The Song of the Siren Read Free Page B

about six feet tall and a little older than Leigh, I imagine.
    He had a very military bearing and there was no doubt that he was a soldier. There was a scar on his right cheek to confirm this. It added to rather than detracted from his rugged good looks.
    I had an idea that he might have come to persuade Leigh to come back to the army.
    A thought I was sure could not have occurred to my mother or her welcome would not have been so warm.
    At dinner there was a great deal of talk about the old army days and Leigh quite clearly enjoyed these reminiscences.
    The General talked about the King, whom he clearly did not like. “The Dutchman,”
    he called
    him and used the term as one of contempt; and when he mentioned his name
    his colour deepened and the scar showed up whiter in contrast to the reddish tinge of his skin.
    We left them talking together over their wine and my mother said to me: “He is a charming man but I hope he is not reminding Leigh too much of his life in the army.
    He talks about it as though it is some sort of paradise.”
    My father would never want to leave you again, mother,” said Damaris.
    My mother smiled. Then she said: “I wonder why the General came?”
    “It is because he was passing on his way to Netherby Hall,” said Damaris. “He said so.”
    I smiled at my dear innocent sister. She believed everything everyone said.
    The next day was Sunday and we were going to Eversleigh to dine, as we always did on Sundays. Although Leigh and my mother had bought the Dower House, they both regarded Eversleigh as their home. I had lived part of my life there and my mother all her life until recently. Damaris had been born there and it was only within the last year or so that Leigh had bought the Dower House. There was a walk of five minutes between the two houses and my grandparents became indignant if we did not call frequently.
    I loved Eversleigh, although perhaps Harriet’s Eyot Abbass was more like home to me.
    It was dinnertime and we were all at table in the great hall. My grandmother Arabella Eversleigh loved to have us all together. Damaris was a special favourite of hers, in a way that I could never be but my grandfather Carleton had always had a special feeling for He was a most unconventional man, of fiery temper, arrogant obstinate.
    I felt especially drawn towards him and I believe he to me. I think he was rather amused by the fact that I was his daughter’s bastard and there was a grudging admiration in him because my mother had
    defied conventions and produced me. I liked Grandfather Carleton. I fancied our characters were not dissimilar.
    The house had been built in the days of Elizabeth in the E style with a wing on either side of the main great hall. I was attracted by that hall with its rough stone walls and I liked the armoury which adorned it. There was a military tradition in the Eversleigh family. Carleton had only briefly been a soldier; he had stayed home after the Civil War to hold the estates until the Restoration; the part he had played, I had always heard had demanded far more courage than a soldier needed and infinitely more skill; for he had posed as a Roundhead when his sympathies were Royalist in the extreme and so saved Eversleigh for posterity. I could well imagine his doing that. Every time he looked up at the vaulted ceiling with its broad oak beams, every time he glanced at the family tree which had been painted over the great fireplace, he must have reminded himself: If it had not been for my courage and resource during those Commonwealth years all this would have been lost.
    Yes, the military history of the family was apparent everywhere. Leigh had been a soldier until recently; my grandmother Arabella’s son by her first marriage was Edwin, the present Lord Eversleigh, and he was away from home now in the army. Jane-a rather colourless female-and their son, Carleton-called Carl to distinguish him from Carleton-lived at Eversleigh, which was indeed Edwin’s,