” The peep?” I asked.

” Ah, you don’t know.” She regarded me triumphantly. I suppose it was rather pleasing to her to discover that her governess, who was constantly shocked by her ignorance, should herself be discovered in that state.

” There is a great deal about this house that I do not know,” I said sharply. ” I have not seen a third of it.”

” You haven’t seen the solarium,” she agreed. ” There are several peeps in this house. Oh, Miss, you don’t know what peeps are, but a lot of big houses have them. There’s even one in Mount Widden. My mother told me that it is where the ladies used to sit when the men were feasting and it was considered no place for them among the men.

They could look down and watch, but they must not be there. There’s one in the chapel. a sort of one. We call it the lepers’ squint there. They couldn’t come in because they were lepers, so they could only look through the squint. But I shall go to the solarium and look down on the hall through the peep up there. Why Miss, you ought to come with me. Please do. “

” We’ll see,” I said.

On the day of the ball Alvean and I took our riding lesson as usual, only instead of riding Buttercup Alvean was mounted on Black Prince.

When I had first seen the child on that horse I had felt a faint twinge of uneasiness, but I stifled this, for I told myself but if she were going to become a rider she must get beyond the Buttercup stage.

Once she had ridden Prince she would gain more confidence, and very likely never wish to go back to Buttercup.

We had done rather well for the first few lessons. Prince behaved admirably and Alvean’s confidence was growing. We had no doubt, either of us, that she would be able to enter for at least one of the events at the November horse show.

But this day we were not so fortunate. I suspect that Alvean’s thoughts were on the ball rather than on her riding. She was still diffident with me, except perhaps during our riding lessons, when oddly enough we were the best of friends; but as soon as we had divested ourselves of our riding kit we seemed automatically to slip back to the old relationship.

“I had tried to change this, without success.

We were about half-way through the lesson when Prince broke into a gallop. I had not allowed her to gallop unless she was on the leading rein; and in any case there was little room for that sort of thing in the field; and I wanted to be absolutely sure of Alvean’s confidence before I allowed her more licence.

All would have been well if Alvean had kept her head and remembered what I had taught her, but as Prince started to gallop she gave a little cry of fear and her terror seemed immediately to communicate itself to the frightened animal.

Prince was off; the thud of his hoofs on the turf struck terror into me. I saw Alvean, forgetting what I had taught her, swaying to one side.

It was all over in a flash because as soon as it happened I was on the spot. I was after her immediately. I had to grasp Prince’s bridle before he reached the hedge for I believed that he might attempt to jump and that would mean a nasty fall for my pupil. Fear gave me new strength and I had his rein in my hands and had pulled him up just as he was coming up to the hedge. I brought him to a standstill while a white-faced trembling Alvean slid unharmed to the ground.

” It’s all right,” I said. ” Your mind was wandering. You haven’t reached that stage when you can afford to forget for a moment what you’re doing.”

I knew that was the only way to deal with her. Shaken as she was, I made her remount Prince; I knew that she had become terrified of horses through some such incident as this. I had overcome that fear and I was not going to allow it to return.

She obeyed me, although reluctantly. But by the time our lesson was finished she was well over her fright, and I knew that she would want to ride next day. So I was more satisfied that day that I would eventually make a rider of Alvean than I had been before.

It was when we were leaving the field that she suddenly burst out laughing.

” What is it?” I asked, turning my head, for I was riding ahead of her.

” Oh, Miss,” she cried. ” You’ve split!”

” What do you mean?”

“Your dress has split under the armhole. Oh… it’s getting worse and worse.”

I put my hand behind my back and realised what had happened. The riding habit had always been a little too tight for me and during my efforts to save Alvean from a nasty fall the sleeve seam had been unable to stand the extra strain.

I must have shown my dismay, for Alvean said : ” Never mind, Miss.

I’ll find you another. There are more, I know. “

Alvean was secretly amused as we went back to the house. Odd that I had never seen her in such good spirits. It was however somewhat disconcerting to discover that the sight of my discomfiture could give her so much pleasure that she could forget the danger through which she had so recently passed.

The guests had begun to arrive. I had been unable to resist taking peeps at them from my window. The approach was filled with carriages, and the dresses I had glimpsed made me gasp with envy.

The ball was being held in the great hall which I had seen earlier that day. Before that I had not been in it since my arrival, for I always used the back staircase. It was Kitty who had urged me to take a peep. “It looks so lovely, Miss: Mr. Polgrey’s going round like a dog with two tails. He’ll murder one of us if anything happens to his plants.”

I thought I had rarely seen a setting so beautiful. The beams had been decorated with leaves. ” An old Cornish custom,” Kitty told me, ” specially at Maytime. But what’s it matter, Miss, if this be September. Reckon there’ll be other balls now the period of mourning be up. Well, so it should be. Can’t go on mourning for ever, can ‘ee.

You might say this is a sort of Maytime, don’ tee see?

“Tis the end of one old year and the beginning of another like.”

I said, as I looked at the pots of hothouse blooms which had been brought in from the greenhouses and the great wax candles in their sconces, that the hall did Mr. Polgrey and his gardeners great credit.

I pictured how it would look when those candles were lighted and the guests danced in their colourful gowns, their pearls and their diamonds.

I wanted to be one of the guests. How I wanted it! Kitty had begun to dance in the hall, smiling and bowing to an imaginary partner. I smiled. She looked so abandoned, so full of joy.

Then I thought that I ought not to be here like this. It was quite unbecoming. I was as bad as Kitty.

I turned away and there was a foolish lump in my throat.

Alvean and I had supper together that evening. She obviously could not dine with her father in the small dining room, as he would be busy with his guests.

” Miss,” she said, ” I’ve put a new riding habit for you in your cupboard.”

“Thank you,” I said; “that was thoughtful of you.”

“Well, you couldn’t go riding in that!” cried Alvean, pointing derisively at my lavender gown.

So it was only that I might not miss a riding lesson for want of the clothes, that she had taken such trouble on my behalf! I should have known that.

I asked myself in that moment whether I was not being rather foolish.

Did I expect more than people were prepared to give? I was nothing to Alvean except when I could help her to attain what she wanted. It was as well to remember that.

I looked down distastefully at my lavender cotton gown. It was the favourite of the two which had been specially made for me by Aunt Adelaide’s dressmaker when I had obtained this post. One was of grey a most unbecoming colour to me but I fanded I looked a little less prim, a little less of a governess in the lavender. But how becoming it seemed, with its bodice buttoned high at the neck and the cream lace collar and the cream lace cuffs to match. I realised I was comparing it with the dresses of Connan TreMellyn’s guests.

Alvean said : ” Hurry and finish. Miss. Don’t forget we’re going to the solarium.”

“I suppose you have your father’s permission …” I began.

” Miss, I always peep from the solarium. Everybody knows I do. My mother used to look up and wave to me.” Her face puckered a little. ” Tonight,” she went on, as though she were speaking to herself, “I’m going to imagine that she’s down there after all … dancing there. Miss, do you think people come back after they’re dead? “

” What an extraordinary question! Of course not.”

” You don’t believe in ghosts then. Some people do. They n say they’ve seen them. Do you think they lie when they say they see ghosts. Miss?”

” I think that people who say such things are the victims of their own imaginations.”

” Still,” she went on dreamily, ” I shall imagine she is there … dancing there. Perhaps if I imagine hard enough I shall see her.

Perhaps I shall be the victim of my imagination. “

I said nothing because I felt uneasy.

” If she were coming back,” she mused, ” she would come to the ball, because dancing was one of the things she liked doing best.” She seemed to remember me suddenly. ” Miss,” she went on, ” if you’d rather not come to the solarium with me, I don’t mind going alone.”

” I’ll come,” I said.

” Let’s go now.”

” We will first finish our meal,” I told her.

The vastness of the house continued to astonish me, as I followed Alvean along the gallery, up stone staircases through several bedrooms, to what she told me was the solarium. The roof was of glass and I understood why it had received its name. I thought it must be unbearably warm in the heat of the summer.

The walls were covered with exquisite tapestries depicting the story of the Great Rebellion and the Restoration. There was the execution of the first Charles, and the second shown in the oak tree, his dark face peering down at the Roundhead soldiers; there were pictures of his arrival in England, of his coronation and a visit to his shipyards.

” Never mind those now,” said Alvean. ” My mother used to love being here. She said you could see what was going on. There are two peeps up here. Oh, Miss, don’t you want to see them?”

I was looking at the escritoire, at the sofa and the gilt-backed chairs; and I saw her sitting here, talking to her daughter here-dead Alice who seemed to become more and more alive as the days passed.

There were windows at each end of this long room, high windows curtained with heavy brocade. The same brocade curtains hung before what I presumed to be doors of which there appeared to be four in this room the one by which we had entered, another at the extreme end of the room and one other on either side. But I was wrong about the last two.

Alvean had disappeared behind one of these curtains and called’ to be in a muffled voice, and when I went to her I found we were in an alcove. In the wall was a star-shaped opening, quite large but decorated so that one would not have noticed it unless one had been looking for it.

I gazed through it and saw that I was looking down into the chapel. I could see clearly all but one side of the chapel the small altar with the triptych and the pews.

” They used to sit up here and watch the service if they were too ill to go down, my mother told me. They had a priest in the house in the old days. My mother didn’t tell me that. She didn’t know about the history of the house. Miss Jansen told me. She knew a lot about the house. She loved to come up here and look through the peep. She used to like the chapel too.”

” You were sorry when she went, Alvean, I believe.”

” Yes, I was. The other peep’s on the other side. Through that you can see into the hall.”

She went to the other side of the room and drew back the hangings there. In the wall was a similar star-shaped opening.

I looked down on the hall and caught my breath for it was a magnificent sight. Musicians were on the dais and the guests who had not yet begun to dance, stood about talking.

There were a great many people down there and the sound of the chatter rose dearly up to us. J) Alvean was breathless beside me, her eyes searching . in a manner which made me shiver slightly. Did she really believe that Alice would come from the tomb because she loved to dance?

I felt an impulse to put my arm about her and draw her to me. Poor motherless child, I thought. Poor bewildered little creature!

But of course I overcame that impulse. Alvean had no desire for my sympathy, I well knew.