The door of the attic was open and as the man reached it, Ula’s heart was beating frantically.
She felt it would jump from her breast and she was praying desperately for her father’s protection.
“Save me – Papa –
save me
– you led me to the gypsies and I am here – don’t let them – catch me now – please Papa –
please
!”
She was praying with every nerve in her body strained with the anxiety of her fear.
She was acutely conscious that the man who had followed her was standing just inside the doorway and she was sure that was looking for her.
Then softly a voice asked,
“Are you there, Ula?”
For a moment she thought she must be dreaming and could not have heard correctly.
Then with a little cry she rose from where she was hiding and saw standing amongst the debris the elegant figure of the Marquis.
For a moment they just stared at each other.
Then he held out his arms and without thinking she ran towards him.
She flung herself against him, his arms went around her and his lips were on hers, holding her captive.
He kissed her wildly, passionately, possessively, drawing her closer and closer.
It was as if it was the only way he could express what he was feeling, and there were no words in which he could do so.
To Ula it was as if the skies had opened and she had been swept from the very depths of despair and fear into a blinding light.
It was so glorious, so utterly and completely wonderful, that it could only be part of the Divine.
Then, as the Marquis kissed her and went on kissing her, she thought because it could not be true that she must have died.
Only when they were both breathless and Ula could feel his heart beating frantically against hers did the Marquis raise his head and say in a curiously unsteady voice,
“I have found you! Where have you been? I have been frantic with worry!”
He thought as he looked down at Ula that he had never thought it possible for a woman to look so beautiful and at the same time so utterly and completely radiant.
He felt, too, that with her fair hair falling like a child’s onto her shoulders, she looked even more like an angel than he remembered.
“You have – found me,” Ula stuttered, “and I – thought I should – never see you – again!”
There was a lilt in the way she spoke and her voice held a rapture which made the Marquis without replying merely kiss her.
Now as he was aware of the softness, sweetness and innocence of her lips, he was more gentle, yet very demanding, almost as if he took possession of her.
When at last she could speak, Ula asked in a hesitating, lilting voice,
“Why – are you here – and why – are you – looking at me?”
“Could you expect me to do anything else?” the Marquis asked. “It was clever of you, my darling, but you must have known that I would save you.”
“I-I thought even if you wanted to – you would not be – in time and – I would rather have – died than marry Prince Hasin.”
“And I would have killed him before I would let him become your husband!” the Marquis said.
The way he spoke made her look at him in astonishment.
Then she said,
“I thought – perhaps when I had gone – you might have been – glad to be – rid of me.”
The Marquis’s arms tightened about her.
“How could you think anything so absurd?” he asked. “And how could you do anything so cruel as to leave everybody in tears, especially my grandmother and Willy.”
Ula looked at him as if she could hardly believe what he was saying and he went on,
“I was frantic, absolutely frantic when no one could find you!”
“But – you looked?”
“Of course I looked!” he replied. “I searched the whole countryside, the woods, the fields, the villages, all day, every day, until Willy told me, what I should have thought of myself, that you would have come home.”
“Willy – told you?”
“It was something you said to him about pretending at night to be back in your home and how one day you would come back.”
“So you found me.”
The words were redolent with relief.
Then she gave a little cry of fear.
“Uncle Lionel! He has already – sent men here to look – for me and perhaps they will – come again. You must hide me – please – you don’t – understand – he has the – law on his side.”
“I know that,” the Marquis said, “and that is why I intend to hide you so effectively that never again can he threaten you or make you afraid.”
Instinctively, Ula moved a little closer to him as she asked,
“It sounds – wonderful – but how can – you do that?”
“Easily,” the Marquis replied very quietly. “We are going to be married!”
For a moment Ula felt that she could not have heard him aright.
Then she stared at him, thinking that she had never seen him look so happy or so young and he said,
“Everything is arranged. I have just been waiting for you.”
“I-I don’t – understand.”
“Tell me first,” he said, “how you reached here without money and wearing, when you left Chessington Hall, only your nightgown?”
Ula smiled at him, then she moved from his arms so that she was not so close to him.
“Look at me.”
The Marquis’s eyes were on her face.
“I am looking,” he said. “I had almost forgotten how lovely you are, so sweet, so perfect, so untouched! My precious, how can I tell you how much I love you and how different you are from any other woman I have ever known?”
“Are you – really saying – such things to –
me
?” Ula asked in a whisper.
“I have a great deal more to say,” the Marquis answered, “but time is passing and we cannot stand here for the rest of our lives.”
It suddenly struck Ula how funny it was.
The Marquis of Raventhorpe, who owned so many houses filled with treasures, should be standing and declaring himself in a low-ceilinged attic surrounded by broken chairs and china and old saucepans that were too dilapidated to be sold.
Then, as she looked into his eyes, she knew that any place where she was with the Marquis would seem like a Temple of Beauty.
Because she loved him so overwhelmingly, this place was sacred.
“I love – you,” she whispered and saw the expression in the Marquis’s eyes which told her without words how much he loved her.
“I want to kiss you,” he sighed, “and nothing else is really important, but we have a great deal to do and you have not answered my question.”
“You have not looked at my dress.”
He glanced down at her, at the velvet corset around her waist, the white blouse and the full red skirt.
“The gypsies!” he exclaimed. “You have been with the gypsies!”
“They brought me here and they are camping in the field where gypsies have always camped ever since I was a child.”
“And you were safe with them? They did not harm you?”
“No, of course not!” Ula smiled. “Anyway, I am their blood sister.”
“One day you must tell me all about it,” the Marquis answered, “but now the Vicar who has taken your father’s place will be waiting for us.”
He kissed her on the forehead before he said,
“Once you are my wife, my darling, no one shall hurt or insult you, and if any man tries to take you from me,
I will kill him
!”
For a moment Ula could only look at him and her eyes seemed to fill her whole face.
Then she said almost inarticulately,
“It – it cannot be – true – that you really – want to – m-marry me!”
“I intend to marry you!” the Marquis stipulated firmly. “There is no other way I can make sure that you never leave me and never make me so unhappy, so frightened and so frantic as I have been these last ten days.”
“Is it really ten days since I ran away,” Ula asked.
“It seems to me like ten centuries, but I knew after what Willy told me that you would eventually come here and that is why I have been waiting.”
He smiled and Ula thought the lines of his cynicism had disappeared and there was a boyish note in his voice as he said,
“Come on! Hurry! And while we have been talking here, a gown for you to wear is waiting for you downstairs.”
“A – gown?” Ula questioned.
By this time the Marquis was going down the narrow stairway to the first floor and drawing her after him by the hand.
As they reached the passage, he said,
“I could hardly expect to marry you in your nightgown, adorable though I am sure you look in it. So I have brought a trunkful of clothes with me and, when we have time, we will buy your trousseau.”
“I am dreaming – I know I am – dreaming!” Ula said.
The Marquis did not answer.
He only drew her into what had been her mother’s bedroom, where in the middle of it on a small square of carpet which had not been sold stood a leather trunk.
Somebody had opened it and on top lay a white gown which she knew, without picking it up, had been designed for a bride.
Beside it was a wreath of orange blossom resting on a veil.
“How can you have – thought of it?” Ula asked. “And also have been so – certain you would – find me here?”
The Marquis thought for a moment of the agony he had suffered when he had sent the divers to search the river.
But everything would keep until they had time to talk.
All he wanted now was that Ula should become his wife, so that it would be impossible for her to be spirited away from him by her uncle or anyone else.
He was, although he did not say so to Ula, still afraid that Prince Hasin who, like many Eastern potentates, would use any unscrupulous means to obtain his desires, would still be pursuing her.
He already knew that besides the Earl’s servants who were searching, there were some dark rather sinister men who were employed by the Prince.
He therefore asked,
“Can you manage to dress yourself?”
“Of course,” Ula smiled, “it is something I have always done.”
“Then hurry,” the Marquis said. “When I saw you coming to the house, I sent one of my grooms to tell the Vicar to be waiting for us in the Church and I don’t wish him to become impatient.”
Ula laughed.
Then, as the Marquis left her alone, she pulled off her gypsy clothing and put on the white gown that was even more beautiful than the gowns the Duchess had bought for her.
It was a wedding dress that any girl would gladly dream of possessing.
Fortunately in one of the cupboards of her mother’s room was a mirror attached to the back of the door.
Standing in front of it she was able to arrange her hair with the few hairpins she had left and to cover it with the veil and the orange blossom wreath.
Then, feeling excited, as if the whole world had turned topsy-turvy, but was amazing in a manner that defied expression, she opened the door and started down the stairs.
The Marquis was waiting for her in the hall and, as she looked at him, she knew that he was the most handsome and attractive man she had ever seen.
There was now vibrating from him everything she had wanted from him but which in the past she had missed.
She realised that they were the vibrations that came not only from his mind but from his heart.
Because he was in love everything that had belittled his grandeur and his Nobility had disappeared.
Now he was exactly as she wanted him to be.
He was a man who would do great things not only for her but for other people, because, as her father would have said, a Divine Power was flowing through him.
At the moment, although all she wanted to do was to tell him of her love, as his eyes met hers, there was no need for words.
They were already so close and belonged to each other so completely that even the Sacrament of Marriage could not make them any closer than they already were.
Holding her hand, the Marquis drew her through the front door and outside, where she saw his phaeton was waiting.
He picked her up in his arms and lifted her into it.
As the grooms climbed up behind, Ula saw that there were two outriders riding ahead of them to lead them the short distance to the Church.
She thought that they were there not only for protection on the roads just in case they should be held up by highwaymen.
They were also there so that neither the Earl nor the Prince, nor anyone else, could stop the Marquis from marrying her.
There were only a few old villagers to look at them in surprise as they drove up to the porch of the West door.
The Marquis put down the reins and, rounding the phaeton, took her in his arms to lift her down.
“I adore you!” he said in his deep voice. “And when we are married I will be able to tell you how much.”
She slipped her arm through his and, as they entered the Church where she had worshipped all her life, she could hear the organ playing softly.
She felt that both her father and her mother were very close to her and she could feel their presence as she and the Marquis were joined together by the beautiful words of the Marriage Service.
When he put the ring on her finger, she felt as if there were angel voices singing a paean of praise, while the Church was filled not with people but with love.
Then as they knelt and received the blessing, Ula told herself that no one could be luckier than she had been.
Not only in finding the man she loved but in knowing that he loved her as her father and mother had loved each other.
‘Thank You –
oh, thank You – God
!’ she said in her heart.
She vowed that her whole life would in future be an expression of gratitude for what she had received.
They walked down the aisle and the Marquis once again lifted her into his phaeton and drove off, but not returning, as she had expected they would, to her home.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Because she could not help it, she moved a little closer to him so that she could lay her hand on his knee.
He looked down at her with a smile.
She knew he was feeling as she was that they were dedicated in their gratitude because they were together and now no one could ever separate them.