The Pride of the Peacock by Victoria Holt

he said to Mama, “I thought that as we are neighbours we ought to be neighbourly and as I’m having a little bit of a gathering next week, it struck me you might like to join us.” Mama could freeze people with a look-it was a habit she employed with the servants and it worked as well in the Dower House as it had at Oakland. None of the servants was ever allowed to forget that we were Claverings, however depleted our worldly goods.
    ‘ “A gathering, Mr. Henniker?” she said as though he were suggesting a Roman orgy.
    “I’m afraid that is quite out of the question. My daughters have not yet come out and we shall most certainly be engaged on the date you mention.”
    “I said: ” I could go. Mama. ” Mama’s look froze the words on my lips.
    ‘ “You are not free to go, Jessica,” she said coldly.
    “Mr. Ben Henniker’s face was quite purple with rage. He said: ” I understand, M’am, you are engaged next week and will be any week if I were to have the impertinence to invite you. Have no fear. You are safe . you and your family. You’ll never be asked to Oakland Hall while I’m there. ” Then he walked out.
    “I was so angry with Mama for her rudeness because after all he had tried to be friendly and it seemed absurd to me to resent him merely because he had bought Oakland. We had put it up for sale. We had sought a buyer. I slipped out and ran after him, but he was half way up the Oakland drive before I caught up with him.
    “I wanted to say how sorry I am,” I panted.
    “I’m so ashamed that my mother spoke to you like that. I do hope you won’t think badly of us all.”
    “He had such fierce blue eyes which were then blazing with fury, but as he looked at me, slowly -he began to smile.
    “Well,
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    fancy that,” he said.
    “And you’re little Miss Clavering, I reckon.”
    ‘ “I’m Jessica,” I told him.
    ‘ “You don’t take after your mother,” he said.
    “And that’s the nicest compliment I can pay you.”
    ‘ “She has some good points,” I defended her, “but they are a little hard to recognize.”
    “He started to laugh, and there was that about his laughter which made it impossible not to join in. Then he said: ” I like you for running after me like this. You’re a good girl, Miss Jessica, you are indeed.
    You must come and see me in your old home. What about that? ” He almost choked with laughter.
    “After all, she was only speaking for herself.
    You come and meet some of my friends. They’re good people, some of them. It’ll be an eye-opener for you. Miss Jessica. I reckon you’ve lived in a cage all your life. How old are you? ” I told him I was seventeen.
    “It’s a beautiful age,” he said.
    “It’s an age when you ought to be setting out on your adventures. I reckon that’s what you want, eh? You come over and see me sometime .. that’s if you think it’s right and proper. Don’t you find life pretty dull, living as you must have done?”
    I told him that I hadn’t found it dull. There was a lot to interest me in the country. I liked to visit people and we had done a good deal of that at Oakland. As the squire’s family we had had to see to the welfare of our tenants; our days had been divided into sections:
    lessons in the mornings, working on village affairs, sewing, talking, making some of our clotjhes, planning the dances we would have when we came out. Alas, we hadn’t come out into society-only out of Oakland and our old life. But I had never found it dull, and it was only when Mr. Henniker opened a new vista for | me that I discovered how wonderful the old life had been. | “What an escape those visits to Oakland Hall were …” | I paused in my reading and stared at the grave before me, | and I was beset by an uncanny notion that my life was ^ repeating an old pattern. What had happened to Jessica was happening to me. I wanted to read on quickly, and yet I had to savour these events as I went. I felt it was important