Philippa Carr - The Drop of the Dice

I shared her anxieties. I waited avidly for news.

It was April before it came—a lovely spring day with the birds singing wildly with the joy of greeting summer and the buds bursting open on the trees and shrubs. Spring in the air and fear in my heart.

I heard of the terrible battle of Culloden and prayed that Dickon might be safe. I wanted him to be happy; I wanted Sabrina to be happy.

The tales of the terrible slaughter shocked me. I shuddered at the name of Butcher Cumberland. ‘No quarter,’ he had said. ‘None shall be spared. We will finish the rebels once and for all.’

There was no news from Sabrina.

I prayed that he might be returned to her now. She knew I was anxious. Surely she would let me know.

No news… and the days were stretching on. May had come.

‘This will be the end of the Jacobites,’ people said. ‘This is the final defeat.’

‘Cumberland was right to be so harsh,’ said others. ‘They have to be shown that these rebellions must stop.’

‘No man should treat his fellow men as Cumberland has treated those who fell into his hands,’ said others.

Talk of the atrocities was rife. I could not bear to listen.

And still there was no news.

I wrote to Sabrina: ‘Let me know what is happening. I am frantic with anxiety.’

I waited. Each day I watched. Surely something must have happened to explain Sabrina’s silence.

May is the most beautiful of months, I had always thought, until this May. I shall never forget it… the long warm days and the whole of nature rejoicing and in my heart a feeling of dread that was almost a premonition.

It was the middle of the month and I was in the deepest despair when she came.

She walked into the house as though she were in a dream. In fact, I thought I was dreaming when I saw her. So often had I pictured her coming home to me… that it seemed like part of another dream.

‘Sabrina,’ I whispered.

I saw her face then, pale and tragic, and I knew.

She ran to me and my arms were about her, holding her fast, rejoicing in the midst of my fears because she had come home to me.

We clung together without speaking for some minutes; then I drew away and said: ‘Dickon… Is he…?’

She nodded. ‘He died… from his wounds at Culloden.’

‘Oh… Sabrina

She could not speak. She could only cling to me as though begging for comfort. I said to her: ‘Do you remember when we did our lessons together? There was one thing we discussed and I often think of it. It was what one of the Roman poets—Terence, I think—wrote. It was: “The life of man is as when you play with dice; if that which you chiefly want to throw does not fall, you must by skill make use of what has fallen by chance.” Everything depends on the drop of the dice, but once they have fallen there can be no going back. We must do the best we can with what is left to us.’

She nodded; and in comforting her, I could comfort myself.

Later we talked. All through the day and night we talked. ‘He would go, Clarissa. I tried to stop him. I reminded him of what had happened before. But he had to go. He was a Jacobite and nothing could make him forget that.’

I thought: He forgot it once when he helped me to escape. And a great pride filled my heart at that moment.

‘I begged him,’ she went on. ‘I pleaded with him, but he could not stop himself. He had to go. I understood at last. He was so certain that Charles Edward would succeed. And he did at first, but it was hopeless against the English armies. And Cumberland was determined that there should not be another Jacobite rebellion. The slaughter… oh, Clarissa, I could not describe it.’

‘You were there?’

‘I followed him. I could not let him go. I was nearby, waiting. I wanted to join him when the battle was over. He was wounded badly, but some of his men brought him in from the battlefield. Thank God, at least he died with me beside him.’

‘Sabrina, my dear child, how you must have suffered!’

‘Yes, I have suffered. I never really found complete happiness. You didn’t entirely deceive me, Clarissa. You loved him, didn’t you?’

‘It’s over,’ I said. ‘Dickon is lost to us both now.’

‘He spoke of you when he was dying. I think his mind had gone back to that time when you were young. He kept saying your name over and over again.’

I could scarcely bear it. Nor could she; but as she told me of his last hours we wept, mingling our tears.

But she is back with me now. We are together, as something tells me we were always meant to be.

And yesterday she called in the doctor. She did not let me know that she had done so, and when I was told by one of the maids that the doctor had been I was filled with a terrible apprehension.

I ran to her bedroom. She greeted me with a smile. I looked at her intently. There was no mistaking the radiance in her face.

‘I was hoping it was true,’ she said. ‘I did not want to tell you until I was sure. But now I know. Oh, Clarissa, I am going to have a child… Dickon’s child.’

I was trembling with a joy I had not known since the day Dickon came back, for now I knew he was going to live on… for both of us.