Виктория Холт - Menfreya in the Morning

When I discovered the truth, I was amazed that the web of suspicion in which I had become entangled was of my own weaving. The unwanted child I had been had always regarded happiness with suspicion; because my father had not cared for me, I had made myself believe that no one ever would. I did not realize until this time that my life was in my own hands. It was a marvelous revelation, because never before had the future become so full of exciting possibilities. And, understanding myself, I became more tolerant of others. I could be tolerant of Jessica’s hopes and fears. Adventuress she may have been; she may have come to Menfreya hoping for an easy life there; she might have hoped to lure Bevil from me or perhaps to marry William Lister until she had seen the more inviting prospects Harry Leveret had to offer. I could not be sure; but the woman I had become was less censorious than the old. Jessica had fought for her own happiness, as I had for mine; and I hoped she would find what she sought with Harry.

By chance I discovered how Fanny and I had been poisoned. It was shortly after Jessica had left when I took tea in the nursery with Benedict and he gleefully put spoonfuls of sugar in my tea.

“You’ve got a sweet tooth,” he chuckled. Then he said: “You like this sugar better than Jessie’s?”

Jessie’s sugar, he told me, had been kept in a bottle in her cupboard, and by standing on a chair he could reach it. He had brought it for my lemon barley when I was sick to make me get well quickly.

I went over to see Jessica at Chough Towers when her child was born. Being a mother had changed her in some way. I myself was pregnant at that time, and I understood the change; it almost made us friends. She admitted that she had read about the arsenic when Jenny bad died and had tried it herself now and then. She was horrified when she heard how Fanny and I might have been poisoned.

Well, that was all long ago, but I often think of that night when, rescued by my husband, I lay in bed in the island house listening to the storm, and how it wore itself out during the night, until the sound of the waves dropped to a murmur.

When it was light I got out of bed and stood at the window to watch the sunrise. Bevil was sleeping in a chair near my bed, and I did not wake him.

The sea was still, and only the brown edge to its skirt was an indication of how violent the storm had been.

And there was Menfreya touched with the faint rosy glow, and as I looked I remembered that morning all those years ago when I had looked and thought that the loveliest sight in the world must be Menfreya in the morning.

I thought of all that had happened there through the centuries and in my own short life and all that was yet to come.

Gwennan was gone; Fanny was gone; but I had Bevil, and we should go through life together.

Bevil had come to stand beside me, and we both remained at the window, looking across the sea.

“Who would believe that’s the same sea as the one that was raging last night?” he said. And he looked at me, and I knew that he read some of the thoughts that were in my mind.

Tragedy had come close, but luck had been with us.

Bevil was still shaken when he considered how miraculously my rescue had been timed.

“It’s like being given a chance,” he said.

“This day is starting well,” I answered. “Look at the sky. Arid look at Menfreya … It’s so beautiful in the morning.”