“Yes, I’m here, Mama. Of course I’m here.”

“Don’t … leave me.”

Everton was watching me intently and my mother closed her eyes.

“How long has she been like this?” I whispered.

“I came up to help her dress for dinner. I found her lying there"

“What can it be?”

“I wish the doctor would hurry,” said Everton.

It was not long before I heard the sound of his carriage wheels on the road.

He came in—a little man, very much the country doctor. I had met him once at the Dubussons’.

He took my mother’s pulse, examined her and shook his head gravely.

“Perhaps she has had a shock?” he suggested. He looked so knowledgeable on such a brief examination that I began to suspect his efficiency.

Both Everton and I followed him out of the room.

He said: “She needs rest … and peace. She must have no stress, you understand? You are sure she has not had a shock?”

“Well,” said Everton, “she was upset because Miss Tressidor was leaving us.”

“Ah,” said the doctor wisely. “That is so, eh?”

“I came on a visit,” I said, “and that visit is coming to an end.”

He nodded gravely. “She needs care,” he said. “I shall come tomorrow.”

We escorted him to his carriage.

Everton looked at me expectantly.

“Could you not stay a little longer … until she recovers?”

I did not answer.

I went back to my mother’s room. She lay there pale and wan, but she was aware of me.

“Caroline,” she said weakly. “I’m here, Mama.” “Stay … stay with me.”

That night I slept little. I could not help thinking of my mother lying there on her bed, looking quite unlike herself. At first I had thought that she had feigned illness, and I still had a feeling that this was so. And yet I was not sure. How could I be?

What if I went away? What if she were really ill and died. Did people die of nostalgia? It was not so much that she wanted me. She had done very well without me for the greater part of her life. She felt none of the passionate attachment some mothers have for their children. I could see that my coming had enlivened her days to a certain extent. We played piquet now and then in the evenings and that passed the time— that and the endless talk of the old days.

Yet how could I be sure? It was through my action that her husband had turned her out of his house. Could I be responsible for her death as well?

I did not sleep until dawn and when I awoke I had made up my mind.

I could not go … yet.

I wrote letters to Cousin Mary and Olivia, explaining that my mother had been taken suddenly ill and I must stay with her a little longer.

When I told Everton what I had done, her face was illuminated with pleasure. I felt relieved. My mind was made up.

I went to my mother’s room. Everton was already there. She had told my mother.

“She will get well now,” said Everton.

“Caroline, my darling,” cried my mother. “So … so you are not going to leave me?”

I sat by her bed holding her hand and I felt as though a trap were closing round me.

My mother recovered slowly, but for a while she was more of an invalid than she had ever been. Dr. Legrand visited her often and had an air of complacency which suggested he believed he had brought about a miraculous cure.

Cousin Mary wrote to say that she hoped my visit would not be postponed for too long and Olivia expressed her regrets that she was not going to see me and that her mother was ill. She would have liked to come out but Aunt Imogen was against it; she thought she might come later on.

I was now planning to leave at Christmas, but every time I hinted at it such gloom pervaded the house that I decided to say nothing, but to make my plans and then announce my imminent departure.

I was not so gullible as not to believe that my mother’s indisposition had been in a great measure produced by herself. On the other hand she was a woman of fierce desires and there was no doubt that frustration could make people ill.

I wanted nothing more on my conscience; and on the other hand I thought longingly of Cornwall.

I admonished myself that I was falling into my old habit of building up a fantasy world. What was there so different about Lancarron compared with this little French village?

The days began to pass quickly. The long evenings had come. We no longer ate in the courtyard. Marie lit the oil lamps and we spent evenings playing piquet or looking through the press cuttings which Everton had pasted into a book; but that, of course, could often end in melancholy so I always tried for piquet.

I began to wonder what I should do with my life. Could I take some sort of post? What could I do? What did impoverished gentlewomen do? They became governesses or companions; there was little else for them. I could see myself as a companion to someone like my mother … spending a lifetime playing piquet or listening to reminiscences of past glories.

I was restive. I wanted to get away.

Then the bombshell came in the form of a letter from Olivia.

“My dear Caroline,

“I don’t know how to write this. I don’t know what you will think. It has been going on for some time and I have often been on the point of telling you and have decided against it. But you will have to know sometime.

“I am engaged to be married.

“You know they never thought I would be, but it has happened. I could be very happy, but for one thing. Oh, I don’t know what you will think of me, but I have to do it, Caroline. You see, I love him. I always have … even when he was engaged to you.

“Yes, it is Jeremy. He was very sad when your engagement had to be broken. He has told me all about it. He did realize though that he was completely fascinated by you but it was not really lasting love. He discovered that in time. He felt you were too young to know your own mind. Before, you know, he had noticed me, but when you came along he saw only you. He really loves me now, Caroline. I know he does. And I could never be happy without him. So we are going to be married.

“Aunt Imogen is delighted. But she insists that we wait till a year after my father’s death before the marriage can take place. And then it will be very quiet.

“Caroline, I hope you will have got over all that by now. I hope you won’t hate and despise me for this. But I do truly love him and did even when he was engaged to you.

“He would be very happy if you could forgive him.

“Dear Caroline, do try to understand.

“Your ever loving sister, Olivia.”

I was stunned when I read that letter.

The barefaced effrontery! The toad! The snake! I said: “Jeremy Brandon, how can you be so despicable? You were determined to enjoy Robert Tressidor’s fortune, weren’t you? And if you could not get it through one sister, you would through the other.”

I began to laugh bitterly, wildly; and my laughter was near to tears.

I sat down and thought of how different it might have been. I saw myself in that little house in Knightsbridge. How happy I might have been if he had been different, if he had been the man I had believed him to be—not just another of my fantasies!

I could not face anyone yet. I wanted to shut myself away. I went out of the house and walked for miles. I could not bear to talk to anyone for fear I should betray my fury, my resentment, my bitter, bitter anger.

I felt no better when I returned home.

I sat down and wrote a letter to Olivia.

“How can you be so gullible? Don’t you see him for the fortune hunter he is? He is not marrying you. He is marrying your father’s money. Of course he transferred his affections to you. He thought I should have a share of the money, that was why he fell so passionately in love. He’s in love all right … but not with you, dear sister, any more than he was with me. He is in love with money.

“Olivia, for heaven’s sake don’t ruin your life by giving way to this schemer …”

And so on in such a strain.

Fortunately I did not post that letter.

That evening I had to talk of it. I supposed my mother would be informed in due course of her daughter’s proposed marriage.

She had not noticed that I was different, though it must have been obvious. Marie had asked if I felt quite well. But my mother never saw anything that did not relate directly to herself.

I said: “Olivia is engaged.”

“Olivia! At last! I thought she never would be. Who is the man?”

“You’ll never guess. It is Jeremy Brandon who was engaged to me until he heard that your husband was not my father and consequently had left me nothing. Then his affections declined. However, they have now settled on Olivia, who can keep him in that state to which he aspires.”

“Well,” she said, “at least it is a husband for Olivia.”

“Mama,” I cried reproachfully, “how can you talk so?”

She replied: “It’s the way of the world.”

“Then I want no part of that world.”

“But you are part of it.”

“It is not the whole world. I do not want to live among the bargain hunters.”

She sighed. “What can an impecunious young man do? You wouldn’t have been happy living in poverty. Look at me.”

“Do you not believe in love, Mama?”

She was quiet for a moment, looking into the past, seeing no doubt the handsome Captain. But even his own love had not survived the lack of money. That was what had made love turn cold for her more surely than another woman could have done.

“I’ve no doubt Olivia is delighted,” she said. “Poor child. She didn’t have many chances, did she? She’ll be happy enough and glad, no doubt, that it all turned out as it did.”