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

"I always bring them something when I come," he explained. "It's a sort of apology for coming at all. This is their sanctuary and they need some compensation for receiving unwanted visitors."

"Do you think they are as inhospitable as that?"

"Undoubtedly. Look at those choughs over there. There are hundreds of them. We get the occasional stormy petrel. She just lands to lay her eggs and then departs. I saw a beauty once. It was quite an occasion."

"I'm surprised that you find time to be interested in these things."

"I find time for anything I want to do, don't you, Ellen?"

"I suppose so."

He put his arm through mine, ostensibly to help me up the slope, but I felt he was conveying the fact that he was going to find a great deal of time available to spend in my company.

"You'll become more and more absorbed in the life of the Island," he said. "You won't really want to go on trips to the mainland very often. It was interesting that you went to Hydrock's place. Pleasant, isn't it? But very conventional. Gwennol has a romantic attachment to the place. Poor girl, if she ever married Michael Hydrock she'd be bored for the rest of her life."

"Why should she be?"

"Because of the life she would lead. Imagine it. Social occasions. Hunt balls, good works, one day very like another and the same thing going on year after year."

I didn't answer.

"Let's sit down here," he went on. He had brought a traveling rug with him and spread it out on the grass for us to sit on. We looked over the sea. The main island looked beautiful with its gentle green slopes and sandy bays and the sun glinting on those orange roofs. And not far off was the Blue Rock Island. The rocks looked very blue today because of the clear air, and I thought I could make out the house which someone had told me was there. It was sheltered by tall shrubs and was not far from the beach.

"Tell me," I said suddenly, "who is S.K.?"

He wrinkled his brows. "Who?" he asked.

"I think she must have occupied the room I am now in. There are scratchings on the cupboard wall and the initials S.K."

He continued to look puzzled, then he laughed. "You must be referring to Silva."

"Silva? Was she Silva Kellaway?"

"Yes, she was your half sister."

"Then I'm the Baby referred to. Oh, you see, I found one of her notebooks in the desk and she had written something in it about her stepmother and a baby. How strange! My sister!"

"Your half sister."

"We shared the same father and the stepmother she mentions is my mother."

"Poor Silva, her life was tragic."

"Was? She is dead then?"

"It's almost certain that she was drowned."

"Almost certain?"

"Her body was never found, although the boat was. It was washed up on the shores of the Island . . . without Silva."

"How very sad. How old was she when this happened?"

"It happened about eighteen months ago. She would be well into her twenties. Twenty-eight perhaps."

"And she lived at the castle... in my room. . . until then?"

"Yes. She was a difficult girl. No one knew why she should take a boat out on such a night as she did, but that was what happened. It was a crazy thing to do, but then she was crazy."

"You mean she was. . . mad?"

"Oh no, just unbalanced. She'd be very docile for months on end and then suddenly she would create scenes. She was a queer creature. I had very little to do with her."

"Do tell me all about it. I'm longing to hear everything about the family."

"There's not a lot to tell. Your father married twice. His first wife was Effie and she had Silva. Effie and your father didn't hit it off together and they used to quarrel violently. Your father was not an easy man to live with, obviously. He was not even fond of his daughter. It might have been that he was disappointed because she wasn't a boy. I don't know. In any case, he had little time for the child and could hardly bear to look at her."

"Poor Silva!" I said. "She noticed it and it made her very unhappy. No wonder she was unbalanced as you say."

"Then Effie died of pneumonia and after a year or two your father went to London on business and came back with your mother. That seemed another mistake because she couldn't settle down either. Then you were born and that seemed to reconcile them, but only for a little while. Your father was not meant to live peaceably and they quarreled and she eventually went off, taking you with her. That was a surprise. She left no warning. She just went off. So you see he couldn't have been an easy husband to live with."

"I think poor little Silva must have been very unhappy."

"I wish we could have known why she left, where she was going, and indeed could have some proof that she was drowned."

"If the boat she went in was washed up empty isn't that proof enough?"

"It is to some, but you know what people are and there never were people more like those around here to see the unnatural hand even in the most ordinary happenings. They say that she was 'taken by the Little People,' who, as you have gathered, are a supernatural colony who inhabit these parts. She was always 'fey,' they said, and in fact 'one of them,' and they just took her back where she came from. Some say she was discontented with her lot and asked the Devil to take her. As you know, the Devil has played quite a big part in our family saga."

"So you told me."

"Well, you'll hear people tell you that on wild nights they can hear Silva's cries mingled with the sound of the wind and the waves. Some of the servants think she haunts the castle."

"Do you think she haunts my room?"

He