The Temptation of Torilla (8 page)

With the crimson of her lips, which in fact owed not a little to artifice, the sparkle in her eyes and the vivacity of the manner in which she talked which set her curls dancing, it was as difficult for Torilla as for everyone else not to watch her in almost breathless admiration.

“You are
so
beautiful!” Torilla said again in awe-struck tones.

“And think how impressive I shall look when I am bedecked in all the gowns of my new trousseau,” Beryl smiled.

She moved forward to kiss Torilla again on the cheek as she said,

“You will have to help me with it, dearest, or I shall never be ready on time. Oh, and that reminds me, there are two more names I must write down on the wedding-list.”

With a quick movement like a little humming-bird, she sped across the salon to the
secretaire
to pick up a white quill pen and start writing.

As she did so, she said over her shoulder,

“I know someone will be forgotten and will therefore become an enemy for life and that is why I am making a list as I think of them.”

Torilla put down her bonnet before she replied,

“You must show it to me! Then I can ask you about all the friends I used to know but who I am afraid will have forgotten me by now.”

“Captain and Mrs. Chalmers,” Beryl said aloud as she inscribed their names.

“I remember the Chalmers,” Torilla exclaimed. “She was a very sweet woman, but I always thought he was rather aggressive.”

Beryl did not reply and after a moment Torilla added,

“That reminds me of another soldier. How is Rodney?”

Beryl was suddenly very still, but Torilla did not notice.

“It will be fun to see him again,” she went on. “Do you remember how he used to tease us? Like when he took away the ladder and we had to stay in the hayloft in the stables for over an hour before we were rescued!”

She gave a little laugh.

“I am sure if anyone is jealous about your being married it will be Rodney.”

Then as Beryl did not reply, Torilla sensed that something was wrong.

“What is it?” she asked in a low voice.

“Rodney is dead!”

Beryl rose as she spoke from the
secretaire
and walked towards one of the long French windows opening into the garden.

“Dead?” Torilla repeated in astonishment. “Oh, Beryl, I had no idea! No one told me. How could he have died?”

She was silent until Beryl replied,

“He was killed in France.”

“But the war was over when Papa and I left here,” Torilla said. “Do you not remember how excited we were when we heard that Paris had surrendered?”

There was a pause before Beryl answered,

“The Duke of Wellington did not know that the Allied Forces had taken Paris and that the war was really over.”

“We knew that Rodney’s Regiment had entered France at St. Jean de Luz,” Torilla said almost as if she was speaking to herself.

“They fought their way as far as Toulouse,” Beryl came in with a strangled voice. “Of course we did not learn until much, much later that Marshall Soult was convinced that Toulouse was impregnable.”

“And so the Duke of Wellington attacked it,” Torilla said as if she knew the end of the story.

“There were very heavy – losses,” Beryl went on with tears in her voice. “The newspapers reported that nearly five thousand of our troops were killed and – Rodney was – among them.”

“Oh – I am sorry, Beryl. I am so very very sorry,” Torilla cried. “I had no idea and you never told me in your letters.”

“The Marsden’s heard nothing until after Christmas,” Beryl explained, her voice catching over the words. “Then they were told that – Rodney was not amongst the s-survivors of the battle.”

“I can hardly believe it!” Torilla whispered.

Rodney Marsden had been so much a part of her’s and Beryl’s childhood.

His father, Squire Marsden, had an estate that bordered the Earl’s and Rodney, although three years older than Beryl, was an only child too.

Inevitably he spent his holidays from school in their company.

Because the Earl was fond of him, he allowed him to shoot duck on the lakes, pigeons and rabbits in the woods and occasionally, when he grew older, he accompanied his father pheasant and partridge shooting.

Squire Marsden had some good horses, especially hunters, and Rodney appointed himself to lead Beryl and Torilla in the hunting field.

He was also their dancing partner at all the parties their parents gave at Christmastime and Torilla thought of him as the brother she would have loved to have.

It was only now that she had learnt that he was dead that she knew how much she had looked forward to seeing him again.

She moved across the salon, put her arms round Beryl and said softly,

“The only consolation is that was the way Rodney would have – wanted to – die. He was so proud to be in the Army.”

For a moment Beryl clung to Torilla then she moved away and said in a different voice,

“I have taught myself not to think about him. When somebody is dead, there is nothing one can do and tears are extremely unbecoming!”

It sounded a frivolous remark, but Torilla knew because she loved her cousin that Beryl was hiding her real feelings. Because she understood that some things were too poignant to be discussed, she replied lightly,

“Tell me about your engagement. You know, Beryl, it is so like you, but you forgot to tell me your future husband’s name.”

“Wait until you see him, then you will be really impressed,” Beryl replied. “Oh, Torilla, I am so lucky – the luckiest girl in the world! Everyone has tried to capture Gallen, every single woman in the country – and a great many more who are already married!”

Her lips were smiling as she went on,

“They have tried every sort of bait on the biggest fish in the Social pool, but – clever me – I am the one who has caught him!”

The way she spoke jarred a little on Torilla, but she said aloud,

“I am sure where you are concerned, dearest, he was happy to
be
caught.”

“It is the triumph of my life,” Beryl continued, “a
grande finale
to my career as an ‘incomparable’. You have heard that the Prince Regent called me that?”

“You told me so in several of your letters,” Torilla replied.

“I could not tell you half the things I wanted to,” Beryl said. “I hate letter writing. Besides I never have enough time.”

She twirled her elaborate embroidered skirt around her as she exclaimed,

“I am such a success! I don’t know where to begin to relate it all. I am asked to every party, every assembly and every ball! No one would dare to give an entertainment without me!”

Torilla laughed.

“Now you are boasting, just as you used to when you drew the best prize out of the bran dip at Christmas. I can see you now as you ran round the room crying,
‘Look at me! I have the biggest box of bonbons. Am I not clever?’
”

“And that is exactly what I have now,” Beryl answered, “for no one could imagine a bigger bonbon than Gallen! He is a Corinthian, a Buck, a Beau and the Prince Regent dotes on him!”

She paused for breath, but before Torilla could speak, she went on,

“I cannot begin to tell you how rich he is. Papa thinks he is the wealthiest man in the whole country. His Castle in Huntingdonshire is just made for entertaining.”

She made an excited gesture with her hands as she continued,

“I shall be the most important and certainly the most influential hostess in the whole of the
Beau Monde!
What is more I shall be covered in diamonds!”

Torilla laughed again.

“Oh, Beryl, you are ridiculous! But you are not telling me what I want to know.”

“What is that?”

“Are you very – very much – in love?”

There was a little silence before Beryl said,

“My dear Torilla, love as we used to talk about it when we were children is something felt by peasants.”

Torilla looked at her to see if she was serious before she asked,

“What are you – saying to me?”

“I am saying that Gallen and I will deal very well together because we like the same things, we are Social stars in the same firmament, and we both know how to behave like civilised people.”

“Then – you are not – in love with him?” Torilla exclaimed. “In which case why are you marrying him?”

“Why am I marrying him?” Beryl echoed. “I have just told you! He is the richest, handsomest, most important man in England – what more could any girl ask?”

“But – Beryl – ” Torilla faltered, an anxious expression in her eyes. “When we used to talk about love and when you first made your debut, we both swore we would never marry unless we fell in love.”

“It is what I intended to do,” Beryl responded quietly, “but it has not worked out like that.”

“And you think you will be happy – without it?” Torilla asked.

“But of course I shall be happy with Gallen,” Beryl replied. “I shall have everything I want –
everything
!”

“And he loves you?” Torilla asked. “He must do I suppose, otherwise there is no reason for him to marry you.”

Beryl gave her one of her puckish looks.

“Gallen wants a son and heir. Who would not, with all those possessions to be inherited? I also have a feeling, Torilla, although of course he has never mentioned it to me, that he is escaping from the rather ardent attentions of a very persistent widow.”

Torilla sat down on the sofa.

“I am not happy about this, Beryl.”

“You sound exactly like one of our Governesses. Heavens, that reminds me, I had forgotten Miss Dawson! She must be invited to the wedding.”

She sped back to the
secretaire
and, as she sat down, Torilla said,

“You have not told me yet the name of your future husband. I have learnt he is Christened Gallen, but he must have another name.”

“He is the Marquis of Havingham,” Beryl replied.

She had her back to her cousin and therefore did not see the incredulous look in Torilla’s eyes being replaced by one of sheer horror.

For a moment it seemed as if she could hardly breathe, then she ejaculated in a strangled voice,

“No – no! It’s not – possible!”

“I knew you would be impressed. Even in the unfashionable North you must have heard of the Marquis of Havingham. Now you will understand why I am so excited about my marriage.”

Torilla drew in her breath.

She could not believe what Beryl had told her was true. She could not credit that her cousin, whom she loved and with whom she had been brought up, was to marry a man she loathed and hated with every fibre of her being.

How could she possibly explain to Beryl, who was so excited by the thought of getting married, that her intended husband was a cruel monster; a man who was responsible for the deaths of children, for maiming their mothers and turning their fathers into louts?

The image of Barrowfield swum in front of her eyes.

The ghastly squalor of the dirty grimy houses, the heaps of burning coal obscuring even the brightness of the sky, as did the forges and engine chimneys roaring and puffing on every side.

She could see in her imagination, as her father had often depicted, the trappers, children of five years of age, spending as many as sixteen hours a day crouching in solitude in a small dark hole.

Others would push or pull coal trucks along the tunnels. The pumps in the Havingham mine were so out of date and so ineffectual that the children would be standing ankle-deep in water for twelve hours on end.

Her father would come home at night to pour out his grievances against the owner of the mine, saying in exhausted tones, because he had not even the energy left to express himself, how diabolical the conditions were.

“The place is not safe,” he had said often enough and when Torilla had asked despairingly,

“cannot anything be done, Papa?” her father had merely shrugged his shoulders and replied,

“Who cares? Certainly not the Marquis of Havingham!”

Everything she had seen and heard of the misery, dirt and degradation of Barrowfield flashed through Torilla’s mind. Her first impulse was to describe to Beryl what was happening in Barrowfield and urge that whomever else she married it must not be the Marquis of Havingham.

Then, almost as if she stood beside her, she could hear Abby warning her against boring people in the South with their troubles.

“They’ll not understand,” Abby had said and Torilla knew that was true.

Before she went with her father to Barrowfield she would not have understood and she doubted if even her mother, compassionate, sympathetic and understanding though she had been, could have visualised the horrors that existed there.

With what was almost a superhuman effort, she said nothing.

As Beryl rose from the
secretaire
, she suggested,

“Let us go upstairs, dearest. I want to show you some of the things I have bought for my trousseau. There are few of them as yet, but we will go to London next week and spend a fortune on the most magnificent gowns that Bond Street can provide.”

As she spoke, she walked towards Torilla, but when she reached her she said with a note of concern in her voice,

“You look pale, dearest. I expect you are tired after that long journey and it’s not surprising.”

“I am a little – tired,” Torilla managed to reply.

She was silent as Beryl took her upstairs and she found she was sleeping in the room she had always occupied when they were young.

Sometimes her father and mother would go away and it was taken as a matter of course that Torilla should stay at Fernleigh Hall, just as whenever it suited the Earl and the Countess, Beryl came to them.

On such occasions the two girls would conspire together to carry out some daring exploit, such as climbing the haystacks or swimming in the lake after they should have been in bed and asleep.

In consequence the room next door to Beryl’s bedchamber was always known as ‘Miss Torilla’s room’, and now it was waiting for her, the silk curtains drawn back from the windows that looked over the sun-kissed lake.