Philippa Carr: Lament for a Lost Lover

I was in someone’s arms being carried. Carleton. I heard a child’s voice screaming: “I didn’t do it. I didn’t. I didn’t.” Vaguely I thought: That is Leigh. Then a voice—Jasper’s. “You godless imp. You’ve killed the mistress.”

After that the darkness was complete.

I was aware of Carleton all the time. Carleton talking, Carleton bending over me, Carleton angry. “How could this have happened? By God, I’m going to find out …” Carleton tender. “Arabella, my darling, darling Arabella …”

And awakening suddenly, a small figure at my bedside. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t. I didn’t. It came right over my head. It did. It did.”

The light was dim. I opened my eyes.

“Leigh,” I said. “Little Leigh?”

A hot hand seeking my free one. I seemed to have lost the other.

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t. I didn’t.”

Then: “Come away, Leigh.” That was Sally’s voice, gentle, understanding. “She knows you didn’t.”

“Leigh,” I said. “I know.”

Sally said softly: “Poor mite. Brokenhearted he is. They think it was him taking potshots at the pigeons.”

I knew then that I had been shot. As I had put up my hand to pluck the red roses the pellets had entered my arm.

The doctor had removed the pellets. They had been deeply imbedded it seemed, and that was why I had been so ill.

It was a blessing, they said, that they had struck me in the arm.

Carleton was often at my bedside and I felt a great comfort to see him there.

It was three days before he told me. Then I had recovered from the fever which the operation of taking the pellets away had caused.

“I shall never forget it,” he said. “Leigh screaming and running and seeing you there on the grass. I was ready to kill the stupid boy … but I have my doubts now. Do you remember what happened?”

“No. I was picking roses. It was warm and sunny and now and then I heard the sound of shooting. There is nothing exceptional about that. Then it happened. … I didn’t know what it was at first. I heard the shouting and I realized there was blood …”

“So you saw no one?”

“No one at all.”

“Not before you started picking the roses?”

“No. I don’t remember.”

Carleton was silent. “I’ve been very worried, Arabella.”

“Oh, Carleton. I’m glad. I’m so glad you care enough to be worried.”

“Care enough! What are you talking about? Aren’t you my wife? Aren’t I your loving husband?”

“My husband, yes. Loving … I’m not sure …”

“Things have been difficult lately, I know. I expect it’s my fault. All that fuss about the child we lost … as though it was your fault.”

“I understand your disappointment, Carleton. I’ve been touchy, anxious, I suppose, disappointed in myself for having disappointed you.”

“Foolish pair! We have so much. It makes one realize it when one comes near to losing it.”

He bent over me and kissed me. “Get well quickly, Arabella. Be your old self. Flash your eyes, scorn me, lash me with your tongue. … Make it like it used to be. That’s what I want.”

“Have I been too gentle?”

“Aloof,” he said, “as though there is something keeping us apart. There isn’t, is there?”

“Nothing that I have put there.”

“Then there is nothing.”

I was content while he sat by my bed. I was longing to be well again and I was determined to bring about that happy state.

He said: “I was so worried about that shot. I have to find out where it came from. The boy was so insistent. I don’t think he could be lying. He’s a brave little fellow. Not afraid to own up when he’s done wrong. He was so insistent. He was there alone. He is a good shot and I had given my permission for them to shoot the pigeons. He was doing nothing wrong. He said he wasn’t shooting in your direction at all. There weren’t any pigeons there. They were fluttering down from the roof. He said the shot went right over his head, to you, and it occurred to me that someone might have been hiding there in the bushes at the side of the house.”

“Someone hiding to shoot me. Why?”

“That’s what I wanted to find out. That’s what bothers me. I had an idea, and I went to see Young Jethro.”

“You think that he …?”

“It was an idea, and if it was possible to get to the bottom of this I’d made up my mind to. I went to the old barn where his father used to live and I said, ‘I want a word with you, Young Jethro.’ He was a little puzzled and I said, ‘Your father shot my cousin. Now my wife has been shot in the arm—but that may have been a lucky chance—and I wondered whether your family made a habit of shooting at mine.’”

“Carleton! Do you really think …?”

“Not now. He swore to God that he had done no such thing and I am sure a man with his beliefs would never swear to God unless he was telling the truth. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I’ve never killed none. If I was to, I’d be unworthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. ’Tis wrong to kill. It says so in the Bible. “Thou shalt not kill.” Should I kill another soul I could suffer torment for it.’ Then he fell down on his knees and swore to me that he had not been near the house that day. That he knew nothing of the accident. He had no gun. I could search the barn. He never killed … not even pigeons. He didn’t think it was right and fitting to kill God’s creatures … And so he went on and on … and I was convinced that he was telling me the truth.”

“Perhaps it was Leigh, after all.”

“It seems likely. He was there. He had the gun. He was shooting pigeons. Yes, it seems very likely. And yet … He was so insistent. He cried and cried. Sally couldn’t comfort him. He kept saying he didn’t do it. The shot had come right over his head … which points to the bushes behind the house. Never mind. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he didn’t realize which way he was shooting. He’s not usually an untruthful boy.”

“If he did, it was an accident.”

“But of course. As if Leigh would want to hurt you. He adores you. But I’m going to find out … if I can.”

“Who else could it be? If it be? If it wasn’t Leigh or Young Jethro …”

“It could have been one of the servants who is afraid to own up.”

“Perhaps we should forget it.”

“You’re getting too excited. Yes, perhaps we should forget it.”

But I knew he went on thinking of it, and I lay back in bed feeling cherished and greatly comforted.

But not for long. As my arm began to heal and first it came out of its bandages and then out of its sling and I saw that there was only the faintest scar to remind me of it, I began to sense a tension in the house, a lurking fear, the awareness that all was not as it outwardly seemed.

“You’ve had a proper shock,” Sally Nullens told me, and Ellen confirmed this. “First that miss,” went on Sally, “then this. It’s too much for one body to stand. It begins to have its effect on the nerves, that’s what.”

Ellen said: “It’s funny how shocks come … never one at a time. It’s often in twos and threes.”

“Am I to look out for number three?” I asked.

Sally said: “It’s always well to be on the lookout. But just at first we’ve got to get you well. I’ve got a very special cordial and it takes a lot of beating, don’t it, Ellen?”

“Are you talking of your buttermilk one?”

“That’s the one,” said Sally. “You shall drink it every night, Mistress Arabella. You’ll drop into a nice peaceful sleep and we all know there’s nothing like that for putting you to rights.”

So they talked to me, but although I drank Sally’s buttermilk cordial, I did not sleep well. My anxieties, it seemed, went too deep to be lightly thrust aside.