Read The Black Opal for Free Online Page A

there it was . just as it had been . and no one would know that there had been any trouble with the link.
    Lucian was going to pay for it, but Mr. Higgs said: “Oh, that’s nothing, Mr. Lucian. Just a matter of fixing it. Glad to oblige.”
    Lucian fastened the pendant round my neck.
    “There,” he said.
    “Safe as houses.”
    And I loved him from that moment.
    Nanny Gilroy did not like what she heard from Estella about my being at the party.
    “Pushing,” she commented.
    “Didn’t I always say?”
    Estella said: “Lucian brought her in. He saw her in the shrubbery when she lost her pendant.”
    “Pendant! What’s a child of her age doing with a pendant?”
    “Uncle Toby gave it to her.”
    She smiled in that way she did when Uncle Toby’s name was mentioned, and clicked her tongue. But clearly she thought it was not quite so bad if he had been responsible for it.
     
    The next time Estella and Henry were invited to tea, I was too. I began to grow accustomed to going there. 1 liked Camilla. She never showed in any way that she thought I was not the equal of the others.
    As for Lucian, I felt there was a special friendship between us because of the pendant.
    So the friendship between Commonwood and the Grange was growing. The shared tutor had been the beginning and then there was Mrs. Marline’s determination to return to the sort of society she had enjoyed before she married beneath her; and she did everything she could to win the approval of Lady Crompton by devoting herself to charitable works particularly those in which her Ladyship was involved. Consequently she was a frequent visitor to the Grange.
    Henry could be a friend of Lucian and Estella of Camilla. How fortunate that the sexes fitted so well in the families! I was not excluded. In fact, Lucian always had a special smile for me. At least, I imagined it was special. He would glance at the pendant which I always wore outside my dress when I was out of Nanny Gilroy’s range, and I knew he was recalling our first encounter with some amusement.
    Life was very pleasant.
    Mrs. Marline had always been a keen horsewoman and we all had riding lessons. Estella and Henry had their ponies and Uncle Toby had provided me with one so that I could join them. What a wonderful uncle he was to me! And I attributed the change in my fortunes to him.
    1 had begun to realize how important Mrs. Marline was in the household.
    Even Nanny Gilroy was subdued in her presence. Everyone was in considerable awe of her even the doctor. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, especially the doctor.
    1 heard Nanny Gilroy talking about her to Mrs. Barton, the cook.
     
    “She’s a holy terror,” she said.
    “She goes on and on and never lets the doctor forget whose money pays most of the bills. She’s the boss all right.”
    “He’s good, the doctor,” said Mrs. Barton.
    “His patients think the world of him. Mrs. Gardiner said she was in agony with her leg until she went to him. He’s really a nice gentleman in his way.”
    “Mild as milk, if you ask me. Can’t seem to stand up for himself.
    Well, she’s got the money . and money talks. “
    “Money talks all right,” replied Mrs. Barton.
    “Poor doctor. I reckon he don’t have much of a life.”
    Mrs. Marline took little notice of me. She seemed as though she did not want to know I was there. I did not mind that. Indeed, I was rather glad of it. I had Uncle Toby and now Lucian, Camilla and Sally: and Estella and Henry were not bad and Adeline had always liked me.
    At the end of the summer, the gipsy encampment was no longer in the woods.
    “There one day and gone the next,” said Nanny.
    “Well, good riddance to bad rubbish.”
    I wanted to defend them and remind her of how Rosie Perrin had dressed my leg and Jake had carried me home. But of course I said nothing.
    Then there was talk of Henry’s going to school.
    “That Lucian from the Grange is going, so Master Henry must do the same. Some grand school, I