Philippa Carr - Song of the Siren

“It is not true. He worked here with a nursery governess in this household. He was caught … There were papers on him that proved him to be a spy.”

She shook her head. “I know my son. He was like his father. He would pursue what he wanted until it was his. He wanted you and he came here to get you and Hessenfield was jealous. He is hard and a ruthless man. He killed him. I heard about it. I was told that it was a crime passionnel.”

“You are wrong … wrong …”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It is the end,” she said. “Soon for me and for you. You must die. I knew that there was something fatalistic about you when I met you in that house. Beauty such as yours has something evil in it. It is not a gift from God but from the devil.”

She was looking at me strangely, her eyes glittering. She is mad, I thought. The death of Matt has unhinged her mind.

“You are like the legendary mermaid who sits on the rock singing and luring mariners to come to her, and to go to her is certain death. It is … the song of the siren. Come to me and I will be all to you that you most desire. That is the song. But it is not so. You are luring them to death.”

“This is nonsense, Mistress Pilkington.”

She shook her head. “Beau died because of you. But for you he would not have gone down to Eversleigh. He would not have found that woman he was blackmailing. He would have been alive today. I might have been married to him. Matt would be here. But you came with your strange wild beauty. It was more than your fortune he wanted. So he pursued you and found not a beautiful bride and a fortune, but death. Then Matt, he heard your song too. He was lured into the rocks of destiny. And where did it lead? To death in the Seine. My son … my darling son … And your husband—what unhappiness have you brought to him? Even your present lover, Hessenfield, has not escaped. He thought he was clever. He thought he was in command … but Death is waiting for him now …”

“I must ask you to go,” I said. “I have much to do.”

“Yes, make a shroud for your lover. Make one for yourself … and for me …”

I felt sick with horror, for I knew that she was telling the truth.

She went on: “I planned to destroy you. It is better that no others should suffer through you. Three men all dead … and all because of you—although I do not blame you for Beau. You see, you are disaster. You are the siren. Even involuntarily you deal death. You have to go. There is no way for it. I contrived the meeting. I disguised myself for fear you should remember me. But we met only once and I was one of the best actresses on the London stage. I listened to all I could of those long ago poison trials. I talked to people who remembered … and I decided what I should do. I did not believe that there could be poisons which could be transmitted through the skin. But there are … there are … And if you know where to go for them and if you are prepared to pay … So I went and I paid and I had the gloves made. Lord Hessenfield has been more virulently attacked. He must have worn the gloves I sent him for a long time. You are less so. And I even less. But we are all doomed. I no less than you, although mine will be a more lingering death. I have the poison in my blood just as you have…. You see, I have destroyed the siren and my son’s murderers, but in doing so I have destroyed myself.”

I stood up uncertainly. These were the ravings of a mad woman.

I must get rid of her. I must get back to Hessenfield. I must call the doctors and tell them what this woman had told me.

I left her. I heard her walk out unsteadily behind me.

I went up to the bedroom

Hessenfield was lying white and still on his bed … unnaturally still.

I knew that he was dead.

Till then I had not believed her. I had told myself that she was lying about the poison. Such things might have happened thirty years ago but they could not happen now. But I had heard such strange stories of those long ago poisonings and the subtleties of the Italian art of producing deadly substances which could attack in many different ways. There were still Italian poisoners in Paris, still men who worked out their secrets in dark places and grew rich on them.

I was bewildered. It was too much to grasp. All that time Beau had been lying under the soil near Enderby. And Leigh, whom I had looked on as my father, had buried him; my mother was involved too, and Matt was Beau’s son.

I could not believe it. And yet everything that had happened clothed it with reasonable truth.

Beau … dead all those years. Matt and I together. No wonder I was drawn to him. There was a grain of comfort in that. It had not been such a wild whim.

But there was one terrible fact which threw a dark pall over everything, and I was thinking of the past now so that I might not look to the present.

Hessenfield dead. I would not accept it. He who had been so full of life … dead … and all because of a pair of gloves. He would get up from the bed soon. He would laugh at me.

It was a trick. It was a joke … to prove to me through my desolation how much he loved me.

How much I loved him! “Oh, Hessenfield,” I murmured, “infinitely!”

I covered my face with my hands. How clammy they were … My face was burning and yet I was shivering.

Then a sudden wild joy possessed me. “I am coming to you, Hessenfield. We always said only death could part us … but even death can’t do that.”

I sat there by his bed watching him and an exultation came over me.

“I am coming with you, Hessenfield. I shall not be long.”

Death! It was very close. I could almost hear the flap of his wings as he hovered over me. Odd to think of death with wings.

An old illusion, I thought. Why … Why?

I stopped. I stared before me. I had been rejoicing that Hessenfield and I would not be parted. And now the thought had come to me: Clarissa. My daughter … our daughter … when we were both dead what would become of her?

I clasped my hands together to stop their shaking.

“My child … my little girl. What will become of you? You will be left alone here and who will care for you?”

I must do something. I must act quickly.

I stood up. The room was swaying round me. “Hurry,” I said aloud. “Who knows how much time there is left to you.”

I prayed then. I could not remember praying before. I supposed people such as I only prayed when they wanted something; and I had had so much.

It was only when things were denied me that I thought of prayer.

Then suddenly, as though there was an answer to my earnest supplication, I saw what I must do.

I went to my bureau and took out paper. In this terrible hour of bewilderment, anxiety and tragedy I thought of my sister.

I remembered how she and Clarissa had been together during that time when I had gone with her to Eversleigh. Clarissa and Damaris had loved each other then. There had been some special relationship between them.

Damaris, I said to myself. It must be Damaris.

Dear Damaris [I wrote hurriedly]

I am dying. By the time you receive this I will be dead. Lord Hessenfield, who is Clarissa’s father, is also dead. I am desperately anxious about my Clarissa. She is here in a strange country and I do not know who will care for her when I am no longer here.

I have been wicked but that is no fault of my daughter’s. Damaris, I want you to take her. You must send over here at once. You must take her and bring her up as your daughter. There is no one I should rather see her with than you. I am known over here as Lady Hessenfield and Clarissa is acknowledged as our daughter, which she is. I cannot tell you now how all this came about. It is of no importance. All that matters is Clarissa.

There is a good woman here, named Jeanne. I shall leave her in this woman’s care until you come. She is a good woman who has been looking after Clarissa and is fond of her. She was once a flower seller and lived in great poverty, but I trust her more than anyone else.

Damaris, I have been wicked. I have brought trouble and disaster wherever I have been. I ruined your life, but Matt was not really good enough for you otherwise he would not have behaved as he did. You need someone specially good.

Do this for me, please … No. For Clarissa’s sake. Send for her as soon as you receive this.

Your sister Carlotta.

I sealed the letter. I sent for the courier who had taken Hessenfield’s urgent messages back and forth from England.

“Take this,” I said, “with all speed.”

Then I prayed that he would reach Damaris, for naturally traffic between the two countries was difficult and such missions had to be taken with the utmost care. Often couriers did not reach their destination; and I suppose that after that disastrous mission which had cost Matt his life there would be more checks than ever on people coming into the country.

But I prayed that Damaris would receive the letter, and that she would come and take Clarissa away.

I sent for Jeanne.

“Jeanne,” I said, “I am dying.”

“Madame … it is not possible.”

“You know Lord Hessenfield is dead.”

“Oh Madame, what will become of us all?”

“There is the child. Jeanne, I trust her to you.”

“My lady?”

“Care for her. I have a sister in England. I have written to her. She will send someone to take Clarissa away.”

“When will they come, my lady?”

“Soon … soon. They will come. I know they will come.”

“From England, Madame …”

“They will come, Jeanne. I promise you they will come. Wait for them, and care for the child until they come. Jeanne …” I caught her hands and looked pleadingly into her eyes. “Jeanne, this is the wish and the command of a dying woman.”

Jeanne looked frightened.

But I knew she would keep her word.

I burned the gloves—both mine and Hessenfield’s. They gave off a strange light as they flared up. I thought there would be a conflagration, but after blazing for a few moments they subsided into a black powder.

I took up my pen and wrote in my journal of what had happened to me. I set it out and thought there might be some comfort in the writing of it.

I had told Jeanne that I wanted her to keep my journal and when messengers from my sister came to give it to them to take to her.

I wanted her to understand how it had happened. To understand is often to forgive.

I put down my pen. Then I called Jeanne again and I told her where she would find the journal.

She looked bewildered. But she listened to my instructions and after she had gone I could not resist taking my pen again.

Then I wrote right at the beginning of my journal: “This is the Song of the Siren who did not ask to be as she was. But she was so and it happened that one who accused her was right. Those who came near her were lured to their deaths. It seems right and fitting that death should overtake her in the midst of her singing.”

I AM LONELY. THE days seem endless. Hour after hour I lie here on my couch and I tell myself that my life is over. It never began really.

I was happy. I was on the threshold of what had seemed a great adventure. Then suddenly it was over. I saw everything I had dreamed of shattered in one revealing instant. And then it was that this further blow was delivered.

It sometimes seems that life is not content with taking happiness from one, then decides that there is something else that can be done to make life more intolerable. I lost the man I loved on one dark November day—and that night was stricken with a terrible illness which has made an invalid of me ever since.

Oh, I am surrounded by love. No girl could have parents who loved and cherished her more than mine do. I have been shown in a thousand ways that I am the centre of their lives. They blame themselves for what happened to me; and they are not to blame, but how can I tell them without involving Carlotta?

I do not want to think of Carlotta. I cannot bear to think of Carlotta. Sometimes her image creeps into my mind and I tell myself that I hate her. But I see her there in my mind—that almost unbelievable beauty. I used to think: No one has any right to be as beautiful as Carlotta. Everything was given to her. It was as though the powers above who decide how we shall be had been in a very happy mood when they planned for Carlotta. She shall have everything … everything … they said.