Menfreya in the Morning (32 page)

“You’re an asset to the party, Harriet Menfrey,” he told me with a laugh. “How Harry Leveret thinks he’s going to beat us when you’re around, I can’t imagine.”

I told him that I had danced with Harry, who seemed to be brooding about Gwennan. Bevil wasn’t very interested hi Harry; he told me I looked wonderful, a most exciting ghost from the past. “We ought to bring that picture out and have it cleaned. It should hang in the gallery. Perhaps well have you painted hi that dress to hang beside it That would be amusing.”

It was wonderful to be with Bevil; I could understand Harry’s bitterness.

But of course Bevil and I could not be together all the evening. It was our duty, he said, to attend to the wilting wall-

flowers. He went off to talk to a plump Helen of Troy, and I to an aging Sir Galahad.

Now and then I caught sight of the eighteenth-century governess. I knew that she was never without partners; her beauty shone through any disguise, and how clever she had been to come so simply cladl It struck me that she would always be clever.

It was after I had left the supper rooms that I caught sight of her dancing with Bevil. I turned away. I did not want to see them.

All the time I was dancing I was wondering what they were saying to each other. How were they together? The ball had turned sour for me, and I wished it was over. Harry Leveret had disturbed me, and I felt then that once having loved a Menfrey, there was no escape. That was how it would be with me. I was afraid of Jessica Trelarken, and I was afraid of Bevil. I did not understand her, and I understood him too well. Why had she come here as a governess? Was she trying to draw some parallel? Was she saying: It is happening now as it happened then?

I suddenly saw it with clarity, how it must have been all those years ago. The governess who lived in those rooms, had she some irresistible attraction like Jessica’s? I could imagine the husband who could not let her go, who kept her there, close to him …

It was silly. I was not being reasonable. The past could not intrude like that on the present. I had a husband who was fond of female company; there were men who could not be content with one woman, and by a fortuitous chain of events we had a governess who happened to be possessed of rare beauty.

I imagined the rest.

I felt a desire to get out of the ballroom, and slipped into the grounds. The wind caught playfully at my hair, but it was safely held in the filet. A strange urge came to me, and I took the path which led to the cliffside garden and then went into the garden itself. I paused to glance back at the house. It was beautiful in moonlight; the lighted windows, the sound of music before me, and behind me the sound of the waves on the sand and rock.

It was high tide, and the island seemed farther away than ^ usual; the tips of my slippers were wet, as a wave, wilder \ than the rest, splashed me with its spray. I looked across at

218

Menfreya in the Morning

Victoria Holt

219

the island and saw the light in the window. I caught my breath and stood still, watching.

I do not know how long I stood there, for as I did so I was back in the past, when I had lain beneath a dust sheet and Bevil had towered over me, the girl from the village standing by.

Who was there now? “Bevil always uses the house for his seductions,” I couid hear Gwennan’s voice laughing in my ears; and it seemed that the night was full of ghosts—not of a governess who might have died in childbirth, not of a woman who might have murdered her, not so far back as that … Gwennan … mocking me, yet my friend. I felt Gwennan was warning me on that night.

And as I stood there I saw a figure emerge from the house. It was not easy to see who, from this distance, but a white toga is easily distinguishable. He was joined by a woman, and because she was in a simpler fancy dress than those of everyone else it was easy to recognize her.

They were together on the island. They came down to the shore; the man hi the toga was doing something to the boat They were going to row back.

Anger constricted my throat. I would wait for them. I would be there when the boat touched the sand.

But no … they were not coming back. They had been making sure that the boat was securely tied. Once before they had not tied it securely enough.

I thought: I will go over. I will confront them. This time he’ll not find me cowering under a dust sheet.

I was untying the boat when I heard a cry from behind me.

“Stop, Miss.”

Fanny was running down the cliff path and came panting to stand beside me.

“What are you doing here? You were going to get into that boat!”

“I had a fancy to go out to the island.”

“Are you mad? On a night like this, with the sea choppy! If that boat overturned you’d be dragged down in those skirts before you could say Jack Robinson.”

She was right.

“Oh I know,” she went on grimly, “I saw. But it’s not for you to go over there. Now you’d better get back to that ball and forget about it.”

“Not just yet, Fanny. I want to stay out here for a while.”

“It’s too chilly. Come on.”

We climbed up to one of the arbors, and there we sat together for a while.

Fanny looked fierce. I wanted to talk to her but I daren’t I was trying to pretend that I had imagined I had seen them on the island.

At length we returned. I didn*t see Bevil and Jessica again until the unmasking. Then they were not together.

It was the early hours of the morning before the last guests had gone and I was alone with Bevil. I kept on my dress to give me confidence. I was going to speak to him because I couldn’t remain in suspense.

I gripped my hands behind my back to give me courage. He was humming one of the waltz tunes and, coming to me, put his arms about me and tried to dance round the room with me.

“I think our ball was a success,** he said. “We must do more entertaining.”

There’s something I have to say to you, Bevil.”

He stopped and looked at me intently, noticing the gravity of my voice.

“I left the ballroom at one time,” I said. “I went down to the beach and saw two people on the island.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You mean—our guests?”

“One of them was Jessica Trelarken. The other was in a Roman toga.”

“The Romans were ubiquitous tonight” He spoke lightly.

“Bevil,” I said, “was it you?”

He looked startled; he hesitated, and my heart leaped with fear.

“On the island? Certainly not!”

I thought: Would it be part of his code to lie, to defend his mistress in any way necessary?

“I thought…”

“I know what you thought Because of that unfortunate affair of the teddy bear …”

“You really weren’t there, Bevil?”

“I really wasnt there,” he replied, mimicking my earnest tone.

Then he took the snood from my hair and threw it onto the dressing table. His hands were on my dress.

“How does this thing unfasten?” he asked.

220

Menfreya in the Morning

Victoria Holt

221

I turned my back to show him. I believed him—because I wanted to so much.

A few weeks later Bevfl had to go to London, and I went with him. Although I loved Menfreya so much, I was delighted to get away from Jessica,

I was very happy in BeviTs little town house; I met many of his political friends, and because I was able to talk to them about politics and the party I was a great success and Bevil was proud of me.

“Of course,” they said, “as Sir Edward’s daughter you knew all about it before you married.” They thought Bevfl had made a very wise marriage; they envied him, they said; and he liked to be envied.

I enjoyed calling on Aunt Clarissa. Phyllis was engaged, but the match was not up to their expectations. I was sorry for Sylvia, who was still unattached. But I couldn’t help being amused at the different treatment accorded my new status. Aunt Clarissa rather implied that I owed my good fortune to her endeavors. Bevil and I laughed a great deal about this when we were alone.

Yes, they were happy days.

It was while we were in London that I had the idea of turning the island house into a holiday home for poor children who had no opportunity of having a few weeks by the sea in summer. This notion had come to me when I had made a sentimental journey to the markets I had long ago visited with Fanny. I saw them through different eyes now and longed to give those little coster children a taste of sea ait,

I was excited by the project and delighted when Bevil agreed with me that it would be a fine way of using the house which had been so useless. I decided that as soon as I returned I would make preparations, and it might be that we could start our holiday scheme at the beginning of the following summer.

By the time we returned Jo Menfreya the autumn was well advanced. Benedict was pleased to see us and found primroses in the lane which he brought to me. They were a rarity at this time of the year, but I have seen them occasionally in November, as though the balminess of the weather has deluded them into thinking that the spring had come. “For you,” he told me; and I was delighted until I realized

that Jessica had prompted him to make the offering. I sometimes had the notion that she was trying to placate me.

It was soon after our return that the rumor about the island became the prevailing topic for several days.

Two of the local girls, out after dusk, hurrying along the cliff path, were sure they saw a ghost on the island. According to their account, they had both seen the apparition, had looked at each other and then started to run home as fast as they could.

They were questioned by then? parents. “A ghost? What did it look like?’

“Like a man.**

Then perhaps it was a man.”

” Twas no man, we know.”

-“Then how did ‘ee know ‘twas a ghost?” “We did know, didnt us, Jen?** “Yes, we did know.” “But-Aow?”

** Twere the way lie stood there.”

*How do ghosts stand?”*

**I dunno. But ‘tain’t like ordinary folk. Looking to Menfreya he was …”

“How?”

“How ghosts do.”

“How’s that?”

“I dunno. You just know it’s how they be when you do see un, don’t *ee, Jen?”

“Aye, you do just know.”

“I wouldn’t live hi that house for a farm.”

So the story went round. A man had appeared on the island, and although it wasn’t possible to see him clearly they knew he wasn’t any man of the neighborhood. He wasn’t anyone they had seen before.

Bevil laughed at the story. “It means they’re running short of scandal. They must have something to talk about.”

But I thought of the night when I had hidden under the dust sheets; I thought of the night of the ball. I had seen two of our guests there then. Could it be that they had found the island house a pleasant meeting place? Could it be that the man who had been there that night was the “ghost” seen by the two girls.

I wondered.

The Cornish people love a ghost There are more ghosts

222

Menfreya in the Morning

Victoria Holt

223

in Cornwall than in all the rest of England; they can be piskies, knackers, little people, spriggans—but they are ghosts, all the same; and when the Cornish discover one they don’t let him go lightly.

The cliff path was often deserted after dark, but several people claimed to have seen the spirit of the island. He varied from a knacker to a man hi a sugarloaf hat, small but lit by a phosphorescent light so that he could be clearly seen; he was tall beyond ordinary men, some said, and they saw horns sticking out of his head. To others he was an ordinary man in a southwester—a man who had been “returned by the sea.”

I used to sit at my window, looking out to the island, and I could understand how these fantasies were created. The shifting light could play tricks, and with the help of the imagination and absolute belief, almost any image that was desired could be created.

One old man, Jemmie Tomrit, who lived in a two-room cottage in Menfreystow, was deeply affected by the story. He was a fisherman of ninety—a man respected for his longevity; he was the pride of his family, who were determined to keep him alive till he was at least a hundred. He was a mascot, a talisman. There was a saying in the town: “As long-lived as the Trekellers.” And old Jim Trekeller had lived to ninety-two, his brother to eighty-nine. So the Tom-rits were hoping to nave the name Trekeller changed to Tomrit, if they could manage it.

Therefore, the old man was never allowed out in a cold wind; he was cosseted and cared for, and when he was missing from home there was a general outcry.

He was found sitting on the cliff, close to Menfreya, “looking for the ghostie,” he said.

And the Tomrits were angry with Jen and Mabel, who had come home with tales of ghosts on the island, because the old man was always trying to get out to the cliffs to stare at the island. He muttered to himself and hadn’t been the same since; and when he had tried to get out of bed at night and had fallen and bruised himself, the Tomrits had called in Dr. Syms, who had said it was a lucky escape, for it might have been a broken thigh which could have been dangerous at his age. And if he was getting an obsession about the island, well they must remember that he was a very old man and old men must be expected to ramble on a bit—it was called senility.

“Grandfer senile!” cried the Tomrits. ” Tis they silly girls that be responsible for this, Tis a lot of silly nonsense. There would be no ghost on No Man’s Island.”

Then the most important topic hi Menfreystow was “Would the Tomrits be able to snatch the title from the Trekellers, after all”; and the island ghost slipped into second place, and after a while was only mentioned now and then, although it was remembered at dusk when people found themselves on the lonely cliff path.

I caught a bad cold during November, and Fanny insisted that I spend a few days in bed. She made me her special brew of lemon and barley water, which stood by my bed in a glass jug over which she put a piece of muslin, weighted with beads at the four corners to keep out the dust

I had to admit it was soothing.