The Shivering Sands Read Online Free PDF Page B

twelve or thirteen beside her. She saw me for my head was out of the window as she passed; then, halting, she turned and came back, opened the door, and the two came into the carriage.
    She glanced at me covertly, and so did the girl, as they seated themselves opposite me. The woman sighed and said: “Oh, dear, shopping always makes me so tired.”
    The girl said nothing but I knew they were both studying me with curiosity. Why? I wondered. Did I look so odd? Then it occurred to me that the train served smaller stations after Dover Priory and it might well be that the people who traveled on this train after that were local people who were known to each other. In which case I would be picked out immediately as a stranger.
    The woman put a few small packages on the seat beside her and when one of these fell to the floor right at my feet and I retrieved it, the opening for conversation was at hand.
    “So tiring these trains,” said the woman. “And one gets so dirty. Are you going as far as Ramsgate?”
    “No, I’m getting off at Lovat Mill.”
    “Oh really. So are we. Thank Heaven it’s not far now…another twenty minutes and we’ll be there…providing we’re on time. How strange that you should be going there. But of course we’ve had a lot of activity lately. These people you know who found the Roman remains.”
    “Oh yes?” I said noncommittally.
    “You’re not connected with them, I suppose?”
    “Oh no. I’m going to a house called Lovat Stacy.”
    “Dear me. Then you must be the young lady who is going to teach the girls music.”
    “Yes.”
    She was delighted. “Well, when I saw you, it did occur to me. There are so few strangers you see and we had heard that you were coming today.”
    “You belong to the household?”
    “No…no. We’re at Lovat Mill…just outside, of course. The vicarage. My husband is the vicar. We’re friends of the Stacys. In fact the girls come over to my husband for lessons. We’re only a mile or so from the House. Sylvia takes lessons with them, don’t you, Sylvia?”
    Sylvia said “Yes, Mamma,” in a very quiet voice. And I thought it not unlikely that Mamma ruled the household—including the vicar.
    Sylvia seemed meek enough but there was something about the line of her jaw and the set of her lips that belied her meekness, and I imagined her humility might evaporate with the departure of Mamma.
    “I daresay the vicar will ask you if you will take on Sylvia at the same time as the Stacy girls.”
    “Is Sylvia interested in music?” I was smiling at Sylvia who looked at her mother.
    “She is going to be,” said that lady firmly.
    Sylvia smiled rather faintly and threw back the plait which hung over her right shoulder. I noticed the rather spatulate fingers which did not look to me like those of a pianist. I could already hear Sylvia’s painful performance at the piano.
    “I am so pleased that you are not one of those archaeologist people. I was very much against letting them invade Lovat Stacy.”
    “You don’t approve of this sort of discovery?”
    “Discovery!” she retorted. “Of what use are their discoveries? If we had been meant to know these things were there, they would not have been covered up, would they?”
    This amazing logic was all against my upbringing, but this forceful woman was clearly expecting a reply, and as I did not want to antagonize her because I guessed she could probably tell me a good deal about Lovat Stacy, I smiled noncommittally, murmuring an inner apology to my parents and Roma.
    “They came down here…disturbing everything . Goodness gracious me, one could not move without coming across them. Pails, spades…digging up the earth, completely ruining several acres of the park…And to what purpose? To uncover these Roman remains! ‘There are plenty of them all over the country,’ I said to the vicar. ‘We don’t want them here.’ One of these people came to a strange end…or perhaps it wasn’t an end. Who’s to