As Sir John climbed into it, the horses started off as if they too were impatient to be on their way.
It took them two and a half hours to reach Dover without a break.
As Sir John had anticipated there was a ferry in the harbour which would be leaving within half-an-hour of his arrival.
Having travelled at an almost record speed, he told the coachman to be careful and give the horses a good rest before they returned to London and then to take them extra slowly.
“I thinks of that meself, Sir John,” the coachman replied.
Sir John smiled at him.
“I thought you would,” he answered. “At the same time it’s the right thing for me to say.”
Both men laughed and the coachman added,
“I ’opes you ’ave a good time in Paris, Sir John. I’ll be waitin’ for you when you returns, if you’ll let me know when that’ll be.”
“Of course I will let you know,” Sir John replied. “And thank you for driving me so well.”
He then went aboard the ferry without waiting for the man to reply and found that the best private cabin was available.
He thought that he could continue to rest once the ferry was under way.
Actually he found this to be impossible as he was thinking all the time of Gavron Murillo and praying that this was a false alarm.
‘If he does die,’ Sir John asked himself, ‘how can I cope with all the things he had his finger on in England and all over the world?’
Yet he knew only too well that, although his father had been the most senior person on the Board of some businesses, it was actually Gavron who told him what to do and what to aim for.
It was the same where he was concerned, except that he only took a small part in the different businesses of which his father had been the Chairman.
Yet suddenly when his father died he found himself taking his place and knowing that it was Gavron who had insisted on it and forced the other members of the Board to agree.
Because of his excellent education and because too his father had confided in him, all the difficulties as well as all the successes of the Companies in which Gavron had a part were, Sir John knew, due to the brilliance of Gavron in always picking the right man for the right job.
Therefore every Company had managed to be more successful year by year.
This meant more profits for his father and then for himself.
‘How can I cope without him?’ he asked himself again.
He was desperately afraid that he might fail when Gavron was no longer there to advise, direct and protect him.
After all, although he had worked in the different Companies almost from the moment that he had finished his education, he was honest enough to know that at just over twenty-nine he still had a great deal to learn.
He had always relied on Gavron Murillo to guide and protect him and for one frightening moment he felt as if everything his father had built up and he had inherited was in distinct danger.
Then he told himself that this was not the moment to be afraid or in any way foolish.
He was a man and if he had to carry on alone then he must just pray that he would not fail either Gavron or himself.
Because he was in a hurry to reach Paris, it seemed to him as if he was travelling for a long time.
Every passing minute was so dangerous because it might prevent him seeing Gavron before he actually died.
*
It was late on the following day before he finally reached Paris.
Driving to the Champs Élysées, he found himself praying fervently that Gavron would still be alive.
His house in the Champs Élysées was redolent of the success he had made for himself and typical, Sir John thought, in the fact that it seemed to have a kind of feeling of defiance about it as if it challenged the world outside.
It was what he had always thought about Gavron himself.
It seemed so strange that he was not standing, as he invariably did, in the elaborate and exquisitely furnished drawing room holding out his hand to the newcomer.
It was, in fact, a doctor who appeared almost a few seconds after Sir John had been shown into the drawing room which overlooked the colourful garden.
“I am Doctor Rohan,” he said in French, “and I am very glad that you have arrived, Sir John.”
“You mean that Gavron Murillo is still alive?” he asked.
The doctor nodded.
“At the moment he is,” he answered still speaking in French, “and also coherent. He is most anxious to see you, which has kept him from dying. I will take you up to him right away.”
There was nothing that Sir John could say.
He followed the doctor up the wide stairs to a room on the first floor.
It was a beautiful room furnished with a taste which was French, but it had a beauty and elegance about it that was essentially English.
Gavron Murillo was lying in a huge bed hung with curtains.
When Sir John walked up to the side of the bed, he realised that Gavron Murillo was looking very pale and at the same time very old.
Because he had always been so very much alive and enthusiastic about everything in his life, he had never seemed old.
But now, because he was lying still and prostrate, the lines on his face said quite clearly that he was far older than he had ever appeared to be previously.
Sir John sat down beside the bed and put his hand into Gavron’s.
“I have come,” he said, “and I only wish that there was something I could do to make you well and fit.”
For a moment the hand he was touching seemed to be cold as if its owner was already dead.
Then Gavron opened his eyes.
Eyes at which many men had quailed, but just as many had looked upon with delight and thankfulness.
“So – you are – here,” Gavron said in a voice Sir John could hardly hear. “Now listen, I want you to do one thing – for me. One thing I want more than anything else which – only you can do.”
“I will do anything you want,” Sir John promised. “You have been so wonderful to my father and to me. You know I would do anything to show how grateful I am.”
The dying man smiled.
Then he said,
“That is what I want to hear, I want you to promise me – that you will do what I ask – of you.”
“And of course I will,” Sir John replied. “I will do anything you wish to show my gratitude.”
For a moment there was silence.
Then Gavron Murillo said in a voice which seemed to almost burst from his lips,
“I want you to – marry my daughter.”
CHAPTER TWO
For a moment Sir John was too astonished to move or speak.
He just stood looking at the old man as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt and that it was impossible to move.
Then he said in a voice which did not sound like his own,
“Did you say, Gavron, you want me to marry your daughter?”
“That is what I am asking of you,” Gavron Murillo answered, “and what I want more than anything else before – I die.”
“We have no wish for you to die,” Sir John said. “You know how much you mean to all of us. How can we possibly do without you?”
Gavron smiled.
“It comes to – everyone,” he replied. “We cannot evade it – however much one tries. I am dying, my dear John, but before I die I want to be sure that my daughter is protected from those who will attempt to steal from her the money – I have made for her.”
Sir John drew in his breath.
He knew at once that it would be impossible for him to refuse what Gavron Murillo was lying there asking of him.
At the same time he had always had a horror of being rushed into marriage.
Almost before he had left Eton and gone to Oxford, women were more or less forcing their daughters on him because his father was so rich. He also had an ancient and revered title.
&nbs
p; If he had not been aware of it then, he would have been very stupid, which he was not, when he became part of the Social Society in which the debutantes of the year were presented to the world.
He knew that the moment he entered a ballroom the Dowagers’ eyes were upon him.
It was only a question of time and sometimes little more than a minute, before they came up to him to say,
“I am so fond of your mother and your father has always been a very great friend. I want you to meet my daughter who is a debutante this year and who I am sure you will find most charming and amusing, besides being an outstanding dancer.”
This was inevitably followed up by an invitation to dinner or yet another ball.
If these were refused, he could expect an invitation to a Country House where the girl in question was to be found at weekends.
It was so predictable that at first it was a joke and then it became a bore.
He knew only too well that, as his father’s only son and the fact that he had in some way become the owner of an immense fortune, he was one of the most eligible young men of the Social world.
He was indeed sensible enough and not particularly conceited in being aware that his appearance was exactly what every girl hoped to find in a husband.
In fact it was only a few weeks after he had come to London that he could count on his two hands the number of girls who had been pressed upon him as being a suitable wife.
It was this and the fact that he knew that most of the mothers at any rate were more interested in his position in Society and his money than his character or as he put it more bluntly – himself.
‘When I marry,’ he thought, ‘and it will not be for a very long time, I will marry because someone loves me as a man and not as the owner of a title, property and a huge Bank balance.’
Yet he was wise enough to laugh at himself because he knew that these sentiments would not count at all in the Social world.
If he was to seek anything different, it would mean perhaps travelling abroad or searching in the countryside for someone who admired him for just himself and himself alone.
Then, as the years passed by, he became more and more cynical and he knew before he entered a ballroom that the Dowagers would be waiting for him.
The girls would be peeping towards the door so as not to miss his arrival.
It was only three or four years later that he decided he would never marry until he was old and wanted to be certain that there was an heir to carry on his possessions and spend his large fortune as he wanted it spent.
He was not exactly certain what this meant.
But one thing of which he was quite sure was that if he had children, especially a daughter, he would make sure that she was married for herself and not for his money.
The difficulty, of course, lay in the fact that to have a daughter he himself had to be married.
Although he enjoyed himself at the many festivities which took place every night in London, he was cynically aware that the women who wanted him as a man, were those who were already married and so had no chance of becoming his wife.
“You ought to get married soon, John,” his family had said to him not once but a thousand times.
“There is plenty of time,” he always replied. “It will be when I retire from business and pleasure and settle down in the country.”
“Your wife might find that rather dull,” one of his relations had pointed out.
“Then I will certainly not marry anyone who is not content with me and does not need to entertain Royalty or fill Gilmour Hall with weekend guests who invariably have an ulterior motive when they visit me.”
“You are quite impossible,” more than one of his relations had said to him.
As they said it sharply with a ring of anger in their voices, he knew they had been certain that their plea for him to take a wife would be accepted.
Yet now when he had least expected it to happen he was confronted with what he felt was the most amazing and appalling problem he had ever faced.
How, he asked himself, could he possibly refuse to give a dying man his last wish?
Especially the man who had saved his father from bankruptcy and who had helped him all his life to become richer and more influential year by year.
And someone to whom his family owed such a debt of gratitude it would be impossible to put into words.
It was not gratitude Gavron wanted, he was well aware of that.
Because for the moment he could think of nothing else to say, he said in a rather quiet voice,
“I had no idea you had a daughter, Gavron. In fact I always believed that you had never married.”
There was a pause.
And then the old man replied,
“Sit down and I will tell you – what no one else – knows, which has been a secret all through my life.”
Sir John found that he had a chair just behind him.
He sat down as he had been told to do, drawing his chair a little closer so that he would not miss one word of what the dying man was about to tell him.
Even as he did so, he felt his head whirling.
It was as if quite suddenly the earth had opened in front of him and he was no longer on safe ground.
There was a pause for a moment while the old man shut his eyes as if he was about to fall asleep.
Then he opened them again and said,
“I know this is a surprise – to you, John, but I can only beg you to understand why I have not spoken of my daughter before or – the fact that I was married.”
“I am listening,” Sir John replied. “You know that if you wish I will keep everything that you may say to me a secret.”
He did not know why he had said this, except that it seemed so strange that Gavron should have been married, when everyone thought that he was indifferent to women and interested only in money.
As if he read his thoughts, Gavron mumbled,
“Money has mattered to me a great deal. Because I used my brain and every drop of blood in my body in my effort to make myself rich – I really had no time as other men have, for seeking women – and then making them an essential part of my existence.”
“I have always thought you were like that,” Sir John murmured.
“That is what I wanted you and – everyone else to think,” Gavron replied. “But when I was a very young man something happened that made it easier than I had expected to remain unmarried and concentrate – only on money.”
Sir John did not speak.
After a long pause and, as if he was looking back into the past, Gavron began,
“When I was twenty-five I was sent by my father to discover what I could about Thailand and why it was not developing as it should.”
Sir John was listening intently.
He felt that this was the beginning of a story he had always wanted to hear, but had always found it difficult to make Gavron talk about his past.
He had become quite certain that those around him knew very little of what must have been the start of a great adventure.
Almost as if he knew what Sir John was thinking, the old man said,
“My father was aware – that I was determined to make a fortune. He had, however, since I was seventeen, taken me with him when he visited those for whom he was working and those he was advising. Whenever he talked to me it was usually about money and how it had been used successfully by some countries and lost by others through what he called – sheer ignorance.”
The old man stopped speaking as if it was too much for him.
Then Sir John said quickly,
“Would you like something to drink?”
“No – no!” was the reply. “What I am saying has to be said. All I want you to do is – to listen.”
“I am listening,” Sir John assured him.
“As I said, I was twenty-five,” Gavron continued, “when I was sent by my father to Thailand, which he felt was a place that was not fully appreciated by the English – or by the p
eople themselves.”
He paused for breath before he went on,
“I was told to send in a report every month and to make friends with everyone – I met, especially the English who were, he said, already interested in Thailand and its people. He was quite certain that they had little knowledge of the country’s capabilities.”
Again the old man paused and Sir John said,
“I have visited Thailand and I thought it extremely beautiful. Some of the buildings are exquisite.”
“There is much to be seen outwardly – especially in Bangkok,” Gavron replied. “But things were much rougher and more difficult when I first went there.”
He then closed his eyes for a moment as if he was looking back into the dim past.
Sir John could not think of anything particular to say and therefore remained silent.
Then Gavron opened his eyes and continued,
“I was nearly twenty-six when the English sent out an extremely distinguished man to arrange and, in fact, to introduce to Thailand what was later to become the British Embassy. Viscount Sternwood was then one of the most –admired men in London.”
He took another deep breath.
“He had recently lost his wife and was therefore in deep mourning,” he carried on. “It meant – that he would not have gay parties at the Embassy nor were invitations easily forthcoming to anyone arriving from Europe. At the same time he was a man who was respected wherever he went – although a number of people found him somewhat awe-inspiring.”
He stopped for a moment and then he resumed,
“I was not surprised when an introduction from the Viscount arrived for my father and I was told that he was certain – I would learn a great deal. Equally I was warned to be very careful – not to upset him in any way.”
He coughed for a moment before he continued,
“I went to dine at the Embassy to find that it was a party of men he considered influential in Thailand. There was only the one female present and it was surprisingly his daughter. Lady Evelyn was – an astonishment to me. I thought from the moment I set eyes on her that she was one of the loveliest women I had ever seen or met.”
There was a dreamy look in his eyes as he added,
“She had fair hair and blue eyes as was traditionally English. She also had a soft sweet charm, which seemed to me in many ways different – from all the women I had met in my life.”
Their Search for Real Love Page 3