The adulteress

"It's all sealed and settled now. I've done my duty. Eversleigh will be for you and your heirs. I feel the family ghosts are all nodding their heads in approval. Carl was an old reprobate, they are saying, but he has done his duty at last. Let's all turn over in our tombs and go to sleep. We'll give him a talking to when he comes to join us."

He was smiling at me in that mischievous way and I plunged on. "Uncle Carl, there's something I must say to you. You must not be persuaded to sign anything else ... like that paper you did before."

He nodded.

I stumbled on: "You see, if people think they are going to inherit a great deal they could go to any lengths to get their hands on it."

He laughed. It was high pitched, almost falsetto. He looked shrewd and I wondered of how much he was aware and if his forgetfulness and the air of senility he sometimes assumed was all part of the role he was playing.

"You mean Jess ... ?" he said.

"It's a great temptation ... particularly for people who have never had a great deal and perhaps are a little anxious about the future."

"Jess would always find a place for herself."

"I've no doubt, but she wouldn't have many opportunities like this. I'll be completely frank, Uncle Carl."

"Oh. It always frightens me when people are going to be completely frank. I wonder if anyone ever is ... about everything. ... A little frank, yes ... but completely frank... ."

"I hope you won't be offended but I am anxious about you and I don't want to go away ... leaving things as they are."

"All's well. Old Rosen has the will."

"Jessie doesn't know it."

"Poor Jess! What a shock for her."

"She thinks because of this piece of paper you've signed that all this goes to her. It wasn't very wise of you, Uncle Carl."

"No," he said, "my life is strewn with unwisdom."

"You see ..."

He was looking at me encouragingly. "You must say exactly what you mean, my dear."

"Very well. I'm concerned about you. I couldn't go away peacefully thinking that you might be in some sort of ..."

"Predicament?"

"Danger," I said boldly. "Uncle Carl, I think Jessie ought to know that you have signed that will and that ..."

"And that she would gain little by my death." How sharp he was. He seemed to be able to look right into my mind. I thought, He is playing a part as well as everyone else here.

"Yes," I said boldly. "Yes."

He nodded. "You are a good girl," he said. "I'm glad this will be yours one day. You'll do the right thing by it ... and your children will manage the estate in accordance with the wishes of the ancestors watching from on high or from below, where it seems likely the majority of us will be."

"You joke, Uncle Carl."

"Life is a bit of a joke, eh? It's like a play. We strut and fret our hour upon the stage, eh? That's what I've often thought. I loved the play. I would have liked to have been an actor. Who ever heard of an Eversleigh being an actor? Oh, those ancestors of ours. They wouldn't have liked that. The next best thing was sitting in the boxes looking on... . I've always liked it, Carlotta ... bless you, Zipporah. I've done it when I could. I look on and see how people are going to act ... what part they're going to play... ."

"You mean, Uncle Carl," I said, "that you are something of a manipulator. You create situations and watch how they work it out."

"No, no, not that. I let events take care of themselves and watch ... I will admit that sometimes I give a hand but that's only in the nature of things."

He laughed again. It was strange laughter and I thought: He sees life as a play; he is watching us act; he is sitting in his box waiting for what the actors on the stage will do next.

"Uncle Carl," I said, "I want Jessie to know that you have signed a will and that it is with the solicitors."

He nodded.

I said: "Then she will cherish you, for she can only enjoy the comforts of this house—which I am sure she fully appreciates—while you are here to provide them."

"You're clever," he said. "And you're good to me."

"Then have I your permission to tell her?"

"My dear child, I never tell people what they should do. That would spoil the action, wouldn't it? They have to act as the spirit moves them. I like to see what they will do."

He was strange ... not mad, for at times his brain worked most efficiently; but he wanted to live life in his own way. I could imagine that some years before he must have been an extremely active man. He had lived to excess after his marriage, I was sure. And now he was old and incapable of moving from this room he created his own shadow play.

He knew a great deal about us—that Jessie was here for all the advantage it could bring her; he was aware that Amos Carew was her lover; he might even have guessed at the relationship between Gerard and myself—and it was all of immense interest to him. We were the players on the stage who provided the interest which his own life had denied him now that he was old.