The Magnificent Marquis Read online

  “I realised that, my Lord, and that is why I did not complain, but I was far too agitated this morning to eat any breakfast and dinner last night seems a long way away.”

  The Marquis laughed.

  “If you are still hungry, I will tell Hutton to leave some biscuits by your bed, so that you can gobble them up at night.”

  “How could I be hungry after that delicious dinner, but I will surely grow very fat if every meal on this voyage is equally tempting. To send away any dish would insult your chef.”

  “If there is one thing I dislike,” said the Marquis, “it is bad food. Half the pleasure of being at sea, unless you are seasick, is to really enjoy the meals. That is why I employ this particular French chef”

  “I will go and talk to him and practise my French, although I am very fluent. Of course, the majority of the girls at my school were French.”

  “It is certainly my good fortune that you shared a room with an Egyptian girl, Delia, and now I will tell you briefly why we will go ashore at Alexandria and then on to Cairo.”

  “I am listening intently, my Lord, and I think from what you have already told me that the British are not only curious about the Suez Canal but are regretting they did not take a large share in it.”

  The Marquis stared wide-eyed at her.

  “I definitely did not tell you that was the reason as to why I am making this voyage!”

  “No, you did not tell me, but I reasoned it out for myself. You would not have left in such a hurry unless you had been sent on a specific mission and that meant that either the Prime Minister himself or the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had asked for your help.”

  The Marquis could hardly believe what he was now hearing.

  “At my school the French girls were always talking about the Suez Canal,” Delia went on, “boasting about how clever they had been to promote it, while the British had been against the whole idea from the very beginning.”

  The Marquis was astonished.

  “Just how could you have possibly thought all that out for yourself?”

  “It was not really all that difficult. The French girls kept saying how excited their fathers were about the Canal. The Egyptian girl I shared with told me what rows there had been because slaves had been employed to build it.”

  She paused for a moment and then continued,

  “Some fathers of the pupils had invested money in the Suez Canal project and were frightened that the British would force them to lose it.”

  As she spoke the Marquis remembered that ‘in the cause of humanity and justice’ the British Government had protested against the use of slave labour – their threatening to stop it by force had only discontinued it finally.

  It was the French who supported de Lesseps when he had turned to the Emperor Louis Napoleon for help and investment, and thanks to him the work had steamed ahead swiftly through the use of dredgers and rock-busters.

  The labourers were no longer slaves, but a motley collection of different nationalities attracted by a wage of just over a shilling a day.

  He recalled hearing the new workers were called ‘a Babel of Nations’ and it was they who were responsible for Ismail receiving from the Turkish Sultan in 1867 his new title of Khedive instead of Viceroy.

  It was little wonder that he was now, as the Prime Minister had said, inviting all the European Heads of State to the Grand Opening, which was to take place next March.

  The Marquis had been wondering just how he was going explain this complicated position to a young girl.

  Yet Delia knew as much about it as he did himself!

  “You surprise me,” he now said aloud. “I thought I should have to start at the very beginning and tell you why the Suez Canal has always been a dream of Ferdinand de Lesseps.”

  “There is much more I want to know, my Lord, and please forgive me if I seem stupid over many matters, but I do know a bit about the Suez Canal from my school in France.”

  “I think as it happens, Delia, you know a great deal more than I do. Therefore we must exchange information so we don’t make the mistake of leaving one or the other ignorant as events unfold.”

  “You need not be afraid of that. After all we will be together and I will know instinctively when you want me to listen intently or perhaps to ask awkward questions in the same way as a French girl might.”

  “I have come to the conclusion that you are a most intelligent girl. In fact, I think you are unique, for I am quite convinced that the average girl of your age knows very little about anything except how to dance, and how, if possible, to attract the nearest young man.”

  Now he was speaking with a cynical note creeping into his voice.

  Delia did not answer.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked abruptly.

  “I was just thinking,” Delia replied quietly, “that it is unnecessary for you to be upset by and afraid of women.”

  The Marquis stared at her.

  “Why should you deduce that I am either of those things?”

  “Because you told me you were running away from a woman and I have heard you say scathing and somewhat bitter words against women.”

  She sighed and then continued softly,

  “Not all women are like you think they are and if that is what you have experienced, it is because you are too good-looking and possess an important title.”

  The Marquis did not argue – he just looked at her.

  Then she went on,

  “One day you will find someone who suits you and who will really love you just for yourself. But because you have so far failed to meet such a woman, it is really a great mistake to think that they are all the same and to treat them as enemies.”

  The Marquis felt he could not be hearing her aright.

  How was it possible that this young slip of a girl, who looked as if she was still at school could speak to him in a way he might have expected from his grandmother?

  “You astound me!” he exclaimed.

  “I am so sorry. You must forgive me if I say what is in my mind. It was the way I was able to talk to Mama when she was alive. Since then there has been no one in my life intelligent enough to understand what I am trying to say.”

  “And you think that is what I am?”

  “Forgive me, my Lord, I should not – have spoken to you so frankly. I see now it was wrong for me to do so and presuming inexcusably on our short acquaintance.”

  She was so contrite that the Marquis was obliged to reply,

  “You are not to apologise and, of course, you are to talk to me about any subject that interests you and I will enjoy listening. It’s just that I am finding it surprising that on such a very short acquaintance you should understand so much about me.”

  “It was Mama who taught me to study people in the same way I would study a book. It is what I did at school, especially when new girls or new mistresses arrived.

  “I soon found out that in nine cases out of ten I was absolutely right about them, although naturally I did not say aloud all that was going through my mind.”

  The Marquis hesitated and she added quickly,

  “I am sorry, it was rude and very foolish of me and I will not do so again.”

  “But, of course, you must do it again,” the Marquis assured her. “If we are to work together, we must always be absolutely frank with each other. It was just that I was astonished at you being so observant or maybe I should say so perceptive. Although my instinct is to argue and claim you are wrong, I really cannot truthfully do so.”

  Delia laughed.

  “Now you are being very kind and perhaps a little condescending. As I have already said, it was very foolish of me to say just what was in my mind, but I think it was because it is so exciting to be on this amazing adventure with you – and I was jumping my fences too quickly.”

  “From what you have just said, I imagine that you are a keen horsewoman. Do you talk to your horses as you talk to me?”

  The Marquis was
clearly making a joke of it, but Delia answered him seriously,

  “I adore riding and naturally I should have asked you to tell me about your horses before I started talking to you about yourself. Yes, I have always believed that one should talk to one’s horse, especially when you are getting to know him and you need him to obey you.”

  The Marquis believed that this sort of instruction was only given to advanced pupils and known only to an experienced rider, like himself.

  Because he knew it would please Delia, he said,

  “I always talk to my horse before I enter him into a big race and especially if I want him to jump exceptionally high jumps.”

  Delia smiled.

  “I am sure and, of course, we must talk more about our horses.”

  “The one thing I am certain of, Delia, is that I find this conversation quite extraordinary. We will have plenty of time to get to know each other on this voyage and also to discuss every move we make before we make it.”

  As he spoke, he realised that this was something he had never before said to anyone, except perhaps to Hutton.

  Least of all to a woman.

  In fact, now he came to think about it, he had never held a serious conversation with any woman as they were always talking about themselves or flattering him.

  He glanced at Delia in the candlelight and thought how lovely and yet how childlike she was.

  “You were speaking earlier about your Third Eye,” he said. “Do you think you are using it when you study all the people around you? Is it possible that, as the Egyptians believe, we all really do have one?”

  “Of course we do, but everyone needs to develop it. You might call it perception or sensitivity, or anything you like, but actually it is the Third Eye that makes our lives either a success or a failure.

  “In our contact with people it shows us very clearly whether they are truthful or lying, friend or foe.”

  “And you have found that out in your own short life?” the Marquis asked incredulously.

  “You are really asking me what I really believe in,” replied Delia. “Of course, the majority of the people in the East believe in the ‘Wheel of Rebirth’ – as I do.”

  The Marquis knew it was hopeless to ask her how she could know and understand such an esoteric subject.

  She was a phenomenon and so completely different from anyone he had ever met.

  He therefore enquired quite simply,

  “Tell me why that is what you believe and what evidence you have that it really exists.”

  “You question the concept because it comes from the East, but many Eastern races believe that they have innumerable lives to live, each successive one depending on their behaviour in their preceding life being better or worse than they have achieved before.”

  The Marquis himself had actually studied the Wheel of Rebirth or reincarnation as an undergraduate at Oxford and he had often discussed the subject with several elderly sages who had spent much of their lives in the East.

  Then he had paid scant attention, but now he was becoming intrigued.

  “Are you actually telling me, Delia, that perhaps in your last incarnation you were Egyptian, which is why you can now speak their language so fluently?”

  “It’s certainly a possibility, but I think perhaps I did not advance as far as I should have, and therefore have come back in this life to a great number of difficulties that could have been avoided if I had done better in my previous incarnation.”

  The Marquis chuckled.

  “It sounds to me much like school.”

  “Why should it be anything else?” she asked. “All I do know is that I have my Third Eye and you could call it an innate perception about people and events. I am never mistaken.”

  The Marquis raised his eyebrows, but Delia carried on,

  “It’s a talent I can only have acquired from another life, because my present father has no instinct whatsoever, while my mother, from whom I must have inherited it, was always aware of whether people were good or bad.”

  “Now you are telling me something I can accept.”

  She saw there was a rather scornful look on his face and added quickly,

  “Of course that is only a small part of the belief that activates hundreds of thousands of people in every part of the world – ”

  Her voice softened, as she persevered,

  “For all those who worship at Mecca or live in the heights of Nepal or the plains of India, it is a reality which pushes them to strive fervently so that, when they leave this life, they will be certain to secure a more desirable situation and personality in their next one.”

  “I know that this was a belief held by Buddha,” the Marquis remarked. “But it is something I have not heard discussed much in England and I am only astonished that you are saying all this to me now.”

  “I am sorry if I have surprised you, my Lord, but I recognised as soon as I saw you that you were so different from the average man Papa entertains.”

  There was a short silence and then she blurted out almost dramatically,

  “I know that you have undertaken some outstanding deeds either in this life or a previous one and it has left its mark on you!”

  “How on earth can you say that, Delia?”

  “I just know it to be true! And I am certain that you have been very close to death and saved yourself only by a hair’s breadth and you thought that you must live because there were still many more things for you to do in this life, important not just to yourself but to all those who trust and rely on you.”

  The Marquis sat back in his chair.

  “I just don’t believe that this conversation is taking place. With your hair falling down on each side of your face, you don’t look even fifteen, yet you are talking to me as if you were a Professor at a University or perhaps one of the Holy men I encountered in India.”

  “I wish it was true,” laughed Delia. “But I am sure, although you don’t like to talk about it, that you know you have a special mission to perform in this life.”

  She could see that the Marquis was listening to her intensely and she continued,

  “The mission may have already happened and you would know when it did. Or if it is still to come, you will suddenly become aware of what is expected of you, if you are not conscious of it already.”

  The Marquis thought back.

  It was in fact his intuition that had enabled him to save that small British garrison in India from destruction – and to prevent what might have turned out to be a disaster.

  It was a traumatic event in his life that he had never talked about to anyone.

  Yet he had definitely foreseen what was likely to occur and forestalled it, simply because he was convinced of what was about to happen.

  He had often thought afterwards that any other man might have walked away from the fort, because it was none of his business or perhaps because he was only imagining the danger and had no actual proof of it.

  Now in some extraordinary way this child was telling him that it was an event that had been preordained in his life. That something he had dismissed as pure instinct was very real and had been given to him by a Power greater than himself.

  While he was thinking, he had not spoken, but Delia had been watching him.

  Now she rose to her feet.

  “I think as we are both tired, we should go to bed,” she suggested. “I can only thank you once again for your wonderful kindness in rescuing me from a terrible fate and bringing me here with you.”

  She smiled before she added,

  “I think I must have known when I climbed into the box at the back of your chaise that you were as you are, and not as you might have been – ”

  Before the Marquis could reply, she had walked to the door.

  Then, as he somewhat belatedly rose to his feet, she went out closing the door behind her.

  He heard her running down the companionway.

  He sat down again in his seat at the table.

 
‘I really don’t believe this is happening to me,’ he thought. ‘It is just incredible and I must be dreaming.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The crew were delighted with Delia.

  The Marquis had chosen older men to be his crew as there were intervals when he did not take his yacht to sea.

  He thought young men could find the work boring and get into trouble, and so he therefore preferred men who were over thirty-five and, as the crew had already been with him a few years, many of them were even older.

  From the moment she appeared they took what the Marquis considered was a fatherly interest in Delia.

  They treated her as a child and he could not help his eyes twinkling when the chef one day made her a chocolate ice cream in the form of an upright bear sitting in a pool of strawberry jelly.

  She had gone to the galley and talked to the chef in French, so that every day he tried to think of a new dish to entertain the child.

  Although Delia was not a child, she was certainly amused and delighted by all this attention.

  “See how kind he is,” she said to the Marquis when her pudding appeared as a swan sailing on rippling waves. “He spoils me and I love every minute of it!”

  She enjoyed her favourite dishes and when the chef thought that his Lordship might become tired of them, he served a different dish for each of them.

  She certainly seemed to enjoy his yacht more than any other woman he had ever known.

  She was up early in the morning running around on deck even before he appeared.

  The Captain, which was certainly unusual, enjoyed having her on the bridge with him.

  She was absolutely thrilled when they arrived at the Port of Gibraltar.

  She found all the shops enchanting, but unlike other women did not ask for endless expensive presents.

  She only asked the Marquis if he would buy her a few ribbons for her hair and, when she wore a bow of blue ribbon just above each eye, it made her look even younger than ever.