Филиппа Карр - The Song of the Siren

“Madame,” I said, “this is a very unfortunate time to call. My husband is very ill.”

“I know. Who better? You too are very ill-more ill than you know. I have not escaped.

They are deadly. I have handled them too much.”

I caught at a chair. I should have fallen otherwise.

“Madame, please go. I am going to call the servants. I have too much to concern me ...”

“This concerns you,” she said. “This concerns you deeply. You must start at once to repent of your sins.”

“Sins ... ?”

“You have committed many ... so has my lord Hessenfield.... You have committed sins against me and mine ... and I determined to have my revenge.”

“Please explain then if you must.”

“For a moment at Versailles I thought you knew me. We have met once before.”

I said: “In the Oeil de Boeuf. ...”

“No, not there. In Enderby Hall. Do you remember Beth Pilkington?”

“Beth Pilkington! You ... ?”

Then I remembered. She had had amazing red hair then. It was easy to change that.

I saw her face fall into the lines I remembered. She was a good actress. She had looked and acted the part of a woman of French nobility to perfection.

“I came to see Enderby Hall. You showed me round. I was coming down to find out what had become of Beaumont Granville. I did find out in time.”

“Beau? What was he to you?”

“My lover ... for years. I was his favourite mistress. He said he would marry me if I could give him a son. He wanted children ... he wanted a son.”

I stared at her unbelievingly.

“Yes,” she went on. “You put an end to that. Oh, do not think I blame you for that.

It was not your fault. You came along. You had everything to offer him. Good looks, your own kind of fascination, youth ... and a fortune. Most important of all, a fortune.

But for that fortune Beau would have married me. I already had my beautiful son ...his son.”

“Matt, you mean.”

“Yes, Matt!”

I understood then why I had been attracted by him. I had thought he reminded me of Beau because of a faint resemblance which I had believed was merely that of one dandy for another. I thought of the button I had found in Enderby Hall; the lingering odour of musk. Beau’s son, of course, who perhaps had been wearing a coat with gold buttons which had belonged to his father-who had been brought up with a taste for the musk scent.

“I came to that place to find out what had happened to Beaumont,” she went on. “I was sure that if he had fled abroad-which seemed plausible enough-he would have let me know at some time. Our association had lasted from the day we met. I was always there in the background, whatever other women there were. He looked on me as a wife and but for you ... when my child was born .. . But that is of no importance now.

I want you to understand how it happened. I came down to find out where Beau had gone ... and I did. The dog had been his dog. Matt took her when Beau went. The dog found his shoe. That was why she died.”

“Where ... ?” I murmured.

“Under the soil in that patch of land where people were forbidden to go. He was buried there by your mother’s husband.”

I gasped. “I don’t believe it.”

“He killed the dog but he did not kill Beau. That was Christabel Willerby. Beau was blackmailing her and she shot him; your father buried the body thinking that your mother had done it. If you knew all the details it falls naturally into place, but that is not why I am here. You are innocent of Beau’s death.”

”I think, Mistress Pilkington, that you are imagining these things. You are suffering from hallucinations. You are ill.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It is the end for us all-for me no less than you. I want you to know but I want you to understand. I wanted my son to be happy. He would have been with your sister. She is a good girl. It made me happy to see how gradually they began to love each other. She was the girl I wanted for him. She was different from anyone he was likely to meet in London. He realised her virtues. She would have provided him with a steadying background ... the sort I had never been able to give him. I wanted that for him.”

She looked at me malevolently and put her hand to her heart. She was growing breathless.

“But you spoilt it,” she went on. “He followed you here ... and he was murdered.

But for you he would be alive to this day. My only son. He was everything to me.

All my life was centered round him. But you lured him here and then Lord Hessenfield killed him ... had him murdered and his body thrown in the Seine.”

“You are wrong,” I cried. “That was not how it happened. He was a spy. He did not come here for me. He came to spy against the Jacobites.”

“He came because of you. That was his excuse for coming. He came for you.”

“It is not true. He worked here with a nursery governess in this household. He was caught.... There were papers on him that proved him to be a spy.”

She shook her head. “I know my son. He was like his father. He would pursue what he wanted until it was his. He wanted you and he came here to get you and Hessenfield was jealous. He is hard and a ruthless man. He killed him. I heard about it. I was told that it was a crime passionnel.”

“You are wrong ... wrong....”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It is the end,” she said. “Soon for me and for you.

You must die. I knew that there was something fatalistic about you when I met you in that house. Beauty such as yours has something evil in it. It is not a gift from God but from the devil.”

She was looking at me strangely, her eyes glittering. She is mad, I thought. The death of Matt has unhinged her mind.

“You are like the legendary mermaid who sits on the rock singing and luring mariners to come to her, and to go to her is certain death, jt is ... the song of the siren.

Come to me and I will be all to you that you most desire. That is the song. But it is not so. You are luring them to death.”

“This is nonsense, Mistress Pilkington.”

She shook her head. “Beau died because of you. But for you he would not have gone down to Eversleigh. He would not have found that woman he was blackmailing. He would have been alive today. I might have been married to him. Matt would be here. But you came with your strange wild beauty. It was more than your fortune he wanted.

So he pursued you and found not a beautiful bride and a fortune, but death. Then Matt, he heard your song too. He was lured into the rocks of destiny. And where did it lead? To death in the Seine. My son ... my darling son ... And your husband-what unhappiness have you brought to him? Even your present lover, Hessenfield, has not escaped. He thought he was clever. He thought he was in command ... but Death is waiting for him now....”

“I must ask you to go,” I said. “I have much to do.”

“Yes, make a shroud for your lover. Make one for yourself. .. and for me....”

I felt sick with horror, for I knew that she was telling the truth.

She went on: “I planned to destroy you. It is better that no others should suffer through you. Three men all dead ... and all because of you-although I do not blame you for Beau. You see, you are disaster. You are the siren. Even involuntarily you deal death. You have to go. There is no way for it. I contrived the meeting. I disguised myself for fear you should remember me. But we met only once and I was one of the best actresses on the London stage. I listened to all I could of those long ago poison trials. I talked to people who remembered ... and I decided what I should do. I did not believe that there could be poisons which could be transmitted through the skin.

But there are ? ? ? there are.... And if you know where to go for them and if you are Prepared to pay ... So I went and I paid and I had the gloves made. Lord Hessenfield has been more virulently attacked. He must have worn the gloves I sent him for a long time.