From Hell to Heaven Page 7

  “Now you have beautiful things in the present you must think of them and, because you are young, of the future. That is what matters, what lies ahead.”

  “Yes – of course,” Kistna agreed. “But it is only today being here with you that I have felt for the first time – that I have a future. Before it was only a matter of time before I died, as my sister died – of the cold and hunger.”

  She spoke quietly in a voice that was not dramatic in any way, but which somehow made it more poignant and more moving.

  The Marquis had a strange impulse to put his arm about her shoulders, hold her against him and tell her that she need never be frightened again.

  He knew it was what he would have done to a child, but he remembered that Kistna was not a child but a grown up young woman, who would doubtless misunderstand such an action on his part.

  “Now you have a great positive future and I think a very exciting one!” he said.

  The way he spoke seemed to break the spell that had existed for some moment between him and the girl standing beside him.

  *

  Later that night when Kistna was alone in the darkness of her bed she found herself thinking of the Marquis’s words and the way he had said, ‘a very exciting future,’ almost as if he knew what would happen to her.

  ‘What could be more exciting than being here and becoming the Marquis’s Ward?’ she asked herself.

  And yet, perceptively, she sensed that there was something more, something she felt was in the Marquis’s mind ever since she had met him.

  She remembered her mother had often said to her father,

  “There is something about India, darling, that makes one intuitive, or is it perceptive?”

  “The two are almost synonymous,” the Reverend John Lovell had said with a smile.

  “Not to me,” his wife had replied. “It is difficult to express what I mean, but at times I feel I am closer to the Other World, the world both you and I belong to, darling, than I am to this world.”

  “I think perhaps that happens to everybody who comes to India,” Kistna’s father answered. “It is as if the faith of the people is intensified by the heat and the dryness until one can feel it vibrating everywhere.”

  “I am sure that is it,” Mrs. Lovell had said. “The vibrations of your faith and you, my dearest, make you very real.”

  They smiled at each other across the table and Kistna had thought that she could feel the vibrations of their love as clearly as her mother felt the vibrations of faith.

  Looking back she had been sure that their house, small though it was, had been filled with the love and happiness that was rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

  “We were so happy,” she would cry despairingly when she lay in the darkness on the hard bed in the dormitory. “Oh, Mama, Papa, how could you – die and leave me – all alone?”

  She tried to tell herself that they were near her and she only had to reach out from the confines of the material world to find them.

  But somehow because she was so cold and hungry it was difficult to link with the unseen or with the love she had lost.

  Now she felt as if her mother and father were beside her again, talking to her and guiding her and she knew that her love for them and theirs for her was as strong as it had ever been.

  ‘I am lucky, so very very lucky,’ Kistna told herself.

  Perhaps it had been her mother who had guided the Marquis to the orphanage to save her and the children from a hell that had seemed to stretch endlessly into an empty future.

  Now there was tomorrow, the next day and the day after that and she would be with the Marquis, who almost like a Medieval Knight had destroyed the dragon in the shape of Mrs. Moore.

  ‘He is wonderful, Mama!’ Kistna said in her heart. ‘So wonderful and so handsome! He is very kind to me and has given me all these wonderful clothes. At the same time there is – something I don’t – understand.’

  She concentrated and tried to put it into words.

  ‘It is something he is thinking about me, something that is not just kindness but something else.’

  She tried to express it, but the words would not come.

  She only knew that behind the Marquis’s eyes there was a mystery she could not solve and that vibrating from him there was something different from what she might have expected.

  It made her a little afraid.

  It made her feel that even in the dream world into which he had taken her, where she lived in the most fantastically beautiful house she had ever imagined, where she was waited on and dressed as if she was a Princess, there was still something that she found herself questioning, like a note of music that was not quite true.

  Then she thought that she was being absurd.

  “I am lucky – so very – very lucky,” she said aloud. “Thank you, God, for sending him, and thank you for making him my Guardian.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I wonder if we are being missed in London,” Peregrine ventured.

  “I imagine there is plenty of speculation about our absence,” the Marquis replied dryly, “especially in certain quarters.”

  Peregrine knew that he was referring to Lady Isobel and he thought that she would not only be bewildered but curious to know why, when there were so many attractive gaieties in London, the Marquis had chosen to retire to the country.

  Almost as if their conversation had evoked a response, the Marquis’s secretary Mr. Barnes came to the door to say,

  “There is a letter from London for your Lordship and a groom has been told he is to wait for an answer.”

  He held out a note as he spoke and the Marquis without taking it from him saw the flamboyant crest on the back of the envelope and said,

  “Send the groom back with a message to say that you are unable to get in touch with me and it would be useless for him to wait for me to return to the Abbey.”

  Mr. Barnes’s expression did not alter.

  He merely replied,

  “Very good, my Lord,” and left the room.

  “Isobel?” Peregrine questioned.

  The Marquis nodded.

  “She is extremely persistent, but I have no intention of being embroiled with her again. I realise now that it was a mistake from the very beginning.”

  “I could have told you that,” Peregrine pointed out, “but I doubt if you would have listened.”

  The Marquis did not answer and he went on,

  “Even though she is a beauty I have always thought that at heart Isobel is a bad woman and that is not something I say about many fair charmers.”

  Again the Marquis did not respond and, as Peregrine knew that he disliked talking about his love affairs, even to his most intimate friends, he was not surprised.

  At the same time, because he was extremely fond of the Marquis, he was glad that he had realised in time that Isobel was not only no good but also dangerous.

  Because the new situation was uppermost in both their thoughts, Peregrine, having dismissed Isobel, was thinking once again of Kistna.

  “Have you noticed how different she looks after only four, or it is five, days of decent food and pretty clothes?” he asked the Marquis.

  “She has certainly put on a little weight.”

  “I have the feeling,” Peregrine said, “that by the time we have finished her rehabilitation she will turn out to be a beauty.”

  “Do you really think so?” the Marquis remarked.

  He did not sound particularly interested and Peregrine replied almost aggressively,

  “Where are your eyes, Linden? Personally I find it fascinating to notice the change that I can see taking place every day or I could almost say every hour. She is certainly no longer the little scarecrow she was when we first saw her at the orphanage.”

  He gave a little laugh.

  “Now I look back I can think of nothing more fantastic than that moment when we arrived and Kistna in rags, looking as if she might die at any moment, opened the door.”
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br />   He saw that the Marquis was listening and continued,

  “Then there was all that screaming upstairs and we found that devilish woman beating those wretched children. It was just like something out of a book.”

  “I will certainly never allow such a thing to happen again on any property of mine,” the Marquis said harshly.

  “How is Rodwell shaping up?” Peregrine enquired.

  “I like him,” the Marquis answered, “and, as he has always lived on the estate and knows everything and everybody, he is a far better Agent than that last swine I employed.”

  “You were wise to take him on,” Peregrine agreed.

  “It is always a mistake, I think, to bring in a stranger.”

  “I agree and, as you say, I have been wise in this particular.”

  “And a great many others as well,” Peregrine smiled. “Now to go back to what is the really important question. When are we going to produce Kistna like a rabbit out of a hat and start tricking Branscombe into proposing marriage?”

  “She is not yet ready!”

  “Personally I don’t think we have far to go.”

  “What you are really saying is that you are bored with being here and want to get back to London.”

  “I have said nothing of the sort!” Peregrine objected sharply. “I always enjoy being with you, Linden. And, as long as I have superb horses to ride and your cellar at my disposal, I have no complaints.”

  “What about Molly or whatever her name is?” the Marquis enquired.

  Peregrine grinned.

  “I never could really afford her and being with you here I am not only saving on her board and lodging but on all the things I should undoubtedly have been persuaded into giving her, even though I could not pay for them!”

  “I am glad to be of service!” the Marquis remarked.

  Peregrine laughed.

  “I am enjoying myself and there is no pretence about it! I have the feeling, although I may be wrong, that I can say the same thing about you.”

  The Marquis did not answer him immediately and Peregrine was certain that, even if he would not admit it, he was not half as bored as he had been before the Derby.

  There had been no doubt then that nothing interested him particularly and, with his liaison with Isobel coming to an end, there was little to look forward to except the familiar round of entertainments, the same crowd of friends and hangers-on.

  There was no doubt, Peregrine thought shrewdly, that Kistna had brought something into his life that had been lacking.

  The Marquis in fact was concentrating very seriously on seeing that she acquired all the graces and attributes that were required of a debutante.

  “More than that,” he said to Peregrine, “Mirabelle is different from most young girls of her age.”

  “In what way?” Peregrine enquired.

  “Because she has always been so rich,” the Marquis answered, “she has had the best teachers, not only for her education but also for all the other talents a young girl is expected to produce for the marriage market.”

  Peregrine raised his eyebrows.

  “The marriage market?” he questioned.

  “What else is it?” the Marquis enquired. “Their parents groom them like show horses and bring them to London to parade them before bachelors like you and me, hoping to captivate our fancy.”

  He spoke so cynically that Peregrine looked at him in surprise.

  Then he laughed.

  “What else do you expect them to do?” he enquired. “A woman’s sole aim in life is to get married.”

  “And a man’s to avoid it!”

  Peregrine thought this over.

  Then he answered,

  “That is not quite true. After all, unless my elder brother has a regrettable accident, it does not matter if I remain a bachelor for the rest of my life, but you have to continue the family and sooner or later produce a son or rather two or three to be on the safe side!”

  “It was drummed into my head almost from the moment I was born that was my duty towards the family,” the Marquis remarked with a note in his voice that told his friend that he had always disliked the idea.

  “It’s strange,” Peregrine ruminated, “that you have never fallen in love.”

  “I have taken damned good care I don’t get involved in the marriage market,” the Marquis said, “in fact I cannot remember when I last met a girl of Kistna’s age, which makes it rather difficult.”

  “In what way?”

  “I am not certain how much she should know or how ignorant she will appear among other debutantes.”

  “If you ask me,” Peregrine said, “she is so quick-witted that she will make most of them seem like suet puddings.”

  “She is still too thin,” the Marquis said sharply.

  “The curves are there and that is the important thing,” Peregrine said. “I remember my father saying, ‘a woman should be curved and a man straight.’ He was looking at the Prince Regent’s stomach as he spoke!”

  “Poor old Prinny! He was very ashamed of it,” the Marquis smiled, “especially the last years when he used to drive out only in a closed carriage and, when I visited him at Windsor, he always kept the blinds half-drawn.”

  “He ate and drank too much and had done so all his life,” Peregrine said. “I don’t mind betting, Linden, that you will keep your figure until you reach the grave.”

  “I certainly hope so,” the Marquis replied. “Which reminds me, the horses are waiting and I told Kistna that she could come with us.”

  “I thought that would be the reason why we were not leaving earlier.”

  “She had to have her French lesson,” the Marquis said. “Incidentally we were fortunate to find that woman to teach her. Her accent is perfect, but then she is Parisian.”

  “I have a feeling that by the time you have finished with Kistna she will be stuffed like a Christmas goose. Men hate a clever woman and, if she enters the marriage market you are so scathing about, she will frighten her suitors away rather than attract them.”

  “With her fortune?” the Marquis asked cynically. “You have not told her yet that she has to pretend to be Mirabelle?” Peregrine enquired.

  “No, of course not!” the Marquis replied. “You know we agreed that we would train her together and I would not dream of taking such an essential step in her development without discussing it with you first.”

  “I am glad you are being cautious,” Peregrine said. “I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that she will not like pretending to be another woman.”

  “I am not concerned with her feelings,” the Marquis said in a lofty tone, “she will do as she is told and personally I anticipate no difficulties of any sort.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Kistna is so grateful for what I have done for her, that I am quite certain she would obey any order I give her, whatever it may be.”

  Peregrine was about to argue and then changed his mind.

  He could not help thinking that the Marquis was over-confident and that women, however young they might be, were invariably unpredictable.

  But there was no point in saying so, and he kept silent.

  *

  Kistna, having said goodbye politely to her French Mistress, had run on winged feet to her bedroom to change into her riding habit.

  It had been difficult for the last quarter-of-an-hour of the lesson to concentrate on Mademoiselle’s voice and not watch the clock, knowing that by the time the hands reached eleven she would be free and could be riding with the Marquis and Mr. Wallingham.

  She had never thought that her life could change overnight from misery and despair to a happiness that seemed to make everything golden and sparkling like the sun.

  When she looked back to the moment when she had opened the door to the two most handsome and elegant gentlemen she had ever seen in her life, how could she have imagined that they were taking her from an old world to a new one, where everything had an unmistakably dr
eam-like quality?

  ‘It cannot be true,’ she said to herself as she put on one of the habits that had arrived from London.

  ‘It cannot be true!’ she thought again as she ran down the carved gilt staircase to find the Marquis and Peregrine in the hall with three magnificent horses waiting for them outside.

  The Marquis was himself teaching her to ride and he was extremely insistent that she hold the reins in the right way and sit in her saddle like a born equestrian.

  She learnt to take her fences in a manner that brought her the enthusiastic approval of Peregrine if not of the Marquis.

  She had learned, however, to know when he was pleased by the expression in his eyes. But it was not only in riding that he was her Tutor.

  He taught her when she came into a room to walk at a measured pace, stop at exactly the right place to drop a curtsey and to carry her head at precisely the correct angle as she did so.

  He made her rehearse it over and over again until he had obtained the perfection that he desired. Then there were similar instructions for greeting people, when saying ‘goodnight’ or proceeding to the dining room for meals.

  “If you ask me, you expect too much,” Peregrine had protested once or twice.

  “If she is pretending to be my Ward, I expect her to be faultless in her behaviour in any and every circumstance,” the Marquis answered.

  He thought that Peregrine looked sceptical and added,

  “Make no mistake, Branscombe, who is a stickler for etiquette and protocol, will notice the slightest fault and we have no desire to make him suspicious until the knot is tied.”

  Peregrine had to agree that this was common sense and certainly Kistna made no complaints.

  She appeared to be as anxious as the Marquis was that everything she did should be perfect.

  Riding now through the Park and into the fields beyond, Kistna was on a horse that was spirited but well-trained and responded to almost everything she required of him.

  As they drew in their mounts after a long gallop, she said with a little sigh,

  “I never imagined, my Lord, that it would be possible to move – so fast. Since your horses must be swifter than anyone else’s, I am not surprised that you win so many races.”