Will You Love Me in September

Sabrina came to see me. She was always uneasy when I was not well. It was touching to see how much I meant to her. I believe I stood for security, and that was what Sabrina, in common with most children, wanted most in life.

She climbed onto the bed and studied me closely.

"You're ill," she said. "It's that silly baby.”

"People often feel slightly less well when they are going to have babies.”

"Silly to have them then," she said scornfully.

She studied me again. "You look a bit angry too," she commented.

"I'm not angry.”

"You look sad and angry and ill.”

"Whatever else you are, Sabrina," I said, "you're frank. I'm all right, though.”

She said, "I don't want you to die.”

"Die? Who says I'm going to die?”

"Nobody says it. They only think it.”

"What on earth do you mean?”

She put her arms round my neck and held me tightly. "Let's go away from here. You and me ... We can take the little baby with us. I'll look after it. I'd like there to be just the three of us. No Aimee. No Jean-Louis. No her.”

"And no Lance?" I asked. , "Oh, he'd rather stay with them ... now.”

"What do you mean?”

"He likes her, you know.”

"Who?”

"Aimee," she replied with conviction. "He likes her better than you.”

"I don't think he does.”

She nodded vigorously.

One of the servants came in with a dish of chocolate. It was steaming hot and smelt delicious.

Sabrina looked at it suspiciously. "Where is the ring?" she asked.

"The ring?”

"Your bezoar ring.”

"I haven't got it anymore," I told her.

"Has it been ... stolen again?”

"In a way.”

Her eyes were round, and on impulse I said, "Lance gambled with it and lost it.”

It's yours," she cried. "It's wicked to take it." I was silent, and e^ suddenly clung to me, her eyes round as saucers.

"Oh, Clarissa," she said fiercely, "you mustn't die. You mustn't,”

"What are you talking about? You are a funny girl, Sabrina.”

"I don't know," she said in a small voice. "I know I'm frightened ... a bit.”

I held her tightly to me for a moment. Then I said, "What about a game of I Spy?”

"All right," she answered, brightening.

As we played I thought what a strange child she was, and how dear to me, as I knew I was to her. There was an intimacy between us. It had been there from her birth.

She was more than a cousin; she was like my own child. I loved her dearly. I loved her strangeness, her waywardness, her love of the dramatic, and what seemed like a determination to create it when it was not there all that made up Sabrina.

Sabrina was now caught up in an intrigue of her own imagining, and it concerned Lance, Aimee and myself.

It was difficult for me to know how much to suspect, or how much had been planted in my mind by my own observations or by Sabrina's suggestions.

Sabrina wanted me to herself. She was ready to accept the new baby, but she wanted us to be alone. She resented the others, and now Lance more than any. She saw him as the real barrier, and with characteristic determination, she was doing her best to remove that barrier.

She had made up her mind that Aimee and Lance were the enemies and that Madame Legrand was their ally. In her mind she with myself stood against them. As Lance was my husband, she thought there should be another woman, for she was very knowledgeable about such matters, having listened avidly to servants' gossip. Sometimes I wondered whether the servants were gossiping about Lance and Aimee.

Eddy Moreton was still paying attention to Aimee. He had a small house not far from Clavering Hall. His family's ancestral home was in the Midlands, but he hadn't a chance of inheriting that. Aimee did not exactly encourage him. I think my sister was far too practical to enter into a marriage which would bring her no financial advantage.

Sabrina watched them cautiously. I wondered whether anyone would notice her absorption, but the manner in which she sought to protect me was touching.

Sometimes in life there appears to be a special bond between people; it is almost as though their lives are entwined and therefore they are of the utmost significance to each other. I often thought of that afterward.

She was now having a deep effect on me. She was sowing seeds of suspicion in my mind.

She was creating in me an atmosphere which at one time I told myself had grown entirely out of her imagination, and yet at the same time I was not sure that this was so.

Sometimes I wondered whether she had an extra sense, at others I dismissed her insinuations as childish nonsense. She was possessive and she wanted me for herself; moreover, she had an insatiable desire for drama. Her great interest now was to protect me from some impending evil, and whether she actually sensed it or built it up out of jealousy of Lance, I could not be sure.