The Master of Phoenix Hall by Jennifer Wilde

with beribboned May Poles, booths, contests, gypsy fortune-tellers, all the clash and color of country folks at play. I was looking forward to it with a great deal of anticipation. Greg had come to see me at Dower House several times, once bringing a volume of Tennyson’s poetry and reading the lovely lines aloud to me. Although I was coming to know him well, that sense of his dissatisfaction I had seen the first Sunday had not appeared again. I found him pleasant, witty and gallantly attentive. We had established a friendship which might develop into something deeper later on.
    It was a few days before May that I decided to take a long walk in the woods. The wild flowers had sprung up in profusion, and they were lovely. I brought my flower basket and scissors along, planning to bring back enough flowers to fill all the vases at the house. The morning was beautiful, the air clear and cool, the sky bright white with only a touch of blue, as though a single drop of ink had been dropped into water. It had rained at dawn, and everything was fresh from the spring shower. I was full of energy, ready to explore all the land around Dower House.
    I had never felt so young and alive. I had changed so much. My whole body felt different, as though I had been given new blood. The easy pace of country life, the fresh air, the freedom from all the stresses and worries of London life had done their part to make me a new woman. I even dressed differently, having discarded the sober gray and brown dresses for new light colored ones Nan had made for me. I wore my hair differently, too, letting it flow in long silver brown tresses to my shoulders. My eyes sparkled, my skin glowed, I hardly recognized the girl who looked back at me in the mirror every morning. I wondered just how much the arrival of Greg Ingram into my life had done to bring about many of these changes.
    I walked over the new grass, beneath the trees. The trunks of the oaks were hard brown bark, peeling in places, and the pines and elms were studded with large drops of dark amber resin, the new sap virtually oozing out of the trees. I ran down a slope of jade green grass and almost fell in a clump of buttercups. I wore a dress of light blue with dark blue ribbons, and a dark blue ribbon dangled from the brim of my huge white straw sunbonnet. I felt like a colt let out to pasture.
    I rested at the spring, sitting on the bank beneath the heavy shade of the trees whose limbs met over the water, making a dark green canopy, alive with birds. The leaves rustled, and a few rays of sunlight filtered through to sparkle on the flowing water. I sat still and it was not long before a fawn came to drink. He moved silently, and he paused at the edge of the water to look around with brown velvet eyes. I saw his delicate limbs and his spotted fur. I moved, and he looked up at me, poised for flight, then continued to drink.
    My basket was half full of flowers as I penetrated deeper into the woods. It was dark and damp and full of the wonderful aromas of spring. I had no destination in mind, at least not consciously, yet when I got to the clearing at the edge of the woods and stared at Phoenix Hall, it seemed that I had intended to come here all along. I was directly behind the clumsily constructed shacks of the workmen, a dozen or so wooden huts thrown up any which way. Piles of lumber and stacks of brick littered the area, and there were bags of mortar, coils of rope, kegs of nails. I saw trash and debris and thought the place was rather like a small slum area in back of the mansion. I knew from Billy that the repairs would be completed soon and that the men would all go back to Devon soon after the first of May.
    I turned to leave. I did not want anyone to think that I was spying. I was rather nervous and apprehensive at being so near the place. Phoenix Hall held nothing good for me, and I did not want to be found near it. I did not hear the footsteps behind me, and I let out a little cry as