The Temptation of Torilla Page 2

  “The bachelor parties I have given there have not improved the condition of the furnishings and I suspect that any woman would find it distressingly masculine.”

  “Your father and I had some very happy times there,” the Dowager Marchioness said wistfully.

  “As you had everywhere,” the Marquis answered. “And now, Mama, stop comparing me with Papa and yourself with Beryl.”

  He moved to take her hands once again into his as he said,

  “You know without me telling you there will never be another woman as sweet or as beautiful as you! So it is no use complaining if I have to accept second best.”

  “All I want, dearest, is your happiness,” the Dowager Marchioness murmured.

  “I have already told you I am content,” the Marquis replied.

  His mother thought as he spoke that there was a distinctly cynical note in his voice.

  *

  Some miles away from the fashionable Harrogate resort with its Spa, its expensive hotels and its aristocratic visitors, but still in Yorkshire, was the village of Barrowfield.

  Near Leeds, it was a village of poorly built, dilapidated and dismal houses that always seemed to be covered with a fine veil of coal-dust.

  Outside the village and built on a hill rising above it was an ugly grey stone Church and beside it an equally ugly and unnecessarily large Vicarage.

  In the kitchen with its unwieldy, out-of-date stove and flagged floor, a servant with grey hair and the neat appearance of a children’s nurse was trying to instruct a thin, rather vacant-looking girl how to baste a leg of mutton.

  “Try to understand what I am saying, Ellen,” the older woman said sharply. “I’ve told you six times already to keep spooning the gravy over the meat, but you don’t seem to understand me.”

  “Oi’m doing what ya tells me,” the girl replied in a broad Yorkshire accent.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” the older woman snapped.

  Then she turned her head as the kitchen door opened and a young voice cried,

  “Abby! Abby!”

  Abigail, for that was the woman’s full name, turned from the stove to look at the girl coming into the kitchen.

  With her fair hair and blue eyes she could have been described as being typically English in appearance if it had not been for the almost arresting loveliness of her face.

  Her eyes seemed almost too big for the oval of it, and, although they were blue, they were the deep blue of a Southern sea rather than a spring sky.

  People who looked closely at Torilla noticed the sweetness of her mouth, the lips softly curved and the faint smile that seemed to lift the corners almost like sunshine peeping through the leaves of a tree.

  “What is it, Miss Torilla?” Abby enquired.

  “A letter, Abby! A letter from Lady Beryl and – would you believe it? She is engaged to be married!”

  “And about time,” Abby said with the familiarity of an old servant. “Her Ladyship must be getting on for twenty-one and with all her success in London I expected her to be married long before this.”

  “Well, she is engaged now,” Torilla said, “and guess what Abby? She begs me to go and stay with her!”

  She looked down at the letter and read aloud –

  “You must be my Bridesmaid, Torilla. I intend to have only one so as not to provide myself with unnecessary competition.”

  Torilla stopped reading with a laugh,

  “As if there could be any competition where Beryl is concerned!”

  Abby did not answer and she went on reading,

  “You must come to me immediately you get this letter. Do not delay. There are so many things with which I wish you to help me – my clothes, the planning of my marriage, and of course there will be dozens of parties at which people will wish to meet my fiancé.”

  “And who’s Her Ladyship’s intended?” Abby enquired.

  Torilla looked again at the letter and turned the pages.

  “You will hardly believe this, Abby,” she answered, “but she does not say his name!”

  She gave a little laugh.

  “Is that not just like Beryl? She always forgets something important. I can see I shall have my hands full looking after her, that is if Papa – will let me go.”

  Her voice dropped on the last words and there was an expression of doubt in her big eyes.

  “Of course you must go, Miss Torilla,” Abby said firmly, “though goodness knows what you will have to wear.”

  “We need not worry about that,” Torilla replied. “Beryl’s clothes fit me and she has always been generous enough to let me wear anything I required, even her riding habits.”

  There was suddenly a wistful expression on her face before she said,

  “Oh, Abby, do you think I shall be allowed to ride Uncle Hector’s horses? It would be so wonderful to be on the back of a fine piece of horseflesh once again.”

  “I’m sure your uncle will be only too pleased to supply you with a mount, just as he did when you were a child.”

  “I think horses are what I have missed here more than anything else,” Torilla said.

  “There’s a good many things I’ve missed,” Abby retorted, “and you’ve missed as well, Miss Torilla, if you’re honest.”

  As she spoke, Abby started to take off the brown Holland apron she had put on for cooking, over the spotless white one she wore with her grey dress.

  “I’m going to start packing for you right this minute,” she said.

  “No, Abby, wait, wait!” Torilla cried. “I must ask Papa first. He may not wish me to go – home.”

  She said the word tentatively, then added almost apologetically,

  “I always think of Fernford as – home – as it was for seventeen years until Mama – died.”

  “That’s right, Miss Torilla. It is home!” Abby said firmly. “It’s where you belong. We should never have come to this dirty place, and that’s the truth!”

  Torilla smiled.

  She had heard Abby say this not once but a thousand times.

  “You know what it means to Papa,” she said softly.

  As she spoke, she heard the sound of the front door closing.

  “There he is!” she exclaimed. “Hurry with the luncheon, Abby, or you know as well as I do that he will rush out again without having anything to eat. I will go and talk to him.”

  Before she finished the last words, she turned and sped from the kitchen along the narrow gloomy passage that led into the somewhat pretentious hall.

  Standing just inside the front door was the Reverend Augustus Clifford, Vicar of Barrowfield.

  He was a handsome man who looked older than his years.

  His hair was almost completely grey, his too thin face deeply lined and he had the appearance of a man who drove himself beyond his strength.

  As he put his clergyman’s hat down on the chair, he was looking worried, but as he saw Torilla coming towards him he smiled.

  “You see I am back, Torilla!” he said, “and on time as you told me to be.”

  “That was good of you, Papa, and luncheon is ready,” Torilla answered. “I could not have borne it if you had ruined the very nice leg of mutton that Farmer Shipton kindly gave us.”

  “Yes, of course, I had not forgotten,” the Vicar said, “and if it is large enough perhaps we could share – ”

  “No, Papa!” Torilla cut in firmly. “There is not enough to share with anyone, but come into the dining room for I have something to tell you.”

  The Vicar obeyed her and together they walked into the small dark room, which, unlike the drawing room, looked out at the front of the house and therefore faced North.

  There were a few pieces of good furniture they had brought with them from the South, but the curtains were of cheap material although Abby and Torilla had done their best to copy one of the draped pelmets they had seen at Fernleigh Hall.

  But no matter what efforts they made the contrast was sharp from the lovely home Torilla had g
rown up in. It was difficult, Torilla often thought, no matter how kind or generous her Uncle Hector had been, to be a member of the poorer side of the family.

  The Countess of Fernleigh’s younger sister Elizabeth had married Augustus Clifford when he was a curate at St. George’s Hanover Square in London.

  The Earl of Fernleigh, to oblige his wife, had appointed him Vicar of the small parish of Fernford on his estate in Hertfordshire, and Torilla and Beryl had grown up together.

  For the first cousins it had been a very happy arrangement, and although Beryl was two years older than Torilla the difference in their ages had not been obvious.

  Torilla was in fact far cleverer than her wealthier cousin, and it had not been so much a case of her trying to keep up with the older girl as of Beryl lagging behind when it came to lessons.

  The Countess of Fernleigh preferred to spend most of the year in London and therefore Beryl spent more time with her aunt than she did with her mother.

  She had loved Mrs. Clifford and, when she died unexpectedly one cold winter, Beryl had been almost as grief-stricken as Torilla.

  Losing her mother had completely changed Torilla’s whole way of life.

  The Reverend Augustus had decided that the only possible thing for him to do was to leave the house where he had been so happy with his wife.

  He no longer wished to work in the quiet country village where there was little for him to do. Instead, he had applied to be sent to one of the most desolate and poverty-stricken areas in the North of England, and within two months of his wife’s death he had been appointed to Barrowfield.

  It had all happened so quickly that Torilla had hardly realised what was going on, until she found herself in a strange, alien place away from everything that was familiar with only Abby to cling to in her unhappiness.

  To the Reverend Augustus it was a relief from his misery and also a challenge that no one had realised he had wanted all his life.

  Driven by a fervent desire to help those less fortunate than himself and imbued with a crusading spirit, he flung himself wholeheartedly into the problems and difficulties he found in the terrifying squalor of a Northern mining village.

  It was as if he took on the hosts of evil entirely by himself.

  Only Torilla and Abby knew that in his fervour he would, if they had not prevented him, have gone without food and sleep in his efforts to improve the conditions he found in his new parish.

  Every penny of his stipend and the little money he had of his own was spent on the people for whom he worked.

  It was only because Abby insisted on his giving her enough money for the housekeeping as soon as the cheques came in that they were saved from starvation.

  As she seated herself now at the dining room table, Torilla knew that the real difficulty in getting her father’s permission to go South would be the cost of the journey.

  “I have had a letter from Beryl toady, Papa,” she said as the Vicar poured himself a glass of water, and Abby came in through the door carrying the leg of mutton.

  “From Beryl?” the Vicar asked vaguely as if he had never heard the name.

  “Beryl is to be married, Papa. She begs me to go and stay at The Hall and help her with her trousseau. And she has asked me to be her bridesmaid.”

  “Oh, Beryl!” the Vicar exclaimed, picking up the carving knife and starting to slice the mutton.

  “You will not mind if I go, Papa?” Torilla asked.

  “No, no. Of course not,” the Vicar replied.

  Then, as he cut a slice and put it on the plate, he added,

  “But I doubt if we can afford it.”

  “I will go by stagecoach,” Torilla said, “and if I go alone and leave Abby to look after you, it will not cost so very much.”

  She had thought at first when Beryl’s letter came that she would be able to take Abby with her, but now she knew, not only because of the expense but because the Vicar would not look after himself, that Abby must stay with him.

  Abby could bully him into eating and sleeping more effectively even than she could do.

  “I was thinking,” the Vicar said, almost as if he was talking to himself, “that any spare money we have should go to Mrs. Coxwold. She is expecting her ninth child and I am sure the oldest girl has consumption.”

  “I am very sorry for the Coxwolds, Papa,” Torilla answered, “but you know as well as I do that Mr. Coxwold goes to the Public House every Friday evening and drinks away at least half his wages.”

  “I know, I know,” the Vicar said, “but a man is entitled to spend what he earns.”

  “Not when his children are starving,” Torilla retorted.

  “The second girl will be five this month and I think they will send her to work in the mine.”

  “Oh, no, Papa!” Torilla cried. “She is too young! Don’t you remember how ill the little Barnsby child was after she worked in water up to her knees and contracted pneumonia?”

  The Vicar sighed.

  “They have to eat, Torilla.”

  “And so have you, sir,” Abby said coming back into the room.

  She carried two dishes one of which contained potatoes and the other some rather unappetising-looking cabbage.

  “I have had enough,” the Vicar said vaguely, looking at the very small pieces of meat on his plate.

  “I’m not taking this mutton off the table until you’ve helped yourself properly, sir,” Abby said in the affectionate bullying tones of a nanny talking to a recalcitrant child.

  The Vicar picked up the carvers and added two small slices to those on his plate.

  Having stood with the vegetables at the Vicar’s side until he had helped himself to two tablespoons of potatoes, Abby waited in the room until Torilla had finished before she said,

  “I wonder, Miss Torilla if you would get the suet pudding out of the oven for me? I don’t trust that girl in the kitchen. The treacle is here so all we need now is the pudding.”

  “Yes, of course,” Torilla said obediently.

  Abby handed her the mutton and she carried it out to the kitchen knowing as she went that Abby would speak to her father.

  “Miss Torilla has told you, sir,” Abby said as soon as she had left the room, “that her Ladyship has asked her to go South for her wedding.”

  “Yes, Miss Torilla has told me,” the Vicar replied. “The fact is, Abby, we cannot afford it. Stagecoaches cost money and it is a long way to Hertfordshire.”

  “But it’s high time, sir, if you’ll excuse me for speaking frankly, that Miss Torilla went back and saw some decent folk for a change.”

  The Vicar looked up in surprise and Abby went on before he could speak,

  “Do you realise that Miss Torilla’s been here nearly two years and hasn’t exchanged half-a-dozen words with a lady or a gentleman? Her poor mother would turn in her grave if she knew what sort of place you’ve brought her to – and that’s the truth!”

  The Vicar looked startled.

  “I had not thought of that, Abby.”

  “Well, I have, sir! Miss Torilla’s eighteen, and if Mrs. Clifford were alive, God rest her soul, she would be looking out for a suitable husband for Miss Torilla, giving parties for her and having friends of her own age to the house.”

  Abby snorted before she went on,

  “What sort of people could we invite here? Ragged, dirty creatures covered in coal dust.”

  She spoke scathingly, but, as the Vicar put up his hands, she added,

  “Oh, I know sir, they’ve souls to save, they’re Christians and they’re the same as us in the sight of God. But you’re not expecting Miss Torilla to marry a coal miner, are you, sir?”

  The Vicar looked uncomfortable.

  “To tell you the truth, Abby, I had not thought of Miss Torilla as being grown up.”

  “Well, she is, sir, and it’s a crying shame – it is really – that she should be buried alive – because that’s what it is – in this dreadful place.”

  “I am needed here,”
the Vicar said in a low voice, almost as if he was pleading his case in the dock.

  “That’s as may be,” Abby replied, “and I’m not saying sir, as you’re not doing the work of God, and doing it well. It’s your chosen profession, so to speak. But Miss Torilla’s not a Parson nor a Preacher, she’s a young woman, and a very beautiful one at that!”

  There was no time to say more because Torilla came back into the room with a small suet pudding in the centre of a rather large dish.

  She set it down in front of her father and for a moment he did not seem to see it, as deep in his thoughts he appeared to be quite oblivious of her presence.

  Torilla looked rather anxiously at Abby.

  Then, as the maid changed the plates and placed a tablespoon in the Vicar’s hand, he said,

  “You are right, Abby. Miss Torilla must go to Lady Beryl’s wedding. We will find the money somehow.”

  It was after he had rushed out of the house, almost before he had finished the last mouthful of the suet pudding, that Torilla said to Abby,

  “You made Papa agree! Oh, Abby, I feel so guilty. You could see he was upset at having to spend so much on me. He wanted the money for the Coxwolds.”

  “Those Coxwolds have had more than their share of your father’s money already,” Abby said crossly. “That woman’s a whiner and the Vicar, poor man, believes every word she tells him.”

  “Yes, I know, Abby, but he does suffer so greatly and this place is terrible. I cannot bear to look at the children.”

  There was a little sob in Torilla’s voice, as she added,

  “Perhaps it is – selfish of me. If I stay and Papa gives the money to the Coxwolds it might make all the – difference to them.”

  “If there are a hundred Coxwolds dying on their feet,” Abby said firmly, “they’ll not stop you from going to stay with Lady Beryl.”

  “Perhaps it is wrong of me to leave Papa,” Torilla murmured.

  “If you refuse the invitation it’ll be over my dead body!” Abby said. “Now sit down, Miss Torilla, and write and tell her Ladyship you’ll leave here next Monday.”

  “But, Abby, that is the day after tomorrow!”

  “The sooner the better,” Abby snapped, “and you needn’t worry about your father either. I’ll look after him, you know that.”