We rode a great deal together; I found I was enjoying those rides. I loved the cool damp September air; I began to notice the countryside as I never had before; I loved the tawny leaves of the beeches and the cones which were beginning to appear on the pines. Everywhere were the spiders’ webs—a feature of autumn—and I thought they looked enchanting with the dewdrops sparkling on them. It had always been unlike me to notice nature. I began to feel as though I was awakening from a long nightmare.
Benjie was an exhilarating companion; he had always been ready to laugh, easy going, good natured, more like his father than his mother. Sir Gregory Stevens might not be the most exciting person I had ever met but he was certainly one of the kindest.
Benjie was twelve years or so older than I but that did not seem a great difference to me. I compared everything and everyone with Beau, who had been more than twenty years older. Oddly enough I felt as old as Benjie in experience of life. Beau had done that for me.
One day when we had been riding in the woods we came home past Enderby Hall.
“Dreary old place,” said Benjie. “I remember once you followed your uncle Carl and me there.”
“I remember well,” I said. “You were horrible boys. You would have none of me. You told me to go away and not pester you.”
“Put it down to our ignorant youth,” said Benjie. “I promise I’ll never say that to you again, Carlotta.”
“I must have been an impossible child.”
“No … just certain that Carlotta was the centre of the universe and all must bend the knee to her.”
“Except Benjamin and Uncle Carl.”
“Idiots we were.”
“But it was all for the best. I followed you there, went to sleep in a cupboard and that was how we all got to know Robert Frinton, who turned out to be my father’s uncle …”
“Fell victim to your charms and left you his fortune. It’s like a story in a ballad and just the kind of thing that would happen to you.”
“I don’t think there’s much of the fairytale heroine about me, Benjie. Didn’t you say yourself that I thought I was the centre of the universe. I imagine I haven’t changed much and that means I am an extremely selfish creature.”
“You’re an adorable one, Carlotta.”
He was looking at me with a certain intensity, and under Beau’s tuition I had learned what that meant.
I said on impulse: “Let’s go and look at the house.”
“Isn’t it locked up?”
“I have the key. I always carry it on my belt. Just in case I take the fancy to go in.”
He looked at me oddly. He knew about Beau—the whole family did. But I did not think they knew he had stayed at Enderby.
We tethered our horses and walked towards the front porch. Being with Benjie was arousing certain emotions in me. I didn’t understand myself. I had a sudden fancy to know what it would be like to make love with Benjie. Perhaps I was as Beau had suggested, the sort of woman to whom physical passion is a necessity. Beau had said he had never met such a ready virgin; meaning of course that I had not shrunk from him even in the first encounter. Like a flower opening to the sun, he had said. I remembered in the days before I had met Beau I liked to be with Benjie, and the knowledge that he felt something special for me had filled me with a gratified delight.
I opened the door. I had a feeling then that it might be possible to dispel the image of Beau for ever.
“It is an eerie place,” said Benjie. “Don’t you think so?”
“That’s all in the mind,” I retorted.
“Yes. I suppose you’re right. It doesn’t look eerie now with you standing there. Carlotta, you are beautiful. I only ever saw one other woman as beautiful as you and that was my mother. I was very proud of you when I believed you were my sister.”
“Your pride did not extend to letting me accompany you on your jaunt to Enderby.”
“I’ve told you you must put that down to boyish stupidity.”
He was looking at me earnestly and I knew that in a moment he was going to kiss me. I started to cross the hall, looking up at the minstrels’ gallery to remind me. The old ache was still there. There would never be anyone like Beau. I started to walk up the staircase, Benjie following close … past the haunted gallery. I was thinking, Why should I continue to brood on you, Beau. You went away and left me.
We looked into the rooms and we came to the one with the four-poster bed.
I stood looking at it and the bitterness and longing seemed as strong as ever. Benjie was beside me. He said: “Carlotta, you’re no longer a child. I’ve been wanting to speak to you for a long time, but you seemed so young …”
That made me want to laugh. How much younger I was when I had frolicked on that bed with Beau! How … unadventurous! How different from Beau.
“Carlotta, I think they are expecting it.”
“Expecting what?”
“Us to marry.”
“Are you asking me?”
“I am. What do you say?”
I seemed to see Beau laughing at me. “It is what they expect. Your laggard lover has waited until you are of a ripe age. That makes us laugh, does it not, Carlotta? Bless you, my dear, you were ripe from the cradle. Such as you are. Marry your quiet Benjie. You will have a secure life, a safe one, and I promise you an incredibly dull one.”
I knew I had not escaped from Beau. If I said yes now to Benjie I would feel no elation, no exhilarating anticipation such as I had felt when I entered this house to meet Beau.
“No,” I said to Benjie. “No.” And something made me add: “Not yet.”
Benjie was all understanding. “I have hurried you,” he said.
Hurried me! I thought. I have known your feelings for a long time. He had no notion of the sort of person I was. I imagined Beau in similar circumstances. If I had refused him he would have laughed at me. He would have forced me onto that bed.
Did I want that sort of lover?
Again I seemed to hear Beau’s laughter. Yes, you do. You do.
He would think it a great joke that here in this very room where, as Beau would have said, we had sported so merrily, Benjie should ask me to marry him and when I said no imagine that he had hurried me, and suggested marriage when I in my innocence was not prepared for it.
No, I had not escaped from Beau.
We went out to our horses.
“Don’t be disturbed, dearest Carlotta,” said Benjie. “I am going to ask you later.”
Harriet came to my room. She was sparkling with good health and I was sure that she was no less beautiful than she had been ten years before. She was plumper perhaps but not in an unsightly way; in fact the extra flesh did not detract from her beauty. She saw to it, she said, that it appeared in the right places.
I think she knew that Benjie had asked me to marry him. Some of the servants believed she had special powers and I was inclined to agree with them. Those incredibly beautiful violet eyes with the heavy black lashes were unusually discerning and there was little they missed.
“So, my little seductress,” she said, “you have failed to make my Benjie a happy man. He asked you today, didn’t he?”
I nodded.
“And you said no. My deduction is that you added the rider ‘not yet,’ for he is not so dejected as I would expect him to be if he had received a blank refusal.”
“Harriet, you are right as usual.”
I was laughing with her. She always lightened my spirits. I suppose I loved Harriet more than anyone except Beau. It was due to the fact that during the formative years of my childhood I believed her to be my mother. No, it was more than that. She was what I thought of as one of us—that meant that she was like Beau and myself.
We were the adventurers of this world, determined to have what we wanted and, if circumstances warranted it, were none too scrupulous as to how we got it.
It suddenly occurred to me that we had all been sent into the world with outstanding beauty. Beau and Harriet
had that and it would have been false modesty on my part not to agree that I had it in some measure. By some strange quirk of nature I might have been Harriet’s daughter. I was dark though not quite as dark as she was; I had blue eyes and they were deep blue rather than violet; but I did have similar black lashes and brows. There the resemblance ended, it was true. My oval face and high cheekbones, full lips and straight nose were pure Eversleigh. My nature resembled Harriet’s and perhaps that, as much as our looks, made us seem alike.
However, we were in harmony and I could talk to Harriet more easily than to anyone else. My mother must have felt the same because it was to Harriet she had gone when she knew she was going to have me and was afraid to face her family.
“My poor Benjamin,” she said. “He has long loved you. From the moment he learned that you were not his sister the idea began to form in his mind. He has lived for the day when he will take you to the altar. And I must say that I should very warmly welcome my new daughter.”
“Dear Harriet, it is an alluring prospect to have you as my mother-in-law, but even so it is not a strong enough reason for marriage.”
“It would be good for you, Carlotta. Benjie will be good for you. He’s like his father, and a woman could not have a better husband than my Gregory.” She looked at me seriously: “You would have been very unhappy with Beaumont Granville,” she added.
I turned away and she went on: “Yes, you would. Oh, I admit he is a fascinating creature. I can picture him now living in splendour, congratulating himself on his cleverness. He cannot return to England. His creditors would descend on him like vultures. I wonder where he is. I don’t think it is Venice. I have written several times to a very dear friend of mine, the Contessa Carpori who owns the palazzo where you were born. She knew Beau. He was quite a well known figure in Venice. She says he is not there. If she hears of his turning up in any other Italian city she will let me know. Stop thinking of him. Get him out of your thoughts. It was fun while it lasted, was it not? Can you look on it as experience.”
“It was such a wonderful experience, Harriet.”
“Of course it would be. He would be a superb lover. But there are others in the world. It was your fortune he wanted, Carlotta.”
“Then why did he not stay to take it?”
“It could only be because some more attractive proposition presented itself. That is the only thing I can think of. He owed money all round. He could not stay and face his creditors. It might be that your grandfather threatened him. Carleton Eversleigh has great influence at Court. He could ruin Beau if he set out to. But I don’t think Beau is the type to give way lightly. You should face the facts, Carlotta, even when they’re not very pleasant. The only solution seems that he scented a better proposition somewhere else and went off to pursue it.”
“Harriet, it is nearly three years.”
“And you have come of age. Forget him. Strike out anew. You have everything a girl could ask for. Beauty of the kind which will make you irresistible to almost any man; you have wealth; my dear child, what would I have done for your fortune when I was your age!”
“You managed very well without it.”
“I had to face years of struggle. I enjoyed it, yes. It’s the adventure in my bones, but sometimes I had to do certain things which I had rather not. Carlotta, turn away from the past. Look ahead. The future’s bright. Don’t take Benjie if you don’t want to. But I hope you will for many reasons …”
“The fortune being one.”
“The fortune being one. But let me tell you that doesn’t count with Benjie. He’s a good boy, my Benjamin. He takes after his father, and believe me if it’s a husband and not a demon lover you are looking for, you couldn’t find a better man.”
Harriet kissed me and showed me what she was going to wear to the banquet which was to celebrate my coming of age.
She had had an effect on me as she always did. Eversleigh Court was full and there were guests in the Dower House too. It was a solemn as well as a festive occasion. My coming of age. I had to listen to Sally Nullens telling me that I was the naughtiest of all her children and I had the best pair of lungs she had ever encountered which I used to get what I wanted. “There’s some who would have given it to you,” she commented. “But that was not my way. I could give a sharp smack where it hurt most and that’s what you got from me and didn’t bear a grudge for it—I will give you that.” And there was Emily Philpots: “I’ll say this for you, you might have got your pretty clothes in a mess but you did look lovely in them and it was a pleasure to sew for you. You haven’t changed, Mistress Carlotta. I pity the man who gets you, yes I do.” I might have said that as no man had ever tried to get Emily she might not be the best authority on the subject, but I loved them both in my way. They had been part of my childhood.
Damaris followed me around with a look of awestruck wonder on her face. She was eleven now—rather gauche and too fat; her adora-always nursing sick animals and unhappy because some of them had died. She loved her horse and was quite an expert horsewoman. She was the pet of Sally Nullens and Emily Philpots. I gathered she had had the right sort of lungs and had rarely been beaten where it hurt most; and I was sure that she kept her clothes tidy and I felt a mean gratification that she hadn’t looked as beautiful in them as I had in mine.
My mother, Leigh and even my grandparents were all hoping I would marry Benjie. It seemed they all knew that he wanted me to. There was a certain watchfulness about everyone. Almost as though they wanted to see me settled so that they could write “Finish” to the episode between Beau and me. I think they had the facile thought that once I was married it could be as though I had never known Beau.
I was desperately unsure, but I wanted to find out whether they were right and I suppose that was a step forward.
So I rode with Benjie; I danced with Benjie. I liked Benjie. I felt a mild excitement when he held my hand or touched my arm or now and then kissed me.
It was not that wild leaping of the senses I had felt with Beau but there was some response in me.
I imagined Beau laughing at me.
“You are a passionate young lady,” he had said.
Was I? Was it just the need for physical satisfaction which Beau had led me to appreciate that I wanted now, or was it Benjie?
I was unsure. But I had made one decision. I was going to sell Enderby Hall. Perhaps that was symbolic, an acceptance of the fact that Beau would never come back now.
Mistress Elizabeth Pilkington had come to look at Enderby Hall. She had arrived the day before and was staying with friends a few miles from Eversleigh. She said she would ride over to look at the house if someone would meet her there.
Priscilla had thought Leigh should go but I had refused to allow that. They had to forget I was a child. I was a woman of means now and in any case Enderby Hall belonged to me. I wanted to show them my independence, so I would meet the lady and show her the house myself.
It was November and ten o’clock in the morning. I had suggested that time as it grew dark soon after four o’clock and if Mistress Pilkington came in the afternoon there would be little time for viewing. She agreed. She wanted to see the house in daylight of course.
I was conscious of a certain feeling of relief. I had at last come to the conclusion that once I no longer owned Enderby I should really be able to start afresh.
There was a chill in the air. I had never liked November. The winter lay before us and it seemed a long time to the spring. The trees had now lost most of their leaves and I fancied there was a melancholy note in the snatch of song I heard from a blackbird. He sounded as though he were trying to throw off his melancholy and couldn’t succeed.
There was a little mist hanging about the trees. It glistened on the yews and there seemed more spiders’ webs than ever. The end of the year was close; the end of a phase of my life perhaps.
She was waiting for me. I was rather surprised by her appearance. She was extremely elegant and had the most attractive red
dish hair. Her riding habit was in the very latest fashion and most becoming. It was dark green in colour and she wore a hat with a little brown feather in it which matched that strikingly beautiful hair.
“Mistress Pilkington,” I said. “I am afraid I have kept you waiting.”
“Indeed not.” She smiled, showing a beautiful set of teeth. “I arrived early. I was so eager to see the house.”
“I hope you are going to like it. Shall we go inside?”
“Please.”
I opened the door and we stepped into the hall. It looked different already. Much of the eeriness seemed to have disappeared. She looked up at the roof.
“It’s impressive,” she said. Then she turned and studied me carefully. “I know you are Mistress Carlotta Main. I did not expect I should have the pleasure of meeting you. I thought someone …”
“Someone older,” I finished for her. “No. This is my house and I prefer to deal with business matters myself.”
“Hurrah for you,” she said. “I am like that too. The house was part of your inheritance.”
“You seem to know a good deal about me.”
“I move in London society. I remember the time when there was a great deal of talk about your betrothal to Beaumont Granville.”
I flushed. I had not expected this.
She went on: “It was so very strange, was it not … his disappearance?”
She was looking at me intently and I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable indeed.
“There were all sorts of theories,” she continued. “But he went, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said rather shortly. “He went. Those are the screens. Would you like to look at the kitchens or perhaps go upstairs first?”
She smiled at me as though to say, I understand, you do not want to talk of him.
“Upstairs please,” she said.
I showed her the minstrels’ gallery.
“Enchanting,” she said.
We went through the rooms and she paused in the bedroom with the four-poster bed, that room with such poignant memories.
“What of the furnishings?” she asked.
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