Midsummer's Eve Read Online Free PDF Page A

the real atmosphere.”
    I said: “It reminds me of the Inquisitors who tortured those they called heretics. Miss Caster and I have been ‘doing’ the Spanish Inquisition. It’s really frightening.”
    “I think that is the object. These are not quite so bad as those with pointed tops with slits for eyes. They are really quite spine-chilling. I shall show you some pictures of them.”
    “May I try it on?”
    “It’s far too big for you. It is made for a tall man.”
    “Nevertheless I want to.”
    I put it on. It trailed to the floor. Rolf laughed at me.
    “Do you know what you’ve done?” he said. “You’ve robbed it of its sinister quality. Annora, you’ll have to grow up.” He looked at me with a tender exasperation. “You’re taking such a long time to do it.”
    “I’m taking just the same time as everyone else.”
    He put his hands on my shoulders. “It seems a long time,” he said.
    He took the robe from me and put it back in the drawer.
    “Tell me about Stonehenge,” I said.
    I sat at the table with him and he brought books from the shelves to show me. He talked glowingly about the gigantic stones in the midst of the barrows of the Bronze Age. I found it fascinating and it was wonderful to sit beside Rolf at the table while he talked.
    That was a very happy afternoon.
    There was a great deal of talk about the tragedies. The servants discussed them constantly. When I met Digory in the woods he seemed extremely proud.
    “Did your granny kill Jemima and Mrs. Cherry’s baby?” I asked him.
    He just pursed his lips and looked secretive.
    “She can do anything,” he boasted.
    “My father says people shouldn’t say such things.”
    He just swung himself up onto a tree and sat there laughing at me. He put his two forefingers to the side of his head, pretending he had horns.
    I could not stop thinking of poor Mrs. Cherry and the mare which had to be shot. I ran home as quickly as I could.
    Talk went on about Mother Ginny and then it ceased to be the main topic of conversation and I forgot about it.
    One morning when I went down to breakfast I knew something had happened. My parents were in deep conversation.
    “I must go at once,” my mother was saying. “You do see that, Jake.”
    “Yes, yes,” said my father.
    “Even now I may not be in time. I know it’s hard for you to get away just now.”
    “You don’t think I’d let you go alone.”
    “I didn’t think so. But I ought to leave today.”
    “Why not?”
    “Oh Jake … thank you.”
    I cried: “What’s happening? What are you talking about?”
    “It’s your Grandfather Dickon,” my mother explained. “He’s very ill. They think …”
    “You mean … he’s dying …”
    My mother turned away. I knew she had been especially fond of her father, as I was of mine.
    My father took my arm. “He’s very old, you know,” he said. “It had to come. The miracle is that he has lived so long. Your mother and I will be leaving today.”
    “I’ll come with you.”
    “No. You and Jacco will stay behind. We have to get there without delay.”
    “Well, we won’t delay you.”
    “No,” he said firmly. “Your mother and I are going alone. We shall be back before you’ve had time to realize we have gone.”
    I tried to persuade them to take me with them, but they were quite firm. They were going alone and later that day they left.
    A few days after they had gone, the rain started—just a gentle shower at first and then it went on and on.
    “Seems like there’s no stopping it,” said Mrs. Penlock. “It be like a curse on us, that it do. My kitchen garden be that sodden everything in it will be well nigh drowned.”
    There were floods in the fields; the rain found the weak spots in cottage roofs. Every day there was some fresh tale of woe.
    Then the rumours started.
    “You know who be doing this, don’t ’ee, my dear.” A whispered word. A look. “It be her no less.”
    Jenny Bordon’s warts which had been cured by