When Hannah held it in her hands and looked down at the loveliness of the Duchess’s face, her eyes had softened.
Then, as if she was afraid she might cry, she had slipped the picture into a bag she carried and hurried down the stairs.
Almost as if he was told to do so by some inner voice, the Marquis paused at exactly the same place.
He left Hannah’s bedroom and walked again into the studio, crossing the room to look in the drawer where he remembered Cyrilla had placed the sketch of her mother when she had given him the one of herself.
It was not there!
He then pulled open all the other drawers of the chest, but even as he did so he knew that he would not find the portrait – it had gone, as Cyrilla herself had.
For a moment he felt like shouting, beating his fists against the walls, overturning and breaking everything in the studio and elsewhere in the house.
Then years of self-control made him walk down the stairs and out through the back door to his phaeton.
He climbed into it and started to drive down the terrace even though he felt it was almost impossible to behave in a normal and outwardly correct manner and not display his frustrations and anger very differently.
‘It could not be true! She could not really have gone!’ he told himself over and over again.
Because he could still not believe it, when he had driven halfway towards Mayfair, he turned his horses and went back to Islington.
He had left the back door on the latch and it was easy to enter the house again. Now, more than he had done at first, he felt the chill of emptiness as if the very spirit of the house had departed and left only a shell.
Because he could not help himself, he went up the stairs and into Cyrilla’s bedroom.
Here at least there was a fragrance of her and he felt too as if her ghost was waiting there for him.
“How could you do this to me, my darling?” he asked. “How could you leave me after all we said to each other?”
Then because he could not believe it, he told himself that there was an explanation – she must have had an accident and been taken to hospital.
Hannah would be with her.
Knowing Cyrilla, he felt she could not deliberately have walked out of his life, could not have intentionally made him suffer as he was beginning to do.
It would be impossible for her to be so cruel.
He left the house and this time he actually reached Berkeley Square, aware that every yard he drove made him more depressed, made the fear rising within him seem like a serpent that would poison him.
It was a fear that threatened to sap even his mind so that he could not think clearly.
If Cyrilla had gone, what could he do about it? Where could he find her? Where could he even begin to search?
Then, as he stepped out of his phaeton and went into his house, he told himself that there must be some logical explanation.
“Luncheon is ready, my Lord,” the butler said calmly as if he was not aware of the Marquis’s disturbed expression.
The Marquis told himself that when luncheon was over he would return to Islington and find Cyrilla waiting for him.
‘She must have misunderstood what I told her,’ he thought reassuringly, but the emptiness he had found in Hannah’s bedroom was there to haunt him.
But if Hannah’s clothes had gone, why had not Cyrilla’s?
The Marquis went through the motions of having luncheon, but he had no idea what he ate or drank.
His secretary asked to see him when the meal was finished, but he refused, knowing that Mr. Ashworth was going to talk about the house. He could not bear for the moment to speak of it because of his growing fear that he would never be able to find the person it was intended for.
He went back to Islington and stayed there, regardless of the fact that his horses were fidgeting outside, for over two hours.
He sat in the little sitting room where Cyrilla had first run into his arms for comfort and protection after Frans Wyntack had died and he thought over everything that had happened since the moment he had found her and everything they had said to each other.
For the first time it struck him that she had behaved strangely, although he had not thought so at the time, when he had spoken of the house he would buy for her, where they would be together.
“I don’t – think I understand – about the – house.”
He could almost hear her soft voice now, hesitating and stammering over the words.
“It will be yours,” he had replied. “I shall give it to you and the deeds will be in your name. Whatever happens in the future, you will have somewhere to live and enough money to keep you in comfort.”
He remembered how he had pulled her against him and had gone on to say,
“You are mine, my little Virgin of the Lilies and I will look after you, protect you and keep you from anxiety for the rest of your life. That I swear and, my darling, we will be happier than any two people have ever been since the beginning of time.”
He remembered that, as he had finished speaking, she had not said anything because he had kissed her until the feelings she aroused in him were unlike anything he had ever known before in his whole life.
Her lips had brought him an ecstasy that it would have been impossible to put into words, impossible to describe and he could only recall that it had been an effort of sheer willpower to take his lips from hers and rise to his feet.
He had told her that he must leave because there were so many things for him to do and he had said,
“I had difficulty in finding you, difficulty in getting into the house first with you and then with Hannah trying to keep me out. Now I feel I am invincible because you love me and I love you!”
Because it had been impossible not to do so, he had pulled her to her feet and kissed her soft lips once again.
He had never known a woman’s lips could be so sweet, so tender and yet have an irresistible magic about them.
It was with a tremendous effort that he had forced himself to leave her and go down the stairs, feeling that he was leaving behind everything that had ever mattered to him in his life.
Now, looking back, he realised that she had not spoken.
She had not said that she was pleased about the house. She had not made any reply or comment on his plans.
What had been wrong? What could have worried her? the Marquis questioned.
Then suddenly, almost as if a voice said it for him, he understood – she wanted to marry him!
It had never struck the Marquis for one moment that Cyrilla should be his wife.
This was understandable because always he had known that the woman he married would be in an entirely different category from the women who attracted him and to whom he made love.
Vaguely, because he knew it was inevitable since someday he must have an heir, he had known that he must marry, but he did not intend to do so until he was actually obliged to because of impending old age, which was something that was still far away from him.
His wife, he imagined, would be beautiful and sophisticated, a woman who would grace the end of his table, entertain with the same charm and efficiency as his mother had done and receive the Prince of Wales and any other Royalty they asked to their house with the same self-assurance that he himself had.
As the Marchioness of Fane, his wife would be very social, invited to every ball, every assembly and every reception that took place in the Beau Monde.
She would, of course, accompany him always to Carlton House, where, because of his long friendship with His Royal Highness, undoubtedly she would also be a favourite of the Prince.
How could he have imagined even for one second, he asked himself, that Cyrilla, with her exquisite, unworldly beauty, her strange spiritual loveliness, would fit into that category?
He could hardly believe that she would expect to do so and yet, when he thought about it, he supposed women who were pure would think love making a sin unless they had the blessin
g of the Church.
The Marquis was so used to his own raffish life that he had never for one moment considered that in the eyes of what he called ‘good women’, he was a wicked philanderer who sinned in the sight of God.
That was very different from being a rake, from having what the Prince called a ‘bad reputation with the fair sex’, and from incurring the displeasure and condemnation of the older generation simply because the women who loved him behaved, like Lady Isabel Chatley, in an emotional and exaggerated manner.
He quite expected to be censured for that sort of behaviour and, when he thought it over, he was certain that this was not what Cyrilla was feeling but something very different.
To her love was holy, sacred!
He remembered how she had said in her entrancing, hesitating little voice,
“How can I ever be – grateful enough to God for – sending you to me?”
That was what he had been – a Knight in shining armour, guided to her by a Divine Power to save her from her loneliness and fear.
Slowly the Marquis spelt it all out to himself.
Cyrilla was different from any other woman he had known. She was young and innocent and her ideals were unspoilt, untouched by worldly values.
It would never have struck her when they had first kissed and they said that they loved each other that the Marquis did not intend that they should be married, should be man and wife.
‘How could I not have realised that?’ he asked himself. ‘Then I could have explained everything to her.’
But what could he have explained? That she was not important enough socially to be his wife? That her blood was not as blue as his? That her parents did not bear the scrutiny of those who thought a family tree more important than love?
How could he have said any of those things? And yet, how else could he explain that he could not marry her?
Even as he asked himself the question, he knew that it was an absurd one.
Of course he was prepared to marry Cyrilla, if that was what she wanted. He would certainly marry her rather than lose her and, if that was what he had done, it was entirely his own fault.
‘Yet how could I have known? How could I have guessed?’ he questioned despairingly.
He felt that his cry echoed round and round the small room and came back again, meaningless, to his ears.
Then another question came to his mind. Why had her mother’s tombstone been worded so strangely?
Could it possibly be that she had not been Frans Wyntack’s wife, as he had naturally assumed that she was? If her mother had not been married, that would account, perhaps, for Cyrilla’s reluctance to enter into the same sort of liaison.
In fact it could have given her a horror of anything irregular and unconventional.
“Why did she not tell me?” the Marquis asked aloud. “If only she had trusted me!”
He could see the tombstone clearly,
Lorraine Beloved of Frans Wyntack and Cyrilla
Now he was sure that Cyrilla, although she had called him ‘Papa,’ was not really Frans Wyntack’s daughter. But how could that fact help him find her?
Once again he went to Cyrilla’s bedroom.
‘Come back to me!’ he called in his heart and stood there feeling that somehow, because he could sense her so vividly, she must hear what he was saying.
‘Come back to me! Let me explain! Let me tell you that my love for you is great enough for anything – even marriage!’
Just for a moment he questioned if that was true.
Then as if a barrier within him fell, he knew that it was.
He wanted Cyrilla, wanted her with him for the rest of his life. She was his, she was a part of him. He could no more lose her than lose one of his limbs.
His whole being cried out for her. He felt as if he was drowning in an ocean of despair and frustration and that only she could save him.
Then he had the terrifying conviction that he had in fact lost her forever.
*
As the dressmaker curtseyed and went from Cyrilla’s bedroom, Hannah put over her shoulders the robe of satin and lace that she had just brought.
Cyrilla walked to the window to stand looking out on the trees in the Park.
Every time she did so, she thought of the garden the Marquis had described to her.
She could almost see him coming towards her through the flowers.
“You look tired,” Hannah’s voice came from behind her.
Cyrilla wanted to reply that she was unhappy, but she knew that there was no point in saying so.
“A little,” she admitted, “but then I am not used to trying on so many clothes all at once.”
“You’ll do them credit,” Hannah said. “The dressmaker said as she went down the stairs, ‘there’s no beauty in the whole of London Society who can hold a candle to her Ladyship’.”
“I am not going into – Society,” Cyrilla replied quickly in a frightened voice. “Papa promised me!”
“No! We’re going to the country the day after tomorrow.” Hannah said soothingly. “His Grace told me so today. I want you to meet people of your own age and to make friends.”
“I shall be quite content as I am with Papa.”
“That’s foolish and you know it!” Hannah parried in her usual sharp manner. “But it’s early days to worry and when you get back to The Castle you’ll feel different.”
“Perhaps.”
Cyrilla sighed, still staring out the window and, after a moment, as if she could not restrain her curiosity, Hannah asked,
“What are you thinking about?”
“I am – thinking of the – empty house and – the Marquis – ”
“Forget it!” Hannah asserted. “Forget him. You have to try. It’ll be hard, I know that. But after all, you only knew him for a short time.”
“I don’t think – time has any bearing on one’s feelings,” Cyrilla said dreamily. “Love just – happens. He was there – and it would have been exactly the – same if it had taken – years instead of minutes.”
“That sort of thinking’s not going to help,” Hannah snapped.
“I was just – wondering,” Cyrilla said, “if – anything will help. I feel as if I have lost part of myself. Something has – gone and I think it’s my – heart.”
Hannah made an irritated sound which told Cyrilla that she was annoyed.
As if she had nothing more to say, she moved about the room rather noisily, opening and closing drawers and moving a chair.
When Cyrilla did not speak, she said coaxingly,
“Come and put on one of your new gowns. His Grace’ll be wanting you to pour out tea for him and he’ll want to see you in your finery.”
It flashed through Cyrilla’s mind that the person for whom she wanted to model her new gowns was not her father, but she did not say so.
Instead she allowed Hannah to dress her in an attractive gown, which had been extremely expensive and which made her look like the Goddess of the dawn.
Hannah noticed that she hardly bothered to glance at herself in the mirror and, when she was ready, she went downstairs with an expression on her face that made the old nurse draw in her breath.
‘That man! Why did he have to come into her life at just the wrong moment?’ she asked herself. ‘Only a few days later and she’d have been here and not even aware that anyone called the Marquis of Fane existed. Why, why did it have to happen?’
It was a cry that human beings had made since the beginning of time, railing against Fate, knowing that they could do nothing about it
Cyrilla was thinking the same thing.
It would have been very exciting to be at home with Papa. Exciting to know that she was going to The Castle. Exciting to realise that in a few months’ time she would see her brother again. If – if! That was the snag! If only she had not met the Marquis. If only she had not fallen in love. If only she did not feel her whole body crying out for him.
‘I love him!’
It was difficult to hear anything that was said because for her there was only the sound of his voice.
It was difficult to see her surroundings because in front of her there was always his face.
And every minute she felt herself recalling the wonder of his lips on hers and how in the closeness of his arms she had felt his heart beating.
*
The Marquis came back from Islington for the third time with a scowl on his face that made the footmen in the hall at Fane House look at him apprehensively.
Mr. Ashworth was more courageous.
“Has something gone wrong, my Lord?”
For a moment the Marquis hesitated.
Then as if he could not prevent himself, he asked,
“How do you find somebody who has disappeared? Where does one begin to search for one woman in the whole of London?”
Mr. Ashworth was not only alert but sympathetic. Now he understood what had happened.
“You have lost the lady you bought the house for, my Lord?”
“She has disappeared, Ashworth. I told her I would call for her at her house in Islington, but when I got there, and I have been there three times today, it was empty.”
“Surely, my Lord – ”
“You mean, there must be a reason, Ashworth. There was a misunderstanding between us, although I did not realise it at the time. I have to find her, do you understand? I have to find her!”
There was something very positive in the Marquis’s assertion. At the same time his secretary had the feeling that it was also a cry for help.
“You don’t think, my Lord,” Mr. Ashworth said after a moment, “that there has been an accident?”
“I thought of that, but for reasons I need not go into, I am sure that she has left the house not by chance but by intention.”
“In which case, my Lord, she will be hiding from you.”
“That is what I am afraid of, Ashworth. But where? In God’s name, where could she go?”
“Your Lordship has no idea of anywhere she had been previously?”
“No,” the Marquis replied. “And she has very little money.”
Mr. Ashworth’s eyes showed his surprise.
Who Can Deny Love Page 11
