Part 13 (1/2)
The ball at Lady Melchester's was even more fantastic and extravagant than the other parties at which Torilla had been present since she arrived in London.
The Countess had however protested against Beryl and Torilla attending it.
”I cannot bear that Melchester woman!” she groaned disparagingly. ”She is fast and her love affairs are a scandal. I cannot imagine why you should wish to accept her over-pressing invitations.”
”She gives good parties, Mama, and all my friends will be there,” Beryl replied simply, shrugging her beautifully rounded shoulders.
”She has nothing but money to recommend her,” the Countess snapped, ”but of course, I know that most of your friends care for little else.”
Beryl laughed good-humouredly.
”That is because it is something that most of them lack.”
She gave a little self-satisfied sigh.
”One comforting thought is that no one can say that about Gallen.”
”No, indeed,” the Countess agreed, her voice softening, ”and I am sure, Beryl, if you play your cards right, he will prove a very generous husband.”
”I will make sure of that!”
Torilla put down the book she was reading and, rising from the sofa in the drawing room, she walked to the window.
She found it not only embarra.s.sing but also hurtful to listen to Beryl and her mother talking in such a manner about the Marquis.
She had thought many hard things about him herself, but it was different in the case of Beryl, who had no grounds for criticising him, or the Countess, who was quite obviously jubilant at the idea of such an advantageous marriage.
It suddenly struck her that the reason why he looked cynical was that the women he knew talked in such a hard and calculating manner and he was well aware of it.
Where she was concerned he was more perceptive and more intuitive than she had imagined any man could be. If he knew what she was thinking, surely he must be well aware also of Beryl's thoughts?
More and more as she saw them together she found herself praying that if her cousin was to marry the Marquis as she intended she would grow to love him.
'How can Beryl contemplate,' Torilla asked herself, 'the sort of marriage that exists between her father and mother?'
The Countess never missed an opportunity of criticising the Earl and a day never pa.s.sed without her saying something cutting and unkind, which revealed all too clearly her feelings towards him.
Torilla wondered if Beryl would become the same sort of woman and she had a feeling she would.
Marriage, however rich the bridegroom might be, however luxurious their surroundings, could be nothing but a farce if the two people concerned in it did not love each other.
She could remember the tenderness in her mother's voice when she spoke to her father and could recall the look of adoration in the Vicar's eyes when her mother rose every time he returned home to kiss him.
Torilla could not imagine Beryl worrying over the Marquis, seeking in every way to make him happy and sacrificing her own desires and interests for his.
Because she loved Beryl very deeply and sincerely, Torilla found herself growing more and more unhappy as their first week in London pa.s.sed.
She was well aware that Beryl met Lord Newall at every party and they always disappeared into the garden or to some part of the house where they would be alone.
Beryl had introduced him to her and Torilla found that Lord Newall was a good-looking man with dark pa.s.sionate eyes that seldom left Beryl's face.
There was an intensity about him that she could understand Beryl finding attractive, and yet because she knew her cousin so well she was well aware that whilst Lord Newall amused Beryl she was not really in love with him.
”Would you like to marry His Lords.h.i.+p?” Torilla had asked her one evening when they returned home after Beryl had disappeared for longer than usual in the garden of Bedford House.
”I am sure Charles would be a very ardent lover,” Beryl replied, ”but he has no money and there is an old adage that 'when poverty comes in the door, love flies out of the window'.”
”Does money matter so very much when one is in love?” Torilla asked in a low voice.
”Of course it does!”
Then after a moment's pause Beryl said in a different tone, ”Though I suppose if one was really, completely, overwhelmingly in love, one would forget everything else.”
”That is what we used to say we both wanted,” Torilla said softly.
”When we were young and knew nothing about men, we were absurdly romantic,” Beryl retorted.
She sat down at her dressing table as she spoke, and as if she deliberately changed the subject she said, ”I think I shall ask Gallen to give me sapphires as a wedding present. Sapphires are very becoming to fair haired women.”
”We were talking about Lord Newall,” Torilla reminded gently.
”I know,” Beryl answered, ”but we have really exhausted everything there is to say about him. His kisses are entrancing, but he has little else to recommend him.”
Torilla gave a little cry.
”Don't talk like that, Beryl,” she begged. ”It is hard and horrid and so unlike you used to be.”
”Sometimes I feel hard and horrid,” Beryl answered, ”and I feel that life has paid me a shabby trick.”
Torilla was surprised.
”How a what do you mean?”
”I'm talking nonsense,” Beryl replied quickly, ”I am tired. Go to bed, Torilla. There is another party tomorrow night and the night after that, and I want you to look your best.”
Torilla knew their conversation was over, but, when she went to her own room, she lay for a long time thinking about Beryl and praying for her.
She certainly did not look, at the Melchester Ball, as if life had brought her anything but gaiety and beauty that made her outs.h.i.+ne every other woman present.
With her gown embroidered with diamante, with real diamonds round her neck and in her hair, Beryl glittered like a Fairy Queen. She was besieged by men wis.h.i.+ng to dance with her, while Lord Newall, looking dark and Byronic, glowered ferociously.
It seemed quite obvious that Beryl was enjoying herself and Torilla found that she too was having a success.
In another of the beautiful gowns that Beryl had given her she did not feel insignificant among the elegant ladies glittering with jewels and eyeing each other with feline spitefulness.
Just occasionally Torilla found herself thinking that just a few of the diamonds they wore round their long necks or which hung from their ears like small chandeliers would keep a dozen miners' families in comfort for at least a year.
Then she remembered Abby's admonitions and forced herself to forget Barrowfield and to listen to the charming words that were being said to her by every man with whom she danced.