An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition Read Online Free PDF Page B

had half a mind to ask Elizabeth where this woman who was reported to be a witch lived, and then, as he thought of it, she turned from contemplation of the wild duck’s nest to look straight into his face.
    She was much smaller than he was so that she must look up to him, and yet as her eyes met his he had the impression that she was taller and stronger than he had imagined her to be. It was not a mischievous or teasing child who looked at him, but a woman who, in her glance, held some eternal wisdom at which he could only guess.
    “You will succeed,” she said quietly. “Why are you so troubled?”
    “I am not – ” he began blusteringly, and then his voice died away beneath the honesty of her eyes.
    “You will succeed,” she said again. “I am sure of it. I have seen many men come here to talk to my father and somehow I have always known those who would return successful or empty-handed. Last year someone came who, I was sure, would not come again. I was right!
    “But how do you know this?” Rodney asked.
    “I cannot answer that question,” Lizbeth replied, “but I have always known things about people since I was a little child. I used to be whipped for telling lies until I learned to keep my mouth shut and say nothing. I only know that what I see about people comes true.”
    “And you are sure I shall be successful?” Rodney asked earnestly.
    “With your ship, yes,” Lizbeth answered, “but perhaps not in other ways”
    “What do you mean by that?” he asked quickly, impressed despite himself.
    But Lizbeth had turned away and was walking back to where she had left her horse cropping the grass. She walked quickly so that he had to hasten to catch her up. As he reached her, he put out his hand and taking her by the shoulder, swung her round to face him, and then, as be looked at her, the words died on his lips.
    She was only a child. He was making himself ridiculous in taking her seriously. Her hat had fallen from her head and hung down her back, secured round her neck by a brown ribbon which should have been tied demurely under her chin. Her hair was curling rebelliously round her forehead and it had escaped the nape of her neck from the pins which secured it.
    She was only a child – an untidy child who should be at home studying her lessons rather than roaming unattended through the woods at this early hour of the morning. Rodney released her shoulder and put his hand under her chin, tipping her face up to his.
    “You almost deceived me into taking your predictions seriously,” he said. “Come, it is time we went back to the house.”
    Her chin was smooth and soft beneath his fingers. For one moment she looked at him and then her lashes veiled her green eyes and she twisted from his hold.
    “Breakfast and Phillida will be waiting,” she said.
    “Yes, of course, and I am hungry,” Rodney replied with a false heartiness.
    Lizbeth turned to her horse and then, as she took the bridle reins between her fingers, Rodney set his hands on either side of her small waist and swung her up into the saddle.
    “You are light enough,” he said, looking up at her. “How old are you, Lizbeth?”
    “I shall be eighteen next Christmas,” she replied, and he looked surprised, for he thought she was younger.
    She wheeled her horse round and before Rodney had time to say more she galloped away across the park in what he knew to be the direction of the stables.
    Slowly he walked back the way he had come. So Lizbeth was nearly eighteen, he thought, and her brother Francis was a year or two older. He remembered Sir Harry telling him that last night, which meant that Phillida was twenty-one or twenty-two. He did not know why, but the idea annoyed him. She was old for an unmarried girl and he wondered why, with her exquisite beauty, she had not been married before.
    It was one of those questions to which he realised he would not get an answer because there was no one to whom he could put it, and yet it troubled him