“What do you mean, Sally?” asked Charlotte. “They’re children’s toys, I think. But what were they doing under the paving-stone in the arbour?”
Sally picked up the figure which resembled me. “You see where the pins have been. There … where you would have been carrying the child.” She picked up the other figure. “Oh, my God. I see what it’s meant to be. It’s the wax image of an unborn child.”
We all looked at each other.
“How long have they been there, I wonder?” I said.
“I … I have only just found them,” stammered Charlotte.
“It looks as if …” began Sally. “No, I can’t say it.” She turned to me and laid her hand on my shoulder. “Oh, my poor Mistress Arabella, now we know …”
“Know what?” I demanded. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s witchcraft,” she said. “It’s killed the child … and it’s meant to harm you.”
Sally had kept the wax dolls. “I’ll destroy these,” she had said. “That’s the best thing that can be done with them. The mischief they’ve done is over. It’s a good thing you found them, Mistress Charlotte. Now we’ve got to keep our eyes open. At least we know what’s going on.”
When we had left her Charlotte said to me: “I wish I hadn’t shown them to her. I’m sure they mean nothing. They must be dolls children have had at some time. They might have been there years and become misshapen.”
“One of them had a look of me, Sally seemed to think.”
“Well, she would because of the accident. I wish I hadn’t been so thoughtless.” She looked at me anxiously. “All this hasn’t upset you, Arabella, has it?”
I assured her it hadn’t, but of course it had.
I was very uneasy. Carleton was in London. I wished he were here. I told myself that if he had been I should have gone to him and told him of Charlotte’s find and Sally’s comment. I could imagine his laughter. But I wanted to hear his laughter. I wanted to hear him pour scorn on what he would call “old goodies tales.”
I went to bed early. I could not sleep. I lay listening to every sound, and how the boards creaked! I would start to doze and then start up suddenly because something had roused me. Probably my own uneasy thoughts.
I heard midnight strike and lay listening to the timbre of the tower clock chime. I lay wondering about Carleton and what he was doing at Whitehall. I thought of all the stories one heard of the life that was lived there. The King was surrounded by favourites like Lady Castlemaine, Moll Davis—although I believe her reign was over—and Nell Gwyn. They lived lightheartedly, promiscuously, and Carleton was a member of that Court. I had heard it said that the King enjoyed his company. How could I help wondering who else did?
A sound in the corridor. Yes, footsteps. Silently creeping.
I leaped out of bed. I was shaking. I kept thinking of a doll made in my image with pinholes showing in the wax. It had not lain under the flagstone so very long. Those holes were too fresh for that. And what was the use of pretending it had? And it had been made to look like me!
The light sound of a footfall. Someone was creeping slowly along …
Cautiously, silently, I opened the door and peeped out. A light was moving along. It came from a candle which was being carried.
She was going carefully, her lovely long hair flowing about her shoulders, her feet in soft slippers, a robe flowing open to show the edges of a silken bedgown.
Harriet!
If she turned now she would see me. But she did not turn. She went on along the corridor.
I closed my door and leaned against it. What was Harriet doing creeping along the corridor when the household was asleep?
In the morning, I thought, I will tell her I saw her and ask her where she was going.
But I did not ask, for when I left my room and went downstairs the first person I met was Carleton.
“Carleton!” I cried. “When did you come home?”
“Last night,” he said. “Rather late.”
“Where did you sleep?”
“In the grey room. I thought I wouldn’t disturb you. Sally tells me you haven’t been sleeping well of late.”
“That … was thoughtful of you,” I said coolly, thinking of Harriet creeping silently along the corridor.
Carleton had gone off for the day; he had some estate business to attend to. So much time spent at Court was not good for the estate, he said. It meant that when he did return he found arrears of work.
“Will you be back tonight?” I asked.
He kissed me tenderly. “I shall,” he answered. “And however late I am I’ll disturb you.”
He kissed me with passion and my response was immediate. If only, I thought, all could be well between us, how much happier I should be.
I did not see Harriet during the morning. She seemed to have disappeared. Then I heard that the boys had gone riding with Gregory Stevens and Harriet had decided to accompany them. The would be away for most of the day, as Gregory had promised to take the boys to an inn where they could have a mug of ale and some hot bread and bacon. Chastity told me that they had gone off in high spirits.
It was a dark and misty afternoon. I was in my room when there was a knock on the door. It was Charlotte.
She looked strange, I thought, uneasy. But then she often did.
“Oh, Arabella,” she said, “I’m glad I found you alone. There’s something I wanted to say to you.”
“Yes.”
“Something is going on in this house. Oh, I don’t mean witchcraft, as old Sally says. But something nevertheless.”
“What?” I asked.
She was silent for a moment, then she said, “Oh, I know you think that I’m rather stupid …”
“Of course I don’t.”
“You don’t have to pretend. Most people do. Well, perhaps not stupid, but not very bright and not attractive … not like you and Harriet, for instance.”
“You’re imagining this.”
“I don’t think I am. But I’m not stupid. There are things I see which some people miss. You, for instance …”
“Why don’t you tell me what you came to say, Charlotte?”
“I’m trying to. It’s not easy. I don’t forget how you saved me once …”
“Oh, that’s long ago.”
“I’ve always remembered. Sometimes I wonder whether I should have done it. People think they will leave this world and then at the last minute they’re afraid. I just thought there wasn’t anything to live for. They had made so much fuss about Charles Condey … having that house party, talking of making the announcement … I just didn’t think I could face it.”
“I understand that.”
“Harriet is evil, Arabella. Do you know that? Oh, I’m not sure about witchcraft. But I do know she is evil. She wantonly broke up my life … now she will do the same to you. She already did it once, didn’t she? I knew how it was with her and Edwin. I knew right at the start. I daresay you’ll despise me, but I listen at doors. I pry and peep and find out things. It’s mean and underhand but it compensates me in a way. I don’t have much life of my own so I live other people’s. I know more than they do, because I listen and peep and that justifies me in a way because I’m not bright and attractive. Do you understand?”
“Of course I do. But, Charlotte …”
She waved her hand. “Listen. She married Uncle Toby, didn’t she, because she wanted to come here and she wanted his name and title because she was determined he should get it. You don’t think Benjie is Uncle Toby’s son, do you?”
“Whose?” I asked.
“Are you so innocent, Arabella?”
I felt myself flushing hotly. “Charlotte, you are talking nonsense.”
“No. She wanted a son who was a claimant. Benjie to follow on Edwin.”