Lament for a lost lover

“Oh, Charlotte was l£ mad.” Charlotte was not mad. Charlotte was clever. She n knew what she wanted and she was only trying to get it. But things went wrong. I shot at you from the bushes, but you moved at the wrong moment and you were only wounded in the arm and that put you on guard which was not helpful to me.

Then I decided that I must act quickly because you were going to be very watchful after the shooting. I put the wax dolls in the arbour. I was going to make Sally suspicious of Harriet. I was going to make it believed that she was a witch. After all, people were only too ready to accept that. They would say it was witchcraft which made you lose the child ... though I had no hand in that. Of course it wasn’t witchcraft that wounded you. But it could be said that the Devil guided Leigh’s hand. That was what people were saying. Then I thought of the arbour. That would have worked but for Young Jethro. Who could have believed that a mad man could have spoilt all my plans?

It’s over for me now. I am caught. What can I do? I have to put into practice what I had often thought of doing and failed to do before. This time there is no turning back.

As soon as it is dark I am going to creep out of this house. I shall walk to the sea. Look in the cave ... you remember the cave? You hid there while you waited for horses to bring you to the house. There you will find my cloak ... high on a rock where the tide cannot reach it. I shall have disappeared from your life forever. I am going to walk into the sea ... and walk, and walk ... Good-bye, Arabella. You can be happy now. Learn to understand Carleton, as he will learn to understand you. Charlotte.

We found her cloak where she had said it would be. We went to the hidden cavity behind the library books. There she had left paper and pen, so we knew it was all as she had said.

Poor Charlotte, I think of her often. Where the arbour was we have made a flower garden. The roses flourish there, and we have cleared away the charred bracken and it has become part of the garden. No one says it’s haunted now. Few remember that once an arbour stood there.

Harriet left us only a few weeks after Charlotte’s death.

The elder brother of Gregory Stevens was killed when his horse threw him and Gregory inherited lands and title. Harriet married him. They had long been lovers. They went, taking Benjie with them. Harriet told me that he was Gregory’s son.

I see them about twice a year. Harriet has lost her slim and willowy figure. She is in truth a little plump but I don’t think that detracts from her charm. She still retains that, and now that she is contented with life, having achieved her goal, seems to live very happily-And I too. Carleton and I have our son, Carl. It is a good life. Not without its conflicts, of course. We rage against each other now and then, but our love deepens as time passes and we know that we belong to each other and nothing can alter that. This morning I was at the arbour cutting roses to fill my basket, and I realized suddenly that I saw only the beautiful flowers now.

I had learned to bury the past, and when I did remember it, to see it as an experience which would show me the way to preserve the contentment which life was offering me. I said something of this to Carleton. He was inclined to be flippant-but then he often is, I have discovered, when he is most serious.

I am content. Life is good. It is for us to keep it so.