Authors: Philippa Carr
Germaine had always been a clever woman. She had waited for the right moment to act, realizing of course that it might never come. But when it did she would be ready, and she was. When Aimée grew up and there was easy traffic between France and England because the war was over, she had decided to send her to Lord Hessenfield. My father had had a reputation as a philanderer and Carlotta, my mother, had been one of his many mistresses. It was logical to assume that Germaine might have been another. Who was to know that she had been a servant in the household? Shrewd and good-looking as she was, she had become the mistress of a bookseller on the Left Bank and when the Hessenfield household had broken up she went to live with him. The plan had been growing in her mind for some time and she thought it would provide very well for her daughter’s future; and when that was established she might decide to join her, which was really how it worked out. Aimée was to present herself to the living Lord Hessenfield as his brother’s daughter, and one who, according to the letter, was to have a share in the estate.
‘I did not want to do it,’ Aimée kept assuring us. ‘But I was afraid of my mother… I always have been. So I came and it was easy at first… and I liked the life. It was so much better than what I had had to do in Paris. I really made myself believe it was true… I
was
your half-sister, Clarissa. After all, it all seemed to fit… and it could have happened just like that. Only it didn’t. You were so kind to me… you and Lance… I could have been happy and forgotten it was all a fraud… if she hadn’t come here.’
She shivered and covered her face with her hands at this point. ‘You see,’ she said, so quietly that we could scarcely hear, ‘Jeanne knew her. She recognized her at once. She was about to come into the house and there—in the garden—was Jeanne. She took one look at my mother and said, “Why… if it isn’t Germaine Blanc. What are you doing here?” My mother hadn’t thought of Jeanne. I had forgotten to mention her. How she cursed me for that. And when she came face to face with her, she turned and ran into the woods. She allowed herself to be caught by Jeanne… there.’
I felt overcome with horror. I was beginning to see exactly what had happened.
‘Jeanne said, “What are you up to, Germaine Blanc? No good, I’ll swear… if you are anything like you used to be.” My mother then went for her. I don’t know whether Jeanne was dead before she threw her down the dene hole. But… that was the end of Jeanne. I was terrified and horrified. I really was. I could see Jeanne could ruin everything for us… but I didn’t want to kill her. I would never have done that. You must believe me, Clarissa… Lance… I was there but I didn’t do it. I had no hand in
that.
I never wanted to be a party to… murder.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘I do… I do.’
‘My mother said we must make it look as though she had run away, taking things with her. I did show her where her clothes were… the jewellery. Yes, I did that. But I had to, Clarissa. I had to do what she told me.’
‘And then your mother sold the jewellery to a London jeweller,’ said Lance. ‘That was a mistake.’
‘Yes, she needed money. It was for that reason.’
‘And,’ I said, ‘she was going to kill me.’
‘She always made plans. She said she had to get what she wanted from life. She wasn’t born lucky. That’s what she always said. She had to make her own way. None of these plans ever really brought her what she wanted. She wanted to be lady’s maid to Lady Hessenfield and when she might have got it, Lady Hessenfield died. Then the bookseller was going to marry her… and he died. I think that made her determined to succeed with this bigger plan.’
‘And why did she want to kill me… to send me down the dene hole with Jeanne?’
‘So that the money you had from Lord Hessenfield, and which had grown so much, would come to me. Then she wanted a grand marriage for me…’ Aimée flushed.
Good heavens! I thought. She was planning that Lance should be Aimée’s husband. So Sabrina’s suspicions were not without foundation.
Aimée said quickly: ‘She thought if I had your fortune it would be easy for me to find a rich husband.’ She broke down and began to cry pathetically. ‘What can become of me now?’ she sobbed. ‘Let me go back to France, please, I’ll work there. Perhaps…’
Lance and I talked a great deal about Aimée.
‘She stole the jewellery because her mother insisted that she should,’ said Lance. ‘She acted the part of your half-sister for the same reason. She would have done none of these things on her own.’
‘And yet she cheated at cards,’ I told him. ‘I saw her. I know she needed money badly… but it is no excuse really. She has my bezoar ring…’
Lance looked startled. ‘Why, Eddy must have given it to her.’
‘It seems the only answer,’ I said. ‘Sabrina discovered it. You know she has established herself as my guardian angel or my watchdog.’
‘Bless the child,’ said Lance fervently.
‘Lance.’ I turned to him earnestly. ‘I’m almost glad this happened. Sabrina saved my life. There is no doubt of that now. It was what she needed. I wonder if she would ever have got over that unfortunate incident on the ice without this.’
Lance took my face in his hands. ‘It was a risky price to pay for the lesson.’ And then suddenly that veneer of graceful manners dropped from him; he held me to him; he was intense and briefly allowed his fears to show. I loved him for that, and I was more than ever ashamed for having doubted him.
‘And what of Aimée?’ I asked.
‘It’s for you to decide,’ he told me. ‘Poor girl. She shouldn’t be charged with murder. An accessory, perhaps… but in extenuating circumstances. No, I think Aimée will get by if she is free of her dominating mother. The Hessenfield money is all yours now… if she has left any. We can send her back to France, and set her up as a dressmaker there. Perhaps that would be the best thing that can happen to her. As far as robbery is concerned, we should have to bring a charge against her, and I am sure you would not want to do that.’
I agreed that I would not.
I talked it over with her. She was very grateful.
‘It might have been so different,’ she said, ‘if my husband had lived. I would have stayed in the North. Jeanne would never have seen my mother.’
‘But it didn’t work out that way and I think you are honest enough not to have been truly happy in such deception.’
‘Honest?’ she said with a wry laugh. ‘You caught me cheating once, and there is the bezoar ring…’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘what about the bezoar ring?’
‘My mother wanted you to lose it because she was trying to poison you with her tisanes. She hated Sabrina, for she was arousing suspicions. “How does that child know so much?” she was always saying. “Has she second sight?” She was sure the ring had magical properties and she wanted to lose it, so she hit on this idea of letting Eddy win it from Lance. I’m weak, Clarissa. I’m not worthy of your regard. I helped her again. I put him up to it… and I helped him win that night.’
‘You mean…’
‘You saw me do once. He won the ring… through me. I saw that he had the right card. He was fond of me, Eddy was,’ she added wistfully.
She brought the ring back to me and I slipped it on my finger, glad to have it back. It was part of my Hessenfield inheritance.
The problem of Aimée was solved for us. Eddy asked her to marry him. He knew that Aimée was not what she had pretended to be; he knew that her mother had murdered Jeanne and that Aimée had played her part in this; but he believed she was repentant and under his influence could regain her self-respect. He genuinely loved her.
He sold his house and decided they would be better right away, so he bought a farm in the Midlands and declared that he would give up gambling and they would make a life together.
There was the question of Jean-Louis. He had grown up in our nurseries; Nanny Goswell was the one he loved best. What should happen to Jean-Louis?
Aimée had never been a maternal type. She told me she wanted a complete break with the past. Jean-Louis was in a state of misery when he heard he was to leave us and go with his mother and her new husband. He followed Nanny Goswell round and would not let her out of his sight. He cried at night and had nightmares. In the morning he would not get up from his bed and used to cling to the bedposts. Once he hid himself in the attics and we thought he was lost.
At last we came to the conclusion that he should stay with us… for a while at least. There was no disguising Aimée’s relief. As for Jean-Louis, he was beside himself with joy.
So Jean-Louis stayed with us when Aimée left.
In spite of everything that had gone before, my baby was born at the appointed time. She was strong and healthy from the start, and I had never been so happy in my life as I was when I held her in my arms—my very own child. I called her Zipporah and from the moment of her coming she changed the household. She was a contented baby and only cried when she was hungry or tired. She bestowed her smiles on everyone indiscriminately and never failed to charm them all. Lance adored her and it was clear that she had a special feeling for him. As for Jean-Louis, he would stand at her cradle and gaze at her in wonder. He would rattle a case of beans for her pleasure over and over again; he would put coloured rings into a little sack and get them all out again as though it were the most interesting occupation in the world just because that was what Zipporah wanted to do.
I think his devotion to her was something to do with his desire to establish himself as part of our household… In any case, his devotion to Zipporah amused us all except her. She took it for granted.
Nor did it diminish as the years began to pass.
W
E CAME TO THAT
period when my daughter was ten years old—a lovely child and a joy to us all. To my regret there had been no more children. Lance did not seem to mind. He was well content with his daughter. She looked rather like him—tall, fair-haired, with intensely blue eyes, but it was her smile which was so enchanting.
I suppose I could have been said to have settled down. I was happy—not perhaps ecstatically so, as I had been with Dickon, but I had come to believe that my feelings then had been partly due to youth and my first and sudden encounter with romance. Lance had been a good husband to me—always kind and tender, but perhaps never as close as I had felt myself to be with Dickon even though we spent but a few days together. Lance had his secrets—for he was really a very secretive man—and I always believed they were between us. I had often felt that his gambling was my rival and that his passion for it would always exceed that which he felt for me. I used to think that he would gamble us all away if the challenge were strong enough. It was a foolish thought and yet I was sure there was some truth in it.
This discontent with my marriage was only vague. In my sober moments I reproached myself for reaching out for the impossible… as perhaps most people do when it would be so much wiser to accept and enjoy what they have. They dream up an ideal… an impossible dream… and spend their lives unappreciative of what they have because it does not exactly fit the dream.
Lance was often in financial difficulties. In fact, he lived constantly on the verge of them. No sooner had he won than he would risk all he had gained. It would always be like that, I knew, and I must accept it because it was his nature. But, as I said, it set a barrier between us. He would never admit defeat. If ever I asked him how he fared it would always have been wonderful. I was shut out of his gambling life and as that meant more to him than anything I could not be very close.
Then of course there was Sabrina. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, bearing a strong resemblance to my mother, Carlotta, who had caused such consternation in the family. But she was not like Carlotta in other respects. She was determined, strong-willed, vivacious and adventurous. Carlotta, it was true, had been all these; but in Sabrina, the dominating trait was to care for the weak.
She had begun, I suppose, by caring for me, and the bond between us had not lessened with the years. She looked after me, protected me, watched over me just as she had in those old days when she had suspected—rightly—that my life was in danger.
I was of special importance to her because she had saved my life and that had brought about a change in hers, for I do believe that had she not done what she did for me on that day in the woods she would have gone on remembering that fatal day on the ice when she had disobeyed orders and her action had been the indirect cause of her mother’s death.
I was fond of Lance and Jean-Louis, and Zipporah was my own precious child, but between Sabrina and myself there was such an intensity of feeling that nothing could rival it. She knew it and she was content that it should be so. The jealousy of her early childhood had disappeared. She was serene and confident, and, what gave me great pleasure, contented.
Ours was a happy household up to that time. It was as though we had all come to terms with each other. Nanny Curlew stayed with us even though Sabrina was at this time a young woman of nineteen and certainly not in need of a nurse. But with Nanny Goswell she presided over Zipporah’s needs and the two nannies made themselves useful in a hundred ways so that we could not imagine our household without them.
We spent the time between Clavering Hall and Albemarle Street, paying occasional visits to Eversleigh, which seemed so different now. Priscilla and Leigh were at the big house, Eversleigh Court; Uncle Carl remained with the army; and Enderby had been sold and the Dower House was empty. Change was inevitable but everything was so different there from the old days. As for myself, I was now in my thirties and no longer young.
I had thought that Sabrina would marry early and was rather surprised that she had reached the age of nineteen without doing so. That she was very attractive, there could be no doubt, and there had been several young men who had wanted to marry her, and among them more than one who would have been a very desirable husband, but although she enjoyed their admiration and regard she had no wish to marry them.