Philippa Carr - The Drop of the Dice

She was truculent and, I could see, very unhappy.

‘Everything will be different now I’m here, Sabrina.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because there are two of us.’

‘I don’t mind there being one of us.’

I could see that a great deal of harm had been done. I longed to see the return of the carefree if rather wilful child who had been so affectionate before the fatal accident on the pond. Then I felt confident that I alone could give her the help she needed.

Smith told me that the funeral would be very quiet. Most people thought that Jeremy’s death was not accidental but there was a possibility that he had got into difficulties when swimming. I tried to believe that this was so, because that was what he had wanted people to think.

He was laid beside Damaris, which was where I knew he had wanted to be. Sabrina stood beside me during the service and when we were at the graveside. She allowed me to hold her hand and I think she was pleased that I did so. There were times when I thought she was almost ready to break down and cling to me.

Poor child, she had been deeply wounded; but now there was a chance to save her from her wretchedness and I was going to do that.

I talked to Leigh and Priscilla after the funeral and told them that I wanted to take Sabrina back with me. They were delighted. Neither of them wanted to have the care of a child—certainly not such a one as Sabrina. Priscilla had been overcome with grief by the death of Damaris, Leigh told me, and the fact that her parents were ailing and were clearly not long for this world, was an added blow to her.

‘I want to take her away for a while,’ said Leigh, ‘but she won’t leave her parents. In time, perhaps…’

Later Priscilla said to me: ‘Do you think you can undertake the care of Sabrina, Clarissa? It is rather a responsibility. It won’t be easy.’

‘I know it won’t. But I think I understand her and can look after her. I want to get her to put all that has happened behind her. I want her to stop brooding on it.’

Leigh nodded. ‘She will have money in due course,’ he said. ‘Jeremy left everything to Damaris with the exception of an annuity to Smith—so it will go to Sabrina, I suppose. I think Enderby should be sold.’

‘Yes,’ I said emphatically.

‘Do you think Lance will agree to have Sabrina living with you?’

‘I am sure he will.’

‘He’s a good husband. I’m happy for you, Clarissa, in that. Damaris always used to say how contented she was to see you in a happy marriage. There was that affair in your youth—that poor boy who was transported.’

‘Oh yes, yes,’ I said quickly, ‘but that was long ago.’

I did not want to think of Dickon. He had been coming more and more into my thoughts lately and I had often tried to visualize what sort of life he might be living in Virginia.

When I told Sabrina that she was coming to live with me she said in an off-hand way: ‘Am I?’

‘You needn’t, you know, if you don’t want to.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

I was surprised and a little hurt, because I had thought she would be so pleased, for I knew it was what she wanted. She had been so badly hurt that the only way she could find a little balm to lay on her wounds was in hurting others—even those whom, in her heart, she cared for.

‘You must decide quickly,’ I said. ‘Preparations will have to be made and I have to get back soon.

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘All right, then,’ I said. ‘You can’t stay here. I dare say you could go and live with your grandmother.’

‘I’ll come,’ she said ungraciously.

I spoke to Smith. He was very unhappy. His life had been with Jeremy for so long, but he was brave and philosophical. He said: ‘He would never have settled down without her. The difference she made to his life was just staggering. I know. I was with him. I remember her first coming… right from that time she changed him. He couldn’t have gone on without her. It’s best… the way it’s happened. Best for the nipper in a way, too. If you take her, you’ll bring her back to what she ought to be. I know you can do it, Miss Clarissa…’

He himself would go and live in a little cottage by the sea. He’d take Damon with him. ‘He’ll be able to run about on the beach and I’ll have the sound of the sea with me always… I’ll like that.’

So when I left Eversleigh I took Sabrina with me.

IT WAS A STRANGE and uneasy year which followed. My life seemed to be dominated by Sabrina. She was difficult sometimes; determined, it seemed, not to forget her wounds; they had gone very deep. I knew this because she often had nightmares and would cry out in her sleep. I had her in a room next to the one I shared with Lance and I became as mothers are with their babies, and heard her slightest cry.

Then I would slip out of bed and go to her. It was usually some nightmare. She would be skating on a pond; or she would be getting into a grave because she had given her life to one of the people who had risen from the dead. Every disturbance was due to that experience.

I would hold her tightly to me and whisper words of comfort and when she clung to me I knew how she relied on me and how necessary it was for me to lead her away from, that which had affected her so deeply, and it seemed to me during those nocturnal sessions that I could do it, and only I.

Nanny Curlew had come with us. She was good with Sabrina—kind and firm, and she was pleased to come because she looked on Sabrina as her special charge and she could join her cousin, Nanny Goswell. Jean-Louis was Nanny Goswell’s special delight and he was growing into a charming little boy. He was cheerful and good-tempered, bright and intelligent. ‘My little man,’ Nanny Goswell called him.

The two nannies would sit together, one knitting, one tatting endlessly, and discuss Miss Sabrina and ‘my little man’; I thought it was good to have children in the nursery.

I did not need Jeanne to point out to me that there was a certain camaraderie between Lance and Aimée. They both had that intense interest in gambling, and my aversion to it meant that I did not share in the most important factor in my husband’s life. Sometimes I wondered whether I should make an attempt to be interested in it. Then I realized how foolish that would be. I did not know the state of his affairs; he never discussed them with me and if I enquired, he courteously dodged the issue. But I could not believe that he had successfully avoided financial embarrassment, and even if he had, there must come a time when it caught up with him. I would be ready then to rescue him, but I did not intend to dissipate my fortune meanwhile.

I was, I found, thinking more and more frequently of Dickon and as the time passed I suppose I built up an idealized picture of him. I liked to contemplate what would have happened if he had not been caught and transported. Suppose we had married? I looked longingly into a life of blissful content.

But I had married Lance. I loved Lance, of course. He possessed great charm and outstanding good looks. He was the most considerate of persons. But I often felt that there was a shadowy element there. Did I really know Lance?

This was foolish dreaming. There was too much reality all around me for me to waste myself in insubstantial dreams, picturing what might have been.

My great-grandfather died peacefully in his bed that autumn and about two months later Arabella followed him. I went with Lance and Sabrina to the funeral.

‘There have been so many funerals in this family lately,’ said Priscilla sadly.

She was quiet and restrained, not easy to talk to. Leigh said he was making arrangements to take her away for a while. They would do a kind of Grand Tour of Europe which would help to put a bridge between the past and the present. When they returned they might live at Eversleigh Court as Arabella had suggested before she died; Enderby would be sold.

‘That will complete the change,’ said Leigh.

Sabrina and I went to see Smith in his cottage. He was managing very well, looking after himself, and Damon was there to keep him company.

‘Poor old fellow,’ said Smith. ‘He’s getting old, like I am.’

He had acquired another dog—little more than a puppy. ‘He’ll be a stand-by when poor old Damon’s gone,’ he went on. ‘Couldn’t bear to be without a dog.’

Sabrina enjoyed playing with the puppy. She seemed more like a child than she had for a long time.

‘You’re doing a fine job with the nipper,’ said Smith. ‘It wasn’t right of the master to treat her as he did. I told him so. He’d take it from me. But it made no difference. He was that wounded… like a dog maimed in a trap. He just had to shut himself in. Oh, I knew him well. But you’re the one to look after Miss Sabrina. You’ll do it. There’s good in her… if you can find it.’

I felt comforted, talking to that wise old man.

But during the months that followed I sometimes despaired of Sabrina. There were times when she seemed determined to make trouble. I think we were all patient with her. Nanny Curlew was used to her but Nanny Goswell was critical, comparing her with her ‘good little man’ who, young as he was, commented Nanny Goswell, had more respect for other people’s feelings than Madame Sabrina had. Nanny Curlew explained to her cousin that Sabrina had suffered through an unfortunate incident and that she must be given special care.

As for Aimée, she came to the nursery somewhat infrequently and seemed perfectly happy that her son should remain in Nanny Goswell’s care. She ignored Sabrina until the incident of the cards.

Sabrina had a scrapbook in which she delighted. I was pleased to see her so interested in something and she and I would discuss together where the pictures she collected should be stuck in. We would spend happy times matching one colour with another and fitting them in. She collected all the prints we could find, together with old songs and ballads and cuttings from the papers. Many happy hours were spent with the glue pot beside the open book; and sometimes I would say: ‘Let’s look at the scrapbook,’ and she always eagerly agreed.

We were having a dinner party, one of those which did not make me very happy, for there would be play, of course, and I knew that the stakes would be high. I sometimes wondered whether Lance would gamble with the house itself

On these occasions Lance was always a little abstracted. He was perfectly charming, but it was quite clear that his thoughts were not with me.

I said to him as we dressed: ‘I am a little worried about Aimée.’

Was it my fancy, or did he seem suddenly alert?

‘Whatever for?’ he asked quickly. ‘She seems happy enough.’

‘Does she gamble for high stakes?’

He laughed. ‘Oh, it’s gambling again, is it? Well, I’d say… moderate.’

‘Does she win?’

‘She’s naturally lucky. Some people are. But not always, of course.’

‘Did she pay you back what she borrowed from you… to start her off?’

‘Oh yes. She soon did that. I’d say that she had far more than usual luck. At one time she was very fortunate indeed.’

Yes, I thought, and had a quick vision of her slipping a card from her petticoat pocket to those she was holding.

He laughed. ‘She has some notion of making enough to set up a house for herself and Jean-Louis. I have told her her home is here as long as she wants, it. I could say no less for your half-sister.’

‘Thank you, Lance. You are very good to me… and Aimée.’

He came over and kissed me. I saw his reflection in the glass, elegant, graceful, like someone playing a part on a stage. He could be trusted always to do what was correct in the etiquette of good manners.

‘My dear, it is you who are good to me.’

‘I believe you would do a lot to make me happy, Lance.’

‘I’d be glad of the opportunity.’

‘Except one thing. You would never give up gambling for me.’

‘Leopards can’t change their spots, my darling, and gamblers can’t give up the game.’

‘I thought not,’ I said.

‘I know you have never liked it,’ he went on, ‘but I couldn’t give it up if I tried. It’s a spell that was laid on me at birth. When I was eight I would bet with stable boys on a couple of beetles trundling along the ground. It’s innate, it’s irredeemable. I’d do it for you if I could, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be myself.’

‘I understand, Lance.’

‘And you’ll forgive me for it?’ He took my chin in his hands and smiled at me.