by Jean Plaidy
“Carolan, my own daughter, try not to blame me!” Carolan, whose nursery days were full of taking blame for real and imaginary sins, did not understand for what she should blame her mother. But it was pleasant in bed, and she was indeed sorry when Therese came bustling in to lift her hands and murmur: “What is here! What is here!” in her funny accents.
“It is a birthday little girl!” said Kitty, all tears gone, full of smiles.
“A wicked one,” said Therese, ‘to spoil her mamma’s beauty sleep!”
“Ah, but it was sweet of her to come, Carolan, my darling, come again, and we will talk often of … you know what. It is our secret, and we will talk together of it.”
Carolan nodded. What a wonderful birthday morning! She had come, hoping for a present, and had discovered a secret. But then, were not secrets as amusing and exciting as presents?
“I will come,” she said.
“And now.” said Therese, lifting her from the bed, ‘you will go, yes?”
She ran to the door, looking back once to smile at her mother, and the look that passed between them was an acknowledgement of a secret shared.
She ran along to the nursery, where Margaret and Charles were already having their bread and milk. Charles stared down into his plate, eating hurriedly. He always ate hurriedly in the nursery. He was fifteen, and going away to school shortly; he thought eating in the nursery was beneath his dignity. Margaret was looking excitedly at the parcel she had put by Carolan’s place. Jennifer sat at the head of the table.
“Ah!” said Jennifer.
“And where have you been, Miss? I have been to your room once for you!”
That,” said Carolan, ‘is no business of yours, Jennifer!”
“Come here!” said Jennifer.
Carolan tossed her head and went to her place at the table.
“I’ll tan the hide off you after breakfast!” said Jennifer. She always felt ill in the morning too tired to put any energy into whipping the child.
“Perhaps!” said Carolan.
“No perhaps about it. Miss!”
Charles looked up, interested, as though he hoped Jennifer would begin now.
Carolan said boldly: “You could not tan the hide off anybody, Jennifer Jay. You are not much good at tanning; you are getting old!”
Jennifer stood up. Charles put out his foot, so that if Carolan tried to run she would have difficulty in getting past it. Carolan, feeling concerned, shouted in bravado: “You are getting old, Jennifer Jay! In the kitchen they say you are getting too old. Jennifer Jay!”
It was worth any whipping, to see the colour run out of Jennifer’s face.
“Yes!” said Jennifer.
“It is to be expected; you would talk to those sluts in the kitchen, you! That is your place down there with them. I can tell you what will happen to you, Miss Carolan.”
“What?” said Carolan. who really wanted to know.
“You will end up on a gibbet, or in Botany Bay!”
Margaret was looking at Carolan in shocked wonder. Charles was laughing his agreement. Carolan quailed; there were those who said that Jennifer Jay was almost a witch.
“No!” cried Carolan, feeling rather frightened.
“It is you who will end up on a gibbet, Jennifer Jay!”
Charles put his face close to Carolan’s.
“Do not forget it is a birthday, young Carolan!”
“I do not forget. I am nine today! Yesterday I was eight. Today I am nine!”
“Nine is not much to be!” said Margaret.
“But here is a present for you, Carolan. From me to you. A happy birthday! See. I have written it on the paper there.
“A happy birthday from Margaret to Carolan”.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Carolan hunched her shoulders with delight.
Margaret said impatiently: “Open it! Open it!” And, fingers trembling with excitement, Carolan opened it. Inside the packet was a book-mark in silk, with flowers embroidered on it, and “Carolan Haredon, April 19, 1793’ worked in red and blue. One of Carolan’s great gifts was to be able to disperse elaborate expectation and find complete joy in the reality. She forgot the saddle she had dreamed that Margaret would give her; now she was completely absorbed in the beauty of the book-mark.
“Margaret, it is lovely!”
“You do like it?” cried Margaret eagerly.
“I did those flowers my self I’ “They are beautiful.”
“There are a few bad stitches in the red ones,” said Margaret modestly.
“I cannot see them!” Carolan warmly assured her, and they smiled shyly at each other.
Charles said: “Here! Margaret’s not the only one who’s got a present for you, baby.” Carolan stared incredulously at Charles, for from his pocket he took a brown paper packet.
“Oh … Charles! Thank you.”
“Happy birthday!” said Charles.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Carolan smiled at him very sweetly. She felt ashamed that she hated him when she came into the room. She took the package; it was soft. There was no sound in the nursery but the crackling of paper. Beneath the first wrapping was a second one.
“Go on!” said Charles.
“You are slow.”
“I wonder what it is,” said Margaret.
“Charles, you did not tell me… though I told you the book-mark was for Carolan!”
“Oh,” cried Charles, ‘she will love this better than your silly book-mark. She will take it to bed; she will keep it under her pillow; she will carry it wherever she goes. She will love it so much.”
“Margaret,” said Carolan, ‘the book-mark is lovely.” And she thought: What would I take to bed with me? What would I keep under my pillow? What would I carry wherever I went?
What a successful birthday, with even Charles remembering it!
The parcel was open. Carolan squealed, and dropped it; her face was ashen. Lying in the paper was a tiny shrew mouse which had been dead some days.
Jennifer began to laugh shrilly.
“She will take it to bed with her! She will keep it under her pillow! She will carry it wherever she goes!”
Carolan raised her eyes and looked at Charles looked at him with such utter loathing that momentarily his laughter was quelled.
Margaret said: “That was beastly … to pretend it was a present!”
“Be silent!” said Charles.
“Bah!” said Jennifer.
“You cannot see a joke. Look at the little Greedy Guts! Ready to burst into tears, I do declare.”
Carolan hated death; she ran from death. If she saw a funeral in the village, with all its black trappings and the mourners all covered in black, she could not sleep that night, and when she did, her sleep was disturbed by frightful dreams. Birds, animals, people … when they were dead they changed subtly; they were not birds, animals, people any more. She could never be happy, thinking of death. And here, on her birthday, was death presented to her in the shape of the small limp body of a shrew mouse.
But the fun had only just begun for Charles.
“So you would throw my present on the floor, would you? You ungrateful little beast! Pick it up… Pick it up, I say! Do you not love its soft silky body? Stroke it, baby. Its name is Carrie -named after its new mistress, you see. Pick it up, I say. Kiss it!”
“I will not touch it,” said Carolan.
He caught Carolan in his strong arms; she began to kick.
“Nine years old, she is!” he said, looking at her derisively.
“One would think it was nine months!” He narrowed his eyes.
“Carolan, are you going to pick up my nice present? Are you going to carry it in your pocket, take it to bed with you, my child?”
“No,” cried Carolan.
“No!”
Margaret looked unhappy. She hated to see Carolan tormented; but what could she do about it? She was not yet thirteen herself, so what could she do against Charles and Jennifer?
Charles gravely put Carolan down; his brown eyes that were flecked with yellow were the cruellest eyes in the world, thought Carolan, and when they blazed in anger they were not so cruel as they were when they laughed in this quiet way.
He picked up the mouse by its tail; then he caught Carolan.
Carolan shut her eyes tightly that she might not look into Ms face.
“Open your eyes,” said Charles.
“I will not.”
“You will,” said Charles.
“Do you think I bring you presents that you may haughtily shut your eyes and not look at them?”
“I hate you!” sobbed Carolan.
“Stop this,” interrupted Margaret.
“It is so silly.” Jennifer said nothing; she just sat there, leaning her arms on the table.
“Carolan,” said Charles, ‘must learn not to be a silly baby.” With a mighty effort Carolan, taking Charles off his guard, wrenched herself free. She ran towards the door.
“Mamma!” she screamed.
“Mammal’ But Charles dashed at her; she fell, Charles sprawled on top of her. Carolan beat at him with her fists; Charles was helpless with laughter, and Carolan’s sobs and Charles’s laughter mingled oddly together. George Haredon, opening the door, stared at the scene in amazement.
“What is this?” he demanded, and there was sudden quiet in the nursery.
Charles and Carolan got to their feet. The squire did not look at Jennifer; he was heartily sick of looking at Jennifer. He looked from Charles to Carolan.
“What is this display?” he said, and he put a heavy hand on Carolan’s shoulder and turned her face up to his.
“Tears?”
“She is such a baby, master,” said Jennifer. Carolan stamped her foot.
“I am not a baby!” she faced the squire furiously.
“I do not cry because I am a baby. I cry because I hate him.”
“Nice words! Nice words!” said the squire, and sat down heavily on one of the chairs at the breakfast table. It creaked under his weight. Jennifer cursed her ill-luck. There was grease on her gown which she had not bothered to remove; her halt was limp and in need of a combing. How was she to have known that the squire would visit the nursery so early! Could it be because of the brat’s birthday? Had he come to the nursery early for Charles’s birthday… for Margaret’s?
“Now,” said the squire.
“I will hear why there is all this kicking and screaming at this hour of the morning.”
“Miss Carolan is a silly little baby.” began Jennifer.
“She wants a good whipping…”
George Haredon said, without looking at her: “I am not addressing you.”
Ugly colour flooded Jennifer’s face. He could talk to her like that, after… everything?
“Charles,” said the squire, ‘tell me why you think it so amusing to make a little girl cry.”
Charles said: “She is such a baby. It was a joke. That was all, and she could not take it.”
“I will hear the joke,” said George.
“Oh, it’s a silly joke really, sir,” said Charles.
“I have no doubt of that. But when I say I will hear it, I mean it. And listen, boy. I will be judge of whether it is silly or not. Carolan, come here. Margaret too.”
They stood before him, all three of them, Carolan in the middle. The squire looked from his own two children to Kitty’s child. Why. he thought angrily, do I have to have those two, and why shouldn’t she be mine! He had tried to dislike her, God knew; he had tried to ignore her. But she would not be disliked, nor ignored; she intruded into his mind at odd moments. Her skin was like the bowls of rich cream that were served at his table cream with the bloom of peaches in her cheeks; now there was angry red there, like roses. And the eyes that glittered with tears were decidedly green. The red in her hair delighted him. What was it that she had, and Kitty had, and Bess had had, and no one else in the world seemed to have? Why was she not his child, instead of these other two? Unnatural father that he was! But then, he felt himself to be unnatural in a good many ways. When a man got older he was more given to self-analysis than in his younger days. There were days when he did not feel like hunting not the fox, nor the otter, nor women could make him want to hunt; then he sat in the sun or by a fire and thought about himself … not what he wanted to do, nor what he wanted to eat, but what he was. Searching, searching for something that was George Haredon, and the tragedy of it was or perhaps it wasn’t a tragedy, merely an irritation that he did not know for what he searched. First he had sought it in Bess. Ah! If only he had married Bess! But Bess had run off with an actor. Then he had sought it in Kitty, but Kitty was a wanton. And now he sought it in the child. Little Carolan as near his daughter as made little difference really. Little Carolan, green-eyed, red-haired, with that elusive and mysterious quality which had been Bess’s, which still was Kitty’s.
“Well?” he questioned.
“It’s her birthday,” said Charles, ‘and I thought she would enjoy a joke, so…”
Margaret cut in: “He gave her a dead shrew mouse wrapped up in paper.”
“Is that all?” said the squire, and glared at Carolan. He was filled with delight to see the colour fade from her cheeks and rapidly flow back again, to see her eyes flash and her head tilt up.
“She is a silly baby!” said Charles.
“Mamma’s pampered baby.”
Carolan stamped her foot angrily.
“I am not. I am nine. I am not a baby.” The squire drew her towards him. He held her small body imprisoned between his great knees.
She said: “That hurts me!” and put her hand on his knees to try to force them apart. He laughed; she delighted him, this funny little child. Perhaps, he thought, it was safer to love a child than a woman. He loosened his grip.
“Why, Dammed, Carrie,” he said, “I thought you were my chestnut mare, not a little girl!” And his eyes glistened with laughter. A smile turned up the corners of Carolan’s mouth.
“I am not a bit like the chestnut mare.”
“What!” he said.
“With this carroty hair?” And he pulled her hair, not unkindly though.
“Now then,” he said sternly, ‘what made you lie on the floor and scream like that?”
You should not tell tales, Everard had said; at school it was the worst offence. So now she could not speak of the cruel thing Charles had done to her. She said nothing. But Margaret answered. Margaret hated trouble, and unless something drastic was done, she could see this affair of the shrew mouse drifting on interminably. Margaret was a dainty creature; she loved fine needlework and good manners; she disliked the sight of the shrew mouse as much as Carolan did, only for different reasons. She did not fear dead things; she thought them unpleasant and she hated the unpleasant.
So Margaret said: “Father, Charles gave Carolan a shrew mouse for her birthday, and it was dead and wrapped up in a parcel. Carolan hates dead shrew mice, and she thought it was a real present. And then he tried to make her kiss it.”
The squire’s eyes narrowed as they rested on his son. There were times when he disliked the boy. He reminded him irritatingly of what he was himself at Charles’s age. He could imagine Charles, blundering through life, making the same mistakes as he had made.
“Ah!” he said.
“Bullying, eh?” He stood up ponderously and caught the boy by his ear.
“How old are you, eh? Fifteen, is it? And you think it funny to tease little girls of nine?”
“It was only a joke.” said Charles sullenly.
“Then, sir, it is time you were taught what is a good joke and what is a damned bad one!”
Now Carolan was very sorry for Charles. It was amazing with what speed she could slip from one mood to another. A moment ago she could have killed Charles, she had hated him so; but now to see him there, so red in the face, his eyes so full of shame, she was sorry for him, because humiliating him like this in front of her and Margaret was the worst
possible thing that could happen to him.
The squire turned to Jennifer.
“Get the girl ready. I am taking her for a ride.”
Jennifer answered as sullenly as she dared: “Yes, sir.” Then: “Margaret, you heard what your father said; you had better go and gel; into your riding kit immediately.”
“Not Margaret!” roared the squire.
“I mean Carolan!”
Jennifer bowed her head; she had no words, for if she had tried to speak then she would have burst into tears.
The squire turned to his son.
“And you,” he said, ‘will go to my bedroom. I have something to teach you. my boy! Go!” he shouted suddenly.
“Go at once!” He watched Charles go from the room. Then he turned to Jennifer.
“You heard what I said. Get the child ready.” His eyes rested briefly on Carolan, and he tried to prevent a softness creeping into his voice.
“It’ll be the worse for you, girl, if you keep me waiting!”
Then he strode out of the room.
Jennifer stood up and jerked Carolan by the arm.
“Come on, you little tell-tale. You have to be got ready to go riding with the squire. I hope your horse throws you! I do. I do indeed.”
Margaret shrugged her shoulders. She was used to scenes. She gave one disgusted glance at the brown paper and its contents still lying on the floor, and went into her room.
Jennifer pulled Carolan along the corridor to the room next to Margaret’s, which was Carolan’s. She threw her in and shut the door. Jennifer leaned against the door; her eyes were brilliant, and there were dark patches under them.
“Get your things off,” cried Jennifer.
“Did you hear or did you not hear the squire say you were to go riding with him?”
Carolan did not answer. She went to the cupboard and took out the fawn-coloured riding habit which had been Margaret’s and which Margaret had said she could have. It was still a little too big for Carolan. She took off her frock.
“Skin and grief!” jeered Jennifer, and hated the green eyes and the red hair which the squire was so taken with. The beast, she thought; trust him to be taken with a girl not his own daughter! She watched Carolan’s struggling into the habit. There she stood, shabby yet devilishly attractive. Nine! She had the same look in her eyes as her mother had had. Did she know, the little harlot, that she looked like that? Could she, at nine? Oh, to be nine again! thought Jennifer; nine, with no knowledge of the terrible problems that beset one’s later days!