‘Dickon’s father-in-law is a very influential man,’ wrote Sabrina. ‘He is a banker and some high official at Court. It is all rather secret and we are not sure what he does there. He has his finger in many pies … and that means Dickon has too. You may be sure he makes the most of everything that comes his way …’
Once my grandmother and Sabrina came to visit us. They wanted to assure themselves that my mother and I were really happy.
Dickon did not come with them. ‘I suppose he can’t get his fingers out of all those pies,’ I said maliciously.
They laughed and replied that Dickon was indeed busy. He was in London a great deal and there was Eversleigh to run. He surrounded himself with good men … the right people.
‘He talks of you often, Lottie,’ said my grandmother. ‘He was so sweet to you when you came to stay, wasn’t he? Not many young men would have taken so much notice of a little girl.’
My mother put in rather tartly: ‘He took a lot of notice of Eversleigh and that included Lottie at that time.’
My grandmother ignored that and insisted: ‘It was a charming gesture to take so much interest in a little girl and he used to do everything to make Lottie happy.’
Yes, I thought. He kissed me in a way that I find hard to forget. He talked to me of marriage … and how happy we should be together. He persuaded me to love him. He tricked me, and when he got Eversleigh he jilted me.
I knew now that my mother had contrived it. She had sent for my father who had come and changed everything. Then she had given up Eversleigh because she thought that when Dickon had it he would cease to want me.
And how right she had been! I suppose I should have been grateful to her, but I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have cared for what reason Dickon wanted me. Perhaps I refused to let myself forget him; perhaps the idea of lost love pleased me, made me feel that my life, though tragic, was full of interest. That may well have been the case, but the fact remained that Dickon was always ready to come into my thoughts, and with the memory would come that frustrated longing.
‘There is only one fly in the ointment,’ said Sabrina; ‘they can’t get children.’
‘Poor Isabel, she does so long for a healthy child,’ added my grandmother. ‘There have been two miscarriages already. It seems as though she is ill-fated. Dickon is most disappointed.’
‘It is the only thing he cannot win for himself,’ I commented.
My grandmother and Sabrina never recognized irony when it was directed against Dickon. ‘Alas, that is so, my dear,’ said Sabrina sadly.
So there I was at the time of the royal wedding. The little Austrian girl who was about my age was coming to France to marry the Dauphin, who himself was not much older. The Comte would be at Court and I supposed we should all go to some of the entertainments. There would be balls and ballets and we should be able to catch a glimpse of the notorious woman, Madame du Barry, who was causing such a scandal at Court. She was vulgar and breathtakingly beautiful, I believed, and the King doted on her. Many had tried to remove her from her position, but the King remained enslaved.
There was always some intrigue in progress; life was rich, colourful and uncertain—the more so because on occasions we heard of the rumblings of discontent throughout the country. News would reach us of riots in a small town, a farmer’s haystacks being burned down, a baker’s shop raided … Small outbreaks in remote places. We took little notice of them. Certainly not during those golden days before the wedding.
The château had become my home by now but I never really got used to it. It could never be home to me as Clavering and Eversleigh had been. There I had been in the houses of my ancestors—but in a way the castle was that too; yet there was something alien about it. It seemed full of echoes from the past and I could never quite forget those dungeons which the Comte had shown me soon after my arrival.
My mother had settled in with ease and had taken on the role of Madame la Comtesse without any apparent effort. I supposed that was because she was happy. I marvelled that she, who had lived rather quietly, could suddenly become a figure in society, although throughout it all she preserved a certain air of innocence which was very attractive. There was mystery about her. She had a virginal air and yet it was well known that she had borne the Comte’s child—myself—all those years before when she had been the wife of another man, and the Comte had had his own wife and family. As for the Comte, he had become a doting and faithful husband, which I was sure was something society had never expected of him. It was a miracle. The miracle of true love. That, I would say to myself, is how Dickon and I would have been had we been allowed to marry.
