Part 9 (2/2)

She had imagined him sitting at a table weighed down with food and drinking red wine, which was the colour of the blood of those who sweated for him in the darkness and dust of his filthy pit.

'How can any man be so b.e.s.t.i.a.l, so heartless?' she asked herself.

The miners of Barrowfield were not only overworked but also underpaid. She knew that the overseer, who she supposed had been appointed by the Marquis, also tricked them.

There were many ways in which the miners could suffer so that those in charge of them could line their pockets.

There were always wage deductions to pay for the candles and the powder they used. An overseer could, if he chose, make the men buy candles from him for one or two pennies above the market price.

This, Torilla had learnt from her father, was what happened in the Havingham mine.

Payment for broken tools reduced a man's wages and the overseer could demand a sum far in excess of the current market value of the goods.

The Vicar had been very explicit about the iniquity of this.

”They are charging a s.h.i.+lling for a shovel shaft,” he had said furiously one day to Torilla, ”and a shovel shaft costs sixpence here, although hitherto it has cost twopence.”

”Can nothing be done?” Torilla had asked once again.

”Who cares if the men are cheated?” the Vicar had asked scathingly.

Certainly not the wealthy Marquis! He is a man with castles and houses, servants and racehorses and now he is taking an expensive wife.

She heard the voices in the hall drawing nearer to the door and she braced herself for a contact with the man she thought of as 'the devil'.

She tightened her hold on the great bunches of lilies which she still held in her arms and her eyes were wide and dark in her pale face as she waited.

Then she could not look, it was so frightening.

Beryl came in first.

”Here is Gallen, dearest Torilla, and now you can meet him!”

A man followed Beryl into the salon, his polished hessian boots reflecting the furniture and the chaos of paper, flowers and presents on the floor.

With an effort Torilla raised her eyes, then her heart turned a double-somersault in her breast.

She thought that the ceiling fell down on her head and the whole room whirled around her!

It was not the Marquis of Havingham who followed Beryl, but Sir Alexander Abdy!

CHAPTER FOUR.

Torilla walked in through the gates of the Park and saw the ground beneath the oak trees covered with a golden carpet of daffodils.

It was early in the morning because she had been to the seven o'clock Communion in the little village Church where she had been christened.

There were only half-a-dozen other people at the service and, when it was over, Torilla went to the Churchyard to stand beside her mother's grave under a yew-tree.

She looked down at the plain headstone and found it hard to believe that her mother, whom she had loved so deeply and who had always been so sweet and understanding, had left her.

Then she had told herself this was not true.

Her mother's spirit was alive and Torilla was convinced that, wherever she might be, her thoughts and love would always be with her father and herself.

'Help me, Mama, to do what I can for Beryl,' Torilla said in her heart. 'Knowing how he treats the people in Barrowfield how can I let her marry the Marquis?'

She did not include it in her prayers, but she knew, if she was honest, that her feelings about the Marquis were conflicting and confused.

How, when she knew him to be a monster of callousness and cruelty, could he also be the man who had evoked such a Divine rapture within herself that even to think of his kiss still made her quiver?

Ever since he arrived at The Hall, she had found it impossible to look at him or to meet his eyes.

When he entered the salon, she curtsied automatically without any conscious volition on her part and her heart had been beating so furiously in her breast that she had thought he must hear it.

Her eyelashes were very dark against her pale cheeks.

Then, as she rose, she heard him say, ”Delightful to meet you, Miss Clifford!”

She told herself then that her feelings against him were no less vehement than before his arrival and yet there was an undoubted tremor in her voice as she answered politely, ”Thank you a my Lord.”

Beryl was quite unaware that there was any tension between the Marquis and her cousin.

”Come and look at our presents, Gallen,” she had said pulling him by the arm. ”They are quite nauseating and the only thing we can do is to give them away to other unfortunate couples in the future.”

As she took the Marquis towards the untidy mess of presents, letters and paper, Torilla, still clenching the lilies against her, had escaped.

How could it be possible, she asked herself as she ran upstairs, that the Marquis was Sir Alexander Abdy, the man who, despite every resolution, she had dreamt about every night since she had last seen him and thought about a thousand times a day?

'I hate him! I hate him!' she told herself over and over again as if the mere words were a talisman that would erase the memory of that magical, inexpressibly wonderful kiss.

She had been very quiet at dinner that night, but neither Beryl nor her uncle noticed because they were so busy talking.

The Earl had plenty to relate about the congratulations he had received in London after The Gazette had published the announcement of his daughter's betrothal.

At the same time Beryl was quite determined that the Marquis's attention should not wander long from herself. She was looking extremely beautiful in a gown that matched the colour of her eyes and wearing a necklace of aquamarines which, set with diamonds, sparkled with every movement.

She made the Marquis laugh several times and Torilla thought that no man could fail to be in love with anyone so alluring. But she was so afraid of meeting the Marquis's eyes that she did not look at him.

Only as dinner was drawing to a close did the Marquis ask unexpectedly as Beryl was talking of the wedding, ”What part is Miss Clifford to play in all these celebrations?”

It was a question that made Torilla start and the colour rose in her cheeks.

”Torilla is to be my only bridesmaid,” Beryl replied. ”I have not had time, Gallen, to tell you how much she means in my life. We were brought up together.”

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