The Song of the Siren

A Willing Abduction

FOR MONTHS I BELIEVED I should never forget that moment when on the night of the great storm my sister, Damaris, opened the door of the red room and saw me with Matt Pilkington. It was a bizarre scene with that sudden flash of lightning showing us there … caught flagrantly, blatantly, so that the truth could not be hidden.

To her I must have seemed the ultimate sinner. The adultress taken in adultery. I could never begin to explain everything to Damaris. She is so good; I am so wicked. Though I do not believe any living person is entirely good nor any entirely bad. Even I must have some good points, for I did suffer terrible remorse on that night when she was missing. When her horse came home without her I was frantic with anxiety and all through that night I suffered such fear and there was born in me a repugnance of myself which I had never experienced before. I even prayed: “Anything … anything I will do,” I murmured, “but bring her home.” Then she was found. I shall never forget the overwhelming relief when my father carried her into the house.

We fell on her—my mother and I; we stripped off her sodden clothes; she was limp and raving with fever. We got her to bed; the doctors came. She was very ill and for weeks we were not sure whether she would live. I wouldn’t leave the Dower House until I was sure that she was going to recover.

I had lots of time for thought when I used to sit by her bed while my mother rested, for my mother would not allow her to be left for one hour of the day or night. While I longed for her to get better I used to dread the moment when she would open her eyes, look at me and remember.

For the first time in my life I despised myself. Always before I had been able to make excuses for my conduct. I found that difficult now. I knew how she had felt about Matt Pilkington. Dear Little Damaris, she was so innocent and obvious. Damaris is in love, I thought. I could just imagine her romantic fantasies—so far removed from reality.

When I sat by her bed I used to imagine myself explaining to her, trying to make her see how events had led up to that scene in the bedroom.

I would never make her understand my nature, which was different from hers as two natures could be.

“Damaris,” I imagined myself saying to her, “I am a passionate woman. There are instincts in my nature which demand to be satisfied. An impulse comes to me at certain times in certain company and when it comes it is beyond my control. I am not alone in this. You are fortunate, Damaris, because you will always be able to control your emotions; in any case you would never have these intense desires—animal desires, perhaps you would call them. They are like that. It is like a fire that suddenly is there and it has to be quenched. No, you would not understand. I am learning more and more about myself, Damaris. There will always be lovers for me. Marriage doesn’t alter that. I have met men who are as I am … Beau was one; there was a Jacobite who kidnapped me, he was another. And Matt, yes, Matt too, but there was another reason with Matt.”

I should never explain to Damaris and if I tried she would never understand.

I thought back to the moment when I had arrived at the Dower House. I was coming down to the hall and there was Damaris with him. For the moment I thought he was Beau … It was the clothes, I suppose, really, and there was that faint musk scent he used. He told me later that he kept his linen in musk-scented trunks.

So for that moment I thought he was Beau.

We stared at each other. He said afterwards: “I couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t think you were real. I had never seen anyone so beautiful.”

I had received many compliments, but I never tired of them.

I realised as I came closer to him that it was a fleeting resemblance, something about the style of the dress and scent of musk. There is nothing like scent to bring back memories. At any rate from the first moment we were interested in each other.

It became clear to me during the first evening that he was becoming infatuated. There was something innocent about him which made him different from the men I had known. Beau and Hessenfield were adventurers, buccaneers, the sort of men who roused me more than any others. Benjie was the good dependable type, the perfect husband for a good woman. Alas, I was not that. But Matt Pilkington was different. He was capable of passion, no doubt about that, but as yet he was innocent—inexperienced. I could never outwit Beau or Hessenfield; and the game of trying to was completely fascinating to me. That was why I missed them so bitterly. I could guide Matt Pilkington; I could command him; he was completely mine, I knew, whenever I wished it.

I enjoyed his admiration—adoration, more likely. I would never tire of homage to my beauty. So we went riding. Damaris came out when we were about to leave. Matt asked her to join us and I couldn’t help laughing at his relief when she declined. Poor Damaris, I thought, she imagines herself in love with him. She’s a child really. It is calf love. A good experience for her, though.

We rode out together; we stopped at an inn for a tankard of ale and some hot fresh baked rye bread and a piece of cold bacon.

All the time his feeling for me was growing. When he helped me mount he was loathe to let me go and I leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the brow. That seemed to fire both of us. Memories of Beau came sweeping over me. I had thought I had forgotten them with Hessenfield. He had taught me so much about myself. But it seemed I had not forgotten Beau, for whenever I went to Enderby I remembered our meetings there.

I had firmly fixed in my mind the idea that there was a resemblance between Matt and Beau and I wanted to prove to myself that I had forgotten Beau even if I could not forget Hessenfield.

We rode on for a while and then I suggested we tether the horses and sit by the stream. We did.

I wanted him to hold me, but I was not sure how far I wanted this to go. I did love Benjie in a way but my feeling for him was different from that I had had for Beau and Hessenfield. Benjie was gentle, tender and a good husband. But he did not satisfy my craving for that wild adventurous passion which men like Beau and Hessenfield could give me.

I had not been unfaithful to Benjie … yet. I now realised that was because there had been no incentive to be. Suddenly, desperately, I wanted Matt Pilkington to be my lover. My reasons were mixed. I needed the wild illicit adventure which I had had from Beau and Hessenfield. I wanted to be dominated, I suppose. Beau had laughed at my innocence and been determined to deflower it; Hessenfield had made it clear that I had no choice. Situations, I suppose, which would have horrified a person like my good little sister, Damaris, but which titillated me.

We sat side by side on the grass. I put my hand over his and said to him: “It’s strange, but when I first saw you I thought I had met you before … just for a moment when you stood in the hall.”

“I could not believe you were real,” he said.

“I saw your mother once … some time ago. I can’t remember much about her now … except that she was beautiful and elegant and she had masses of red hair.”

“She’s very proud of her hair. I’ll tell her you thought her beautiful and elegant. That will please her.”

“I hope she wasn’t upset because I decided not to sell Enderby.”

“I think she understood. She has Grasslands now and is very satisfied with that. It’s a brighter house than Enderby.”

“Did you ever see Enderby?”

“I came to look at it when my mother thought she might buy it. She had the key and took me over.”

A flash of understanding came to me. Of course. I had smelt the musk perfume there. It was strong stuff and lingered on after whoever was wearing it had gone. And the button which I had thought was Beau’s … it was Matt’s of course. I had been certain that button was Beau’s. But of course buttons were obviously duplicated, even when they were as valuable as the one which I had found.

It was a mystery cleared up. I almost told him that it was because he had been to Enderby and I had thought he was someone else—a ghost from the past—that I had decided not to sell the house.

But there was time for that later.

I was exerting myself to draw him to me. Although he did not really look so much like Beau, and his character was very different, I kept having flashes of memory when I was with him, and Beau seemed nearer to me than he had for a long time.

And as I sat there beside him I knew that I could let myself believe that Beau had come back. I wanted to test myself, to ask myself whether I still wanted Beau. During those few wildly exciting days I had spent in Hessenfield’s company I had forgotten Beau. I wanted to forget him; I wanted to forget Hessenfield. It sounds hypocritical, really, to say I wanted to be a good wife to Benjie while I was at the same time contemplating breaking my marriage vows.

Harriet had once said: “There are people who disregard the laws laid down for good and honourable behaviour, people who, because of something they possess, think they are above the rules which others obey. You are one of those, Carlotta … So was I. We use other people perhaps. It’s unfair because we invariably win in the end.” Then she smiled and added cryptically, “But who can say what is victory?”

I could have seduced him there and then, but the idea had come to me that it would be more effective if it were in the four-poster bed in Enderby Hall where Beau and I had made love so many times.

I was excited by the prospect. I was aware of the desire in him which could not be quenched by the efforts he was making to suppress it. He did not know that the obstacles to it make it the more enticing. I was a married woman; he was contemplating betrothal to my sister; he had only known me for a day or so. I knew exactly what he was thinking—he was a good man, or he wanted to be, which is perhaps the same thing.

I was neither good nor bad when passion took possession of me; and I was allowing Matt Pilkington to have this effect on me. I wanted to lie on the bed with Matt Pilkington and delude myself briefly into thinking that Beau had returned.

It was so easy to arrange. The gloomy afternoon with threatening rain, the damp leaves which seemed to cling to everything.

“Let’s go and look at Enderby. I have the key here with me. I meant to go in this afternoon.”

I opened the door and forgot to shut it. We went round the house and in the bedroom we stood for a moment looking at the four-poster bed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s very unfortunate,” I agreed.

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

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

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

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

I rode over to Grasslands late the next day to tell Matt how ill Damaris was. He was terribly sad. He regarded me as though I were some evil witch. Good people are always like that. When they misbehave they look for scapegoats. “It was not my fault, oh, Lord, the evil one tempted me.” Whereas people like myself and Harriet at least see ourselves as we really are. We say, “I wanted that and I took it. No, I did not think of the consequences of my act. It is only now that it has gone wrong that I think of it.”

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

Matt kept calling, and when he knew that she would in time recover he went away. I don’t think he could ever bring himself to face her.

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

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

I said I must go back too. I had been too long away from my husband and child.

So I travelled back to Eyot Abbass and tried to forget the havoc I had wrought.

A year had passed. I had not seen Damaris or my mother since I left the Dower House when I knew Damaris would recover. The days had slipped by. I had said that I found it difficult to leave my little daughter and my mother said Damaris, although improving, was unfit to travel.

We must content ourselves with letters.

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

Moreover, in view of what had happened I felt penitent. I had been unfaithful to the best of husbands and all because of a momentary whim. I had not had the excuse that I had been overwhelmed by a great love. I had deliberately taken the man who was more or less betrothed to my sister and betrayed my husband at the same time. There was no excuse I could offer for my conduct. But at least I could try to compensate my husband in some way.

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

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

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

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

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

“Whatever made her do that?” she asked.

I shook my head, but Harriet was perceptive.

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

“And it went wrong when you were there?”

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

“But the climax came after your arrival?”

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

“What is he like, this Matt Pilkington?”

“Very … young.”

“Suitable for Damaris?”

“Oh, Damaris is too young yet.”

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

I shrugged my shoulders.

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

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

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

“Damaris is young for her years.”

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

“It’s a good rule,” I said.

She knew of course that my visit had had something to do with Damaris’s illness. She would, as she had implied, discover the secret in due course.

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

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

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

I knew the day would have to come when Damaris and I would meet. It was over a year since we had seen each other, but in the summer of 1704 Harriet said we must go to visit my mother and Damaris.

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

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

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

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

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

She looked delightful in her red woollen cloak and her red shoes and mittens—the colour matched that in her cheeks and her golden eyes sparkled in anticipation. She was very intelligent for her age and seemed a good deal older than she actually was. She asked endless questions about the journey, about her grandmother, her aunt Damaris and grandfather Leigh. Then there was Great Grandfather Carleton and Great Grandmother Arabella to be visited at Eversleigh Court with Aunt Jane and Carl, her boy, and Uncle Edwin and Uncle Carl, if they were home, as they might well be for they had been away for a very long time.

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

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

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

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

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

“Not for when you’re hungry then.”

“Yes, of course when you’re hungry.”

“I’m hungry now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The gentleman?” I said.

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

“Oh … he came back did he?”

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

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

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

“How long ago was it?” I asked.

“Matter of weeks … no more.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I should have to wait and see.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Did you indeed?” said my mother.

“Yes, and cake with fruit in it and cheese … and mutton and … and …”

“Carlotta, you are as lovely as ever,” said Leigh. “You too, Harriet.”

“Well, what do you think of our coach?” asked Harriet. “It has caused a lot of interest on the road so spare a thought for it, please.”

“We are so happy to see you,” said my mother, “that we have no thoughts to spare just yet for anything else. But it is a magnificent vehicle. I must say that.”

“The pride of Benjie’s life,” commented Harriet. “Next to Carlotta and, of course, Clarissa.”

“They can take the coach to the stables. There’s room there,” said Leigh. “I’ll go with them to make sure.”

“And you’ll come in,” said my mother. “You must be tired from the journey even in such a luxurious coach.”

I said: “Where is Damaris?”

My mother’s face was a little sad. “She is in her room. She did not feel well enough to get up today. I said I knew you would understand.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, “I understand. Is she often … unwell still?”

My mother nodded and a worried expression appeared on her face.

“She is better than she was, of course. But this terrible fever did something to her. Her limbs are often stiff … and they are painful. Sometimes she cannot lift her hands to brush her hair.”

“Poor Damaris,” I said. “How is she … in spirits?”

“In good spirits … sometimes. At others a little quiet. You know Damaris. She tries to hide the fact that she is in pain. She is always thinking of what is best for us … her father and me … and always puts on a bright face. Your coming should cheer her. She has been excited about it. I think she longs to see Clarissa.”

“Shall I take the child up to her now?”

“Yes, go up now. Go immediately. Then she’ll know that you went to her as soon as you came. Harriet, come with me and I’ll show you your room.”

I took Clarissa by the hand.

“We are going to see your aunt Damaris,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because she’d like to see you. She’s your aunt.”

“Why is she my aunt?”

“Because she’s my sister. Now don’t say why is she my sister. She is, and that’s it.”

Clarissa hunched her shoulders with glee and we went upstairs. I clung to her hand. I felt she was going to ease an embarrassing encounter.

I knocked at the door. Damaris said: “Who is it?”

“Carlotta,” I said.

A brief hesitation then: “Come in.”

I opened the door. Clarissa ran forward. She stood by the couch looking at Damaris.

“Oh, Damaris,” I said, “how … are you?”

Her gaze met mine blankly. “Oh, I’m all right, Carlotta. Some days I am better than others.”

She had changed, grown up. I hardly recognized her. She was thinner—but she had been too plump before. She was pale and there was a blank expression on her face as though she were lost and couldn’t find her way. I knew at once that the old admiration—almost amounting to adoration—which I had once inspired in her was gone.

“Have you had a good journey?”

“Yes, we came in the new coach.”

“We had Dutch gingerbread,” Clarissa began.

I said: “Oh, please, Clarissa, not again. Nobody wants to hear about food.”

Damaris looked at the child’s bright face.

“I’d like to,” she said, and her face was illuminated suddenly. It was as though life had returned to it.

Clarissa then began to recite the items of the hamper and Damaris listened as though she was relating the most exciting adventure.

“You’re my aunt,” she said suddenly.

“Yes, I know,” said Damaris.

“It’s because you’re my mother’s sister. Can I come up on your couch?”

She climbed up and lay stretched out beside Damaris. She kept laughing as though it was a great joke.

“Are you ill?” asked Clarissa.

“In a way,” said Damaris. “Some days I have to rest.”

“Why …?”

Somehow they had managed to exclude me. They had formed an instant friendship. I remembered how Damaris used to be with all stray cats and dogs and birds with broken wings. It seemed she was the same with children.

I was glad. Clarissa had saved me from an awkward situation. We had come through the first vital moments. I knew now that we were going to behave as though she had never come to Enderby Hall and seen me there with Matt Pilkington.

I was immensely relieved. I was sure she was hating me, but being Damaris, brought up to a strict code of behaviour which insisted that good manners were paramount and must never be forgotten even in the most trying moments, we should behave as though our relationship was a normal one and had not changed in the least.

Clarissa and she had struck up a very firm friendship and the child would spend hours in Damaris’s room. Damaris read to her and told her stories and sometimes they just talked.

“I am so pleased,” said my mother, “that Clarissa is fond of Damaris. It is so good for Damaris to have her here. I am sure she has changed since she came.”

I wanted to talk to my mother about Damaris. She was very much on my conscience.

“What is wrong with Damaris?” I asked.

“We’ve had several doctors … Your father even had one of the court physicians here. It started with a fever which was brought about by her being out all night in that fearful rain, lying there on that sodden ground in her wet clothes. All those hours she was there.”

“Does she say … why she went into those woods while the storm was on …?”

My mother was silent and my heart started to hammer against my side.

I stammered: “She left Tomtit … That was not like her. You know how she always felt about horses and dogs. She always thought of them first.”

“She had not been well for some days …” My mother frowned. “I suppose this fever suddenly overcame her and she wasn’t sure where she was … Then she went into the wood and collapsed, I suppose. Whatever it was … it happened and it has left her with this … I don’t know what.”

“Is she in pain?”

“Not so much now. But sometimes she finds it difficult to walk. She must rest. The doctors all say that. We are with her a great deal. Leigh plays chess with her and reads to her. She loves to be read to. I sit with her; we sew a little together. She seems happiest with us … and now Clarissa has come there is a change in her. Your little girl is doing Damaris a great deal of good. What a darling she is. Benjie must be proud of her.”

Sometimes the secrets in my life weighed me down.

I said: “What about … the Pilkingtons?”

A look of scorn came into my mother’s eyes.

“Oh, they’ve gone … completely.”

“It’s odd …” I began.

“Elizabeth Pilkington found the country too dull apparently.”

“And … the son …? Wasn’t he interested in Damaris?”

“Not when she became ill, apparently. He came to ask once or twice when she was very ill. Then he went away. Duty, he said. Something to do with the army. It was rather mysterious, really. We heard about estates in Dorsetshire and some career in the army. Yet he was here all that time during the summer. Then he went. And his mother left too. I understood her reasons for going. But I should have thought he …”

“Do you think he had … upset Damaris?”

“I think it’s likely. I think she may have had something on her mind that worried her and brought on this fever. Then unfortunately she had this collapse when she was out. That made it so dreadful.”

“She will recover …”

My mother said: “It has been a long time. She seems to have no life in her. It seems as though she wants to be shut away … by herself … with just me and Leigh. So it is wonderful to see her so happy with Clarissa. Oh, I am so glad you came, Carlotta. It has been so long … so dreadfully long.”

“We must not let these absences happen again,” I said.

“No. Whether Damaris would be fit to travel I don’t know. Perhaps we’ll have one of the new coaches. Leigh was talking about it. That must make travel easier.”

“I don’t think we could have brought Clarissa without the coach. She’s going to have her first pony soon. Benjie thinks she can’t begin too early.”

She took my hands in hers. “I am so glad to see you happy with Benjie. He is such a good man, Carlotta. I shall never forget that terrible time when you and …”

“Beaumont Granville,” I said.

She shivered as though the mention of his very name had its effect on her.

“We came through it,” she said, and there was a strange note to her voice. “It is all behind us now … All behind us.”

I was silent. I was not so sure. But I would not say so to her. She had enough to worry her with Damaris in this state.

She said brightly, “I wonder if you have changed your mind about Enderby. It just stands there year after year … that can’t be sensible, Carlotta.”

“No,” I said, “it isn’t sensible.”

I knew then that I never wanted to go into that house again. The memory of Damaris’s coming into that bedroom had suppressed all others.

“Mother,” I said, “I’ve made up my mind. I am going to sell Enderby Hall.”

Naturally we went to Eversleigh within a few days of our arrival. The grandparents were eager to see us.

There was a big family party—the biggest for a long time. My uncle Edwin was there, the present Lord Eversleigh home from the war for a brief while. My other uncle, Carl, was also there. Besides them there was Jane and her son. Then there was my grandfather Carleton and grandmother Arabella, besides myself and Harriet with my mother, Leigh and Clarissa. Damaris was with us. It was the first time she had left the house and Harriet had said that she should go the short distance in the coach and if it was one of her bad days someone could carry her into the house.

“I will,” declared Clarissa which made everyone laugh.

Damaris was about to protest, and Clarissa said: “So you’ll have to come now, Aunt Damaris, or I’ll think you’re laughing at me like all these other people.”

That seemed to decide Damaris.

“Well, I could try,” she said.

My mother was delighted. “I have thought all along,” she said, “that if we could get rid of this listlessness …”

“If she made an effort, you mean,” said Harriet. “Well, Clarissa has made it impossible for her to refuse on this occasion.”

So Damaris came with us and Clarissa sat beside her and told her all about the coach once more, to which Damaris listened as though enthralled.

My grandmother was delighted to see us and was really excited because Damaris had come.

“It’s a step forward,” she said.

I was pleased to be at that table again. I had always enjoyed the conversation there, which was usually dominated by my grandfather, who always stated his opinions with vigour. He cared for nobody, did my grandfather. He and I were kindred spirits in a way. He had taken more notice of me when I was a child than he ever had of any one of the others.

He insisted that I sit beside him.

“Never could resist a pretty woman,” he said. “And ods bodikins [using an oath from King Charles’s days] you’re one of the prettiest I ever clapped eyes on.”

“Hush,” I said. “Grandmother will hear.”

That amused him and put him in a good mood.

They were talking about the war—and Marlborough’s successes.

“A good leader, that is what is wanted, and we’ve got it in Churchill,” said Edwin.

He had always been a keen supporter of the Duke of Marlborough and so had Uncle Carl. They should know, for they had both served under him.

My grandfather started to complain about the influence Marlborough’s wife had on the Queen.

“They say Duchess Sarah rules this country. Women should keep out of these things.”

“The hope of this country,” countered my grandmother, “is that women will stay in them … aye, and have more and more influence. That’s what we want. I can tell you there would be an end to senseless wars.”

This was an old argument which was brought up from time to time. My grandfather enjoyed pointing out what disasters women had created in the world and my grandmother would defend her sex and decry his with fierce vehemence.

My mother, I knew, agreed with my grandmother and so did I. It was a war of the sexes and there was no doubt that my grandfather enjoyed it.

I said: “What amazes me is that those men who take such pleasure in feminine society are the first to denigrate us and try to keep us in what they consider our places.”

My grandfather said: “It is because we like you so well when you behave as you are meant to behave.”

“There are times,” said my mother quietly, “when it is the lot of the woman to act in such a way as only she can.”

My grandfather was subdued for a moment and the subject was quickly changed by my grandmother.

It was not long, however, before it was back to the war.

“A senseless war,” said my grandmother. “Fighting about who shall sit on the throne of Spain.”

“A question,” retorted my grandfather, “which concerns this country.”

“It’s to be hoped,” said Uncle Carl, “that we are not going to have trouble from the Jacobites.”

“They haven’t a chance now,” I said. “Anne is firmly on the throne.”

“We thought James was at one time,” put in Edwin. “He and we learned that this was not the case.”

“Do you think they are working overseas?” I asked and I hoped no one detected the excited note in my voice … no one but Harriet, that was. She was aware of it and why I was interested. Harriet could be uncomfortable sometimes. She understood too much about me.

“I know they are,” cried Edwin.

“Louis encourages them,” added Carl.

“Naturally,” said my grandfather. “The more disruption he can bring to us the better for him.”

“I should have thought with the death of James …” said my mother.

“You forget, my dear,” said Leigh, “that there is a new James.”

“A boy,” snorted my grandfather.

“About your age, Damaris,” said Edwin.

“Who might not even be the true Prince,” grumbled my grandfather. “There was a bit of a mystery about his birth.”

“Surely you’re not thinking of that warming pan scandal,” said my grandmother.

“What was it?” asked Damaris.

“Oh,” said my mother, “before the boy was born they had had other children, none of whom had survived. There was a rumor that the Queen had given birth to another stillborn child and the boy James was smuggled into the bedchamber in a warming pan. It was such utter nonsense.”

“It was an indication even at the time of the unpopularity of James,” said my grandfather. “He should have seen what was coming and given up his adherence to the Catholic faith. Then he would have kept his crown.”

“The trouble,” said my mother, “is that we rarely see what is coming. It would be so easy to avoid it if we did. And to ask a man to give up his faith is asking a good deal.”

“We’ve got a warming pan,” Clarissa told Damaris. “I wonder if we’ve got any babies in it.”

“Now,” I said, “you have started something.”

“I’d like a little baby in a warming pan,” mused Clarissa.

“Clarissa,” I said sternly, “warming pans are for warming beds. They are not meant for babies.”

Clarissa opened her mouth to protest, but my mother laid a hand on hers and with the other put a finger to her lips.

Clarissa was not to be so easily subdued. She opened her mouth to speak, but my grandfather startled her by banging on the table. “Little children are here to be seen but not heard.”

She looked at him fearlessly in much the same way as I imagine I did at her age.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, “what they have to say is of no interest to their elders and betters.”

Although Clarissa was not surprised to hear that there were people in the world older than herself she was momentarily taken aback to think that they could be better.

Uncle Carl said: “There’s going to be trouble from the Jacobites at some time, I’m sure. They’re not going to give up easily, you know.”

“They’ll never succeed. We’re never going to have the Catholics back here, depend on it,” said my grandfather. He brought his brows together; they had grown very bushy in the last years and had fascinated Clarissa from the moment she had seen them. Now she was absorbed by them and forgot to ask why.

My grandfather had always been staunchly Protestant. He had supported Monmouth because he represented the Protestants against Catholic James. I vaguely remembered the terrible time that had been when he had come before Judge Jeffreys and been miraculously saved at the eleventh hour.

“Some of them,” said Carl, “are fighting with Louis.”

“Disgraceful!” said my grandfather. “Englishmen against Englishmen.”

“Fighting in a stupid war about Spain!” put in my grandmother.

“Of course the King of France offered hospitality to James and his Queen and his son,” said Carl. “I daresay they feel they wish to repay him.”

“Oh, yes,” added Edwin. “A herald was at the gates of St. Germain-en-Laye when the King died, and in Latin, French and English proclaimed the Prince as James the Third of England and the Eighth of Scotland.”

“I wish I were young enough to take up arms against him,” said my grandfather. “How many of these Jacobites are there, do you think, Carl?”

“Many in France. They come over here quite often I believe … spying out the land.”

“And we allow that?”

“They come in secret, of course. It’s so easy, isn’t it? A ship brings them over … a little boat is let down … near some lonely stretch of coast and they’re here.”

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“Accessing the possibilities of victory. Finding out how many supporters they have. Believe me, there are a considerable number. They decide where a landing would be possible if they came with an army. They need to know where they are most likely to get a footing.”

“And,” said Harriet, “do we do nothing about this?”

“We have our spies as they have. There must be many … even at the Court of St. Germain. What we need to do is to get the ringleaders. There are a handful of men who are the very core of it. Men like Lord Hessenfield.”

“That fellow!” said my grandfather. “The Hessenfields of the north. They were always Catholics. They plotted in the reign of Elizabeth and tried to get Mary of Scotland on the throne.”

“Well, it is not surprising that he is one of the Jacobite leaders, I suppose,” I said, and hoped my voice sounded normal.

“It’s not so much a religious conflict now,” said Edwin. “True, it was religion which drove James from the throne. Now it is a question of right and wrong. Many would say that James is the true King and his son James is the Third of that name. It’s a reasonable assumption. And if William and Mary had not deposed her father and taken the throne, this young man who calls himself James the Third would indeed be our King.”

“You talk like a Jacobite,” growled my grandfather.

“No, indeed I do not,” said Edwin. “I merely put forward the facts. I can see reason in the actions of Hessenfield and his kind. They believe they are fighting for the right and it is going to take a great deal to stop them.”

“Hessenfield got General Langdon out of the Tower and away to France,” commented my grandfather.

I felt so emotional that I dared not attempt to speak again. I was aware of Harriet, watching me.

“A daring thing to do,” said Carl. “We have to be wary of a fellow like that. Clearly he’s a man to reckon with.”

“There are others like him,” added Edwin. “They are all dedicated men. Otherwise they would not have given up so much to serve what might be a lost cause.”

“Ah,” put in Harriet, “but they do not see it as a lost cause.”

“It must be. With Anne on the throne and men like Marlborough to fight for her.”

There was a brief silence and the conversation turned to local matters.

I told them I had decided to sell Enderby Hall. They applauded, every one of them.

“So you have seen sense at least,” commented my grandfather.

“I wonder who’ll buy it?” said my mother.

“It’s not the best proposition,” added my grandmother. “It’s a gloomy old place and standing empty so long …”

I looked at Damaris, who was smiling at Clarissa.

“What’s gloomy?” she was asking.

I turned to my mother. “Will you show people round if they want to see it?” I asked.

“Someone from the house will,” she said.

“We’ll have some keys here,” said my grandmother. “Prospective buyers are almost certain to come here.”

Then we talked of other matters and I was glad. Enderby Hall was almost as affecting as talk of Hessenfield and his Jacobites, but in a different way.

The weeks passed and we were still at the Dower House. Damaris’s attitude toward me had not changed. It was blank, as though she was scarcely aware of me. When I remembered what she had been like in the past I felt I was with a different person. Not that I was ever with her alone. I wondered what would happen if I were, but I did not want to test it.

August came and there was news of Marlborough’s victory at Blenheim.

There was great excitement at Eversleigh and Carl and Edwin fought out the battle on the dinner table using dishes and salters for the troops and the guns.

Apparently it was a resounding victory. Louis had hoped through the battle to menace Vienna and strike at the very heart of Austria, but Marlborough had once more thwarted him, and the French troops in Blenheim were surrounded and at length forced to surrender. The French were no match for Marlborough’s cavalry and had been forced to retreat beyond the Rhine.

I wondered how the news had affected Hessenfield as I listened to the rejoicing at Eversleigh.

I went once to look at Enderby Hall with my mother and Leigh.

I stood in that Hall with its strange brooding atmosphere. I could see that it had an effect on my mother and Leigh.

“Come on,” said my mother briskly. “Let’s go through the house and get it over with.”

So we went through. I went into that bedroom of many memories.

“That’s a very fine bed,” said my mother. “I daresay anyone who bought the house would want the furniture too.”

I was glad to get out of the room. I never wanted to see it again. Once I had loved it. Beau used to call it Our Sanctuary with that half-amused smile which indicated that anything with a trace of sentiment in it was something of a joke.

We came out of the house and I saw that that part of the land which had been fenced in was so no longer.

Leigh saw my surprise and said: “It was a waste of land.”

“I could never understand why you fenced it in in the first place.”

“Oh, I had ideas for it, but I never did anything about them. There never seemed to be the time. Now we are growing flowers there as you see.”

“I have my rose garden in there—my very own,” said my mother. “I planted it myself and I have given orders that it is completely mine.”

“Woe betide anyone who tramples on her flowers,” said Leigh.

“So it is still forbidden territory?”

“Forbidden territory?” said my mother sharply. “What a strange way of putting it.”

“Well, it makes a beautiful garden,” I said. “And not too far from the house.”

“And my own,” said my mother. “My very own.”

We went in and looked around.

She had left a good deal of it wild, which was very attractive, and here and there she had her flowers growing. And there was her rose garden, which was full of lovely roses of all kinds including a goodly array of damask roses, which were especially favoured in the family because an ancestress had been named after it when Thomas Linacre first brought the flower to England.

It would soon be September, time we returned if we were to do so before the bad weather set in.

On the last day of August we set out for Eyot Abbass.

There was a faint mist in the air when we left—a sign that the autumn would soon be with us. Some of the leaves were already turning to bronze and Harriet remarked that we were wise to depart while there was a little summer left to us.

Clarissa had taken a tearful farewell of Damaris. “Come with us,” she kept saying. “Why can’t you? Why? Why?”

“You must come again, darling … soon,” said my mother.

And Clarissa put her arms round Damaris’s neck and refused to let go-It had to be Damaris who gently unclasped them.

“We shall see each other soon,” she promised.

As we rode away Clarissa was quiet and could not be comforted even by a sugar mouse which my mother had put into her hands at the last moment.

But after an hour or so she was looking out of the windows and calling our notice to a goat tethered to a stave and telling us that a goat would tell you what the weather was going to be like.

I said, thinking to bring back her spirits and mocking her a little: “Why?”

“Because he knows. If he eats with his head to the wind it’ll be a fine day; if he eats with his tail to the wind it’ll rain.”

“Who told you that?”

“My aunt Damaris.” She was at once sad. “When are we going to see her again?”

“Oh, my dear child, we have just left. But soon.”

She was thoughtful. She took the sugar mouse from her pocket and regarded him sadly. “If I bit off his head how would he see?” she said.

She was silent for a while and then she leaned against me and slept.

It was afternoon. We had picnicked by the roadside. My mother had put a hamper of food in the coach … enough for several alfresco meals. “For,” she said, “you don’t want to have to make for an inn during the day. You can eat by the roadside whenever you have the fancy to.”

It proved a good idea and Clarissa was so intrigued with the idea that she ceased to fret about leaving Damaris. It gave the horses a good rest too. We found a pleasant spot on the road and under a great oak tree we had our feast.

The two grooms joined us and Clarissa plied them with questions about the horses and told them a story about a pig and a hedgehog which Aunt Damaris had told her.

It ended with: “And they all lived happy ever after.”

Then she went to sleep.

It was a beautiful day and the sun was warm. We dozed a little, which meant that we stayed later than we had intended to.

Finally we were back in the coach and rumbling on our way.

As we were passing a wood through which a path had been made, a man on horseback stepped out of the shadows.

I vaguely saw him as he flashed past the window. Then the coach drew up with such a jolt that we were thrown forward in our seats.

“What’s wrong?” cried Harriet.

A face appeared at the window. It was a man and he wore a mask over his face.

“Good day, ladies,” he said. “I fear I am going to inconvenience you somewhat.”

Then I saw that he held a blunderbuss in his hands and I realised that we were facing the situation which we had heard so much about and until now had had the good fortune to avoid.

“What do you want?” I cried.

“I want you to step out into the road.”

“No,” I said.

His answer was to lift the blunderbuss and point it towards me. Then he wrenched open the door.

“Pray step out, ladies,” he said.

There was nothing we could do but alight. I held Clarissa’s hand tightly in mine. I did not want her to be frightened. I saw at once that she was not but she was regarding the highwayman with intense interest.

As I stepped out into the road I saw the two grooms. There was a second highwayman, who was covering them with his blunderbuss, and I prayed that someone might come along at this moment and rescue us.

Then the highwayman said: “What great good fortune. My lady.” He bowed to Harriet, repeated “My lady” and bowed to me. “It is rarely that one meets such beauties on the road.”

“Why are you stopping us?” asked Clarissa in an excited voice.

His attention was on her. I made a step forward. I had had a sudden impulse to try to snatch the gun. That would have been madness. Besides, there was the other one.

Aware of my intention, his lips curled mockingly. “Unwise,” he said. “You would never do it.” Then he looked at Clarissa. “It is all in the way of business,” he told her.

“Why?”

“Just the way of the world,” he said. “Your child is of an enquiring mind,” he added, and then suddenly I knew that what had seemed a vague possibility had become a certainty. He was no ordinary highwayman. Could I be mistaken in one with whom I had lived so closely?

The man behind the mask was Hessenfield.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Your purse, of course. Or have you anything more to offer me?” I took my purse from my pocket and threw it on the ground.

“Is that all you have to offer? And you too, my lady?”

“My purse is in the coach,” said Harriet.

“Get it,” he said.

She obeyed. Then he came close to me.

“How dare you!” I said.

“Men such as I am dare much, my lady. ’Tis a pretty locket you are wearing.” His hands were on it, caressing my throat.

“My father gave it to her,” said Clarissa.

He snatched it suddenly. The clasp broke. He put it into his pocket.

Clarissa said: “Oh!”

I picked her up. “It’s all right, darling,” I said.

“Put the child down,” he commanded.

“I intend to protect her,” I replied.

He took her from my arms, still holding the blunderbuss. Clarissa did not know fear. I suppose it had never occurred to her that anyone would ever hurt her. She was petted and loved by all who saw her. Why should anyone in the world want to hurt charming Clarissa.

She studied him intently.

“You look funny,” she said. She touched the mask. “Can I have it?” she asked.

“Not now,” he said.

“When?”

Harriet had stepped out of the coach.

She said: “I can’t find my purse.” She gasped. “What is he doing with Clarissa?”

“Will you please put the child down?” I said. “You’re frightening her.”

“Are you frightened?” he asked.

“No,” said Clarissa.

He laughed and put her down.

“My dear ladies, cease to fret. I will call off my man and you shall go on your way in peace. Of course I have the lady’s purse and I have her locket. Have you some little token for me to remember you by, my lady?”

He had his eyes on a bracelet Harriet was wearing.

She took it off and handed it to him. He smiled and put it into his pocket.

“You’re a robber,” said Clarissa. “Are you hungry?”

Her face wrinkled in pity. One of the greatest calamities she could visualize was to be hungry. “I’ll give you the tail of my sugar mouse.”

“Will you?”

She felt in her pocket, produced the mouse and broke off the tail.

“Don’t eat it all at once or you’ll be sick,” she told him, repeating my mother.

“Thank you. I won’t. Perhaps I won’t eat it at all. I might keep it in memory of you.”

“It’ll get sticky in your pocket.”

He touched her head gently and she smiled up at him.

Then he bowed.

“I will detain you no longer, ladies, but bid you farewell.”

He picked up Clarissa and kissed her. Then he took Harriet’s hand in a very courtly manner, bowed, kissed it then kissed her lips.

It was my turn. He drew me to him; he held me fast. Then his lips were on mine.

“How dare you!” I cried.

He whispered: “I’d dare much for you, sweetheart.”

Then he laughed. “Into the coach,” he cried, “all of you.”

He gave one fleeting look through the window and was gone.

Harriet sat back in her seat and stared at me.

“What a strange adventure! I didn’t think being held up on the road was like that.”

“I doubt it ever was before and ever will be again.”

She looked at me oddly.

“A most gallant highwayman.”

“One who has taken my purse, my locket and your bracelet?”

“And the sugar mouse’s tail,” piped up Clarissa. “Though I gave him that. Do you think he’ll remember not to eat it all at once?”

The grooms were at the door, white and shaken.

“God help us, ladies,” said the driver. “They were on me before I had a chance.”

“The blunderbuss in the coach didn’t prove much use,” I said. “Have they taken anything of yours?”

“Not a thing, my lady. It was you passengers they were after robbing.”

“They didn’t take much,” I said.

“It could have been worse,” agreed Harriet. “Get back and drive on as fast as you can. We want to get to an inn before it’s dark.”

We rattled on in silence for a while. Harriet was looking at me very intently.

I shut my eyes and thought about him. He was back. How like him to have chosen this way to let me know. For I was sure he had known whose the coach was. He had meant to surprise me. I should see him again soon, I was sure of it.

I pretended to be asleep. I had to escape Harriet’s searching gaze. She had known. We had betrayed something. Or she had guessed.

Clarissa was soon fast asleep and once again I marvelled at the way in which children could accept the most extraordinary happenings as the natural course of life.

The first thing she said was: “He was nice. I liked him. Will he come again?”

“Do you mean the highwayman?” said Harriet. “Good heavens, no.”

“Why won’t he?” asked Clarissa.

Neither of us replied and Clarissa did not press for an answer.

Benjie was delighted to see us back. He said it seemed like years that we had been away. I had been thinking so much about Hessenfield since our adventures with the highwayman that my conscience worried me; and when that was the case I always tried to make up for my deficiencies by being especially affectionate to Benjie, which always delighted him. At such times I often thought what a happy lot could have been mine if I had only been of a different nature.

Benjie was horrified to hear of our adventure with the highwayman. “It’s the coach,” he said. “These people think those who ride in coaches are very rich.”

Gregory reproached himself because he had not come with us, but Harriet said perhaps it was better that he had not been there.

“He was one of those gentleman highwaymen we hear of,” she said. “He took pity on two women travelling with a child. He really dealt with us very gently. Do you agree, Carlotta?”

I said I thought she was probably right.

We had been back two nights and were in the winter parlour, a small cosy room at the back of the east wing with windows which overlooked the shrubberies.

It was dark and the candles had been lighted. Gregory remarked, as he did frequently, that the evenings were drawing in and he could notice the difference every day.

A fire burning in the grate, throwing flickering shadows over the panelled walls, and four candles guttered in their brackets on the wall. Harriet was playing the spinet and occasionally breaking into song. Gregory was sprawling contentedly in a chair watching her, and Benjie and I were playing a game of chess. It was a typical evening scene at Eyot Abbass and one I had shared many a time.

And as I sat there looking at the chessboard and deciding on my next moves, I was aware of a shadow, or it might have been some instinct which made me look up—but I did so.

Someone was outside looking in. Someone tall, wrapped in a dark cloak … and I knew who it was.

My impulse was to shout: “Someone is outside.” But I restrained myself.

What if he were caught in the grounds? If they released the dogs he might well be. He would be captured and I knew what that would mean. I had heard enough at my grandfather’s table to understand that it would be a feather in the cap of anyone who brought about his capture. We should be applauded for giving up one of the Queen’s enemies.

You fool, I thought. Why do you play with danger? Why do you have to risk your life?

I looked away from the window and back to the chessboard.

“Your move, Carlotta,” said Benjie.

I moved a piece without thinking.

“Ha!” said Benjie triumphantly. And a few moves later: “Checkmate.”

Benjie always liked to analyse a game.

“It was that bishop’s move of yours. Till three or four moves back you were on the offensive. You lost your concentration, Carlotta.”

I thought angrily: Of course I did. How could I help it? Hessenfield has come back.

It was an hour later when I was able to slip out. I would not be missed for a little while. I had wrapped a cloak over my dress and told myself that if I were seen I would say I heard one of the dogs or something like that.

In any case I had no intention of being missed if I could help it.

He had come to see me. He might have gone by now. Even he must realise how dangerous it was to hang about here. I would tell him so if I found him.

I examined the flower bed under the window. It had quite clearly been disturbed.

I looked towards the shrubbery and as I did so I heard what could have been the call of an owl.

I stepped towards the bushes and said softly: “Is anyone there?”

“Carlotta … ?”

It was his voice. I ran forward, glancing over my shoulder as I did so to assure myself that no one was about.

I was caught in his arms and held tightly. He kissed me again and again and so fiercely that I gasped for breath.

“You fool!” I cried. “To come here. Don’t you know they will be after you?”

“Dearest, everyone is always after me … just everyone.”

“Do you want to end up with your head on a block?”

“No, on a pillow side by side with yours.”

“Will you please listen to me.”

“No. You must listen to me.”

“I will talk,” I said. “I have heard your name mentioned. You have only to be recognised and it will be the end of you.”

“Therefore we should leave as soon as possible.”

“You should indeed.”

“We. I have come back for you, Carlotta.”

“You are mad,” I said.

“Yes,” he agreed, “for you.”

“It has been years …”

“Four,” he said. “It is too long to be without you. No one else will do for me. I have learned that.”

“You did not come for me alone.”

“I mix business and pleasure.”

“You waited a long time,” I said.

“I did not know then how important you are to me.”

“I suppose you imagine that you only have to come and beckon and I shall drop everything and follow you. Do you think of yourself as some divinity and I your humble disciple?”

“What gave you such an idea? Was it because you felt that fitted the case?”

“This is nonsense. I must go. I saw you at the window. It was foolish to come here. Someone might have seen you. The dogs could have been released. I came out to warn you—that was all.”

“Carlotta, you are more beautiful than ever and you lie just as glibly. Did you enjoy our adventure on the road? You did not recognise me immediately, did you? I know just when the moment came. Then I knew … and you knew … that it was just as it had been …”

“You play such foolish jokes. You could have been caught on the road there and hanged as a thief.”

“Dear Carlotta, I live dangerously. Death is prowling round the corner all the time. He may catch up with me at some time. It is a great game I play with him. I am on such familiar terms with him that he has ceased to frighten me.”

“It would be a different matter if you were in some noisome dungeon in the Tower, I’ll swear.”

“But I am not. And I don’t intend to be. By the way, who won the chess?”

“My husband.”

“So you have been unfaithful to me, Carlotta.”

“I married him because of you,” I said.

He gripped my arm.

“I was going to have a child. It seemed the easiest way out.”

I heard him gasp. Then he said: “That enchanting creature …”

“Clarissa. Yes, you are her father.”

“Carlotta.” He almost shouted and I said: “Be quiet. Do you want to bring someone out here?”

He held me against him and put his lips to my ear. “Our child, Carlotta. My daughter. She took to me. She gave me the tail of her sugar mouse. I shall tell her that I shall keep it forever.

“It will probably melt,” I said. “And I shall certainly not tell her. I want her to forget the incident as soon as possible.”

“My daughter Clarissa, you say. I loved her on sight.”

“You love very easily, I daresay.”

“You are coming with me … both of you. I shall not rest until we are all together.”

“Do you really believe that you can uproot us like that after all this time?”

“I invariably do what I set out to,” he said.

“Not with me.”

“I did once. Ah, but you were willing, were you not? What a time that was. Do you remember when we were down there by the sea and the horseman came riding by?”

I said: “I am going in. I shall be missed.”

“Get the child and come with me.”

“You really are crazy. The child is in bed and fast asleep. Do you really think I can get her up and walk out of my husband’s house just like that?”

“It is not an impossible feat.”

“It is. It is. Go away. Go back and play with your conspirators. Go and plan your Jacobite plans. But don’t involve me in this. I am for the Queen.”

He laughed aloud. “You care nothing who is on the throne, my darling. But you do care a little, I think, who shares your life. I am going to do that. I shall not leave this country without you.”

“Good night and take my advice. Go away quickly and don’t come here again.”

I pulled myself away from him but he held me fast.

“One moment,” he said. “How can I reach you? How can I get in touch with you?”

“You cannot.”

“We must have a trysting place.”

I thought of Benjie then I said firmly: “It is over. I want to forget we ever met. It was unfortunate. You forced me to become your mistress.”

“It was the happiest time I ever knew and I did not force you.”

“That is how I see it.”

“And the result was that child. I want her, Carlotta. I want you both.”

“You did not know of her existence a few days ago.”

“I wish I had. You are coming away with me.”

“No, no, no,” I said. “I have a good husband. I intend never to deceive him again …” The word slipped out but he did not notice. I kept thinking of Benjie’s face when I had returned and how tender he had been, how unsuspecting, endowing me with qualities I did not possess and shaming me so that I felt I wanted to be as he thought me.

But I kept remembering Hessenfield and those magic moments with him; and I wanted to be taken up and carried off as I was on that other occasion.

“I might have to communicate with you suddenly,” he said. “How?”

“You can scarcely come to the house and call.”

“Is there somewhere where I can leave word?”

I said: “There is an old tree trunk at the edge of the shrubbery. We used to leave notes in it when I was a child. Come, I’ll show you.”

He followed me swiftly through the shrubbery.

“If you approach from the back,” I said, “you would stand less chance of being seen, but do not attempt to come here in daylight.”

I showed him the tree. It was an oak which had been struck by lightning years ago. It should have been cut down, people were always saying that it should be done, but it never was. I used to call it the post box, because there was a hole in the trunk and if one put a hand in there was quite a little cavity there.

“Now go,” I begged.

“Carlotta.” He held me against him and kissed me. I felt myself weakening. It must not be. I hated myself. But my feelings would not be suppressed.

I tore myself away.

“I shall come back for you,” he whispered.

“You waste your time. Go away … quickly, and please do not come back.”

I ran through the shrubbery and back to the house. I slipped off my cloak relieved that no one had noticed my absence.

I went up to Clarissa’s room and opened the door and looked in.

I tiptoed to the bed; she was sleeping peacefully. She looked serene and beautiful.

“Is anything wrong?” It was Jane Farmer, her nursery governess, a good and efficient woman who was devoted to Clarissa without spoiling her.

“No. I just looked in to see if she was all right.”

If Jane was surprised she did not show it.

“She’s fast asleep,” she whispered. “She drops off almost immediately she’s in bed. It is because she has so much energy. She tires herself out but she’ll be full of life when she wakes up. Well, that is as it should be. She is more full of life than any child I ever knew.”

I nodded. “I won’t disturb her.”

I went quietly out. His child! I fancied she had more than a slight look of him. I was not surprised—and a little proud—that he had been so taken with her.

I was deeply disturbed. I wanted to be alone to think.

But it was impossible to be alone.

I went up to our bedroom. I had only been there a few minutes when Benjie came in.

I was at the dressing table brushing my hair and he came and stood behind me looking at it.

“Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve you,” he said.

I felt sick with shame.

“You are so beautiful,” he went on. “I never saw anyone as lovely. My mother was a great beauty in her day … But you … you are the most lovely creature that ever was.”

I put up a hand and touched his. “Oh, Benjie,” I said. “I wish I were … better. I wish I were good enough for you.”

That made him laugh. He knelt down and buried his face in my lap.

I caressed his hair.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “It’s that devil … Clarissa’s father. I understand it, Carlotta. I understand it perfectly. You mustn’t blame yourself for that. You could do nothing else … You had to save yourself. Don’t think I should ever reproach you for that. Besides, there is Clarissa.”

“I do love you, Benjie,” I said. “I do. I do.”

Another shock awaited me next day.

It was morning. Clarissa was having a riding lesson. She was very young of course, but Benjie had bought her a tiny Shetland pony and she was allowed to ride round the paddock on a leading rein. She loved it and talked endlessly of “Shets,” her pony, with wild accounts of how he talked to her and what fun they had together, creating the most impossible adventures in which they were supposed to have shared.

I came down to the hall and Harriet appeared at the door of the winter parlour.

“We have a visitor, Carlotta,” she said.

My heart began to pound. For a moment I feared that Hessenfield had been foolhardy enough to call on us.

I went into the parlour.

Matt Pilkington rose from his chair and came forward to take my hand.

I felt the blood rush to my face.

“Why …” I stammered. “I … I had not expected …”

“I am staying at the Fiddlers Rest for a few nights,” he said.

The Fiddlers Rest was an old inn about a mile from Eyot Abbass.

“I felt,” he went on, “that I could not be so close and not call to see how you were.”

I heard myself say: “It … it is a long time.”

Harriet said: “I am just going to the kitchens to tell them to bring some wine. You can talk to our guest while I am gone, Carlotta.”

And she left us.

He said: “I had to come, Carlotta. I almost have many times but …”

“Perhaps it would have been better not to,” I replied.

“Have you seen Damaris?” he asked.

“Yes, I have recently returned from a visit to Eversleigh. It is the first time since …”

“How was she?”

“She was very ill, you know. Some mysterious fever which has changed her. She is more or less an invalid.”

He was silent and stared for a moment at the floor.

“I have told myself so often that I could never forgive myself. Nor can I,” he said at length. “And yet … and yet … I know that if I could go back it would be the same. I have thought of you constantly. I can never be happy again without you …”

“Please,” I interrupted, “I do not want to listen. You see me here. I have a husband … I have a child.”

He said: “You had a husband … you had a child when …”

“I know. There is something wicked about me. I am selfish. I am impulsive … I do things which hurt others and myself and I do them recklessly. I am trying now to live a better life. You must go away, Matt. You should never have come.”

“I had to, Carlotta. I was afraid to call here … but I had to talk to you again. I saw you yesterday …”

“Where?” I cried.

“It was … near the house and I saw you ride in. It was in the late afternoon … and once I had seen you again that was enough.”

“Listen to me, Matt,” I said, “that which was between us is over now. It was a momentary madness on both sides. It was wrong … it was wicked. I blame myself. Damaris loved you … and to find us as she did … She was out all that night, you know, in that dreadful storm. They were frantic … searching for her. She would have died if her father had not found her when he did, and it was our fault, Matt. We could have killed her. That is enough. We must never meet again. I am selling Enderby Hall. I can never bear to go into the place again. Nor could Damaris I am sure … although she is unable to. We visited Eversleigh and she had to be helped in. Imagine that! Damaris, who used to ride everywhere on old Tomtit. It is unbearable. The only way we can endure it is to try to forget.”

Harriet came back.

“They are bringing the wine,” she said. “Now tell us what you have been doing since you left Grasslands. I suppose you are on leave from the army. I remember that you were a soldier. I suppose everyone is being pressed into service now with all these glorious battles on the Continent.”

“Yes,” he said. “I am on leave.”

“And you will soon be rejoining your regiment, I suppose. I hope Marlborough will soon be bringing this silly old war to its conclusion.”

“Let us hope so,” said Matt.

“And how is your mother?”

“She is well, thank you.”

“And happily settled in London, I hope, after her brief taste of the country.”

“Yes, I think the town suits her best.”

Harriet sighed. “The town has so much to offer. Does she go to the theatre often?” She turned to me, for she seemed to have realised that I was unusually silent. “Do you know, the theatres are not flourishing in France. Madame de Maintenon is making poor old Louis quite pious. He is repenting in his old age. He has closed most of the theatres. As if that will ensure him a place in heaven! He will not win this war, I promise you. The best way to court defeat is to close the theatres.”

“Oh, Harriet,” I said with a forced laugh, “what extraordinary reasoning!”

“Oh, yes, my dear, it is so. People need cheering—especially in wartime—and the best way to depress them is to take away their divertissements. Do you agree?” She smiled at Matt.

“I am sure you are right,” he said.

“Of course I am,” she cried. “The people were delighted to welcome back King Charles because they were so tired of Puritan rule. I remember well the rejoicing when the good old days came back. Mind you, I was very young at the time …”

“Of course you were, Harriet,” I soothed.

“I wonder if your mother remembers when we played together. It was in The Country Wife, I believe.”

“Yes,” said Matt, “she has mentioned it.”

“I left the theatre soon after that. But once an actress, always an actress. I confess the sight of the footlights can never fail to thrill me.”

So the talk went on and I believe neither Matt nor I listened.

When he took his leave Harriet asked him when he expected to arrive in London.

He replied that he might stay at the Fiddlers Rest for a day or so. He liked the inn, and the surrounding country was very attractive. He had a few days to spare. He liked to walk and ride in the country.

“Call and see us again if you wish to,” said Harriet.

“Oh, thank you,” he said.

We were not alone again but I knew by the fervent look in his eyes that he would return to Eyot Abbass.

It was later that day when Jane Farmer came to me with considerable apprehension. She wanted to know if Clarissa was with me.

I was surprised. Clarissa was usually in the garden at this time. She rested in the afternoon. It was something Jane had insisted on, although Clarissa was inclined to rebel. However, Jane was always firm and Clarissa had come to the conclusion that it was wiser to obey her.

“I was sitting in the summer house,” said Jane, “with my sewing, as I always do, and she was playing nearby with her shuttlecock. She was batting it up and down and was calling out now and then as she always does; and then suddenly I realised there was no sound. I immediately put down my sewing and went to look. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I presumed she had come in to see you.”

“But, no,” I said. “She has not been to me.”

“She was talking about you and how she was going to show you the new bat she had … so I thought …”

Alarm was beginning to stir within me.

“She is a wilful child,” I said. “She has been told not to stray away but to keep you within sight.”

“We were only in the garden. I think she must have come in to see you.”

I refused to face the idea which was beginning to come to me.

“We must find her at once,” I said.

Harriet came in and when I told her, she said she would search the house. I said I would do the same in the garden.

She must be somewhere there, I thought. I remembered the occasion when she had hidden somewhere to tease us and another when she had gone to sleep in the shrubbery.

Jane was growing more and more worried. She was blaming herself, but I knew how mercurial Clarissa could be and that it was impossible to watch her all the time.

We searched everywhere and in an hour’s time we had not found her. Now we were beginning to get very frightened.

Benjie and Gregory, who had been out on estate matters, came in and joined in the search. It was Benjie who found a green feather in the shrubbery. We recognised it as coming from her shuttlecock.

Then I feared the worst.

Harriet said: “She will be safe somewhere. It reminds me of the time you were lost and found in Enderby Hall.”

I didn’t want to think of Enderby Hall ever again and I was terrified for Clarissa.

My fears were now beginning to take a definite form. I thought: He couldn’t. He wouldn’t do such a thing. But I knew he was capable of anything.

I went to the tree I had mentioned—the old oak where we had put our notes and of which I had spoken to Hessenfield. I put in my hand.

Inside was a note and with trembling hands I opened it and read:

My darling, do not be distressed. The child is well and happy. You must join us. Meet me in this spot tonight. I will be ready for you.

H.

I stood there crunching the paper in my hand. I could not describe my feelings. Relief that she was safe; pride, I think, because he had wanted her so much that he risked his life to take her; excitement at the thought of being with him again; and a certain desperate determination to be true from now on to Benjie. My feelings were all so jumbled. I was wildly happy and desperately sad all in the matter of seconds. My mind kept wandering on to the night, to seeing him again, to flying with him … where? … to the coast of course. I knew that a boat would be waiting there. I knew that this night I could begin a life of excitement and exhilaration. I could be reunited with my child, who was meaning more to me every day. The child and her father.

That was what I wanted. What was the use of denying it? This sober life in the country was something I was not meant for. Damaris would have enjoyed it. And Damaris had been denied it. How happy she would have been married to Matt and having children. But I had spoilt that for her. I could so easily spoil Benjie’s life … but I must not. There was enough on my conscience already.

What should I do?

There were two alternatives. No, three. One would lose me my child, and I was determined that should not be. It was that I should say nothing of this, do nothing … not go to meet him. Refuse to see him until he went away taking Clarissa with him. Another way was to show the note to Benjie and Gregory and Harriet. To let them know that he had Clarissa, who he was, and to have soldiers surround the shrubbery and take him at the time when I was to meet him. He would have to give up Clarissa then and that would be the end of him. That would be the loyal course of action—to Benjie and to my country. The last alternative was to go to the meeting place in secret to see him …

I knew what would happen. He would carry me off, by force if need be. Knowing him, I realised what was in his mind.

I could not return to the house yet. My thoughts were in a turmoil.

How could I let them go on searching frantically for Clarissa when I knew where she was? Yet how could I let them know that she was in the keeping of the Jacobite leader who was a wanted man.

Finally I went back to the house. Benjie put an arm about me. His face was white and strained.

“Where have you been? I was beginning to get anxious about you.”

That was the moment to show him the paper which I had screwed up and put inside the bodice of my gown. My hand went to it. It was the sight of Benjie, who loved me so much, who was such a good man. But the moment passed and I did not mention it. I went on letting them believe that Clarissa was still lost.

So the search went on. I shut myself in my bedroom and wrestled with myself.

How could he have done this? He had no right to take her. But what would be the use of talking to Hessenfield about rights? He knew only one law and that was his own. What was right would always be what he considered best for him.

An hour passed and still I was undecided.

They were all out searching the district. Jane Farmer was frantic and I almost told her to put her out of her misery.

What folly! How could I?

I had come to a decision. I would go and see him. I would insist on his bringing back the child.

I put on a cloak and went down to the shrubbery. I waited there in the shadow of the trees.

I did not wait long. I was caught from behind and held against him. I heard his low laughter as he pressed his lips against my ear.

“You are mad,” I said. “This could cost you your life. Where is the child?”

“Safe. We are going to France tonight. My mission here is done. I have everything I came for … and more. My daughter. I adore her already.”

“Where is she?” I insisted.

“Safe,” he repeated. “Come on. The sooner we’re away the better. I have a notion they are on my trail. We have to get to the coast. I have a horse here to take us. There is a boat a little way along the coast … at a nice secluded spot.”

“You really are mad. Do you think I am coming with you?”

“Of course you are coming. Don’t waste time.”

I pulled myself away from him. “I came to tell you that …”

He caught me to him laughing and began kissing me.

“That you love me,” he said between kisses.

“Do you think I am as cruel and callous as you are? Do you think I can just walk out on my husband because you have come back?”

“I am more to you than he can ever be. I am the father of our child, remember.”

“I wish I had never met you, Hessenfield,” I said.

“You lie, dear Carlotta. Admit it. That was love, was it not? Do you remember how you refused to betray me? You could have done so now.”

“Yes, I could, and how do you know that I have not? Perhaps a troop of soldiers is waiting to take you now.”

“I was ready to risk that,” he said. “And I’ll tell you why. I didn’t believe it possible. Come, sweetheart, we don’t want to tempt the fates, do we?”

“Where is my daughter? Give her back to me and go and I will tell no one that you have been here.”

He laughed at me. “Your daughter is very happy. We get on very well. She was delighted to come with me.”

“Where is she?”

“At sea,” he said. “Where you and I will be this night. This night, dear Carlotta. Think of it. There are so many memories. No one can ever be to me what you have been. Never shall I forget that brief period when we were together, you and I.”

“I cannot go,” I said. “You must understand that.”

He took my arm suddenly; then I was lifted from the ground. My cloak dropped from my shoulders. He was carrying me out of the shrubbery. There at its edge was a horse.

He put me on the saddle and leapt up beside me.

I am not sure how much I struggled. I did not entirely want to. Hessenfield’s adventurous spirit called to mine but I kept seeing Benjie’s face and I pictured him stricken as he would be if he knew that I had willingly gone away.

It was only a mile or so to the coast. There was a crescent moon which gave out a faint light and I could see the Eyot lying out there on a sea that was as calm as a lake.

He gave a low whistle and I saw a figure appear from the beach. It was a man who had evidently been lurking there.

“All well, sir,” said the man.

“Good,” replied Hessenfield.

He dismounted and lifted me down. The man took the horse and as Hessenfield dragged me over the shingle I heard the horse being ridden away at a gallop.

A small boat was bobbing about on the sea. A man was holding the oars, waiting.

We waded out to it the water up to our waists before reaching it. Hessenfield lifted me in.

“Lose no time,” said Hessenfield.

The man started to row out towards the Eyot. There was silence. Then Hessenfield said: “Faster. They’re on the beach. By God, we were just in time.”

I could see vague figures on the beach. A shot was fired. It narrowly missed the boat.

“We’ll soon be out of range,” said Hessenfield.

“We should have been well away but for your romantic adventures,” said the man.

“I know. But we’re going to be well away in any case. We’re nearly there.” We had rounded the island and I saw the ship.

“Safe!” said Hessenfield.

We came to rest by the side of the ship, a rope ladder was put down, I was sent up first. Hands reached out to drag me in.

Then in a few seconds Hessenfield was standing beside me.

He put his arm about me and laughed.

“Mission accomplished!” he said. “The most successful I ever carried out. We’d better leave at once. Come,” he went on, “you want to see our daughter.”

She was lying there asleep clutching her shuttlecock. I stooped over her and held her close to me.

She awoke.

“Mamma,” she said.

“Yes, darling …”

She opened her eyes wide.

“I’m on a big ship,” she said. “I’ve got a new father.”

Hessenfield knelt beside us.

“And you’re quite pleased with him, are you not? Tell your mother so.”

“He’s going to give me a new shuttlecock,” she said.

“You haven’t told her you’re pleased with me,” persisted Hessenfield.

She sat up and put her arms about his neck.

“This is his ship,” she said. “He’s going to show me how it sails.”

Crime Passionnel

I WAS THRUST INTO an entirely new scene. At the beginning it was so bewildering that I was more or less bemused by it. In the first place I had renewed that extremely demanding, satisfying, exhilarating and incomparable life with Hessenfield. We resumed it as though it had never been interrupted; and although at first I pretended to be outraged. Hessenfield quickly put an end to that and made me admit, if not in actual words, that I was as enchanted with his company as he was with mine.

It was not unalloyed joy, of course, for it could not be quite as it had been on that first occasion. Although I cannot make any great excuses for myself and have to admit that I was secretly delighted to have been abducted, seduced, raped or whatever name I could put to it when I was trying to make a case for myself, I can honestly say that I felt a deep remorse for what I had done to Benjie and I was glad that I had left my cloak in the shrubbery, which would indicate that I had been taken by force. At least he would not believe that I had gone willingly; and although his grief would not be assuaged, at least he would not think that I had betrayed him.

Poor Benjie, he had lost both me and Clarissa, and I could not be happy because I must think of him.

The crossing was smooth and in a short time we had reached the coast of France.

Clarissa was excited by everything that was happening and, childlike, accepted this extraordinary adventure as a matter of course. She did ask once when her father and grandfather were coming with Harriet. I said evasively that we should have to wait and see.

“I want to show them my new father,” she said, and the pride in her voice both thrilled and pained me.

We had journeyed across France staying at various inns and it surprised me how well known Hessenfield was. The best rooms were always at his service and now he was travelling, as he said, enfamille he was especially determined on comfort.

The man who had rowed us to the boat travelled with us. He was Sir Henry Campion, a firm and trusted friend, Hessenfield told me. “A loyal Jacobite as you must be now, my darling, since you have joined us.”

I was silent. I wished that I could forget Benjie and the unhappiness I knew he must be feeling. I thought if it was not for Benjie I would be wildly excited now. I wished that I had not married Benjie. If I had been bold and given birth to my child and waited …

But that was absurd, of course. I had had to act as I did. I think even Hessenfield realised that.

Once he said: “I should never have let you stay. I should have taken you to France with me from the first.”

But Hessenfield was not one to look back. He had a joyous way of living each day as it came along. I doubt he ever felt remorse. There was an enchanting gaiety about him, a devil-may-care attitude. He would be laughing when he died, I was sure.

He was completely captivated by Clarissa. I was surprised that he should care so deeply for a child. But I suppose it was because she was his; she was so charming and she was beautiful. There was a love of adventure in her already, an immense curiosity in everything around her. I could see why any ordinary father should have been proud of her but that Hessenfield should have spared the time from all his activities to talk to her gave me infinite pleasure.

We went first to Paris. He had prepared me for what I should find and how we should live. “The Court is at St. Germain-en-Laye. The King inhabits the castle there; and it is conducted just as it would be in England. I am there a good deal but I have a house—called an hôtel—in Paris, for much of my work is done there. That is where you and the child will live, but of course as my wife you will be presented to the King and we will go to Court often.”

“As your wife!” I said.

“You are my wife, dear Carlotta. Oh, I know you were unfortunately married to someone else … but that was in England. We are in France at this time. And you are my lady now. You will have to grow accustomed to being called Lady Hessenfield.”

He took my face in his hands and kissed me.

“I love you, Carlotta. There is that in you which matches something in me. I feel closer to you than I ever have to anyone else. We have our adorable daughter. Thank God, I have you with me.”

I looked into his face. He was serious, not joking now. He really meant what he said and it made me happy. If I could have forgotten Benjie I think I could have been perfectly so.

On another occasion he said: “You are an exile now. You are one of us. Although you have come to us not exactly through your own convictions, you and I belong and my cause must be yours. Our motive is to get back to England. Who wants to be an exile forever? Whenever I go home I have to do so in secret … skulking into my own country like a thief. There is a price on my head. I who have estates in the north of England, where my family have lived like kings. Yes, we are going back one day but not until we have reinstated the rightful King. I would not return to live under the present reign.”

“Indeed,” I reminded him, “you could not. You are branded now as a traitor to the Queen. You would not be allowed to remain.”

“You are right,” he said. “Every time I go … as you see, it is as a conspirator who becomes a fugitive.”

“It is a pity,” I said. “Why must you be involved in such matters? Life is good under Anne.”

“Feminine logic,” he mocked. “Never mind the righteous cause if we’re comfortable. No. That won’t do for me, Carlotta. And don’t forget you are one of us.”

“Only because you have forced me to it.”

“Spoken like a good Jacobite,” he mocked. But I could see clearly that he was right. Whether I liked it or not I should be considered one of them.

I told him I did not care a pennyworth of candy for his Jacobite cause.

“No, but you care for me,” he said. “And I shall have to trust you with many a secret which I shall do without fear because I know that your love for me is as strong as any belief in a cause. We belong together, Carlotta. And so shall it be until death divides us.”

In those rare moments when he was serious—and he was then—he could move me deeply. I loved him. Yes, I did. His daring, his strength, his essential male qualities struck a chord within me. He was a leader; I could see now that in comparison Beau would have failed to hold me. I had been dazzled by Beau; but I was caught and held firmly by Hessenfield.

If only we had met differently … if only I could have gone to him as his wife in very truth … if only I could wipe out the past … not Beau, that did not matter. It was Benjie who haunted me and threw the shadow of deep remorse over my happiness, and it was only in rare moments that I could forget him.

Paris excited me. As soon as we arrived in that fascinating city we went at once to the hôtel in the quarter of the Marais which I learned later was one of the most fashionable areas of the city. The King of France had been hospitable to the English nobility who were the enemies of England’s reigning sovereign; and with good reason, for he was at this time at war with that country.

At Eversleigh we had always been brought up to regard loyalty to the crown as one of our chief duties but I reminded myself that my grandfather Carleton had been involved in the Monmouth Rebellion. James would have called him disloyal just as Anne would Hessenfield. It was not as much a matter of lack of loyalty as it was adherence to a principle. I was becoming more and more of a Jacobite every day.

It was a fine house and there were several servants. Hessenfield introduced me formally as Lady Hessenfield and I held a wide-eyed Clarissa by the hand and he added: “This is our daughter.”

There was no question from anyone in France. Hessenfield had returned to England on a Jacobite mission and had brought his wife and child back with him. It was reasonable enough. I slipped easily into the new role. So did Clarissa.

I felt like a young bride in those early days. Hessenfield delighted in showing us a little of Paris. And how excited we were—Clarissa and I—to walk through those streets with him beside us. For, he said, that was the best way to see it.

We strolled through the discreet streets of the Marais—that part of the city which had once been the home of the Valois kings. Hessenfield explained to Clarissa that the rue Beautreillis was where the vineyards once were, the rue de la Cerisaie where the orchards were and the rue des Lions was the site of the royal menagerie.

We were excited by the quaint houses which overhung the river; the water lapped at their walls, and Clarissa wanted to know whether it ever came in through the windows. She kept shrieking with excitement and sometimes was so overawed that she forgot to ask why.

Hessenfield was anxious to show us the centre of the city. We crossed the Pont Marie and reached the He de la Cité, where we looked up at the great towers of Notre Dame and he bought magnificent blooms for us on the Quai des Fleurs. Clarissa wanted to go down among the little streets near the cloisters of Notre Dame but Hessenfield would not allow us more than a peep. These were the homes of the poor and the streets were narrow lanes with houses built close together and almost meeting over the narrow streets so that they completely shut out the sunlight. I saw a gutter running down the middle of the street. It was full of slimy rubbish.

“Come away,” said Hessenfield. “You must never venture down streets like that. They abound in Paris and you can come across them quite suddenly. You must never wander out alone.”

I said: “It is the same in any big city. There are always slums.”

“What are slums?” asked Clarissa.

“These are,” said Hessenfield.

She was overcome with curiosity and tried to wriggle free but I held her hand firmly and Hessenfield picked her up and said: “You are tired, little one. Shall I be your carriage for a while?”

I was moved to see the way she smiled and put her arms about his neck. She had not forgotten Benjie and Gregory but she did mention them less than she had at first.

Not far from the hôtel in the rue Saint Antoine we passed an apothecary’s shop. Sweet scents emerged from it and I was reminded briefly of Beau, who had dabbled in the making of perfumes and was himself always redolent of that strange musklike scent. It was what had attracted me to Matt. He had used a similar scent.

Hessenfield saw my glance and said: “Ah, there are not so many apothecaries in Paris as there once were. Years ago they abounded and there were quacks selling medicines and elixirs, potions and draughts in every carrefour in the city. Then it changed. That must have been some forty years ago but they still talk of it. There was a notorious poisoner called La Voison and another, Madame de Brinvilliers. They suffered hideous deaths but their names will never be forgotten and all apothecaries have had to tread very warily ever since. They are still suspect.”

“You mean people buy poisons from the apothecaries?”

“They did. It is more difficult now, but I reckon it is done for a price. They were mostly Italians. The Italians have the reputation for being adept at poisoning. They can produce poisons which are tasteless, colourless, and without smell, and even work through the clothing—they can kill gradually or instantly. This Brinvilliers woman wanted to poison her husband and used to try out her poisons on people in hospitals, where she became known as a very pious lady who cared deeply about the sick.”

“She sounds like a fiend.”

“She was. Imagine her taking some delicacy impregnated with a new experiment and going along to visit the victim later to see how it had worked.”

“I am glad Clarissa is asleep. We should be plagued by whys, whens and hows if she were not. What an exciting city this is! I never saw so much mud nor heard so much noise.”

“Be careful not to get splashed. It’s pernicious mud and would burn a hole in your clothes if it touches them. The Romans called it La Lutetia when they came here, which means the City of Mud. It’s improved since then of course, but still take care. As for the noise—this is a vociferous nation. We are quiet in comparison.”

How I enjoyed those days—discovering Paris, discovering Hessenfield and loving both of them more each day.

Before I had been a week in Paris, Hessenfield said that I must go to the Court of King James to be presented.

St. Germain-en-Laye was some thirteen miles from Paris, and we rode there in a carriage for I must be suitably dressed for the presentation. Hessenfield had sent for one of the Paris dressmakers the day after we arrived, for I was without any garments other than those I had been wearing when I had been, as I put it, “snatched from the shrubbery,” but as Hessenfield said, “So willingly left England to follow my own true love.”

A simple gown was quickly made for me and then there was concentration on my Court dress. It was most elegant yet at the same time discreet. It was in a shade of blue that was almost lavender.

“Milord has said it must be the exact colour of milady’s eyes,” said the couturiere, who puffed and sighed over the garment as though it was to be compared with the finest work of art.

It was an exquisite colour and such as I had never seen before. The Parisian dyers were masters of the art and the colours they produced delighted me again and again. I was put in a canvas petticoat with whalebone hoops. The panniers of blue silk were ruched and gathered and the tight-fitted bodice was made of the same lavender blue silk. Beneath it was an underskirt of green so delicate in color that one was not absolutely sure it was green.

I had never seen such a dress.

“Of course you haven’t,” said Hessenfield, surveying me. “When it comes to fashion we’re years behind the French.”

My hair was dressed by a hairdresser selected by Hessenfield. She cooed over it as she combed and back combed it until it stood out round my head in a frizz; then she started to set it and I had to admit that when she was finished I was amazed by the effect. It was piled high on my head and brought up into a coil about which she placed a diamond circlet like a coronet.

When Hessenfield saw me he was overcome with delight.

“No one ever did justice to you before, my love,” he said.

He took me into see Clarissa, who stared at me in amazement.

“Is it really you?” she asked.

I knelt down and kissed her.

Hessenfield cried out in dismay. “You’ll wreck your skirts.”

I laughed at him and he laughed with me.

“Are you proud of her, Clarissa?” he asked.

Clarissa nodded. “But I like the other way too.”

“You like me however I am, don’t you, Clarissa?”

She nodded.

“And do I come into this magic circle?” asked Hessenfield.

“What’s circle?”

“Later we’ll talk,” said Hessenfield. “Come on, my dear, the carriage awaits us.”

So I went to St. Germain-en-Laye and to the chateau there.

I was presented to the man they called James the Third as Lady Hessenfield. James was younger than I. I think he must have been about seventeen at this time. He greeted me warmly. Although he had a regal manner, he seemed to wish to show his gratitude to those exiles who had gathered round him and particularly those who, like Hessenfield, had sacrificed a good deal to serve him.

“You have a beautiful lady, Hessenfield,” he said.

“With that I am completely in agreement, Sire.”

“She must come often to our court. We need all the grace and beauty we can get during this period of waiting.”

I said how glad I was to be here and he replied that he would have said he hoped I would stay a long time, but none of us wished to stay as the guests of the King of France a moment longer than we need.

“Let us say, Lady Hessenfield, that you and I will be good friends in Westminster and Windsor.”

I said: “I trust it may be soon, Sire.”

I was presented to his mother—poor sad Mary Beatrice of Modena. I was drawn to her more than to her son. She was by no means young and must have been about thirty when James was born. And she had suffered a great deal when as a very young girl she had come to England most reluctantly to marry James—the Duke of York—already a widower with an established mistress. I was sorry for her. She had been a beauty once but now she was so thin as though worn out with the sorrows of life. Her complexion was pale but with those fine dark eyes she must have been very beautiful in her youth.

She was as welcoming as her son and told me how glad she was to see me and I should be welcome at court whenever I wished to come. She had heard I had brought my daughter with me and she talked of children for a while.

“Lord Hessenfield gave such support to my husband and now gives it to my son,” she said. “I am happy for him to have his beautiful wife with him, and having seen you, my dear Lady Hessenfield, I understand his pride in you. You are a very beautiful woman and a joy to our court.”

Hessenfield was delighted that I had been such a success.

“I knew you would,” he said. “Beauty like yours is a rare gift, sweet wife. It is for me alone but I am glad to let others have a glimpse of it—a glimpse, nothing more.”

“I am not your wife, you know,” I said. “But everyone here seems to think I am.”

“You are … you are mine. We are bound together for ever … I have told you only death shall part us. I swear it, Carlotta. I love you. You must love me too. We have our child. I would marry you tomorrow if it were possible. But here we are married. Everyone believes it to be so … and after all, what people believe to be is true for them. So let the strength of their belief be ours. My love … I am happier than I have ever been in my life … You and the child … I ask for nothing more.”

I realised that this was a strange speech for a man like Hessenfield to utter. There had been little sentimentality in his life until now. I could see that what was there had been born out of the strength of his feeling for me.

I was tremendously happy riding back in the carriage to our hôtel in Paris.

Yes, Hessenfield had changed. He had become the family man. He was still the passionate and demanding lover by night, and I was amused that during the day he became absorbed by arranging his household.

The dressmaker who served the French court was often at our house. I was to be the centre of her attention. I recognized her skill and I had always been proud of my good looks so it pleased me, therefore, to discover that there were so many ways of enhancing them.

I heard that I was referred to as the Beautiful Lady Hessenfield and when I rode out people stood about to watch me.

I was vain enough to enjoy it.

Clarissa commanded a good deal of Hessenfield’s attention and one day he said to me: “We shall have to stay at St. Germains at times. There is work for me to do and it can only be done there. We can’t take Clarissa. We should have a good nursery governess for her. Someone who can teach her and look after her at the same time.”

“I should not want her to speak French entirely. It would change her somehow.”

“She shall speak both languages.”

“But a French nurse would not speak English to her.”

“We should do that. It is hardly likely that you would find an English nursery governess here. We must look round. I have already let it be known that we are searching for someone suitable.”

“It must be someone of whom I approve.”

He kissed me. “It must be someone of whom we both approve.”

It seemed the greatest good fortune when Mary Marton arrived.

I was with Clarissa when she was announced. I left the child and received her in the salon. She was of middle height, very slender, with pale yellow hair and light blue eyes. She had an extremely deprecating manner. She had heard that I needed a nursery governess for a young child and had come to offer her services.

She told me that she had been brought to France by her mother, who had followed her father, who had been in the service of the late King. Her father had died almost immediately and she and her mother had gone to another part of France—near Angoulême. Her mother was now dead and she had come to Paris to see if she could earn a little money as she had become very poor.

She had a family in England and hoped eventually to return to them, but as her father had been a Jacobite it would not be easy for her to return. In the meantime she had to earn a living.

She was well educated, was fond of children and qualified to take on the care of a child. In any case she would be most grateful for the chance.

I was delighted because I wanted Clarissa to retain her English characteristics. I was always hoping that we should return to England. I wanted to see my mother, and Damaris was on my conscience a great deal. She and Benjie were like two reproachful shadows who would appear at any moment to cloud my happiness.

I believed, and so did a good many other people, that when Anne died James would be invited to come back. That was the time we were all looking forward to. Anne was a sick woman; surely she could not live very long. She had that fearful dropsy which made it difficult for her to walk; and she had long given up hope of producing an heir.

So when we did go I wanted my daughter to be English. She could already chatter a little in French, which she did with the servants. That was good but her main tongue must be English.

Therefore I was delighted to engage Mary Marton, and when Clarissa seemed to take to her that settled it. Clarissa of course took to everyone; she had the beautiful notion that everybody in the world loved her and therefore she must love them. I would have liked to have taken that up with some of those who had declared she was spoilt. Spoiling perhaps had its point. It had certainly turned my child into an extremely affectionate one.

Hessenfield was delighted that we had found our nursery governess so quickly. He was beginning to talk to me about his plans and how members of his society were constantly going back and forth to England and that when the day came for the great invasion it would be known where they could most safely land and how many people they could rely on.

There was a tremendous project in progress at that time. Several men were going over to land arms and ammunition. They knew where it could safely be deposited. It would be left in the possession of trusted Jacobites who lived in England posing as loyal subjects of the Queen.

“There will be these strongholds throughout the country,” he explained to me. “We already have one or two but the one we are now planning will be the most important so far.”

“You are not going …?” I said fearfully.

“Not this time. I have work to do here.”

I was thankful for that.

It was two weeks or so after Mary Marton joined us when Jeanne, one of the maids, came in to tell me that a gentleman was asking to see me.

“Who?” I asked.

“Madame, he would give no name. He is an English gentleman.”

“A … a stranger?” I asked.

“I have not seen him before, Madame.”

I said he should be shown in.

My amazement was great when Matt Pilkington entered.

“Matt!” I cried.

He looked at me helplessly.

“Carlotta,” he said, and coming forward seized both my hands. “I know I shouldn’t have come … but I couldn’t help it. I had to see you again …”

“Matt!” I cried. “How could you? How did you get here …?”

“It was not too difficult,” he said. “I came on a boat … landing along the coast, and made my way to Paris.”

“You are mad. England is at war … and you are a soldier. You’re in enemy territory.”

“Yes, I know. I know all that … but I had to see you. I heard, you see.”

“What did you hear?”

“That you had been forcibly taken away.”

I felt an immense relief. So that was what they believed.

“I called at the house … at Eyot Abbass. You remember I was not very far off … at the Fiddlers Rest … And they were all talking about it. About you and the child … I had to come here and see if it was true … to see you again …”

“You are in great danger.”

He shook his head. “I have long had Jacobite sympathies,” he said. “They know it. I am welcome here. They want everyone they can get. I am in no danger, Carlotta. I came to see you …”

“You must not come here, you know.”

“You are with him. They say you are Lady Hessenfield.”

“It is easier that way.”

“But your husband …?”

“Did you see him?”

“Yes. He was very sad. He was talking of coming over here. But that is impossible only Jacobites are welcome.”

“Did you tell them you were coming?”

“No. They would know where my sympathies lie. I had to be secret about it. I slipped away. But I have friends over here so … I am all right.”

I sighed. Then I said: “You mustn’t come here again, Matt. That … incident … it is all over. It was a momentary madness … do you understand?”

“On your part, yes,” he said. “For me it is my most precious memory.”

“Oh, no, Matt.”

“It is no use, Carlotta. I don’t want to hurt you, or embarrass you in any way. I just want to see you sometimes … to be near you. I promise you … I swear it … that I will never mention that time. If I could just be here … see you sometimes … it’s all I ask. I just want to know that you are here. You are so beautiful. More than that. You are an enchantress. Carlotta, you owe me this. Let me come here sometimes. Let me see you. Please.”

I said: “Well, I suppose if you are one of them and are working for them you will see Lord Hessenfield from time to time.”

“It is you I wish to see. And the child. She is so like you, Carlotta. I should like to see her too.”

“Where are you staying?”

“In the rue Saint Jacques. It was the best lodging I could get just now. I shall move later, I daresay. Carlotta, let me be your friend. Let me see you sometimes.”

“Matt, if you will promise me to forget all that …”

“I can’t promise to forget,” he said fervently, “but I will promise never to mention it to you nor to anyone. If I can come here now and then … see you from time to time … that is all I ask.”

I said he might. I was shaken. He was gentle and adoring as ever, but there was so much of which I did not want to be reminded.

During the next few weeks Matt was a frequent caller at the house. He made a point of seeing Clarissa and they got on very well together. I thought he did it just to have an excuse for calling at the house; but it occurred to me that Mary Marton might believe that he was attracted by her.

It would be quite a likely assumption. He talked to her a good deal and they often took the child walking in the streets; the servants were beginning to smile about them and whisper of romance.

I was delighted but I did not believe he was really attracted by Mary. Whenever I was near him I was aware of the effect I had on him.

Hessenfield said that he was an enthusiastic worker and had brought some valuable information about the position of the Jacobites in England.

“He has been working well for us in England,” he said. “He was just waiting for the right moment to come over here.”

I was not so sure of his fervent views. I was vain enough to think that he had come to see me.

He kept to his bargain, though. He never mentioned that time we had spent together and I was glad that everyone thought he was interested in Mary Marton, although I did hope that Mary, who was a sweet and rather innocent girl, was not going to be hurt. Sometimes, though, I thought he really was fond of her. It was not necessary for them to spend quite so much time together.

Hessenfield was often at court. I knew there was some very big project afoot.

At night when we lay in bed together he would be less discreet than he was by day. I knew that he was tense and uneasy.

He did tell me that this was going to be the most important venture so far.

“I know you are taking arms over to England,” I said.

“Did I tell you that? Then forget it, my dear.”

“You didn’t tell me where.”

“Nor shall I. The fewer who know the better. I know and two others—one of them the King. Even the men who are going do not know where yet. It is imperative that the secret is kept. It would be disastrous if it were betrayed.”

“Then I will ask you no more. Only this: You are not going … really not going?”

“No. I shall send them off and then start preparing for the next.”

A few days later there were visitors at the hôtel. They came ostensibly to pay a social call, but I knew it was not the case.

Hessenfield entertained them in his private study, which was on the first floor. I did not disturb them and gave orders that the servants should not do so.

On the floor there were three rooms leading from one another. The study was in the centre and the other rooms were never used. There were some books in one of them and they were really an extension of the study.

A rather disturbing thing happened while Hessenfield was entertaining his visitors. I had been playing with Clarissa in the nursery and she had suddenly become rather drowsy, so I carried her to her bed, covered her up and left her.

I came downstairs intending to go out, for I often wandered round alone. It was safe to do so if one did not stray from the Marais and I was quite fascinated by the little boutiques which abounded in the nearby streets. I liked to buy ribbons and fans, buttons and such trifles which seemed to have an extra charm when compared with those I had bought at home.

It was a tall house and the nursery and our bedroom were right at the top, and as I was about to descend I thought I heard a sound on the lower landing. I stopped. If Hessenfield’s visitors were just leaving it would be well for me not to run in to them. I knew that he’d not want them seen if that were possible, although he did not wish to labour the point. It was a very important matter and he wanted everything to seem as natural as possible. People called to see him at all times, and he wished this to appear as nothing out of the ordinary.

So I paused. Distinctly I heard the quiet shutting of a door. Then the sound of footsteps, obviously meant to be stealthy, going down the stairs.

I went down. As I came into the street I saw Mary Marton hurrying away.

Then it must have been Mary who had come out of the room next to the study. I wondered what she was doing there. Oh, of course, she would have gone to return a book. She was always trying to get books from the study. Then, having returned, she must have heard voices in the next room, realised she should not be there and tiptoed out.

I wondered whether I would catch up with her and was in the process of doing so when she rounded a corner. As I turned the corner in her wake I saw that she had met Matt.

I drew back. Then it must be true that he was attracted by her and had arranged to meet her. They went into an inn called L’Ananas. A large pineapple was depicted on the sign which creaked over the door. It was a place of good repute, where people could drink a glass of wine and talk in pleasant seclusion during the day, although perhaps at night it became more noisy.

I smiled. I was rather pleased. If Matt and Mary were falling in love my conscience would be relieved on one score. I always felt I had used Matt and abused his innocence.

I bought my buttons and went back to the house. Hessenfield was still in conference in his study.

It was late that night when he came to our bedroom. There was a certain increased tension in his manner.

“Did you complete your business?” I asked.

“Complete!” He laughed. “It has only just begun.”

Hessenfield took me to Court again. This time I stayed there with him for a few nights. It was exciting. I had never been to the English Court, for although in the old days my grandfather had been an intimate friend of Charles the Second’s, he had been an enemy of that King’s brother James; and he had never been on the same terms with William and Mary as he had with Charles. So it was a new experience for me. I soon began to prefer the life in Paris. The city had enchanted me. Every morning I would lie in bed and listen to the sound of Paris waking up. The quietness of the night would gradually by broken. Just a sound here and there and then by nine o’clock it would be completely awake again. I loved the smell of baking bread which seemed to permeate the streets; I loved to listen to the street cries of the various vendors. As I wakened I knew that the peasants who came in from the neighbouring country villages would already have arrived at the barriers with their vegetables and flowers, with their chickens and their rabbits and fish of all kinds. They would make their way to various parts of the town which they had come to regard as their territory; so that if one wanted a certain produce one knew where to go to get it.

It had been a great joy to me to go out with the cook and one of her assistants and watch her do the marketing. She would pretend to refer to me but of course I knew that I was completely incompetent either to choose or to bargain, which seemed to be an important part of the transaction.

I began to learn a good deal about the life of Paris and I loved it. All through the morning the hubbub continued; I enjoyed mingling with those shouting, gesticulating people. I was delighted by the apothecary’s shop, where I could try a variety of perfumes and choose which I liked best, always taking account of the apothecary’s advice, which he gave as though we were deciding a matter of life and death.

Sometimes I went riding with Hessenfield right out to the barriers which marked the boundary of the city. They were made of pine wood and iron and there were sixty of them enclosing Paris and there were customhouses at the river’s edge.

The days began to pass and all that time I was aware of Hessenfield’s eagerness to learn that his business was satisfactorily completed. He was not generally one to doubt success so I gathered that this was an operation of paramount importance. I did not mention that I noticed his preoccupation. I was determined that we should share that immense joy which I found in his company and which did not decrease as the weeks passed.

One day we had been with Clarissa in the carriage and had been out beyond the city into the countryside. It had been a very happy day. Clarissa scarcely mentioned Benjie now. She was as entranced by the new life as I was.

We arrived at the hôtel in the late afternoon. One of the servants met us in some agitation.

There was a gentleman from the Court who urgently desired to see milord.

Hessenfield pressed my hand. “Take Clarissa up to the nursery,” he said.

I went.

In a few minutes he was up there. He said: “I have to go to St. Germains at once.”

I nodded.

“I don’t know how long I shall be. Back tomorrow, I expect.”

He was back the next day.

It was late afternoon. I heard him arrive and went down to meet him. I saw at once that something was wrong.

We went straight up to our bedroom. He shut the door and looked at me.

“Disaster!” he said.

“What?” I stammered.

“Our men went right into a trap. They were waiting for them when they landed. Everything is lost … men, arms, ammunition … all.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“How … ” I began.

“Yes,” he said fiercely. “How! How did they know the exact spot where they were to land? Somebody betrayed them.”

“Who could?”

“That’s what I have to find out.”

“Was it someone in England … someone pretending to be with you while working against you?”

“It was a spy, all right. But not over there, I think.”

“Then where?”

“Here.”

“Here! But nobody knew. Who could possibly? You did not even tell me. It must have been someone over there.”

“I think it was someone here.”

“But who?”

“That is what I am going to find out.”

The following day Hessenfield went back to St. Germain-en-Laye. I tried to behave as though nothing had happened but I could not stop thinking of those men who had walked into a trap and were now probably in the Tower or some prison awaiting sentence, which would certainly be death. I was concerned for Hessenfield, who had cared so passionately that the arms which he had been given by the King of France should have been lost, but what was most disturbing was that some of their most gallant men had been taken.

I had never seen him so sad before. It was a new side to this character.

I went to the nursery.

“Where is my father?” asked Clarissa. She always called him my father. I think it implied that she had only recently acquired him.

I said, “He has gone to see the King.”

“He left in rather a hurry,” said Mary Marton.

“Oh, yes,” I answered. “Important business.”

“He looked a little distrait, I thought,” said Mary.

I lifted my shoulders.

Clarissa said: “Where are we going today?”

“I want to buy some lace,” I said. “Mademoiselle Panton”—she was my couturiere—“wishes to trim a dress with it and for once she is most anxious that I should choose the colors.”

“I expect it is unobtainable,” said Mary with a laugh, “and she will want to blame you because you will have to take a substitute. ‘It was of Madame’s choosing,’ ” she said, imitating Mademoiselle Panton to perfection.

“Mary can be Mademoiselle Panton and Jeanne and me …” said Clarissa looking with admiration at Mary.

We all went to choose the lace. We came back to dinner, and then in the afternoon Clarissa slept and I rested in my bedroom, reading. It was the quiet hour when everyone was either eating or digesting what they had eaten. By five o’clock the streets would be noisy again.

I wondered what Hessenfield was doing and what measures he would take to find out who had betrayed them. It was disconcerting to discover that there were spies in our midst.

It was a lonely evening. It was at times like this that I realised how much I missed him.

I was now deeply in love with him. Our union seemed to be perfect; he was what I had always wanted; I believed I was the same to him.

We were adventurous spirits, both of us. This life suited him and it suited me. I wondered what it would be like if they brought James back to the throne and we returned to England where we would lead the lives of an ordinary nobleman and his wife … except that I should not be his wife. I could not imagine it. Hessenfield would always have to have some plot to be involved in. In the old days he would have gone to sea and plundered the Spanish galleons. In the Civil War he would have behaved in much the same way as he did now, I suppose. He was a man who had to have a cause. Danger was a fillip to his existence. There were men such as that.

But what happened to them when they grew old?

I thought of my grandfather then. He had been such another. What a life he must have led when he was holding Eversleigh during the Protectorate—an ardent Royalist posing as a Roundhead. That would have suited Hessenfield well.

The evening passed slowly without him. I was with Clarissa until it was her bedtime. Mary Marton put her to bed and I stayed with her telling her stories until she went to sleep.

Then I returned to my lonely bedchamber and slept.

I awoke early, took the usual bread and coffee and then went along to Clarissa’s room.

She was sitting up in bed playing with a doll I had bought for her the day before.

“Mary’s gone out,” she said.

“Gone out! At this hour? She can’t have.”

Clarissa nodded.

“Yvette’s got blue eyes,” she said, holding the doll out to me. “Look.”

“I am sure Mary is in her room,” I said. “I’m going to see.”

Clarissa shook her head, but I went through to Mary’s room.

The bed was made. Could it be that she had not slept in it last night? Unless she had made it before she left, but one of the servants usually did that … later in the morning.

I looked round the room. I opened a cupboard. Her clothes had gone.

Then I saw the note. It was lying on the table and it was addressed to me.

Dear Lady Hessenfield, [I read]

I have had to leave quickly. I had a message from my aunt who is dangerously ill in Lyons. The messenger came after you retired and as you have had an anxious day I did not want to disturb you. There was just time to catch the coach to Lyons. So I left at once. I will come back and see you when I can leave my aunt. Thank you for all your goodness to me,

Mary Marton.

The paper dropped from my hand. Something strange was going on. I knew it.

Why had she gone like that? When had the messenger arrived? Surely I would have heard him come? She had never mentioned an aunt in Lyons. I had understood she had had no family but the parents of whom she had spoken.

My thoughts immediately went to Matt.

That is it, I thought. She was in love with him and he must have made her understand that he did not love her. Mary had always seemed a strange girl to me; she was aloof and although she had got along comfortably with Clarissa, I fancied she had never felt completely at ease with me. I had been delighted by her friendship for Matt and had immediately presumed that it was serious. The answer to the question of her hurried departure seemed to be that because her love affair with Matt was at an end she wanted to cut herself adrift completely; she did not want probing questions asked. A quiet, controlled person, such as I had imagined her to be, could act in this way.

Hessenfield returned the next day. He had been away two nights.

He looked exuberant now, his old self.

He could scarcely wait to embrace me.

He said: “I want to see that governess woman at once.”

“Oh, the strangest thing has happened. She has gone.”

“Gone!”

He looked at me blankly and I said quickly: “Yesterday morning I went to her room. Her bed had not been slept in. There was a note. She had gone to a sick aunt in Lyons.”

“A sick aunt in Lyons! Oh my God, she’s got away. She was the one. The leak … it came through her.”

“Do you mean that … she was a spy?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. I told you I was going to find out how it happened. She was one of the first I checked and got right to the heart of the matter. It must have been someone in the house. That was the only time it was mentioned. That day they came to me and I had them in my study … we worked out the route. It was only then that the name of the place was given away. I didn’t even put it on paper—it was so secret. Everything has been passed by word of mouth. I guessed it was someone in the house … who overheard and immediately passed on the information. I decided to check on the backgrounds of everyone. It was an easy task because I started with her the latest comer. Her parents are in England. She has been working as a spy for the Queen’s government. They are determined to wipe us out. They knew these shipments were getting in, that they were being landed at quiet spots on the coast and that the arms were being hidden until the great day when we should use them. Thank God, she was one of the first suspects and I hit the mark right away.”

“I can’t believe it of Mary,” I said.

“One never can of the good spy. She was that, I grant you, and now we have lost her … unless we catch up with her somewhere, which is hardly likely. At least she won’t dare come out to France again. It would be too dangerous for her.”

“I should have seen it,” I said. “I remember the day you were here with those men. I heard Mary on the landing. I thought I heard a door open. I went down and she was going out as I came down the stairs. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought she was only creeping out for a rendezvous with her lover.”

“With her lover?” said Hessenfield sharply.

“Oh, with Matt Pilkington. You know we thought there was something between them. I thought at first that she had left because something had happened with him … that he had told her he didn’t want her. That’s what the servants think. They talk about it all the time. They love anything that has a hint of romance in it.”

“Let them go on thinking it,” he said thoughtfully.

The incident had had a sobering effect on me, but Hessenfield quickly recovered his optimism. “It is the fortunes of war,” he said. “Sometimes success, sometimes failure. We can only go on in hope.”

He was gay and lively and we resumed the old way of life; but I could not help those moments of reflection which kept intruding. I kept remembering details about Mary. I should have seen that she was no ordinary nursery governess. I should have checked her story more thoroughly. That she had been a spy in our household and that I was the one who had brought her in, distressed me. Moreover, Clarissa was continually asking questions. I had told her that Mary had gone to her sick aunt in Lyons, which seemed the easiest way of dealing with the matter. And, as Hessenfield had suggested, that was the story which was circulated through the household. The servants thought it a little odd that she should have gone away without telling anyone, but she was English, and, as I overheard Jeanne say, the English often did odd things.

It was a week after Mary had left when I was out with Clarissa and Jeanne. We had shopped in the market for vegetables and were returning home along by the river when we noticed a crowd and a commotion.

Naturally we were curious and went over.

Jeanne turned to me and whispered: “Not for La Petite, madame.”

La Petite was immediately all ears.

“What is it? What have they found?” cried Clarissa.

“Oh, it is something they have dragged out of the river,” said Jeanne.

“What? What?”

“I don’t suppose they know yet. And I have the dinner to see to.”

“Maman.” She had already taken the French form and used it all the time. “Let us stay.”

Jeanne was throwing anxious glances at me.

I said firmly: “No, we must go home. It is nothing much.”

“Just a bundle of old clothes someone has fished out of the river,” said Jeanne.

“Who threw them in?”

“Well, that is what we don’t know,” said Jeanne.

“Who does know?”

“Whoever threw them in.”

“Who did?”

“Oh, Clarissa,” I cried, “we know no more than that. We are going home now so that Jeanne can cook the dinner. You want some dinner, don’t you?”

Clarissa considered. “I want to know who threw his clothes in the river first,” she said.

“You won’t say that when we are having dinner and you’re waiting to hear about river-sodden clothes,” I said.

“What’s river sodden?”

It was the opportunity. I took her hand firmly and more or less dragged her away.

Later that day Jeanne sought me out.

“I thought madame would want to know. It was a man they pulled out of the river this morning.”

“Oh, dear, some poor unfortunate man. He must have been unhappy to take his life.”

“They’re saying that he didn’t, madame. They’re saying he was murdered.”

“That’s even worse. I am glad we didn’t let the child see or hear. Don’t tell her, Jeanne, or let any of the others.”

“No, madame, I will not.”

I knew that something had happened even before they told me. There seemed to be a perpetual buzz of conversation in the household—but more subdued than usual and it stopped at my approach.

Finally Jeanne could restrain herself no more.

“Madame,” she told me, “they know whose was the body in the Seine. … They know who the man is.”

“Oh,” I said, “who was it?”

There was a short pause then Jeanne said quickly: “It was the gentleman who used to come here so much.”

“What!” I cried.

“Monsieur Pilkington.”

“No,” I whispered. “It can’t be.”

“It is, madame. And he was murdered. Shot, they say.”

I was terribly shaken. I stammered: “I don’t believe it. Why should anyone shoot him?”

Jeanne looked sly.

“Someone who was jealous, madame?”

“Jealous. Who would be jealous of him?”

Jeanne lifted her shoulder.

“I thought you should know, madame.”

“Yes … yes … thank you for telling me. Please see that none of this reaches my daughter’s ears.”

“Oh, no, madame. Certainly not. It would not be good for La Petite.”

I shut myself in my room. It was hard to believe it. I felt sure there must be some mistake. Matt … dead … murdered. His body thrown into the Seine.

I went out. They were talking about it in the streets, in the shops. Those who knew me looked at me oddly as though they were speculating about me.

Good heavens, I thought, they cannot think I had anything to do with it!

I came back to the house. That same hush, that whispering. As I went up the stairs I heard two of the servants talking together in one of the rooms.

“Crime passionnel,” I heard. “That is it … It is love.”

“Fancy having someone killed for love of you.”

“Well, that’s what a crime passionnel is all about, silly.”

I fled up to my room.

What were they saying? What were they hinting?

Hessenfield came in late that night. I was waiting for him.

He looked unruffled. I wondered if he had heard of the body which had been brought out of the Seine and the rumour that it was Matt Pilkington’s.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

I told him.

“Matt Pilkington,” I cried. “Murdered! There must be some mistake.”

“There is no mistake,” he said.

I cried: “You … you did it.”

“Not personally,” he said. “It was decided on and carried out. The man was a spy.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“My dear Carlotta, you are new to all this. I blame myself for not seeing it earlier.”

I stared at him. Matt a spy. I thought back quickly. He had stayed at Grasslands for a long time when he was courting Damaris. He had talked of estates in Dorset and a post in the army. He was in the army in a way, I supposed, and was available when he was needed. He must have been having a long leave of absence when he was at Grasslands. Then I remembered. … On the night when I had left England he had been near Eyot Abbass. Then events seemed to fall into place. He had known that Hessenfield was there. He was looking for him when he came to Eyot Abbass; and I had been vain enough to think he came for me! I was the excuse … and a good one. It was because of him that we had narrowly escaped being taken. They must have been close to have shot at us as we rowed out to the boat.

“Matt was a spy. Suppose he and Mary Marton had been working together.”

Hessenfield nodded. “She got the information. She must have been hiding in the next room when we discussed it.”

“And,” I said, “she passed it on to Matt Pilkington. That was why she went out to meet him.”

“So I believe. It was fortunate that you saw them meet after she left. That put me on to him. He was caught … red-handed, one might say. There were letters on him which exposed him absolutely.”

“And you killed him.”

“We could not afford to let him live. He was shot and his body dumped in the river.”

“And now he has been found.”

“And people are looking towards me,” said Hessenfield. “Do you know why? They suspect that Pilkington either was or was attempting to be your lover. They think I killed him out of jealousy.”

“That must be stopped.”

“On the contrary, no. That is what I wish to be generally believed.”

“But they will brand you as a murderer.”

“That does not worry me.”

“What of the law?”

“It is inclined to turn a blind eye here on crimes of passion. Besides, I can prove he was a spy. His was the fate spies must expect.”

“So they are saying that …”

“Yes, and I want them to go on saying it. They know my devotion to you. They know Pilkington called often at the house. You are an outstandingly attractive woman. It is for our enemies to believe that he was killed through jealousy, not because we know that he was one of their spies.”

I shivered.

Hessenfield put his arms about me.

“Dearest Carlotta,” he said, “this is not an amusing game, you know. This is a matter of life and death. We are facing death all the time, all of us. Pilkington knew it. Mary Marton knew it. We live dangerously, Carlotta. And you’re one of us now. We die for the cause. We accept all that fortune throws at us if it is all for the cause. I don’t forget that, ever. Death is always there … leering round the corners waiting to catch me unawares. He is often at my heels. If you are afraid I could send you home. It would not be very difficult.”

“You would send me away? Then you are tired of me.”

“You are a fool if you think that. Don’t you know that it is because I love you that I would send you back … away from our plots … away from danger.”

I threw myself into his arms and clung to him. “I will never leave you,” I said.

He stroked my hair. “Somehow I knew you would say that.” He laughed. “That was why I offered to send you back.”

We were wildly passionate that night; but I could not feel light-hearted. I wondered if I ever could again. There was so much to come between me and peace of mind. There was Damaris, there was Benjie, and now I could not get out of my mind the thought of Matt’s murdered body lying on the banks of the Seine.

Two Pairs Of Gloves

IT WAS NOT MY good fortune to meet Louis XIV, the Sun King, until he had passed into the last phase of his life. He was an old man then and had been married for some twenty years to the pious Madame de Maintenon and was more concerned with the glories of heaven than of earth. He must have been about sixty-seven years old then and in that case he could have been on the throne for sixty-two years. He was indeed the Grand Monarque.

He was all that one would expect of a king and a King of France at that. Protocol was far more rigid at the court of France than ever it was in England. One little slip and a man could lose all hope of favour. I remarked that the life of the courtier must be a very hazardous one.

Hessenfield had primed me again and again on what I must do. He was perfectly at ease and like all friends of James received graciously by the King of France, for there was no doubt that at this time Louis must have been growing very anxious on account of Marlborough’s persistent victories.

I was to be presented at the most magnificent palace in Europe-Louis’s own creation, equalling him in splendour: Versailles.

I had a special gown for the occasion. Madame Panton had been beside herself with excitement. She had fussed and chattered, gesticulated, despaired and rejoiced, and once or twice came near to fainting because she thought the cut or flare in my voluminous skirt was not what she called quite true.

But at last I was ready—splendid in diaphanous blue and discreetly scintillating with jewels, for as Hessenfield said, Louis’s susceptibilities must not be offended and he had been influenced by Madame de Maintenon for twenty years and she had subdued his tastes considerably.

“At one time,” said Hessenfield, “I should have been afraid to show you to him. He will admire your beauty. He is a lover of beauty in all things but now of course Madame de Maintenon has persuaded him that beauty lies in heaven not on earth. In any case he is an old man now. I wonder if I shall be pious when I grow old?”

“Many people become so,” I reminded him. “And the more sinful they have been the more vigorously they must wash away their sins. You will need to be very pious.”

“You too?” he asked.

“As vigorous as you, I fear.”

“We will scrub together, sweetheart,” he said. “In the meantime let as think of your presentation to the Setting Sun.”

Versailles! How beautiful it was. How impressive! I had never seen anything like it, nor have I since. We rode out in the carriage. It was some eleven miles or so from Paris. There was little that was memorable about the town itself. Perhaps that was why Louis had decided to build this most magnificent of all palaces there so that the contrast might be more striking. We drove past the cathedral of St. Louis and the church of Notre Dame in the quarter of Satory and swept round to the west where a gilded iron gate and stone balustrade shut off the main palace from the Place D’Armes.

I gazed at the allegorical groups on either side and the statues of France’s great statesmen and the enormous one of Louis himself on horseback. It was a most overwhelming sight. To the right and the left were the long wings of the palace, and as breathtaking as the palace itself were those magnificent gardens which had been laid out by Le Nôtre—the flowers, the ornamental basins, the groups and statues, the great avenue, the mighty trees and the green grass of the Tapis Vert.

Hessenfield said: “Come on. Don’t gape like a country woman. The best view is from one of the windows of the Galerie des Glaces.”

Faced with so many glories it is difficult to remember them all. I came away from Versailles with a jumbled memory of wide staircases, of rooms each more elaborate than the last, of pictures, sculptures, tapestries—a storehouse of treasure, a setting suited to the King who believed himself far above ordinary mortals, a god. The king of the sun.

It was not to be expected that we should be received here as we had been at St. Germain-en-Laye. This was a very different court from that of the exile who was perhaps tolerated here largely because the Queen he wished to replace was the greatest enemy of the Sun King himself. It was the English and the Duke of Marlborough who were giving Louis cause for concern such as he had rarely known before. It was unthinkable that he should be forced to sue for peace and it seemed that was what Marlborough was attempting to force him to do. Therefore any who could cause the smallest trouble to the enemy was welcome and to be helped. So Jacobites were most graciously received at Versailles.

It was not to be imagined however that the great King of France would concern himself with those who were eager to be presented to him. It was necessary for the supplicants to present themselves in an anteroom close to the royal lodging through which he would have to pass on his way to other parts of the palace. There patiently every day those who hoped to catch his eye waited. Of course he might not come, in which case they would have waited in vain. They would come again the next day.

It was a great achievement, however, to get to this antechamber. “The first step,” said Hessenfield. “But until the King has acknowledged you, you cannot go to Court.”

So we made our way to that part of the palace behind the Galerie des Glaces to that side of the court where Louis’s rooms were situated and found ourselves in the antechamber which was known as the Oeil de Boeuf—so called from the shape of its window.

Here were assembled a group of people, all elaborately dressed, all, like ourselves, waiting to catch the eyes of the King should he pass through that morning.

It was a long wait. I looked around the room at these people, all very serious, all intent on one thing, and some spirit of mischief within me wanted to laugh outright. I wanted to say, Why should we all stand here so humble, so servile and await the pleasure of one man? I don’t care if he is the Sun King; I don’t care if his wealth has built this palace. Why should I? For what purpose? I thought: I will take the matter up with Hessenfield tonight.

I knew what his answer would be. “We have to keep Louis’s goodwill. We could get nowhere without his help. We have to keep him willing to help put James on the throne.

Yes, that was a good enough reason. And these others, what did they want? Promotion of some sort. So it was after all ambition which prompted them to stand there, ready at any moment to kneel in adoration when the scintillating presence was before them.

I was aware of a woman watching me. She was an extremely handsome woman with masses of dark hair elaborately dressed. She wore a silver grey gown and pearls in her ears and about her neck. She was very elegant. I thought something about her face was familiar and wondered if I could possibly have met her somewhere before.

She half smiled at me. I returned the smile.

A few minutes later she had edged a little nearer to me. “It is weary waiting,” she said in a low voice speaking in English with a marked French accent.

“Yes,” I said.

“I have waited yesterday. He did not come. Let us hope he comes today.”

I said: “You speak English well.”

She lifted her shoulders. “My grandmother was English.”

Conversation was not considered to be in the best of taste. One spoke in whispers while one kept one’s eyes on that spot where the King might at any moment make his entry.

“You are Lady Hessenfield?” she murmured.

I nodded.

“You are doing such good work … such excellent work.”

“Thank you. I am afraid I do very little.”

“You support your husband. That is good.”

“May I ask your name?”

“Elisse de Partière. My husband was killed at Blenheim.”

“Oh … I am so sorry …”

Silence fell between us. All eyes were on the door, for at that moment there was a stir of excitement.

The great moment had come. The presence was about to shine upon us.

With what dignity he walked! Of course he was an old man now, but the splendour of his garments dazzled the eyes so that one did not notice the lined and wrinkled face beneath the luxuriant wig. The dark eyes were shrewd and alert. There was something about him which set him apart. Was it assurance? He was so confident that he was above all other men that he convinced them that he was.

He stopped here and there to exchange a brief word with one or two of the elect and so briefly covered them with the glory of the reflected sun.

Hessenfield stepped forward, holding my hand.

“Sire, may I present my wife.”

The dark eyes, alive among the wrinkles, were regarding me steadily. I flushed slightly and sank to the floor in the required obeisance. The eyes brightened. He smiled faintly. His eyes travelled from my face to my neck and bosom.

“Very pretty,” he said. “Congratulations, my lord.”

Then he passed on. It was triumph.

He had gone. The morning in the Oeil de Boeuf was at an end.

“What an honour,” said Hessenfield. “I might have known you would make your mark. It’s not often he sees a woman as pretty as you.”

“What of all the mistresses he has had?”

“Hush. He likes discretion. None of them had half your beauty. Praise the gods that he is an old man now working a quick passage to heaven.”

“Be careful. You may jeopardize your position.”

“You are right,” he whispered, pressing my arm. “Now you may go to court. The King has acknowledged you.”

There was a press of people walking in the gardens and Hessenfield said to me: “Let us go now. Our mission is accomplished. I want to get back to Paris as soon as possible.”

As we were about to step into our carriage a woman came up to us. I recognised her at once as the elegant Madame de Partière who had spoken to me in the Oeil de Boeuf. She was clearly in some distress.

“Madame … I wonder if you would help me. I must get to Paris without delay. Are you going back there now?”

“Yes,” I answered.

She said: “It is most unfortunate. The wheel of my carriage is broken.” She lifted her shoulders. “I do not understand … But my coachman tells me that it will take some hours to put right … even if he can get it done this day. I must return to Paris.” She looked very apologetic. “I was wondering if … if you would take me there with you.”

Hessenfield had come up. She explained to him. “I saw you in the Oeil de Boeuf. I noticed Madame … who would not notice Madame? I spoke to her … I could not restrain myself. Now … I am asking this favour of you. If you could let me travel with you to Paris.”

Madame de Partière’s eyes filled with tears. “It is such a relief to me,” she said.

So we travelled back to Paris with our new acquaintance. She had a house in the rue St. Antoine, and she was very unhappy at the moment.

I said to Hessenfield: “Her husband was killed at Blenheim.”

“Madame, my condolences,” said Hessenfield.

“You are too kind.” She turned away and wiped her eyes.

After a while she went on: “So kind … and so brave. I know that you came over here … exiles from your country … fighting for a cause. That is noble.”

“Madame,” said Hessenfield, “you speak such good English.”

“Oh, but there is the accent, eh … the intonation … It is amazing how the French can never truly master the English tongue.”

“Nor the English the French,” said I.

“There is always something to betray it,” said Hessenfield.

“My mother was English. Her people had been over here during the days of Cromwell. She was a little girl then but her family met my grandfather’s family. The two young people fell in love and married and after the Restoration she stayed in France. Their daughter, my mother, was taught English … by her mother and I was taught by my mother … That is why I have knowledge of your English. But I am afraid it is not always as good as it should be.”

“Are you living in Paris?”

“For the time. The death of my husband has … how do you say it? … stunned me. I am at this time a little uncertain.”

“Have you any children?”

She was silent and turned her head away.

“I have a son,” she said.

“And shall you live with him?”

“He is dead,” she said.

I said I was sorry and realised that we had been asking too many questions.

We talked then about Versailles and the wonders of the palace and the gardens, the groves and the waterfalls and the bronze statues.

Had we seen the basin of Apollo, she wanted to know, with the god represented in his chariot drawn by four horses and the water spouting from the fountains?

We had, we told her.

“How I should love to see one of the displays on water,” she said. “I have heard that that is like a visit to another world.”

“I have seen it,” said Hessenfield. “With the Venetian gondolas all decked out with flowers, it is quite fantastic, particularly at night, when there is a display of fireworks.”

Then Hessenfield discussed the merits of the Orangery, the Rockery and the waterfall. He was much more knowledgeable about Versailles than we were.

“I feel,” said Madame de Partière, “that I have been given not only a ride home but a tour of the palace.”

She turned to me and picked up one of my gloves which was lying on the seat beside me.

“I cannot but admire it,” she said. “What exquisite embroidery and this delicate tracing of tiny pearls. It is so beautiful. Tell me, where do you get your gloves?”

“I have an excellent couturiere,” I said. “She scarcely allows me to choose anything myself. She brought these gloves in the other day and said that she thought they would be suitable for this occasion.”

“How right she was. I am interested because I congratulate myself that I have one of the best glove makers in Paris. It is true it is a small shop. It is in the carrefour near the Châtelet. A very small shop, but the owner is an artist. He has four or five girls stitching and embroidering for him but the design is his. It is that which counts, of course, and he is a master. This, though, equals what I have had from him.”

She smoothed the glove and replaced it on the seat.

So passed the time until we reached Paris.

Hessenfield said that we should take Madame de Partière to her house and then we should go home. When we reached the rue St. Antoine, Hessenfield alighted from the coach to help her out and as she was about to step down she gave a cry of dismay. She stooped and picked up something. It was my glove which had been lying on the seat. She had swept it to the floor as she rose and had stepped on it.

I thought she was going to burst into tears as she picked it up and gazed at it.

There was a dirty mark on the embroidery and some of the pearls had broken away.

“Oh, what have I done!” she cried.

I took the glove. “No matter,” I said. “Madame Panton will probably repair it.”

“But I have spoilt it! You have been so kind to me and this is how I repay you.”

Hessenfield said: “Madame, I beg of you. It is nothing … a bagatelle.”

“I shall never forgive myself. After all your kindness.”

The concierge had come out to bow to Madame de Partière.

“Please,” I said, “do not distress yourself. It has been a most enlivening journey and we have enjoyed your company.”

“Indeed yes,” said Hessenfield, “and we have done nothing. We were coming back to Paris in any case.”

“How kind you are.” She lapsed into French. “Vous êtes très aimable …”

Hessenfield took her arm and led her towards the house. She turned and gave me a woeful smile.

I laughed. “Good-bye, Madame de Partière,” I said. “It has been a pleasure.”

“Au revoir,” she said.

And that was my visit to Versailles.

I missed Mary Marton. She may have been a spy but at the same time she had been an excellent nursery governess. Clarissa asked after her a great deal.

It was hard to put off a child who had such an enquiring mind with explanations which could not sound plausible, for I could not tell her the truth. I wondered what her child’s mind would make of this account of spies and plots.

Jeanne emerged as a great help to me. She had more or less taken on the duties of looking after the child. Clarissa loved her and she had a way of dealing with the numerous questions, which were constantly plied, with answers which satisfied.

She spoke French constantly to Clarissa, who was now speaking both English and French with perfect accents so that she could have been taken for either nationality.

“It will stand her in good stead,” said Hessenfield. “And the only way to speak French is to learn it as near the cradle as possible. You never get round those vowels otherwise.”

Since she had slipped so naturally into the nursery I spent a certain amount of my time with Jeanne too, which was good for my French as it was for Clarissa’s, for Jeanne had scarcely a word of English.

She was an interesting girl in her early twenties. She had been delighted, she told me, to find a post in a fine house like this. She had been very poor before. She had been a flower seller. The cook used to buy flowers from her to decorate the tables.

“Ah, Madame,” she said, “it was my lucky day when Madame Boulanger came to buy my flowers. She was a hard one … and paid me very little. She was one for a bargain. I lived with my family … there were many of us. A sad part of Paris that. You do not know it, madame. It is not for such as you. It is not far from Notre Dame … behind the Hôtel Dieu before you get to the Palace de Justice. The streets there … they are terrible, Madame … dangerous. We had a room in the rue de Marmousets … The gutters were pretty, though. I used to stand and look into the gutters. The dyers were there, and their colours flowed through the gutters. Such colours, Madame, green, blue, red … the colours of my flowers. We used to beg from the great lords and ladies. But I never stole … never, Madame. My mother said ‘Never steal, for though you have money for a while they will catch up with you. You will end up in the Châtelet or the Fort l’Evêque. Then your fate will be too terrible to speak of.’ ”

“Poor Jeanne,” I said, “you have had a sad life.”

“But now it is a good one, madame. I have a good position and I like so much to care for the little one.”

And care she did. She used to tell her stories of old Paris, and Clarissa was enchanted with them. She would sit entranced, eyes round with wonder; there was nothing she loved more than to walk through those streets and listen to Jeanne describing everything to her.

Jeanne was extremely knowledgeable and I felt I could trust Clarissa with her. That was what I liked most. If I had to go to Versailles or St. Germain-en-Laye with Hessenfield I could safely leave her.

I sometimes sat with her after Clarissa was in bed and we would talk together. She knew so much about the stories of the past which had passed down through her family.

She was most interested in the great poison scandal which had rocked Paris some thirty years ago and had brought Madame la Voison and Madame de Brinvilliers to justice. It was so notorious because many well-known people had become involved and suspicion had been cast even on the King’s mistress, Madame de Montespan.

Her grandmother remembered the day Madame de Brinvilliers had been taken from the prison of the Conciergerie, where she had been submitted to cruel torture, to the Place de Grève and there lost her head.

“It was a terrible time, Madame, there was not an apothecary in Paris who did not tremble in his shoes. There was fear in high places. Husbands had removed wives and wives husbands, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers who had lived too long and by whose death there could be profit. Paris was in a turmoil. It was the Italians, Madame … They had their strange poisons. We had had arsenic and antimony … but it was the Italians who produced the finest poisons. Poisons which were tasteless, colourless, poisons which could be breathed in the air. It was an art with them. People were talking about the Borgias and a Queen of France too … an Italian woman, Catherine de Medici. They knew better poisons.”

“Jeanne,” I said, “you have a morbid mind to dwell on these things.”

“Yes, Madame, but they say there is an Italian near the Châtelet who has a beautiful shop and many noble customers … and behind his shop he works with strange substances. He is very rich.”

“Rumours, Jeanne.”

“Maybe, Madame. But I make the sign of the cross every time I pass the shop of Antonio Manzini.”

It was interesting talk; and I was grateful to Jeanne.

When Clarissa grew older we should have to have an English governess for her, I thought. Then I paused.

When she was older should we still be here? Should we still be trying to bring a conclusion to this adventure?

Somehow I could not imagine it. I could not think ahead.

The future was perhaps too fraught with difficulties. How could I return to England? I had made everything too complicated there. At Eyot Abbass there was Benjie, the husband I had used and wronged. At Eversleigh there was Damaris, whose lover I had taken for a whim and ruined her life.

You do not deserve to be happy, I told myself.

Yet I was. For I loved Hessenfield so completely; and that intense burning passion which had flared up between us was becoming a deep and abiding love … an enduring love, I told myself.

So though I could be happy in the present, I could not look ahead.

Well, wasn’t it a good plan to live in the present? Not to look ahead; not to look back. That was what I must train myself to do.

One day one of the servants brought two parcels to me. One was addressed to me, the other to Hessenfield.

I opened mine and found inside an exquisite pair of gloves.

They were beautiful—in grey leather so soft that it looked like silk. They were embroidered with pearls and were something like the ones I had to discard because Madame de Partière had trodden on one of them. I guessed who had sent them. And I was right.

There was a note with them.

My dear Lady Hessenfield,

I have been some time in sending you an acknowledgement of my gratitude. Forgive me but this was no fault of mine. It has taken so long to get the leather I particularly wanted. Now I trust these will please you. I have sent a similar pair to your husband.

I want to say thank you for being so kind to me in bringing me back when I had that mishap with my own carriage. I was so grateful to you and how ashamed I was when to repay you I ruined your beautiful gloves.

I trust we may renew our acquaintance when I return to Paris. I am called away to the country just now and may be away for more than a month.

Dear Lady Hessenfield, in the meantime please accept these gloves and wear them so that I may have some satisfaction in doing something for all you have done for me.

I shall have the temerity to call when I return from the country. Many thanks once more.

Elisse de Partière.

What a charming gesture! I thought. The gloves are charming. I tried them on. Then carefully wrapped them up to be used on a suitable occasion.

There was a great deal of activity throughout the court at St. Germain-en-Laye. It was not likely that they were going to let one disaster deter them.

The loss of all the arms and ammunition which had been brought about through Matt Pilkington and Mary Marton had been a great setback. None would deny it. Hessenfield told me that the French were impatient over the matter and blamed us for being so careless as to let spies into our household.

“I bore the brunt of that,” said Hessenfield with a grim laugh. “Now I want to show them that that sort of thing can never happen again.”

The days passed too quickly. I savoured each one. It seemed later that I must have had some premonition.

I think always at the back of my mind was the thought … the fear … that it could not last.

We lived passionately, fervently. I think Hessenfield felt similarly. I remembered he had said once that death was always waiting round the corner. It was a dangerous life he lived; and I was with him, clinging all the time to the present.

He had been to Versailles to speak with one of Louis’s ministers who was more favourable than most to the English cause; and from there he had gone to St. Germains.

When he came back he looked unlike himself. He was distinctly pale; and I had never seen him before without his healthy colour. Moreover, there was now lacklustre in his eyes.

I looked at him anxiously.

“It has gone badly,” I said. “Something worries you.”

He shook his head. “The French are eager to help. They are all in good spirits at St. Germains.”

I took his hand. It was clammy.

“You are not well,” I cried in dismay.

Hessenfield was a man who had always known perfect health and could not understand sickness. I had always been under the impression that he would believe it was some deficiency in the sufferer, some quirk of the imagination … unless of course it was a leg or arm or some visible disability.

I understood perfectly because I was rather like that myself. So I was very alarmed when he said: “I think I must lie down.”

I helped him undress and got him to bed. I sat beside him and said I would get him a tasty meal. He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to eat. It was nothing, he assured me. It would pass.

He did not speak. He just lay still and seemed to want nothing but that.

I was very worried and passed an anxious night. In the morning he was delirious. I sent for a physician who came and examined Hessenfield. He shook his head and murmured something about a fever. Perhaps two dead pigeons laid on the soles of his feet might help. He would send a lotion round which might also be of use.

I gripped the man’s hand. “What ails him?” I asked.

“A fever. He’ll recover,” he said.

But by the afternoon he was no better.

I walked about the house in a daze. This was something I had never thought of. I put his clothes away—those which he had been wearing. The fringed coat, the breeches, and the fine hose and the gloves which Madame de Partière had sent for him.

I would not leave him. I just sat by his bed. He looked different from the man I had known. He was pale; his eyes were closed; there was already a sunken look in his cheeks.

Jeanne said to me: “Madame, I know an apothecary who has the finest remedies. He is the Italian Antonio Manzini. They say he has cured many.”

“I will go to him. You must come with me, Jeanne,” I said.

We went to my room. “You will need your heavy cloak, madame. There is a chill in the air.” She opened a drawer and took out the gloves which Madame de Partière had given me.

I put them on and we went out together.

Jeanne led me through the streets to the carrefour near the Châtelet.

We went into the shop together.

Jeanne said: “Madame is very anxious. Her husband is sick.”

“Sick,” said the man; he had dark bushy eyebrows and almost black, very penetrating eyes. “What ails him?”

“It is a fever which makes him listless and so unlike himself,” I explained. “Till now he was a very healthy man.”

I laid my hand on his arm. He looked down at it and drew away.

“I have a lotion,” he said, “which cures fever. It is costly.”

“I will pay,” I assured him. “If it cures my husband I will pay anything … anything you ask.”

Jeanne laid a restraining hand on my arm and Antonio Manzini retired behind his shop.

“Madame will forgive me,” said Jeanne. “But it is not necessary to promise so much. Pay his price and that is good enough.”

I paid the price and he brought out the bottle. We hurried back and I went straight to Hessenfield’s bedside. I could see at once that he had grown worse.

I hastily poured out some of the liquid, forced him to take it and sat down waiting for the miracle.

There was none.

By nightfall Hessenfield’s condition was unchanged.

I sat up beside him all night. Just before dawn I rose and as I stood up a terrible dizziness overcame me.

I touched my skin. It was cold and clammy yet I felt very hot.

I knew then that I had caught the fever or whatever it was, and that I too was going to be ill.

No, that must not be, I told myself. I had to keep well. I had to nurse Hessenfield. I would not trust him to anyone but myself.

I tried to fight off my lassitude. But I was becoming very worried.

I had a great desire to go to bed, but I would not. With all my might I would fight this terrible feeling which was coming over me.

During the morning Hessenfield took a turn for the worse. He was now raving in delirium. He was talking about General Langdon, about spies … about me … about Clarissa. It was jumbled together and made no sense.

Meanwhile I was feeling more and more ill.

Jeanne came to my room. Her eyes widened with horror at the sight of me.

She said: “There is a lady downstairs who asks to see you most urgently. She says it is very important and she wants to speak privately with you.”

I went to a small room which led from the salon and said I would receive her there.

She came in. It was Madame de Partière. But she looked different from when I had last seen her. I touched my eyes wearily for I had the most alarming headache. I wondered if I was seeing clearly.

“Madame de Partière …” I stammered.

She nodded.

“Ah, I see you are unwell, Carlotta.”

I stared at her in amazement. Her French accent had disappeared. She spoke English like an Englishwoman.

Her face I noticed was very pale. She said: “Lord Hessenfield is very sick. He will die. There is no antidote …”

I said angrily: “Have you come here to tell me this?”

She replied: “How many times have you worn the gloves? I see you have worn them.”

I shook my head impatiently.

“It is important,” she said. “They are deadly.”

I stared at her. I thought: She is mad. I must get away from her quickly. I have not the strength to deal with her now. I stepped towards the door.

“You have worn them,” she said. “It shows. All those good looks, they will be gone in a day or so … We are tainted; your husband … you, and I … too. That is why I have come here. I want you to understand how … and why … before we die.”

“Madame,” I said, “this is a very unfortunate time to call. My husband is very ill.”

“I know. Who better? You too are very ill—more ill than you know. I have not escaped. They are deadly. I have handled them too much.”

I caught at a chair. I should have fallen otherwise.

“Madame, please go. I am going to call the servants. I have too much to concern me …”

“This concerns you,” she said. “This concerns you deeply. You must start at once to repent of your sins.”

“Sins …?”

“You have committed many … so has my lord Hessenfield … You have committed sins against me and mine … and I determined to have my revenge.”

“Please explain then if you must.”

“For a moment at Versailles I thought you knew me. We have met once before.”

I said: “In the Oeil de Boeuf …”

“No, not there. In Enderby Hall. Do you remember Beth Pilkington?”

“Beth Pilkington! You …?”

Then I remembered. She had had amazing red hair then. It was easy to change that. I saw her face fall into the lines I remembered. She was a good actress. She had looked and acted the part of a woman of French nobility to perfection.

“I came to see Enderby Hall. You showed me round. I was coming down to find out what had become of Beaumont Granville. I did find out in time.”

“Beau? What was he to you?”

“My lover … for years. I was his favourite mistress. He said he would marry me if I could give him a son. He wanted children … he wanted a son.”

I stared at her unbelievingly.

“Yes,” she went on. “You put an end to that. Oh, do not think I blame you for that. It was not your fault. You came along. You had everything to offer him. Good looks, your own kind of fascination, youth … and a fortune. Most important of all, a fortune. But for that fortune Beau would have married me. I already had my beautiful son … his son.”

“Matt, you mean.”

“Yes, Matt!”

I understood then why I had been attracted by him. I had thought he reminded me of Beau because of a faint resemblance which I had believed was merely that of one dandy for another. I thought of the button I had found in Enderby Hall; the lingering odour of musk. Beau’s son, of course, who perhaps had been wearing a coat with gold buttons which had belonged to his father—who had been brought up with a taste for the musk scent.

“I came to that place to find out what had happened to Beaumont,” she went on. “I was sure that if he had fled abroad—which seemed plausible enough—he would have let me know at some time. Our association had lasted from the day we met. I was always there in the background, whatever other women there were. He looked on me as a wife and but for you … when my child was born … But that is of no importance now. I want you to understand how it happened. I came down to find out where Beau had gone … and I did. The dog had been his dog. Matt took her when Beau went. The dog found his shoe. That was why she died.”

“Where …?” I murmured.

“Under the soil in that patch of land where people were forbidden to go. He was buried there by your mother’s husband.”

I gasped. “I don’t believe it.”

“He killed the dog but he did not kill Beau. That was Christabel Willerby. Beau was blackmailing her and she shot him; your father buried the body thinking that your mother had done it. If you knew all the details it falls naturally into place, but that is not why I am here. You are innocent of Beau’s death.”

“I think, Mistress Pilkington, that you are imagining these things. You are suffering from hallucinations. You are ill.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It is the end for us all—for me no less than you. I want you to know but I want you to understand. I wanted my son to be happy. He would have been with your sister. She is a good girl. It made me happy to see how gradually they began to love each other. She was the girl I wanted for him. She was different from anyone he was likely to meet in London. He realised her virtues. She would have provided him with a steadying background … the sort I had never been able to give him. I wanted that for him.”

She looked at me malevolently and put her hand to her heart. She was growing breathless.

“But you spoilt it,” she went on. “He followed you here … and he was murdered. But for you he would be alive to this day. My only son. He was everything to me. All my life was centered round him. But you lured him here and then Lord Hessenfield killed him … had him murdered and his body thrown in the Seine.”

“You are wrong,” I cried. “That was not how it happened. He was a spy. He did not come here for me. He came to spy against the Jacobites.”

“He came because of you. That was his excuse for coming. He came for you.”

“It is not true. He worked here with a nursery governess in this household. He was caught … There were papers on him that proved him to be a spy.”

She shook her head. “I know my son. He was like his father. He would pursue what he wanted until it was his. He wanted you and he came here to get you and Hessenfield was jealous. He is hard and a ruthless man. He killed him. I heard about it. I was told that it was a crime passionnel.”

“You are wrong … wrong …”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It is the end,” she said. “Soon for me and for you. You must die. I knew that there was something fatalistic about you when I met you in that house. Beauty such as yours has something evil in it. It is not a gift from God but from the devil.”

She was looking at me strangely, her eyes glittering. She is mad, I thought. The death of Matt has unhinged her mind.

“You are like the legendary mermaid who sits on the rock singing and luring mariners to come to her, and to go to her is certain death. It is … the song of the siren. Come to me and I will be all to you that you most desire. That is the song. But it is not so. You are luring them to death.”

“This is nonsense, Mistress Pilkington.”

She shook her head. “Beau died because of you. But for you he would not have gone down to Eversleigh. He would not have found that woman he was blackmailing. He would have been alive today. I might have been married to him. Matt would be here. But you came with your strange wild beauty. It was more than your fortune he wanted. So he pursued you and found not a beautiful bride and a fortune, but death. Then Matt, he heard your song too. He was lured into the rocks of destiny. And where did it lead? To death in the Seine. My son … my darling son … And your husband—what unhappiness have you brought to him? Even your present lover, Hessenfield, has not escaped. He thought he was clever. He thought he was in command … but Death is waiting for him now …”

“I must ask you to go,” I said. “I have much to do.”

“Yes, make a shroud for your lover. Make one for yourself … and for me …”

I felt sick with horror, for I knew that she was telling the truth.

She went on: “I planned to destroy you. It is better that no others should suffer through you. Three men all dead … and all because of you—although I do not blame you for Beau. You see, you are disaster. You are the siren. Even involuntarily you deal death. You have to go. There is no way for it. I contrived the meeting. I disguised myself for fear you should remember me. But we met only once and I was one of the best actresses on the London stage. I listened to all I could of those long ago poison trials. I talked to people who remembered … and I decided what I should do. I did not believe that there could be poisons which could be transmitted through the skin. But there are … there are … And if you know where to go for them and if you are prepared to pay … So I went and I paid and I had the gloves made. Lord Hessenfield has been more virulently attacked. He must have worn the gloves I sent him for a long time. You are less so. And I even less. But we are all doomed. I no less than you, although mine will be a more lingering death. I have the poison in my blood just as you have…. You see, I have destroyed the siren and my son’s murderers, but in doing so I have destroyed myself.”

I stood up uncertainly. These were the ravings of a mad woman.

I must get rid of her. I must get back to Hessenfield. I must call the doctors and tell them what this woman had told me.

I left her. I heard her walk out unsteadily behind me.

I went up to the bedroom

Hessenfield was lying white and still on his bed … unnaturally still.

I knew that he was dead.

Till then I had not believed her. I had told myself that she was lying about the poison. Such things might have happened thirty years ago but they could not happen now. But I had heard such strange stories of those long ago poisonings and the subtleties of the Italian art of producing deadly substances which could attack in many different ways. There were still Italian poisoners in Paris, still men who worked out their secrets in dark places and grew rich on them.

I was bewildered. It was too much to grasp. All that time Beau had been lying under the soil near Enderby. And Leigh, whom I had looked on as my father, had buried him; my mother was involved too, and Matt was Beau’s son.

I could not believe it. And yet everything that had happened clothed it with reasonable truth.

Beau … dead all those years. Matt and I together. No wonder I was drawn to him. There was a grain of comfort in that. It had not been such a wild whim.

But there was one terrible fact which threw a dark pall over everything, and I was thinking of the past now so that I might not look to the present.

Hessenfield dead. I would not accept it. He who had been so full of life … dead … and all because of a pair of gloves. He would get up from the bed soon. He would laugh at me.

It was a trick. It was a joke … to prove to me through my desolation how much he loved me.

How much I loved him! “Oh, Hessenfield,” I murmured, “infinitely!”

I covered my face with my hands. How clammy they were … My face was burning and yet I was shivering.

Then a sudden wild joy possessed me. “I am coming to you, Hessenfield. We always said only death could part us … but even death can’t do that.”

I sat there by his bed watching him and an exultation came over me.

“I am coming with you, Hessenfield. I shall not be long.”

Death! It was very close. I could almost hear the flap of his wings as he hovered over me. Odd to think of death with wings.

An old illusion, I thought. Why … Why?

I stopped. I stared before me. I had been rejoicing that Hessenfield and I would not be parted. And now the thought had come to me: Clarissa. My daughter … our daughter … when we were both dead what would become of her?

I clasped my hands together to stop their shaking.

“My child … my little girl. What will become of you? You will be left alone here and who will care for you?”

I must do something. I must act quickly.

I stood up. The room was swaying round me. “Hurry,” I said aloud. “Who knows how much time there is left to you.”

I prayed then. I could not remember praying before. I supposed people such as I only prayed when they wanted something; and I had had so much.

It was only when things were denied me that I thought of prayer.

Then suddenly, as though there was an answer to my earnest supplication, I saw what I must do.

I went to my bureau and took out paper. In this terrible hour of bewilderment, anxiety and tragedy I thought of my sister.

I remembered how she and Clarissa had been together during that time when I had gone with her to Eversleigh. Clarissa and Damaris had loved each other then. There had been some special relationship between them.

Damaris, I said to myself. It must be Damaris.

Dear Damaris [I wrote hurriedly]

I am dying. By the time you receive this I will be dead. Lord Hessenfield, who is Clarissa’s father, is also dead. I am desperately anxious about my Clarissa. She is here in a strange country and I do not know who will care for her when I am no longer here.

I have been wicked but that is no fault of my daughter’s. Damaris, I want you to take her. You must send over here at once. You must take her and bring her up as your daughter. There is no one I should rather see her with than you. I am known over here as Lady Hessenfield and Clarissa is acknowledged as our daughter, which she is. I cannot tell you now how all this came about. It is of no importance. All that matters is Clarissa.

There is a good woman here, named Jeanne. I shall leave her in this woman’s care until you come. She is a good woman who has been looking after Clarissa and is fond of her. She was once a flower seller and lived in great poverty, but I trust her more than anyone else.

Damaris, I have been wicked. I have brought trouble and disaster wherever I have been. I ruined your life, but Matt was not really good enough for you otherwise he would not have behaved as he did. You need someone specially good.

Do this for me, please … No. For Clarissa’s sake. Send for her as soon as you receive this.

Your sister Carlotta.

I sealed the letter. I sent for the courier who had taken Hessenfield’s urgent messages back and forth from England.

“Take this,” I said, “with all speed.”

Then I prayed that he would reach Damaris, for naturally traffic between the two countries was difficult and such missions had to be taken with the utmost care. Often couriers did not reach their destination; and I suppose that after that disastrous mission which had cost Matt his life there would be more checks than ever on people coming into the country.

But I prayed that Damaris would receive the letter, and that she would come and take Clarissa away.

I sent for Jeanne.

“Jeanne,” I said, “I am dying.”

“Madame … it is not possible.”

“You know Lord Hessenfield is dead.”

“Oh Madame, what will become of us all?”

“There is the child. Jeanne, I trust her to you.”

“My lady?”

“Care for her. I have a sister in England. I have written to her. She will send someone to take Clarissa away.”

“When will they come, my lady?”

“Soon … soon. They will come. I know they will come.”

“From England, Madame …”

“They will come, Jeanne. I promise you they will come. Wait for them, and care for the child until they come. Jeanne …” I caught her hands and looked pleadingly into her eyes. “Jeanne, this is the wish and the command of a dying woman.”

Jeanne looked frightened.

But I knew she would keep her word.

I burned the gloves—both mine and Hessenfield’s. They gave off a strange light as they flared up. I thought there would be a conflagration, but after blazing for a few moments they subsided into a black powder.

I took up my pen and wrote in my journal of what had happened to me. I set it out and thought there might be some comfort in the writing of it.

I had told Jeanne that I wanted her to keep my journal and when messengers from my sister came to give it to them to take to her.

I wanted her to understand how it had happened. To understand is often to forgive.

I put down my pen. Then I called Jeanne again and I told her where she would find the journal.

She looked bewildered. But she listened to my instructions and after she had gone I could not resist taking my pen again.

Then I wrote right at the beginning of my journal: “This is the Song of the Siren who did not ask to be as she was. But she was so and it happened that one who accused her was right. Those who came near her were lured to their deaths. It seems right and fitting that death should overtake her in the midst of her singing.”