Lord of the Far Island by Victoria Holt (romance book recommendations TXT) 📗

delicately carved banisters, and came almost to the top of the house. A spiral staircase took us right there. These lacked the lofty ceilings of the lower rooms and were much smaller. There were four of them together—a sort of apartment with connecting doors. Two of these were bedrooms. One for Rollo's wife, I thought. One for her companion.

I am sensitive about dwellings and as I stood savoring the atmosphere I fancied I could detect suffering in these. I shivered, and Philip said : "You're cold."

"No, just a shiver."

"Why are you shivering then?"

"Someone walked over my grave, as they say."

"Let's go down."

"Not just yet. I want to linger awhile. I wonder what she felt like up here. Perhaps she was trying to be different so that Rollo and his family wouldn't be ashamed of her."

"Come on. Let's go down. You're running on again. I can't tell you anything more about her. We don't talk of her. She's Rollo's affair."

"Hers too," I reminded him. I went to the bed and touched the quilt, then the back of a chair. She had lived with these things. I wanted to know about her, to see her. Perhaps I could talk to her, help her in some way.

We don't talk about these things, Philip had said. But that was the Carrington way of life. When something was unpleasant you pretended it didn't exist. I could never be like that and I couldn't stop thinking about Rollo's wife.

While we were in the country Philip insisted we go to Dead Man's Leap. We walked through the woods together and came to the spot near the path where there was a wooden seat. We sat down and Philip said: "It brings it all back, doesn't it? It'll always be one of my favorite places. You were a bit scared to come here alone, admit it, Ellen."

"Well, just a bit."

"I was a beast to make you."

"You were a horrid little beast quite often."

"But you were such a know-it-all that you had to be brought down a peg or two sometimes. It does seem a bit weird here, doesn't it?"

"I wonder how many people have sat on this seat and thought about jumping over."

"If rumor's true, quite a number."

Philip stood up to go to stand at the edge of the path as he used to.

"Come back," I shouted.

He obeyed, laughing. "Why, Ellen, you're really scared. You didn't think I was going to leap over, did you?"

"I thought you might show off once too often. There ought to be a rail of some sort up there."

"I'll speak about it. It's our land, you know."

I was surprised that he remembered to do so, and before we left London an iron rail was put up.

Back in London, Philip and I liked to walk in the Park and talk about our plans. There we could often escape from people who wanted to come up and congratulate us and be quite alone, so we made the most of it. We would wander along by the Serpentine into Kensington Gardens and right across to the other side of the Park. It was in the Park that I was aware of a man watching us. There was nothing very remarkable about him except his unusually bushy eyebrows. He had come along very quietly, it seemed, and seated himself on one of the benches not far from us.

I don't know why I was aware of him, but I was. He gave me an uneasy feeling.

"Do you see that man over there, Philip?" I asked.

He looked about him. "On the bench, you mean?"

"Yes, he seems to be watching us."

"Well, he must be thinking how pretty you look."

"He seems interested in us."

Philip squeezed my arm.

"Of course he's interested in us. We're rather special people."

The man got up and walked away; and we forgot him.

The House in Finlay Square

We went to see a house in a Knightsbridge square. I was so excited when Philip produced the key and we went in. It was a tall white Queen Anne house with a garden in front and four stories. There is something about empty houses which is almost personal. They can be welcoming or forbidding.

I don't think I have any special perception, merely an overcharged imagination perhaps, but this house affected me as the top rooms of the Carrington country house had done: It was the reverse of welcoming. There was something about it that was alien, and for the first time in my new-found happiness a coldness touched me. Was it because the house represented a reality and the rest had been dreams?

I was to spend my life with Philip—all the years ahead would be with him; we should grow old together, grow like each other. We should be the most important people in each other's lives. It was a sobering thought. I suddenly felt that I had been put into a cage—a pleasant gilded cage, it was true, but outside was the world which I had never yet explored.

I looked at Philip. He was saying eagerly: "Do you like it?"

"I haven't seen it yet. You can't judge a house by the hall."

"Come on then."

He took my hand and we went into the lower rooms; they were intimate—walls closing round me. No, I thought. No!

He ran up the stairs dragging me with him. The rooms on the first floor were light and airy. I liked them better.

"We'll give our parties here," he said. "Rather elegant eh?"

We went up again. There were more big rooms and on the top floor more, and above that attics.

"It's too big," I said, finding excuses.

He looked startled. By Carrington standards it was quite small.

"We shall need these rooms. There are the servants. . . to be accommodated, and we want a nursery. What's the matter? You want a nursery, don't you?"

"Yes, I do very much. But I just feel there is something . . . not quite right about it."

"What do you mean . . . ghosts or something?"

"Of course not. It looks so ..." I