She sidled up to him. ‘It’s nice,’ she said. ‘Nanny Curlew comes to tuck you in.’

‘A delight I shall have to forgo,’ said Lance.

She frowned at him, but with no real animosity. She liked him; the only thing she had against him was that he had taken me away.

He picked her up; she kicked a little in remonstration. He put her outside the door and shut it on her. I heard her laughing as she ran along the corridor.

‘There is one who will want her own way in life,’ he said. ‘And get quite a lot of it, I should imagine.’

‘She is a dear creature.’

‘A little spoilt, I fancy, except by the worthy Nanny Curlew.’

Then he held me tightly against him and I knew that he was thinking of the first night we had shared this room.

It was a happy Christmas. There were the relatives to visit, and the celebrations took place mainly at Eversleigh Court in the traditional manner. There were the decorations with holly and ivy and the ceremony of bringing in the Yule log; carols; the midnight service on Christmas Eve; kissing under mistletoe; eating mince pies in the shape of coffins which were supposed to represent the manger at Bethlehem. Sabrina loved giving Christmas boxes on the day after Christmas when everyone who had rendered a service to the household appeared to collect what he or she called ‘the box’—which was in fact a gift of money. Great-Grandfather Carleton grumbled and said that he was the one who did the tradesmen a service by buying their goods and why he should be expected to reward his servants he could not imagine. They should be giving him a Christmas box.

‘Nonsense,’ said Great-Grandmother Arabella. ‘You know you would never stop the Christmas boxes.’

‘Poor Great-Grandpapa,’ put in Sabrina. ‘Nobody gives him a Christmas box.’

Then she came up with a bright new penny and thrust it into his hand; and the old man, who was really very sentimental, said it was the best Christmas box he could ever have had and he would carry it with him for the rest of his days and have it buried with him in his coffin.

This greatly intrigued Sabrina and spoilt her generous gesture, for she was clearly looking forward to seeing the penny placed in Great-Grandfather’s coffin.

‘Don’t grumble so, Carleton,’ said Arabella. ‘I declare you’d be a thorough wet blanket if I let you.’

Nothing changed at Eversleigh, it seemed. One Christmas was very like another; but of course there was really change taking place all the time. Sabrina was now five years old and Great-Grandfather Carleton was more quickly out of breath when he went walking in the gardens; there was more white in Arabella’s hair and it was beginning to show in Priscilla’s. I was a married woman of some months’ standing. Yes, time was moving on.

When we went back to London, Lance was caught up in the enthusiasm which was sweeping through the City. He came in one day in a fever of excitement.

It was the late afternoon, I remember, of a cold January day. There was a north wind blowing and it had started to snow. In the drawing-room a great fire was burning and I was seated close to it when he burst into the room.

He threw off his heavy coat and came close to the fire. He lifted me up and held me against him, laughing up at me.

‘We’re going to be rich… richer than you’ve dreamed,’ he said. ‘Gad, this is the greatest chance that ever came to anyone.’

Little shivers of alarm went through me. I was always apprehensive about Lance’s gambling; he knew this and kept much of his activity in the field from me. He would occasionally report a fantastic win, but whenever he told me I wondered what enormous losses had gone before.

‘Put me down, Lance,’ I said, ‘and if this is another gamble…’

‘It is the greatest gamble that ever was.’

‘Oh no, Lance!’ He had set me down, and I drew away from him, looking steadily into his face.

‘Oh yes, Clarissa,’ he said, laughing, and his eyes were bright with anticipation. ‘Wait till you hear before you condemn,’ he went on. ‘No… it is not horses… It is not the tables… It’s a government venture, you might say.’

‘I am always suspicious of attempts to make money by gambling.’

‘This is different. Wait till you hear. I’ve gone into it thoroughly. I know exactly what is happening. Let me explain, and you will see how safe it is. The big trading company calling itself the South Sea Company has proposed to the House of Commons that they purchase the irredeemable annuities which had been granted in the reigns of William and Mary and Anne and amalgamate all the public funds together in one stock so as to become the only public creditor. Do you follow me?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Never mind. You will. The Bank of England has entered into the bargaining, and the two began to outbid each other. Now an offer has been accepted on the part of the South Sea Company to provide a sum of seven and a half millions in order to buy up the annuities. The Government annuitants are rushing to exchange their stock for that of the South Sea Company. Already two-thirds of them have done so. There will obviously be enormous dividends. It’s a way of getting rich in the shortest possible time. We have to get into this quickly, Clarissa.’

‘Won’t hundreds of people be saying that?’

‘Of course they will. It’s all so obvious. There will be a rush to get rich quickly. We mustn’t be left out. Already the fifty-pound shares are worth one hundred.’

‘It seems incomprehensible to me. How can they be worth so much?’

‘It’s the prospects, my dear. They are saying there will be a dividend of fifty per cent. The thing is to buy cheaply and sell dear.’

‘Surely everyone will have that idea?’

‘But the thing is to know the right moment to buy and the right one to sell.’

‘And how can anyone be sure of that?’

He put his arms round me and hugged me tightly. ‘My dear, cautious Clarissa you may trust your old Lancelot.’

I was silent—disturbed as I always was by his gambling exploits.

‘But suppose it shouldn’t work out as you think?’

‘My dear, don’t you think I shall know the right time to sell?’

‘I would rather not have anything to do with such ventures.’

‘What! And go on this way all our lives!’

‘It’s a very comfortable way.’

‘And see all those around us making fortunes!’

‘If some are making them you can be sure some are losing them.’

‘Leave it to me, my dearest.’

‘Lance… are you going to invest heavily in this South Sea Company?’

‘Unless one does there seems little point in it. And, Clarissa, I thought you would wish to share in it.’

‘I?’

‘Why not? You’re a woman of substance.’

‘I am not a gambler. I like things as they are. Besides, I couldn’t touch my shares and things which Leigh manages for me.’

‘Perhaps not. But there is the money your father left you.’

‘Oh no. I don’t think I would touch that.’

He shrugged his shoulders and laughed at me. But he said no more about the matter. He went out soon afterwards and I did not see him for the rest of the day. We were dining alone that evening and during the meal he seemed abstracted.

I said: ‘I believe you are still dreaming of the fortune you are going to make out of this South Sea affair.’

‘It’s going to stagger you, Clarissa.’

‘I do hope you have not invested a great deal.’

‘Enough to make me rich, very rich.’

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘We have enough of everything. We can have what we want, in reason. I cannot see why we want to clamour so desperately for more.’

‘You wait, Clarissa, you are going to be as thrilled as I am when you see the fortune which will be ours.’

When we were in bed that night I sensed that he was restless. He could not sleep; nor could I.

Suddenly I felt his hand grasping mine.

‘Are you awake, Clarissa?’ he said.

‘Yes. And I know you are. Oh, Lance, I don’t like this thing. I have an uneasy feeling

‘You think it’s a gamble. It is not. It’s a certainty.’

‘It doesn’t make sense to me. Why should something one buys one day be suddenly worth a lot more the next? It hasn’t changed its value, has it?’

‘It is changed in value because so many people want it.’

‘They want it because they believe it will make them rich overnight.’

‘So it will.’

‘But surely they can’t all become so rich?’

‘Oh, the shares will settle in time. That’s what makes it wise to buy now. But it is the dividends the money will bring in which makes it such an excellent venture. Fifty per cent. Just imagine that!’

‘I don’t understand it and I don’t believe it’s true.’

‘You disbeliever!’ He held me tightly and began to caress me. He told me how much he loved me and what a difference I had made to his life; how he had adored me from the time we had journeyed to York together; how jealous he had been of poor Dickon and how happy he was because he was going to spend the rest of his life with me.

Lance would always arouse a response in me. He was tender and gallant and fiercely passionate at the same time. I was happy, I told him. I wanted to please him for as long as we both should live.

I whispered an apology to Dickon as I invariably did at such moments. My encounter with him still stood out in my memory as something especially beautiful, but it was growing more and more like a dream as time passed and it had more than a touch of unreality about it.

At length Lance whispered to me: ‘Clarissa, dearest, I couldn’t leave you out of the excitement. You had to be in it. I wanted you to share…’

My heart started to beat more quickly. ‘What?’ I asked.

‘I have bought for you. You had to be in it. Everyone who can must be in it.’

‘What are you telling me?’

‘That I have arranged for five thousand pounds of your Hessenfield inheritance to be put into the South Sea Company.’

‘You have what?’ I drew away from him but he held me firmly and began kissing my face and throat.

‘I spoke to Grendall about it,’ he said. Grendall was the lawyer who managed the Hessenfield inheritance. ‘He wanted your approval but as I am your husband he accepted mine. I had to do it for you, Clarissa.’

‘Five thousand pounds,’ I stammered. ‘Oh… Lance, how could you!’

‘How could I not? Could I stand by and see everyone else making a fortune and my little Clarissa being left out?’

For a few moments I was speechless. It was half the money which my father had left me. I was furiously angry—first because I hated his gambling, which offered him more excitement than I could. This must be so because he could forget me when the fever was on him. And secondly because he had dared act without consulting me.

He tried to soothe me, holding my quivering body against his, tenderly, passionately. I pulled away from him and sat up.

‘How dared you!’ I cried. ‘You cannot resist the urge to gamble. If you must risk money in future, confine yourself to what is yours to risk.’

‘Clarissa, my darling, you are really angry, aren’t you? Wait until you see what this will bring you.’

‘I have no intention of frittering away my fortune and you have no right to treat me as though you own me and all my possessions.’

‘I love you. I only wanted to do what was best for you.’

I jumped out of bed. I wanted to escape from him. I did not want to be soothed and petted until my emotions were aroused and I was ready to forgive him and forget the matter. I felt it was important that he should understand how I felt and he must realize how deeply I resented his action.

He was leaning on his elbow, looking at me with that indulgence I knew so well, refusing to accept that I was serious in my condemnation of him, trying to shrug off this matter as though it were of no importance. It was very important to me.

‘You must not think that you are going to placate me with a few soft words,’ I said.

‘Come back to bed and talk reasonably. You’ll catch cold standing there.’

‘I shall not come back to bed,’ I said. ‘I want to think what I shall do. I want to be alone.’

I went towards the powder closet, which was roomy enough to hold a small couch.

‘You’re surely not going to sleep in there?’ cried Lance.

‘I told you I want to be alone.’

‘It’s very cold on that couch, and desperately uncomfortable.’

I ignored him and went into the powder closet. I was trembling, but not with cold.