Philippa Carr - Lament for a Lost Lover

“What’s happened?” I cried.

Carleton said: “Get out of your things—change at once. Into your riding habits. Be prepared. I have to get you out of here quickly.”

He went out and I cried: “Harriet, what does it mean? … Where is Edwin?”

She looked at me steadily. Her eyes were burning blue lights in her pale, pale face, and I saw that there was blood on her hair.

“It was terrible,” she said. “Terrible.”

“What? For God’s sake tell me.”

“Edwin,” she began, … “in the arbour. He was trying to save me. You know the arbour … on the edge of the gardens … that tumbled-down old place …”

“What about it? Tell me, Harriet, for Heaven’s sake, tell me.”

“I was near there with my basket of plants and I saw Edwin. I called to him and just then I saw a man with a gun …”

“Oh, no … no …”

She nodded. “He shouted something and Edwin tried to protect me. … He pushed me into the arbour, and stood in front of me. Then he was shot … The blood was terrible …”

“You … you’ve left him …”

I was ready to run from the room but she caught me.

“Don’t go. Carleton said we must stay here. We must wait. He said I must keep you here. There’s nothing you can do. He’s gone to him. They’ll bring him in …”

“Edwin … shot … dying … Of course I must be with him. …”

She clung to me. “No. No. They will kill both of us … as they’ve killed him. You can do no good. You must obey Carleton.”

I stared at her. I could not believe it. But I knew it was true.

They brought him into the house. They had made a rough stretcher. I could not believe that was Edwin—my merry Edwin—lying there. Alive one moment, laughing at life, and then suddenly he was there no more.

Harriet was with me. She had taken off her cape and washed the bloodstains from her hair.

I kept moaning: “I must go to him.”

But she wouldn’t let me. There had been trouble enough. We must not make it worse.

I knew she was right, but it was cruel to keep me from him.

Carleton came in.

He looked at us steadily. “Are you prepared?” he asked.

It was Harriet who answered, “Yes.”

“Ready. We’re going down to the library at once.”

We followed him down and there he locked the door and opened the bookshelves.

“You will stay here until tonight when I hope to get you away. I’ve sent word to Tom. He’ll be waiting for you in the cave. The boat is there. You’ll wait for the tide and pray for a smooth sea.” He looked at me. “Edwin is dead,” he said expressionlessly. “He was shot in the arbour. He died immediately and would have known little of what happened. There was no pain. Now this operation is over. I shall leave our findings with Tom and he can take them back.”

I said: “I want to see Edwin.”

“Impossible,” he said. “He is dead. It would only distress you. I knew it would go wrong when he brought you with him. It’s too late for regrets now. Fortunately, they trusted me.”

He shut us in, and Harriet put her arm about me.

“You have to be strong, Arabella. We’ve got to get back. Think of your family and how much is at stake.”

“Edwin is dead,” I said. “I wasn’t with him … This morning he was well and so alive and now …”

“He died instantly. He wouldn’t have known anything. That must be a consolation.”

“A consolation. What consolation can there be for me? He was my husband.”

I could say no more. I sank down on one of the trunks and thought of Edwin … as I had first seen him; Edwin as Romeo; the occasion when we arrived at the inn and he saw us there. Oh, he was so much in love with life. He knew how to live it. How cruel that he should be taken.

Then I tried to look ahead to the rest of my life without him.

I could not talk to Harriet. I could talk to no one. I only wanted to be alone with my grief.

It was dusk when Carleton came to us. He smuggled us out of the house to where he had horses ready for us, then he rode with us to the coast where Tom was waiting.

The sea was calm but I didn’t care. I wished there were a storm which would overturn our boat. I could not bear the thought of going back without Edwin.

And through my grief was the horrible suspicion. I kept thinking of myself playing with Chastity: I could see her holding the pretty button in the palm of her little hand.

Edwin is dead, I kept saying to myself, and your carelessness killed him.

What a burden I should suffer for the rest of my life. Not only had I lost Edwin, but I had only myself to blame.

Blithely I had entered into his adventure without fully grasping the seriousness of it. Instead of being the helpmeet, I had been the encumbrance which was responsible for his death.

I knew that I was going to suffer acutely for as long as I lived. It was small wonder that I wished for a sea that would envelop the boat. It was ironical. How merrily we had arrived; how tragically we returned.

I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE been grateful to have made the crossing safely. But I could feel nothing but the numbness of my grief.

Harriet did her best to cheer me, but it was impossible for her to do so. She had been saddened even as I had, but at least she did not have to blame herself.

Tom looked after us well. He procured horses for us and we made our way to Château Congrève. He said he would leave us there and then make his way with the important papers he carried to the King, who was then in Brussels.

It was May, warm and sunny, and the gorse made golden clumps across the green landscape. There was bud and blossom on the hawthorn, and the birds seemed as though they wanted to tell the world how glad they were. How different was my mood, burdened as I was by the pain, the loss and the awful guilt.

Harriet tried to reason with me. “Forget that miserable button,” she said. “They’re so unnatural, Puritans. If one thing didn’t offend them, something else would.”

“We should never have gone. Don’t you see, Harriet?” I insisted.

“Look,” she said, “it didn’t seem wrong at the time. Think how cheered he was when he saw us. He worked better for knowing we were there. It wasn’t your fault. You’ve got to forget it.”

“How can you understand—” I demanded. “He wasn’t your husband.”

“Perhaps I do understand, all the same,” she said soberly.

How kind she was to me. How she tried to cheer me, but I set myself stubbornly against her cheering. I wanted to nurse my grief, to cherish it. I told myself my life was over. I had lost everything I cared for.

“Everything!” she cried angrily. “Your parents, your brothers and sister. My friendship. Do you value them so lightly?”

I was ashamed then.

“You have so much,” she said. “Think of others who have no family … who are quite alone …”

I took her hand then and pressed it. Poor Harriet, it was rarely that she betrayed her needs.

We came to Château Congrève. It looked different from when we left it—gloomy, dreary—not amusing as it had used to look in the days when we played our games there.

Our coming was unheralded and the great excitement it aroused should have been gratifying. Lucas was there and he had told them how I had gone to England. The consternation had been great. Dick, Angie and Fenn squealed with delight when they saw us. Dick flung himself at me and the other two almost knocked me over with the exuberance of their welcome. It was impossible not to be moved.

I took them in my arms and kissed each one fervently.

And there was Lucas smiling tremulously before he too hugged me tightly.

“We’ve been so anxious …” said Lucas.

Dick cried: “We knew you’d be all right because Harriet was with you.”

Then they were kissing her and dancing round us and suddenly I did what I had not done at the height of my grief. I burst into tears.

I heard Harriet talking to Lucas, telling him the news.

Tom, who had left for Brussels, would stop at Villers Tourron on the way to tell the tragic news. I felt deeply for Matilda and for poor Charlotte. What a tragedy it would be for them—almost as great as mine!

Now there was a hush over the château. Jeanne, Marianne and Jacques walked about on tiptoe. Madame Lambard came and wept with me and insisted that I take a brew made from gentian and thyme which she said would help me to overcome my grief.

I would lie in my room without any desire to rise from my bed. I didn’t care what happened, I could only think of Edwin.

The children kept away from me. I suppose I seemed like a stranger to them. Harriet was with me often. She would sit by my bed and try all manner of ways to rouse me. I would hear her voice without listening to what she was saying. She was very patient with me.

I only wanted to talk of Edwin. I made her tell me over and over again of his last minutes. She told it with drama and feeling, as I would expect her to.

“I had been going through that farce of gathering plants. Actually, I spent quite a bit of time in the arbour. … Do you remember that old arbour—relic of more splendid days? I would go over some of my parts and see how much I could remember. I had hoped to find something to read, but there was nothing but sermons and I wanted none of those. I took some satisfaction in just sitting there idling, thinking how that would have upset them if they had known. I was clever, Arabella. I had made them think I had some special knowledge and I believe Ellen was a little afraid of me. She thought I might be some sort of witch, that was why she let me get away with my plant hunting.”

“Yes, yes, but tell me about Edwin.”

“That day I was there in the old arbour … and I heard horses’ hoofs in the distance. I peeped out and there he was coming towards the house. I called to him and he stopped and dismounted. He said, ‘Hello, idling away the hours God gave you, as usual.’ He was laughing at me. … And then … suddenly there was the man with the gun. Edwin pushed me into the arbour, trying to cover me. There was an explosion and then … It was instant, Arabella. He didn’t suffer. He was laughing at me one moment … and dead the next. …”

“I can’t bear it, Harriet. It is so cruel.”

“It’s a cruel world. You didn’t know how cruel till now.”

“And now,” I said, “the cruelest thing of all has happened to me.”

“You must remember your blessings, Arabella.”

“Blessings … with Edwin gone.”

“I’ve told you so often. You know what I mean. Your family. They love you so much. Rouse yourself. Think of them all. The children are wretched … Lucas is unhappy. We all are.”

I was silent. It was true, I knew. I was imposing my grief on them.

“I’ll try,” I promised.

“You are so young. You will grow away from it.”

“I never shall.”

“You think that now. But wait. A short time ago you did not know him.”

“You can’t judge what we had, by time.”

“Oh, yes you can. You were a child when you met him. You are not fully grown yet.”

“As you are, of course. Don’t talk down to me, Harriet.”

“That’s better. A spark of anger. I do talk down to you because you have so much to learn.”

“Before I become as knowledgeable as you, you mean?”

“Yes. Life doesn’t go on all the time being one happy dream, you know. It wouldn’t always have been so pleasing to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your marriage was so brief. To you it was idyllic. It might not have gone on like that. You might have found Edwin wasn’t quite what you thought. He might have been disappointed in you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that you are a romantic and life is not as simple as you think it.”

“Are you trying to say that Edwin did not love me?”

“Of course, he loved you. And you loved him. But you are so young, Arabella, and you don’t understand these things fully.”

“How can you understand my feelings for Edwin or his for me? Surely I am the best judge.”

She laughed suddenly, throwing her arms round me and hugging me.

“That’s better. You’re hating me … now. That’s good. It’s taken the place of that overwhelming grief. Oh, Arabella, you’ll grow away from it, I promise you, I promise you.”

Then I returned her embrace, and she was right, I did feel better for my anger against her.