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

laughed aloud in derision at myself for the sound had come from the door, which was not securely fastened.

I opened it. My clothes were hanging up and as I stood there the blue dress which I had worn that evening slid slowly from its hanger and fell in a heap on the floor. I picked it up and in doing so I saw some writing on the wall of the cupboard. It had probably been scraped on the distemper by something with a sharp point.

I pushed aside the clothes and held the candle closer.

I read: "I am a prisoner here. S.K."

I wondered who S.K. was and what was meant by being a prisoner. I guessed it was a child because there was something childish about the lettering and it was the sort of thing a child would scratch on a wall if it had been sent to its room as a punishment.

I set the candle down again on the dressing table. The incident had not made me feel any more sleepy, but I got into the bed, which seemed very large, and I began to think of all the people who had slept in this bed over the last hundred years. S.K. had probably been one of them.

I did not blow out the candles immediately. I wanted to retain a little longer the comforting light they gave me, so I lay looking up at the ceiling with its ornate patterns, which were difficult to make out in the gloom.

Suddenly I was wide awake. I fancied I heard footsteps near my door. I sat up in bed, straining my ears.

You are fanciful tonight, I thought. It's nothing at all. Why don't you lie down and go to sleep?

Esmeralda would say I was "working myself up." In those days I used to make up stories about other people and only if a role was a pleasant one did I imagine myself in it. Now I was finding my imagination could work against me as well as for me.

I slipped out of bed and noticed there was a key in the door. I turned it and now that I had locked myself in it was amazing what comfort I found, so I blew out the candles.

I lay there for some time while scenes from the day's events kept flashing in and out of my head; and finally I was so tired, I suppose, that I slept.

It was inevitable that the dream should come.

There it was as vivid as it had ever been. There was the room with the red curtains, the table, the window seat, the firedogs . . . the china ornaments. The storm-at-sea picture over the fireplace. I noticed that the wind was blowing the curtains. The door was moving.

Slowly it opened. Now . . . that awful fear, that certainty that I was in great danger.

I was awake, with the familiar sense of doom upon me. At first I did not know where I was. Then I remembered that I was in the castle on Kellaway's Island.

My heart was racing and I was trembling with fear.

It's only the dream, I soothed myself, but the doom seemed to have come nearer.

Discovery in a Sketchbook

Sunshine filled my room and the terrors of the night had completely disappeared with the coming of daylight.

I rang the bell and Janet came in.

"Have 'ee slept well, Miss Ellen?" she asked.

I said I had finally.

" 'Tis always the same in a new bed," she answered, and went off to get my hot water.

When I went down I found Gwennol and Jenifry at the table. They asked how I had slept.

"Help yourself from the sideboard," said Jenifry. "There's ham, eggs and deviled kidneys. If there is something different you would like, Benham will see that it's brought for you."

I went to the sideboard on which were the breakfast dishes she had mentioned. I took some ham and eggs and sat down to eat them.

We were talking of the weather when Jago came in. His eyes went at once to me and he inquired solicitously if I had slept well and found all that I needed. He said that in an hour or so he would be ready to show me the Island. Could I be ready by then? I said that I could.

"Gwennol or I could show Ellen if you are busy," said Jenifry.

"Indeed you will not," he retorted. "I am determined to have that pleasure."

"Which mount will you give her?" asked Gwennol.

"Ellen will choose for herself in due course," he replied. "I was wondering if I'd advise Daveth for a start."

"She's a bit spirited," said Gwennol.

"Perhaps they'll be well matched." He was eyeing me with an expression I couldn't quite understand but it made me determined to ride the spirited Daveth.

After breakfast I changed into my riding habit—part of my trousseau. They were pale gray and very elegant, and I had a gray riding hat—tall-crowned like a man's top hat—which I was well aware suited me well.

Jago looked at me with approval when I met him in the stable yard. "You are so elegant," he said. "You put us all to shame."

I laughed. "This riding habit is part of my trousseau, and I can assure you I never had anything so grand before."

"At least then you got something out of it! But we made a pact, remember, not to talk of the past? The people of the Island will be enchanted with you and I am going to enjoy introducing them to you and you to the Island. I shall take you first to the highest peak, from where you can see all around you and for miles out to sea if the air's clear enough. You'll get the idea of the lie of the land, as it were. Then we'll go down to our little township. It's hardly that—but what's in a name?"

He was riding a white horse with a black mane and I had to admit that horse and rider looked magnificent; they suited each