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

and saw that the rail on which I had been leaning had come away on one side and that I had had a miraculous escape from certain death.

And now what must I do? One false move and I could go hurtling down. I must remain where I was and hope to attract someone's attention. Few people came to Dead Man's Leap and even if they did they would not know I was here clinging to the hillside bush.

I shouted but my voice echoed back to me. I could feel pains in my legs and arms. My hands were badly grazed and I knew I should certainly be bruised all over. I felt faint but that was the last thing I must do. I must concentrate on clinging to the bush.

I shall never forget that terrible ordeal and how Esmeralda was my savior. But it was several hours before she missed me and then she immediately thought of Dead Man's Leap. What else she thought I was aware of, although she didn't mention it. She sent two of the grooms to look for me there and when they could not find me and noticed the broken rail they approached the place from below and that was how I was discovered clinging to the bush.

To bring me down was not an easy matter. Two expert climbers from the nearby town came with special equipment; there were quite a lot of spectators and my rescue was reported in the press. There was a piece about the danger of Dead Man's Leap and how the rail had apparently been faulty although it had been put up not very long before. Greater protection was needed and something would have to be done about it.

Esmeralda nursed me for three days. That was all I needed to get over the shock and my bruises and abrasions.

The fact that Philip was reputed to have killed himself raised certain speculation as to what had happened to me. No one stressed this, but it was there.

We could not stay in the country forever and Cousin Agatha recalled us.

I felt a quiver of alarm when I entered the house and was confronted by her. Her expression was one of mingled exasperation and veiled triumph: exasperation because I had managed to get myself "talked about," as she put it, through this unfortunate affair on the hill, veiled triumph because although she did deplore the fact that a member of her family had failed to climb into the Carrington oligarchy, yet at the same time she was gratified because after all the "tumult and the shouting" I had failed and had had to come back to the old familiar position of Poor Relation to be victimized at her will.

I went to Finlay Square and looked at the house. It was up for sale again but nothing would have induced me to go in. I wondered whether what had happened would affect its sale, because it had been mentioned as the future home of Philip and me. People might think it unlucky. That was, after all, how legends became attached to places.

As I stood in the square looking at it, it seemed as though the house mocked me. I had had the fanciful notion that it had never wanted me and had warned me to keep away; and I had failed to heed that warning while, without doubt, being aware of it.

I did not go out very much. The Carringtons avoided me. I supposed the very sight of me would be painful to them, and moreover, they were in mourning and did not entertain. When people came to the house Cousin Agatha, who was as completely indifferent to my feelings as she had ever been, suggested I keep out of the way. "We don't want all that gossip starting up again," she said with an unpleasant laugh. "It's most embarrassing."

Frustrated and unhappy, I lived from day to day, but I knew that the state of affairs would not go on.

I was right. Cousin Agatha summoned me to her sitting room.

As I stood before her she looked at me with distaste. My brief glory was over and I had sunk back into the role of Poor Relation.

"I suppose," she said, "it will take us a long time to live down this very unfortunate affair. Of course I never really believed that marriage would take place. I always thought something would happen to prevent it. If I had had my way . . ." She shook her head, implying that she would never have given her consent to the marriage; perhaps she would have forced Philip to take Esmeralda.

She sighed. I had lost my spirit and made no comment. I no longer felt the irresistible desire to defy her.

"However, every cloud has a silver lining, they say, and it seems that in your case this may be so." I looked at her in astonishment and she gave me a wintry smile. I might have known her pleasure would be my pain.

"Mrs. Oman Lemming had decided to employ someone else but had not completed her search for the right person. Now that you are in need of a post she has decided in her kindness that she will ignore convention and give you a chance."

"Oh no," I protested.

"Yes. I know it is generous of her. All that fuss in the papers. Why, one might say you are a marked woman. However, she is of the opinion that in due course this will be forgotten and that it may have had a salutory effect upon you. I had to be honest with her and therefore considered it my duty to inform her that you could at times be pert and that your position in this family—and your connection with us—had given you certain ideas. Mr. Loring being absurdly tolerant—in fact, I have so often to restrain him—did not wish you to be made aware of your position. . . ."

"So you disobeyed him," I could not resist saying.

"I