Lament for a Lost Lover (43 page)

“Never mind, Arabella. There’ll be another time.”

“There must be. I shall not rest until you have your son.”

“There has to be a rest after this … a year at least, they tell me. Perhaps two.”

“You mean before we have a child?”

He nodded.

“At least,” he said, “you’ve come through. You’ve been very ill, you know. If only you hadn’t … But what’s the good?”

“I was terrified.”

“I know. Priscilla!” He said the name almost angrily.

“I thought she would get into the shooting range and …”

“Don’t fret about it. She didn’t. In any case I should have seen her and stopped the firing.”

“Oh, Carleton, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say it like that. As though I’m some … monster …”

“You are,” I said with a return of my old spirit.

He bent down and kissed me. “Get well, quickly, Arabella,” he murmured.

Matilda came.

“Oh, my dear, dear child, how wonderful that you can now have visitors. I have been beside myself with fear. It was so dreadful … my dear husband, Toby … and then you. It was as though there was some evil spell on the house. …”

She stopped. I noticed that Sally was in the room.

“It was just an unfortunate chain of circumstances,” I said. “Let’s hope this is the end of our troubles.”

“It must be because you are well again. Sally tells me that you are picking up very quickly. That’s so, eh, Sally?”

“I know how to treat her, milady. I’m going to have her on her feet before the week’s out. You’ll see. …”

“I’ve always trusted you, Sally. Ah, Charlotte.”

Charlotte had come into the room.

“Charlotte, see how well Arabella is looking,” went on Matilda. “Almost her old self, don’t you think?”

“You look much better,” said Charlotte. “I am so glad and very sorry that it happened.”

“It was an unfortunate accident.” I said. “I should have been more careful.”

“Yes,” said Charlotte quietly.

“Do sit down, Charlotte,” said her mother. “You look so awkward standing there.”

Charlotte meekly sat and we talked for a while of the children. Poor Edwin had been heartbroken. Having been introduced to death through his grandfather and Uncle Toby, he had feared that I was going to die.

“It was hard to comfort him,” said Charlotte. “Leigh could do it better than anyone. How close those two boys have become.”

We talked of Priscilla and how bright she was. She too had missed me and kept saying my name and crying for me.

“So you see how glad
everyone
is that you are getting well,” said Matilda.

Then Sally came and said that I ought not to tire myself and she thought I had talked enough for a while.

So they went out and left me alone with my thoughts. I could not stop thinking of Carleton’s disappointment, and I wondered how deeply he blamed me … and perhaps Priscilla … for what had happened.

It was two days later when Harriet came to see me. I was much stronger then, sitting up and even taking an occasional walk round the room.

“We must not go too fast,” Sally ordered, and she was undoubtedly mistress of the sickroom.

I had insisted that she take a rest that afternoon, for I knew how tired nursing me made her, for she insisted on keeping her eye on the children as well, and she was lying down. I guess that that was why Harriet had chosen this time to come.

She tiptoed into the room, her lovely eyes alight with a kind of mischief.

“The dragon is sleeping,” she said in a dramatic voice. “Do you know she has been breathing fire at me every time I approached.”

“So you came before?”

“Of course I came. You don’t think I would stay away when you were ill, do you?”

Her presence made me feel alive again. She exuded vitality. I was pleased to see her.

“You don’t look as though you’re dying,” she said.

“I am not,” I answered.

“You had us all very worried, I can tell you.”

“I feel so angry with myself. After all that waiting … it is gone.”

“You mustn’t fret. That’s bad for you. You must be thankful that you were not taken away from your beloved family. Edwin was distrait.”

“I know, they told me. He is a dear boy.”

“So devoted to his mama and so he should be. So should we all. Arabella … I haven’t told anyone yet. I want you to be the first to know. It’s wonderful really. It’s made me feel happy again. I did love Toby. I know you doubted my feelings. You’ve never really forgiven me for Edwin, have you?”

“Oh, that … It’s so long ago.”

“I know your nature. You forgive but you can’t forget. You’ll never quite trust me again, will you?”

“Perhaps not.”

“I’m going to make you. I’m so fond of you, Arabella. That makes you smile. You think I couldn’t do what I did and be fond of you. I could. What happened between me and Edwin was outside friendship. Those things always are. The attraction arises quite suddenly sometimes and it’s irresistible. One forgets everything but the need to satisfy it. When it’s over, the rest of one’s life slips back into shape and it’s just as it was before. …”

I shook my head. “Let’s not discuss it. We shall never agree.”

“I was brought up so differently from you, Arabella. I always had to fight. It’s become natural with me. I fight for what I want and take it and then consider the cost. But I didn’t come to say all this. It’s just that when I’m with you, I feel I have to justify myself. Arabella, I am going to have a child.”

“Harriet! Is that possible?”

“Obviously. Toby wasn’t all that old, you know.”

“I can see you’re happy.”

“It’s what I need. Don’t you see? You, of all people. Didn’t it happen to you? Think back. Your husband died suddenly and afterwards you found you were going to have a child. That is how it is with me. Come, rejoice with me. I feel like singing the Magnificat.”

“When …?”

“Six months from now.”

She came to me and put her arms round me. “It makes all the difference. I shall stay here. I have a right to now. I had before, but a double right now. Old Matilda was hoping I’d go. So was Charlotte, and as for your Sally, she looks at me as though I’m the Devil incarnate. But I don’t care. I’m going to have a child. A little Eversleigh. Think of that. My own child.”

“You won’t go away and leave this one, I hope,” I said coolly, but I was beginning to succumb to the old charm.

She laughed. “Your tongue’s getting sharp again, Arabella. You get so much practice with Carleton.”

“Is it so noticeable?”

“Perhaps. But no doubt he enjoys it. Now about this baby …”

“You say you haven’t told anyone?”

“I was determined that you should be the first.”

“If only Uncle Toby had known, how delighted he would have been.”

Her eyes were a trifle misty. “Dear Toby,” she said. I was moved, and then I wondered if she was still playing a part.

The news of Harriet’s expectations astounded the household, and for a few days it was whispered that she must have imagined this was so. But as the weeks passed it became obvious that she was not mistaken.

She was quite smug, and clearly enjoying her position. She behaved as though it was a great joke and in some way she had scored over us all.

Carleton was shaken. I could see that.

“If this is a boy,” he said, “he will be next in line to Edwin.”

“Not when Edwin marries and has a son of his own.”

“A good many years will have to pass before that.”

“I wish you would stop talking of Edwin as though his days are numbered.”

“Sorry. I was merely thinking …”

“Of the line of succession. Really one would think Eversleigh was the throne.”

He brooded on it, I know. I often saw him watch Harriet with an odd speculation in his eyes.

There was a good deal of friction between us. Life had not been smooth since my miscarriage. He seemed resentful of my love for Priscilla and of course Edwin. Although I could understand a certain jealously of Edwin, it seemed incredible that a man could blame his own daughter because of the loss of a possible son.

Carleton was unnatural, I told him. He was obsessed by his desire for a son. I knew, I said, that this was a common desire among a certain type of man but Carleton carried it to extreme. He was away a good deal. He went to Whitehall and I knew was prominent in Court circles. I often wondered about his life there. I used to worry about the weakening of our feelings for each other and I told myself it was inevitable. I knew I was in some ways to blame, and yet I longed for him to come back and to be to me what he had been in the beginning. But had he really been as I imagined him? There had been a violent passion between us, but was that the foundation on which to build a lifetime’s happiness? Perhaps I was wrong. I had always harked back to that glorious time with Edwin—which had been entirely false. Because of it I had been determined not be duped again. Had that made me hard, suspicious?

Life seemed to have become unreal during the months that followed. Harriet was the only one who was content. She went about hugging her secret joy, and in the way I remembered so well she began to dominate the household.

She would get us all together to sing ballads in the evening—myself, Charlotte, Gregory Stevens and often Matthew Dollan, who was constantly riding over. Charlotte was aloof with him, as though she knew that I hoped they might be attracted and was determined to foil me.

Harriet would tell stories of her life as a player and her audience would be tense with excitement. She certainly was a true Scheherazade, for she had a trick of stopping at an exciting point and saying: “No more now. My voice is going. I have to protect it, you know.”

Edwin and Leigh would creep in and listen. They thought her enchanting and she made a special point of charming them. Even Priscilla would toddle up and watch her wonderingly while she sang or talked.

Anxious as I was about my relationship with Carleton, saddened by the fact that I was not the one who was expecting a child, I allowed myself to be drawn into her spell and I would find myself excited by her as the others were.

Through the winter months she grew larger but nonetheless beautiful. There was a wonderful serenity about her which added to her beauty.

Even Sally Nullens was excited by the prospect of a new baby in the nursery.

I said to her one day: “Sally, you’re longing for this baby, I know.”

“Oh I can never resist them,” she admitted. “There’s nothing as beautiful as a helpless little baby to my mind.”

“Even Harriet’s?” I said.

“Whatever else she is,” answered Sally, “she’s a mother.”

I had not noticed that Charlotte had come into the room. She was so self-effacing. She seemed to want not to be noticed.

“Do you think she will have an easy confinement?” I asked.

“Her!” cried Sally, her eyes flashing suddenly. “With her it will be like shelling peas. It is with her sort. …”

“Her sort …” I said.

“There’s something about her,” said Sally quietly. “I’ve always known it. They say witches have special powers.”

“Sally, you’re not suggesting Harriet is a witch?” murmured Charlotte.

Sally said: “I’m saying nothing.”

“You just have,” I reminded her.

“I can only say what I feel. There’s something … some special powers … I don’t know what it is. Some call it witchcraft. I don’t like it and I never will.”

“Oh, Sally, what nonsense. She’s just a healthy and attractive woman …”

“Who knows how to get what she wants.”

Charlotte and I exchanged glances which implied that we shouldn’t take old Sally too seriously.

It was February when Harriet gave birth to her child, and as Sally had predicted it was an easy birth. She had a son and I must admit I felt a twinge of envy.

It was a week or so after the birth of the child, whom she had christened Benjamin, when Carleton came home.

He embraced me warmly and I felt a sudden thrill of happiness. I determined that in time, when I had recovered from this lassitude which had been with me since my miscarriage, I also would have a son.

Carleton noticed at once. “You’re better,” he said. And swung me up and held me against him.

“I’m glad you are home,” I said.

We walked into the house arm in arm. I said to him: “We have an addition to the household. Harriet’s child has arrived.”

He was silent for a moment and I went on: “It’s a son. Trust Harriet to have a son.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “trust Harriet.”

I went with him to her room to see him. She was in bed; her Benjie was in his cradle and Sally hovered.

Harriet held out her hand to Carleton. He took it and it seemed to me that he held it for a long time.

She withdrew it and said: “Sally, give me Benjie. I want to show him off. I tell you this, Carleton, he is the most beautiful baby in the world. Sally will bear me out.”

She sat there. How beautiful she was, with her magnificent hair falling about her shoulders, her face serenely happy, her lovely eyes soft as I had rarely seen them.

I was deeply aware of Carleton. He was watching her intently. I thought again it was like one of those tableaux, full of meaning.

Benjie thrived. Sally said she had never seen a baby with a finer pair of lungs. When he bellowed, Priscilla watched him in wonder. He showed a determination to get what he wanted from his earliest days. He was beautiful with big blue eyes and dark tufts of hair. Priscilla liked to stand and watch Sally bathe him and to hand her the towels.

I had never seen Harriet so contented before. Her maternal instincts surprised me, but I told myself cynically that she loved her baby partly because he consolidated her position here. Of course as Toby’s widow she had a right to be in the house, but the fact that she had borne one of the heirs to lands and title made her position doubly assured.

But even so I was aware of growing tension all about me. I fancied that Harriet was alert, that she was engaged in some secret adventures. Perhaps it was my imagination, I told myself. Perhaps I could never really forget.

I sometimes wandered to the edge of the gardens to the arbour in which Edwin had died. It was such a gloomy place, and the shrubs about it were becoming more overgrown than ever. It looked eerie, ghostly, as the scene of a tragedy can become when people hate to go there and build up legends about it.