The Song of the Siren

“Said with more affection than wisdom, but bless you for it. Now there is something that has occurred to me. You spent three nights with Hessenfield. What if there should be consequences? Have you thought of that?”

“Yes, I have. When I look out of my window at the Eyot and remember how I was conceived there, I think to myself, what if I should have Hessenfield’s child?”

“Well, what conclusion did you come to, suppose that passionate relationship should bear fruit?”

“I am a little frightened at the thought and yet at the same time...”

“I know ... elated.”

“It would be wonderful in a way to have a child to remember him by.”

“Children of such affairs make a good deal of pother when they make their entry into the world. You yourself made a most spectacular entry.”

“Only because you were stage managing it.” I began to laugh faintly hysterically, I must admit, for now that I had brought that possibility which had haunted my thoughts into the daylight I was indeed disturbed.

Harriet patted my hand suddenly. “If it should be so we shall have to consider what is to be done. Of course, it may not be so. It happened to your mother somewhat similarly.

Life does not usually work out to such neat patterns. But let us be prepared, eh?”

“Oh, Harriet,” I said, “it is good to be with you. I suppose my mother must have felt like this all those years ago.”

She was silent with that glazed look in her eyes, again remembering the past. She must, I calculated, be quite sixty years old, but she had retained a certain youthfulness by her nature as well as artificial aids and in that moment she looked like a young girl.

Yet it was like repeating a pattern, for I did discover that there was to be a child.

I did not now know quite how I felt. I was dismayed, it was true, and yet I was conscious of an overwhelming excitement. I realized how dull life had been after Beau’s disappearance until my capture by the Jacobites. Then I felt that I had started to live again, and I wanted to live desperately; it was necessary to me even if it meant that I might have to endure dangers.

I wasted no time in telling Harriet. She was excited. I understood her perfectly.

She liked things to happen even if they were going to present difficulties, and the more insurmountable those difficulties seemed the more excited she became.

It was the greatest comfort to be with her. She discussed my condition with verve.

“It is different from your mother’s case. She was a young and innocent girl. To produce an illegitimate child seemed to her unthinkable. Yet there you were, my dear Carlotta, waiting to be born. We had to practice a good deal of subterfuge.”

“I know. Venice. That magnificent palazzo and then the pretence that I was your child.”

“It would have made a good play. But here we have a different situation. You were forced into this by that adventurer. To what children owe their lives! You might say that the one you have conceived owes his or her existence to a goblet of potent cider.... But what are we going to do, Carlotta? You are a rich woman. You could defy them all if you wished. You could say: I am having this child and if you are going to criticise me for it, I shall snap my fingers at you. On the other hand, it is good for a child to have a father. Two parents are better than one, and it is not easy to flout society. I would like a father for the baby.”

“Its father will never know of its existence.”

“How can you be sure of that? But we waste time. Not that there is any immediate hurry, but it is well to plan ahead.”

I started to think of my mother and my grandmother. There would be consternation in the family. My grandfather would want to kill Hessenfield, and as he was a Jacobite into the bargain-my grandfather being a stern Protestant-I had no doubt of the rage he would feel. Then there was Leigh. Although he appeared to be mild enough, he had a fierce temper. I had heard how he had once attacked Beau when he had been, as Leigh called it, too friendly with my mother. I had seen the scars on Beau’s body inflicted by Leigh. And all for a mad escapade, Beau had told me that Leigh had come to his apartment and caught him unawares, and had inflicted those wounds on him.

So I could imagine my mother’s distress and the effect this matter would have on Leigh, and I should have to tell them of course that I had been caught up in the plot to rescue General Langdon, and they would insist that I had been raped and that the child was the result of that.

Oh, yes, I could well imagine an outraged party from Eversleigh even attempting to go to St. Germain-en-Laye to wreak vengeance.

I mentioned this to Harriet and she agreed.

“There is one other possibility which has occurred to me. I wonder if it has to you.”

“What?” I asked.

“Benjie,” she said.

I looked at her in amazement.

“Marry Benjie,” she said. “He would be a very nice father for the child.”

“Your son!”