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

"Why?" I asked boldly.

She moved closer to me. I just could not bring myself to look at her face then. If I did I knew I should see the evil expression there which I had caught in the mirror on my first night.

"You know, don't you?" she said. "He was very taken with you, wasn't he? All that play about a twisted ankle."

"It wasn't play. I really did hurt my ankle."

"Well, it made a romantic beginning, didn't it? I daresay he found you different from most of the girls he meets. Ambitious mothers of neighboring squires are constantly bringing their daughters forward and they are country girls. . . all of a piece. And then you come—different, already having lived, as some would put it. Naturally his interest is aroused and although you're a Kellaway too, yours is the pure strain. Your branch escaped the Devil's taint, didn't it?"

I felt exasperated. "Listen," I said almost fiercely. "I met a man when I arrived. I was lost in his woods and he took me back to the inn. I met him again with Gwennol and lunched at his house, and you are suggesting I am trying to snatch him from under the noses of ambitious mothers with marriageable daughters. I've met him; I like him; I like his house. There's nothing more in it than that."

"Gwennol seems to think . . ."

"Gwennol is in love with him and sensitive. I can assure you I am not desperately looking for a husband and ready to take the first man I meet."

She rose and picked up her candle and as she stood there I shivered slightly. She was holding the candle in front of her, below her face, and it had the effect of lighting it up while the rest of her was shadowy, so that it seemed like a disembodied face there in the mirror. There was a faint color under the skin and her eyes were half closed. She looked malevolent.

"Perhaps I have said too much." Her voice was a whisper. "But, please, do not try to take Michael Hydrock from Gwennol."

"My dear Jenifry, from what I know of him he will not be a man to be taken. He will make his own choice."

"It is Gwennol," she said. "It was Gwennol before you came."

"Then," I answered, "you can rest assured it is still Gwennol."

"Good night," she said. "I hope you understand a mother's anxieties."

"I understand," I told her.

The door shut on her and I saw her back looking at my reflection. I was certain that there was something more than the fears of an anxious mother for her daughter's happiness. She filled me with apprehension, for it was as though she were warning me.

As if enough had not happened on that day, before I slept that night I found the first of the notebooks.

I was so disturbed by Jenifry's visit that I knew it would be foolish to try to sleep, so I decided I would write a letter to Esmeralda. She would be longing to hear about my first impressions of the Island and it would be soothing to write to her of the more peaceful aspects. I would tell her about the small farms and pretty houses with their orange-colored roofs, the Lives and Moonlight Cottages and the rest.

There was a rather charming little desk in my room, small, its sloping top covered with leather and inlaid with ivory. I had already noticed it, admired it and put my writing materials inside it. I tried to open it but it was difficult and I imagined the paper had become jammed in some way. I forced it open with all my strength and as I did so a flap which I had not noticed inside the top compartment fell open and the notebook came out.

I picked it up and saw that inside was written in a childish hand: "S.K. Her Book." This, I guessed, was the one who had scratched those words in the cupboard and whose picture my mother had painted.

I flicked through the book. Some of the pages had been written on and sentences caught my eye.

"I hate it here. I wish I could escape." And then: "My father hates me. I don't know why. But then I don't think he likes anyone very much . . . not her. . . nor Baby." I turned to the front page. It was headed "Life on an Island."

This was only a child's exercise book, I realized, but it had clearly belonged to the mysterious S.K. "I am a prisoner in this room" would most likely have referred to her being sent to her room as punishment for some misdemeanor as most children had been at some time. But the two portraits had fascinated me and I wanted to know more of her. I decided to ask someone at the first opportunity. Gwennol was the obvious one, but I thought it might be advisable to avoid Gwennol for a few days.

I looked down at the large scrawl on the page.

"I am supposed to be writing an essay," I read. "It is to be called 'Life on an Island.' Miss Homer said I shall stay in my room until it is done, but I am not going to write an essay. I'm writing this instead. It is a secret and I shall not show her. She wants me to write about crabs and jellyfish and tides and scenery, but I don't care about those things. I'm going to write about Them and Myself in a way I can't talk because there is no one to talk to. It will be fun to write it because then I can read it afterwards and remember it all afresh. My father hates me. He always did. My stepmother doesn't like me very much either. Nobody likes me except Baby and she's too young and silly to know. My stepmother loves Baby. She said to me: