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  He sighed as he went on,

  “Because we were both young we said very little during dinner and the conversation was what the Viscount wanted to hear. It was – as far as I was concerned, not particularly interesting. When dinner was over we moved into a large and comfortable sitting room. The moon and the stars were glittering outside and I instinctively followed the Viscount’s daughter – when she went out through the long French windows into the garden.”

  He coughed again weakly before he went on,

  “That was the beginning. I fell in love – with her and, as she told me later, she fell in love with me – the moment we met.”

  There was a poignant silence, but Sir John did not speak.

  Eventually Gavron carried on with his tale,

  “You can imagine that I was intelligent enough to realise that there was no chance of me being, in any way, accepted by the Viscount as a prospective son-in-law. In fact, as Evelyn told me – her father was already looking through the pedigrees of English families – he considered important and distinguished enough to be connected with his.”

  “But you fell in love,” Sir John murmured.

  “Of course I fell in – love,” was the reply. “She was the loveliest woman I had ever encountered. Soft, gentle and different in every way from the women I had danced with and who had pursued me in London.”

  There was silence.

  After the old man seemed as though he might have gone to sleep, Sir John enquired,

  “So you married her?”

  Gavron laughed and it was a rather strange sound.

  “Do you imagine that – the Viscount would accept for a single moment as a prospective husband for his only daughter a man who was a foreigner who, in his opinion, as I learnt later, he thought of as someone from the East, who was black and of no significance – except as a servant.”

  Sir John was surprised.

  “Did he really think like that?”

  “I am sure that – the majority of Englishmen at that time thought anyone who was not white-skinned was not capable of being what they call ‘ladies and gentlemen’.”

  “So what happened?” Sir John asked curiously.

  “Evelyn left Bangkok to go and stay with her old Governess to whom she was devoted who had come East to teach in a Convent School. She taught the young girls who might later become nuns – and who wished to work amongst the poor and sick in Bangkok.”

  “So you were able to visit her,” Sir John quizzed him, feeling that this was obviously almost the end of the story.

  “Her Governess there was a music teacher who was continually out at night playing with a number of her more intelligent pupils to some visiting Clergy or distinguished parents of those who were being educated in one part of the Convent.”

  Sir John smiled.

  “So you were alone?”

  “We were alone and I was desperately afraid that she would be taken away from me if her father decided to – return to England.”

  “So what happened?” Sir John asked.

  There was silence for a moment and then the old man said,

  “I shall never forget – the shock it gave me when Evelyn told me that she was with child – my child. You can understand the joy I felt was mixed with fear of what her father would say. Of course I told her that – she must marry me and the only way we could do it wisely without there being a furious row was for us to get married and tell her father afterwards.”

  “‘There is no hurry,’ Evelyn said. ‘It takes – nine months to have a child and at the moment only one and a half has passed. We can think about it later. It is wonderful being with you, but if Papa takes me away, as undoubtedly he will when he finds out about us – I will never see you again’.”

  Gavron looked sad as he went on,

  “The idea was really frightening to both of us. We therefore met at night and I took care that the Viscount did not have the slightest idea that I was seeing his daughter or that – I loved her.”

  Sir John was listening intently, but he thought it a mistake, as he was talking slowly as if he was very tired, to make unnecessary remarks when he paused.

  “I don’t suppose,” Gavron went on eventually, “that you remember the fuss and commotion there was when the Viscount was fired at during a procession in Thailand and was – so badly wounded that it was thought the best thing possible would be for him to return home.”

  Again he paused before resuming,

  “It was then Evelyn clung to me and said she could not leave me especially as she was carrying my child. But, if she told her father about what had happened, it would undoubtedly kill him. ‘You cannot leave me! You cannot leave me!’ she kept crying – over and over again. I too found it difficult to think what we should do.”

  There was silence for such a long time that Sir John felt obliged to say,

  “You must tell me what happened.”

  “I was thinking that myself,” the old man replied. “I decided I would go alone to the Viscount and tell him that – I loved his daughter and she loved me and ask his permission for us to be married. Only if he refused would I admit that as Evelyn was carrying my child it was essential that we married – quietly and secretly in Bangkok or I went back home with them and we were married in England.”

  He sighed before he went on,

  “Knowing just what the Viscount would feel about being saddled with what he considered a black son-in-law, I thought that it would be wiser to be married secretly in Bangkok. However, Evelyn was against this – and for the first time we quarrelled and disagreed about what, to both of us, was something so important that we had to make a decision one way – or the other.”

  Again there was silence.

  Now Sir John was forced to ask,

  “Tell me what you decided.”

  “It was decided – for us,” the old man answered. “The Viscount died of his wounds and the British insisted that he should be taken with as much State as possible to be buried with his forebears in the ancestral Family Church where his Castle was situated.”

  “Did his daughter have to go with him?” Sir John asked.

  Gavron shook his head.

  “No! Evelyn refused to leave as I thought that she should do and her friend, the Governess, said that she was not in a fit state to do so. If she travelled with such a large body of people she said that they might guess that Evelyn was carrying a child and – she would be desperately upset and disturbed by the way they behaved and the manner in which – they would scorn her. But I said that she should marry me immediately and to this the Governess agreed.”

  He went on to explain,

  “We were married in the Chapel of the Convent. It was small and dark and the Service was not as impressive –as I would have liked it to be.”

  “But then at least you were man and wife,” Sir John said.

  “That was all that really mattered as far as we were concerned,” Gavron answered. “But once she was my wife Evelyn refused to return home with her father’s body and insisted that – she should stay with her Governess.”

  “And the family accepted it?” John asked.

  “She was very positive and quite frankly they were so upset at the Viscount’s death from his wounds,” the old man went on, “and the effect it would have on the people in England that they were not prepared to exert themselves tremendously about Evelyn.”

  “I suppose I could understand that,” Sir John said. “Equally the family must have questioned her reasons for not wishing to be at her father’s funeral.”

  “I think, looking back that they were so concerned with what affect it would have on them that they did not worry particularly about a member of the family of whom they had seen very little.”

  “So she stayed behind with you?” Sir John asked.

  “Yes, she stayed behind,” he affirmed, “but because she thought that those who saw us – might well guess that she was with child, which had obviously been conceived before we were marr
ied, no one was aware that we meant anything to each other except the Governess.”

  “I think that was wise,” Sir John agreed.

  “So wise that when Evelyn died giving birth to our daughter no one in her family had the slightest idea that she had been married or – that she had had a daughter.”

  “You did not tell them!” Sir John exclaimed.

  “What was the point?” Gavron questioned. “If they had known – they would have been horrified at Evelyn marrying what her father would have called a ‘black man’. It was quite obvious to me from what I had heard that my daughter would never be accepted by the family nor would my family welcome – the orphan. She would undoubtedly be denounced by the present Viscount in the same way as his father would have done.”

  “Then what happened?” John asked breathlessly.

  He was thinking that the whole story was the most extraordinary one that he had ever listened to.

  “My daughter, Melita, as she was christened, stayed with her Governess and became – as she grew older, a part of the Convent.”

  He smiled at Sir John.

  “There were quite a number of younger girls who had either lost their parents,” Gavron went on, “or as day-boarders came from an English family to find the cheapest and most effective way of having their child schooled. In fact at one time there were nearly twenty English children in the Convent, although they varied as their parents came or went or had other ambitions for them where languages were required.”

  “Did you see your daughter often?”

  “Only when I could get to Thailand, which was not always every year,” the old man answered. “One thing I do know was that she was exactly like her mother and just as beautiful. In fact the old Governess told me before she died that she was one of the most talked about and admired pupils at the Convent.”

  “Which is where she has been ever since?”

  “Yes, and she has been very happy on the whole,” Gavron said. “She is now twenty-one and – she has been teaching the younger pupils to sing and dance and – from what I learnt when I was last there, she herself has learnt a great number of languages simply because she wished to talk to the new children when they arrived.”

  There was silence and then Gavron said,

  “I promise you that, although you have not met my daughter, I am not exaggerating when I tell you that she is as beautiful as her mother and she has every characteristic you would expect from someone who is related to the Viscount Sternwood.”

  Sir John had often heard his father talk about the Viscount whose Castle was greatly admired.

  At the same time the idea of marrying a woman whose blood was half-Oriental made him feel that he was suddenly facing a problem he had never, in his whole life, expected.

  How was it ever possible that he could marry the daughter of this unusual Oriental, even though his daughter also had the blood of one of England’s greatest families?

  Almost as if he had been thinking aloud, Gavron now said,

  “I know – what you are thinking, I felt the same myself. But, if my daughter is as beautiful as her mother, I assure you that there is no resemblance to myself in her, except when I flatter myself – in emphasising that she has my brain.”

  He gave a chuckle before he continued,

  “What more can a young man ask than to marry a woman who has the looks of the Sternwood family and the brains of mine?”

  Sir John laughed as if he could not help himself.

  Then he said,

  “I promise you that I will do my best to make your daughter happy just as you have made my father and me extremely happy. In fact, if you had not stepped in when you did and behaved as if you had been sent down from Heaven especially for us, we might be penniless. No one could ever refuse to thank you for all that you have done for us.”

  “I admired your father – enormously,” Gavron said, “and I don’t believe that you will ever regret marrying my daughter even though, at this moment, it seems to you a frightening thing to do.”

  There was silence for a short while and then Sir John said,

  “Suppose she does not wish to marry me?”

  “I think she will understand that – if she does I will die happy and, as I am the only relation she can remember, I mean as much to her – as she means to me.”

  Sir John thought that there was no answer to this and so he merely enquired,

  “How shall I meet her and when?”

  “I have not asked her to come here, because there is no need for her to be forced to watch me die,” the old man answered. “What I want you to do, and I feel sure that you will carry out my wishes, is to come here and see me as often as you can. Then when I finally leave this world you go at once to Melita and tell her my last wish was that you and she should be married.”

  Sir John thought for a moment.

  “But surely you would wish, Gavron, to be present at the marriage. We could be married at your bedside. It would be quite easy to find an English Priest to do so.”

  “You are being very stupid, my dear boy,” he said. “I have no wish for my daughter to start her marriage to you in any strange or unusual way. I am giving orders now that she should return to England and go to her mother’s family and tell them who she is and that she is engaged to you.”

  John drew in his breath and Gavron continued,

  “They will be very discreet – I am certain over her father and it will not be difficult if I am no longer there to contradict any unpleasant and nasty things they say about me. What is important is that she is a member – and there is no doubt about that – of the Sternwood family and they must accept her, which they will most surely do, especially because she is marrying you.”

  It was impossible for Sir John to argue against this.

  He could only think that it was typical of Gavron to have worked out something which would undoubtedly end exactly as he wanted it to do.

  As granddaughter of the late Viscount Sternwood and to marry one of the most eligible young men in all of London Society, would indeed be a Wedding that everyone would wish to attend.

  It would undoubtedly cause a great deal of talk and excitement and the fact that the bride’s father had a strange Oriental name could easily be forgotten.

  The English Press would surely concentrate on the fact that her father was one of the premier Noblemen in England and her future husband was the son of one of the richest.

  There was a pause before either of the men spoke.

  Then Sir John said very quietly,

  “I agree with everything that you have said and, of course, as usual your idea is totally faultless. But I have every wish to meet my future wife before we are actually married.”

  Again there was a silence and then Gavron opened his eyes, which had been closed for some minutes.

  “While we have been talking here so intimately and pleasantly,” he said very slowly, “my daughter, Melita, has left from Thailand and is on her way. She should be here today or tomorrow. When you meet her, I think you will find that she is everything I have described to you and you will not be disappointed – ”

  The last words trailed away as Sir John just stared at him finding it hard to believe exactly what he had heard.

  The old man shut his eyes.

  There was a smile at the corner of his lips as if he was amused at having, as Sir John was to say later, the last word.

  It was the last word, because, as he lent forward to argue with Gavron, he realised that having got what he wanted, he had passed onto the World Beyond the World, in which, as far as we know, all men are equal.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sir John then went back to the hotel where he was staying, feeling as if the whole world had fallen apart and that he was staring into a long darkness that he could not decipher.

  He could scarcely believe that what had happened had not been part of a dream.

  At the same time his brain told him that this was a situation that he must force h
imself to comprehend.

  He knew, as Gavron Murillo was so important, that once it was announced that he was dead, a great number of people in Paris would wish to attend his funeral.

  Although they would not be able to arrive in time for the funeral, there would be an enormous reaction to the news in Thailand.

  What was more there would be much questioning as to where his relations were and who should be informed of his death.

  In the years in which he had built up his immense fortune he had been in close contact with many different Companies.

  He had not only been interested in inventions which came from the East but also anything new and unusual, which was invented on the Continent and in England.

  Sir John could think of a dozen Englishmen who had profited, like his father, because Gavron had given them new ideas and, of course, the finance to put them into practice.

  ‘I suppose,’ he thought to himself, ‘I must attend his funeral. But most important of all I must be here when his daughter arrives and make absolutely sure that she does not announce what her father planned for her until we have talked it over and decided what is the best way to go about it.’

  Even as he thought of this, every nerve in his body told him that he did not wish to get married.

  As he had said so often, he wanted to wait until he was much older before he took on a wife and a family.

  Most of all he hated the idea of being tied to one woman and of being a part of her from which he could not escape.

  As it was almost impossible for him to sit down and consider it quietly, he walked around the sitting room.

  He stood for a long time at the window gazing out blindly.

  He did not see the traffic beneath him, but himself imprisoned and in chains.

  He felt that this was how it would be in the future if he was to have a wife who, however rich she might be, would almost be a stigma of her father’s blood.

  ‘Why is this happening to me?’ he asked himself as a million men had asked themselves over and over again, only to find that there was no answer and Fate invariably went uncontested.