Love Child

by Philippa Carr

  I started. I sat up in bed. It was as though I had been answered. I knew I was not alone. Someone was in the house. It was a movement. A footstep? Was it a footstep? I knew the sounds of this house, the creak of the old wood, the protesting groan of a floorboard. I used to be afraid when I lay on this bed with Beau that we would be discovered. How he had laughed at me. I think he rather hoped we would be. Once he said: “I should love to see Prim Priscilla’s face when she saw me in bed with her daughter.” Yes, I did know the sounds of the house and I now had a firm conviction that I was not alone in it.

  A wild elation possessed me. My first thought was: He has come back.

  “Beau!” I called. “Beau! I’m here, Beau.”

  The door opened. My heart leapt and I felt that it would suffocate me.

  Then I felt furiously angry. It was my half sister, Damaris, who had come into the room.

  “Damaris!” I stammered. “What … what are you doing here?”

  My disappointment sickened me and for the moment I hated my sister. She stood there, her lips slightly parted, her eyes round with astonishment; she was not a pretty child; she was quiet, obedient, and had a desire to please, which our mother said was “engaging.” I had always found her rather dull; I ignored her in the main, but now I positively hated her. She looked so neat and clean in her pale blue gown with its sash of a slightly lighter hue and her long brown hair hanging down in loose curls. There was a certain amount of curiosity in her expression which was rapidly replacing the concern.

  “I thought someone was with you, Carlotta,” she said. “You were talking to someone, were you not?”

  “I called out to know who was there. You startled me.” I frowned at her accusingly.

  Her mouth was a round O. She had no subtlety. Perhaps one should not expect it of a child of ten. What had I said? I believed I had called out Beau’s name. Had she noticed it? I felt certain she had never heard of Beau.

  “I thought you said something like Bow,” she said.

  “You were mistaken,” I told her quickly. “I said: ‘Who’s there?’ ”

  “But …”

  “You imagined the rest,” I went on sharply. I had risen from the bed and gripped her none too gently by the shoulder so that she winced a little. I was glad. I wanted to hurt her. “You have no right to come here,” I said. “This is my house and I came to see that it was all right.”

  “Were you testing the bed?”

  I looked at her intently. No, there was no ulterior motive in the remark. No suggestions. No probing. One thing about my little sister, she was completely innocent. She was only ten years old in any case.

  I pondered. Should I try to give her some explanation? No, it was best to leave things as they were.

  We went out of the house together.

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  “I walked.”

  I mounted my horse. “Then you can walk back,” I said.

  It was two days later and a Saturday. I was in the garden of the Dower House when a man appeared on horseback. He dismounted and bowed to me.

  “Am I mistaken or is this the Dower House Eversleigh and does Captain Leigh Main live here?”

  “You are right. He is not here at the moment but will be back very soon, I believe. Do come in. I’ll show you where you can tether your horse.”

  “Thank you. You must be his daughter.”

  “His stepdaughter.”

  “I’m Gervaise Langdon. We were in the army together.”

  “General Langdon!” I cried. “I have heard him mention your name. General Sir Gervaise Langdon. Is that right?”

  “I see you are well informed.”

  I took him to the post by the mounting block and as I was directing him towards the house my mother appeared.

  “This is General Sir Gervaise Langdon, mother,” I said.

  Priscilla cried: “Oh, please come in. My husband should be here very soon.”

  “I was passing through the district,” explained Sir Gervaise, “and I remembered my old friend lived here so I thought I would pay him a visit.”

  “He will be delighted. He has talked of you a great deal, hasn’t he, Carlotta? This is my daughter Carlotta.”

  Sir Gervaise bowed again to me. “It is a great pleasure,” he said.

  My mother led the way into the hall.

  “I was about to call at the big house,” said Sir Gervaise, “and one of the grooms there told me that you were now at the Dower House.”

  “Oh, yes,” said my mother. “My parents are at the Court.”

  “Lord Eversleigh too, I believe. Where is Edwin now?”

  “He’s abroad on service,” said my mother.

  “Ah, yes. I had hoped to see him too.”

  “You know my husband has retired from the army, of course.”

  “Yes, indeed I do. Eversleigh stays on.”

  “Yes, but I think his wife would like him to do what Leigh has done.”

  “A pity,” said the General. “We need men like them.”

  “I always think that their families need them too.”

  “Ah, the wives’ complaint!” said the General with a smile.

  Priscilla took him into the drawing room and sent for wine and cakes.

  Damaris appeared and was introduced.

  “You have two charming daughters,” said the General.

  He talked to us about his travels abroad and how delighted he was to be in England, and while this was going on Leigh arrived. He was delighted to see the General and after a while my mother said she was sure they had a great deal to say to each other and she hoped the General was in no hurry and would stay awhile.

  He replied that he was going to visit his old friend Ned Netherby and planned to stay the night at an inn about four miles on and then go to Netherby the following day.

  “But you cannot do that,” cried my mother. “You must stay here for the night. We wouldn’t hear of your going to stay at an inn, would we Leigh?”

  Leigh said that the General must stay and the latter needed little persuasion.

  “Then that is settled,” said my mother. “You will excuse me and I will see that they get your room ready. Carlotta, Damaris, come along and help.”

  We went out with her.

  “I could see that the General wished to talk to your father,” she said. “They will have memories to share. I know they served together at one time.”

  I went to my room and Damaris went to help my mother. I was mildly excited as I always was by visitors; and there was something about the General which made me feel that this was not an idle call. There was something purposeful about him. He was an attractive man. He must have been about six feet tall and a little older than Leigh, I imagine. He had a very military bearing and there was no doubt that he was a soldier. There was a scar on his right cheek to confirm this. It added to rather than detracted from his rugged good looks.

  I had an idea that he might have come to persuade Leigh to come back to the army. A thought I was sure could not have occurred to my mother or her welcome would not have been so warm.

  At dinner there was a great deal of talk about the old army days and Leigh quite clearly enjoyed these reminiscences.

  The General talked about the King, whom he clearly did not like. “The Dutchman,” he called him and used the term as one of contempt; and when he mentioned his name his colour deepened and the scar showed up whiter in contrast to the reddish tinge of his skin.

  We left them talking together over their wine and my mother said to me: “He is a charming man but I hope he is not reminding Leigh too much of his life in the army. He talks about it as though it is some sort of paradise.”

  “My father would never want to leave you again, mother,” said Damaris.

  My mother smiled. Then she said: “I wonder why the General came?”

  “It is because he was passing on his way to Netherby Hall,” said Damaris. “He said so.”

  I smiled at my dear i
nnocent sister. She believed everything everyone said.

  The next day was Sunday and we were going to Eversleigh to dine, as we always did on Sundays. Although Leigh and my mother had bought the Dower House, they both regarded Eversleigh as their home. I had lived part of my life there and my mother all her life until recently. Damaris had been born there and it was only within the last year or so that Leigh had bought the Dower House. There was a walk of five minutes between the two houses and my grandparents became indignant if we did not call frequently. I loved Eversleigh, although perhaps Harriet’s Eyot Abbass was more like home to me.

  It was dinnertime and we were all at table in the great hall. My grandmother Arabella Eversleigh loved to have us all together. Damaris was a special favourite of hers, in a way that I could never be; but my grandfather Carleton had always had a special feeling for me. He was a most unconventional man, of fiery temper, arrogant and obstinate. I felt especially drawn towards him and I believe he did to me. I think he was rather amused by the fact that I was his daughter’s bastard and there was a grudging admiration in him because my mother had defied conventions and produced me. I liked Grandfather Carleton. I fancied our characters were not dissimilar.

  The house had been built in the days of Elizabeth in the E style with a wing on either side of the main great hall. I was attracted by that hall with its rough stone walls and I liked the armoury which adorned it. There was a military tradition in the Eversleigh family. Carleton had only briefly been a soldier; he had stayed home after the Civil War to hold the estates until the Restoration; the part he had played, I had always heard had demanded far more courage than a soldier needed and infinitely more skill; for he had posed as a Roundhead when his sympathies were Royalist in the extreme and so saved Eversleigh for posterity. I could well imagine his doing that. Every time he looked up at the vaulted ceiling with its broad oak beams, every time he glanced at the family tree which had been painted over the great fireplace, he must have reminded himself: If it had not been for my courage and resource during those Commonwealth years all this would have been lost.

  Yes, the military history of the family was apparent everywhere. Leigh had been a soldier until recently; my grandmother Arabella’s son by her first marriage was Edwin, the present Lord Eversleigh, and he was away from home now in the army. Jane—a rather colourless female—and their son, Carleton—called Carl to distinguish him from Carleton—lived at Eversleigh, which was indeed Edwin’s, although my grandfather regarded it as his, which was not surprising since he managed the estate for years and had saved it for them in any case. There would not have been an Eversleigh Court but for him. My grandmother’s father had been General Tolworthy who had distinguished himself in the Royalist cause. I remember that Beau had been in the army for a while. It was during the Monmouth Rebellion, he told me once and had seemed secretly amused by this. Even Carleton himself had been in the army then—on the side of Monmouth. Not that he had been a professional soldier. He had just been fighting for a special cause then.

  So we were sure that our guest General Langdon would feel at home in such a household.

  At the table on this day were my grandparents, Carleton and Arabella, Edwin’s wife, Lady Eversleigh, and young Carl; Priscilla, Leigh, myself and Damaris. Also present were our neighbors of Grasslands Manor, Thomas Willerby and his son, Thomas Junior, who was about a year or two younger than I. Thomas Willerby was a widower whose wife had died recently. He was very sad about this, for it had been an exceptionally happy marriage. My mother felt the death of Christabel Willerby deeply, for Christabel had been a governess companion to her before her marriage and remained a good friend. There was another Willerby child at Grasslands—a baby girl. She was probably a year old and had been named Christabel after the mother, who had died bringing her into the world. My mother had made the tragedy hers, and the Willerbys were constant visitors at our house. She had insisted that Christabel come to our nursery for a while until arrangements could be made; and Sally Nullens, our old nurse, and Emily Philpots, who acted as governess to the children for years, were delighted with the arrangements. As for Thomas Willerby, he was so overcome with gratitude towards my mother that his eyes filled with tears almost every time he looked at her. He was a very sentimental man.

  Both my grandparents welcomed General Langdon warmly and the conversation at the dinner table for the first fifteen minutes was all about the army.

  Then Priscilla said rather pointedly, so I knew that she was giving voice to something which had been occupying her mind for some time: “It seems to me that Enderby Hall should not be left standing idle. It never did a house any good to remain empty.”

  “True,” said Thomas, always ready to back her up. “They get damp. Houses need fires and people. They need living in.”

  “Such a lovely old house,” said Jane Eversleigh. “Though I don’t think I should like to live in it. I get the shivers every time I pass by.”

  “Only because you listen to gossip,” said my grandfather. “If this talk of ghosts hadn’t got around, no one would think of ghosts.”

  “Are you interested in ghosts, General Langdon?” I asked.

  “I have never seen one,” he said, “and I am inclined to need the evidence of my eyes.”

  “Oh, you have no faith,” said Arabella.

  “Seeing is believing,” said the General. “How did the gossip start?”

  “I think it began when one of the occupiers tried to hang herself. She did not have a long enough rope and was badly injured. She died soon after.”

  “Poor woman, what made her do such a thing?”

  “Her husband was involved in a plot.”

  “The Popish Plot,” said Carl.

  “No,” I said, “that was my father. This was the Rye House Plot, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Priscilla, rather uneasily I thought.

  “They plotted against the King,” said Carleton. “It was a foolish and criminal thing to do.”

  “I cannot understand why people have to do these things,” said Priscilla.

  “My dear lady,” said the General, “if they feel something is wrong some men have the urge to put it right.”

  “And endanger lives,” said Arabella fiercely.

  “Oh, it is all past and done with,” said Carleton. “But that is just how the house got its reputation.”

  “I should like to see a nice family settled in,” said my mother. “It is pleasant to have good neighbors.”

  She was nervous and Leigh was watching her anxiously. I thought: They have talked about this together. I was sure then that my sister had reported finding me lying on the four-poster; she might even have mentioned that she thought I was talking to someone called Bow.

  “It does happen to be my house,” I said. I turned to the General. “It was left to me by my father’s uncle. He was Robert Frinton.”

  The General said: “I knew the family. A great tragedy.”

  My mother was clenching her hands uneasily. She was very nervous today. It was the General who was making her so.

  “There are a few months to go before you can claim possession,” said my grandfather. “But I don’t doubt that if a sale was arranged it would be approved.”

  “I am not sure that I want it sold.”

  “Perhaps you like ghosts, Mistress Carlotta,” said the General.

  “I should be interested to see one. Shouldn’t you, General?”

  “I think it would depend on the ghost,” he replied.

  Leigh said: “You should sell it, Carlotta. You’ll never want to live there. But perhaps you could find a tenant and let it.”

  I was silent, very much aware of them all. They were tense. I wondered whether the General noticed. For some reason they wanted me to be prevented from going there, wandering through those empty rooms; Damaris must indeed have reported what she had seen and heard, and they would know I was still hoping to find Beau again.

  “Think about it,” said my grandfather. />
  “Do you know, I’ve been pondering in my mind whether or not I won’t give up Grasslands,” said Thomas Willerby.

  “Give up Grasslands, Thomas!” cried my mother. “But why?”

  “So many memories,” he said, and there was silence at the table.

  After a pause Thomas went on, “Yes, I’ve been thinking it might be easier to go back north. Try to build a new life. That was what I came here for and thanks to you all … and Christabel … I had a good one. Perhaps it would be best for me to move on now …”

  My mother looked sad, but I could see she was working out a future for him. Let him go and find a new wife … a new life and perhaps come back then.

  “Oh, it’s all in the future,” said Thomas. “There’s a lot to be thought about yet. But I do believe something should be done about Enderby.”

  To stop them talking of Enderby I said that I heard the Lady Elizabeth Villiers was to have the Irish estates of James the Second bestowed on her.

  The General’s face went deep red and he murmured, “Monstrous.”

  “Let the King please his mistress,” said Carleton. “I’m surprised he has one. I wish him joy of the lady.”

  “It is a pity,” said Arabella, “that things turned out as they have. Daughters against their father …”

  “True, my lady,” said the General. “I think Queen Mary must have been deeply troubled by her conscience. As indeed Anne will be if she takes the crown.”

  “Not a bit of it,” cried Carleton. “England will not tolerate a Papist King. They got rid of one Papist. James is where he belongs—in exile. That’s where he’ll stay till he dies. And if William should go … God forbid that he should, for he’s been a good ruler of this country … then it will be Anne to follow him and she’ll have the support of all those who wish this country well.”

  I could see that the General was striving hard to control himself. Leigh looked uncomfortable. He knew something of the General’s thoughts in these matters and it was typical of my grandfather to state his views and not consider whether he was offending anyone.

  “Usurpation of a throne,” said the General in a quiet controlled voice, “often brings sorrow to those who take it.”