The Song of the Siren (27 page)

My mind was a blank. As I shut the door the clap of thunder burst out.

I ran. I did not know where I was running. All I wanted to do was to get away. I could not bear to think of what I had seen of what it implied. It revolted me, nauseated me.

I did not know where I was running. I was unaware of the rain beating down on me.

I came to the gate of the forbidden knd. Where to hide? Where to be alone with my jumbled thoughts? In there ... there at the side of Belle’s grave.

I climbed the gate and went stumbling through the leaves. I flung myself down beside the disturbed earth. I lay there trying hard not to think of that scene in the bedroom.

It was dark. It was still raining but it was a softer rain now. I felt

194

dazed and lost to the world. I was not sure where I was. Then I remembered. I was in the wood and Belle was murdered and I had seen something in the bedroom at Enderby which I could never forget. It had shattered my own personal dream; but it had done more than that. I did not want to know anymore. I wanted to forget. My father ...

my mother... my sister ... I could not bear to be with them. I wanted to be alone

... by myself ... here in the forbidden wood.

My mind started to wander, I think, because I fancied I saw the will-o’-the-wisps dancing around me as though to claim me as one of their band. I was not afraid of them. I understood something of human unhappiness now. I just wanted to be wrapped round in nothingness. “Nothing, nothing,” I whispered. “Let it stay like this for ever.”

It was long after that night before I wrote again in my journal. They found me in the morning. It was my father who came into the wood looking for me and carried me home. Tomtit, sensing that something was wrong, had late that night left the hut and gone back to the Dower House. They were at that time very anxious about me and when he came back alone they were frantic with anxiety.

Then they searched ... all through that night of rain and storm.

I had a raging fever and I came near to death. For a whole year I was in my bed.

My mother nursed me with all the love and tenderness of which she was capable.

They didn’t question me. I was too ill for that. It was more than three months before I discovered that the Pilkingtons had left. Elizabeth had grown tired of the country, they said, and had left for London and put Grasslands up for sale. Matt had left a week or so after that terrible night.

My limbs were stiff even when I was recovered, and for a long time it was agony to move my hands. How devoted my mother was to me, how tender was my father. I found that I loved him just as much as I ever had, and we never spoke of Belle. I think he knew that I had gone to look for Belle and what I feared, for he had found me at that spot.

Carlotta did not come to see me. “She was here for a long time in the beginning,”

said my mother. “She was so anxious about you. She

195

wouldn’t go until she knew you were going to recover. I have never seen Carlotta so put about. Then she had to go home of course. She had been away so long. When you are well enough we will go to Eyot Abbass.”

Sometimes I thought I would never be well again. The pains in my limbs were excruciating at times and they were stiff when I tried to walk so that I tired easily.

My mother would read to me, my father played chess with me. They were anxious to show me I was their precious child.

So the time began to pass.

::;?!

in

IK|

141

198CARLOTTA

199lr

A WILLING ABDUCTION

For months I believed I should never forget that moment when on the night of the great storm my sister, Damaris, opened the door of the red room and saw me with Matt Pilkington. It was a bizarre scene with that sudden flash of lightning showing us there . . caught flagrantly, blatantly, so that the truth could not be hidden

To her I must have seemed the ultimate sinner. The adultress taken in adultery. I could never begin to explain everything to Damaris. She is so good; I am so wicked.

Though I do not believe any living person is entirely good nor any entirely bad.

Even I must have some good points, for I did suffer terrible remorse on that night when she was missing. When her horse came home without her I was frantic with anxiety and all through that night I suffered such fear and there was born in me a repugnance of myself which I had never experienced before. I even prayed: “Anything ... anything I will do,” I murmured, “but bring her home.” Then she was found. I shall never forget the overwhelming relief when my father earned her into the house.

200

We fell on her-my mother and I; we stripped off her sodden clothes; she was limp and raving with fever. We got her to bed; the doctors came. She was very ill and for weeks we were not sure whether she would live. I wouldn’t leave the Dower House until I was sure that she was going to recover.

I had lots of time for thought when I used to sit by her bed while my mother rested, for my mother would not allow her to be left for one hour of the day or night. While I longed for her to get better I used to dread the moment when she would open her eyes, look at me and remember.

For the first time in my life I despised myself. Always before I had been able to make excuses for my conduct. I found that difficult now. I knew how she had felt about Matt Pilkington. Dear Little Damaris, she was so innocent and obvious. Damaris is in love, I thought. I could just imagine her romantic fantasies-so far removed from reality.

When I sat by her bed I used to imagine myself explaining to her, trying to make her see how events had led up to that scene in the bedroom.

I would never make her understand my nature, which was different from hers as two natures could be.

“Damaris,” I imagined myself saying to her, “I am a passionate woman. There are instincts in my nature which demand to be satisfied. An impulse comes to me at certain times in certain company and when it comes it is beyond my control. I am not alone in this.

You are fortunate, Damaris, because you will always be able to control your emotions; in any case you would never have these intense desires-animal desires, perhaps you would call them. They are like that. It is like a fire that suddenly is there and it has to be quenched. No, you would not understand. I am learning more and more about myself, Damaris. There will always be lovers for me. Marriage doesn’t alter that. I have met men who are as I am ... Beau was one; there was a Jacobite who kidnapped me, he was another. And Matt, yes, Matt too, but there was another reason with Matt.”

I should never explain to Damaris and if I tried she would never understand.

I thought back to the moment when I had arrived at the Dower

201

House. I was coming down to the hall and there was Damaris with him. For the moment I thought he was Beau.... It was the clothes, I suppose, really, and there was that faint musk scent he used. He told me later that he kept his linen in musk-scented trunks.

So for that moment I thought he was Beau.

We stared at each other. He said afterwards: “I couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t think you were real. I had never seen anyone so beautiful.”

I had received many compliments, but I never tired of them.

I realised as I came closer to him that it was a fleeting resemblance, something about the style of the dress and scent of musk. There is nothing like scent to bring back memories. At any rate from the first moment we were interested in each other.

It became clear to me during the first evening that he was becoming infatuated. There was something innocent about him which made him different from the men I had known.

Beau and Hessenfield were adventurers, buccaneers, the sort of men who roused me more than any others. Benjie was the good dependable type the perfect husband for a good woman. Alas, I was not that. But Matt Pilkington was different. He was capable of passion, no doubt about that, but as yet he was innocent-inexperienced. I could never outwit Beau or Hessenfield; and the game of trying to was completely fascinating to me. That was why I missed them so bitterly. I could guide Matt Pilkington; I could command him; he was completely mine, I knew, whenever I wished it

I enjoyed his admiration-adoration, more likely. I would never tire of homage to my beauty. So we went riding. Damaris came out when we were about to leave. Matt asked her to join us and I couldn’t help laughing at his relief when she declined.

Poor Damaris, I thought, she imagines herself in love with him. She’s a child really.

It is calflove. A good experience for her, though.

We rode out together; we stopped at an inn for a tankard of ale and some hot fresh baked rye bread and a piece of cold bacon.

All the time his feeling for me was growing. When he helped me mount he was loathe to let me go and I leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the brow. That seemed to fire both of us. Memories of Beau came sweeping over me. I had thought I had forgotten them

202

with Hessenfield. He had taught me so much about myself. But it seemed I had not forgotten Beau, for whenever I went to Enderby I remembered our meetings there.

I had firmly fixed in my mind the idea that there was a resemblance between Matt and Beau and I wanted to prove to myself that I had forgotten Beau even if I could not forget Hessenfield.

We rode on for a while and then I suggested we tether the horses and sit by the stream.

We did.

I wanted him to hold me, but I was not sure how far I wanted this to go. I did love Benjie in a way but my feeling for him was different from that I had had for Beau and Hessenfield. Benjie was gentle, tender and a good husband. But he did not satisfy my craving for that wild adventurous passion which men like Beau and Hessenfield could give me.

I had not been unfaithful to Benjie ... yet. I now realised that was because there had been no incentive to be. Suddenly, desperately, I wanted Matt Pilkington to be my lover. My reasons were mixed. I needed the wild illicit adventure which I had had from Beau and Hessenfield. I wanted to be dominated, I suppose. Beau had laughed at my innocence and been determined to deflower it; Hessenfield had made it clear that I had no choice. Situations, I suppose, which would have horrified a person like my good little sister, Damaris, but which titillated me.

We sat side by side on the grass. I put my hand over his and said to him: “It’s strange, but when I first saw you I thought I had met you before .. .just for a moment when you stood in the hall.”

“I could not believe you were real,” he said.

“I saw your mother once.. . some time ago. I can’t remember much about her now...

except that she was beautiful and elegant and she had masses of red hair.”

“She’s very proud of her hair. I’ll tell her you thought her beautiful and elegant.

That will please her.”

“I hope she wasn’t upset because I decided not to sell Enderby.”

“I think she understood. She has Grasslands now and is very satisfied with that.

It’s a brighter house than Enderby.”

“Did you ever see Enderby?”

“I came to look at it when my mother thought she might buy it. She had the key and took me over.”

203

A flash of understanding came to me. Of course. I had smelt the musk perfume there.

It was strong stuff and lingered on after whoever was wearing it had gone. And the button which I had thought was Beau’s ... it was Matt’s of course. I had been certain that button was Beau’s. But of course buttons were obviously duplicated, even when they were as valuable as the one which I had found.

It was a mystery cleared up. I almost told him that it was because he had been to Enderby and I had thought he was sc meone else-a ghost from the past-that I had decided not to sell the house.

But there was time for that later.

I was exerting myself to draw him to me. Although he did not really look so much like Beau, and his character was very different, I kept having flashes of memory when I was with him, and Beau seemed nearer to me than he had for a long time.

And as I sat there beside him I knew that I could let myself believe that Beau had come back. I wanted to test myself, to ask myself whether I still wanted Beau. During those few wildly exciting days I had spent in Hessenfield’s company I had forgotten Eeau. I wanted to forget him; I wanted to forget Hessenfield. It sounds hypocritical, really, to say I wanted to be a good wife to Benjie while I was at the same time contemplating breaking my marriage vows.

Harriet had once said: “There are people who disregard the laws laid down for good and honourable behaviour, people who, because of something they possess, think they are above the rules which others obey. You are one of those, Carlotta. ... So was I. We use other people perhaps. It’s unfair because we invariably win in the end.”

Then she smiled and added cryptically, “But who can say what is victory?”

I could have seduced him there and then, but the idea had come to me that it would be more effective if it were in the fou—poster bed in Enderby Hall where Beau and I had made love so many times.

I was excited by the prospect. I was aware of the desire in him which could not be quenched by the efforts he was making to suppress it. He did not know that the obstacles to it make it the more enticing. I was a married woman; he was contemplating betrothal to my sister; he had only known me for a day or so. I knew exactly what he was thinking-he was a good man, or he wanted to be, which is perhaps the same thing.

204

I was neither good nor bad when passion took possession of me; and I was allowing Matt Pilkington to have this effect on me. I wanted to lie on the bed with Matt Pilkington and delude myself briefly into thinking that Beau had returned.

It was so easy to arrange. The gloomy afternoon with threatening rain, the damp leaves which seemed to cling to everything.

“Let’s go and look at Enderby. I have the key here with me. I meant to go in this afternoon.”

I opened the door and forgot to shut it. We went round the house and in the bedroom we stood for a moment looking at the four-poster bed.