They were two vases of lilies.
Lilies were the first thing he had seen when he had regained consciousness and he had known who had sent them and that they were a message which told him that even though she might not see him, Cyrilla loved him.
He would lie in bed and often the pain he was suffering, which at times was acute, would be forgotten when he saw her face in every lily and knew that the petals had the softness of her skin.
The lilies were the only communication he had with the inhabitants of The Castle where he was an involuntary guest.
The Duke did not come to see him and he knew that Cyrilla would not be permitted to do so and he was waited on only by his own valet
Mr. Ashworth came down twice from London, but the Marquis was obviously so uninterested in anything he had to tell him that, after he left, he thought that his visits were pointless.
He therefore told Davis that if the Marquis asked for him he would return, but otherwise he would wait until he was sent for.
“His Lordship’s got things on his mind,” Davis said, “besides what he calls ‘the devil’s own’ pains in his body.”
Mr. Ashworth was aware of what was on the Marquis’s mind, but he drew no conclusions as to why he was at The Castle, until after he had seen Cyrilla.
He recognised her immediately from the portrait that stood in the Marquis’s room and, on his return to London, he paid off the Bow Street Runners, knowing that their services were no longer required.
“Well, I am ready,” the Marquis said.
As he spoke, he took a last look at the crisp white freshness of his cravat, skilfully tied by Davis in a manner that always evoked the envy, hatred and malice of the dandies of St. James’s.
There was a knock on the door. Davis opened it, spoke to someone outside and came back to say,
“His Grace would be obliged, my Lord, if you’d go to the orangery.”
The Marquis gave a sigh.
He had hoped that the Duke would have allowed him a little time to find his legs and have some fresh air before the inevitable interview he could not help dreading.
He supposed, however, that he might as well get it over and he wondered how he could send a message to Cyrilla that he must see her before the Duke threw him out of The Castle.
In fact, he told himself, he was damned if he would leave The Castle without doing so, without telling her how much he loved her and how hard he was trying to find a solution for their future.
All these past weeks he had lain in bed thinking of what he could say to make the Duke change his mind and give his consent to their marriage.
He thought it unlikely that his action in saving his life as well as Cyrilla’s would influence a man who both despised and hated him and had done so for years, even before his daughter was involved.
The Duke was like all those who disapproved of the ‘Carlton House Set’ and gave their loyalty and their unswerving allegiance to the King, mad though he might be.
The Marquis had thought about the whole situation for so long that he felt as if there was no aspect of it that he had not examined and pondered over until, by the process of elimination, he had almost lost hope of ever finding happiness for himself and Cyrilla.
Then, as he walked towards the doors, he stopped for a moment to look at the vase of lilies on the table by the window.
The sunshine illuminated them with a light which gave the blooms a faint touch of gold and he thought of the radiance that always seemed to halo Cyrilla’s head as it had in the Lochner painting.
He knew that without his own little Virgin of the Lilies life was bleak and desolate to the point where he wished that, when the horses had trampled him underfoot, they had killed him.
‘How can I go on without her?’ he asked himself, knowing that it would be impossible.
But how could he ever make the Duke understand that that was the truth?
He had changed in so many ways since he had known her, because his love for her had brought him a new understanding of people, besides making him capable of feeling emotions he had not known existed.
He looked back at his behaviour over the past years and felt shocked himself.
He saw how unfeeling and insensitive he had often been and he admitted his selfishness and his egotism.
Loving Cyrilla had made him suffer in a manner that he had never conceived possible. He knew that in the future, if nothing else he would be more sympathetic and understanding of the sufferings of others.
“Now, be careful, your Lordship, and don’t do too much,” Davis was saying. “I’ll be waiting for you to come up and pop back into bed before dinner. Whatever your Lordship may think now, you’ll be glad enough later to lie back and take it easy.”
It struck the Marquis that he might not be coming back to bed, but instead would be driving away, if the Duke would no longer allow him to remain in The Castle.
But there was no point in saying so to Davis and instead he merely put his hand on his valet’s shoulder as he passed him, expressing without words his gratitude for all that the little man had done for him.
Davis understood and his eyes as he followed his master to the top of the staircase were like those of a faithful spaniel.
The Marquis descended the stairs slowly and rather carefully, holding onto the bannister.
It was not hard to walk, since the massage that David had given his legs every day had kept the muscles strong as they had been before the accident.
But he was taking no risks. When he reached the hall he asked one of the footmen on duty,
“Will you show me the way to the orangery?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
The young man was eager to be of service to the gentleman he had always admired for his sportsmanship and his success on the Racecourse.
And he was even more so when, although the Marquis was not aware of it, his action in saving the Duke and Cyrilla from what might have been a fatal accident had lost nothing in the telling.
In fact, the old yokels who sat outside the village inns had been drinking his health in their mugs of ale.
“’E be a real sportsman, that’s what ’e be!” they said to one another and downed another pint on the strength of it.
The Marquis proceeded along the corridor that led to the orangery, which had been built on the south side of The Castle.
He thought it a strange place to have the serious conversation he was expecting with his host.
But he had learnt from Davis that the Duke was interested in growing rare plants, especially orchids.
He wondered if this was where Cyrilla had picked her lilies and if he would be able to thank her for the message they had brought him, which had cheered him even when he was most depressed.
Lilies as white, pure and beautiful as she was, lilies that had been continuously a part of his thoughts of her ever since he had first seen her lovely face gazing at him from the Lochner painting.
‘I fell in love at first sight!’ the Marquis thought.
The love he had known then had grown and grown until now it filled his whole world and it was impossible to think of anything except Cyrilla and his need of her.
He reached the orangery, the footman opened the door and the Marquis passed into the soft, warm, fragrant atmosphere.
There were rare orchids of every hue, exotic shrubs from foreign countries growing high against the roof and azaleas from the foothills of the Himalayas.
Immediately in front of him there was a fountain iridescent in the sunshine that streamed in through the long oval windows, the water from it falling with a musical sound into an exquisitely carved stone basin.
The Marquis looked round, expecting to see the Duke, then from behind the fountain, almost as if she emerged through the gleaming water itself, came Cyrilla!
The Marquis was very still. For a moment he could hardly believe that he was seeing her again after so long.
And yet she was there, as lovely as the lilies he had been com
paring her with a few minutes ago in his bedroom.
She walked very slowly towards him.
Then when they were only a few feet from each other she said in a low voice,
“You – are up! I did not – realise you were – well enough.”
“I am well,” the Marquis answered.
Their lips were saying one thing, but their eyes, held by each other’s, were saying something very different
Then in a voice he barely recognised, Cyrilla said,
“I have been so frightened – so worried – they said you would be – all right – but I found it – hard to believe.”
“But, as you see, I am.”
“How could you have been so – brave? So incredibly – wonderfully – brave?” Cyrilla asked. “I thought, before you – saved us that I would – die and never – see you again.”
There was so much pain in her voice that instinctively the Marquis put out his hands towards her.
She took them in hers, saying,
“You – must – sit down – you must rest. I am sure you are not well enough to – stand.”
“I can do anything as long as I can see you!” the Marquis answered.
He felt her drawing him a little to one side and found that there was a marble seat covered with silk cushions.
They sat down, their eyes still held by each other’s and the Marquis thought, as he had so often before, that it was impossible that anyone could be so beautiful.
Yet at the same time he realised that Cyrilla was thinner and there was something more spiritual about her face than there had been before.
In fact her eyes seemed unnaturally large and he knew that it was not only because like him she had lost a great deal of weight, but because of the pain she had suffered.
“You have not been ill, my darling?” he asked.
Cyrilla shook her head.
“N-no – only – worried about you.”
“I have thought about you,” he said. “I was so afraid that I would not see you. Only the lilies you sent me gave me hope.”
“I thought that you would – understand that I could not – write to you or – see you.”
“I understood,” he said gently. “But what are we to do, my precious?”
Cyrilla was still holding both his hands in hers and now he felt her fingers trembling.
“What has your father said?” he asked quickly.
“Nothing! That is what makes it so difficult,” Cyrilla replied. “I thought perhaps he would – talk to me after you had saved us both – but he did not do so – and I was afraid to make things worse.”
“I understand,” the Marquis said. “I will talk to him. In fact I was expecting to be doing so at this moment.”
“He sent for you to come here?”
“Yes.”
“How – strange!”
“Why?”
“Because he told – me to come to the – orangery.”
She looked at the Marquis and gave a little cry.
“He – meant us to – meet!”
“Perhaps he intended that we should say goodbye,” the Marquis said slowly. “It would, in the circumstances, be a kindness.”
“G-goodbye? How can we – say goodbye to – each other?”
“That is what I am asking myself,” the Marquis replied. “Oh, my lovely one, I have so much to tell you, so much to explain.”
She took one of her hands from his and put two fingers on his lips to stop him speaking.
‘There is – no need,” she said. “I have thought it over – and I understand so many things I had not – understood before.”
“What do you understand?” the Marquis asked gently.
“I-I may be – wrong,” Cyrilla said a little hesitatingly, “but I feel that because you – wanted us to be alone – as I wanted it too – it simply did not occur to you that we – should get – married.”
The Marquis looked at her as he said,
“How can you be so perfect, so wonderful, as to understand as no other woman could! That was the truth, my darling, the real truth. But I thought I could never make you believe it.”
He paused for a moment before he went on,
“When I realised that I had hurt you, when I knew what a fool I had been to lose you, I cursed myself over and over again for my stupidity.”
“I too was – foolish not to – understand,” Cyrilla said, “but it had been so – horrible in many ways, knowing what Mama – suffered because she ran away with Frans Wyntack. She loved him – she loved him desperately – but I thought that what she had – endured would – spoil our love.”
“It would have done that,” the Marquis said, “but if you had only told me, explained to me – ”
“I know,” Cyrilla interrupted. “I have thought about it a great deal – and I did not understand – then, as I do now, that love is greater than – anything else – greater and more important even than – being married.”
She drew in her breath before she said,
“If – if you still want me – and if Papa will not allow us to – get married – I will – come away with you.”
The Marquis’s fingers tightened on hers.
“Do you think I could allow you to do that?” he asked. “I want you as my wife. I want you with me always, by day and by night, from now until eternity.”
His voice was deep and intense with the emotions she had aroused in him.
Then he added,
“But I worship you for what you have just suggested.”
“If you will – not take me – away and Papa will not let us – m-marry,” Cyrilla stammered in a frightened voice, “what will happen to us?”
“This is a question I have asked myself a million times,” the Marquis answered.
“I have – prayed and prayed that somehow a miracle would happen and – everything would be all right,” Cyrilla whispered, “but – sometimes I feel that no one – not even Mama – hears my prayers.”
“Your mother would understand what we are feeling.”
“I know that,” Cyrilla answered, “and perhaps she would think I was being – foolish not to – come to you as you – wanted me to do, so that we could have been – together in that dear little house with the – garden.”
“You were right at the time,” the Marquis said. “You were absolutely right. I loved you, Cyrilla, but not in the way I do now and, because I worship you, my little Virgin of the Lilies with my whole heart and soul, I will not spoil or hurt you in any way.”
“It would never – hurt me to be – with you.”
“It would!” the Marquis said simply. “Only what is good and perfect is right where you are concerned. That is why, my darling, unless your father allows us to be married, I shall have to go away.”
Cyrilla gave a little cry.
“I cannot lose you – I cannot! If you leave me – then I shall die!”
She only whispered the word and yet it seemed to ring out and the Marquis looked at her and the pain in both their eyes seemed to link them in a manner in which they had never been linked before.
It was as if their lives merged one with the other and they were joined so that even death could not divide them.
Then, as they looked despairingly into each other’s souls, they heard the door of the orangery open and footsteps coming towards them.
Neither the Marquis nor Cyrilla turned their heads.
They were both aware of who approached and it seemed to the Marquis in that moment as if he stood on the edge of a cliff. Beneath him was a yawning gulf that led to destruction and above was the blue of the sky and the sunshine.
Without meaning to, his hand crushed Cyrilla’s fingers until they were bloodless, then with a superhuman effort he took his eyes from her and looked towards the Duke.
He stood beside them, looking very authoritative, with an expression on his face, the Marquis thought at a quick glance, that was stern.
He would have risen to his feet,
but the Duke put out his hand to prevent him.
“Don’t rise, Fane,” he said. “I imagine that you will need to save your strength as this is the first time you have come downstairs.”
“I can only thank you for your hospitality, Your Grace,” the Marquis said formally.
As he spoke, it sounded as if his voice came from a long way away and was not really his own.
Because Cyrilla was near him, because of all that they had been saying to each other, he found it hard to make his brain work at all, while to think clearly was almost impossible.
“I have been receiving good reports of your progress,” the Duke now said.
The Marquis drew in his breath.
“Perhaps, Your Grace, when it is convenient, I could talk to you privately.”
As he spoke, the Marquis realised that the Duke was not looking at him but at Cyrilla.
Her face, which was very pale, was raised towards her father and her eyes had a look of pleading in them.
She made no effort to relinquish the Marquis’s hand and she was holding on to him as if she thought that at any moment they would be separated, perhaps forever.
It seemed to the Marquis as if a very long time elapsed, it might have been the passing of a second or a century before the Duke said to Cyrilla,
“I suggest, my dear, that in perhaps ten minutes’ time you bring our guest into the blue salon. We will have tea there and afterwards, if he is not too tired, we will make plans.”
“Plans – Papa?”
Cyrilla’s voice was barely above a whisper.
The Duke smiled.
“A wedding, whether it is large or small, always requires a great deal of planning and we must try to choose a day when the gardens are looking their best.”
The Duke walked away and they heard the door of the orangery close behind him.
For a moment neither the Marquis nor Cyrilla was capable of moving.
Then in a voice which was almost inaudible Cyrilla asked,
“Did you – hear what he – said – or did I – imagine it?”
The Marquis made a sound that was half-triumph and half-laughter.
“You heard and I heard it too! Oh, my darling, my sweet! We have won! Do you realise? We have won and we need no longer be afraid!”
Who Can Deny Love Page 15