Harriet had once said: “There are people who disregard the laws laid down for good and honourable behaviour, people who, because of something they possess, think they are above the rules which others obey. You are one of those, Carlotta … So was I. We use other people perhaps. It’s unfair because we invariably win in the end.” Then she smiled and added cryptically, “But who can say what is victory?”
I could have seduced him there and then, but the idea had come to me that it would be more effective if it were in the four-poster bed in Enderby Hall where Beau and I had made love so many times.
I was excited by the prospect. I was aware of the desire in him which could not be quenched by the efforts he was making to suppress it. He did not know that the obstacles to it make it the more enticing. I was a married woman; he was contemplating betrothal to my sister; he had only known me for a day or so. I knew exactly what he was thinking—he was a good man, or he wanted to be, which is perhaps the same thing.
I was neither good nor bad when passion took possession of me; and I was allowing Matt Pilkington to have this effect on me. I wanted to lie on the bed with Matt Pilkington and delude myself briefly into thinking that Beau had returned.
It was so easy to arrange. The gloomy afternoon with threatening rain, the damp leaves which seemed to cling to everything.
“Let’s go and look at Enderby. I have the key here with me. I meant to go in this afternoon.”
I opened the door and forgot to shut it. We went round the house and in the bedroom we stood for a moment looking at the four-poster bed.
Then I put my arms round him and kissed him. It was the spark to the flames.
We lay on the bed listening to the rain. The lightning and the thunder seemed to add something to this adventure. The two of us alone in an empty house, a haunted house where ghosts could look on … The ghost of Beau perhaps …
And then we were not alone. She was there and that revealing flash of lightning betrayed us to her before, a few seconds later, she ran from the room.
That was how it happened. How could I explain that to Damaris?
It was an abrupt ending to our passion. Matt was horrified. I realized then that his feelings for Damaris had been strong and tender.
He could only repeat: “But she saw us. Damaris saw us.”
“It’s very unfortunate,” I agreed.
“Unfortunate!” he cried. “It’s disastrous.”
We dressed in silence. We found our horses and rode back to the house. I told him to go back to Grasslands. I kept rehearsing what I would say to Damaris when she came home.
Then she did not come. And when my father brought her home we thought she would die.
It may sound hypocritical when I say I suffered great remorse. I did. We had shocked the child so completely. She could not understand what had happened; she would never understand.
I rode over to Grasslands late the next day to tell Matt how ill Damaris was. He was terribly sad. He regarded me as though I were some evil witch. Good people are always like that. When they misbehave they look for scapegoats. “It was not my fault, oh, Lord, the evil one tempted me.” Whereas people like myself and Harriet at least see ourselves as we really are. We say, “I wanted that and I took it. No, I did not think of the consequences of my act. It is only now that it has gone wrong that I think of it.”
At least we have a certain self-honesty. Oh, yes, there is a little good in the worst of us … and sometimes it is not all good in the best.
Matt kept calling, and when he knew that she would in time recover he went away. I don’t think he could ever bring himself to face her.
It was going to be made easy for him because his mother stayed in London and at that time decided that the town was more suited to her and she was going to sell Grasslands.
She did not come back while I was there. Indeed I saw very little of Matt. Our brief idyll, which had had such disastrous effects, was over.
I said I must go back too. I had been too long away from my husband and child.
So I travelled back to Eyot Abbass and tried to forget the havoc I had wrought.
A year had passed. I had not seen Damaris or my mother since I left the Dower House when I knew Damaris would recover. The days had slipped by. I had said that I found it difficult to leave my little daughter and my mother said Damaris, although improving, was unfit to travel.
We must content ourselves with letters.
I was relieved. Even after all the time which had elapsed I could not imagine what meeting Damaris would be like. It would certainly be embarrassing,
Moreover, in view of what had happened I felt penitent. I had been unfaithful to the best of husbands and all because of a momentary whim. I had not had the excuse that I had been overwhelmed by a great love. I had deliberately taken the man who was more or less betrothed to my sister and betrayed my husband at the same time. There was no excuse I could offer for my conduct. But at least I could try to compensate my husband in some way.
Benjie was delighted. He had never known me in this mood. I was loving, I was docile, I was thoughtful for his comfort. It did not take much to make him happy.
Then there was Clarissa. I am not a maternal woman by any means but in spite of myself the child began to charm me. She was two years old, talked a little, had passed the crawling stage, was, as her nurse said, “into everything, a proper bundle of mischief, that one.”
There was a look of Hessenfield about her. She had fair hair with a faint wave in it and her eyes were light brown—there were golden lights in them and in her hair; she was sturdy and healthy; a child to be proud of. Benjie treated her just as though she were his. He never mentioned the event which had led to Clarissa’s birth and our marriage.
Harriet was aware of the change in me. She watched me with alert blue eyes. I don’t know how old Harriet was now—she had never told us how old she was and, according to my grandmother, even when she was in her twenties she had pretended to be much younger. But she must have been in her late twenties at the time of the Restoration and that was over forty years ago. Her hair was still dark; her eyes still violet blue; she was rather plump, but her laughter was still like a young woman’s and frequently heard and she was interested in the young people about her—in particular me, for she said I was like her and she had posed as my mother for the first years of my life, which made a great bond between us.
She wanted to know what had happened. I told her that Damaris had been out in the rain and had some virulent fever because of it.
“Whatever made her do that?” she asked.
I shook my head, but Harriet was perceptive.
“It may have had something to do with Matt Pilkington. I think she had a romantic feeling for him.”
“And it went wrong when you were there?”
“It couldn’t have been right before, could it?”
“But the climax came after your arrival?”
“She was out in the storm. That was how it happened.”
“What is he like, this Matt Pilkington?”
“Very … young.”
“Suitable for Damaris?”
“Oh, Damaris is too young yet.”
“I’ll swear,” said Harriet, “that he took a fancy to Damaris’s sister.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well, if he is easily diverted perhaps it is just as well.”
“Damaris is only a child really,” I insisted.
“I seem to remember when you were her age you were planning an elopement.”
“Damaris is young for her years.”
“Something has happened,” said Harriet. “I have always found that the best way to discover a secret is not to probe.”