Free Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt Page A

was steeling herself to go in.
    She at length threw open the door and stood aside for me to enter, and I could not help feeling that she wanted me to go in first.
    It was a small room which I judged to be a dressing room. In it was a long mirror, a tallboy, a chest of drawers and an oak chest. Like most
    of the rooms in the house this room had j two doors. These rooms in the gallery appeared to lead from one to another, and this other door was slightly opened and, as Alvean went to it and looked round the room beyond, I followed her.
    It was a bedroom in there. A large room beautifully furnished, the floor carpeted in blue, the curtains of blue velvet;
    the bed was a fourposter and, although I knew it to be large, it was dwarfed by the size of the room.
    Alvean seemed distressed to see my interest in the bedroom. She went to the communicating door and shut it.
    ” There are lots of clothes here,” she said. ” In the chests and the tallboy. There’s bound to be riding clothes. There’ll be something you can have.”
    She had thrown up the lid of the chest and it was something new for me to see her so excited. I was delighted to have discovered a way to her affections that I allowed myself to be carried along.
    In the chest were dresses, petticoats, hats and boots.
    Alvean said quickly: ” There are a lot of clothes in the attics. Great trunks of them. They were grand mamma and great grand mamma When there were parties they used to dress up in them and play charades ” I held up a lady’s black beaver hat obviously meant to be worn for riding. I put it on my head and Alvean laughed with a little catch in her voice. That laughter moved me more than anything had done since I had entered this house. It was the laughter of a child who is unaccustomed to laughter and laughs in a manner which is almost guilty. I determined to have her laughing often and without the slightest feeling of guilt.
    She suddenly controlled herself as though she remembered where she was.
    ” You look so funny in it. Miss,” she said.
    I got up and stood before the long mirror. I certainly looked unlike myself. My eyes were brilliant, my hair looked quite copper against the black. I decided that I looked slightly less unattractive than usual, and that was what Alvean meant by ” funny.”
    ” Not in the least like a governess,” she explained. She was pulling out a dress, and I saw that it was a riding habit made of black woollen cloth and trimmed with braid and ball fringe. It had a blue collar and blue cuffs and it was elegantly cut.
    I held it up against myself. ” I think,” I said, ” that this would fit.”
    ” Try it on,” said Alvean. Then . ” No, not here. You take it to your room and put it on.” She suddenly seemed obsessed by the desire to get out of this room. She picked up the hat and ran to the door. I thought that she was eager for us to get started on our lesson, and there was not a great deal of time if we were to be back for tea at four.
    I picked up the dress, took the hat from her and went back to my room.
    She hurried through to hers, and I immediately put on the riding habit.
    It was not a perfect fit, but I had never been used to expensive clothes and was prepared to forget it was a little tight at the waist, and that the sleeves were on the short side, for a new woman looked back at me from my mirror, and when I set the beaver hat on my head I was delighted with myself.
    I ran along to Alvean’s room; she was in her habit, and when she saw me her eyes lit up and she seemed to look at me with greater interest than ever before.
    We went down to the stables and I told Billy Trehay to saddle Buttercup for Alvean and another horse for myself as we were going to have a riding lesson.
    He looked at me with some astonishment, but I told him that we had little time and were impatient to begin.
    When we were ready I put Buttercup on a leading rein and took her with Alvean on her back into the paddock.
    For nearly an hour