202. Love in the Dark Read online

  Susanna gave a little laugh.

  She was quite certain that like Lorenzo the Magnificent he would always be the Ruler and the Commander in life.

  At first she had felt shy of calling him by his Christian name, but after a while she grew used to it.

  Because he always called his secretary ‘Chambers’, there was no question that Susanna would address him except as Mr. Chambers, but, as if he thought that such respect was due only to his age, he called her by her Christian name.

  “Do you realise,” Susanna said now as the horses began to climb up the hill towards the Villa, “we have been here for nearly a month? Sometimes it seems as if the weeks have passed in a matter of seconds, at others as if I had lived here always and known no other life.”

  “Time is relative,” Mr. Chambers answered. “When one is happy, it passes in a flash, when one is worried or miserable, it drags its feet in an infuriating manner.”

  Susanna did not reply.

  She was thinking with a kind of horror that her days were numbered.

  When the bandages were finally removed from Fyfe’s eyes, he would not only no longer need her, but she knew that anyway she must leave.

  She could not bear that he should see what she really looked like, when he was still thinking that she was beautiful and resembled the pictures in the Uffizi Gallery.

  Only yesterday he had remarked, à propos of nothing,

  “I was thinking I would like to see you painted in the garden. And, of course, the right setting would be with the lilies all around you.”

  Susanna drew in her breath.

  She had described to him so often how beautiful the lilies looked growing in a profusion that she had never seen before.

  They made one corner of the garden where they were framed by green shrubs and cypress trees a picture of such beauty that she felt she must pray every time she saw it.

  “Perhaps you would look best in that alcove in the sitting room,” Fyfe had gone on reflectively. “It would make you seem as if you were in a shrine.

  Susanna had risen hastily to her feet.

  “You are being too imaginative,” she said. “Anyway, I have no wish to be painted.”

  “Why not?” Fyfe asked. “Surely those who love you would want to remember you as you look now? Like a rose coming into bud.”

  “You are quoting from that ridiculous book we read yesterday," Susanna countered crossly. “I am not in the least like a rose.”

  “At the moment you certainly sound like a flower that has plenty of thorns,” Fyfe retorted.

  “Mind they don’t prick you!” Susanna snapped.

  Then they laughed like two children who found the game they were playing irresistibly amusing.

  “I have told you before not to talk about me,” Susanna said reseating herself, “and just as a punishment I am going to read you an extremely dull article on the world situation!”

  “If you do, I shall throw something at you,” Fyfe threatened. “And blind or not I would not mind taking a bet that I shall hit you!”

  “In which case I shall certainly throw something back,” Susanna replied, “and I have the advantage that I shall be able to see where I am aiming.”

  “That will make no difference since, as you are a woman, you will undoubtedly miss me.”

  They sparred with each other in a way that would have delighted Mr. Chambers.

  Fyfe was no longer sensitive about speaking of his injuries. He never talked of being blind for life, but was optimistically making plans as to what he would do as soon as the bandages were removed.

  Susanna, however, wanted to change the conversation to other subjects.

  She shrank away from visualising what would happen when she could no longer stay with him, when he would go back to the life he had known before and be surrounded by his friends.

  Sometimes she read about them in the newspapers and he would make disparaging comments.

  “They always describe Loraine as ‘the most beautiful girl in America’,” he said once, “but I can tell you she has the temper of the Devil and, once she gets her claws into some wretched man, she squeezes him dry!”

  As she spoke, Susanna was glad that the girl, whose face she was looking at in the magazine, did not attract him.

  She found herself unaccountably jealous when he spoke about the past with pleasure.

  “Dear old Chris. I am glad he is getting married at last!” he said of some notable young Senator. “But I suppose that will mean goodbye to his bachelor parties. God, they were fun! No one ever went home until the dawn broke.”

  Susanna had not replied and after a moment he said,

  “I suppose you have never been to an American party?”

  “Or to any – other sort of party,” Susanna replied truthfully.

  “Why not?”

  She was just about to say that she had not been allowed to, when she remembered that she was pretending to be older than she really was.

  She kept silent and after a moment Fyfe said,

  “I assume that your parents could not afford parties. When I am well, we will give a party that is more original and different from anything anyone has given before.”

  He thought for a moment and then he continued,

  “Everything will be ablaze with lights because I can see them. The house, the garden and the flowers will be lit and there will be fireworks lighting up the sky.”

  “They will not be as effective as the stars or the fireflies,” Susanna pointed out.

  She thought how every night when she slipped out to swim in the pool the fireflies seemed to envelop her as if they were the children of the stars.

  It was then she imagined to herself that they were part of the light that emanated from her because she really was the Goddess she pretended to be.

  She had never quite captured the ecstasy of that first night when she had thought of herself as Venus and became one with the wonder and beauty of the whole Universe.

  It was nevertheless an enchantment that never palled to swim naked in the warm water, to smell the fragrance of the garden all around her and to feel that Heaven itself blessed her.

  “What are you thinking about?” Fyfe asked her suddenly.

  “I was wondering how soon you will be able to swim in that beautiful pool that your father built.”

  “Very soon,” he replied. “I have no bandages left on my arms now, the skin has healed completely.”

  “I am – so glad.”

  “Clint tells me that there are a few scars left. I suppose I shall have those for the rest of my life, but as I am not a woman it will not matter. Is your skin white?”

  His question made Susanna start. She put out her arm as if she inspected it for the first time.

  “I suppose it must have been before I came here,” she replied, “but as I walk about the garden without a hat and without a sunshade it now has a touch of gold.”

  “Like your voice.”

  There was something in the way he spoke which sent a little thrill through her.

  Last night, when she had crept out into the garden to bathe in the pool, she had sat on the edge of it and looked up at the sky.

  There was no moon, but the stars were so brilliant that it was possible to see clearly. The fireflies were dancing above their reflection in the water.

  ‘The first night I came here,’ Susanna told herself, ‘I asked God to give me love. He has answered my prayer, but it is more of an agony than a joy.’

  She had faced the fact a long time ago that she loved Fyfe in a way that she had never thought it possible to love anybody.

  It was a blessing and a delight to be with him.

  It was an agony that was physical as well as mental to know that she could never mean anything in his life and that she would have to spend the future without him.

  She was far too intelligent to think that her Fairy story could end happily or that Prince Charming would ever care for her as she cared for him.

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sp; She knew only too well what he would think when he first saw her.

  ‘I love him!’ Susanna said to the stars, ‘and I must never regret that I have known love and that it can fill my life as it does now to the exclusion of all else. But this is only a dream.’

  She went on to think that it was a dream so beautiful and so perfect that she should go down on her knees in gratitude that she had been given what she had asked for and it was even more wonderful than she had imagined it could ever be.

  But the awakening drew nearer every day.

  Then there would be the loneliness and the thought of the long years ahead when Fyfe would not be there and she would only have her memories of him.

  Because she knew that every minute and every second was precious, she was always with him unless he was asleep.

  In consequence she had seen little of Florence, simply because even to look at the buildings, the pictures and the sculptures was a waste of time if she could be with Fyfe instead.

  Because she was in love she wanted to make him happy.

  She had found not only a large library in the Villa that was filled with books collected by his father, mostly about Italy, but Mr. Chambers had only too willingly agreed to send to Rome and Paris for other books that she felt would interest not only Fyfe but herself.

  She blessed Miss Harding who had opened her eyes to so many literary giants who she would otherwise never have heard of.

  Miss Harding’s father had been a teacher of literature at one of the famous Public Schools and her knowledge ranged over so many different fields that Susanna now found stood her in good stead.

  “I think French is more suited to your voice than any other language,” Fyfe had said after she had read to him Les Fleurs du Mai by Charles Baudelaire.

  Again it was a strange choice, although she was not aware of it, for a young girl.

  Baudelaire drew poetry from reality. He was haunted by a sense of damnation, which drove him to revolt and blasphemy.

  He longed for the discovery of the Beyond and his poems gave rise to arguments on the After Life, which had Susanna and Fyfe sparring with each other until Clint insisted that his patient should go to bed.

  “I refuse to be bullied,” Fyfe said angrily. “For Heaven’s sake stop croaking at me!”

  “You know what the doctor said, sir,” Clint retorted. “‘Rest, rest, rest!’ That’s one thing your tongue’s not doin’ nor your mind.”

  “If I want to stay up, I shall do so,” Fyfe thundered.

  Susanna had risen to her feet.

  “Clint is right,” she said. “We can go on discussing this tomorrow and doubtless in the quiet watches of the night I shall think up some further ammunition to fire at you.”

  “And doubtless look up some sources for it,” Fyfe responded. “It’s not fair. I am going to think of a way that you can be handicapped so that occasionally I can win the race.”

  “Perhaps I will be magnanimous and let you win one occasionally,” Susanna replied.

  She had left his bedroom as he shouted after her that he wanted no favours.

  She had been laughing as she went into her own room. Then she had undressed and sat up in bed reading, until it was late enough for her to go into the garden and swim.

  *

  The horses had reached the Villa and Susanna looked for the first glimpse of the long white building between the cypress trees.

  ‘It is like reaching Paradise to be home,’ she thought to herself.

  But she knew that it was not the Villa that drew her, but the man it contained.

  There was a short drive, then as Susanna had her first glimpse of the front door, she drew in her breath.

  There were a number of men outside it, all talking it seemed at once.

  “Who are – they? What do they – want?” she asked Mr. Chambers hesitantly and she saw the frown between his eyes.

  The horses drew to a standstill and the men, eight of them, turned with an expression of interest, to look at the new arrivals.

  Susanna saw Clint standing in the doorway and realised that he had been talking to the men. There was something in his attitude that told her without words that he was on the defensive.

  Susanna climbed out of the carriage carrying her present carefully and, as Mr. Chambers followed, one of the men asked,

  “Are you Mr. Falcon’s secretary ?”

  “If I am, what has that to do with you?” Mr. Chambers asked.

  “I represent the New York Herald,” the man replied. “We’ve been trying to find out where Mr. Falcon had gone and now I and these other gentlemen who represent a number of different newspapers are anxious to have a statement from him on the new development of his car.”

  Mr. Chambers walked up the steps leading into the house before he turned to say,

  “Mr. Falcon, as you all know, has had a very serious accident. He has nothing to say at the moment and on his doctor’s advice can give no interviews.”

  As he finished speaking, Mr. Chambers took Susanna by the arm and led her into the Villa.

  A roar of questions followed them, some Susanna noted, in English, others in Italian, French and German.

  Then the American from the New York Herald who had spoken first shouted,

  “And who is the pretty dame?”

  By this time they were inside the Villa and Susanna thought that the reporter was being sarcastic.

  Clint closed the door behind them.

  “I’m glad you arrived when you did, sir,” he said. “They were so persistent I was afraid they’d force their way in and insist on seein’ the Master.”

  “You know how much he would dislike that,” Mr. Chambers replied.

  “And yet it wouldn’t have been as bad today as it would have been other days,” Clint remarked.

  Susanna wondered why he should say that.

  They were walking along the passage and she realised that Mr. Chambers was going straight to Fyfe’s room.

  Clint moved ahead to open the door for them and, as if he was determined to have his say first, he announced before either of them could speak,

  “Mr. Chambers got rid of them, sir, but they were awful persistent.”

  As she entered the room, Susanna looked at Fyfe who, as she expected, was sitting in an armchair by the open window.

  Then she gave a little cry of surprise and excitement.

  His eyes were still bandaged, but it was only a straight bandage encircling his head and all the previous ones that had given him a strange mummified appearance ever since she had first seen him had gone!

  His chin, the lower part of his cheeks, half his nose and his neck were clear.

  Now he looked really like a man.

  Forgetting everything else she ran across the room to kneel down beside his chair to ask,

  “Why did you not – tell me? How could I have – guessed that this was – going to happen today?”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise,” Fyfe answered in his deep voice.

  “It is wonderful! Really wonderful! And there are no scars on your face such as you expected.”

  “That is what Clint said, but are you sure?”

  “Completely sure,” Susanna answered, looking at the smoothness of his chin.

  “It feels tender now that my beard has been shaved off,” Fyfe said, putting up his hand, “but I certainly feel more human and no longer a disembodied spirit.”

  “You were never that,” Susanna said, “but it is amazing!”

  His skin looked slightly pink, but otherwise there was nothing to show where he had been burnt.

  Now, she thought, the only question was whether the operation had been successful and his eyes had been saved.

  She did not say so aloud because already Mr. Chambers was talking to him about the reporters.

  “They want you to make a statement on the tests of the new model.”

  “We hardly know anything ourselves yet.”

  “I said you had no comment to make.”
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  “Cable Stevens is to issue a report as soon as it is available.”

  “I think it best for you to do that yourself,” Mr. Chambers said. “They claimed that there are still adjustments to be made, so let the Press wait for them.”

  “Yes, you are right,” Fyfe agreed. “If they think there is anything new, we shall just have them back again tomorrow.”

  “I am afraid so,” Mr. Chambers agreed. “I suppose it was impossible to cover our tracks completely.”

  “I am only surprised that they did not find us before,” Fyfe said. “You know how persistent they can be once they are on the scent of a story.”

  “Perhaps we have been fortunate,” Mr. Chambers said, “and may I say how glad I am that you are taking it in such a philosophical manner?”

  “Perhaps I have acquired some wisdom here in the City of the wise,” Fyfe replied, “or perhaps Susanna has taught me a little sense.”

  “Personally I think the latter is the best explanation,” Mr. Chambers said lightly and he walked from the room followed by Clint.

  Susanna was still kneeling by Fyfe’s chair.

  “I am bewildered and curious,” she said. “I thought your name was ‘Dunblane’.”

  “It was my mother’s and I thought that I was entitled to it when I wished to be incognito.”

  “So you are really Fyfe Falcon and I must have heard about you if you own the Falcon motor car.”

  Fyfe put back his head and laughed.

  “Such is fame! I always believed myself to be an international figure.”

  “Well, at least you can have the pleasure of telling me how important you are.”

  She gave a little cry.

  “But of course! You must have raced your own cars. Or were you one of those who recorded such amazing speeds on Daytona Beach?”

  “Got it in one!” Fyfe exclaimed. “I always thought you were intelligent, even when it came to motor cars!”

  “I admit I know nothing about them,” Susanna replied. “Papa has always talked about buying one, but really I preferred his horses. Mama uses an electric brougham sometimes, but I think she feels more elegant when she is driving behind a very smart pair of horses.”