Gossamer Cord

“Mrs. Pardell believed it. I told it so well. I am just giving you a brief synopsis. I gloss over the difficult parts and look vague if they ask difficult questions. Remember, I did lose my memory.”

“One of the maids saw you on the cliffs.”

“I know. But she thought I was a ghost, of course.”

“She did.”

“Well, that’s what I did. So what am I going to do now?”

“The first thing we shall do is telephone the parents. Can you imagine what they have been through, what I’ve been through?”

“I know. It was awful of me. But you see, I meant to write to you and you could all have come to Paris to see me…if I had stayed there.”

“You’ll come back to us. The sooner the better.”

“I can’t tell people I ran away…just like that…staged my disappearance. I won’t do it.”

“It will be difficult. I don’t know what the authorities will say. They made a search, you know. All along the coast. They won’t be pleased with all the trouble you’ve caused. You’ll be reprimanded rather severely, I imagine. I don’t like the true version at all. You left your husband and child of a few months to go off to Paris with an artist you scarcely knew.”

“Put like that it does seem thoughtless.”

“Thoughtless! People would call it wanton. You’d never live it down. It would be remembered for ever. Tristan would know when he grew old enough to understand. People will remember, if you don’t.”

“You haven’t changed, Violetta. Still the old crusader for the right. What shall I do?”

“We’ll have to work out a better story than yours.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“We’ll have to keep to the swimming idea…otherwise we shall be in trouble. I don’t think you should have hit your head on a rock. The sea was cold. You were exhausted. You had swum too far out. You were on the point of drowning. You were picked up by a yacht. The owner came from the North of England and had been to Spain. He was on his way home. Your experience had been such a shock that you temporarily lost your memory. You were taken to Grimsby, or wherever it was.”

“I only thought of that place because it’s biggish on the map and it was a long way off.”

“We shall have to be vague about all this.”

“But if I lost my memory…”

“There were pictures in the papers. The yacht people who were going home would have soon discovered. Then…you were in your swimming costume, so you couldn’t have come from anywhere but Cornwall. It all sounds so very implausible. The only one you told your fantastic story to was Mrs. Pardell.”

“Yes.”

“And she did not question it.”

“No. She was too interested in the Tregarlands and the way I felt about that.”

“You’ll have to tell our parents the truth, of course.”

“Do I have to?”

“Of course. Daddy will find a way of getting round all this. The sooner they know the better. They have been terribly unhappy.”

“Bless them, Violetta, you’ll tell them, won’t you?”

“I will do that at once. Then they’ll come down and we can talk to them and work something out.”

“I knew you’d work it out.”

“You’re such a devious schemer. I should have thought you could have thought up a better story than that one.”

“Well, I had to lose my memory, didn’t I? I had to do the swimming. It was really all due to that legend. I wanted them to think I was just another victim of the Jermyn ghost.”

“That part was ingenious, but it is no use planning an elaborate story if you haven’t worked out a suitable ending. It was you who was here that day when I called. You peeped through the curtains.”

“Yes. I wanted so much to speak to you, but I wasn’t ready, I told myself I was a fool to let you go, but I could not see you just then. Mrs. Pardell understood. I must say, she has been a great help to me. Who would have thought it?”

“You know what has happened at Tregarland’s?”

“I know that Dermot died and that Matilda has gone mad.”

I decided that this was not the moment to tell her that Tristan would have died but for the vigilance of Nanny Crabtree and myself.

Moreover, I was filled with joy because she was back. I forgot all the grief and anxiety she had caused. She was back again and that was the most wonderful thing that could have happened.

I now applied myself to the task of extricating her in the best possible way from the net she had woven about herself.

I wanted to laugh—with happiness rather than amusement—at the manner in which she gazed at me; she was completely confident that we should work this out together and, because I was there, I would get her through, as I had been doing all our lives.

The first thing I did when I returned to Tregarland’s was to telephone my parents. I was glad my mother answered.

“You must prepare yourself for wonderful news,” I said. “Dorabella is safe.”

I heard the gasp and the words which came tumbling out.

“She is well,” I went on. “I have seen her. I can’t tell you on the telephone. Both of you, get the first train. That will be quickest. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. Don’t worry. She’s well. We’re longing to see you. I’m so happy.”