It must have been about three days after his arrival. I was in my bedroom getting dressed for dinner when there was a gentle tap on the door.
‘Come in,’ I called, and to my surprise my mother entered.
There was a glow about her which I had noticed lately. I guessed she was pleased to have a visitor and I was glad, because we had had enough tragedy lately and she had been so unhappy since my father’s death. Following that she had lost a very dear friend in the doctor who had attended my father. He had suffered a horrible death in a fire at his hospital. That had been a terrible time, for my governess was burned to death in the fire also. Such events had had a sobering effect on us all, but most of all on my mother. Then of course there was the matter of Dickon, about which she was very upset and this worried me a great deal, for as much as I should like to comfort her, I could not, because doing so meant promising to give up Dickon. So I was very relieved that she was lifted out of her depression, if only temporarily.
‘Lottie,’ she said, ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Yes, Mother,’ I replied, smiling at her.
‘What do you think of the Comte?’ she asked.
‘Very grand,’ I answered. ‘Very elegant. Very amusing. In fact a very fine gentleman. I wonder why he called on us? I think he must have been here some time. I get the impression that the place is not quite strange to him.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘Was he a friend of Uncle Carl?’
‘A friend of mine,’ she said.
She was really behaving rather oddly, fumbling for words. She was usually so direct.
‘So,’ she went on, ‘you do … like him?’
‘Of course. Who could help it? He is most interesting. All that talk about the French Court and the château. All those grand people. He must be very important.’
‘He is a diplomat and works in Court circles. Lottie, you do … er …
‘Mother,’ I said, ‘are you trying to
She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said quickly: ‘It was long ago … before you were born. … It had to be before you were born. I was very fond of Jean-Louis.’
I was astonished. It seemed strange that she should call my father Jean-Louis. Why did she not say ‘your father’, and in any case she did not have to tell me how fond she had been of him. I had seen her nurse him through his illnesses and witnessed her grief at his death. I knew more than anyone what a loving and devoted wife she had been.
So I said: ‘Of course!’ a little impatiently.
‘And he loved you. You were so important to him. He often said what joy you had brought into his life. He said that when you came into it you made up for his affliction.’
She was staring ahead of her; her eyes were bright and I thought that at any moment she would start to cry.
I took her hand and kissed it. ‘Tell me what you want to, Mother,’ I said.
‘It was thirteen years ago when I came back to Eversleigh after all those years. My … I call him uncle but the relationship was more involved than that. Uncle Carl was very old and he knew he had not long to live. He wanted to leave Eversleigh in the family. It seemed that I was the next of kin.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
‘Your father was unable to come. He had had that accident which ruined his health … so I came alone. The Comte was staying at Enderby and we met. I don’t know how to tell you this, Lottie. We met … and became … lovers.’
I looked at her in amazement. My mother …with a lover in Eversleigh while my father was lying sick at Clavering Hall! I was overwhelmed by the realization of how little we knew about other people. I had always thought of her as strictly moral, unswerving in her adherence to convention … and she had taken a lover!
She was gripping my hands. ‘Please try to understand.’
I did understand, in spite of my youth, far better than she realized. I loved Dickon and I could understand how easy it was to be carried away by one’s emotions.
‘The fact is, Lottie, there was a child.
Now the confession had taken on a fantastic aspect. I was not the daughter of the man whom I had always believed to be my father but of the fantastic Comte. I was incredulous.
‘I know what you are thinking of me, Lottie,’ my mother rushed on. ‘You are despising me. You are too young to understand. The … temptation overwhelmed me. And afterwards your father … I mean Jean-Louis … was so happy. I could not have told him. I couldn’t have confessed my guilt. It would have wounded him mortally. He had suffered so much. He was so happy when you were born and you know how it was between you. You were also so good to him … so sweet, so gentle, so considerate … and that meant a great deal to him. He had always wanted children … but apparently he could not have them. I could, as I proved and so, Lottie, now you know. The Comte is your father.’
‘Does he know this?’
‘Yes, he knows. That is why he has come here … to see you. Why don’t you say something?’
‘I … can’t think what to say.’
‘You are shocked?’
‘I don’t know.’
