The Song of the Siren

Priscilla, when she was trying to persuade me to give him up, said that it was my fortune that he wanted. I was very rich-or I would be when I was eighteen or in the event of my marrying; and when I taxed him with this, he replied: “I’ll be frank with you, my sweet child, your fortune will be useful. It will enable us to travel, to live Well. You would like that, my dear heiress. We’ll go to Venice, to your birthplace.

I believe I was there at that auspicious time, which seems like fate, does it not? We were intended for each other, so don’t a paltry fortune come between us. We cannot with truth say we your fortune. Let us say we are glad of it. But do you doubt, dearest love, after all that has happened between us that you more to me than a thousand such fortunes? We could live well together if you were but a little match girl, a seamstress. We are in tune, do you understand that? You were meant to love. There is such response in you. You are fiery; passion will be a part of your life; you are young yet, Carlotta.

You have much to learn of yourself and the world; and fortune or not, I will be there to teach you.”

I knew that he spoke the truth; that I was of a nature which matched his own. I knew that we were perfectly in harmony and that I was fortunate to have found him.

There was accord between us. I was only fifteen then and he was more than twenty years older-he would not tell me his age. He said: “I am as old as I can make the world believe I am. And you more than anyone must accept that.”

So we met in the haunted house. It amused him that we should do so and it seemed a good place because so few people went there. Priscilla sent servants over once a week. They would not go singly because there was not one of them who would have entered the house alone. I knew when they would be going and could warn Beau to leave.

He stayed there for three weeks; and then one day he was gone.

Why? Where? Why should he suddenly disappear? I could not understand it. At first I thought that he had been called away and there had been no means of letting me know. But when the time went on I began to be frightened.

I did not know what to do. I could not tell people that he had disappeared from the house. I could not understand it. For the first few days I was not unduly worried; but when the days went by as weeks and then the months, terror seized me and I feared some terrible doom had overtaken him.

I would go over to Enderby and stand there in the hall and listen to the silence of the house. I would whisper his name and wait for some response.

It never came. Only in dreams.

There is a certain comfort in writing down my feelings. By doing so I may come to a better understanding of what has happened and of myself too.

I shall soon be seventeen. I shall go to London and there will be entertainments there and at Eversleigh, for my grandparents as well as Priscilla and Leigh will want to provide me with a husband. I shall have suitors by the score. My fortune will take care of that; but as Harriet says I have what she calls that special quality which attracts the opposite sex like bees round the honey. She should know, for she has had it all her life.

“The trouble is,” she once said, “that the wasps come too-and all other kinds of noisome insects. What we have can be the greatest asset a woman can have, but, like most such gifts, wrongly handled it can work against us.” Harriet has never denied herself the intimate society of men and I feel sure that she would have behaved exactly as I did with Beau. She had had her first lover when she was fourteen; it had not been a. passionate love affair but it had provided both her and her lover with advantages and she added when she told me: “Made us both very happy while it lasted, which is what life is meant to do.”

I think I feel closer to Harriet than to anyone-except Beau. After all I had believed Harriet to be my mother for a long time. Harriet was a perfect mother. She never smothered me with affection; she never wanted to know where I had been, how I was getting on with my lessons; she was never anxious about me. I found Priscilla’s obvious anxiety exasperating. I did not want my conscience disturbed by the fears of Priscilla for my welfare-particularly after I met Beau. Harriet was a comforting presence, though. I felt that she would help me if I were in difficulties and she would understand my feelings for Beau as my real mother never could.

I was always welcome at Eyot Abbass, and Benjie was there a good deal. I was rather fond of Benjie. He was Harriet’s son, and for a long time I had believed him to be my brother. I knew he was very fond of me. He was so delighted to discover that I was not his sister, and that seemed to indicate something which I might have found interesting if I had not been so completely absorbed by Beau.