Voices in a Haunted Room

Our hall was beautifully decorated with plants from the greenhouse, as we should dance there later. The dining room table had been opened to its full size and seemed to fill the room, which looked charming in the light from the fire and the countless candles. There was one large candelabrum in the centre and smaller ones on either side.

I was seated at the head of the table-the hostess for the occasion and on my right hand sat my mother, and on my left, my stepfather Dickon.

I felt grown-up at last and very happy-yet at the same time I had a strange feeling that I wanted to catch at these moments and make them last forever. I must have understood even then that happiness is just a transient emotion. Perfection may be reached, but it is elusive and there are forces all about which will surely snatch it away.

Everyone was laughing and talking. Very soon Dickon would rise and propose a toast to me, and I must stand up before them all and thank them for their good wishes and tell them how happy I was to see them here before asking the members of my family to drink the health of our guests.

Sabrina sat at the end of the table. She looked very young for her years and supremely happy. She watched Dickon most of the time, and I was sure she believed that all her dreams had come true. Lottie, my mother, was Dickon’s wife, where she had always belonged; if only Clarissa, my great-grandmother, and Zipporah, my grandmother, were here, Sabrina would have asked nothing more.

Jonathan was next to Millicent, and Lady Pettigrew watched him with a certain dazed expression which I believed I construed correctly. Dickon was a very rich man, so Jonathan, presumably, would match up to Lady Pettigrew’s requirements for a son-in-law.

Of course it was a way parents had, especially with the female members of their households.

As soon as a girl became nubile, they started to plan for her. Wasn’t my own mother the same? Hadn’t she planned for me? David or Jonathan? she was asking herself. I must not be too hard on Lady Pettigrew. It was only natural that she should want the best for her daughter.

The musicians were already in the gallery and as soon as the meal was over they would play for dancing. Dickon whispered to me that he was going to make the toast now.

He stood up and there was silence.

“My friends,” he said, “you all know what occasion this is, and I want you to drink a toast to our daughter, Claudine, who this day has left her childhood behind her and become that most delectable of beings ... a young lady.”

“To Claudine.”

As they raised their glasses I noticed that my mother’s attention had strayed and I realized that something was going on in the hall. Then I distinctly heard the sound of rather shrill raised voices. Was it guests who had arrived late?

One of the servants came in and going to my mother whispered something to her.

She half rose.

Dickon said: “What is it, Lottie?”

There was silence round the table. This was the moment when I should get to my feet and thank them all for their good wishes and propose the toast to our guests which my family would drink. But it was my mother who stood up. “You must excuse me,” she said. “Friends have arrived ... from France.”

Dickon went out with her and everyone was looking at each other in amazement. Then Chariot said: “You will excuse me, please.” And he, followed by Louis Charles, left the dining room.

“Friends from France!” said Jonathan. “They must be émigrés.”

“How exciting!” That was from Millicent Pettigrew.

“Those dreadful people,” said someone else. “What will they do next? They say they will kill the Queen.”

They were all talking now. It was an excited buzz. I looked along the table to Sabrina.

Her face had changed and she looked like an old woman now. She hated any sort of trouble and no doubt she was thinking of those terrible days when Dickon had been in France and she had suffered agonies of fear for her son. But that was over and Dickon had come back triumphant-as if Dickon could ever do anything else!-and he had brought Lottie home with him. We had reached the happy-ever after stage, and Sabrina did not want to be reminded of what was happening on the other side of the Channel.

We were in our cosy corner, apart from strife; she wanted to wrap her family in a cosy cocoon and keep it safe. Any whisper or suggestion of horror should be shut right away. It was no concern of ours.

Dickon came back into the dining room. He was smiling and I noticed that Sabrina’s anxieties faded away as she looked at him fondly.

He said: “We have visitors. Friends of Lottie’s ... from France. They have arrived here on their way to friends in London. They have escaped from France and are in a state of exhaustion. Lottie is arranging beds for them. Come along, Claudine, say your piece.”