Snare of Serpents Read Online Free PDF

grateful,” he wrote. “She cannot say enough in praise of you, Lilias, and your charge Davina. I am proud of you. The poor child, for she is little more, was in acute distress. She has been useful to Alice and Jane in the kitchen and about the house. Mrs. Ellington up at Lakemere House needs someone in the kitchen. You remember Mrs. Ellington, a very forceful lady but with a kind heart. I went to see her and told her the story, which of course I had to do. She promised to give Kitty a chance and I am sure the poor child will not slip up again. It seems that one of her maids is leaving in a few weeks to get married so there will be a vacant place. While she is waiting, Kitty can stay and help Alice and Jane. Lilias, I am so glad you did what you did. What would have happened to poor Kitty otherwise I cannot imagine …”
    I gazed at Lilias and I felt the tears in my eyes.
    “Oh, Lilias,” I said, “your father is a wonderful man.”
    “I agree with you,” she replied.
    But the response of the vicar of Lakemere set me thinking about my own father. I had always regarded him as an upright and honourable man. But to have dismissed Kitty as he had and inflict no punishment on Hamish, except perhaps a verbal reprimand, had made me change my image of him. He had always seemed so remote, but now he was less so. In the old days I had thought he was too noble to be considered as one of us; now my feelings towards him had begun to change. How could he have cared so little as to what would become of another human being and send Kitty out into a harsh world, while he kept her partner-in-crime because he was a good coachman? He was acting not out of righteousness but for his own comfort. The image of the good and noble man was fading.
    If my mother had been there I could have talked with her. But it would not have happened if she had been with us. She would never have allowed Kitty to be sent away having nowhere to go.
    I felt bewildered and apprehensive.
    My father sent for me one day and when I arrived in his study he looked at me quizzically. “You’re growing up,” he said. “Nearly seventeen, is it not?”
    I agreed that it was, terrified that this was a prelude to the departure of Lilias whose services would no longer be required so that she would be as cursorily dismissed as Kitty had been.
    However, it was not to be just then, for he turned to a casket which was on the table. I knew it well. It contained my mother’s jewellery. She had shown it to me on more than one occasion, taking out each piece and talking to me about it.
    There was the pearl necklace which her father had given her on her wedding day. There was the ruby ring which had been her mother’s. There were the bracelet set with turquoise, a turquoise necklace to match, two gold brooches and a silver one.
    “You shall have them all when you are grown up,” she had told me, “and you’ll be able to give them to your daughter. It’s rather pleasant to think of these trinkets going on through the generations, don’t you think?”
    I did.
    My father picked up the pearl necklace and held it in his hands. My mother had told me that there were sixty pearls in it and the clasp was a real diamond surrounded by seed pearls. I had seen her wear it on several occasions, as I had most of the jewellery in the box.
    My father said: “Your mother wished you to have these. I think you are too young for the jewellery as yet, but the necklace is different. You could have that now. They say that if pearls are not worn they lose their lustre.”
    I took it from him and my first thought was one of relief. He considered me too young to wear jewellery; therefore I would not yet be ready to dispense with Lilias. But I was pleased to have the pearl necklace.
    I put it round my neck and when I thought of my mother I was overwhelmed with sadness.
    When I joined Lilias, she noticed the necklace at once.
    “It’s beautiful,” she cried. “It really is.”
    “It was my