Philippa Carr: Song of the Siren

I knew I would never be the same after this experience.

It had taught me a great deal about myself. It had shown me that I had been hiding beneath my illness because I was afraid of what I would meet in the world.

If I were going to live, I must come out and face life. I must recognise the fact that there was evil in the world and it would still be there if I shut my eyes and refused to look at it. That was what I had seen in my frustrating rambling through the streets of Paris. But there were other things too. There was Clarissa to be found; there was the love of my parents; there was the goodness of Jeremy, who had given up his sheltered life to help me in my need.

We were two of a kind, for had he not come down to Enderby to hide from the world?

We were out in it now. We were living at last.

We had come in after an exhausting day. We had gone to our rooms. Jeremy had said: “We’ll rest before supper.”

It was seven days since we had arrived in Paris and it seemed to me in a moment of despair that we were no nearer the end of our quest than we had been when we began it.

I lay on the bed for a while but I could not sleep. Images of what I had seen during the day kept intruding on my mind. I saw the stalls in the great market … the women with their live chickens and their vegetables, the flower sellers who knew no Jeanne … the child stealing a purse from a fat woman who had come to market, being caught in the act and severely beaten. I could hear voices screeching out the merits of what they had to sell and the low but incessant chatter of two women who had sat on a low wall to set down their baskets and rest their feet awhile.

Sleep was impossible.

I got out of bed and went to the window.

It would be dark in half an hour. How tired I was. Jeremy had been right to say we should rest. He needed to rest, I know. His leg was painful at times.

I sat by the window watching the people. The street fascinated me. It had not yet changed its daytime face. That would come in half an hour. Now, respectable people walked by without fear. Dusk would fall and they would be no longer here … I looked at the house opposite. Now it was presenting its almost smug face to the world. I shuddered to think of what went on behind those windows. I had looked for the little girl in the shift but I had not seen her again.

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 hôtel 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 … moi, ” 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, oui,” 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.