The Song of the Siren

On this particular March morning I did not care. I saw that the rooks were busy making their nests and I saw some meadow-pipits, which we sometimes called tit-larks. They were a little like larks and could be mistaken for them by some who had not studied them as I had. I loved to see them on the ground, where they ran instead of hopped.

I heard the cry of a redshank-a sort of whimper. I would not go near her because the nest would not be far off and it would throw her into panic if anyone approached her young.

I came past Enderby Hall. No one lived there, which was rather absurd, said my father.

A big house like that, furnished, standing vacant just because Carlotta had some caprice to keep it so. The house had been left to her by Robert Frinton with the rest of his fortune, and at one time she had thought to sell it and suddenly and capriciously, said my father, had changed her mind.

I didn’t like Enderby very much. When we were young Carlotta had tried to frighten me there. She told me how when she was very small she had wandered in there and been lost. They had all been in a panic and finally she was discovered in a cupboard fast asleep. Robert Frinton had been so taken with her that he had called it Carlotta’s cupboard.

She enticed me into it and tried to lock me in but I had known what she might have in mind too and for once in my life had been too quick for her. “Silly!” she had said afterwards. “I wouldn’t have kept you there. I just wanted you to learn what it feels like to be shut up alone in a haunted house.” She had looked at me with that trace of malice she often showed. “Some people’s hair turns white overnight,” she said. “Some just die of fright. I wonder what you would look like with white hair? It might be better than no real colour at all.”

Yes, there had been times when Carlotta had been merciless. But I had never faltered in my admiration and I always sought her attention and was gratified to receive it even when it could result in ghoulish experiments such as she had planned for me in the cupboard in Enderby Hall.

I rode past, skirting the land which my father had bought and which had once belonged to Enderby. There was a wall about it now.

I came past Grasslands Manor, the home of the Willerbys, and young Thomas Willerby saw me and called to me.

I would have to go in. They expected it; and old Thomas loved to have callers. He was particularly fond of everyone from our family.

I took my horse to the stables and Thomas and I went into the house together.

Old Thomas was delighted to see me. I told him the news while he sent for wine and cakes, which I should have to take because he would be hurt if I didn’t. He loved to show his hospitality.

I told him my mother was returning home and he said how glad we must be and how happy to have an addition to the family.

I admitted I was longing for my mother’s return. She would have all the news of the baby and Carlotta to tell us.

He said: “I have some news too. I have bought a place near York.”

“Oh,” I said, “You really will be going then.”

“As you know, my dear, I have been shilly-shallying for a long time, but now I really have made up my mind.”

“And what of Grasslands?”

“I shall sell it.”

I was thinking it strange how there seemed no lasting luck in either Grasslands Manor or Enderby Hall. I wondered if there was such a thing as ill fortune, for these houses seemed to have incurred the wrath of fate. Even the Willerbys had not escaped, though at one time they had been very happy. Then Thomas’s wife had died giving birth to young Christabel. It was all very sad.

“Yes,” he said. “It may be that your parents will give me a hand with the selling.

I don’t want to wait here... now I have the new house.”

“We shall all be delighted to show people round it. Have you spoken to my father yet?”

“No, I was waiting until your mother came back. Now she is coming. That is good news.

Less happy news at Court.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, the King has broken his collarbone.”

”That is not very serious, is it?”

“I heard he has been ill for some time,” said young Thomas. “He was riding from Kensington to Hampton Court when he was thrown from his horse. The horse caught his foot in a molehill, they say. It didn’t seem much at the time.”

His father put in: “I hear the Jacobites are drinking to the Little Gentleman in Black Velvet, meaning the mole who in making his hill has done the country a service.”

“It seems a pity that they must be so pleased about an accident. What of the horse?

Was it badly hurt?”

“Now that I didn’t hear. I suppose they thought it wasn’t important.”

While we were drinking the wine another visitor arrived. It was my uncle Carl from Eversleigh. He was in the army and home on leave.

“Oh, hello, Dammee,” he said. He was very jovial, Uncle Carl, and thought it amusing to make a joke of my name, which he knew irritated my mother. “There’s news. The King is dead.”

“I thought it was just his collarbone,” said torn Willerby.