Drop of the Dice (22 page)

However, I did not think very much about the money. My family was sure it had not influenced Lance’s desire to marry me. He was sufficiently comfortably off without it.

Now here I was, not only on the threshold of marriage, but about to become a rich woman in my own right. Sometimes I felt very happy. Then I would think of Dickon.

The day had begun. I lay in bed listening to the sounds of the house beginning to stir. In the cupboard was my wedding dress. Lance was staying at Eversleigh Court and Uncle Carl was there too. Jeremy was going to give me away and Priscilla had wanted the traditional wedding as she remembered it in the past.

While I was brooding on all this my door was pushed open and a small figure came into the room. This was Sabrina—nearly four years old now, a high-spirited and enchanting little girl. She climbed on to my bed and snuggled down beside me.

‘It’s the wedding,’ she whispered.

I held her tightly. I had always been very fond of Sabrina. She was exceptionally pretty; they said she had a look of my mother, Carlotta, who had been one of the beauties of the family. Moreover, she was well aware of her charm and made good use of it to get her own way. She was always darting about the house; one minute she would be in the kitchen standing on a chair watching them make pies and cakes, sticking a greedy finger into sweet mixtures when no one was looking, the next, dashing out to the stables and coaxing one of the grooms to take her round the paddock on her newly acquired pony; playing with the gardeners’ wheelbarrows, hiding in the minstrels’ gallery, jumping out on Gwen the parlourmaid, who believed in ghosts, finding an irresistible desire to do everything she was told not to do—that was Sabrina.

But she had the greatest charm and she had quickly discovered that one of her enchanting smiles, coupled with an air of penitence, could extract her from most trouble.

Now she was chattering about weddings. It was mine, wasn’t it? When was she going to have a wedding? She was going to wear a pink silk dress. Nanny Curlew was still sewing it. She was going to have flowers in her hair… and she was going to stand beside me. So it was really
her
wedding too.

She put her arms round my neck and her face was close to mine.

‘You’re going away from here,’ she said.

‘I shall be back often.’

‘It’s not your home any more. You’re going to Uncle Lance’s home.’

“We’ll, he’ll be my husband.’

Her face puckered a little. ‘Stay here,’ she whispered. She tightened her arms about my neck and added pleadingly: ‘Stay here with Sabrina.’

‘Wives always live with their husbands, you know.’

‘Let Lance come here.’

‘We’ll be here often. You’ll see.’

She shook her head. It wasn’t the same. ‘I don’t want you to get married.’

‘Everyone else does.’

‘Sabrina doesn’t.’ She looked at me calculatingly, as though that was the best of all reasons for calling off the affair.

‘When you are older you can come and stay with us,’ I said.

‘Tomorrow?’ she asked brightly.

‘That’s a little soon.’

‘I’ll be older.’

‘Only one day. It’ll have to be more than that.’

‘Two days? Three days?’

‘Months perhaps. Go and open the cupboard door and you’ll see my dress.’

She leaped out of bed. ‘Ooo!’ she said, stroking the folds of satin.

‘Don’t put your fingers on it,’ I warned.

She turned to look at me. ‘Why?’ she asked. Sabrina always wanted an explanation of everything.

‘They might be dirty.’

She looked at them and then at me; she smiled slowly and deliberately touched the dress. That was typical of Sabrina. ‘Don’t touch’ meant ‘I must touch at all costs.’

‘Not dirty,’ she said reassuringly. Then she pounced on my shoes, which were of white satin with silver buckles and silver heels. She picked one up and smiled at me, stroking the satin and looking at me with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, assuming, I supposed, that if the dress must not be touched neither must the slippers.

There was a knock on the door. It was Nanny Curlew.

‘I knew I’d find you here, Miss,’ she said. ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Clarissa. The child is into everything.’

‘It’s a very special morning, Nanny,’ I said. ‘She has caught the general excitement.’

‘It’s my wedding really,’ announced Sabrina.

‘Come along,’ said Nanny Curlew firmly. ‘Miss Clarissa has other things to think about than you, my lady.’

Sabrina looked puzzled. ‘What things?’ she asked, as though it were inconceivable that there could be any subject more absorbing than that of herself.

But Nanny Curlew had her firmly by the hand and with an apologetic smile at me dragged the child away. Sabrina gave me one of her enchanting smiles as she disappeared.

My next visitor was Jeanne. She came in bristling with importance.

‘Ah, is it awake then? To do… there is so much. I have sent for a tray for you. That is best.’

‘I couldn’t eat anything, Jeanne.’

‘That is not the way to talk, Milady. You must eat. Do you want to faint at the feet of this new ’usband?’ Jeanne had never completely conquered her h’s and could only manage them in calm moments. ‘Oh, this is the great day,’ she went on. ‘I am so ’appy. Sir Lance… he is a good man. He is the charming man.’ She closed her eyes and blew an imaginary kiss to Lance. ‘I say to myself, I say, “This is the one for my little
bébé.
This is the ’usband for Clarissa. So beautiful… the brocade waistcoat… ‘e dresses like a Frenchman.”’

‘There could be no greater praise than that coming from you, Jeanne. But I wonder whether Lance would appreciate it.’

‘Now come… the bath… then the food… and then the ’air. I shall make you so beautiful thees day.’

‘As beautiful as Lance?’ I asked.

‘I say this, no one shall be as beautiful as my lady. This is ’er day. She will be the most beautiful of all brides…’

‘Made so by the deft hands of Jeanne.’

‘So… so…’ she murmured.

Jeanne and I had grown very close to each other over the years. She always regretted that she had not been with me on my visit to the North. She was very fond of Sabrina. ‘There is big charm in that one,’ was her comment. ‘But naughtiness too. She will have to be watched. You were not like that as a little one. No.’

‘I lacked the charm.’

‘That is a nonsense.’ Jeanne had an amusing way of adapting words to suit herself and I sometimes found myself using them. ‘You have the charm,’ she went on. ‘But you were a good little girl… more caring for others, per’aps. You more like the ladies Priscilla and Arabella. Not like your mother and father… they cared first for themselves. So with the little Sabrina.’

‘She is only a child.’

‘I know much of children. What is in them at three is in them at thirty.’

‘My dear, wise Jeanne…’

‘So wise that I will get you up this minute. We have good time but let us not waste it.’

I put myself in her hands. I was content to sit at the mirror while she waited on me, brushing my hair and coiling it round my head so that it would show to the best advantage.

I watched her in the mirror, intent and proud of me. Dear Jeanne!

‘I have so much to thank you for,’ I said with emotion. ‘What can I do to show you that I appreciate all you have done for me?’

She touched my shoulder lightly. ‘It is not to be measured out,’ she said. ‘You have change my life. You let me come here… be your lady’s maid. That is what I ask. I do… You do… But we do not count what we do.’

‘Yes, Jeanne, of course.’

‘I am to be with you. It is what I want. We shall leave this house… you go to your husband and I go with you. I am glad of that. I would not wish to stay here… without you. And you let me come with you and Sir Lance, ‘e say Yes. “I hear you are coming with us, Jeanne,” he say. “That is good… very good.” That is what he say. And he smile his beautiful smile. He is a beautiful
gentilhomme
.’

‘I am glad you approve of him, Jeanne.’

‘He is what I would choose for you. Stop thinking of this… Dickon. He is a boy. He is far away. He would not have been the one for you.’

‘How can you know?’

‘Something tell me. He is away fourteen years… that one… that boy. Fourteen years!
Mon Dieu!
He will have a wife out there in that foreign place. Black, most likely. No, Sir Lance… he is the one for you.’

‘He certainly has a champion in you.’

She nodded, smiling.

‘How will you like leaving Enderby?’ I asked.

She was silent for a few moments, holding the brush over my head and staring down at it. Then she said rather vehemently: ‘I am ’appy. I go with you and that is good. Enderby is not a good house.’

‘Not a good house! What do you mean?’

‘Shadows… whispers… noises in the night. There’s spirits about it… long-dead ones that can’t rest.’

‘Really, Jeanne, surely you don’t believe that. Where is your practical French realism?’

‘It is a ’ouse where ’appiness do not stay… long. A little time maybe, but it flits away. I am glad we leave. I could not have borne not to go with you. So… now I am ’appy. It is what I always want… to be lady’s maid. I remember your mother… so… so beautiful and Claudine was her lady’s maid. She was very important, Claudine. Not like the rest of us. I always wanted to be lady’s maid… to comb the ’air, to touch up the cheeks, to make little black beauty spots… that was my dream. Germaine was jealous of Claudine. Germaine always wanted to be lady’s maid. And now I am one and I go with you and your beautiful ’usband. We shall go to London… Ah, that is a great place to be.’

‘And in the country sometimes.’

‘That will be good too.’

‘And we shall come back here to Enderby for visits.’

‘For visit. That is not the same as living here.’

‘You talk as though we’re escaping from some evil spell.’

‘Per’aps,’ said Jeanne, shrugging her shoulders.

She looked down at my hands. ‘You are not going to wear that ring at your wedding?’

I twisted the ring, which now fitted my middle finger, round and round. My hands had grown since Lord Hessenfield had given it to me.

‘It’s my bezoar ring,’ I said. ‘A very special ring.’

‘It will not match your dress.’

‘Never mind. I shall wear it all the same. Don’t look at it like that, Jeanne. It’s a very precious ring. Queen Elizabeth gave it to one of my ancestors and it has special properties. It’s an antidote against poison.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that if someone gave me a drink with arsenic in it—perhaps some other poison—this ring would absorb the poison. It acts as a sort of sponge.’

Jeanne made a noise of disgust. ‘A likely story,’ she said; but she took my hands and studied the ring. ‘Queen Elizabeth, did you say? Was it one of hers then?’

‘Yes, and that makes it very valuable. It has her initial engraved inside.’

‘Well, in that case you can wear it.’

‘Thank you, Jeanne.’

I was almost ready now. Very soon I would go to the church and be married to Lance. I was both excited and apprehensive. I wished that I could forget going into Lance’s bedroom and seeing Elvira sitting at the mirror; they had seemed so unconcerned, so natural. There was so much I had to learn. I could not resist slipping away from Jeanne and taking a look at the bridal chamber which that night I should occupy with Lance. It would be that room which had once been in red velvet and which Damaris had changed when she came to Enderby. Now it was white and gold damask and had been decorated for the wedding with blue and green ribbons. Two serving girls were tying sprigs of rosemary to the posts.

They were giggling together and were suddenly silent as they saw me.

‘It looks very pretty,’ I said, trying to speak without emotion. Somehow I had never really liked this room. Perhaps it was because as a child, when Damaris and I had been very close to each other, I had sensed her dislike of it. She hardly ever came to it, but it was, of course, the most elaborate and biggest of the bedchambers and it was natural that it should be turned into the bridal suite for this occasion.

‘It’s a great day, Miss Clarissa,’ said one of the maids.

I agreed that it was.

When I went back to my room Jeanne was searching everywhere for one of my shoes.

‘I’ve looked ’igh and low,’ she declared, ‘I am certain they were both here. Where can it have got to. You can’t be married in one shoe!’

I joined in the search without success and Damaris came in while we were still hunting.

‘You look beautiful, darling,’ she said. ‘Oh, Clarissa, I am so happy for you.’

Dear Damaris. I knew she was thinking of the day she had found me in the cellar. She embraced me and then Jeanne.

‘Oh, Madame,’ said Jeanne, ‘no tears today, please. It spoil the eyes.’

We laughed. Jeanne had prevented an emotional scene.

‘And,’ she went on, ‘where is this shoe? We do not know where it ’ave gone.’

‘Well, it must be found,’ I said. ‘Sabrina came into my bedroom this morning. She looked at the gown. The shoes were there then.’

‘Ah,’ cried Jeanne. ‘I have the idea. One moment, please.’

She went away and soon came back holding Sabrina by one hand—and the shoe was in the other.

‘This wicked one had ‘id it,’ announced Jeanne.

‘Oh, Sabrina!’ said Damaris.

‘It was so she wouldn’t be able to get married,’ explained Sabrina.

‘You have cause great trouble and you should be spank,’ said Jeanne.

Sabrina’s face crinkled in dismay. ‘I only did it so that Clarissa wouldn’t go away and leave me,’ she explained.

Damaris knelt down and put her arms round the child. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘Clarissa is going to be very happy. You want that, don’t you?’

Sabrina nodded. ‘But me, too,’ she said.

Damaris was touched but I was not sure whether the spirit of mischief in Sabrina had not been responsible for her act as much as her desire to prevent my marrying. However, the shoe was found and my toilet was complete now and I was ready for my marriage.

Lance was waiting in the church with the family from Eversleigh Court. Great-Grandfather Carleton looked on with a certain pride, although he tried to hide it. Leigh was there with Benjie and Anita. I guessed they would all be thinking of Harriet and Gregory, as we must at a time like this. Arabella and Priscilla were alternating between their delight and that emotion which women feel at weddings.