Life had been revealed to her. It was not good and bad, neatly divided into black and white. People were not always what they seemed.
She was very thoughtful. But I could see that she was excited at the thought of having such a father.
He would take her back with him for a visit. How did she feel about that?
It was just what she needed. Her horizon would be widened; she would see another world apart from the small one in which she had lived. She would meet people—perhaps as fascinating as Dickon had been. She was already very conscious of the worldly charm of her father.
She was delighted.
“But to leave you, mama,” she said. “Now that you are so sad.”
I said: “You will come back to me.”
“Yes.” she said, “I have to come back … and marry Dickon.”
It was almost as though she remembered him for the first time in several days.
I watched them go.
“I will write to you, dear mama,” said Lottie. “I will tell you all the exciting things that are happening to me.”
“I will write to you.” said Gerard, “and tell you how much we miss you.”
So they went. And how desolate I was watching them leave. His visit had brought back so vividly memories of the past. I would never forget him. Nothing would ever have effaced the memory of him. Not even Charles. I had loved Charles. I had loved Jean-Louis. But I realized that the feeling Gerard had roused in me was different from what I felt for either of them.
There was mystery about him. What did I know of him? That he lived excitingly. That he was deeply immersed in the affairs of his nation. That he had been in England on some secret mission.
He had come into my life and changed it; and if I knew little about him I had learned something about myself.
For the rest of my days I would think of him; I would relive my youth through him. I felt young when he was near. I wondered if I should ever see him again.
How long the days seemed. I missed Lottie very much.
Almost two weeks passed before I heard from them.
Lottie was ecstatic. She had been to Versailles. She had been presented to the aging king, who had spoken very kindly to her; she had met the young dauphin. I should see the gown her father had bought for her to go to court. There had never been such a gown.
I scanned the letter. There was no mention of Dickon. There was a letter from Gerard. It was not long but it was of such significance that I did not believe what I read and read three times before I really accepted those words.
He had seen me again. He had thought of me over the years. So often he had wanted to come to see me. It was not easy. When we met he had been married. He was married when he was very young, after the custom of families such as his. It was no love match; and he had made no secret of his amours. Yes, there had been others. But it was different with us. His wife had died five years ago. He was free. He was enchanted with his daughter. He could never let her go and it occurred to him that the parents of such a daughter should be together. We knew each other well. We knew we were ideally suited. Would I consider uprooting myself … giving up my home in England and becoming Madame la Comtesse d’Aubigné?
“Dear Zipporah,” he wrote, “It is not because of Lottie. Though I like her very much. It is because of you … and of what we were to each other … which I have learned through the years is something that comes rarely and when it does is to be cherished. It never died with me. Did it with you? If it did not … then we should be together. I await your answer.”
I was in a daze of delight.
I don’t think I hesitated for a moment. I was young again, I was the girl who ran out to meet her lover so eagerly all those years ago.
Then I thought of Eversleigh. Of my responsibilities.
Well, the estate could go on. James Fenton … But James wanted a farm of his own.
Then I knew what I would do.
I wrote to Dickon. I asked him to come and see me immediately as I had come to a decision. I knew that would bring him.
Then I went to see James and Hetty.
I said: “James, I know you want a farm of your own.”
“We would never leave you,” said Hetty quickly.
“Suppose it was possible for you to do so?”
“Do you mean you have got someone else?”
I said: “Just suppose it were possible. Would you go?”
They looked at me in amazement.
“But James knows the estate.”
“There might be changes. Please, I don’t want to say anything yet. I just want you to answer a simple question. If it were easy … if I were suited … would you prefer to get your own farm? You could do that easily now, James. You know you could.”
“Well,” said James, “if you put it like that … naturally, most men like to be their own masters.”
“That’s what I wanted to know.”
I went to them and kissed them. “You have been good friends to me,” I said.
“What has happened?” asked Hetty. “You look as if you’ve seen some miracle.”
“Yes,” I said. “Perhaps I have. Be patient with me. If it works … you’ll know soon enough.”
Dickon arrived confident and certain of himself, sure, I knew, that I would have by now, what he would call, come to my senses.
I said to him: “Dickon. What would you say if I told you I was passing Eversleigh over to you?”
I had rarely seen him taken off his guard, but he was then. He looked at me suspiciously.
“I mean it,” I said. “After all, it is Eversleigh you want. You’d be ready to forego Lottie for Eversleigh, wouldn’t you?”
“Dear Zipporah, you talk most amusingly but somewhat obscurely. This is one of the few matters about which I do not care to joke.”
I said: “Lottie is in France with her father.”
His face clouded. “What is your game, Zipporah?”
“Very simple. You wanted to marry Lottie for Eversleigh. Eversleigh is what you want. You would manage it perfectly, I know. The ancestors would rise up and sing Hallelujah, I am sure. They never liked the idea of its being in the hands of a woman … although I had a husband to help me. Could you forget Lottie if you already had Eversleigh?”
“Do you mean could I be persuaded to forego my courtship?”
“I mean would you stop writing to her, talking to her of marriage … for Eversleigh?”
“Please, please explain.”
I said: “James Fenton will buy a farm. He wouldn’t stay here with you around. There will be many things to be worked out. I have had an offer of marriage from Lottie’s father. I have decided to accept. I shall live in France after I’m married … and so will Lottie. Dickon, I am going to make over Eversleigh to you now. You are, after all, the male heir.”
He stared at me. Then a slow smile spread across his face.
“Eversleigh!” he murmured and I had never seen him look so tender. I saw then that he loved the place as he could never love anything else.
I said: “You will have to put a manager in at Clavering. You will have to come to Eversleigh with Clarissa and Sabrina … your courtiers, as it were, and you will reign supreme … as you schemed so basely to do.” I laughed suddenly. “It’s virtue rewarded … in reverse.”
Dickon looked at me admiringly.
“I do love you, Zipporah,” he said.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Daughters of England series
The Rejected
ON THE DAY WHEN the Comte d’Aubigné arrived at Eversleigh I had been out riding and when I came into the hall he was there in close conversation with my mother. I was aware at once that we had a very distinguished visitor. He was not young—about my mother’s age, perhaps a few years older—and he was most elegantly dressed in a manner not quite English; his frogged coat of dark green velvet was a little more fancy than I was accustomed to seeing, the fringed waistcoat more delicate, the striped breeches fuller, and the buckled sh
oes more shining. He wore a white wig which called attention to his flashing dark eyes. He was one of the most handsome gentlemen I had ever seen.
‘Oh, there you are, Lottie,’ said my mother. ‘I want you to meet the Comte d’Aubigné. He is going to stay with us for a few days.’ She put her arm through mine and thus presented me to him. ‘This,’ she went on, ‘is Lottie.’
He took my hand and kissed it. I was aware that this was no ordinary meeting and that something very important was taking place. Knowing my mother well, I guessed that she was very anxious for us to like each other. I did like him immediately, mainly because of the way in which he kissed my hand and made me feel grown-up, which was just how I wanted to feel at this time, for the fact that I was not quite twelve years old was a great irritation to me. If I had been older I should have eloped by now with Dickon Frenshaw, who occupied my thoughts almost exclusively. There was a family connection between Dickon and myself. He was the son of my grandmother’s cousin and I had known him all my life. It was true he was about eleven years older than I but that had not prevented my falling in love with him, and I was sure he felt the same about me.
Now there was a lilt in my mother’s voice. She was looking at me earnestly as though to discover what I thought of our guest. He was watching me intently.
The first words I heard him say, and he spoke in English with a strong foreign accent, were: ‘Why, she is beautiful.’
I smiled at him. I was not given to false modesty and I knew that I had inherited the good looks of some long-dead ancestress whose beauty was notorious in the family. I had seen a portrait of her and the likeness was uncanny. We had the same raven black hair, and deep-set dark blue eyes which were almost violet; my nose might have been a fraction shorter than hers, my mouth a little wider, but the resemblance was striking. She had been the beauty of the family. Her name had been Carlotta, and it added to the mystique that before this likeness was apparent, I should have been christened Charlotte, which was so similar.
‘Let us go into the winter parlour,’ said my mother. ‘I have sent for some refreshment for our guest.’
So we did and the wine was brought, over which he talked in a way which I found both exciting and amusing. He seemed determined to charm us and it was clear that he knew how to do that very well. He told us a great deal about himself in a short space of time and I felt he was presenting himself to me, even more than my mother, and wished to make a good impression. He need not have had any doubt about that. He was a spellbinding talker and seemed to have led a varied and most vivid life.
The time sped by and we parted to change for dinner. I had certainly not been so amused and interested since I had last seen Dickon.
During the next few days I spent a great deal of time in his company. Often I rode with him, for he said he was eager for me to show him the countryside.
He talked to me about life in France where he was attached to the Court as some sort of diplomat, I gathered. He had a château in the country and a house in Paris, but he was often at Versailles where the Court was mostly, for, he told me, the King scarcely ever went to Paris … only when it was impossible for him to avoid going.
‘He is very unpopular because of the life he leads,’ said the Comte; and told me about King Louis XV and his mistresses, and how heartbroken he had been on the death of Madame de Pompadour, who had not only been his mistress but virtually ruler of France.
The glimpses of life in France fascinated me and I was delighted that the Comte talked openly to me as though he were unaware of my youth, which my mother was constantly stressing ever since she had known of my feeling for Dickon.
The Comte described the fantastic entertainments which were given at Versailles and which he was expected to attend. He talked so vividly that he made me see the exquisite gentlemen and beautiful ladies as clearly as I could the life in the country to which he escaped now and then.
‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that one day you will do me the honour of visiting me.’
‘I should like that,’ I replied enthusiastically, and that pleased him very much.
It must have been about three days after his arrival. I was in my bedroom getting dressed for dinner when there was a gentle tap on the door.
‘Come in,’ I called, and to my surprise my mother entered.
There was a glow about her which I had noticed lately. I guessed she was pleased to have a visitor and I was glad, because we had had enough tragedy lately and she had been so unhappy since my father’s death. Following that she had lost a very dear friend in the doctor who had attended my father. He had suffered a horrible death in a fire at his hospital. That had been a terrible time, for my governess was burned to death in the fire also. Such events had had a sobering effect on us all, but most of all on my mother. Then of course there was the matter of Dickon, about which she was very upset and this worried me a great deal, for as much as I should like to comfort her, I could not, because doing so meant promising to give up Dickon. So I was very relieved that she was lifted out of her depression, if only temporarily.
‘Lottie,’ she said, ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Yes, Mother,’ I replied, smiling at her.
‘What do you think of the Comte?’ she asked.
‘Very grand,’ I answered. ‘Very elegant. Very amusing. In fact a very fine gentleman. I wonder why he called on us? I think he must have been here some time. I get the impression that the place is not quite strange to him.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘Was he a friend of Uncle Carl?’
‘A friend of mine,’ she said.
She was really behaving rather oddly, fumbling for words. She was usually so direct.
‘So,’ she went on, ‘you do … like him?’
‘Of course. Who could help it? He is most interesting. All that talk about the French Court and the château. All those grand people. He must be very important.’
‘He is a diplomat and works in Court circles. Lottie, you do … er … like him?’
‘Mother,’ I said, ‘are you trying to tell me something?’
She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said quickly: ‘It was long ago … before you were born. … It had to be before you were born. I was very fond of Jean-Louis.’
I was astonished. It seemed strange that she should call my father Jean-Louis. Why did she not say ‘your father’, and in any case she did not have to tell me how fond she had been of him. I had seen her nurse him through his illnesses and witnessed her grief at his death. I knew more than anyone what a loving and devoted wife she had been.
So I said: ‘Of course!’ a little impatiently.
‘And he loved you. You were so important to him. He often said what joy you had brought into his life. He said that when you came into it you made up for his affliction.’
She was staring ahead of her; her eyes were bright and I thought that at any moment she would start to cry.
I took her hand and kissed it. ‘Tell me what you want to, Mother,’ I said.
‘It was thirteen years ago when I came back to Eversleigh after all those years. My … I call him uncle but the relationship was more involved than that. Uncle Carl was very old and he knew he had not long to live. He wanted to leave Eversleigh in the family. It seemed that I was the next of kin.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
‘Your father was unable to come. He had had that accident which ruined his health … so I came alone. The Comte was staying at Enderby and we met. I don’t know how to tell you this, Lottie. We met … and became … lovers.’
I looked at her in amazement. My mother …with a lover in Eversleigh while my father was lying sick at Clavering Hall! I was overwhelmed by the realization of how little we knew about other people. I had always thought of her as strictly moral, unswerving in her adherence to convention … and she had taken a lover!
She was gripping my hands. ‘Please try to understand.’
I did understand, in spite of my youth, far b
etter than she realized. I loved Dickon and I could understand how easy it was to be carried away by one’s emotions.
‘The fact is, Lottie, there was a child. You were that child.’
Now the confession had taken on a fantastic aspect. I was not the daughter of the man whom I had always believed to be my father but of the fantastic Comte. I was incredulous.
‘I know what you are thinking of me, Lottie,’ my mother rushed on. ‘You are despising me. You are too young to understand. The … temptation overwhelmed me. And afterwards your father … I mean Jean-Louis … was so happy. I could not have told him. I couldn’t have confessed my guilt. It would have wounded him mortally. He had suffered so much. He was so happy when you were born and you know how it was between you. You were also so good to him … so sweet, so gentle, so considerate … and that meant a great deal to him. He had always wanted children … but apparently he could not have them. I could, as I proved and so, Lottie, now you know. The Comte is your father.’
‘Does he know this?’
‘Yes, he knows. That is why he has come here … to see you. Why don’t you say something?’
‘I … can’t think what to say.’
‘You are shocked?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘My darling Lottie, I have broken the news too abruptly. He wants you to know. He has become so fond of you in a short time. Lottie, why don’t you say something?’
I just looked at her. Then she took me into her arms and held me tightly.
‘Lottie … you don’t despise me …’
I kissed her. ‘No … no …. Dear Mother, I just don’t know what to say … what to think. I want to be by myself. I want to think about it all.’
‘Tell me this first,’ she said. ‘It makes no difference to your love for me?’
I shook my head. ‘Of course not. How could it?’
I kissed her fondly and she seemed like a different person from the one I had known all my life.
My feelings were so mixed that I could not sort them out. It was a startling revelation. I suppose everyone receives some sort of shock some time, but to discover that a man you have believed all your life to be your father is not and to have another introduced into that role was to say the least bewildering.
Philippa Carr - [Daughters of England 09] Page 38