Free Victoria Holt by The Time of the Hunter's Moon Page A

that was one of the reasons why I was reaching out for adventure. I wanted to take a challenge, to start in new territory.
    I certainly should when I went to the Colby Abbey Academy.
    When Aunt Patty had shown me the new house at Moldenbury I had expressed a greater enthusiasm than I had really felt just to please her. We had explored the rather large garden and decided where Aunt Patty should have her summerhouse and Violet her bees, which should be my room and how it should be furnished.
    On the way home we had to wait at the London terminal for catching the train to Canterton and while I was there I saw a notice which mentioned trains to Bury St. Edmunds.
    I think the idea started to grow in my mind then.
    ***
    I knew I was going to do it, although I was not quite sure how I should act when I got there.
    Perhaps I shouldn’t seek him out. Perhaps I just wanted to assure myself that he had really existed and that I had not been dreaming and imagined the whole adventure.
    The farther I grew from the affair the more mystic it seemed. He was unlike anyone I had ever known before. He was very good-looking, with those sculptured features—rather like Daisy Hetherington’s, but there was no doubt in my mind that she was a real person! Seeing him in the forest with my three friends had been real enough, but had I begun to imagine certain things about him? It was probably due to Elsa’s talk about the mysticism of the forest legends that sometimes in my thoughts made him seem part of them. Could I have imagined that I saw him in the train, on the boat and here in Canterton? Had I imagined the whole thing? No. It was ridiculous. I was no dreamer. I was a very practical young woman. It was a little alarming to think that one could imagine certain happenings so that one was not completely convinced that they had actually happened.
    I wanted to shake myself. That was why when I saw that notice about Bury St. Edmunds I had the idea of going on a voyage of discovery. I had mentioned Bury St. Edmunds—as the only town I knew in Suffolk—and he had said yes…his home was near there.
    Croston. That was the name he had mentioned. The little town near Bury St. Edmunds. Suppose I went there and found Compton Manor. I should not call of course. I could hardly do that. But I should convince myself that he was a rather ill-mannered young man and I was a sensible young woman who did not go off into flights of fancy and then wonder whether they were real or not.
    Then the opportunity presented itself.
    It was mid-term. The negotiations for the house were completed. Aunt Patty would leave Grantley at the beginning of April. I should then be on my way to Colby Abbey school.
    A great deal of activity was in progress. Aunt Patty enjoyed this. There was so much furniture and effects to be disposed of and she was having certain alterations made to the new house so that there was continual coming and going. Violet was harassed and said she didn’t know whether she was on her head or her heels, but Aunt Patty flourished.
    She had to go to Moldenbury to see the architect and decided that while she was in London, where it was necessary to change trains, she would stay a few days and make some purchases and see about the sale of the school equipment which remained at Grantley; then she would go on to Moldenbury. It was decided that I should accompany her.
    When we were in London I said I should like to stay a little longer as I had some shopping to do for myself and it was arranged that I should stay at Smith’s, the small and comfortable family hotel which Aunt Patty always used when she came to London and where they knew her well, while she went on to Moldenbury. When she came back to London we could return to Grantley together.
    Thus I found myself alone and I knew that if ever I was going to make that tour of investigation I must do so now.
    I left early in the morning and as the train carried me to Bury St. Edmunds I asked myself whether I was