“What if I were to tell my mother what you have said to me tonight?”
“She would tell my father.”
“He would be furious with you.”
“On the other hand he would merely laugh. He would say, ‘Let them work it out among themselves.’ My father is very wise and experienced in these matters.”
“And David… what if I were to tell him?”
“Ah, David, what would he say? There is bound to be a precedent for such an occurrence among the Greeks, the Romans, or the ancient Egyptians. He would consult his oracles and they would tell him what should be done.”
“Jonathan, you must forget all this. Marry. Settle down. You are more often in London than here.”
“I shall be where you are.”
“You did not think that when you lightheartedly joined the expedition to France, and just left without telling us.”
He drew me to him and held me against him. “I had to go, Claudine. It was very necessary that I go. And I had to go secretly.”
“Without telling your father even! You just walked out.”
“My father knew.”
“But he was surprised.”
“Things are not always what they seem,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, and I thought: It is the secret matters in which they are involved… Jonathan with his father. They combine spying for their country with their business affairs. Jonathan is with his father in this. I am glad David is outside it.
“Tomorrow I leave for London,” he said.
“So you are going with your father and my mother?”
He nodded.
“Secret business?” I asked.
He did not answer. “I shall be back soon,” he said, “and then…”
“Nothing will have changed here.”
“It doesn’t need to. It will be as it is now.”
“Then…”
“You want me as I want you, and I shall see that something is done about it.”
For a few seconds he held me pressed against him; he kissed me fervently on my lips and throat. I allowed myself to stay with him… just for those few seconds. I knew he was right. I had never been aware of this ecstatic emotion with David.
Then I wrenched myself away and hurried into the house. He did not follow me, but I heard his low, triumphant laughter behind me.
As soon as it was light next morning, Dickon, my mother and Jonathan left for London.
Jeanne came to my room and said that she and Sophie were going to see the house again and she wondered whether I meant I should like to accompany them.
I said I should like to and within half an hour we were walking round by the road to Enderby. It was a little longer that way, but there had been a heavy downpour and it was too wet to go across the fields as we had on the previous day.
The house looked different again in the morning light. What a strange place it was! I had to admit that in spite of the fact that it appeared menacing, it attracted me, and I was as eager to open the door and go inside as the other two were.
Sophie said: “What I like about it is that it is apart. One would not feel overlooked here.”
No, I thought, except by ghosts and spirits.
We were in the hall and the atmosphere closed round me. It was like tentacles drawing me in and holding me fast.
“This hall is really quite magnificent,” I said. “Do you propose to hold dances here, Aunt Sophie? I can picture it with the minstrels playing in the gallery.”
“No. I don’t propose to entertain a great deal. But I like the hall, all the same. There is a sense of grandeur and yet it is simple in a way.”
Simple? Yes, I supposed it was, compared with the château in which she had spent her childhood.
“Think of all the bedrooms,” I said. “There are twenty of them. And then there are the servants’ quarters at the top of the house.”
“We shall need a few servants,” said Sophie. “Your mother will help us engage them. It may be a little difficult for us… because of the language.”
“I am sure she will be delighted to help. And if there is anything I can do, Aunt Sophie, you know I shall be only too happy.”
“Thank you, Claudine. You’re a good girl. Oh, there will be so much to do. I want to go upstairs. Come on, Jeanne. I can’t wait.”
I followed them up. I noticed the carved banisters and the elegantly moulded ceilings. Once it had been a beautiful house. Would it be so again with Sophie there? No, she was not what it needed. Again I thought this house is crying out for a big and joyous family to laugh and frolic and believe so fervently in the goodness of the world that they drive away all the morbid brooding ghosts.
Sophie would not do that.
I wondered what good, practical Jeanne thought of the project.
I had an opportunity to ask her while Sophie was in one of the bedrooms and I found myself in the corridor alone with her.
I said to her: “My aunt can’t be serious about buying this house.”
“But she is,” said Jeanne.
“You must dissuade her. You must see how unsuitable it is.”
“No,” she said. “I think it is suitable. Have you seen how happy she is? There will be so much to do. It will take a very long time. I have always sought ways of bringing her alive to the world, of making her feel interested… excited even. Putting this house to rights will take a very long time. There will be work to be done, people to see, fabrics to be chosen. I plan to work on it room by room. It will take us several years. As soon as we came into the house I saw how it affected her and I knew it was what I had been looking for.”
I was amazed, but I saw at once that Jeanne, with her usual practical outlook, was right. Sophie needed Enderby. Its very gloom appealed to her. She would not have wanted a house that was full of sunshine and ready for habitation. She liked its gloomy atmosphere, which matched her own, and the prospect of all the work which must be done made it very desirable in Jeanne’s eyes.
“Jeanne!” Sophie was calling to her.
Jeanne smiled at me and immediately went to her mistress. They were in the main bedroom and Sophie was standing by the four-poster bed.
“Just look at this beautiful carving.”
Jeanne said: “It is exquisite. And the furniture is included in the cost of the house.”
“It is a bargain.”
“It does show how eager the owner is to get rid of it,” I reminded them.
“What colour curtains, Jeanne?” asked Sophie; and I had never before seen her so animated.
“We have to think of the rest of the room,” said Jeanne cautiously. “We must decide nothing in a hurry. Let us wait and see what else we shall do.”
I left them. I could not resist going into that smaller room along the corridor which I called the haunted room, the room of the voice.
I stood in the centre listening.
There was no sound at all but the light wind murmuring in the tall bushes.
Now that Jonathan had left the house it seemed a little more normal. David was very interested in Sophie’s desire to buy Enderby. I told him what Jeanne had said and he thought she was right.
“The house could make all the difference to her,” he said. “It will take her away from her own misfortunes. Give her an interest in life, something to be proud of.”
He wanted to see it again and we went over it together. He had a way of making everything seem as it should be. It was hard to imagine I had ever heard—or imagined I had heard—voices, when I was standing in that room with David.
“Its aspect could be completely changed,” he said. “I’ve always said that if those bushes were cut back and a little light let in, and the woodwork repaired, it would make all the difference.”
“There’s a great deal of work to be done.”
“That’s what Sophie has always needed… an interest.”
“Fate has brought her here and led her to Enderby.”