“Oh, that … It’s so long ago.”
“I know your nature. You forgive but you can’t forget. You’ll never quite trust me again, will you?”
“Perhaps not.”
“I’m going to make you. I’m so fond of you, Arabella. That makes you smile. You think I couldn’t do what I did and be fond of you. I could. What happened between me and Edwin was outside friendship. Those things always are. The attraction arises quite suddenly sometimes and it’s irresistible. One forgets everything but the need to satisfy it. When it’s over, the rest of one’s life slips back into shape and it’s just as it was before. …”
I shook my head. “Let’s not discuss it. We shall never agree.”
“I was brought up so differently from you, Arabella. I always had to fight. It’s become natural with me. I fight for what I want and take it and then consider the cost. But I didn’t come to say all this. It’s just that when I’m with you, I feel I have to justify myself. Arabella, I am going to have a child.”
“Harriet! Is that possible?”
“Obviously. Toby wasn’t all that old, you know.”
“I can see you’re happy.”
“It’s what I need. Don’t you see? You, of all people. Didn’t it happen to you? Think back. Your husband died suddenly and afterwards you found you were going to have a child. That is how it is with me. Come, rejoice with me. I feel like singing the Magnificat.”
“When …?”
“Six months from now.”
She came to me and put her arms round me. “It makes all the difference. I shall stay here. I have a right to now. I had before, but a double right now. Old Matilda was hoping I’d go. So was Charlotte, and as for your Sally, she looks at me as though I’m the Devil incarnate. But I don’t care. I’m going to have a child. A little Eversleigh. Think of that. My own child.”
“You won’t go away and leave this one, I hope,” I said coolly, but I was beginning to succumb to the old charm.
She laughed. “Your tongue’s getting sharp again, Arabella. You get so much practice with Carleton.”
“Is it so noticeable?”
“Perhaps. But no doubt he enjoys it. Now about this baby …”
“You say you haven’t told anyone?”
“I was determined that you should be the first.”
“If only Uncle Toby had known, how delighted he would have been.”
Her eyes were a trifle misty. “Dear Toby,” she said. I was moved, and then I wondered if she was still playing a part.
The news of Harriet’s expectations astounded the household, and for a few days it was whispered that she must have imagined this was so. But as the weeks passed it became obvious that she was not mistaken.
She was quite smug, and clearly enjoying her position. She behaved as though it was a great joke and in some way she had scored over us all.
Carleton was shaken. I could see that.
“If this is a boy,” he said, “he will be next in line to Edwin.”
“Not when Edwin marries and has a son of his own.”
“A good many years will have to pass before that.”
“I wish you would stop talking of Edwin as though his days are numbered.”
“Sorry. I was merely thinking …”
“Of the line of succession. Really one would think Eversleigh was the throne.”
He brooded on it, I know. I often saw him watch Harriet with an odd speculation in his eyes.
There was a good deal of friction between us. Life had not been smooth since my miscarriage. He seemed resentful of my love for Priscilla and of course Edwin. Although I could understand a certain jealously of Edwin, it seemed incredible that a man could blame his own daughter because of the loss of a possible son.
Carleton was unnatural, I told him. He was obsessed by his desire for a son. I knew, I said, that this was a common desire among a certain type of man but Carleton carried it to extreme. He was away a good deal. He went to Whitehall and I knew was prominent in Court circles. I often wondered about his life there. I used to worry about the weakening of our feelings for each other and I told myself it was inevitable. I knew I was in some ways to blame, and yet I longed for him to come back and to be to me what he had been in the beginning. But had he really been as I imagined him? There had been a violent passion between us, but was that the foundation on which to build a lifetime’s happiness? Perhaps I was wrong. I had always harked back to that glorious time with Edwin—which had been entirely false. Because of it I had been determined not be duped again. Had that made me hard, suspicious?
Life seemed to have become unreal during the months that followed. Harriet was the only one who was content. She went about hugging her secret joy, and in the way I remembered so well she began to dominate the household.
She would get us all together to sing ballads in the evening—myself, Charlotte, Gregory Stevens and often Matthew Dollan, who was constantly riding over. Charlotte was aloof with him, as though she knew that I hoped they might be attracted and was determined to foil me.
Harriet would tell stories of her life as a player and her audience would be tense with excitement. She certainly was a true Scheherazade, for she had a trick of stopping at an exciting point and saying: “No more now. My voice is going. I have to protect it, you know.”
Edwin and Leigh would creep in and listen. They thought her enchanting and she made a special point of charming them. Even Priscilla would toddle up and watch her wonderingly while she sang or talked.
Anxious as I was about my relationship with Carleton, saddened by the fact that I was not the one who was expecting a child, I allowed myself to be drawn into her spell and I would find myself excited by her as the others were.
Through the winter months she grew larger but nonetheless beautiful. There was a wonderful serenity about her which added to her beauty.
Even Sally Nullens was excited by the prospect of a new baby in the nursery.
I said to her one day: “Sally, you’re longing for this baby, I know.”
“Oh I can never resist them,” she admitted. “There’s nothing as beautiful as a helpless little baby to my mind.”
“Even Harriet’s?” I said.
“Whatever else she is,” answered Sally, “she’s a mother.”
I had not noticed that Charlotte had come into the room. She was so self-effacing. She seemed to want not to be noticed.
“Do you think she will have an easy confinement?” I asked.
“Her!” cried Sally, her eyes flashing suddenly. “With her it will be like shelling peas. It is with her sort. …”
“Her sort …” I said.
“There’s something about her,” said Sally quietly. “I’ve always known it. They say witches have special powers.”
“Sally, you’re not suggesting Harriet is a witch?” murmured Charlotte.
Sally said: “I’m saying nothing.”
“You just have,” I reminded her.
“I can only say what I feel. There’s something … some special powers … I don’t know what it is. Some call it witchcraft. I don’t like it and I never will.”
“Oh, Sally, what nonsense. She’s just a healthy and attractive woman …”
“Who knows how to get what she wants.”
Charlotte and I exchanged glances which implied that we shouldn’t take old Sally too seriously.
It was February when Harriet gave birth to her child, and as Sally had predicted it was an easy birth. She had a son and I must admit I felt a twinge of envy.
It was a week or so after the birth of the child, whom she had christened Benjamin, when Carleton came home.