Drop of the Dice by Philippa Carr Read Free Book Online Page B

Clarissa. Jenny made them specially for you. She said they were your favourites.’
    ‘You talk of sweetmeats when our country is being put to risk,’ cried Carleton; but I knew he was only amusing himself at my expense and I was satisfied because I had made my point about the height of Jacobites and had stood by Hessenfield, so I turned to the sweetmeats and selected one which had a flavour of almonds which I particularly liked.
    Carleton’s attention had strayed from me but he was still with the Jacobites.
    ‘They say the Queen favours her brother. That’s what comes of women’s reasoning.’
    I looked at him sharply and said: ‘That’s treason against the Queen. It’s worse than saying Jacobites are tall.’
    I saw his chin twitch and he was putting on the fierce look again.
    ‘You see, she will betray us all.’
    ‘It’s you who do what,’ I reminded him, ‘by speaking against the Queen.’
    ‘That’s enough, Clarissa,’ said Priscilla, who was always nervous of political issues. ‘Now I am tired of this talk and we will leave the men if they want to fight out their silly battles on the table. I should have thought the recent peace and all the losses we have suffered to reach it would have been sufficient answer to all their theories.’
    Sometimes Priscilla, who was of a somewhat meek nature, could subdue Carleton as no one else could—not even Arabella. My grandmother was an unusual woman. She must have been to have borne my mother in secret in Venice. I was to discover how it happened in due course, because it was the custom of members of our family to keep a journal and in this they usually put down frankly and honestly what happened to them. It was a point of honour with them that they should do so; and when we were eighteen—or before that if the moment was ripe—we were allowed to read our ancestresses’ versions of their lives.
    We were just about to rise and leave the men at the table when one of the servants came in, looking bewildered.
    Arabella said: ‘What is it, Jess?’
    Jess said: ‘Oh, my lady, there’s a person at the door. She’s foreign… don’t seem to be able to talk. She just stands there and gibbers saying… Miss Clarissa… and Miss Damaris… That’s all she seems to say that makes sense, please, my lady. The rest is all nonsense… like.’
    Damaris had risen. ‘We’d better see what it’s about. She mentioned me, you say?’
    ‘Yes, Mistress. She said Miss Damaris… plain as that. And Miss Clarissa too.’
    I followed Damaris into the hall. Arabella and Priscilla were close behind. The great oak door was open and on the threshold stood a figure in black.
    It was a woman and she was clutching a bag. She was talking rapidly in French. It came back to me as I listened and I ran to her.
    She looked at me disbelievingly. I had changed a great deal in five years, but I recognized her.
    ‘Jeanne!’ I cried.
    She was delighted. She held out her arms and I ran into them.
    Then Damaris was there. Jeanne released me and looked at her rather fearfully and began to explain rapidly and incoherently, but I could understand quite easily what she was telling us.
    We had always said that she would be welcome. We had asked her to come but she could not leave her mother and grandmother so she had not gone with us when we left. But we had said she might come, and she remembered. Grand’mère was dead; her mother had married and Jeanne was free. So she had come back to her little Clarissa whom she had saved when there was no one to look after her. And she wanted to be with her again… and Damaris had said…
    Damaris cried out in her very English French that Jeanne was very welcome.
    Arabella, who spoke French tolerably well because during the days before the Restoration she had lived in a château there, waiting for King Charles the Second to regain his throne, said that she had heard all about what Jeanne had done for me and she would be very welcome here.
    Damaris kept