“My mother says that when I am fourteen, which is this year, she will take me to London.”
I could never become accustomed to hearing her refer to Harriet as her mother, although I should by this time.
“What do you want to do in London?” asked Robert indulgently.
“I want to go to balls and to be presented to the King. It is a pity the poor Queen died. It means the Court is very dull. And of course there is no heir to the throne except Princess Anne. It makes rather a dull Court. Still the balls must be gay, mustn’t they? And I should love to see it. Benjie says it is fun to go to the coffeehouses.
Important people meet there and talk and talk. Then there are the shops. How I should love to go to London.”
“And what would you buy in the shops?” asked Robert.
“I would buy beautiful materials to be made into ball gowns. I would buy a riding habit in pearl grey with a hard grey hat with a feather that has a little blue in it… but not too much … bluey grey. Then I would buy a diamond brooch.”
“It seems,” I interrupted, “that you would spend a small fortune within a few hours.
You should be happy to buy just one of those things to start with.”
I saw Robert calculating and I knew what the outcome would be. We should soon be seeing Carlotta in a grey riding habit; silks would be arriving at the house; and before long there would be a diamond brooch.
I remonstrated with him. “You give her too much,” I protested. “She will wonder why.”
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“Carlotta will never have to wonder why people want to please her. I never saw such a delightful girl.”
It was her fourteenth birthday-a dull October day-and when I awoke I thought, as I always did on this anniversary, of that day in Venice when I first heard the cry of my child.
My mother liked to celebrate our anniversaries. She was very sentimental and eager to preserve the family feeling. Carlotta’s birthday was a very special occasion, for Carlotta was looking upon it as a coming of age. It was to be held at the Abbas, for although she had spent a great deal of time at Eversleigh, that was reckoned to be her home. She had added her governess, Amelia Garston, to her admirers and a friendship had sprung up between them, much as had existed between Christabel and myself. Harriet said it was a good thing for her to have a friend nearer her own age and Amelia had come from a desirable background; the only thing her family lacked which ours had was money.
The great hall at the Abbas was decorated with as many plants as could be mustered at that time of the year. I arrived with Damaris, my parents, Jane and her son, plus Sally Nullens who regarded herself as indispensable to the children.
Robert Frinton was naturally there. He had looked forward to the event for weeks, he told me. I was sure that he had brought rich presents for Carlotta who, I was glad to say, always thanked him charmingly and made rather a point of what she called “looking after him,” which surprised me because she was usually so involved in her own affairs; but I supposed she found his devotion especially touching.
I had never seen Carlotta more lovely. She was, of course, the centre of attraction.
After all it was her day. A large birthday cake had been made and this Carlotta ceremoniously cut. She was dressed in a gown of deep blue-the silk had been one of those which Robert had sent her-and at her throat sparkled the diamond brooch-his present. She wore a string of pearls threaded through her hair-the gift of Gregory and Harriet-and on her finger a sapphire ring from Leigh and me. Rather an excess of jewellery for one so young perhaps, but this was her birthday and she must please all the donors by wearing their gifts.
She was completely happy, and when she was, it was a pleasant trait of hers to want everyone else to be the same.
She danced a great deal with Benjie, who was now well advanced into his twenties.
I agreed with Harriet that, in spite of the fact that she was quite a few years younger, he would make a good husband
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for Carlotta. Benjie always looked slightly bewildered when he was with Carlotta.
I wondered about him. He had never thought of marrying as yet. Was it true that he was in love with the girl whom he believed to be his sister?
What complications arose when one stepped outside the rules of convention. If Benjie suddenly knew that Carlotta was not his sister, what would his reaction be?
It was becoming more and more clear to me that sooner or later I should have to disclose the truth. I could have told my mother. I was sure she would understand. But for some obscure reason I did not want my father to know. That seemed absurd. Why he should think worse of me when he had never thought very much about me in any case, I did not know. But he would be critical. He had entered into many relationships lightheartedly, I was sure. There had been results in at least one. My half sister Christabel was evidence of that. So why should he stand in judgment on me! And yet I could not bear him to know. He dominated me as he always had done. The fact that I had saved his life should have made a difference … if he had known. I sometimes played with the idea of telling him. I heard myself saying: “Carlotta is my daughter.
Yes, I have an illegitimate daughter just as you have. I should have married her father had he lived. Your relationships were different. You entered into them to satisfy your lust. Can you criticize me? And let me tell you, you who never wanted a daughter and thought little of the one you had, if it had not been for her, you would be dead now … and you would have died horribly. I paid dearly for saving your life, and what happened to me is something which has scarred me forever.”
I wondered so often what he would say if he knew. Yet I told myself that he never should.
Now there were Carlotta and Benjie to think of. I saw Harriet watching them, and then her eyes were on me. Harriet would tell Benjie, I knew, just as she had told Robert Frinton.
Perhaps she was right. If one stepped aside, others must not suffer because of it.
The dance had stopped. Carlotta was taking a goblet of wine to Robert Frinton. She sat beside him. He was smiling with pleasure as she fingered the brooch at her throat, and I knew she was telling him how much she liked it and thanking him for it. She leaned forward and kissed him.
He took her hand and held it. She did not remove it but let it lie in his. I think she was really quite fond of him.
The music started and she took the wine from him and set it down.
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She pulled him to his feet and went out with him to lead the dance.
He was not very agile and I thought how old he looked, but perhaps that was hi contrast to Carlotta’s glowing youth.
They led the dance round the hall and others fell hi behind them. Then suddenly Robert Frinton turned and swayed. There was a gasp through the hall; the music stopped, and for a few seconds there was complete silence. Carlotta was kneeling down beside him, pulling at his cravat. My father hurried over.
“Get a doctor,” he said to Harriet.
That was the end of Carlotta’s fourteenth birthday party. Robert Frinton was carried to his bed at once. He died during the night. He was just conscious and able to see Carlotta beside his bed. His hand curled about hers and she knelt, looking at him with the tears failing down her cheeks.
I heard him murmur: “Beautiful child … you have made me so happy.”
He was taken back to Enderby Hall and buried in the Eversleigh churchyard.
We learned that he was a very rich man and that he had left everything he possessed to Carlotta.
She was to inherit on her eighteenth birthday, or when she married, if that were earlier, and then she would be one of the richest women in the country.
The day after he was buried-Harriet and Gregory had come to Eversleigh for the ceremony-she and I walked to his grave and laid a posy there.
“Dear Robert,” she said, “he so loved Carlotta. She was a symbol to him that his family lived on. I did right, you see, to let him know who she really was.”
“Harriet,” I asked, “did you know how rich he was?”
“Well, one can never be sure, of course.”
“But you did know.”
“It was reasonable to suppose he was not poor. I knew that he received compensation for the estates which had been taken from bis family, but he was of course a rich man in his own right.”
“And you thought this might happen?”
“It seemed a natural conclusion.”
“I see. It was another of your schemes.”
“But how could I be sure?”
“You couldn’t be. But you thought it likely.”
“My dear Priscilla, don’t take up that high moral tone. If a fortune 232
is around and a family has a certain claim to it, they would be foolish not to make themselves known.”
“Harriet,” I said, “from the moment you stepped into the chateau where my mother was in exile, you started to shape our lives. You have gone on doing it.”
She was thoughtful. “There may be something in what you say,” she agreed. “But this little bit of shaping is very good for all concerned. Beautiful Carlotta, who would have had no great fortune, is now a considerable heiress. What could be wrong with that?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I shall have to wait and see.”
Dear Robert Frinton! If he could have foreseen what effect his action would have, he might have decided against it.
I shall never forget Carlotta as she was when she heard the news. A look of great wonder spread across her face. She said: “He must have loved me very much.”
No one spoke, and for a few seconds her face was tender as she thought of how much this old man of whom she had been so fond had loved her. Then the realization of what this meant came to her. She was rich. The whole world was open to her. She had only to wait four years before this great fortune was hers.
I could see plans forming in her mind. She would go to London. She would travel through the world. She would have a house of her own. She would escape from every restriction.
I said: “Don’t forget you will have to wait until you are eighteen. Everything will go on much as before until then, and by that tune you will have made up your mind what you have to do.”
“Four years!” she cried.
“A short time really,” soothed Harriet.
And she shared Carlotta’s excitement. Harriet was a schemer and her schemes were almost always for her own advantage. She wanted Robert Frinton’s fortune for Carlotta partly because she intended it to come to her son Benjie.
I should have known. Harriet had schemed throughout her life. It was a habit she could not discard now.
In my heart I was afraid of this money. I had a sudden feeling it would bring no good.
Carlotta wanted to go to London.
“It is so sad here now that he is dead,” she said. “He would have wanted us to go.”
Harriet thought it was a good idea and it was agreed that she, 233
Gregory and myself with Carlotta should go for a brief stay to London.
“Mind you,” said Harriet, “the Court is dull these days. How different from Charles’s time! What fun it was then! And how gracious he was! Between ourselves William is a boor … a Dutch boor. They say he scarcely speaks at all.”
“The people admire him for he is a good King,” replied Gregory. “And that is what we need.”
“If the Queen had lived… or he had married again…”
Gregory shook his head. “He won’t and it will be Anne who follows him … or perhaps her boy William, though he is very delicate.”
“Well, let us hope she will make a more lively Court than the present one,” said Harriet. “I like not these dour rulers. Charles was so different. I for one shall never stop regretting his passing.”
It was the middle of December when we set out. Harriet had said we should go before the really cold weather set in which was usually after Christmas. Carlotta was very excited at the prospect, though every now and then she would remember Robert and a certain sadness would settle on her. Knowing her so well I realized that she felt guilty because she found it possible to be happy in spite of his death.
I was pleased to see this sensitivity in her. She was not completely selfish-only young, full of vitality which deplored inaction, and if she took admiration as her right, it was because so much of it had come her way.
We had arranged to stay at the Eversleigh town house which was very close to Whitehall.
It was not Carlotta’s first visit to London, but she seemed to be seeing it all through different eyes. She was now an heiress. Her eyes danced with pleasure and there was a wild anticipation in them. I was sure she was contemplating all she would do when she reached the magic age of eighteen.
It was difficult not to get caught up in the excitement of London. Those of us who lived quietly in the country could not but be amazed by the vitality, the bustle, the sheer joy of living which was generated in those streets.
They were less unsavoury, Harriet said, than they had been before the great fire, and some of the new buildings which Christopher Wren had set up were very fine. It was no less noisy, no less colourful than before the plague and fire had decimated so much of it.
“How beautiful it is!” cried Carlotta as we rode along the Strand past the large houses with their gardens running down to the river.
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Little boats rocked at the privy stairs and all along the waterway, craft of every description passed by. The songs of the watermen wafted towards us, vague and haunting among the noise of the streets.
Harriet pointed out some of the new coffeehouses which were springing up here and there and taking the town by storm. “Mind you,” she explained, “beverages stronger than coffee can be obtained there. The company can get a little wild as the night wears on.”
“Shall we go to a coffeehouse?” asked Carlotta.
“I hardly think it would be the place for us,” I said.
Carlotta grimaced at me. “Dear Priscilla,” she said, “you would be perfectly safe with me.” She glanced at Gregory. “You would take me, wouldn’t you?”
Gregory gave a little laugh and murmured: “We’ll see.” He always found it hard to give Carlotta a direct refusal.