The house had been built by the Menfreys a hundred and fifty years ago—for like so much of the district the island belonged to them. There were eight rooms beside the kitchen and outhouses; and the place had recently been furnished, waiting for the tenant who could not be found.
I came into the drawing room with its casement window which looked out to sea. There was no garden, although it appeared that at some time someone had tried to make one. Now the grass grew in patches and there were gorse bushes and brambles everywhere. The Menfreys had not bothered with it and it was useless to, for at high tide the sea covered it.
Having no idea of the time, I came out of the house and ran down to the sandy cove, where I lay gazing at Menfreya and waiting for Gwennan.
The sun was climbing high before she came. I saw her in the cove, which belonged to the Menfreys and which, as a special concession, they allowed the public to use so that it would not be necessary to close part of the shore and force people to make a detour. Three or four boats were kept tied up there, and I watched her get into one and row over. In a short time it was scraping on the sand and, as she scrambled out, I ran to meet her.
“Gwennan,” I screamed.
“Ssh!” she answered. “Someone might hear you—or see you. Go into the house at once.”
She was soon with me, more excited than I had ever seen her; I noticed that she was wearing a cape inside which were enormous pockets, and these bulged with what I guessed to be the food she had promised me.
She was waving a newspaper in her hands. “Look at this,” she cried. “The morning paper. You’re in it! You … on the front page.”
She went to the table and spread out the paper on the dust sheet which covered it.
I stared at it. “M.P.’s daughter missing. Foul play cannot be ruled out, say police.” Beneath the headlines I read: “Henrietta (Harriet), thirteen-year-old daughter of Sir Edward Delvaney, M.P. for the Lansella district of Cornwall, disappeared from her London home two days ago. It is feared that she may have been kidnaped and will be held to ransom.”
Gwennan drew herself onto the table and hugged her knees; her eyes were almost hidden, as they were when her face was creased with amusement.
She pointed at me. “Well, Miss Henrietta (Harriet) Delvaney, you have become important, haven’t you? They’re searching for you. All over London they’re searching. And nobody knows where you are except you and me!”
It was what I had wanted, I supposed; so I had, in a way, achieved my purpose.
I laughed with Gwennan. People were talking about me; the police were searching for me. It was a wonderful moment. But experience bad taught me that wonderful moments did not last. They would find me, and then what would happen? It wouldn’t always be a sunny day. Gwennan would not stay with me. Dusk would come and I should be alone on the island.I had decided to run away on the night of the ball my father was giving in his town house, which was in a quiet Westminster square about five minutes walk from the Houses of Parliament. He had always said that it was part of his parliamentary duties to entertain lavishly and constantly, and whether we were in Westminster or Cornwall there were always guests: dinner parties and balls in London, shooting parties and house parties in Cornwall. Being only thirteen, I was excluded from these affairs. My place was in my own room, from which I would emerge to peer over the banisters down into the hall and gaze on the splendor, or stand at my window and watch the occupants of the carriages as they stepped forth and passed under the red-and-white awning which was set up for the occasion.
Throughout the day the preparations had been going on; thick red carpet had been laid on the steps which led to the front door and along the stretch of pavement on which guests would step when alighting from their carriages; two young women from the florist had been busy all the afternoon putting flowers in vases, and plants in every alcove, cleverly arranging some of them to look as if they were growing out of the walls; leaves and flowers had been entwined in the banisters of the curved and gracious staircase up to the first floor, which was as far as the guests would go.
“It smells like a funeral,” I said to my governess, Miss James.
“Harriet,” she answered, “you are being ghoulish.” And she looked at me with that pained expression which I knew so well.
“But it does smell like a funeral,” I insisted.
“You are a morbid child!” she muttered and turned away.
Poor Miss James. She was thirty and a lady without means of support; and in order to live she must either many or be governess to people like me.
The library was to be the supper room, and the flower decorations there were magnificent. A marble pond had been erected in the center of the room, and in it gold and silver fishes swam, and on the surface water lilies floated. There were draperies of rich purple, the Tory color. In the front drawing room, which was furnished in white, gold and purple, there was a grand piano, for there would be music tonight played by a famous pianist.
I should be able to gaze down at the guests as they mounted the stairs, hoping that none of them would look up and see their host’s daughter, who would he no credit to him. I should be hoping for a glimpse of my father, for it was at such times that I saw a different man from the one I knew. Past fifty, for he had married late in life, he was tall and his dark hair was white at the temples; he had blue eyes which were rather startling in his dark face, and when they looked at me they reminded me of ice. When he was being the host or talking to his constituents or entertaining las guests, those eyes sparkled. He was noted for his wit and the brilliance of his speeches in the House; his remarks were constantly being quoted in the papers. He was rich; and this was why he could afford to be a Member of Parliament Politics was his life. He had a private income from investments, but his great fortune came from steel somewhere in the Midlands. We never mentioned it; he had little to do with it; but it was the great provider.
He was Member for a division of Cornwall, find that was why we had a house near Lansella; we went from London to Cornwall, for when Parliament was not sitting there was the constituency to be “nursed”; and for some strange reason, where my father was, there was I too, though we saw little of each other.
Our town house had a large entrance hall, and on the ground floor the library, dining room and servants’ quarters; on the first floor were two large drawing rooms and the studies; above that were three guest rooms, one of them occupied by William Lister, my father’s secretary, besides my own and my father’s bedroom. On the top floor there were about six servants’ bedrooms.
It was a beautiful Georgian house, and its finest feature, as far as I was concerned, was the staircase, which curled like a serpent from bottom to top of the house and enabled one to look down from the top floor to the hall. But to me it was a cold house. Our house in Cornwall was the same. Any house where he lived would be like that … cold and dead. How different was Menfreya Manor; vital and warm, that was a house where anything could happen, a house that you would always dream of when you were away and never want to leave—a real home.
The London house was elegantly furnished to suit the architecture; so the furniture was eighteenth century and there were few concessions to our Victorian Age. I was always astonished when I went into other houses and saw their ornate furniture and crowded rooms and compared them with our Chippendale and Hepplewhite.
I have forgotten the names of the servants; there were so many of them. I remember Miss James, of course, because she was my governess, and Mrs, Trant the housekeeper and Polden the butler. Those are all the names I can think of— except, of course, Fanny.