The Drop of the Dice

TRAGEDY ON THE ICE

THE EFFECTS OF THE South Sea Bubble went rumbling on through that year. There were many sad stories and countless suicides. A subdued air fell over the city. Cynical cartoons appeared. There was one, I remember, with Folly as the charioteer of Fortune which depicted a carriage drawn by foxes with the faces of agents for the Company, and the Devil was in the sky, laughing and blowing soap bubbles.

Nobody talked now of getting rich quickly; instead, it was a matter of speedily reaching the reverse state.

When Lance reckoned up his losses, it was a very depressing time. He decided he would have to sell some of the land in the country merely to keep going. I might have offered to help but I did not want to do this. I think I must have had something of the reformer in me at that time because I was determined he should learn his lesson. He must realize the folly of this incessant gambling.

We went down to the country after that. It was a relief to get away from London, but even in the country there were dismal stories of people who were facing ruin. It was impossible to escape from the disaster of the South Sea Bubble.

I think Lance was a little penitent. It was some time since he had been to the London gaming clubs, and when we arrived in the country there were none of those gatherings, the purpose of which was to play cards as quickly as possible. People were just not in the mood for it—nor, now, had most of them the means.

Lance had lost a fortune but he had done so with a certain amount of cheerfulness and quickly began to think of what had happened as the luck of the game. ‘It could have gone the other way,’ he said. ‘Suppose I had sold just before the fall, as I might well have done. Think what I should have now!’

‘But you did not,’ I pointed out in exasperation.

‘No. But I easily might have.’

I knew that he had not learned one little lesson from what had happened.

At the end of October a letter arrived from Aimée. This was a real cry for help.

Dear Sister,

I am writing to you in the hope that, because of the close bond between us, you will lend me a helping hand. I am in desperate straits. My husband has died. It was the shock of the Bubble. We had both invested heavily, with what result you can guess. We lost almost everything. I shall have to sell up and get what I can for what is left to me. Who would have believed this terrible thing could have happened! Everyone was so sure. It has been the most terrible shock. I know I am not the only one to find myself in such a position, but I shall have to decide what I can do. I could go back to France, perhaps, and it may be that this is what I shall have to do. But I am not sure… particularly as… It is no use holding back the facts. I am pregnant, Clarissa. We were so looking forward to having a child. Poor Ralph. He thought it was so wonderful… and now he is dead. It was a heart attack when he heard that we had lost almost everything. I am desperate because I was persuaded to risk what I had from our father in this miserable South Sea Company.

I don’t know what I shall do. I may have to work, though I don’t know how with a baby to care for. But, dear sister, until I can straighten out my affairs, would you be so good—as you once offered—to let me come to you? I promise you I will help in the house. I will try not to be a trouble to you. But do understand I would not ask you if I were not desperate.

If you say yes, I will come to you, say, in three months’ time. It will take me that time to settle here and salvage what I can. If you do say yes you will make me as happy as it is possible for me to be in these circumstances.

I think I shall be ready to travel in January, and the birth would still be three months ahead so I should still be able to make the journey. I shall eagerly await your reply, but I shall begin making preparations now because, knowing you, dear sister, I am sure you will not refuse me in my need.

Your loving sister,

Aimée

I showed the letter to Lance and he immediately said: ‘Poor girl! She must be anxious. Write and tell her at once that she must come to us. She’ll be company for you.’

So I despatched a letter immediately and wondered what difference Aimée’s coming would make to our household.

Once more we spent Christmas at Enderby. Damaris told me that she thought the great-grandparents were getting too old to preside over the festivities and she and Priscilla both thought that Enderby would be a good place to have them.

We did all the traditional things and the days flew past. We returned to London on the sixth of January. Aimée was due at the end of the month.

She was catching the coach from York and travelling to London and we would meet her at the coaching inn and take her to Albemarle Street from there. We had planned that we would stay in London until the birth of the child.

I was excited at the prospect of having my sister to live with us. Looking back, I realized I knew very little about her and what I had discovered at Hessenfield had been submerged beneath the importance of my meeting with Dickon.

We were waiting at the inn when the coach arrived, a lumbering vehicle, leather-covered and studded with nails, windows covered by leather curtains and a rounded roof with an outside seat over the boot.

The guard alighted first, hampered by the blunderbuss which he carried as a protection against any highwayman encountered on the road, and the horn which he would blow on passing through a town or village. Then came the postillion, who had been riding on the foremost of the three horses. He was dressed in a green coat laced with gold and wore a cocked hat.

The passengers finally emerged and among them Aimée. She looked different from the others and even a long and uncomfortable journey on rough and muddy roads could not destroy her innate elegance. She wore a woollen cloak—navy-blue in colour over a dress of the same material and she had one of the latest fashions in cocked hats which was blue and trimmed with touches of red. The garments were plain but in the best of taste. I could never understand whether it was the manner in which her clothes were cut or the way she wore them which gave them distinction. She had made them herself, I discovered later, for she had been apprenticed to a couturière in Paris when she was a young girl.

She embraced me with great affection and gratitude. She treated Lance with reserved respect and thanked him warmly in that accent with its foreign touch, and I was delighted to see that they immediately liked each other.

Our coach was waiting to take us the short distance through London to Albemarle Street and during the journey Aimée talked a little of the impossibility of her life in the North and her losses in the South Sea Company.

‘Here you have a fellow sufferer,’ I said.

‘You too, Clarissa?’ she said in some alarm.

I shook my head. ‘Poor Lance,’ I replied. ‘As a matter of fact, I did rather well out of it unwittingly.’

I told her what had happened.

She leaned towards me and pressed my hand. ‘I am so glad for you. How ironical that this South Sea business should profit you who are not in the least interested in taking a chance.’

‘It did, precisely because I was not interested.’

‘How perverse of fate! And there were we,’ she glanced at Lance ‘trying so hard to make the most of what we thought was a God-given opportunity… and we came to grief.’

‘The fate of most gamblers,’ I said.

‘You see,’ said Lance, ‘I am an inveterate gambler. Clarissa deplores it.’

‘My husband was the same… with what dire results. But for the South Sea Bubble I should not be in these straits now.’

‘We’ll forget the Bubble,’ I said. ‘We have plenty of room, haven’t we, Lance, and we are delighted to have you stay as long as you wish. I am thrilled about the baby. What do you want, a boy or a girl? We shall have to see about engaging a midwife. We thought it would be better to stay in London until after the birth.’

Aimée turned to me with misty eyes. ‘You are making me feel very welcome,’ she said gratefully.

Aimée’s coming wrought a subtle change in the household. I suppose the birth of a child is such an important event that it must dominate all else. We engaged a midwife who was recommended by a friend of Lance’s and eventually she came to stay in the house. Aimée and I—before she became too large—shopped to buy clothes for the baby. We visited the mercers in Cheapside, Ludgate Hill and Gracechurch Street; we took great delight in ribbons and laces, and I was determined that my little nephew or niece should have the best of everything.

Jeanne was good with her needle but we hired a seamstress to come to the house and those three months before the birth were taken up with plans for the baby.

I had thought Jeanne and Aimée would get on well together, being of the same nationality, able to prattle away in French. What could be better? I spoke French tolerably well and now that Aimée was with us I spoke it more frequently than I had with Jeanne, but I was not as good as the two Frenchwomen, of course. Oddly enough, there was hostility between them.

‘Jeanne is inclined to be insolent,’ said Aimée.

‘No… no… never,’ I replied. ‘She was been with me so long, and she came in rather exceptional circumstances. Jeanne was a good friend to me when I needed a friend. She could not be insolent… just aware that there is a rather special bond between us.’

Jeanne said: ‘The baby will come and it is good to have a dear little baby in the house. But she is not the mistress here. Oh no, that is you, milady Clarissa, and no one is going to forget that if I can help it!’

‘I am sure Aimée doesn’t forget it.’

‘She is deep, that one,’ was Jeanne’s comment.

But of course she was delighted with the prospect of the baby.

Aimée and I would talk of it for hours and little scraps of information came out about her past. I gathered her mother had been a dominating character and Aimée had had to obey her in all things. She described the bookshop on the Left Bank and how her mother had worked hard to give her a good education. She talked about the streets of Paris, of sitting by the river and watching the boats go down the Seine; she made me, as she had before, feel the atmosphere of those streets, see the crowds of gesticulating people, the traders, the ladies going by in their coaches, and the perpetual mud.

At last, with the coming of April Aimée’s pains started and after a few anxious hours her child was born.

It was a son. I went in almost as soon as he was born to see that red, wrinkled little creature, and I was overjoyed to learn that he was sound in every way, with a pair of lungs which he liked to air.

Aimée herself made a quick recovery and we had a lot of fun selecting names. Eventually she settled on Jean-Louis. Now we had two additional members of the household.

It is amazing how quickly people’s lives become changed by a baby: The entire household was devoted to Jean-Louis. He only had to appear and he was the centre of attention. When his first tooth came we were all excited and I sent messengers over to Eversleigh to tell them of this astounding event.

We vied with each other for the privilege of holding him and when he smiled at us we were in transports of delight. Even the male members of the household were not immune to the baby’s charm, and Jeffers the coachman, who had been with Lance’s family for the last fifty years—since he was a stableboy of eight—and was as sour as vinegar, would try hard not to smile when he saw the baby, and could not prevent himself from doing so.

As soon as summer came we went to Clavering Hall, for we thought that it would be good for the baby to be in the country. There he received the same adoration as he had in London. He was rather a solemn little baby.

‘That,’ said Jeanne, ‘comes of having an old father.’

I noticed that she watched Aimée with a certain suspicion. I wondered whether she was a little jealous of my sister and on account of me, for Jeanne was inclined to be possessive. Jeanne was the sort of person who wanted someone to look after. She had cared for her mother and old grandmother and now she had turned to me. She was a born organizer, inclined to dominate if given a chance; but her motives were of the very best. Lance always said: ‘Jeanne was born to serve.’

I suppose it was only natural that she should dislike Aimée who had come into our household and, largely because of Jean-Louis, seemed to dominate it.

Jeanne repeated her assertion that Aimée behaved as though she were the mistress of the house.

‘Oh Jeanne,’ I said, ‘you see trouble where there is none.’

‘Do not be too sure.’ Then she leaned towards me and said: ‘She is French.’

That made me laugh. ‘So are you,’ I said…

‘Ah, that is why I know.’

She touched her neck—a frequent habit of hers, which I had wondered about until I discovered that beneath her bodice she wore a kind of locket on a gold chain. She had once shown this locket to me. On it was engraved a figure of John the Baptist. She called it her Jean-Baptiste, and it had been put on her neck when she was a baby. She was never without it, and regarded it as a sort of talisman against evil.

We had servants who were permanently at Clavering Hall and some who remained in London, but Jeanne of course was my personal maid and always with me. After the losses Lance had suffered in the South Sea Bubble he had thought he would have to get rid of some of his servants and the fact really did worry him. He decided in the end to sell some land and horses rather than do so. It was typical of him. He loved his horses, and hated to part with land which had been in his family’s possession for generations, but he considered the welfare of his servants before his pride in his possessions. He was sad for a while, but as always with him, his depression did not last for more than a week. We needed a nurse for Jean-Louis and I was determined to pay for her. I said to Lance: ‘Aimée is my sister and it is good of you to make her welcome here. I insist on providing the nurse.’

So it was settled and Sabrina’s nurse, Nanny Curlew, recommended a cousin of hers whom we were glad to employ. Thus Nanny Goswell came to us and immediately took over care of the child with the utmost efficiency.

The days passed and we had no desire to return to London. When the baby was old enough we would take him to Eversleigh. I wrote frequently to Damaris to tell her of all that was happening and I began to realize that my letters were full of Jean-Louis.

Damaris wrote back: ‘It is time you had a child of your own.’

It was what I longed for; so did Lance, I knew.

Aimée and I rode together during that hot summer. She had learned to ride at Hessenfield and was not quite as proficient as I who had been in and out of the saddle ever since my return to England.

Aimée had an air of contentment about her during that summer which every now and then would slip into a certain… what I can only describe as watchfulness.

When we talked I began to understand her more.

She had suffered from being unwanted, I was sure. I imagined her birth had not greatly pleased either of her parents. Hessenfield’s life would have been cluttered with women—some more important to him than others. I had no doubt that my mother—the incomparable Carlotta whose beauty was a legend in the family—had been the most important woman in his life, one whom he had told his brother he would have married if she had been free. Aimée’s mother could not have been so important to him, for I imagined he could easily have married her if he had wished to do so. But he had been fond of children, particularly his own, and he had clearly wanted to provide for Aimée.

Of course a man like Hessenfield could never visualize death. He was, after all, a young man. But at the end he must have had some premonition and that was why he had written to his brother asking him to provide for Aimée, and given her mother the watch and the ring.

There must have been great insecurity in Aimée’s life. I sensed that what she greatly desired was to be wanted, to have security for herself and her child.

She more or less admitted this when we lay in a field a mile or so from Clavering Hall; our horses were tethered to a tree while we rested before returning to Clavering.

‘I married Ralph Ransome,’ she said, ‘partly because I wanted a home and someone to care for me. I was never really in love with him. But he was kind to me. He was a widower and had a son and daughter who were married and lived in the Midlands. I had our father’s money, so I was not destitute, but this seemed a wonderful opportunity. Ralph had a beautiful home and I became mistress of it. But I realized after our marriage that he was deeply in debt and there were anxieties. Then when this South Sea chance presented itself Ralph risked almost everything he had to gain a fortune which would bring him out of his difficulties. We could have been happy…’ She looked at me intently. ‘Not romantically so… as you and Lance must have been… but comfortably… adequate for a girl who has not had many advantages in life.’

She picked a blade of grass and tore at it with her white, even teeth.

‘Oh, you are the lucky one, ma soeur,’ she went on. ‘You are rich. You have the handsome husband. You are one of the few who escaped before the Bubble burst.’

‘And you have Jean-Louis,’ I reminded her.

‘That adorable one, yes, it is so. I have my baby. But you have him too… they all have him.’

‘Everyone loves him, but you are his mother, Aimée.’

She touched my hand. ‘Yes, and thanks to you he has come comfortably into the world. But I cannot live here for ever. I shall have to think what I am going to do. What does a woman in my position do when she is without the means to support herself and her child? Teach French, perhaps… to children who do not want to learn it? Be a superior servant in some noble household?’

“Nonsense,’ I said. ‘This is your home. You will stay here.’

‘I cannot live on your bounty for ever.’

‘You will stay here because your home is with your family. Have you forgotten we are sisters?’

‘Half-sisters. No, I must make plans.’

‘Perhaps you will meet someone whom you can marry. We will entertain more. There are so many people here in the country whom Lance knows.’

‘The marriage market?’ she said, with a glint in her eyes which I did not altogether understand. When I came to think of it, there was much I did not understand about Aimée.

‘That’s putting it crudely. But people do meet each other and fall in love.’

She looked at me and smiled and I thought: I will speak to Lance about it tonight. We must entertain more. I had the money to do this. I must try and find a husband for Aimée.

We stood up, stretched, and went to the horses. It was a silent ride back to the house.

I spoke to Lance about Aimée that night.

‘The poor girl is unhappy about her position. It must be worrying for her. She had money from our father’s estate but she lost it in that wretched Bubble. She is proud and deeply conscious of depending on us. If we entertained here in the country we might find a husband for her.’

‘Then, my dear matchmaker, that is what we must do.’

It was a few days later when she was brushing my hair that I told Jeanne we were planning to do more entertaining at the Hall.

‘Will you like that?’ she asked.

“To tell the truth, Jeanne, it was I who suggested it.’

‘There will be card games then. You want that?’

‘No, of course I don’t. But I think my sister should meet people.’

‘To find a ’usband for her?’ asked Jeanne bluntly.

‘I did not say that, Jeanne’.’

‘No, but you do not always say what you mean.’

‘Well, if I did mean it, it would be a good idea, wouldn’t it?’

‘It would be very good. Madame Aimée is not the one you think her.’

‘Now what do you mean by that?’ I demanded somewhat testily. I was irritated by Jeanne’s frequent innuendoes concerning Aimée.

‘You must watch ’er,’ whispered Jeanne. ‘I think she ’ave an eye for the men. And men are men… even the best of them.’

I knew she was referring to Lance, for whom she had an inordinate admiration because of his handsome appearance, elegant style of dress and gracious manners.

‘You talk arrant nonsense sometimes, Jeanne,’ I said.

She gave a rather vicious tug to a tangle so that I cried out in protest.

‘You will see,’ she said darkly.

It was not long before I was wishing that I had not suggested having these parties, for a round of gaiety began and almost always the gatherings ended at the card tables.

Lance, who had been considerably sobered by the recent disaster, became as fervently involved as before. Aimée, too, had a taste for the game. Lance said she played a very good hand at faro and they played sometimes into the early hours of the morning. I would often retire before the games ended. No one seemed to mind; the only thing that mattered once the tables were set up was the play.

Lance had a run of luck and was sure he was going to retrieve all he had lost in time. This was the pattern of luck, he said. Up one day and down the next.

I became very uneasy again, but I did not want to become a nagging wife and I had long ago realized that nothing I could do would make Lance anything but a gambler.

I think I was almost as anxious about Aimée as I was about Lance. He at least could look after himself. I remonstrated with him about encouraging Aimée to play.

‘Where can she find the money?’ I asked. ‘You know her circumstances.’

‘Don’t deny her the excitement, Clarissa,’ he answered. ‘Poor girl, she has had a hard time. She enjoys it so much, and she has a good card sense. She’s a natural and lucky too. Some people are, you know.’

‘But how can she afford…’

‘Don’t worry about that. I set her up and if she wins she pays me back. If she loses we forget it.’

‘Oh, Lance!’

He put his arms round me and kissed me, laughing as he did so. ‘Let the girl enjoy herself,’ he pleaded.

‘It is not the right way.’

‘We can’t all be like you, my darling.’

I was silent, feeling that I was priggish, a spoilsport.

A few days later I heard a little altercation between Jeanne and Aimée. Before that, the hostility between them had been silent, though pronounced.

I was on my way to Aimée’s room when I heard their voices raised in anger. I hesitated and could not help hearing what they were saying. They spoke in French rapidly and angrily.

‘Take care,’ Aimée was saying. ‘You are not in the Rue de la Morant now, you know.’

‘How did you know I was ever in the Rue de la Morant?’

‘You know you were there with your mother and grandmother. You know only the lowest of the low live in such places.’

‘We lived there because we could afford no better. But how did you know?’

‘I heard you say it.’

‘Never did you hear me mention it. Never. Never.’

‘Be quiet and don’t speak so to your betters.’

‘You… you…’ cried Jeanne in a fury. ‘Have a care. If ever you hurt my lady Clarissa, I will kill you.’

I did not wait for more. I turned and hurried away.

I did not like this growing hostility between Jeanne and Aimée any more than I liked the gambling which once more was becoming the main feature of our lives.

That summer and autumn passed uneasily and it seemed that in a very short time Christmas was upon us. We were to go to Enderby as usual and we set out from Albemarle Street on the morning of the twentieth of December, hoping to get as far as possible before darkness fell. It was a somewhat hazardous journey as the cold weather had set in early and it seemed that the winter might be a severe one.

It took us three days to reach Enderby and Damaris was in a state of anxiety visualizing the state of the roads. Aimée, of course, accompanied us, with Jean-Louis; and there was a great welcome for the baby, who was admired by them all except Sabrina. I was sure she thought he detracted from her own importance.

She was delighted to see me, however, and I was touched by her boisterous welcome.

‘It’s going to snow,’ she told me, ‘and freeze and we shall all go skating on the pond. I have a new pair of skates. I shan’t get them until Christmas Day though. My Papa has bought them for me.’

Now that Enderby was no longer my home I could see clearly what people meant when they said there was a certain foreboding about it. Whether this was due to long-ago tragedies which had happened in the house or whether it was just the way it was built without enough light coming in and because the magnificent trees grew too close to it and darkened it even more, I did not know. But there was a kind of menace there which I noticed before the tragedy.

When we arrived great log fires were burning in all the rooms and Damaris had had the place decorated as usual for Christmas, which dispersed most of the gloom… and yet it was there all the same.

I spent a great deal of time with Sabrina, who insisted on it. She had formed a deep attachment to me and looked upon me as her elder sister, which was natural as Damaris had been a mother to me. She proudly showed me all her presents. There was pride of place for the skates and next came the fur muff which her mother had given her; and then there was my gift—a saddle for her pony which I had heard she wanted. She gloated over them all and kept running to the window to see whether it was still snowing and she asked Jeremy a hundred times a day whether the pond was hard enough yet to skate on.

She did not like Aimée, which I think was due to the fact that she was Jean-Louis’s mother. She referred to him as ‘that silly baby’.

‘You were a baby once,’ I reminded her.

‘I soon grew out of that,’ she answered scornfully.

‘So will he.’

‘Well, he’s a silly baby now.’

Damaris was always trying to remonstrate with her. ‘You are too impatient, Sabrina,’ she said. ‘Remember there are other people in the world besides you.’

‘I know that,’ retorted Sabrina.

‘Well, they have to be considered.’

‘Everybody considers that baby more than…’

‘Of course they do. He’s only little. They consider other people too.’

Sabrina muttered: ‘It’s stopped snowing. Papa says it’ll freeze up and perhaps tomorrow…’

She was off to consult Jeremy on the temperature.

‘Sabrina worries me a little,’ Damaris confided in me. ‘She’s so impulsive and self-centred.’

‘All children are.’

‘Sabrina more than most. It’s strange that Jeremy and I should have such a daughter. She reminds me of your mother. I do hope she will be happy. I don’t think your mother ever was… with all her gifts. Sometimes I tremble for Sabrina.’

‘You worry too much. Sabrina is all right. She is just a normal healthy child, full of high spirits.’

‘You are fond of her, aren’t you, Clarissa?’

‘Of course. She is like my little sister.’

‘You have a new sister.’ She looked at me anxiously. ‘You get on well with Aimée, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Damaris looked sad. ‘I often think how much better it would have been if your mother had stayed with Benjie. He was after all her husband… and such a good man. Still, he is happy now. But if your mother had stayed with him she might have been alive today.’

‘It is no use talking about ifs. It didn’t work out that way and so things are as they are today.’

‘You’d always look after Sabrina, wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course I would. But she’ll be here with you. You’ll be the one to look after her.’

‘Yes, unless…’ She smiled suddenly. ‘I have something to tell you, Clarissa. I am going to have another child.’

‘Oh… how happy you must be.’

‘Yes… yes, of course. We had Sabrina at last… and it is wonderful how full of life she is. Sometimes I wonder how Jeremy and I could have such a child. I look forward to another. Jeremy is so pleased. I should like a little boy this time.’

‘But you will be highly contented with whatever comes.’

‘Clarissa, it would be wonderful if you…’

‘Yes, I know. I suppose I shall have a child one day.’

‘I do hope so. It is a great joy, but…’

I looked at her expectantly and she went on: ‘I hope all will go well. Sometimes…’

‘Of course it will go well. You are in good health now.’

‘Yes, but there are times…’

I shrugged her gloom aside. Naturally she was a little uneasy at the prospect of another pregnancy. She had caught Jeremy’s habit of looking on the dark side. I supposed it was because of what had happened to them.

By Twelfth Night the pond was frozen hard and to Sabrina’s delight those of us who wished went skating. Jeremy was there with Lance and myself. The others watched from the bank. Sabrina shrieked with delight and she looked a picture in her scarlet cloak and hat clutching the fur muffin her hands and skating over the pond with her father beside her. The colour in her cheeks matched that of her cloak and her eyes sparkled. This was what she had been waiting for.

She was disappointed when darkness fell and we went back to the house.

‘The pond will still be frozen tomorrow,’ prophesied her father and Sabrina cried out: ‘How I wish it was tomorrow.’

She was up with her skates the next morning badgering us all to go skating.

On the third day, with the unpredictability of the English climate, it was a little warmer.

‘If this goes on,’ said Jeremy, ‘the thaw will set in sooner than I expected.’

Sabrina was very disconsolate. But her father said: ‘There’ll be no skating until we are sure it is safe.’

He went out in the morning and came back to tell us that there were cracks in the ice on the pond. ‘This is the end of our skating unless the weather turns icy again.’

‘But there is still ice on the pond,’ protested Sabrina.

‘It’ll be there for some days but it is not safe for skating any more.’

‘I think it is,’ said Sabrina, with a touch of rebellion in her voice.

‘You shall not go on the ice again until it is perfectly safe,’ said Jeremy.

Sabrina pouted, looking angry.

‘Now, darling,’ said Damaris, ‘if your father says it is not safe, it isn’t. So you must keep away from the pond until it freezes again.’

Sabrina was silent… too silent. Perhaps we should have been prepared.

In the afternoon I thought I would take her round the field on her pony. She loved riding and was always delighted when I rode with her. One had to be watchful of her for she was far too daring. Like most children she did not know the meaning of fear and it never occurred to her that anything could go wrong.

I could not find her. Nanny Goswell, who had accompanied us to Enderby to look after Jean-Louis, said that she had seen her running out of the house. I went to Damaris to ask if she had seen her and when she heard that I could not find her she grew perturbed. I said I would go through the house.

I wished I had stayed with Damaris.

I could not find Sabrina. I went up to the attics. Sabrina was rather fond of exploring them and up there I happened to look out of the small window and I saw Damaris running as fast as she could away from the house and she had not stopped to put on a cloak. She will be frozen, I thought. And then, suddenly, a frightening thought came to me. Events clicked into place. I saw Sabrina’s face, quiet for once, brooding, planning—and I guessed.

I did not stop for cloak or gloves. I ran out of the house as fast as I could and down to the pond.

It was clear what had happened. Sabrina had gone to skate in spite of being forbidden to do so. There was a gaping black hole in the whiteness and there was Sabrina’s head in the red cap protruding from it. Damaris was lying full-length on the ice supporting her.

I was panic-stricken, not knowing for a moment what to do. If I went out to try and help my weight might break the ice. In fact it might break at any moment taking Damaris down with Sabrina.

I turned back to the house shouting for Lance and Jeremy. Fortunately Jeremy was in the garden and heard me. Breathlessly I explained. Lance appeared. Then we were all running as fast as we could to the pond.

It was a near-disaster. I shall never forget those terrible tense moments. Jeremy was like a man possessed by despair. It was Lance really who calmly and practically saved their lives. I was proud of him. He acted almost nonchalantly, as though rescuing people from such situations was an everyday occurrence to him. Jeremy was handicapped by his lameness; but with amazing skill and firmness, Lance had Sabrina out of the water and handed her to me while Jeremy helped Damaris to rise gingerly from the thinning ice.

Sabrina was white-faced and terribly cold; it was strange to see her still and silent. Smith, having heard what had happened, came running to the pond and it was he who took the sodden little bundle from me and rushed towards the house. I saw Damaris then. She was half-fainting and Lance had lifted her up and was carrying her.

We reached the house, where they were already getting blankets and warming-pans and wrapping hot bricks in flannel.

Someone ran to get the doctor.

I was with Nanny Curlew when she stripped Sabrina of her wet clothes and wrapped her in a warm towel to rub her dry. Then we put her into a blanket and bed, already warmed. Her teeth chattered, which relieved me, for I had been terrified to see her so still and silent.

She opened her eyes and saw me.

‘Clarissa…’ she whispered.

I leaned forward and kissed her. ‘You’re safe now, darling,’ I said. ‘In your own little bed.’

‘I was frightened,’ she said. ‘It cracked… and I was in. Ooh, it was cold.’

‘Tell me about it later, dear.’ I stroked her face. ‘There. You’re home now. You’re safe.’

‘Stay with me,’ she murmured.

So I sat by her bed and she held my hand tightly.

‘She’ll be all right,’ said Nanny Curlew. ‘A chill, mayhap. But she’ll be all right.’

I sat looking at that beautiful little face, so different now—pale and quiet, with the lashes looking darker than usual lying fan-shaped on her white skin—and I rejoiced that Lance had saved her and thanked God that there had not been a tragic ending to this day’s adventure.

But before the day was out I realized I had been over-optimistic.

Damaris was very ill.

In the first place the exposure had affected her so much that it was clear within a day or so that she was about to miscarry and that her life was in danger. She had been an invalid when she was in her teens and had suffered from rheumatic fever which had left her unable to leave her couch. Then the miracle had happened. She had met Jeremy and made the almost superhuman effort to rescue me. This had done something to Damaris; and although she had never been strong she had been able to lead a normal life. Giving birth to Sabrina had been an ordeal for her; she had survived and wanted another child, but her health was not such as to allow her to expose herself with impunity to such an ordeal as that which she had undergone to save Sabrina.

And now… this miscarriage. It was a time of great suspense while we waited to hear news of her. I felt the house closing in on me… triumphant, almost… the house of shadows, the house of menace, where evil was waiting to catch those who dared live in the place.

Strange… for it had been my home once, and I had never noticed it then.

Sabrina recovered rapidly. After the first day she was sitting up in bed eating heartily. Nanny Curlew had decreed that she should stay in bed, and after what had happened, which was the result of her disobedience, she was for once submissive.

But the old Sabrina was ready to break out at any moment until Jeremy came to her. I was there, so I saw it happen; but it was only afterwards that I understood that something very significant was happening to Sabrina.

Jeremy was fond of the child, but beyond anything in the world he loved Damaris. Damaris represented salvation to him. Having read their story, I now knew what she did for him. He had been morose and unhappy, resentful of life, shutting himself away, believing that nothing good could ever happen to him. Then she came along; a girl physically handicapped as he was, to show him that there was something worthwhile for him in life after all. He had been with her when she came to rescue me in Paris and I felt deeply about them because I had played a part in their story. He had seen Damaris’s courage during that adventure; he had realized her selflessness. She was his salvation; together they had built a new life.

Jeremy was still something of a misanthrope. He would never throw off that morbid streak in his nature. He expected disaster rather than good fortune and luck to be bad rather than good. He was the absolute antithesis of Lance.

He was now in a state of deep despair. It was not only that he was disappointed in the loss of the child, but his great anxiety was for Damaris. Her exposure on the ice would very likely bring back that affliction which had come to her in her youth. He was certain this would be so. Worse than that even—she was very ill, and, knowing Jeremy, I realized that in his mind he had already buried her and had drifted back into the lonely frustrated existence which had been his before Damaris came into his life.

His face was pale and his dark eyes glowed. I had never seen him look as he did now. Sabrina sat up in bed staring at him.

She had always been a little unsure of her father. Perhaps he was not quite so susceptible to her charm as most of us were; and she knew of course that a great deal of trouble had been caused by her naughtiness. She did not then know how much.

He stood at the end of the bed, looking at her almost distastefully and as though he wanted to put as great a distance as possible between her and himself.

Her lovely eyes were wide as she stared back at him and her lips were trembling. He said nothing for a moment and Sabrina, who could never bear silences, cried out: ‘Papa… I… I’m sorry…’

‘Sorry!’ he said, and he looked at her as though he hated her. ‘You are a wicked girl,’ he went on. ‘Do you know what you have done to your mother? She has lost the baby she wanted. And she is ill… very ill. You were told the pond was dangerous and that you were to keep away from it. You were forbidden to go on…’

‘I didn’t know…’ began Sabrina.

‘You knew you were doing wrong. You went out to skate when you were told not to and your mother risked her life saving yours. It may be that you have killed her

I cried out involuntarily, ‘Oh no… no… please…’

But he did not look at me. He turned and went out of the room.

Sabrina was still staring before her. Then she turned to me and flung herself against me. Sobs shook her body; she cried and cried. I stroked her hair and tried to comfort her, but there was no comforting Sabrina. For the first time in her life she had come face to face with a situation from which her charm could not extricate her.

It was a very sad household. Anxieties over Damaris grew. She had lost the child but that was not all. She was very ill indeed and it was not only Jeremy’s pessimism that pointed to the fact that she might not recover.

Priscilla and Arabella came over to Enderby every day though there was nothing any of us could do. I was deeply concerned about Sabrina too, for she had changed drastically. She had lost her gaiety and had become silent, almost sullen. Nanny Curlew said, ‘She’s as naughty as ever, though in a different way. She’s more trouble than any child I ever had to handle. She teases dear little Jean-Louis. I think she’s jealous of him.’

I sat with Damaris often for she seemed to derive comfort from my presence. ‘She cared so much for you,’ Priscilla told me. ‘You mean a great deal to her.’

I took Sabrina with me one day. She did not want to go but I persuaded her.

Damaris smiled at her daughter and held out her hand. Sabrina shrank from it but I whispered: ‘Go on, take it. Tell your mother how much you love her.’

Sabrina took the hand and stared defiantly at her mother.

‘Bless you, my darling,’ said Damaris; and I saw Sabrina’s face soften. I think she was near to tears.

She needs gentleness now, I thought, as never before. Jeremy had wounded her deeply. It was wrong of him. She was only a child. She had acted thoughtlessly, mischievously—but that was all. I could see that Sabrina needed the love Damaris could give her, but Damaris was ill and I felt I must make Sabrina my special care.

It was time, of course, that we left Enderby. I knew that Lance had business on the country estate and could guess that he was longing to be in London. Aimée was restive too. Enderby was not a happy house to be in at this time.

I talked about it with Lance. He admitted that he wanted to go back, but I said I should not be happy leaving Enderby while the fate of Damaris was still uncertain. I was worried about Sabrina. Being Lance, he understood immediately.

‘But we can’t all stay here,’ he said. ‘There are too many of us. Besides, I think we are a bit of a drain on the household.’

I thought fleetingly that he would find it dull here. We had intended to stay only for the Christmas festivities. Here there was no gambling. It might be frowned on at Eversleigh. Lance must find the quiet life of the country without such flutters very dull.

We arranged that Lance should go back to London and that Aimée with Jean-Louis and Nanny Goswell should accompany him leaving me to stay a while until we knew for certain that Damaris would recover.

Jeanne shook her head over the decision. It was not good, she said, for husband and wife to live apart.

‘Live apart!’ I cried. ‘We are not living apart. It is only until my Aunt Damaris has recovered.’

‘Meanwhile he go off… with Madame Aimée? I do not like.’

‘Oh, Jeanne, don’t be so melodramatic.’

‘They gamble together. Such a beautiful man… and a woman like that.’ Jeanne narrowed her eyes. ‘She is…’

‘Yes, I know. She is French, and so are you, so you know. That’s it, is it not?’

‘You may not laugh always,’ said Jeanne ominously.