I opened the door. I had a feeling then that it might be possible to dispel the image of Beau for ever.
“It is an eerie place,” said Benjie. “Don’t you think so?”
“That’s all in the mind,” I retorted.
“Yes. I suppose you’re right. It doesn’t look eerie now with you standing there. Carlotta, you are beautiful. I only ever saw one other woman as beautiful as you and that was my mother. I was very proud of you when I believed you were my sister.”
“Your pride did not extend to letting me accompany you on your jaunt to Enderby.”
“I’ve told you you must put that down to boyish stupidity.”
He was looking at me earnestly and I knew that in a moment he was going to kiss me. I started to cross the hall, looking up at the minstrels’ gallery to remind me. The old ache was still there. There would never be anyone like Beau. I started to walk up the staircase, Benjie following close … past the haunted gallery. I was thinking, Why should I continue to brood on you, Beau. You went away and left me.
We looked into the rooms and we came to the one with the four-poster bed.
I stood looking at it and the bitterness and longing seemed as strong as ever. Benjie was beside me. He said: “Carlotta, you’re no longer a child. I’ve been wanting to speak to you for a long time, but you seemed so young …”
That made me want to laugh. How much younger I was when I had frolicked on that bed with Beau! How … unadventurous! How different from Beau.
“Carlotta, I think they are expecting it.”
“Expecting what?”
“Us to marry.”
“Are you asking me?”
“I am. What do you say?”
I seemed to see Beau laughing at me. “It is what they expect. Your laggard lover has waited until you are of a ripe age. That makes us laugh, does it not, Carlotta? Bless you, my dear, you were ripe from the cradle. Such as you are. Marry your quiet Benjie. You will have a secure life, a safe one, and I promise you an incredibly dull one.”
I knew I had not escaped from Beau. If I said yes now to Benjie I would feel no elation, no exhilarating anticipation such as I had felt when I entered this house to meet Beau.
“No,” I said to Benjie. “No.” And something made me add: “Not yet.”
Benjie was all understanding. “I have hurried you,” he said.
Hurried me! I thought. I have known your feelings for a long time. He had no notion of the sort of person I was. I imagined Beau in similar circumstances. If I had refused him he would have laughed at me. He would have forced me onto that bed.
Did I want that sort of lover?
Again I seemed to hear Beau’s laughter. Yes, you do. You do.
He would think it a great joke that here in this very room where, as Beau would have said, we had sported so merrily, Benjie should ask me to marry him and when I said no imagine that he had hurried me, and suggested marriage when I in my innocence was not prepared for it.
No, I had not escaped from Beau.
We went out to our horses.
“Don’t be disturbed, dearest Carlotta,” said Benjie. “I am going to ask you later.”
Harriet came to my room. She was sparkling with good health and I was sure that she was no less beautiful than she had been ten years before. She was plumper perhaps but not in an unsightly way; in fact the extra flesh did not detract from her beauty. She saw to it, she said, that it appeared in the right places.
I think she knew that Benjie had asked me to marry him. Some of the servants believed she had special powers and I was inclined to agree with them. Those incredibly beautiful violet eyes with the heavy black lashes were unusually discerning and there was little they missed.
“So, my little seductress,” she said, “you have failed to make my Benjie a happy man. He asked you today, didn’t he?”
I nodded.
“And you said no. My deduction is that you added the rider ‘not yet,’ for he is not so dejected as I would expect him to be if he had received a blank refusal.”
“Harriet, you are right as usual.”
I was laughing with her. She always lightened my spirits. I suppose I loved Harriet more than anyone except Beau. It was due to the fact that during the formative years of my childhood I believed her to be my mother. No, it was more than that. She was what I thought of as one of us—that meant that she was like Beau and myself.
We were the adventurers of this world, determined to have what we wanted and, if circumstances warranted it, were none too scrupulous as to how we got it.
It suddenly occurred to me that we had all been sent into the world with outstanding beauty. Beau and Harriet had that and it would have been false modesty on my part not to agree that I had it in some measure. By some strange quirk of nature I might have been Harriet’s daughter. I was dark though not quite as dark as she was; I had blue eyes and they were deep blue rather than violet; but I did have similar black lashes and brows. There the resemblance ended, it was true. My oval face and high cheekbones, full lips and straight nose were pure Eversleigh. My nature resembled Harriet’s and perhaps that, as much as our looks, made us seem alike.
However, we were in harmony and I could talk to Harriet more easily than to anyone else. My mother must have felt the same because it was to Harriet she had gone when she knew she was going to have me and was afraid to face her family.
“My poor Benjamin,” she said. “He has long loved you. From the moment he learned that you were not his sister the idea began to form in his mind. He has lived for the day when he will take you to the altar. And I must say that I should very warmly welcome my new daughter.”
“Dear Harriet, it is an alluring prospect to have you as my mother-in-law, but even so it is not a strong enough reason for marriage.”
“It would be good for you, Carlotta. Benjie will be good for you. He’s like his father, and a woman could not have a better husband than my Gregory.” She looked at me seriously: “You would have been very unhappy with Beaumont Granville,” she added.
I turned away and she went on: “Yes, you would. Oh, I admit he is a fascinating creature. I can picture him now living in splendour, congratulating himself on his cleverness. He cannot return to England. His creditors would descend on him like vultures. I wonder where he is. I don’t think it is Venice. I have written several times to a very dear friend of mine, the Contessa Carpori who owns the palazzo where you were born. She knew Beau. He was quite a well known figure in Venice. She says he is not there. If she hears of his turning up in any other Italian city she will let me know. Stop thinking of him. Get him out of your thoughts. It was fun while it lasted, was it not? Can you look on it as experience.”
“It was such a wonderful experience, Harriet.”
“Of course it would be. He would be a superb lover. But there are others in the world. It was your fortune he wanted, Carlotta.”
“Then why did he not stay to take it?”
“It could only be because some more attractive proposition presented itself. That is the only thing I can think of. He owed money all round. He could not stay and face his creditors. It might be that your grandfather threatened him. Carleton Eversleigh has great influence at Court. He could ruin Beau if he set out to. But I don’t think Beau is the type to give way lightly. You should face the facts, Carlotta, even when they’re not very pleasant. The only solution seems that he scented a better proposition somewhere else and went off to pursue it.”