Michael Cox Read Online Free PDF Page A

it required me to quit France.
‘It is your destiny, dear child,’ she would say, in a most solemn and conclusive manner, which instantly discouraged further enquiry, ‘as well as your duty.’ This was all the answer she would ever give me; and so, feeling the impossibility of defying Destiny, I at last submitted to the inevitable.
A week or so later, on a hazy August morning, Madame came to me as I was sitting reading in the salon. I saw immediately that she had something of the greatest importance to tell me.
‘Are you ready, dear child, to begin the Great Task?’ she asked, flushed with excitement.
She stretched both her hands out towards me. I took them, and we stood facing each other, our fingers locked tightly together.
‘I am ready,’ I replied, although I was sick with renewed apprehension, and still silently resentful at the position of unquestioning obedience to Madame’s will in which I had been placed.
‘Do not think that you will be alone,’ she said, gently stroking my hair. ‘I shall be here, whenever you need me – and Mr Thornhaugh too, of course – and you will always have a friend near by in England.’
‘A friend?’
‘Yes, and a good and trustworthy one, who will make sure that no harm comes to you, and who will watch over you in my place. But you will not know this person, unless – God forbid – circumstances make it imperative that you should do so.’
So the time for leaving the house in the Avenue d’Uhrich grew ever nearer. In the last days, Madame had impressed upon me again and again the need, if I secured the position, to gain Lady Tansor’s complete trust, whilst warning me that this might not be won quickly, or easily. She then told me that there had been only one intimate friend of her own sex in Lady Tansor’s life, but that, as far as she knew, this friendship had been ended many years ago.
‘You must not remain a mere servant for long,’ she went on, ‘but must become a substitute for that lost friend. The success of the Great Task depends on it.’
For the last time, I ventured to ask what the purpose of the Great Task was, knowing even as I did so what Madame’s response would be. For now (it was always, provokingly, ‘for now’), I must continue to put my faith in her, although she promised to send me three ‘Letters of Instruction’, the last of which would finally reveal the goal of the Great Task, and how it was to be achieved.

    FROM THAT MOMENT, I have come to feel that my life is not my own, and that it has never been truly mine. Yet until then, on the contrary, it seems to me that I passed a most contented and enviable childhood and girlhood, secure in my own protected world; often alone, but never lonely; and fully alive within myself, where I revelled constantly in bright imaginings – except when the nightmares came, and I would cry out in terror. But even these, while dreaded, did not disturb me so much when the next day broke fair, and I would wake to see the dear face of Madame, whom, if the terror had been severe, I would always find sleeping in the chair beside my bed, her hand closed protectively over mine.
Of my mother, I could recall nothing. Of my father, I sometimes fancied that I had a vague remembrance, as of a place once visited long ago, but of which one retains only the faintest sense, indistinct yet always bringing with it the same indelible impression. Curiously, this fragment of memory never tormented me. It was too insubstantial, and came too infrequently. Only on birthdays did I sometimes feel forlorn at my orphan state; but then I would scold myself for my ingratitude towards Madame, and look upon myself as a very selfish creature indeed. Orphans that I had read of in books were often poor suffering things, cruelly treated by wicked guardians or stepmothers. It was never so with me. Madame was kind and caring; the house in the Avenue d’Uhrich, although its high walls shut out the distant world, was large and comfortable. I