I opened the door of the dining-room, expecting to see him at breakfast, but he was not there.
‘Mistress… you can’t!’ Thomas was close behind me.
I took no heed. I bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He must be still abed. I would tease him about his laziness. It was wrong of me to go to his bedroom. Damaris would not have approved but there was a special relationship between us. I was being unconventional but Lance himself had often said that conventions were for the unimaginative, and individualists disregarded them when it was expedient to do so.
I was doing that now.
I came to his bedroom door. Thomas was puffing after me. I knocked at the door.
‘Come in,’ said a woman’s voice.
I opened the door. She was seated at the dressing-table in her nightgown, combing her long dark hair.
‘Put the tray down there,’ she said, without turning her head.
I was astounded. What was this woman doing in Lance’s bedroom?
Then Lance himself appeared. I stared at him in amazement. He was wearing light-coloured breeches and was shirtless so that he was naked from the waist.
‘I’m ready for breakfast, darling, are you?’ he said. Then he stopped short, for he had seen me.
My face was scarlet. I turned and ran out of the room, almost falling over Thomas who was beside himself with dismay. I started down the stairs. I heard Lance call after me: ‘Clarissa. Clarissa, come back.’
I took no notice. I ran out of the house to the chair, which was mercifully waiting for me.
I did not see the colourful streets now; I did not hear the raucous cries of the street-sellers. I could only see Lance with a woman in his bedroom. Lance… who had asked me to marry him.
I never want to see him again, I told myself fiercely. I was very upset and most unhappy.
Lance, of course, did not let the matter rest there. He came to see me later in the day. I pleaded a headache and refused to leave my room. But he kept calling until I did see him.
‘I want to explain,’ he said.
‘It was self-explanatory,’ I retorted.
‘I dare say it was,’ he agreed ruefully.
‘That woman… who is she?’
‘A very dear friend of mine.’
‘Oh… you are shameful.’
‘You, my dear Clarissa, are very young. Yes, your inference is correct. Elvira Vernon is my mistress and has been for some time.’
‘Your mistress! But you have asked me to marry you.’
‘And you refused me. Do you deny me consolation?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘There is a great deal you have to learn of the world, Clarissa.’
‘I have already learned so much about you! What if people knew…’
‘My dear, a great many of them know. There is nothing terrible or unusual about this situation. It is a very amicable arrangement. Elvira and I suit her each other very well.’
‘Then why don’t you marry her?’
‘It isn’t that sort of relationship.’
‘It seemed that that was what it was… exactly. Oh, how wise I was to refuse you. Suppose…’
‘Suppose you had agreed to marry me? Then I should have brought to a close my relationship with Elvira and begun my life as a respectable married man.’
‘You are so… glib.’
‘Listen, Clarissa, I am fond of Elvira in a certain way but I don’t want to marry her any more than she wants to marry me. We just like each other. We console each other. I love you. I want to marry you. You must believe that.’
‘I do not and I have no wish to see you any more. I think it is… horrible, and I suppose you have had lots of mistresses.’
‘A few,’ he admitted.
‘Then go back to them and leave me alone. What a lucky escape I have had.’
‘So you did consider me, then?’
‘I have told you I love someone else and I am waiting for him. But it is no concern of yours because I shall never see you again.’
He regarded me with a smile, half tender, half mocking. One of the things which exasperated me was his inability to be serious about any subject; and in a way it fascinated me. It gave him an added stature, as though he was completely competent to deal with any situation.
After he had gone I realized how angry I was, how hurt, how humiliated. Why should I be? I asked myself. What he does is no concern of mine. Let him have a houseful of mistresses if he wants them.
He continued to visit the family. When he saw me he behaved as though nothing had happened. I kept wondering about him and visualizing Elvira Vernon in his bedroom. I was not entirely sure what love-making entailed and I began to develop a great curiosity about this. Occasionally I saw Elvira Vernon. She was poised and sophisticated. Quite old, I thought a little maliciously.
I became jealous if Lance did not pay enough attention to me. I could not understand myself. I was thinking more often of him than I did of Dickon. He seemed half amused by what had happened and not in the least ashamed.
Once he said to me: ‘I’m not a saint. I’m not even a monk. Elvira and I are good for each other… at the moment.’
‘I suppose,’ I retorted, ‘one could say that mistresses are as much a part of your life as gambling.’
‘I suppose one could,’ he replied. ‘What a dissolute character that makes of me. But lovable withal, eh, Clarissa?’
Then he put his arms round me and held me tightly and suddenly he kissed me.
I drew away breathless, assuming an anger which I did not feel. The fact was that I was tingling with excitement.
After that I began to realize that life was rather dull when he was not around. I thought a great deal about us. Lance, with his mistresses and his gambling, would be far from the perfect husband. And what sort of wife would I be to him—in love with someone else who was lost to me?
I talked a great deal about Dickon to Lance, stressing his innocence, his gallantry, his purity.
‘And sent overseas for years and years,’ said Lance. ‘Few ever return; are you going to spend your life in single blessedness waiting for something which may never happen? People change with the years. Your Dickon, even if he came back, would not be this pure and gallant boy who went away. And what are those years going to do to you, my sweet Clarissa? Take what is offered you now. Think what we can do for each other. You can lure me from my vices; I can make you forget an impossible dream.’
I thought a great deal about what he had said. Our relationship “was changing. He would embrace me when we met, kiss me in a strangely stirring manner. Sometimes I thought he was laughing at me because I was so innocent of life that I thought it was so dreadful for a man to have a mistress.
‘If,’ I said, ‘I should agree to marry you you would have to say goodbye to your mistress of the moment.’
‘Done,’ he said.
‘You would have to be a faithful husband.’
‘I promise.’
Then he picked me up and held me tightly and when Damaris came into the room he said: ‘It’s happened at last. Clarissa has promised to marry me.’
I told myself I must stop thinking of Dickon. That encounter with him was one little incident in my life. Lance was here, my future husband, kind, worldly, tender, taking life as it came along, enjoying it, never allowing it to oppress him. That was how I wanted to live. He was a gambler. He gambled with life. He took chances and if he lost he shrugged his shoulders and was sure he would win next time.
He had been an only child, I learned. His father had died when he was a boy and his mother had lived only a few years longer. He had inherited estates on the borders of Kent and Sussex and if he was not exactly wealthy he would have been if he had not lived so extravagantly and not lost so much at the gaming tables. My family, of course, was naturally interested in his financial position. I know now that my Grandmother Priscilla had an obsession about my being married for my money, for I was a considerable h
eiress.
My mother had been left a fortune and as I was her nearest of kin, that came to me. It had been looked after by Leigh, who had a head for such matters, and had accumulated during my mother’s absence in France and until my coming of age. The money was to be mine on my eighteenth birthday or when I married.
There was also my inheritance from my father which Lord Hessenfield, who had charge of these affairs, had decided should be divided equally between myself and Aimée. He had made the provision that the money should not pass to either of us until my eighteenth birthday, which was strange because Aimée was a few years older than I. I wondered why he had arranged this, for he had accepted Aimée, yet she must wait for her share. If either of us died, her share was to go to the other living sister.
However, I did not think very much about the money. My family was sure it had not influenced Lance’s desire to marry me. He was sufficiently comfortably off without it.
Now here I was, not only on the threshold of marriage, but about to become a rich woman in my own right. Sometimes I felt very happy. Then I would think of Dickon.
The day had begun. I lay in bed listening to the sounds of the house beginning to stir. In the cupboard was my wedding dress. Lance was staying at Eversleigh Court and Uncle Carl was there too. Jeremy was going to give me away and Priscilla had wanted the traditional wedding as she remembered it in the past.
While I was brooding on all this my door was pushed open and a small figure came into the room. This was Sabrina—nearly four years old now, a high-spirited and enchanting little girl. She climbed on to my bed and snuggled down beside me.
‘It’s the wedding,’ she whispered.
I held her tightly. I had always been very fond of Sabrina. She was exceptionally pretty; they said she had a look of my mother, Carlotta, who had been one of the beauties of the family. Moreover, she was well aware of her charm and made good use of it to get her own way. She was always darting about the house; one minute she would be in the kitchen standing on a chair watching them make pies and cakes, sticking a greedy finger into sweet mixtures when no one was looking, the next, dashing out to the stables and coaxing one of the grooms to take her round the paddock on her newly acquired pony; playing with the gardeners’ wheelbarrows, hiding in the minstrels’ gallery, jumping out on Gwen the parlourmaid, who believed in ghosts, finding an irresistible desire to do everything she was told not to do—that was Sabrina.
But she had the greatest charm and she had quickly discovered that one of her enchanting smiles, coupled with an air of penitence, could extract her from most trouble.
Now she was chattering about weddings. It was mine, wasn’t it? When was she going to have a wedding? She was going to wear a pink silk dress. Nanny Curlew was still sewing it. She was going to have flowers in her hair… and she was going to stand beside me. So it was really her wedding too.
She put her arms round my neck and her face was close to mine.
‘You’re going away from here,’ she said.
‘I shall be back often.’
‘It’s not your home any more. You’re going to Uncle Lance’s home.’
“We’ll, he’ll be my husband.’
Her face puckered a little. ‘Stay here,’ she whispered. She tightened her arms about my neck and added pleadingly: ‘Stay here with Sabrina.’
‘Wives always live with their husbands, you know.’
‘Let Lance come here.’
‘We’ll be here often. You’ll see.’
She shook her head. It wasn’t the same. ‘I don’t want you to get married.’
‘Everyone else does.’
‘Sabrina doesn’t.’ She looked at me calculatingly, as though that was the best of all reasons for calling off the affair.
‘When you are older you can come and stay with us,’ I said.
‘Tomorrow?’ she asked brightly.
‘That’s a little soon.’
‘I’ll be older.’
‘Only one day. It’ll have to be more than that.’
‘Two days? Three days?’
‘Months perhaps. Go and open the cupboard door and you’ll see my dress.’
She leaped out of bed. ‘Ooo!’ she said, stroking the folds of satin.
‘Don’t put your fingers on it,’ I warned.
She turned to look at me. ‘Why?’ she asked. Sabrina always wanted an explanation of everything.
‘They might be dirty.’
She looked at them and then at me; she smiled slowly and deliberately touched the dress. That was typical of Sabrina. ‘Don’t touch’ meant ‘I must touch at all costs.’
‘Not dirty,’ she said reassuringly. Then she pounced on my shoes, which were of white satin with silver buckles and silver heels. She picked one up and smiled at me, stroking the satin and looking at me with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, assuming, I supposed, that if the dress must not be touched neither must the slippers.
There was a knock on the door. It was Nanny Curlew.
‘I knew I’d find you here, Miss,’ she said. ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Clarissa. The child is into everything.’
‘It’s a very special morning, Nanny,’ I said. ‘She has caught the general excitement.’
‘It’s my wedding really,’ announced Sabrina.
‘Come along,’ said Nanny Curlew firmly. ‘Miss Clarissa has other things to think about than you, my lady.’
Sabrina looked puzzled. ‘What things?’ she asked, as though it were inconceivable that there could be any subject more absorbing than that of herself.
But Nanny Curlew had her firmly by the hand and with an apologetic smile at me dragged the child away. Sabrina gave me one of her enchanting smiles as she disappeared.
My next visitor was Jeanne. She came in bristling with importance.
‘Ah, is it awake then? To do… there is so much. I have sent for a tray for you. That is best.’
‘I couldn’t eat anything, Jeanne.’
‘That is not the way to talk, Milady. You must eat. Do you want to faint at the feet of this new ’usband?’ Jeanne had never completely conquered her h’s and could only manage them in calm moments. ‘Oh, this is the great day,’ she went on. ‘I am so ’appy. Sir Lance… he is a good man. He is the charming man.’ She closed her eyes and blew an imaginary kiss to Lance. ‘I say to myself, I say, “This is the one for my little bébé. This is the ’usband for Clarissa. So beautiful… the brocade waistcoat… ‘e dresses like a Frenchman.”’
‘There could be no greater praise than that coming from you, Jeanne. But I wonder whether Lance would appreciate it.’
‘Now come… the bath… then the food… and then the ’air. I shall make you so beautiful thees day.’
‘As beautiful as Lance?’ I asked.
‘I say this, no one shall be as beautiful as my lady. This is ’er day. She will be the most beautiful of all brides…’
‘Made so by the deft hands of Jeanne.’
‘So… so…’ she murmured.
Jeanne and I had grown very close to each other over the years. She always regretted that she had not been with me on my visit to the North. She was very fond of Sabrina. ‘There is big charm in that one,’ was her comment. ‘But naughtiness too. She will have to be watched. You were not like that as a little one. No.’
‘I lacked the charm.’
‘That is a nonsense.’ Jeanne had an amusing way of adapting words to suit herself and I sometimes found myself using them. ‘You have the charm,’ she went on. ‘But you were a good little girl… more caring for others, per’aps. You more like the ladies Priscilla and Arabella. Not like your mother and father… they cared first for themselves. So with the little Sabrina.’
‘She is only a child.’
‘I know much of children. What is in them at three is in them at thirty.’
‘My dear, wise Jeanne…’
‘So wise that I will get you up this minute. We have good time but let us not waste it.’
I put
myself in her hands. I was content to sit at the mirror while she waited on me, brushing my hair and coiling it round my head so that it would show to the best advantage.
I watched her in the mirror, intent and proud of me. Dear Jeanne!
‘I have so much to thank you for,’ I said with emotion. ‘What can I do to show you that I appreciate all you have done for me?’
She touched my shoulder lightly. ‘It is not to be measured out,’ she said. ‘You have change my life. You let me come here… be your lady’s maid. That is what I ask. I do… You do… But we do not count what we do.’
‘Yes, Jeanne, of course.’
‘I am to be with you. It is what I want. We shall leave this house… you go to your husband and I go with you. I am glad of that. I would not wish to stay here… without you. And you let me come with you and Sir Lance, ‘e say Yes. “I hear you are coming with us, Jeanne,” he say. “That is good… very good.” That is what he say. And he smile his beautiful smile. He is a beautiful gentilhomme.’
‘I am glad you approve of him, Jeanne.’
‘He is what I would choose for you. Stop thinking of this… Dickon. He is a boy. He is far away. He would not have been the one for you.’
‘How can you know?’
‘Something tell me. He is away fourteen years… that one… that boy. Fourteen years! Mon Dieu! He will have a wife out there in that foreign place. Black, most likely. No, Sir Lance… he is the one for you.’
‘He certainly has a champion in you.’
She nodded, smiling.
‘How will you like leaving Enderby?’ I asked.
She was silent for a few moments, holding the brush over my head and staring down at it. Then she said rather vehemently: ‘I am ’appy. I go with you and that is good. Enderby is not a good house.’
‘Not a good house! What do you mean?’
‘Shadows… whispers… noises in the night. There’s spirits about it… long-dead ones that can’t rest.’
‘Really, Jeanne, surely you don’t believe that. Where is your practical French realism?’
‘It is a ’ouse where ’appiness do not stay… long. A little time maybe, but it flits away. I am glad we leave. I could not have borne not to go with you. So… now I am ’appy. It is what I always want… to be lady’s maid. I remember your mother… so… so beautiful and Claudine was her lady’s maid. She was very important, Claudine. Not like the rest of us. I always wanted to be lady’s maid… to comb the ’air, to touch up the cheeks, to make little black beauty spots… that was my dream. Germaine was jealous of Claudine. Germaine always wanted to be lady’s maid. And now I am one and I go with you and your beautiful ’usband. We shall go to London… Ah, that is a great place to be.’
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