The Secret Woman Read Online Free Page A

emotion.
    â€œGo to your room. I’ll send Ellen up with some hot milk.”
    Hot milk! Did she think that could console me?
    â€œI’ve no doubt,” she said, “your father will be writing to you. He will have made arrangements.”
    I hated her then, which was wrong for she was breaking the news in the only way she considered possible. She was offering me hot milk and my father’s arrangements to console me for the loss of my beloved mother.

Two
    My father did write to me. We shared our grief, he said; he would not dwell on that. The death of his beloved wife and my dear mother had meant his making great changes. He was thankful that I was in the hands of his dear sister, my Aunt Charlotte, on whose good sense and great virtue he relied. It was a great comfort to him to know that I was in such hands. He trusted I was suitably grateful. He thought he would be leaving India shortly. He had asked to be transferred and he had good friends at the War Office. He had received the utmost sympathy and as there was trouble brewing in other parts of the world, he believed that very soon he would be doing his duty in another field.
    I felt as though I were caught in a web, as though the house was laughing at me. “You belong to us now!” it seemed to say. “Don’t imagine because your Aunt Charlotte has filled the house with these alien ghosts you have ousted us.” What foolish thoughts. It was fortunate that I kept them to myself. Only Ellen and Mrs. Buckle thought me an odd child, but even Mrs. Morton had some sympathy for me. I heard her say to Miss Beringer that people shouldn’t have children unless they could look after them. It wasn’t natural for fathers and mothers to be on one side of the world and their children on another in the hands of those who knew nothing of them and paid more attention to a piece of wood—and often riddled with the worm at that! As for me I had to face the fact that I should never see my mother again. I kept remembering scraps of her conversation; I idealized her beauty. I saw her in the figures on a Grecian vase, in the carving of a tallboy, in the gilded beauty supporting a seventeenth-century mirror. I would never forget her; the hope of that wonderful life she had promised me had gone and I was certain now that the ugly duckling would never turn into a swan. Sometimes when I had looked into old mirrors—some of metal, others of mottled glass—I had seen her face, not my own rather sallow one with the heavy dark hair which was the same color as hers. My deep-set dark eyes were like hers too; but the resemblance ended there for my face was too thin, my nose a little too sharp. How was it that two people who were fundamentally alike could look so different? I lacked her sparkle, her gaiety, but when she was alive I could imagine myself growing like her. After she was dead I could not.
    â€œIt’s a long time since you’ve seen her,” soothed Ellen, seeking to offer comfort with the hot milk.
    â€œChildren forget, quick as lightning,” I heard her say to Mrs. Buckle.
    And I thought: Never. Never. I shall always remember.
    Everyone tried to be kind—even Aunt Charlotte. She offered me the greatest consolation she could think of.
    â€œI have to go along to see a piece. I’ll take you with me. It’s at Castle Crediton.”
    â€œAre they selling something?” I stammered.
    â€œWhy else should we go there?” demanded Aunt Charlotte.
    For the first time since my mother’s death I forgot her. I was sorry afterward and apologized to my reflection in the mirror where instead of my own face I made myself see hers, but I could not help the excitement which came to me at the prospect of visiting Castle Crediton. I remembered vividly the first time I had seen it and my mother’s comments and I wanted to know more about that important family.
    It was fortunate that I had learned to hide my emotions