What complications arose when one stepped outside the rules of convention. If Benjie suddenly knew that Carlotta was not his sister, what would his reaction be?
It was becoming more and more clear to me that sooner or later I should have to disclose the truth. I could have told my mother. I was sure she would understand. But for some obscure reason I did not want my father to know. That seemed absurd. Why he should think worse of me when he had never thought very much about me in any case, I did not know. But he would be critical. He had entered into many relationships lightheartedly, I was sure. There had been results in at least one. My half sister Christabel was evidence of that. So why should he stand in judgment on me! And yet I could not bear him to know. He dominated me as he always had done. The fact that I had saved his life should have made a difference … if he had known. I sometimes played with the idea of telling him. I heard myself saying: “Carlotta is my daughter. Yes, I have an illegitimate daughter just as you have. I should have married her father had he lived. Your relationships were different. You entered into them to satisfy your lust. Can you criticize me? And let me tell you, you who never wanted a daughter and thought little of the one you had, if it had not been for her, you would be dead now … and you would have died horribly. I paid dearly for saving your life, and what happened to me is something which has scarred me forever.”
I wondered so often what he would say if he knew. Yet I told myself that he never should.
Now there were Carlotta and Benjie to think of. I saw Harriet watching them, and then her eyes were on me. Harriet would tell Benjie, I knew, just as she had told Robert Frinton.
Perhaps she was right. If one stepped aside, others must not suffer because of it.
The dance had stopped. Carlotta was taking a goblet of wine to Robert Frinton. She sat beside him. He was smiling with pleasure as she fingered the brooch at her throat, and I knew she was telling him how much she liked it and thanking him for it. She leaned forward and kissed him.
He took her hand and held it. She did not remove it but let it lie in his. I think she was really quite fond of him.
The music started and she took the wine from him and set it down. She pulled him to his feet and went out with him to lead the dance.
He was not very agile and I thought how old he looked, but perhaps that was in contrast to Carlotta’s glowing youth.
They led the dance round the hall and others fell in behind them. Then suddenly Robert Frinton turned and swayed. There was a gasp through the hall; the music stopped, and for a few seconds there was complete silence. Carlotta was kneeling down beside him, pulling at his cravat. My father hurried over.
“Get a doctor,” he said to Harriet.
That was the end of Carlotta’s fourteenth birthday party. Robert Frinton was carried to his bed at once. He died during the night. He was just conscious and able to see Carlotta beside his bed. His hand curled about hers and she knelt, looking at him with the tears falling down her cheeks.
I heard him murmur: “Beautiful child … you have made me so happy.”
He was taken back to Enderby Hall and buried in the Eversleigh churchyard.
We learned that he was a very rich man and that he had left everything he possessed to Carlotta.
She was to inherit on her eighteenth birthday, or when she married, if that were earlier, and then she would be one of the richest women in the country.
The day after he was buried—Harriet and Gregory had come to Eversleigh for the ceremony—she and I walked to his grave and laid a posy there.
“Dear Robert,” she said, “he so loved Carlotta. She was a symbol to him that his family lived on. I did right, you see, to let him know who she really was.”
“Harriet,” I asked, “did you know how rich he was?”
“Well, one can never be sure, of course.”
“But you did know.”
“It was reasonable to suppose he was not poor. I knew that he received compensation for the estates which had been taken from his family, but he was of course a rich man in his own right.”
“And you thought this might happen?”
“It seemed a natural conclusion.”
“I see. It was another of your schemes.”
“But how could I be sure?”
“You couldn’t be. But you thought it likely.”
“My dear Priscilla, don’t take up that high moral tone. If a fortune is around and a family has a certain claim to it, they would be foolish not to make themselves known.”
“Harriet,” I said, “from the moment you stepped into the chateau where my mother was in exile, you started to shape our lives. You have gone on doing it.”
She was thoughtful. “There may be something in what you say,” she agreed. “But this little bit of shaping is very good for all concerned. Beautiful Carlotta, who would have had no great fortune, is now a considerable heiress. What could be wrong with that?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I shall have to wait and see.”
Dear Robert Frinton! If he could have foreseen what effect his action would have, he might have decided against it.
I shall never forget Carlotta as she was when she heard the news. A look of great wonder spread across her face. She said: “He must have loved me very much.”
No one spoke, and for a few seconds her face was tender as she thought of how much this old man of whom she had been so fond had loved her. Then the realization of what this meant came to her. She was rich. The whole world was open to her. She had only to wait four years before this great fortune was hers.
I could see plans forming in her mind. She would go to London. She would travel through the world. She would have a house of her own. She would escape from every restriction.
I said: “Don’t forget you will have to wait until you are eighteen. Everything will go on much as before until then, and by that time you will have made up your mind what you have to do.”
“Four years!” she cried.
“A short time really,” soothed Harriet.
And she shared Carlotta’s excitement. Harriet was a schemer and her schemes were almost always for her own advantage. She wanted Robert Frinton’s fortune for Carlotta partly because she intended it to come to her son Benjie.
I should have known. Harriet had schemed throughout her life. It was a habit she could not discard now.
In my heart I was afraid of this money. I had a sudden feeling it would bring no good.
Carlotta wanted to go to London.
“It is so sad here now that he is dead,” she said. “He would have wanted us to go.”
Harriet thought it was a good idea and it was agreed that she, Gregory and myself with Carlotta should go for a brief stay to London.
“Mind you,” said Harriet, “the Court is dull these days. How different from Charles’s time! What fun it was then! And how gracious he was! Between ourselves William is a boor … a Dutch boor. They say he scarcely speaks at all.”
“The people admire him for he is a good King,” replied Gregory. “And that is what we need.”
“If the Queen had lived … or he had married again …”
Gregory shook his head. “He won’t and it will be Anne who follows him … or perhaps her boy William, though he is very delicate.”
“Well, let us hope she will make a more lively Court than the present one,” said Harriet. “I like not these dour rulers. Charles was so different. I for one shall never stop regretting his passing.”
It was the middle of December when we set out. Harriet had said we should go before the really cold weather set in which was usually after Christmas. Carlotta was very excited at the prospect, though every now and then she would remember Robert and a certain sadness would settle on her. Knowing her so well I realized that she felt guilty because she found it possible to be happy in spite of his death.