The Song of the Siren (28 page)

Then I put my arms round him and kissed him. It was the spark to the flames.

We lay on the bed listening to the rain. The lightning and the thunder seemed to add something to this adventure. The two of us alone in an empty house, a haunted house where ghosts could look on.... The ghost of Beau perhaps....

And then we were not alone. She was there and that revealing flash of lightning betrayed us to her before, a few seconds later, she ran from the room.

That was how it happened. How could I explain that to Damaris?

It was an abrupt ending to our passion. Matt was horrified. I realized then that his feelings for Damaris had been strong and tender.

He could only repeat: “But she saw us. Damaris saw us.”

“It’s very unfortunate,” I agreed.

“Unfortunate!” he cried. “It’s disastrous.”

We dressed in silence. We found our horses and rode back to the house. I told him to go back to Grasslands. I kept rehearsing what I would say to Damaris when she came home.

Then she did not come. And when my father brought her home we thought she would die.

It may sound hypocritical when I say I suffered great remorse. I did. We had shocked the child so completely. She could not understand what had happened; she would never understand.

I rode over to Grasslands late the next day to tell Matt how ill Damaris was. He was terribly sad. He regarded me as though I were some evil witch. Good people are always like that. When they mis-205

behave they look for scapegoats. “It was not my fault, oh, Lord, the evil one tempted me.” Whereas people like myself and Harriet at least see ourselves as we really are.

We say, “I wanted that and I took it. No, I did not think of the consequences of my act. It is only now that it has gone wrong that I think of it.”

At least we have a certain self-honesty. Oh, yes, there is a little good in the worst of us... and sometimes it is not all good in the best.

Matt kept calling, and when he knew that she would in time recover he went away.

I don’t think he could ever bring himself to face her.

It was going to be made easy for him because his mot her stayed in London and at that time decided that the town was rrm ire suited to her and she was going to sell Grasslands.

She did not come back while I was there. Indeed I sav very little of Matt. Our brief idyll, which had had such disastrou: effects, was over.

I said I must go back too. I had been too long a\ ay from my husband and child.

So I travelled back to Eyot Abbass and tried to forgt- t the havoc I i:

had wrought. ‘?’?

‘i

A year had passed. I had not seen Damaris or my mother since I left ].;

the Dower House when I knew Damaris would recover. The days had ^

slipped by. I had said that I found it difficult to leave my little “

daughter and my mother said Damaris, although improving, was unfit to travel.

We must content ourselves with letters.

I was relieved. Even after all the time which had elapsed I could not imagine what meeting Damaris would be like. It would certainly be embarrassing.

Moreover, in view of what had happened I felt penitent. I had been unfaithful to the best of husbands and all because of a momentary whim. I had not had the excuse that I had been overwhelmed by a great love. I had deliberately taken the man who was more or less betrothed to my sister and betrayed my husband at the same time.

There was no excuse I could offer for my conduct. But at least I could to compensate my husband in some way.

206

Benjie was delighted. He had never known me in this mood. I was loving, I was docile, I was thoughtful for his comfort. It did not take much to make him happy.

Then there was Clarissa. I am not a maternal woman by any means but in spite of myself the child began to charm me. She was two years old, talked a little, had passed the crawling stage, was, as her nurse said, “into everything, a proper bundle of mischief, that one.”

There was a look of Hessenfield about her. She had fair hair with a faint wave in it and her eyes were light brown-there were golden lights in them and in her hair; she was sturdy and healthy; a child to be proud of. Benjie treated her just as though she were his. He never mentioned the event which had led to Clarissa’s birth and our marriage.

Harriet was aware of the change in me. She watched me with alert blue eyes. I don’t know how old Harriet was now-she had never told us how old she was and, according to my grandmother, even when she was in her twenties she had pretended to be much younger. But she must have been in her late twenties at the time of the Restoration and that was over forty years ago. Her hair was still dark; her eyes still violet blue; she was rather plump, but her laughter was still like a young woman’s and frequently heard and she was interested in the young people about her-in particular me, for she said I was like her and she had posed as my mother for the first years of my life, which made a great bond between us.

She wanted to know what had happened. I told her that Damaris had been out in the rain and had some virulent fever because of it.

“Whatever made her do that?” she asked.

I shook my head, but Harriet was perceptive.

“It may have had something to do with Matt Pilkington. I think she had a romantic feeling for him.”

“And it went wrong when you were there?”

“It couldn’t have been right before, could it?”

“But the climax came after your arrival?”

“She was out in the storm. That was how it happened.”

“What is he like, this Matt Pilkington?”

“Very... young.”

207”Suitable for Damaris?”

“Oh, Damaris is too young yet.”

“I’ll swear,” said Harriet, “that he took a fancy lo Damaris’s sister.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Well, if he is easily diverted perhaps it is just as well.”

“Damaris is only a child really,” I insisted.

“I seem to remember when you were her age you were planning an elopement.”

“Damaris is young for her years.”

“Something has happened,” said Harriet. “I have always found that the best way to discover a secret is not to probe.”

“It’s a good rule,” I said.

She knew of course that my visit had had something to do with Damaris’s illness.

She would, as she had implied, discover the secret in due course.

And when I showed no inclination to visit the Dower House and she was aware of my determination to be a good wife to Benjie, she guessed.

It amused her somewhat. It was the sort of adventure she would have had in her youth.

She always smiled when she found some similarity between us. She said: “It was a joke of the gods because at your entry into the worldwhich, my dear Carlotta, was not the most discreet-I pretended to be your mother.”

I knew the day would have to come when Damaris and I would meet. It was over a year since we had seen each other, but in the summer of

1704 Harriet said we must go to visit my mother and Damaris.

Gregory had bought a coach, which made travelling far more comfortable. We had not taken it so far as yet but we had made one or two journeys in it which had been very much more convenient than travelling on horseback.

It was a magnificent vehicle on four wheels with a door on either side and drawn by four horses. We could travel a little more slowly so as not to tire the horses, and although our baggage could go by saddle horses as before, we could take refreshments with us in the coach,

208

Clarissa could travel with us and there would be myself, Harriet and Gregory in the coach. Benjie would have to stay behind to take care of the estate. Then we should have two grooms with us, one to drive the team and the other to ride behind and take his turn with the driving.

For protection we should have with us a blunderbuss and a bag full of bullets besides a sword; so we need have no fear of highwaymen. Many of them made off at the first sign that passengers could defend themselves.

Clarissa was very excited at the prospect of the trip. I was growing very fond of her. She was so full of vitality and she did remind me of Hessenfield. She was a little disobedient; one would not have expected his to be a docile child; but she had that charm which never failed to ingratiate her with those who had been ready to scold her for some misdeed, and as her nurse said, she wound us round her little finger.

She looked delightful in her red woollen cloak and her red shoes and mittens-the colour matched that in her cheeks and her golden eyes sparkled in anticipation. She was very intelligent for her age and seemed a good deal older than she actually was.

She asked endless questions about the journey, about her grandmother, her aunt Damaris and grandfather Leigh. Then there was Great Grandfather Carleton and Great Grandmother Arabella to be visited at Eversleigh Court with Aunt Jane and Carl, her boy, and Uncle Edwin and Uncle Carl, if they were home, as they might well be for they had been away for a very long time.

It was a day in July when we set out. Benjie stood in the courtyard as we settled ourselves in the coach. At our feet was a hamper containing cheese and bread, cold beef and mutton, plum cake and Dutch gingerbread as well as various kinds of liquid-wine, cherry brandy and ale.

Clarissa, seeing the hamper, declared that she was hungry already.

“You have to wait awhile,” I told her.

“Why?” Everything one said to Clarissa at this stage produced a why, when or where.

I said: “They are for during the journey, not before it starts.”

“Not for when you’re hungry then.”

209”Yes, of course when you’re hungry.”

“I’m hungry now.”

Her attention was diverted by the horses being harnessed and she forgot about the hamper.

Then we were settled in, and after waving farewell to Benjie, Clarissa’s nurse, nursery maid and some of the other servants who had come to see us off, we were rattling along the road.

Our road took us along by the coast and we passed that house where I stayed with Hessenfield and his conspirators. It was inhabited and looked just like an ordinary house.

Harriet glanced at me as we passed it but I pretended not to be aware of it and, putting an arm round Clarissa, I pointed out the gulls to her who were wheeling round and round diving down to the sea every now and then in search of food.

At last we came to the Black Boar-that inn of many memoriesand there we were greeted effusively by the landlord, who remembered us, and now that we came with our coach we were treated with very special respect.

It was a strange feeling to be in that inn again. I found I was reliving every minute of that other visit. I really believed that Hessenfield had sent Beau right back into the recesses of my mind only to be brought out very rarely when something reminded me of him. The climax of my experience with Matt Pilkington had been so like a nightmare that I did not want to think of it anymore.

I had to, though, because I would soon come face to face with Damaris.

The landlord apologised again for once long ago having to put me into a room which was so unworthy of me.

“The gentleman were back here not so long ago, my lady.”

“The gentleman?” I said.

“Yes, one of they who took the whole floor just before you arrived on that day. Do you remember?”

“Oh ... he came back did he?”

“You know the one, my lady, that’s if you remember. The tall °ne ... the leader of them all, you might say.”

I felt a wave of excitement sweep over me. “He was back?” I repeated.

210

“Yes... he remembered you, my lady. Asked if you’d been this way since. I told him I hadn’t had a sight of you ... bar once. There was the time you and my lady came and stayed here, you remember, with the gentlemen. I said: ‘Only once, sir, and I ain’t seen nothing of her since.’”

“How long ago was it?” I asked.

“Matter of weeks ... no more.”

I changed the subject by saying we should like the partridge pie for our supper.

Harriet and I shared the room in which the General had rested. Clarissa slept in a little pallet beside the bed; but in the middle of the night I was awakened by her creeping in beside me. I had been dreaming of her father.

I held her tightly. I had never thought I could feel the disinterested love I felt for this child.

I was not sorry to leave the Black Boar, and early the next morning we set out on our journey. There is something very exciting about the clop-clop of horses hooves on the road and exhilarating in the early morning air. Clarissa and I watched through the window exclaiming to each other when we saw something which interested us.

She called out for me to look at the lovely butterflies and directed my attention to the beautiful red admiral she had discovered. I wished that I knew the countryside as Damaris did, for I should have loved to instruct Clarissa.

I was growing more and more apprehensive as we approached the Dower House. The desire kept coming over me to turn back. But of course that was impossible. I had to face my sister sometime. I could not imagine what her reaction would be. Perhaps she would refuse to speak to me. Perhaps she would reproach me bitterly. At least she would be prepared for our meeting-as I was.

I wondered if she had told of what she had seen to my mother perhaps.

I should have to wait and see.

When we arrived at the Dower House they had already heard the sound of the carriage wheels, and there, waiting to greet us, were my mother and Leigh.

I opened the door and I was in her arms. She was always emotional when we met.

211”Dearest Carlotta. It is so wonderful to see you.” There were tears in her eyes and she smiled brightly.

“Hello, Priscilla,” said Harriet, “and here is your granddaughter. Clarissa, come and kiss your grandmother.”

My mother knelt while Clarissa put her arms about her neck; she gave her a hearty kiss and my mother’s eyes beamed with happiness to look at her.

“We had Dutch gingerbread in the hamper,” said Clarissa as though that was a most important piece of news.