Lord of the Far Island (38 page)

nd you got Hawley to have a key cut for you.

es, I did. I wanted to have a word with you on your own in that house. I was seeking every opportunity to meet you. I thought that if we met there by chance I might be able to hint at something.

t was a crazy thing to do.

oul find in the years to come that I often do crazy things. Youe going to love some of the crazy things I do. I do a great deal to get you, Ellen, but I suppose I stop at murder. I was so anxious about you. I didn trust those Carringtons. Then Philip death changed everything.

hat will happen to the Carringtons now?

oul be hearing about their collapse, I daresay, in a few weekstime. But let not worry about them. I want to talk to you, Ellen. There so much to plan for so much to say. Just think of it, Ellen the two of us together on the Island.

I lay still thinking of it.

The Outcome

I married Jago a month later.

Everything was clear to me by that time. Rollo body was found a few days after that night when I had walked into my dream room and found him there. After his encounter with Jago he had had no alternative but to put to sea and try and reach the mainland; and the sea was not in a benign mood that night. Whether he had been unable to manage the boat or not I am not sure. It may well have been that he accepted defeat, for a few weeks later the collapse of the Carrington interests was announced in the papers. It was one of the greatest financial disasters of the century. Many people had lost their money in the crash and there was talk of a prosecution which might have taken place if Rollo had lived. It was presumed that he had deliberately chosen death by drowning.

I owed so much to Slack who, when he had seen Rollo, had recognized him as the man with whom Silva had run away, and he had instinctively known that he was there for no good purpose; so he had hastened back through the tunnel and brought Jago to save me just in time.

That seems to be all of our story.

Gwennol married Michael Hydrock eventually and they work together on the book about his family. Jenifry went to live with them. She had always been devoted to her daughter and had been afraid from the first that I might snatch some advantage from her even before she had been anxious on account of Michael. We are quite good friends nowhough we could never be closend I often smile to think of how I had suspected her of wishing me ill because of the reflection I had seen of her in a distorting mirror by candlelight.

And I have found Silva. Poor Silva, whose life was so tragic. I have tried to nurse her back to health and my main remedy is to teach her that someone loves her. Her brief honeymoon with Rollo had soon ended and when she realized that he had no love for her at all she had been more heartbroken than she had ever been before. He had kept her shut away with a nurse who was almost a keeper while he had sought to get his hands on her fortune; and then of course when he learned that I came before her, he had his motive for trying to remove me. Poor Silva, she had begun to believe that she was indeed insane.

It is my great task to convince her that this is not so.

I found her in a lonely country house which was Carrington property and I brought her back to the castle without her keeper. I call her my sisternd although it may well be that James Manton was her father, we both like to think it was otherwise. The artist is a kindly man and we often row over to his island, and have tea in my dream room; but he is really immersed in his work and although he is kind to Silva he cannot give her that special love which she needs.

It has not been easy. She was, at first, furtive and suspicious. Slack was helpful though, and delighted to have her back. He looks upon us both as his special protegees and I have often seen him smile with self-satisfaction when he looks at us.

When my first baby cameago after his fatherilva began to change. She adored the child and the others too. They love her dearly and I think that at last she is happy.

I never dreamed my dream again. I think I know why it haunted my childhood until its spell was broken by Rollo when he came through that door. My mother had lived on uneasy terms with my father and had wanted to go away. He, however, would not allow her to; but she was determined to escape. Mrs. Pengelly knew of the existence of the tunnel to Blue Rock and one night, so I later learned from her, they escaped through it. The artist was accommodating and he and my mother were already friends through their art so he was ready to help her. I was aged three at the time. My mother carried me through the tunnel and the impression made on my young mind by that room was clearly so vivid that it stayed with me through the years. I would have sensed my mother fear that my father might have followed her and come through that door to prevent her escape, and I must have felt that fear so intensely that it haunted my dreams in the years ahead.

How I love the Island! How I love my life there! Jago and I are full of plans for the future.

Often we ride round it. The people come out to call a greeting to us. Old Tassie will be at her door with a new Malken purring round her skirts, regarding me as though by her special powers she has conjured up our contentment with life.

We lie on the cliffs and look down on the cove where I saw Hawley come in; we look up at the sky and see the pigeons now and then, perhaps carrying a message to Michael and Gwennol at Hydrock Manor; and sometimes we talk of the past.

t all yours now,said Jago.

urs,I reminded him.

Yes, I thought, ours, this fair Island, these beloved children, this good life. Ours.