A wave of sheer panic almost paralyzed Sarah. How could she get out of the train compartment or hide to avoid confronting her evil stepmother?
Sarah looked around her. She was in a first class non-smoking compartment. Unexpectedly, she notice a door recessed in the wooden partition wall of the carriage. She grabbed the knob and turned it. Sarah found herself inside a tiny bathroom with a toilet and washbasin. In the fifties, British rail looked after its first class passengers. If Sarah had gone second class there would have been no such avenue of escape or refuge. Sarah quickly shut the door behind her. On the other side of the tiny bathroom there was another door, obviously connected to the next compartment. Sarah decided to lie low until the train got underway again, or until she knew where Vivien was seated. She carefully put down her small suitcase. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief that she was indeed traveling light.
It was cold in the little bathroom. Steam issued from the young woman’s breath. It streamed out of her mouth and condensed on the gilt-framed bathroom mirror mounted above the little washbasin.
Presently she heard a noise, and then movement from the compartment she had just occupied.
“Porter, you can put my bags in here.”
It was the unmistakably imperious voice of Vivien.
And then:
“This will do until we find her, Ma’am.”
Sarah recognized a man’s voice. A man’s voice with a thick, Welsh accent. She involuntarily held her breath.
“She must be on the this train somewhere.”
Sarah recognized Vivien speaking.
Just at that moment the train lurched forward and threw Sarah full against the door of the occupied compartment. The train began to draw out of the Port Merydd railway station.
Sarah held her breath again. She hoped that the sound of the train jerking forward had covered her being thrust against the wooden door. But she couldn’t be sure.
“Maybe our spy was wrong. Maybe she isn’t on this train.”
Sarah sucked in her breath. Spy? What spy? Who had been spying on her ? and why?
The man’s voice again. Sarah pressed her ear to the door. She had been lucky. They were too distracted to have heard the bump.
“Don’t be a fool, David. This is the only train to leave Perris-on-Sea today. She cannot be anywhere else.”
Vivien’s voice again. So the man with her was Hugh St. Owen’s crazy brother David. The man who had tried to rape her on two separate occasions! Sarah trembled with fear and curiosity. Why this intense interest in her? It didn’t make sense.
“Search the train and then we get off at the next stop,” said Vivien. Sarah noticed the faint odor of cigarette smoke beginning to drift into the little washroom. Vivien was breaking the rules again, defiantly smoking in the non-smoking compartment.
“We’ve got to find the little slut,” the evil woman continued, “She has played havoc with my plans for the Abbey.  We cannot succeed with our plan without the assistance of my stupid little stepdaughter!”
David St. Owen let out a low-pitched cackle that made Sarah’s flesh creep.
“We need the sacrifice,” he mumbled, in between cackles.
Sacrifice? What sacrifice, wondered Sarah? They needed her as their sacrifice? For what?
Sarah thought back to her time of imprisonment below the Abbey in the dungeon. Was it possible that they were seeking a human sacrifice to appease the Druid’s curse on the Abbey? Sarah’s mind ran riot.
“Be quiet, you fool,” said Vivien, “Your hilarity may attract attention to us. How many times have I told you that we must be discreet?”
Silence. Sarah could detect no response from the maniac.
“Oh, you’ll get your reward soon enough.” Vivien’s voice was low and hissing. Just like a snake, thought Sarah.
“Your brother Hugh St. Owen is meddling too much. We need him out of the way. He’s filled with lust for the young slut, I’m sure. Can’t wait to rip her clothes off and violate the inner sanctum,” she sneered.
Davis St. Owen gave a low, suggestive grunt.
“I will get her first,” he muttered, starting to cackle again.
“Shut up, shut up!”
Vivien was almost screaming at her crazed companion.
There then followed a few moments of complete silence. Sarah continued to press her ear to the door. She tried hard to hear what was going on above the thunder of the steam engine and the constant rocking of the carriages as they slid over the steel railway lines.
Vivien broke the silence.
“When we have found the girl and taken care of her ? “
“What about your husband?”
“Ah the good doctor. Well, David, I have already taken care of him. He won’t be bothering anyone anytime soon.”
Sarah’s blood ran cold. What had Vivien done to Dr. Llewellyn? Although Sarah had very little love left for the man, he was her father. Or was he?
“The little slut thinks he’s her father,” said Vivien.
“Is he?”
“Well, David, no one knows for sure. But he certainly doesn’t act like it.”
There was a pause.
Vivien’s voice:
“He always had a penchant for young attractive sluts.”
Sarah caught her breath. Could Vivien somehow know about the doctor’s attempted rape upon her person?
“No matter what, the Abbey will be mine. I still have to visit that stupid Detective Inspector Rice and prove that I’m very much alive. I would rather he thought I was dead, but Hugh St. Owen ruined that plan.”
There was a pause as Vivien made the sound of striking a match. Sarah realized that she was lighting up another cigarette.
“I will make up some plausible excuse for my disappearance from the morgue. But whatever happens, the Abbey will be mine.”
Sarah’s eyes grew wide with surprise. Why was it so important for Vivien to have the Abbey, she wondered? How could she possibly think of possessing the Abbey when it was a designated national monument owned by all the people of the British Isles? What did she mean? She could not mean owning it literally.
“The part that matters. The part that no one sees. All will be mine.”
That explains it, thought Sarah. The part of the Abbey that is underground. That’s the part that Vivien will own, to all intents and purposes. Or at least have the sole run of. No one else seemed to know it was there. Excepting perhaps herself, Hugh and Peter St. Owen.
Even so, it didn’t explain Vivien’s obsession with wanting the Abbey.
“Midsummer’s Eve is just around the corner.”
Vivien’s voice again.
“When we have delivered the little slut to the appropriate party, the Guardians of the Abbey will have to bow to my wishes, my plans, my future.”
Sarah was too stunned to move. So, the plan was to sacrifice her to the Knights of the Abbey on Midsummer’s Eve in return for Vivien’s protection? Was that what this is all about?
So many questions. So many answers.
“My stepmother really is weird,” Sarah muttered aloud.
“What was that?”
It was David St. Owen’s voice.
Sarah froze.
“I thought I heard something.”
“You aren’t crazy for nothing, David,” said Vivien. “Stop fooling around and look for the girl.”
Sarah jumped as she heard what sounded like a loud hiccup.
“I think you’ve had enough of that gin, Ma’am,” said David. “Here, let me take the flask and put it in your bag.”
“Leave it alone! How dare you!”
Vivien, yelling at the top of her voice. Even above the sounds of the train, Sarah could hear what sounded like the noises of a scuffle in progress. Obviously, where gin was concerned, her stepmother had decided to throw discretion to the winds. Sarah smiled grimly.
Vivien’s voice again. This time rather slurred.
“Let go, you crazzzy idiot. Let go!”
Suddenly Sarah heard the compartment door flung open.
“Tickets please.”
It was the ticket inspector.
“There’s no smoking in here, Ma’am,” Sarah heard him say. “And no drinking either.”
“I’m getting off at the next station, Inspector,” Vivien replied in slurred tones, punctuated by another hiccup.
“I suppose the young lady got off at Port Merrydd,” Sarah heard the ticket inspector say.
“What young lady, Inspector?”
Vivien’s voice, sharper and urgent.
“Why, the young lady in the navy blue suit and beautiful red hair. Didn’t you see her when you got on?”
Sarah held her breath.
No answer.
“She thought this was the train bound for London. When she realized her mistake I told her to get off at the next station. That was Port Merydd.”
“I didn’t see ?” David St. Owen’s voice.
“We were looking for her Inspector,” Vivien cut in, hiccupping, “She is my stepdaughter. We had a misunderstanding.”
“Oh, I see Ma’am.”
The inspector’s voice.
Pause.
“Well, you’ll probably catch her if you can get back to Port Merydd station. We stop in Pontefryydd in two more minutes or so. That is, if this damn mist will let us.”
“Tank you, Inspector, tank you very much.” Vivien’s voice, slurred again.
Sarah heard the compartment door slide back as the ticket inspector let himself out of the compartment.
“So, the little slut got off at Port Merrydd did she?”
Vivien’s voice.
“Yes, we’ll get off at the next stop and drive back to Port Merydd station. (Hiccup!) Where she is probably waiting for your lovesick brother, no doubt.”
David St. Owen’s voice.
“I’ll carry your bags for you, Ma’am. We don’t really need a porter, do we?”
Silence.
Sarah was acutely aware that the train was slowing down. She glanced out of the tiny window in the small bathroom. She was just in time to see the red and white station sign for Pontefryydd pass by in the cloying mist.
Sarah leaned back against the washbasin. She had to make a decision. Should she alight at Pontefryydd station and hope that her stepmother and her crazed companion would not spy her in the Welsh mist? Or should she go on until she reached the next station and phone Hugh St. Owen?
Without warning, Sarah heard the bathroom doorknob being turned from Vivien’s side of the carriage. A wave of fear and revulsion swept over the young woman.
David St. Owen’s voice.
“I have to use the bathroom.”
More turning of the knob.
Silence.
“It’s stuck.”
“It’s probably occupied, dear boy.”
“This cannot wait. It doesn’t say ‘Occupied’ on the door sign, Ma’am.”
Sarah looked down at the doorknob in horror. In her haste to hide in the small bathroom she had forgotten to lock the door and automatically engage the ‘Occupied’ sign over the doorknob.
Somehow, possibly because of the unseasonably cold weather, the door had remained temporarily jammed. In a matter of moments, her presence could be revealed ? with disastrous results!
 
 
 
 

Sarah’s head spun around. What could she do now? Was she really trapped in the railway train bathroom? Would she be discovered by her evil stepmother and the crazed rapist David St. Owen? How could she escape from this situation and contact the sexy Hugh St. Owen to come and rescue her? Why did Vivien want to sacrifice her to the Knights of Saint Owen’s Abbey on Midsummer’s Eve? See the next exciting installment in Chapter 20 of Sarah Llewellyn and the Druid’s Curse !

Read Chapter 20: The Best Laid Schemes
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