The Drop of the Dice

IN THE HEART OF THE FAMILY

IT IS ONE OF the perversities of human nature that when something which has been passionately wanted is acquired, it loses its desirability and there can come a time when the need to escape from it becomes an obsession. Thus it was with me. What I had desperately needed as a child—obviously because of what had happened to me—was security. By the time I was thirteen in that fateful year of 1715, I longed to escape from the cosy cocoon in which my family had wrapped me, and when the opportunity came, I seized it.

I must have been about four years old when I was brought to England by my Aunt Damaris and my Uncle Jeremy. Those first four years of my life had been lived most dramatically though I did not realize that at the time. I suppose I thought it was the most natural thing for a girl to be kidnapped by her father, taken across the sea to live most luxuriously with her parents and then suddenly to find herself plunged into the poverty of the back streets of Paris, from which she was rescued and whisked over the sea again to an English home. I accepted all that with the philosophical endurance of a child.

One of the events which stands out in my memory is that homecoming. Vividly I recall getting off the boat and standing on the shingle. I shall never forget the ecstatic look in my Aunt Damaris’s eyes. I loved her dearly. I always had from the time I met her when she had been ill, lying on a couch, unable to walk more than a few steps. I had been bewildered as I stood there. I knew that I had no mother for she had died mysteriously at the same time as my father had, and I was very anxious for it seemed to me that everyone ought to have a mother—and a father as well.

I had said: ‘Aunt Damaris, are you going to be my mother now?’ and she had answered: ‘Yes, Clarissa, I am.’ I still remember the great comfort those words brought me.

I had noticed that Uncle Jeremy was looking at her intently and I decided that as I had lost my handsome, incomparable father, he would do very well as a substitute, so I asked him if he would be my father. He had said it would depend on Damaris.

I know now what had happened. They had been two unhappy people, hurt by life, each of them watchful so as not to be hurt again. Damaris was gentle and loving, eager to be loved. Jeremy was different. He was on his guard, suspicious of people’s motives. His was a dark nature; Damaris’s should have been a sunny one.

When I was a child I had not understood this. I had merely realized that I was looking for security and these were the two who could offer it to me. Young as I was, in that moment on the beach I could see that I must cling to them. Damaris understood my feelings. For all her seeming innocence she was very wise—far wiser, in truth, than people like Carlotta, my brilliant, worldly mother.

Those days in England were a joyous revelation to me. I discovered I had a family, and that they were all waiting to greet me, ready to draw me into their magic circle. I was one of them; I was loved—and because of my mother’s tragedy I was a consolation to them all. During those days I felt as though I was floating on a cloud of love. I revelled in it. At the same time I kept thinking of that moment when Damaris had come into the cellar-like room where I was with Jeanne’s mother and grandmother, and I could smell the odour of dampness and decaying foliage which always seemed to hang about the place and which came from the cans of water in which the unsold flowers were kept in the hope of preserving them for sale the next day. It had been her voice I recognized first when she had said: ‘Where is the child?’ I had flung myself into her arms and she had held me tightly, saying: ‘Thank you, God. Oh, thank you,’ under her breath, which impressed me even at such a time for it occurred to me that she must be on very familiar terms with God to speak to him like that.

I remember how she held me as though she was afraid I would run away. I was not likely to do that. I was so glad to get away from that cellar, for although Jeanne was good to me, I was always afraid of Maman, who always took the few sous Jeanne brought in from the sale of flowers and feverishly counted them, muttering as she did so. I had always been aware that she grudged my being there and but for Jeanne would have turned me into the streets. Even more terrifying than Maman was the Grand’mère who was always dressed in musty black and had hairs growing out of a great wart on her chin which both fascinated and repelled me. I had quickly realized that they were not my true friends and Jeanne always had to protect me from them. Sometimes I had gone out with Jeanne and I was not sure whether I disliked that as much as staying in. It was good to get away from the cellar and Maman and Grand’mère of course, but I was usually so cold standing in the streets beside Jeanne holding out bunches of violets or whatever flowers were in season; they were always wet too because they had to be kept in water and my hands grew red and chapped.

It had been a dramatic homecoming and I remember every moment of it. We passed near the great house called Eversleigh Court where, Damaris told me, my great-grandparents lived, and we stopped at the Dower House, the home of Damaris and my grandparents. They were so excited to see us. My grandmother ran out of the house and when she saw Damaris she gave a cry of joy and ran to her and hugged her as though she would never let her go. Then she turned to me and as she picked me up she was crying.

A man came out and kept kissing Damaris and then me. After that we went into the house and everyone seemed to be talking at once. Jeremy stood by awkwardly and as it seemed the others had forgotten him I went over and took his hand, which seemed to remind them that he was there. My grandmother said we must be hungry and she would give orders.

Damaris declared that she was too happy to think of food, but I told them that I could be happy and hungry at the same time, at which they all laughed.

We were soon sitting at a table, eating. It was a lovely room—so different from Jeanne’s cellar—and a warm and happy feeling seemed to wrap itself around me. This was going to be my home for a while, I gathered. I asked Damaris and she said, ‘Until…’ and looked very happy.

‘Yes, of course,’ said my grandmother. ‘It is wonderful to have you back, my darling. And Clarissa, too. My little love, you are going to stay with us for a while.’

‘Until…’ I said uneasily.

Damaris knelt beside me and said: ‘Your Uncle Jeremy and I are going to be married soon and when we are you will come to our home and live with us there.’

That satisfied me and I knew that all of them were glad I was here.

Jeremy rode back to his house and I was left at the Eversleigh Dower House. I had a little room next to that of Damaris. ‘So that we can be close together,’ she said, which was comforting because I did dream now and then that I was back in Jeanne’s cellar and that the old Grand’mère turned into a witch and the hairs growing out of her wart turned into a forest in which I was lost.

Then I would go to Damaris’s bed and tell her about the forest with trees which had faces like old Grand’mère and their branches were like brown fingers which kept counting money.

‘Only a dream, darling,’ Damaris would say. ‘Dreams can’t hurt you.’

It was a great relief to get into Damaris’s bed when the dreams came.

I was taken to Eversleigh Court where there were more relations. These were very old. There was my Great-Grandmother Arabella and my Great-Grandfather Carleton, a fierce old man with bushy eyebrows. He liked me, though. He looked at me in a rather frightening way, but I planted my feet firmly together and putting my hands behind my back stared at him to show I was not going to let him scare me, because after all he was not nearly so alarming as old Grand’mère and I knew that if he wanted to turn me away, Damaris, Jeremy and the others would stop him. ‘You’re like your mother,’ he said. ‘One of the fighting Eversleighs.’

‘Yes, I am,’ I answered, trying to look as fierce as he did, at which everyone laughed and my Great-Grandmother said: ‘Clarissa has made a conquest of Carleton.’

There was another branch of the family. They came to Eversleigh to visit from a place called Eyot Abbas. I vaguely remembered Benjie because he had been my father before Hessenfield. It was bewildering and I could not understand it at all. I had had one father and then Hessenfield had come and said he was going to be my father; now he was dead and Jeremy was going to be. Surely such a surfeit of fathers was most unusual.

Poor Benjie, he looked very sad, but when he saw me his eyes lighted up; he picked me up and gave me one of those emotional hugs.

Vaguely I remembered his mother, Harriet, who had the bluest eyes I had ever seen; then there was Benjie’s father, Gregory, a quiet, kind man. They had been another set of grandparents. I was surrounded by relations, and I quickly realized that there was a controversy in the family and it was all about me. Benjie wanted me to go home with him. He said he was my father in a way and had a greater claim than Damaris. Grandmother Priscilla said it would break Damaris’s heart if I was taken away from her and after all she was the one who had brought me home.

I was very gratified to be so wanted and sad when Benjie went away. Before he went he said to me: ‘Dear Clarissa, Eyot Abbas will always be your home when you want it. Will you remember that?’ I promised I would and Harriet said: ‘You must come and stay with us often, Clarissa. That is the only thing that will satisfy us.’

I said I would and they went away. Soon after that Damaris and Jeremy were married and Enderby Hall became my home.

Jeremy had lived there by himself and when Damaris married him she was determined to change it a great deal. In the days before the wedding she would take me there. The place fascinated me. There was a man called Smith who had a face like a relief map with rivers and mountains on it; there were lines everywhere and little warty lumps; and his skin was as brown as the earth. When he saw me his face would crinkle up and his mouth went up at one side. I couldn’t stop looking at him and I realized I was seeing Smith’s smile.

Then there was Damon. He was a great Newfoundland dog who stood as tall as I was; he had curly hair, lots of it, half black, half white, with a bushy tail which turned up at the end. We took one look and loved each other.

‘Careful,’ said Damaris, ‘he can be fierce.’

But not with me—never with me. He knew I loved him immediately. We had had no dogs in the hôtel and certainly not in Jeanne’s cellar; and I was so happy because I was going to live in the same house as Damon, Damaris, Jeremy and Smith. Smith said; ‘I’ve never seen him take to anyone like that before.’ I just put my arms round Damon’s neck and kissed the tip of his damp nose. They all watched with trepidation but Damon and I knew how it was between us.

Jeremy was very pleased that we liked each other. Everybody was very pleased about most things at that time, except of course when they thought of Carlotta, and when I thought of her and dear handsome Hessenfield I was sad too. Damaris assured me that they would be happy in the place they had gone to and that made me feel that I could be happy where I had come to—so I started to be.

Enderby Hall was a dark house at first, until they cut down—some of the bushes which were all round it and made lawns and flower-beds. Damaris took down some of the heavy furnishings and replaced them with lighter colours. The hall was magnificent; it had a vaulted roof and beautiful panelling, and at one end were the screens beyond which were the kitchens and at the other a lovely staircase which led to the minstrels’ gallery.

‘When we entertain we shall have musicians to play there, Clarissa,’ Damaris told me.

I listened with awe, taking in every detail of my new life and savouring it all with complete delight.

There was one bedroom which Damaris hated to go into, and I soon sensed that, and with the directness of a child asked her why. She looked astonished. I think that was because she knew she had betrayed her reluctance.

She merely said: ‘I’m going to change it all, Clarissa. I’m going to make it unrecognizable.’

‘I like it,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty.’ And I went to the bed and stroked the velvet hangings. But she looked at it with loathing, as though she was seeing something I could not. I understood later—much later—what that room meant to her.

Well, she changed it and it certainly looked different. The red velvet was replaced by white and gold damask with curtains to match. She even changed the carpet. She was right. It did look different, but she did not use it as her and Jeremy’s room although it was the best in the house. The door was always shut and I believe she rarely went there.

So this was my new home; Enderby Hall, about ten minutes’ ride from the Dower House and an equal distance from Eversleigh Court, so I was surrounded by my family.

That Damaris and Jeremy were happy together there could be no doubt; as for myself, I was so pleased to have escaped from that Paris cellar that I lived in a state of joyful appreciation of everything for those first few months. I used to stand in the middle of the great hall and look up at the minstrels’ gallery and say: ‘I’m here.’ And I tried to remember the cellar with the cold stone floor and the rats who came at night and looked at me with their baleful eyes that seemed yellowish in the darkness. I did this to remind myself that I had escaped and told myself I would never, never go back there again. I did not like to see cut flowers in pots because they reminded me. Damaris loved them and gathered baskets full from the garden. She had a special room called the flower room and she used to arrange them there. She would say: ‘Come on, Clarissa, we’ll go and get some roses.’ She quickly noticed, though, that I grew quiet and mournful and I often had a nightmare the following night. So she stopped cutting flowers. Damaris was very perceptive. More so than Jeremy. I think he was too concerned with the way life had treated him before he met Damaris to think much about how it had treated others. Damaris thought of others all the time, and believed that what had gone wrong in her life was largely her own fault rather than fate’s.

When the violets came she took me to the hedgerows and we gathered wild ones. She said: ‘It was violets, you remember, that brought us together. So I shall always love violets. Will you?’

I said I would, and it seemed different picking them after that; and in time I didn’t mind about the flowers. To show Damaris this I went into the garden to pick some roses for her. She understood at once and hugged me tightly, hiding her face so that I should not see the tears in her eyes.

In those early days they were always talking about me—not only at Enderby but at the Dower House—and there were conferences at Eversleigh Court. I often heard someone say: ‘But what would be best for the child?’

The cocoon was being woven very tightly round me. I had had an unusual start. Therefore I needed very special care.

Perhaps that was why I felt very much at ease with Smith. I used to watch him doing the garden or cleaning the silver. Before Damaris became mistress of the house he used to do everything, but now servants from Eversleigh Court used to be sent over by Great-Grandmother Arabella. Jeremy did not really like that; Smith didn’t like it either.

Smith treated me, as he would say, ‘rough’. ‘Don’t stand there idle,’ he would say. ‘Satan finds mischief for idle hands to do.’ And I would have to arrange the forks and knives in their cubbyholes, as he called them, or pick up branches and dead flowers and put them in the wheelbarrow. Damaris was often present and the three of us would be very happy together. With Smith I felt completely at ease—not the child whose welfare had to be continually considered, sometimes at some inconvenience to others, I feared—but a fellow worker of very little importance. It seemed strange to want to be of no importance, but I really did. It was an indication, of course, that I was already beginning to feel the bonds of security tightening around me.

There was a discussion in the family as to whether or not I should have a governess. Damaris had said she would teach me.

‘Perhaps you are doing too much,’ said Grandmother Priscilla anxiously.

‘Dear Mother,’ smiled Damaris, ‘this will be a great pleasure, and I’ll be sitting down all the time.’

Great-Grandmother Arabella wondered whether I should have a governess—a French one. I could speak French because I had learned it side by side with English in the hôtel with my parents, and later in the cellar no one had spoken anything but French.

‘It would be a pity to lose that,’ said Arabella.

‘They never do,’ was Great-Grandfather Carleton’s comment. ‘Not once they have acquired it. The child would only need a little practice at any time in her life. And you could not get a French governess with a war between our countries.’

So it was decided that for the time being Damaris should teach me and the idea of a governess was shelved.

All the talk of French reminded me of Jeanne. I had loved her very much in those days of trial. She had been a bulwark between me and the harsh Paris streets. If anyone had ever represented security to me, she had. I often wondered about her. I knew that Damaris had offered to bring her back to England with us, but how could she leave Maman and the old Grand’mère? They would have starved without her.

Damaris had said: ‘If ever you felt free to come to us you would always be welcome.’

I was glad she had said that and I knew she had rewarded Jeanne for what she had done for me. Jeanne was a clever manager and would make what had been given her last a very long time.

So the year began to pass. I had my pony and Smith taught me to ride and I had never been happier in my life than when I was riding round the paddock with Smith holding a leading rein and Damon running after us barking with excitement. It was better even than riding on Hessenfield’s shoulders.

There were long summer days sitting at the table in the schoolroom learning with Aunt Damaris, and then going out to ride—off the leading rein now—walking with Damon, lying in the grass with Damon, going to Eversleigh Court or the Dower House to drink lemonade and eat fancy cakes in summer or steaming mulled wine and pies straight from the oven in winter. I loved all the seasons: Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent; the interminable service and the sadness of Good Friday alleviated by hot cross buns; Easter with daffodils everywhere and the delights of simnel cake, sitting in church close to Damaris and counting the blues and reds in the stained-glass windows, the number of people I could see without turning my head, and how many Ahs, Ers and Wells Parson Renton uttered during his sermon. There was Harvest Festival with all the fruit and vegetables decorating the church, and best of all Christmas with the crib in the manger, ivy, holly, mistletoe, carols, presents and excitement. It was all wonderful and I was at the heart of it. They were always questioning themselves and each other about ‘the child’.

‘The child should see more children.’ Children were invited. There were not many in the neighbourhood and I did not greatly care for any of them; I liked best to be with Damaris, Smith and Damon. But I was very content to be ‘the child’ in the midst of all this concern. As I grew older I began to learn certain things. This was mainly from the servants who came from the Court. They didn’t like coming to Enderby and yet in a way it was an adventure and I think they acquired a little merit from their fellow servants for having come. They would go back to Eversleigh Court and for a while be the centre of attraction. I was enormously interested in people and I had an avid curiosity to discover what was in their minds. I had quickly discovered that people rarely meant what they said and very often words veiled meanings rather than expressed them. I used to listen to the servants talking. I would unashamedly eavesdrop. In defence of myself I must say that I had been made aware that I had had an unusual upbringing and that there were certain facts which had been kept from me; and of course the person I wished to know most about was myself.

Once I heard two servants talking together in the great hall. I was in the minstrels’ gallery. Sounds floated up to me while I remained unseen.

‘That Jeremy… he was always a queer customer.’

There were grunts of agreement.

‘Lived by himself with one manservant. Just that Smith and himself… and that dog keeping everyone away.’

‘Well, all that’s changed now Miss Damaris is here.’

‘And then her going to France like that.’

‘It was a brave thing to do.’

‘I’ll grant her that. She’s a little baggage, that Miss Clarissa.’

My excitement grew. So I was a baggage!

‘It wouldn’t surprise me if she went the way of her mother. That Miss Carlotta was a regular One. She was so good-looking they say no man could resist her.’

‘Go on!’

‘Yes, and wasn’t it shameful the way she went and left poor Mr Benjie. Abducted! Abducted, my foot!’

‘Well, it’s over now and she’s dead, ain’t she?’

‘Hm. Wages of sin, you might say.’

‘And Madame Clarissa will be such another. You mark my words.’

‘They say the sins of the fathers and all that.’

‘You’ll see. We’ll have sparks there. Just you wait till she gets a bit older. You going to do the minstrels’?’

‘I suppose so. Gives me the creeps, that place.’

‘It’s the part that was haunted. You can change the curtains and things but what good does that do? New curtains ain’t going to drive ghosts away.’

‘A haunted house is always a haunted house, they say.’

‘That’s true. This is a house for trouble. It’ll come again… lawns and flower-beds, new curtains and carpets notwithstanding. I’ll come up in the gallery with you if you like. I know you don’t want to go up there alone. Let’s finish down here first.’

That gave me a chance to escape.

So my beautiful mother had acted shamefully. She had left Benjie for my father, Lord Hessenfield. Vague memories came back to me… of a night in the shrubbery, being lifted in strong arms… the smell of the sea and the excitement of being on a ship. Yes, I was deeply involved in that shameful adventure; in fact I was a result of it.

It was later that I learned the story; in those days I was piecing it together from what I could pick up from gossip and what I could remember.

There were tensions in the household. Jeremy had what were known as ‘moods’ from which even Damaris could not always rouse him. Then he appeared to be very sad and it was something to do with his bad leg which had been hurt in battle and gave him pain at times. Then Damaris herself had days when she was not well. She tried to hide the fact but I could see that behind the brightness it was there.

She longed for a child.

One day when we were sitting together she told me she was going to have a baby. I had known something tremendous had happened because even Jeremy looked as though he was never going to have a mood again and Smith kept chuckling to himself.

I looked forward to the coming of the baby. I would look after it, I said. I would sing it some French songs which Jeanne used to sing to me. The household buzzed with preparations. Grandmother Priscilla was constantly fussing over Damaris and Grandfather Leigh behaved as though she were made of china. Great-Grandmother Arabella was always giving advice and Great-Grandfather Carleton kept muttering ‘Women!’

It struck me that when there was a baby I should no longer be ‘the child’; and Damaris’s own would be more dear to her than I, the adopted one, who was only her niece. That was a faintly depressing thought but I put it aside and threw myself into the general excitement.

I shall never forget that day. Damaris started to have pains in the middle of the night. Grandmother Priscilla was at Enderby and the midwife was there too. Some of the servants from the Court had been sent over.

I heard the commotion and got out of bed and ran to Damaris’s room. I was met by a worried Priscilla. ‘Go back to your room at once,’ she said, more sternly than she had ever spoken to me before. I obeyed, and when I went again I was told by one of the servants; ‘Get from under our feet. This is no place for you.’

So I went back and waited in my room. I was terribly frightened, for I sensed all was not well. It was like being back in the cellar again. What was happening could mean change. I was still at that time clinging to my security.

The waiting seemed to go on and on and when it was finally over all the joyous expectancy had gone from the house. It was dreary and sad. The baby was stillborn and Damaris was very ill. Nobody seemed to notice me. There were talks between the grandparents. This time I was not mentioned. It was all Poor Damaris and what this would mean to her. And she was desperately ill. Jeremy was sunk in gloom; there was a bitter twist to his mouth. I was sure he believed Damaris was going to die as well as the baby.

Grandmother Priscilla was going to stay at Enderby for a while to look after her daughter. Benjie came over. He said he would take me back to Eyot Abbas, and to my chagrin no attempt was made to dissuade him from doing so.

So I went to Eyot Abbas, there to find that same loving concentration of affection which I had known at Enderby.

Benjie loved me dearly. He would have liked me to stay there and be his daughter. Oddly enough, when I was at Eyot Abbas memories came flooding back to me. I remembered being there and how I used to play in the gardens with my nurse in attendance. And most of all I remembered the day when Hessenfield took me away to the excitement of the ship and the hôtel, which culminated in the cold and menacing. cellar with Jeanne as my only protector.

I could not help being intrigued by Harriet, and as her husband Gregory was so gentle and kind I could have been very happy at Eyot Abbas if it had not meant leaving Damaris, with whom I had a very special relationship.

This must have happened about the year. 1710, for I was eight years old. But I suppose what had happened to me had made me somewhat precocious. Harriet thought so, anyway.

Harriet and I were alike in a way. We were both enormously interested in people and that meant that we learned a good deal about them.

She was an amazing woman; she had an indestructible beauty. She must have been very old—she would never tell us how old—but the years seemed to have left her untouched. She dismissed them, and try as they might they could not encroach on her with any real effect. Her hair was dark still. ‘I will pass on the secret before I go, Clarissa,’ she said, with a smile which was as mischievous as it must have been when she was my age. In addition to this dark rippling hair she had the bluest of eyes; and if they were embedded in wrinkles, they were alive with the spirit of eternal youth.

She took me in hand and spent a lot of time with me. She probed me, asking many questions, all about the past,

‘You’re old enough to know the truth about yourself,’ she said. ‘I reckon you have your eyes and ears wide open for what you can pick up, eh?’

I admitted it. One could admit to peccadilloes with Harriet because one could be sure she would have committed them in the same position… perhaps more daring ones. Although she was old and must be respected for that, she was different from my family. When I was with her I felt that I was with someone who was as young as I was in spirit but with a vast experience of life which could be useful to me.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s better for you to know the whole truth. I reckon your dear grandmother would never whisper a word of it. I know my Priscilla—and Damaris, dear good girl, would do as her mother told her. Even your great-grandmother would never tell you, I’m sure. Dear me! It is left to poor old Harriet.’

Then she told me that my mother had fallen in with some Jacobites at an inn, the leader of whom had been Lord Hessenfield. They fell in love and I was the result. But they were not married. There had not been time and Hessenfield had to make a speedy escape to France. I was born and Benjie had said he would be my father, so my mother was married to him. But later on Hessenfield came for my mother and me and took us to France, so poor Benjie, who had thought of himself as my father, was left lonely.

‘You must be particularly kind to Benjie,’ said Harriet.

‘I will,’ I assured her.

‘Poor Benjie. He must marry again and forget your mother. But she was so beautiful, Clarissa.’

‘I know.’

‘Of course you know. But she brought little happiness to herself or to others.’

‘She did to Hessenfield.’

‘Ah… two of a kind. Your parents, dear Clarissa, were unusual people. They were rare people. How fortunate you are to have had such parents. I wonder if you will grow up like them. If you do, you will have to take care. You must curb your recklessness. You must think before you act. I always did, and look what it has brought me. This lovely house, a good man, the dearest son in the world. What a lovely way to spend one’s old age! But I wasn’t born to it, Clarissa. I worked for it… I worked every inch of the way. It’s the best in the end. Dearest child, you have every chance of a good life. You have lost your parents but you have a family to love you. And now you know the truth about yourself you must be happy. I was. Be bold but not reckless. Take adventure when it comes but be sure that you never act rashly. I know. I have lived a long time and proved how to be happy. That’s the best thing in the world, Clarissa. Happiness.’

I used to sit with her and listen to her talking, which was fascinating. She told me a great deal about the past and her stage life and how she had first met my Great-Grandmother Arabella in the days just before the Restoration of Charles the Second. She could talk so vividly, acting as she went along, and she told me more about my family during that brief visit than I had ever heard before.

She was right. It was good for me to know. I think in a way it was a beginning of the slackening of my need for security. When I heard what had happened to members of my family—there was nothing much Harriet could tell me of my father—that craving for security began to leave me.

I was already feeling out for independence. But, of course, I was only eight years old at this time.

One day Harriet called to me. There was a letter in her hand.

‘A message from your grandmother,’ she said. ‘She wants you back at Enderby. Damaris is recovering and missing you.’ Your little visit is at an end. We cannot ignore this—much as we should like to. It has made me very happy to have you here, my dear, and Benjie has been delighted. He will be sad when you go, but as your grandmother—and also your great-grandmother—has reminded me on several occasions, it was Damaris who brought you from France and Damaris who has first claim. How does it feel, Clarissa, to be in such demand? Never mind. Don’t tell me. I know. And you hate to leave us, but you want to see your dear Damaris… and, what is more important, Damaris wants you.’

So the visit was over. I did want to see Damaris, of course, but I was loath to leave Harriet, Gregory and Benjie. I loved Eyot Abbas too, and I was sadly thinking that there would be no more trips to the island which I could see from my bedroom window. I was torn between Enderby and Eyot Abbas. Once again I was conscious of that surfeit of affection.

Harriet said: ‘Gregory, Benjie and I will take you back. We’ll take the coach. It will give us a little more time together.’

The thought of a journey in Gregory’s coach delighted me. It was such a splendid vehicle. It had four wheels and a door on each side. Our baggage was carried in saddle-bags on horses as there was no room for it in the coach. Two grooms would accompany us—one to drive the horses and the other to ride behind, while they changed places every now and then to share the driving.

It was a leisurely journey and very enjoyable, with stops at the inns on the way. It stirred vague memories in me. I had ridden in this coach before. That was when I was very young. It was the first time I had seen Hessenfield. He had played at being a highwayman and stopped the coach. As I sat looking out of the window while we jogged along, pictures flashed in and out of my mind. Hessenfield in a mask, stopping the coach, ordering us to get out, kissing my mother and then kissing me. I had not been afraid. I had sensed that my mother was not either. I gave the highwayman the tail of my sugar mouse. Then he rode off and it was not until he carried me away from Eyot Abbas and out to the ship that I saw him again.

I felt drowsy in the coach. Harriet and Gregory were dozing too. Next to Gregory sat Benjie and every now and then he would catch my eye and smile. He looked very sad because I was going. I thought then: If you were Hessenfield, you would not let me go. He carried me away to a big ship…

I compared everyone with Hessenfield. He had been taller in stature than anyone else. He had towered above them in every way. I was sure that if he had lived he would have put King James on the throne.

We were travelling slowly because the roads were dangerous. There had been heavy rain recently and every now and then we would splash through the puddles of water. I thought it was amusing to see the water splashing out and I laughed.

‘Not so pleasant for poor old Merry,’ said Benjie. Merry was driving at that moment. He had a lugubrious face, rather like a bloodhound. I thought it funny that he had a name like Merry and laughed whenever I heard it. ‘One of nature’s little jokes,’ said Harriet.

Suddenly there was a jolt. The coach stopped. Gregory opened his eyes with a start and Harriet said: ‘What’s happened?’

The two men got out. I looked out of the window and saw them staring down at the wheels. Gregory put his head inside the coach. ‘We’re stuck in a gully at the side of the road,’ he said. ‘It’ll take a little time to get us out.’

‘I hope not too long,’ replied Harriet. ‘In an hour or so it will be dark.’

‘We’ll get to work on it,’ Gregory told her. He was so proud of his coach and hated anything to go wrong with it. ‘It’s this weather,’ he went on. ‘The roads are in a dreadful state.’

Harriet looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. ‘We must settle down to wait,’ she said. ‘Not too long, I hope. Are you looking forward to a nice warm inn parlour? What would you like to eat? Hot soup first? The sucking pig? The partridge pie?’

Harriet always made you feel you were doing what she was talking about. I could taste the sweet syllabub and the heart-shaped marchpane.

She said: ‘You rode in this coach long ago, remember, Clarissa?’

I nodded.

‘There was a highwayman,’ she went on.

‘It was Hessenfield. He was playing a joke. He wasn’t a highwayman really.’

I felt the tears in my eyes because he was gone for ever and I should never see him again.

‘He was a man, wasn’t he?’ said Harriet quietly.

I knew what she meant and I thought: There will never be anyone like Hessenfield. Then it occurred to me that it was a pity there had to be such wonderful people in the world, because compared with them everyone else seemed lacking. Of course it would not be a pity if they did not die and go away for ever.

Harriet leaned towards me and said quietly: ‘When people die they sometimes seem so much better than when they were alive.’

I was pondering this when Gregory put his head inside the coach again. ‘Another ten minutes and we should be on our way,’ he said.

‘Good,’ cried Harriet. ‘Then we’ll reach the Boar’s Head before it’s really dark.’

‘We’re lucky to get clear. The roads are in a shocking state,’ replied Gregory.

A little later he and Benjie were taking their seats in the coach and the horses, after their little rest, were quite frisky and soon bowling along at a good pace.

The sun was setting. It had almost disappeared. It had been a dark and cloudy day and there was rain about. It was growing dark rapidly. We came to the wood. I had a strange feeling that I had been there before; then I guessed it was the place where Hessenfield had stopped this very coach all those years ago.

We turned into the wood and had not gone very far when two figures stepped out. They rode along by the window and I saw one of them clearly. He was masked and carried a gun.

Highwaymen! The place was notorious for them. My immediate thought was: It’s not Hessenfield. This is a real one. Hessenfield is dead.

Gregory had seen. He was reaching for the blunderbuss under our seat. Harriet took my hand and gripped it tightly. Merry was shouting something. He had whipped up the horses and we were swaying from one side of the coach to the other as the horses galloped through the wood.

Benjie took out the sword which was kept in the coach for such an emergency as this.

‘Merry seems to think we can outride them,’ muttered Gregory.

‘Best thing if we can,’ replied Benjie. He was looking at Harriet and me and I knew he meant he did not want a fight which might put us in danger.

The coach rattled on. We were swaying furiously—and then suddenly it happened. I was thrown up in my seat. I remember hitting the top of the coach which seemed to rise as high as the trees.

I heard Harriet whisper: ‘Oh God help us.’

And then I was enveloped in darkness.

When I regained consciousness I was in a strange bed and Damaris was on one side of it, Jeremy on the other.

I heard Damaris say: ‘I think she’s awake now.’

I opened my eyes and said: ‘We were in the coach…’ as memory flooded back.

‘Yes, darling. You’re safe now.’

‘What happened?’

‘There was an accident… but don’t worry about that now.’

‘Where am I?’

‘We’re in the Boar’s Head. We are going home very soon now. As soon as you are well enough to travel.’

‘Are you staying here, then?’

‘Yes, and we shall be here until we take you back.’

It was one of those occasions when I could feel happy to be wrapped in such loving care.

I recovered rapidly. I had a broken leg, it seemed, and many bruises.

‘Young bones mend quickly,’ they said.

I was at the Boar’s Head for another two days and gradually the news was broken to me. The coach would never be on the road again. The horses had been so badly injured that they had had to be shot.

‘It was the best way,’ Damaris told me with a catch in her voice. She loved all animals.

‘It was the highwaymen,’ I said. ‘Were they real highwaymen?’

‘Yes,’ answered Damaris. ‘They made off. They did not stay when it happened. It was because of them. It was their fault. Merry and Keller whipped up the horses hoping to escape the robbers. They didn’t see the fallen tree-trunk. That was how it happened.’

‘Are Benjie and Harriet and Gregory here at the inn?’

There was a silence and a sudden fear came to me.

‘Clarissa,’ said Damaris slowly, ‘it was a very bad accident. You were lucky. Benjie was lucky…’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked faintly.

Damaris looked at Jeremy and he nodded. He meant: Tell her. There is no point in holding back the truth.

‘Harriet and Gregory… were killed, Clarissa.’

I was silent. I did not know what to say. I was numbed. Here was death again. It sprang up and took people when you least expected it. My beautiful parents… dead. Dear kind Gregory… beautiful Harriet with the blue eyes and curly black hair… dead.

I stammered: ‘I shan’t see them any more.’

I just wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep and forget.

They left me. I heard them whispering outside my door.

‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have told her. She’s only a child.’

‘No,’ answered Jeremy. ‘She’s got to grow up. She’s got to learn what life is.’

So I lay thinking and remembering those who had been so intensely alive—my mother, my father and Harriet… now dead… filled with sorrow.

I felt I was no longer a child on that day. Yet it was true that young bones healed quickly and young bodies could withstand such shocks and throw off the physical effects.

Poor Benjie! He looked like a ghost. How cruel life was to Benjie, who was so good, and I was sure had never harmed anyone in the whole of his life… yet he had lost my mother to Hessenfield; he had lost me to Damaris; and now he had lost his parents, whom I knew he had loved with that rare, tender, selfless emotion which only people like Benjie are capable of giving.

He came back with us to Eversleigh. Damaris and Jeremy insisted that he should.

Jeremy carried me into Enderby Hall and Smith and Damon were waiting to greet me. Smith’s face was wrinkled up with pleasure to see me safe so that the rivers in his face seemed more deeply embedded than ever, and Damon kept jumping up and making odd little whinnying noises to show how pleased he was that I was back.

Jeremy carried me up and downstairs every day until my bones healed; and Arabella, Carleton and Leigh were always coming to see me.

Arabella was very sad about Harriet.

‘She was an adventuress,’ she said, ‘but there was no one else quite like her. She has been in my life for a very long time. I feel that “I have lost part of myself.’

They wanted Benjie to stay but he had the estate to look after. He would be better working, he said.

He did not ask me to come to Eyot Abbas to see him, and I knew it was because he felt it would be too sad a place for me without Harriet.

I made up my mind that I would go often. I would do my best to comfort Benjie.