Виктория Холт: The Black Opal

He turned to me and his smile was gentle again.

“I don’t suppose they mentioned their names?”

“Oh yes,” I cried.

“One did. The one who gave me the toddy and bandaged it. She is Rosie Perrin.”

“I shall remember that,” he said, nodded and went out.

Nanny muttered, “Writing to gipsies, my foot! What next? Mistress will know better than that. A nice thing you’ve done. Falling about in woods and bringing that sort into the house!”

Sally wanted to hear all about my adventure, and I think Estella wished it had happened to her. Sally said it was very nice of the gipsies to look after me.

The doctor came every day to look at the wound on my leg and to test my ankle. He was always kind and gentle to me and cool to Nanny. I liked him more for both of these reasons. Mrs. Marline did not come to see me. I wondered whether she wrote that note to Rosie Perrin.

That incident marked a turning-point in my relationship with the doctor. He noticed me now and then and would say: “Ankle feeling all right now?” and after a while, just:

“All right?”

I was getting quite fond of him. He gave me the impression that he really cared that I was ‘all right’, even though I was left under the azalea bush and had brought gipsies into the house.

The big house in the neighbourhood was the Grange. It was owned by Sir Grant Crompton, who was regarded as the ‘lord of the manor’. Sir Grant and Lady Crompton were the benefactors of the neighbourhood and employed quite a number of the local population; they let their farms to tenant farmers and sent a goose to the poor every Christmas.

It was all very traditional. Lady Crompton officiated at fetes, bazaars, and such affairs which raised money for good causes. The family always appeared at church if they were in residence, sitting in those pews which had been occupied by the family for two hundred years. The servants sat immediately behind them. Sir Grant contributed generously to funds for the church’s needs and he was greatly revered by us all.

There were two children of the household Lucian and Camilla. I used to see them riding with a groom. They seemed a very handsome and haughty pair who rarely looked our way when we passed them in the lanes they on magnificent steeds, we on foot. Estella sighed and wished she lived at the Grange and rode a white horse with her brother, equally splendidly mounted, beside her. Lucian, moreover, was much bigger and more handsome than Henry.

Well, of course, they were “Grange folk’, and although the doctor was not exactly despised in social circles, and had on occasions even been invited to the Grange, it was suspected that it was only to make up numbers or due to the last-minute cancellation of some more worthy guest.

Mrs. Marline was a little disgruntled about it, and had been heard to ask who the Cromptons thought they were, but when an opportunity came to extend the connection between the Grange and Commonwood House, she was delighted.

Mrs. Marline had been engaged on some charitable work which entailed a visit to the Grange, where she had been graciously received by Lady

Crompton, and during the interview it had transpired that both ladies were concerned about their sons’ education.

Lady Crompton was proposing to engage a tutor for Lucian because she felt it was not quite time for him to go away to school, and, as the same problem concerned Mrs. Marline, the two ladies had a great deal to talk about. The outcome was that Lady Crompton suggested that the boys share the tutor who was to come to the Grange.

Mrs. Marline was delighted with the idea.

I presumed that she would share the cost of the tutor, for I heard Nanny Gilroy say that, in spite of their grandeur, the Cromptons were not ones to ‘throw their money about’ and she reckoned they were rather ‘near’. And, of course, we all knew that Mrs. Marline had the money and she would be ready to pay for what she would consider such a privilege.

So it was arranged and every morning, except Sundays, Henry used to set off for the Grange and he would return in the mid-afternoon with books and work to be done in preparation for the next day’s session.

It was a very satisfactory arrangement in Mrs. Marline’s eyes, for it meant that the families met more frequently than they had before.

Estella, Henry and Adeline were invited to the Grange to tea with Lucian and Camilla. Estella was delighted, but it made her very dissatisfied with Commonwood House, which was humble in comparison with the Grange.

I was never asked to go. I believe Nanny Gilroy had something to do with that, and Mrs. Marline would, of course, have been in agreement with her. But I was sure the doctor would not have been if he had had any say in the matter.

Then it changed.

Uncle Toby paid us a visit while his ship was in port for minor repairs.

It was, as usual, a wonderful visit. He brought me a present from Hong Kong. It was a jade pendant on a slender gold chain, and the pendant was decorated with signs which he told me meant “Good Luck’ in Chinese.

I had in my possession that other pendant, which had been round my neck when I was found under the azalea bush. I often looked at it, but I never wore it. I think I felt it would remind people of my arrival and that I did not really belong here.

Uncle Toby’s gift was different. I was enchanted not only for its promise of good fortune, but because Uncle Toby had given it to me.

Nanny Gilroy would have said it was unsuitable for a child of my age to wear jewellery and would have ordered me to take it off, so I used to wear it hidden under my dress when she was around. I was never without it, even during the night, and the first thing I did, on waking, was to touch it and murmur “Good Luck’ while I stretched out my other hand to the musical box and listened to ” God Save the Queen’.

Estella was very excited because she and Henry had been invited to take tea at the Grange. If the weather was fine and we were in the middle of a heat wave it was to take place on the lawn in front of the house.

Nanny had told Sally to press Estella’s blue dress with a satin sash and the puffed sleeves. Estella must look just as well-dressed as that Camilla.

“And prettier, too,” added Nanny.

I watched Sally carefully pressing the dress.

“It’s a shame they don’t ask you,” she said.

“You’d like to go, wouldn’t you? You’d look as good as any of them.”

“I don’t want to go,” I lied.

“I’d rather be here.”

“It would be nice for you,” persisted Sally.

“And they ought to ask you. I reckon they might well … but for Nanny. I wouldn’t mind taking a bet on that. And then there’s Her, too.”

By Her, she meant Mrs. Marline; and I was sure her conjecture was correct.

Estella was duly garbed in the dress and I had to admit, though rather reluctantly, that she looked very pretty.

I watched them from my window as they set out for the Grange, and a wild idea came to me. I had not been invited but that was no reason why I should not go.

I had on one occasion been inside the grounds of the Grange. Curiosity had overcome me. It had been one afternoon when I guessed the house would be at its quietest. If I were discovered, I told myself, I could say I was lost. There was a way in through a hedge round the paddock and beyond that was the shrubbery which bordered the lawn in front of the house. I had crept through the hedge and sped across the paddock to this shrubbery, from where I had a good view of the lawns and the house.

Very fine it was of grey stone and ancient, with a turret at either end and a big gateway which I could see led into a courtyard. From the shrubbery I could have a good view of the tea-party without any one of them being aware that I was there.