Филиппа Карр - The Song of the Siren

I am lonely. The days seem endless. Hour after hour I lie here on my couch and I tell myself that my life is over. It never began really.

I was happy. I was on the threshold of what had seemed a great adventure. Then suddenly it was over. I saw everything I had dreamed of shattered in one revealing instant.

And then it was that this further blow was delivered.

It sometimes seems that life is not content with taking happiness from one, then decides that there is something else that can be done to make life more intolerable.

I lost the man I loved on one dark November day-and that night was stricken with a terrible illness which has made an invalid of me ever since.

Oh, I am surrounded by love. No girl could have parents who loved and cherished her more than mine do. I have been shown in a thousand ways that I am the centre of their lives. They blame themselves for what happened to me; and they are not to blame, but how I tell them without involving Carlotta?

I do not want to think of Carlotta. I cannot bear to think of Carlotta. Sometimes her image creeps into my mind and I tell myself that I hate her.

But I see her there in my mind-that almost unbelievable beauty. I used to think: No one has any right to be as beautiful as Carlotta. Everything was given to her.

It was as though the powers above who decide how we shall be had been in a very happy mood when they planned for Carlotta. She shall have everything ... everything ... they said.

And so she had. I had often seen the way in which men looked at her when she came into a room; she had only to look at them and they were at her side. I admired her so much. I was so proud that she should be my sister.

Now I understand more than I did. My mother has shown me her journal. I know about Carlotta’s romantic birth in Venice and the terrible thing that happened to my mother.

I know about that wicked man who died and who killed him and the terrible suspicions my parents had of each other. It explains everything. I understand why my father had to shoot Belle and bury her. If only I had known of what my parents had suffered I should not have gone to Belle’s grave when I saw Matt and Carlotta together.

I had been shocked, it was true, for I thought that it was not only Matt who had deceived me. It was also my kind father, who had secrets to preserve because of which he had killed an innocent animal. So I thought but it was not quite like that.

And because of my ignorance I had suffered with them.

Had I been more knowledgeable in worldly matters I might have suspected the attraction between Matt and Carlotta. It would have hurt me deeply of course but I would not have suffered that fearful shock. I would have been prepared for my discovery.

But what was the use of going over it. It was over. It was done, Matt had gone out of my life. I saw little of Carlotta-nor did I want to see her, for that was too painful. But I had loved her dear little daughter and I should have liked to know her better.

It was strange, but when that child came I felt new interest in life. Since that terrible night I had not been interested in anything at all, but the child came and when we were together I forgot my grievances against her mother. I loved the way in which she demanded to know the answers to every question that occurred to her, I loved to play games with her. “I Spy” was the favourite. I would hint at what I was looking at and she had to guess. She would ponder seriously until she found the answer and shriek with delight when she was right.

It was love at first sight between us.

One day when I was lying on my couch I heard her playing in the garden; she was shouting and chanting as she bounced a ball; then suddenly there was silence. I listened and the silence went on. I suppose it was only a minute or two but it seemed like five.

I had the terrible suspicion that something might be wrong. She had fallen and hurt herself. She had wandered too far away.

I got up from my couch and ran to the window. She was lying on the grass watching something there ... some insect. I saw her stretch out a wary finger and touch something.

It was probably an ant.

I went back to my couch; and then I remembered that I had run to the window. I had not run anywhere since that terrible night. I had walked only with the utmost difficulty.

It was a revelation. I found after that that I could walk about my room a little.

I knew that visiting us was embarrassing to Carlotta because she found it difficult to face me; so we saw little of her and that meant not seeing the child.

But I thought a great deal about her. I often thought of little things that used to happen when I was well and roaming about the countryside. My special love of plants and birds and animals had made that a delight for me. There were so many stories of living things that I had known and now I wanted to tell them to Clarissa.

Then I heard the news which shattered my family. Carlotta had been abducted and taken to France; Clarissa was with her.

There was terrible consternation. Harriet came over to see and tell us what she knew.

My mother told me afterwards because since I had been ill she told me things. I think she felt that had I not been in ignorance of what had happened I would not have gone into the forbidden wood that night but would have come straight home, in which case I could probably have been nursed back to health.

What she told me was this: “Harriet says that Carlotta has been taken away by a man called Lord Hessenfield who is an important Jacobite. He was known to be in the neighbourhood. He made his escape to France.

And has taken Clarissa with him. What is not generally known is that Lord Hessenfield is Clarissa’s father.”

Then Harriet told us how Carlotta had been captured by these Jacobites when she was at the Black Boar Inn on her way to Eyot Abbass and that Lord Hessenfield had raped her. The result was that she was pregnant and Benjie had married her to help, as Harriet said, “straighten matters out.” Benjie had long been in love with her and eagerly grasped the opportunity to marry her. So Clarissa is the daughter of Hessenfield.

He must have cared something for Carlotta to risk his life to take her back with him. That she had been taken by force was clear because her cloak came off in the struggle and was found in the shrubbery. It seemed likely that Clarissa had been taken before, because she was missing some hours before Carlotta was forced to go.

It all seemed wildly incredible. But Carlotta was born to be the centre of storm.

Moreover, when I considered what had happened to my parents I wondered whether almost all of us did not at some time have to face unusual and stormy episodes in our lives.

Even I had once had a frightening adventure with Good Mrs. Brown. For a long time after that I used to let my imagination run on as I pictured all sorts of horrible consequences which could have ensued. I had never really grown away from it and occasionally had a nightmare.

We have a tenant at Enderby Hall. It amazed me that anyone should take the place.

It was so gloomy and had this reputation of being haunted. One or two people came to see it. My mother or my father and sometimes my grandmother from Eversleigh Court showed them over it. In fact people were more inclined to go to Eversleigh Court than to the Dower House.

I remember the day my grandmother came to tell us about this man who had come.

We were all sitting in my room because my mother always brought visitors to me. She had some notion that it cheered me.

My grandmother said: “I cannot think why he came to see it. He seemed determined to dislike everything even before he saw it and heaven knows it is easy enough to find fault with Enderby.”