Everyone laughed.

‘You know what it is?’ I said. ‘It’s formed in the stomachs of certain animals. It absorbs poison. That’s why Queen Elizabeth had one. Quite a number of monarchs had them in the past.’

Everyone was enormously interested, and the ring was passed round the table.

‘It was stolen by that unscrupulous maid of Clarissa’s,’ said Lance. ‘She found it by a miracle. Tell them about it, Clarissa.’

So I told how I had seen the ring in a shop window.

‘A chance in a million,’ said Eddy, awestruck.

‘What a pity that you did not bet on my finding it!’ I said.

They laughed and the ring was handed back to me.

The tables were set up in the usual manner and after seeing them all settled I went upstairs. Madame Legrand accompanied me.

‘They will play into the early hours of the morning,’ she said. ‘I wish that Aimée had not such a taste for this gambling.’

‘It’s a pity,’ I agreed. ‘They win, then they lose. It all seems such a waste of time.’

‘And dear Lance, he has this love of the gamble, has he not?’

I nodded ruefully, and she lifted her shoulders, kissed me and said good night.

Lance came up eventually. I was half-asleep. He came in, went to the dressing-table and went out again. Now I was fully awake, wondering what this meant.

Shortly afterwards he came back.

He was in a rather sober mood so I guessed that his losses must have been great to have that effect on him.

‘Is everything all right, Lance?’ I asked.”

He was silent for a few moments and I sat up in bed to look at him more closely.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Just a bit of bad luck. I think we drank too much wine at dinner… and we were drinking afterwards. Drink makes you do foolish things.’

‘Have your losses been so great then? Tell me. What have you lost?’

‘Let me explain,’ he said. ‘I want you to see it as it happened. We were all very merry… as I said, the wine… and we played poker. The stakes were getting rather high when Eddy said he was finished. He could bet no more for if he lost he would be so deeply in debt that he would never get out of it.’

‘It seems he has come to his senses at last.’

‘No. He couldn’t bear to stop so he staked the diamond pin in his cravat. I won it. He was wearing a signet ring with the family’s crest engraved on it. Heavy solid gold, of some value. He wanted to throw it against some possession of mine and suddenly he said, “That ring we saw at dinner. That’s what I want. We’ll play for that.” I said, “No. That’s Clarissa’s ring.” He shouted: “What’s hers is yours. Come on, I want to play for the bezoar ring.” I told him the bezoar ring was priceless. I said. “It’s worth more than your signet ring, Eddy, and you know it.”

‘He said: “All right. My country house for the bezoar ring.” Everyone had become excited because of the unusual stakes. We were urged on. Someone said Eddy was crazy. A house for a ring! Aimée was sitting beside Eddy urging him on. She loves a gamble, that girl…’

Lance’s eyes were shining, the excitement still with him.

‘So you gambled with my ring,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he answered soberly.

‘And you lost.’

He was silent.

‘Lance,’ I cried, ‘are you telling me that my bezoar ring has gone to Eddy Moreton!’

He looked shamefaced. ‘I’ll get it back,’ he said.

It was rarely that I was angry with Lance, but I was then. I had always deplored his reckless gambling but that he should have risked something which was mine filled me with rage. I was as furious as I had been on that occasion when he had used my money to buy shares in the South Sea Company without consulting me. I was tired, and this was the last straw.

‘How dare you!’ I cried. ‘It’s tantamount to stealing. What right have you? Risk your own goods if you want to be so foolish… but leave mine alone.’

‘I will find another ring, I promise you. I will get you that one back. Clarissa, I’m sorry. It was wrong of me. But you must try to imagine what it was like down there. The excitement of it… the different type of bet. It was momentarily… irresistible.’

‘It’s despicable,’ I said.

‘Oh, Clarissa,’ he murmured. He came to the bed and tried to put his arms about me. I pushed him aside.

‘I am tired of your incessant gambling,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anything about your affairs but it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re in a bad state. You are so foolish… like a child who can’t say no, even when it comes to taking what is not yours. I do not forget what you did with my money in the South Sea Company.’

‘And look what I made for you.’

‘You did not make it. I made it by my good sense in putting an end to the gamble. I forgave you that, but this is too much. The ring was my special property.’

‘You did not seem to care so much when you lost it before.’

‘I cared deeply.’

‘That was because Jeanne stole it.’

‘You are as bad as Jeanne. You have stolen it, too. I see no difference in you. She at least had the sense to steal it for a sensible purpose. You… just to satisfy your lust for gambling.’

‘Clarissa, I swear I’ll get it back.’

‘Yes,’ I retorted. ‘Stake the house against it… all you possess. You might lose that too. Stake me, perhaps. Please go away now. I’m tired and I want to be alone.’

He tried once more to cajole me, sitting on the bed, looking at me with wistful appeal, bringing out all his considerable charm, but I wanted him to know how deeply upset I was, and that I no longer accepted this gambling when he so wantonly risked what was mine. I could not and would not forgive him for taking my bezoar ring.

Lance had always hated trouble and escaped from it as soon as possible, and when he saw that I was adamant, he did that now.

He sadly rose from the bed and opened the door of the powder closet. He would go there and spend the night on that uncomfortable couch, hoping that I would soften towards him.

I stayed in bed next day for I was feeling unwell. My condition, together with last night’s shock, had upset me so much that I felt too ill to get up. Moreover, I wanted to shut myself away, to consider Lance and my feelings for him.

I loved him in a way. His charm was undeniable. He was always gracious and kind, and very popular in society, and there had been many an occasion when I had felt proud to be his wife. And yet sometimes, and this was particularly when the gambling fever was on him, I felt I did not know him. I thought of Elvira. How deeply did his feelings ever go? He must have been fond of her, albeit in a light-hearted way. Why had he not married her? I suppose because she would not have been a suitable wife, so their relationship had been a casual one. I was a suitable wife. Why? Because I came from a good family background, or because I had a fortune? Had that been the reason?

I was thinking now of Dickon. Our relationship had been strong and firm in spite of the fact that everything was against it. It had been young and innocent and beautiful even though the feud between our families was as fierce as that between the Montagues and Capulets. I wandered back to the old familiar theme; what would have happened to us if Dickon had not been sent away; and I dreamed of an ideal.

It was then that I felt that life had cheated me.

Sabrina came to see me. She was always uneasy when I was not well. It was touching to see how much I meant to her. I believe I stood for security and that was what Sabrina, in common with most children, wanted most in life.

She climbed on to the bed and studied me closely.

‘You’re ill,’ she said. ‘It’s that silly baby.’

‘People often feel slightly less well when they are going to have babies.’

‘Silly to have them, then,’ she said scornfully.

She studied me again. ‘You look a bit angry, too,’ she commented.

‘I’m not angry.’

‘You look sad and angry and ill.’

‘Whatever else you are, Sabrina,’ I said, ‘you’re frank. I’m all right, though.’

She said: ‘I don’t want you to die.’

‘Die? Who says I’m going to die?’

‘Nobody says it. They only think it.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

She put her arms round my neck and held me tightly. ‘Let’s go away from here. You and me… We can take the little baby with us. I’ll look after it. I’d like there to be just the three of us. No Aimée. No Jean-Louis. No her.’

‘And no Lance?’ I asked.

‘Oh, he’d rather stay with them… now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He likes her, you know.’

‘Who?’

‘Aimée,’ she replied with conviction. ‘He likes her better than you.’

‘I don’t think he does.’

She nodded vigorously.

One of the servants came in with a dish of chocolate. It was steaming hot and smelt delicious.

Sabrina looked at it suspiciously. ‘Where is the ring?’ she asked.

‘The ring?’

‘Your bezoar ring.’

‘I haven’t got it any more,’ I told her.

‘Has it been… stolen again?’

‘In a way.’

Her eyes were round, and on impulse I said: ‘Lance gambled with it and lost it.’

‘It’s yours,’ she cried. ‘It’s wicked to take it.’ I was silent and she suddenly clung to me, her eyes round as saucers.

‘Oh Clarissa,’ she said fiercely, ‘you mustn’t die. You mustn’t.’

‘What are you talking about? You are a funny girl, Sabrina.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I know I’m frightened… a bit.’

I held her tightly to me for a moment. Then I said: ‘What about a game of I Spy?’

‘All right,’ she answered, brightening.

As we played I thought what a strange child she was, and how dear to me, as I knew I was to her. There was an intimacy between us. It had been there from her birth. She was more than a cousin; she was like my own child. I loved her dearly. I loved her strangeness, her waywardness, her love of the dramatic and what seemed like a determination to create it when it was not there—all that made up Sabrina.

Sabrina was now caught up in an intrigue of her own imagining, and it concerned Lance, Aimée and myself.

It was difficult for me to know how much to suspect, or how much had been planted in my mind by my own observations or by Sabrina’s suggestions.

Sabrina wanted me to herself. She was ready to accept the new baby but she wanted us to be alone. She resented the others, and now Lance more than any. She saw him as the real barrier, and with characteristic determination she was doing her best to remove that barrier.

She had made up her mind that Aimée and Lance were the enemies and that Madame Legrand was their ally. In her mind, she, with myself, stood against them. As Lance was my husband she thought there should be another woman, for she was very knowledgeable about such matters, having listened avidly to servants’ gossip. Sometimes I wondered whether the servants were gossiping about Lance and Aimée.

Eddy Moreton was still paying attention to Aimée. He had a small house not far from Clavering Hall. His family’s ancestral home was in the Midlands but he hadn’t a chance of inheriting that. Aimée did not exactly encourage him. I think my sister was far too practical to enter into a marriage which would bring her no financial advantage.

Sabrina watched them cautiously. I wondered whether anyone would notice her absorption, but the manner in which she sought to protect me was touching.

Sometimes in life there appears to be a special bond between people; it is almost as though their lives are entwined and therefore they are of the utmost significance to each other. I often thought of that afterwards.

She was now having a deep effect on me. She was sowing seeds of suspicion in my mind. She was creating in me an atmosphere which I told myself had grown entirely out of her imagination, and yet at the same time I was not sure that this was so. Sometimes I wondered whether she had an extra sense; at others I dismissed her insinuations as childish nonsense. She was possessive and she wanted me for herself; moreover, she had an insatiable desire for drama. Her great interest now was to protect me from some impending evil, and whether she actually sensed it or built it up out of jealousy of Lance, I could not be sure.

I often thought of the bezoar ring and I wondered if it had more magical qualities than those assigned to it. Through it I had learned of Jeanne’s frailty, and I would have sworn her loyalty was unshakeable and perhaps the most important emotion in her life. And through it the fact that Lance would stop at nothing in his mad passion for gambling had shown itself.