Voices in a Haunted Room

He took me to a bedroom and Jonathan to another. I was given a dressing robe which was far too big for me and slippers which would fit a man. Never mind. I was glad to get out of my wet clothes and rub myself down with a rough towel. The odour from the river was none too sweet. My hair hung limply about me, but there was colour in my cheeks and my eyes were bright and sparkling.

Jimmy’s wife, Meg, gathered up my clothes which she said she would put on a horse before the fire. I could go into the parlour, where the gentleman already was, and warm myself up. Jimmy had taken him mulled wine, which was just what was needed at such a time.

I went down to the parlour. Jonathan was already there. He wore a robe not unlike mine only his was too small. He laughed at me; he had recovered from his anger.

“Well, who can say this is not cosy! Borrows thinks you should have some of this mulled wine. It is very good and Mrs. B. has supplied some fritters which she says go with it.”

I sipped the wine. It was warming. I shook out my damp hair.

He said seriously: “I lost him, Claudine.”

“Yes.”

“It was the man in the boat ... a fellow conspirator obviously.”

“I am sure that must be so. It was bad luck.”

“Bad strategy. I should have thought of that. I ought to have been quicker. Then I would have had him.” He looked at me steadily. “You know how I love to be with you, but I wish you had not been with me today.”

“Why?”

“Because this involves you even more than you were already. You know what happened there. You know that people ... innocent people ... like your mother and grandmother can be caught up in this holocaust. How much more danger is there for those who have special information.”

“You mean that I know for sure that Billy Grafter is a spy.”

He nodded. “You see, I have brought you into this.”

”No. I brought myself into it when I recognized Alberic in the coffee house. That was none of your doing.”

“You’ll have to be careful, Claudine. I think they’ll move Billy Grafter out of London.

They know now that we are aware that he is here. He runs the risk of coming face to face with me or my father. He will be transferred to do his evil work elsewhere.”

“Which is inciting the people to riot.”

Jonathan nodded. “The same method which was used so successfully in France.”

“They shot at the King ...”

“One of their fraternity most surely. If that had succeeded it would have been a start. I worry about you.”

“Oh, Jonathan, I shall be all right. I can look after myself. I don’t know much of all these things-but at least I now know a little.”

He came to me and took my hands in his.

“You are very precious to me,” he said.

“Oh, please, Jonathan ... don’t,” I said tremulously.

He was silent for a while-more serious than I had ever known him to be. He had been greatly shaken, not only by the incident and its failure for him; and I knew in that moment that he really was deeply concerned for me.

The wine was warming me. I gazed into the blue flames which spurted out of the logs.

I could see all sorts of pictures in the firecastles, fiery red faces ... figures, and I thought: I wish this could go on.

But that was how I always felt when I was with him.

It must have been about an hour that we sat there before Meg Borrows came in to say that our things were dry enough to put on now and would we like some more mulled wine?

I said: “We must be going. They’ll be missing us.”

“I’ll have your things taken up to the rooms,” said the obliging Meg, “and you can go up when you like.”

Jonathan looked at me. “Let us have a little more of your excellent wine,” he said.

Meg looked delighted and went off to get it.

“We should go back,” I said.

“Just a little longer.”

“We ought ...”

“My dear Claudine, as usual you are concerned with what you ought instead of what you want.”

”They’ll be wondering what has become of us.”

“They can wonder for a little longer surely.”

Meg brought in the wine, poured it out and carried it to us.

Jonathan watched me as he drank.

“In the years to come,” he said, “I shall remember this moment. You and I in our ill-fitting robes, damp from the river, alone, drinking in paradise. This stuff tastes like nectar to me and I feel like Jove.”

“I do believe your tastes run in similar directions.”

“You find me godlike?”

“I believe he was constantly chasing women.”

“In various shapes when doing so ... swans ... bulls ... what a gift!”

“Presumably he felt he was not attractive enough to be as he really was.”

“I can see I do not need such a gift. I believe I am irresistible just as I am.”

“Are you?”

“Almost,” he replied. “I have no rivals except dull Duty, who is a formidable one, I agree, where a certain would-be virtuous lady is concerned.”

“I wish you would be serious.”

“I have to be ... most of the time. Let me dally for a while. At this moment I should be on my way back to the house. I should be changing into presentable garments.