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who I was.
    “I’m Amy Lincroft,” she replied, “housekeeper at Lovat Stacy. I have the trap outside. Your bags can be sent up to the house.”
    She signed to a porter and gave him instructions and in a few minutes she was taking me through the barrier to the station yard.
    “I see you have already made the acquaintance of the vicar’s wife.”
    “Yes, oddly enough she guessed who I was.”
    Mrs. Lincroft smiled. “It could have been by design. She knew you’d be on that train and wanted to meet you before the rest of us did.”
    “I feel flattered to have inspired her to do so.”
    We had reached the trap. I got in and she took the reins.
    “We’re a good two miles from the station,” she told me, “nearer three.” I noticed her delicate wrists and long thin fingers. “I hope you like the country, Mrs. Verlaine.”
    I told her I had been used to living in towns so that it was something I should have to discover.
    “Big towns?” she asked.
    “I was brought up in London. I lived abroad with my husband and when he died I came back to London.”
    She was silent and as she too was a widow I wondered whether she was thinking of her husband. I tried to imagine what he would have been like and whether she had been happy. I thought not.
    How different from the vicar’s wife who rarely stopped talking and had told me so much in such a short time. Mrs. Lincroft would be, I imagined, almost secretive.
    She talked vaguely of London where she once lived briefly; and then she mentioned the east winds which were a feature of this coast. “We get the full force of them. I hope you don’t feel the cold, Mrs. Verlaine? But then the spring is almost here and the spring is quite lovely. So is the summer.”
    I asked her about my pupils and she confirmed that I should be teaching her own daughter Alice, as well as Allegra, and Edith: Mrs. Stacy.
    “You will find Mrs. Stacy and Alice good pupils. Allegra is not really bad—just high spirited and perhaps a little prone to get into mischief. I think you will like them all.”
    “I am looking forward to meeting them.”
    “That you will do very shortly for they are all eager to meet you.”
    The wind was keen and I fancied I could smell the sea, and now we had come to the Roman remains.
    Mrs. Lincroft said: “This was discovered quite recently. We had archaeologists down here and Sir William gave them leave to excavate. He wished afterwards that he hadn’t. It has brought crowds here to see the remains and there was an unfortunate affair. You may have heard of it. There was a great fuss at the time. One of the archaeologists disappeared and…I fancy…hasn’t been heard of since.”
    “Mrs. Rendall mentioned it.”
    “There was talk of nothing else at the time. We had people prying…It was very upsetting. I saw the young woman once. She came to see Sir William.”
    “So she disappeared,” I said. “Do you have any ideas as to how it happened?”
    She shook her head.
    “Such a forthright young woman. One can’t imagine how she could have done such a thing.”
    “What…thing?”
    “Just walked off and told no one where she was going. That must have been what happened.”
    “But she wouldn’t have done such a thing, surely. She would have told her sister.”
    “Oh…did she have a sister?”
    I flushed slightly. How foolish I was. If I were not careful I should betray myself.
    “Or her brother or parents,” I continued.
    “Yes,” conceded Mrs. Lincroft. “Surely she would have done that. It’s very mysterious.”
    I fancied I had shown too much interest, so I quickly changed the subject.
    “I can smell the sea.”
    “Oh yes, you’ll see it in a moment. And you’ll see the house too.”
    I caught my breath in wonder, for there it was, just as I had been remembering it—that impressive gate house with its moldings, its mullions and arched transoms.
    “It’s magnificent,” I said.
    She looked pleased. “The gardens are quite lovely. I do a little