Voices in a Haunted Room

Eversleigh ... My home forever ... surrounded by love, the love of my mother and my husband. And if Jonathan ever came home ... ?

I tried not to think of that but I could not stop myself. I kept hearing those words: “Beware, little bride.”

The days which followed were very busy and I forgot our visit to Enderby. It was only occasionally-and in dreams-that those words kept coming back to my mind.

It was to be a moderately quiet wedding. The absence of Jonathan, Chariot and Louis Charles could not be lightly brushed aside. However much we tried to forget it, and while we were in doubt as to where they were and what was happening to them, ours must be an anxious household. It was seven months since they had left and that seemed a long time.

The hall was being decorated with plants from the greenhouses and there was an atmosphere of bustle everywhere; savoury smells emerged from the kitchen and the cook was making an enormous wedding cake over which she seemed to be puffing and groaning every time I went into the kitchen.

We should have a few people staying in the house-those who came from too far to be able to get home on the evening of the wedding day; those in the not-too-distant neighbourhood could attend the ceremony and the reception which was to follow and then start the journey home.

The marriage was to take place in the Eversleigh chapel, which was reached from the hall by a short spiral staircase. It was not small-as chapels in country houses go-but on the other hand it was not large and would therefore, I was sure, be overcrowded. My mother had said that the servants could sit on the staircase if there was not room for them inside the chapel.

The day after the wedding David and I would leave for London and would spend a week there before returning to Eversleigh.

“The honeymoon proper is temporarily postponed,” said David, “but only until life settles down more peacefully on the Continent. Then for us it will be the Grand Tour.

We may go through France if that is possible and perhaps visit some of the people and places you once knew. And then ... on to Italy. In the meantime we shall have to be satisfied. Will you accept that?”

“Needs must,” I said laughingly.

I began to thrust aside my doubts. My mother was so pleased. I knew she had always favoured David. Why was it that she, who had chosen Dickon, the wildest of adventurers, and one least likely to be a faithful husband, should have chosen serious David for me? Perhaps for the very reason that she herself had chosen Dickon. I believed my own father was a man whom she had shared with many women. So perhaps that was the very reason why she preferred the steady one for her daughter.

It was the night before my wedding. I opened the cupboard door and looked at my dress.

Before the candles were lighted it looked like a woman standing there. Soft chiffon!

The pride of Molly Blackett’s life. It was beautiful. I should be happy ever after.

I undressed and brushed my hair, braiding it neatly into two plaits. I went and sat by the window and I asked myself if everything would have been different if Jonathan had not gone away. Suppose I could go back to the days before my birthday. It was on my birthday, with the arrival of the refugees, that everything changed. It was they who had fired Jonathan and Chariot with the idea of going to France. Chariot had always wanted to go back.

Suppose those refugees had not escaped. Suppose they had never come to Eversleigh.... Would this then be the eve of my wedding?

I looked out into the distance. How often had I stood there straining my eyes to the horizon looking for a rider who might be Jonathan returning from France.

But he had not come. Perhaps he never would come. Perhaps he would disappear as my Uncle Armand had-although he came back ... when it was too late.

Would Jonathan?

I got into bed. It was difficult to sleep. I kept thinking about the future, sometimes fearfully. But what was there to fear? David loved me and he was the kindest of people. And if Jonathan ever came back ... ? Well, what if he did? I should be married then. His coming and going would be no real concern of mine. At last I slept and I awoke to find my mother standing by my bed.

“Wake up, little bride,” she said. “It’s your wedding day.”

I was coming out of my sleep and as I smiled at her I seemed to hear another voice, strange and ghostly: “Beware, little bride.”

So I was married to David in the chapel at Eversleigh. It was a simple ceremony performed by the priest who lived on the estate and officiated on all such occasions. I felt a sense of fatality standing on the red tiles where generations of Eversleigh brides had stood before me.

The chapel was so hot and the overpowering odour of so many flowers made me feel a little faint; but perhaps that was the excitement.

David was smiling as he put the ring on my finger and said the words required of him in a resolute voice. I hoped I sounded equally determined to do what was expected of me.