“That’s true enough, M’Lord,” Hobley agreed. “When I come here I often wonder whether Miss Saviya has whisked Your Lordship away in the night, even when the caravan is almost right in front of my face.”
“And your people, they are all right?” the Marquis asked.
“They have moved so that it is more difficult to find them,” Saviya replied. “But, as you can imagine, your cousin is not making too close a search for you ... or for me. The last thing he wants is for anyone to contend that his bribed confederates are not telling the truth.”
“I will not have him taking my place!” the Marquis said in what he meant to be an angry and determined tone.
But even to himself his voice sounded very weak and before he could say any more he fell asleep...
It was two days later before the Marquis could grasp all the details of the drama that Jethro had planned so cleverly, or appreciate that had Saviya not been watching him ride through the wood, he would in fact have been found dead in the Ride with a Gypsy’s knife between his shoulder-blades.
“The knife even had Gypsy characters on it,” Saviya said, “and I think that either it must have come from the Circus folk from whom your cousin obtained the cobra, or he bought it in a Curiosity Shop in London.”
“But is it a Gypsy knife?”
“A description of it was in the newspapers,” Saviya said, “and my father thinks it is a Spanish dagger such as the Gitanos carry and use in their quarrels.”
“Good circumstantial evidence,” the Marquis remarked.
It was Hobley who told him how arrogant and autocratic his cousin was being at Ruckley House.
“Sir Algernon went back to London, M’Lord, after Mr. Jethro had arrived, saying he’d heard a strange story in the village that two men had seen you brought down by an ambush and then being stabbed by a Gypsy woman.”
Hobley’s voice was contemptuous as he continued:
“They had the rope as evidence, and said they were walking through the Ride as they were looking for work at one of the adjacent farms. They had their story very pat, ’twas difficult to fault them.”
“Jethro would have seen to that!” the Marquis murmured.
“Mr. Jethro’s clever, M’Lord. Make no mistake about that!”
“I am not!” the Marquis answered. “Go on, Hobley.” “Mr. Jethro was obviously so pleased to relate such a gruesome tale that Sir Algernon, while expressing his deep concern that Your Lordship had disappeared, said he thought the whole thing a bundle of lies and, from what he’d seen of Miss Saviya, she’d murder nobody, least of all you.”
“Yet he did not wish to be involved,” the Marquis said with a smile.
“That was obvious, M’Lord. But Captain Collington argued fiercely with Mr. Jethro.”
“I can imagine him doing that!” the Marquis remarked.
“He stayed one more night, saying he was going to search for you. In fact he came looking in the woods, and then Mr. Jethro ordered him out of the House.”
“He actually did that?” the Marquis ejaculated.
“Yes, M’Lord. He said as the new Marquis of Ruckley he wasn’t standing for the Captain’s impudence, and he certainly didn’t intend to offer him any further hospitality!”
The Marquis would have expressed himself forcefully but Saviya interposed:
“You promised you would not get angry. It is bad for you. If you do not listen quietly, we will tell you no more.”
“Are you bullying me?” the Marquis enquired.
“I am trying to look after you for your own good,” she replied.
The frown on the Marquis’s forehead was replaced by a smile.
“Once again I have to thank you for saving my life,” he said.
“It was Miss Saviya, M’Lord,” Hobley went on, “who insisted I shouldn’t join you here as I wished to do, but come backwards and forwards from the House.”
“I thought that when you were better Hobley would be able to keep you informed as to what was happening,” Saviya explained. “But I could not have set your collar-bone as he did, and I have to admit that the healing herbs and balms he has used on your wound were more efficacious than those we Gypsies have used for centuries.”
“Mine are also based on country lore and, like the Gypsies, I’m aware that Nature knows best,” Hobley said.
“I am well enough now to go and confront my cousin and expose his lies,” the Marquis declared.
Both Saviya and Hobley gave a cry of disapproval.
“You will not move from here until we are sure you are strong enough,” Saviya said. “Remember, he will not give in easily. He will try again to kill you.”
There was so much distress in her tone that the Marquis replied: “I will be sensible. I will not attempt anything fool-hardy—that I promise!”
“You do not know how frightened we have been about you,” Saviya murmured in a low voice, and the Marquis saw the sudden glisten of tears in her eyes.
“I will not do anything stupid,” he promised, “but once I am strong I intend to teach my cousin a lesson he will not forget, and I have also to clear your name, Saviya.”
“That is not important,” she said. “The fact that I am a murderer is just what people would expect from a Gypsy.”
“There’s no-one in the House as would believe that of you, Miss Saviya,” Hobley assured her.
She flashed him a smile.
“Thank you.”
“Mr. Jethro is not making changes in the household?” the Marquis asked and his voice was sharp.
“Not yet, M’Lord,” Hobley answered, “though he threatens to do so. But the Trustees have told him that they are not prepared as yet to presume Your Lordship’s death. I think it is Captain Collington who has persuaded them that there may be a chance of your survival.”
“Captain Collington would never believe that Miss Saviya was capable of killing me, and he knows of the other two attempts that Mr. Jethro has made on my life.”
“I believe he has informed the Trustees of what happened in Berkeley Square and about the cobra, M’Lord.”
As Hobley spoke, he drew his watch from his pocket.
“I’d best be getting back, M’Lord. I’ve to be careful in case Mr. Jethro is suspicious or gets someone to watch my movements.”
“Then do not let him suspect you,” the Marquis said.
“It’s why I usually take a circuitous route to get here, M’Lord,” Hobley replied, “but unfortunately it takes longer.”
“I am sure the exercise is good for you!” the Marquis said with a smile.
“I’d be willing to climb mountains, M’Lord, to see you back on your feet again. We miss you up at the House.”
“Thank you, Hobley. It will not be long now,” the Marquis smiled.
Every time he came, Hobley brought with him everything which could be carried in a basket. Food, bottles of the Marquis’s favourite wine, clean linen, lotions to heal the Marquis’s back, and of course the toilet requisites His Lordship always used.
The Marquis’s gold hair-brushes bearing his monogram under a diamond coronet looked strangely out of place in Saviya’s caravan. Yet he had not imagined how comfortable such a small place could be.
Because he was so tall, his bed took up the whole of one side of it but there were hooks, shelves and small cupboards on all the walls, and things were stored away ingeniously in a manner which never ceased to amaze him.
The walls were painted with skilful artistry and in gay colours depicting flowers, birds, and butterflies.
The work was, however, more Russian than English, and Saviya told him that the exterior of the caravan was decorated in the same manner.
There were two windows through which, unfortunately, little light could percolate, because the caravan was draped with greenery so that it would not be seen.
But sunlight came through the open door, and at night the Marquis could see shafts of silver moonlight, which somehow reminded him of Saviya’s dancing, penetr
ating through the thick branches of the trees.
Since he had regained consciousness, Saviya did not stay with him at night but disappeared.
He imagined she went back to her family or perhaps slept in the wood, but she was not very communicative on the subject and he did not press her.
After she had given him supper and they talked for a little while, she would merely say softly:
“It is time you went to sleep.”
He would kiss her hand then she would leave him alone with his thoughts. At first he was usually so tired that he fell into a deep slumber and did not awake until the following morning, when she brought him breakfast.
Hobley washed, shaved and attended to him two or three times a day. Sometimes, if Mr. Jethro was not at the house, he would remain in the vicinity without returning home, but on other occasions he would slip in for an hour in the morning, again at luncheon time, and back again in the evening.
It was for the Marquis an unusual, strange mode of existence and yet he knew he had never been happier.
He did not feel restless and was not in the least bored.
Sometimes he would lie for a long time without speaking, watching Saviya’s face as she sat in the doorway of the caravan.
He thought that her beauty was like some exquisite, exotic flower that every day unfolded more of its petals to reveal a hidden loveliness which grew more and more entrancing.
The Marquis had been in the caravan for over two weeks, when one afternoon after Hobley had returned to the house he said to Saviya:
“Soon I shall be strong enough to confront Jethro, and then you will be unable to stop me.”
“You are very much better,” Saviya said with a smile.
“Hobley is delighted with my collar-bone, the bandages come off tomorrow and I have very little pain in my back.”
“The wound is healing quickly because you were so well,” Saviya murmured, “an unhealthy man would have taken much longer.”
“Before I leave this idyllic existence,” the Marquis said, “we have to talk about each other, Saviya.”
She stiffened and the expression on her face changed.
“You have not yet told me why on the morning that you saved my life you were leaving.”
She hesitated and looked away from him.
“I told you how much I wanted you,” the Marquis said. “How could you leave me, Saviya, knowing it might have been impossible for me ever to find you again?”
“It would not have been right for me to stay with you,” she answered.
“Right for whom?” the Marquis asked almost angrily. “I thought you understood that I cannot live without you, Saviya. I knew it then, but now there is no doubt in my mind that we are in fact a part of each other. How can you deny anything that is so perfect; so utterly and completely wonderful?”
She looked away from him and he saw that she was trembling. “Come here, Saviya!” he said, “I want you.”
He thought she would refuse him but, almost like a child who obeys the voice of authority, she moved from her seat near the door to kneel at his bedside.
“Look at me, Saviya!”
She raised her face to his and the Marquis saw that her eyes were very wide and a little afraid.
T love you!” he said. “Do you not understand, my darling, how much I love you?”
“I love you too!” Saviya answered, “but because you are so important ... of such consequence in the ... Social World ... an association with a Gypsy will shock and perhaps disgust your friends.”
“If it does, then they are not my friends,” the Marquis said, “and besides does anything matter but ourselves? We do not want the gay life in London, Saviya. We can stay here at Ruckley or go abroad for part of the year. I have a yacht that will carry us along the coast of France to anywhere that you fancy. To me it will not matter where as long as we are together.”
She drew a deep breath and he knew that she was deeply moved. Then she said on a sudden note of despair:
“You do not understand!”
“What do I not understand?” he asked gently.
“That you cannot set aside the prejudices, the beliefs, the hatreds of centuries,” she answered. “We are, as you say, two people who love each other, but there is a great gulf between us and nothing you can say or do can bridge it.”
“That is ridiculous!” the Marquis said sharply. “There is one thing that can bridge it, Saviya, one thing which is stronger than any of the things you have mentioned.”
“What is that?” she asked wonderingly.
“Love!” he replied.
As the Marquis spoke he put out his arms and pulled her close against him.
He was sitting up against his pillows and she did not resist him. Her head fell back against his shoulder, and now she was half-sitting, half-lying on the bed.
“Could anything in the world be more important than this?” he asked and then his lips were on hers.
He kissed her fiercely and with a passion which he had been too weak to feel for the past two weeks, but he knew as his mouth took possession of hers that his desire was like a fiery flame burning through his whole body.
Yet at the same time he worshipped with what was almost a reverence the gentleness and sweetness of her.
“I love you!” he said. “Believe me when I tell you, Saviya, there is nothing else in my life except my love for you.”
He kissed her again until she trembled and quivered in his arms and then he asked:
“Shall we go away together now and forget that I have any other existence except that I belong to you? Let Jethro be Marquis of Ruckley and own the Estate and everything else. All I want is you and your love.”
Saviya put her arms around his neck and now as her lips responded to his he could feel her heart beating against his breast.
Then, when it seemed they had reached the very peak of ecstasy and human nature must break under the strain, very gently Saviya drew herself from his arms.
“I love you,” she whispered, “but you must still rest.”
The Marquis protested but she put her finger-tips against his lips. “Rest,” she said. “You are tired, and this is not a moment to make decisions.”
“Tell me one thing,” the Marquis said, “that you love me as I love you. Tell me, Saviya! I have to hear it as well as know it when I touch you.”
“I love you!” she whispered.
Yet there was somehow almost a note of despair in her voice.
CHAPTER SIX
“I’ll be going now, M’Lord if there’s nothing else Your Lordship requires?” Hobley said.
The Marquis looked up at his Valet from where he was sitting outside the caravan in the shade of the trees.
“Nothing, thank you, Hobley,” he said, “but do not forget to ascertain if Colonel Spencer, the Chief Constable, will be at home tomorrow.”
“I’ll do that, M’Lord.”
“Without arousing suspicion,” the Marquis admonished. “I do not want anyone to be aware that I am alive until I confront Mr. Jethro.”
“I’ve got it quite clear in my mind, M’Lord,” Hobley said with just a touch of rebuke in his voice that the Marquis had thought it necessary to repeat himself.
“Then good-bye, Hobley, and thank you.”
“Good-day, M’Lord.”
Picking up the empty basket in which he had brought food from the house, Hobley moved between the trees and almost immediately was lost to sight.
It was certainly, the Marquis thought, a perfect place for concealment.
The caravan, with its wooden sides painted in gay colours, was completely hidden by trailing-ivy, shrubs and long strands of convolvulus so that it blended in with the branches of the trees and was, as Saviya had told him, almost invisible.
The trees themselves were very thick in this part of the wood. The Marquis wondered if he had ever actually been there before, and decided if he had, he did not remember it.
It was now three weeks since he
had been thrown from his horse and stabbed by Jethro’s men.
His wound had healed, his collar-bone had knit and he was in fact, as he had protested for some days now, in perfect health.
At the same time his brave words a week earlier that he wished to rise from his bed and confront his cousin had proved too optimistic.
He had no idea how weak he was until when, for the first time, he was on his feet again and could step from the caravan into the wood.
“I am ashamed of being such a weakling,” he said to Saviya.
“You ran a very high fever and you also lost a lot of blood.”
“I still expected to feel more like a man than a child,” the Marquis averred.
“You must be strong to face what lies ahead,” Saviya said in a low voice, and the Marquis knew she was still afraid.
“I expect you to give me courage,” he said, “and not go on molly-coddling me as you and Hobley have been doing these past weeks.”
Nevertheless, after his first sortie into the open air, the Marquis found he was glad to creep back into bed to fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
Yet every day he had grown stronger and could do more.
Saviya took him for walks through the woods, and he learnt much that he had never known before about the birds and the animals they saw and also the flowers.
She told him strange legends that were connected with Gypsy lore.
About the squirrels—the romen morga, or Gypsy Cats, who are a lucky mascot and particularly effective in the realms of love.
“But the weasel brings ill-luck,” Saviya said. “If by chance a Gypsy should kill a weasel the whole tribe will be unfortunate for a long time.”
“Superstition about the weasel is very ancient,” the Marquis remarked. “It existed in Ancient Greece.”
Saviya described how the Gypsies in the Balkans captured young bear-cubs and trained them so that they could dance to amuse the peasants in the villages.
She related that there were groups of Gypsies who were hunters, and who, apart from their skill, had a deep knowledge of the magic rites associated with hunting.
“The Balkan Gypsies,” she went on, “will never allow a woman in any circumstances to go near the hunters before they depart in search of game.”
Bewitched (Bantam Series No. 16) Page 11