Drop of the Dice

by Philippa Carr

  Of course a man like Hessenfield could never visualize death. He was, after all, a young man. But at the end he must have had some premonition and that was why he had written to his brother asking him to provide for Aimée, and given her mother the watch and the ring.

  There must have been great insecurity in Aimée’s life. I sensed that what she greatly desired was to be wanted, to have security for herself and her child.

  She more or less admitted this when we lay in a field a mile or so from Clavering Hall; our horses were tethered to a tree while we rested before returning to Clavering.

  ‘I married Ralph Ransome,’ she said, ‘partly because I wanted a home and someone to care for me. I was never really in love with him. But he was kind to me. He was a widower and had a son and daughter who were married and lived in the Midlands. I had our father’s money, so I was not destitute, but this seemed a wonderful opportunity. Ralph had a beautiful home and I became mistress of it. But I realized after our marriage that he was deeply in debt and there were anxieties. Then when this South Sea chance presented itself Ralph risked almost everything he had to gain a fortune which would bring him out of his difficulties. We could have been happy…’ She looked at me intently. ‘Not romantically so… as you and Lance must have been… but comfortably… adequate for a girl who has not had many advantages in life.’

  She picked a blade of grass and tore at it with her white, even teeth.

  ‘Oh, you are the lucky one, ma soeur,’ she went on. ‘You are rich. You have the handsome husband. You are one of the few who escaped before the Bubble burst.’

  ‘And you have Jean-Louis,’ I reminded her.

  ‘That adorable one, yes, it is so. I have my baby. But you have him too… they all have him.’

  ‘Everyone loves him, but you are his mother, Aimée.’

  She touched my hand. ‘Yes, and thanks to you he has come comfortably into the world. But I cannot live here for ever. I shall have to think what I am going to do. What does a woman in my position do when she is without the means to support herself and her child? Teach French, perhaps… to children who do not want to learn it? Be a superior servant in some noble household?’

  “Nonsense,’ I said. ‘This is your home. You will stay here.’

  ‘I cannot live on your bounty for ever.’

  ‘You will stay here because your home is with your family. Have you forgotten we are sisters?’

  ‘Half-sisters. No, I must make plans.’

  ‘Perhaps you will meet someone whom you can marry. We will entertain more. There are so many people here in the country whom Lance knows.’

  ‘The marriage market?’ she said, with a glint in her eyes which I did not altogether understand. When I came to think of it, there was much I did not understand about Aimée.

  ‘That’s putting it crudely. But people do meet each other and fall in love.’

  She looked at me and smiled and I thought: I will speak to Lance about it tonight. We must entertain more. I had the money to do this. I must try and find a husband for Aimée.

  We stood up, stretched, and went to the horses. It was a silent ride back to the house.

  I spoke to Lance about Aimée that night.

  ‘The poor girl is unhappy about her position. It must be worrying for her. She had money from our father’s estate but she lost it in that wretched Bubble. She is proud and deeply conscious of depending on us. If we entertained here in the country we might find a husband for her.’

  ‘Then, my dear matchmaker, that is what we must do.’

  It was a few days later when she was brushing my hair that I told Jeanne we were planning to do more entertaining at the Hall.

  ‘Will you like that?’ she asked.

  “To tell the truth, Jeanne, it was I who suggested it.’

  ‘There will be card games then. You want that?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t. But I think my sister should meet people.’

  ‘To find a ’usband for her?’ asked Jeanne bluntly.

  ‘I did not say that, Jeanne’.’

  ‘No, but you do not always say what you mean.’

  ‘Well, if I did mean it, it would be a good idea, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It would be very good. Madame Aimée is not the one you think her.’

  ‘Now what do you mean by that?’ I demanded somewhat testily. I was irritated by Jeanne’s frequent innuendoes concerning Aimée.

  ‘You must watch ’er,’ whispered Jeanne. ‘I think she ’ave an eye for the men. And men are men… even the best of them.’

  I knew she was referring to Lance, for whom she had an inordinate admiration because of his handsome appearance, elegant style of dress and gracious manners.

  ‘You talk arrant nonsense sometimes, Jeanne,’ I said.

  She gave a rather vicious tug to a tangle so that I cried out in protest.

  ‘You will see,’ she said darkly.

  It was not long before I was wishing that I had not suggested having these parties, for a round of gaiety began and almost always the gatherings ended at the card tables.

  Lance, who had been considerably sobered by the recent disaster, became as fervently involved as before. Aimée, too, had a taste for the game. Lance said she played a very good hand at faro and they played sometimes into the early hours of the morning. I would often retire before the games ended. No one seemed to mind; the only thing that mattered once the tables were set up was the play.

  Lance had a run of luck and was sure he was going to retrieve all he had lost in time. This was the pattern of luck, he said. Up one day and down the next.

  I became very uneasy again, but I did not want to become a nagging wife and I had long ago realized that nothing I could do would make Lance anything but a gambler.

  I think I was almost as anxious about Aimée as I was about Lance. He at least could look after himself. I remonstrated with him about encouraging Aimée to play.

  ‘Where can she find the money?’ I asked. ‘You know her circumstances.’

  ‘Don’t deny her the excitement, Clarissa,’ he answered. ‘Poor girl, she has had a hard time. She enjoys it so much, and she has a good card sense. She’s a natural and lucky too. Some people are, you know.’

  ‘But how can she afford…’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I set her up and if she wins she pays me back. If she loses we forget it.’

  ‘Oh, Lance!’

  He put his arms round me and kissed me, laughing as he did so. ‘Let the girl enjoy herself,’ he pleaded.

  ‘It is not the right way.’

  ‘We can’t all be like you, my darling.’

  I was silent, feeling that I was priggish, a spoilsport.

  A few days later I heard a little altercation between Jeanne and Aimée. Before that, the hostility between them had been silent, though pronounced.

  I was on my way to Aimée’s room when I heard their voices raised in anger. I hesitated and could not help hearing what they were saying. They spoke in French rapidly and angrily.

  ‘Take care,’ Aimée was saying. ‘You are not in the Rue de la Morant now, you know.’

  ‘How did you know I was ever in the Rue de la Morant?’

  ‘You know you were there with your mother and grandmother. You know only the lowest of the low live in such places.’

  ‘We lived there because we could afford no better. But how did you know?’

  ‘I heard you say it.’

  ‘Never did you hear me mention it. Never. Never.’

  ‘Be quiet and don’t speak so to your betters.’

  ‘You… you…’ cried Jeanne in a fury. ‘Have a care. If ever you hurt my lady Clarissa, I will kill you.’

  I did not wait for more. I turned and hurried away.

  I did not like this growing hostility between Jeanne and Aimée any more than I liked the gambling which once more was becoming the main feature of our lives.

  That summer and autumn passed uneasily and it seemed that in a very short t
ime Christmas was upon us. We were to go to Enderby as usual and we set out from Albemarle Street on the morning of the twentieth of December, hoping to get as far as possible before darkness fell. It was a somewhat hazardous journey as the cold weather had set in early and it seemed that the winter might be a severe one.

  It took us three days to reach Enderby and Damaris was in a state of anxiety visualizing the state of the roads. Aimée, of course, accompanied us, with Jean-Louis; and there was a great welcome for the baby, who was admired by them all except Sabrina. I was sure she thought he detracted from her own importance.

  She was delighted to see me, however, and I was touched by her boisterous welcome.

  ‘It’s going to snow,’ she told me, ‘and freeze and we shall all go skating on the pond. I have a new pair of skates. I shan’t get them until Christmas Day though. My Papa has bought them for me.’

  Now that Enderby was no longer my home I could see clearly what people meant when they said there was a certain foreboding about it. Whether this was due to long-ago tragedies which had happened in the house or whether it was just the way it was built without enough light coming in and because the magnificent trees grew too close to it and darkened it even more, I did not know. But there was a kind of menace there which I noticed before the tragedy.

  When we arrived great log fires were burning in all the rooms and Damaris had had the place decorated as usual for Christmas, which dispersed most of the gloom… and yet it was there all the same.

  I spent a great deal of time with Sabrina, who insisted on it. She had formed a deep attachment to me and looked upon me as her elder sister, which was natural as Damaris had been a mother to me. She proudly showed me all her presents. There was pride of place for the skates and next came the fur muff which her mother had given her; and then there was my gift—a saddle for her pony which I had heard she wanted. She gloated over them all and kept running to the window to see whether it was still snowing and she asked Jeremy a hundred times a day whether the pond was hard enough yet to skate on.

  She did not like Aimée, which I think was due to the fact that she was Jean-Louis’s mother. She referred to him as ‘that silly baby’.

  ‘You were a baby once,’ I reminded her.

  ‘I soon grew out of that,’ she answered scornfully.

  ‘So will he.’

  ‘Well, he’s a silly baby now.’

  Damaris was always trying to remonstrate with her. ‘You are too impatient, Sabrina,’ she said. ‘Remember there are other people in the world besides you.’

  ‘I know that,’ retorted Sabrina.

  ‘Well, they have to be considered.’

  ‘Everybody considers that baby more than…’

  ‘Of course they do. He’s only little. They consider other people too.’

  Sabrina muttered: ‘It’s stopped snowing. Papa says it’ll freeze up and perhaps tomorrow…’

  She was off to consult Jeremy on the temperature.

  ‘Sabrina worries me a little,’ Damaris confided in me. ‘She’s so impulsive and self-centred.’

  ‘All children are.’

  ‘Sabrina more than most. It’s strange that Jeremy and I should have such a daughter. She reminds me of your mother. I do hope she will be happy. I don’t think your mother ever was… with all her gifts. Sometimes I tremble for Sabrina.’

  ‘You worry too much. Sabrina is all right. She is just a normal healthy child, full of high spirits.’

  ‘You are fond of her, aren’t you, Clarissa?’

  ‘Of course. She is like my little sister.’

  ‘You have a new sister.’ She looked at me anxiously. ‘You get on well with Aimée, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Damaris looked sad. ‘I often think how much better it would have been if your mother had stayed with Benjie. He was after all her husband… and such a good man. Still, he is happy now. But if your mother had stayed with him she might have been alive today.’

  ‘It is no use talking about ifs. It didn’t work out that way and so things are as they are today.’

  ‘You’d always look after Sabrina, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I would. But she’ll be here with you. You’ll be the one to look after her.’

  ‘Yes, unless…’ She smiled suddenly. ‘I have something to tell you, Clarissa. I am going to have another child.’

  ‘Oh… how happy you must be.’

  ‘Yes… yes, of course. We had Sabrina at last… and it is wonderful how full of life she is. Sometimes I wonder how Jeremy and I could have such a child. I look forward to another. Jeremy is so pleased. I should like a little boy this time.’

  ‘But you will be highly contented with whatever comes.’

  ‘Clarissa, it would be wonderful if you…’

  ‘Yes, I know. I suppose I shall have a child one day.’

  ‘I do hope so. It is a great joy, but…’

  I looked at her expectantly and she went on: ‘I hope all will go well. Sometimes…’

  ‘Of course it will go well. You are in good health now.’

  ‘Yes, but there are times…’

  I shrugged her gloom aside. Naturally she was a little uneasy at the prospect of another pregnancy. She had caught Jeremy’s habit of looking on the dark side. I supposed it was because of what had happened to them.

  By Twelfth Night the pond was frozen hard and to Sabrina’s delight those of us who wished went skating. Jeremy was there with Lance and myself. The others watched from the bank. Sabrina shrieked with delight and she looked a picture in her scarlet cloak and hat clutching the fur muffin her hands and skating over the pond with her father beside her. The colour in her cheeks matched that of her cloak and her eyes sparkled. This was what she had been waiting for.

  She was disappointed when darkness fell and we went back to the house.

  ‘The pond will still be frozen tomorrow,’ prophesied her father and Sabrina cried out: ‘How I wish it was tomorrow.’

  She was up with her skates the next morning badgering us all to go skating.

  On the third day, with the unpredictability of the English climate, it was a little warmer.

  ‘If this goes on,’ said Jeremy, ‘the thaw will set in sooner than I expected.’

  Sabrina was very disconsolate. But her father said: ‘There’ll be no skating until we are sure it is safe.’

  He went out in the morning and came back to tell us that there were cracks in the ice on the pond. ‘This is the end of our skating unless the weather turns icy again.’

  ‘But there is still ice on the pond,’ protested Sabrina.

  ‘It’ll be there for some days but it is not safe for skating any more.’

  ‘I think it is,’ said Sabrina, with a touch of rebellion in her voice.

  ‘You shall not go on the ice again until it is perfectly safe,’ said Jeremy.

  Sabrina pouted, looking angry.

  ‘Now, darling,’ said Damaris, ‘if your father says it is not safe, it isn’t. So you must keep away from the pond until it freezes again.’

  Sabrina was silent… too silent. Perhaps we should have been prepared.

  In the afternoon I thought I would take her round the field on her pony. She loved riding and was always delighted when I rode with her. One had to be watchful of her for she was far too daring. Like most children she did not know the meaning of fear and it never occurred to her that anything could go wrong.

  I could not find her. Nanny Goswell, who had accompanied us to Enderby to look after Jean-Louis, said that she had seen her running out of the house. I went to Damaris to ask if she had seen her and when she heard that I could not find her she grew perturbed. I said I would go through the house.

  I wished I had stayed with Damaris.

  I could not find Sabrina. I went up to the attics. Sabrina was rather fond of exploring them and up there I happened to look out of the small window and I saw Damaris running as fast as she could away from the house and she had no
t stopped to put on a cloak. She will be frozen, I thought. And then, suddenly, a frightening thought came to me. Events clicked into place. I saw Sabrina’s face, quiet for once, brooding, planning—and I guessed.

  I did not stop for cloak or gloves. I ran out of the house as fast as I could and down to the pond.

  It was clear what had happened. Sabrina had gone to skate in spite of being forbidden to do so. There was a gaping black hole in the whiteness and there was Sabrina’s head in the red cap protruding from it. Damaris was lying full-length on the ice supporting her.

  I was panic-stricken, not knowing for a moment what to do. If I went out to try and help my weight might break the ice. In fact it might break at any moment taking Damaris down with Sabrina.

  I turned back to the house shouting for Lance and Jeremy. Fortunately Jeremy was in the garden and heard me. Breathlessly I explained. Lance appeared. Then we were all running as fast as we could to the pond.

  It was a near-disaster. I shall never forget those terrible tense moments. Jeremy was like a man possessed by despair. It was Lance really who calmly and practically saved their lives. I was proud of him. He acted almost nonchalantly, as though rescuing people from such situations was an everyday occurrence to him. Jeremy was handicapped by his lameness; but with amazing skill and firmness, Lance had Sabrina out of the water and handed her to me while Jeremy helped Damaris to rise gingerly from the thinning ice.

  Sabrina was white-faced and terribly cold; it was strange to see her still and silent. Smith, having heard what had happened, came running to the pond and it was he who took the sodden little bundle from me and rushed towards the house. I saw Damaris then. She was half-fainting and Lance had lifted her up and was carrying her.

  We reached the house, where they were already getting blankets and warming-pans and wrapping hot bricks in flannel.

  Someone ran to get the doctor.

  I was with Nanny Curlew when she stripped Sabrina of her wet clothes and wrapped her in a warm towel to rub her dry. Then we put her into a blanket and bed, already warmed. Her teeth chattered, which relieved me, for I had been terrified to see her so still and silent.