202. Love in the Dark Page 9

  “It was really chance? No one had suggested to you that you ought to help me?”

  “No one.”

  As she spoke, Susanna pondered, as she had done so often, what was happening at Lavenham House. She was well aware that both her mother and her father must have been very angry at her behaviour and she wondered how they were setting about trying to find her.

  If they did find her, Susanna thought, then the battle over her marriage would start again. And it would be very difficult for her to escape a second time.

  She felt herself shiver at the thought and Mr. Dunblane asked,

  “What is troubling you?”

  “How do you know I am – troubled?”

  “I am not going to try to put into words something which you can explain far better than I can.”

  Susanna gave a little sigh.

  “Please stop being perceptive about me, sir. When I tried to help you by telling you about your Third Eye, I did not want it directed towards me.”

  “You are hiding something from me and perhaps everyone else,” Mr. Dunblane said. “What have you done? Committed a murder?”

  Susanna laughed as if she could not help it.

  “No, not as bad as that.”

  “But you are hiding from something or perhaps somebody?”

  “Why must you ask me so many questions?”

  “Because I have little else to do and also, if you want the truth, you interest me.”

  “Let’s be interested in something else. There is so much else to talk about.”

  “If you are referring to the pictures, I am sick to death of them,” he asserted positively. “The women depicted on canvas have all been dead for centuries, you are alive, very much alive, and owing as you say to a miracle, I am alive too! Let’s concentrate on that.”

  His voice seemed to vibrate between them and Susanna said,

  “Let me tell you – that if you – become interested in me, just because there is no one else – eventually you will be disappointed! I am warning you, sir – forget me.”

  It struck her as she spoke, how unwise she had been not to tell him how unattractive and plain she was when they had first met.

  Instead she had deliberately allowed him to think that she might look like Lippi’s Madonna and now it was too late to retract.

  To explain that she was just a fat plain girl whom no man would look at twice, unless he wanted her money, was impossible.

  She looked out at the flowers, exquisite in the sunshine and found herself asking in her heart with a kind of agony, why she could not have been like them.

  ‘Mama is so beautiful. Papa is so handsome. May is lovely. Oh God, why am I the exception?’

  As she spoke the words silently in her mind, she felt that her feelings were the same as Mr. Dunblane’s when he cried out against the darkness in which he could not see.

  ‘The cross he has to bear,’ Susanna thought, ‘may only be for a very short while, but mine is with me for life.’

  “Come here,” Mr. Dunblane said suddenly, his voice breaking in on her thoughts.

  She turned obediently and walked towards him.

  “Give me your hand,” he added and held out his.

  Because he asked it of her, Susanna laid her fingers on his palm.

  “Now tell me what is upsetting you,” he demanded gently. “I can feel it vibrating from you almost as if, like me, you are in pain.”

  Her fingers fluttered in his, but he would not release them.

  “Tell me,” he insisted.

  She felt as if he was overpowering her and forcing her to do what he wanted until with a little cry she snatched her hand away.

  “You are – hypnotising me and I am – frightened.”

  She moved away from him to stand once again at the window and she knew without looking back that his hand lay open on the rug that covered his knees.

  She was not only frightened of what he had said but also by what she felt when he touched her.

  It was a feeling that she had never known before.

  She had thought that she felt helpless and dominated by someone stronger than herself, and there had been another feeling too, which she could neither analyse nor have any wish to do so.

  “There is something I want to say – ” he began, but at that moment the door opened and Clint appeared with a tray.

  “What is it?” Mr. Dunblane enquired.

  “I have brought your tea, sir, and Mr. Chambers is waiting on the terrace for Miss Brown.”

  “I will – go to him at – once,” Susanna stammered.

  She thought as she spoke that her voice sounded rather strange and she was certainly glad to escape.

  *

  Late that night Susanna could not sleep. She had twisted and turned, throwing herself about in the comfortable bed in the beautiful room that she had felt an atmosphere of sanctity in until it had become mingled with her own thoughts and feelings.

  It was also very hot.

  “Unprecedentedly so for March,” Mr. Chambers had said earlier.

  “It can often be very hot here in April,” he went on, “and the doctors insisted that Mr. Dunblane must go to a warm climate, so I am grateful even though I personally find the heat oppressive.”

  “I like it,” Susanna had said, feeling as if the sunshine warmed her heart.

  But now tonight she had felt as if there was not enough air to breathe.

  She guessed that it must be after two o’clock in the morning and thought that far away in the distance she had heard one of the many Churches in Florence strike the hour.

  ‘I cannot sleep because I am being foolish about Mr. Dunblane,’ she told herself severely.

  But nevertheless she had found herself going over their conversation again and again and feeling as if he was confused in her mind with Lorenzo the Magnificent.

  ‘When the bandages are removed, what will he look like?’ she wondered. ‘The man who had ruled Florence over four centuries ago?’

  She laughed at herself for being so imaginative. In all probability Mr. Dunblane was an ordinary unattractive American and she would be very stupid to have imaginative ideas about him.

  Yet because he and the bust of Lorenzo kept on haunting her she climbed out of bed and walked to the window.

  She pulled back the curtains and found that the world outside was even more beautiful than it had been before darkness fell.

  Now the moon was out, glinting on the domes and steeples in the City, the sky was full of brilliant stars and below her Susanna could see the river silver as it flowed beneath the bridges.

  The garden was full of mysterious dark shadows and yet it was easy to discern the cypress trees and the patches of white where the lilies grew.

  The window was open and on an impulse Susanna put on her dressing gown and, slipping her feet into soft-soled slippers, walked across the verandah onto the grass beyond.

  The air was warm and heavy and, as she moved towards the flowers, there was the fragrance of night-scented stock that seemed to envelop her as if it was part of a dream.

  She walked on and then suddenly came upon a mirror, which reflected the light from the sky and the fireflies floating above it and realised that it was the swimming pool.

  Then she drew in her breath with the wonder of it because the air was filled with myriads of flickering fireflies.

  Their sparkling beauty was like the galaxy of the Milky Way overhead and intermingled with the lights of Florence below.

  Susanna knew at once that she was in Fairyland.

  It had a romantic enchantment that had not been there in the day and Susanna thought that her feet had deliberately carried her here so that she could bathe secretly and alone in the quietness of the night.

  The only person who might have been about was Mr. Chambers, but he had told her when she said ‘goodnight’ to him that he was very tired.

  “I have not been sleeping well recently,” he said, “but I have a feeling that tonight I shall sle
ep for the prescribed eight hours.”

  “I am sorry if I have made you do too much today.”

  “That was a pleasure,” he replied, “but there have been problems with Mr. Dunblane's business affairs which have, I admit, taken their toll of me these last few weeks.”

  He obviously did not wish to say anything more and Susanna wondered again apprehensively if Mr. Dunblane was in financial trouble.

  Now she decided, with Mr. Chambers fast asleep and the servants all in a very different part of the Villa, that there would be no one to know what she did.

  She remembered that there were bathing dresses in the little pavilion at the end of the swimming pool, but, daringly she did something that she had never done in her life before – she decided to bathe naked.

  ‘I will pretend I am one of the Goddesses who are depicted beautifully in the Gallery,’ she thought, ‘even Venus herself, not rising from the waves, but walking down into the water with the light of the moon and the glitter of stars to guide her!’

  Her imagination captured the idea and she was no longer plain fat Susanna, but Venus, perfectly proportioned with a body as lovely as her face and her golden hair hanging over her white shoulders.

  Slowly, without hurrying, Susanna moved into the shallow part of the pool.

  Then, as the water rose higher and higher, she struck out swimming as she had done when she was a child, her arms and legs moving rhythmically without undue effort.

  “You look like small tadpoles,” her father had laughed when she and May had swum in their lake.

  But now Susanna knew that she was not animal or human, but Divine!

  The Goddess of Love, who could raise men’s hearts so that they sought the rapture that only she could bring them and knew that without it their lives would be empty and desolate.

  The water was warm and soft as milk as Susanna swam up and down the pool for a long time.

  When finally she climbed up the steps and walked across the grass, she raised her arms towards the sky. It was an expression of worship and also one of wonder.

  For a short while she had forgotten herself, while the water and the moonlight had swept her into an ecstasy in which she was part of all beauty and was herself beautiful.

  Because she was still Venus, a longing within her that she had never expressed before came to her lips,

  ‘Give me – love!’

  The words were only a whisper and yet she felt that they were carried up into the sky by a force that she had no control over.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Driving back from Florence in the carriage beside Mr. Chambers, Susanna held a parcel tenderly in her hands.

  She had spent a long time in the shops on the Ponte Vecchio buying a present for Mr. Dunblane.

  Finally, after a great deal of deliberation, she had chosen an eighteenth century musical box which played a gay little tune that the shopkeeper told her, the pheasants had danced to in Medieval times.

  Now, knowing what she was thinking Mr. Chambers said,

  “I am sure that Fyfe will be delighted with your present. He has no family to remember him on special occasions.”

  “His father and mother are dead, I understand.”

  “Yes, and he has always been a very lonely person despite – ”

  Mr. Chambers stopped and did not finish the sentence.

  “I am so glad you told me that it was his birthday today,” Susanna said. “I would never have known it otherwise.”

  “I should really be giving you a present.”

  Susanna looked at Mr. Chambers in surprise and he explained,

  “I cannot tell you what a difference your being here has made not only to my employer but also to me.”

  “I – don’t think – I understand.”

  “When we crossed the Atlantic after his accident,” Mr. Chambers said, “I thought that I would never be able stand the tension of living with him in such circumstances.”

  He smiled at her as he added,

  “I have known Fyfe ever since he was a boy and been in the position not only of secretary, but what Royalty would call a Comptroller. Yet when after his accident he was in despair about his eyesight, I felt helpless and as much of a stranger to him as if I had never known him before.”

  '‘It must have been very difficult for you,” Susanna smiled sympathetically.

  “It was,” Mr. Chambers agreed. “Then you arrived and everything was different.”

  “It is sweet of you to say that.”

  “I mean it. You have not only helped him through what must be the most difficult time in his life but also given him new horizons of the mind.”

  Mr. Chambers laughed.

  “I feel that am sounding quite poetic, but there is no other way to express how you have introduced him to new subjects and, I think, made him use his brain in a way that he has never used it before.”

  “It is wonderful to hear you say such things!” Susanna cried. “And I have never been so happy in the whole of my life.”

  “You look happy,” he agreed, “your whole being vibrates with it.”

  “It is very exciting when we are discussing the books I read aloud.”

  “There was a thrill in Susanna’s tone as if she was speaking to herself and then she added anxiously,

  “I do hope that the books we ordered from Paris – will have arrived.”

  “I am sure they will,” Mr. Chambers replied reassuringly.

  “It is a very long list. We have both become so interested in the works of Gustave Flaubert.”

  “I have heard you arguing about Education Sentimentale, Mr. Chambers remarked, “and I wondered if Madame Bovary was suitable literature for a young lady like yourself.”

  “I think when we are arguing that Mr. Dunblane and I think of each other as literary critics!”

  She made a little sound which was one of delight remembering how they had duelled over Gautier’s Einaux et Camées, Mr. Dunblane thinking it the work of a craftsman, while she had found it lyrical and romantic.

  Perhaps, Susanna thought to herself, the books she read in French were more exciting than those they had chosen in English and Italian.

  Yet she knew if she was honest that it was not the books that mattered, but the man who was listening.

  A man who was ready to confront her the moment she ceased reading with erudite questions which she delighted to answer while thinking out others to confound him with.

  The only difficulty was that like many other teachers she found it hard to keep ahead of her pupil.

  Only by reading late at night after she had gone to bed and reading every second she was not actually in his company, could she feel that she had something new to talk to him about and some fresh twist of phrase.

  “As I was saying,” Mr. Chambers continued, “because you have been so helpful, indeed I think ‘wonderful’ is the right word, the disease that I was told I had contracted no longer menaces me.”

  “You mean – your diabetes is cured?” Susanna enquired.

  “Almost completely. I was examined by the doctor yesterday whom Sir William recommended when we were in England both for Mr. Dunblane and myself and he has given me a practically clean bill of health!”

  Susanna gave a little cry of delight.

  “Oh, I am so glad. I knew that you were feeling ill when we arrived here and indeed you looked very tired and worried.”

  “I was both,” Mr. Chambers admitted, “but now, thanks to you rather than the doctor’s medicine, I am a different man.”

  *

  The day after they had arrived at the Villa he had said to Susanna,

  “I am afraid. Miss Brown, I have to keep to a very strict diet prescribed by my doctor in America. He suspected, which has been confirmed by a specialist in England, that I have a touch of diabetes.”

  “That means sugar in the blood, does it not?” Susanna asked.

  Mr. Chambers nodded his head and explained,

  “I am therefore not allowed
to eat anything sweet or in fact anything that has sugar in it. The chef understands this and, of course, he will provide you with any dishes you particularly like. You have only to tell him your preferences.”

  Susanna had at first been too concerned with Mr. Dunblane to really think about what she ate and then she found that the food at the Villa was so delicious that she had no wish to make any changes.

  They had fritto misto mare, which all Italians enjoy, followed by delicious dishes of very tender veal, kids boiled in white wine, ducks and geese stuffed with quinces and garlic, which were all traditional specialties of Florence.

  There were fresh vegetables from the garden and fruit, which grew more profusely as the weather became hotter and spring began to turn into summer.

  Small red fraises des bois appeared on the breakfast table and there were cherries, apricots and greengages, which Susanna could see ripening on the trees in the orchard.

  Most of the time she was so intent on talking to Mr. Chambers about their joint interest, which was Mr. Dunblane, that she had little time to consider what she was eating.

  Perhaps because they were isolated in a small world of their own they had all grown very close and friendly towards each other.

  It was Mr. Dunblane who had said to Susanna firmly on about the third day they were in Florence,

  “I absolutely refuse to go on calling you ‘Miss Brown’, which I am certain is not your real name.”

  “Why should you be – certain of that?” Susanna countered just to be argumentative.

  “You don’t sound like a Miss Brown,” he replied, “and I don’t think that Susanna is a suitable name for you either.”

  “It is the only one I have,” Susanna replied. “It was chosen for me by my Godmother.”

  She wondered what he would say if she added,

  ‘ – who left me a large fortune.’

  “Then ‘Susanna’ it will have to be,” he said with a sigh, “and I hope you will call me ‘Fyfe’.”

  “Surely it is very unconventional for an employee to address her employer in such a familiar manner?” Susanna teased.

  “I have already said that you are a very unusual employee,” he replied. “In fact I often feel that you are giving the orders and I am obeying them!”