Victoria and the Nightingale Read Online Free

all being very— very—very k-ki—” And then her senses deserted her quite abruptly, and Sir Peter caught her in his arms before she fell and narrowly averted a further catastrophe as a result of her head hitting the stone hearth and possibly causing concussion. He held her for a moment as if she were a baby in his arms, and he thought how exceptionally fair her hair was, and how thin and pinched her face.
    Then without any further hesitation he bore her out into the hall and up his gracious curving staircase to the room that had been prepared for her.
    CHAPTER THREE
    Victoria felt confused the following morning when she awakened in a completely strange room with morning sunlight finding its way into it round the edges of the drawn curtains.
    She lay in the pleasant twilight that filled the greater part of the room and tried to think up some convincing explanation of the reason why she was where she was, and the explanation had to include such trifling reassurances as a satisfactory excuse for her wearing a nightdress that most certainly didn’t belong to her; and for all the solid comfort and luxury that surrounded her.
    She was used to reasonable comfort in her surroundings, but this was comfort run riot. Facing her was a splendid tallboy with a degree of polish that made her blink, and over in the wide window space was the kind of dressing table she had often dreamed of possessing one day but never seriously hoped to do. It stood in a petticoat of flowered satin and had an oval mirror that appeared to be framed in beaten silver standing on it, and there were a lot of silver-topped bottles and some crystal flagons and things scattered about the plate-glass surface as well.
    She could see a vast wardrobe, and that, too, was shimmering as if housemaids worked on it constantly, and what she decided was a tall pier-glass or cheval mirror, and a long couch covered in the same flowered satin as that which provided a skirt for the dressing table. And there appeared to be a vast area of carpet, and it was rosily pink like a cloud; and some rugs that were white clouds floating on the pink cloud.
    She frowned as she lay looking at it all and decided that this was no hotel room. Johnny’s father couldn’t possibly afford a room like this. . . . And then all at once she remembered, and with memory surging back her head began to ache.
    Mrs. Grainge came quietly into the room with a tray of tea, and the first thing she did was draw the curtains, then she approached the bed and smiled at the occupant.
    “Well,” she said, “and how did you sleep? You’re looking better, I must say.”
    Victoria felt horribly confused still, but at least she knew now what it was all about.
    “Johnny—” she asked, and the housekeeper poured her a cup of tea and smiled even more complacently.
    “Doing nicely,” she assured her. “As bright as a button this morning, although a bit worried because you’re not around. Apparently you look after him, and he seems to think you’re his special property.”
    “I—I do look after him,” Victoria admitted.
    The housekeeper poised the sugar tongs above the sugar bowl.
    “Two lumps, dear?” she asked.
    Victoria nodded.
    “A kind of nursery governess, is that it, dear?” the housekeeper pursued. “I’d say he’s a bit old to need a nanny.”
    “Oh, it’s nothing like that. . . .” Victoria, despite the dull ache in her head, felt she ought to explain. "You see, I used to do welfare work, and I worked with children, and Johnny’s father was a widower, and needed someone to cook and look after Johnny. He was—he is,” she corrected herself for some reason that she didn’t quite understand—“a door-to-door salesman, and he doesn’t have much time to look after Johnny himself. The welfare people thought it would be a good thing for me to help him out, so I did ... I mean, I went and lived in and took charge of Johnny. We—we’re having a bit of a holiday now. . . .”
    “I see,”