Page 60 of A Family Affair
I answered my mother in the way she hoped for but perhaps didn’t expect, who knows? ‘That would be very nice, Mother. When would you like to leave? I’d like to have a bath and wash my hair first, if that’s alright.’
At this I received a gracious bow of the head and a self-satisfied smile. ‘Oh good. Shall we say ten-thirty? I have some paperwork to attend to in my room and your father has a meeting in his study. We will see you shortly.’
She stood and made her way to the door where she paused before opening it then turned to look me square in the eyes. ‘I’m so glad you’ve seen sense, dear. It’s for the best. We only have your interests at heart. Now hurry along.’
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t because if I’d done so, I think I would have put my mother in a sanitorium. Or sent her to her death bed. One or the other, and at the time I really didn’t care which.
After scrabbling into the first pair of sensible shoes I found then grabbing a coat I took the servants’ staircase and left the house via the tradesman’s entrance. I then headed off across the fields in desperate haste. My only thoughts were of hearing Ursula’s voice.
Thirty minutes later I was in the phone box asking the operator to connect me to the Belgravia number then waiting while Monroe, Ursula’s sombre butler went to find his mistress. The waiting was a million times worse than the days I’d endured in my room.
When she finally came to the phone I heard it immediately. Her dismissal of me, us, was deftly done. In words of very few syllables. Without compassion or care. That’s how I received the message loud and clear from a hushed voice I barely recognised.
‘Please do not call again. It will only make things worse. Do you understand?’
‘But Ursula… please… we need to talk.’ When a moment of clarity reminded me that the operator could be listening, dread rushed through my veins as the threat of scandal loomed large.
So I simply said, ‘I have to come and see you…’
‘NO. That won’t be possible. I don’t have space in my diary. Please, do as I say and don’t call again. Goodbye Clarissa.’ And then she was gone.
I don’t recall the walk home. If I cried or laughed hysterically like a madwoman escaped from an asylum, but for some reason unbeknown to me then or now, I did head straight back here, to Chamberlain. And as I entered the yard and saw father holding Spirit’s reins, and the horsebox, my whole world felt like it was coming to an end.
CHAPTER45
Clarissa paused and waited for the pain of that day to subside. Although it happened more than sixty years earlier, the events still tore up her heart and left it in shreds.
Reading the mood, Chuck made a suggestion. ‘How about we have something a bit stronger than cocoa? Do you think it might help, because you’ve gone mighty pale.’
‘I would love a brandy, a nice big one, please.’ Clarissa rarely drank in the evenings, but needs must, and a stiff drink might help her brain to switch off when she went to bed. Her old bones looked after themselves.
Chuck didn’t tarry and headed straight over to the drinks cabinet and poured them both large measures of brandy, settling beside her again once he’d handed her a glass. After taking a moment to savour the amber liquid Clarissa sighed. ‘So now I have to finish my sorry tale, that’s if you want to know the rest or have I thoroughly depressed you?’
Chuck rested his head back against the sofa before he replied, ‘No, you ain’t depressed me, more made me angry that they treated you that way and I have to know what happened to Spirit even though I’m kinda scared of the answer.’
Clarissa leant over and patted his arm. ‘Don’t worry. Spirit stayed, but my father’s posturing worked a treat because he knew I’d do anything he said to keep my horse. He’d obviously worked out that I’d try to ring Ursula, that I wouldn’t dare use the phone in the hall; so as soon as he found out I’d left the house he got the stable lad to bring Spirit round. It was all for show because he knew Ursula was going to break my heart, after all; Uncle Oscar would’ve made sure of it. No, the threat to sell Spirit was a warning that I should toe the line. So after I begged and cried like an obedient, chastened daughter, Father acquiesced, and the stable lad walked Spirit back to his stall.’
Clarissa had re-lived that scene so many times in her mind, imagining the worst-case scenario of losing Spirit, and even the thought of it made her feel quite unhinged. Had it happened, if he’d have been sold, Clarissa was sure she’d have lost her mind.
‘So what happened then? Did you ever see Ursula again? And what was it like living here under a cloud and being controlled by your parents?’
Clarissa thought for a moment before responding. ‘What was it like? It was like my earlier life, before I went away to school but on repeat, I suppose. I might as well have been nine again. My parents were here, in the house. We were perfectly pleasant to one another and passed the time of day when we were thrown together for meals. Apart from that I kept myself to myself.’
‘I’d have done the same. I don’t think I’d want to talk to them ever again, if you don’t mind me sayin’. Chuck sounded mildly angry but as always, polite.
‘Oh I don’t mind and you’re right. I didn’t particularly want to talk to them either. Conversation dried in my throat and as much as they didn’t want to look at me, the feeling was mutual. And on top of that I couldn’t rid myself of the shame. Not my own, because I will never ever feel that about Ursula. What we had was special and how she behaved in the end was through fear, which is why I respected her wishes and didn’t contact her again. I can be very stubborn when I want to be.’ She gave Chuck a friendly wink to make him smile because he looked so serious. It worked and she was glad.
‘It was the shame they felt because of me that I found hard to bear. And I’m almost positive that the only reason they didn’t turf me out or have me sent abroad or to a psychiatric hospital was so they could keep an eye on me. Damage limitation. And it worked but only because of Spirit. I couldn’t leave him behind. Apart from some jewellery, I really was penniless in my own right, so I stayed and made the best life I could.
‘There was never any mention of me finding an eligible bachelor simply because they were both too embarrassed to even bring up a matter that would remind them of what I’d done. Perhaps they thought it was a phase and were waiting for it to end. That one day a handsome chap would simply turn up, sweep me off my feet and we’d never talk about what a silly girl I’d been. My parents had plenty of rugs and anything unsavoury was sure to be swept under them.’
‘So you carried on running the stud farm?’
‘Yes, and rode Spirit, and read a lot, usually wrapped in a blanket in his stall. I felt happiest when I was with him.’
The rest of the tale was simple. Nine years after the scandal, her father died of lung cancer and in a strange way the day he took his last breath, it was as though Chamberlain sucked in a huge gulp of fresh air. Clarissa felt like she could breathe again, too.
At almost thirty years old she could’ve made a bid for freedom. Because her mother was weak willed and just as she’d been manipulated by her husband, it would’ve been just as easy for her daughter to do the same. Had she been cast in the same mould as her father – but thankfully, she was not.
