Voices in a Haunted Room

“Do you think they are looking after Jessica?”

“Yes, they usually do in these circumstances. A live child is of more value to them than a dead one.”

So we talked, and at length from sheer exhaustion I dozed, only to be startled into wakefulness by a nightmare-confused and horrible, in which I was clutching Amaryllis to me while someone was trying to drag her away.

”It’s all right,” I heard David saying. “It’s all right.”

I opened my eyes.

“I think it is better to stay awake,” I said.

We watched the dawn come. Another day! Another weary vigil! What would it bring forth?

I asked myself and trembled as I tried to dismiss the thoughts which crowded into my mind.

I felt a sudden urge to get out of the house, to walk through the gardens, to make yet another search.

“I can’t stay in,” I cried. “Let’s go into the garden.”

“All right,” said David.

He put a cloak round my shoulders. “It will be a bit chilly,” he said, “and the grass will be damp.”

We opened the door and stepped into the porch.

Something was lying there. I stared. I thought I was dreaming. Then floods of joy swept over me. Lying there wrapped in a blanket was Jessica. I picked her up. David was staring at her. She opened sleepy eyes, looked at me, gave a big yawn and closed them again.

“It is!” I cried. “It is!”

I went into the hall shouting: “She’s here. Jessica is here.”

My mother came first. She ran to me and snatched the sleeping Jessica from me. There was Dickon ... Grace Soper ... all the servants. “She’s back! She’s back!” cried my mother; and I thought she would collapse from very joy.

Dickon took Jessica. “She’s in fine shape,” he said.

My mother snatched her. “She’s well,” she murmured. “She’s not harmed ... Oh, my little baby.”

Jessica opened her eyes; she gave a crooked smile and when she saw her mother started to wail.

After the joy of having Jessica back we fell into a state of great uneasiness, asking ourselves: Who could have done this? And for what purpose?

It was clear that during her absence the child had been well cared for and she seemed to accept her return to her family without any great show of delight-although she did smile with a rather special contentment when her mother held her fast in her arms.

Who had submitted us to this suffering, seemingly without purpose? We could not forget it and the memory hung over us like a pall clouding our days. The babies were never left alone for a moment. First thing in the morning my mother and I would hurry to the nursery to assure ourselves that they were safe.

Grace had her bed moved into the night nursery and she said she slept with one eye and one ear open.

Her niece, a pleasant girl of about fourteen, came as nursery maid and her room led out of the night nursery, so she was on the alert too.

But we should never feel entirely safe again.

In September Jonathan and Millicent came to Eversleigh; they were only staying for a few days and then going on to Pettigrew Hall for a short visit before returning to London.

I was suffering from a return of that apprehension which I always felt when Jonathan was under the same roof. I tried to discover surreptitiously what difference marriage had made to him. I could see none; Millicent had changed, though; she seemed softer, more pleased with life; I supposed that meant she was finding her marriage satisfactory.

She would certainly find Jonathan a charming husband, I thought, until she discovered his true nature.

He had not changed at all. He was daring, completely without restraint, defying conventions as he had always done when he contrived to be alone with me.

The babies were sleeping in the garden in their carriage just as they had been on the day Jessica had disappeared. Grace Soper and her niece were sitting near the carriage and my mother was there talking to them.

I was gathering some of the autumn flowers. I had some purple asters and Michaelmas daisies in my basket and as I was cutting them Jonathan came and stood beside me.

“What joy to see you again, Claudine,” he said. “I have missed you.”

“Is that so?” I asked, lightly snipping at a Michaelmas daisy.

“Indeed it is. Should I say so if it were not so?”

“You might,” I replied.

“Are you pleased to see me here?”

“My mother likes to have the entire family gathered together under one roof.”

“What a way you have for parrying the question. You should be in Parliament ...

or in the diplomatic service. Claudine, you do miss me sometimes. Come on. Tell the truth.”

“Not often,” I lied.

“Do you tell falsehoods to yourself as well as to me?” I said sharply: “Enough of this. You are a married man. I am a married woman-and we are not married to each other.”

He burst out laughing and my mother looked up and smiled in our direction.

“I am me and you are you,” he said. “Nothing can alter that, my love.”

I replied almost pleadingly: “Jonathan, it is wrong of you to talk like this-and you so newly married. What if Millicent heard you? I thought she looked so happy.”