Виктория Холт - Time of the Hunter's Moon

"Of course you had a wonderful summer holiday, didn't you?"

"I did."

"I heard through Eugenie."

"Teresa has been talking, has she?"

"I understand this banking fellow has all the virtues. I heard he is something of a paragon."

"That would be Teresa's version. Teresa is inclined to glorify the people whom she likes."

"And vilify those she doesn't."

"It's a habit of the Young."

"Cordelia, do stop this. We must talk. It is no use your trying to pretend you are indifferent to me. Do you think I don't know how you feel? If you'd stop being so restrained and were natural, you'd come to me right away. It's what you want. But you are so under control ... so much the schoolmistress. But we're not in the classroom. We're two living creatures ... a man and a woman, and the most natural thing in the world is for us to be together.

"You don't understand me in the least."

"But I do. You want me ... me. I am the one for you, and you are fighting against it all the time. Why? Because respectability is standing beside you, urging you not to become involved with a man who may have helped one woman to her death and murdered another because he found her a nuisance. You listen to gossip. You accuse me ... when all the time you want me. I could show you that you want me as much as ... or almost ... as I want you."

I was afraid of him when he talked like that. Why did I stay here with him? Why did he excite me as he did? Was there something in what he said?

He went on: "You believe I killed my wife ... an overdose of laudanum ... so easy to administer. And then the other ... strangulation ... a blow on the head ... and then I buried her body in the woods ... no, I threw it into the fish ponds. That was the better idea. It was done by a member of my family before. In spite of this ... the gossip, the scandal and your lack of faith, you want me. What could be a stronger indication than that? You turn away from me, but you can't hide the truth. You wanted me in the Devil's Den. You were longing for me. You wanted me to force you. Then you could have come to terms with your conscience. But old Respectability was standing by your side. `Escape', he said. `Break the window. Leap out.' Anything that dear old Respectability should be satisfied. Do you think that would have stopped me?"

"Yes. It did." I laughed because I couldn't help it and he laughed with me.

He went on: "Oh, Cordelia, you are throwing away what you want most. If you reject me you will regret it ail your life. This knight in shining armour ... this Galahad, this symbol of purity, this miserable banker who always adds his figures correctly and has never had a single mistress and is without sin and stain ... do you think he is your sort?"

I was laughing again. "You are quite ridiculous," I said. "I am sure he would be amused to hear himself so described. Surely there is nothing to be despised in adding up figures correctly, and I should imagine there is a certain amount of that involved in running an estate. You seem very anxious to marry me off. I might tell you that it has not been suggested, and I am surprised that you listen to schoolgirls' tattle."

"The proposal will come. Bankers always know exactly how long to wait and how to get the right answer."

"Admirable people," I said.

"Oh, I am tired of your schoolmistress attitude to life. You are afraid to live ... afraid of scandal."

"Which you never were. You see how different we are. We should never match."

"Not like you and your banker. Precise, conventional, the household accounts always in order, making love every Wednesday night, having four children, that being the correct number. You're laughing. You're laughing ail the time at me. You're happy with me, aren't you?"

"Goodbye," I said, and galloped away in the direction of the school.

It was true in a way. If I was not entirely happy with him, I was exhilarated as with no one else. No, I was not happy with him; but on the other hand I was not happy away from him.

It would be better if I never saw him alone. I would shut him right out of my mind. I would remember those peaceful days on the farm. I went straight to my room to change for my class.

Elsa was standing on the stairs, a duster in her hand, outside my room.

"Good afternoon, Miss Grant," she said with her familiar smile.

"Good afternoon, Elsa."

I was about to walk past when she said: "Miss Grant, is Eugenie Verringer all right?" "Eugenie? Why?"

"Well, she's been iii, hasn't she? She's been iii twice. I was worried about her."

"She's all right. It was only bilious attacks."

"Oh, I'm glad. You get fond of some of the girls ... like I did at Schaffenbrucken. There was you and the French girl and that German one and that other English girl."

"Lydia," I said. "Lydia Markham. You'll be sorry to hear she was killed in a skiing accident."

She clutched the door and looked really disturbed. "Not that Lydia ..."

"Yes. I discovered it only the other day. Her brother came to see me and told me all about it. She was married."

"She was only a young girl."

"Old enough to be married. By the way, Elsa, do you remember when we went into the forest? You told us about Hunter's Moon and all that."

"That was a bit of rubbish just to amuse you girls." "Well, you were right that time. We met a man and he got to know Lydia afterwards. He married her."

"You don't say!"

"Rather strange, wasn't it?"

"And then her to die like that. Skiing did you say? I shouldn't have thought she was a one for that sort of thing."

"No, her husband must have changed her."

"Oh, Miss Grant, this is a bit of a shock for me. Of course it's a long time since I saw her ... Fancy you meeting her brother like that. It must have been a shock for you."

"A terrible shock. I saw Monique ... you remember her? She told me about Lydia. Lydia hadn't written to me."

"Oh dear, it's all come about in a funny sort of way ... You not knowing and all that. But what I really wanted to ask you about was Eugenie. I heard they had the doctor to her. What did he say?"

"Nothing serious. It seems she's prone to biliousness."

"Oh. I'm glad. It was her having it before made me wonder. Weakening, that sort of thing."

"Yes, but Eugenie's young. It's just that something must be upsetting her. We'll find out what it is and put an end to these distressing attacks. It happens now and then."

"I'm sure it does. I'm glad it's nothing serious. I began to wonder ... And it's a terrible shock about that Lydia."

"Yes," I said, and went into my room.

November had come, dank, dark and gloomy. Aunt Patty wrote that the Markhams had asked us to spend Christmas with them. She thought it would be a lovely idea. "A sort of Dingley Dell Christmas, dear. Can't you imagine it? Teresa, of course, is included in the invitation."

I thought of it. It would be pleasant. When I told Teresa she clasped her bands in ecstasy.

"Oh do let's go. Do let's."

I was still smarting from my encounter with Jason and I thought how peaceful it would be on the Essex farm, and impulsively I wrote back to Aunt Patty and said we must accept.

I felt I was being drawn closer and closer to John Markham. It was true what Jason had said-he would not be impulsive. His life would be orderly, lived on an even keel; and after the events of the last months, that was a state of affairs which seemed very inviting.

We were busy at school. There was what Eileen called the usual Christmas fever. All the anguish about who was to play in the pieces we were doing: Romeo and Juliet and The Merchant of Venice . Eileen said she wished Miss Hetherington would show a little of the quality of mercy and instead of giving us two extracts concentrate on one.

"The Merchant would have been ample," she said. "And I am surprised that dear Daisy thinks that the sight of Juliet quafing the draught which is to send her into a trance is suitable for impressionable girls."