Menfreya in the Morning (37 page)

He didn’t know, of course, that Fanny’s plan was that we should die together. Bevil merely thought that we had gone exploring and that the snap lock might have shut us in.

Back to Menfreya, to find one of the boats missing. The sea by this time was high, and the tide coming in fast But they came over somehow. Bevil and William lister and Jessica.

And they brought me out in time.

I lay in bed on the island thinking about it. They say that when you drown, your life passes before your eyes in pictures. Well, I had come near to drowning, and now I lay still, thinking of scenes from the past

Gwennan had gone, and something of the old life disappeared with her. It would be the same with the passing of Fanny.

But Bevil was left to me. I owed my life to Bevil—to his determination, his energy, his will to save me.

Yet … by saving me he would lose Jessica.

That was the thought which uplifted me like a buoy in a raging sea of doubt.

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If he had wanted to be rid of me, what an excellent opportunity he had had!

We had to stay the night on the island, for the storm grew more fierce. Never have I heard such wind, never known such an angry sea.

Bevil came to the room to tell me that there was no hope of leaving for Menfreya till morning.

“In any case,” he said, “you’re not fit to go. You have to rest.”

“I slept in this room once before,” I said. “Years and years ago … It was when I ran away from home.”

He smiled at me indulgently. I could see how glad he was that I was safe. “You seem to have a talent for doing crazy things.”

“And the next evening,” I said, “you came over here. Do you remember? You found me under a dust sheet in this very room.”

He wrinkled his eyes, trying to remember.

“You had brought a girl over. I’m afraid I interrupted that little romance.”

He laughed. “What a memory you have!**

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“For interrupting then … and now.**

“What, hi God’s name … 7” His brow was wrinkled, as though he were truly mystified.

“Jessica is very beautiful and she would have made an excellent M.P.’s wife.”

“Let’s hope she doesn’t. It’s odd how people blurt out things at odd moments. While we were coming over in the boat … and I thought we’d never get tBere and the sea was hell … she told me she was going to marry Leveret That … the marriage was necessarily going to be somewhat soon and quiet.”

“You mean …”

“It’s true. They’ve been using the island as a rendezvous, and that’s the reason for the mysterious lights and figures that have been seen here.”

“So it was Harry!”

“Yes. And she more or less admitted that she’d been helping him for months. A sort of spy in the enemy camp. That time when the boat slipped away it was engineered

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at Harry’s request, with the help of that old rascal A’Lee … to make a scandal for me … if you please. His tactics will have to be better than that if he ever gets into poUtics,”

“If,” I said happily.

“Not in Lansella, eh, Harriet Menfrey?”

I could sense his happiness, and it was because I was safe. For a moment I forgot everything else—the terrible loss of my beloved Fanny, the nightmare hours before her death … so much that needed to be explained.

At length Bevil said: “Good God, I% believe you thought that I actually …”

**You and Jessica,” I said. “Well, it wasnt such a wild conclusion to arrive at in view of . ..”

He was serious; then he said: “Poor Harriet! I’m afraid you have a lot to put up with. The fact is I’m a very imperfect specimen,”

“L too,” I said.

“Ill take you as you are. Will you, Harriet, take me?”

“It sounds like something out of the marriage service.”

“It’s appropriate. That’s what we’re talking about … being married.”

He bent over and kissed me, and it was as though we had sealed a bargain.

It was sometime afterwards before events fell into place and the picture was clear. I mourned Fanny for a long time—and still do. How I wish that she had not lost her reason. I wish that she could have been the nurse to my children that I always imagined she would be. I think that I could have nursed her through that terrible time if only we could both have been rescued. It was her fear for me which sent her toppling over the edge of sanity into madness. I believe that when her body was poisoned, as it assuredly was, her mind was tampered with too. There was tangible evidence, so we thought, of the desire of someone in the house to kill me, and it was this which had decided Fanny that when Billy was calling her she must take me with her.

When I discovered the truth, I was amazed that the web of suspicion in which I had become entangled was of my own weaving. The unwanted child I had been had always regarded happiness with suspicion; because my father had not cared for me, I had made myself believe that no one

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ever would. I did not realize until this time that my life was in my own hands. It was a marvelous revelation, because never before had the future become so full of exciting possibilities. And, understanding myself, I became more tolerant of others. I could be tolerant of Jessica’s hopes and fears. Adventuress she may have been; she may have come to Menfreya hoping for an easy life there; she might have hoped to lure Bevil from me or perhaps to marry William Lister until she had seen the more inviting prospects Harry Leveret had to offer. I could not be sure; but the woman I had become was less censorious than the old. Jessica had fought for her own happiness, as I had for mine; and I hoped she would find what she sought with Harry.

By chance I discovered how Fanny and I had been poisoned. It was shortly after Jessica had left when I took tea in the nursery with Benedict and he gleefully put spoonfuls of sugar in my tea.

“You’ve got a sweet tooth,” he chuckled. Then he said: “You like this sugar better than Jessie’s?”

Jessie’s sugar, he told me, had been kept in a bottle in her cupboard, and by standing on a chair he could reach it. He had brought it for my lemon barley when I was sick to make me get well quickly.

I went over to see Jessica at Chough Towers when her child was born. Being a mother had changed her in some way. I myself was pregnant at that time, and I understood the change; it almost made us friends. She admitted that she had read about the arsenic when Jenny bad died and had tried it herself now and then. She was horrified when she heard how Fanny and I might have been poisoned.

Well, that was all long ago, but I often think of that night when, rescued by my husband, I lay in bed in the island house listening to the storm, and how it wore itself out during the night, until the sound of the waves dropped to a murmur.

When it was light I got out of bed and stood at the window to watch the sunrise. Bevil was sleeping in a chair near my bed, and I did not wake him.

The sea was still, and only the brown edge to its skirt was an indication of how violent the storm had been.

And there was Menfreya touched with the faint rosy glow, and as I looked I remembered that morning all those years

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ago when I had looked and thought that the loveliest sight in the world must be Menfreya in the morning.

I thought of all that had happened there through the centuries and in my own short life and all that was yet to come.

Gwennan was gone; Fanny was gone; but I had Bevil, and we should go through life together.

Bevil had come to stand beside me, and we both remained at the window, looking across the sea.

“Who would believe that’s the same sea as the one that was raging last night?” he said. And he looked at me, and I knew that he read some of the thoughts that were in my mind.

Tragedy had come close, but luck had been with us.

Bevil was still shaken when he considered how miraculously my rescue had been timed.

“It’s like being given a chance,” he said.

“This day is starting well,” I answered. “Look at the sky. Arid look at Menfreya … It’s so beautiful in the morning.”