Love In the East Read online

  “Which raises the question of how you managed to smuggle yourself on board,” he added, eyeing his Captain with disfavour. “Somebody must have been careless.”

  The Captain started to mumble excuses but the Marquis cut him short.

  “No matter. I dare say it was not your fault. He slithers here and there like a snake. Just have his possessions transferred to the Trident cabin – ”

  “But that’s a dingy little place,” Lionel began to protest. “Why can’t I have the Neptune cabin?”

  “Because, as I have already informed you, it is occupied by the ladies.”

  “But they could move.”

  “They are not going to move. Lionel, let me make myself plain. You will either do as I tell you, or I will throw you over the side and enjoy doing it. Now shut up, sit down, eat something, and don’t speak unless you are spoken to.”

  After such an interruption, it was an uncomfortable meal, despite Lionel’s efforts to charm the ladies. Nothing would have made Shona find him charming, but he put himself out to impress Effie, who blossomed prettily at his attentions.

  “We will retire now as it is getting late,” Shona declared at last, rising to her feet.

  “So soon?” Lionel wailed pathetically. “Oh, please don’t go.”

  “Be quiet!” the Marquis snapped.

  “Goodnight gentlemen,” Shona said, leading Effie from the room.

  But she would have given a great deal to know what the two men said to each other when they were alone.

  *

  In the early hours of the morning Shona awoke. Effie was sleeping soundly and she was able to slip out of bed without disturbing her.

  Through the porthole she could just make out that the dawn was beginning to break. Her clock told her that it was four in the morning.

  She was too excited at the thought of going ashore to return to bed. So she threw on a light dressing-gown over her night-dress, and slipped out into the corridor.

  As she passed the Marquis’s cabin she moved very quietly, so as not to risk disturbing him.

  And then she heard something that made her pause.

  From behind his door came the sound of footsteps. They moved forward several paces, stopped, moved on again, stopped and moved on again.

  Now she realised that the Marquis was pacing the floor of his cabin, up and down, back and forth, restlessly and endlessly.

  He paused suddenly, close to the door, and she slipped hurriedly away. It would never do to let him find her outside his cabin.

  There was nobody to see her tip-toe along the corridor and up to the deck. Somewhere, she knew, there would still be crew members on duty, but she could see no sign of them and she was free to enjoy the blessed peace of the dawn.

  Calais lay silent before her. She pictured the town as it would be in a few hours time, full of hustle and bustle. Already she could make out one or two figures, creeping about in the half-light.

  Shona stood at the rail for a long time, thinking about the incredible gamble that she was taking. It seemed so strange to her that it had worked out this way and that she should have encountered a man like the Marquis.

  He was certainly not the monster of Effie’s fevered imagination, but he was like no other man she had ever met. Mystery seemed to surround him and when he looked at her she was aware of a strange contradiction.

  Sometimes his gaze seemed to be inviting her into his confidence, saying that there were things only the two of them could understand.

  Yet at the next moment he was shutting her out, speaking curtly, forbidding her to approach further.

  Which, she wondered, was the reflection of his true feeling?

  And why did she care how he felt?

  She turned her inner eyes away from that question. She was not ready to answer it.

  The light was gaining in strength all the time. She realised that she had been on deck for nearly an hour and it was now time to return below.

  She slipped down the stairs. As she neared the Marquis’s cabin she slowed down and then she heard the sounds again.

  He was still pacing the floor, back and forth, up and down, exactly as he had been doing an hour ago.

  How long had he been in this state, Shona wondered, moving like a restless, caged beast that sought to outrun its torment, but never could, because there was no way out of its prison?

  If only she could knock and enter and he could tell her what was making him so wretched.

  But she knew she could never do that. In fact, even her presence would feel like an invasion to him.

  She crept quietly away.

  *

  Breakfast was a subdued meal. Lionel had already been put to work under the Captain’s eye, with strict instructions that he was not to be allowed off the ship.

  “I am afraid you will be left alone this morning,” the Marquis said to Effie. “My secretary and I need to work.”

  “I have some sewing to do,” Effie replied quickly.

  ‘Now there was only the passport problem to overcome,’ Shona thought apprehensively.

  When she met the Marquis on deck, she asked him casually,

  “Would you like to give me your passport, my Lord, so that your secretary can do the talking – her French being a little better than yours?”

  “Her French being a great deal better than mine,” he replied with a grin, giving her his papers.

  But as she stepped off the gangway she missed her footing and fell heavily to the ground. Both passports ended up on the flagstones, and it was only the Marquis’s quick thinking that saved them from going over the side into the water.

  “Forgive me,” he said, helping her to her feet. “No doubt it would have been more gallant of me to seize hold of you first – ”

  “More gallant and more disastrous,” she replied, laughing ruefully. “We could not afford to lose those passports.”

  She rubbed her knees, saying, “I do not know how I came to be so clumsy.”

  “Perhaps it is because you cannot see where you aregoing,” the Marquis said, gently removing her pince nez. “There, isn’t that better?”

  “Well, I – ”

  “Admit it, you couldn’t see through them properly. They are just a stage ‘prop’ to make me think you are older than you really are.”

  Shona nodded.

  “Then put them away and don’t let me see them again, otherwise, there is no knowing what strange places you will lead me to. And do not worry. I promise not to offend you by improper advances.”

  Shona gasped.

  “But I never thought – that is, of course I was concerned about the proprieties, but – you must not think – ”

  “I am not sure what to think, except that you obviously do not feel that you can trust me to behave like a gentleman.”

  To her dismay Shona could feel herself blushing.

  “You are mistaken, my Lord,” she said hurriedly. “I trust you completely. Shall we hurry now or the day will be gone?”

  The Marquis accompanied Shona to the Customs Office and stood a little way behind her, as she handed in their passports, talking quietly and rapidly, so that he would not notice that she was Mademoiselle Winterton, instead of Madame Winters.

  To her relief, she got away with it. The gendarme at the desk glanced briefly at their papers, nodded and handed them back to her.

  “Now, where do we go to in Calais?” she asked.

  “I want to visit a little church,” was his unexpected reply.

  He handed her a piece of paper on which the address was already written. Shona recognised the area, a countrified district on the edge of Calais.

  A free cab was passing. She hailed it and showed the driver the piece of paper. But he shook his head.

  “I cannot take you there,” he said in French. “It does not exist.”

  “But surely,” she protested, “it must exist.”

  He shook his head.

  “There is no such place.”

  “Is he sayi
ng what I think?” the Marquis asked.

  “He says there is no such place,” Shona told him.

  “Then he is a liar and a fool,” he exclaimed in sudden rage. “I know that it does exist.” Shona was startled. What could there be in this situation to make him lose his temper? Quickly she spoke to the cab-driver again.

  “My employer asks you to reconsider,” she said politely. “He is sure that this church does exist.”

  “Not any more,” the driver explained. “There was a fire. Now it is just a ruin.”

  Shona relayed this information to the Marquis, saw his shoulders sag and a look of despair come over his face.

  “Tell him to take us there anyway,” he said.

  She passed on this message, which puzzled the driver.

  “It is a pile of blackened stones,” he protested.

  Sensing the man’s refusal, the Marquis became more enraged and muttered, “Tell him to stop arguing and do as he is told.”

  Shona did so. The driver shrugged as if to say that these were mad people and the two of them climbed into the carriage.

  Once they were seated inside, she ventured to say, “My Lord, is there any point to this? You can hardly direct your readers to a church that doesn’t exist any more. Would it not be better – ?”

  “When I wish for your opinion I will ask for it,” he responded harshly.

  Aghast, she fell silent.

  After a moment she felt his hand reach out and take hers.

  “Forgive me,” he said contritely. “I had no right to speak to you like that. I shall rely on you in most things, but in this matter you cannot advise me.”

  “It is of no importance,” she assured him.

  He gave her hand a squeeze but then, sensing constraint in her manner, he let go, and they did not speak again for a while.

  At last the scenery changed, the buildings became less frequent. Now they were in the country, travelling down winding lanes between tall trees.

  “I think we should arrive soon,” Shona suggested.

  When he did not answer, she looked at him and saw that he was sitting with his head sunk, as though crushed by a weight too great to endure.

  Her conviction was growing that he was not sightseeing, but returning to a place that had great meaning for him.

  Whatever that meaning was, it filled him with suffering. And he could not avoid it.

  And so he drove himself on to face his nightmare, with a look of torment on his face that made her want to reach out and comfort him.

  But her instinct told her that this was a man beyond comfort.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  At last the cab drew to a halt.

  “This is it,” the driver called. When the Marquis did not move, Shona laid her hand on his arm. He seemed to rouse himself reluctantly from a dream.

  Together they climbed down into the road and walked slowly towards what was left of the church.

  It had been a small building, Shona could see, and must once have been very charming. Now it was only a blackened ruin, with just one wall left standing.

  It was still possible to make out where the pews had been. Parts of them remained, no more than crumbling stumps, facing the crumbling wall, before which the altar must have stood.

  Shona could not imagine what there was here that the Marquis should take a long journey to see.

  He seemed to have drifted back to his dream, slowly walking down the aisle in the direction of the altar, his eyes fixed on the wall with its gothic shaped holes where the stained glass windows had been.

  Then a voice asked, in French,

  “Can I help you?”

  Shona turned to see a plump little man, shabbily dressed, giving her a friendly smile.

  “My friend wanted to see the church,” she explained. “We did not know that it had been burned down.”

  It was as though she had touched a trigger. Instantly the man threw up his hands in horror and began to talk at great speed. Shona listened intently, only just managing to keep up.

  The Marquis noticed them and came to stand beside her.

  “What is he saying?” he asked.

  “His name is Pierre, and he is telling me about the fire,” Shona said, trying to talk and listen at the same time.

  “What happened?”

  “It was about twelve years ago. He was working in the graveyard, when he saw a young couple arrive – they were eloping and they wanted to be married quickly.

  “He was called in to be a witness. He says he had never seen a couple so much in love, as though the whole world belonged to them.”

  “Yes,” the Marquis whispered. “Yes.”

  “And then, a few hours after they had departed, another man arrived,” Shona said. “He was pursuing them. When he learned that they had married in the church, he said that this would be the last marriage that ever took place here.

  Then he set fire to it.”

  “Dear God!” the Marquis whispered.

  “There were no lives lost,” Shona said, translating fast.

  “But the church burned to the ground and, just as he said, there have been no more marriages.”

  “What did this man look like?” the Marquis asked sharply.

  “Like the devil,” Shona said, translating. “He had a long, thin face and sandy hair.”

  Pierre spoke again.

  “He says, since the fire he just tends to the graveyard,” Shona explained. “It’s the only job he can do now that his sight is failing.”

  “What can he see?”

  “Very little,” she said after relaying the question. “He can make out light and shape, but not the details of people.”

  It seemed to her that the Marquis relaxed a little.

  He took a gold coin from his pocket and put it into Pierre’s hand. “What more does he remember about that day?” he asked curtly. “I want to hear everything.”

  Pierre turned the coin over between his fingers.

  “Her hair was gold,” he recalled. “I saw it shining in the sun as they ran into the church, hand in hand.

  “Her name was Angela. I heard him say that she had been named after the angels. She could not have been more than eighteen. He might have been twenty-two. They were like two children.”

  “Yes,” said the Marquis in a low voice.

  “They laughed. It was an adventure for them. They were in a hurry because the other man was in pursuit, but still they laughed. They were together, you see, and that was all they needed.”

  Shona translated this for the Marquis, who stood stock-still and dreadfully pale.

  “You never saw two people so much in love,” Pierre sighed. “It was as though they had found the everlasting secret of life that would keep them safe forever.

  “I think about them sometimes, wondering what happened to them after they left and whether the man who burned the church ever caught up with them. One thing I know. Their love survived. Love like that can never die.”

  He was speaking very slowly now and Shona guessed that even the Marquis could understand his meaning. His face was livid.

  “You are right,” he said. “Love can never die.”

  He turned and began to walk away.

  “Were they friends of his?” Pierre asked.

  “Yes,” Shona agreed sadly. “I rather think that they were.”

  Pierre returned to his work. Shona stayed where she was, her eyes fixed on the Marquis.

  He returned to his earlier position, walking slowly down the aisle in the direction of what had been the altar.

  There he stopped, and for a moment Shona saw a vision of a young man, standing side by side with the woman he adored, whose golden hair shone in the sun. He was united to her by a love so strong that it was like a talisman between them.

  Two children, brave enough for anything, because a love like theirs could never die.

  ‘And it has never died,’ Shona thought, looking at the man standing alone, bleak and desolate in his isolation.

>   Watching him, Shona felt a chill wind blow through her heart.

  Something told her that if he was condemned to live the rest of his life in this lonely desert, then she too might know nothing but loneliness, all her days.

  *

  They arrived back at the ship to find that everything was ready for departure.

  The Marquis consulted with his Captain, and within an hour they had cast off, heading for the Bay of Biscay, and then on to Gibraltar.

  Effie described in vivid detail how Lionel had tried to leave the ship and had been forcibly restrained by the Captain. The ensuing row might have taken a nasty turn.

  “But I told him to behave himself,” Effie said. “I thought he wasn’t going to take any notice of me, but he did. And after that he was as nice as pie. He is a good lad, as long as you don’t stand for his nonsense.”

  “I am sure the Marquis will be relieved to hear it,” said Shona, smiling.

  “Did you go anywhere interesting?”

  “To a little church just outside Calais. The Marquis had a most particular reason for visiting it. Effie, I am beginning to think that some of the things you told me were not so far-fetched after all.”

  “You mean he really is a monster?”

  “Not a monster, but a man obsessed who can find no peace.”

  “Because of her?”

  “Her?” Shona echoed, a little sharply.

  “His slain beloved,” Effie replied with relish.

  Shona hated that expression. It made the Marquis sound like a character in a cheap melodrama. It did not do justice to the living, suffering man she had seen today, compulsively retracing his steps to the place where he had known brief happiness.

  She did not see the Marquis for the rest of the day. At supper time she and Effie joined Lionel in the dining room, to be informed by the steward that his Lordship was dining alone in his cabin.

  The meal was excellent. Lionel and Effie seemed to have become good friends and with her he was certainly on his best behaviour.

  But Shona could not enjoy herself. Her thoughts were with the man sitting alone, brooding in his silent cabin.

  She spent the rest of the evening on the deck, listening to the wind and the waves.