The Song of the Siren

We were adventurous spirits, both of us. This life suited him and it suited me. I wondered what it would be like if they brought James back to the throne and we returned to England where we would lead the lives of an ordinary nobleman and his wife ...except that I should not be his wife. I could not imagine it. Hessenfield would always have to have some plot to be involved in. In the old days he would have gone to sea and plundered the Spanish galleons. In the Civil War he would have behaved in much the same way as he did now, I suppose. He was a man who had to have a cause. Danger was a fillip to his existence. There were men such as that.

But what happened to them when they grew old?

I thought of my grandfather then. He had been such another. What a life he must have led when he was holding Eversleigh during the Protectorate-an ardent Royalist posing as a Roundhead. That would have suited Hessenfield well.

The evening passed slowly without him. I was with Clarissa until it was her bedtime. Mary Marton put her to bed and I stayed with her telling her stories until she went to sleep.

Then I returned to my lonely bedchamber and slept.

I awoke early, took the usual bread and coffee and then went along to Clarissa’s room.

She was sitting up in bed playing with a doll I had bought for her the day before.

“Mary’s gone out,” she said.

“Gone out! At this hour? She can’t have.”

Clarissa nodded.

“Yvette’s got blue eyes,” she said, holding the doll out to me. “Look.”

“I am sure Mary is in her room,” I said. “I’m going to see.”

Clarissa shook her head, but I went through to Mary’s room.

The bed was made. Could it be that she had not slept in it last night? Unless she had made it before she left, but one of the servants usually did that... later in the morning.

I looked round the room. I opened a cupboard. Her clothes had gone.

Then I saw the note. It was lying on the table and it was addressed to me.

Dear Lady Hessenfield, [I read]

I have had to leave quickly. I had a message from my aunt who is dangerously ill in Lyons. The messenger came after you retired and as you have had an anxious day I did not want to disturb you. There was just time to catch the coach to Lyons. So I left at once. I will come back and see you when I can leave my aunt. Thank you for all your goodness to me,

Mary Marton.

The paper dropped from my hand. Something strange was going on. I knew it.

Why had she gone like that? When had the messenger arrived? Surely I would have heard him come? She had never mentioned an aunt in Lyons. I had understood she had had no family but the parents of whom she had spoken.

My thoughts immediately went to Matt.

That is it, I thought. She was in love with him and he must have made her understand that he did not love her. Mary had always seemed a strange girl to me; she was aloof and although she had got along comfortably with Clarissa, I fancied she had never felt completely at ease with me. I had been delighted by her friendship for Matt and had immediately presumed that it was serious. The answer to the question of her hurried departure seemed to be that because her love affair with Matt was at an end she wanted to cut herself adrift completely; she did not want probing questions asked.

A quiet, controlled person, such as I had imagined her to be, could act in this way.

Hessenfield returned the next day. He had been away two nights.

He looked exuberant now, his old self.

He could scarcely wait to embrace me.

He said: “I want to see that governess woman at once.”

“Oh, the strangest thing has happened. She has gone.”

“Gone!”

He looked at me blankly and I said quickly: “Yesterday morning I went to her room.

Her bed had not been slept in. There was a note. She had gone to a sick aunt in Lyons.”

“A sick aunt in Lyons! Oh my God, she’s got away. She was the one. The leak ... it came through her.”

“Do you mean that ... she was a spy?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. I told you I was going to find out how it happened.

She was one of the first I checked and got right to the heart of the matter. It must have been someone in the house. That was the only time it was mentioned. That day they came to me and I had them in my study ... we worked out the route. It was only then that the name of the place was given away. I didn’t even put it on paper-it was so secret. Everything has been passed by word of mouth. I guessed it was someone in the house .. . who overheard and immediately passed on the information. I decided to check on the backgrounds of everyone. It was an easy task because I started with her ... the latest comer. Her parents are in England. She has been working as a spy for the Queen’s government. They are determined to wipe us out. They knew these shipments were getting in, that they were being landed at quiet spots on the coast and that the arms were being hidden until the great day when we should use them. Thank God, she was one of the first suspects and I hit the mark right away.”

“I can’t believe it of Mary,” I said.