Voices in a Haunted Room

by Philippa Carr

  I nodded. She began to laugh suddenly.

  “You find it amusing?” I asked.

  “Very. Wait till you hear.”

  I looked at her in puzzlement and it was some seconds before she spoke. Then she said: “Me, too.”

  “What?”

  “I’m so happy, Claudine. It was all I lacked and now, I’m going to have a child, too. Isn’t that funny, gloriously funny. You and I, mother and daughter, in the same predicament.”

  She had sat up and caught me to her. We rocked to and fro for a moment laughing. Perhaps my laughter was a little hysterical, but in her joy she did not notice it.

  I thought: If only I could tell her. A burden shared is a burden halved, someone had said. But then was it fair to make others carry your troubles? I had made them myself. They were my affair. I must not involve her. I must not put a cloud into all the happiness I saw in her face.

  “Of course you think I’m old,” she said. “But I’m not too old, Claudine. I can just about make it.”

  “You’ll never be old. You’re eternally youthful.”

  “There speaks my dutiful daughter, saying what she thinks Mother likes best to hear. You’re right. I do. But truth is truth, is it not, and I am no longer in my first flush of youth.”

  “What does Dickon say?”

  “Pure delight. Well, not exactly complete delight. Thrilled about the child, of course, but like you he remembers that I am not so young. I think he is going to fuss a bit. It will be odd to see him like that. He is already looking at me as though I might break at any minute.”

  “How lucky you are to love like that.”

  “Well, isn’t it the same with you and David?”

  I nodded because I could not speak.

  “I’m glad it was David you cared for,” she said. “Jonathan is very like his father… David is quite different.”

  “And you think Dickon is the perfect man.”

  “Oh, far from it. I soon discovered Dickon’s weaknesses. Odd, that I should love them more than other people’s virtues. Jonathan reminds me very much of what Dickon was at his age. I think he and Millicent will make a match of it. The Pettigrews want it. It joins up the banking interests, and Lord Pettigrew is very much involved with—that other work, I gather. But what about us? Two mothers, eh? What does David say?”

  “I haven’t told him yet.”

  “You haven’t told him! You mean I am the first to know.”

  “You didn’t tell me first,” I said reproachfully.

  “As a matter of fact I was a trifle embarrassed… at my time of life with a grown-up son and a married daughter. It seems indecent somehow.”

  “How absurd, Maman.”

  “Wait till Dickon hears your news. He’ll be so delighted. He always wanted a grandson. I suppose you want a boy.”

  “I don’t care what it is.”

  “No. And I feel the same. It’s not so important for us. Dickon already has two sons. I think I should like a little girl.” She looked tenderly at me and I put my arms round her. “Girls are closer in a way,” she added.

  I felt it would be a great luxury then to let myself weep, and to tell her everything that had happened.

  She stroked my hair. “You mustn’t be afraid, Claudine. I sensed that you have been a little, lately. Now I know why. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “No, no…” I said. “It’s not that. It’s just a little—overwhelming, isn’t it?”

  She agreed solemnly that it was.

  I found it an ordeal telling David. How different it would have been if I had been sure the child was his, if I had never gone to Enderby and let myself be overpowered by my emotions, if I had never let that house spread its tentacles about me…

  There I was, blaming the house again, blaming anything but my own weakness.

  I had sinned and must pay for my sins.

  David took my hands and kissed them.

  “Oh, Claudine, I hoped and hoped… It is wonderful news. And you’re happy, aren’t you? You want this.”

  “Of course I want this… a baby of my own.”

  “Our own, Claudine.”

  I shivered a little. I wanted so much to tell, to rid myself of this burden of guilt. But I should have to carry it alone… all through my life.

  I could not tell David any more than I could tell my mother.

  What a celebration there was that night! The news was out.

  Sophie was induced to join us at the table. It was a very special occasion, she was told. Sabrina came down too. She looked rather wan; she found the winters very trying and spent a great deal of time in bed now.

  When we were all seated Dickon said: “I have an announcement to make. We have to drink the health of newcomers who will shortly be making their appearance at Eversleigh.”

  Sabrina and Sophie listened intently.

  Dickon then waved his hand first to my mother and then to me.

  “Lottie and I are going to have a child—and so are Claudine and David. It is a most auspicious occasion. One would have been a matter for rejoicing, but two—that means jubilation. We are going to drink the very best wine we have in the cellars to the health of our mothers. God bless them, and may all they desire be theirs.”

  Jonathan smiled at me as he lifted his glass.

  Sabrina was shaking with emotion and I noticed that Sophie’s lips were drawn down at the corners. Poor Sophie, once more she was thinking of all that she had missed.

  The tears were running down Sabrina’s cheeks.

  “Come, come, Mother,” said Dickon, “this is supposed to be a happy occasion.”

  “Tears of happiness, my darling boy,” she said. “I know this is what you wanted to complete your happiness. A dear child… Lottie’s… and another grandchild for me. I hope I live to see it.”

  “What nonsense!” said Dickon. “Of course you’ll live to see it. I insist, and Lottie says you always do what I want.”

  They drank to the future; and in the kitchens the servants drank a toast to us.

  There was a great deal of talk about babies at the table. My mother told of the births of my brother and myself and all the difficulties of pregnancies as though this was the most enjoyable experience known to womankind.

  “I suppose,” said Dickon, with feigned resignation, “this will be the burden of our conversation for months to come. I doubt we shall ever escape from nursery topics.”

  “It is a great deal more healthy than this continuous talk of revolution, and spies, and poor men transported merely for speaking their minds,” retorted my mother.

  “Wise men know when to keep silent,” said Jonathan, “and that goes for women too.”

  He was looking straight at me and smiling.

  I thought: Yes, he and Dickon are alike. Dickon must have been very like Jonathan when he was making his way to becoming one of the richest men in the country and not caring very much how he did it. Amoral, that was the word. Immoral too. But who was I to talk? I was realizing now how much I loved David; and yet I had played on him about the worst deception any woman can play upon a man.

  There was no escaping my guilt. It was going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

  A few weeks passed. We were in February now, and although it was cold there was the faintest hint of spring in the air. I felt very sick in the mornings and did not rise until midday; in the afternoons I felt quite well again. My mother did not seem to suffer from these signs of pregnancy.

  Showing a certain resignation, Jonathan did not pursue me. I suppose I seemed a quite different woman to him now; and in any case I had lost all my desire to be with him.

  I used to lie on my bed in abject misery, trying to look into the future and being unable to; and I used to think how easy it would have been to overcome this physical affliction if my mind were free from remorse. In the afternoons my mood changed, for the sickness passed and I felt surprisingly well.

  I liked to ride then… alone. I should soon have to give u
p riding, and I wanted to make the most of it while I could still enjoy it.

  Jonathan was very preoccupied; he and Dickon were a great deal together. Some days they rode over to Farringdon Manor and I believed Lord Pettigrew met them there. The position on the Continent was changing; and the war was not going as they had optimistically hoped. Who would have thought that a country in the throes of revolution would have been able to put an army in the field?

  They were watchful; our whole country seemed to be, and that there were fears in certain quarters was certain. A great many people were being sent out to Australia for what was known as sedition.

  However, I had my own problems, and on this February afternoon I decided to ride through the lanes and look for the signs of approaching spring. I had an idea that time would help me to come to terms with my problems. My baby was due in September, my mother’s in August; and I looked forward to that date with an intense yearning. I had some notion that once I had my baby he—or she—would bring me such joy that it would overwhelm my melancholy.

  I rode on, walking my horse. I would not gallop for fear of harming the baby—although, of course, it was too early a stage to be disturbed. However, I was cautious.

  I found a certain pleasure in the sight of a few celandines peeping up among the grass. They were early—the first sign of spring; and there were crimson-tipped daisies making a brave show among the green. In the distance the river wound its way down to the sea. I rode towards it and passed over the wooden bridge which spanned it. I was startled by the sudden cry of a lapwing. They were mating down there; their cries sounded more melancholy than usual.

  Soon the birds would be in full song. I used to love to listen to them. They were so joyous; they hadn’t a care in the world.

  I had a sudden desire to see the sea.

  I remembered how Charlot used to look across to France with wistful longing eyes. Where was Charlot now? Charlot and Louis Charles—they were fighting with the French against the English. How would Charlot feel about that? What a complication we had made of our lives!

  I could smell the sea now; the gulls were whirling round and round uttering their mournful cries, searching for food, I supposed. As I looked up and watched them I heard someone calling my name.

  “Mrs. Frenshaw, Mrs. Frenshaw… can you come here?”

  I turned my horse in the direction of the voice.

  “Where are you?” I called.

  “Down here.” A figure emerged on the shaw and I recognized Evie Mather.

  “I’m coming,” I called, and rode towards her.

  In a little cove, sheltered by protruded boulders, a man was lying stretched out. His face was pale, his eyes shut and his damp dark curling hair fell over his brow. He looked as though he had been washed up by the tide.

  Dolly stood beside Eve, and their horses waited quietly.

  “Who is he?”

  Evie lifted her shoulders. “I’ve no idea. We’ve just found him. We heard someone and we came along to look. Then we saw him lying there.”

  I dismounted and knelt by the young man. I saw that he was young—under twenty, I should think.

  I said: “He is breathing.”

  “He seemed to faint when we came along.”

  “We have to get him away from here,” I said.

  “That’s what we thought, and we were trying to figure out how when we saw you.”

  “One of us could go back and send for help. Unless we can take him back with us. Do you think we could lift him and put him on my horse?”

  “We could try,” said Evie.

  “The three of us might manage it,” I replied. “It would be quicker. Could you take his feet and I’ll have the other end. Dolly, hold my horse while we try.”

  It was not easy but we managed to get him up. He lay limply across my horse, his dangling hands almost touching the ground.

  “It will be slow progress,” I said.

  “But quicker,” repeated Evie, “than going all the way back and getting help.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  I mounted my horse and we made our slow return to Eversleigh.

  That was how we found Alberic Claremont.

  As soon as we arrived at Eversleigh we got him to bed. He opened his eyes and looked at us vaguely.

  “He’s probably starving,” said my mother. “We’ll try him with a little soup. But first we’ll send for the doctor.”

  When the doctor arrived he said the young man would soon recover. There was nothing wrong with him except that he was suffering from exposure and as we had thought, exhaustion. A few days’ rest and some nourishing food, served in small quantities at first but frequently, and he should soon be quite fit.

  The diagnosis proved to be correct. At the end of the first day the young man was able to open his eyes and speak to us.

  He spoke in French so we guessed his story even before he told it to us. He had escaped from the Terror and was seeking refuge in England as so many of his fellow countrymen were doing at this time.

  They had taken his father to the guillotine. He had done no wrong, but he had been a bailiff to one of the big estates in the south of France. His brother was in the army serving his country. He had been warned that he had been marked as an enemy of the revolution, so he had known there was only one thing for him to do—get away.

  He had left his home and travelled through France disguised as a peasant. He had reached the coast. There were ways of getting across, provided money could change hands, and he embarked in a remote bay in France and landed at an equally isolated one in England.

  “Were you alone?” asked my mother.

  He shook his head. “There were two others. I do not know what became of them. I only know that they shared the boat with me and when I said I was so exhausted that I could not go on they left me.”

  “They might have looked after you,” I put in.

  “Madame, they were afraid. We have suffered much. I understood, and I implored them to leave me. They say there are too many émigrés arriving and that your government does not want them and may send them back.” He shivered. “They were afraid that if there were three of us…”

  “I wonder where they have gone,” I said.

  He lifted his shoulders and closed his eyes.

  “He is very tired,” said my mother. “Don’t let us disturb him just now.”

  The next morning he was much refreshed. We kept him in bed and he seemed very pleased to stay there.

  He spoke a little English but it was necessary for us to conduct our conversation in French.

  He told us his name was Alberic Claremont. He said: “I can never go back to France. You wouldn’t send me, would you? Would you?”

  There was such terror in his eyes that my mother cried out fiercely: “Never.”

  Dickon, who had returned late in the evening, had listened to the story without any great surprise.

  “They are flying from the Terror in hundreds,” he said. “I wonder we don’t get more of them. What sort of man is he?”

  “He’s young,” replied my mother. “He seems educated. I think he has been through terrible dangers.”

  “That seems likely.”

  “I want to see him quite well before he leaves here.”

  “Where will he go to?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps he has friends here. Perhaps he can find the friends he came with. I don’t think much of them, leaving him like that on the shore.”

  I put in: “You know the spot, close by the old boat house. It’s very lonely there. Evie and Dolly Mather just happened to find him.”

  “He might have stayed there for a long time if they hadn’t,” said my mother.

  “He would never have survived at this time of the year.”

  “Well, let’s see how he shapes up,” said Dickon.

  Sophie was very interested to hear how we had rescued the young man. She came to see him and sat by his bed talking to him in their native tongue, and I could see that
she had taken a fancy to Alberic Claremont.

  Next morning Evie called with Dolly to enquire about the young man they had rescued.

  I took them up to his bedroom. He was lying in his bed looking quite different from the young man they had found on the beach.

  “So you are the young ladies who found me,” he said in French.

  His eyes were on Evie and she flushed a little as she replied in English: “My sister and I were riding. We often go down to the sea. How glad I am that we went yesterday.”

  He could not understand very well and I said: “Monsieur Claremont speaks very little English, Evie. Have you any French?”

  She flushed again and stammered that she had a little but not much. “Grandmamma insisted that our governess teach Dolly and me French. But we aren’t very good at it, are we, Dolly?”

  “You are, Evie,” said Dolly.

  “Not very, I’m afraid.”

  “Try,” I said.

  And she did. She had just enough to make herself understood in simple sentences, and Alberic Claremont seemed to be very pleased to assist her. He tried to speak English and they laughed together while Dolly sat silent, watching her sister’s face all the time.

  When she left, Evie asked if she might call again.

  I said but of course she must.

  My mother commented: “Evie is delighted with him because she has probably saved his life. There is nothing more endearing than someone who owes you a great deal, and what could be more than a life?”

  “You sound more like Dickon every day.”

  “I suppose one grows a little like someone with whom one is in constant contact.”

  “Don’t grow too much like him, dear Maman. Stay yourself.”

  “I promise,” she said.

  Within a few days Alberic was quite well.

  We had family discussions about him. What could we do for him? There he was, a young man restored to health; he had brought French currency with him, but what good was that in England? Where could he go? What could he do? Could he work somewhere? The French were not very popular in England at this time.

  It was Sophie who came up with the solution.

  She needed servants. She was looking for them now. What if she offered Alberic a post in her household? What could he be? A butler? Could he work in the gardens? It was not so important how he worked as that he did. She would talk to him and discover for what he was best suited.