The Song of the Siren (39 page)

Elisse de Partiere.

What a charming gesture! I thought. The gloves are charming. I tried them on. Then carefully wrapped them up to be used on a suitable occasion.

There was a great deal of activity throughout the court at St. Germain-en-Laye. It was not likely that they were going to let one disaster deter them.

The loss of all the arms and ammunition which had been brought about through Matt Pilkington and Mary Marton had been a great setback. None would deny it. Hessenfield told me that the French were impatient over the matter and blamed us for being so careless as to let spies into our household.

“I bore the brunt of that,” said Hessenfield with a grim laugh. “Now I want to show them that that sort of thing can never happen again.”

The days passed too quickly. I savoured each one. It seemed later that I must have had some premonition.

285I think always at the back of my mind was the thought . . . the fear that it could not last.

We lived passionately, fervently. I think Hessenfield felt similarly. I remembered he had said once that death was always waiting round the corner. It was a dangerous life he lived; and I was with him, clinging all the time to the present.

He had been to Versailles to speak with one of Louis’s ministers who was more favourable than most to the English cause; and from there he had gone to St. Germains.

When he came back he looked unlike himself. He was distinctly pale; and I had never seen him before without his healthy colour. Moreover, there was now lacklustre in his eyes.

I looked at him anxiously.

“It has gone badly,” I said. “Something worries you.”

He shook his head. “The French are eager to help. They are all in good spirits at St. Germains.”

I took his hand. It was clammy.

“You are not well,” I cried in dismay.

Hessenfield was a man who had always known perfect health and could not understand sickness. I had always been under the impression that he would believe it was some deficiency in the sufferer, some quirk of the imagination . . . unless of course it was a leg or arm or some visible disability.

I understood perfectly because I was rather like that myself. So I was very alarmed when he said: “I think I must lie down.”

I helped him undress and got him to bed. I sat beside him and said I would get him a tasty meal. He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to eat. It was nothing, he assured me. It would pass.

He did not speak. He just lay still and seemed to want nothing but

th I was very worried and passed an anxious night. In the morning he fas delirious.

I sent for a physician who came and examined Hessen?eld. He shook his head and murmured something about a fever. ‘erhaps two dead pigeons laid on the soles of his feet might help. He ‘Quid send a lotion round which might also be of use. I gripped the man’s hand. “What ails him?” I asked. “A fever. He’ll recover,” he said.

286But by the afternoon he was no better,

I walked about the house in a daze. This was something I had never thought of. I put his clothes away-those which he had been wearing. The fringed coat, the breeches, and the fine hose and the gloves which Madame de Partiere had sent for him.

I would not leave him. I just sat by his bed. He looked different from the man I had known. He was pale; his eyes were closed; there was already a sunken look in his cheeks.

Jeanne said to me: “Madame, I know an apothecary who has the finest remedies. He is the Italian Antonio Manzini. They say he has cured many.”

“I will go to him. You must come with me, Jeanne,” I said.

We went to my room. “You will need your heavy cloak, madame. There is a chill in the air.” She opened a drawer and took out the gloves which Madame de Partiere had given me.

I put them on and we went out together.

Jeanne led me through the streets to the carrefour near the Chatelet.

We went into the shop together.

Jeanne said: “Madame is very anxious. Her husband is sick.”

“Sick,” said the man; he had dark bushy eyebrows and almost black, very penetrating eyes. “What ails him?”

“It is a fever which makes him listless and so unlike himself,” I explained. “Till now he was a very healthy man.”

I laid my hand on his arm. He looked down at it and drew away.

“I have a lotion,” he said, “which cures fever. It is costly.”

“I will pay,” I assured him. “If it cures my husband I will pay anything ... anything you ask.”

Jeanne laid a restraining hand on my arm and Antonio Manzini retired behind his shop.

“Madame will forgive me,” said Jeanne. “But it is not necessary to promise so much.

Pay his price and that is good enough.”

I paid the price and he brought out the bottle. We hurried back and I went straight to Hessenfield’s bedside. I could see at once that he had grown worse.

I hastily poured out some of the liquid, forced him to take it and sat down waiting for the miracle.

There was none.

287By nightfall Hessenfield’s condition was unchanged.

I sat up beside him all night. Just before dawn I rose and as I stood

up a terrible dizziness overcame me.

I touched my skin. It was cold and clammy yet I felt very hot.

I knew then that I had caught the fever or whatever it was, and that I too was going to be ill.

No, that must not be, I told myself. I had to keep well. I had to nurse Hessenfield.

I would not trust him to anyone but myself.

I tried to fight off my lassitude. But I was becoming very worried.

I had a great desire to go to bed, but I would not. With all my might I would fight this terrible feeling which was coming over me.

During the morning Hessenfield took a turn for the worse. He was now raving in delirium.

He was talking about General Langdon, about spies ... about me ... about Clarissa.

It was jumbled together and made no sense.

Meanwhile I was feeling more and more ill.

Jeanne came to my room. Her eyes widened with horror at the sight of me.

She said: “There is a lady downstairs who asks to see you most urgently. She says it is very important and she wants to speak pri\ately with you.”

I went to a small room which led from the salon and said I would receive her there.

She came in. It was Madame de Partiere. But she looked different from when I had last seen her. I touched my eyes wearily for I had the most alarming headache. I wondered if I was seeing clearly.

“Madame de Partiere ...” I stammered.

She nodded.

“Ah, I see you are unwell, Carlotta.”

I stared at her in amazement. Her French accent had disappeared. She spoke English like an Englishwoman.

Her face I noticed was very pale. She said: “Lord Hessenfield is very sick. He will die. There is no antidote ...”

I said angrily: “Have you come here to tell me this?”

She replied: “How many times have you worn the gloves? I see you have worn them.”

I shook my head impatiently.

“It is important,” she said. “They are deadly.”

288

I stared at her. I thought: She is mad. I must get away from her quickly. I have not the strength to deal with her now. I stepped towards the door.

“You have worn them,” she said. “It shows. All those good looks, they will be gone in a day or so.... We are tainted; your husband ... you, and I ... too. That is why I have come here. I want you to understand how ... and why ... before we die.”

“Madame,” I said, “this is a very unfortunate time to call. My husband is very ill.”

“I know. Who better? You too are very ill-more ill than you know. I have not escaped.

They are deadly. I have handled them too much.”

I caught at a chair. I should have fallen otherwise.

“Madame, please go. I am going to call the servants. I have too much to concern me

...”

“This concerns you,” she said. “This concerns you deeply. You must start at once to repent of your sins.”

“Sins ... ?”

“You have committed many ... so has my lord Hessenfield.... You have committed sins against me and mine ... and I determined to have my revenge.”

“Please explain then if you must.”

“For a moment at Versailles I thought you knew me. We have met once before.”

I said: “In the Oeil de Boeuf. ...”

“No, not there. In Enderby Hall. Do you remember Beth Pilkington?”

“Beth Pilkington! You ... ?”

Then I remembered. She had had amazing red hair then. It was easy to change that.

I saw her face fall into the lines I remembered. She was a good actress. She had looked and acted the part of a woman of French nobility to perfection.

“I came to see Enderby Hall. You showed me round. I was coming down to find out what had become of Beaumont Granville. I did find out in time.”

“Beau? What was he to you?”

“My lover ... for years. I was his favourite mistress. He said he

289would marry me if I could give him a son. He wanted children ... he wanted a son.”

I stared at her unbelievingly.

“Yes,” she went on. “You put an end to that. Oh, do not think I blame you for that.

It was not your fault. You came along. You had everything to offer him. Good looks, your own kind of fascination, youth ... and a fortune. Most important of all, a fortune.

But for that fortune Beau would have married me. I already had my beautiful son ...

his son.”

“Matt, you mean.”

“Yes, Matt!”

I understood then why I had been attracted by him. I had thought he reminded me of Beau because of a faint resemblance which I had believed was merely that of one dandy for another. I thought of the button I had found in Enderby Hall; the lingering odour of musk. Beau’s son, of course, who perhaps had been wearing a coat with gold buttons which had belonged to his father-who had been brought up with a taste for the musk scent.

“I came to that place to find out what had happened to Beaumont,” she went on. “I was sure that if he had fled abroad-which seemed plausible enough-he would have let me know at some time. Our association had lasted from the day we met. I was always there in the background, whatever other women there were. He looked on me as a wife and but for you ... when my child was born .. . But that is of no importance now.

I want you to understand how it happened. I came down to find out where Beau had gone ... and I did. The dog had been his dog. Matt took her when Beau went. The dog found his shoe. That was why she died.”

“Where ... ?” I murmured.

“Under the soil in that patch of land where people were forbidden to go. He was buried there by your mother’s husband.”

I gasped. “I don’t believe it.”

“He killed the dog but he did not kill Beau. That was Christabel Willerby. Beau was blackmailing her and she shot him; your father buried the body thinking that your mother had done it. If you knew all the details it falls naturally into place, but that is not why I am here. You are innocent of Beau’s death.”

290”I think, Mistress Pilkington, that you are imagining these things. You are suffering from hallucinations. You are ill.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It is the end for us all-for me no less than you. I want you to know but I want you to understand. I wanted my son to be happy. He would have been with your sister. She is a good girl. It made me happy to see how gradually they began to love each other. She was the girl I wanted for him. She was different from anyone he was likely to meet in London. He realised her virtues. She would have provided him with a steadying background ... the sort I had never been able to give him. I wanted that for him.”

She looked at me malevolently and put her hand to her heart. She was growing breathless.

“But you spoilt it,” she went on. “He followed you here ... and he was murdered.

But for you he would be alive to this day. My only son. He was everything to me.

All my life was centered round him. But you lured him here and then Lord Hessenfield killed him ... had him murdered and his body thrown in the Seine.”

“You are wrong,” I cried. “That was not how it happened. He was a spy. He did not come here for me. He came to spy against the Jacobites.”

“He came because of you. That was his excuse for coming. He came for you.”

“It is not true. He worked here with a nursery governess in this household. He was caught.... There were papers on him that proved him to be a spy.”

She shook her head. “I know my son. He was like his father. He would pursue what he wanted until it was his. He wanted you and he came here to get you and Hessenfield was jealous. He is hard and a ruthless man. He killed him. I heard about it. I was told that it was a crime passionnel.”

“You are wrong ... wrong....”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It is the end,” she said. “Soon for me and for you.

You must die. I knew that there was something fatalistic about you when I met you in that house. Beauty such as yours has something evil in it. It is not a gift from God but from the devil.”

She was looking at me strangely, her eyes glittering. She is mad, I thought. The death of Matt has unhinged her mind.

291

“You are like the legendary mermaid who sits on the rock singing and luring mariners to come to her, and to go to her is certain death, jt is ... the song of the siren.

Come to me and I will be all to you that you most desire. That is the song. But it is not so. You are luring them to death.”

“This is nonsense, Mistress Pilkington.”

She shook her head. “Beau died because of you. But for you he would not have gone down to Eversleigh. He would not have found that woman he was blackmailing. He would have been alive today. I might have been married to him. Matt would be here. But you came with your strange wild beauty. It was more than your fortune he wanted.

So he pursued you and found not a beautiful bride and a fortune, but death. Then Matt, he heard your song too. He was lured into the rocks of destiny. And where did it lead? To death in the Seine. My son ... my darling son ... And your husband-what unhappiness have you brought to him? Even your present lover, Hessenfield, has not escaped. He thought he was clever. He thought he was in command ... but Death is waiting for him now....”