He held her close against him and tried to lift her to safety, but found that the heavy bag to which her ankles were attached made her immobile.
He guessed then that it must contain stones.
“How could you think of doing anything so wrong and so wicked?” he asked.
“I cannot – help it,” she answered.
“Of course you can.”
His voice was raw because he had been so afraid.
“If you had only come a – few seconds later – ” she whispered, “it would have been too – late – I would not be here – and no one would ever have – found me.”
The Marquis’s arms tightened about her.
Then he said,
“Why should you want to do anything so crazy and so utterly and completely mad?”
He was still holding her close against him and she made an impulsive little movement as if, despite his being there, she would still do as she had intended and drown herself.
The Marquis’s arms held her still and, as if she realised that any further struggle would be futile, she suddenly went limp and her head rested against his shoulder.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “How could you even think of anything so terrible?”
“Papa would have – thought it – wicked of me,” Kistna said, in a voice he could hardly hear, “but Mama – would have understood.”
“What would she have understood?” the Marquis asked, as if he was speaking to a child.
“That I-I cannot – marry that man! He is – bad, I knew it when he – touched my h-hand.”
“Bad?” the Marquis questioned. “Why should you say that?”
“I am – sure of it. There is – something about – him, something that made me – afraid and besides I cannot – m-marry anyone!”
“Why not?”
He saw that she was about to reply.
Then, as if she realised who she was speaking to, she turned her face and hid it against him.
“I want you to answer that question,” the Marquis said and his voice was gentle.
“N-no – I – cannot – tell you.”
The Marquis put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.
“Look at me, Kistna!” he persisted. “Look at me and tell me why you cannot marry anyone.”
As he looked down at her, he could see the unhappiness in her eyes and the tear stains on her cheeks.
It seemed to him for a moment as if she looked as pathetic and as miserable as when he had first seen her at the orphanage.
Yet with her body close against his, he knew that during the time she had been at the Abbey she had changed and become very different from the miserable starving creature who he had thought at first was so ugly.
Now she had a beauty that was different from anything he had seen in any other woman and, as he felt her trembling because of his questions, he knew that never before in his whole life had he felt as he was feeling now.
Because she was so young and because she had come to him from the orphanage, it had never struck the Marquis that Kistna was a desirable woman, like Isobel or any of the other women he had amused himself with.
He had been so intent on educating her and preparing her to be the Earl’s wife that he had not thought of her as a human being, but merely as an instrument he could use to injure the man he hated.
Now, as she looked up at him and he saw her answer in the depths of her expressive eyes and as he was aware that she was quivering against him, not from fear but because he was touching her, he felt a strange rapture sweep over him.
“Tell me,” he said, and now his voice was very soft and beguiling, “tell me why you say that you will never be married and why you cannot marry the Earl?”
He knew that the deep note in his voice and the nearness of him affected her.
Then, as if he took her will away from her and it was impossible to withstand him, her eyes looked into his, and in a broken little voice that was very near to tears, she whispered,
“I-I – love you – I c-cannot – help it – I love you and how could I – let – another – man t-touch me?”
“No other man ever shall!”
His lips were on hers.
He felt her stiffen as if from sheer shock and then she surrendered herself to the insistence of his kiss.
He did not know that a woman’s mouth could be so soft, sweet and innocent and yet at the same time exciting in a way that he had never known before.
As his arms tightened around her, the Marquis knew that he had found something that he had always been seeking. While it had eluded him and he was not quite certain what it was, he had known that it was there, only out of reach.
Now it was his and he recognised it as love, the real love that had nothing in common with the fiery but easily quenched passion he had known with so many other women.
To Kistna it was as if the Heavens had opened and the Marquis, who she had identified long ago as St. Michael, carried her up into the Divine light that she had always been aware was part of love.
She heard music and there were the songs of angels combined with the scent of flowers.
This was the ultimate wonder, the beauty that she had always searched for, but which in all its perfection could only come to her through somebody she loved.
She knew that she loved the Marquis as her mother had loved her father and his lips holding her captive gave her a beauty which was a part of God.
When the Marquis raised his head, she said in a voice that vibrated with the rapture he had aroused in her,
“I-I love you – and what I really – wanted before I – died was for you to – kiss me – ”
“How can you wish to die when you belong to me?” he asked. “And I know now that I can never lose you and never let you go!”
It seemed for a moment as if the last rays of the sun lit her face and she stammered,
“D-do you – mean I can – stay with you – and not have to – m-marry – ?”
“You will marry me!” the Marquis declared firmly.
The start she gave told him that the idea had never crossed her mind and he said,
“You must try to forgive me, my darling, for having been so absurdly blind and so stupid as not to realise until now that I loved you and you are everything I want my wife to be.”
“Do you – mean that – do you really mean it?”
“I love you!” the Marquis said simply.
He was kissing her again, kissing her with long, slow demanding kisses that seemed to Kistna to draw her soul from between her lips so that she became his and she was no longer herself but him –
*
A long time later, when the first stars were coming out overhead, the Marquis said in a voice that sounded strange and very unlike his own,
“I think, my precious one, we should move from this very precarious position. If you fell into the lake now, we might both be drowned!”
Kistna gave a little cry of horror.
“You must be careful – very careful.”
The Marquis smiled.
“That is what I should be saying to you, so stand very still and hold onto me while I untie that rope from around your ankles.”
He bent down as he spoke and released her and then, picking up the linen sack, which was in fact very heavy, he threw it into the water.
As it splashed and sank out of sight, the Marquis knew with a shudder that, if he had been just a few seconds later, it would have been impossible to save Kistna and she would have drowned as she had intended.
Nobody would ever have known what had happened to her and it was doubtful if her body would ever have been recovered.
As if he was afraid even to think of anything so horrifying, he lifted her in his arms and carried her away from the water’s edge towards the trees.
“I ought to be extremely angry with you!” he said.
“P-please forgive me,” Kistna pleaded. “It was – only because I – loved you so desp
erately – that I would rather – die than leave you.”
“You will never leave me!” the Marquis said. “I know now, as I should have known long ago, that I cannot contemplate life without you.”
“I thought,” she said in a low voice, “that if you – would love me – for a month – a week – even a d-day – I would be grateful and try to ask for – nothing more.”
“I intend that you shall have a great deal more,” the Marquis replied. “Me, for instance, as long as we both shall live!”
Kistna gave a little cry.
“That is what I want, to be with you – to love you and be in – Heaven.”
The Marquis set her down on the ground in the shade of an almond tree.
“If Heaven is here on earth,” he said, “that is what I shall give you, but you will have to make it a Heaven for me too.”
“That is what it will be – if you are – there,” Kistna answered and lifted her lips to his –
*
Later they walked slowly back to the house, taking a long time over it.
Everything Kistna said seemed to the Marquis to invite his kisses and, when they stepped out of the darkness into the light, he thought that love had given her a beauty that was like the sun. She radiated a happiness that was linked with the vibrations coming from himself.
Holding hands they walked into the library to find Peregrine asleep in an armchair with a copy of The Times on his knees.
But before they could speak his name, as if in his dreams he sensed their presence, his eyes opened and he jerked himself into wakefulness.
“Where have you been – ?” he began.
Then, as he saw the expressions on their faces, he gave a cry and rose to his feet.
“What has happened?” he asked, realising that it was an unnecessary question.
It was Kistna who answered him, Kistna, who looked so different from the way she had ever looked before, that it was hard to recognise her.
“We are – to be – married!” she said and it was a paean of happiness.
Peregrine gave a cry of delight and flung The Times high in the air.
“Hoorah!” he cried. “That is what I hoped! Congratulations, Linden! I thought sooner or later you would see sense!”
“Sense?” the Marquis questioned. “Is that what you call it?”
He spoke lightly, turned to smile at Kistna and, as Peregrine saw the expression in his eyes, he knew that all he had wanted for his friend had come true.
After a great many false starts and a number of disappointments, the Marquis had won the race for love that had always eluded him.
Peregrine knew as they gazed at each other that he was for the moment forgotten and that he intruded on something so beautiful that it was almost a shock when he announced,
“We must drink to this! May I order a bottle of champagne?”
“I think it is more important that Kistna has something to eat,” the Marquis said.
“I am too happy – to be hungry,” she replied.
“Nevertheless, because it is good for you, I want you to eat something to please me.”
“You know I would do – anything to – please you,” she said in a low voice.
They were standing close to each other and once again they were looking into each other’s eyes as if they spoke without words and could hardly believe the glory they found there.
“You rang, my Lord?” the butler asked from the door.
With an effort the Marquis came back to reality.
“Ask the chef to prepare a light supper for Miss Kistna and bring a bottle of champagne.”
“Very good, my Lord.”
The butler was just about to close the door when there was a footman at his side and he took from the man a silver salver on which there reposed a letter and brought it to the Marquis.
“This arrived, my Lord, a few minutes ago. It reached the Post Office, I understand, too late to be delivered at the usual time, but as it is marked Urgent and comes from abroad, the Post Master sent his son up to the house with it.”
The Marquis took the letter from the salver.
“Thank him,” he said to the butler, “and reward the boy.”
“I’ll see to it, my Lord.”
The Marquis, looking down at the letter, said with a smile,
“It is from Rome and it must therefore concern my Ward, Mirabelle.”
He smiled at Kistna and added,
“There is no need now, my darling, for you to have to impersonate her or anybody else. All I want is that you should be you. And my wife!”
“H-how soon can we be – m-married?”
“I have no intention of waiting for one moment longer than is necessary,” the Marquis replied. “Nor do I intend to have a large and fashionable Wedding.”
Kistna gave a little cry.
“Oh, no, please – we want nobody there but – ourselves.”
“And Peregrine,” the Marquis added. “He will have to give you away, be Best Man and our witness!”
“Thank you,” Peregrine said wryly. “I am only surprised you don’t wish me to play the organ as well!”
“I would make you do that if I thought you were capable of it!” the Marquis teased him.
“Of course we want him at our Wedding,” Kistna smiled.
Then she looked at the Marquis and murmured almost nervously,
“It is – true? It is really – true that you will – marry me?”
“Very true!” the Marquis answered her definitely.
Then, as if he could not help himself, he put his arm around her and drew her close to him.
She put her cheek in a caressing little gesture against his shoulder.
Then as if she was embarrassed by her own emotions she said,
“Open the letter. After all it is marked Urgent.”
As she spoke, she was afraid that it might contain something that would prevent the Marquis from being married as soon as he intended.
As if he too felt anxious, the Marquis walked to his desk and, picking up his gold and jewelled letter-opener, slit the envelope and drew out a thin sheet of paper.
He read it while Kistna watched him with eyes that, Peregrine thought, expressed her love very eloquently.
The Marquis finished the letter and looked up and smiled.
“They say that lightning never strikes twice,” he said, “but obviously one marriage breeds another!”
“What has happened?” Peregrine enquired.
“Mirabelle’s aunt writes to tell me that she has fallen in love with the young Prince di Borghese and he with her. As he is an extremely rich young man, there is no question of his being interested only in her fortune and she therefore hopes that I will give my permission for them to become engaged and for the marriage to take place before the end of the summer.”
The Marquis put out his hand towards Kistna.
“I think, my darling,” he said, “you and I might include Rome in our honeymoon tour and attend my Ward’s Wedding, which will be very different in every way from ours.”
“Our honeymoon!” Kistna murmured, feeling that word was more important to her than anything else the Marquis had said.
“Our honeymoon abroad,” the Marquis smiled. “I want us to be alone which would be difficult in England where everybody will want to meet you.”
Kistna gave a little cry.
“Then please – please let’s go abroad – I want to be – alone with you.”
The way she spoke was very moving and the Marquis threw the letter down on his desk and put his arms around her.
“We will be married the day after tomorrow,” he said firmly. “I will send Anderson to London to obtain a Special Licence and before anyone is aware of what has happened we will be on our way to Paris!”
“No, to – Heaven!” Kistna said softly. “Our Heaven – yours and mine.”
*
The room in which they had dinner was small but very attractive. As Kistna had said
when she first saw it, the small Manor House the Marquis owned a little way off the Dover Road was just like a doll’s house.
“What can you want with a house there, when you have the Abbey?” she had asked when the Marquis told her where they would spend the first night of their honeymoon.
“I keep a change of horses on the Dover Road and I prefer them to be in my own stables rather than in those of a Posting inn.”
“You are very grand!” she teased him.
“No, practical,” he answered. “I must have known through some inner sense that one day the Manor House would be a perfect place to start our honeymoon in.”
They had been married in the Chapel at the Abbey and it had seemed to Kistna redolent with the faith of ages.
She fancied that the monks, who had first worshipped there, were joining in the prayers said by the Marquis’s Chaplain and that she could hear their deep voices behind the music of the organ.
It was on Peregrine’s arm that she had walked into the Chapel to find the Marquis waiting for her.
“Mrs. Dawes says it is unlucky for a bridegroom to see his future wife before the Service on their Wedding Day,” Kistna had said, “and I want to be very very lucky, so I will just stay in my room until I meet you in the Chapel.”
“You have brought me luck already,” the Marquis replied, “I have never felt so happy, so content or so excited about the future.”
‘That is what I want you to feel. But supposing I – bore you as I have been told you have been – bored by so many – beautiful women?”
“What I feel for you is very different,” the Marquis said firmly and knew that was the truth.
Now, as he looked at Kistna across the small table, which had been decorated with white flowers, he wondered, as he had a thousand times already, how he had not recognised her as his ideal from the moment they had first met.
In the candlelight, wearing a white gown with real orange blossom in her hair, she looked so lovely and the very embodiment of youth, beauty and happiness that the Marquis thought only music could describe her adequately.
“I love you!” he said.
As if there were no other words that could express what they were both feeling, Kistna replied,
“I love – you – but I – worship you too because to me you have always seemed to be – St. Michael – who came to rescue me from the darkness of Hell and lift me into the light of Heaven.”
From Hell to Heaven Page 14