A Child Is Born
IT WAS DARK WHEN I arrived at Eyot Abbass. I had received instructions in Lewes and at length I had come to a road which was familiar to me.
I rode into the courtyard and one of Harriet’s grooms who was there gave a great shout when he saw me.
I called out: “Yes, I’m here. At last I have arrived.”
He rushed to help me dismount. “I must go and tell the mistress. They’ve been that worried.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”
We ran into the house. I was shouting: “Harriet. Gregory. Benjie. I’m here.”
Harriet was the first to appear. She stared at me for a few moments and then she ran to me and caught me in her arms. “Oh, Carlotta,” she cried. “Wherever have you been? We’ve been worried to death. Gregory. Benjie. She’s here. Carlotta’s here.”
Benjie came running into the hall. He swept me up into his arms. There was no mistaking his joy.
Then there was Gregory—dear quiet Gregory, who might be less effusive but who was as delighted to see me as the rest.
“You’ve come alone …”
“Harriet, I’ve had such an adventure …”
“But you’re worn out. You need something to eat and your clothes …” That was Harriet.
“The grooms came here without you. They said you must have been attacked on the way from the inn to the farm where they were staying.”
“I’ll tell you all about it. I hardly know where to begin.”
“I do,” said Harriet, “with food and a wash and change. Your saddlebags arrived. I can tell you we’ve been frantic. Now you men, leave Carlotta to me, and, Gregory, go and tell them to speed up supper, but first some chicken broth for Carlotta and it is to be brought to her room.”
Harriet took me up to the room I always occupied at Eyot Abbass. She brought out a gown from my baggage and almost immediately the chicken broth arrived. I took it greedily and then I washed in the hot water which was brought to me and changed into my gown.
Harriet came back to see how I was getting on.
“You’ve had an adventure,” she said. “A pleasant one.”
“I narrowly escaped being murdered.”
“You look elated. We’re longing to hear. I won’t question you now, my dear. You can tell us all over supper.”
So I told—at least what I wanted them to know. I had decided on my way here that there must be some truth in my story. I would soon be caught out if I made up something entirely different, which at first I had felt inclined to do because I did not want to put Hessenfield in danger. But he was safe now. I had watched him board the ship. He would probably be in France at this moment.
So I told them of our late arrival at the Black Boar and how all the rooms were taken by a party of six men and how all I could get was the small room on the same floor, which had not pleased them.
I went on to tell them how I had discovered that they had with them a sick man whom I recognised as General Langdon.
“Why, he has escaped from the Tower!” cried Benjie.
“Exactly,” I said. “They had rescued him. They were going to kill me because I knew who the General was, but one of them wouldn’t allow it.”
I wondered if a soft note had crept into my voice. I thought it might be so because Harriet looked especially alert.
“They took me with them to a house on the coast. A ship came and they went away in it.”
“And they released you then?” said Gregory.
“I suppose they thought they were safe, the vile wretches,” added Benjie.
“They believed in a cause,” I pointed out. “They really believe it is right to restore James to the throne.”
“Have they made a Jacobite of you?” said Harriet.
“Of course not. I’m not interested in their stupid causes.”
“What a terrible ordeal,” went on Harriet. “We’ve been frantic.”
“My mother?” I began.
“I didn’t tell her. I thought I’d wait awhile. I had a notion you were safe, and you know what she is. She would imagine the worst. But it couldn’t have been much worse. You … in the hands of those desperate men.”
“I don’t think Hessenfield would have let them kill me. Right from the first he saved me before …”
I was tired. I wasn’t thinking what I was saying and Harriet could always see farther than most people where human emotions were concerned.
“Hessenfield!” cried Gregory.
“Hessenfield,” repeated Benjie.
“Great heavens!” cried Harriet. “Lord Hessenfield, of course. We have met him in the old days. He was a close friend of James’s. Of course, he’s a leading Jacobite. All the Fields were hand in glove with James.”
“Fields!” I said blankly.
“The family name, dear. John—he’s the eldest of them. I remember his father before he died. My dear Carlotta, so it was Hessenfield who got General Langdon out of the Tower. Quite a feat. Typical of Hessenfield.”
John Field, I thought. He told me he was John Field. He had not lied about his name.
They were plying me with questions. I told them how I had ridden out with them and how we had stayed at a house on the coast in which we had lived for three days.
“My dear Carlotta,” said Harriet, “some of us have strange adventures. They somehow attract them. You certainly attracted one this time. Now what you want more than anything is rest, and I am going to insist that you go to bed at once. You can tell us more tomorrow. What you need is a good sleep, and I’m going to bring you some of my black currant posset. So off you go. Say good night to them and I’ll be up with the posset shortly.”
I knew Harriet. She wanted to talk and she wanted to do so more freely than she could before her son and husband.
She came to my room with the posset. By that time I was in bed. She was right, I was exhausted, and yet at the same time I knew I should not find sleep easily.
I kept thinking: This time last night I was with him. And I could not get out of my mind the memory of his face when he had kissed me good-bye.
Harriet handed me the posset and seated herself by my bed.
“Something else happened,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows to express innocence of her meaning.
“Hessenfield?” she said. “I remember him well. A fine gentleman.” She smiled. “And he saved your life. And you were with them for three days.”
I was silent.
“Do you want to tell me, Carlotta?” she asked.
“Harriet, I don’t feel I can talk about it … yet … even to you.”
She said: “I think I understand. You will tell me in time. My dear child, how glad I am to have you back. I have been terrified. … There are so many things that can happen to women in this world. But somehow I knew that you would know how to take care of yourself. You’re a natural survivor, Carlotta. I know them when I see them. I’m one myself.”
She bent over and kissed me and took the posset from my hand.
I believed she knew that Hessenfield and I had been lovers.
I could not have come to a better place in which to try to regain my composure. Gregory and Benjie were such dear, uncomplicated people. They accepted my story; they could only be thankful that I had come out of it alive. All they thought I needed was rest and feeding up a bit to make up for the discomforts I had endured.
It was different with Harriet. She knew something had happened, and being Harriet she guessed what. She understood, perhaps, and she had made in the past the acquaintance of Hessenfield. She knew how it would be with two people such as we were shut up for three days, with death hanging over us and me in their power.
But Harriet’s chief charm was that she never probed. I was aware—and my mother had discovered this too—that in any difficulty Harriet would bring out all her resources—and they were formidable—to one’s aid. But she behaved as though whatever had happened, however tremendous it might seem t
o other people, was in her eyes merely another piece of life. Never to be judged or condemned by others who could never see it in all its complexities. If it was good, enjoy it; if not, find a way to extricate oneself. Harriet was by no means what would be called a good woman, but she was a comforting one. She was engrossed in her own life, determined to get the best of it—and none could deny she had. She was by no means scrupulous; she was fond of the good things of life and would go to great lengths to get them. I suppose one of the comforting things about her was that one knew whatever one had done she had probably done also; she would understand the motive, and even if she didn’t she would never get lost in the devious paths of right or wrong.
I knew she would understand without question that what had happened between myself and Hessenfield was natural. In time I would talk to her as I never could have talked to my mother. One might say your mother gave birth to you—a bastard, born out of wedlock. Oh, yes, that was true but all that happened was that she had on one occasion forestalled her marriage vows, which had never been uttered because of the executioner’s axe. My mother was at heart an unadventurous woman with a deep respect for conventions. I was not and never would be. Nor was Harriet.
For the first few days I absorbed the peace of Eyot Abbass, that lovely old house which Gregory had inherited when he came into the title on the death of his elder brother. I had always loved it. In a way it was more my home than Eversleigh, for in the early years I had believed Harriet and Gregory to be my parents. I knew every nook and cranny of the house. I loved the hilly country round about. It was so flat at Eversleigh. In the country lanes I had ridden my first pony, in the paddock I had ridden round and round on a leading rein with Gregory or Benjie or one of the grooms in charge of me. It was home to me. It was about a mile from the sea, but as the house was built in a slight hollow—as a good protection against the southerly winds—the Eyot could only be seen from the topmost windows. A lovely old house built as most houses were in the Elizabethan style—hall in the centre with the west and east wings on either side. A house of towers and turrets and red Tudor bricks and a beautiful garden which was rather wild because Harriet liked it that way and Harriet’s will was law in that house.
From my window at the top of the house I often looked at the Eyot, about a mile out to sea. There had been a monastery on it before the dissolution and it had always been a specially exciting place to me.
I had loved to play hide-and-seek there in the summer days when we rowed over with picnics. When I learned the truth about myself I believed the Eyot was a special place to me because I had been conceived there. Very few people can be absolutely certain of where their conception actually occurred. I could, for the only time my mother and father had been lovers was on the Eyot. Poor star-crossed lovers. Then suddenly I thought it is like a pattern … in a way. She lost her lover because of some silly plot in which he was involved. And I …
I was not sure that I thought of Hessenfield as a lover. Our encounter was very different from that of my parents. They had met; she had tried to save him; they had loved romantically and the result was myself. I am sure that what had passed between them had been very different from my adventure.
I had to forget him now as I had to forget Beau. Was I destined to love so tragically?
I had been a week at the Abbass when I talked to Harriet. I had not meant to. She was sitting on a wooden seat in the garden. I saw her from the house and I felt the impulse to go down and join her.
She merely smiled when I sat down beside her.
“You are feeling better now,” she said, stating a fact. “And yet you are still not here half the time.”
I raised my eyebrows questioningly and she went on: “Still in that mystery house by the sea.”
She asked no questions. She sat there waiting and I knew that the time had come to tell her. I could hold it in no longer.
“Yes,” I said. “Still thinking of it.”
“It is bound to have its effect on you.”
“Harriet,” I said. “You know how it was between Hessenfield and me.
“I guessed,” she said. “Knowing him … knowing you. Did he force you?”
I hesitated. “Well, in a way …”
She nodded. She understood perfectly. “Hessenfield is a born charmer,” she said. “He’s another such as Beaumont Granville. Not such a villain, I hope. But there is a similarity.”
“You think Beau was a villain but you didn’t try to stop my marrying him as the others did.”
“I thought it was something you had to learn yourself. You’ve been brooding a lot about him. And now we have Hessenfield. But he’s gone now. It was inevitable that he would. He’s lucky. He did what he came to do and got away with it and his life; and I gather from you that some of his time here was spent very pleasantly.”
“Harriet, you are not shocked?”
“My dear child, should I be shocked … by life?”
“You have had a lot of lovers, Harriet.”
She did not answer. Her eyes had become vague as though she were looking a long way back, seeing a procession of them, men she had loved, and some of whom she had forgotten now. The words came falling out then and I could not stop them. I explained to her how he had saved my life when the man Durrell would have killed me; how he had made it plain what he would expect of me and how when it happened I had wanted it to.
“There. Can you understand that?”
“Indeed I can. I have seen him. It must have been as great an experience for you as it was with Beau.”
“Beau and I were lovers too, Harriet.”
“Of course you were. Beaumont Granville wouldn’t have played it otherwise. My dear child, you will have lovers. You are not like those good women, your grandmother and your mother. You can reach heights of passion which they wouldn’t dream of. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You are more sensitively moulded. That’s all. Do you know, you are very like me. I think when I decided to play the role of mother, fate was amused and made you my child. You even look a little like me. Do you mind?”
“Harriet, there is no one I would rather look and be like.”
“Said with more affection than wisdom, but bless you for it. Now there is something that has occurred to me. You spent three nights with Hessenfield. What if there should be consequences? Have you thought of that?”
“Yes, I have. When I look out of my window at the Eyot and remember how I was conceived there, I think to myself, what if I should have Hessenfield’s child?”
“Well, what conclusion did you come to, suppose that passionate relationship should bear fruit?”
“I am a little frightened at the thought and yet at the same time …”
“I know … elated.”
“It would be wonderful in a way to have a child to remember him by.”
“Children of such affairs make a good deal of pother when they make their entry into the world. You yourself made a most spectacular entry.”
“Only because you were stage managing it.” I began to laugh faintly hysterically, I must admit, for now that I had brought that possibility which had haunted my thoughts into the daylight I was indeed disturbed.
Harriet patted my hand suddenly. “If it should be so we shall have to consider what is to be done. Of course, it may not be so. It happened to your mother somewhat similarly. Life does not usually work out to such neat patterns. But let us be prepared, eh?”
“Oh, Harriet,” I said, “it is good to be with you. I suppose my mother must have felt like this all those years ago.”
She was silent with that glazed look in her eyes, again remembering the past. She must, I calculated, be quite sixty years old, but she had retained a certain youthfulness by her nature as well as artificial aids and in that moment she looked like a young girl.
Yet it was like repeating a pattern, for I did discover that there was to be a child.
I did not now know quite how I felt. I was dismayed, it was true, and yet I was conscious
of an overwhelming excitement. I realized how dull life had been after Beau’s disappearance until my capture by the Jacobites. Then I felt that I had started to live again, and I wanted to live desperately; it was necessary to me even if it meant that I might have to endure dangers.
I wasted no time in telling Harriet. She was excited. I understood her perfectly. She liked things to happen even if they were going to present difficulties, and the more insurmountable those difficulties seemed the more excited she became.
It was the greatest comfort to be with her. She discussed my condition with verve. “It is different from your mother’s case. She was a young and innocent girl. To produce an illegitimate child seemed to her unthinkable. Yet there you were, my dear Carlotta, waiting to be born. We had to practice a good deal of subterfuge.”
“I know. Venice. That magnificent palazzo and then the pretence that I was your child.”
“It would have made a good play. But here we have a different situation. You were forced into this by that adventurer. To what children owe their lives! You might say that the one you have conceived owes his or her existence to a goblet of potent cider … But what are we going to do, Carlotta? You are a rich woman. You could defy them all if you wished. You could say: I am having this child and if you are going to criticise me for it, I shall snap my fingers at you. On the other hand, it is good for a child to have a father. Two parents are better than one, and it is not easy to flout society. I would like a father for the baby.”
“Its father will never know of its existence.”
“How can you be sure of that? But we waste time. Not that there is any immediate hurry, but it is well to plan ahead.”
I started to think of my mother and my grandmother. There would be consternation in the family. My grandfather would want to kill Hessenfield, and as he was a Jacobite into the bargain—my grandfather being a stern Protestant—I had no doubt of the rage he would feel. Then there was Leigh. Although he appeared to be mild enough, he had a fierce temper. I had heard how he had once attacked Beau when he had been, as Leigh called it, too friendly with my mother. I had seen the scars on Beau’s body inflicted by Leigh. And all for a mad escapade, Beau had told me that Leigh had come to his apartment and caught him unawares, and had inflicted those wounds on him.
Song of the Siren Page 10