Part 12 (2/2)
”Gallen would need a regiment of 'incomparables' to keep him in order,” a woman replied.
There was loud laughter before someone said, ”Can you imagine Havingham shackled in Holy Matrimony? Though I imagine it will not be in the least holy!”
”Not if he has anything to do with it,” someone else quipped.
So Torilla moved out of hearing.
It hurt her to hear such things and she told herself that she was concerned only for Beryl.
She could not help remembering how the Marquis had saved her from the odious attentions of Sir Jocelyn or how kind he had been in looking after her until the last few minutes of their dinner together.
Even then he had done nothing to hurt or shock her.
She would not have been honest if she did not admit that she had been a willing accomplice to his sin, if that is what their kiss had been.
She had the inescapable feeling that, had she struggled or shown that she wished to be free of him, he would have let her go.
Instead she had surrendered herself completely and utterly to his lips and to the ecstasy that she knew, if he married a thousand times, she would still be unable to forget.
When it was time to leave Carlton House, the Countess said, ”There is no sign of Beryl.”
”I will find her, Aunt Louise,” Torilla offered.
”She knew we arranged to leave at two o'clock,” the Countess complained irritably. ”It is just like Beryl to disappear when she is wanted. Look in the garden, Torilla a she is doubtless with some ardent swain and has forgotten the time.”
With a little difficulty, because Carlton House was large and complex to anyone who had never been there before, Torilla found her way through an open window onto the terrace, which overlooked the garden.
She stood against the stone bal.u.s.trade searching in the shadows under the trees that were lit with Chinese lanterns for Beryl's turquoise blue gown.
It was impossible to distinguish her among the many women perambulating about on the arm of some splendidly decorated gentleman.
'I shall have to go and look for her properly,' Torilla thought.
She walked along the terrace and found a flight of stone steps leading into the garden.
She went down them, looking to right and left, but there was no sign of her cousin.
Then, just as she was about to turn back, thinking that perhaps Beryl would be at her mother's side by this time, she found what she sought.
At the very furthest end of the garden on the other side of a twisting artificial stream arranged with fairy lights there was a patch of turquoise.
Torilla could not see very clearly, but there was no doubt it was Beryl and she was clasped pa.s.sionately in the arms of a tall man.
Torilla stood indecisive, wondering what to do.
It was quite impossible to think of interrupting them, but at the same time the Countess was waiting.
She stood looking at Beryl and now that her eyes were more accustomed to the darkness, she could see that because the man who was kissing her was so tall her cousin was standing on tiptoe.
Torilla had never before seen two people kissing each other pa.s.sionately in an embrace that vaguely she realised had been symbolic of love between a man and a woman all down the ages.
There was a strange, emotional beauty about it and the mere fact that they were so close and oblivious of everything except each other made her feel a little strange.
It was what she had felt, she thought, when the Marquis had kissed her.
She could not help wondering if Beryl was feeling as she had done, as if she was being lifted off the ground out of the world into a place that was part of the Divine.
The man holding Beryl so closely raised his head and now Torilla heard him say hoa.r.s.ely, ”I love you! G.o.d in Heaven a how I love you! I cannot live without you!”
”I am afraid you will have to,” Beryl answered him, ”for I intend to marry Gallen.”
”How can you be so cruel? How can you torture me in such a manner? I swear I will kill myself!”
”And what good would that do?” Beryl enquired. ”I shall not be able to join you in h.e.l.l, if that is where suicides go, for at least another forty or fifty years!”
”Oh, Beryl! Beryl!” the man cried.
”Why do we not enjoy the world while we are both in it?” Beryl asked softly.
She raised herself once again on tiptoe and kissed him on the mouth.
”I will see you tomorrow at the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond's. I must go now or Mama will be furious!”
”Stay. Don't leave me. I cannot bear it!”
He put out his arms to stop Beryl, but she was already moving away from him.
”Until tomorrow night, Charles!”
The man she had left groaned, but made no attempt to follow her and Beryl moved to the right to cross the stream by a small bridge, which Torilla had hitherto not noticed.
It was only then that she moved forward saying, ”Beryl, there you are! Aunt Louise told me to come and look for you. It is time to leave.”
”I thought Mama would be fussing,” Beryl answered. ”Have you enjoyed yourself?”
”Tremendously!” Torilla replied. ”I hope you did.”
They walked nearer the lights of the house, and now Torilla looked at her cousin, wondering if she would show any of the emotions on her beautiful face through which they must have pa.s.sed.
Beryl looked exactly as usual except that there was a smile on her lips, which somehow looked as if they had been recently kissed.
”Actually,” Beryl said, ”there were only a few moments when I did not find the whole evening a dead bore!”
CHAPTER FIVE.
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