Drop of the Dice

by Philippa Carr

  ‘Your great-grandmother wouldn’t hear of it,’ she said. ‘It’ll be nice to come home to and Smith will be here to enjoy it.’

  ‘Smith and Damon with him,’ I said. ‘I shall ride over on Christmas morning to give them their presents.’

  ‘Dear Clarissa,’ said Damaris. ‘You’re a good girl.’

  It wasn’t really goodness, I pointed out. I would want to see Smith and Damon. And I thought that the atmosphere at Eversleigh might be a little oppressive without Harriet and Gregory.

  ‘You’re getting too introspective,’ laughed Damaris. Then she ruffled my hair and went on: ‘Just think. Next Christmas, I shall have my baby. I find it hard to wait until April.’

  ‘I hope it’s a girl,’ I said. ‘I want a girl.’

  ‘Jeremy wants a boy.’

  ‘Men always want boys. They want to see themselves born again.’

  ‘Dear Clarissa, you have been such a joy to me and Jeremy.’

  ‘I know.’

  She laughed again. ‘You always say what you mean, don’t you?’ she said.

  I thought for a moment and answered; ‘Not always.’

  So we went to Eversleigh and there were the usual Christmas celebrations. Benjie came on Christmas Eve and was delighted to see me.

  On Christmas Eve we went as we always did to Eversleigh Church for the midnight service. That had always been to me one of the best parts of Christmas—singing the Christmas hymns and carols and then walking across the fields to the Court, where there would be hot soup and toasted bread and mulled wine and plum cake waiting for us. We would discuss the service and compare it with the previous year’s and everyone would be merry and wide awake. In the past we had all been discussing the parts we would play in Harriet’s charades. She had always arranged them and given us our parts and presided over them. We would all remember that.

  In our bedrooms fires would be blazing in the grates and there would be warming-pans in our beds. Anita and I had to share a room, for although there were numerous rooms, the east wing of the house was shut up and dust-sheeted.

  We didn’t mind that in the least and we lay awake on the night of Christmas Eve, late as it was, because the day had been too stimulating to induce sleep. Anita told me of Christmases in the rectory with an old aunt who had come to stay with them and how there was so much cheeseparing that she did enjoy being in a household where there was plenty. She had been terrified when she had thought she might have to go and live with the old aunt, and had chosen to attempt to earn a living instead.

  ‘Dear Anita,’ I said, ‘you will always have a home here.’

  She replied that it was kind of me to console her, but her position was precarious, as it must necessarily be, and if she were to offend certain people she could be dismissed.

  ‘Damaris would not easily be offended,’ I reassured her, ‘And she would never turn you away if you had nowhere to go. You’re creating a situation which might never arise.’

  Anita laughed because that was what she had once told me I was doing.

  So we talked of pleasant things, but I did realize that fear was lurking in Anita’s mind and I wished there was something I could do to comfort her.

  Christmas morning was bright and sparkling with the frost glistening on the grass and branches of the beech and oak trees making it like a fairy-tale scene. The ponds were frozen but as the sun was rising that would soon be altered. The carol singers came in the morning and there was the traditional custom of inviting them in while they sang especially for us and afterwards ate plum cake and drank punch mixed for the purpose in the great punchbowl. Anita and I were set to fill goblets and it was just like other Christmases which I remembered since I came to England.

  Then there was the great Christmas dinner with various meats—turkey, chicken, ham and beef, with so many pies made in all sorts of shapes, that the table was weighed down with food. There was plum pudding and plum porridge—this last I had not seen before. It was like a soup made with raisins and spices.

  Afterwards we played all sorts of games including hide-and-seek all over the house. We did charades too, but that was a mistake because it reminded us of Harriet. Priscilla quickly suggested another game. We danced to the fiddlers and some of us sang. Several of our neighbours had joined us and we were a large party, but I was sure some of the family were greatly relieved when the day was over.

  ‘Christmases after a bereavement must necessarily be shadowed by sadness,’ said Anita.

  We lay awake again that night and I told her more about Harriet.

  ‘She was an unusual person,’ I said. ‘People like her can’t go through life without having a marked effect on others.’

  I was thinking of people like my mother and Hessenfield—the beautiful people—and I wondered if I would be one of them when I grew up.

  At last we slept and rose fairly late the next morning. The household was already astir and when we went down to breakfast it was nine o’clock.

  One of the servants told us that Damaris had gone over to Enderby. She wanted to see that all was well and she wanted to tell Smith that we had been persuaded to stay on for a while.

  Anita and I were still at breakfast when Benjie came in. We told him that we were going to ride over to Enderby that morning and that Damaris had gone already. She had walked, for she did not ride nowadays. She was taking great care. But she enjoyed walking, even though the doctor had said she must not go too far.

  Benjie chatted with us for a while and later we all rode out together to Enderby. We tethered our horses and went into the house. The door was open, but there was nothing unusual about that as we knew Damaris was inside.

  I was struck immediately by the quietness of the place. Usually when I came in Damon would bark and come bounding towards me, or Damaris would call, or Jeremy or Smith perhaps. But the silence sent a pricking horror down my spine. I couldn’t say why. The house seemed to have changed. It was as though I were seeing it as the servants saw it—a house in which evil things could happen, a house haunted by the spirits of those who had lived violently and unhappily in it.

  It was a passing feeling. Obviously Smith was out. He often was. He took Damon for long walks through the lanes and over the fields.

  ‘Aunt Damaris!’ I called.

  There was no answer. She must be upstairs and could not hear, I told myself.

  I said: ‘Come on. We’ll find her.’

  I looked at the other two. It was clear that they had not felt that frisson of fear which had come to me. I started up the stairs ahead of them and saw Damaris’s shoe lying at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Something has happened,’ I said.

  Then I saw her. She was lying there in the minstrels’ gallery; her face was white and her legs twisted under her.

  Anita was on her knees first. ‘She’s breathing,’ she said.

  I knelt too, looking at my beloved Damaris. She gave a little moan.

  Benjie said: ‘We must get her out of here.’

  ‘Let’s get her to one of the rooms,’ said Anita, and Benjie picked her up. She moaned and I guessed that something had gone wrong about the baby. It was far, far too early for it to be born yet. Oh no, I prayed. Not this one too.

  Benjie carried her very gently. I opened a door and he laid her on a bed. It was the room which she had recently had refurnished, replacing the velvet with the damask.

  ‘I’ll go off at once and get the doctor,’ said Anita.

  ‘No,’ interrupted Benjie. ‘I’ll do that. You stay with her… you two. Look after her until I come back with the doctor.’

  Anita had had some experience of nursing for she had looked after her father for several years before his death. She covered Damaris up with blankets and told me to get warming-pans. I hurried down to the kitchen. A fire was burning there. Oh, where was Smith! If only he would come back he would be a great help. But I knew he walked for miles with Damon and it could be an hour before he returned.

  I took up the war
ming-pans and Anita laid them beside Damaris.

  Anita looked at me sadly. ‘I’m afraid she will lose the child,’ she said.

  Damaris opened her eyes. She looked bewildered. Then she saw me and Anita.

  ‘We came over and found you in the gallery,’ I said.

  ‘I fell,’ she replied; then she looked up and saw the damask hangings round the bed.

  ‘Oh no, no,’ she moaned. ‘Not… here… Never… never…’

  Anita touched her forehead and although she closed her eyes her expression was disturbed.

  It seemed a long time before Benjie came back with the doctor.

  When he saw her he said: ‘She will lose the child.’

  Those were sad days at Enderby. Damaris recovered but she was in despair.

  ‘It seems I shall never have my own child,’ she said.

  Priscilla came over constantly to see her but it was Anita who nursed her and made herself indispensable in the household. Benjie stayed on. He would not go until he knew that Damaris was out of danger.

  I heard the servants whispering.

  ‘It’s this house,’ they said. ‘It’s full of ghosts. How did the mistress come to fall? I reckon it was someone, something—that pushed her.’

  ‘There’s never going to be no luck in this house. There’s tales about it that go right back into the past.’

  I began to wonder whether there was anything in it. When it was quiet in the house I would stand below the minstrels’ gallery and fancy that the shadows up there took shape and turned into people who had lived long ago.

  Benjie rode over often during that spring and summer, and during one of his “visits Anita came to me in the schoolroom looking radiant.

  ‘I have news for you, Clarissa,’ she told me. ‘I’m going to be married.’

  I stared at her in amazement and then suddenly the truth dawned on me. ‘Benjie!’ I cried.

  She nodded. ‘He has asked me and I have said yes. Oh, most joyously have I said it. He is the kindest man I ever knew. In fact, he is a wonderful man and I can’t believe my good luck.’

  I hugged her. ‘I am so pleased… so happy. You and Benjie. It’s obvious… and absolutely right.’

  I felt that a great responsibility had been lifted from my shoulders. This concentration on responsibility was becoming an obsession. Benjie was no longer someone to whom I owed something. He had lost Carlotta and myself—well, now he would have Anita.

  Arabella’s comment was: ‘Harriet would have been pleased.’

  They all agreed that it was the best thing possible for the pair of them.

  ‘Of course,’ said Priscilla, ‘we shall have to think of getting a new governess for Clarissa.’

  ‘We shall never get anyone like Anita,’ sighed Arabella.

  Damaris said she would teach me in the meantime and added that Anita must be married from Enderby, which was, after all, her home.

  So the wedding took place. The preparations absorbed Damaris, for she was determined that Anita should feel that she was one of the family. I think we were all especially happy for Benjie’s sake. He had changed; his melancholy had dropped away from him, and it was wonderful to have something happy taking place.

  So they were married and Anita left Enderby Hall to set up house with Benjie at Eyot Abbas. I had passed my eleventh birthday when the Treaty of Utrecht was signed. There was a great deal of relief about that because it meant that the war was over. Great-Grandfather Carleton discussed it constantly and at the dinner table at Eversleigh Court we heard little else. He would bang the table and expound on the iniquities of the Jacobites and how this was their coup de grâce.

  ‘Best thing that could have happened,’ he said. ‘This will teach those traitors a lesson. Louis will have to turn them out of France now. There’s no help for it. We shall have them sneaking back to England.’

  ‘Everyone has a right to his or her views, Father,’ Priscilla reminded him.

  He looked at her from under his bushy eyebrows and growled: ‘Not when they’re treacherous Jacobite ones.’

  ‘Whatever they are,’ insisted Priscilla.

  ‘Women!’ muttered Great-Grandfather Carleton.

  We were all glad that the war was at an end, and as Philip of Anjou was now King of Spain it all seemed pointless that it had ever taken place. Priscilla’s brother Carl would probably be home now, for he held a high position in the army, and that would be a source of delight to Arabella and Carleton.

  The year passed peacefully. I went in the summer to Eyot Abbas and was delighted with the change since my last visit. There was no doubt that Anita and Benjie were happy. The house was more like it had been when Harriet was alive.

  It was September, a rather chilly day, for the mists had continued through the afternoon and we had not seen the sun. I had ridden over to Eversleigh Court as it was a Sunday and it became a habit for us to dine there on that day. Grandmother Priscilla was insistent that we keep up the habit. It cheered Arabella, she said, who had never really recovered from Harriet’s death, and whose health was not as robust as it had been.

  Even I could see the change in both great-grandparents. Arabella looked very sad sometimes, as though she were looking back into the past, and her eyes took on a misty look as she remembered. My great-grandfather made a show of being more irascible than before but at times he was a little unconvincing.

  I remember we had dined, and were sitting back sipping elderberry wine which had come from Arabella’s stillroom, and she and Priscilla were assessing its quality and comparing it with the last brew. Carleton was rambling on about his favourite topic—Jacobites. The fact that my father had been one of the leaders made no difference. Whenever he thought of them his face would grow a shade more purple and his eyebrows would quiver with indignation.

  I always felt a need to defend them because whenever he talked in this way it brought back vivid memories of Hessenfield. Sometimes I wondered whether Carleton knew this. He had a mischievous streak in his nature and when he was interested in young people he would tease them more persistently than if he liked them less. I would often find those bright eyes peering out from the bushy brows which seemed to have sprouted more hairs every time I saw him.

  Even now, although he was supposed to be talking to Leigh and Jeremy, his eyes were on me. He had probably noticed my rising colour and a certain flash in my eyes.

  ‘He, ha!’ he was saying. ‘“Get out,” said the King of France. Court of Saint Germain! What right has James to set up a court of his own when he’s been drummed out of the only one he could lay claim to!’

  ‘He had the permission of the King of France to do so,’ Jeremy reminded him.

  ‘The King of France! The enemy of this country! Of course he would do everything he could to irritate England.’

  ‘Naturally,’ put in Leigh. ‘Since he was at war with us.’

  ‘Was! Ah… was!’ cried Carleton. ‘Now what will happen to our little Jacobites, eh?’

  I could not bear any more. I thought of Hessenfield, brave, strong, tall. He became taller in my mind’s picture as time passed, and so had I magnified his virtues, so diminished his faults, that he had become the perfect man. There was none like him and if he had been a Jacobite then a Jacobite was a wonderful thing to be.

  ‘They are not little,’ I burst out. ‘They are tall… taller than you are.’

  Carleton stared at me. ‘Oh, are they indeed? So these traitors are a race of giants, are they?’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ I cried defiantly. ‘And they are brave and…’

  ‘Just listen to this,’ cried Carleton. His eyes opened wide so that the bushy brows shot upwards, and his jaw twitched, which usually meant he was suppressing amusement. He looked fierce, though, as he banged the table. ‘We’ve got a little Jacobite in our midst. Now, my girl, do you know what happens to Jacobites? They are hanged by the neck until they are dead. And they deserve it.’

  ‘Stop it, Carleton,’ said Arabella. ‘You’re frig
htening the child.’

  ‘He is not!’ I cried. ‘He just said Jacobites are little and they are not.’

  Carleton was not going to be deprived of his teasing.

  ‘We shall have to be watchful, I can see. We must make sure that she does not start a conspiracy here in Eversleigh. Why, she’ll be raising a rebellion, that’s what she’ll be doing.’

  ‘Don’t talk such nonsense,’ said Arabella. ‘Try some of these sweetmeats, Clarissa. Jenny made them specially for you. She said they were your favourites.’

  ‘You talk of sweetmeats when our country is being put to risk,’ cried Carleton; but I knew he was only amusing himself at my expense and I was satisfied because I had made my point about the height of Jacobites and had stood by Hessenfield, so I turned to the sweetmeats and selected one which had a flavour of almonds which I particularly liked.

  Carleton’s attention had strayed from me but he was still with the Jacobites.

  ‘They say the Queen favours her brother. That’s what comes of women’s reasoning.’

  I looked at him sharply and said: ‘That’s treason against the Queen. It’s worse than saying Jacobites are tall.’

  I saw his chin twitch and he was putting on the fierce look again.

  ‘You see, she will betray us all.’

  ‘It’s you who do what,’ I reminded him, ‘by speaking against the Queen.’

  ‘That’s enough, Clarissa,’ said Priscilla, who was always nervous of political issues. ‘Now I am tired of this talk and we will leave the men if they want to fight out their silly battles on the table. I should have thought the recent peace and all the losses we have suffered to reach it would have been sufficient answer to all their theories.’

  Sometimes Priscilla, who was of a somewhat meek nature, could subdue Carleton as no one else could—not even Arabella. My grandmother was an unusual woman. She must have been to have borne my mother in secret in Venice. I was to discover how it happened in due course, because it was the custom of members of our family to keep a journal and in this they usually put down frankly and honestly what happened to them. It was a point of honour with them that they should do so; and when we were eighteen—or before that if the moment was ripe—we were allowed to read our ancestresses’ versions of their lives.