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

was the day. There was to be a dinner party that night. The household could think of nothing else. "She's got the wind in her tail, that's what," said the cook, referring to Cousin Agatha. I knew what she meant. Cousin Agatha's voice could be heard all over the house. "Miss Hamer" (that was her long-suffering social secretary), "have you the place names ready? Do make sure that Lady Emily is on the master's right hand; and Mr. Carrington on mine. Mr. Rollo should be in the center of the table on the master's right-hand side of course. And have the flowers come?" She swept through the house like a hurricane. "Wilton" (that was the butler), "make sure the red carpet is down and the awning in place and see to it in good time." Then to the lady's maid Yvonne, "Do not let me sleep after five o'clock. Then you may prepare my bath."

She was in the kitchen admonishing the cook ("As if I don't know my business," said Cook). She sent for Wilton three times in the morning to give him instructions to be passed on to the other servants.

It was that sort of day. I met her on the stairs and she walked past me without even seeing me. And I thought again: "This is surely the time to go to the market." Nanny Grange was pressed into service with the goffering iron; our governess was to help arrange the flowers. So there we were "sans governess, sans nanny, sans supervision, sans everything," as I misquoted to Esmeralda.

"It's the very day when we could get away and be back before they noticed." The market should be seen by the light of flares and it grows dark soon after half past four in December. "The flares are like erupting volcanoes," I exaggerated to Esmeralda, "and they don't light them until dark."

I told Nanny Grange that Esmeralda and I would look after ourselves, and soon after afternoon tea, taken at half past three that day to get it over quickly, we set out. I had carefully noted the number of the omnibus and the stop where we had got off and we reached the market without mishap. It was then about five o'clock.

I gleefully watched the wonder dawn in Esmeralda's eyes. She loved it: the shops with their imitation snow on the windows—cotton wool on string but most effective—the toys in the windows. I dragged her away from them to look in the butcher's with the pigs' carcasses hanging up, oranges in their mouths, and the great sides of beef and lamb and the butcher in blue-striped apron sharpening long knives and crying "Buy, buy, buy."

Then there were the stalls piled with fruit and nuts and the old-clothes man and the people eating jellied eels out of blue-and-white basins. From one shop came the appetizing odor of pea soup, and we looked inside and saw people sitting on benches drinking the hot steaming stuff; there was the organ grinder with his little monkey sitting on top of the organ and the cap on the ground into which people dropped money.

I was delighted to see that Esmeralda was of the opinion that I had not for once exaggerated the charms of the market.

When the organ grinder's wife began to sing in a rather shrill penetrating voice the people started to crowd round us and as we stood there listening a cart on which there was a considerable amount of rattling ironmongery came pushing its way through the crowds.

"Mind your backs," cried a cheerful voice. "Make way for Rag and Bone 'Arry. Stand aside please. . . ."

I leaped out of the way and was caught up in the press of people who carried me with them to the pavement. Several of them called out to Rag and Bone 'Arry as he passed, to which he answered in a good-natured and pert manner. I watched with interest and found myself wondering about Rag and Bone 'Arry and all the people around me when suddenly I realized that Esmeralda was not beside me.

I looked about me sharply. I fought my way through the crowd; I called her name, but there was no sign of her.

I didn't panic immediately. She must be somewhere in the market, I told myself, and she couldn't be far away. I had presumed that she would keep close to me; I had told her to and she was not of an adventurous nature. I scanned the crowds, but she was nowhere to be seen. After ten minutes of frantic searching I began to be really afraid. I had charge of the money, taken with a great deal of trouble from our money boxes, into which it was so easy to put coins and so hard to take them out (the operation must be performed by inserting the blade of a knife through the slit, letting the coin drop onto the knife and then drawing it out). Without money how could she get home by herself? After half an hour I began to be very frightened. I had brought Esmeralda to the market and lost her.

My imagination—so exciting at times when I was in control of it—now showed itself as a ruthless enemy. I saw Esmeralda snatched up by some evil characters like Fagin from Oliver Twist teaching her to pick pockets. Of course she would never learn, I promised myself, and would be arrested immediately and brought home to her family. Perhaps Gypsies would take her. There was a fortuneteller in the market. They would darken her skin with walnut juice and make her sell baskets. Someone might kidnap her and hold her to ransom; and I had done this. The market adventure was so daring that it could only have been undertaken when it was possible to sneak into the house as we had sneaked out. Only on such a day when there was to be an important dinner party had it been possible.

And now Esmeralda was