Will You Love Me in September

She was strong and healthy from the start, and I had never been so happy in my life as I was when I held her in my arms-my very own child. I called her Zipporah, and from the moment of her coming she changed the household. She was a contented baby and only cried when she was hungry or tired. She bestowed her smiles on everyone indiscriminately and never failed to charm them all. Lance adored her, and it was clear that she had a special feeling for him. As for Jean-Louis, he would stand at her cradle and gaze at her in wonder. He would rattle a case of beans for her pleasure over and over again; he would put colored rings into a little sack and get them all out again, as though it were the most interesting occupation in the world, just because that was what Zipporah wanted to do.

I think his devotion to her had something to do with his desire to establish himself as part of our household. In any case, his devotion to Zipporah amused us all except her. She took it for granted.

Nor did it diminish as the years began to pass.

The Seed-Pearl Stole

We came to that period when my daughter was ten years old-a lovely child and a joy to us all. To my regret there had been no more children. Lance did not seem to mind.

He was well content with his daughter. She looked rather like him-tall, fair-haired, with intensely blue eyes-but it was her smile which was so enchanting.

I suppose I could have been said to have settled down. I was happy-not perhaps ecstatically so, as I had been with Dickon, but I had come to believe that my feelings then had been partly due to youth and my first and sudden encounter with romance. Lance had been a good husband to me-always kind and tender, but perhaps never as close as I had felt myself to be with Dickon, even though we spent but a few days together.

Lance had his secrets-for he was really a very secretive man-and I always believed they were between us. I had often felt that his gambling was my rival and that this passion for it would always exceed that which he felt for me. I used to think that he would gamble us all away if the challenge was strong enough. It was a foolish thought, and yet I was sure there was some truth in it.

This discontent with my marriage was only vague. In my sober moments I reproached myself for reaching out for the impossible ... as perhaps most people do when it would be so much wiser to accept and enjoy what they have. They dream up an ideal ... an impossible dream ... and spend their lives unappreciative of what they have because it does not exactly fit the dream.

Lance was often in financial difficulties. In fact, he lived constantly on the verge of them. No sooner had he won than he would risk all he had gained. It would always be like that, I knew, and I must accept it, because it was his nature. But, as I said, it set a barrier between us. He would never admit defeat. If ever I asked him how he fared, it would always have been wonderful. I was shut out of his gambling life, and as that meant more to him than anything, I could not be very close.

Then, of course, there was Sabrina. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, bearing a strong resemblance to her aunt Carlotta, who had caused such consternation in the family. But she was not like Carlotta in other respects. She was determined, strong-willed, vivacious and adventurous. Carlotta, it was true, had been all these; but in Sabrina the dominating trait was to care for the weak.

She had begun, I suppose, by caring for me, and the bond between us had not lessened with the years. She looked after me, protected me, watched over me, just as she had in those old days when she had suspected-rightly-that my life was in danger.

I was of special importance to her because she had saved my life, and that had brought about a change in her. For I do believe that had she not done what she did for me on that day in the woods, she would have gone on remembering that fatal day on the ice when she had disobeyed orders and her action had been the indirect cause of her mother's death.

I was fond of Lance and Jean-Louis, and Zipporah was my own precious child, but between Sabrina and myself there was such an intensity of feeling that nothing could rival it. She knew it and she was content that it should be so. The jealousy of her early childhood had disappeared. She was serene and confident and, what gave me great pleasure, contented.

Ours was a happy household up to that time. It was as though we had all come to terms with each other. Nanny Curlew stayed with us even though Sabrina was at this time a young woman of nineteen and certainly not in need of a nurse. But, with Nanny Goswell, she presided over Zipporah's needs, and the two nannies made themselves useful in a hundred ways, so that we could not imagine our household without them.