She felt a sudden surge of homesickness, not only for her father, who, even when he drank, had been kind and considerate to her but for everything that had been familiar – the shabby little house, Ned shuffling round it, Pegasus in the broken-down stable, the quiet, the sense of belonging to herself and being free.
For, despite the lack of money, friends and clothes, she had been free – free to ride her horse, free to do as she wished. But now what lay ahead?
She had a sudden moment of panic. Perhaps she should not have come, perhaps she should go away. Would her mother have wanted her to do this? And then she asked herself to do what? What did Major Hooper envisage for her? And what did she know about him?
Impulsively she jumped to her feet. She moved along the gallery, down the stairc
