The Song of the Siren (42 page)

“This is just a place where I can live in peace and quiet,” he said.

“You certainly make sure of that. I feel I should not intrude.”

He did not say that I was not intruding as I expected him to. He just said: “Come.

Sit down.”

So there I sat in that hall and I looked up to the haunted minstrels’ gallery and I thought it more dreary than it had ever been.

I heard a noise above. “Smith,” called Jeremy Granthorn. “Come here, Smith.”

Smith came and stared at me incredulously. He was as grim as his master and a few years older.

“The young lady has been bitten.”

“Trespassing,” said Smith.

My less than gracious host said, “Get some hot water ... and a bandage or something.”

“Bandage?” said Smith.

“Find something.”

I rose. I said with hauteur: “I can see I am giving a great deal of trouble. It was only a nip. It was entirely my own fault, as you imply. I will go home. I shall then do what is necessary.”

“Sit down please,” said Jeremy Granthorn.

I obeyed.

I looked round the Hall and tried to make conversation. “My sister was the owner of this place. It was from her you bought it.”

309He did not answer.

“And are you liking the house ... the neighbourhood?”

“It’s quiet ... peaceful ... almost always,” he said.

A reproach for my inquisitiveness? Heaven knew I was only asking polite questions.

Smith returned with a bowl of hot water, a cloth and some sort of liniment. There was also a strip of linen which looked as though it had been torn from something.

I put my finger in the bowl. I washed it and he dabbed some of the lotion on the wound.

“This has been tested,” he said. “It’s good for sprains and light cuts.”

He himself bandaged the wound and while he was doing so the dog came up and sniffed at my skirts.

“You haven’t done much harm,” I said to the dog. He put his head on one side and wagged his tail.

I could see that for the first time I had aroused the interest of my host.

“That’s odd,” he said. “He’s quite friendly.”

“He realises that you accept me and that makes me acceptable to him.”

“Good Daemon,” he said in a voice very different from that with which he addressed me.

He patted the dog, who moved nearer.

I reached out a hand and patted it too.

I had clearly impressed Jeremy Granthorn.

“You like dogs. .. .”

“Dogs, all animals. . . and birds too. I am especially fond of birds.”

“I have never known Daemon to make friends so quickly.”

“I knew that we would be friends. After all it was only a token nip. Very slight

... more like a caress.”

He looked at me incredulously.

“He had to do it, didn’t he?” I went on. “He had to show me that it was his duty to protect the place. I was trespassing. I couldn’t explain that I had no wish whatever to call. I was only retrieving my property. But he knew that I meant no harm.”

He was silent for a while.

310”There,” he said at length, “I think that will be all right. You’ll have no trouble with it.”

“Thank you.” I rose.

He looked dubious. I think he was wondering whether he should offer me some refreshment.

But I was going to let him see that I had no intention of intruding further on such an ungracious host.

“Good-bye.” I extended my hand. He took it and bowed. Then I walked towards the door.

He followed, the dog at his heels.

He stood at the door watching me.

I walked slowly and rather painfully to where Tomtit was tethered.

Strangely enough I felt different from the way I had since I had entered that house in the storm.

I felt a wild resentment against this hermit of a man whose manner bordered on rudeness.

Certainly he had no social graces.

And yet I felt I had regained something which I had lost when I had come across Carlotta and Matt Pilkington in the red room.

I was very tired when I reached home. My mother was anxious. She was glad to see me ride out and take an interest in Tomtit but I know she fidgeted until I returned.

She was afraid I would do too much and have a relapse. The next day I was too tired to go out; but the different feeling persisted. I was interested in the man and his manservant and the dog at Enderby Hall.

It was a week later when I saw him again.

I was riding past the house on my way home when I came upon him walking, the dog at his heels.

I was feeling very tired and I had just whispered “Take me home” to Tomtit and he had set his resolute steps in that direction.

I was about to ride past Jeremy Granthorn when he called, “Good day.”

I pulled up.

I was so tired, I felt near fainting. Tomtit pawed the ground impatiently. I had said “Take me home” and he always knew by a certain note in my voice when I wanted to get there urgently.

“Are you feeling ill?” he asked.

I was about to speak but he had taken the reins from my hands.

“I think you should rest awhile,” he said.

311

He led the horse towards the house. Tomtit seemed to sense that he was a friend, for gruff as Granthorn was towards his own kind I had recognised in him that great bond between himself and the animals because I had it myself.

He tethered Tomtit to the post by the mounting block at the side of the house and lifted me down. I was surprised at his gentleness.

“I do not want to intrude,” I said. “You hate intruders.”

He did not answer but led me into the hall.

“Smith,” he shouted. “Smith.”

Smith came running.

“The lady is ill,” he said. “I’m taking her into the parlour. Help me.”

They were one on either side of me.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I feel better now ... I could go home.”

“Not yet,” said Jeremy Granthorn. “You must take something which will revive you.

I have a special wine.” He turned to Smith and whispered something. Smith nodded and disappeared.

I was seated in a chair in the small winter parlour, which I knew from the past.

It was one of the pleasantest rooms at Enderby and seemed to have escaped some of the general gloom.

I said: “I should have been all right, you know. My horse would have taken me home.

He does it when I’m tired.”

“You are often ... like that?” he asked.

“Now and then. But it’s all right. If I’m with Tomtit. He knows. He takes me home.”

“You should not be riding alone.”

“I prefer it,” I said.

Smith had come in with a tray and glasses. He poured out something from a bottle.

It was a rich ruby colour.

“A very special wine,” said Jeremy Granthorn. “I think you will like it. And I promise you it will revive you. It is noted for its beneficial qualities.”

Smith went out and left us together.

I sipped the wine. He was right. It was reviving.

“I have been very ill,” I told him. I explained the nature of my illness. “The doctors think I shall always be an invalid. It is only recently that I have taken to going out.”

312He listened intently.

“It is depressing to be incapacitated. I am myself to a certain extent. I was wounded at Venloo. I shall never be able to walk properly again.”

I told him that I had been taken ill during a storm and had spent the night out of doors in a state of unconsciousness and that this had brought about a fever which had affected my limbs.

He listened attentively and suddenly I laughed, for it had occurred to me that this morbid subject had given us a certain interest in each other which nothing else could have done.

He asked why I laughed. And I replied that I was suddenly struck with the thought that it was rather funny that illness could be such an absorbing subject.

“Of course it is, to those who suffer it. It is their life.”

“There are other things in the lives of us all, surely?” I said.

I found that I could talk easily. Daemon came in and I was certain that he was pleased that I had become friendly with his master.

I asked how he managed here in this big house with one servant.

He replied that he did not use the whole house. Part of it was shut up.

The question trembled on my lips: Then why choose a house of this size? I did not ask it but he answered it all the same.

“There was something about this house which appealed to me.”

“Enderby appealed to you! We always thought it was a gloomy, miserable place.”

“I am gloomy and miserable-so it fitted my moods.”

“Oh,” I said suddenly, “please don’t say that.”

The wine or whatever it was was making me bold. I went on: “I have felt lost .. .

listless. ... Do you know what I mean?”

He nodded.

“When I found I could not move my limbs without pain ... when I knew that I must spend the greater part of the day on a couch ... I just felt there was nothing left.

I was lying on a couch waiting for time to pass and that was all there was for me

... I still feel it often.”

“I know,” he said. “I know it well.”

“And then little things happen ... when Daemon nipped me ... it was funny in a way.

A little thing like that . .. it’s out of routine, I suppose ... and one starts being interested again.”

313”I know,” he said, and there seemed to be a lifting of his voice.

He asked about the nip.

I held out my hand. “The stuff you put on it must have been very good. It healed very quickly.”

“It was stuff I had in the army.”

I wanted to know about him but I never asked questions. I always waited for him to tell. I think he appreciated that.

I was rapidly feeling better and when I rose to go he did not try to detain me, but he did insist on riding back to the Dower House with me.

I said he should meet my parents but he said no, he would go straight back.

I did not press him but I felt better than I had for a long time, and although I was too tired to ride the next day, I could lie on my couch and remember the details of our meeting.

It was the beginning of a friendship. I never called. I would ride by and he would often be walking and we would meet as if by accident. Then I would go in and sit with him and drink a glass of wine. He was knowledgeable about wines and produced several for me to try.

Daemon would come out when I rode by and bark joyously and that always brought either Jeremy Granthorn or Smith out to see who was there. When they learned who it was I would find myself being entertained in Enderby Hall.

My mother was interested when she knew. She was rather pleased.

“I must ask him to dine with us,” she said.

“Oh, no, don’t,” I said quickly. “He never accepts invitations.”

“He must be a very strange man.

“He is,” I said. “A kind of recluse.”

She did not try to prevent our friendship. She thought it was good for me to meet people, and if this was a rather unconventional relationship, she accepted it.

So our friendship grew.

I told him quite a bit about myself. I mentioned my beautiful sister, Carlotta. I hinted that I had been in love with someone but that he had preferred Carlotta.

He did not ask questions. It was an unwritten code between us, so

314that I could talk of the past without having to face any probing which might have been distressing.

It was the same with him. I let him talk. He too had had a love affair. After he was wounded at Venloo and came back crippled he found she preferred someone else.

I could see there was a great deal left unsaid and that it had made him very bitter.

I think, too, that he suffered a certain amount of pain from his wounded leg.

There were some days when he was very miserable. I liked to see him on those days for I was sure I had a way of making him happier.

We talked of dogs we had had, and Daemon would sit at our feet watching us with limpid eyes, every now and then beating his tail on the floor to express his approval.

Jeremy-I called him that in my private thoughts, though I never addressed him by his name-looked forward to my visits, though he never asked me to come again. I wondered what would happen if I ceased calling. Ours was a strange relationship. Yet I knew that we were both profiting by it.

Little by little he volunteered bits of information about himself. He had travelled widely before the war. He had lived awhile in France. He knew that country well.

“I should like to go back,” he said, “but of course I’m no use to anyone now. A crippled soldier ... what could be more of an encumbrance?”

“At least you served well while you could.”

“A soldier is a pretty useless creature when he is unable to serve in the army. England does not want him. ‘What is he fit for? There is nothing for him but to go to the country ... get out of sight, out of the way. He’s an embarrassment because it has to be remembered he came to this state in the service of his country.”

When those moods came on him I used to laugh at him and often I succeeded in making him laugh at himself.

Thus my friendship with the new owner of Enderby Hall began and progressed.

And one day a courier came to the house.

My parents were not at home and I was rather glad of this because the letter he brought was for me and it was the strangest letter I had

315ever received in my life. It was from France ... from my sister Carlotta.

My fingers trembled as I held the paper. I read it through scarcely believing what I read.

Carlotta ... dying. Clarissa ... needing me.

“You must come. You must take my child.”

I just lay there with the letter in my hand.

From far away I seemed to see Clarissa alone ... frightened stretching out her arms to me.

317DISCOVERY IN PARIS

Some instinct made me hide the letter from my parents. They would have tried to send a secret messenger to France with instructions to bring the child to us. It was the only reasonable thing to do, but something told me that it might very easily fail.