The Shivering Sands by Victoria Holt

work.”
    “Then you’re an artist.”
    She put her hands behind her back and nodded slowly.
    “How interesting!”
    “Oh yes. I painted that picture.”
    “How long before he died did he sit for it?”
    “Sit for it. He never would sit for anything. Imagine getting Beau to sit down! And why should I want him to? I knew him. I could see him clearly then…just as I see him now. I didn’t need him to sit , Mrs. Verlaine. I only paint the people I know.”
    “It’s very clever of you.”
    “Would you like to see some more of my pictures?”
    “I’d be most interested.”
    “Isabella was a clever musician, but she wasn’t the only clever one. Come to my rooms now. I have my own little suite. I’ve had it all my life. There was a time when I might have left here. I was going to be married…” Her face puckered and I thought she was going to burst into tears. “But I didn’t…and so I stayed here where I had been all my life. I had my home and my pictures…”
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    She smiled. “Perhaps I’ll paint you one day, Mrs. Verlaine. It’ll be when I’ve learned to know you. Then I’ll see how I’ll paint you. Come with me now.”
    I was fascinated by this strange little woman. She sprang round daintily and I saw her black satin slippers peeping out from beneath her blue skirt. There was mischief in her smile; as I have said she was like a high-spirited little girl and the manner coupled with that wrinkled face was intriguing and yet, I fancied, a little sinister. I wondered what I was going to see in her room, and if she really was responsible for the picture over the fireplace in Beau’s room.
    Upstairs and through corridors we went. She looked over her shoulder at me and said: “Now, Mrs. Verlaine, you are lost, are you not?” in the manner of a teasing child.
    I admitted I was but added that I supposed I should be able to find my way about in time.
    “In time…” she whispered. “Perhaps. But time does not teach everything, does it? Time heals they say, but everything they say is not true, is it?”
    I did not want to enter into a discussion at this point so I did not attempt to disagree with her; and smiling she walked on.
    Eventually we came to what she called her suite. We were in one of the turrets and gleefully she showed me the apartment. There were three rooms in the great tower. “It’s a circle,” she pointed out—“you can go all round—one room leading to another and you come back to where you started from. Isn’t that unusual, Mrs. Verlaine? But I want to show you my studio. It faces north, you know. The light is so important to an artist. Come along in and I’ll show you some of my work.”
    I went in. The windows were bigger in this room than in the others and the north light was strong. Her look of youth was harshly denied in this room; the little bows, the blue gown with its satin sash, the little black slippers, were not enough to combat the wrinkles, the brown smudges on the thin claw-like hands; but she had lost none of her animation. The room was simply furnished; there was a door at each end which I knew opened onto the next room; on the walls were several pictures and canvases were stacked up in a corner. On a table lay a pallet and an easel was set up; on this was a half-finished picture of three girls; and I knew at once that they were Edith, Allegra, and Alice. She followed my gaze.
    “Ah,” she said conspiratorially. “Come and look.”
    I went closer beside her. She was watching me eagerly for my reactions. I studied the picture; Edith with her golden hair; Allegra with her thick black curls and Alice neat with a white band holding back her long straight light-brown hair.
    “You recognize them?”
    “Of course. It’s a good likeness.”
    “They’re young,” she said. “Their faces tell nothing, do they?”
    “Youth…innocence…inexperience…”
    “They tell nothing,” she said. “But if you know them you can see beneath the