The Love Child (40 page)

Carlotta? Suppose I talked to her? I thought of Benjie-dear Benjie, who had a great deal of his father in him. When I considered him, I did agree with Harriet that he was the one who would make Carlotta happy. He was steady, he was honest, he would be faithful and love her devotedly. I wanted her to be young for a while, to continue her lessons with Amelia Garston; I wanted her to have a gradual awakening to love and marriage. If this fearful thing which threatened was ever to come to pass, it would be complete misery for her. I could not bear to think of her being submitted to his lust as I had been.

I went to her room. She was getting ready to go out. She swung round and looked at me.

“Whatever is the matter?” she asked.

I touched my face.

254

“You look so pale and your eyes are wild. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Carlotta,” I said, “I want to tell you something.”

She came to me and kissed me. Then she pushed me into a chair and drawing up a stool sat at my feet. She put her head against my knee. For all her youthful arrogance, she had endearing ways.

“I’ve thought for some time that you had something to tell me,” she said. “In fact, I fancy you have been on the verge of it now and then. Is it very important?”

“Carlotta, I am your mother.”

She turned and stared at me. “What . ? . do you mean?” she stammered.

“I, not Harriet… am your mother.”

“My mother! But…”

“I have wanted to tell you often. I think you ought to know. Your father was Jocelyn Frinton.”

She continued to stare at me, and then understanding dawned on her.

“So that was why…”

“Robert knew,” I answered. “Harriet told him.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “It’s all rather bewildering. Tell me everything right from the beginning.”

So I told her how Jocelyn had come to us …a fugitive, and how We had sheltered him and he and I had become lovers.

“We should have married,” I told her, “but he was taken prisoner when we came off the island.”

“Oh, you poor Priscilla! Mother … I suppose I shall call you that now. It’s strange.

I hardly ever call Harriet that. She likes to be called Harriet, which is odd . .

. but then Harriet is not like other people.”

“She was good to me. It was her idea. It seemed wild at the time and yet it worked.”

“Harriet loves planning and playacting. She is doing it all the time. And you are my mother. I always loved you. I expect you always loved me, too.”

“Oh, my darling child. I have wanted so often to have you with me. I schemed to have you with me.”

She put her arms around me and held me tightly. “I’m glad,” she said. “Yes, I am glad. I’m what they call a love child, am I not? It’s a beautiful expression in a way. Conceived in love … reckless love I suppose it means, the kind of love that takes no count of the cost.” She paused and then she said suddenly: “Benjie is not my brother.”

255

“No,” I said happily, “no.”

“He won’t be able to bully me anymore.”

“He has always been so fond of you.”

“What will happen now? Shall you tell people?”

“I shall tell my mother and I suppose she will tell my father. Gregory already knows, of course.”

“Dear Gregory, he has always been such a nice father. One doesn’t tell him things … but I know that he would always be kind and understanding if one did.”

“He is a good man. Christabel knows. She was with us in Venice.”

“Christabel! I never think much about her. She is just … there. And all she thinks about is that son of hers.”

“She helped look after me in Venice.”

“Yes, I was born in Venice and I always thought that rather romantic. And there was all that fuss about my arrival.”

“You’ve always liked fuss, haven’t you, Carlotta?”

“Well, can you wonder… considering my birth.”

She kissed me again and I could see that the news had stimulated her. She was not in the least shocked at having been born illegitimate. She thought it all romantic and exciting, and the fact that I was her mother gave her a certain pleasure. I couldn’t help commenting on it.

“Yes,” she said, “I am glad. You’re the sort of mother I want. That sounds unfair to Harriet. She’s a most exciting mother … but somehow not like a mother. One wants a mother to be a little fussy, caring hi a way that makes you impatient. .

. someone you feel will always be there no matter what you have done . ? ? someone who’d die for you.”

“Oh, Carlotta,” I said, “I would do that willingly for you and Damans.”

“Damans is my sister, of course … my half sister. Everything is turning about.

Leigh is my stepfather. Does he know?”

“Yes, he knows.”

“I thought so. You told him, did you?”

“Yes. Before we were married.”

“Obligations, I daresay.”

“You could call it that.”

“Who else knows?”

I hesitated and then I said: “Beaumont Granville.”

She stared at me in amazement. “Beau knows?”

“Carlotta, it is this which made me decide that you must know without delay. I don’t like your friendship with this man.”

256

“What do you mean, you don’t like my friendship with him!”

“He is not a good man. In fact he is a very wicked man.”

I saw the hard look creeping over her face. The tenderness of a few moments ago was fast disappearing.

“You hated him from the first moment in the Exchange,” she said.

“I hated him before that. I had met him before.”

“You didn’t say so.”

“Did he?”

“No.”

“He was in Venice before you were born … and I think at the time of your birth.”

“Why?”

“He was there … adventuring, I suppose. Doing what he has done all through his useless life.”

“How can you say his life is useless? He has done many things. He was once in the army.”

“I am sure he looked very pretty in his uniform.”

“Please do not sneer at him.”

“He is a wicked man. He tried to abduct me in Venice. Leigh thrashed him. He bears the scars still. That is his life. He seduces girls when he can… preferably young and innocent ones.”

“You are so behind the times, dear Priscilla. You have lived too long in the country.”

“Unlike you who have been in Town for a week or so.”

“I understand him,” she said earnestly. “He has told me so much about his life. Oh, yes, he has had adventures. There have been lots of women. They chased htm, you know, and he couldn’t hurt their feelings by refusing them when they were so persistent.

But now he has finished with that.”

“Since when?”

“Since we met.”

“Are you telling me …”

She interrupted: “I am telling you I love him and he is in love with me.”

“He is in love with your fortune. Has that occurred to you?”

“He has never mentioned my fortune.”

“He has mentioned it to me.”

She stared at me blankly. “He… has spoken to you!”

“Yes,” I replied, “he wants your fortune. He appears to be wealthy, but he has to keep up appearances and that requires a great deal of money. Yours will be useful.”

“This is so silly.”

257

“On your part, yes. On his, it is quite clever.”

“How you hate him. Is it because I love him?”

“No. It went back before that”

“Because he once liked you?”

“He doesn’t like anyone but himself, Carlotta. And he is so besottedly in love that no one else matters.”

“So you have seen him, and because you thought he would tell about Venice you thought you ought to tell me first.”

“Yes, that might be so.”

“You told him, when you were in Venice, that you were going to have me …”

“I did not tell him. I had no conversation with him … in Venice. I was dragged away from a masked ball. Fortunately Leigh was at hand and rescued me.”

“Then who told him?”

“He discovered somehow … I never knew how. He had people who worked for him perhaps.

I never found out.”

“And you hate him for knowing it?”

“Not for that… for other things.”

“Well, you will have to stop hating him because I am going to marry him.”

“No, Carlotta. It’s Impossible. You are too young for marriage. Good heavens, child, you’re not fifteen years old yet.”

“Many people have married at fifteen. Princesses … queens … always do. As for you, you may not have married, but it would have been more acceptable to society if you had been.”

“It’s a different case.”

“How? You loved my father. I love Beau.”

“He is so old.”

“So you think I want a silly boy?”

“He must be at least thirty years older than you are.”

“I don’t care if he is fifty years older. He is the most exciting person I have ever met, and I am going to marry him.”

“No, Carlotta, you are not. You cannot marry without your parents’ consent.”

“Considering I have only just discovered who my parent is that seems a poor argument to put forward. You have only just acknowledged your relationship.”

That hurt me. As if I had not wanted to claim her all these years!

“Carlotta, do understand. Everything I do is for your sake. You cannot marry this man”-I clutched at some respite-“yet.”

She responded at once. “How long would you expect us to wait?”

258

“Till you are sixteen.”

“It’s too long.”

“A year then,” I conceded. “Six months at least…”

She appeared to consider that.

Time, I thought. Time will help. As long as she does not rush into this there may be hope.

“All right,” she said, “perhaps we could wait for six months.”

I felt exhausted and desperately unhappy.

The very worst which I had feared had happened. But at least she knew now. That was like a burden lifted from my shoulders.

I went to Harriet and said: “I have told her. She knows now.”

Harriet nodded. “That is as well,” she said.

“And now, Harriet, I want to go back to Eversleigh. I don’t want another day here.”

She looked at me with that understanding which came to her at rare moments.

Then she said: “We will leave tomorrow.”

The next day we began our journey home. Carlotta looked sullen and scarcely spoke to me. At least, I thought, she will not see him for a while. Surely Harriet will not ask him to the Abbas, and I shall certainly see that he does not come to Eversleigh.

We arrived first at the Abbas, and I was hurt when Carlotta said she would stay there for a while and come over to Eversleigh later.

I went back alone.

I knew that I should have to tell my mother about Carlotta’s birth. The secret was out really, and I wanted her to hear it first from me.

She was a little concerned when I arrived. She said I did not look well. Had I had too many late nights? I told her how I had sprained my ankle and she insisted on calling Sally Nullens to look at it.

Sally prodded it and shook her head and said it was all that gadding about. But she could not really see anything wrong with it, and to satisfy her and my mother I promised to rest it every day.

My mother followed me into my bedroom and that gave me the opportunity I needed to be alone with her.

I began as I had with Carlotta. “I have something to tell you.”

She was all concern immediately. “What is it, my darling?”

The gentleness of her voice brought sudden tears to my eyes. I hastily blinked them away. I said: “I am afraid this is going to be a shock to you. I have hated keeping it from you but I was afraid to tell.”

259

She looked startled. “Surely you are not afraid to tell me anything?”

“I was only afraid of causing you pain.”

“My dearest, are you ill? Please tell me quickly. Can’t you see how you’re frightening me?”

“No, I’m not ill. It’s not that. Something happened to me long ago. I had a child.”

She stared at me incredulously.

“Carlotta is my daughter,” I said quickly; and I told of what had ensued on my night on the island with Jocelyn and of its aftermath.

“Oh, my dear, dear child,” she cried, “you should have come to me. I was the one who should have looked after you.”

“Harriet had this idea.”

“Harriet!” I saw the lights of anger in her eyes. “Harriet would interfere. You and I should have gone away quietly to a little English village in the Midlands … or the North … somewhere where they didn’t know us. Harriet! Venice! That is just like her.”

“I was very grateful to her. She helped me so much, and she pretended that Carlotta was her child.”

“It was crazy. Melodramatic in the extreme.”

“It was better than having the child put out with a foster mother, which is often done in such circumstances.”

“I would have arranged something. We could have adopted her. I would have seen that she was brought into the household.”

“I know you would have helped me, but it seemed better to do it that way then. I told Carlotta about it when we were in London.”

“And Leigh?”

“Leigh knows. He knew before we were married. I told him.”

“Thank God for that! I shall tell your father.”

“I doubt whether he would be interested.”

“But of course he will. Carlotta is his granddaughter. You are his daughter.”

“He has never been the slightest interested in me.”

“Of course he has. It is just his way.”

“Then tell him if you wish. It is a relief that you know.”

“So this is why Carlotta has come into money. It’s from her father’s family.”

I nodded.

She reached for my hand and held it fast. “Oh, Priscilla, when you were little, we were so close.”

“Because my father resented me.”

“He didn’t resent you.”

260

“He just ignored me. I was a girl and he wanted a boy who looked just like he did.

I always knew it. It did something to me. I used to like to go to Harriet’s where Gregory was always so interested in me. He used to show me pictures and tell me stories about them. One day I said to him, ‘I wish you were my father.’ And he said, ‘Hush, you mustn’t say that.’ And I said, ‘Why not? It’s true. We are supposed to tell the truth.’ And what do you think he said to that? ‘You mustn’t tell the truth when it hurts people.’ Then I said, ‘My father would never be hurt because I didn’t want him for a father, because he didn’t want me anyway.’”