Drop of the Dice (33 page)

‘A grudge,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think you are right, Jeanne, and I do worry about her.’

‘Life is hard for some,’ added Jeanne, shaking her head. ‘For others easy. Madame Aimée has come out of it very well… She knows how to make a home for herself, that one does. Sharp as a wagon of
singes
.’

Jeanne always grew more French when she was disturbed, so I knew that she, too, was worried about Sabrina.

‘I could never like ’er,’ she finished, on her favourite theme of Aimée. But at least I could talk to her.

‘Dear Jeanne,’ I said to her one day, ‘I don’t know what I should do without you.’

‘Never fret, little one,’ she answered, ‘you will never have to. The wild horse would not drag me from you.’

I waited for news from Eversleigh. Priscilla wrote now and then but her letters were mainly concerned with Carleton and Arabella. I gathered she was spending a great deal of time at Eversleigh Court and, was thinking of sending for her brother Carl. She did say that she saw little of Jeremy. ‘He is so sad,’ she added, ‘and I do not think he wants to see anybody.’

So my anxieties about Sabrina were not set at rest.

I was telling myself that I must go again to Enderby when I received the letter from Priscilla. It was a great shock.

My dear Clarissa [she wrote],

There has been a terrible tragedy here…

The words danced before my eyes and for a few moments I found it impossible to read on because I was terrified to read that something had happened to Sabrina.

But it was not Sabrina—though it was going to affect her deeply.

We think it was an accident. They found his clothes on the beach. He had told Smith he was going to swim. His horse was tethered near by. He had ridden down to the sea and there was no sign of him. There seems no end to this tragedy. Poor Jeremy, life was worthless for him without Damaris. I never knew anyone to be more devoted or to rely more on another person. We fear he is drowned. It is the only answer.

If you come to us now it would be so helpful. There is so much to see to and with things as they are at Eversleigh, I find it hard to cope with everything. I want to talk to you, Clarissa, about everything…

I sat there for some minutes with the letter in my hand. I could imagine it. Poor desolate Jeremy who could endure it no more, deliberately riding down to the beach and swimming out to sea with no intention of coming back.

Had it happened like that, or had it been an accident?

Who could be sure? Perhaps Jeremy did not want us to be sure. Perhaps it was a secret he wished to carry with him to the grave.

Lance immediately showed concern when I read him the letter, but even then I could not help wondering whether he was thinking of last night’s play.

I said: ‘I want to go, Lance. I want to leave at once. There is a cry for help here. They need me.’

‘Of course you must go, darling. I’ll come with you.’

He didn’t want to go, of course. How he would hate that house of gloom! It didn’t suit his mood at all. But it was the duty of a good husband to accompany his wife on such occasions and therefore he would do it with a good grace.

But I did not want him to make such a sacrifice and I did not really want him with me. I felt that this was too important a matter for anyone but myself. I sensed his relief when I insisted on going alone, although he displayed only concern for my safety.

Aimée said she would look after the household while I was away.

‘That she will!’ commented Jeanne. ‘She would like to be mistress of this household, mark my words.’

So I went, taking my dear faithful Jeanne with me.

It was indeed a house of gloom. Smith was there to greet me, shaking his head sadly.

‘Times has changed, Miss Clarissa,’ he said. ‘Forgive me. I should say “my lady”, I know.’

‘Miss Clarissa will do very well, Smith,’ I answered, ‘just as it used to be in the old days.’

‘They’ve brought him in, Miss. He was washed up with the tide. One of the fishermen found him early yesterday morning.’

‘I’m glad he was brought home,’ I said.

‘Yes. His funeral will be at the end of the week.’

‘Two funerals in such a short time. And Sabrina…?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ he replied. ‘You’ll see.’

‘Where is she?’

He lifted his shoulders. ‘She went off: Since it happened she’s been going off all day and staying away. She drives poor Nanny Curlew crazy.’

‘Does she know I’m coming?’

‘Oh yes. She was told.’

‘Was she pleased?’

‘She didn’t say, Miss Clarissa.’

I understood. She guessed I would be arriving some time this day and she had decided to stay away to show me that my coming meant nothing very special to her.

I felt depressed and uneasy.

I stood in the hall looking up at the minstrels’ gallery. The haunted hall, where a tragedy had happened years ago. The house had never been rid of tragedy. The things that had happened here had shown that. Perhaps they will sell the house, I thought, now that Jeremy and Damaris are both dead.

As I stood looking up at the gallery my eyes were attracted by a movement there and something told me that Sabrina was up there watching me.

I said: ‘I’ll go to my room.’

‘It’s all ready for you,’ Smith told me.

I went up past the gallery, not looking that way, and on to my room. There would be a great deal to decide. This time I must succeed in taking Sabrina back with me.

The door of my room was quietly opened.

‘Come in, Sabrina,’ I said without looking round.

She came in. ‘How did you know?’ she asked.

‘Guesswork. You wanted to see me as soon as I arrived. You could have come down. You would have seen me better than from the gallery.’

‘How did you know I was there?’

‘The evidence of these eyes.’

‘I was hidden.’

‘You moved.’

She laughed suddenly, and there was the old mischievous Sabrina.

I turned and held out my arms. She hesitated for a moment and then ran into them.

‘Oh Sabrina… dear Sabrina… I am so glad to see you!’

‘You like him better though.’

‘Who?’

‘Uncle Lance, of course.’

‘He’s my husband. People have to live with their husbands, you know. I wanted to take you back with me, but your father did not wish it.’

‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’

‘Hush, Sabrina.’

‘Why hush? Aren’t people supposed to tell the truth?’

‘Yes, but you shouldn’t hate anyone.’

‘But I do, and it’s a lie to say I don’t. He’s lying in his coffin in that room Mama was in. I went in there and put my tongue out at him.’

‘Oh… Sabrina!’

‘Why do you keep looking like that and saying “Sabrina”? I like being an orphan. It’s better than it was before.’

She was truculent and, I could see, very unhappy.

‘Everything will be different now I’m here, Sabrina.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because there are two of us.’

‘I don’t mind there being one of us.’

I could see that a great deal of harm had been done. I longed to see the return of the carefree if rather wilful child who had been so affectionate before the fatal accident on the pond. Then I felt confident that I alone could give her the help she needed.

Smith told me that the funeral would be very quiet. Most people thought that Jeremy’s death was not accidental but there was a possibility that he had got into difficulties when swimming. I tried to believe that this was so, because that was what he had wanted people to think.

He was laid beside Damaris, which was where I knew he had wanted to be. Sabrina stood beside me during the service and when we were at the graveside. She allowed me to hold her hand and I think she was pleased that I did so. There were times when I thought she was almost ready to break down and cling to me.

Poor child, she had been deeply wounded; but now there was a chance to save her from her wretchedness and I was going to do that.

I talked to Leigh and Priscilla after the funeral and told them that I wanted to take Sabrina back with me. They were delighted. Neither of them wanted to have the care of a child—certainly not such a one as Sabrina. Priscilla had been overcome with grief by the death of Damaris, Leigh told me, and the fact that her parents were ailing and were clearly not long for this world, was an added blow to her.

‘I want to take her away for a while,’ said Leigh, ‘but she won’t leave her parents. In time, perhaps…’

Later Priscilla said to me: ‘Do you think you can undertake the care of Sabrina, Clarissa? It is rather a responsibility. It won’t be easy.’

‘I know it won’t. But I think I understand her and can look after her. I want to get her to put all that has happened behind her. I want her to stop brooding on it.’

Leigh nodded. ‘She will have money in due course,’ he said. ‘Jeremy left everything to Damaris with the exception of an annuity to Smith—so it will go to Sabrina, I suppose. I think Enderby should be sold.’

‘Yes,’ I said emphatically.

‘Do you think Lance will agree to have Sabrina living with you?’

‘I am sure he will.’

‘He’s a good husband. I’m happy for you, Clarissa, in that. Damaris always used to say how contented she was to see you in a happy marriage. There was that affair in your youth—that poor boy who was transported.’

‘Oh yes, yes,’ I said quickly, ‘but that was long ago.’

I did not want to think of Dickon. He had been coming more and more into my thoughts lately and I had often tried to visualize what sort of life he might be living in Virginia.

When I told Sabrina that she was coming to live with me she said in an off-hand way: ‘Am I?’

‘You needn’t, you know, if you don’t want to.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

I was surprised and a little hurt, because I had thought she would be so pleased, for I knew it was what she wanted. She had been so badly hurt that the only way she could find a little balm to lay on her wounds was in hurting others—even those whom, in her heart, she cared for.

‘You must decide quickly,’ I said. ‘Preparations will have to be made and I have to get back soon.

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘All right, then,’ I said. ‘You can’t stay here. I dare say you could go and live with your grandmother.’

‘I’ll come,’ she said ungraciously.

I spoke to Smith. He was very unhappy. His life had been with Jeremy for so long, but he was brave and philosophical. He said: ‘He would never have settled down without her. The difference she made to his life was just staggering. I know. I was with him. I remember her first coming… right from that time she changed him. He couldn’t have gone on without her. It’s best… the way it’s happened. Best for the nipper in a way, too. If you take her, you’ll bring her back to what she ought to be. I know you can do it, Miss Clarissa…’

He himself would go and live in a little cottage by the sea. He’d take Damon with him. ‘He’ll be able to run about on the beach and I’ll have the sound of the sea with me always… I’ll like that.’

So when I left Eversleigh I took Sabrina with me.

I
T WAS A STRANGE
and uneasy year which followed. My life seemed to be dominated by Sabrina. She was difficult sometimes; determined, it seemed, not to forget her wounds; they had gone very deep. I knew this because she often had nightmares and would cry out in her sleep. I had her in a room next to the one I shared with Lance and I became as mothers are with their babies, and heard her slightest cry.

Then I would slip out of bed and go to her. It was usually some nightmare. She would be skating on a pond; or she would be getting into a grave because she had given her life to one of the people who had risen from the dead. Every disturbance was due to that experience.

I would hold her tightly to me and whisper words of comfort and when she clung to me I knew how she relied on me and how necessary it was for me to lead her away from, that which had affected her so deeply, and it seemed to me during those nocturnal sessions that I could do it, and only I.

Nanny Curlew had come with us. She was good with Sabrina—kind and firm, and she was pleased to come because she looked on Sabrina as her special charge and she could join her cousin, Nanny Goswell. Jean-Louis was Nanny Goswell’s special delight and he was growing into a charming little boy. He was cheerful and good-tempered, bright and intelligent. ‘My little man,’ Nanny Goswell called him.

The two nannies would sit together, one knitting, one tatting endlessly, and discuss Miss Sabrina and ‘my little man’; I thought it was good to have children in the nursery.

I did not need Jeanne to point out to me that there was a certain camaraderie between Lance and Aimée. They both had that intense interest in gambling, and my aversion to it meant that I did not share in the most important factor in my husband’s life. Sometimes I wondered whether I should make an attempt to be interested in it. Then I realized how foolish that would be. I did not know the state of his affairs; he never discussed them with me and if I enquired, he courteously dodged the issue. But I could not believe that he had successfully avoided financial embarrassment, and even if he had, there must come a time when it caught up with him. I would be ready then to rescue him, but I did not intend to dissipate my fortune meanwhile.

I was, I found, thinking more and more frequently of Dickon and as the time passed I suppose I built up an idealized picture of him. I liked to contemplate what would have happened if he had not been caught and transported. Suppose we had married? I looked longingly into a life of blissful content.

But I had married Lance. I loved Lance, of course. He possessed great charm and outstanding good looks. He was the most considerate of persons. But I often felt that there was a shadowy element there. Did I really know Lance?

This was foolish dreaming. There was too much reality all around me for me to waste myself in insubstantial dreams, picturing what might have been.

My great-grandfather died peacefully in his bed that autumn and about two months later Arabella followed him. I went with Lance and Sabrina to the funeral.