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
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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.
234”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
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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 . . .”
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“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
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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, al-238
though 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:
239He 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 ajain; 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.