Part 7 (1/2)

He gave a disdainful glance at the unwieldy vehicle, as he picked up Torilla's valise and carried it to where a closed landau drawn by two well-bred horses was waiting in the yard.

The coachman whom Torilla also knew greeted her and she stepped into the comfortable carriage to sit back against the cus.h.i.+oned upholstery while Ned collected her trunk.

It was just like old times, she thought, with attentive servants she had known since she was a child.

She wished Abby was with her to appreciate the quickness with which the guard of the stagecoach handed Ned her trunk. Then they were off towards the village of Fernford, which was two miles outside Hatfield.

All the time Torilla had been travelling for the last two days, she had found it difficult to think of anything but Sir Alexander Abdy.

It had been impossible to sleep after he had kissed her and she had lain awake in the darkness feeling the pressure of his lips still on hers and his arms enfolding her.

She had often wondered what it would be like to be kissed and now, she thought to herself, things could never be quite the same.

When she listened to the fairy stories her mother had told her and read mythical tales in books as she grew older, she had always felt there was something mystical and wonderful behind the ordinary things that were familiar.

She sensed that one day she would understand the yearning that was sometimes within her and the emotions, which were inescapable.

When moonlight filtered between the branches of trees in great shafts of silver or suns.h.i.+ne was dazzling on the stillness of water, she felt a response that was strange and yet exciting.

At other times she would be aroused by a b.u.t.terfly hovering over the opening petals of a flower or when she heard music in the breeze blowing through the trees.

She had always felt then as if what she was trying to understand was just out of reach. She sensed it, felt it near her, and yet it was elusive and like a will-o'-the-wisp she could not touch.

Suddenly she had captured it and had known it was hers at the touch of the Marquis's lips.

It had been so inexpressibly wonderful and, although her body responded to it, she had known that the real glory was her mind.

She thought too, that it was what she had often felt when she prayed and when she attended the Communion Service very early in the morning when the only light in the darkness of the Church was the candles on the altar.

Though she tried to explain to herself what she felt, it was beyond words, it was a secret but an inseparable part of herself.

Shyly she thought that in a way last night she had also become a part of the man who had kissed her.

As the day pa.s.sed and she spent another night in a coaching inn, she thought perhaps she had imagined the whole thing.

Could there really be a man who looked like Sir Alexander Abdy? Who had such presence and such consequence and could arouse in her feelings that made her quiver even to think of them?

'I shall never see him again,' she thought despairingly and then told herself that perhaps it was a good thing.

If she set aside the magic of what had happened, it came down to the fact that she had allowed a stranger, a man she had met by chance, to kiss her and she had made no attempt to struggle or free herself.

She had been completely submissive and captive in his arms.

That it was a wonder beyond wonders did not prevent her knowing that her mother would have been extremely shocked by her behaviour.

What was more, she herself could give no reasonable excuse for the manner in which she had behaved.

She could not bear to imagine what Abby would have thought had she accompanied her. However, if Abby had been there, Sir Jocelyn would not have forced his way into her room and she would not have needed to be rescued.

Before she arrived at Fernleigh Hall, Torilla decided that she would never tell Abby, Beryl, or anyone else what had occurred.

It was a secret of which she was not ashamed because it had been almost a miracle of joy and she would not defame the memory of it by pretending that she was sorry.

No one would understand the inner consequence of what on the surface was only a reprehensible escapade.

The horses turned in through the small lodges standing on either side of the huge wrought iron gates surmounted by the Fernleigh Crest.

Then Torilla was driving between oak trees, among which she and Beryl had played 'hide and seek' when they were children, and she saw ahead of her the tall, red-brick mansion which had been built in the days of Queen Anne.

It was an attractive house and most people exclaimed at the splendour of its architecture, but to Torilla it was simply home.

She could hardly wait for the carriage door to be opened and the step to be let down before she sprang out.

Even as she did, Beryl was there waiting for her at the top of the steps.

She put her arms round Torilla and the two cousins kissed each other affectionately while Beryl cried, ”Dearest, dearest Torilla! I have missed you! How glad I am to see you!”

”And I am so happy to be here,” Torilla answered with tears in her eyes.

”The stagecoach actually arrived on its proper day!” Beryl said. ”I can hardly believe it, any more than I can believe that you are back. I have so much to tell you!”

She drew Torilla by the hand into the big salon, which overlooked the rose garden at the back of the house.

Only as Torilla put up her hand to undo the ribbons of her bonnet and pull it off did she exclaim, ”Beryl! How lovely you have grown! You are much, much more beautiful than I remember!”

”I wanted you to think so,” Beryl answered, her eyes twinkling.

What Torilla had said was true.

Her cousin was indeed justly acclaimed as the most beautiful girl in England and her admirers had not been exaggerating when they compared her to an English rose.

She had golden hair, not the colour of Torilla's, but a vivid gleaming sovereign gold. Her eyes were the colour of a thrush's egg and her complexion the pink-and-white of every woman's dreams.

She and Torilla were the same height and had as children been the same size, but now because Torilla had lived in the North on a starvation diet she was thinner than Beryl.

There were little hollows under her cheekbones, while Beryl's face was a smooth and well-filled oval.

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.”