The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [339]
After they had gone, Fanny took out Mr Gilpin’s letter and read it again in the hope it would give her strength, but it didn’t really help and she put it away again. Then she closed her eyes, though she did not sleep.
Save herself. If only she could. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she would curl up into a ball, like an unborn child and lie like that for an hour. At other times, she would sit staring vacantly ahead of her, unable to do anything at all. It seemed to Fanny that there was no way out of her predicament. Her life was enclosed by walls as blank, as unyielding and as close as those of her prison. There was no way out, no alternative, no end.
Yet how she yearned for an escape, for someone to come and save her. Aunt Adelaide could not do it. Even Mrs Pride could not. They told her to save herself when all she needed now was to be saved and comforted by another. But who? Mr Gilpin, had he been there, might have helped. Yet in the end she knew he could not.
She longed to be forgiven. For what she scarcely knew. For her very existence, perhaps. She longed for the one she loved to come and comfort her and tell her he forgave her. She could face anything, then. But it was, from first to last, impossible. So she stayed, in utter misery, where she was and kept her eyes closed to shut out the pain of the light of the world.
She did not, therefore, see him as he came to her door.
How long does it take for a man to know, absolutely, that he loves a woman?
Wyndham Martell looked down upon the pale figure sitting in silence in her cell, as a pale ray of sunlight through the small window caught her face, making it look ethereal. He thought of her vulnerability and all he now understood about her, and he knew in that moment that this was the woman whom destiny had given him to love. After which, as all who have loved have known, there is nothing further to say. His life was decided. It took, approximately, one second.
Then he stepped through the door and she looked up in the most entire astonishment. He did not pause but moved straight to her and, as she started to rise, he took her in his arms and with a tender smile said: ‘I have come, Fanny, and I shall never leave you.’
‘But …’ She frowned, then looked desperate, ‘you do not know …’
‘I know everything.’
‘You cannot …’
‘I even know the dark secret of your Seagull grandmother and her forebears, my dearest.’ He shook his head affectionately. ‘Nothing matters, so long as I am with you and you are with me.’ And, before she could speak further, he kissed her and held her in his arms.
Fanny began to shake, then she broke down and, clinging to him, she wept and wept, hot tears that came in a shaking flood that would not stop. He did not try to soothe them but let them come and held her tightly, murmuring only words of love. And there they remained, they did not know how long.
Neither saw Aunt Adelaide return.
For a moment or two the old lady could not understand what was happening. Fanny was in the arms of a strange man, whose face was turned away. Who he was or why Fanny was clinging to him she had no idea. She put out her hand to steady herself on the arm of Mrs Pride, who was standing just behind her. Several seconds passed before she spoke.
‘Fanny?’
The two young people sprang apart. The man turned and looked towards her. Aunt Adelaide stared and then went very pale.
Whether she realized that this must be Mr Martell or whether, for a moment, she supposed that the figure in the picture she had seen at Hale had miraculously come to life and she was looking at Colonel Penruddock himself it was hard to guess; but whichever it was, as she gazed at him in horror, she hissed only a single word. ‘You!’
He collected himself quickly. ‘Miss Albion, I am Wyndham Martell.’
If Aunt Adelaide heard him, she chose to ignore it. Her face was white and wore a look of anger and hatred unlike any that Fanny had ever seen before. When she spoke, it was in a tone of contempt that she might