The Temptation of Torilla (11 page)

“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 – rather you did not – 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 – angry,” Torilla faltered. “I was only – 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 – I did – 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 – 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 – not like the – 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 – 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 Yorkshire, 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?”

She drew in her breath before she continued,

“And in the darkness there are not only explosions and underground fires and water in which children of five stand for hours every day and there is no proper ventilation.”

Her eyes met the Marquis’s and she realised that he was looking at her with surprise.

The words tumbled from her lips as she continued,

“All the other mines in South Yorkshire have installed the Buddle air-pump that was invented nine years ago, but in the Havingharn mine they cannot afford such luxuries!”

Her voice was bitter as she went on,

“Lord Fitzwilliam’s mines use safety lamps, but apparently the Havingham mine cannot afford that either, nor can it afford any of the customary gifts or output bonuses.”

As if she could not bear to look at him, Torilla stood staring across the Park and added in a different tone,

“How do you think I feel when I hear how of many racehorses you possess? That you are one of the richest men in England and that you have more possessions and more houses than you can count?”

The Marquis did not reply and she went on,

“Have you ever stopped to think how you could exist on a weekly wage of thirteen shillings, which is all your miners get? Or how would you fare if you found that out of the three pounds. you received a month eleven shillings had to be spent on candles and powder?”

Torilla’s voice trembled as continued,

“But it is the children who haunt me – children who never have enough to eat, children who, if they are frightened or sleepy in the stuffy darkness, get beaten!”

There were tears now in her eyes, and because she had no wish for the Marquis to see them she turned her back on him to add,

“I knew before I came South that you were the devil himself, a monster whom I – cursed every day I lived in Barrowfield. Do you really think I would want Beryl – whom I love – to marry – y-you – ?’

The last words were almost incoherent.

As if she could bear it no longer Torilla walked away, leaving the Marquis sitting behind her on the fallen tree. She did not look back. It was in fact impossible to look anywhere, for tears blinded her eyes.

Only as she neared The Hall did she wipe them away fiercely with her handkerchief and on entering the house she hurried up to her bedroom to wash her face and remove all traces, she hoped, of the emotions that had so upset her.

‘Now he knows the truth,’ she told herself defiantly, ‘and he will hate me as I hate him!’

Only as her agitation and her emotions subsided a little did she wonder what the Marquis had felt on hearing what she had revealed to him.

She remembered the surprise she had seen on his face that seemed to be genuine and she told herself that perhaps he really had no idea of the conditions in the Havingham mine.

But still intent on hating him she thought that was no real excuse.

He owned the pit, the profit it made was his and no man should exploit human beings without concerning himself with the conditions under which they laboured.

Even as she told herself this, she realised she was only repeating what her father had said.

Yet it was beyond doubt so true that she could find no extenuating excuses for the Marquis even if he had not been aware of what was happening in a pit that actually bore his name.

‘I hate him!’ she told herself as she went downstairs to breakfast with Beryl to find to her relief that the Marquis was not present.

‘I hate him!’ she thought again at luncheon.

There were a large number of guests, but she found it impossible not to glance occasionally at the Marquis sitting at the other side of the table.

He had Beryl fawning on him on one side and a very attractive married Peeress on the other.

‘They do not care what he does,’ Torilla thought scathingly.

Then remembering what she had felt when he touched her wrist, she thought that perhaps he had the same magical effect on women.

‘He has the charm and the guile of the devil,’ she told herself severely. ‘He is everything that is wrong, wicked and contemptible! But once he is married to Beryl, I shall seldom see him again.’

Wondering why the thought was dispiriting rather than elating, she continued to force herself into remembering the conditions in Barrowfield and not to let them fade from her mind in the comfort, beauty and luxury of Fernleigh Hall.

It was difficult, however, when Beryl told her there was to be a large dinner party that night to celebrate her engagement.

“I want you to look attractive, dearest,” she said to Torilla, “so come to my bedroom and we will choose one of my prettiest gowns for you to wear.”

Torilla longed to reply that as far as she was concerned there was nothing to celebrate.

But it was impossible to refuse Beryl as she pulled glamorous and expensive gowns from her wardrobe, holding them up against Torilla to see the effect before finally deciding upon the one she thought suited her best.

“You would look like a bride in white,” she said, “and it is what I should wear. But Gallen has given me some magnificent turquoises and I have a gown of exactly the same colour.”

“I could wear pink,” Torilla suggested.

“Wear white and you will look like an angel,” Beryl answered, “or should I say a saint?”

She gave a little laugh.

“Saint Torilla – that is what I think I will call you in future. You are so good, my dearest, that you make me feel guilty when I think of all the things I have done which you would disapprove of.”

“I am no saint,” Torilla retorted in a low voice. “I also do things which I – know are – wrong.”

“I don’t believe it,” Beryl expostulated. “You are good – you always have been. What is more, Torilla, you have the power of making other people want to be good.”

“Please – please, Beryl – don’t talk like that,” Torilla said in a strange voice.

It made her feel inexpressibly guilty to know that she had allowed the Marquis to kiss her, but was also deceiving her cousin by not telling her.

And she had remembered her mother saying once many years ago,

“We should confess our sins to God, Torilla, but never if it would hurt them, to other people.”

Torilla had not understood exactly what her mother meant at the time, but now she knew there would be no point in making Beryl unhappy.

If anyone must bear the consequences of a wrong action, it should be the person who had done it.

“Whatever you may say, Torilla,” Beryl went on, “you make me want to be good and who knows – perhaps one day I shall succeed!”

She spoke seriously, then with a puckish look in her eyes, she added,

“What a bore I should be! I am quite certain Gallen would leave me at once!”

She danced across the room holding the white gown she wished Torilla to wear, in her arms.

“Can you not see how dull it would be for everyone if I became saintly and thought only of good works?” she teased. “Lord Newall would stop wishing to kiss me! Gallen would undoubtedly return to the arms of one of his flirts and half the dressmakers and the caterers in London would go out of business!”

She flung the white gown over a chair.

“No, no!” she laughed. “Each to his proper place, yours on a pedestal, mine in a bath of champagne!”

Torilla could not help laughing.

“A bath of champagne?” she questioned.

“It is really true that some of the beauties in London do bathe in champagne because they think it is good for their skin,” Beryl explained.

“I have never imagined such a thing! I know the Dandies use it for polishing their hessians, but a whole bath of it – I have never heard of such ridiculous extravagance.”

“People will do anything to look beautiful, but thank goodness, I don’t have to trouble about my skin.”

“It has always been quite perfect!” Torilla agreed.

“Like yours,” Beryl replied. “Oh, I forgot to tell you – ”

She turned from the mirror where she had been looking at her reflection to say impressively,

“Gallen likes you! I never expected he would. As I told you, he never speaks to girls.”

Torilla longed to retort that, whatever the Marquis felt about her, it was of no relevance and she hated him.

Instead she found herself listening attentively, as if fascinated, to what Beryl had to impart.

“I asked him what he thought of my cousin and my greatest friend and do you know what he replied?”

“What – did he say?” Torilla asked.

“He said, ‘
She is a very unusual person and exceptionally lovely’
!”

Torilla found herself blushing.

“Really? I am sure – he was only being – polite,” she said a little incoherently.

“You don’t know Gallen if you think he would lie about that sort of thing. He is usually brutally frank about people. He was the person who first said that Lady Jersey ‘
looked like an inquisitive parakeet!
’ and that Beau Brummel was a ‘
clothes horse on legs’
.”

Beryl laughed.

“I assure you, Torilla, he administers more put-downs than he pays compliments. But I want him to like you, because once we are married you can come and stay with us and I will find you a suitable husband.”

Torilla thought privately that it was very unlikely after what she had said to him today that the Marquis would welcome her to any house that he owned, but aloud she replied,

“You are very kind to me, Beryl dearest, and thank you for the gown.”

“I have told my maid to take a whole lot of things to your room already,” Beryl said, “and they are packing them in readiness for our trip to London tomorrow.”

“Thank you so very much,” Torilla said again.

“There is also a whole heap of clothes in Curzon Street that I shall never wear again,” Beryl added, “so you need not keep those rubbishy dresses you brought from the North. Tell the maids to put them all on the bonfire.”

“I will take them back with me,” Torilla said firmly.

She knew that once she returned to Barrowfield she would feel overdressed and far too ostentatious in anything Beryl might give her.

When she went downstairs to dinner and entered the salon where already some people had arrived, she could not help looking at the Marquis to see if he noticed her.

It was wrong, she knew, to value in any way his opinion, yet because he had said that she was beautiful when she was wearing the threadbare blue gown that Abby had made her, it was impossible not to wonder what he would think of her now!

She knew the exquisite white gauze gown, which must have cost an astronomical sum made her look sylph-like and showed off her figure to perfection.

Her fair hair had been dressed in a fashionable manner by one of the maids and because she had no jewellery, she had added a tiny spray of spring flowers.

She would not have been honest with herself if she had not realised when she looked in the mirror that she was very different from the dowdy girl who had dined with the Marquis at
The George and Dragon.