Seek the Stars Page 12
‘How can he have come to Fez at all and just at the right moment?’ she asked herself.
When she had found the baby in the back room, she had come out just as the staircase had collapsed.
It had spread the fire all over the ground floor and the front wall of the house was a mass of flames.
It seemed to her then that there was nothing that was not on fire and burning out of control.
She had thought that both she and the baby in her arms would be burned to death.
‘Help me – help me – God!’ she had prayed fervently.
At that moment she had seen a tall figure shrouded in a djellaba coming resolutely towards her through the flames.
The strange robe he was wearing disguised him, but she knew instinctively who it was.
Her prayer had been answered and there was no need for her to say anything.
She only knew, as he covered her with the wet djellaba and picked her up in his arms, that she need no longer be afraid.
She had hidden her face against his shoulder as he had told her to do.
Later, as he carried her along the twisting darkened streets, she had felt herself drifting away.
There was now no fear, only a comforting feeling of safety and thankfulness that she was still alive and she thought now that she must have been hardly conscious.
The Earl had carried her into The Palace and straight up the stairs.
He had set her down on the bed and she had looked up at him.
Then he had bent his head and kissed her.
She could still feel, as she thought about it again and again, the sudden shaft of ecstasy that had run through her.
It was like nothing she had known before in her entire life.
And she told herself now that he had kissed her only as he might have kissed a child.
But there had been nothing childlike in what she had felt.
Although she hardly dared to admit it to herself, she realised that she wanted him to kiss her again.
She lay thinking of the Earl just as a man, not worrying as to why he was here or how he had found her.
She found herself drifting away again into a dream world that made her feel very happy and content.
A short time later a maid peeped in to her bedroom see if she was awake.
Sadira raised her head to ask the time and was told that it was just after midday.
‘How can I have slept for so long?’ she asked herself incredulously
She knew that it was a combination of the voyage, the long ride from Tangier and the sheer terror of the fire.
The maid brought her some food to eat and a colourful bowel of exotic fruit, which she greatly enjoyed.
When she suggested that she would like to get up, the maid told her in broken French that his Lordship had gone driving with the Sultan.
He had strict her given orders that she was to stay in bed and rest for the day and indeed Sadira had no wish to do anything else.
But she felt guilty at allowing herself to be treated as an invalid when she had promised to help Father Christopher in his good works.
However, there were, she now remembered, a great number of people in the house where she had stayed.
She knew that they would hasten to help him as she had done before.
It grew very hot in the afternoon and Sadira drifted off to sleep again.
When she finally awoke, she was aware with a leap of her heart that she was not alone in the room.
Sitting beside her on the divan was the Earl.
She gave a little cry.
“I have been asleep and I did not know – you were – here.”
“I was beginning to think that you were Mrs. Rip Van Winkle!” the Earl teased her.
Sadira sat up in the bed and rested her back against her pillows.
She had no idea how lovely she was looking with her fair hair falling over her shoulders nearly to her waist.
She was wearing a diaphanous nightgown, which she had brought with her because she thought that it was lighter than any of her others.
She did not feel in the slightest self-conscious even though she was in bed and she only thought how handsome the Earl was and how strong and dependable he looked.
“You are all right?” he asked with a note of concern in his voice.
“I am being – lazy only on your – instructions, my Lord,” Sadira answered him.
She gave a little laugh as she added,
“Now that I am feeling so well, I want to dance for joy because you – saved me and that – dear little baby.”
“How could you do anything so reckless and yet so incredibly courageous?” the Earl asked. “When I saw you running through the door of the house and into the flames, I just could not believe my eyes!”
“How could I – let the baby – die?” Sadira asked. “And how could – you be so – wonderful as to be – there so instantly in answer to – my prayers?”
“I thought you were praying,” the Earl commented, “and it was only your prayers that got us safely out of that burning house.”
Sadira smiled at him and he said,
“I have a great deal to tell you.”
“I am listening and I only hope you are not very – angry with – me.”
“I am not angry, but shocked and horrified that you should have run away as you did,” the Earl replied. “I understood, of course, why you wanted to do so.”
Sadira shyly looked away from him, knowing that he was referring to her stepmother.
“Your reasoning, however,” the Earl went on, “was completely wrong.”
“Wrong?” Sadira queried.
“You said in your letter that you thought that, when we were together, I was wishing that there was someone else in your place. That, however, was never the case at all.”
Sadira could not look at him and he continued,
“You thought I was in love, but in fact I have never in the past been in love. That was why I was so determined not to marry.”
Sadira turned to look at him and her eyes were very wide.
“Y-you have – never been in love?” she asked. “I don’t – understand.”
“Then let me explain it to you,” the Earl offered. “You think, because you are young, of love as the ideal and perfect love that we all seek but few are privileged to find.”
He saw that Sadira was looking puzzled as he carried on,
“But while a man may seek for what he thinks of as a jewel without fault or the purity of a lily, he would hardly be inhuman if he refused the other flowers that he encountered by the roadside.”
“What you are – saying,” Sadira said hesitatingly, “is that – you have found other women – attractive – but you did not l-love them.”
“That is it exactly,” the Earl nodded. “It is quite natural for a man and a woman to be attracted physically to each other. For the man it is a pleasure to make her his and what he feels is of great satisfaction to his body, but not to his mind and soul.”
He dropped his voice as he added,
“What I have been seeking all my life is the love that my mother taught me is a part of God. I knew that when I found the woman I really loved I would worship her and hold her in my arms for Eternity.”
Sadira felt herself quiver at the note in his voice as he said the last words.
Before she could say anything, the Earl went on gently,
“And that is what I felt last night when I saw you standing with the baby in your arms and the flames threatening to consume you.”
“Y-you – saved me,” Sadira managed to stutter.
“By the mercy of God I saved you,” the Earl replied, “but, my darling, it is something you must never do again unless you wish to destroy me.”
He saw the sudden radiance that transformed Sadira’s face and he reached out his hands to take hers.
He felt her quiver at his touch and he then spoke to her very softly,
“I love you! I love you wit
h my heart and soul and I have been searching the earth and sky for you all my life!”
“It – cannot be – true!” Sadira whispered.
‘It is true!” the Earl insisted. “I intend to make you love me as I love you and to make certain that you cannot escape me again.”
Sadira felt as if the sunshine dazzled her eyes.
She was bemused, bewildered and at the same time completely entranced by what the Earl was saying to her.
It was impossible to find words to answer him.
His fingers tightened on hers as he said,
“So that you can never escape me, I have arranged that in a very short while Father Christopher will come here to marry us.”
“To – marry – us?”
Sadira could hardly breathe the words, but the Earl heard them.
“I am sure you know that a Missionary carries a consecrated stone with him,” the Earl said. “It seems that he can administer a Holy Sacrament wherever it is needed. When I related to him what I wanted, he told me that he is very proud of you and would be delighted to conduct our Marriage Service.”
“Are you quite – quite certain that – you want to – be married?”
“I am more certain than I have ever been about anything,” the Earl declared. “And, as I have already told you, I am taking no chances, I will not allow you to leave this bed until you are my wife!”
Unexpectedly Sadira laughed.
“I know – this is – a dream,” she protested. “I ran away from England because I thought it would make you happy never to see me again, but now you are telling me we are – to be – married!”
“We will be married,” the Earl affirmed, “and I know, my lovely one, we will be very happy. As you said yourself, we have our horses in common.”
He saw the question in Sadira’s eyes before she asked it.
“Swallow is waiting for you in my stables and Bracken is having a great time with my dogs.”
He saw her apprehension fading away and then he said quietly,
“I have some other news for you. Your stepmother is dead.”
“Dead? How can – she be – dead?” Sadira asked in astonishment.
“I understand from a letter that my secretary sent me that it was a shooting accident.”
Sadira gave a little gasp.
“P-Papa did not – kill her?”
“No, no. It was a man called Lord Cairn, who always carries a revolver with him and also drinks too much.”
He paused and then continued,
“I understand that he was showing your father the revolver, but the trigger was faulty. The gun went off and the bullet struck your stepmother.”
The Earl guessed as he spoke that this was the story that would appear in the newspapers and it was all that Sadira needed to know.
He had no wish for her to receive another shock by learning the truth of what had actually happened.
But she was more intelligent than he gave her credit for.
“Oh, poor Papa!” Sadira exclaimed. “If he has been deceived again, he must be very upset and angry.”
“He is,” the Earl replied, “and that is why, my darling Sadira, I think that, after a short honeymoon, we must go back so that you can comfort him.”
Sadira felt that it was wrong to be glad that her stepmother was no longer alive, but she could not help feeling that a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
There was no longer a ghastly fear at the back of her mind, a fear that, if she and the Earl returned to England, the Marchioness would somehow contrive to make her life a misery.
And she would certainly try everything she could think of to break up their marriage.
Sadira felt now as if the sunshine had suddenly become more dazzling and she could hear angels singing.
The Earl was watching closely the expression on her face.
“I think,” Sadira said softly, “that what I am feeling is – love and it is – very – very wonderful.”
“I will teach you to be sure that what we feel for each other is the perfect love that we both believe in,” the Earl answered.
He put his arm protectively around her shoulders.
Then he was kissing her, at first very gently and then, as he could feel the softness and sweetness of her lips, more possessively.
He kissed her until Sadira felt that the ecstasy was beyond anything she had imagined or dreamt love would be like.
It was perfect, incredible, sublime!
When the Earl moved, she held onto him as if she was afraid that he would leave her.
“I love – you,” she whispered, “I do – love you! Please – go on – loving me.”
“You may be quite certain of that,” the Earl assured her.
Then he was kissing her again.
*
Later there was a sound outside the door and the Earl was aware that time was passing by rapidly.
He looked down for a moment at Sadira’s face and he thought that it would be quite impossible for anyone to look more beautiful or more spiritual.
It was that, he knew, which had made her, from the very beginning, seem different from all the other women he had known.
Now he recognised that the glorious sensations they had aroused in him were as nothing compared with the rapture that he felt in his whole body when he kissed Sadira.
He rose from the divan and walked towards the door.
Outside he saw great clusters of flowers and he thought that the Sultan’s maids were waiting to bring them into the bedroom.
He reckoned that by now Father Christopher would be arriving and, leaving Sadira to the maids, he went to find him.
When the Earl reached the hall, Father Christopher was just stepping out of the carriage that had been sent for him by the Sultan.
Hopkins was there as well and the Earl saw that he was holding in his hand a large bouquet of Madonna lilies.
He had ordered him to buy them for Sadira from the flower sellers in the Old City.
He knew in his heart that to him she would always possess the purity and perfection of a lily and this again was a superb enchantment that he had never found in any other woman.
Hopkins took Father Christopher to a room where he could put on his surplice and then the Earl went into Sadira’s room to see if she was ready.
When he walked into the bedroom, the maids all covered their faces and faded away.
The Earl stood at the foot of the divan and looked down at his bride.
He had remembered to order a wreath fashioned of tiny white flowers and now it was on her head.
To him it was more becoming than any diamond tiara could possibly have been.
He put the lilies on the bed in front of her and, as she smiled at him a little shyly, he realised that he was indeed the luckiest man in the world.
He was prepared to challenge anyone who contradicted him.
“Thank – you for the lovely – flowers,” Sadira murmured.
They scented the room and were massed on either side of the bed and it appeared as if Sadira was in a bower of roses, orchids and camellias.
There were no words, the Earl thought, to express how lovely she looked.
Then the door behind him opened and Father Christopher came in.
He was wearing a white surplice and in one hand he carried his consecrated stone and in the other he held a Prayer Book.
He put the stone down on the table beside the bed.
Then, opening his Prayer Book, he solemnly began the Marriage Service.
It was a short one, but very moving.
When the Earl placed the gold ring on Sadira’s finger, she could hear the angels singing once again.
She felt too that her mother was near her, approving of her marriage and wishing her all the happiness in the world.
When it came to the Blessing, the Earl knelt and Sadira put her hands together in the age-old gesture of prayer.
She was absolutely sure, as Father Christopher m
ade the sign of the cross and blessed them, that they would be happy for ever.
Their love would deepen as the years passed by because it was the love that came from God.
Then, without speaking, Father Christopher left the room.
The Earl put his arms around Sadira.
“My darling, my wife!” he sighed. “Now you are mine and I will never ever lose you.”
“And I will never – leave you, my wonderful – husband,” Sadira whispered. “I feel – our marriage has – united us so closely that we are – now one person.”
“That is exactly what we shall be for always,” the Earl promised.
Then there were no words to express what he was feeling in his heart and soul.
He kissed her until the room swung dizzily round them and they were flying into the sunlit sky.
A little later Father Christopher came back.
“Before I leave, my Lady,” he said to Sadira, “I want to tell you that your bravery in saving the little baby last night has been of immense benefit to me and to all the Christians in Fez.”
Sadira looked surprised and he explained,
“The child is a Muslim and, because you saved him from certain death, the Muslims have asked me to express their gratitude to you.”
He paused and then continued,
“What is more, they have promised to stop their persecution of the Christians in Fez and to try to live beside them amicably.”
“I am so glad, Father, so very glad!” Sadira enthused.
“And so am I, my daughter. At the same time I am sorry to lose my disciple.”
“We shall always take an interest in what you are doing, Father,” the Earl promised, “and we will come back to see you next year, if you will still be working here.”
“I would like that,” Father Christopher said simply, “and I must thank you again, my Lord, for your very generous donation towards my cause.”
Sadira looked at the Earl and smiled.
It was so like him, she thought, to help Father Christopher.
“Now I am leaving you,” Father Christopher said, “but I hope that I shall see you again before you leave Morocco.”
“That may not be possible,” the Earl replied. “Sadira has to go home to her father, so we are having only a short honeymoon before we return in my yacht, which is anchored at Rabat.”