Dolly Read Online Free Page B

would find it. He was not afraid of mice.
    And then, as he turned round, he felt something strange, like a rustle of chill across his face, or someone blowing towards him. It was soundless but something in the cupboard caught his eye and he thought that the paper lining the shelves had lifted slightly, as if the movement of air had caught that too.
    He went back to the window but it was closed tightly, and the latch was across. It was the same with the window on the other side. He touched the door but it was closed firmly and it did not move. The room was still again.
    Five minutes later, he was in bed, lying flat on his back with the sheet just below his chin, both hands holding it. The wind had got up now. The windows rattled, the sound round the rooftop above him grew louder and then wild, as the gale came roaring across the fen to hit the old house and beat it about the head.
    Edward did not remember such a wind but it was outside and could not get in, and so he was not in the least afraid, any more than he was afraid of the sound of rain, or the rattle of hail on a pane. He had left the wall cupboard slightly open but the lining paper did not lift, and there was no chill breeze across his face. This was just weather. This was different.
    He went to sleep rocked by the storm, and it howled through his dreams and made him turn over and over in the narrow bed, and in her own room, Kestrel lay troubled by it not for herself, well used to it as she was, but for the boy. At one point when the gale was at its height she almost got up and went to him, but surely, if he were alarmed he would call out, and she felt shy of indicating her feelings or of transmitting alarm. High winds were part of the warp and weft of the place and the old house absorbed them without complaint.
    He would get used to them, and when Violet’s child came tomorrow, so would she, whatever she was like.
    A vision of her sister came into Kestrel’s mind as she fell asleep, of the bubble curls and pretty mouth and the coquettish charm she had been mistress of at birth. Leonora. Leonora van Vorst. What sort of a child would Leonora be?

6
    He was sitting on the edge of his bed reading and as he still did not find reading easy, although he loved what he discovered in a book when he found the key to it, he had to concentrate hard and so he did not hear the footsteps on the last flights of uncarpeted stairs or their voices. He read on and one set of footsteps went away again and it was quiet, late afternoon. It had stopped raining, the wind had dropped and there was an uncertain sun on the watery fens.
    And then he was aware of her, standing just inside the doorway, and looked up with a start.
    ‘You seem to be very easily frightened,’ she said.
    Edward stared at the girl. She had dark red hair,long and standing out from her head as if she had an electric shock running through her, and dark blue eyes in a china white face.
    ‘I’m not frightened at all.’
    She smiled a small superior smile and came right into the room to stand a yard or two away from him.
    He slid off the bed, remembering manners he had been taught almost from the cradle, and put out his hand.
    ‘I am Edward Cayley,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’re my cousin Leonora.’
    She looked at the hand but did not take it.
    ‘How do you do?’
    She smiled again, then turned abruptly and went to the window.
    ‘This is a dreadful place,’ she said. ‘What are we supposed to do?’
    ‘It isn’t actually terrible. It is quiet though.’
    ‘Who is that woman?’
    ‘Our aunt. Aunt Kestrel.’
    Leonora tossed her hair. ‘The other one, with the sour face.’
    He smiled. ‘Mrs Mullen.’
    ‘She doesn’t like us.’
    ‘Doesn’t she?’
    ‘Don’t be stupid, can’t you tell? But what does itmatter?’ She looked round his room, summing its contents up quickly, then sat down on the bed.
    ‘Where have you come from?’ He opened his mouth to say ‘London’ but she carried on without