Kirkland Revels Read Online Free PDF Page B

There is a strong resemblance, I believe.”

    ” He sounds like the sort of person who is determined to get the most out of life. I mean, he would act without first weighing up the consequences. Tell me, are you like that?”

    ” Perhaps I am.”

    He smiled. ” I believe you are,” he said; and there came into his eyes what I can only describe as a far-away look, by which I mean that he was seeing me, not as we were together at that moment, ‘but in some other place, in some other situation.

    I thought he was about to speak, but he remained silent and I did not press him, for I was already beginning to feel that too much probing, too many questions, disturbed him. I must wait, I knew intuitively, for him to tell me without prompting.

    But I had discovered that there was something unusual about Gabriel, and that should have warned me not to allow myself to become too deeply involved. I had been so lonely;

    I found the atmosphere of my home so depressing; I longed for a friend of my own age; and the strangeness of Gabriel enthralled me.

    So I refused to see any danger signals and we continued to meet.

    We liked to ride on to the moors, tether our horses and stretch ourselves out in the shelter of a boulder, looking up an the sky, our arms behind our heads, talking in a dreamy, desultory way.

    Fanny would have considered this the height of impropriety, but I was determined to adhere to no conventions ; I knew this attitude delighted Gabriel and I learned later why it did so.

    Each day I would ride out and meet him at some agreed spot because I could not bear the sly glances Fanny gave him when he called at the house. In our small and sheltered community it was not possible to meet a young man daily without causing a certain amount of speculation.
    I often wondered, during the early period of our acquaintance, whether Gabriel was aware of this; I also wondered whether he felt as embarrassed about it as I did.

    I had not heard from Dilys for some weeks, so I supposed she was too immersed in her own affairs to have time to write. I did feel, however, that now I could write to her because I had something to tell her. I explained about our finding the dog, and how fond I had become of him; but what I really wanted to talk about was Gabriel. My affection for Friday was uncomplicated, but I could not quite understand my feelings for Gabriel.

    He interested me, and I looked forward to our meetings with something more than the pleasure of a lonely girl who has at last found a friend;
    I realised that this was because I was constantly expecting some revelation which would startle me. There was certainly an air of mystery about Gabriel and I believed that again and again he was on the verge of con ding some secret which he longed to share with me and could not quite bring himself to do so. I had a conviction that he, like my father, was in need of comfort ; and while my father repulsed me, Gabriel, when the time came, would welcome my desire to share whatever it was that was troubling him.

    It was impossible, of course, to confide all this to the lighthearted Dilys, particularly when I was not at all sure of it myself. So I wrote a chatty, superficial letter, and felt pleased become something had happened to me which was worthy to be written about.

    It was three weeks after we met when Gabriel seemed to come to a decision; and the day he began to talk to me about his home marked a change in our relationship.

    We were lying stretched out on the moor and he pulled up handfuls of grass as he talked to me. 26 .

    ” I am sure I should find it attractive. It’s very old, is it not? Old houses have always been absorbingly interesting to me.”

    He nodded, and again there was that far-away look in his eyes.

    ” Revels,” I murmured. ” It’s such a lovely name. It sounds as though the people who named it were determined to have a great deal of fun there.”

    He laughed mirthlessly, and there was a brief silence before