Dolly Read Online Free PDF

there a second before.
    From now on, he determined to watch her.
    ‘Have you thought?’
    But Leonora stared at him blankly across the table.
    ‘I wish the weather would improve,’ Aunt Kestrel said, slicing a tea-cake and buttering half for each of them. ‘You would find so many good things to do out of doors.’
    ‘What things?’
    Aunt Kestrel looked like someone caught out in a lie. That is how Leonora makes me feel, Edward realised, as if she can see through me to my soul and know what I am thinking and if I am telling the truth, or trying to bluff my way out of something.
    She had not yet been here for a whole day and already the mood of the house had been changed entirely.
    ‘My mother is said to be the most beautiful woman who has ever lived,’ Leonora said now. ‘Did you know that?’
    ‘How ridiculous,’ Aunt Kestrel said, spluttering out some little droplets of tea. ‘Of course she is not. Violet was a pretty little girl and grew up to be a pretty woman, though she was helped by clothes and having people to bring out the best in her.’
    ‘What people?’
    ‘Oh, hairdressers and … you know, those people.. But as to being the most beautiful woman who ever lived … besides, who could know?’
    ‘It was written in a magazine of fashion.’ Leonora’s face had changed as a blush of annoyance rose through the paleness and her eyes darkened. ‘It was written under her photograph so it would have to be true. Of course it is true. She is very, very beautiful. She is.’ Edward watched in horror as Leonora stood up and picked up a small silver cake fork. ‘She is, she is, she is.’ As she said it, she stabbed the fork down into the cloth and through to the table, one hard stab for each word. Aunt Kestrel’s mouth was half open, her arm slightly outstretched as if she meant to stop the dreadful stabbing, but was unable to make any movement.
    ‘And no one is allowed to say it is not true.’
    She dropped the fork on the floor and it spun away from her, and then she was gone, the skirt of her blue cotton frock seeming to flick out behind her and then disappear as she disappeared. The door closed slowly of its own accord. Edward sat, wishing that he was able to disappear too but forced to wait for Aunt Kestrel’s anger to break over him and take whatever punishment there might be, for them both.
    There was none. His aunt sat silent for a moment then said, ‘I wonder if you can find out what is wrong, Edward?’
    He sped to the door. ‘She is like her mother,’ shesaid as he went, but he thought that she was speaking to herself, not to him.
    ‘She is too like her mother.’

7
    He did not see Leonora and the door of her room was shut. He hesitated, listening. The wind had dropped. There was no sound from her and he opened his mouth to say her name, then did not, afraid that her anger was still raging and that she might turn it on him. He thought of the cake fork stabbing into the table.
    The house no longer felt strange to him but he did not like it greatly and he was disappointed that his cousin seemed unlikely to become a friend. She was strange, if Iyot House and their Aunt Kestrel were not. She belonged with Mrs Mullen, he thought, turning on his left side. The last of the light was purple and pale blue in a long thread across the sky,seen through the window opposite his bed. It had not been like this before. Perhaps there would be sun tomorrow and they could explore the world outside. Perhaps things would improve, as in Edward’s experience they often did. His school had improved, his eczema had improved, his dog had improved with age after being disobedient and running away all through puppy-hood.
    He went to sleep optimistically.
    There was moonlight and so he could see her when he woke very suddenly.
    Leonora was standing in the doorway, her nightgown as white as her skin, her red hair standing out from her head. She was absolutely still, her eyes oddly blank and for several moments Edward