Филиппа Карр - The Song of the Siren

Then as I watched a woman came hurrying along the street. She had black hair tied back and she was carrying a basket of violets.

Wild excitement filled me. It was almost like a command. A flower seller. Perhaps she would be the one. She was coming up towards the hotel but on the other side of the street. She was walking hurriedly ... going home, I guessed, with her unsold flowers.

There was no time to lose. I must run if I was going to catch her before she disappeared.

I snatched up my cloak and ran out of the inn.

I caught a glimpse of her as she was turning the corner. I ran as fast as I could.

She was halfway up the next street.

“Mademoiselle,” I called. “Mademoiselle ...”

She turned and looked at me.

“Violettes,” she cried, a smile illuminating her face. She held a bunch to me.

I shook my head. I said: “Jeanne ... Jeanne ... You are called Jeanne. Vous appelez Jeanne. ...” I stumbled.

“Jeanne ... mot,” she cried.

I said: “There is a little girl “

She repeated: “A little girl ...”

“Clarissa ...”

She smiled. “Clarissa,” she repeated.

I struggled to find the words I needed. My heart was beating so fiercely that I could not get my breath. It was due to the exertion of running and the fact that she was smiling and nodding, which might mean ... anything.

She started to walk away beckoning me. ... I followed. She looked over her shoulders and quickened her pace.

I said: “I am looking for a little girl. .. .”

“Oui, out,”she said. Then slowly and in laborious English: “A little girl.”

“I must find her. ... I must. ...”

She continued to smile and I followed.

We had come to narrow streets. It would be dark soon. A terrible fear came over me.

What was I doing? How did I know who this woman was? So had I been lured by Good Mrs. Brown.

So many thoughts crowded into my head. You were lucky then. What could await you if you act foolishly again? I thought of the house opposite ... of the little girl in the shift ... of the painted women and the smug matrons who guarded them. And a terrible fear overcame me.

I should have waited for Jeremy. If I had, this woman would have passed on. Something had impelled me to follow her. The violets she carried had seemed symbolic. I had gone out to buy violets when I was met by Good Mrs. Brown.

Go back now. You could find your way. Tell the girl to come to the inn. She will if she is honest.

But suppose she does not, suppose she is Jeanne. Suppose I have not made myself clear.

Suppose she could lead me to Clarissa.

And all the time I was going on.

We were in narrow alleyways now. But I could still run.

It was a battle with myself. I had time now. I could find my way back. I could get to the inn before darkness fell. And yet I went on. Because I kept seeing Clarissa.

Clarissa like the little girl in the spangled shift. I must find her. I must. I must.

I dare not leave any avenue unexplored. We have had days of failure. Can this be the end of the road?

The girl had smiled implying her name was Jeanne. She had nodded when I mentioned Clarissa’s name. She had even repeated it.

Don’t be a fool, of course she would. She is well versed in the art of villainy.

Go. Go while there is time. Talk to Jeremy. Tell him. Bring him with you.

But still I went on.

The girl had stopped. We were before one of the small houses all huddled together and almost touching the one opposite.

She pushed open a door and beckoned to me to follow.

I hesitated. I could come back here tomorrow with Jeremy. I should go now. It was unsafe to enter.

But I had to go on. “She is here,” something inside me said. The girl has violets ... and it was violets before. There is something significant in that.

I followed her down a flight of stairs.

I was right back to the days when I was a child in London ... following in the wake of Good Mrs. Brown.

A door was pushed open. It was the scene all over again. I might have stepped back over the years. I thought, they are going to take my clothes and send me naked into the streets.

There was an old woman there. She said: “That you, Jeanne?”

I cried out: “The child. The child. Where is the child?”

Something moved on the floor. It looked like a bundle of old clothes.

Then I heard a voice cry: “Aunt Damaris.”

And the bundle of rags was in my arms.

I knelt on the floor, holding her.

I had found Clarissa. And more ... I had found myself.

Jeanne took us back to the inn and I was deliriously happy.

I shrieked for Jeremy. He stood there looking at us, his eyes shining. They went from the child to me and they lingered on me.

It was a wonderful moment.

Jeanne was talking volubly to Jeremy. She had been dismissed from the house; there was no work; she had gone back to flower selling. It was a poor living. She had kept the child because Lady Hessenfield had said: “My sister will certainly come for her.”

“She was so sure, monsieur,” said Jeanne, “that I believed her. How happy I am. It is no life for the child.”

“We must do something for them. They are very poor. She must be compensated.”

Jeremy told Jeanne that we were going to look after her and her mother.

We would find some means of doing so.

I had one or two pieces of jewelry which I gave her. I said she could come to England with us and be Clarissa’s nurse.

Her mother was ill, she said, and she could not leave her, but perhaps one day ...

One thing I was determined on was that Jeanne was going to be taken out of that squalid room.

It was necessary to clean Clarissa and provide her with clothes, which I did most joyously. And how happy she was to be with me. Jeanne had been kind to her and never allowed her to go selling flowers alone, though she had been out with Jeanne once or twice. She chattered about her beautiful mother and her wonderful father as though they were a god and goddess, and since they had not been quite of this earth she did not seem surprised that they had departed for celestial regions.

Oh, they were happy days with Clarissa! The love which had sprung up between us on our first meeting was growing stronger every day. We were necessary to each other-she to me no less than I to her.

The journey over to England could not be delayed. On the day before we left, Jeremy told me that he had found a place for Jeanne with one of his friends and she could take her mother with her.

I said: “That’s wonderful. Life is good, is it not?”

“I am glad you find it so,” he said.

I was bold enough to touch his hand.

“I shall never forget what I owe you,” I told him.

He turned away.

Clarissa was delighted with everything that happened, though she was a little sad to leave Jeanne but I told her one day I intended Jeanne to come to England to be with us and that satisfied her.

She was full of questions as she had ever been, but her adventures had sobered her and brought her out of childhood in spite of her youth.

She asked why and how as often as ever but she asked thoughtfully now, and listened carefully to the answers.

How different it was going back! I was so joyous I sang a great deal to myself. Clarissa joined in when she knew the songs and so we rode along. She sat with me sometimes ... sometimes with Jeremy. The journey was a great delight to her.

We reached the coast. Again we were lucky and blessed with a smooth sea.

I felt I had come a long way since I had set out on this journey, as though I had lived years in a few weeks. I no longer wished to shut myself away from life. I was going to face it whatever it brought. That moment when I had hesitated outside the house in the alley had taught me that. If I was going to be happy I had to grasp happiness with both hands and not be afraid to for fear I might be hurt. I would no longer lie on my couch sheltering under my invalidism. I was no longer an invalid.