Drop of the Dice (27 page)

She embraced me with great affection and gratitude. She treated Lance with reserved respect and thanked him warmly in that accent with its foreign touch, and I was delighted to see that they immediately liked each other.

Our coach was waiting to take us the short distance through London to Albemarle Street and during the journey Aimée talked a little of the impossibility of her life in the North and her losses in the South Sea Company.

‘Here you have a fellow sufferer,’ I said.

‘You too, Clarissa?’ she said in some alarm.

I shook my head. ‘Poor Lance,’ I replied. ‘As a matter of fact, I did rather well out of it unwittingly.’

I told her what had happened.

She leaned towards me and pressed my hand. ‘I am so glad for you. How ironical that this South Sea business should profit you who are not in the least interested in taking a chance.’

‘It did, precisely because I was not interested.’

‘How perverse of fate! And there were we,’ she glanced at Lance ‘trying so hard to make the most of what we thought was a God-given opportunity… and we came to grief.’

‘The fate of most gamblers,’ I said.

‘You see,’ said Lance, ‘I am an inveterate gambler. Clarissa deplores it.’

‘My husband was the same… with what dire results. But for the South Sea Bubble I should not be in these straits now.’

‘We’ll forget the Bubble,’ I said. ‘We have plenty of room, haven’t we, Lance, and we are delighted to have you stay as long as you wish. I am thrilled about the baby. What do you want, a boy or a girl? We shall have to see about engaging a midwife. We thought it would be better to stay in London until after the birth.’

Aimée turned to me with misty eyes. ‘You are making me feel very welcome,’ she said gratefully.

Aimée’s coming wrought a subtle change in the household. I suppose the birth of a child is such an important event that it must dominate all else. We engaged a midwife who was recommended by a friend of Lance’s and eventually she came to stay in the house. Aimée and I—before she became too large—shopped to buy clothes for the baby. We visited the mercers in Cheapside, Ludgate Hill and Gracechurch Street; we took great delight in ribbons and laces, and I was determined that my little nephew or niece should have the best of everything.

Jeanne was good with her needle but we hired a seamstress to come to the house and those three months before the birth were taken up with plans for the baby.

I had thought Jeanne and Aimée would get on well together, being of the same nationality, able to prattle away in French. What could be better? I spoke French tolerably well and now that Aimée was with us I spoke it more frequently than I had with Jeanne, but I was not as good as the two Frenchwomen, of course. Oddly enough, there was hostility between them.

‘Jeanne is inclined to be insolent,’ said Aimée.

‘No… no… never,’ I replied. ‘She was been with me so long, and she came in rather exceptional circumstances. Jeanne was a good friend to me when I needed a friend. She could not be insolent… just aware that there is a rather special bond between us.’

Jeanne said: ‘The baby will come and it is good to have a dear little baby in the house. But she is not the mistress here. Oh no, that is you, milady Clarissa, and no one is going to forget that if I can help it!’

‘I am sure Aimée doesn’t forget it.’

‘She is deep, that one,’ was Jeanne’s comment.

But of course she was delighted with the prospect of the baby.

Aimée and I would talk of it for hours and little scraps of information came out about her past. I gathered her mother had been a dominating character and Aimée had had to obey her in all things. She described the bookshop on the Left Bank and how her mother had worked hard to give her a good education. She talked about the streets of Paris, of sitting by the river and watching the boats go down the Seine; she made me, as she had before, feel the atmosphere of those streets, see the crowds of gesticulating people, the traders, the ladies going by in their coaches, and the perpetual mud.

At last, with the coming of April Aimée’s pains started and after a few anxious hours her child was born.

It was a son. I went in almost as soon as he was born to see that red, wrinkled little creature, and I was overjoyed to learn that he was sound in every way, with a pair of lungs which he liked to air.

Aimée herself made a quick recovery and we had a lot of fun selecting names. Eventually she settled on Jean-Louis. Now we had two additional members of the household.

It is amazing how quickly people’s lives become changed by a baby: The entire household was devoted to Jean-Louis. He only had to appear and he was the centre of attention. When his first tooth came we were all excited and I sent messengers over to Eversleigh to tell them of this astounding event.

We vied with each other for the privilege of holding him and when he smiled at us we were in transports of delight. Even the male members of the household were not immune to the baby’s charm, and Jeffers the coachman, who had been with Lance’s family for the last fifty years—since he was a stableboy of eight—and was as sour as vinegar, would try hard not to smile when he saw the baby, and could not prevent himself from doing so.

As soon as summer came we went to Clavering Hall, for we thought that it would be good for the baby to be in the country. There he received the same adoration as he had in London. He was rather a solemn little baby.

‘That,’ said Jeanne, ‘comes of having an old father.’

I noticed that she watched Aimée with a certain suspicion. I wondered whether she was a little jealous of my sister and on account of me, for Jeanne was inclined to be possessive. Jeanne was the sort of person who wanted someone to look after. She had cared for her mother and old grandmother and now she had turned to me. She was a born organizer, inclined to dominate if given a chance; but her motives were of the very best. Lance always said: ‘Jeanne was born to serve.’

I suppose it was only natural that she should dislike Aimée who had come into our household and, largely because of Jean-Louis, seemed to dominate it.

Jeanne repeated her assertion that Aimée behaved as though she were the mistress of the house.

‘Oh Jeanne,’ I said, ‘you see trouble where there is none.’

‘Do not be too sure.’ Then she leaned towards me and said: ‘She is French.’

That made me laugh. ‘So are you,’ I said…

‘Ah, that is why I know.’

She touched her neck—a frequent habit of hers, which I had wondered about until I discovered that beneath her bodice she wore a kind of locket on a gold chain. She had once shown this locket to me. On it was engraved a figure of John the Baptist. She called it her Jean-Baptiste, and it had been put on her neck when she was a baby. She was never without it, and regarded it as a sort of talisman against evil.

We had servants who were permanently at Clavering Hall and some who remained in London, but Jeanne of course was my personal maid and always with me. After the losses Lance had suffered in the South Sea Bubble he had thought he would have to get rid of some of his servants and the fact really did worry him. He decided in the end to sell some land and horses rather than do so. It was typical of him. He loved his horses, and hated to part with land which had been in his family’s possession for generations, but he considered the welfare of his servants before his pride in his possessions. He was sad for a while, but as always with him, his depression did not last for more than a week. We needed a nurse for Jean-Louis and I was determined to pay for her. I said to Lance: ‘Aimée is my sister and it is good of you to make her welcome here. I insist on providing the nurse.’

So it was settled and Sabrina’s nurse, Nanny Curlew, recommended a cousin of hers whom we were glad to employ. Thus Nanny Goswell came to us and immediately took over care of the child with the utmost efficiency.

The days passed and we had no desire to return to London. When the baby was old enough we would take him to Eversleigh. I wrote frequently to Damaris to tell her of all that was happening and I began to realize that my letters were full of Jean-Louis.

Damaris wrote back: ‘It is time you had a child of your own.’

It was what I longed for; so did Lance, I knew.

Aimée and I rode together during that hot summer. She had learned to ride at Hessenfield and was not quite as proficient as I who had been in and out of the saddle ever since my return to England.

Aimée had an air of contentment about her during that summer which every now and then would slip into a certain… what I can only describe as watchfulness.

When we talked I began to understand her more.

She had suffered from being unwanted, I was sure. I imagined her birth had not greatly pleased either of her parents. Hessenfield’s life would have been cluttered with women—some more important to him than others. I had no doubt that my mother—the incomparable Carlotta whose beauty was a legend in the family—had been the most important woman in his life, one whom he had told his brother he would have married if she had been free. Aimée’s mother could not have been so important to him, for I imagined he could easily have married her if he had wished to do so. But he had been fond of children, particularly his own, and he had clearly wanted to provide for Aimée.

Of course a man like Hessenfield could never visualize death. He was, after all, a young man. But at the end he must have had some premonition and that was why he had written to his brother asking him to provide for Aimée, and given her mother the watch and the ring.

There must have been great insecurity in Aimée’s life. I sensed that what she greatly desired was to be wanted, to have security for herself and her child.

She more or less admitted this when we lay in a field a mile or so from Clavering Hall; our horses were tethered to a tree while we rested before returning to Clavering.

‘I married Ralph Ransome,’ she said, ‘partly because I wanted a home and someone to care for me. I was never really in love with him. But he was kind to me. He was a widower and had a son and daughter who were married and lived in the Midlands. I had our father’s money, so I was not destitute, but this seemed a wonderful opportunity. Ralph had a beautiful home and I became mistress of it. But I realized after our marriage that he was deeply in debt and there were anxieties. Then when this South Sea chance presented itself Ralph risked almost everything he had to gain a fortune which would bring him out of his difficulties. We could have been happy…’ She looked at me intently. ‘Not romantically so… as you and Lance must have been… but comfortably… adequate for a girl who has not had many advantages in life.’

She picked a blade of grass and tore at it with her white, even teeth.

‘Oh, you are the lucky one,
ma soeur
,’ she went on. ‘You are rich. You have the handsome husband. You are one of the few who escaped before the Bubble burst.’

‘And you have Jean-Louis,’ I reminded her.

‘That adorable one, yes, it is so. I have my baby. But you have him too… they all have him.’

‘Everyone loves him, but you are his mother, Aimée.’

She touched my hand. ‘Yes, and thanks to you he has come comfortably into the world. But I cannot live here for ever. I shall have to think what I am going to do. What does a woman in my position do when she is without the means to support herself and her child? Teach French, perhaps… to children who do not want to learn it? Be a superior servant in some noble household?’

“Nonsense,’ I said. ‘This is your home. You will stay here.’

‘I cannot live on your bounty for ever.’

‘You will stay here because your home is with your family. Have you forgotten we are sisters?’

‘Half-sisters. No, I must make plans.’

‘Perhaps you will meet someone whom you can marry. We will entertain more. There are so many people here in the country whom Lance knows.’

‘The marriage market?’ she said, with a glint in her eyes which I did not altogether understand. When I came to think of it, there was much I did not understand about Aimée.

‘That’s putting it crudely. But people do meet each other and fall in love.’

She looked at me and smiled and I thought: I will speak to Lance about it tonight. We must entertain more. I had the money to do this. I must try and find a husband for Aimée.

We stood up, stretched, and went to the horses. It was a silent ride back to the house.

I spoke to Lance about Aimée that night.

‘The poor girl is unhappy about her position. It must be worrying for her. She had money from our father’s estate but she lost it in that wretched Bubble. She is proud and deeply conscious of depending on us. If we entertained here in the country we might find a husband for her.’

‘Then, my dear matchmaker, that is what we must do.’

It was a few days later when she was brushing my hair that I told Jeanne we were planning to do more entertaining at the Hall.

‘Will you like that?’ she asked.

“To tell the truth, Jeanne, it was I who suggested it.’

‘There will be card games then. You want that?’

‘No, of course I don’t. But I think my sister should meet people.’

‘To find a ’usband for her?’ asked Jeanne bluntly.

‘I did not say that, Jeanne’.’

‘No, but you do not always say what you mean.’

‘Well, if I did mean it, it would be a good idea, wouldn’t it?’

‘It would be very good. Madame Aimée is not the one you think her.’

‘Now what do you mean by that?’ I demanded somewhat testily. I was irritated by Jeanne’s frequent innuendoes concerning Aimée.

‘You must watch ’er,’ whispered Jeanne. ‘I think she ’ave an eye for the men. And men are men… even the best of them.’

I knew she was referring to Lance, for whom she had an inordinate admiration because of his handsome appearance, elegant style of dress and gracious manners.

‘You talk arrant nonsense sometimes, Jeanne,’ I said.

She gave a rather vicious tug to a tangle so that I cried out in protest.

‘You will see,’ she said darkly.

It was not long before I was wishing that I had not suggested having these parties, for a round of gaiety began and almost always the gatherings ended at the card tables.