Drop of the Dice

by Philippa Carr

  ‘What is age?’ I asked. ‘You are ideal for each other.’

  My seemingly delighted attitude at the way things had turned out was a perpetual joy to them. They kept looking at me as though they were grateful and so delighted just because I did not want to marry Dickon.

  I would smile brightly to hide the fact that I was brokenhearted. It was no mean feat, and I was rather proud of myself. It was only when I was alone in my bedroom that I allowed the mask to drop and sometimes wept a little in the darkness of the night.

  The end of a dream!

  There was nothing left of it now. I must settle down and perhaps when Zipporah’s children began to arrive I should find some solace in them.

  Sabrina and, Dickon were married quietly at the village church and then she left with him for the North.

  It was one night in the July of that year when Charles Edward Stuart landed in one of the small Western Isles of Scotland with only seven men and a few hundred muskets and broadswords, and the money lent to him by the King of France. He had come to wrest the crown from our King George the Second and claim it for himself. It was like a pattern to me. It was when the Prince’s father had come that Dickon had been involved and sent to Virginia. Now Dickon was back, and here was the son come to fight for what he considered to be his right.

  Everyone was talking about the new insurrection. We had had thirty peaceful years with little mention of Jacobites, but this seemed a serious threat.

  Proclamations were issued. Rewards were offered for the capture of Charles Edward Stuart. In Scotland they called him Bonnie Prince Charlie because he was said to be young and handsome.

  When visitors came to Clavering they talked of nothing but the Jacobites.

  ‘It seems,’ said one of our guests,’ that we might be getting the Stuarts back.’

  ‘Feckless family!’ said another. ‘We’re better off with German George.’

  People were not taking the rising very seriously, however. Many of them remembered what they called the ‘Fifteen, referring to the year 1715 when this Prince’s father had come to Scotland in the hope of gaining the throne. Nothing had come of that. What were the Prince’s Highland supporters compared with the trained English army?

  There was some consternation when Sir John Cope was beaten at Prestonpans, and Charles Edward started to march south and actually reached Derby.

  Everyone now knows the outcome of that adventure and how the Duke of Cumberland marched to join the main army and so catch the Prince in a pincer movement. They knew that he could have reached London, and that he might have succeeded had he not been persuaded to return to Scotland and fight the decisive battle there.

  He was back in the North in December.

  I heard from Sabrina. She was in distress. Dickon was a Jacobite at heart and she knew that she could not stop his joining the Prince.

  I reminded him [she wrote] of what happened before. He said that a man must fight for what he believed in, and that the throne belonged by right to the Stuarts.

  Dear Clarissa, he is with them now and I am desolate and full of fears. I have been so happy since I knew that you no longer cared for him and now he has gone away. I don’t know when I shall hear from him again. I am here in the North right away from you. If only I could be near you I could bear it better. I play with the idea of leaving and coming to you. But I must be here… for when he comes back.

  I shared her anxieties. I waited avidly for news.

  It was April before it came—a lovely spring day with the birds singing wildly with the joy of greeting summer and the buds bursting open on the trees and shrubs. Spring in the air and fear in my heart.

  I heard of the terrible battle of Culloden and prayed that Dickon might be safe. I wanted him to be happy; I wanted Sabrina to be happy.

  The tales of the terrible slaughter shocked me. I shuddered at the name of Butcher Cumberland. ‘No quarter,’ he had said. ‘None shall be spared. We will finish the rebels once and for all.’

  There was no news from Sabrina.

  I prayed that he might be returned to her now. She knew I was anxious. Surely she would let me know.

  No news… and the days were stretching on. May had come.

  ‘This will be the end of the Jacobites,’ people said. ‘This is the final defeat.’

  ‘Cumberland was right to be so harsh,’ said others. ‘They have to be shown that these rebellions must stop.’

  ‘No man should treat his fellow men as Cumberland has treated those who fell into his hands,’ said others.

  Talk of the atrocities was rife. I could not bear to listen.

  And still there was no news.

  I wrote to Sabrina: ‘Let me know what is happening. I am frantic with anxiety.’

  I waited. Each day I watched. Surely something must have happened to explain Sabrina’s silence.

  May is the most beautiful of months, I had always thought, until this May. I shall never forget it… the long warm days and the whole of nature rejoicing and in my heart a feeling of dread that was almost a premonition.

  It was the middle of the month and I was in the deepest despair when she came.

  She walked into the house as though she were in a dream. In fact, I thought I was dreaming when I saw her. So often had I pictured her coming home to me… that it seemed like part of another dream.

  ‘Sabrina,’ I whispered.

  I saw her face then, pale and tragic, and I knew.

  She ran to me and my arms were about her, holding her fast, rejoicing in the midst of my fears because she had come home to me.

  We clung together without speaking for some minutes; then I drew away and said: ‘Dickon… Is he…?’

  She nodded. ‘He died… from his wounds at Culloden.’

  ‘Oh… Sabrina

  She could not speak. She could only cling to me as though begging for comfort. I said to her: ‘Do you remember when we did our lessons together? There was one thing we discussed and I often think of it. It was what one of the Roman poets—Terence, I think—wrote. It was: “The life of man is as when you play with dice; if that which you chiefly want to throw does not fall, you must by skill make use of what has fallen by chance.” Everything depends on the drop of the dice, but once they have fallen there can be no going back. We must do the best we can with what is left to us.’

  She nodded; and in comforting her, I could comfort myself.

  Later we talked. All through the day and night we talked. ‘He would go, Clarissa. I tried to stop him. I reminded him of what had happened before. But he had to go. He was a Jacobite and nothing could make him forget that.’

  I thought: He forgot it once when he helped me to escape. And a great pride filled my heart at that moment.

  ‘I begged him,’ she went on. ‘I pleaded with him, but he could not stop himself. He had to go. I understood at last. He was so certain that Charles Edward would succeed. And he did at first, but it was hopeless against the English armies. And Cumberland was determined that there should not be another Jacobite rebellion. The slaughter… oh, Clarissa, I could not describe it.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘I followed him. I could not let him go. I was nearby, waiting. I wanted to join him when the battle was over. He was wounded badly, but some of his men brought him in from the battlefield. Thank God, at least he died with me beside him.’

  ‘Sabrina, my dear child, how you must have suffered!’

  ‘Yes, I have suffered. I never really found complete happiness. You didn’t entirely deceive me, Clarissa. You loved him, didn’t you?’

  ‘It’s over,’ I said. ‘Dickon is lost to us both now.’

  ‘He spoke of you when he was dying. I think his mind had gone back to that time when you were young. He kept saying your name over and over again.’

  I could scarcely bear it. Nor could she; but as she told me of his last hours we wept, mingling our tears.

  But she is back with me now. We are together, as something tells me we
were always meant to be.

  And yesterday she called in the doctor. She did not let me know that she had done so, and when I was told by one of the maids that the doctor had been I was filled with a terrible apprehension.

  I ran to her bedroom. She greeted me with a smile. I looked at her intently. There was no mistaking the radiance in her face.

  ‘I was hoping it was true,’ she said. ‘I did not want to tell you until I was sure. But now I know. Oh, Clarissa, I am going to have a child…Dickon’s child.’

  I was trembling with a joy I had not known since the day Dickon came back, for now I knew he was going to live on…for both of us.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Daughters of England series

  A Cry for Help

  IT HAS ALWAYS SURPRISED me that people who have lived conventionally, observing all the rules laid down by society, will suddenly appear to change their entire personality and act in a manner alien to everything they have been before. That I should be one of them was as great a shock to me as it would have been to those who knew me well—if they ever discovered it; that was why it was absolutely necessary to keep it secret; there were, of course, other, more practical, reasons for doing so.

  I have often tried to understand how it could have happened to me. I have tried to make excuses. Is it possible for people to be possessed? Some of the mystics of the past declared they were. Was it some inner force? Was it the spirit of one long departed which had entered my body and made me throw aside the principles of a lifetime and act as I did? What is the use of trying to placate my conscience? The rational explanation can only be that I did not know myself until I came face to face with temptation.

  It really began on that spring day which was just like any other day in my ten-year marriage to Jean-Louis Ransome. Life had flowed smoothly and pleasantly for us. Jean-Louis and I agreed on most things; we had known each other since childhood and had been brought up in the same nursery, for my mother had taken charge of him just before I was born when he was about four years old. His own French mother had left him in my mother’s charge when he had shown so determinedly that he did not want to go away with her and her new husband.

  Ours had been one of those predicted marriages which pleased everybody. Perhaps it had been too easy, and because everything had fallen so neatly into place we had become the ordinary conventional people we were.

  So there was I in the flower room, I remember, arranging the daffodils I had picked a short while before from our garden which merged into the woods and which we agreed we would keep a little wild because we both liked it that way. At this time of year the daffodils seemed to spring up everywhere. I loved their subtle scent, their bright yellowness the color of sunshine and the way they proudly held up their trumpets as though proclaiming the coming of summer. I always filled the house with them. I was the sort of person who quickly formed habits and went on with them mainly because I had for so many years.

  There was a sink in the flower room and I had filled my containers with water and was enjoying the arrangements in an epergne of pale green glass which set off the yellow flowers perfectly when I heard the sound of horses’ hooves on the gravel and then… voices.

  I looked up a little ruefully. I enjoyed visitors but I wished they had waited until I had finished with the flowers.

  Sabrina and Dickon were coming toward the house so I reached for a cloth and dried my hands, and went out to meet them.

  Sabrina was my mother’s cousin—a rather strikingly beautiful woman to whom dramatic things had happened a long time ago. She was about ten years my senior, which meant she must be forty years old at this time. She didn’t look it, though there was often a haunted expression in her eyes and sometimes one caught her staring into space as though she were looking back over the years. Then she would look really sad. She had always been a member of our household, and my mother had been a mother to her. Dickon was Sabrina’s son, on whom she doted rather more than was good for him, I fancied. He had been born after the death of her husband.

  “Zipporah!” cried Sabrina. I had often wondered why I had been given such a name. There were no other Zipporahs in the family. When I asked my mother why she had chosen it, she said: “I just wanted something unusual. I liked it, and your father, of course, made no objections.” I discovered that it came from the Bible and was disappointed that the life of my biblical namesake had been no more exciting than my own. All she appeared to have done was married Moses and borne a lot of children. She had been as insignificant as I was, except of course that in the whole of my marriage—to my sorrow and that of Jean-Louis—we had not been blessed with offspring.

  “Zipporah,” continued Sabrina, “your mother wants you to come over to supper. Could you and Jean-Louis manage this evening? There’s something she wants to talk about.”

  “I should think so,” I said, embracing her. “Hello, Dickon.”

  He acknowledged my greeting coolly. My mother and Sabrina had made him the very center of their lives. I sometimes wondered what Dickon would grow up like. He was only ten years old now, so perhaps he would change when he went away to school.

  “Do come in,” I said, and we went past the open door of the flower room.

  “Oh, you were doing the daffodils,” said Sabrina with a smile. “I might have known.”

  Was I so predictable? I supposed so.

  “I hope I didn’t interrupt the ritual,” she added.

  “No… no. Of course not. It’s lovely to see you. Are you out for a ride?”

  “Yes and called in… only for a moment.”

  “You’ll have a glass of wine and some of cook’s biscuits.”

  Sabrina said: “I don’t think we’ll stop for that.”

  But Dickon interrupted her: “Yes, please,” he said. “I should like some biscuits.”

  Sabrina smiled fondly. “Dickon is very partial to those wine biscuits of yours. We must get the recipe, Dickon.”

  “Cook is very jealous of her recipes,” I said.

  “You could order her to give it to our cook,” retorted Dickon.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dare,” I said lightly.

  “So, Dickon, you will have to wait until you visit Zipporah for your wine biscuits.”

  The refreshment came. Dickon hastily finished all the biscuits, which would please cook anyway. She was very susceptible about her food and lapped up compliments. A good one could put her in a very pleasant mood for a whole day; while the faintest hint of criticism could, as one of the maids said, make life in the kitchen a hell on earth.

  “It sounds as though something important has happened,” I said.

  “Well, it could be. It’s a letter from old Carl… you know, Lord Eversleigh.”

  “Oh… yes of course. What does he want?”

  “He’s worried about the Eversleigh estate. Because he has no son to inherit.”

  “I suppose it would have gone to the general, if he hadn’t died.”

  “Strange really to think there is no one in the direct line… no male, that is. Everybody seemed to have girls. A pity old Carl didn’t have a boy.”

  “Didn’t he have one who died at birth?”

  “Oh yes… long ago… and the child’s mother died with him. That was a terrible blow. He never got over it, they said. He never married again, although I believe he had… friends. However, that’s past history and the old man is now a bit anxious and his thoughts have settled on you.”

  “On me! But what about you? You’re older than I.”

  “Your grandmother Carlotta was older than my mother, Damaris, so I supposed you’d come first. Moreover, I wouldn’t be considered. I’ve heard that he talked about my marrying that ‘damned Jacobite.’”

  “I think Jacobites were brave,” put in Dickon. “I’ll be a Jacobite if I want to.”

  “Thank heaven all that nonsense seems to be over now,” I said. “The ’Forty-five finished it.”

  Then I was sorry I had said that because Sabrina
had lost her husband at Culloden.

  “We hope so,” she said quietly. “Well, the fact is old Carl wants to see you, doubtless with a view to making you his heiress. He wrote to your mother, who would come before you, of course, but she is the daughter of that arch Jacobite, Hessenfield.”

  “How they seem to clutter our family,” murmured Dickon.

  “That leaves you,” went on Sabrina. “Your father was a man Uncle Carl highly approved of, so the Jacobite strain is far removed and possibly wiped out, particularly as your father once fought for King George. So you are redeemed. The point is your mother wants you to come over so that we can discuss it all and decide what should be done.”

  “Jean-Louis couldn’t leave the estate just now.”

  “It would only be for a short visit. Anyway, think about it and come over today.”

  “I’d like to go to Eversleigh,” said Dickon.

  His mother smiled at him fondly. “Dickon wants everything that’s available, don’t you, Dickon? Eversleigh is not for you, my son.”

  “You never know,” said Dickon slyly.

  “Talk about it with Jean-Louis.” said Sabrina to me, “and we’ll go into it thoroughly. Your mother will show you the letter. That will put you in picture.”

  I saw them off and went back to the daffodils.

  Jean-Louis and I walked to Clavering Hall from the agent’s house which had been our home since we had married. I had told Jean-Louis of old Carl’s desire to see me and he had been a little disturbed, I think. He was very happy managing the Clavering estate, which was not large and where he had everything working peacefully and in perfect order. Jean-Louis was a man who did not change.

  We walked arm in arm. Jean-Louis was saying that it would be difficult for us to leave Clavering just at this time. He thought we might go later when there was less to do on the estate.

  I agreed with him. We rarely disagreed on anything. Ours was a very happy marriage. That was what made my actions all the more incomprehensible.