Drop of the Dice

by Philippa Carr

  I was glad, concerning myself over this matter took my mind from my own desperate situation.

  The time was passing. Soon I must be on my way home. Gerard was still waiting for a miracle. I really think he believed that I would abandon everything and go away with him.

  The doctor came and spent an hour or so with Uncle Carl. His verdict was that my uncle’s organs were in a sound condition. His inability to walk far was due to advanced rheumatism. With proper care he had years before him.

  I conveyed this news to Jessie. She had recovered from the first shock of our encounter and was particularly ingratiating toward me.

  She said: “Well, that’s good news. You can rest assured, dearie, that every attention he needs he shall get. I’ll make sure he’s taken good care of.”

  She would, I believed, because if he were to die she would no longer have a comfortable home. I daresay the feathers for the nest might become more expensive. Well, that was Uncle Carl’s affair.

  Whether she upbraided him for making the will after signing that “something” in her favor, I did not know. But what I did know was that Jessie was on the alert and she knew that if anything untoward happened to Uncle Carl I would be there with strong supporters to discover the reason why.

  I thought I had made quite a good job of my mission and but for my own deplorable conduct I could be proud of myself.

  Everything about me had changed. I was bolder. The way I had tackled Jessie had shown that; I was tolerant. I accepted her situation at Eversleigh. Of course I did. How could I condemn my uncle’s relationship with his housekeeper… I who stole out of the house to make love with a man whom I had only known for a few weeks.

  But I was leaving. I was determined on that. It was only when I lay in Gerard’s arms that I wavered: but even then I knew I could not face the ultimate betrayal. I would have to go back and try to forget; I saw before me a dreary lifetime of trying to expiate my sin. It would be there always to haunt me… there would be so much to remind me and I should never be truly happy again.

  Gerard was getting frantic. The time was flying. I had two more days before I would set out for Clavering. The grooms who would accompany me had arrived at Eversleigh and were already preparing for our journey.

  I was still meeting Gerard; we were still making frantic love; there was a desperation in our relationship and never had our encounters seemed so sweet as they did now that we knew that soon they would be over.

  On the afternoon two days before my departure we arranged to meet at the cottage which we had made our rendezvous. I arrived first and as I did so a voice from above called: “Who’s there?”

  It was not Gerard.

  A young woman was coming down the stairs.

  “Oh,” she said, “you’re the lady from Eversleigh.”

  She curtsied and looked at me with respect.

  I was astounded but I grasped the situation at once. This was the new tenant.

  I said: “I saw the door open …”

  “Well, ’tis good of you to take the interest, mistress. Ted and me is so pleased to get the place. Had our eyes on it since old Barnaby died. And they’ve done it up so beautiful.”

  “It’s… it’s very nice,” I said.

  “Lucky we be. Able to keep some of the bits and pieces too. Cramped we was in me mum’s place. Now we’ll be on our own. Like to see upstairs, mistress?”

  She was proud, longing to show me. I said I would like to see it.

  So I followed her up. There were curtains at the window… chintz, pretty.

  She followed my gaze and said: “I put them up this morning. Surprising what a difference curtains make… and a bit of carpet. That bed was here.… Nice, ain’t it? We had to use one of me mum’s. We’re glad to have that.”

  I looked at the bed on which I had known such hours of ecstasy.

  There was a sound from below and I knew it was Gerard. I hurried to the stairs. I had to speak to him before he said something which might betray us.

  I called out: “Who’s there? I was just being shown the cottage.”

  He stood in the small room looking incongruous there as he must always have looked but I hadn’t noticed until now.

  I said: “Oh, it is Monsieur d’Aubigné from Enderby. You must have been attracted by the open door as I was. I’ve been talking to the new tenant.”

  He bowed to the pretty young woman, who flushed at such attention.

  “I apologize for the trespass. I saw the door open and I believe it has been empty for some time.”

  “They been doing it up for us, sir.”

  “She and her husband are so happy to have their own place. Thank you for showing me.”

  She gave another curtsy and said: “Pleasure’s mine, mistress.”

  Gerard bowed to me, said “Good day” and we walked away in opposite directions. I thought, how calm he is, how gracefully he dealt with the situation. I suppose I had done the same.

  We were born deceivers, both of us. But the pretty little tenant had not thought it strange. She had been too happy in her own good fortune to pay much attention to us.

  It was not long before Gerard, having turned in his tracks, was walking beside me.

  “So,” he said, “we have lost our meeting place. I had grown to love it.”

  “It was very reckless of us to go there. We might have been disturbed at any time.”

  He said: “Where shall we meet now? If you are really going to leave me on Friday …”

  “I am, Gerard. I must.”

  “Tomorrow then will be our last day. How am I going to bear being without you?”

  “I wonder how I shall bear being without you.”

  “There is the remedy.”

  “It just is not possible.”

  “Everything is possible.”

  “At too great a price.”

  “Surely

  “No.” I said. “Please. Gerard, understand. I have been your mistress… I have broken my marriage vows… I have behaved as I never thought it possible… but this is the end. All that I have done will not hurt Jean-Louis… if he never knows of it. I shall go back and try to be a good wife.”

  “You torture me,” he said.

  “I torture myself.”

  So we talked, and although I wavered a little, one fact remained clear. I could not leave Jean-Louis.

  So we came to that last night. He wanted so much to be with me throughout. Perhaps if the cottage had been vacant I would have gone there and stayed with him and somehow made my way back to the house through the early hours of morning.

  Although I knew Gerard was reckless and adventurous I was unprepared for what happened.

  I was to leave early on the following day. The grooms had said that we should start just after dawn, which would enable us to get a fair distance on the first day when we would stop at the inn we had used on the journey to Eversleigh.

  I said I would retire early. I had said good-bye to Uncle Carl for I did not want to disturb him in the morning: Jessie had said she would be up to see me off with Evalina.

  My bags were packed. I was ready.

  I had said good-bye to Gerard that afternoon. He had not tried to persuade me and seemed to have realized at last the futility of it.

  I was about to get into bed when I heard a scratching at my window.

  I went there and to my amazement and overwhelming joy there was Gerard. He had climbed up with the help of the creeper and was urging me to let him in.

  I opened the window and in a few seconds I was in his arms.

  “You didn’t think I was not going to be with you, did you?” he demanded.

  That night was one of bitter sweetness for me. The unexpected joy of being with him, the heartbreaking knowledge that it would be the last time, made it different from any of those times we had spent together.

  There was a frenzy in our passion; it was the ultimate joy mingled with the abject sorrow. I felt that in every gesture he was begging me to abandon every
thing and go with him.

  We lay side by side listening to the gentle breeze rustling the leaves of the trees; the light of a half moon shone into the room. I wanted to preserve every moment as I used to press rose petals in my Bible at home and look at them afterward and recall the day I had picked them.

  “You can’t let me go alone,” he said.

  But I only shook my head in sorrow.

  At dawn I must rise. I must prepare myself to station my journey… away from ecstasy to the long dreary years ahead, remembering, almost regretting, living with my terrible guilt. I wondered how well I would do that; whether I should be able to keep my guilty secret from them. Would Jean-Louis guess something tremendous had happened to me? I would be different, I was sure. My mother and Sabrina… No. When I came to think of it they had put me aside as some cherished object that was in safekeeping. Their anxieties and plans were all for Dickon.

  “Don’t go away from me,” whispered Gerard. He knew me so well that he read my thoughts and he knew they had strayed from him to the people I should have to face at Clavering.

  Then he kissed me and held me and we were as one.

  We lay together, hands clasped, talking in whispers.

  He said: “When you go back… if you go back… you will realize how desolate you are without me.… You will see that we must be together. …”

  “I shall be desolate. I shall so desperately want to be with you… but I know I must be with my husband.”

  “You cannot look into the future. You don’t know what will happen. I am going to give you the address of my chateau in France. I have written it for you. You will always be able to find me there.”

  I felt a certain lifting of my gloom. When I rode out tomorrow I should not have entirely lost him.

  “Always there will be the hope,” he said. “Every day I shall to myself say perhaps today there will be news of her. …”

  I answered: “I must stay with my husband while he needs me… but if it should come to pass …”

  And as we talked I thought I heard a movement. The creak of a board, the sudden rather uncanny awareness that someone is close by. I sat up in bed, listening.

  “What is it?” said Gerard.

  I put my fingers to my lips and went to the door. Fortunately I had locked it. I knew that someone was on the other side of that door… listening. I thought I heard a quick intake of breath.

  Then I knew. I heard the creaking of a board once more. Someone was stealthily making her… or his… way along the corridor.

  Gerard was looking at me questioningly.

  As I went back to bed I said: “Someone was out there. Whoever it was would have heard our talking.”

  “We spoke in whispers.”

  “Nevertheless, someone in this house knows that there is someone in my room.”

  “The amorous housekeeper? She can’t talk.”

  “I don’t know.”

  But the experience had made me uneasy.

  Dawn came all too quickly. I had to be up and away. Gerard held me fast, made one last entreaty. I felt better now that I had his address.

  Most reluctantly he left me, coming back to me several times and holding me fast again and again as though he refused to let me go.

  And at length, because the minutes were racing by, he went out by the window. I watched him lower himself to the ground with the help of the jutting window decorations and the creeper.

  He stood there looking at me and I could not take my eyes from him. I wanted that last sight of him to be etched forever in my mind.

  Dawn was in the sky and I was ready. The grooms were waiting. I had said good-bye to my uncle the previous night so, I had remarked, I could slip away without disturbing him.

  But Jessie and Evalina were there to see me go.

  They both watched me… slyly, I thought, and I detected a certain speculation in their eyes and I guessed that it was one of them who had listened outside my door last night. One of them knew that I had had a lover in my room.

  The journey back was uneventful. I scarcely noticed the places through which we passed. My thoughts were back with Gerard. My heart was heavy; I believed that I could never again know any happiness. I saw before me a life of dreary acceptance.

  A great welcome was awaiting me, and when Jean-Louis came toward me—walking with a stick—my conscience smote me so fiercely that I was almost in tears. He thought my emotion was due to our reunion and I could see that he was happily gratified.

  “It’s seemed so long,” he cried. “Oh, I’m so happy that you are back.”

  “And how are you, Jean-Louis?” I said. “I was so distressed. What is this about your spine?”

  “Nothing much. I think they’re making a fuss. I just get a sort of crick in my back if I walk too fast.”

  I looked into his dear face and I knew that he was making light of his ailment. His first thought would be that he didn’t want to worry me. I felt mean, besmirched… wicked.

  My mother with Sabrina and Dickon were waiting for me.

  They embraced me lovingly. Dickon was dancing round. “What was it like?” he cried. “Tell us about Eversleigh. When are you going to have it?”

  “Not for years and years, I hope,” I said. “Uncle Carl… I call him uncle because we couldn’t quite work out the relationship… is going to live for a long time.”

  “How do you know?” asked Dickon, narrowing his eyes.

  “Because, Dickon, I called in the doctor and he gave a good report.”

  “A doctor?” said Sabrina “Is he ill then?”

  “No… no, but I thought in the circumstances it was a good thing.”

  My mother was laughing. “You’ve clearly had an interesting time,” she said.

  “Yes… yes, very.”

  “You must tell us all about it.”

  Oh, not all, not all! I thought.

  So I was back. It was like stepping into a world of reality after having visited some fantastic planet.

  I listened to their account of all that had happened while I was away. It seemed very tame and expected.

  “It was like years,” Jean-Louis told me.

  My mother came to my room when I was alone there. Clearly she wanted confidences.

  “Jean Louis?” I asked anxiously.

  “Oh, it was sad that you weren’t here when we discovered this thing. Some damage to his spine. They don’t know what. Poor Jean-Louis, he is so brave… pretends it is nothing much, but I am sure there is some pain. Don’t look so sad, dear. It’ll be better now you’re home. He missed you so much. I think he was terribly worried. He got it into his head that something might happen and he’d lose you. All these tales about highwaymen. I think they’re rather exaggerated.”

  “Of course they are. We don’t hear about the thousands of people who make safe journeys… only those who come to grief.”

  “That’s what I told him. But he seemed to get it into his mind that something might go wrong. I expect he was feeling low about all this. Now you’re back, darling, everything will be all right.”

  How could I ever have deserted them! I had always known in my heart that I never could.

  So I resumed my quiet life. I discovered that Jean-Louis’s trouble was more than he would have us believe. I was sure that often he felt pain although he did not mention it. He was so pleased that I was home and nothing could have been more apparent.

  There must have been a change in my attitude. I was more tender, more thoughtful than I had been before. He noticed it and thought it was due to his disability; he must have no suspicion, I told myself, of the terrible remorse from which I felt I would never escape.

  Sometimes during the night I thought of Gerard, dreamed of him. Poor Jean-Louis, with whom I had never quite attained the heights of passion, had been a tender lover, thoughtful always—and still was, but my mind was filled with erotic imaginings of my experiences with my lost lover.

  I suppose it was inevitable. I was, it appeared, able t
o bear children, the fault—if that was what it could be called—lay with Jean-Louis; and after my careless abandon, the frequency of our lovemaking, it would have been strange if—my partner being a normal potent man—I did not conceive.

  And this, of course, was exactly what had happened.

  A few weeks after my return I knew for sure that I was pregnant and I was equally sure who was the father of my child.

  Here was a dilemma. It had not occurred to me that this would happen because I had always thought of myself as a barren woman. Why is it that when a couple are not fruitful it is always assumed that the deficiency is with the woman? It was clearly not so in my case.

  There was only one course open to me for our sanity, for our happiness. Jean-Louis must believe that the child was his. This would be a perfectly reasonable assumption, particularly as he and my mother—the entire family—would never believe that I would break my marriage vows.

  Then it should not be difficult. I had been away from home for three weeks. What if I had conceived a short time before I had left, which was possible? No one could question the time of the child’s arrival.

  The first suspicion had shocked me a little and then I began to glory in the knowledge. I was to have a child. I had longed to be a mother. The fact that I was to become one would lift me out of that terrible depression which parting with Gerard had given me. I knew that if Jean-Louis was aware that he was to become a father he would be so excited that he too would benefit from the news. As for my mother and Sabrina, they would be overjoyed. In their opinion the one flaw in my marriage had been that it was childless.

  I should be the only one who would see this as a result of my sin. I had been brazen, shameless… and now there was to be a result—a child of that illicit union to keep the memory of it green throughout the years.

  I had fallen deeper into deceit, and although this news would bring great joy to all my family, I should be constantly reminded of those three ecstatic weeks when I had stepped aside from morality, virtue and all the principles which I had been brought up to revere.

  Suppose I confessed what I had done? Suppose I told them who was the father of my child? I would only create unhappiness. No, I must go on living with my deceit for ever and the child would be a living reminder of it.