Philippa Carr: Voices in a Haunted Room

I sometimes wished that Jonathan had not been there to complicate matters.

The two brothers were diametrically opposed in almost everything. They looked different—which was rather odd, for feature by feature they were alike; but their entirely different characteristics had set their stamp on their faces and nullified their resemblance.

Jonathan was not the man to settle down to look after a country estate. He was concerned with interests in London. I knew that banking was one of these; there were others. My stepfather was a man of very wide interests—rich and influential; he was often at Court, and my mother accompanied him there, for he never went away without taking her with him. It was as though, having come to happiness late in their lives, they were determined not to miss one hour of each other’s company. That was how my grandfather and grandmother had been. Perhaps such are the ideal marriages, I thought—those to which people come when they are mature in judgement and knowledgeable in the ways of men and women. The fires of youth blazed forth and could burn out; but the steady fire of middle age, stoked with experience and understanding, can burn brightly for life. My mind was stimulated and enriched by my sessions with David; with Jonathan I experienced different feelings.

His attitude was changing and I sensed a certain impatience. Sometimes he kissed me and held me against him, and there was something very meaningful in his manner towards me. I knew, in a way, what that meant. He wanted to make love with me.

I might have had a romantic feeling towards him. I could not pretend to myself that he did not arouse new emotions in me such as I wanted to explore; but I did know that he had dallied with some of the serving girls. I had seen them look at him and I had watched his answering response. I had heard it whispered that he had a mistress in London and that he visited her when he was there—which was frequently.

All this I would have expected of Dickon’s son, and if I had felt indifferent towards him it would not have bothered me; but I thought about it a good deal. Sometimes when he helped me down from my horse, which he did whenever he could, although I was quite capable of dismounting on my own, he would hold me closely and laugh up at me, and although I quickly wriggled free I was rather alarmed to discover that I did not really want to. I had an inclination to smile at him invitingly and let him proceed with what he was planning to do—because I knew how much I wanted to experience it.

At Eversleigh there were portraits of our family—men and women—and I often studied them. The men were of two kinds—I mean of course in one respect only, for their characters were quite diverse and they could not be neatly divided; what I mean is that there were those who were physically demanding and others who were not. I could pick them out by a certain expression in their faces—the sensuous and the austere. There was one ancestress—her name was Carlotta—who embodied all the former; I believe she had had a colourful life with a leader of the Jacobite faction; and there was her half sister Damaris, mother of Sabrina, who was in the second category. My mother was a woman who understood passion and needed it in her life. Jonathan made me feel that I was the same.

So there were many times when I felt weak and ready to respond to his invitation. It was only because of who I was that he did not hustle me into a physical relationship. He could not treat his new stepmother’s daughter as he would some friend in London or any of the servants in our or other households. Even he would not dare to do that. My mother would have been furious and she would have made sure that Dickon was too; and Jonathan, bold as he was, would not wish to incur his father’s wrath.

Right up to the time of my seventeenth birthday we played our tantalising game. I used to dream about Jonathan—that he came to my room and into my bed. I even locked my door when the dream became too vivid. I always took great care never to meet his eyes when he practised little familiarities, the meaning of which I was fully aware. When he went to London I used to imagine his visits to his mistress, and I would feel angry and frustrated and jealous, until David soothed me with his interesting discoveries of the past. Then I could forget Jonathan in just the same way as I forgot David when I was with his intriguing brother.

It is all very well to play these games when one is growing up to sixteen, but when one has reached the mature age of seventeen—which is a time when many girls are considered to be ready for marriage—it is a different matter.

I became aware that my mother—and I suppose Dickon, too—would like me to marry either David or Jonathan. I was sure that my mother would prefer David because he was quiet and serious and his fidelity could be relied on. Dickon regarded David as a “dull dog,” and I imagine he thought that a lively girl such as I was, would have a more exciting time with Jonathan. However, he would certainly give his blessing to either match—and so would my mother.

It would keep me with them, and my mother—to whom the only fly in her marriage ointment was that fertility was lacking—would have grandchildren under her roof.

“In a few weeks you will be seventeen,” said my mother, eyeing me with a sort of wonder, as though for a girl to reach that age was a feat of extreme cleverness. “I can’t believe it. Seventeen years ago…” Her eyes clouded as they always did when she thought of those years in France. She did often, I knew. It was impossible not to. We were always hearing of the terrible things which were happening over there, how the King and Queen were now the prisoners of the new regime, and of the terrible humiliations to which they were submitted. Then there was the bloodshed—the guillotine with its horrible basket into which the severed heads of aristocrats dropped with appalling regularity.

She, too, often thought of poor Aunt Sophie and Armand, and wondered what had become of them. The subject would now and then be raised at the table, and Dickon would wax fierce about it, and there were often arguments between him and Charlot in which Louis Charles joined. Charlot was a problem. He was becoming a man and had to decide what he was to do with his life. Dickon was for sending him to the other estate at Clavering—and Louis Charles with him. That, Dickon thought, would get them both out of the way. But Charlot declared that he did not intend to manage an English country estate. He had been brought up in the belief that he was to have charge of Aubigné.

“The principle of management is the same,” Dickon reminded him.

“Mon cher Monsieur.” Charlot often introduced French phrases into his conversation, particularly when he was talking to Dickon. “There is much difference between a great French castle and a little English country estate.”

“Indeed yes,” said Dickon. “One is a ruin… overrun by rabble; the other is in perfect working order.”

My mother, as she always did, interposed between her husband and her son. It was only because he knew that these altercations distressed her that Dickon did not carry on the battle.

“Seventeen,” she went on now. “We must have a real celebration. Shall we have a dance and invite the neighbours, or would you like just a dinner party with a few selected friends? Then we might arrange for a trip to London. We could go to the theatre and do some shopping…”

I said certainly that appealed to me more than the dance and the neighbours.

Then she was serious. “Claudine, have you ever thought about… marriage?”

“I suppose most people give it a thought now and then.”

“I mean seriously.”

“How can one unless one is asked?”