Yet it was like repeating a pattern, for I did discover that there was to be a child.
I did not now know quite how I felt. I was dismayed, it was true, and yet I was conscious of an overwhelming excitement. I realized how dull life had been after Beau’s disappearance until my capture by the Jacobites. Then I felt that I had started to live again, and I wanted to live desperately; it was necessary to me even if it meant that I might have to endure dangers.
I wasted no time in telling Harriet. She was excited. I understood her perfectly. She liked things to happen even if they were going to present difficulties, and the more insurmountable those difficulties seemed the more excited she became.
It was the greatest comfort to be with her. She discussed my condition with verve. “It is different from your mother’s case. She was a young and innocent girl. To produce an illegitimate child seemed to her unthinkable. Yet there you were, my dear Carlotta, waiting to be born. We had to practice a good deal of subterfuge.”
“I know. Venice. That magnificent palazzo and then the pretence that I was your child.”
“It would have made a good play. But here we have a different situation. You were forced into this by that adventurer. To what children owe their lives! You might say that the one you have conceived owes his or her existence to a goblet of potent cider … But what are we going to do, Carlotta? You are a rich woman. You could defy them all if you wished. You could say: I am having this child and if you are going to criticise me for it, I shall snap my fingers at you. On the other hand, it is good for a child to have a father. Two parents are better than one, and it is not easy to flout society. I would like a father for the baby.”
“Its father will never know of its existence.”
“How can you be sure of that? But we waste time. Not that there is any immediate hurry, but it is well to plan ahead.”
I started to think of my mother and my grandmother. There would be consternation in the family. My grandfather would want to kill Hessenfield, and as he was a Jacobite into the bargain—my grandfather being a stern Protestant—I had no doubt of the rage he would feel. Then there was Leigh. Although he appeared to be mild enough, he had a fierce temper. I had heard how he had once attacked Beau when he had been, as Leigh called it, too friendly with my mother. I had seen the scars on Beau’s body inflicted by Leigh. And all for a mad escapade, Beau had told me that Leigh had come to his apartment and caught him unawares, and had inflicted those wounds on him.
So I could imagine my mother’s distress and the effect this matter would have on Leigh, and I should have to tell them of course that I had been caught up in the plot to rescue General Langdon, and they would insist that I had been raped and that the child was the result of that.
Oh, yes, I could well imagine an outraged party from Eversleigh even attempting to go to St. Germain-en-Laye to wreak vengeance.
I mentioned this to Harriet and she agreed.
“There is one other possibility which has occurred to me. I wonder if it has to you.”
“What?” I asked.
“Benjie,” she said.
I looked at her in amazement.
“Marry Benjie,” she said. “He would be a very nice father for the child.”
“Your son!”
“Well, there’s no doubt he’s that. No doubt that he’s Gregory’s either, though I had to pretend he was Toby Eversleigh’s for a long time. These contretemps occur and it is better to tackle them in the way which will bring less trouble to everyone. Listen. If you marry Benjie you can have a child—a little prematurely perhaps, but that is soon forgotten. You will have a husband, the child will have a father, and they are useful assets on most occasions.”
“Are you suggesting that I should deceive Benjie just to … to acquire these useful assets?”
“Not necessarily deceive him. Tell him the story of your capture, how your life was in danger and to preserve it you had to submit. That’s true, it is not?”
“It’s not the whole truth, Harriet. We …”
“I know what happened. You tasted excitement with Beau; you missed it and thought it was your love for him you missed. It was more than that, though, and then the dashing Hessenfield arrived and threw a little light on the subject. You’re not like your true mother, dear child, you take after me. It was a great adventure, was it not? While it lasted you were deeply involved in it. But there are other men in the world like Beaumont Granville and John Hessenfield. Benjie is not one of them. But that is all to the good. He’s the best kind to marry. He loves you truly. And there is a great deal to be said for true love. Look how I have settled down to happiness with his father.”
“You want my fortune for Benjie, don’t you, Harriet?”
“Of course. I’m not going to deny that it adds to your many attractions.”
“That was what Beau said. But I couldn’t marry Benjie without telling him.”
“I was not suggesting that you should. Benjie will love you none the less because he is going to play the saviour. That will suit him well. He’ll want to protect you. Yes, Benjie is the best answer.”
I shook my head.
“One can’t use people like that, Harriet. It’s not the way to live.”
“You still have some growing up to do,” she said.
Harriet was noted for taking matters into her own hands. She had with my mother; and she had always managed her own affairs with skill.
She spoke to Benjie without telling me, and his reaction was to seek me out at once.
He was tender; he was protective, all that she had known he would be.
“My dear little Carlotta,” he said. I noticed that I had become little, although I was a tall girl, almost as tall as he was. “Harriet has told me.”
“What has she told you?” I asked.
“There is no need to talk of it. It makes me furious. I wish he were here. I would kill him … But there is something I can do and I’m going to do it.”
I turned away from him but he caught my arm and said: “We’re going to be married. We’re going to be married from here, soon. Harriet and Gregory will arrange it. You know they always wanted it. You’ve been their special darling all your life. Mine too, Carlotta.”
I said: “Listen … you don’t know what you’re doing.”
He laughed. “Dearest Carlotta, it was no fault of yours. That black villain took advantage …”
“It was not quite like that, Benjie.”
He wouldn’t listen to me. He knew how it was. Harriet had told him, and, like his father, he had been listening to what Harriet had told him for a very long time.
I was shocked, he insisted. Who wouldn’t be? I had had a terrible experience. It was all so easy to understand and because of it I was going to have a child. That child would be his child. No one should know he was not the father. He was going to take care of me.
He had his arms about me and I had always been comforted by Benjie. When I started to grow up I was aware of the immense power I could wield over him and I shall never forget his joy when he discovered that I was not his sister. I knew he had planned to marry me from that moment.
It was a way out. I imagined what it would be like at Eversleigh if I had a child without a father. However independent one felt, however ready to fly in the face of convention, when it came to doing it there were complications which made it unpleasant. There would be disadvantages for the child also.
I could of course take the path which had been taken in so many cases. Go away secretly and have the baby, get someone to take it. Oh, no, I did not want that.