202. Love in the Dark

by Barbara Cartland

  “Why are you thinking sad thoughts when we are so happy?” Fyfe asked.

  She started a little guiltily.

  “How do you know – they are sad?”

  “I am using my Third Eye or shall I say I always use it where you are concerned?”

  “Of course I am not sad,” Susanna said in a positive voice. “How could I be, when I am – close to you and you have said you – love me?”

  She looked up at him pleadingly as she added,

  “You do really love me – more than you have – loved anyone else?”

  “I know now that I have never loved anyone else,” Fyfe affirmed. “All the women I have known in the past have disappointed me in one way or another. I think really it was because they pleased my eyes, but my mind found them wanting in so many different ways.”

  His lips curved in the smile she loved before he added,

  “I know you are waiting for me to say that those perceptions of mine, which have matured under your guidance, tell me that you are everything I want and need in my life. In fact you are the other half of me.”

  Because she was so moved Susanna felt the tears gather in her eyes, but she forced herself to say lightly,

  “I should never – aspire to being the other half of Fyfe the Magnificent, but I am content – very content to be a – shadow of your heart.”

  “Not the shadow,” he replied, “but in my heart and part of my heart. Indeed I am not certain that you are not the whole heart itself.”

  As she spoke, he drew her back into his arms and kissed her again.

  Then when her breath came quickly from between her lips and she felt her whole body respond to him, she hid her face against his shoulder and his hand touched her hair.

  “It feels like silk,” he murmured. “Florentine silk which is made here and which we will buy together when I can choose the colour for you that will suit you best.”

  Susanna found it impossible to answer him and he went on,

  “Tell me how long your hair is. I can feel from the amount that is piled so neatly on your small head that it is full and long and covers your shoulders like a soft cloud.”

  “You are – making me – shy.”

  “I shall like you shy,” he answered, “when I can see the colour rise in your cheeks.”

  Every word he spoke made Susanna remember in anguish that she had so little time left.

  How would he ever think her dull hair beautiful? Although in fact it was quite long, it had always looked lank and rather rat-tailed and not in the least like the cloud of glory he imagined it to be.

  “Once I can see again,” Fyfe was saying, “I shall only want to look at you, my precious one, but there are so many things we can do together. I am glad in some ways that you have seen so little of Florence. I so want to show you my own favourite statues and pictures.”

  He pressed his lips for a moment against her forehead.

  “Any women I have ever taken to see them in the past have always been so extraordinarily ignorant about art that it has irritated me. I know that is something I will never feel with you.”

  Susanna made a little murmur and he went on,

  “In Florence, Paris, London and New York there are a million things for us to see and enjoy. I feel because I love you that the whole world is there for us to discover, but without you it would be just as it is to me now, nothing but darkness.”

  “You must – not say – that,” Susanna protested.

  “It is true,” he said. “You have brought a light into my darkness since the first moment in London when you read to me in that miraculous voice of yours. If you should go away, I will become blind again to everything you have taught me to see.”

  “No, no!” Susanna cried. “You must not say that. You are you! Magnificent, self-sufficient, and brilliant. You do not – need me.”

  “It is going to take me a lifetime to tell you how much I need you and want you.”

  Then he kissed her again and she could think of nothing but him and the love she felt for him.

  It had been hard to leave Fyfe at luncheontime, but he had said when she had first known him,

  “I am not going to let anybody see me making a fool of myself while I am fed like a child. If I need a drink, you will leave the room.”

  He had spoken harshly, almost roughly, for in those days he was still fighting against his blindness and loathing his disability.

  Susanna had half-hoped when the bandages were removed from his mouth that she could stay with him at mealtimes, but he had always sent her away, saying,

  “I still have to have my food cut up for me. I still upset things and eat untidily and I prefer to do so in private.”

  Susanna could understand his feelings, for she had learnt that he was a very fastidious person.

  “Always tidy, always neat about his person,” Clint had said to her one day. “That’s why you’ll understand, miss, the relief I felt when I saw his face wasn’t scarred. He couldn’t bear to look ugly and that was one of the things I was real afraid of.”

  What Clint had said had been another spur to Susanna’s determination that he must never see her.

  Of course, being so handsome himself and being surrounded all his life with such beautiful things, he would want the woman he loved to be beautiful too.

  She had made her plans very carefully.

  She would have everything packed so that when the doctors arrived to take off the bandages, she would tell the servants that she had received a cable and must leave for London immediately.

  They would bring the carriage to the door, her luggage would be placed inside and she would just wait for the doctors to come from Fyfe’s room so that she would know the truth.

  If he could see, she would leave quickly before he had time to ask for her.

  On the other hand if the worst happened and he was blind, he would need her and it would not matter in the least what she looked like.

  It all seemed so simple, but she knew that it was going to crucify her to go away and yet at the same time she had no alternative.

  How could she stay, she asked herself, and see the disappointment in Fyfe’s eyes gradually turn to the contempt and disdain with that mother had always regarded her with.

  And what was more his feelings might become those of hatred simply because she had lied to him and imposed on his credulity.

  The fact that while Fyfe rested she and Mr. Chambers were going into Florence gave her an excuse to ask him for some money.

  “I am afraid you were right and I spent rather a lot on Fyfe’s birthday present,” she said. “I should be very grateful if you could let me have my wages, even though I think they are not due for another day or so.”

  “Of course you can have them,” Mr. Chambers replied, “and if you would like to borrow on the future I will advance you as much as you wish.”

  Susanna wanted to say that he must not pay her for what she would be unable to earn, but she replied,

  “I shall be very content with a month’s salary. It would be a mistake I think to carry too much money around with me.”

  “Yes, of course,” he agreed.

  Now as she stepped into the carriage he handed her an envelope, which she knew contained enough at any rate for her fare to England or for her to stay at an inexpensive hotel somewhere in Italy.

  She had not really decided whether having lost Fyfe she would go home or whether she would seek employment abroad.

  She was quite certain that it would not be difficult because of her proficiency in languages and yet the idea of being alone and lonely was now much more frightening than it had been when she had first decided to run away.

  It was knowing Fyfe and loving him which had made the future seem, as he would have put it, completely and absolutely dark because he was not there.

  ‘What am I to do?’ Susanna asked herself a thousand times.

  But she could find no answer to her question and she told herself that it was because for t
he moment she could think only of Fyfe and the precious glorious moments when she could be with him.

  “Where are we going first?” she asked Mr. Chambers. “Wherever you would like,” he answered. “I have strict instructions from Fyfe to keep you away from the Villa until five o’clock. Otherwise he says, he will break all Clint’s regulations and demand your attendance on him.”

  Susanna gave a little sigh and Mr. Chambers went on,

  “I have never known Fyfe so happy or so in love.”

  “There must have been – many women in his life,” Susanna said in a low voice.

  “I will not insult your intelligence by answering that untruthfully,” Mr. Chambers replied. “Women have pursued him ever since he was a very young man.”

  “I expected – that.”

  “It was understandable. He was not only handsome and extremely clever but the only child of one of the richest men in America.”

  “I had no idea he is as rich as – that.”

  “Old Mr. Falcon, who was as clever as his son, invested in Railroads in their infancy and also bought the land that they were likely to travel over.”

  “While Fyfe likes motor cars.”

  “He likes anything that is progressive, moves quickly and keeps his mind stimulated and active, as you do.”

  “You cannot expect me to – compete with the Falcon car.”

  “That is exactly what you have done,” Mr. Chambers smiled, “and that is why I am so grateful to you. You have given him something that no one else has been able to do before.”

  Susanna looked at him enquiringly and he finished,

  “And the knowledge that intellectually he can survive any physical disability, even blindness.”

  “I think he would have found that out – eventually on his – own.”

  “I doubt it,” Mr. Chambers said. “If you had seen the state he was in when we crossed the Atlantic, you would have known that he would have preferred to die rather than face the knowledge that he must spend the rest of his life in darkness.”

  “That must not – happen!” Susanna said quickly.

  “I pray that our optimism will be well founded, but, if disastrously the worst happens, then I believe with your help he will find that there are quite a number of useful things he can do in the world even without the use of his eyes.”

  “I have thought of that,” Susanna said. “He could, of course, advise and – attend the meetings of his Company.”

  “We have been thinking along the same lines,” Mr. Chambers nodded, “but I am sure in my heart, partly because he has always been lucky and also because you have given him hope and faith in himself. that there is now more than a fifty-fifty chance that he will come through it all triumphantly.”

  “I feel that too,” Susanna answered. “I feel it so strongly – that I know in my heart he will see as – well as I do.”

  She spoke prophetically and she knew that her Third Eye could not be mistaken where Fyfe was concerned.

  Despite the fact that she was longing to go back to the Villa, Susanna could not help being thrilled by Michelangelo’s statue of David.

  She was also entranced by the Michelangelo sculptures that surrounded the magnificent tomb built for Lorenzo.

  It was impossible to think even for a moment of Lorenzo without longing for Fyfe and finding that his personality seemed to be superimposed upon everything she looked at.

  It was four o’clock when Mr. Chambers insisted, because Fyfe had told him to do so, that they should go to the Uffizi Gallery.

  He could not understand that Susanna had no wish to look at the exquisite face of Botticelli’s Venus or Lippi’s Madonna and the Angels.

  But because she knew that Mr. Chambers would not understand her refusal to do what she was asked, she stood in front of the Birth of Venus looking despairingly at the soft oval of Simonetta’s face, her blue eyes and her red gold hair falling over her white shoulders.

  She thought as she turned away that she would hate the idea of Venus, any Venus, for the rest of her life.

  “Now we can go home,” Mr Chambers said with a smile. “Are you tired?”

  “Not in the least,” Susanna answered.

  The idea of seeing Fyfe again had brought the sparkle to her eyes, her heart was beating more quickly and little thrills of excitement were running through her because in a very short while she would be close to him and perhaps in his arms.

  ‘I want him to kiss me,’ she thought. ‘I want it more than I have ever wanted anything in my whole life or will ever want anything again.’

  She felt that the horses were climbing the hill with infuriating slowness, but at last they reached the outside of the Villa and she could not wait for the footmen to jump down from the box and open the door of the carriage but did it herself.

  Then she ran up the steps.

  Clint was waiting in the hall.

  “Is the Master awake?” Susanna asked him breathlessly.

  “He’s anxious to see you, miss,” Clint answered. “But I expect you’d like to tidy yourself up first. There’s a cool drink waitin’ for you in your bedroom. It must have been like a furnace in the City.”

  “It was,” Susanna answered.

  She would have liked to go to Fyfe straight away.

  Then she thought perhaps if he kissed her, her cheeks would be hot and he would be aware that her hair had been blown a little from the breeze that came from the Arno.

  She went into her bedroom and found Francesca there.

  “It must have been very hot in the City, signorina,” she said, echoing Clint. “I’ve a cool gown ready for you to change into and there’s water ready for you in the basin.”

  Impatiently, because she was grudging every second she could not be with Fyfe, Susanna washed and let Francesca change her gown.

  The maid brushed her hair into place and then running because she was in such a hurry Susanna crossed the room and sped down the passage towards Fyfe’s bedroom.

  Clint was waiting at the door to open it for her and she went in, her eyes alight and a smile on her lips.

  Then she checked herself suddenly to find not, as she expected, that Fyfe was alone, but there were several other people in the room with him.

  She looked at them in astonishment, wondering who they were and why they were strangely dressed.

  Then Fyfe, who was standing in the centre of the room only a little way from her, held out his hand.

  “Come here, Susanna.”

  She obeyed him and he took her hand in his and held it very closely.

  “Because, my darling,” he said, “1 regret having had to lie to your father and because I want more than I can tell you that you should belong to me, I have asked the Chaplain of the American Embassy to marry us, which he has consented to do.”

  Susanna gave a gasp and now she realised that an elderly man in the room was dressed in a cassock and that the two young men with him also wore cassocks but of a different colour.

  “It will only be a short Service, Miss Laven,” the Chaplain said. “And you are doubtless aware that by American law it is perfectly legal for me to marry you here in the Villa.”

  Susanna felt as if her voice had died in her throat.

  She must stop this.

  She could not marry Fyfe.

  She must tell him so and why.

  Then, as he drew her forward towards the Chaplain, she knew that she could not speak to him about herself in front of strangers.

  How could she explain, how could she tell him that she had lied, that she was not beautiful? How could she destroy the wonder and splendour of their love by confessing to her own selfish personal deceit?

  ‘I cannot marry him! I cannot for his sake,’ Susanna cried in her mind.

  But her heart told her that she could not hurt him and could not embarrass and shame him in front of a Chaplain from his country’s Embassy.

  As she waited, trying frantically to think what she should do, the Chaplain opened his
Prayer Book and began the Marriage Service.

  It was very short and, when Fyfe had taken his vows in a deep sincere voice that seemed to vibrate through Susanna, she heard almost as if it was the voice of a stranger, her own faltering responses.

  As if he understood some of the tumult within her, Fyfe held her hand tightly all the time they were being married.

  The strength of his fingers seemed in some strange way to sweep away everything else except for their love.

  ‘It is because I love him that I should try to save him from himself,’ she tried to tell herself.

  Instead she could only think that her body seemed to throb over and over again with three words,

  “I love you – I love you – ”

  One of the Servers handed Fyfe a ring and the Chaplain blessed it before it was placed on her finger.

  She knew, as she helped Fyfe by putting her finger in exactly the right place, that she should not be doing this, that it was wrong and when he knew the truth he might throw her violently out of his house and out of his life because she had deceived him.

  And yet insidiously, beneath everything else, was the incredible joy in knowing that she was now Fyfe’s wife and because of it she could not be forced into marrying anybody else.

  The Service came to an end. They knelt, the Chaplain blessed them and, as they rose from their knees, Fyfe raised Susanna’s hand to his lips.

  “I love you, my darling!” he whispered very softly so that only she could hear.

  After that it seemed too bewildering for her to realise what was really happening.

  Clint came into the room with glasses of champagne, while Mr. Chambers joined them, as did all the servants in the Villa, congratulating them in their warm Italian, as happy, Susanna thought, as if they had been married themselves.

  It was only when the Chaplain said ‘goodbye’ and Mr. Chambers went with him to the door while the servants vanished into their own quarters, that Susanna found herself alone with her husband.

  They were standing side by side as they said ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’ to the Chaplain and, as Fyfe heard the door close, he turned to put his arms round her.