The Temptation of Torilla (2 page)

He released his mother’s hand and walking back to the mantelpiece to stare down at the flames leaping high over the logs he did not see the expression on his mother’s face, or realise that she did not believe him and her eyes were suddenly full of tears.

It had all happened, as the Marquis had said, a long time ago. He had been twenty-one at the time.

The girl with whom he had fallen in love had been very beautiful and very spoilt. He had adored her in an idealistic manner, which she was incapable of understanding.

His mother knew that he had laid his heart and soul at her feet, but she had stamped on them and married a Duke because he had a higher title and at the time a great deal more money.

The Dowager Marchioness thought she would never forget the expression on her son’s face when he had come home.

He had not spoken of what happened for that would have been impossible for him, but he had wanted to hide himself away so that the world would not know how deeply he had been wounded.

From that moment, she thought, he had changed from a happy laughing carefree boy into a man who grew more cynical and more easily bored year by year.

It was only when he was with his Regiment that he had shown the enthusiasm that made her happy for him, even though she was beset with anxiety that he might fall a victim to the might of Napoleon’s armies.

It had been an inexpressible relief when, on his father’s death, the Marquis had bought himself out of the Regiment and come home to administer his estates and to look after her.

At the same time she knew the boy she had adored for twenty-one years had gone forever.

There had been women in his life, dozens of them. Some she had met, but some lived in a world which she could never enter. But her love for him told her they meant nothing to him and if they suffered a broken heart his was never involved.

Ever since then she had hated the girl who had hurt him. But she thought now that she hated her even more than before, for it was her fault that Gallen, her beloved son, was making a marriage of convenience rather than one of love. But the Dowager Marchioness was wise enough to know it was quite useless to say these things aloud.

“When do you plan to be married, my dearest?” she asked.

“Before the end of the Season,” the Marquis replied. “The Prince will undoubtedly offer to have the Reception at Carlton House, since the number of people who will expect to be invited certainly could not squeeze into the Earl of Fernleigh’s town house in Curzon Street.”

“Tell me about the Earl,” the Dowager Marchioness said with an effort. “I remember him as being rather a good looking man, which of course would account for his daughter’s beauty.”

“He is quite pleasant,” the Marquis answered cautiously. “He prefers the country to London, but his wife’s life is entirely bound up in balls, receptions, assemblies and routs.”

There was a twist to his lips as he said,

“She was determined that her daughter should be the talk of the town and she has certainly succeeded.”

The Dowager Marchioness remembered the Countess of Fernleigh and recalled that she was a woman with whom she had nothing in common.

“I will of course call on the Countess on my return South,” she said, “but I thought I would go home and not to London.”

‘Home’ was a very attractive Dower House in the grounds of the Marquis’s huge estate in Huntingdonshire.

The Marquis knew that his mother, now that she suffered so acutely from arthritis, disliked having to be in London and was much happier in the country with her dogs and her garden.

“There will be no need for you to come to London before the wedding,” he said. “I will invite the Earl, and of course Beryl, to The Castle as soon as you are ready to see them.”

He smiled as he added,

“I dare say there will be time before the wedding although doubtless Beryl will be continuously engaged in buying her trousseau.”

“And you, dearest?” his mother enquired.

“The Prince likes me to be in regular attendance on him,” the Marquis replied. “I have come to the more or less amicable arrangement that I escort him to races and other amusements in the daytime, but I am relieved of attending most of the overcrowded and certainly overheated parties that His Royal Highness enjoys in the evening.”

“What do you do instead?” the Dowager Marchioness asked.

“That is a very indiscreet question, Mama,” the Marquis replied, his eyes twinkling.

His mother gave a little laugh.

“I am not asking what you did in the past. I am well aware of your reputation as a ladykiller. But what will you do now? I am sure Lady Beryl will wish you to escort her to what you call the ‘
overcrowded and over-heated
’ crushes.”

“The penalties of an engaged man!” the Marquis said lightly. “But I assure you, Mama, that I find a green baize table is more enticing than a polished floor, and I have no intention of staying up until dawn every night whether Beryl or the Prince commands me to do so.”

The Dowager Marchioness smiled.

“I know by that you must have some new horses you are breaking in and wish to ride very early each morning.”

“A dozen magnificent thoroughbreds. I am looking forward to showing them to you.”

“And I shall be looking forward to seeing them,” the Dowager Marchioness replied.

One of the great benefits that peace with France had brought to those who loved fine horseflesh was that horses could now be brought into England again.

The Marquis had sent to Syria for some Arab mares that had arrived only the previous month.

When he spoke of his horses, his mother thought, there was a note in his voice that was very different from the way in which he spoke of his future bride.

In February, before she had come to Harrogate, several Hungarian horses had been brought to The Castle, and to her delight she had caught an echo of the child who had run eagerly to draw her by the hand down to the stables when he had a new pony.

“Is Lady Beryl a good rider?” she asked now.

“She looks well on a horse,” the Marquis answered, “and of course she will hunt with my own pack. That reminds me, I must do up the Hunting Lodge in Leicestershire.”

He smiled somewhat mockingly as he added,

“The bachelor parties I have given there have not improved the condition of the furnishings and I suspect that any woman would find it distressingly masculine.”

“Your father and I had some very happy times there,” the Dowager Marchioness said wistfully.

“As you had everywhere,” the Marquis answered. “And now, Mama, stop comparing me with Papa and yourself with Beryl.”

He moved to take her hands once again into his as he said,

“You know without me telling you there will never be another woman as sweet or as beautiful as you! So it is no use complaining if I have to accept second best.”

“All I want, dearest, is your happiness,” the Dowager Marchioness murmured.

“I have already told you I am content,” the Marquis replied.

His mother thought as he spoke that there was a distinctly cynical note in his voice.

*

Some miles away from the fashionable Harrogate resort with its Spa, its expensive hotels and its aristocratic visitors, but still in Yorkshire, was the village of Barrowfield.

Near Leeds, it was a village of poorly built, dilapidated and dismal houses that always seemed to be covered with a fine veil of coal-dust.

Outside the village and built on a hill rising above it was an ugly grey stone Church and beside it an equally ugly and unnecessarily large Vicarage.

In the kitchen with its unwieldy, out-of-date stove and flagged floor, a servant with grey hair and the neat appearance of a children’s nurse was trying to instruct a thin, rather vacant-looking girl how to baste a leg of mutton.

“Try to understand what I am saying, Ellen,” the older woman said sharply. “I’ve told you six times already to keep spooning the gravy over the meat, but you don’t seem to understand me.”

“Oi’m doing what ya tells me,” the girl replied in a broad Yorkshire accent.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” the older woman snapped.

Then she turned her head as the kitchen door opened and a young voice cried,

“Abby! Abby!”

Abigail, for that was the woman’s full name, turned from the stove to look at the girl coming into the kitchen.

With her fair hair and blue eyes she could have been described as being typically English in appearance if it had not been for the almost arresting loveliness of her face.

Her eyes seemed almost too big for the oval of it, and, although they were blue, they were the deep blue of a Southern sea rather than a spring sky.

People who looked closely at Torilla noticed the sweetness of her mouth, the lips softly curved and the faint smile that seemed to lift the corners almost like sunshine peeping through the leaves of a tree.

“What is it, Miss Torilla?” Abby enquired.

“A letter, Abby! A letter from Lady Beryl and – would you believe it? She is engaged to be married!”

“And about time,” Abby said with the familiarity of an old servant. “Her Ladyship must be getting on for twenty-one and with all her success in London I expected her to be married long before this.”

“Well, she is engaged now,” Torilla said, “and guess what Abby? She begs me to go and stay with her!”

She looked down at the letter and read aloud –

“You must be my Bridesmaid, Torilla. I intend to have only one so as not to provide myself with unnecessary competition.”

Torilla stopped reading with a laugh,

“As if there could be any competition where Beryl is concerned!”

Abby did not answer and she went on reading,

“
You must come to me immediately you get this letter. Do not delay. There are so many things with which I wish you to help me – my clothes, the planning of my marriage, and of course there will be dozens of parties at which people will wish to meet my fiancé.”

“And who’s Her Ladyship’s intended?” Abby enquired.

Torilla looked again at the letter and turned the pages.

“You will hardly believe this, Abby,” she answered, “but she does not say his name!”

She gave a little laugh.

“Is that not just like Beryl? She always forgets something important. I can see I shall have my hands full looking after her, that is if Papa – will let me go.”

Her voice dropped on the last words and there was an expression of doubt in her big eyes.

“Of course you must go, Miss Torilla,” Abby said firmly, “though goodness knows what you will have to wear.”

“We need not worry about that,” Torilla replied. “Beryl’s clothes fit me and she has always been generous enough to let me wear anything I required, even her riding habits.”

There was suddenly a wistful expression on her face before she said,

“Oh, Abby, do you think I shall be allowed to ride Uncle Hector’s horses? It would be so wonderful to be on the back of a fine piece of horseflesh once again.”

“I’m sure your uncle will be only too pleased to supply you with a mount, just as he did when you were a child.”

“I think horses are what I have missed here more than anything else,” Torilla said.

“There’s a good many things I’ve missed,” Abby retorted, “and you’ve missed as well, Miss Torilla, if you’re honest.”

As she spoke, Abby started to take off the brown Holland apron she had put on for cooking, over the spotless white one she wore with her grey dress.

“I’m going to start packing for you right this minute,” she said.

“No, Abby, wait, wait!” Torilla cried. “I must ask Papa first. He may not wish me to go – home.”

She said the word tentatively, then added almost apologetically,

“I always think of Fernford as – home – as it was for seventeen years until Mama – died.”

“That’s right, Miss Torilla. It is home!” Abby said firmly. “It’s where you belong. We should never have come to this dirty place, and that’s the truth!”

Torilla smiled.

She had heard Abby say this not once but a thousand times.

“You know what it means to Papa,” she said softly.

As she spoke, she heard the sound of the front door closing.

“There he is!” she exclaimed. “Hurry with the luncheon, Abby, or you know as well as I do that he will rush out again without having anything to eat. I will go and talk to him.”

Before she finished the last words, she turned and sped from the kitchen along the narrow gloomy passage that led into the somewhat pretentious hall.

Standing just inside the front door was the Reverend Augustus Clifford, Vicar of Barrowfield.

He was a handsome man who looked older than his years.

His hair was almost completely grey, his too thin face deeply lined and he had the appearance of a man who drove himself beyond his strength.

As he put his clergyman’s hat down on the chair, he was looking worried, but as he saw Torilla coming towards him he smiled.

“You see I am back, Torilla!” he said, “and on time as you told me to be.”

“That was good of you, Papa, and luncheon is ready,” Torilla answered. “I could not have borne it if you had ruined the very nice leg of mutton that Farmer Shipton kindly gave us.”

“Yes, of course, I had not forgotten,” the Vicar said, “and if it is large enough perhaps we could share – ”

“No, Papa!” Torilla cut in firmly. “There is not enough to share with anyone, but come into the dining room for I have something to tell you.”

The Vicar obeyed her and together they walked into the small dark room, which, unlike the drawing room, looked out at the front of the house and therefore faced North.

There were a few pieces of good furniture they had brought with them from the South, but the curtains were of cheap material although Abby and Torilla had done their best to copy one of the draped pelmets they had seen at Fernleigh Hall.

But no matter what efforts they made the contrast was sharp from the lovely home Torilla had grown up in. It was difficult, Torilla often thought, no matter how kind or generous her Uncle Hector had been, to be a member of the poorer side of the family.