Jamintha by Jennifer Wilde

reasonable,” I remarked.
    â€œMaster Brence has other ideas. He hates the mill with a passion. He wants to go to London and lead the life of a fashionable rake—he would be good at that, I ’spect—but Mister Charles refuses to give him the money. They’re always arguing about it.”
    â€œHe’s a grown man. He shouldn’t expect his father to—”
    â€œOh, he doesn’t want Mister Charles’ money,” she interrupted. “He wants what’s rightfully his—at least he says it’s his. When his mother died, she left everything to Master Brence, quite a sum, I understand, but it’s all tied up in stocks and bonds and Mister Charles has control of ’em. Won’t let Master Brence lay a finger on ’em. ‘When you’ve proven yourself responsible enough to handle it, I’ll be glad to hand everything over to you,’ he says. He knows Master Brence would squander it immediately.”
    â€œI imagine he would,” I said.
    I understood the situation more fully now, and I had to side with my guardian. Brence Danver certainly wasn’t responsible enough to handle any large amount of money. His father was merely trying to protect him by withholding it. Brence seemed hellbent on a course of self-destruction, and his father was trying to restrain him as much as possible. Still, the inevitable “Why?” remained. Why was Brence so tormented? What drove him to such excesses? Was it because he had lost his mother at such an early age? Was it because his boyhood had been without love or a sense of security? He seemed to have everything, yet he was as a man possessed by demons.
    Something else puzzled me. I knew that Charles Danver must be an extremely wealthy man. He could have afforded to live in the finest house. Why, then, did he remain at Danver Hall? Although the rooms currently in use were in good enough condition, the place was totally unsuitable. It had been built for a vast, sprawling family, and it was much too large. The west wing was in ruins, never repaired, and so many of the rooms were closed up, abandoned to dust and decay. Danver Hall was a relic of times past, uncomfortable, drafty, impossible to heat or keep up properly. Why did Charles Danver hang on to it? It seemed illogical.
    It couldn’t be family pride. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have left the west wing in ruins. He wouldn’t have let the rest of the house sink into such a pitiful state of disrepair. No, Charles Danver took no pride in Danver Hall, yet he remained here when he could have built a much more suitable dwelling. There was a mystery here. The house seemed to hold some dark, forbidding secret, and I sensed that it was somehow connected with the tragic accident that had happened eleven years ago.
    Something was going to happen. The house itself seemed to be waiting, holding back. I felt it as I wandered through the rooms. The walls seemed to watch me, and there was a tension in the air. I could not shake the feeling that I had been brought here for some purpose, that I was to play an important part in some drama as yet unfolded. That feeling hovered over me, always there, even though day followed day and I was virtually ignored by the other members of the household.
    I thought about what had happened in the library. Something had drawn me there. The room had been waiting for me. I couldn’t explain why I had gone up the secret staircase and onto the gallery, but it had been important. I remembered vaguely the impressions: a child, a handful of stars, a battered set of Gibbon, a sense of danger, fear. Something had happened in that room long ago, and in my trance I had been trying to re-enact it. I shuddered, remembering the creaking, unsteady floorboards as the gallery seemed to pull away from the wall. If Brence hadn’t appeared … I refused to think about it. I would not go to the library again. There were plenty of books