I loved the place, especially the antiquity of it, and I often thought of the members of my family who had lived here. I had read so much about them, and I felt I knew some of them personally—generations and generations of them—right back to the days of the great Elizabeth when it was built—the E shaped building dated it without doubt. I loved the old hall with the two wings on either side. Dear Eversleigh!
I found the neighbourhood of immense interest. For one thing the sea was not very far away. I loved to gallop along by the frilly waves and feel the salt sea breeze in my face. “Race you!” I would shout to Amaryllis. I always wanted to race and it was of the utmost importance to me that I win. Amaryllis would come riding along, a pace behind me, smiling happily, not caring in the least who won. Winning was not important, she would say. It was the ride that mattered. Wise Amaryllis!
There were two houses close to ours and I found their inhabitants quite intriguing.
At Enderby was Aunt Sophie, a very sad and tragic figure; she had been badly burned during a fireworks display in Paris at the time of the marriage of Marie Antoinette to the Dauphin who soon afterwards became the ill-fated Louis XVI.
Aunt Sophie was a recluse, living there with her faithful friend and companion-servant Jeanne Fougére. I was not encouraged to visit her often; though she had a certain fondness for Amaryllis. It was an uncanny house. Terrible things had happened there. It was haunted, said the servants; and I could well believe it. Even my half-sister, Claudine, looked strange when we called on Aunt Sophie; and I noticed she looked about her almost as though she was seeing something which was not there.
Aunt Sophie had had a very tragic life. She had not only been terribly scarred but had lost her lover and she never forgot it. She liked to mourn over the past and I had a notion that if things were going well she was not so pleased as she was when they were going badly. All the talk of possible invasion seemed to take years off her life. She herself had come out of revolutionary France with her jewels sewn into her clothes—a story I loved to hear in detail. We did not speak of it often because of Aunt Sophie, and Jonathan my father’s son, who had shared in that adventure, was dead, so he could not tell of it.
Enderby, house of shadows, shut in by tall trees and thick bushes, uncanny, redolent of the past, was a house of mystery and tragedy which must stay so because that was the way Aunt Sophie wanted it.
I should have liked to prowl about that house all alone, for I always enjoyed frightening myself. I felt there was evil in that house. Amaryllis did not feel it. I suppose when one is good—fundamentally good—one does not sense these things as quickly as someone who is more inclined to sin.
But I felt there was something there. Often I would look quickly over my shoulder, expecting to see a sinister figure hastily disappearing. I loved to linger in the minstrels’ gallery for that was said to be especially haunted.
I liked to make Amaryllis call me up from the kitchen when I was in one of the bedrooms for there was a speaking tube connecting the two rooms. Claudine heard us once and asked us not to do it. Amaryllis immediately desisted but I wanted to do it more than ever. It had a fascination for me and when I was younger I used to ask one of the servants to talk to me through the tube.
The other house that interested me was Grasslands—and again it was not the house which fascinated me so much as the people who lived in it. Grasslands was an ordinary small manor house—pleasant without being impressive. There was nothing special about the house itself to arouse my interest. Its inmates were quite another matter.
Old Mrs. Trent, for instance. I was sure she was a witch. She rarely emerged from the house, and it was said she had become a little strange since the suicide of her elder grand-daughter. It was a tragic story and she had never got over it. She lived in Grasslands with another grand-daughter—Dorothy Mather, whom we all knew as Dolly.
Dolly was a strange creature. One met her riding about the countryside; sometimes she would return our greeting; at others pass us by as though she did not see us. She ought to have been attractive; she had a neat figure and pretty, fair hair, but she had a facial disfigurement. One eyelid was drawn down at one side and her face seemed slightly paralysed in a way that gave her a somewhat sinister appearance.
I told Amaryllis that she gave me the shivers and even when she smiled, which was not often, that malformation gave her a mocking look.
Claudine was always trying to be kind to her and telling us we must be the same. “Poor Dolly,” she used to say, “life has been cruel to her.”
Amaryllis would always stop and talk to her and oddly enough Dolly seemed to be a little fascinated by her. She looked at Amaryllis as if she knew something about her which she could tell if she wanted to.
So we lived in our little community which was now threatened by the possibility of invaders who would disrupt our pleasant existence.
It was a lovely September day. There was just a little chill in the air, which was full of the scents of autumn. Amaryllis and I had ridden away from Eversleigh in the company of Miss Rennie, and had come as far as the woods. It was lovely riding under the trees on a carpet of golden and russet leaves. I liked the scrumbling noise the horses’ hooves made as they walked through them.
Miss Rennie was a little breathless. As we had approached the woods I had pressed my horse into a gallop, which always alarmed Miss Rennie. She was not so sure of herself on a horse as she was at the schoolroom desk and was greatly relieved on those days when one of the grooms took over the duty of escorting us.
I was thoughtless in those days and I liked to tease her. It made up for the withering contempt she sometimes had for my scholastic achievements. It was like turning the tables and I am afraid I often set my horse galloping ahead of her, for I knew she had great difficulty in keeping up.
“Race you!” I had cried to Amaryllis; and we were off. Thus we reached the woods a little before Miss Rennie, which was why we came face to face with the gypsy.
“Don’t you think we should wait for Miss Rennie?” cried Amaryllis.
“She’ll catch up,” I replied.
“I think we should wait for her.”
“You wait then.”
“No. We should keep together.”
I laughed and pushed on. And there he was, sitting under a tree. He was very colourful and yet somehow blended in with the landscape. He wore an orange-coloured shirt, open at the neck. I caught a glimpse of a gold chain and there were gold rings in his ears. His breeches were light brown; he had dark hair which curled about his head and brown sparkling eyes. I noticed the flash of very white teeth in a sunburned skin. He began to strum on a guitar when he saw us.
I pulled up my horse and stared at him.
“Good afternoon, my lady,” he said in a musical voice.
“Good afternoon,” I replied.
Amaryllis was now beside me.
He rose and bowed. “What a pleasure to meet not only one beautiful lady—but two.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“A gypsy. A wanderer on the face of the earth.”
“Where have you wandered from?”
“From all over the country.”
“Are you encamped here?”
He waved his hands.
I said: “These are my father’s woods.”
“I am sure the father of such a charming young lady would not grudge the poor gypsies a spot on which to rest their caravans.”
“Miss Jessica! Miss Amaryllis!” It was Miss Rennie. She was close by.