The Shivering Sands (46 page)

“Perhaps she is,” said Mrs. Lincroft.

“She is going to the British Museum,” added Allegra, eying me with speculation. I felt vaguely uncomfortable because I had not told them I was going to the British Museum. “I heard you say so to Mr. Wilmot, Mrs. Verlaine,” added Allegra.

“Oh,” I stammered, caught off my guard. “I thought I’d look in there. I used to live near and go in quite a lot.”

“Because your father was a professor,” went on Alice. “I expect he made you work very hard which is why you are so good at the piano.” She looked at Allegra who said: “I should like to go to the British Museum. Let’s all go.”

I was so dismayed that I could find nothing to say for a few seconds. Then I said: “I thought you were all eager to choose your new materials.”

“There’s always plenty of time, isn’t there, Mamma?” put in Alice eagerly, “sometimes we go into the Park. But I’d rather go to the British Museum.”

Mrs. Lincroft said: “I don’t see why you shouldn’t have an hour or so there. When did you propose to go, Mrs. Verlaine?”

“Oh please, I don’t want to force this on you.”

“It can scarcely be said to be forced,” she replied with a smile. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll go straight to the Museum and then we’ll have luncheon at Brown’s Hotel and afterwards choose the material and catch the four-thirty train home.”

Thus was my frustration complete but there was worse to come. While I sat back in my seat watching the fields and hedges skim by I was trying to think of some way of diverting their desires from the British Museum, but I dared not seem too disturbed. How had Allegra overheard my talk with Godfrey? We must have been careless.

At length I realized that there was nothing to be done but take them along with me to the Museum, where I must try to lose them and find my way to the Roman section alone.

Luck was against me that day. We had alighted from the cab which took us from the Station to the Museum when a voice called me by name.

“Why…surely…yes it is…Mrs. Verlaine.”

Fortunately I was a little ahead of my companions so I moved quickly toward the speaker whom I recognized immediately as a colleague of my father’s.

“A bad business that of your sister,” he said, shaking his head. “What was it all about?”

“We…we never discovered.”

“A great loss,” he said. “We always used to say that Roma Brandon would go even farther than your parents. Poor Roma…”

How resonant was his voice. Mrs. Lincroft was near enough to have heard every word, but the children did not seem to be listening. Alice was standing with her back toward me pointing out something on the road to Allegra. But Mrs. Lincroft must have heard.

“You must look us up sometime. Same address.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks.”

He had lifted his hat, bowed and moved off.

Mrs. Lincroft said: “I’ve never been in this place before. We don’t take advantage of our museum, do we?”

My heart was beating fast. Perhaps she had not heard. Perhaps I had imagined that his voice was unusually resonant. She had not been so close as I thought her and her mind was on the material for the girls’ dresses.

“No,” I said and there was a nervous laugh in my voice. “We don’t really.”

“We are taking advantage now.” Alice had come up with Allegra. “How solemn it all is! How
important
!”

They walked beside me exclaiming as they went. I thought of the old days when I had come here so frequently, when my parents had believed that the greatest treat any child could enjoy was within these walls.

I had escaped them. I had left them all poring over an illuminated manuscript dating back to the twelfth century while I sped silently over those stone floors and here I was where I had been so many times with Roma.

I asked one of the guides where I could find any of the Roman relics from the Lovat Stacy site and I was directed immediately.

To my great joy it was there among other relics. The very mosaic which was so like that broken and battered one Godfrey and I had examined with such care. There was more than one. I had not known of this. Roma had only mentioned one, but perhaps she was so successful with it that she had attempted some sort of restoration of others. In the case with the mosaics was a printed notice describing them and the process used in the reconditioning. The first of them showed a figure—probably a man—who appeared to be without feet, for he stood on a pair of stumps which I realized were meant to be legs. His arms were stretched out as though he were attempting to catch at something which was not there. I looked at the second mosaic. The pictures were less vivid on this one and there were gaps in the scene which had been filled in with some sort of cement; but this was a picture of a man whose legs were cut off to the knee. I realized then that he was standing in something; and in the final one only the man’s head was visible and he had clearly been buried alive.

I could not take my eyes from them.

“Why, they’re ours,” said a voice at my elbow. I turned. Allegra and Alice were standing on either side of me.

“Yes,” I said, “they were discovered on the site near Lovat Stacy.”

“Oh, but that makes them so very interesting doesn’t it?” said Alice.

Mrs. Lincroft was coming toward us.

“Look, Mamma,” said Alice. “Look what Mrs. Verlaine has found.”

Mrs. Lincroft studied the mosaics with what appeared to be a cursory interest. “Very nice,” she said.

“But you haven’t looked,” protested Allegra. “They’re ours.”

“What?” Mrs. Lincroft looked closely. “Well, fancy that!” She smiled at me apologetically. “Now I really do think we must think about getting luncheon.”

I agreed. My mission was accomplished, though I was not sure how successfully. But I should have a great deal to tell Godfrey.

We made our way from the Museum and took a cab to Brown’s while the girls chattered about what they would eat and what material they would choose.

When we came out the news boys were shouting excitedly. “Gentleman Terrall captured. Madam safe.”

“That’s our Gentleman Terrall,” said Alice.

“What do you mean…ours?” asked Mrs. Lincroft sharply.

“We were talking about him, Mamma. We said he must be a little like Mr. Wilmot.”

“Whatever made you say that?”

“Because he was a
gentleman
. We thought he’d look exactly like Mr. Wilmot, didn’t we, Allegra?”

Allegra nodded.

“You shouldn’t think about such things.” Mrs. Lincroft sounded quite cross and Alice was subdued.

No one mentioned the mosaics. More comforting still, none of them showed that they had overheard that conversation outside the Museum. My confidence began to return and by the time we had bought the material and were ready to return home I was convinced that my identity was still a secret.

Godfrey was excited about my discovery in the Museum.

“I’m certain it means something,” he declared.

We had walked along beside the three baths and he stooped to peer at the mosaic as though he felt that if he looked long enough he would discover some meaning there.

“Don’t you think they would have found out if it did?” I asked.

“Who, the archaeologists? It may not have occurred to them. But I’ve a notion that there’s something behind it.”

“Well, what do you propose to do? Go to the British Museum and lay this information before the powers that be?”

“They’d probably laugh at me.”

“You mean because they didn’t discover it. Here is another version of the jealous archaeological theory. It’s fascinating, but it hasn’t brought the solution of Roma’s disappearance any nearer.”

I heard a little warning cough and turning saw the three girls coming toward us.

“We’ve come to see the mosaics,” announced Alice. “We saw them in the Museum, you know. Mrs. Verlaine showed us.”

“I liked the one with just the head showing,” said Allegra. “It looked as if they’d chopped off his head and put it on the ground. It was gruesome, that one.”

“It made me feel sick,” commented Alice.

Godfrey straightened up and gazed toward the sea.

I guessed he wanted to change the subject for he said: “How clear it is. They say that means rain.”

“It does,” agreed Allegra. “When you can see the masts on the Goodwins it often means rain.”

Godfrey caught his breath; he seemed to have forgotten the presence of the girls. “It’s just struck me,” he said. “These mosaics…they’re meant to portray someone being buried alive.”

“You mean sinking in quicksand?”

Godfrey looked inspired. “It was a sort of warning probably. As a punishment they took people out to the Goodwins so that they could gradually sink.”

“That wouldn’t be possible, would it?” I asked.

He looked disappointed. “Hardly. There might have been other sands.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere.” He waved his hand vaguely. “But I’m sure that’s what it means.”

“I think that’s…horrible,” said Sylvia with a shudder. “Fancy being…”

Godfrey stood rocking on his heels, entranced. I don’t think I had ever seen him really excited before.

“Don’t be a baby, Sylvia,” chided Allegra.

“We mustn’t keep Miss Clent waiting,” said Alice. Then to me: “Miss Clent is going to fit our dresses this morning.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Allegra. “I wish I hadn’t chosen that crushed strawberry. The burgundy red would have been so much better.”

“I did tell you,” said Alice mildly reproachful. “In any case we can’t keep Miss Clent waiting.”

So they left us to discuss the possibility of Godfrey’s theory regarding the mosaic.

“Alice has written a story about the mosaic,” Allegra announced. “It’s really a good one.”

“That’s very creditable,” I said. “You must show me this one, Alice.”

“I want to wait until I’m really satisfied.”

“But you showed Allegra and Sylvia.”

“I just see the effect on them. Besides they’re only children…well they aren’t much more. Grown-ups would be more critical, wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t see why they should be.”

“Oh yes, of course they would. They are experienced of the world, whereas we have so much to learn.”

“So you won’t show me this story?”

“I will one day…when I’ve perfected it.”

“It’s about the man in the quicksand,” said Allegra.

Alice sighed and looked at Allegra who shrugged her shoulders sullenly.

“I thought you were proud of it,” she said.

Alice ignored her and turned to me. “It’s about the Romans,” she said. “If anyone did anything wrong they used to put them in this quicksand and it very slowly swallowed them right up. It was slow. That was why they used it. Some quicksands swallow things up quickly…that’s why they call them quicksands. But these were slow sands…it makes it last longer and is more of a punishment. They move and grip…you see…and the victim can’t get away. So the Romans put their criminals into these sands. It was a good punishment. And there was a man in my story who had to make a mosaic of the sands and himself being swallowed up in them…before it happened to him. You see that was what was called refined torture. It was worse than just putting him in and letting him go down…because all the time he was making the mosaic he knew what was going to happen to him. And because he felt all that he made a wonderful mosaic…better than anyone could if they hadn’t been so personally involved.”