Love Child

by Philippa Carr

  “Someone’s there!” I gasped.

  “I’m going in,” said Leigh.

  We unlatched the door and stepped into the hall. The door shut with a bang behind us. Only a little light came through the dirty windows. I looked up at the great, vaulted ceiling; the stone walls were damp; there was a great staircase, which must have been beautiful once, and over which the lady of the household had tried to hang herself.

  Yes, it was a haunted house. It repelled me. It was almost as though there was an atmosphere of hostility, something which warned me to keep out.

  Then we heard a noise above. The opening and shutting of a door. Someone was there. There must be. We had seen a light.

  “Carlotta,” cried Leigh in a loud voice, “are you there? Come here, Carlotta. We have come for you.”

  His voiced echoed through the empty house.

  “Carlotta! Carlotta!” I cried in anguish.

  Could she really have come here alone? I had a terrible premonition that we were going to discover something fearful.

  “Listen,” said Leigh.

  We distinctly heard the sound of footsteps and they were not those of a child.

  “Who’s there?” called Leigh.

  There was a movement from above and we saw a face on the balcony … the balcony over which the rope had been thrown.

  A man was standing there.

  “Have you come to see the house too?” he asked.

  He started to descend the stairs. There was nothing ghostly about him. He was by no means young and was quite soberly dressed in a frogged coat and grey velvet breeches; his clothes were quiet, well cut and of good quality.

  “We are looking for a lost child,” said Leigh. “We thought she might be here.”

  “A lost child,” he repeated. “I have seen no one.”

  I felt ill with disappointment and anxiety.

  “We have reason to believe she may have come here,” said Leigh.

  “Yes,” went on Carl. He turned to Benjie. “You remember I said I heard something. You said I thought it was the ghost.”

  Benjie nodded slowly.

  “We must look for her,” I insisted. “We mustn’t waste any time. She’ll be frightened.”

  “I have been over the house,” said the man. “Some of it is very dark. But I had a lantern which I have left up there.” He pointed upwards. “I haven’t seen a child, but of course there are so many rooms. I doubt I have seen everything.”

  “We shall search every corner,” said Leigh.

  “I will join with you,” the man replied.

  “Let’s all keep together,” suggested Leigh, “and we will search from top to bottom. She may be shut in somewhere. Come on, we’ll waste no more time.”

  We searched the hall and the kitchens. We went into the outhouses, and it was in the washhouse that I found a button lying on the floor. It had come from Carlotta’s coat.

  I pounced on it. It was the most hopeful sign we had had. I was sure now that Carlotta was in the house and I was not going to leave it without her.

  “This is her coat button. She has been in here,” I cried. “She must be in this house now. She must.”

  We went up the stairs—those sad, haunted stairs which creaked protestingly under our feet. There was the balcony where the minstrels had once played in the days when it had been a happy home with tragedy undreamed of.

  There were heavy curtains at either side of it and an alcove in which musical instruments had been kept. There was a door in it. I opened it and there, lying fast asleep, was Carlotta.

  I swooped on her.

  She opened her eyes. “Hello, Cilla,” she said.

  I just held her in my arms and stepped out onto the balcony.

  Everyone cried out joyfully at the sight of us. Carlotta looked at them all in surprise.

  “Did you come to see the haunted house?” she asked. She looked at the stranger. “Who’s that?” she said.

  I said: “Carlotta, we have been looking for you. You have been naughty again. You were supposed to be in your bed.”

  She laughed. She was so enchanting when she smiled and I was overcome with such happiness to have her safe that I could only laugh with her.

  “I wanted to see the haunted house,” she explained. “They went.” She pointed to Carl and Benjie. “They wouldn’t take me with them.”

  “Well, we’ll get home now quickly,” said Leigh. “Do you realize that they are all worried about you? Sally will have something to say to you, I can tell you.”

  Carlotta was momentarily sober.

  “A happy conclusion to our search,” said the stranger.

  “We are sorry to have intruded on you,” I replied. “And thank you for your help.”

  “It was a very interesting encounter. I shall always remember the charming young lady who was asleep in the cupboard. If I take the house I shall call it Carlotta’s cupboard.”

  “You must have the house!” cried Carlotta. “I want it to be called Carlotta’s cupboard. You will have it, won’t you?”

  “Just to please you, I am sure that the gentleman will,” commented Leigh.

  “My name is Frinton,” said the man. “Robert Frinton.”

  I felt my senses swimming. Frinton! Jocelyn had been a Frinton. It was not an unusual name, and yet on the other hand it was not a common one.

  “I am Leigh Main and this is my wife, her brother and my half brother. There are rather complicated relationships in our family. Come back with us and have a meal. That is, if you have time. We must hurry now because they are all anxious about this errant child.”

  “What’s errant?” asked Carlotta.

  “What you have been,” I replied fondly.

  “Is it something nice?” she asked complacently.

  Robert Frinton was saying how happy he would be to accept our invitation. He felt almost inclined to buy the house since it would mean that he would acquire such pleasant neighbours.

  His horse was at the back of the house, which was why we had not seen it when we arrived, and soon we were all mounted, Carlotta riding with Leigh, and on our way back to Eversleigh.

  There was great rejoicing when we arrived. Sally Nullens and Emily Philpots were waiting in the courtyard, and Sally pounced on Carlotta and demanded to know what she had been up to, the bad, wicked girl, giving us all the fright of our lives and going off like that.

  Emily said: “And look at your gown. All dirty. And you’ve caught that lovely stitching. I shall never be able to get that right, you see.”

  Harriet smiled on the child benignly; my mother was beaming with delight and my father was trying to look stern and failing completely, while Carlotta smiled at us and said: “He’s going to call the cupboard Carlotta’s cupboard. It’s after me … because I went to sleep in it.”

  “People that goes off and worries the life out of everyone don’t get cupboards named after them,” pronounced Sally. I burst out laughing. It was rather wild laughter, I suppose, because Leigh put his arm about me and said, “We’re forgetting to make the introductions.” And he told Robert Frinton who everybody was and my mother said how delighted she would be if he stayed and ate with us, and she would love to hear what he thought of Enderby.

  Carlotta was put to bed with a scolding from Sally and Emily. I went in to see her when I was ready for dinner. She was in bed by then. I think the walk to Enderby’s had tired her out, which was why she had promptly fallen asleep, after the manner of children.

  She was none the worse for the adventure, but it struck me that she was growing up fast and we should have to be watchful of her. She was going to be wayward. I had always known that. I would talk to Sally about her the next day.

  I kissed her and she smiled happily as I did so; she was half asleep but aware of me. I loved her so much and I wondered how I should feel when I had Leigh’s child, which I supposed I would in time.

  I did not believe I could ever love any child as I loved this one.

  Over dinn
er we learned that Robert Frinton was of the same family as Jocelyn.

  “There was trouble in our family,” he told us. “A great tragedy it was. My brother and nephew were the victims of that archvillain, Titus Oates.”

  “Ah, yes,” said my father, “I remember that well.”

  “They confiscated much of his property. My brother was older than I and had the family estate. We lost it all. I have been compensated now but shall never go back to the old place. I was wondering about this Enderby Hall. It has possibilities.”

  “It used to be a delightful place,” said my mother. “Once the garden has been cleared up and the house cleaned out, I think it should be all that it used to be in the past.”

  “I think so, too,” said Robert Frinton. “I have a fancy for this part of the world.” He looked at us rather shyly. “It was a strange way that we met this afternoon, but the fact was I was hoping to call on you. I wanted to thank you for all you did for my nephew.”

  He was looking at my father who said: “Don’t thank me. I knew nothing of it until it was over.”

  I said: “It was Leigh, my husband, and my brother Edwin … and, of course, Lady Stevens who did so much. It could have worked. We could have saved him … but circumstances were against us.”

  “I know. He was taken and murdered. Yes, it was murder and I will call it nothing else. That man Oates deserved the worst possible fate and so do all those who were afraid to stand up against him. What misery he caused while his brief reign of glory lasted. But I do want to thank you for what you did. It is something I shall never forget.”

  Harriet put in: “He was such a charming young man. We all loved him. What we did for him was so little. If only we could have saved him!”

  “My lady, you have earned my eternal gratitude.”

  “Well, you must repay us all by taking Enderby Hall and becoming our good neighbour,” declared Harriet.

  “I feel very much inclined to do so.”

  “We will all drink a toast to that,” said my father. “Let the goblets be filled.”

  So we drank, and in due course Jocelyn’s uncle bought Enderby Hall.

  The next two years were, I think, some of the most momentous in English history and I never ceased to marvel at how quietly we lived through those events. Leigh was still in the army, serving under the Earl of Marlborough, whom my father had known in the days when, as John Churchill, he had been a rival of the King’s for Barbara Castlemaine’s favours. Leigh had a great admiration for him as a soldier and there could be no question, at this time, of his leaving the army.

  It soon became obvious that trouble was inevitable, for the King was at variance with so many of his subjects.

  The belief in the Divine Right of Kings which had brought his father to the scaffold was there in James, and my father said he could see disaster creeping nearer and nearer. He simply could not believe that he could be turned off the throne, although one would have thought that what had happened to his father would have been a lesson to him. Poor James! He lacked not only his brother’s wit and charm but his common sense.

  There was a great deal of talk about the number of Catholics he was appointing to important posts, and when he issued the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, this was seen as a scheme to establish Papal Supremacy in England.

  It was discussed over meals. There would be Thomas Willerby, Gregory and my father all earnestly asking themselves and each other what the outcome would be. Robert Frinton sometimes joined them, and although he came of a Catholic family and would have welcomed freedom for all opinions, he could see that Catholicism would never be accepted in England, for the people had sternly set their faces against it since the reign of Bloody Mary. They still remembered the Smithfield fires when so many Protestants had been burned at the stake. It had happened more than a hundred years before, but the memory remained.

  The King should have seen disaster approaching, but blithely he pursued the course, turning his face away from the will of the people; and when the seven bishops, who refused to accept the declaration, were arrested and taken to the Tower, there was a general murmuring throughout the country.

  On the day of the trial my mother implored my father not to go to London, and to please her he desisted; but it was against his nature. He was born to fight and to fight recklessly. One would have thought his experiences in the Monmouth Rebellion would have taught him a lesson; but he was the sort of man who would never learn from that kind of experience. When he supported a cause, he did so wholeheartedly.

  Everyone now knows the outcome of the trial, how the verdict was not guilty, and how those in court cheered until they were hoarse, how the people waited in the streets to welcome the seven bishops, how the whole of London was en fete.

  Foolish James, he should have known; but so much did he believe in his right to the throne that he could not conceive that it could be taken away from him. The Queen had just given him a son, and the country must surely be delighted with a male heir, but a baby could not save him now.

  I was getting anxious about Leigh at this point because there was so much talk about William of Orange and his wife Mary, and there were hints that they were to be invited to England to take the throne. It was three years since James had been crowned, and in that short time his actions had brought him to this state. There could not be a more unpopular man in the country than its King.

  “The trouble with him is,” said my father, “that he is not content to be a Catholic—which the country might have accepted. He wants to be a Catholic reigning over a Catholic country. I know that certain ministers have been in touch with William.”

  “As long as they don’t start fighting,” said my mother, “I don’t care what King we have.”

  “Then you should care,” retorted my father. “James will try to turn us all Catholic … gentle persuasion at first and then … not so gentle. I know the methods. Englishmen will not endure it. James has had every opportunity to reign in peace, but he is obsessed not only by practising his religion but imposing it on the whole country.”

  There came the day in the summer of 1688 when a party of men led by Lords Danby, Shrewsbury and Devonshire, and including the Bishop of London, sent an invitation to William inviting him to prepare to come to England. William arrived at Torbay, whither he had been driven by storms at sea, and his ship bore a flag on which were the words: “The Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England”; and beneath this was the motto of the House of Orange: “I will maintain.”

  In the September of the year 1689 I gave birth to a daughter. I called her Damaris for no other reason than that I liked the name.

  Edwin’s wife, Jane, had a child—a boy whom she called Carleton after my father. He took quite a fancy to the boy and was far more interested in him than in my Damaris.

  Sally Nullens was in a fine state about the births because she did not like the thought of new nurses being brought in, although she was now with Carlotta at Eyot Abbas. She reckoned that young Carleton and Damaris were really her babies.

  “And what’s to be?” she moaned. “I can’t split myself in two, can I?”

  Harriet brought Carlotta over to stay when the babies were born so Sally took over the nursery—temporarily, as my mother said.

  Emily Philpots was busy giving lessons to Carlotta and embroidering for the babies.

  Harriet was greatly amused. She waylaid me in the garden one day and laughingly said: “I think this is the time to bring our little scheme into motion.”

  “How?” I asked.

  She put her hands on her hips and gave a good imitation of Sally. “‘I can’t split myself in two, can I?’ Sad, but true,” she went on. “Well, then since such division is impossible, and Sally can’t be in two places at once, all the children must be in one place.”

  I laughed with her, my spirits soaring. “You mean Carlotta will come here?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “It’s an excellent idea.”
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  “Of course she will have to come visiting her supposed mamma quite frequently. Do you know, I should miss her if she didn’t.”

  “Oh, Harriet, isn’t she the most adorable child you ever saw?”

  “She is one of the most scheming, selfish little brats I ever saw. She is full of wiles, already aware of her attractions, which I admit are considerable. She has the art of attracting the opposite sex already at her fingertips. You see how she is throwing her web around Robert Frinton, who is becoming quite besotted … naming his cupboard after her! All this is going to her head.”

  “But she is unusual. You must admit that, Harriet.”

  “She will have to be guarded carefully; otherwise we shall have trouble there. She will mature early. You know, she is amazingly like me. Sometimes I think fate is having a little joke. She might be my daughter more easily than yours.”

  “I suppose it is living so near you.”

  “She lives nearer to Sally but I see no resemblance between them—thank God. But is this not a heaven-sent opportunity?”

  “You mean she shall come over to our nurseries and be looked after by Sally who, with Emily, will move back to us?”

  “A very sensible arrangement. Then, my dear Priscilla, you can glory in your offspring to your heart’s content.”

  “Oh, Harriet, you are so good.”

  “For heaven’s sake, child, you must be blind. I am only good when it is no trouble to be. I’m a little tired of the role of mother. I never thought I played it very well. Though I was very good as the expectant mother. But expectancy is always so interesting. It is the reality which can pall. I’ll speak to your mother about it. Then I’ll tell Sally. She will be filled with bliss. Greedy old thing! She wouldn’t give up one of her babies to some poor deserving nurse. Emily Philpots is such another.”

  She kept her word and did speak to my mother.

  My mother gravely came to me at once to tell me what had been arranged.

  I said: “It is really an excellent idea. Sally will be delighted and so will Emily.”

  “It saves having two nurseries where one will do. And I am sure Sally would have been unbearably critical about everything that happened in the nursery. You’re delighted, I can see. You can have your Carlotta under your eyes every day.”