Will You Love Me in September

Jeremy was a man who had lost his way and despaired of ever finding it again. He looked like a ghost. Smith told me that he neither ate nor slept. He did not seem able to realize that she had gone.

"I dunno," said Smith. "When she came it changed everything. She was an angel, that's what she was. And now she's gone to the angels ... if you believe in that sort of thing. They'd have done better to let her stay. Angels could do without her. Mr.

Jeremy can't. She's gone. That means everything will change back. I don't know, Miss Clarissa. I don't know at all. There's the little nipper. What's to become of her?”

"We'll sort something out, Smith," I said. "Never fear.”

Sabrina had not come to greet me as she had in the old days. I asked Nanny Curlew where she was.

"Nobody can do anything with that child these days," she told me. "She's shut right in on herself. Doesn't seem to want anybody.”

I found her at last. She was in one of the attics sitting under an old table pretending to read.

"Hello, Sabrina," I said. "Did you know I was coming?”

"Yes," she answered, and looked down at her book.

I crawled under the table and, sitting beside her, put my arm about her.

"I thought you'd be glad to see me. Aren't you?”

"I don't mind.”

I started to get out from under the table, but she made a half move toward me. "She's dead now," she said.

I went back and sat close to her.

"Yes," I said.

"I haven't got a mother now.”

"Dear Sabrina, you have us all. You have your grandparents ... your great-grandparents ... and here am I.”

"They all think I killed her.”

"They don't.”

"They don't say it but they mean it. And I did, didn't I? It was because she pulled me out of the frozen pond.”

"That was an accident, Sabrina.”

"I made it an accident, and Papa hates me.”

"Of course he doesn't.”

"Why do you say that when you know he does? Why do people always tell lies? We ought to tell the truth.”

"Of course we should, and we do. Your father does not hate you.”

"You tell lies," she said. "You needn't. I don't mind if he hates me. I hate him too.”

I put my arm round her and held her fast. I kept saying, "Sabrina, Sabrina, my dear little Sabrina.”

Suddenly I felt her clinging to me. I thought she was going to cry, and I knew it would be good for her if she did. But she didn't. Instead she said in a small voice, "Stay here, Clarissa.”

I stroked her hair. "I'll look after you, Sabrina," I said.

After that she did not avoid me, and I felt I had made progress.

I went to the Dower House. Poor Priscilla was weighed down with grief. Damaris had been her favorite daughter. I don't think she ever understood my mother. Carlotta had, throughout her life, been exotic and dramatic. But Damaris had been the quiet and affectionate home lover, the daughter every woman wants-kind, generous, unselfish in the extreme, the one who gives all she has to give without thought of self-gratification. Dear, loving, simple Damaris was no more; she had gone, leaving behind so many who mourned for her, whose lives had become poorer without her, people who needed her.

There was gloom at Eversleigh. Carleton was confined to bed and Arabella was in a state of acute anxiety because of his health. The death of Damaris was a blow which she was not strong enough to sustain at this time.

It was indeed a house of mourning.

It was an April day, a week after her death, when Damaris was buried in the graveyard attached to Eversleigh Church, where generations of Eversleighs had been laid to rest.

I shall never forget the dismal tolling of the bell as the pallbearers carried the coffin into the church. I kept Sabrina's hand in mine; she was very quiet and her beautiful eyes were enormous in her pale face.

When we stood round the grave and listened to the sound of the clods of earth falling on the coffin, the child shrank close to me, and I put an arm about her to comfort her. She turned away from the gaping grave and buried her face in my skirts.

I dared not look at Jeremy, who was like a man in a dream. I saw that Smith was close beside him, and I was grateful to Smith. He had looked after Jeremy in the past and would do so now.

Back at the house we partook of some refreshment-ham, beef and little pies, with mulled wine. In the great hall the company was assembled-a quiet, sad company. They talked of Damaris' many virtues. It is the custom at funerals to praise the deceased's accomplishments and gifts, but in the case of Damaris the compliments were deserved.

How we should miss her! This house would not be the same again. I realized that it was her presence which had dispersed that air of menace.

Jeanne had said it was not a happy house; now it seemed to me that it was haunted by malevolent ghosts.

The guests had departed and silence fell on the house. Jeremy went to the room he had shared with Damaris and shut himself in with his grief.

I suggested to Sabrina that we walk round the gardens for an hour and she agreed to come with me. She was silent for a while and then she began to talk about the funeral.