The Love Child

They led the dance round the hall and others fell hi behind them. Then suddenly Robert Frinton turned and swayed. There was a gasp through the hall; the music stopped, and for a few seconds there was complete silence. Carlotta was kneeling down beside him, pulling at his cravat. My father hurried over.

“Get a doctor,” he said to Harriet.

That was the end of Carlotta’s fourteenth birthday party. Robert Frinton was carried to his bed at once. He died during the night. He was just conscious and able to see Carlotta beside his bed. His hand curled about hers and she knelt, looking at him with the tears failing down her cheeks.

I heard him murmur: “Beautiful child … you have made me so happy.”

He was taken back to Enderby Hall and buried in the Eversleigh churchyard.

We learned that he was a very rich man and that he had left everything he possessed to Carlotta.

She was to inherit on her eighteenth birthday, or when she married, if that were earlier, and then she would be one of the richest women in the country.

The day after he was buried-Harriet and Gregory had come to Eversleigh for the ceremony-she and I walked to his grave and laid a posy there.

“Dear Robert,” she said, “he so loved Carlotta. She was a symbol to him that his family lived on. I did right, you see, to let him know who she really was.”

“Harriet,” I asked, “did you know how rich he was?”

“Well, one can never be sure, of course.”

“But you did know.”

“It was reasonable to suppose he was not poor. I knew that he received compensation for the estates which had been taken from bis family, but he was of course a rich man in his own right.”

“And you thought this might happen?”

“It seemed a natural conclusion.”

“I see. It was another of your schemes.”

“But how could I be sure?”

“You couldn’t be. But you thought it likely.”

“My dear Priscilla, don’t take up that high moral tone. If a fortune is around and a family has a certain claim to it, they would be foolish not to make themselves known.”

“Harriet,” I said, “from the moment you stepped into the chateau where my mother was in exile, you started to shape our lives. You have gone on doing it.”

She was thoughtful. “There may be something in what you say,” she agreed. “But this little bit of shaping is very good for all concerned. Beautiful Carlotta, who would have had no great fortune, is now a considerable heiress. What could be wrong with that?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I shall have to wait and see.”

Dear Robert Frinton! If he could have foreseen what effect his action would have, he might have decided against it.

I shall never forget Carlotta as she was when she heard the news. A look of great wonder spread across her face. She said: “He must have loved me very much.”

No one spoke, and for a few seconds her face was tender as she thought of how much this old man of whom she had been so fond had loved her. Then the realization of what this meant came to her. She was rich. The whole world was open to her. She had only to wait four years before this great fortune was hers.

I could see plans forming in her mind. She would go to London. She would travel through the world. She would have a house of her own. She would escape from every restriction.

I said: “Don’t forget you will have to wait until you are eighteen. Everything will go on much as before until then, and by that tune you will have made up your mind what you have to do.”

“Four years!” she cried.

“A short time really,” soothed Harriet.

And she shared Carlotta’s excitement. Harriet was a schemer and her schemes were almost always for her own advantage. She wanted Robert Frinton’s fortune for Carlotta partly because she intended it to come to her son Benjie.

I should have known. Harriet had schemed throughout her life. It was a habit she could not discard now.

In my heart I was afraid of this money. I had a sudden feeling it would bring no good.

Carlotta wanted to go to London.

“It is so sad here now that he is dead,” she said. “He would have wanted us to go.”

Harriet thought it was a good idea and it was agreed that she,

Gregory and myself with Carlotta should go for a brief stay to London.

“Mind you,” said Harriet, “the Court is dull these days. How different from Charles’s time! What fun it was then! And how gracious he was! Between ourselves William is a boor … a Dutch boor. They say he scarcely speaks at all.”

“The people admire him for he is a good King,” replied Gregory. “And that is what we need.”

“If the Queen had lived… or he had married again…”

Gregory shook his head. “He won’t and it will be Anne who follows him … or perhaps her boy William, though he is very delicate.”

“Well, let us hope she will make a more lively Court than the present one,” said Harriet. “I like not these dour rulers. Charles was so different. I for one shall never stop regretting his passing.”