Drop of the Dice (2 page)

Jeremy was very pleased that we liked each other. Everybody was very pleased about most things at that time, except of course when they thought of Carlotta, and when I thought of her and dear handsome Hessenfield I was sad too. Damaris assured me that they would be happy in the place they had gone to and that made me feel that I could be happy where I had come to—so I started to be.

Enderby Hall was a dark house at first, until they cut down—some of the bushes which were all round it and made lawns and flower-beds. Damaris took down some of the heavy furnishings and replaced them with lighter colours. The hall was magnificent; it had a vaulted roof and beautiful panelling, and at one end were the screens beyond which were the kitchens and at the other a lovely staircase which led to the minstrels’ gallery.

‘When we entertain we shall have musicians to play there, Clarissa,’ Damaris told me.

I listened with awe, taking in every detail of my new life and savouring it all with complete delight.

There was one bedroom which Damaris hated to go into, and I soon sensed that, and with the directness of a child asked her why. She looked astonished. I think that was because she knew she had betrayed her reluctance.

She merely said: ‘I’m going to change it all, Clarissa. I’m going to make it unrecognizable.’

‘I like it,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty.’ And I went to the bed and stroked the velvet hangings. But she looked at it with loathing, as though she was seeing something I could not. I understood later—much later—what that room meant to her.

Well, she changed it and it certainly looked different. The red velvet was replaced by white and gold damask with curtains to match. She even changed the carpet. She was right. It did look different, but she did not use it as her and Jeremy’s room although it was the best in the house. The door was always shut and I believe she rarely went there.

So this was my new home; Enderby Hall, about ten minutes’ ride from the Dower House and an equal distance from Eversleigh Court, so I was surrounded by my family.

That Damaris and Jeremy were happy together there could be no doubt; as for myself, I was so pleased to have escaped from that Paris cellar that I lived in a state of joyful appreciation of everything for those first few months. I used to stand in the middle of the great hall and look up at the minstrels’ gallery and say: ‘I’m here.’ And I tried to remember the cellar with the cold stone floor and the rats who came at night and looked at me with their baleful eyes that seemed yellowish in the darkness. I did this to remind myself that I had escaped and told myself I would never, never go back there again. I did not like to see cut flowers in pots because they reminded me. Damaris loved them and gathered baskets full from the garden. She had a special room called the flower room and she used to arrange them there. She would say: ‘Come on, Clarissa, we’ll go and get some roses.’ She quickly noticed, though, that I grew quiet and mournful and I often had a nightmare the following night. So she stopped cutting flowers. Damaris was very perceptive. More so than Jeremy. I think he was too concerned with the way life had treated him before he met Damaris to think much about how it had treated others. Damaris thought of others all the time, and believed that what had gone wrong in her life was largely her own fault rather than fate’s.

When the violets came she took me to the hedgerows and we gathered wild ones. She said: ‘It was violets, you remember, that brought us together. So I shall always love violets. Will you?’

I said I would, and it seemed different picking them after that; and in time I didn’t mind about the flowers. To show Damaris this I went into the garden to pick some roses for her. She understood at once and hugged me tightly, hiding her face so that I should not see the tears in her eyes.

In those early days they were always talking about me—not only at Enderby but at the Dower House—and there were conferences at Eversleigh Court. I often heard someone say: ‘But what would be best for the child?’

The cocoon was being woven very tightly round me. I had had an unusual start. Therefore I needed very special care.

Perhaps that was why I felt very much at ease with Smith. I used to watch him doing the garden or cleaning the silver. Before Damaris became mistress of the house he used to do everything, but now servants from Eversleigh Court used to be sent over by Great-Grandmother Arabella. Jeremy did not really like that; Smith didn’t like it either.

Smith treated me, as he would say, ‘rough’. ‘Don’t stand there idle,’ he would say. ‘Satan finds mischief for idle hands to do.’ And I would have to arrange the forks and knives in their cubbyholes, as he called them, or pick up branches and dead flowers and put them in the wheelbarrow. Damaris was often present and the three of us would be very happy together. With Smith I felt completely at ease—not the child whose welfare had to be continually considered, sometimes at some inconvenience to others, I feared—but a fellow worker of very little importance. It seemed strange to want to be of no importance, but I really did. It was an indication, of course, that I was already beginning to feel the bonds of security tightening around me.

There was a discussion in the family as to whether or not I should have a governess. Damaris had said she would teach me.

‘Perhaps you are doing too much,’ said Grandmother Priscilla anxiously.

‘Dear Mother,’ smiled Damaris, ‘this will be a great pleasure, and I’ll be sitting down all the time.’

Great-Grandmother Arabella wondered whether I should have a governess—a French one. I could speak French because I had learned it side by side with English in the
hôtel
with my parents, and later in the cellar no one had spoken anything but French.

‘It would be a pity to lose that,’ said Arabella.

‘They never do,’ was Great-Grandfather Carleton’s comment. ‘Not once they have acquired it. The child would only need a little practice at any time in her life. And you could not get a French governess with a war between our countries.’

So it was decided that for the time being Damaris should teach me and the idea of a governess was shelved.

All the talk of French reminded me of Jeanne. I had loved her very much in those days of trial. She had been a bulwark between me and the harsh Paris streets. If anyone had ever represented security to me, she had. I often wondered about her. I knew that Damaris had offered to bring her back to England with us, but how could she leave Maman and the old Grand’mère? They would have starved without her.

Damaris had said: ‘If ever you felt free to come to us you would always be welcome.’

I was glad she had said that and I knew she had rewarded Jeanne for what she had done for me. Jeanne was a clever manager and would make what had been given her last a very long time.

So the year began to pass. I had my pony and Smith taught me to ride and I had never been happier in my life than when I was riding round the paddock with Smith holding a leading rein and Damon running after us barking with excitement. It was better even than riding on Hessenfield’s shoulders.

There were long summer days sitting at the table in the schoolroom learning with Aunt Damaris, and then going out to ride—off the leading rein now—walking with Damon, lying in the grass with Damon, going to Eversleigh Court or the Dower House to drink lemonade and eat fancy cakes in summer or steaming mulled wine and pies straight from the oven in winter. I loved all the seasons: Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent; the interminable service and the sadness of Good Friday alleviated by hot cross buns; Easter with daffodils everywhere and the delights of simnel cake, sitting in church close to Damaris and counting the blues and reds in the stained-glass windows, the number of people I could see without turning my head, and how many Ahs, Ers and Wells Parson Renton uttered during his sermon. There was Harvest Festival with all the fruit and vegetables decorating the church, and best of all Christmas with the crib in the manger, ivy, holly, mistletoe, carols, presents and excitement. It was all wonderful and I was at the heart of it. They were always questioning themselves and each other about ‘the child’.

‘The child should see more children.’ Children were invited. There were not many in the neighbourhood and I did not greatly care for any of them; I liked best to be with Damaris, Smith and Damon. But I was very content to be ‘the child’ in the midst of all this concern. As I grew older I began to learn certain things. This was mainly from the servants who came from the Court. They didn’t like coming to Enderby and yet in a way it was an adventure and I think they acquired a little merit from their fellow servants for having come. They would go back to Eversleigh Court and for a while be the centre of attraction. I was enormously interested in people and I had an avid curiosity to discover what was in their minds. I had quickly discovered that people rarely meant what they said and very often words veiled meanings rather than expressed them. I used to listen to the servants talking. I would unashamedly eavesdrop. In defence of myself I must say that I had been made aware that I had had an unusual upbringing and that there were certain facts which had been kept from me; and of course the person I wished to know most about was myself.

Once I heard two servants talking together in the great hall. I was in the minstrels’ gallery. Sounds floated up to me while I remained unseen.

‘That Jeremy… he was always a queer customer.’

There were grunts of agreement.

‘Lived by himself with one manservant. Just that Smith and himself… and that dog keeping everyone away.’

‘Well, all that’s changed now Miss Damaris is here.’

‘And then her going to France like that.’

‘It was a brave thing to do.’

‘I’ll grant her that. She’s a little baggage, that Miss Clarissa.’

My excitement grew. So I was a baggage!

‘It wouldn’t surprise me if she went the way of her mother. That Miss Carlotta was a regular One. She was so good-looking they say no man could resist her.’

‘Go on!’

‘Yes, and wasn’t it shameful the way she went and left poor Mr Benjie. Abducted! Abducted, my foot!’

‘Well, it’s over now and she’s dead, ain’t she?’

‘Hm. Wages of sin, you might say.’

‘And Madame Clarissa will be such another. You mark my words.’

‘They say the sins of the fathers and all that.’

‘You’ll see. We’ll have sparks there. Just you wait till she gets a bit older. You going to do the minstrels’?’

‘I suppose so. Gives me the creeps, that place.’

‘It’s the part that was haunted. You can change the curtains and things but what good does that do? New curtains ain’t going to drive ghosts away.’

‘A haunted house is always a haunted house, they say.’

‘That’s true. This is a house for trouble. It’ll come again… lawns and flower-beds, new curtains and carpets notwithstanding. I’ll come up in the gallery with you if you like. I know you don’t want to go up there alone. Let’s finish down here first.’

That gave me a chance to escape.

So my beautiful mother had acted shamefully. She had left Benjie for my father, Lord Hessenfield. Vague memories came back to me… of a night in the shrubbery, being lifted in strong arms… the smell of the sea and the excitement of being on a ship. Yes, I was deeply involved in that shameful adventure; in fact I was a result of it.

It was later that I learned the story; in those days I was piecing it together from what I could pick up from gossip and what I could remember.

There were tensions in the household. Jeremy had what were known as ‘moods’ from which even Damaris could not always rouse him. Then he appeared to be very sad and it was something to do with his bad leg which had been hurt in battle and gave him pain at times. Then Damaris herself had days when she was not well. She tried to hide the fact but I could see that behind the brightness it was there.

She longed for a child.

One day when we were sitting together she told me she was going to have a baby. I had known something tremendous had happened because even Jeremy looked as though he was never going to have a mood again and Smith kept chuckling to himself.

I looked forward to the coming of the baby. I would look after it, I said. I would sing it some French songs which Jeanne used to sing to me. The household buzzed with preparations. Grandmother Priscilla was constantly fussing over Damaris and Grandfather Leigh behaved as though she were made of china. Great-Grandmother Arabella was always giving advice and Great-Grandfather Carleton kept muttering ‘Women!’

It struck me that when there was a baby I should no longer be ‘the child’; and Damaris’s own would be more dear to her than I, the adopted one, who was only her niece. That was a faintly depressing thought but I put it aside and threw myself into the general excitement.

I shall never forget that day. Damaris started to have pains in the middle of the night. Grandmother Priscilla was at Enderby and the midwife was there too. Some of the servants from the Court had been sent over.

I heard the commotion and got out of bed and ran to Damaris’s room. I was met by a worried Priscilla. ‘Go back to your room at once,’ she said, more sternly than she had ever spoken to me before. I obeyed, and when I went again I was told by one of the servants; ‘Get from under our feet. This is no place for you.’

So I went back and waited in my room. I was terribly frightened, for I sensed all was not well. It was like being back in the cellar again. What was happening could mean change. I was still at that time clinging to my security.

The waiting seemed to go on and on and when it was finally over all the joyous expectancy had gone from the house. It was dreary and sad. The baby was stillborn and Damaris was very ill. Nobody seemed to notice me. There were talks between the grandparents. This time I was not mentioned. It was all Poor Damaris and what this would mean to her. And she was desperately ill. Jeremy was sunk in gloom; there was a bitter twist to his mouth. I was sure he believed Damaris was going to die as well as the baby.

Grandmother Priscilla was going to stay at Enderby for a while to look after her daughter. Benjie came over. He said he would take me back to Eyot Abbas, and to my chagrin no attempt was made to dissuade him from doing so.