The Temptation Of Torilla Part 10

"Yes, indeed," the Earl interposed, "and we have all missed you very much, Torilla, since you left us for the far North."

"I have missed you, too, Uncle Hector," Torilla answered him in a low voice.

"Well, you are back now and at least we shall have you with us until Beryl is married."

"That reminds me a " Beryl exclaimed and she was chattering again about the wedding ceremony and the huge number of people who had to be accommodated at the reception.

As soon as dinner was over and the gentlemen came into the salon, Torilla had slipped away once again to the peace and quietness of her bedroom.

She told herself that she was being tactful because Beryl would wish to be alone with the Marquis.

But she knew in her heart that it was really because she was afraid of being near him and because she felt as if everything he was, said and did was whirling around in her brain until she was almost driven mad by the complexity of it.

She had been unable to sleep and almost as soon as it was light she knew that because it was Sunday she must go to Church.

She did not suppose the times of the services would have changed greatly from when her father was the inc.u.mbent of the small parish.

He always insisted on a very early Communion service for those who had work to do later on in the day.

When Torilla entered the nave of the small grey stone Norman Church, she felt as if she was a child again and everything was right with the world.

Her father and mother were at the Vicarage and the G.o.d in whom she had always believed so devoutly was here to listen to her prayers.

It had been hard to believe that the same G.o.d watched over Barrowfield.

Sometimes, when she heard the horrors of what happened in the mine, she had felt there was no longer a merciful Lord who her father had always said cared for all His children, wherever they might be.

The days here were so much warmer than in the North. The sun was rising golden in the sky, as Torilla, walking beneath the oak trees whose branches met over her head, pulled off her bonnet.

'How happy Beryl and I were,' she thought, 'when as children we used to run and hide behind the trees.'

She could remember herself hoping that Beryl or Rodney would not find her, but she had always been too impatient to go and wait quietly and they would see her peeping out and rush upon her with whoops of joy.

If she ran away, it made it even more exciting.

She remembered all three of them running over the soft gra.s.s until they were tired and then fling themselves down by the side of the lake, panting with breathlessness and laughter.

Sometimes Rodney would tease them and threaten to throw them both into the still water.

'Now Rodney is dead and Beryl and I are grown up,' Torilla thought with a little pang, 'and there are problems a terrible problems for both of us.'

As if her very words conjured up the man she was trying to avoid, she saw at that moment the Marquis riding up the drive towards her.

Instinctively she wanted to hide herself and she moved quickly behind one of the great oak trunks to stand with her back against it hoping he had not seen her.

She stood listening, thinking she would hear his horse's hoofs on the gravel. But he must have moved onto the gra.s.s verge as unexpectedly, so that it made her jump, he appeared and looked down at her from the back of his black stallion.

"Are you communing with nature, Torilla, or avoiding me?" he asked.

She did not answer and he dismounted.

She felt herself tremble as, leaving his horse free, he came to stand beside her. She did not look at him but at the stallion that bent his head to crop the gra.s.s.

"I am waiting for an answer to my question," the Marquis said in an amused tone.

Torilla tried to look at him but felt her eyelashes flicker and asked rather inconsequentially, "Will your a horse not a wander a away?"

"Sullivan belongs to me," the Marquis replied. "I brought him with me yesterday when I arrived. He comes when I call him."

Torilla said nothing and after a moment he said, "I have answered your question, now it is your turn."

"I a I was just walking home from a Church."

"You have been to Church?" the Marquis asked with a slight note of surprise in his voice. Then he added, "Of course, it is Sunday. What did you pray for?"

"I prayed for Beryl," Torilla answered truthfully.

As she spoke, she moved forward, walking through the gra.s.s and hoping that the Marquis would leave her alone.

But he walked beside her and, as she kept her head down, she was conscious of the brilliant polish on his hessian boots and at the same time knew without raising her eyes that he was looking at her.

"You were surprised to see me?" the Marquis asked after they had walked for a few moments in silence.

"Yes."

"I was astonished to see you," he answered. "Why did you not tell me where you were going?"

"You a did not a ask me."

"I was sure you did not wish to answer my questions. In fact I knew you were deliberately avoiding them," the Marquis replied.

She was surprised that he should be so perceptive.

"When I came into the salon and saw you standing there with the lilies in your arms," he went on, "I thought you must be a figment of my imagination."

He paused before he continued, "I had been thinking about you all day, in fact ever since I left The George and Dragon it was impossible to think of anything else."

Torilla told herself she must have been dreaming, that he could not be saying such things to her.

Then he asked, "I gather you have not told Beryl that we have met before?"

"No a no!"

"Why not?"

There was a pause before Torilla said hesitatingly, "I a I would not a wish to a hurt her."

"Do you think she would be hurt?" the Marquis enquired. "I rather doubt it."

Again there was that mocking note in his voice.

"It was a wrong and quite indefensible," Torilla said slowly, "that you should behave as you did when you had just become a engaged to Beryl."

"It was you who wished to thank me more eloquently than could be said in words," the Marquis reminded her.

This was true, but Torilla thought angrily that he was trying to put all the blame on her.

"And after all," he continued, "was it really such a heinous sin, if that is how you are thinking of it now?"

It had not seemed a sin, Torilla thought, but the most wonderful perfect thing that had ever happened to her.

But he was engaged to Beryl, and she knew that if she were in her cousin's position she would think it intolerably disloyal of the man she was to marry to kiss somebody else.

"What you feel and what Beryl feels are two very different things," the Marquis remarked.

He had read her thoughts and Torilla looked at him in a startled fas.h.i.+on.

"I make no apologies, no excuses for what happened," he continued in a low voice.

It was impossible for her to take her eyes from his.

Then with an effort Torilla remembered who he was and turned her face away.

"When I came into the salon yesterday, I saw you look at me and I knew that for one second you were glad to see me. Then your eyes changed and you looked at me with what I can only describe as hatred. Why?"

Torilla drew in her breath.

How could he have watched her so closely? she wondered. How could he be so sensitive to what she was feeling?

This was the Marquis of Havingham, the man whose callousness and brutality were responsible for such crimes against nature that she had wished him dead ever since she had gone to Barrowfield.

Distraught by her feeling she found they had walked to where in the Park a tree had fallen down.

Without really thinking what she was doing Torilla sat down on the trunk, and the Marquis with his eyes on her face sat beside her.

His horse had followed them and now once again the stallion put his head down seeking the young gra.s.s.

"I want an explanation, Torilla," the Marquis said. "Your eyes are very expressive, so it will be difficult for you to keep any secrets from me."

"I would a rather you did not a question me."

"I knew that was what you felt when we dined together," the Marquis replied. "But the situation has now changed. What you feel now has something to do with me personally, has it not?"

"Yes."

The monosyllable seemed to be drawn from between Torilla's lips.

"And it is not simply that you are angry because I kissed you?"

"I was not a angry," Torilla faltered. "I was only a sh-shocked after I realised when you came here yesterday that Sir Alexander Abdy was you!"

"But there is something else as well," the Marquis insisted.

Torilla did not speak and after a moment he went on, "You said you had been praying for Beryl in the Church. Did you pray that she should not marry me?"

Again Torilla was startled that he should be almost clairvoyant where she was concerned, and because he seemed to mesmerise her into telling him the truth, she answered in a low voice, "Yes a I did a pray for that."

"I wonder which of my many sins and indiscretions have caught up with me? There are quite a number which I imagine you, of all people, would find unpalatable."

Now he was speaking mockingly and he was, Torilla felt, laughing at her.

As if she felt it was intolerable that they should go on with this conversation, she rose from the fallen tree.

"I wish to go a back to The Hall, my Lord."

The Marquis did not rise, he merely put out his hand and caught her wrist.

"Not until you have told me what I want to know."

Torilla felt herself quiver at his touch.

She did not understand why, but she felt almost as if little shafts of lightning shot through her body because his fingers were touching her skin.

"Tell me, Torilla. You cannot leave me in suspense and I trust you not to lie to me."

"You will a not like the a truth."

"I am not afraid to hear it."

She tried to pull her wrist free, but the Marquis held her captive and now, looking away from him to where the morning sun was glinting on the lake, she said in a low voice that he could hardly hear, "I come from a Barrowfield!"

"Barrowfield?" the Marquis repeated.

She knew by the questioning tone in his voice that the name seemed to mean nothing to him.

He might have forgotten or it might be a place that he found it hard to connect with her.

Whatever the reason, it swept away Torilla's hesitation and timidity and the anger and hatred she had felt was stronger than the feeling the Marquis evoked in her by his touch.

"Yes, Barrowfield," she said, and now her voice was strong. "It is in Yorks.h.i.+re, my Lord, and it is a filthy, foul, squalid place because the people who live there work in the Havingham mine!"

She drew in her breath.

"Does that mean nothing to you? Well, let me tell you what it means to the miners and their families."

She turned round as she spoke and now the Marquis released her wrist.

"Do you know that your pit is unsafe? Do you know there are accidents practically every month, when, if the men are not killed, they are maimed and crippled for life?"