Philippa Carr - Voices in a Haunted Room

He came after me calling my name.

We stood outside together and I locked the door with trembling hands. I felt that I had locked out that part of my life.

Then I ran back to Eversleigh and all the time I was thinking: That voice… Whose voice? The voice of someone who knows my guilty secret.

A NEW YEAR HAD begun. I had not been alone with Jonathan since that visit to Enderby. I avoided him and I felt my determination growing stronger. My mother noticed that there was something wrong with me. She insisted that I retire early and I was only too glad to do so. I wanted to be alone to think of what I had done and whether I should ever escape from it.

Then the most appalling suspicion came to me that I might be going to have a child and this presented such a disastrous possibility that I refused at first to consider the idea. That was foolish, of course. If it were so, I must face it. I wanted a child. I always had. But if it should be happening now, how should I know who the father was?

I had thought that I could finish my relationship with Jonathan and grow away from it. But if what I feared was true, how could I ever do that? All through my life there would be a constant reminder of my guilt.

I had nightmares. I dreamed I was in that room and the voice was going on and on reminding me that I was a sinful woman, that I had offended against the laws of God and nature. I had acted with callous wantonness towards a husband who was the kindest man in the world.

I think my love for David had grown greater in those days which followed Christmas and it made me even more aware of the enormity of what I had done. I would have given anything to wipe out the last months, to go back to being the innocent young woman I once was, a woman of honour and integrity, a woman who appreciated that she was married to a good man.

How easy it is to repent when one sees the folly of one’s ways! How easy to make excuses—youth, inexperience, excessive emotion, undreamed-of sensuality… all these might apply, but there was no excuse.

The guests had departed and Christmas was over.

Aunt Sophie was planning to move into Enderby in February and my mother was trying to dissuade her. But Sophie was eager to go.

“A big house like that needs warming up,” my mother reminded her.

“We can manage. Jeanne and I will engage the servants, settle them in for a week and then we shall be ready.”

I thought that in a way my mother would be relieved when she had gone. She told me that Sophie always made her feel guilty, and I, who knew great guilt, understood how it gnawed at one’s peace of mind—although my mother had nothing to feel guilty about.

“I suppose,” she said, “that people who are maimed like that sometimes have a way of making you feel in the wrong, particularly when… Oh but you know she was betrothed to your father before I married him.”

“Yes, and she refused to marry him.”

“It’s true, and it was some time after when I married him.”

“It’s all so long ago. Do people ever forget?”

“They remember as long as they want to. They keep the memory alive. They get a certain satisfaction in keeping old wounds from healing.”

I shivered.

“Claudine, you are not feeling quite yourself, are you?”

I started. “I’m perfectly all right,” I said.

“I thought about getting Dr. Meadows to call in and have a look at you.”

“Oh no, Maman, no.” I spoke in panic.

She put her arm round me. “All right. Wait and see how you go.”

Jonathan went to London at the beginning of the new year.

“There’s a great deal of secret activity going on,” said David to me in the quietness of our bedroom. “It’s not only the war but the situation generally. What is happening in France has sent its reverberations all over Europe. There can’t be one monarch who feels very comfortable when considering what has happened to the King and Queen of France. They must wonder if that sort of thing could spread to other countries.”

“Do you think it could happen here?”

“It’s what people fear, but I have a feeling we shall escape. We are not of the same temperament as the French and not nearly so likely to go in for that sort of revolution.”

“We have had our riots. We even had a civil war last century.”

“Yes, and perhaps it is too close in living memory for people to want anything like that again.”

“And we did behead our King as they have Louis and Marie Antoinette.”

“And restored a new monarch little more than ten years later. Moreover we have not the same reason here. Do you think the merchants of London want riots in the streets? They are too comfortably off. But agitators can do plenty of harm and there are criminals and vagrants who have nothing to lose. They could cause trouble.”

“Do we still have these agitators here then?”

“I am sure of it. Jonathan and my father know a great deal, though they say little. Jonathan is taking over from my father, I think. They don’t talk to me about it—which is quite right. Only those who are involved know what is going on.”

“Your father does not tell even my mother of his secret work.”

“He can tell no one, of course… not even Lottie. But I think he now does less of this work because of her.”

I nodded and he put his arm about me and went on: “Are you sure nothing is wrong, Claudine?”

“Wrong?” I hoped my voice did not betray my fear.

“I thought you seemed preoccupied, as though… I don’t quite know. Are you sure you are feeling quite well?”

I leaned against him and he put his arm about me. I was terrified that in a few moments I should confess. I must not. Jonathan was right about one thing. David must never know. Perhaps if it had been someone else he might have forgiven me. I was sure he would for he was of a forgiving nature. But his own brother! And how was I going to cope with Jonathan’s actually living in the same house?

I forced myself to silence.

“Your mother thinks you should see the doctor,” he said.

I shook my head. “I’m perfectly all right.”

I assumed a gaiety I did not feel and I believed I managed to deceive him, as I had in that other matter.

Jonathan was in London for two weeks that January. I felt easier when he was out of the way, even though that which had occurred to me as a possibility had become a certainty.

I was pregnant after all.

I had told no one as yet. How could I tell David that I was to have a child which might not be his?

I kept my secret for two weeks. At times the prospect of a child overshadowed all else and for a brief spell my joy was boundless until I remembered that I did not know who the child’s father was.

Jonathan came back from London. He was a little preoccupied; something of importance had evidently transpired there. As soon as he returned he was closeted with Dickon, and when they emerged Dickon looked very serious.

At dinner that evening Jonathan wanted to know how Enderby was progressing.

“It’s full of workmen at the moment,” I said pointedly.

“We shan’t know the place,” he replied.

“Sophie insists on going in in early February,” said my mother. “I think she is unwise. She should wait till spring.”

“What of the servants?”

“Jeanne is engaging them. I thank Heaven for Jeanne. She is doing most of the work. Were you busy in London?”

“Very.” He smiled at her in a manner which said: No more questions please. He looked at his father and said: “You remember Jennings—Tom or was it Jack—he’s been transported for publishing seditious literature.”

“Transported! Surely not!” said Dickon.

“Yes, seven years to Botany Bay.”

“Wasn’t that rather harsh?”

“Not as things are. He was lauding Danton and stressing the wrongdoing of the monarchy in France and the rights of the people. Louis and the Queen were the bad ones and Danton and company the heroes.”

“So there is real concern.”

“You can call it that. It’s right, of course. They have to be scented out. It was people like that who started the trouble in France.”

“But transportation!” said Dickon. “That is a little harsh.”

“I hope,” said my mother, “that you are not thinking of making any more trips to London.”

“Not just yet,” Dickon assured her.

“And you, Jonathan?” asked my mother.

He lifted his shoulders, and his eyes rested on me. “I hope to spend a little time here among the joys of Eversleigh.”

“How nice that you appreciate your home,” said my mother lightly.

“Oh I do,” he replied. “I do indeed.”

When we were leaving the room I said to him: “I must talk to you.”

“When?” he asked eagerly.

“Tomorrow. I shall ride in the morning, at ten o’clock.”

The next morning I rode out alone and he was soon at my side.

“What of the house? Let’s go there.”

I replied quickly: “No. I don’t intend to go to Enderby with you again. Moreover it would be impossible now even if—”

“Where shall we go then?”

“I just want to talk to you, Jonathan.”

“I had to go away, you know. I hated leaving you. It was urgent business.”

“It’s nothing to do with that.”

We turned off the road and into a field, where we pulled up.

“Jonathan,” I said, “I’m going to have a child.”

He looked at me in amazement.

“It’s not so surprising, is it?” I went on.

“David’s…?”

“How could I be sure?”

He stared at me and I saw the corners of his mouth twitch.