Free The adulteress by 1906- Philippa Carr

fond of ladies. I always have been . . . from the age of about fourteen. I could not imagine my life without them. There were always ladies. I led a wild life. I had had a dozen mistresses by the time I was twenty. I am sorry. I am shocking you but you must understand. I don't want to upset Jessie. She means a great deal to me. My . . . comforts depend on her. But I don't want trouble and she can't have Eversleigh, can she? Can you imagine all those irate ancestors of ours rising up against me? I'd be struck down before I could put pen to paper. Well, there is family pride in me too. No . . . Eversleigh for the Evers-leighs. The long line must not be broken."
    "I think I begin to understand, Uncle Carl."
    "That is good. You may have heard about Felicity, my wife. ... I was forty when we met. I loved her dearly. She was twenty-two. Five years we were together. I was different then . . . the model husband . . . never wanted to stray from my own fireside. Then we were going to have a child. That seemed perfection. She died and the child with her. That was the lowest point of despair I have ever known."
    "I'm sorry, uncle. I had heard of that."
    "A common tragedy perhaps. Well, what did I do? I pulled myself out of my misery and went back to what I had been before Felicity came into my life. Women. . . . They had to be there, I couldn't do without them. There were always women. My namesake, that other uncle Carl of yours, the general, didn't approve of me at all. I should have been managing the estate after Leigh died and he had to do it because I wouldn't leave my life in London. He was an army man. . . . He hadn't the same feel for the place that had gone into it. And then when he died I changed again. I saw my duty. And suddenly I thought I'd come into my own . . . so I came back. I got quite fond of the place. You do, you know. All those ancestors hanging around in frames . . . they become part of you. I began to take a pride in old Eversleigh . . . and see what a

    fine thing it was for the old house to stand all those years in the same family . . . while we of frailer stuff than bricks and stone pass on. I had a good manager in Amos Carew. And then Jessie came along. I saw in Jessie that which had always attracted me in a woman ... a sort of readiness ... a sort of understanding that passes between you. You want the same thing and you're of one mind about it. You wouldn't understand that, dear child. You are so different. Jessie and I were like old friends from the start. She has given me a lot of pleasure."
    "She runs the household."
    "She is the housekeeper, you know."
    "But . . . she seems to control everything."
    "Myself, you mean."
    "Well, I have to come when she is . . . sleeping."
    "That's because I wouldn't want her upset. I don't want her to know about this will."
    "She surely doesn't believe that she is going to inherit this house."
    "She may think it could come to that. It couldn't possibly, of course, but I don't want her upset. So I want you to find some way of getting the lawyers here. If you could get into town and explain to them. I'll draw up what I want and you can take it in. Then they can come here with witnesses to do the signing . . . during an afternoon."
    "I expect it could be managed."
    "But Jessie mustn't know. It would make her really angry."
    I was silent and he put his hand over mine. "Don't think hardly of Jessie. She's what she is and so am I . . . and so perhaps are we all. She brings me comfort in my old age. I couldn't do without her. I know a great deal about her . . . how she must seem to someone like you. But I want you to arrange this for me. I shall leave this house to you. I want you to have it because you're Carlotta's granddaughter. Carlotta was the loveliest creature I ever saw. Mind you, your mother was the daughter of that rogue Hessenfield, one of the greatest Jacobites of the times. But Carlotta was a wonderful creature. Beautiful . . . wild . . . passionate. I saw her only as a