Will You Love Me in September

She rarely left her bed now, and when she did she had to be carried downstairs to lie on the sofa in the drawing room. Jeremy insisted on carrying her himself, and tragedy was already beginning to look out of his eyes. His tenderness and devotion to Damaris was deeply moving to watch, but it was clear to me that he was still blaming Sabrina.

She clung to me when I arrived ... a new Sabrina, who had lost that insouciant gaiety which had been so much a part of her nature. She brooded; she was disobedient.

"She's a handful," said Nanny Curlew, who was the only one who could manage her.

I was shocked, for I understood that the tragedy on the ice was by no means over.

She was delighted to see me at first and told me I must stay with her always. When I said I should have to go home because Enderby was not my home any more, she sulked and avoided me for several days.

I was with Damaris a great deal. She wanted me to be there. Her face had grown very thin and there were dark circles under her eyes caused by the pain she suffered.

She never talked of it, but she had reverted to the incapacitation of her youth before she had roused herself to look after Jeremy and me. I knew she tried to exert herself, for she was very anxious about Sabrina and the relationship between the child and her father. I think she regarded them both as two children who needed her care and guidance, but she was too ill, too racked by pain, too tired to give them the attention they needed.

She did not talk of the incident on the ice nor of the future. She did seem to find a great pleasure in talking of the past, of her trip to Paris when she had rescued me. It was as though we relived that time together from the moment when Jeanne came into the cellar with her tray of violets bringing Damaris with her.

"Violets have always been my favorite flower ever since," she said.

Sometimes Jeremy would come in and sit silently watching her. She meant everything to him. She had brought him out of the slough of despond. She ,had shown him that there was happiness-great happiness-in the world for him as well as for everyone else.

Priscilla was very worried about her. "She's going downhill," she said. "She's worse than she was all those years ago. Then she was younger. That last miscarriage drained her of all her strength. It's as though she can't fight this anymore.”

"She has a great spirit," I replied. "She will fight with all her might, if only for the sake of Jeremy and Sabrina.”

"Ah," went on Priscilla, "he can't forgive the child. Every time he looks at her he thinks that it is her fault. She can see it in his eyes.”

"Poor Sabrina.”

"She is a wayward child. She's Carlotta all over again. You used to be able to deal with Sabrina, Clarissa, but she seems to have turned against you now.”

"She must be made to feel that all this is not her fault.”

"But it is. She has logic enough to see that. If she hadn't disobeyed orders and gone skating, Damaris would be well today. The child might have been safely born.

Whichever way you look at it, it comes back to Sabrina.”

"She's only a child. It's making things so much worse by enlarging on her guilt.”

Priscilla lifted her shoulders helplessly. "And my mother is very worried about my father. I think he'll be lucky to get through the winter. And if anything happens to him ... that would just about finish Arabella. I think, dear, that it would be wise for you not to come this Christmas. It would be too much for them at Eversleigh, and at Enderby it wouldn't be easy. I shall be busy in both places, it seems.”

"I'll come in the spring," I said. "Everything will be different then.”

My words were sadly prophetic.

We spent that Christmas at Clavering in the traditional way, with plenty of card parties thrown in.

On Christmas morning, among my presents was a long, narrow case of dark-green velvet, and when I opened it I disclosed a necklace of glittering diamonds and emeralds.

Lance watched me as I took it out.

"Lance!" I cried. "You!”

"Who else? Don't tell me you are in the habit of receiving such gifts from others?”

"It's quite beautiful," I said, and I immediately thought of the cost and those unpaid bills about which Lance was so nonchalant.

"Put it on," he commanded.

I did so. It transformed me.

"Let's have a look at you," he said. "Ah, I knew it. It brings out the green in your eyes.”

"But, Lance, it's terribly expensive.”

"Only the best will do for you, my darling," he answered promptly.

"You shouldn't ..." I wanted to say that I should have been more pleased with something which had cost less, but I couldn't of course.

"A bit of luck at the tables," he said.

"You should keep your winnings to set against your losses.”

"Losses! Don't talk of losses. It's a word I don't much like.”

"Nevertheless it exists ..." I stopped. There I was, lecturing him again. Perhaps this anxiety over his gambling was making a shrew of me. I went on, "Lance, I love it. It's beautiful and it is wonderful of you to give me such a present.”