Philippa Carr - The love child

“It is revolting and so are you. I loathe the smell more than ever.”

“That’s what you tell me, but you don’t always tell the truth, do you? What a spectacular piece of acting, to play virgin when you were so clearly different from that. I am pleased with you though, naughty Priscilla. I think I like you better as the scheming woman than as the virgin. You are sly, of course, very sly. But you please me. I am getting impatient now. Come, drink some of this wine.”

I shook my head.

“It has aphrodisiac qualities … like the musk. If you are really not looking forward to the night, it might help you.”

I still shook my head.

“Drink it,” he said, and his manner had changed. “I say drink it. You are here to obey me. Is that not part of the bargain?”

I suddenly felt that it was no use caring any more what happened to me. I was here for a purpose and that must be carried out. There would be no one to rescue me this time and I could not ask to be rescued. I had to save my father.

I drank the wine. I had had nothing to eat and I felt a little dizzy. He was right. The wine would help me endure what had to come.

I heard him laugh softly.

“Come,” he said, “I am ready now.”

I stood up. I felt his hands on my cloak. It slid to the ground. He took off his cloak and stood before me. He touched the angry mark across his chest. “Inflicted by your protector,” he said. “You have to pay a good deal for that.” There was a savage note in his voice. I had to suppress a desire to turn and run. But he had picked me up and thrown me onto the bed.

Even now I cannot bear to think of that night. He was determined to make me pay in full for the thrashing Leigh had given him and for the fact that he, who prided himself on his knowledge of women, had been deceived into thinking a pregnant girl was an innocent virgin. This was what I was paying for, although the bait he offered me was my father’s life.

The man was amoral. He had no feeling for right or wrong. Again and again during that night he reminded me of my need to submit to his will—and every time I dared not disobey.

I tried to disengage myself, to be as one looking on at my other self partaking in these activities. I knew that he was trying to subdue my spirit as well as my body, and it irked him—while it aroused a certain admiration in him—that he could not. He was a strange man. Oddly enough, I trusted him to keep his part of the bargain, although from everything I knew of him, it seemed foolish to expect it. But I did. He was, as he had said, in some ways a man of refined tastes. His scented linen, his well-washed body bore this out. At least I did not have to endure an unwashed lecher. I felt bruised bodily and mentally, and all the time I was telling myself that it must soon pass.

When I saw the first streak of dawn in the sky, I knew my ordeal was coming to an end.

He made no attempt to stop my leaving. I wrapped myself in the cloak and pulled the bell rope. The woman whom I had seen when I arrived came into the room. She looked different without her false pieces of hair and her patches. But she was clean. I was sure that everyone near him must be that.

She took me without a word to the room where I had bathed. There were my clothes. I dressed and she led me out. The carriage was waiting and I was taken back to the inn.

I went straight to my mother’s room and with great relief saw that she was still sleeping. I prayed to God that she had not missed me during the night.

I took off my outdoor clothes and sat down. I shut my eyes. Images from the previous night kept crowding into my mind.

My father will come today, I told myself, and then it will all have been worthwhile.

Yes, it would. What was a night’s humiliation compared with a life, and my father’s life at that!

I thought about him. He was another strange man, a man who had known many women before he married my mother. I believed he had been faithful to her. Christabel was his daughter. He had admitted that. Perhaps he had other children here and there.

Thinking of my father stopped those images. I saw him instead of the handsome, lascivious face of Beaumont Granville which I was sure would haunt me for the rest of my life.

I thought then: I love my father. I love him dearly … perhaps more than I do my mother. Always I had wanted to impress him, to have him take notice of me, to look for me when he came home after an absence. He never had. He never would. I was only the daughter and sons were important to a man such as he was.

Then suddenly I was elated because when he came through the door I could say to myself: I saved you. I brought you home. The daughter you have never thought of much account was the one who saved your life.

I did not care at that moment what I had done. I was glad of it. I had suffered humiliation for his sake and I would do it again.

My mother stirred uneasily during the morning. I sat beside her with a sickening fear in my heart.

Would Granville keep his word? Why should I trust such a man? Was he laughing now because he had deceived me as he had been deceived about me in Venice?

He had sworn that he paid his debts and I still believed he would pay this one. I must believe it. But as the morning wore on terrible doubts came to me.

I thought fiercely, If he has failed me, I will kill him.

It was early in the afternoon when my father walked in.

He was dirty and unkempt. He smelt of the prison. There was death in that smell. He was pale and had lost a great deal of weight. But he was there. He was safe.

“Oh, father!” I cried. “So you are back!”

He nodded. “Your mother …”

I looked towards the bed and he was kneeling there. She opened her eyes. I shall never forget the smile on her face. She was young and beautiful again and they were in each other’s arms.

I stood watching them, but they were unaware of me.

MY MOTHER’S RECOVERY WAS rapid. The doctor had been right when he had said that all she needed was to see my father safe and well.

We made hasty preparations to leave, for she said that should not feel safe until we were back in Eversleigh. There was a determined look about her mouth. I could see that she had made up her mind that there would be no more dabbling in rebellions. We had King James the Second on the throne; he was a Catholic, and my father, in common with a great many English men and women, did not want a Catholic King; but my mother’s theory was that he was there and there he must stay and we must put up with him. We were running no more risks.

I think seeing her so ill and anxious had affected my father deeply. During the days which followed they would not allow one to be out of the other’s sight. It was moving, and in spite of my bruised and humiliated body, I felt exultant because but for me it would have been a very different story.

We took the first coach back and went by stages. My father thought it best to travel as simply as possible in case there had been a mistake.

When we were back in Eversleigh they talked more freely.

“I cannot think who my benefactor was,” said my father. “It happened so suddenly. I was taken to a room where I spent the night alone. It was a relief. The conditions were appalling. I shall never get that stench out of my nostrils. Just to be taken away from it was a blessing. And the next day I was free.”

He was convinced that my mother had paid a heavy bribe to someone. She assured him that she had not. Indeed when we had arrived in Dorchester she had been in a fever and had not even known where she was.

“It must have been someone,” said my father. “I wonder who. I shall discover. I certainly have a very good friend somewhere.”

“Someone for whom you once did a service,” suggested my mother.

“I should remember. But I can think of no one. It would have needed a great deal, I am sure. Jeffreys—the devil—is becoming rich through the assizes.”

Neither of them noticed me, and it occurred to me that after the experience of that night there must be a change in me. I felt I should never be the same again. It had been utter degradation, complete submission to a man who mingled his sexual desires with a passion for revenge. I would never forget his gloating laughter, and I had known that he was thinking of Leigh and his own humiliation in being severely thrashed. How that must have offended what he called his refined tastes! What lotions he would have needed to heal his wounds! But what had affected him most deeply was the humiliation. I guessed he had soothed that a little after what he had done to me.

And yet, to witness the love of my parents and their joy in finding themselves together again filled me with exultation because but for me their lives would lie in ruins.

I had saved my father’s life, and my mother from a living death, so I could not regret what had happened.

My mother insisted that we celebrate my father’s return. Harriet must come over with the child.

“I know how you love to see them,” said my mother. “My dear Priscilla, this has been a great ordeal for you, too.”

“But he is safe now,” I said.

“My dearest child, I want to go down on my knees and thank whoever did this for us. It is such a mystery. But I think we shall know one day.”

“I am sure it will be reward enough for this … benefactor to see your happiness.”

“Your father and I are like one person,” she confided. “If one was lost to the other there would be little in life left for the one who remained.”

I felt too emotional to speak.

“And you, dear,” she went on, “we are forgetting you. It has been such a terrible time for us both. You looked after me so well. It was such a comfort to have you with me.”

I thought to myself: If you only knew! But I could never tell them. I wondered, though, what their reaction would be if I did. There was no one to whom I could talk of what had happened. Not Harriet … not Christabel … no one. My great desire was to wipe it from my memory. I should never do that completely. Every time I smelt that hideous musk smell I would remember him … his eyes gleaming as he talked of the deer.

How different from that night of tender love which I had spent with Jocelyn. That had produced Carlotta. The fear hit suddenly. What if there was a child born of that night of horror! What should I do then?

It could not be. That would be too much. I had paid for my father’s life. Surely I had paid in full.

At times I would wander out into the garden. I would go to the bed of red roses and think of when I had first met Jocelyn and I would say to myself: If it should be so, what can I do?

I was, however, spared that.

There would be no child of that shameful night.

Now, I said to myself, I must try to forget.

There was not, after all, to be a great show of rejoicing on my father’s return.

“From now on,” said my mother, “we must live quietly.”

There would be no journeys to and from Court. We were out of favour there. We must not remind anyone that we had favoured Monmouth’s cause. We had a new King on the throne, and if we did not like him, we must make the best of him.

My father was restive. It was his nature to be, and I was sure that if it were not for worrying my mother, he would have been involved in some plot or other. They were uneasy days which followed the death of easygoing Charles. Charles had been so popular since the days of his restoration but James had not the gift of winning people to his side.

“It is no concern of ours,” said my mother firmly, and as she showed signs of becoming ill every time she saw the lust for adventure in my father’s eyes, he would regretfully turn away from whatever he was planning.

He loved her dearly. There was no doubt of that.

So his return was not a matter for an open celebration. We did entertain friends. Harriet came over with Gregory, Benjie and Carlotta and they stayed for several weeks. I could forget my experiences in the company of my daughter. She was now nearly four years old and she was going to be a beauty; her blue eyes were growing more and more like Jocelyn’s; they had not that deep violet shade which was Harriet’s great beauty; they were clear, like cornflowers; her dark hair was a lovely contrast, and her short, pert nose was adorable. Her skin was like flower petals and she was enchanting. But her chief attraction was her vitality. She was so lively that Sally Nullens said that it was one body’s work just to keep pace with her. Emily Philpots saw that she was always exquisitely dressed and had already started teaching her to read, which she quickly learned. Emily said she had never known a child to learn so quickly. To those two women Carlotta was the centre of life.