Song of the Siren

by Philippa Carr

  At Christmas my mother and Leigh came to Eyot Abbass with Damaris.

  My mother was very eager to hear how I was and she had brought garments and advice about the baby. She was determined, she said, to stay until my child was born and nothing was going to shift her. She said this almost defiantly, thinking of Harriet, I was sure, which was absurd really for Harriet had no desire to usurp her position as a mother. My mother would never understand Harriet. This ridiculous rivalry had only grown through me, I believed. Before my birth she must have felt much the same towards her as I did since she had gone to her for advice.

  We had the usual Christmas festivities. I was getting large at that time, having only two months to go.

  And on a bleak February day my child was born.

  It was a strong healthy girl.

  As I held my child in my arms I marvelled that out of that encounter, which had been so closely concerned with death, life should have come. A new life.

  “What shall you call her?” asked my mother gloating over the child.

  “I have decided to call her Clarissa,” I said.

  DAMARIS

  The Cellar Of Good Mrs. Brown

  I SUPPOSE ALL MY life I have been overshadowed by Carlotta. She is seven years older than I, which gives her a certain advantage, but age has nothing to do with it. Carlotta is herself, and as such the most fascinating person I have ever met.

  People turn to look at her when she comes into a room. It is as though the desire to do so is irresistible. Nobody could understand it better than I because I feel this deeply and always have. She is of course startlingly beautiful with that dark curling hair and those deep blue eyes; if one is the sister of such a creature one is immediately dubbed plain merely by comparison. I don’t doubt that if I had not had Carlotta for a sister I should have passed as quite a pleasant-looking, ordinary sort of girl; but there was Carlotta, and I became accustomed to hearing people refer to “the beauty.” I quickly accepted this and I didn’t mind nearly as much as my mother thought I might. I was one of Carlotta’s worshippers too. I loved to watch those deep-set eyes half closed so that the incredibly long dark lashes spread fanlike on her palish skin; then her eyes would open and if she were angry flash with blue fire. Her skin was pale but with a certain glow. It reminded me of flower petals. It was the same colour and texture. I was pink and white with straight brown hair which did not curl very easily and never stayed where I wanted it to. My eyes seemed to have no definite colour; I used to say they were water colour. “They are like you,” Carlotta once said. “They have no colour of their own. They take colour from whatever is close. You’re like that, Damaris. The good girl. ‘Yes, Yes, Yes,’ you say to everything. You never have an opinion that is not given to you by someone else.” Carlotta could be cruel sometimes, particularly when someone or something had annoyed her. She liked to take her revenge on whoever was near—and that was often myself. “You’re such a good girl,” was her constant complaint, and she made it sound as if goodness was a despicable thing to be.

  My mother was always trying to let me know that she loved me as much as she loved Carlotta. I was not sure about that, but I did know that I did not cause her the anxiety that Carlotta did.

  I overheard my grandmother once say to my mother, “You’ll have no trouble with Damaris, at any rate.”

  I knew they were comparing me with Carlotta.

  Carlotta was constantly involved in some controversy. Exciting things happened about her and she was generally the centre of them all.

  Not only was she beautiful but she was rich. She had charmed Robert Frinton, who had lived at Enderby Hall, and so completely had she done this that he left her his fortune. Then there was all the fuss about her elopement with someone called Beaumont Granville. I never saw him but there was a great deal of talk about him and his name was on everybody’s lips—even the servants’.

  That was over a long time ago and now she was married to Benjamin Stevens—dear Benjie, whom we all loved so much, and my mother was particularly pleased as there was a little baby.

  We had spent Christmas at Eyot Abbass and everything had circled round Carlotta then.

  My mother insisted on staying until the baby—a little girl called Clarissa—was born and my father and I had come home.

  “Now she has a baby,” my mother said, “Carlotta will settle down.”

  “Settle down!” cried my grandfather with a chuckle. “That girl will never settle down. Mark my words, she’ll always be the centre of some storm.”

  My grandfather had a specially warm spot for Carlotta. He never seemed to notice me. My mother said that he had not been like that with her. It made his affection for Carlotta even more remarkable.

  My mother was coming home shortly. There was no longer any reason why she should stay away. She had seen her granddaughter safely into the world, and Eyot Abbass was Carlotta’s home now that she had married Benjie. She had more or less returned to the scene of her childhood, for her early years, when everyone thought she was Harriet’s daughter, had been spent at Eyot Abbass.

  Yesterday one of the Stevens’s grooms had ridden over with letters. My mother would be setting out at the end of the week. The journey was not long. It usually meant two nights at an inn, and that was taking it slowly. The grooms managed it in two days and they were always trying to do it in record time.

  It was a sparkling morning. March had just come in like a lion, as the saying goes, and we were hoping it would prove the old saying true by going out like a lamb. There was a feeling of spring in the air. The long winter was, over; the nights were getting shorter, and although there was not much warmth in the sun yet, it gave a promising radiance to the fields and hedgerows. I loved to ride out into the country; I loved to watch for the changing of the land. I had a great fondness for the animals too. Apart from my dogs and horses I loved the birds and all wild things. They came to me first and always seemed to understand that I would not dream of hurting them and above all wanted to help. I knew how to speak to them, how to soothe them. My father said it was a natural gift. I had tended rabbits and sparrows and once there was a redshank which I found on the marshes. He had a broken leg and I had set it for him. It was amazing how it healed.

  I loved the country life; I knew that the time would come when I would go to London with my family and there would be balls and such things for me, the object being to find me a husband. I dreaded that; but there was one consolation, neither of my parents would force me into marriage if I didn’t want it; and their great desire was to see me happy.

  In any case I was only thirteen and that was in the future. I remembered that Carlotta had not been much more when she had fallen in love with Beaumont Granville. But Carlotta was Carlotta.

  “She was born with all the wiles some women take a lifetime to learn,” said my grandfather. “And then only get half of them.”

  He spoke with approval. I quickly realised that I had been born with none of those wiles.

  On this particular March morning I did not care. I saw that the rooks were busy making their nests and I saw some meadow-pipits, which we sometimes called tit-larks. They were a little like larks and could be mistaken for them by some who had not studied them as I had. I loved to see them on the ground, where they ran instead of hopped. I heard the cry of a redshank—a sort of whimper. I would not go near her because the nest would not be far off and it would throw her into panic if anyone approached her young.

  I came past Enderby Hall. No one lived there, which was rather absurd, said my father. A big house like that, furnished, standing vacant just because Carlotta had some caprice to keep it so. The house had been left to her by Robert Frinton with the rest of his fortune, and at one time she had thought to sell it and suddenly and capriciously, said my father, had changed her mind.

  I didn’t like Enderby very much. When we were young Carlotta had tried to frighten me there. She told me how when she was very small she had wandered in there and been lost. They had all
been in a panic and finally she was discovered in a cupboard fast asleep. Robert Frinton had been so taken with her that he had called it Carlotta’s cupboard.

  She enticed me into it and tried to lock me in but I had known what she might have in mind too and for once in my life had been too quick for her. “Silly!” she had said afterwards. “I wouldn’t have kept you there. I just wanted you to learn what it feels like to be shut up alone in a haunted house.” She had looked at me with that trace of malice she often showed. “Some people’s hair turns white overnight,” she said. “Some just die of fright. I wonder what you would look like with white hair? It might be better than no real colour at all.”

  Yes, there had been times when Carlotta had been merciless. But I had never faltered in my admiration and I always sought her attention and was gratified to receive it even when it could result in ghoulish experiments such as she had planned for me in the cupboard in Enderby Hall.

  I rode past, skirting the land which my father had bought and which had once belonged to Enderby. There was a wall about it now.

  I came past Grasslands Manor, the home of the Willerbys, and young Thomas Willerby saw me and called to me.

  I would have to go in. They expected it; and old Thomas loved to have callers. He was particularly fond of everyone from our family.

  I took my horse to the stables and Thomas and I went into the house together.

  Old Thomas was delighted to see me. I told him the news while he sent for wine and cakes, which I should have to take because he would be hurt if I didn’t. He loved to show his hospitality.

  I told him my mother was returning home and he said how glad we must be and how happy to have an addition to the family.

  I admitted I was longing for my mother’s return. She would have all the news of the baby and Carlotta to tell us.

  He said: “I have some news too. I have bought a place near York.”

  “Oh,” I said, “You really will be going then.”

  “As you know, my dear, I have been shilly-shallying for a long time, but now I really have made up my mind.”

  “And what of Grasslands?”

  “I shall sell it.”

  I was thinking it strange how there seemed no lasting luck in either Grasslands Manor or Enderby Hall. I wondered if there was such a thing as ill fortune, for these houses seemed to have incurred the wrath of fate. Even the Willerbys had not escaped, though at one time they had been very happy. Then Thomas’s wife had died giving birth to young Christabel. It was all very sad.

  “Yes,” he said. “It may be that your parents will give me a hand with the selling. I don’t want to wait here … now I have the new house.”

  “We shall all be delighted to show people round it. Have you spoken to my father yet?”

  “No, I was waiting until your mother came back. Now she is coming. That is good news. Less happy news at Court.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, the King has broken his collarbone.”

  “That is not very serious, is it?”

  “I heard he has been ill for some time,” said young Thomas. “He was riding from Kensington to Hampton Court when he was thrown from his horse. The horse caught his foot in a molehill, they say. It didn’t seem much at the time.”

  His father put in: “I hear the Jacobites are drinking to the Little Gentleman in Black Velvet, meaning the mole who in making his hill has done the country a service.”

  “It seems a pity that they must be so pleased about an accident. What of the horse? Was it badly hurt?”

  “Now that I didn’t hear. I suppose they thought it wasn’t important.”

  While we were drinking the wine another visitor arrived. It was my uncle Carl from Eversleigh. He was in the army and home on leave.

  “Oh, hello, Dammee,” he said. He was very jovial, Uncle Carl, and thought it amusing to make a joke of my name, which he knew irritated my mother. “There’s news. The King is dead.”

  “I thought it was just his collarbone,” said Tom Willerby.

  “He had several fits apparently, and he has been trying to keep his weakness a secret from the people for some time. He died at eight o’clock this morning.”

  “There will be excitement across the water,” said Thomas Willerby.

  “Among the Jacobites, yes. They haven’t a chance. Anne was proclaimed Queen this very day. Let’s drink to the new reign, eh?”

  So our glasses were filled and we drank to our new sovereign: Queen Anne.

  The Eversleighs had always had close connections with the court. My grandfather Carleton Eversleigh had been a great friend of Charles the Second. After he had been involved in the Monmouth Rebellion he had fallen out of favor with James, of course, and although William and Mary had received him, he had never been on the same terms with them as he had with Charles. However, that we should go to London for the coronation was taken for granted and we made ready.

  It was now April. Carlotta’s baby was two months old and she was not going to London this time. Harriet was not either. It must have been one of the first times she had missed a royal function, but I suppose even she was beginning to feel her age. She was several years older than my grandmother.

  Nevertheless it was quite a big party that set out from Eversleigh. My grandparents, my parents, Uncle Carl and myself.

  “Dammee,” said Uncle Carl, “it’ll be good for you to see a bit of life.”

  “She is young yet, Carl,” said my mother, “and her name is Damaris.”

  “Very well, sister,” retorted Uncle Carl. “She is as yet a babe in arms and I’ll remember not to call little Dammee Dammee.”

  My mother clicked her tongue impatiently but she was not annoyed. There was something very lovable about Uncle Carl. He was several years younger than she was and sometimes she talked about the old days and then she told me how their father had doted on Carl while he hardly seemed aware of her.

  “There came a time when things changed,” she said once, and there was a note in her voice which made me want her to tell me more; but when I asked she shut her lips tightly together and wouldn’t say a word more on the subject. Secrets, I thought. Family secrets. I should probably know them one day.

  Well now we were going to London and there was all the fun of setting out. If Edwin had been home, as a peer of the realm, he would have played a big part in the ceremony. My grandmother regretted that he was away on foreign service. However, we were determined to make a jolly time of it.

  “If you can’t rejoice at coronations, when can you?” said my grandfather. “You have a new monarch and you can with a good conscience delude yourself into thinking all will live happily ever after. So let us all enjoy our coronation.”

  We were in high spirits as we set out. The family and six servants. We had three saddle horses, for we should need special clothes if we were to go to Court.

  I was watching out for birds. I knew where to look for them—willow warbler in the open country, tree pipit always where there were trees and turtle doves in the woods. I loved to hear their joyous singing at this time of the year. They were so happy because the winter was over.

  I told my mother that it made me feel happy just to hear them.

  She gave me her warm approving smile. Later I heard her say softly to my grandmother, “Damaris will never give me one moment’s cause for anxiety, I am sure.”

  And my grandmother replied: “Not of her own free will, Priscilla, but sometimes disaster strikes from unexpected quarters.”

  “You are in a strange mood today, mother.”

  “Yes,” said my grandmother, “I think it’s because we’re all riding to London. It makes me think of the time when Carlotta eloped.”

  “Oh, how thankful I am that is all over.”

  “Yes, she is safe with Benjie.”

  “And now this child. A baby will sober even Carlotta.”

  They lapsed into a comfortable silence and in due course the grey walls of the Tower of London came into sig
ht. We were almost at the end of our journey.

  It was always exciting to arrive in London. The streets were teeming with life; there was noise and bustle everywhere; I had never seen so many people as I saw in London—all sorts of people, all different, all, I imagined, leading the sort of lives we of the country could only guess at. There were gentlemen in exaggeratedly elegant garments flashing with what could have been real jewels but might well have been imitation; ladies patched and powdered; vendors of all kinds of objects and apprentices standing at the doors of the shops calling out to passersby to buy their wares. There was the excitement of the river, which was always crowded with craft of all kinds. I could never tire of watching the watermen shouting for customers with the cry of “Next oars” and piloting their passengers from bank to bank and taking them for pleasure trips past the splendours of Westminster to beyond the Tower. I liked the songs they sang; and when they were not singing they were shouting abuse at each other. My mother had never wanted me to use the river. I had heard her say that people forgot their manners and breeding when they stepped into a boat, and even members of the nobility assumed a coarseness which would not have been acceptable to polite company ashore.

  Although Carlotta would have called me rather slightingly a country girl, I could not help but be fascinated by the London scene. There was so much to see which we never saw in the country. The coaches which rattled through the streets containing imperious ladies and gentlemen so sumptuously attired fascinated me as did the street shows. One could see Punch and Judy in a booth at Charing Cross; and along Cheapside there were knife swallowers and conjurors and their tricks for the delight of passersby. There were giants and dwarfs performing all sorts of wonders; and the ballad sellers would sing their wares in raucous voices while some pie man would shout to you to come and test his mutton.

  The greatest attraction was a hanging at Tyburn, but that was something I had no wish to see—nor should I have been allowed to if I had wanted to. Carlotta had seen a hanging once and she had described it to me—not that she had enjoyed it, I believed, but she could become exasperated with me at times and liked to shock me.