Leonora Read Online Free PDF

question?’
    â€˜Yes, go ahead.’
    â€˜Do you believe in God?’
    Taken by surprise, Harold Carrington looks his daughter in the eye: ‘I have never seen Him.’
    Her father is an intelligent man, no doubt about it. So why on earth had he sent her to those convent schools? Why is he so hard on her? ‘A proper preparation for marriage is a woman’s salvation,’ she overheard him say one evening.
    Her mother stands by her and encourages her. She presents her with a box full of oil paints and brushes.
    Leonora believes in apparitions, not like the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes, but those beings who suddenly appear from around a corner to either assault or take you by the hand. From the age of two onwards, from the time she woke up she talked about the visions she’d had in her sleep. Without thinking further back than yesterday, she had spied a figure walking slowly along the roof of Hazelwood, and who continued walking beyond the edge of the roof. He must surely have killed himself when he fell. Leonora hurried out to search for him, but couldn’t find anyone there.
    â€˜It’s a ghost,’ Nanny confirmed to her. ‘You are possessed of the gift of second sight, but this is something best not discussed, least of all with your father.’
    Leonora is different, and nobody understands her, with the exception of her accomplices, Nanny and Gerard.
    â€˜It is high time you left off playing with Tartar, you’re too old still to be playing with him, he’s a child’s toy,’ the head of the family cautions her.
    Leonora bawls her protest.
    â€˜It’s for your own good, I’ve already told you that. Furthermore, that rocking horse is so old it’s only good for burning in the fireplace. You’ve got all the use you can out of him.’
    â€˜No, Papa, no! Not that! Not Tartar! Do anything else you want, only not Tartar!’
    â€˜Tartar is for little children. I shall burn him myself until there’s nothing at all left of him. You need to grow up, you are far too old for a toy like him.’
    â€˜He’s not a toy. Tartar is me. ’
    Leonora howls. Her teeth chatter. Harold Carrington covers his ears and orders the rocking horse to be burnt.
    â€˜Bring her a cup of tea,’ Carrington orders, and departs with his head held low. Where on earth did this girl come from? However could he get her to understand? How does one raise a wild mare? How is it possible for a wooden horse to so disturb a young girl in this manner?
    â€˜Shame on you, Leonora.’ The girl whinnies, paws the ground, kicks out and froths at the mouth.
    At midnight, thin and ridden with shivers, she is racing to look for Gerard.
    â€˜I heard some terrible neighing, I’m sure it was Tartar, they are dismembering him!’
    â€˜Yes, I saw how Father sneaked upstairs carrying your rocking horse in his arms. He is clearly set on inflicting the vilest tortures.’
    â€˜Do something, Gerard!’
    â€˜The deed is already done! The head of Tartar has already fallen!’
    â€˜I shall neither eat nor drink again.’
    Gerard consoles her. ‘What goes on in your head, Prim, seems like waves of electricity suddenly being short-circuited.’
    The school for aristocrats in Florence’s Piazza Donatello is a manual of good behaviour and savoir faire . The teachers, headed up by Miss Penrose, instruct their charges in how to behave in society; how to be an efficient lady of the house, seating her guests according to rank at the dinner table; how to introduce and maintain an informed and intelligent conversation with the person on one’s right, and then on one’s left; how to suppress a sob or a giggle; how to behave exactly like everyone else; how to treat poor relations with compassion, assuming they fall into poverty through their inability to manage their lives better; how to train dogs and clean up their mess, and how to avoid stepping on