The Drop of the Dice by Philippa Carr

Author:Philippa Carr
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

IT WAS A STRANGE and uneasy year which followed. My life seemed to be dominated by Sabrina. She was difficult sometimes; determined, it seemed, not to forget her wounds; they had gone very deep. I knew this because she often had nightmares and would cry out in her sleep. I had her in a room next to the one I shared with Lance and I became as mothers are with their babies, and heard her slightest cry.

Then I would slip out of bed and go to her. It was usually some nightmare. She would be skating on a pond; or she would be getting into a grave because she had given her life to one of the people who had risen from the dead. Every disturbance was due to that experience.

I would hold her tightly to me and whisper words of comfort and when she clung to me I knew how she relied on me and how necessary it was for me to lead her away from, that which had affected her so deeply, and it seemed to me during those nocturnal sessions that I could do it, and only I.

Nanny Curlew had come with us. She was good with Sabrina—kind and firm, and she was pleased to come because she looked on Sabrina as her special charge and she could join her cousin, Nanny Goswell. Jean-Louis was Nanny Goswell’s special delight and he was growing into a charming little boy. He was cheerful and good-tempered, bright and intelligent. ‘My little man,’ Nanny Goswell called him.

The two nannies would sit together, one knitting, one tatting endlessly, and discuss Miss Sabrina and ‘my little man’; I thought it was good to have children in the nursery.

I did not need Jeanne to point out to me that there was a certain camaraderie between Lance and Aimée. They both had that intense interest in gambling, and my aversion to it meant that I did not share in the most important factor in my husband’s life. Sometimes I wondered whether I should make an attempt to be interested in it. Then I realized how foolish that would be. I did not know the state of his affairs; he never discussed them with me and if I enquired, he courteously dodged the issue. But I could not believe that he had successfully avoided financial embarrassment, and even if he had, there must come a time when it caught up with him. I would be ready then to rescue him, but I did not intend to dissipate my fortune meanwhile.

I was, I found, thinking more and more frequently of Dickon and as the time passed I suppose I built up an idealized picture of him. I liked to contemplate what would have happened if he had not been caught and transported. Suppose we had married? I looked longingly into a life of blissful content.

But I had married Lance. I loved Lance, of course. He possessed great charm and outstanding good looks. He was the most considerate of persons.

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