The Temptation of Torilla Read online

  “What are you doing to yourself, Torilla? You are so thin that my gowns are beginning to hang on you like a sack! If you go on like this, we will have to have your bridesmaid’s gown altered!”

  “It fits very well,” Torilla protested and did not add that she had already had the waist taken in by two inches.

  It was a very beautiful gown and she knew that she should be grateful to her aunt for giving it to her. But she felt almost as if it was a shroud that would cover her last glimpse of happiness.

  She had already determined that when she went North after the wedding she would never return.

  It would be impossible to see the Marquis without feeling, because Beryl was his wife, an irrepressible pang of jealousy, if not bitterness.

  Every night Torilla prayed that she would feel neither of these things.

  ‘I love them both,’ she said to herself, ‘and I want them to be happy. Help me, God, to make my love overcome all other emotions. Help me! Help me!’

  It was the cry of a frightened child and she was afraid because it was impossible not to feel her whole body and mind yearning for the Marquis.

  She longed for him so desperately that at times it threatened her self-control.

  Beryl had designed Torilla’s bridesmaid’s gown herself. It was of white satin, decorated around the hem with white roses that glittered with diamante as if they were little drops of dew.

  There were roses in a wreath, which was very becoming on Torilla’s fair hair and she was to carry a bouquet of the same flowers.

  Beryl came to the last fitting.

  “You look absolutely lovely, dearest!” she exclaimed, “and almost like a bride yourself.”

  “That’s true, my Lady,” the dressmaker chipped in. “I hope I shall be making a wedding gown for Miss Clifford in the very near future.”

  “I think that is very likely,” Beryl smiled and Torilla knew she was thinking of Lord Arkley.

  She wanted to repudiate such an idea, then she told herself there was no point in protesting and saying she had no intention of marrying Lord Arkley – or any other man for that matter.

  She knew Beryl would not understand and she was quite certain her aunt, when she had time, was still intriguing on her behalf.

  Fortunately the Countess was so engrossed with the innumerable arrangements involved in Beryl’s wedding that she had little time to worry about her niece.

  But Torilla knew that it was at the back of her mind and she was determined as soon as the ceremony was over to return to Barrowfield where it would be impossible for her aunt to concern herself with her.

  “I don’t think there is any more we can do to the gown,” said Beryl.

  “No, your Ladyship. It’s finished and I’ll send it to Curzon Street tomorrow.”

  “Thank you – and my gown as well.”

  “Very good, your Ladyship.”

  “Do you realise I have not yet seen your wedding dress?” Torilla piped up. “Do show it to me!”

  Beryl shook her head.

  “I am keeping it as a surprise. I have not allowed even Mama to look at it.”

  “I thought Aunt Louise must have seen it.”

  “No one has seen it,” Beryl answered, “have they, madame?”

  The dressmaker shook her head.

  “It’s going to be a very big surprise, my Lady, not only for your family, but all the other ladies who have been exceedingly curious as to what you’ll be wearing.”

  Torilla looked rather apprehensively at her cousin.

  She knew Beryl well enough to guess that she was ‘up to something’, and she could not help being curious as to what it might be.

  The wedding was to be the last big event of the Season because after it was over the Prince Regent had announced that he was going to Brighton.

  Already it appeared that there would not be a seat to spare at St. George’s Hanover Square and the Countess was growing more and more frantic as wedding presents poured in to Curzon Street and the Marquis’s house in Park Lane.

  They all had to be listed so that later they could be properly acknowledged.

  “If anyone thinks I am going to spend my honeymoon writing letters of thanks for this collection they are mistaken!” Beryl exclaimed.

  She and Torilla were unpacking a dozen parcels, which had been delivered that morning.

  “Some of the things are nice,” Torilla remarked.

  “As far as I am concerned they are a lot of junk!” Beryl replied scathingly. “Look at this garnet brooch! Can you see me wearing garnets when Gallen has a collection of rubies worth a King’s ransom?”

  “It was sent to you by an old lady who knew us when we were children,” Torilla said. “She says in her letter that it belonged to her great-grandmother and she has really made a great sacrifice in giving it to you.”

  “I don’t want people to make sacrifices for me,” Beryl replied sharply.

  She stood up from the floor where she had been sitting to open the parcels.

  “Leave all this for the servants to clear up,” she pouted, “I am tired of presents.”

  Torilla looked at her in surprise.

  Beryl had been irritated and on edge for the past two days and had ceased to take any interest in the arrangements.

  Torilla had a feeling that she was not happy.

  “What is wrong, dearest?” she asked.

  “Wrong? Why should there be anything wrong?” Beryl retorted.

  Torilla told herself that she must be suffering from pre-wedding nerves or perhaps she was getting a cold.

  “Let us put on our bonnets and go out for a little while,” Beryl suggested.

  Torilla looked at the clock.

  “It’s after four. Aunt Louise should be home soon.”

  “Then that is all the more reason for getting away. I am sick of hearing about the size of the congregation and wondering whether we should have more meringues and fewer cream puffs at Carlton House.”

  Torilla did not reply and they went up the stairs in silence.

  As they reached the landing outside Beryl’s bedroom, her maid appeared to say,

  “Your wedding gown has just been delivered, my Lady, and I’ve put Miss Torilla’s in her wardrobe.”

  “Thank you,” Torilla said.

  Beryl walked towards her bedroom door and then as she reached it she looked back at Torilla.

  “Come and see my gown and I hope you admire it.”

  She opened the door and Torilla followed her.

  She had expected from what had already been said that Beryl would wear something original, but the gown, which lay on the big bed, was certainly different to anything she had expected.

  It was pink!

  A very pale pink, and it was an exquisitely beautiful creation.

  But who, Torilla asked herself in astonishment, had ever heard of a bride wearing pink?

  The gown was of tulle and like Torilla’s had roses round the hem. The train, which was very long, was encrusted with roses all glittering with diamante dewdrops.

  It was original, slightly theatrical, and at the same time Torilla knew that Beryl would look outstandingly beautiful. The only question was – would the Marquis mind his bride being married in so unconventional a colour?

  “I shall have a pink wreath on my head,” Beryl said, “and as you see there is also a pink veil which will reach right to the ground.”

  She looked at her cousin almost defiantly as she spoke and after a moment Torilla answered,

  “It is lovely, dearest, and you will look very beautiful, but you would have looked just as lovely in white.”

  There was a moment’s pause.

  Then Beryl replied in a hard tight little voice,

  “That is a colour I am not entitled to wear!”

  Torilla looked at her in surprise, then her eyes widened.

  “Beryl!” she exclaimed. “What – are you – saying?”

  “I am telling you the truth.”

  Torilla
drew in her breath.

  “Do you mean – are you really – saying, Beryl – that you – ?”

  “ – that I am not a pure, virgin bride?” Beryl finished. “That is exactly what I am telling you, Torilla. You might as well know the truth.”

  “But – dearest,” Torilla stammered. “If it is – Lord Newall you love? Then why not – ?”

  “Charles Newall has nothing to do with it. The man to whom I gave myself was – my husband!”

  Torilla stared at her as though she thought she had taken leave of her senses.

  Then with a little cry Beryl sat down on the stool in front of her dressing table and put her hands up to her eyes.

  “Oh – Torilla – I wanted to tell you before – but what’s the use? I have been so – desperately unhappy – but it does not – help to talk about it – ”

  Torilla ran forward to kneel beside Beryl and put her arms around her.

  ‘Tell me now,” she pleaded. “Tell me, dearest.”

  The tears were running down Beryl’s face.

  “I love him, Torilla. I love him with – all my heart – and it was just what you and I s-aid love would be like – only much, much more – wonderful!”

  “Who was it? Tell me,” Torilla begged.

  “Can you not guess?” Beryl asked half-smiling through her tears.

  Torilla looked at her and suddenly she knew the answer.

  “It was Rodney!”

  Beryl nodded.

  “Yes, Rodney. I suppose I was in – love with him ever since I was a child – but I did not –understand that it was love – not until he was – going away to j-join his Regiment.”

  “I remember that,” Torilla said in a low voice, “but I never realised – ”

  “Aunt Elizabeth had just died, and you were – too unhappy to pay much attention to me. I intended to tell you, but both Rodney and I were so afraid that, if anyone guessed we were in love with each other, he would be forbidden to enter the house.”

  She looked at Torilla through her tears as she went on,

  “You know neither Papa nor Mama would have thought him – good enough for me.”

  She gave a little sob and once again her hands went up to her face.

  “Good enough!” she said in a muffled voice. “He was – everything I ever wanted and he told me that he loved me more than l-life itself.”

  Her voice broke and now she was sobbing uncontrollably.

  Torilla could only hold her close, the tears running down her own face.

  “You will not remember,” Beryl went on after a little while, “but I went to London for a few days telling Papa I was going to stay with Mama – but she did not know I had left The Hall. Rodney and I were – married by – Special Licence. We went to an hotel together and – Torilla – it was there I found what Heaven is – really like!”

  “I understand,” Torilla murmured.

  “It was so – wonderful, so marvellous. Then Rodney had to say goodbye because his Regiment was sailing for Spain.”

  Torilla remembered that Rodney had been part of the Division that was sent out early in 1814 to re-enforce the Duke of Wellington’s Armies in his drive through Spain to France.

  “Rodney was quite certain,” Beryl went on, “that the war would not last long. When he returned we were going to tell Papa that we were married. Then there would have been – nothing they could do about it – but he never came back.”

  Beryl was crying again and Torilla murmured endearments as she cried too.

  With an effort Beryl continued,

  “I-I have – never told anyone – what I have told you now – there was – no point in anyone – knowing once Rodney was killed”

  “Not even the – Marquis?”

  “What would be the point?” Beryl asked, wiping the tears from her face.

  “You do not think he has a – right to know?”

  “I don’t enquire about Gallen’s past and I shall not expect him to question me about mine.”

  Beryl looked in the mirror and saw Torilla’s head reflected beside her own and the tears on her cheeks.

  “Do not worry about me, dearest,” she said. “It is the last time I shall cry about Rodney – the last time I shall speak of him. It is all over and done with.”

  “But you cannot forget,” Torilla said softly.

  “I shall try,” Beryl said in a firm voice. “I shall try never to think of him again.”

  Torilla rose from her knees to stand looking down at the pink wedding gown lying on the bed.

  It was so like Beryl, she thought, in some strange way, to be honest enough with herself not to wear a white gown.

  She thought now how blind she must have been not to realise that Rodney and Beryl always had a special feeling for each other.

  Looking back she could remember a thousand incidents that might have given her a clue to the fact that they loved each other in a different way from how they loved her.

  She had been two years younger than Beryl and five years younger than Rodney and she had therefore looked at them with the eyes of a child.

  Only now because she loved the Marquis could she understand why when they were together there was an inescapable magnetism in the air, and when they looked into each other’s eyes it had been hard to look away.

  Now so many things that she had not understood where Beryl was concerned were made clear.

  Because she had lost the one thing that mattered in her life she had plunged into the world of Social gaiety in an effort to forget.

  She sought admiration, she sought the love she had lost, even while she knew that she would never find it again.

  And so while she could not be satisfied by love, she would try and replace it with ambition, and she had achieved that when the Marquis asked her to marry him.

  It was all very clear, Torilla thought, and she knew that this was a further reason why she could do nothing to take the Marquis from her.

  Beryl lost Rodney who was the love of her life and a great Social position was her only substitute.

  “At least my wearing pink will give them something to talk about,” Beryl said in a voice, which told Torilla that she had once again assumed a mask to hide her real feelings.

  “It might make them – speculate why you are wearing it,” Torilla said hesitatingly.

  “They will do that whatever I wear,” Beryl replied. “You don’t suppose that those gossiping old chatterboxes have not paired me off with innumerable lovers by this time? Charles Newall is only the latest.”

  She gave a pathetic little laugh that was not far from tears and went on,

  “There were several men last year who they whispered about in corners and as many the year before.”

  “And you do not – mind?” Torilla asked.

  “Why should I?” Beryl replied shrugging her shoulders. “It is better to be talked about than ignored and I should hate – really hate – no one to notice me.”

  She saw the expression on Torilla’s face and rose from the stool to come to her side.

  “I am glad I have told you my secret, dearest,” she said. “You are the only person who would understand, the only person who will know why sometimes I do outrageous things just to – forget.”

  “I do understand, but, Beryl, remember that because he loved you Rodney will always be near you as I feel Mama is near me.”

  Beryl stiffened.

  “I have tried to believe that. When I first learnt that he was dead, I used to cry out to him in the darkness to come to me, to hold me in his arms as he did when he was alive, but he – never came.”

  Her voice hardened as she went on,

  “I told myself then that all the stories of an after life that your father talks about so glibly were a lot of nonsense. When someone dies, there is only hell for those who are left behind.”

  “No, no!” Torilla said. “You must not think that! I have often felt when I have been desperately unhappy that Mama was near me. I know there is no death.�
�

  “Then why does Rodney not come to me?” Beryl asked. “He loved me, Torilla, as no one will ever love me again. We belonged to each other and yet now he is apparently content to leave me – alone.”

  “I do not believe that.”

  “Well, I do!” Beryl answered.

  Once again there were tears in her eyes and she wiped them away.

  “We cannot go out now, seeing what a freak I have made of myself. I am going to lie down, Torilla, and I suggest you do the same. There is a dinner party tonight, but only a small one.”

  “You had better not stay up late, since you are being married tomorrow,” Torilla replied, trying to speak naturally.

  “I suppose not,” Beryl agreed. “Gallen is not coming to dinner, I cannot think why. He sent his apologies this morning and said he has made other plans.”

  She smiled mockingly as she added,

  “I expect he plans to say goodbye to one of his flirts. I wonder if it is the widow with whom he was enamoured at one time, or a very delectable red-head I saw him with one night at a theatre?”

  Torilla was quite certain it was neither of these women and what the Marquis was really avoiding was a small intimate dinner party at which she would be present.

  ‘I should have gone North before the wedding,’ she thought, but it had been impossible to leave Beryl and now she was glad she had not done so.

  She felt that in some way it had been a relief for Beryl to tell her the truth, and it swept away much of the anxiety she had felt about her cousin’s character having altered since she had been such a success in London.

  It hurt her to think of Beryl’s unhappiness hidden beneath all the froth and gaiety of the Social world.

  But at least Beryl had been married to Rodney, she had known the unutterable bliss of being his wife and they had had, as Beryl said herself, three days of Heaven.

  When Torilla went back to Barrowfield, there would be only the memory of one wonderful kiss and the touch of the Marquis’s fingers on her wrist.

  That was all she had to last her for the rest of her life.

  Yet because she loved him so deeply, he would always be in her thoughts and mind.

  Whatever physically he might mean to Beryl, or to any other woman, spiritually he would remain hers for all Eternity.