An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (101 page)

‘One moment, Robert,’ she said coolly. ‘Before you talk to me about what has happened tonight, I have something I wish to say to you. Eric came here today.’

‘Eric!’

‘Yes, Eric,’ Violet repeated. ‘He drove over from Nice. He brought me news from England. His uncle, Sir Harold Featherstone, is dead, and he has made Eric his heir.’

‘Indeed! That is an excellent thing, I suppose, for Eric,’ Robert said.

It was obvious that he thought the story was of little consequence, but politely he let her continue without interruption.

‘Eric also told me,’ Violet went on quickly, ‘that his brother Alwyn was divorcing his wife. She has run away with another man and left her two children behind. Eric is more or less adopting them. He is taking them to Medway Park, the house his uncle has left him in Norfolk.’

She paused, then after a second she continued,

‘There is one other thing Eric told me – that my room at Medway Park is waiting should I wish to occupy it. He is ready to take me back, Robert, indeed he feels that I have never really left him, that I have always been his wife in name if not in fact.’

She could not look at Robert now. She could not bear to see what she knew would be there, the relief in his eyes.

She had saved him from humiliating himself and he would never know it.

‘I don’t want you to think hardly of me, Robert,’ Violet went on. ‘I don’t want to hurt you in any way, but I feel I cannot leave Eric alone to bring up two children, to manage a big house and estate without a wife to help him. When you came in, I was writing to him to tell him that I am going to join him in England.’

‘When?’

The monosyllable seemed to come abruptly from Robert’s lips.

‘Tomorrow or the next day,’ Violet replied airily. ‘As soon as I can close the Villa and pay off the servants.’

She felt there was almost a note of hysteria in her voice, but it seemed as if Robert noticed nothing. He walked towards the window with his back towards her.

‘You must do what you think best,’ he said at length. ‘If Eric really wants you – ’

‘He does,’ Violet interrupted. ‘He loves me, has always loved me in his own way.’

‘Then – ’

Robert turned. Her eyes searched his face, taking in every detail, striving to remember the clear outline of his square jaw, the curve of his lips.

‘Then I suppose that we – ’ he began, and stopped.

Violet made a sudden gesture with her hands.

‘Don’t let’s talk about it! I hate good-byes! There is nothing worse than mooning over a love affair that is finished, or having a post mortem on a passion that has died.’

‘Are you sure you mean that?’ Robert asked.

‘Yes, of course I mean it.’

Violet turned towards the mantelpiece and moved a china ornament from one place to another.

‘My dear Robert, everything comes to an end in time, even happiness. Don’t let us say good-bye conventionally, with all the frills and conventional expressions of gratitude. Let us remember things as they were and forget that there is no tomorrow. It is so much better that way.’

‘It is of course exactly as you wish,’ Robert said, and this time she heard the relief in his voice.

She felt for a moment that she could not go on, that she must tell him the truth. But once again her love triumphed over her weakness. She gave a little sigh.

‘Dear Robert,’ she said. ‘What fun it has been! I don’t think I have ever enjoyed the South of France as much as I have this year. I shall miss the sunshine in Norfolk, for I always think it is a particularly grey county – ’

Even as she spoke the adjective she felt a pang shoot through her. The word was inseparably connected with one person! She knew now that she could stand no more, that she must bring the curtain down on her act before her audience discovered how inadequate an actress she was.

She put her hand to her forehead.

‘Robert, you must go,’ she said. ‘I am tired and I have a headache. If you can help me in any way tomorrow, I will send a note to your Hotel asking you to come here. If you do not hear from me, it will be because I am too busy. I must finish this letter to Eric and then I shall literally fall into bed. I am exhausted at making so many decisions in one day.’

As she spoke, she moved across the room to the bureau, seated herself and took up a pen.

‘Good night, Robert,’ she said over her shoulder.

He was nonplussed and bewildered by her behaviour, but he was, as she had known he would he, utterly convinced of the sincerity of her acting. He moved slowly towards the door. As he reached it, he looked back. She could not help but look at him. There was consideration and a strange gallantry in his face.

‘You are quite – sure, Violet?’ he asked.

‘Sure?’ she questioned. ‘That I am going back to Eric? But of course I am sure. Can you imagine Eric bringing up two children without me being there to see to everything?’

She turned to her letter.

She heard the door of the sitting room close.

She heard Robert’s feet crossing the hall, she heard him shut the front door and walk down the garden steps. She sat very still, listening for a long time after there was no sound save the slow methodical ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.

Then slowly, very slowly she lowered her head onto her arms. The tears did not come for a long time, but when they did, they shook her from head to foot, a tempest of utter misery such as she had never experienced in the whole of her life before. And she knew then that she was weeping not only for Robert but her lost youth.

Robert walked away into the warm night with what seemed a paean of thankfulness in his heart. It was only now in the utter relief that Violet’s decision had brought him that he realised how terribly afraid he had been of telling her that their love affair was at an end.

He had known, though he had not dared voice it to himself, that if she appealed to him to save her good name, if she asked him to behave honourably towards her, he must do so, whatever the cost to himself.

But now he was safe! Safe and free to return to Cheveron. He felt as if he had come through some desperate battle by a hair’s breadth. Even now he was not certain how near he had been to defeat or annihilation. He was free, that was all that mattered, free, he thought as he watched the flowers turning their faces towards the morning sun, to ask Mistral to marry him.

He sat so long in the window that when he glanced at the clock he started hastily to his feet and was forced to bathe and change his clothes in almost record time. Even so, when he arrived at the Chapel of
St. Dévote
, the service was nearly finished. He had meant to get there earlier, but he had sat watching the dawn for too long. He guessed that today of all days, even though she might be feeling the ill effects of what had happened last night, Mistral would go to Early Mass.

He pushed open the baize-covered door of the Chapel.

It was dim and cool inside, the only lights coming from the candles illuminating the Chancel. There were not many people there and most of them were elderly women in black.

He could see Mistral kneeling near the front. She was not wearing a hat, but her head was covered with a soft scarf of grey lace which matched her dress.

Robert hesitated, not certain what to do, a little wary of this strange service in a foreign church. Suddenly a bell tinkled, and the Priest at the Altar raised his hands. Robert did not know what was happening. He only knew that he wanted to kneel, he wanted to make an act of worship. He found himself on his knees in the back pew, his head bent, his hands clasped together in front of him. He did not understand Latin in which the service was being conducted, but somehow it was unimportant. He only knew there was a presence here in this small, dimly lit Chapel which brought him a sense of self-revelation such as he had never known before.

He saw now how bitterly he had failed his mother and the high ideals she had taught him from boyhood.

He saw how he had failed Cheveron, tarnishing a little its pride and its glory, of which he had been so proud to be responsible. He thought of all the people who worked there, of their loyalty to him and how their trust and respect meant more than anything else in the whole world. And suddenly he was no longer the important, rich Sir Robert Stanford but a humble and penitent little boy who had done a great many things that were wrong.

The bell at the Altar rang again and Robert began to repeat a prayer that he had said every night of his life at his mother’s knee until he went away to a boarding school.

‘Please God, bless Papa and Mama, my dogs and pony, and everyone at Cheveron and make me a good boy. Amen.’

He prayed then as he had never thought it possible to pray, the words unimportant, the intensity behind them coming from the very depths of his soul in absolute and complete sincerity. And when he had finished, he felt as if he waited in a strange, frightening silence for a verdict on himself. Then it seemed to him that a
Hand
was laid on his head and he knew he was forgiven. His repentance had been accepted, he was absolved, he was free once more to do better in the future.

With a feeling of sudden lightness and elasticity he opened his eyes. The service was over and he had not known it. The Chapel was almost empty and the lights were extinguished in the Chancel. The Priest had gone.

He saw Mistral rise and come down the aisle towards him. Her face was alight with happiness, her eyes mystical as if she had kept company with the angels and had not yet completely returned to earth.

She was almost level with his pew before she saw him, still on his knees, watching her. She stopped, her hand going to her breast in an exquisitely graceful gesture. He rose then and taking her other hand on his he raised her fingers to his lips. He could not speak.

‘I knew you would come,’ she said simply, and his fingers tightened on hers.

They stood looking at each other for a breathless moment and he thought that he had never known that any woman’s beauty could be divine until this moment.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he managed to say at length a little unsteadily.

‘I am alone,’ Mistral replied. ‘Jeanne was not well this morning, so I came here by myself.’

‘Then I can say what I have to say now, and at once,’ Robert answered and drew her closer to his side.

As if in answer to an unspoken command Mistral sat down in the pew and after a moment Robert seated himself beside her. There were shafts of sunshine coming through the coloured glass window over the west door and one of them just touched the top of Mistral’s golden head.

‘Is it wrong for me to talk to you here?’ Robert asked, his voice very low.

‘No, of course not,’ Mistral smiled. ‘We bring our sorrows to God, why shouldn’t we bring Him our happiness too?’

‘You are happy then?’

She nodded as if her heart were too full for words, but he saw that she was trembling and felt her fingers quiver beneath his.

‘You know what I want to say to you,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you to marry me, to honour me by becoming my wife. I love you, my darling. I love you more than I believed it possible for a man to love any woman. I will protect and care for you for the whole of your life, if you will trust yourself to me.’

He knew her answer without waiting to hear her speak the words. He saw it in the radiance in her eyes, in the glorious, glowing happiness which seemed to light her whole face. But he waited – waited until very softly he heard her whisper.

‘I love you, too!’

He put his arms round her and drew her close. He felt her quiver and then – he found her lips. Together they knew an ecstasy and a wonder that was not of this world. For a long, long moment they were joined together – one and undivided then it seemed as if human nature broke beneath the strain and Mistral hid her face against his shoulder.

‘I love you,’ Robert said. ‘Oh, my sweet, my little darling, I love you so.’

She raised her face, then she looked not at him but towards the altar.

‘I always knew,’ she said very slowly, ‘that love would be like this.’

‘Like what?’ he asked.

‘Holy,’ she answered. ‘Sacred, a part of our love for God.’

The purity and wonder in her voice made Robert feel he was very near to tears. He bent his head and kissed her fingers with a prayer in his heart that he would never fail her.

Mistral drew a deep breath.

‘We must go back,’ she said.

They left the Church together hand in hand. Outside the sun seemed almost blinding and they stood for a moment at the top of the steps.

‘Did you bring a carriage?’ Mistral asked at length, ‘or are we going to walk?’

‘I was late so I drove here,’ Robert replied. ‘I told the coachman I should want him again and I expect he is just round the corner. I will go and call him if you will wait here.’

‘I won’t run away,’ Mistral answered and laughed from sheer happiness.

Robert went down the steps. As he had anticipated, the coachman was half asleep in the shade of some olive trees further down the road. Robert hailed him and he awoke with a start. He gathered up the reins and reached for a whip.

Robert turned to go back to Mistral, but as he did so, he noticed for the first time that a man was approaching on horseback. He recognised him instantly and quickly walked back up the steps of the Church to Mistral’s side. He took her hand in his.

‘I have just seen the Rajah,’ he said. ‘I am warning you because I don’t wish you to feel frightened when you see him again. I am with you now and nothing will happen, but I promise that I will deal with him later in the day.’

He saw Mistral’s face whiten, saw the sudden fear in her eyes, but there was not time to say more. The Rajah was in sight and with a quick glance he saw them standing hand-in- hand. Robert expected him to pass without salutation or acknowledgement of their presence, but to his surprise the Rajah reined in his horse at the foot of the steps.

‘Sir Robert!’ he called.

Robert looked down at him with an expression of disdain and did not reply.

‘I have something of great importance to say to you,’ the Rajah said. ‘Will you come to me or must I come to you?’ Robert felt Mistral give a sudden shudder. For her sake he went forward, descending the steps to the Rajah’s side.