‘But what about the Dame?’ Lizzie asked.
‘She was our friend,’ Bess said at once. ‘She let us use her as “cover”. It was all right for people to believe he admired her, in a theatrical kind of way. He once said, “I don’t mind if people think I’m a glorified stage-door Johnny.’”
‘My grandfather said that?’ Daniel asked, startled.
‘Oh, yes. He had a very neat line in humour when he was in the mood.’
‘I never saw him in that mood,’ Daniel said regretfully.
‘He kept it for me,’ Bess sighed. ‘And for the Dame, too, because he was grateful to her for helping us.’
‘Didn’t she mind?’ Lizzie wanted to know.
‘Only at first. She had so many conquests, and of course she’d have liked to add his scalp to her belt, for the fun of it. But when she saw how things stood she was very kind. And of course he gave her jewels and flowers, so the world thought she had his scalp, and that was really all she asked. She once told me that the situation suited her very well. “All the kudos and none of the inconvenience,” was how she put it.’
‘What did she mean, “inconvenience”?’ Lizzie asked.
Bess paused before saying delicately, ‘Well, my dear, contrary to appearances, the Dame wasn’t a very sensual person. She liked to be admired from a distance. She used to say that frantic passion was all very well in its place, but it made such a mess of the hair. Alphonse was a very vigorous man, and I-well, let’s just say that I never cared about my hair.’
‘You’re making me blush,’ Daniel murmured.
‘Well, it won’t do you any harm,’ Bess retorted with spirit. ‘I wasn’t always a dried-up old stick. And I have a very good memory.’ She smiled, but she wasn’t looking at them. ‘Oh, yes, I remember everything. Everything he ever said to me-everything he did-every kiss-every whisper-’
Lizzie’s eyes blurred, for suddenly the years had fallen away from Bess and she was once more the little maid, living in the shadows, in her thirties, thinking she would never know love. But then the most glorious man in the world had come striding into her life, caring nothing for the others but only for her and the special something she had to offer.
‘He used to come over here incognito, whenever he could,’ she said. ‘Once we stole away and went to a fair. Nobody recognised him, and we went around all the stalls. He won this at the coconut shy, and gave it to me.’ She pointed to the cheap ring on her finger. ‘It was the only jewel I’d let him give me. He wanted to give me some of his family jewels. I couldn’t let him, of course-the scandal-so he made a financial settlement on me, so that I should never be in want.’
‘So that’s how you could afford this place,’ Lizzie said.
‘That’s right. Oh, if you could have seen his face when he told me about the money! He was so afraid that I’d be offended. Money might have meant that I was a certain kind of woman, you see.’
‘But a man expects to provide for his wife,’ Daniel said. ‘And in his heart you were his wife and Queen.’
‘That’s what he said. We used to talk of the day when I could come to Voltavia and live in a little cottage near him. But it was all a pipe dream. People would have known and looked down on me and, although I wouldn’t have minded, he would have minded for me. And besides, I couldn’t leave the Dame. She’d been good to me, and she was getting old and blind. He understood that my duty had to come first. He said it made him love me more.
‘I used to think that when she no longer needed me I might go out to him at last, and hang what people said. But then he had a stroke. They said it was savage and terrible, cutting him down in a moment, and all communication between us was cut off, so cruelly. He couldn’t write to me, and I didn’t dare write to him. It was as though he was dead. And yet I knew he was alive, longing for me.’
‘He always knew that you loved him,’ Daniel said. ‘I didn’t know anything of this at the time, but I’m certain of this.’
Bess smiled. ‘How like him you are. Now I can see it. You have his eyes and his loving heart.’ She laid a feeble hand on Lizzie’s. ‘You’re very lucky my dear. When the men of this family love, they really know how to love. It’s very exciting.’
Lizzie’s eyes met Daniel’s. ‘Yes, it is,’ she murmured.
Daniel took Bess’s hands between both his, and spoke very gently. ‘I had a special reason for coming to see you. I have a letter-his last letter-one that you never received.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He must have been in the middle of writing it and laid it aside because he wasn’t feeling well, and the stroke caught him before he could take it up again… At all events, it was found locked away with your letters to him. He never had the chance to finish it, and so you never received it.’
Lizzie stared at him. ‘I had no idea…’
‘It was the surprise I had for you before you left,’ he told her. ‘That was how much I’d come to trust you by then, but things went wrong for us.’ He took out a sheet of paper and carefully placed it in Bess’s hand. ‘After all these years, this is his last message to you.’
The old woman’s voice was husky. ‘I can’t see-read it for me, please-’
Daniel moved very close to her and took one of her hands in his.
“‘My dearest love,’” he read, “‘always dearer to me than anyone else on earth, because you know everything about me, and love me in spite of the worst-my heart is heavy tonight because yesterday we parted. Perhaps it is only for a little while, and we may still hope for the next meeting, in a month, as we discussed. But as I grow older I fear that each parting may be the last, and I may never again have the chance to tell you what you are, and have been to me.
“‘And so I set it down, in the hope that when I can no longer say the words it will somehow reach you. Others see you occupying a lowly position, but to me you will always be a great, great lady: the woman who brought my heart to life and showed me what love could be. I lived encased in stone until you broke me free.’”
‘You sound-just like him,’ Bess murmured.
‘I was just like him,’ Daniel said softly. ‘Until my Lizzie came to me. Encased in stone, needing to be set free. But only if she wishes.’
Bess regarded Lizzie with eyes that saw everything. ‘Whatever he has done to offend you,’ she said shrewdly, ‘it is as nothing beside the love that you share. Throw the defences away, my dear. They have no place about your heart.’
‘Yes,’ Lizzie said with her eyes on Daniel. ‘I know that.’
‘Finish the letter for me,’ Bess pleaded.
‘There isn’t very much more,’ Daniel said, taking up the page again. “‘I do not know what the future holds,’” he read, “‘But I am certain that it must be a future together. If not in this world, then in another that we cannot even imagine. However long the wait, I shall watch for you with my arms open and my heart as much yours as on the day-’” He stopped. ‘That’s where it finishes.’
‘It is enough.’ Tears were streaming from Bess’s eyes. ‘He always promised not to leave me without a last message, and he was a man of his word. Oh, my dears, my dears-if only you could be as happy as I am-’
Two hours later Bess slipped quietly out of life. Daniel and Lizzie were with her as she fell asleep, still holding her beloved’s final letter. When they had both kissed her Lizzie took the paper gently from Bess’s fingers.
‘I’ll put it back before the funeral,’ she said. ‘And it can be buried with her.’