Drop of the Dice Read Free Page B

The household buzzed with preparations. Grandmother Priscilla was constantly fussing over Damaris and Grandfather Leigh behaved as though she were made of china. Great-Grandmother Arabella was always giving advice and Great-Grandfather Carleton kept muttering ‘Women!’
    It struck me that when there was a baby I should no longer be ‘the child’; and Damaris’s own would be more dear to her than I, the adopted one, who was only her niece. That was a faintly depressing thought but I put it aside and threw myself into the general excitement.
    I shall never forget that day. Damaris started to have pains in the middle of the night. Grandmother Priscilla was at Enderby and the midwife was there too. Some of the servants from the Court had been sent over.
    I heard the commotion and got out of bed and ran to Damaris’s room. I was met by a worried Priscilla. ‘Go back to your room at once,’ she said, more sternly than she had ever spoken to me before. I obeyed, and when I went again I was told by one of the servants; ‘Get from under our feet. This is no place for you.’
    So I went back and waited in my room. I was terribly frightened, for I sensed all was not well. It was like being back in the cellar again. What was happening could mean change. I was still at that time clinging to my security.
    The waiting seemed to go on and on and when it was finally over all the joyous expectancy had gone from the house. It was dreary and sad. The baby was stillborn and Damaris was very ill. Nobody seemed to notice me. There were talks between the grandparents. This time I was not mentioned. It was all Poor Damaris and what this would mean to her. And she was desperately ill. Jeremy was sunk in gloom; there was a bitter twist to his mouth. I was sure he believed Damaris was going to die as well as the baby.
    Grandmother Priscilla was going to stay at Enderby for a while to look after her daughter. Benjie came over. He said he would take me back to Eyot Abbas, and to my chagrin no attempt was made to dissuade him from doing so.
    So I went to Eyot Abbas, there to find that same loving concentration of affection which I had known at Enderby.
    Benjie loved me dearly. He would have liked me to stay there and be his daughter. Oddly enough, when I was at Eyot Abbas memories came flooding back to me. I remembered being there and how I used to play in the gardens with my nurse in attendance. And most of all I remembered the day when Hessenfield took me away to the excitement of the ship and the hôtel, which culminated in the cold and menacing. cellar with Jeanne as my only protector.
    I could not help being intrigued by Harriet, and as her husband Gregory was so gentle and kind I could have been very happy at Eyot Abbas if it had not meant leaving Damaris, with whom I had a very special relationship.
    This must have happened about the year. 1710, for I was eight years old. But I suppose what had happened to me had made me somewhat precocious. Harriet thought so, anyway.
    Harriet and I were alike in a way. We were both enormously interested in people and that meant that we learned a good deal about them.
    She was an amazing woman; she had an indestructible beauty. She must have been very old—she would never tell us how old—but the years seemed to have left her untouched. She dismissed them, and try as they might they could not encroach on her with any real effect. Her hair was dark still. ‘I will pass on the secret before I go, Clarissa,’ she said, with a smile which was as mischievous as it must have been when she was my age. In addition to this dark rippling hair she had the bluest of eyes; and if they were embedded in wrinkles, they were alive with the spirit of eternal youth.
    She took me in hand and spent a lot of time with me. She probed me, asking many questions, all about the past,
    ‘You’re old enough to know the truth about yourself,’ she said. ‘I reckon you have your eyes and ears wide open for what you can pick up,