Philippa Carr by Zipporahs Daughter

Author:Zipporahs Daughter [Daughter, Zipporahs]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A Visit to Eversleigh

GLOOM HAD DESCENDED ON the castle. I could not forget Sophie’s nocturnal visit and I wondered how I could ever get her to accept the truth. I had not realized how much she had resented me. It was only since the coming of Charles, of course; before that she had accepted me as her sister.

Perhaps I had been too taken up with my own affairs to give enough attention to hers. Poor girl, so fearfully scarred, and then to lose the man she was to marry and again to have lost the chance of happiness. I must try to understand.

Marie Louise announced her intention of going into a convent. She had long thought of doing so and now that it was almost certain that her husband was dead, there was nothing to keep her in the château. My father was delighted to see her go. He said he thought it would lessen the gloom a little.

He was very anxious about me.

‘You are pining for Dickon,’ he said.

‘No, no!’ I protested. ‘Nothing of the sort. When he comes he creates … disturbances.’

‘But it is disturbance that makes life worth living for you and without it … is it not a little dull?’

‘I have the children and you.’

‘The children are growing up. Claudine is nearly thirteen years old.’

‘So she is.’ When I was that age I had been overwhelmed by Dickon for some time and had thought of marriage to him. Charlot was almost sixteen and Louis-Charles was a little older than that. It was indeed true that they were growing away from childhood.

‘And you are getting older, my dear,’ went on my father.

‘We all are, of course.’

‘It must be thirty-four years ago when I saw your mother for the first time. It was so romantic … dusk … and she stood there like a phantom from another world. She thought I was a ghost too. I had been hunting for a fob I had lost and I rose up suddenly on that haunted patch of land and really startled her.’

‘I know. You have told me.’

‘I should like to see it all again before I die. Lottie, you should go back. You should go to Eversleigh. You should make up your mind what to do about Dickon. I think you are in love with him. Are you?’

I hesitated. ‘What is love? Is it being excited by someone … enjoying the presence of someone … feeling alive when he is there and yet at the same time knowing too much about him … knowing that he wants power, money … and that he is prepared to do almost anything for them … not quite trusting … ? You see, I am trying to see his inadequacies. Is that love?’

‘Perhaps you are looking for perfection.’

‘Didn’t you look for it … and find it?’

‘I never looked for it because I did not believe it existed. I stumbled on it by chance.’

‘It was because you loved so deeply that you found it. My mother might not have been perfect.

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