I knew she would understand without question that what had happened between myself and Hessenfield was natural. In time I would talk to her as I never could have talked to my mother. One might say your mother gave birth to you—a bastard, born out of wedlock. Oh, yes, that was true but all that happened was that she had on one occasion forestalled her marriage vows, which had never been uttered because of the executioner’s axe. My mother was at heart an unadventurous woman with a deep respect for conventions. I was not and never would be. Nor was Harriet.
For the first few days I absorbed the peace of Eyot Abbass, that lovely old house which Gregory had inherited when he came into the title on the death of his elder brother. I had always loved it. In a way it was more my home than Eversleigh, for in the early years I had believed Harriet and Gregory to be my parents. I knew every nook and cranny of the house. I loved the hilly country round about. It was so flat at Eversleigh. In the country lanes I had ridden my first pony, in the paddock I had ridden round and round on a leading rein with Gregory or Benjie or one of the grooms in charge of me. It was home to me. It was about a mile from the sea, but as the house was built in a slight hollow—as a good protection against the southerly winds—the Eyot could only be seen from the topmost windows. A lovely old house built as most houses were in the Elizabethan style—hall in the centre with the west and east wings on either side. A house of towers and turrets and red Tudor bricks and a beautiful garden which was rather wild because Harriet liked it that way and Harriet’s will was law in that house.
From my window at the top of the house I often looked at the Eyot, about a mile out to sea. There had been a monastery on it before the dissolution and it had always been a specially exciting place to me.
I had loved to play hide-and-seek there in the summer days when we rowed over with picnics. When I learned the truth about myself I believed the Eyot was a special place to me because I had been conceived there. Very few people can be absolutely certain of where their conception actually occurred. I could, for the only time my mother and father had been lovers was on the Eyot. Poor star-crossed lovers. Then suddenly I thought it is like a pattern … in a way. She lost her lover because of some silly plot in which he was involved. And I …
I was not sure that I thought of Hessenfield as a lover. Our encounter was very different from that of my parents. They had met; she had tried to save him; they had loved romantically and the result was myself. I am sure that what had passed between them had been very different from my adventure.
I had to forget him now as I had to forget Beau. Was I destined to love so tragically?
I had been a week at the Abbass when I talked to Harriet. I had not meant to. She was sitting on a wooden seat in the garden. I saw her from the house and I felt the impulse to go down and join her.
She merely smiled when I sat down beside her.
“You are feeling better now,” she said, stating a fact. “And yet you are still not here half the time.”
I raised my eyebrows questioningly and she went on: “Still in that mystery house by the sea.”
She asked no questions. She sat there waiting and I knew that the time had come to tell her. I could hold it in no longer.
“Yes,” I said. “Still thinking of it.”
“It is bound to have its effect on you.”
“Harriet,” I said. “You know how it was between Hessenfield and me.
“I guessed,” she said. “Knowing him … knowing you. Did he force you?”
I hesitated. “Well, in a way …”
She nodded. She understood perfectly. “Hessenfield is a born charmer,” she said. “He’s another such as Beaumont Granville. Not such a villain, I hope. But there is a similarity.”
“You think Beau was a villain but you didn’t try to stop my marrying him as the others did.”
“I thought it was something you had to learn yourself. You’ve been brooding a lot about him. And now we have Hessenfield. But he’s gone now. It was inevitable that he would. He’s lucky. He did what he came to do and got away with it and his life; and I gather from you that some of his time here was spent very pleasantly.”
“Harriet, you are not shocked?”
“My dear child, should I be shocked … by life?”
“You have had a lot of lovers, Harriet.”
She did not answer. Her eyes had become vague as though she were looking a long way back, seeing a procession of them, men she had loved, and some of whom she had forgotten now. The words came falling out then and I could not stop them. I explained to her how he had saved my life when the man Durrell would have killed me; how he had made it plain what he would expect of me and how when it happened I had wanted it to.
“There. Can you understand that?”
“Indeed I can. I have seen him. It must have been as great an experience for you as it was with Beau.”
“Beau and I were lovers too, Harriet.”
“Of course you were. Beaumont Granville wouldn’t have played it otherwise. My dear child, you will have lovers. You are not like those good women, your grandmother and your mother. You can reach heights of passion which they wouldn’t dream of. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You are more sensitively moulded. That’s all. Do you know, you are very like me. I think when I decided to play the role of mother, fate was amused and made you my child. You even look a little like me. Do you mind?”
“Harriet, there is no one I would rather look and be like.”
“Said with more affection than wisdom, but bless you for it. Now there is something that has occurred to me. You spent three nights with Hessenfield. What if there should be consequences? Have you thought of that?”
“Yes, I have. When I look out of my window at the Eyot and remember how I was conceived there, I think to myself, what if I should have Hessenfield’s child?”
“Well, what conclusion did you come to, suppose that passionate relationship should bear fruit?”
“I am a little frightened at the thought and yet at the same time …”
“I know … elated.”
“It would be wonderful in a way to have a child to remember him by.”
“Children of such affairs make a good deal of pother when they make their entry into the world. You yourself made a most spectacular entry.”
“Only because you were stage managing it.” I began to laugh faintly hysterically, I must admit, for now that I had brought that possibility which had haunted my thoughts into the daylight I was indeed disturbed.
Harriet patted my hand suddenly. “If it should be so we shall have to consider what is to be done. Of course, it may not be so. It happened to your mother somewhat similarly. Life does not usually work out to such neat patterns. But let us be prepared, eh?”
“Oh, Harriet,” I said, “it is good to be with you. I suppose my mother must have felt like this all those years ago.”
She was silent with that glazed look in her eyes, again remembering the past. She must, I calculated, be quite sixty years old, but she had retained a certain youthfulness by her nature as well as artificial aids and in that moment she looked like a young girl.