Drop of the Dice Read Free Page A

this concern. As I grew older I began to learn certain things. This was mainly from the servants who came from the Court. They didn’t like coming to Enderby and yet in a way it was an adventure and I think they acquired a little merit from their fellow servants for having come. They would go back to Eversleigh Court and for a while be the centre of attraction. I was enormously interested in people and I had an avid curiosity to discover what was in their minds. I had quickly discovered that people rarely meant what they said and very often words veiled meanings rather than expressed them. I used to listen to the servants talking. I would unashamedly eavesdrop. In defence of myself I must say that I had been made aware that I had had an unusual upbringing and that there were certain facts which had been kept from me; and of course the person I wished to know most about was myself.
    Once I heard two servants talking together in the great hall. I was in the minstrels’ gallery. Sounds floated up to me while I remained unseen.
    ‘That Jeremy… he was always a queer customer.’
    There were grunts of agreement.
    ‘Lived by himself with one manservant. Just that Smith and himself… and that dog keeping everyone away.’
    ‘Well, all that’s changed now Miss Damaris is here.’
    ‘And then her going to France like that.’
    ‘It was a brave thing to do.’
    ‘I’ll grant her that. She’s a little baggage, that Miss Clarissa.’
    My excitement grew. So I was a baggage!
    ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if she went the way of her mother. That Miss Carlotta was a regular One. She was so good-looking they say no man could resist her.’
    ‘Go on!’
    ‘Yes, and wasn’t it shameful the way she went and left poor Mr Benjie. Abducted! Abducted, my foot!’
    ‘Well, it’s over now and she’s dead, ain’t she?’
    ‘Hm. Wages of sin, you might say.’
    ‘And Madame Clarissa will be such another. You mark my words.’
    ‘They say the sins of the fathers and all that.’
    ‘You’ll see. We’ll have sparks there. Just you wait till she gets a bit older. You going to do the minstrels’?’
    ‘I suppose so. Gives me the creeps, that place.’
    ‘It’s the part that was haunted. You can change the curtains and things but what good does that do? New curtains ain’t going to drive ghosts away.’
    ‘A haunted house is always a haunted house, they say.’
    ‘That’s true. This is a house for trouble. It’ll come again… lawns and flower-beds, new curtains and carpets notwithstanding. I’ll come up in the gallery with you if you like. I know you don’t want to go up there alone. Let’s finish down here first.’
    That gave me a chance to escape.
    So my beautiful mother had acted shamefully. She had left Benjie for my father, Lord Hessenfield. Vague memories came back to me… of a night in the shrubbery, being lifted in strong arms… the smell of the sea and the excitement of being on a ship. Yes, I was deeply involved in that shameful adventure; in fact I was a result of it.
    It was later that I learned the story; in those days I was piecing it together from what I could pick up from gossip and what I could remember.
    There were tensions in the household. Jeremy had what were known as ‘moods’ from which even Damaris could not always rouse him. Then he appeared to be very sad and it was something to do with his bad leg which had been hurt in battle and gave him pain at times. Then Damaris herself had days when she was not well. She tried to hide the fact but I could see that behind the brightness it was there.
    She longed for a child.
    One day when we were sitting together she told me she was going to have a baby. I had known something tremendous had happened because even Jeremy looked as though he was never going to have a mood again and Smith kept chuckling to himself.
    I looked forward to the coming of the baby. I would look after it, I said. I would sing it some French songs which Jeanne used to sing to me.