The Adulteress

Lovers’ Meetings

WHEN I AWOKE NEXT morning I had made up my mind how I would act. I would see my uncle at eleven o’clock, for if I failed to do that Jessie’s suspicions would be immediately aroused. So I had decided that I would choose the afternoon to go into the town and see Messrs. Rosen, Stead and Rosen. That would give me plenty of time, and when I saw Uncle Carl at eleven o’clock I could drop a hint to him as to when I should be going.

Jessie and Evalina had already breakfasted when I arrived downstairs, but that did not prevent Jessie’s coming in to talk to me as I ate and to help herself to a few more tasty morsels.

“You’ll be going along to see Lordy at eleven. I suppose.” she said.

I told her I would.

“He’ll be pleased, poor love. He’s so excited you came to visit. I do what I can to amuse him. …” I almost steeled myself for the nudge which was fortunately impossible because once more the table separated us, “but you know what it is. He’s tired sometimes. … Sometimes wanders in his mind a bit.”

I wasn’t sure of that and had a notion she was safeguarding herself in some way.

However, at eleven I was sitting at Uncle Carl’s bedside and I managed to let drop the information that I would explore the town that afternoon.

“It’s a good half an hour’s walk,” said Jessie. “Would you like them to take you in the carriage?”

“No,” I said quickly. I did not want any of the grooms reporting to her where I had been. “I would like to explore myself. It’s a voyage of remembrance for me. It’s like rediscovering my childhood.”

“Well, we want you to do just as you like … don’t we, Lordy?”

Uncle Carl pressed my hand understanding that that afternoon I should pay a call on the lawyers.

I felt I did not have to wait to see Jessie safely in the manager’s house for her afternoon rendezvous, but set out soon after one o’clock to walk into the town.

The road passed close to Enderby and I don’t think I was altogether surprised to come face to face with Gerard d’Aubigné In fact I had an idea that he had been watching for me.

He was as elegant in daylight as in twilight and he looked very much the same as he had last night except that his coat was of brown velvet but still in the swinging, almost flaunting, style which gave an impression of a charming aggressiveness.

He bowed and said: “I’ll confess I have waylaid you.”

“Oh … why?”

“Overcome by an urgent desire to see my charming ghost by the light of day. I had a horrible feeling that I might have imagined the encounter.”

“Even trespassing on our lawns?” I asked.

“What is a little trespass for a good cause? I had to see that you were safely home. Now where do you wish to go?”

“Actually I am on an errand for my uncle and am going into the town.”

“It is quite a long way.”

“Nothing much … half an hour’s walk.”

“I have an idea. My hosts have been so good to me. They have a most elegant little carriage … suitable for two or at most three including the driver. Two horses pull it along at a spanking pace. I suggest that I drive you into the town.”

“That’s kind of you but it really isn’t necessary.”

“Pleasant experiences do not have to be necessary. I should be desolate if you denied me this. I have used the carriage once or twice. It is an enchanting little vehicle. Come into the stables here and I will make it ready. We can be in town in less than half the time that it would take to walk and you will arrive fresh for your business.”

I hesitated and he immediately placed his arm through mine and drew me toward the house.

The mystery of Enderby seemed to envelop me—or was it his presence? I had never felt quite like this before … this excitement, this feeling that something very unusual was going to happen to me.

Enderby looked gloomy even in afternoon sunshine. There was no one in the stables and I was amazed by the deftness with which he made the carriage ready.

The two bay mares pawed the ground as though impatient to be off. He patted first one and then the other.

“Yes, old girls,” he said, “you know this is a special occasion, don’t you?”

Then he turned to me and helped me into the carriage, himself taking the driver’s seat.

Side by side we rattled along at a good speed. I sat back feeling as though I were in a dream, listening to the clop clop of the mares’ hooves and putting a wary hand on the papers in my pocket to make sure that they were still there.

We pulled up at an inn and there we alighted. He asked me where I had to go and when I told him said he would take me there, leave me, and if I would come to the inn when I had finished my business he would drive me back to Eversleigh.

I agreed to this and, leaving the inn, walked along the main street until we came to the offices of Messrs. Rosen, Stead and Rosen.

An elderly clerk rose to greet me, and when I told him that I came on behalf of Lord Eversleigh and wished to see Mr. Rosen I immediately aroused his interest and was conducted into the reception room. He was sorry to say that Mr. Rosen senior was out of the office for a few days—away on urgent business, but he was sure either Mr. Stead or young Mr. Rosen would be able to help me.

Young Mr. Rosen—who seemed anything but young to me, being a man in his middle forties—came in to greet me and when I explained why I had come, he took me into his private office and glanced at the instructions Uncle Carl had given me. He nodded. “I understand,” he said. “My father will be upset at not being here to meet you. He deals with all Lord Eversleigh’s business; but this seems to be a straightforward matter of the will so it will present no problems. I will call on him myself,” he went on. “I can bring one of the clerks with me to witness it. What is the best time?”

I felt embarrassed and said: “Oh … you cannot come to the house. That would not be a very good idea.”

He looked puzzled and I hurried on. “Lord Eversleigh does not want … people at the house … to know that he has made this will. It is for this reason that he invited me to come to Eversleigh and … er … arrange it for him.” I hurried on: “Are you aware of the state of affairs at Eversleigh Court?”

It was his turn to look faintly embarrassed. “I understand the estate is well managed and there is a housekeeper there.”

I decided that it was no time for veiled hints and said: “Do you know of the relationship between Lord Eversleigh and the housekeeper?”

He coughed and said: “Well …”

“The fact is,” I went on, “there is a very special friendship between them. I don’t know whether she has pretensions as to what will be left to her but Lord Eversleigh wishes the estate to remain in the family.”

“But naturally. It would be unthinkable …”

“At the same time he does not wish to offend his housekeeper. Apparently he relies on her.”

“I see … I see. So he does not wish it to be known that he is making this will.”

“Exactly.”

“And he is obviously not able to come into town to sign it.”

“I’m afraid not. It will have to be done at the house. I have not really thought how that can be brought about. It must be done in the housekeeper’s absence … that is Lord Eversleigh’s wish.”

“If you like to name a time …”

“I must think about it. Perhaps one afternoon. In the meantime if you will draw up the will I can consult Lord Eversleigh and see what arrangements we can arrive at. I’m afraid you must find this rather an odd situation.”

“My dear lady, in my profession we are constantly confronted by unusual situations.”

He smiled at me and went on: “I should like my father to deal with this matter. He has always taken charge of Lord Eversleigh’s affairs and knows more about what goes on at the Court than I do.”

“He is not here, though.”

“No, but I am expecting him back tomorrow. He will know the best way of dealing with the matter.”

“Thank you.”

“Perhaps you would look in again the day after tomorrow. I am sure the work will be done then and you will be able to see my father.”

This I agreed to do.

As he said good-bye he asked me if I had ridden into the town. “It’s quite a step from the Court,” he added. I told him that a neighbor had driven me in and would take me back. That satisfied him, so I left the office and made my way to the inn.

Gerard d’Aubigné was waiting for me and he greeted me with the news that he had taken the opportunity of ordering a tankard of cider apiece. “They have some good cakes straight from the oven—the innkeeper’s wife assures me—and I thought you would like a short rest before driving back.”

“That’s good of you.” I said, and he led me into the inn parlor, where the hot cakes were already being put on a table with two tankards of cider.

“Was the business successful?” he asked.

“As successful as I could hope.”

“You sound as though it was not entirely so.”

“It’s not completed, of course.” The cider was cool, a little heady, I thought; but perhaps that was the company, and rather to my surprise I found myself telling him the story.

“It sounds so absurd … when one speaks of it in the light of day.”

“Not at all absurd. Of course Lord Eversleigh cannot leave his estates to his Jessie; and of course he doesn’t want her to know he’s leaving them to someone else. It’s perfectly understandable.”

“But it seems so ridiculous. There is a peer of the realm, a man of substance … and he is afraid of his housekeeper!”

“Afraid of losing her. That is very different from being afraid of her. I’m afraid that you may disappear as suddenly as you came, but I’m certainly not afraid of you.”

“Oh, I thought it was clear now that I’m an ordinary mortal.”

“Far from ordinary,” he said. “Now tell me about it … the life with the good husband whom you so regretted you must leave behind.”

And I found myself telling him.

He listened very carefully as I, who was usually restrained told him of my wonderful father who had been killed in a duel, and how, ever since, we had lived quietly in the country and that I had married the companion of my childhood as everybody had expected and hoped I would.

“Do you always do what is expected of you?” he asked.

“Yes … I think perhaps I do.”

“That must please them all very much … but the main thing is that you should be pleased, is it not?”

“It has all worked out very well and happily for me,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows and smiled at me in a manner I did not understand and vaguely felt that it was better so.

“And you?” I said. “What of you?”

“Ah, like you I doubtless do what is expected of me. Alas, it is not always the good thing that is expected.”

“And your home is in France. What part?”

“My home is in the country—a small place a few leagues from Paris—but I spend most of my time in Paris and am chiefly at court.”

“You serve the king.”

“We of the court of France do not so much serve the king as the king’s mistress. The lady is the mistress of us all—by which I mean that we must obey her whims if we would remain in favor … not, of course, that we are the lady’s lovers. The king is enough for her. She is by no means as lusty as your Jessie.”

“Who is this lady?”

“Jeanne Antoinette Poisson … otherwise the Marquise de Pompadour.” He spoke with a certain amount of bitterness, which I was quick to detect.

“I gather that you do not like the lady overmuch.”

“One does not like the Pompadour … one merely does not offend her.”

“I am surprised. You do not appear to me to be a meek man, to obey someone … someone of whom you obviously do not approve.”

“I have a great desire to hold my place at court. I should not wish to be banished from a way of life which I find most interesting.”

“The court, you mean.”

“The affairs of the country,” he said, smiling at me.

“So you are cautious.”

“When there is need to be, yes. Mind you, I am of the nature to like to take a risk now and then.”

“I hope you are not a gambler,” I said, and suddenly I thought of my father’s being carried into the house mortally wounded.

He put his hand over mind.

“You look really concerned,” he said.

“No … of course not. It is no business of mine.” I added: “Are you here on a diplomatic mission?”

“I am here,” he said, “because it may be some time before I shall get an opportunity of being here again. If there is war between our countries …”

“War!”

“It’s blowing up, you know. Then traffic is difficult.”

“What war?”

“Perhaps it won’t happen, but Frederick of Prussia is getting aggressive and Maria Theresa of Austria wants to get Silesia from him.”

“Why should that concern us … your country and mine?”

“We the French have great friendship with Maria Theresa, and your King George is more German that English. You can be sure he will side with Frederick. Then we have a war and our countries will be enemies.”

“I believe you are here on some secret mission,” I said.

“Ah, I am arousing your interest at last.”

“Are you … here on some secret matter?”

“I am going to say yes because then you will think how mysterious I am … how interesting.”

“But if it is not so?”

“If it were you would not expect me to tell you, would you?” He changed the subject abruptly. “You may have to come back here the day after tomorrow. I am going to drive you.”

“Oh … thank you.”

Then he said: “We shall put our heads together and find out how we get the papers signed.”

“Are you thinking that my business is almost as devious as yours?”

“Exactly that. You see why we are drawn together. Birds of a feather … is that what you say?”

So we talked until I realized that time was flying and I said I must go. I wished to be back before Jessie returned.

I sat up beside him as we drove back, and listening to the ringing of the horses’ hooves on the road and sitting close to him so that his velvet jacket often touched my arm I realized that I was enjoying this with a different kind of emotion from any I had known before.

We arranged that on the day after tomorrow we should go into the town and collect the will. Then there would be the problem of getting it signed. I should have to think about that.

“Don’t despair,” he said. “I could slip into the house with my valet. It wouldn’t be safe to ask any of the servants at Eversleigh. Who knows, they might be one of Jessie’s spies?”

We laughed together. The whole affair seemed a tremendous joke. He talked about the conspiracy in a hollow voice, building up such a story of intrigue suggesting the most villainous motives for Jessie and the estate manager, whom he called her paramour, that we were quite hilarious, making the most wild suggestions in mock serious tones.

All too soon we arrived back at Eversleigh.

“The day after tomorrow then we escape into the town to collect the papers,” whispered Gerard.

I agreed that we should.

“I shall see you then … unless you should stroll towards Enderby … or I should happen to be near Eversleigh way tomorrow.”

I hesitated. “I have to see my uncle. Let us make it the day after tomorrow. We must be careful.”

He put his fingers to his lips. “Take care,” he whispered. “The enemy may be on our trail.”

Then we were laughing again and I felt quite ridiculously happy in a way which I didn’t remember feeling before.

I was behaving in a way very unlike my usual custom, and with a stranger. I should have been wary then, but I had not yet begun to know myself.

I did not see him next day. After we parted that strange mood of exultation left me and the matter of my uncle’s will no longer seemed the joke it had as we drove back from the town. It was just a sordid matter of an old man being besotted about a younger woman and so dependent on her that he had to bribe her to stay with him.

I began to feel I had been rather indiscreet to have told so much to someone I hardly knew. But when I was with him I felt that I knew him very well. I felt a closeness … an intimacy.

Looking back I realize how unsophisticated I must have been not to realize what was happening.

However, perhaps I did feel faintly uneasy, for the next day I did not stroll down to Enderby, and if he came near Eversleigh I did not see him, for I did not go beyond the closed-in gardens.

I saw my uncle during the morning with Jessie present nibbling her sweetmeats and looking, I thought, even more pleased with herself than usual. During that morning session we had a caller. It was Amos Carew, and he came up to my uncle’s bedroom while I was there so I had an opportunity to study him.

He had bright dark eyes and a very curly beard and lots of dark curly hair. A hairy man. That was how I would describe him to Gerard when we next met. I smiled inwardly at the prospect.

My uncle clearly thought highly of Amos Carew.

“Here you are, Amos. This is my … well, we haven’t quite worked out the relationship, but her mother is, I think, my nearest relation and so we call each other niece and uncle. That is a title which fits a lot of relationships even when it is not entirely accurate.”

“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, madam,” said Amos Carew. He took my hand and squeezed it in a manner which was decidedly painful. I thought he was going to crack my bones.

“I have heard of you,” I said, “so it is a pleasure to meet you.”

He laughed. Amos Carew laughed a great deal, I soon noticed. He had a variety of laughs—overhearty, deprecating, just amused. It could be due to nervousness, but no. I didn’t think he would ever be nervous. Cautious perhaps …

“His lordship likes me to pop in now and then to give him an account of things.”

“Yes, of course.” I said. “I am sure the estate is of great interest to him.”

“Well, it’s hard for his lordship.” The little laugh followed the words. Sympathetic this time. I thought. “Cooped up, you might say.” he went on. “And he was always a one for the outdoor life, wasn’t that so, your lordship?”

“Ah yes, I liked being out. Walking … fishing …”

“What you would call an all-round sportsman, eh, pet?” Jessie looked at Amos and a significant glance passed between them. Amos laughed again. This time appreciation for a sportsman coupled with sympathy for his present plight.

“I would like you to show my … er … niece something of the estate sometimes, Amos.”

“Gladly, my lord.”

“Well, you must take her on the rounds. Would you like that. Zipporah?”

“Very much,” I said.

“You’ll get some notion of the size of it. I think you’ll find it a good deal bigger than your Clavering.” He turned to Amos. “My niece’s husband should have come with her.” he went on, “but was prevented by an unfortunate accident. Next time … he’ll be with her.”

“That will be right and proper, my lord.”

“Yes.”

I listened to them talking about the estate. Uncle Carl seemed intent on taking it all in and now and then would throw a glance at me. I also listened with interest because Jean-Louis often talked to me about the difficulties at Clavering so I understood what they were talking about.

When Amos Carew said he must go Jessie conducted him to the door. I was watching them in a mirror and I saw her whisper something to him.

There’s some sort of conspiracy going on, I thought. Then I laughed at myself. Gerard with his mock seriousness and his jokes had made me see something in this situation which was nothing more than a besotted man and a grasping woman, who, while she played the role of my uncle’s mistress, was in fact conducting a love affair with his manager.

At dinner I thought Jessie seemed particularly pleased with herself and went off rather earlier than usual for her rendezvous with Amos.

I made my way to my uncle’s room, for I felt I had much to tell him.

He was eagerly awaiting me; he looked very much alive and his brown eyes sparkled almost with mischief. I thought.

He took my hand as I bent over to kiss him.

“Sit down, my dear, and tell me what you have done and then … I have something to tell you.”

I immediately explained how I had gone into the town on the previous day and seen the younger Mr. Rosen, who was drawing up the will which I should collect tomorrow.

He nodded. “That is good. Then it must be signed and sent to Rosen. Ha, ha. Poor Jessie. She will get a shock, I fear. But it is the only way.”

“But, uncle,” I said, “she cannot expect to inherit a large family estate. I am sure she does not.”

He laughed. “You don’t know Jessie,” he said fondly. “Jessie has large ideas. Poor Jess … but I’ve fooled her. I’m afraid. I … er … signed something … yesterday … I had to make her happy.”

“You signed something!”

He gave me a grin and touched his lips. I thought then that it was just possible he was not quite in possession of his senses.

He said: “You’re here now. You’ve seen Rosen …. Well. I thought it was safe to sign something … for Jessie.”

“You mean … a will.”

“Well, sort of. Not all drawn up, of course, but Jessie wouldn’t know the difference. I’ve signed a paper dated yesterday that she should have everything … the house, the estate … all except one or two little legacies which I would think about later.”

I was astonished. I really thought I had wandered into a madhouse.

“Uncle Carl!” I cried in dismay.

“Now don’t scold. I like to see her happy. That letter will satisfy her and stop her getting at me, and it’ll become null and void when I sign my will because that will cancel anything else I have signed previously. That’s something to tell Rosen.”

I sat back in my chair gazing at him in wonder.

He looked at me almost pathetically and said: “I always liked a peaceful life and I’ve found out that you can get it with a few promises … as long as you cover your tracks, you see. I’ve signed Jessie’s paper. She’s happy. I’m happy. We’re all happy. She’ll get a shock … but only when I’m not here to see it.”

I was silent. It really was turning out to be a grotesque situation.

The next day Gerard d’Aubigné drove me into the town and I saw Mr. Rosen senior this time. He welcomed me warmly and tried to press a glass of wine on me but as I supposed I should be drinking cider at the inn later, I declined. He had drawn up the will, shaken his head gravely over what he called “the situation at the Court” and when I told him that Uncle Carl had already signed what he called “something” which was in favor of Jessie, he was horrified.

“We must get this will signed as soon as possible,” he said. “Mind you, we should contest any letter that woman produced, but to get the will signed and sealed and put into security here is the safest way of dealing with the situation. In view of what you have told me I think I should return with you and my assistant can witness Lord Eversleigh’s signature.”

“I am sure he would be most distressed if you did. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you came to the house the shock would be so great for him that I would fear the consequences. He is really deeply devoted to this woman and I am sure it is only some inborn sense of duty to his family which makes him refrain from leaving everything to her. He relies on her. It is incongruous and if I hadn’t seen it for myself I should not have believed it. Lord Eversleigh trusts me to do this for him and I must do it in the way he wishes.”

Mr. Rosen looked grave.

“How soon could you get him to sign the will and return it to me?”

“I was driven into town by a neighbor. If I could get him with one of his servants to Lord Eversleigh’s room and the will was signed, then I could bring it back to you tomorrow.”

“Could you do this?”

“I could try.”

“Very well … though it is unorthodox. I don’t like it at all. You say he has signed something for this woman. She must be quite unscrupulous. Lord Eversleigh could be in a dangerous situation.”

“You mean that she …” I was looking at him in horror and he said gravely: “I do not say that she would shorten his life. But considering the circumstances … with someone of that kind … not of very high morals, we must admit … it could be dangerous.” He looked at me quizzically. “It is a very strange case. I have from time to time heard rumors of what is going on at the Court. It was never so in the old days. Everything was in such perfect order. You as a member of the family know that. You understand that the will must be signed by two witnesses who are not beneficiaries. You are one, you know that, I am sure.”

“Yes, Lord Eversleigh told me.”

“As the daughter of Lady Clavering you are in the line of succession, as it were, and I understand it is Lord Eversleigh’s desire that you should inherit the estate. That is natural … it is the only course. Your ancestors would rise in their graves if it should pass to that vulgar creature.”

“It won’t,” I said. “I will get the will signed and returned to you tomorrow,”

Mr. Rosen senior shook his head doubtfully. It was all very unethical in his view and I believe he was contemplating even then returning with me and making sure that the will was effectively dealt with.

However, I did impress on him that in view of Uncle Carl’s trust in me I must try to do it as he wished. I left him and went back to the inn. There I told Gerard what had happened and he agreed with me that we should return immediately without waiting for refreshment. He would get his valet or one of his trusted servants and we would get the will signed before Jessie’s return.

There was just time to do it—if we made haste and were lucky.

It was very exciting driving back at full speed and exhilarating too as Gerard talked all the time of how best we could get the will signed quickly and back to the solicitor. It was wonderful the way in which he had made my problem his.

I had thought he dramatized the situation in order to amuse me but he was beginning to convince me that it could be something far removed from a joke: an unscrupulous woman and her lover with a doting old man in their grasp, who, although he was not senile, was really a little unbalanced surely and ready to pay too dearly for peace and comfort in his last days.

Gerard took a watch from his pocket. He said: “We could be back at Enderby just before half past three. I could get my man and we’d go straight to the Court. We’ll sneak upstairs and get the will signed and witnessed, and then if you would trust me I would take it back to the solicitors immediately.”

“I could take it tomorrow.”

“Well, so we could. But in view of the people in that house … I mean the kind of people they are … the will should be in the solicitor’s hands and I don’t like the idea of your having it in that house.”

“Do you think they would come and murder me to get possession of it?”

“Gad!” he said. “That would be monstrous. I couldn’t let that happen. I would never be happy again for the rest of my life.”

I laughed. “You do make the most extravagant statements.”

He was silent. Then he said: “Seriously, I am uneasy. Let’s try it.”

He whipped up the horses and we rattled along to Enderby.

It all happened quickly from then on. It seemed to me a breathtaking mad sort of adventure—different from anything that had ever happened to me before. Gerard took charge and I couldn’t help admiring the speed and efficiency with which he arranged everything.

“You are making a diplomatic incident of it,” I said.

“I am, after all, a diplomat. But I assure you … this is the best and safest way to get this matter settled.”

It was still a quarter of an hour to four o’clock when I took the two men to my uncle’s bedroom. He expressed little surprise when I introduced them and explained why they had come. I produced the will and the necessary signatures were affixed. Gerard rolled the paper up and put it under his arm.

Uncle Carl patted my hand and said: “Clever girl!”

“And now,” said Gerard, “it is for us to get this into town.”

“We must go,” I said, “quickly.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Carl, “before Jessie wakes up.” He was smiling and his eyes danced with excitement. There was a certain mischief in him and for a fleeting moment I wondered whether he had conjured up the whole thing out of a fairly ordinary situation. In the moment I couldn’t believe that even Jessie would hope for an instant that she could inherit Eversleigh Court.

It seemed then that we were all playing a part in some sort of farce which the old man had contrived to make his dull life more exciting.

However, we must continue with it, so we took our leave and went silently down the stairs.

As we came into the hall there was a movement on the stairs. I turned sharply. Evalina was coming down.

“Oh?” she cried. “Have we visitors?”

“This is the housekeeper’s daughter,” I said to Gerard.

Evalina had run up to us and was smiling innocently at Gerard.

He bowed and turned away and I led them out of the house.

I saw them into the carriage and went back into the house. Evalina was still in the hall.

“I didn’t know we had callers,” she said. “I know who they are. They’re from Enderby.”

I went past her. She was looking at me curiously, as though she was waiting for an explanation. I was determined not to give her one. It was so impertinent for the housekeeper’s daughter to interrogate me about callers.

I went to my room and to the window. I saw that Jessie was just returning to the house. Evalina would tell her about the callers. She might be suspicious because she was very shrewd. But by this time Gerard would be on his way to the solicitors.

At supper that night there was a faint atmosphere of suspicion which I detected immediately. Jessie ate with her usual gusto then she smiled at me ingratiatingly and said: “Evalina said them people from Enderby called today.”

“Just being neighborly,” I said.

“They never called before.”

“Oh?”

“I reckon they heard you was here. They never called on Lordy before.”

I lifted my shoulders.

Evalina said: “One of them was a fine-looking man.”

“H’m,” I murmured.

She was wary: she was watchful: I could see she was puzzled and did not like the idea of callers.

I escaped to my room immediately after the meal. I wondered whether Gerard had deposited the will with Messrs. Rosen, Stead and Rosen. If he had my mission was accomplished. It was a comfort to think that the documents would be safe at the solicitors’ and my responsibility was over.

But I couldn’t rest. I had an eerie feeling that there was something rather sinister building up in this house, that Uncle Carl was aware of it in a way and that he encouraged it. Perhaps he found life dull, confined to his room as he was; perhaps he wanted dramatic things to happen.

I was getting fanciful, and I felt an irresistible desire to get out of the house. I put on my cloak and went out. My steps took me toward Enderby. I wanted to see Gerard, to make sure that he had deposited the will at the solicitors’. If I had his word for this I would sleep more easily.

I paused awhile at the haunted patch looking beyond the broken pales to that spot where he had seemed to rise up from the earth before I went on toward the house. There was definitely something eerie about it. It had such a repelling air that I almost turned and fled. The wind in the trees seemed to be moaning something. If I listened and let loose my imagination I could believe they were saying Go away. I had a feeling then that I should go away and I could go into town tomorrow morning and see Mr. Rosen. I could ascertain whether the will had been deposited with them and if it had been, plan to go home at once, my mission accomplished. Should I feel sorry for Uncle Carl in such a situation? I thought not. After all it was of his own making and he clearly wanted it as it was.

He could turn out both Jessie and Amos Carew if he wanted to. The agent could be replaced; and as for Jessie, well, I am sure it would not be difficult to find a good hardworking housekeeper who would run the house and servants as it used to be in the days of my great-grandparents.

While I was musing thus the door opened and a man came out.

He looked surprised to see me and I said quickly: “I wondered if Monsieur Gerard d’Aubigné was at home.”

He said he would inquire and, taking me into the hall, went away.

Enderby certainly had what people called atmosphere. One was aware of it on taking the first step inside the place. The great hall with its vaulted ceiling and minstrels’ gallery at one end and the screens to the kitchen at the other seemed full of shadows. I remembered that it had always looked like that. It was as though there were ghosts waiting to spring out. One was aware of an impending sense of doom in the house. Happiness never stayed there long, I had heard someone say. I knew my mother’s childhood had not been an unhappy one; but that seemed to be the only period when people seemed to live normal lives within those walls.

While I brooded thus Gerard came down the stairs. He ran when he saw me and came toward me, his hands outstretched. He took mine and kissed first one then the other.

“I was expecting you,” he said.

“Expecting me?”

“Yes, you wanted to make sure, didn’t you? You were tormented with doubts. Should you have trusted me with such a mission? Oh … Zipporah, have I not shown you that I will serve you with my life if need be?”

“How you do love to make everything dramatic. Did you deliver the will?”

“To Mr. Rosen senior himself. He studied it, approved and has it in his safekeeping.”

“Oh …thank you.”

He smiled at me quizzically. “You can trust me, you know.”

“I know it really. I am just a little anxious. I know we were laughing about it all … but I’ve suddenly felt that it is not such a laughing matter.”

“You will have some refreshment?”

“No. I have just had supper. I must get back now.”

“Oh, stay awhile.” He had taken my hand and was drawing me toward him.

I felt the house beckoning me … almost as though it were waiting, drawing me in … and I was afraid. All I had ever heard about Enderby seemed to be warning me. Was it a premonition? Perhaps.

“No,” I said firmly. “I just wanted to make sure nothing had gone wrong.”

He looked disappointed but resigned. “I will walk back with you,” he said.

We came out of the house together and I could not suppress a feeling of relief as we walked away from it.

It was growing dark now. It reminded me of the first time we had met. We passed the haunted patch and he pressed my arm.

“A wonderful moment,” he said. “That first encounter of ours.”

“I don’t know how to thank you for what you have done for me.”

“There is no need for thanks. I would willingly do anything you asked me.”

“That is being a little rash. How do you know what I might ask?”

“The more difficult the request the more I should enjoy it.”

“I suppose at the French court you are well versed in extravagant conversation.”

“Perhaps, but what I say to you, I mean.”

“Well, I am grateful. And I think that now my mission is accomplished I should go home.”

“Please don’t say that,” he said.

“I must go.”

“Not yet. I have a feeling that this matter is not yet completed.”

“Do you think my uncle is … in danger?”

“It has occurred to me. Here is a rapacious woman … she thinks she will inherit a big estate. The only thing between her and it is that frail old man in his bed. Think of the temptation. Does Jessie seem the sort of woman who would resist it?”

“I don’t know. She seemed rather fond of him.”

“She has her lover. …Do you think they plan to share Eversleigh between them?”

“I have been thinking that I should be happier if Jessie knew about that will and that whatever she got him to sign will be useless. If she knew this she would certainly not wish to ‘shorten his life,’ as Mr. Rosen put it. She would keep him alive so that she could go on enjoying what comforts she has now and perhaps feathering her nest.”

“That sounds reasonable to me. I think Lord Eversleigh is safe while you are there. She would attempt nothing which you might see. Therefore, you must stay. Your mission is not yet accomplished.”

“Do you think I could tell Uncle Carl that he must let Jessie know there is a will with the solicitor?”

“I think so …in time. Not just yet. Let him get over all the excitement of today. Do you agree?”

“Perhaps you are right. I am sorry to have involved you in this.”

“It has added spice to my visit. I do assure you.”

We had come into the shrubbery.

“Good night.” I said.

He took my hand and held it for a long time. He was smiling at me in a certain way and I had a great desire to stay there with him.

I should have been warned.

As I went into the house I saw Evalina. She ran past me and up the stairs. At the top she turned back and looked at me almost maliciously.

I thought: That girl is everywhere.

And I went to my room. I knew as soon as one instinctively does that certain things were not quite in the place in which one had left them. I hurriedly went to my cupboard. Now I was sure of it.

I turned the key in the lock of my door and thoughtfully prepared for bed.

Evalina had reported what she had seen and obviously suspicions had been aroused. I was more thankful than ever that Gerard had taken the will to Rosen. If I had kept it it would certainly have been discovered by whoever had searched my room.

That night I had a nightmare. I was in Enderby Hall and suddenly ghosts from the past rose up and came toward me. I put out my hands to hold them off but they came nearer and nearer. And among them was Gerard. … There was earth on his clothes and his face was deathly white. He was one of them … one of those ghosts from the past.

He had something in his hand. It was a scroll of paper. Uncle Carl’s will!

And he began to laugh … evilly … and all the time his luminous eyes were fixed on me.

Then someone was calling to me. “Danger. … Get away while there is time.”

I woke up with a terrible start. It had all seemed so real.

I lay staring into the darkness. Who was Gerard? I asked. What did I know of him? When I looked back over the last days my conduct seemed inexplicable. I had formed a friendship with this stranger whom I had known for a few hours when I told him the secrets of my family; I had entrusted him with the will.

I must be losing my senses. The old Zipporah looking accusingly at my new self who had taken on this task and had brought in a stranger to help. What could I have done? I could have written home, I could have told them of the situation here, asked advice. If Jean-Louis was not fit to come, Sabrina could.

That was what the old Zipporah would have done. The new one seemed to have come into being since I had strayed out on that night and Gerard d’Aubigné had risen like a ghost from the haunted ground.

I had made up my mind. Tomorrow I would call in at Rosen, Stead and Rosen and assure myself that the will had indeed been deposited.

This censorious mood directed against my new self persisted during the morning. I did not get a chance to convey anything to my uncle at the eleven o’clock session. Jessie was watching us intently the whole time, but in the afternoon I walked into the town.

Mr. Rosen greeted me with pleasure and I immediately asked him if Monsieur Gerard d’Aubigné had delivered the will yesterday afternoon.

“Indeed yes,” he said. “A charming and most helpful gentleman. Now we need have no qualms. Everything is perfectly in order.

I felt ashamed of myself for distrusting Gerard.

I felt worse still when I passed the inn and saw the carriage there.

I was walking hurriedly along the road when I heard it clopping after me.

He pulled up and smiled at me rather roguishly.

“You could have trusted me,” he said.

I decided that I would be perfectly frank with him and not pretend that I had gone into the town for some other purpose. “I had to make sure,” I said.

“Of course.”

He helped me into the carriage.

“And now,” he said, “you are satisfied.”

“I am, and I do thank you most sincerely for your help.”

He smiled as we gamboled along.

It was the day of the fair. I had been seeing Gerard every day. I had felt I had to make some amends for my lack of trust in him and from then on our friendship seemed to grow. I think he must have known that I suffered some qualms of uneasiness, wondering whether it was right for a married woman to see so much of a man who was not her husband. He stressed that we were, as he put it, birds of passage, implying that our association was an interlude in our lives. Very soon we should have to go our separate ways but there was no reason why we should not take with us pleasant memories of our meetings.

I think this acted as a sort of palliative. I would remind myself of it on those occasions when quite suddenly the thought would come to me that my friendship with this man was becoming too deep, too involved and was different from anything that had ever happened to me before.

And so to the day of the fair.

I think the whole of the community must have gone. Jessie went off with Amos Carew. Uncle Carl insisted. He was tired, he said, and wanted to rest. Most of the servants had gone and after the midday meal all those who were not already at the fair left the house.

It was, Jessie had explained to me, the event of the year—or the half year, as it came twice—and everybody had to make the most of it. “You’ll be looking in, I daresay,” she said to me.

I said that I would.

I had arranged to meet Gerard. He had said nothing about the fair but I figured he would like to have a look at it.

He met me just beyond the shrubbery and our steps led up past Enderby.

He said: “I think everyone from the house has gone to the fair today. It seems so different without them. I’d like to show you the house. Have you ever gone through it?”

“No. I’ve heard about it but it was sold before I was born. My mother lived there as a girl but her aunt, who had brought her up, died and her husband was heartbroken. He was drowned and I don’t think anyone was sure whether it was suicide or an accident. Neither my mother nor her cousin Sabrina, who lives with her, ever wants to talk about it very much.”

“Come and take a look,” he said.

“I thought you would want to go to the fair.”

“I’d rather show you the house. You ought to see it and now that there is no one here there is an opportunity. Besides, it seems different when it’s empty. It has a great deal of atmosphere.”

He had taken my arm and was drawing me toward the house. I was reminded of my dream when I had fancied something had been warning me. I knew that when I had dreamed that I had imagined I was in that house, but I felt myself drawn on by an irresistible impulse and yet I was aware of another part of myself warning me not to enter that house of ill omen.

He had opened the door and we stood in the hall. It had a vaulted ceiling and fine paneling. I had seen many halls like it and yet there were shadows here. In the stillness I felt my heart start to beat so fast that I could almost hear it. He put an arm around me. I drew back and he said: “You looked … vulnerable … as though you need protection.”

I laughed but it sounded hollow. “I am really quite well able to look after myself.”

“I know it.” He was looking at me intently. “You would never do what you did not want to.”

My eyes had strayed to the minstrels’ gallery.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s one of the haunted spots. There are many of them. I’ve discovered that the servants won’t go into the gallery alone. Come, Zipporah, let us defy the ghosts.”

He took my hand and we mounted the stairs.

There was a carved door. It creaked as he opened it.

“Come,” he whispered and I stepped with him into the gallery.

“It’s colder up here.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said. “The ghosts come from the dead.”

He took my chin in his hands and looked into my face.

“You’re a tiny bit scared,” he said. “Oh yes, you are, my practical commonsensical Zipporah. Confess it, you are a little affected by Enderby.”

“Are you?” I asked.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I like it. It’s no ordinary house, but who wants an ordinary house? When I am here I say to myself: Is it true? Do the spirits of those long dead sometimes return to haunt the scenes of their sins … or their triumphs? Who can be sure? No one can. That’s the exciting thing about it. It’s mystery … wrapped in mystery, and one is never sure whether one is going to find the answer. Don’t you find that fascinating?”

“Yes, of course.”

We stood at the rail looking down at the hall. “It’s full of shadows,” he said. “Why?”

“Because of the trees and shrubs which grow too close and too high. Cut them down and have lawns all about the house and the light would be let in.”

“Perhaps the ghosts wouldn’t like it. Come on. Let me show you the rest of the house.”

“Where are the people who live here?”

“They are away. It is lent to me in their absence.”

“It was very convenient for you.”

“Oh very. I couldn’t have found a more pleasant spot.”

“But it is so far away from London.”

“Well, it has its little town wherein the good firm of Rosen, Stead and Rosen are housed.”

“But for a man of affairs …”

“This suits my affairs very well. I am near the sea … That is good, but best of all I am close to Eversleigh Court and because of that I met you, Zipporah.”

I sat quickly: “I think I should be returning home to Clavering soon. They will be missing me and I have done what I came to do.”

“Don’t talk of that now. Live in the present. It’s good to live in the present. The past is usually full of regrets. Never feel regrets, Zipporah. They change nothing. As for the future, that is the unknown. It is the present that has to be lived and living is the whole meaning of existence.”

“Too many generalizations are never quite true,” I said.

I was already beginning to feel the spell of the house … or perhaps it was his presence. I felt like another person. Trying to make excuses later I told myself that from the moment I had entered the house I had been taken into the possession of someone else.

We reached the top of the stairs, our footsteps echoing on the bare wooden boards. He opened a door and we were in a corridor.

I said: “How silent it seems! A strange soft of alliance … almost as though …”

“Perhaps the ghosts have come out today. I’ve got an idea they don’t much care for those giggling servants. They like a silent house.”

“We are here,” I said.

“On a tour of exploration. I am sure they want the house to live up to its eerie reputation.

“This is not an exceptionally large house,” he said. “There are five rooms on this landing. Above are the servants’ quarters. How quiet it seems.”

He opened a door. I was in a room in which was a large four-poster bed. The hangings were of brocade—white and gold. There was other furniture in the room but it was dominated by the large bed.

I had the uncanny feeling then that I had been there before. Or did I imagine that afterward. My emotions at this stage were so intense because I knew that I was being propelled toward some tremendous climax. I was trying to hold back yet urging myself forward.

“They prepared this room for me when I arrived,” I heard him say. “I believe it was a sort of honor. It’s the bridal suite.”

“But you brought no bride,” I said.

He had taken my hands and was looking steadily at me. I tried to withdraw them but I could not do so. I was not sure whether it was because he held them so firmly or because my own will would not allow me to relinquish the contact.

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I remembered something I had heard about this room. Hadn’t the bed curtains been blood red … rich, velvet at one time; and hadn’t they been changed to white and gold. There was a reason.

The past seemed to be closing round me and I was a part of it. I wanted to escape from it. I wanted to be in the present … I wanted to live as I never had before.

Then he put his arms round me and held me close to him. I could feel his heart beating against mine. I was in love with him and this was different from loving Jean-Louis or anyone I had loved before. This was something I had never experienced, had never understood, had been vaguely aware existed … in romances of the past. Tristan and Isolde, Abelard and Héloïse … the sort of overwhelming passion for the sake of which people sacrificed everything … even that which they held most dear.

“Zipporah.” He was saying my name as I had never heard it said before. I seemed to be floating along in his arms. We had left the world and all its little conventions a long way behind. We were together … we belonged together … and there was no holding back the tide of passion which was enveloping us.

I heard myself say: “No … no … I must go. …”

And I heard his gentle laughter as he loosened my dress. I was still protesting but without any real conviction, I knew, and he knew it too. I was desperately trying to remember so many things. I was Zipporah Ransome, wife of Jean-Louis; our marriage was a happy one … my family …

It was no use, I was not with them … I was here in this house with my lover.

Yes, he was my lover. I had been conscious of this tremendous attraction between us from the first. It had happened in that very moment he had risen from the ground and stood before me.

It was no use fighting, I must let this emotion sweep over me, submerge me … teach me what I had never known before—that I was a deeply sensuous woman who had never before been aware of this.

I made no attempt now to hold him off. I was his completely and he knew it. Perhaps being wise in the ways of women he had always known it.

Afterward we lay on the bed side by side. It was so still, and then away in the distance I could hear the shouting and laughter of the fair.

It occurred to me that I would remember that forever as the background to my ecstasy of passion and my shame.

I put my hand to my face. There were tears there. How had I shed them? What were they? Tears of happiness, the result of this tremendous excitement which had taken possession of me, tears of shame … for that was there too.

He put his arms about me and held me close to him. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you.” I answered.

“Dear Zipporah … be happy. …”

“I am … and then I’m not.”

“It had to be.”

“It should never have been.”

“It has been.”

“Oh God,” I said, and I was praying aloud. I wanted to go back. I didn’t want this to have happened. “Let me go back. … Let it be early this afternoon. Let me walk in the opposite direction … away from Enderby.”

He stroked my face.

“Dearest.” he said, “it had to be … right from the first it had to be. Whatever happens now we have had this. It is worth everything … all the anticipation that was, all the regretting to come. We met as we did. We went through our little adventure of the will, but that is not the point. There are people who are meant to love … to mate … they must. It is their destiny. Don’t blame yourself because you were suddenly awakened. You have been dormant too long, my darling. Zipporah.”

“What have I done?” I said. “My husband …”

He held me fast against him. “Come away with me,” he said. “You will never have to face him then.”

“Leave my home … my husband … my family …”

“For me.”

“I could never do that. That would be the ultimate betrayal.”

“You were meant to love as we have loved. We would have a wonderful life together.”

“No,” I said. “I must go from here. We must not meet again. This must be forgotten. It must be as though it never was. I must go home to my husband … to my family. We must forget … forget. …”

“Do you think I am ever going to forget? Are you?”

“I shall live with this all the rest of my life. I shall never be at peace again. I feel now that I shall wake up and find that it never really happened.”

“And the most exciting experience of your life was not real! You want that!”

“I don’t know. But I must go. What if anyone came back and found me here … like this … ?” I half rose but he had pulled me back. He held me firmly, and he was laughing, a hint of triumph in his voice.

Then he was making love to me again and my resolutions slipped away. I was drowned once more in that sea of passion. There was nothing else that mattered. I was powerless to resist.

As I lay exhausted by my emotion, listening to the sounds of the fair in the distance, I felt I was now irrevocably lost.

The curtains about the bed were half drawn and the sun glinting through the windows touched them with a shade of red. Through my half-closed eyes for a few moments they might have been red velvet. …

There is something strange here, I thought, something uncanny. I knew then that I had started to make my excuses.

I did not rise. I lay there beside him and I listened to his seductive voice telling me that we could go away together. We could leave for France by the end of the week. He would make me happy as I had not dreamed of happiness. He knew that he had opened a new world to me. He had shown me a side to my nature that I had never known existed. I had been happy with Jean-Louis; our life had been, as I thought, satisfactory in all ways. It could never be so again because I knew that with my husband I had never explored those realms of erotic excitement to which Gerard had introduced me. I would always crave for them … long for them. It was as though he had opened a door to a part of my nature which I had not known existed and the new experiences to which I had been introduced would make demands upon me. I should never be satisfied with my marriage after this.

How long did we lie there with the sounds of the fair going on and on in the background? I had no notion of time … it slipped away. There were moments when I forgot everything but our passion. I deliberately refused to think of anything else; not that I had to make a great effort. But I did know that time was passing and even he—reckless as I guessed him to be—was aware of that. The servants would be coming back. How could my presence in the house be explained?

So he agreed that we must go. I soberly dressed. I could not understand my mood, which was half defiant, half exultant. If I could go back, would I? No, I would not. I had lived this afternoon as I would never have believed was possible. I didn’t want to change anything … not yet. Let me live in my magic cocoon a little longer.

He turned to me and held me in his arms, tenderly kissing my brow, stroking my hair, telling me he loved me.

“We must meet soon,” he said. “I must talk to you. … We must make plans.”

“I shall go back to my home. I must.”

“I shall not allow it. When can we meet? Tonight? Come out by the shrubbery.”

At last I said I would.

We went down the staircase past the haunted gallery. The house seemed different now … at peace, in a way, contented, almost laughing at us. I was very fanciful. It was all part of building up excuses, trying to plead extenuating circumstances, fate perhaps, for what I had done.

The sounds from the fair were louder out of doors.

We walked together back to Eversleigh. In the shrubbery he kissed me passionately.

“We belong together,” he said. “Never forget it.”

Then I tore myself away and ran into the house.

I made for my room and on the way I passed Uncle Carl’s room. On impulse I looked in. He was sitting in his chair and he looked grotesque, I thought, out of bed with his long nose and pointed chin, his parchment skin and his very lively dark eyes.

“Oh.” he said, “have you been to the fair, Carlotta?”

“Carlotta?” I said. “Carlotta’s dead. It’s Zipporah.”

“Of course. Of course. You looked so like her … for the moment I’d forgotten.”

I felt shaken. I thought: It shows. What have I done? It has branded me in some way. He knew. … That is why he called me Carlotta.

“Is Jessie in?” he asked.

“She may be still at the fair.”

“She’ll be in now, I’ll swear. It’s nearly supper time.”

I left him. I could not bear those lively eyes looking at me. I was sure they saw something different about me.

I went to my room. I looked at myself in the mirror. “Carlotta,” he had said. Yes … I looked different. There was something about me … a sparkle … a shine almost. My eyes, which had been a darkish blue, looked darker … almost a violet shade.

I had changed.

“I have become an adulteress,” I murmured.

I had exhausted all the excuses. In fact there were none. For the next afternoon I was lying on the bed behind the brocade curtains with my love. I was crafty. I said to myself: I have already sinned against Jean-Louis, against my honor, my principles … nothing can change that. And to go again, to be with him … to experience that emotional turmoil … what does it matter? I am already an adulteress. I shall still be one however many times I give way to temptation.

So I went and the experience seemed even more alluring than before. Perhaps I had managed to quieten my conscience. I had stepped over the border of what seemed to me—in my role of the old Zipporah—as depravity. I was there, so what difference could one more step make?

I was in love with Gerard, which was different from loving Jean-Louis. Jean-Louis was kind, considerate, tender, all that I had wanted in a husband until I met Gerard. It might be that Gerard could not compare with Jean-Louis in tenderness and consideration … I did not know. That fact appalled me. I did not really know this man and yet the physical attraction between us was so overwhelming as to be irresistible.

So I went back to my white and gold brocade bed and I learned that I had never really known myself before. I was a deeply sensuous woman; having overcome my first terrors, subdued my intruding conscience, I could now give myself to passion and I gave myself completely and utterly.

And there we lay and once more the sounds of the fair were our background and the house seemed to be applauding because it knew that I had betrayed my husband in a manner which I would never have thought possible.

I could think of nothing else but being alone with Gerard, of exciting and erotic lovemaking. I was a different person. I did not know this woman I had become and yet she was myself … and if I were honest I would admit that I would not have her otherwise.

I was vital, I was alive as I had not been before. Everything seemed to have changed. I had stepped out of a way of life where I had gone on at a slow steady trot for so many years. Now I was flying into realms hitherto unknown. Oh, I was fanciful. But this was such a wonderful thing that had happened to me.

During the days that followed we were meeting regularly. We could not go to the house now but there was a cottage belonging to Enderby and this was uninhabited because the gardener who had occupied it had died suddenly and it was being renovated before it was given to one of the other servants. There were ladders and wood shavings about the place. But there was some furniture and it was a place where we could meet. We could no longer go to the house, of course, for we should have been detected at once. Gerard had plans for taking me in, and for visiting me. He liked to discuss them but we both knew that they could not be satisfactorily carried out. So we met at the gardener’s cottage after supper each evening. I was sometimes late coming back to Eversleigh.

It was dangerous, I knew; there must have been a change in me. Sometimes I could sense both Uncle Carl and Jessie watching me. They would both be experts on eroticism I was sure. Perhaps living as I had through such ecstatic moments, first at Enderby and then in the cottage, had had its effect on me and connoisseurs such as those two recognized this.

Uncle Carl called me Carlotta now and then, as though he saw some change in the Zipporah who had first come to the house. As for Jessie, she seemed to be secretly amused.

I wondered then if she discussed me with Uncle Carl or with Amos Carew.

The thought made me squirm but it did nothing to prevent my joyful appearance at those meetings with my lover.

I knew it couldn’t last. I should have to go back. The time was short. I knew it. We both knew it; and the knowledge added to the intensity of our passion.

There were times when he drove me out in the carriage. We went for miles and sometimes we lay in faraway woods where we felt safe from those who knew us. We made love under trees and in the bracken … each time seemed more exciting than the last. I had long told myself that it was no use resisting temptation now. I was a sinful, erring wife and if I never sinned and erred again nothing could alter that. It was brief … it was passing … the thought gave a terrible poignancy to our relationship; I think it made us determined to extract the very last bit of joy from it. We were abandoned; our senses took control. Nothing else mattered to us in our wildly demanding love.

He urged me to go away with him. I knew then that as he belonged to the diplomatic circles at the French court he was in England on business for his country. I knew too that in view of the existing state of affairs between our countries he must be some sort of spy; I knew that he was at Enderby because it was remote and that he made secret journeys to the coast.

It seemed to me that I was not only an adulteress but was spending my time with an enemy of my country. I knew nothing of him, yet I had never so intimately known anyone before. All I knew was that there was some irresistible attraction between us; that if I could have my greatest wish granted it would be that I could wipe out everything that had happened before in my life and start afresh now with him.

And so I went on slipping deeper and deeper into this life of the senses.

We did discuss the matter of Uncle Carl’s will. He said to me once: “Your uncle may be in acute danger. If that woman has a paper which she thinks will give her the estate, it is almost certain that she will find some means of getting her hands on it.”

“I know. What shall I do?”

“She should know that there is a will—signed and sealed—with the solicitor.”

“My uncle will never tell her.”

“You must. I think he is safe for the time being because you are there. You are his safeguard, but if you should go away I wouldn’t give much for his chances. She must know.”

“She would badger him to sign another paper.”

“She must be told that it would not be valid. That it would have to be signed by responsible people, that Rosen would have to draw it up.”

“That’s not exactly true, is it?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know the laws of England. But it is what she should be told. I don’t think your uncle should be left to her tender mercies.”

That was all we said about it, but it stayed in my mind. I felt very uneasy. I had forgotten the half-comic half-sinister situation in this house, so absorbed had I been by my own affairs.

It was a week after the first day of the fair when messengers arrived from Clavering. They brought a letter from my mother.

Dear Zipporah—[she wrote]

I am glad that you have been able to help your uncle. He must have been very pleased to see you but now I have rather bad news for you. I think you should come home at once. We all miss you very much. Poor Jean-Louis is quite lost without you and the doctor is a little worried about him. Apparently it was not only his leg which was broken. They think he has done something to his spine. He can’t walk as he did and is getting about with a stick. You know how active he has always been and this has depressed him rather and I really think you should be with him just now.

I let the letter drop from my hand. Some spinal injury. It was tragic. He was a man of action, used to an outdoor life. He walks with a stick. How bad was he? I knew that it would be like my mother to break the news gently.

I must go back to him at once. I must devote my life to him. I must expiate this terrible wrong I had done him.

I picked up the letter.

You know what he thinks of you. You are everything to him. He misses you so dreadfully—we all do. But Jean-Louis needs you … particularly just now that this has happened. …

I would go back at once. A terrible depression enveloped me. Had I really been thinking that I could have slipped away from all my responsibilities and blithely gone to France with Gerard? I believe for a few moments I had entertained the thought. I was doubly ashamed of myself. My mother’s letter had brought it all back so vividly … the kindness, the unending patience and love I had had from Jean-Louis, my lawful husband.

I was depraved. I was wanton. I was wicked.

Well, I was an adulteress.

I went over to Enderby where Gerard was waiting for me.

“I must make my plans to go home now … at once,” I told him. “I’ve had a letter. Jean-Louis’s accident was more than a broken leg. He has injured his spine. I wonder if he is going to be an invalid.”

Gerard looked at me incredulously.

“Yes,” I went on, “I have had a letter from my mother. I shall have to go soon. I can’t delay. This is terrible.”

He held me against him and I felt the desire rising within me potent as ever. I felt I could not bear to leave him. I leaned my head against him. I was looking blankly into a future which did not hold him. I saw the dreary years stretching ahead of me.

He said: “I too must go. …”

“It’s the end then.”

“It need not be,” he said. “It is for you to decide.”

“Jean-Louis has been hurt.”

“What of me? What of us?”

“He is my husband,” I said. “I have vowed to love him … in sickness … in health. If only I had never come here.”

“Don’t regret it. You have loved … you have lived.”

“And I shall live on to regret … all my life.”

He said abruptly: “When do you propose to go?”

“Before the week is out.”

He bowed his head. Then he took my hand and kissed it. “Zipporah,” he said, “if ever you should change your mind …”

“Do you mean, you will be waiting for me?”

He nodded. “But you have not yet gone. There is still a little time left to me … to us … time for me to persuade you.

I shook my head. “I know I have been weak … I have been wicked … but there are some things which even I could not do.”

I don’t think he believed me. After all. I had been so eager, so willing, that he thought that when the time came I would abandon everything for him.

I knew I never would. I knew that no matter what happened I had to go back to Jean-Louis.

I had made up my mind that I was going to warn Uncle Carl. I did not mention my imminent departure to Jessie as I intended to speak to him first and I chose the afternoon when I knew we should be safe from intrusion.

He looked pleased to see me and into his eyes there crept that mischievous look which I did not understand. Sometimes I wondered how far his mind wandered into the past because lately it had become increasingly clear that he confused me with my ancestress Carlotta, who had clearly made a great impression on him in his youth.

I realized that almost immediately after my arrival I had met Gerard and even from that first meeting I had been so obsessed with him that the full implication of what might be happening in this house had not struck me so forcibly as it did now that I was on the point of departure.

A cry for help, Sabrina had said. Well, it was, in a way. Not that he was asking for help—although I was sure he was aware of the dangers of his situation. He did not seem to care about danger. He was like an onlooker watching with amusement the strange antics of human beings—even though he himself was one of the main actors in the drama.

Sometimes I thought he was too old to care what happened and as long as Jessie was there to administer to his comforts he was quite prepared for anything she might do—in fact took a lively interest in waiting to see which turn her actions would take.

It was all very strange—as everything had been since my arrival.

Therefore I had made up my mind that I must speak plainly to him and point out the danger in which he could be.

I began by telling him about my mother’s letter.

“My husband is not as well as we thought. At first it seemed that he suffered only from a broken leg and we thought that as soon as that mended he would be all right. There seems to be some complication, so I must go home.”

He nodded. “So you will be leaving us. I shall be sorry.”

“I will come again … perhaps with Jean-Louis or my mother or Sabrina.”

“That would be good. I trust you have enjoyed your stay here.”

“Oh yes… yes.”

He was smiling, was it secretly? “It seems to agree with you, Carlotta.”

I looked at him steadily and said: “I am Zipporah.”

“Of course. My mind wanders. I’m back in the past years and years ago. It’s not the first time, is it? I suppose it’s because you have a look of her. I notice it more every day.”

I said: “Uncle Carl, I want to say something to you which you might not like. You must understand I am only thinking of you.”

I saw the faintly imperceptible twitch of his lips which I had come to know indicated amusement.

“My dear child,” he said, “you are so good to me … so kind … so solicitous of my welfare. You have already gone to great trouble to do what I asked. I thought your French gentleman charming … quite charming. …” His bright eyes were on my face. “And so do you, eh?”

I knew the color was rising to my cheeks, and I thought: He knows. How can he know? Has Jessie spied on me? Has she talked about me with him?

“It was good of him to get me quickly into the town and to help us with the will.” I went on quickly: “It is that that I wanted to speak to you about, Uncle Carl.”

“It’s all sealed and settled now. I’ve done my duty. Eversleigh will be for you and your heirs. I feel the family ghosts are all nodding their heads in approval. Carl was an old reprobate, they are saying, but he has done his duty at last. Let’s all turn over in our tombs and go to sleep. We’ll give him a talking to when he comes to join us.”

He was smiling at me in that mischievous way and I plunged on. “Uncle Carl, there’s something I must say to you. You must not be persuaded to sign anything else … like that paper you did before.”

He nodded.

I stumbled on: “You see, if people think they are going to inherit a great deal they could go to any lengths to get their hands on it.”

He laughed. It was high pitched, almost falsetto. He looked shrewd and I wondered of how much he was aware and if his forgetfulness and the air of senility he sometimes assumed was all part of the role he was playing.

“You mean Jess … ?” he said.

“It’s a great temptation … particularly for people who have never had a great deal and perhaps are a little anxious about the future.”

“Jess would always find a place for herself.”

“I’ve no doubt, but she wouldn’t have many opportunities like this. I’ll be completely frank, Uncle Carl.”

“Oh. It always frightens me when people are going to be completely frank. I wonder if anyone ever is … about everything. … A little frank, yes … but completely frank. …”

“I hope you won’t be offended but I am anxious about you and I don’t want to go away … leaving things as they are.”

“All’s well. Old Rosen has the will.”

“Jessie doesn’t know it.”

“Poor Jess! What a shock for her.”

“She thinks because of this piece of paper you’ve signed that all this goes to her. It wasn’t very wise of you, Uncle Carl.”

“No,” he said, “my life is strewn with unwisdom.”

“You see …”

He was looking at me encouragingly. “You must say exactly what you mean, my dear.”

“Very well. I’m concerned about you. I couldn’t go away peacefully thinking that you might be in some sort of …”

“Predicament?”

“Danger,” I said boldly. “Uncle Carl, I think Jessie ought to know that you have signed that will and that …”

“And that she would gain little by my death.” How sharp he was. He seemed to be able to look right into my mind. I thought. He is playing a part as well as everyone else here.

“Yes,” I said boldly. “Yes.”

He nodded. “You are a good girl,” he said. “I’m glad this will be yours one day. You’ll do the right thing by it … and your children will manage the estate in accordance with the wishes of the ancestors watching from on high or from below, where it seems likely the majority of us will be.”

“You joke, Uncle Carl.”

“Life is a bit of a joke, eh? It’s like a play. We strut and fret our hour upon the stage, eh? That’s what I’ve often thought. I loved the play. I would have liked to have been an actor. Who ever heard of an Eversleigh being an actor? Oh, those ancestors of ours. They wouldn’t have liked that. The next best thing was sitting in the boxes looking on. … I’ve always liked it, Carlotta … bless you, Zipporah. I’ve done it when I could. I look on and see how people are going to act … what part they’re going to play. …”

“You mean, Uncle Carl,” I said, “that you are something of a manipulator. You create situations and watch how they work it out.”

“No, no, not that. I let events take care of themselves and watch. … I will admit that sometimes I give a hand but that’s only in the nature of things.”

He laughed again. It was strange laughter and I thought: He sees life as a play; he is watching us act; he is sitting in his box waiting for what the actors on the stage will do next.

“Uncle Carl,” I said, “I want Jessie to know that you have signed a will and that it is with the solicitors.”

He nodded.

I said: “Then she will cherish you, for she can only enjoy the comforts of this house—which I am sure she fully appreciates—while you are here to provide them.”

“You’re clever,” he said. “And you’re good to me.”

“Then have I your permission to tell her?”

“My dear child, I never tell people what they should do. That would spoil the action, wouldn’t it? They have to act as the spirit moves them. I like to see what they will do.”

He was strange … not mad, for at times his brain worked most efficiently; but he wanted to live life in his own way. I could imagine that some years before he must have been an extremely active man. He had lived to excess after his marriage, I was sure. And now that he was old and incapable of moving from this room he created his own shadow play.

He knew a great deal about us—that Jessie was here for all the advantage it could bring her; he was aware that Amos Carew was her lover; he might even have guessed at the relationship between Gerard and myself—and it was all of immense interest to him. We were the players on the stage who provided the interest which his own life had denied him now that he was old.

He would not prevent my telling Jessie about the will because that would interfere with the natural actions of human beings. He knew very well that his life could be in danger if she thought she would inherit Eversleigh on his death. But he was ready to risk that for the sake of the play.

After the orderly manner in which my life had been lived until I came on this visit it seemed incredible. I felt I had stepped into a world of fantasy and melodrama, a world of cynicism where what other people thought of as sin was simply the order of the day.

They were amoral, without that sense of duty and honor which, until I came here, had been the rule of life with me. And who was I to criticize? I had been caught up in this web of intrigue since I had come here.

However, I had made up my mind that I was going to let Jessie know that it was to her advantage to keep Uncle Carl alive, for with his death all the blessings which she now enjoyed would be cut off.

After breakfast the next morning, I asked if I could have a word with her, and, looking rather surprised, she led me into the winter parlor.

I said: “I have had a letter from my mother. My husband is not well. I shall be returning home at the end of the week.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “You must be worried, poor dear.”

“I must get back, you see.”

“Have you told Lordy?”

“Yes, I have.”

She nodded.

“There is something else I wanted to say to you.”

“Say on, my dear.”

“I want to assure myself—and my family will want this too—as to the state of Lord Eversleigh’s health.”

“Oh, he’s in good health, dear.”

“I want the doctor’s opinion. You understand my family will expect that, so I am going to ask him to call and give a thorough examination.”

“Lordy won’t like that.”

“Well, I shall ask him to come in any case.”

“For his age he’d take a lot of beating.”

“It would be good to have that confirmed.”

“Oh well, you must suit yourself.”

“I shall. There is another matter. You must have guessed that Lord Eversleigh asked me here for a purpose.”

“Why bless you, you’re his relation. He just wanted to see you.”

“Yes, but something else. He’s made a will. It is now with Messrs. Rosen, Stead and Rosen … you know, the solicitors in the town.”

I was watching her closely. She lowered her eyes and I knew that she was afraid for me to see any sign of anger or speculation.

“Well,” I went on, “you’re comfortable here, and there is no reason why this situation might not go on for many years … as long as we keep Lord Eversleigh healthy and strong. You see.

She did see. Under the carmine of her cheeks she had flushed and I saw the color spread down her neck. I was telling her as clearly as I could without actually stating the fact that I considered her capable of … murder.

She recovered herself quickly. She was a good actress. I am sure she satisfied Uncle Carl in that respect as in many others: “Oh, I’ll take care of him. You’ve nothing to fret about on that score. I’ll keep him hale and hearty till he’s a hundred.”

“I am sure you will, and of course he is contented in his mind now that his will has been completed and is in safe hands. I had to get it properly executed. You can be sure that if this had not been so there could have been some difficulty. You know what solicitors are. …They spot loopholes. However, they have supervised this one and so we know that it is valid.”

She hated me. How she hated me! I could feel it in her false smile. I was determined to get the doctor and have a verdict on my uncle’s health. I knew that I had shaken her.

I was glad, concerning myself over this matter took my mind from my own desperate situation.

The time was passing. Soon I must be on my way home. Gerard was still waiting for a miracle. I really think he believed that I would abandon everything and go away with him.

The doctor came and spent an hour or so with Uncle Carl. His verdict was that my uncle’s organs were in a sound condition. His inability to walk far was due to advanced rheumatism. With proper care he had years before him.

I conveyed this news to Jessie. She had recovered from the first shock of our encounter and was particularly ingratiating toward me.

She said: “Well, that’s good news. You can rest assured, dearie, that every attention he needs he shall get. I’ll make sure he’s taken good care of.”

She would, I believed, because if he were to die she would no longer have a comfortable home. I daresay the feathers for the nest might become more expensive. Well, that was Uncle Carl’s affair.

Whether she upbraided him for making the will after signing that “something” in her favor, I did not know. But what I did know was that Jessie was on the alert and she knew that if anything untoward happened to Uncle Carl I would be there with strong supporters to discover the reason why.

I thought I had made quite a good job of my mission and but for my own deplorable conduct I could be proud of myself.

Everything about me had changed. I was bolder. The way I had tackled Jessie had shown that; I was tolerant. I accepted her situation at Eversleigh. Of course I did. How could I condemn my uncle’s relationship with his housekeeper … I who stole out of the house to make love with a man whom I had only known for a few weeks.

But I was leaving. I was determined on that. It was only when I lay in Gerard’s arms that I wavered: but even then I knew I could not face the ultimate betrayal. I would have to go back and try to forget; I saw before me a dreary lifetime of trying to expiate my sin. It would be there always to haunt me … there would be so much to remind me and I should never be truly happy again.

Gerard was getting frantic. The time was flying. I had two more days before I would set out for Clavering. The grooms who would accompany me had arrived at Eversleigh and were already preparing for our journey.

I was still meeting Gerard; we were still making frantic love; there was a desperation in our relationship and never had our encounters seemed so sweet as they did now that we knew that soon they would be over.

On the afternoon two days before my departure we arranged to meet at the cottage which we had made our rendezvous. I arrived first and as I did so a voice from above called: “Who’s there?”

It was not Gerard.

A young woman was coming down the stairs.

“Oh,” she said, “you’re the lady from Eversleigh.”

She curtsied and looked at me with respect.

I was astounded but I grasped the situation at once. This was the new tenant.

I said: “I saw the door open …”

“Well, ’tis good of you to take the interest, mistress. Ted and me is so pleased to get the place. Had our eyes on it since old Barnaby died. And they’ve done it up so beautiful.”

“It’s … it’s very nice,” I said.

“Lucky we be. Able to keep some of the bits and pieces too. Cramped we was in me mum’s place. Now we’ll be on our own. Like to see upstairs, mistress?”

She was proud, longing to show me. I said I would like to see it.

So I followed her up. There were curtains at the window … chintz, pretty.

She followed my gaze and said: “I put them up this morning. Surprising what a difference curtains make … and a bit of carpet. That bed was here. … Nice, ain’t it? We had to use one of me mum’s. We’re glad to have that.”

I looked at the bed on which I had known such hours of ecstasy.

There was a sound from below and I knew it was Gerard. I hurried to the stairs. I had to speak to him before he said something which might betray us.

I called out: “Who’s there? I was just being shown the cottage.”

He stood in the small room looking incongruous there as he must always have looked but I hadn’t noticed until now.

I said: “Oh, it is Monsieur d’Aubigné from Enderby. You must have been attracted by the open door as I was. I’ve been talking to the new tenant.”

He bowed to the pretty young woman, who flushed at such attention.

“I apologize for the trespass. I saw the door open and I believe it has been empty for some time.”

“They been doing it up for us, sir.”

“She and her husband are so happy to have their own place. Thank you for showing me.”

She gave another curtsy and said: “Pleasure’s mine, mistress.”

Gerard bowed to me, said “Good day” and we walked away in opposite directions. I thought, how calm he is, how gracefully he dealt with the situation. I suppose I had done the same.

We were born deceivers, both of us. But the pretty little tenant had not thought it strange. She had been too happy in her own good fortune to pay much attention to us.

It was not long before Gerard, having turned in his tracks, was walking beside me.

“So,” he said, “we have lost our meeting place. I had grown to love it.”

“It was very reckless of us to go there. We might have been disturbed at any time.”

He said: “Where shall we meet now? If you are really going to leave me on Friday …”

“I am, Gerard. I must.”

“Tomorrow then will be our last day. How am I going to bear being without you?”

“I wonder how I shall bear being without you.”

“There is the remedy.”

“It just is not possible.”

“Everything is possible.”

“At too great a price.”

“Surely

“No.” I said. “Please. Gerard, understand. I have been your mistress … I have broken my marriage vows … I have behaved as I never thought it possible … but this is the end. All that I have done will not hurt Jean-Louis … if he never knows of it. I shall go back and try to be a good wife.”

“You torture me,” he said.

“I torture myself.”

So we talked, and although I wavered a little, one fact remained clear. I could not leave Jean-Louis.

So we came to that last night. He wanted so much to be with me throughout. Perhaps if the cottage had been vacant I would have gone there and stayed with him and somehow made my way back to the house through the early hours of morning.

Although I knew Gerard was reckless and adventurous I was unprepared for what happened.

I was to leave early on the following day. The grooms had said that we should start just after dawn, which would enable us to get a fair distance on the first day when we would stop at the inn we had used on the journey to Eversleigh.

I said I would retire early. I had said good-bye to Uncle Carl for I did not want to disturb him in the morning: Jessie had said she would be up to see me off with Evalina.

My bags were packed. I was ready.

I had said good-bye to Gerard that afternoon. He had not tried to persuade me and seemed to have realized at last the futility of it.

I was about to get into bed when I heard a scratching at my window.

I went there and to my amazement and overwhelming joy there was Gerard. He had climbed up with the help of the creeper and was urging me to let him in.

I opened the window and in a few seconds I was in his arms.

“You didn’t think I was not going to be with you, did you?” he demanded.

That night was one of bitter sweetness for me. The unexpected joy of being with him, the heartbreaking knowledge that it would be the last time, made it different from any of those times we had spent together.

There was a frenzy in our passion; it was the ultimate joy mingled with the abject sorrow. I felt that in every gesture he was begging me to abandon everything and go with him.

We lay side by side listening to the gentle breeze rustling the leaves of the trees; the light of a half moon shone into the room. I wanted to preserve every moment as I used to press rose petals in my Bible at home and look at them afterward and recall the day I had picked them.

“You can’t let me go alone,” he said.

But I only shook my head in sorrow.

At dawn I must rise. I must prepare myself to station my journey … away from ecstasy to the long dreary years ahead, remembering, almost regretting, living with my terrible guilt. I wondered how well I would do that; whether I should be able to keep my guilty secret from them. Would Jean-Louis guess something tremendous had happened to me? I would be different, I was sure. My mother and Sabrina … No. When I came to think of it they had put me aside as some cherished object that was in safekeeping. Their anxieties and plans were all for Dickon.

“Don’t go away from me,” whispered Gerard. He knew me so well that he read my thoughts and he knew they had strayed from him to the people I should have to face at Clavering.

Then he kissed me and held me and we were as one.

We lay together, hands clasped, talking in whispers.

He said: “When you go back … if you go back … you will realize how desolate you are without me. … You will see that we must be together. …”

“I shall be desolate. I shall so desperately want to be with you … but I know I must be with my husband.”

“You cannot look into the future. You don’t know what will happen. I am going to give you the address of my chateau in France. I have written it for you. You will always be able to find me there.”

I felt a certain lifting of my gloom. When I rode out tomorrow I should not have entirely lost him.

“Always there will be the hope,” he said. “Every day I shall to myself say perhaps today there will be news of her. …”

I answered: “I must stay with my husband while he needs me … but if it should come to pass …”

And as we talked I thought I heard a movement. The creak of a board, the sudden rather uncanny awareness that someone is close by. I sat up in bed, listening.

“What is it?” said Gerard.

I put my fingers to my lips and went to the door. Fortunately I had locked it. I knew that someone was on the other side of that door … listening. I thought I heard a quick intake of breath.

Then I knew. I heard the creaking of a board once more. Someone was stealthily making her … or his … way along the corridor.

Gerard was looking at me questioningly.

As I went back to bed I said: “Someone was out there. Whoever it was would have heard our talking.”

“We spoke in whispers.”

“Nevertheless, someone in this house knows that there is someone in my room.”

“The amorous housekeeper? She can’t talk.”

“I don’t know.”

But the experience had made me uneasy.

Dawn came all too quickly. I had to be up and away. Gerard held me fast, made one last entreaty. I felt better now that I had his address.

Most reluctantly he left me, coming back to me several times and holding me fast again and again as though he refused to let me go.

And at length, because the minutes were racing by, he went out by the window. I watched him lower himself to the ground with the help of the jutting window decorations and the creeper.

He stood there looking at me and I could not take my eyes from him. I wanted that last sight of him to be etched forever in my mind.

Dawn was in the sky and I was ready. The grooms were waiting. I had said good-bye to my uncle the previous night so, I had remarked, I could slip away without disturbing him.

But Jessie and Evalina were there to see me go.

They both watched me … slyly, I thought, and I detected a certain speculation in their eyes and I guessed that it was one of them who had listened outside my door last night. One of them knew that I had had a lover in my room.

The journey back was uneventful. I scarcely noticed the places through which we passed. My thoughts were back with Gerard. My heart was heavy; I believed that I could never again know any happiness. I saw before me a life of dreary acceptance.

A great welcome was awaiting me, and when Jean-Louis came toward me—walking with a stick—my conscience smote me so fiercely that I was almost in tears. He thought my emotion was due to our reunion and I could see that he was happily gratified.

“It’s seemed so long,” he cried. “Oh, I’m so happy that you are back.”

“And how are you, Jean-Louis?” I said. “I was so distressed. What is this about your spine?”

“Nothing much. I think they’re making a fuss. I just get a sort of crick in my back if I walk too fast.”

I looked into his dear face and I knew that he was making light of his ailment. His first thought would be that he didn’t want to worry me. I felt mean, besmirched … wicked.

My mother with Sabrina and Dickon were waiting for me.

They embraced me lovingly. Dickon was dancing round. “What was it like?” he cried. “Tell us about Eversleigh. When are you going to have it?”

“Not for years and years, I hope,” I said. “Uncle Carl … I call him uncle because we couldn’t quite work out the relationship … is going to live for a long time.”

“How do you know?” asked Dickon, narrowing his eyes.

“Because, Dickon, I called in the doctor and he gave a good report.”

“A doctor?” said Sabrina “Is he ill then?”

“No … no, but I thought in the circumstances it was a good thing.”

My mother was laughing. “You’ve clearly had an interesting time,” she said.

“Yes … yes, very.”

“You must tell us all about it.”

Oh, not all, not all! I thought.

So I was back. It was like stepping into a world of reality after having visited some fantastic planet.

I listened to their account of all that had happened while I was away. It seemed very tame and expected.

“It was like years,” Jean-Louis told me.

My mother came to my room when I was alone there. Clearly she wanted confidences.

“Jean Louis?” I asked anxiously.

“Oh, it was sad that you weren’t here when we discovered this thing. Some damage to his spine. They don’t know what. Poor Jean-Louis, he is so brave … pretends it is nothing much, but I am sure there is some pain. Don’t look so sad, dear. It’ll be better now you’re home. He missed you so much. I think he was terribly worried. He got it into his head that something might happen and he’d lose you. All these tales about highwaymen. I think they’re rather exaggerated.”

“Of course they are. We don’t hear about the thousands of people who make safe journeys … only those who come to grief.”

“That’s what I told him. But he seemed to get it into his mind that something might go wrong. I expect he was feeling low about all this. Now you’re back, darling, everything will be all right.”

How could I ever have deserted them! I had always known in my heart that I never could.

So I resumed my quiet life. I discovered that Jean-Louis’s trouble was more than he would have us believe. I was sure that often he felt pain although he did not mention it. He was so pleased that I was home and nothing could have been more apparent.

There must have been a change in my attitude. I was more tender, more thoughtful than I had been before. He noticed it and thought it was due to his disability; he must have no suspicion, I told myself, of the terrible remorse from which I felt I would never escape.

Sometimes during the night I thought of Gerard, dreamed of him. Poor Jean-Louis, with whom I had never quite attained the heights of passion, had been a tender lover, thoughtful always—and still was, but my mind was filled with erotic imaginings of my experiences with my lost lover.

I suppose it was inevitable. I was, it appeared, able to bear children, the fault—if that was what it could be called—lay with Jean-Louis; and after my careless abandon, the frequency of our lovemaking, it would have been strange if—my partner being a normal potent man—I did not conceive.

And this, of course, was exactly what had happened.

A few weeks after my return I knew for sure that I was pregnant and I was equally sure who was the father of my child.

Here was a dilemma. It had not occurred to me that this would happen because I had always thought of myself as a barren woman. Why is it that when a couple are not fruitful it is always assumed that the deficiency is with the woman? It was clearly not so in my case.

There was only one course open to me for our sanity, for our happiness. Jean-Louis must believe that the child was his. This would be a perfectly reasonable assumption, particularly as he and my mother—the entire family—would never believe that I would break my marriage vows.

Then it should not be difficult. I had been away from home for three weeks. What if I had conceived a short time before I had left, which was possible? No one could question the time of the child’s arrival.

The first suspicion had shocked me a little and then I began to glory in the knowledge. I was to have a child. I had longed to be a mother. The fact that I was to become one would lift me out of that terrible depression which parting with Gerard had given me. I knew that if Jean-Louis was aware that he was to become a father he would be so excited that he too would benefit from the news. As for my mother and Sabrina, they would be overjoyed. In their opinion the one flaw in my marriage had been that it was childless.

I should be the only one who would see this as a result of my sin. I had been brazen, shameless … and now there was to be a result—a child of that illicit union to keep the memory of it green throughout the years.

I had fallen deeper into deceit, and although this news would bring great joy to all my family, I should be constantly reminded of those three ecstatic weeks when I had stepped aside from morality, virtue and all the principles which I had been brought up to revere.

Suppose I confessed what I had done? Suppose I told them who was the father of my child? I would only create unhappiness. No, I must go on living with my deceit for ever and the child would be a living reminder of it.

When I told Jean-Louis he was overcome with emotion.

I said: “I know it is what you have always wanted … what we have always wanted.”

“You are wonderful,” he said. “I think always my happiness has depended on you … and now this. …”

I felt the knife turning in the wound which was my conscience.

My mother and Sabrina were delighted. There was nothing that could please them more than a child in the family.

Dickon shrugged his shoulders and feigned indifference. “Babies can be a terrible nuisance,” he declared. “They cry and have to be watched.”

“Oh, Dickon, darling,” cried Sabrina, “you were a baby once.”

“Well, I grew out of it.”

“So do we all,” Sabrina reminded him.

“Sometimes they get stillborn,” he said, “which means they die being born. Some people used to put them out on the hillside to toughen them up. I think it was the Romans or the Stoics or somebody like that. It was good for them. The weak ones died and those that were really strong lived.”

“My baby will not be put on the hillside,” I said. “He … or she … will toughen up very satisfactorily in the nursery.”

Dickon glowered. He had never forgiven me for my discovery about the burned barn. That, I remembered, had been the cause of Jean-Louis’s trouble. No one had ever mentioned it in that connection. It was the sort of thing Sabrina and my mother would be very anxious to keep from stressing.

The preparations for the baby helped me considerably. I was saved from brooding as I was sure I should have done if I had not had this great event to look forward to.

Often I thought of Gerard, of course. I went over and over our meeting—the strangeness of finding him in the haunted patch and the manner in which he had risen from the ground. Almost uncanny. … It was as though he had been sent for the purpose of … what, destroying me? No, never that. Giving me a glimpse of the ecstasy two people could find in each other … giving me my child.

Then I would think of Uncle Carl sitting there watching me shrewdly, calling me Carlotta. Had he really been wandering in his mind? Did he really see that long-dead girl in me?

Sometimes my fancy wandered on. I let myself believe that I had been possessed. Uncle Carl had said: “She was cut off’ when she was young … she never lived out her life … and she was so full of life.” What a fantasy! Suppose she had come back and entered my body … and suppose Gerard was a reincarnation of that lover whom she had met at Enderby!

It was excuses, really. I was trying to say Yes. I met him, I loved him, I gave way abandonedly. I did so. … But it was not really sensible Zipporah, it was long-dead passionate Carlotta.

Such feeble reasoning must be dismissed as the worthless excuse it was. I had reveled in my lover. It had been no other than myself, a passionate, sensuous woman who had been awakened to what she really was. I knew myself now. I knew I had been vaguely dissatisfied without knowing it. I now realized that I had wanted the sort of love which Gerard had given me.

Be sensible, I admonished myself. Don’t shirk the facts. This is you … wanton adulteress, about to bear the child of a guilty union and pass that child off as your husband’s.

It was not the first time such a situation had arisen. But that it should be you. …

It showed how strange life was, how one could never be sure of people and how easy it was to be ignorant of oneself until such circumstances arose to throw a light on that subject.

My baby was a little girl. She was strong and healthy and on impulse I wanted to call her Charlotte.

Charlotte, I thought. It’s not quite Carlotta … but near it. Living evidence of that time when I seemed to become another person, when I behaved as my long-dead ancestress might have done.

So my daughter was born, and Charlotte, being, as my mother said, a somewhat severe name, we began to call this adorable creature Lottie.