202. Love in the Dark Page 8

“I have a feeling,” Mr. Dunblane said, “and now I am using my Third Eye, that you are deliberately luring me away from what I want to know about you. Why should you be mysterious unless you are hiding something?”

  Susanna thought that he was actually becoming far too perceptive.

  “I cannot – imagine why you should – think that.”

  “Your voice is very revealing, Miss Brown. When you are nervous, as you are now, because you think that I am delving too deeply into something you don’t wish me to know, the whole tone changes. I suppose hundreds of people have told you that you speak like music.”

  “No one has – told me – that,” Susanna murmured.

  “Then they must have been deaf,” Mr. Dunblane said, “or because I am blind, I am for the first time in my life, using my ears as they should be used.”

  “Or, as you said yourself, it might be your Third Eye.”

  “I have been thinking about that. It seems extraordinary that no one has ever spoken to me about it before, although I suppose that there must be quite a number of people, even in this enlightened age, who know about it.”

  Susanna smiled as she responded,

  “I have read that there are esoteric schools, or there were, in different parts of the world which were attended by all the great leaders of creative thought.”

  “That is as far-fetched as the claim of Madame Blavatsky that there are Masters hidden in the Himalayas who are there to teach and guide the people who believe in them.”

  The scathing way he spoke made Susanna say,

  “You are quite obviously one of the unbelievers.”

  “Of course,” he replied. “I think it is a great deal of nonsense thought up by frustrated women who have nothing better to do.”

  “And yet we know that all the great innovators like Buddha, Plato and Christ,” Susanna said, “spoke to their disciples in a way their ordinary followers would not have understood.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I can quote you a number of instances in the Bible if you wish me to do so.”

  “I think you have been deceived and deluded by a lot of rubbish that has no reality in fact and would be laughed at by any person with any intelligence.”

  Susanna thought for a moment and then she said,

  “Then you don’t believe in miracles?”

  “I have never seen one myself.”

  She hesitated before she went on,

  “You have just been in a very bad motor car accident. You don’t think it a miracle that you were not killed? Why did you survive what might have been fatal for a less fortunate man?”

  Even as she spoke she was almost astonished at herself for saying anything so personal and yet the words seemed to come to her lips almost without her conscious volition.

  There was a long silence before Susanna said in a nervous little voice,

  “Forgive me – I should not have – said that. I have no wish to – upset you again.”

  “You don’t upset me,” Mr. Dunblane said in a different tone. “You have only made me wonder if what you said was not true. I have been so furious at being smashed up and so angry at being blind that until this moment it did not strike me that it was extraordinary that I was not killed outright.”

  “I think you were meant to live,” Susanna said softly. “Perhaps there is something important and special for you to do in the world, so that you are wanted here. I don’t believe that these things ever happen by chance.”

  “A miracle,” Mr. Dunblane muttered to himself.

  Then, pushing his shoulders back a little more comfortably against the cushions behind him, he said,

  “Very well, I am prepared to listen while you expound your theories. At least they are different and give me something to think about.”

  “The Secret Doctrine that has been expounded by many leaders,” Susanna began –

  *

  They talked and argued until luncheon time and when she left him Susanna was sure, although he would not admit it, that Mr. Dunblane was tired.

  She and Mr. Chambers had just finished their luncheon on the terrace when Clint came to say,

  “I’ve got the Master back to bed, sir. He was quite ready to go and was asleep before I left the room.”

  “That is good,” Mr. Chambers said. “Do you think it wise for me to get in touch with a local doctor? I know that Sir William wrote to one.”

  “It’d only annoy the Master,” Clint replied, “and it’d be best to leave him alone until he’s settled down after the journey.”

  “Very well, we will do what you suggest,” Mr. Chambers nodded, “and now Miss Brown and I are going into Florence. We will not be long in case Mr. Dunblane wants us when he awakes.”

  “You can be certain that’s what he’ll want,” Clint said, “especially Miss Brown.”

  He gave Susanna what was almost an impudent grin as he added,

  “You keep his mind off himself and his injuries, miss, and that’s the best medicine anyone of us could give him.”

  “Thank you,” Susanna smiled.

  Then she rose to her feet saying to Mr. Chambers,

  “I will fetch my hat, it will not take more than a minute.”

  She was so afraid that they might have to postpone their exploration at the last moment that only when they were driving towards the City could she relax and look round her, excited as a child at everything she saw.

  She had read for a long time last night how in the middle-ages Florence was the fashion centre of the world and not only developed woollen goods from raw materials for themselves but sold as many as ten thousand pieces a year to England, Flanders and France.

  It would be fun, she thought, to buy some of the silk that Florence was famous for now and also the lace made by the nuns in the Convents and which she knew came from the various hill towns that all had their special designs, each one different from the others.

  Then she remembered that she would have to be careful with her money and thought it would be a question of window-shopping rather than being able to acquire the fabrics, some of which she could see hanging up to dry from the windows in the streets that they were passing through.

  The colours were striking and she remembered she had read that the colours of Florence were particularly those of the autumn sunset sky, rose and green, golds, scarlet, storm-cloud blue, olive, yellow, ivory and oyster-white.

  They drove on, crossing the river. Susanna looked enquiringly at Mr. Chambers and he said,

  “I know without your telling me that the one place you want to go to first is the Uffizi Gallery and the rest can wait.”

  “Thank you, how kind you are.”

  “As I expect you know,” Mr. Chambers replied, “the Uffizi Gallery was created by the Grand Dukes of the house of Medici at the end of the sixteenth century. It was built around the collection begun by Cosimo il Vecchio and his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, enlarged it into the greatest repository of arts in the then known world.”

  In Florence one always came back, Susanna thought, to Lorenzo and she knew when she stood in front of his terracotta bust that he looked exactly as she had expected.

  She had known that he was not outstandingly handsome, not at all like the statues sculpted by Michelangelo, but she had expected that he would look strong, virile and overwhelmingly masculine.

  There was a determination in his face that made her feel he would conquer people not only physically but mentally.

  She thought too that, if his eyes looked into hers, they would reach deep into her soul and she would find it hard to hide anything from him.

  She stood staring at the bust for so long that Mr. Chambers, who had moved away to look at other things, came back to say,

  “If you want to see the Botticellis before we return, I think you must leave Lorenzo for the moment.”

  Susanna gave a little sigh and declared,

  “He is really magnificent!”

  Then she let Mr. Chambers lead her t
o the pictures that she had longed to see for so long, only finding herself somewhat sidetracked into feeling that Lorenzo was different from what she had ever felt about anything else.

  There was so much to see and everything was so breathtakingly beautiful that it was only when she got back to the Villa that she felt that she must try to express the rapture it all had aroused in her.

  Clint was waiting for them saying reproachfully,

  “Mr. Dunblane’s been awake some time and he’s a surprise for you.”

  “What is it?” Susanna asked.

  She pulled off her hat, smoothed down her hair with her hands and hurried to the bedroom.

  Clint opened the door and her first glance at the man sitting by the window told her what the surprise was. The bandages had been taken from Mr. Dunblane’s arms and now only his head and neck were still encased in them.

  She gave a little cry of delight.

  “That is better, much better!” she exclaimed. “Now you will be able to feel things with your hands as well as listen to them with your ears.”

  “I thought what you would say would be appropriate to the occasion,” Mr. Dunblane remarked.

  As she walked towards him, he said in the dry voice he often used when they argued,

  “I suppose you are longing to eulogise over the pictures you have seen. So get it over, since you intend to do so with or without my permission.”

  “I have so much – to tell you,” Susanna answered.

  “Most of it will undoubtedly bore me. I will do my best not to yawn, but I may fall asleep.”

  “That, of course, would be good for you, so I shall not be able to make any complaint!” Susanna retorted.

  As she spoke, she looked at his hands and thought that they were very expressive.

  It was Miss Harding who had taught her not only to look at people’s faces when she appraised them but also their hands.

  “Hands can tell you a great deal about a person's character,” she had said. “Hands can be coarse or delicate, artistic or common. They can also betray the sensitive instincts of those who may wish to hide them.”

  Susanna thought now that Mr. Dunblane’s hands were strong and well formed.

  She thought too that someone who understood such things would think that there was something generous in the long stretch between the thumb and the first finger.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I was looking at your hands.”

  “Are you trying to judge me by my fingers just as, of course, I can judge you by your voice?”

  “I think that is making character study too easy,” Susanna argued. “Considering that we are each of us, a complicated whole, to judge one part by itself might give one an entirely wrong impression.”

  “Are we talking about you or me?”

  “Perhaps both.”

  “Then you would rather I did not assume that, because your voice has a particularly golden quality, the rest of your character equals it.”

  Susanna drew in her breath trying to think what she could say, but before she could do so, he gave a short laugh,

  “I am diverting you from what you want to tell me. Now then, whom do you most closely resemble, Venus or the Lippi Madonna, whose brains have aroused your admiration more than her beautiful face?”

  “They were both unbelievably lovely,” Susanna answered, “and for the moment it is almost impossible to separate in my mind the wonders I have seen this afternoon in that wonderful, wonderful treasure house.”

  “Nevertheless I am waiting to hear what you think of Lorenzo the Magnificent.”

  Susanna started and looked at him in surprise.

  “How did you know – I had seen his bust?”

  “I was quite certain that you would seek it out because whenever you have talked about him I have known that he interests you perhaps more than any living man has been able to do.”

  “How could you know – that?” Susanna enquired.

  “That is a foolish question because you must be aware that your all-revealing voice told me or perhaps, who knows, I was using my Third Eye!”

  Susanna was embarrassed that he should realise that she had thought of Lorenzo the Magnificent almost as if he was a real man who was still alive ever since she had read about him on the train.

  “I suppose you know,” Mr. Dunblane said mockingly, “that Signor Guicciardini, whom you quoted as being an adverse critic, has left on record that he was licentious, very amorous and yet constant in his loves, which usually lasted several years.”

  “Guicciardini was always finding fault,” Susanna replied. “He was quite obviously jealous.”

  Mr. Dunblane laughed and she realised that he had been deliberately teasing her into a defence of the man she admired.

  “I wonder,” he said reflectively, “if you met Lorenzo today, if he came to this Villa this afternoon, what you would think of him. Perhaps you would be disappointed. Heroes are often very disillusioning when one meets them in the flesh.”

  “He must have been like his bust,” Susanna said, “and that portrays him as a very strong masculine-looking man.”

  “Is that what you are looking for in a husband?”

  “I have told you that I shall never marry,” Susanna answered, “and I have no wish to – talk about it.”

  “Then you are very different from most women, who not only want to be married but talk about it incessantly!”

  “You should be grateful that I am different, sir.”

  “I find it hard to believe that you should take up such an attitude. Has some man frightened and shocked you or perhaps deserted you, so that you have a dislike of the whole male sex?”

  “No! No! It’s nothing like that,” Susanna cried. “It is just that I know that I shall – never marry.”

  “Well, that is different. What you were saying before, or rather what I thought you said, was you that had no wish to marry. That is not the same as saying that you will not have the chance.”

  “Must we talk about me?” Susanna asked. “Why not let me cross-examine you and ask why you are not married.”

  “That is quite an easy question to answer,” he replied, “I have never met anyone whom I thought I could tolerate for the rest of my life and, unlike most of my countrymen, I have a firm dislike of the Divorce Courts.”

  “Then you should live in England,” Susanna said, “where divorce, as you know, is considered to be an outrage and very few people will face the ostracism that makes a martyr even of the innocent party.”

  “If I marry, it will be for ever,” Mr. Dunblane stated firmly. “I loathe publicity and have no intention of allowing reporters to pry into my private affairs.”

  He spoke in a manner that made Susanna think that he had already suffered from that type of interference in the past.

  Then she said,

  “If you assume that I have found my ideal man in Lorenzo, which picture in Florence depicts your ideal woman?” Mr. Dunblane laughed.

  “You are not going to catch me as easily as that! A cleverly baited trap, Miss Brown. But that has always been a feminine perquisite and let me tell you that this conversation is aggressively feminine!”

  “You started it!” Susanna flashed.

  “But I was being masculine in being interested in you.”

  “I think it unlikely that you could be anything else.”

  “Why should you say that ?”

  “Because I think that like Lorenzo you are masculine in your desire to dominate everyone and to rule the people around you in a manner that in broader spheres would make you a tyrant!”

  She was being deliberately provocative and, as if he knew that it was a challenge, he said,

  “Bravo! A clever way of getting out of an uncomfortable position. But let me tell you, Miss Brown, I am now interested in you because it is something you don’t want me to be. And, as I cannot read a book, I am forced to read people from what I can only hear and sense.”

  �
�I suppose because that is what I urged you to do, I cannot now complain if you carry out my advice, but I would rather you chose someone else.”

  “I would point out that my choice is limited. I already know all there is to know about Chambers and Clint and, unless I am to concentrate on the servants, that only leaves you.”

  Susanna rose to stand at the window looking out into the garden.

  “I suppose that were you here in other circumstances,” she said after a minute, “the Villa would be full of people. There must be many neighbours who would be pleased to see you again.”

  “If you think I want other people’s company, you are mistaken,” he answered. “I have no wish for anyone to see me as a figure of fun.”

  “No one would think that, sir,” Susanna said quickly. “They would be sorry, desperately sorry, at what has happened to you, but at the same time they would be glad that you were still alive.”

  As she spoke, she saw his fingers move in response to what she had said and she thought that now the bandages had been removed she would find it easier to know what he was feeling.

  “If you are better tomorrow,” she went on, “you will be able to sit in the garden. You will then be able to smell the flowers, hear the hum of the bees and the flutter of birds in the trees.”

  “I understand that you are telling me what to make myself aware of.”

  “I cannot believe you are so obtuse that you would not notice it yourself without any help from me.”

  “I have never employed a reader before,” he said, “and I am just wondering to what category a reader belongs.”

  Susanna did not reply and he carried on,

  “You talk to me quite differently from the way that anyone on my staff has ever spoken to me before.”

  Susanna looked at him apprehensively,

  “I am – sorry if I do anything – wrong. I can only excuse myself by saying that this is the first time I have been employed as a reader.”

  “I am not complaining. I am only saying that it is unusual. What you are doing, Miss Brown, and I think you are doing it deliberately, is to make me think. I am just wondering which of my doctors sent you to me. Could it be one of those psychiatrists whom most Americans find indispensable?”

  “It was neither,” Susanna answered him. “I saw your advertisement in The Times and came round the next morning. I expected when I did so to find the position already filled.”