Dolly Read Online Free PDF Page B

thought that she was an apparition. Or a ghost. What was the difference?
    ‘Hello?’
    She didn’t reply.
    ‘Are you quite all right?’
    She did not move. He saw that her feet were bare. Long pale feet. He did not know what to do.
    And then she came further into the room, silently on the long pale feet, her hair glowing against the whiteness of her skin and long nightgown.
    ‘Leonora?’
    She had walked to the window and was looking out, washed by the moonlight.
    Edward got up and went to stand beside her. At first he did not touch her, hardly dared to look directly at her. He had the odd sense that if he did touch her she would feel cold.
    ‘Are you still asleep?’
    She turned her head and stared at him out of the blank unseeing eyes.
    ‘You should go back to your own room now. You could hurt yourself.’
    Stories of people walking out of windows and far from home across fields and into woods while they were deeply asleep came into his mind.
    You should not try to wake a sleepwalker, the shock could kill them. You should not touch a sleepwalker, or they may stay that way and never wake again.
    He began to panic when Leonora sat on the ledge and started to undo the window latch, and then he did reach out and touch her shoulder. She stopped but did not look at him.
    ‘Come on. We’re going back now.’
    He nudged her gently and she got up and let him guide her out of his room and back to her own. Hesteered her to the bed, pulled back the covers and she climbed in obediently, and turned on her side. Her eyes closed. Edward spread the covers over her with care and watched her until he was sure she was fully asleep, then crept out.

8
    ‘Oh do hurry up, hurry up …’
    Aunt Kestrel came into the hall. ‘If you are going out you need stout shoes. The grass is very wet.’
    Leonora ignored her, hand on the front door.
    Edward looked at his feet. Were the shoes ‘stout’?
    ‘Well, perhaps you’ll be all right. Don’t go too far.’
    ‘Hurry up,’ Leonora said again. The inner door opened and she went to the heavy outer one, which had a large iron key and a bolt and chain.
    ‘Anyone would suppose ravening beasts and highwaymen would be wanting to burst in,’ she said, laughing a small laugh.
    Mrs Mullen was in the dark recesses of the hall watching, lips pinched together.
    Aunt Kestrel sighed as she closed both doors. She was confused by the children, and bewildered. Leonora was like Violet, which boded ill though perhaps not in quite the same way, who knew? Edward was simply opaque. Had they taken to one another? Were they settling?
    She went into her sitting room with the morning paper.
    Mrs Mullen did not ask the same questions because she had made up her mind from seeing both children, Edward, the little namby-pamby, too sweet-tongued to trust, and Leonora. She had looked into Leonora’s eyes when she had first arrived, and seen the devil there and her judgment was made and snapped shut on the instant.
    ‘Where are you going?’ Edward watched his cousin going to the double gates. ‘The garden is on this side.’
    Leonora gave her usual short laugh. ‘Who wants to go in a garden?’
    She lifted the latch of a small gate within the gate and stepped through. He went after her because he thought he should look after her and persuade her to come back, but by the time he had clambered overthe bottom strut she was walking fast down the road and a minute later, had crossed it and started up the path that led to the open fens.
    ‘Leonora, we’d better not …’
    She tossed her red hair and went on.
    When he caught her up she was standing on the bank looking down into the river. It was inky and slick and ran quite slowly.
    ‘Be careful.’
    ‘Can you swim?’
    ‘No, can you?’
    ‘I wonder what you can do. Of course I can swim, one of my stepfathers taught me in … I think it was Italy.’
    ‘How many have you had? Stepfathers?’
    She did not answer, but moved away and followed a rivulet that led away