Free Seven for a Secret by Victoria Holt

indeed no. So … every night, you must kneel by your bed in your nightgown, and pray that all the naughty things you have done during the day or even thought may be forgiven.”
    1 shivered. Tamarisk would have been able to laugh at
     
    all this. I would have caught her eye and she would have made one of her grimaces. She would say the man was ‘batty’ as batty as poor Flora Lane, but in a different way. He just went on about sins and Flora thought a doll was a baby, that was all.
    But I had a great desire to get out of this house and 1 hoped I would never come into it again. I did not under stand why this man frightened me so much but there was no doubt that he did.
    I said to Aunt Hilda: “Thank you so much for asking me. My aunt will be expecting me back and I think I should go now.”
    It sounded feeble. Aunt Sophie knew where I was and she would not be expecting me yet. But I had to get out of this house.
    Aunt Hilda, who had looked uncomfortable while her husband was talking, seemed almost relieved.
    “Well then, we mustn’t detain you, dear,” she said.
    “It was so nice of you to come. Rachel, will you take your guest to the gate?”
    Rachel rose with alacrity.
    “Goodbye,” I said, trying not to look at Mr. Dorian.
    It was a relief to escape. I wanted to run. I had a sudden fear that Mr. Dorian might follow me and go on talking about my sins, while he kept looking at me in that odd way.
    Rachel came to the gate with me.
    “I hope it was all right,” she said.
    “Oh yes … yes,” I lied.
    “It was a pity …” She did not continue but I knew what she meant.
    If Mr. Dorian had not come in it would have been an ordinary tea-party.
    I did say: “Does he always talk like that … about sin and everything?”
    “Well, he’s very good, you see. He goes to church three times on
    Sunday, though he does not like the Reverend Hetherington very much. He says he leans towards Popery.”
    “I think he believes everyone is full of sin.”
    “That is how good people are.”
    “I’d rather have someone not so good. It must be uncomfortable.” I paused. I was saying too much. After all, Rachel had to live in the house with him.
    At the gate I looked back at the house. I had the uncanny feeling that he might be watching me from one of the windows and I just wanted to run as fast as I could to put a great distance between that house and myself.
    “Goodbye, Rachel,” I said and started off.
    It was good to feel the wind on my face. I thought: He’d never be able to run as fast as I can. He’d never catch me if he tried.
    I did not take the straight path home. That man had made such an impression on me, I wanted to wash it completely out of my mind but I could not. The memory of him remained. His dry hands that rasped when he rubbed them together, his intent eyes with the light lashes that were hardly perceptible, the way in which he moistened his lips when he looked at me. They aroused alarm in me.
    How could Rachel live in the same house with such a man? But he was her uncle. She had to. I thought, as I had a hundred times before, how lucky I was to have come to Aunt Sophie.
    Running into the wind seemed to wash away the vague unpleasantness.
    This was a strange place . fascinating in a way. One had the impression that weird things could happen here. There was Flora Lane with her doll, and Mr. Dorian with . what was it? I could not say.
    It was just an odd feeling of dread I experienced when he came near me and made me feel a special longing for Aunt Sophie’s down-to-earth conversation and her protective love.
    Lucky me, to have come to Aunt Sophie, and poor, poor Rachel! I would be particularly kind to her in future to
     
    make up to her for having an uncle like Mr. Dorian.
    I had come round a long way and I could see the Lanes’ cottage, not as I had previously approached it, but from the back instead.
    1 made my way towards it. There was a wall round the garden. I could see over it, to the mulberry