“They did not because I had friends who did not wish to involve me. So they took him after he had left, and there have been no inquiries about our involvement. I daresay your father had something to do with it, too. You are only a child so they would not be harsh with you … particularly when you have a father who is so friendly with the King. So, dear Priscilla, this tragedy has struck you. You have lost your first lover but you must learn that life goes on. You are so young. You do not yet really know what it means to love.”
“I do, Harriet. Oh, I do.”
She took my hands and looked at me searchingly. “My poor child,” was all she said.
Then she put her arms about me gently, as though I were a baby.
“You know you have me always, Priscilla,” she said.
“Yes, I know it.”
“Now you must not fret.”
“I shall never forget that it was my carelessness which brought them to him.”
“He should never have given you the ring in the first place. He brought it on himself.
It was too obvious a form of identification. But it is done. Dear Priscilla, in time you will have to go home. They will expect it.”
“I know, Harriet. I wish I could stay with you.”
“You must come back soon.”
“At home… they know…”
“They know, of course, that he gave you the ring.”
“My father will be very angry.”
“He has had his adventures. He has done what he wanted to. And so have you. As for helping the fugitive, you were not the only one, were you? Leigh, Edwin, myself… we were all involved.”
“Oh, Harriet, you are so good!”
She laughed. “You might find a number of people to disagree with you on that point.
A good woman is a compliment rarely applied to me. But I know how to live, how to enjoy life. I don’t want trouble for myself, nor for others. Perhaps that is rather a good way of living -so I may be good after all.”
I clung to her, for into my misery had crept a new emotion: a dread of going home.
But I realized I had to face it.
I would soon be fifteen years old and I had already had a lover. Was that so unusual?
He would have been my husband had he lived.
I shall never marry now, I thought. I have been married all but ceremonially to the one I loved and whom I shall love forever.
Christabel was with me a great deal. She seemed to have grown more fond of me in my misfortune. Perhaps those hard days at the rectory and Edwin’s lack of purpose seemed less tragic now that she could compare her lot with mine.
On the day before we were due to leave for Eversleigh, I went down to the gardens and walked round. There was a faint mist in the air which reminded me of that other day.
One of the gardeners was digging, and as I approached he leaned on his spade and looked in my direction.
“Good day to you, Mistress Priscilla,” he said.
I returned his greeting.
“You be leaving us I hear, mistress.”
“Yes,” I said.
” ‘Twere a sad matter,” he went on. “There’s many of us here as would like to see that Titus Gates get a taste of his own medicine, that we would. Oh, yes, ‘twere a terrible business. If only the mist hadn’t come up so bad you’d a been back that day and your gentleman would have been over the seas afore they got here. Why did you go out, mistress, when I warned you?”
“Warned me? Warned me of what?”
“I’ve lived in these parts all my life and that’s nigh on fifty years. I can tell what the weather’s going to be … and never wrong … well once or twice maybe.
I said there’ll be heavy mist long before nightfall. Unless the wind comes up sudden … which it can do, winds being something you can’t count on. Given no wind, though, that mist will be in from the sea and Eyot will be wrapped up in it. ‘Don’t you go out today, mistress,’ I said.”
“You didn’t tell me. I didn’t see you on that day.”
“No. ‘Twas the other one. She were going, weren’t she? There was to be the three.
Mary said she’d make a hamper for three.”
So he had told Christabel!
“Yes, I see that we shouldn’t have gone,” I said. “Good day to you, Jem.”
“Good day to you, mistress. And I’ll look to see you again hi happier times.”
I went into the house. I wondered why Christabel had not told me that she had been warned about the mist. How very strange.
Of course she had a raging headache. Perhaps it had made her forget. Hardly that, though, when the headache was the reason why she had decided not to come. Surely the thought of our going must have reminded her.
It seemed strange, so I sought her out at once and asked her.
She flushed painfully and her mouth moved with emotion.
“I have suffered such remorse,” she said. “I did see Jem and he did mention the mist.
My head was throbbing. I only remembered it when you didn’t come back. I feel responsible …”
“It’s no use worrying now,” I said. “It’s over and done. He is dead. He is lost to me forever.”
“But if you had not gone to the island he would have got away in time.”
“Yes. If I had not lost the ring … If I had not taken it hi the first place … So many ifs, Christabel. But what is the use of all this remorse?
It’s over. There is no going back. I have lost him forever.”
