Will You Love Me in September

Philippa Carr Will You Love Me in September

Will you love me in December as you do to May?

In the Heart of the Family

It is one of the perversities of human nature that when something which has been passionately wanted is acquired, it loses its desirability and there can come a time when the need to escape from it becomes an obsession. Thus it was with me. What I had desperately needed as a child-obviously because of what had happened to me-was security. By the time I was thirteen in that fateful year of 1715, I longed to escape from the cozy cocoon in which my family had wrapped me, and when the opportunity came I seized it.

I must have been about four years old when I was brought to England by my aunt Damaris and my uncle Jeremy. Those first four years of my life had been lived most dramatically, though I did not realize that at the time. I suppose I thought it was the most natural thing for a girl to be kidnapped by her father, taken across the sea to live most luxuriously with her parents, and then suddenly find herself plunged into the poverty of the back streets of Paris, from which she was rescued and whisked over the sea again to an English home. I accepted all that with the philosophical endurance of a child.

One of the events which stands out in my memory is that homecoming. Vividly I recall getting off the boat and standing on the shingle. I shall never forget the ecstatic look in my Aunt Damaris' eyes. I loved her dearly. I always had from the time I met her, when she had been ill, lying on a couch, unable to walk more than a few steps.

I had been bewildered as I stood there. I knew that I had no mother, for she had died mysteriously at the same time as my father had, and I was very anxious, for it seemed to me that everyone ought to have a mother-and a father as well.

I had said, "Aunt Damaris, are you going to be my mother now?" and she had answered, "Yes, Clarissa, I am." I still remember the great comfort those words brought me.

Had noticed that Uncle Jeremy was looking at her intently, I decided that as I had lost my handsome, incomparable father he would be very well as a substitute, so I asked him if he would be my father. He had said it would depend on Damaris. Know now what had happened.

They had been two unhappy people, hurt by life, each of them watchful so as not to be hurt again. Damaris was gentle and loving, eager to be loved. Jeremy was different. He was on his guard, suspicious of people's motives. His was a dark nature; Damaris' should have been a sunny one. When I was a child I had not understood this. I had merely realized that I was looking for security and these were the two who could offer it to me.

Young as I was, in that moment on the beach I could see that I must cling to them.

Damaris understood my feelings. For all her seeming innocence she was very wise-far wiser, in truth, than people like Carlotta, my brilliant, worldly mother.

Those days in England were a joyous revelation to me. I discovered I had a family, and that they were all waiting to greet me, ready to draw me into their magic circle.

I was one of them, I was loved, and because of my mother's tragedy I was a consolation to them all. During those days I felt as though I were floating on a cloud of love.

I reveled in it. At the same time I kept thinking of that moment when Damaris had come into the cellarlike room where I was with Jeanne's mother and grandmother, and I could smell the odor of dampness and decaying foliage which always seemed to hang about the place and which came from the cans of water in which the unsold flowers were kept in the hope of preserving them for sale the next day. It had been her voice I recognized first when she had said, "Where is the child?" I had flung myself into her arms and she had held me tightly saying, "Thank you, God. Oh, thank you" under her breath, which impressed me even at such a time, for it occurred to me that she must be on very familiar terms with God to speak to him like that.

I remember how she held me as though she were afraid I would run away. I was not likely to do that. I was so glad to get away from that cellar, for although Jeanne was good to me, I was always afraid of Maman, who always took the few sous Jeanne brought in from the sale of flowers and feverishly counted them, muttering as she did so. I had always been aware that she grudged my being there and but for Jeanne would have turned me into the streets. Even more terrifying than Maman was the Grand'mere, who was always dressed in musty black and had hairs growing out of a great wart on her chin, which both fascinated and repelled me. I had quickly realized that they were not my true friends, and Jeanne always had to protect me from them. Sometimes I had r gu. Aiivi» - crying.