Drop of the Dice (48 page)

That event devastated our household, though there had been rumblings of disaster before it happened. I couldn’t help overhearing certain things. I knew that he had died—as the servants said—defending my mother’s honor. This was because a man had died and in his bedroom had been found something belonging to my mother that indicated she had been with him at the time of his death.

It had been the end of a way of life—deeply upsetting to a girl of ten. We had gone to the country—not that that was new to me. We had always spent some part of the summer at Clavering Hall because it was part of my father’s country estate.

Terrible days they had been, and made more so because I knew only half the story. Sabrina was involved in it. I heard her once say to my mother: “Oh, Clarissa, I am to blame for all this.” And I knew that she had been the one in the dead man’s bedroom, though everyone had thought it was my mother, and my father had died for that reason.

It had been bewildering, and when I asked questions I was told by Nanny Curlew—whom I had inherited from Sabrina—that little children should be seen and not heard. I was careful, for Nanny Curlew could relate gruesome stories of what happened to naughty children. If they listened to what was not intended for them, their ears grew long so that everyone knew what they had done; and those who grimaced or scowled or put out their tongues—unless told to by nurse or doctor—were often “struck all of a heap” and stayed like that for the rest of their lives. Being a logical little girl I did say that I had never seen anyone with enormous ears and a tongue hanging out. “You wait,” she had said darkly, and looked at me so suspiciously that I hastily went to a looking glass to make sure that my ears had not grown and that my tongue was still mobile.

Somebody said that time is the great healer, and that is certainly true, for if it does not always heal, it dims the memory and softens the pain; and after a while I became accustomed to my father’s absence; I settled into the country life at Clavering. After all, I had my mother, Sabrina and Jean-Louis as well as the redoubtable and omnipotent Nanny Curlew. I accepted life. I did what was expected of me; I rarely questioned why. I once heard Sabrina say to my mother: “At least Zipporah has never given you a moment’s anxiety, and I’ll be ready to swear never will.” At first I was delighted to hear this but later it made me ponder.

Then I was of age and there were dances and at one of these Jean-Louis showed himself capable of jealousy because he thought I was too interested in one of the sons of a neighboring squire. Then we decided we would marry, but Jean-Louis didn’t want to do it while he was still under my mother’s roof. He was proud and independent. He was working on the estate and doing well. Tom Staples said he didn’t know how he’d manage without him; then Tom Staples suddenly had a heart attack and died. The estate manager’s job and house became vacant, so Jean-Louis stepped into his shoes. He managed the estate and took over the house which went with the post, and there was no reason then why we shouldn’t be married right away.

That had happened more than ten years ago in the fatal year of ’45. Drama touched us then in the return of the love of my mother’s youth who had been transported to Virginia thirty years before for his part in the ’15 rebellion. I was so immersed in my own marriage at the time that I only vaguely realized what was happening and that the returning Dickon was the young lover of whom my mother had dreamed all through her life—even when she was married to that most desirable of men, my father. Alas, for her, the lover of her youth fell in love with Sabrina, married her, and young Dickon was the result.

My poor mother! I realize her sufferings far more now than I did then. Sabrina came back to my mother after Culloden. Then Dickon was born—that was ten years ago—and Sabrina and my mother lived together in Clavering Hall, and I know now—understanding people’s emotions so much more than I did before my own adventure—that they saw in him the Dickon they had both lost. Perhaps that brought them some consolation. But I was beginning to believe that it was having an adverse effect on Dickon’s character.

So Jean-Louis and I were married, and he was a good husband to me; ours was the typical country existence; we went on, untroubled by outside events; there might be wars in Europe in which the country was involved but they affected us very little. We went from season to season, from Good Friday gloom to Easter rejoicing, to summer church fêtes on the lawn if the weather was good and in our vaulted hall if it were bad, to harvest festivals when everyone vied to produce the finest fruits and vegetables for display, to Christmas and all its rejoicing. That was our life.

Until this day when we had the message from Eversleigh Court.

My mother was pleased to see us as she always was.

“I’m so glad you could come today,” she said. “I do want to talk to you about poor old Carl. Sabrina has given you an inkling, hasn’t she? I am so sorry for him. He sounds so pathetic in his letter.”

She slipped one arm through mine and the other through that of Jean-Louis.

“I thought just a family party so that we could really talk. Just Sabrina, myself and the two of you. Jean-Louis, dear, I do hope you will be able to manage to go with Zipporah.”

Jean-Louis then began to launch into a description of the problems of the estate. He loved talking about them because they were of such paramount importance to him. He glowed with enthusiasm and I knew it would be a great sacrifice for him to spare time from it.

We went into the hall—which was very fine and, as usual in such buildings, the central feature of the house. It was a large house—meant for a big family. My mother would have liked Sabrina to marry again and live there with her children; I am sure she would have liked Jean-Louis and me to come there and have a family. That was what she wanted to be, the center of a big family; and all we had was Dickon.

It seemed now that Sabrina would never marry again. My mother might have done so too because she had been quite young when my father was killed. But they had both set up an image which they worshiped: Dickon—the hero of my mother’s youth, whom she had adored through her life and who must have clouded her relationship with my father. It was ironic that she should still go on worshiping him even when he had proved faithless and turned to Sabrina. If he had not died a soldier’s death at Culloden would he have remained on his pedestal? Those were the questions I began to ask myself afterwards.… Looking back it seemed to me that I saw life with the unpleasantness discreetly covered; I saw all that people wanted me to see, and I never attempted to lift the cloth of conventionality and look beneath.

Young Dickon had come as a salvation to those two bereaved women, and this boy—Dickon’s son—had, so they believed, given them a reason for living. Planning for him, they had subdued their grief; they had found a new object for worship.

The house was as much home to me as the house which I had shared with Jean-Louis for the last ten years. Here I had grown up among the elegant furniture and tasteful decorations—the result of my father’s love of beautiful things.

I stood in the hall and looked at the two elegant staircases winding upward—one to the east wing, one to the west wing. Such a large house for so few people! My mother often thought that, I knew, and she was grateful that she had Sabrina to share it with her. I had said to Jean-Louis that if ever Sabrina should marry and go away we should have to go to the hall to live. Jean-Louis agreed, but I knew he so cherished his independence and he loved our house because it was a symbol of that. He never forgot that he had been left to my mother rather as a changeling child. There was something very noble about Jean-Louis in a quiet way which makes my conduct all the more reprehensible… but I must get on with my explanations as to how it came about.

There we were at supper in the dining room. The house had been left as my father had made it, and my mother would never willingly have it altered. Even the card room—the most important in the house—was left as it had been in his day, although there were no gaming parties nowadays, only a quiet game of whist occasionally when neighbors came in to join my mother and Sabrina—and of course there was no play for money. My mother was very much against that—puritanically, so some said, but of course we understood why.

Now we sat on the carved japanned chairs with their gilt decoration, which had been in the family for the last hundred years and of which my father had been rather proud, at the oak table with the apron of carved features imitating a fringed hanging which I remember my father’s telling me had been made in France for someone at the court of Louis XV. He would often throw out information like that in the midst of light bantering chatter, which, I think, was perhaps why I had always found him so fascinating.

The butler was at the sideboard ladling out the soup which one of the maids was serving when the door was opened and Dickon came in.

“Dickon,” said my mother and Sabrina simultaneously in those voices I knew so well, a little shocked, remonstrating and at the same time indulgently admiring his audacity. It seemed to say. This is wrong but what will the darling child do next, bless him!

“I want to have supper,” he said.

“Dearest.” said my mother, “you had your supper an hour ago. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“No,” he said.

“Why not?” said Sabrina. “It’s bedtime.”

“Because,” said Dickon patiently, “I want to be here.”

The butler was looking into the tureen as though it held the utmost interest for him; the maid was standing still holding a plate of soup in her hand; uncertain where to put it.

I had expected Sabrina to send him back to bed. Instead she looked helplessly at my mother, who lifted her shoulders. Dickon slid into a chair. He knew he had won. In fact, he had no doubt that victory would be his. I was fully aware that I was seeing a repetition of a recurring scene.

“Well, perhaps this once, eh, Sabrina?” said my mother almost cajolingly.

“You really shouldn’t, darling,” added Sabrina.

Dickon smiled winningly at her. “Just this once,” he said.

My mother said: “Carry on serving, Thomas.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Thomas.

Dickon threw me a look which held triumph in it. He knew that I did not approve of what had happened and took a delight not only in getting his own way but in showing me what power he had over these doting women.

“Well,” said my mother, “I must show you Carl’s letter. I think then”—she smiled at Jean-Louis—“you will make a special effort to go… soon.”

“It’s a pity it is rather an awkward time of year.” Jean-Louis frowned a little. He hated disappointing my mother and it was quite clear that she was very eager for us to go to Eversleigh quickly.

“Well, young Weston is quite good, isn’t he?” said Sabrina.

Young Weston was a manager we had. He was certainly showing signs of promise but Jean-Louis cared so much about the estate that he was never very happy when he was not at the head of affairs. His desire never to leave Clavering had worked out well because we none of us wanted to go to London as my father used to. He had generally come to the country rather reluctantly and then only because of the card parties he gave; he had much preferred town life and had left everything in the care of Tom Staples and men like him. We had had several agents since Tom Staples’s death but Jean-Louis was never entirely satisfied with them.

“He’s hardly ready yet,” said Jean-Louis.

My mother reached over and pressed my husband’s hand.

“I know you’ll manage something,” she said. And of course he would. Jean-Louis was always eager to please everyone, that was why… But I must stop reproaching myself in this way.

Now that she knew that Jean-Louis most certainly would take me to Eversleigh my mother went on to reminisce about the old place.

“So long since I have seen it. I wonder if it still looks the same.”

Sabrina said: “I daresay Enderby hasn’t changed much. What a strange house that was! Haunted, they said. Things did seem to happen there.”

I knew vaguely something of Enderby. It was nearby Eversleigh Court and the two houses had been connected because my grandmother Carlotta had inherited the place. There had been a tragedy before that. They weren’t our family, but someone had committed suicide there.

Sabrina shivered and went on: “I don’t think I ever want to go to Enderby again.”

“Are there really ghosts there?” asked Dickon.

“Common sense,” I replied.

“I like ghosts,” he said, dismissing me and my common sense as he was prepared to dismiss anyone who interfered with his pleasure. “I
want
there to be ghosts.”

“We must arrange it then,” said Jean-Louis.

“I was happy in Enderby,” said my mother. “I can still remember coming home from France and how wonderful it was to be in the heart of a loving family… something I shall never forget… and it was my home for a number of years… with Aunt Damaris and Uncle Jeremy.”

I knew she was thinking of those terrible early days in France when her parents had died suddenly through poison, it was said—and she had been left in the care of a French maid who sold flowers in the streets when the house was disbanded.

My mother had spoken of it often. She remembered her mother, Carlotta, the great beauty of the family, wild Carlotta, with whom I was later to become obsessed but who was at that time just a dazzling ancestress to me.

“You will be interested to see it all, Zipporah,” she said.

“It won’t be necessary to stay more than a few weeks, will it?” asked Jean-Louis.

“No, I shouldn’t think so. I think the old man is very lonely. He will be so delighted.”

Dickon listened avidly. “I’ll go instead,” he said.

“No, darling,” replied Sabrina. “You’re not invited.”

“But he’s your relation too, and if he’s yours he’s mine.”

“Well, it is Zipporah he is inviting.”

“I could go to be her companion… instead of Jean-Louis.”

“No,” said Jean-Louis. “I have to be there to take care of Zipporah.”

“She doesn’t want taking care of. She’s old.”