Leonora Read Online Free PDF Page A

her.
    â€˜It’s just that I am different.’
    The teacher complains: ‘She forgets everything and is distracted by anything, as much at play as at work. She’ll suddenly absent herself and nothing whatever can bring her back to earth.’
    â€˜It’s her Irish blood. Ireland is home to idiots and lunatics,’ replies the Mother Superior.
    Patricia Paterson, Leonora’s cousin and fellow pupil at St. Mary’s, prefers her to her other friends.
    â€˜I am opposed to all forms of discipline,’ she tells Leonora. ‘And if you don’t want to get boxed in, things would go better for you if you did like me: just obey.’ When Leonora listens to music, her face looks at peace, the sounds of the chapel organ envelop her and she forgets all else. She plays the piano well and the nuns attempt to encourage her musical abilities, and to persuade her to join the choir.
    Leonora responds by obtaining a saw from which she extracts a painful noise. ‘It’s my violin,’ she explains to the choir mistress, who refuses to let her give the concert she longs to. ‘I feel a part of this music. Or else just give me some paints and brushes and leave me alone.’ Her black eyes flash daggers in self-defence.
    â€˜You are possessed,’ declares her teacher.
    Leonora disobeys every order and continues to write backwards with her left hand.
    She carries on smoking deep inside the fake grotto to Our Lady of Lourdes, until she stands accused by one of the novices.
    â€˜So you indulge in this particular vice,’ says the Mother Superior, corroborating the evidence.
    â€˜Yes, since I was young.’
    â€˜Does your family know about it?’
    â€˜Nanny does. She told me that if I went on like this, it’d be impossible for a chimney sweep to get down my throat without turning black.’
    â€˜Where do you obtain the cigarettes?’
    â€˜My father has a cigarette box full of them.’
    Before the school year was out, she was expelled once more. Patricia Paterson accompanied her to the grille in the front door. ‘It was playing the saw that finally did it.’
    Leonora is ten years old when the Carringtons, together with Nanny, decamp lock, stock and barrel to Hazelwood, a less opulent house than Crookhey Hall, and within reach of the salty sea breeze. It has fewer dark corridors and poky passages than Crookhey, making it impossible to play ghosts with Gerard, but the scent of the sea makes up for everything. Crookhey Hall’s drawing room was impressive and a spinning wheel in one corner attracted unfailing attention. There was a quantity of mirrors and lances, but what attracted most attention were the suits of armour once again standing guard in the new living room at Hazelwood. There was even one occasion when Leonora and Gerard clambered onto the roof at Crookhey and viewed the whole of Great Britain. In Hazelwood, all they can do is ponder on the meaning of three dark, grand arches leading nowhere.

4

    MISS PENROSE
    T HIS TIME THE BISHOP OF LANCASTER declined to assist: ‘Not only did she take up smoking,’ Maurie explains to Harold, ‘your daughter accused the Reverend Mother of having a wart sprouting two white hairs on her chin.’
    â€˜Doesn’t she?’ enquired Harold Carrington.
    â€˜Yes, but it is more polite to exercise discretion.’
    â€˜What are we going to do with you?’ Maurie regards her daughter with apprehension. ‘Your father is so livid he had one of his turns at the Club.’
    â€˜All I want to do is paint.’
    â€˜You are not in a position to decide your future life at the age of fifteen.’ Harold Carrington is becoming annoyed. ‘Before your presentation at Court, we are going to send you to Florence so that Miss Penrose can teach you some proper manners.’
    That evening, Leonora goes into her father’s library.
    â€˜Papa, will you please allow me to ask you a