleak. What should I find in this country to which we were going? I had been a coward. I should have stayed at home and faced whatever I had to. People would say that if I were innocent I should have nothing to fear. I should have held my head high, faced whatever was coming and not hidden behind an assumed name.

And now here I was, in a condition of acute discomfort, being carried over this turbulent sea to … I could not know what.

I was aware of someone on the other side of the barrier.

“Hello,” said Roger Lestrange. He was looking down on me over the top of the fencing which separated us. “Facing the elements?”

“Yes … and you, too?”

“You find this uncomfortable, do you?”

“Yes, don’t you?”

“Mildly. Nothing to what it can do, I assure you.”

“Well, I hope it doesn’t attempt to show me.”

“I didn’t see you when you boarded. You had friends to see you off, I believe.”

“Yes.”

“That was nice. How are you liking the trip … apart from the weather?”

I was silent for a while and he said quickly: “Not good, is it?”

“It’s hardly luxury.”

“I had no idea you would travel in such a way.”

“Nor had we. But we did want to do so as cheaply as possible. Miss Milne has a horror of debt. How is Mrs. Lestrange?”

“Laid low. She does not like the weather.”

“Who does? I am sorry for her.”

“We’ll soon be out of this and then we’ll all forget about it.”

I had been standing up while I was talking to him, and a gust of wind threw me against the deck rail.

“All right?” he asked.

“Yes, thanks.”

“I think you should go below,” he continued. “The wind can be treacherous and one really shouldn’t face the decks when it is like this.” He smiled wryly. “I’m sorry I can’t conduct you to your quarters.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll go down. Goodbye.”

“Au revoir,” he said.

And I staggered down to the cabin.

L
ATER THAT DAY
the wind abated. Lilias and I were alone in the cabin. The other occupants, feeling better, had gone out, as they said, for a breath of fresh air.