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

the bunches of herbs which hung from the beams.

"So you have brought your young lady to visit me, Master." She almost smirked. " 'Twas what I would have expected of 'ee."

"She's anxious to learn about the Island, Tassie, and she couldn't know much until she'd visited you."

"'Tis so. I've lived in this dwelling all my life, my dear. My mother lived here before me and my grandmother. It were her mother who had it when married. Moonlight Cottage it were, built in a night, though it have been added to since."

"That must have been in my great-grandfather's day," said Jago.

She nodded. "And a man he were for scattering his seed far and wide. There be a saying on the Island that there's scarce a family that hasn't got the Kellaway blood in it somewhere back."

"It binds us together," said Jago. "What have you got to tell Madam Ellen?"

"Let me see for 'ee, my dear. Come close and do 'ee sit down near me."

She took my hands but did not gaze into my palms but into my face.

"Oh my life, I do see much here for you. There's good and there's bad."

"Doesn't that apply to all of us?" asked Jago.

"To some more than others." Jago was watching her intently and I was as much aware of him as of her. "You've had trouble . . . tragedy in your life. You've lost someone close to 'ee. That was a black time, and now there's a choice for 'ee. There's two roads open to 'ee. You must be sure and take the right one."

"Tassie has special powers," said Jago. "She is greatly respected on the Island."

"How shall I know which is the right one?" I asked.

"You'll be guided, my dear. There's one right beside 'ee to guide 'ee. You'm come home to your family and 'tis a good thing you've done, for that's where you belong to be."

The black cat rose from its basket, stretched itself and came to rub itself against her skirts.

"I see happiness for 'ee, me dear, if you do take the right turning and I see trouble if you don't. You'm facing the right way now but a little while back 'twasn't so."

"You'd better listen to Tassie's advice," said Jago. "The girls of the Island all come to her and they'll tell you she's never wrong." "' Tis so. A love potion they'll be wanting and I give it to them. They wants some young fellow to fall in love with them. You won't want that, me dear. Your fate be settled. 'Twill be soon, for 'tis right at hand."

Jago laughed, evidently pleased with her.

"Go on, Tassie," he commanded.

" 'Tis for the young lady to take the right course and she'll be happy for the rest of her days. She'll have fine sons and a daughter or two to bring comfort to her. She's had a long journey but she's home now."

"There, Ellen," said Jago smiling at me, his eyes gleaming, and I thought: He is really falling in love with me!

The prospect excited me and at the same time made me feel a little apprehensive. I knew that his emotions would be fierce, for there were no half measures about him. He was young; he could not be much more than thirty; he was unmarried—I wondered why he had remained so, so long—and right from the moment I had seen him at the Carringtons' I had been aware of him . . . physically.

Tassie seemed to have come to the conclusion that she had settled my future. All I had to do was to be guided, presumably by Jago.

She started to tell me what she did for the young people of the Island. "I'll charm the warts off their skins, the sties from their eyes, and when they'm choking for breath I'll give ease for that. There's many who have more faith in Tassie than any doctor. And I'll look into the future too. My great-grandmother was hanged for a witch. We don't hang them now. People has more sense. They know a white witch from a black 'un and we're the white sort in our family. Pellar families we be. Long ago a mermaid were stranded on this Island and one of my ancestors helped her back to the sea. For that she gave the family special sight. And we've had it ever since."

"So if you see a mermaid about, Ellen," said Jago, "help her back to the sea. You'll probably be rewarded."

" 'Tis true," said Tassie. "The seventh child of a seventh child and pellar into the bargain." She came close to me. "I can help you to lift a spell that be cast on you, to turn aside an evil wish. So come to me, young maid, if you be in trouble."

"That's more than an invitation, I must tell you, Ellen," said Jago. "It means that Tassie accepts you as an Islander."

He placed several coins on the table and I saw an avaricious gleam in Tassie's eyes, for she couldn't help watching and, I was sure, counting them as he laid them down.

We came out into the autumn sunshine.

"You must admit she gave you a pleasant fortune, Ellen," said Jago.

"And it seemed to me that she was well paid for it."

He looked at me sharply. "Well, she deserved it, didn't she?"

"If clients are going to pay according to what they're told, isn't that a temptation to the seer to be overoptimistic?"

"I don't think she was about yours. In fact, I know you're going to have a good one."

"Don't forget that rests with me."

"But you're a wise woman, Ellen. I knew it from the moment I saw you. But joking aside, she's a colorful character, our white witch, don't you think? She provides quite a bit of entertainment for our young. They think it's a great adventure to visit her at night in secret to get a love potion which they can administer to a lover."

"Is she really the seventh child of a seventh child?"

"So