She put down her pen and looked at the writing paper which she had drawn from the leather box stamped with her father’s Crest where it was usually kept. It was engraved with the address and the Crest above it.
She looked at it for a while before she found a pair of scissors and cut the address from the top of the writing paper.
Then slowly and painstakingly, writing not in her usual hand but in capital letters, she wrote,
“Madame Jolie was married many years ago to Count Antonio Cellini, who lives in Rome in his Villa of the same name and is well known as an artist.”
She read what she had written and then placed it in an envelope with the Marquis’s name on it.
She climbed into bed and lay in the darkness trying to think how she could get it to him without his being aware of where it had come from.
She knew that once he received it he would be extremely anxious to learn who had sent him such information, but she did not wish him in any way to connect it with herself.
There was in fact no reason why he should do so, because he had no idea that she had overheard the conversation between himself and Madame Jolie.
She knew, from the fact that he had not told her the truth, that he would not wish her to know the allegations against his father until the whole miserable story could be refuted and forgotten.
It seemed incredible that Madame Jolie should have been able to extort so much money out of him without his making any further enquiries as to whether her story was true and that he had accepted it at its face value relying on the papers she had shown him.
That they were forged, she now knew, went without saying, but the money the Marquis had given Madame Jolie to keep silent amounted to very large sums even for a rich man.
He must therefore have been very sure that she was speaking the truth if he had believed her without further investigation.
Furthermore he must have convinced himself that to ask questions now might make other people suspicious and might inadvertently alert them to what he believed was the truth.
‘He was protecting the reputation of his father and mother, not thinking of himself, and I would have done the same,’ Imeldra told herself. ‘It is only another proof of how wonderful he is and how, whatever the sacrifice he has had to make personally, he wanted to save his father’s good name.’
Only to think of the Marquis in such a way made her love surge over her and she longed for him.
For the first time the darkness and misery that had encompassed her ever since she had left him was lifting and there was a light at the end of a long dark tunnel.
‘Papa has saved me,’ she thought, ‘for if he had been killed in the accident, I would never have known the truth about the Marquis and would have lost everything – the two people who really matter to me in my life.’
She said a prayer of gratitude that was so fervent that it brought the tears running down her cheeks, but they were tears of happiness because after such a storm of suffering there was a rainbow in the sky.
Chapter Six
The Earl moved restlessly in his bed and after a moment he called out,
“Imeldra!”
There was only a little pause before Beryl came to his side.
He looked at her in surprise and then as if remembering how before he went to sleep he had said ‘good night’ to his daughter, he muttered,
“It must be later than I thought.”
“It is nearly three o’clock,” Beryl replied in her soft voice. “What can I get you?”
“I would like a drink,” he answered, “but I am sorry to have woken you.”
“I was not asleep.”
She put the candle down by his bed and went to the table where Danvers, before he had retired, had left a jug of lemonade packed with ice.
Beryl poured the Earl a drink and carried it back to him.
He raised himself on his elbow and took the glass from her.
As he did so, as if she thought that it was awkward for him if she stood over him, Beryl sat down on a chair by the bed.
The Earl looked at her in the candlelight and thought she appeared very young with her fair hair so different in colour from Imeldra’s and flowing over the plain blue dressing gown she wore buttoned to the neck and trimmed with a little row of lace.
“You are not in any pain?” she asked anxiously.
“Very little now,” the Earl replied, “except when I move too quickly and you know the doctors said that I could get out of bed tomorrow and sit at the window.”
“You will soon be riding again and will have no need of your nurses.”
He thought that there was a slight note of regret in her voice and he then replied,
“I have a feeling that I shall still need you, apart from being so very grateful to you for keeping Imeldra company. It has meant a great deal to her, and to me, to have you here.”
He saw the flush that rose in Beryl’s cheeks and she looked away from him because she was shy.
“I was just thinking this afternoon,” the Earl continued quietly, “that you should not be nursing a sick old man but should be with your own children.”
Beryl gave a little sigh.
“I would have loved to have children,” she said, “especially a son but ‒ my husband was not a ‒ well man.”
The way she stammered over the words revealed to the Earl clearly what her marriage had been like.
“You must marry again,” he suggested lightly.
Beryl gave a little laugh.
“I am too old now, but I would hope when Imeldra marries I may be Godmother to her children.”
“When she marries,” the Ear replied. “That is another matter that has been upset by my tiresome accident. Imeldra should be in London enjoying the Season, as I had arranged it for her.”
“But you know that she would never leave you before you are well enough to do without her,” Beryl said, “and I don’t think that will be for some time.”
“She is very good to me,” the Earl murmured almost as if he spoke to himself, “but she should have the opportunity of meeting the right sort of gentlemen.”
“I hope she will find somebody to – love.”
“So you think love is essential to marriage?”
There was a little pause before Beryl replied as if she had to tell him the truth,
“Yes, there can be no – happiness without it.”
The Earl lay back against his pillows looking at her.
“We need not pretend to each other at this hour of the night,” he said. “Why did you marry the man your father chose for you?”
Beryl looked startled and he went on,
“Imeldra told me that was what happened and I am curious.”
Beryl made a helpless little gesture with her hand.
“There was really no alternative. No one else had asked for me and Papa did not like entertaining anybody except his own particular friends of his own age.”
“So it was Lord Marsden or nobody.”
Beryl nodded.
Then she said quickly,
“I should not be – talking to you like – this.”
“Why not?” the Earl asked. “Everyone ought to speak frankly at times and, as I have known you for so many years, Beryl, I might almost be your father.”
She laughed.
“You know how old I am. I am thirty-three.”
“And I am nearly ten years older.”
‘To me you have always seemed young,” Beryl said, “and nobody could believe that you are Imeldra’s father.”
“You flatter me,” the Earl smiled. “But I did feel young until this accident.”
“You are young and, once you are riding again, you will feel like your old self.”
“I wonder,” the Earl said reflectively. “I have an idea that, while I have been lying here, I have grown older not so much in my body but in my mind. I have done a lot of damned silly things in my time and I might have received a much heavier punishment for
them than what I am enduring at the moment.”
The Earl was thinking of Lady Bullington and how he had been forced to run away with her but, as Beryl did not know of her existence, she merely looked bewildered.
But she knew that she must not allow the Earl to feel depressed as he was an invalid and she said swiftly,
“I don’t think there is anybody who does not admire you for your sportsmanship and for the high standard you have set in the racing world.”
“I would like to think that,” the Earl replied, “but there are other worlds in which I do not shine so effectively.”
“There is plenty of time for those.”
“I hope so,” he remarked. “I think when a man gets as near to death as I have been, it makes him wonder what sort of epitaph he deserves when he dies.”
Beryl gave a little cry.
“You are not to think of such things or to talk about death! You must look forward to living.”
She paused, gave him a shy little smile and added,
“I have always envied you because you had that irresistible joie de vivre that the French understand so much better than the British.”
“The joy of living,” the Earl murmured. “Yes, Beryl, that is true. I have been fortunate enough to enjoy a great deal of my life, but there have also been dark moments, empty ones and times when I felt very much alone.”
“I can understand that,” Beryl replied, “but you are fortunate that your intelligence tells you they will not last and that you can surmount them and start enjoying yourself again.”
“Is that what I believe?” the Earl asked. “Perhaps you are right. But now we have talked about me, let’s talk about you.”
Beryl laughed.
“Compared to your adventures, my life is just an empty page, a book in which there is very little to read.”
The Earl looked at her for a long moment before he said,
“Then it is time you began to live!”
“I don’t know how to begin.”
“Then that is something we must certainly try to rectify,” the Earl said quietly. “It will give me something to plan while I am lying in bed unable to sleep.”
“But you must sleep,” Beryl protested. “It will help you to grow strong again.”
She rose as she spoke and, taking his empty glass, she put it on the side table beside the jug of lemonade.
Then she came back to smooth his pillows with an experienced hand.
“As you are restless perhaps you have a temperature.”
She put her hand as she spoke on his forehead and her fingers were cool and gentle.
The Earl did not speak and after a moment she said,
“You have no temperature and I think perhaps you are worrying about something. Let me massage your forehead and you must try to think beautiful thoughts so that you will fall asleep.”
As she spoke she moved her fingers gently over his forehead with a mesmeric movement that made the Earl feel as if she swept away not only his restlessness but also the worries that she rightly guessed were at the back of his mind.
Almost before he was aware of it he fell asleep.
*
Imeldra came back from the garden carrying a large bunch of flowers in her arms.
The lilac was now in full bloom, as was the syringa, and she thought she would arrange a vase of them in her father’s room, which would scent the air and take away the smell of the salves and embrocations that Danvers massaged his leg with.
When she came round the side of the house, she then saw an impressive carriage outside drawn by four horses, a coachman on the box wearing a distinctive green and gold Livery and a footman wearing the same standing by the door.
She looked at it curiously and went up the steps quickly and into the hall.
“Who is calling?” she asked the butler in a low voice.
“I have just sent a footman upstairs to find you, my Lady,” he replied, “and to ask if his Lordship’s well enough to receive Lord Bullington!”
Imeldra gave a little gasp of dismay.
Then she said,
“I will speak to his Lordship,” and ran up the stairs to enter her father’s room.
It was the first day that he had been allowed out of bed and he had not dressed but was wearing a dark velvet robe.
Around his neck was a silk handkerchief and it gave him the same dashing appearance as when he wore a high cravat.
The sunshine was on his face and, although he had grown somewhat thinner since he had been in bed, he still looked amazingly handsome and as he smiled at his daughter she thought that no man could be more fascinating.
She closed the door behind her and said in a frightened voice,
“Papa, Lord Bullington is here ‒ and has called to see you.”
The Earl stared at her in astonishment before he enquired,
“Bullington? You are sure?”
“Yes, Papa. But why does he want to see you?”
The Earl’s lips tightened, as if he could think of a number of reasons.
Then he replied,
“I can hardly be so inhospitable as to send him away. Tell the servants to show him up the stairs and to bring a bottle of champagne here immediately.”
Imeldra’s lips parted as if she would argue with him. Then she recognised that it would do no good.
Of one thing she was sure, that her father was too proud to run away from anything, even a situation that would undoubtedly be a most uncomfortable one.
“I will give your orders, Papa.”
The footman who had been looking for her was waiting by the door and she gave him the Earl’s instructions.
Then, as she was afraid that Lord Bullington would upset her father, she was trembling as she went to her bedroom.
The Earl was not trembling, but he was certainly a little apprehensive as he waited for his visitor.
If nothing worse the interview was bound to be unpleasant and he knew that he was not feeling well enough to endure recriminations or what he felt would be a desire for revenge, which had brought Lord Bullington to Kingsclere.
Because he was determined to face the consequences that he admitted he deserved and like a sportsman he settled himself into a more upright position in the chair. The movement hurt his leg and he winced.
His injured leg was resting on a stool and Imeldra earlier had put over it not a rug, which she felt would be too heavy, but a very light shawl.
It had belonged to her mother and she had said as she arranged it,
“This shawl was Mama’s and I feel it will not only keep you warm but have a healing quality because I know she would want above all things for you to get well speedily.”
“That is what I am trying to do,” the Earl answered, “and I owe so much to you, dearest, and to Beryl and Danvers who have nursed me so effectively.”
“I am glad we have contributed, but I think actually, Papa, it is your indomitable will that has been more effective than anything else. That, at any rate, is what Dr. Emmerson thinks.”
“And, of course, he must be right,” the Earl said mockingly. “Doctors are omniscient, we all know that.”
Imeldra laughed,
“Beryl does not think so. She believes that it is her magic herbs that have saved you from being drugged and doped.”
“I must remember to thank Beryl for them.”
“I have thanked her already,” Imeldra said, “and she keeps thanking me for having her here. I think, Papa, although it is a strange thing to say, that she is happier at the moment than she has ever been in the whole of her life.”
The Earl did not reply, but he was thinking about Beryl when Imeldra left him.
The door opened and the butler announced,
“Lord Bullington, my Lord.”
The Earl looked at his visitor enquiringly.
Lord Bullington was a tall man with a distinguished presence and a slightly pompous manner.
He was also exceedingly wealthy with an importa
nt place in Court circles and so it was understandable that the very lovely girl who had attracted him the first time he saw her had been eagerly pushed into marriage by her parents.
Elaine Bullington had, however, admitted to the Earl that she had not been in the least in love with her husband when she married him.
“He was sixteen years older than I was,” she had said, “and although it was very exciting immediately the ring was on my finger to become a prominent member of the Social world, it is always rather frightening to live with Lionel.”
“In other words you are not in love with him,” the Earl had remarked.
“I have never been in love with anyone but you,” Lady Bullington had said passionately. “Now I love you, love you until you fill my whole world and all I want is to be in your arms.”
The Earl had been captivated by her beauty, but he had soon found that she was over-demonstrative and in many ways too passionate to keep him amused.
Since his wife’s death he had never been in love with any of the women who entertained him and he found once the chase was over that he became very quickly bored because one love affair was very much like another.
He had never at any time in his affair with her thought of running away with her or of making their liaison permanent.
He was in fact considering just how he could bring this episode to an end when Lady Bullington’s indiscreet behaviour caused her husband to become aware of what was taking place.
Lord Bullington was indeed an excessively proud man and he also had a temper, which he seldom lost, but when he did it made him act illogically and out of character.
Because he felt so furious, insulted and humiliated by the fact that his wife should prefer any man to him, he had in a blind rage threatened divorce proceedings.
It made him consider nothing but his desire to revenge himself on the woman to whom he had given so much and who he was well aware, if he was truthful, had never given him her heart.
He had sent a Solicitor to call on the Earl to say that he was proceeding with his petition for divorce in the Houses of Parliament and he told his wife that she was to move out of his house immediately and he never wished to see her again.
Love and the Marquis Page 11
