Lord of the Far Island, Victoria Holt [world of reading TXT] 📗

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 now—though we could never be close—and 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 sister—and 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 came—Jago after his father—Silva 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's 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.

"It's all yours now," said Jago.

"Ours," I reminded him.

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