The Song of the Siren

It was not that wild leaping of the senses I had felt with Beau but there was some response in me.

I imagined Beau laughing at me.

“You are a passionate young lady,” he had said.

Was I? Was it just the need for physical satisfaction which Beau had led me to appreciate that I wanted now, or was it Benjie?

I was unsure. But I had made one decision. I was going to sell Enderby Hall. Perhaps that was symbolic, an acceptance of the fact that Beau would never come back now.

Mistress Elizabeth Pilkington had come to look at Enderby Hall. She had arrived the day before and was staying with friends a few miles from Eversleigh. She said she would ride over to look at the house if someone would meet her there.

Priscilla had though Leigh should go but I had refused to allow that. They had to forget I was a child. I was a woman of means now and in any case Enderby Hall belonged to me. I wanted to show them my independence, so I would meet the lady and show her the house myself.

It was November and ten o’clock in the morning. I had suggested that time as it grew dark soon after four o’clock and if Mistress Pilkington came in the afternoon there would be little time for viewing. She agreed. She wanted to see the house in daylight of course.

I was conscious of a certain feeling of relief. I had at last come to the conclusion that once I no longer owned Enderby I should really be able to start afresh.

There was a chill in the air. I had never liked November. The winter lay before us and it seemed a long time to the spring. The trees had now lost most of their leaves and I fancied there was a melancholy note in the snatch of song I heard from a blackbird.

He sounded as though he were trying to throw off his melancholy and couldn’t succeed.

There was a little mist hanging about the trees. It glistened on the yews and there seemed more spiders’ webs than ever. The end of the year was close; the end of a phase of my life perhaps.

She was waiting for me. I was rather surprised by her appearance. She was extremely elegant and had the most attractive reddish hair. Her riding habit was in the very latest fashion and most becoming. It was dark green in colour and she wore a hat with a little brown feather in it which matched that strikingly beautiful hair.

“Mistress Pilkington,” I said. “I am afraid I have kept you waiting.”

“Indeed not.” She smiled, showing a beautiful set of teeth. “I arrived early. I was so eager to see the house.”

“I hope you are going to like it. Shall we go inside?”

“Please.”

I opened the door and we stepped into the hall. It looked different already. Much of the eeriness seemed to have disappeared. She looked up at the roof.

“It’s impressive,” she said. Then she turned and studied me carefully. “I know you are Mistress Carlotta Main. I did not expect I should have the pleasure of meeting you. I thought someone. ...”

“Someone older,” I finished for her. “No. This is my house and I prefer to deal with business matters myself.”

“Hurrah for you,” she said. “I am like that too. The house was part of your inheritance.”

“You seem to know a good deal about me.” I move in London society. I remember the time when there was a great deal of talk about your betrothal to Beaumont Granville.”

I flushed. I had not expected this.

She went on: “It was so very strange, was it not ... his disappearance?”

She was looking at me intently and I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable indeed.

”There were all sorts of theories,” she continued. “But he went, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” I said rather shortly. “He went. Those are the screens. Would you like to look at the kitchens or perhaps go upstairs first?”

She smiled at me as though to say, I understand, you do not want to talk of him.

“Upstairs please,” she said.

I showed her the minstrels’ gallery.

“Enchanting,” she said.

We went through the rooms and she paused in the bedroom with the four-poster bed, that room with such poignant memories.

“What of the furnishings?” she asked.

“Those are for sale too if they are wanted. If not they can be disposed of elsewhere.”

“I like them,” she said. “I have a house in London which I do not think I would want to give up, so the furnishings would suit me well.”

She went from room to room; then I took her behind the screens to the kitchens and then to the outhouses.

“Charming, charming,” she said. “I cannot understand how you can bear to part with it.”

“It has been uninhabited for a long time. There seems little reason why it should remain so any longer.”

“No indeed. My son will be delighted with it, I am sure.”

“Oh, you have a family then?”

“Just a son.”

“Your husband ... ?”

“I have no husband,” she answered.

She smiled at me brightly. I was conscious that all the time she had been looking at the house she had been casting covert glances at me. It was almost as though I were at least of equal interest.

She must have sensed that I was aware of her scrutiny for she said: “Forgive me.