“She was good to me. It was her idea. It seemed wild at the time and yet it worked.”
“Harriet loves planning and playacting. She is doing it all the time. And you are my mother. I always loved you. I expect you always loved me, too.”
“Oh, my darling child. I have wanted so often to have you with me. I schemed to have you with me.”
She put her arms around me and held me tightly. “I’m glad,” she said. “Yes, I am glad. I’m what they call a love child, am I not? It’s a beautiful expression in a way. Conceived in love … reckless love I suppose it means, the kind of love that takes no count of the cost.” She paused and then she said suddenly: “Benjie is not my brother.”
“No,” I said happily, “no.”
“He won’t be able to bully me anymore.”
“He has always been so fond of you.”
“What will happen now? Shall you tell people?”
“I shall tell my mother and I suppose she will tell my father. Gregory already knows, of course.”
“Dear Gregory, he has always been such a nice father. One doesn’t tell him things … but I know that he would always be kind and understanding if one did.”
“He is a good man. Christabel knows. She was with us in Venice.”
“Christabel! I never think much about her. She is just … there. And all she thinks about is that son of hers.”
“She helped look after me in Venice.”
“Yes, I was born in Venice and I always thought that rather romantic. And there was all that fuss about my arrival.”
“You’ve always liked fuss, haven’t you, Carlotta?”
“Well, can you wonder … considering my birth.”
She kissed me again and I could see that the news had stimulated her. She was not in the least shocked at having been born illegitimate. She thought it all romantic and exciting, and the fact that I was her mother gave her a certain pleasure. I couldn’t help commenting on it.
“Yes,” she said, “I am glad. You’re the sort of mother I want. That sounds unfair to Harriet. She’s a most exciting mother … but somehow not like a mother. One wants a mother to be a little fussy, caring in a way that makes you impatient … someone you feel will always be there no matter what you have done … someone who’d die for you.”
“Oh, Carlotta,” I said, “I would do that willingly for you and Damaris.”
“Damaris is my sister, of course … my half sister. Everything is turning about. Leigh is my stepfather. Does he know?”
“Yes, he knows.”
“I thought so. You told him, did you?”
“Yes. Before we were married.”
“Obligations, I daresay.”
“You could call it that.”
“Who else knows?”
I hesitated and then I said: “Beaumont Granville.”
She stared at me in amazement. “Beau knows?”
“Carlotta, it is this which made me decide that you must know without delay. I don’t like your friendship with this man.”
“What do you mean, you don’t like my friendship with him!”
“He is not a good man. In fact he is a very wicked man.”
I saw the hard look creeping over her face. The tenderness of a few moments ago was fast disappearing.
“You hated him from the first moment in the Exchange,” she said.
“I hated him before that. I had met him before.”
“You didn’t say so.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“He was in Venice before you were born … and I think at the time of your birth.”
“Why?”
“He was there … adventuring, I suppose. Doing what he has done all through his useless life.”
“How can you say his life is useless? He has done many things. He was once in the army.”
“I am sure he looked very pretty in his uniform.”
“Please do not sneer at him.”
“He is a wicked man. He tried to abduct me in Venice. Leigh thrashed him. He bears the scars still. That is his life. He seduces girls when he can … preferably young and innocent ones.”
“You are so behind the times, dear Priscilla. You have lived too long in the country.”
“Unlike you who have been in Town for a week or so.”
“I understand him,” she said earnestly. “He has told me so much about his life. Oh, yes, he has had adventures. There have been lots of women. They chased him, you know, and he couldn’t hurt their feelings by refusing them when they were so persistent. But now he has finished with that.”
“Since when?”
“Since we met.”
“Are you telling me …”
She interrupted: “I am telling you I love him and he is in love with me.”
“He is in love with your fortune. Has that occurred to you?”
“He has never mentioned my fortune.”
“He has mentioned it to me.”
She stared at me blankly. “He … has spoken to you!”
“Yes,” I replied, “he wants your fortune. He appears to be wealthy, but he has to keep up appearances and that requires a great deal of money. Yours will be useful.”
“This is so silly.”
“On your part, yes. On his, it is quite clever.”
“How you hate him. Is it because I love him?”
“No. It went back before that.”
“Because he once liked you?”
“He doesn’t like anyone but himself, Carlotta. And he is so besottedly in love that no one else matters.”
“So you have seen him, and because you thought he would tell about Venice you thought you ought to tell me first.”
“Yes, that might be so.”
“You told him, when you were in Venice, that you were going to have me …”
“I did not tell him. I had no conversation with him … in Venice. I was dragged away from a masked ball. Fortunately Leigh was at hand and rescued me.”
“Then who told him?”
“He discovered somehow … I never knew how. He had people who worked for him perhaps. I never found out.”
“And you hate him for knowing it?”
“Not for that … for other things.”
“Well, you will have to stop hating him because I am going to marry him.”
“No, Carlotta. It’s impossible. You are too young for marriage. Good heavens, child, you’re not fifteen years old yet.”
“Many people have married at fifteen. Princesses … queens … always do. As for you, you may not have married, but it would have been more acceptable to society if you had been.”
“It’s a different case.”
“How? You loved my father. I love Beau.”
“He is so old.”
“So you think I want a silly boy?”
“He must be at least thirty years older than you are.”
“I don’t care if he is fifty years older. He is the most exciting person I have ever met, and I am going to marry him.”
“No, Carlotta, you are not. You cannot marry without your parents’ consent.”
“Considering I have only just discovered who my parent is that seems a poor argument to put forward. You have only just acknowledged your relationship.”
That hurt me. As if I had not wanted to claim her all these years!
“Carlotta, do understand. Everything I do is for your sake. You cannot marry this man”—I clutched at some respite—“yet.”
She responded at once. “How long would you expect us to wait?”
“Till you are sixteen.”
“It’s too long.”
“A year then,” I conceded. “Six months at least …”
She appeared to consider that.
Time, I thought. Time will help. As long as she does not rush into this there may be hope.
“All right,” she said, “perhaps we could wait for six months.”