“Do you suppose I have not thought of that?” he asked. “Do you suppose I did not lie awake last night enduring all the temptations of St. Anthony rolled into one?”
He pulled her so close to him that she could hardly breathe as he went on,
“Oh, my precious little Goddess, of course I have thought of how we might be together, but I have not yet sunk to such depths of depravity that I would spoil anything so perfect, so pure or so unbelievably beautiful.”
Because the way he spoke moved her so tremendously, Imeldra felt the tears come into her eyes.
She did not hide them, but went on looking at the Marquis, knowing from the expression on his face that he was being crucified by his own emotions.
“I love you!” he said. “I love you as I never believed it possible to love anybody. You fill my whole world, you are like a light in the darkness that is destroying me.”
“But I am – alive,” Imeldra replied, “and perhaps I can lead you out of the – darkness and we can both be – happy.”
He shook his head and she felt as if he quenched the fire that burnt within her leaving nothing but ashes.
“You must go away, my lovely one,” he said. “Forget me and one day you will find a man who will love you as I do and, although I cannot bear to think of it, you will marry him.”
“That will never happen,” Imeldra replied, “because now I know that I love you and – belong to you – I shall never let another man – touch me.”
“You think that now,” the Marquis said, “but you are very young and the young forget.”
“Will you forget?”
“That is different. I am old, not in years but in bitterness and hatred and despair.”
“How can you talk like that?” Imeldra asked him. “How can you throw away anything so wonderful and glorious as our love for each other?”
He did not answer and she went on,
“It is as totally wrong as if you knocked down this exquisite memorial to your great-grandmother. It is as wrong as if you burnt Marizon down to the ground with all the beauty it contains. What we have been given is a gift from God and neither of us can refuse it.”
“That is the sort of thing you would say, my darling,” the Marquis said tenderly, “but because you yourself come from God and because I so want to kneel at your feet and pray for your happiness, I know that I have to leave you.”
“Why? Why?” Imeldra cried. “What have you done? What crime have you committed that love cannot understand and – forgive?”
As if he had no words to answer her with, the Marquis drew her close to him and kissed her again.
Now there was no fire on his lips only, she thought, a kind of dull misery as if his despair had left him cold and she no longer had the power to enflame him.
Then he released her and said in a voice of authority that she felt she must obey,
“Pack up the picnic things while I collect the horses.”
When he had spoken, he walked outside leaving her standing looking after him.
She wanted to scream, to cry and to plead with him on her knees to tell her just what was wrong and make her understand. But she knew that it would be no use.
As she loved him so desperately she realised that for the moment he was driven almost beyond endurance.
Then, as he walked away to where the horses were grazing a little below them, she felt as if he was not a masterful man but a little boy – as if he was her son – who was caught up in events too deep and too frightening for him to understand and that menaced him to the point where he could find no escape.
Because it was the only way she could help him, she began to pray.
‘Save him, God. Save him from whatever it is that is – making him so – unhappy. Let us be together. Don’t leave us alone and – crippled without each other – please, God – please.’
Automatically because the Marquis had ordered it, she put all the plates and glasses they had used back into the picnic basket and closed the lid.
But all the time she was praying hard and feeling that if she could find no answer to the Marquis’s secret, then it would be known to God and He alone would be the only person who could solve it.
*
Driving back in the sunshine her prayers turned from God to her mother.
She felt as if she needed her more than she had ever needed her since she had died.
Only her mother would understand the love that was pulsating through her for the man who has said she must go away.
Only her mother would understand how he filled her whole world, the whole sky and, if she lost him, she would have lost everything that mattered including the very joy of living.
‘Make him love me, Mama, so that nothing else – matters,’ she pleaded. ‘Make him love me enough to confide in me and, when he does so, show me how I can – guide and – inspire him as you did Papa.’
She was praying so intensely that she gave a little start when the Marquis, who had been looking ahead with a frown between his eyes, turned to gaze at her.
“Take off your glove and give me your hand,” he suggested. “I have to touch you.”
The way he spoke made her feel as if the dark cloud had for the moment lifted.
Obediently she undid the buttons on her long gloves and started to pull off the one from her right hand.
As if she was not quick enough for him, the Marquis drew it from her fingers, thrust it into his pocket and then clasped her hand in his.
“Now I am touching you again and we are one,” he sighed almost beneath his breath.
“And our vibrations are joined,” Imeldra added, “as they were from the very first time we met.”
He made a little sound that was half a laugh.
“I thought the same and, when you turned from the picture to look at me, it was as if you were bathed in light and the rays came towards me as if they were alive.”
“Oh, darling, how can we – escape each other?” Imeldra asked.
The Marquis’s fingers tightened on hers until his clasp was painful.
“Say it to me again,” he begged her. “Say it with that little note in your voice that will always haunt me and prevent me from hearing anything any other woman might ever say to me.”
“Darling – darling – darling – I love – you!” Imeldra whispered.
The Marquis, with his eyes on the road in front of them, raised her hand.
He kissed her fingers and then his lips lingered on the softness of her skin.
Even with his one hand he was still driving superbly and she thought, as he was touching her, the light he had spoken of, which emanated from them both, seemed to vibrate around them.
Instinctively she moved a little closer to him and for a moment laid her cheek against his arm.
Because she was half-afraid that, when they reached Marizon, he would vanish without saying anything more to her, she asked him,
“May I dine with you tonight?”
“I ought to say ‘no’.”
“Please say ‘yes’. There are still so many – things we have to say to – each other.”
As she spoke, she had the frantic feeling that time was running out and at any moment he would be gone and she would never see him again.
She knew without his telling her so that he would leave her at Marizon.
Because he thought that she wanted to be with her grandfather, he would go away.
If that happened, she knew she would go at once to her grandmother because she could not bear the great house, which would be an empty shell without him.
‘I must treasure every moment,’ she thought frantically, ‘every second I am with him and in the long years ahead they will be something sublime for me to remember.’
Then it suddenly struck her that in the same circumstances her father would not give in, but would fight for what he wanted.
He had always won whatever he set his heart on and it was only death that had defeated him when he lost the treasu
re he had prized above all others.
In all other difficulties he had always fought until he was the victor and Imeldra knew that was what she must do too.
Something proud and resolute rose within her and she told herself that she would not lose the Marquis.
Somehow, however difficult it might seem, she would find out what was wrong and if it was possible she would put it right.
Right or wrong, she would stay with him. He was hers and she was his and their love was greater than social barriers, than crime, or every sin in the calendar.
‘I will not be defeated,’ she swore, but then her instinct told her that this was something she should not tell him at present.
Instead she suggested softly,
“Let us dine together and pretend that nothing is wrong. That we are just two people who have – fallen in love and found that they have – reached a Heaven – they did not even think existed.”
The Marquis did not speak and she felt that he was hesitating, so she added quickly,
“Please – let us do this. It would be like a – present, which you would give me – and I would give you.”
“A present, my precious one,” the Marquis said softly. “You know, if it was possible, I would like to drape you in diamonds, cover you in sables, and you would never want for anything in your whole life that I would not provide for you.”
“Instead I want something far more valuable – just a few hours with you,” Imeldra said. “Hours that will sparkle like the – stars in the sky – and, when you – kiss me, I know that you will – take me up to them and we will no longer be on – Earth.”
She spoke very softly and the Marquis released her hand as he turned the horses round a rather difficult corner.
When he had done so, he said,
“You shall have your present, my beautiful darling, I promise you that and, for today at least, we will not think of tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Imeldra said and once again she laid her cheek against his arm.
All too soon Marizon came in sight. For once its grandeur and beauty had no appeal for Imeldra and instead it was a prison that the Marquis was chained to by some secret he would not reveal.
She knew when tomorrow came she might have to go away because she was the intruder.
Then, as they drew up outside the front steps, she told herself that she would fight and go on fighting and not until she had died would she give up.
A footman helped her down from the phaeton, a groom ran to the horses’ heads and she and the Marquis walked up the steps side by side.
Without speaking, almost as if they instinctively recognised what the other wanted, they walked across the hall and into the study where Imeldra had learned the Marquis habitually sat when he was alone.
It was a most attractive room hung with pictures of horses and dogs and so essentially masculine that it was a perfect background for him.
As the footman closed the door behind them, they moved to the middle of the room, then stopped and looked at each other.
“I expect there are a great many things I ought to do,” the Marquis said, “but first, my darling, because this is part of your present, I have to kiss you.”
“That is what I am – waiting to receive,” Imeldra whispered.
She lifted her face to his and he undid the ribbons of her bonnet to fling it down on the sofa.
Then he touched her hair as if smoothing it into place, but in reality feeling the silkiness of it on his fingers.
Then slowly, as if he savoured the moment, his lips found hers.
It was so perfect and so lovely that once again Imeldra felt that there was music and they were completely enveloped with the love they felt for each other.
He kissed her until the room seemed to swim dizzily around them and she felt that they were flying up towards the stars.
Then there was the sound of the door opening and they only just had time to move apart before the butler announced,
“Excuse me, my Lord, but I forgot to tell you that there’s somebody here to see you on business.”
“I expect it is one of the farmers,” the Marquis said to Imeldra.
His eyes rested on her lips for a moment and she felt as if he kissed her again.
Then, as if he forced himself to behave correctly in front of a servant, he walked to the door and she heard him walking a little way down the corridor.
He asked the butler where his visitor was and he told him in the morning room, which Imeldra knew was situated almost opposite where she was now.
Then, as she stood listening, she suddenly recalled that in his pocket the Marquis had placed her glove.
Because he was always so punctilious in front of the staff, she thought perhaps it would be embarrassing when he undressed if his valet discovered it.
Without thinking, except that she might save him any embarrassment, she ran from the study along the corridor just as the Marquis was entering the morning room.
The butler had actually shut the door behind him and, because she realised that it was too late, Imeldra stopped and said a little lamely,
“I thought I would take a book from the library.”
The library was next to the morning room and the butler opened the door for her.
She thanked him and went inside carrying her bonnet and thinking that she would take a book, any book would do for she would not read it, and then go upstairs.
Even as she walked further into the library, she heard the Marquis’s voice raised in anger and realised that, as in most houses built in that period, the State rooms all connected with each other.
Her mother had often laughed and said that at Kingsclere they really lived in a passage.
It suddenly struck Imeldra that there was a chance that the visitor, whose name the butler had not announced, might be connected in some way with the Marquis’s secret.
There was no reason for her to think such a thing or that there was anything unusual in someone calling to see the Marquis on business.
It was only her special perceptiveness which brought the idea to her mind and then her instinct made her sure that it was true.
Without considering whether or not she was eavesdropping, she walked down the library to the door at the end of it and, when she reached it, she saw that it was not completely closed and it was quite easy to hear what was being said in the next room.
It was even easier than it might have been because the Marquis was speaking loudly and angrily.
“How dare you come here, Jolie!” he thundered. “If you wish to communicate with me, you can write or I can give you the name of my Solicitors.”
“And what would your answer have been?” a woman replied to him. “Besides it would be a mistake to put into writing what I have to say to you.”
As she spoke, Imeldra realised that while her English was good, she spoke with a slightly foreign accent.
“We have nothing to say to each other,” the Marquis replied sharply. “When I accepted your blackmailing terms and gave you twenty-five thousand pounds, you promised to keep out of my life as long as I kept to the conditions you imposed upon me. I have done that and I now have nothing more to say.”
The woman he was speaking to gave a little laugh and it was not a pleasant sound.
“Money does not last for ever! In five years it shrinks and shrinks until poof it has all disappeared.”
“By that I would presume you have been gambling,” the Marquis replied in a hard voice. “Well, you can find somebody else’s money to gamble with. I have no intention of giving you any more.”
“In which case I must bring your brother over to England to plead with you,” the foreign woman said softly, “or shall I ask for justice in the Courts?”
There was silence for a moment.
Then the Marquis said sharply,
“We have been through all this before. I gave you twenty-five thousand pounds and my word of honour that I would not marry on condition that you made no fur
ther claims upon me or my title.”
Imeldra then drew in her breath. She felt that the foreign woman shrugged her shoulders before she said,
“Have you any idea just what it is like to grow old when you have been beautiful and famous? Once people queued outside the theatre from first thing in the morning so that they could hear me sing. I received not only bouquets but jewels from Kings, Emperors, Princes and, of course, a Marquis!”
She gave a deep sigh before she went on,
“Mais maintenant la pauvre Jolie is no longer young and beautiful and the only places where I can sing are the cafés and low cabarets. So I am poor, while you are rich. Think how comfortable I would be if I was living here with my son.”
“Which you are not,” the Marquis pointed out briefly.
“If I showed my papers and, as you know, they are very safe in my Bank in Paris, to the English Justices, this is where I would be and André would be in your place.”
Imeldra drew in her breath and for a moment she could hardly sort out in her mind the whole impact of what she had heard, but she had to go on listening.
“What I want, mon cher Marquis,” Jolie said, and the way she said his title was a sneer, “is enough money to be comfortable and not be dependent upon earning my living as I have done all my life. And money, of course, for André, who is bored with counting his pennies when he might be a rich English Lord.”
“I trusted you when you said you would not trouble me again,” the Marquis answered, “but presumably I was mistaken. If I give you more money, what will you do? Throw it away on the gaming tables?”
“Why should I not have my fun as you have yours?” the woman demanded.
There was silence and she added,
“If you don’t give me what I want, I will then instruct the best lawyer in Paris to take my papers and my petition to the House of Lords. Think of the scandal! And when I win my case I will perhaps be generous to you or perhaps not.”
“Damn you!” the Marquis exclaimed.
But he spoke dully as if he could not fight the woman who was taunting him.
There was next the sound of his footsteps crossing the room.
“I will fetch my cheque book,” he said. “Stay here and do not dare to speak to anybody in my household. If you do, I swear I will let you bring a case against me and I will face the consequences.”
Love and the Marquis Page 8
