The Adventurers

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘I know. But it’s true: I don’t like it. And—you’re acute: I think it has been a new shock to Sonia—poor child, as if she had not had enough already. It seemed, I am sure, a good deal more romantic in the idea than it does in the execution.’

  He laughed. ‘Like so many other things. Well—“poor Sonia” if you like, but if you ask me, part of her trouble is that our guests are such singularly unromantic figures. I am sure she had visions of gallant young cavalry officers and elegant aides-de-camp—and then to find herself playing with old Blücher with his red nose and stink of garlic. Well, to be fair, it is hard on the child.’

  ‘Of course it is. She has had so little pleasure in her life. Indeed, I have been wondering: Could not you be a little sweeter to her, Charles. A few compliments? A little praise would do wonders with her, I am sure.’

  ‘No.’ There was something rigid about the monosyllable. And then, on a lighter note: ‘Never mind; I am bringing a guest tonight who should please her—a young man straight from England, and such a popinjay as you never saw, brimful of the latest airs and graces. I am sure you can rely on him to cram-feed Sonia with compliments. And in the meantime, had you not better go and see that she is fit to be seen when they arrive? And, which is more important, prepared to make herself pleasant.’

  She paused at the doorway. ‘Do you think I should play instead of her?’

  ‘No.’ He could be very firm. ‘Everything depends on the correctness of the appearance we present. You must be the chaperone, Elizabeth, at your work in the corner—though I confess it seems a great waste of you.’

  ‘Why, thank you.’ She swept him a curtsy, half stately, half mocking. ‘If you would only make a few pretty speeches like that to Sonia. Poor child, she’s starved for compliments. Her father and brother never did more than admire her sauerkraut or her soup. You would be amazed how she would react to a little judicious praise! But you take her almost as much for granted as her brother did.’

  ‘Well.’ He was standing with his back to the window so she could not see his face. ‘Are you not grateful for that?’

  She laughed a little. ‘You’re no fool, are you, Charles? And—I’m not sure you’re not right.’

  She found Sonia in wonderfully restored spirits. The new dresses she had ordered when they arrived at Frankfurt had just come home and she was trying on a ravishingly becoming creation of lavender-coloured gauze over satin. ‘Now, at least, Charles cannot say I do not look like a lady.’ She turned from her glass to greet Elizabeth.

  ‘If you would only try to behave like one.’

  ‘Charles lectures me so I cannot help but tease him. Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t walk in the streets alone, nor yet ride Marmion—and you know he’s always too busy to accompany me, and you, poor darling, have no horse. I sometimes think I shall go mad cooped up here. And no colours either—’ She returned to the subject of one of her fiercer arguments with Charles. ‘Poor Father—you know I’m not heartless, Elizabeth, but it was all his fault. After what I’ve seen, mourning just seems silly.’

  ‘Charles is right just the same. You should be grateful he did not insist on solid black: I quite thought he would.’

  ‘Running a gaming hell in black! Really, that is too rich. How completely I was deceived in Charles! To set out on an adventure and find oneself saddled with a Methodistical preaching parsonical bore is really the outside of enough, and so I shall tell him if I have to sit through many more of his sermons.’

  ‘I wish you will not.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, darling Elizabeth.’ She was trying on her new bonnet and flashed Elizabeth an entrancing smile in the glass. ‘You wait and see: I will be the very pink of propriety tonight and old Blücher will send me twice as many roses tomorrow. He says my hair will start a new rage, “damn if it won’t.”’

  ‘I think it very becoming too.’ One of Elizabeth’s first actions on reaching Frankfurt had been to get the town’s foremost hairdresser to restyle Sonia’s ravaged locks, and her pointed little face was now surrounded by a halo of soft golden curls which were indeed extraordinarily becoming, giving width to the narrow, striking little face. But Charles, appealed to by an exuberant Sonia to say if she didn’t look all the crack, had infuriated her by merely asking how much Herr Schumacher had charged.

  Now, Elizabeth changed the subject. ‘You are dressed already: I must make haste or our first guests will be arriving.’

  ‘Guests!’ Sonia made a face. ‘Fat old men, stinking of schnapps and garlic—it’s all right for you, sitting at your work, but if you but knew how tired I am of whist. Why can we not play something exciting like hazard or loo?’

  ‘You know perfectly well that Charles is right about that: you could not be sure of winning.’

  ‘We don’t always anyway.’

  ‘Of course not. And a good thing too. Come, Sonia, quit your grumbling, there’s a good child. I know this is not an ideal life, but we might just as well make the most of it. Oh—and Charles promises a new guest tonight, a young man this instant arrived from England. He should be able to tell us what chance we have of getting there.’

  ‘Why did you not tell me? Quick, Elizabeth, come and let me help dress you. I do wish’—they were in Elizabeth’s room now—‘I do wish you had bought yourself some new clothes. You could look so striking, you know, if you would only make the effort. A dark green gown to bring out the red in your hair and there would be no knowing you. Your shoulders are much better than mine—you know they are—and look at you, buttoned to the neck like a dowager of forty. Oh, Barry, do buy some clothes!’

  ‘I do not need them.’ Elizabeth took a demure, high-necked grey gown from her closet and hung it over a chair. ‘I am the chaperone—you, my love, are the great attraction and you know it. It would hardly do for you to be wearing your brown stuff schoolroom gowns.’

  ‘Poor Father.’ Sonia’s face clouded. ‘But he was not really kind to me was he, Barry? I’m not a brute, am I?’

  ‘Of course you’re not. Come, we ought to be downstairs setting out the refreshments.’

  Sonia laughed. ‘How surprised our guests would be if they knew that the man who opens the door is our only indoor servant. I nearly went into stitches the other night when Sir Robert Wilson sent his compliments to the cook. I wish he had left a tip!’

  ‘Yes, it’s a pity the custom of vails does not seem to obtain in Frankfurt. We should add quite a tidy sum to our takings that way.’ And then, seeing another April cloud blow across Sonia’s face, ‘Never mind, love: it is a strange life, but it will be over soon, and all forgotten.’

  It was hard to believe, half an hour later, that Sonia had needed such encouragement. The long narrow drawing room was crowded now, and she was the centre of an animated group of officers, all begging her to be their partner when they sat down to cards. If she thought them middle-aged and portly, she concealed it very well as she smiled up at Sir Robert Wilson and shook reproving curls at old Blücher who loved a pretty girl almost as well as a game at cards. ‘So many roses,’ she said, ‘and at this time of year. You really should not, General.’

  ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘what else is there to spend money on? You are our only pleasure: you must let us render you our homage, and our thanks.’

  ‘You are too kind.’ As she swept him her graceful curtsy Elizabeth found it hard to believe in the termagant who had, earlier, been shredding red roses one by one. She was glad to see that Charles, approaching across the room, had been a witness to the whole scene. He must admit that Sonia could behave when she wanted to.

  He was followed by a dark young man, conspicuous in this group of uniforms and epaulettes by his civilian dress. And what dress! It was a long time since Elizabeth had met a London dandy, but she found it in a way reassuring to see how little the breed had changed. This young man looked as if he must have been eased into his dove-grey coat with a shoe-horn, while this, with his brilliant striped waistcoat and skin-tight trousers, made him stand ou
t among the shabby uniforms like a dove among crows. She would have felt sorry for him if he had not been so evidently contented with himself.

  His sweeping bow, as Charles presented him, almost caricatured itself. He was Philip Haverton, and enchanted to make their acquaintance. While he divided his speech courteously between them, his eyes were for Sonia only, and Elizabeth was able to watch from a little behind as he began to pay his court to her. In answer to the questions she put him, he was very ready to describe what he called his intolerable journey: six dreadful days on a stinking tub of a boat, beating this way and that between Harwich and Cuxhaven—nothing to eat but salt biscuit and pease broth and nowhere, positively nowhere in the wretched cabin to hang up one’s clothes—he had really feared his man would shoot himself. Indeed he had been in the gravest doubt whether he would be fit to be seen today—here he flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his immaculate lapel—his man had been up all night. And how glad, now, he was that he had insisted. A speaking glance gave point to the compliment. He would not have missed this meeting for the world. ‘You are English, too, Mr Vincent tells me.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve never been there. I cannot tell you how I long to go. Do you think we could make the journey, Mrs Barrymore and I?’

  ‘Impossible! The roads between here and Cuxhaven—I could not begin to describe them to an elegant young female. And then, you must remember, Hamburg is still in French hands. Though it’s true my cousin says leaving his garrisons behind is one of Napoleon’s mistakes… No, no, Miss von Hugel, your best plan is to follow the victorious Allied advance and go home in comfort from Paris.’

  ‘So long as it is victorious! They seem to be mighty slow in starting.’

  ‘That’s what my cousin says, but I hope now he’s here he will knock their heads together for them. Oh—I should not have said that. Do me the favour of forgetting it, Miss von Hugel: I am but a novice diplomat yet and I am afraid such delightful company has made me forget discretion.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Sonia kindly. ‘Nobody heard. But who is this remarkable cousin of yours? I do not recollect to have heard of him.’

  ‘Well of course not. As I was telling you, we only arrived yesterday. Even Giles Burnleigh takes longer than twenty-four hours to make his mark. Or the Earl of Denbigh, to give him his full title, about which, to do him justice, he’s not the least in the world a stickler. There’s nothing high and mighty about Giles: you should have seen him on the boat, drinking rum with our ruffian of a captain as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I sometimes wish I could persuade him to live a little more up to his dignity—would you believe it, Miss von Hugel, he did not order so much as an extra cravat for this mission! I only hope he will meet with the respect he should… He is busy today, presenting his credentials, calling on this prince and that bigwig—no need of me, I’m glad to say. Though I did not look to have such luck as this. But tell me about yourself, Miss von Hugel. How do you contrive to speak English so beautifully, and have never been there?’

  ‘Barry taught me—Mrs Barrymore, I should say.’ She turned to bring Elizabeth into the conversation. ‘Good God, Elizabeth, what is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’ But Elizabeth was very white. ‘A spasm; it will pass. Look, Sonia, they are bringing out the card tables.’

  It created the diversion she had hoped for. Young Haverton forgot his solicitude for her in trying to secure Sonia for his partner, and she was able to subside into the chair by the lamp where, night after night, she acted the chaperone over her embroidery. Tonight, she hardly paid attention to the arrangement of partners, nor the chances of the game, and yet it seemed only a moment before Charles was breaking up the party. Sonia rose from her place near the stove and crossed the room to her: ‘Are you better, Barry? I never knew you to be ill before.’

  ‘Nor am I.’ Elizabeth had herself well in hand now and was able to condole with young Haverton on his losses. Not that they seemed to weigh heavily on him. ‘To tell truth’—here a languishing glance for Sonia—‘I was not paying proper attention to my cards. I am only grateful that you avoided the misfortune of being my partner, Miss von Hugel. But, tell me, do you attend the ball the Czar gives tomorrow for his sisters the Grand Duchesses? I had been wondering whether to go, since aside from the two royal ladies, and Lady Burgersh, who, you know, is never out of her husband’s pocket, there would be no partners but the fat Frankfurt fräuleins. But now—Miss von Hugel, put me out of my misery: tell me you will be there.’

  ‘I believe so. You’ll be well enough, won’t you, Barry?’

  ‘My love, I should be desolated to disappoint you, but—’

  ‘You can’t,’ wailed Sonia, ‘my very first dance.’ And, almost at the same time from Haverton: ‘Oh, pray, Mrs Barrymore, think again. My cousin does not go: he is not so strong as one could wish—the result of an accident many years ago: he says he’ll be too fagged for it. It’s all very well for him’—a querulous note in his voice now—‘he’s met all the bigwigs. Of course I saw them at the review this morning—and a damned disappointing lot they are, too—excuse me, Miss von Hugel. The Czar’s well enough, if it were not for that stoop of his, and the King of Württemberg keeps some kind of state, but the King of Prussia merely looks cross, and the Emperor of Austria stupid—and even the Czar—do you know, I saw him this afternoon, walking round town with Nesselrode in a round hat and a green coat my man would have been ashamed to wear. It’s very disappointing. But he must make some kind of appearance at the ball, since he gives it for his sisters—Say you’ll be there, Miss von Hugel.’

  ‘Of course we go.’ Charles Vincent had joined them. ‘Our guests are leaving, cousins.’

  He returned to the subject of the ball later when the last guest had gone. ‘What possessed you to say you might not go, Elizabeth? You must know how important it is to us?’

  ‘Important?’ She was tidying the room. ‘I hardly see why. We have too many guests already. Was it a good evening, Charles?’

  He and Sonia had been counting their winnings. ‘Good enough so that we can afford to indulge ourselves tomorrow. Besides—our position is not so secure that we can afford not to be seen on such an occasion. I had trouble enough getting the invitation from Pozzo di Borgo.’

  ‘Divine Pozzo.’ Sonia burst into her melodious laugh. ‘Have you seen that Kalmuck of his? I saw him in the street this morning, dressed in a tapestry depicting Leda and the Swan—upside down. I thought I’d die laughing.’

  ‘I hope he didn’t see you?’

  ‘Who? Pozzo? Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it matters. The Czar, his master, is likely to be the arbiter of the world’s destinies. I have hopes of being presented to him tomorrow.’

  ‘Have you, Charles?’ Elizabeth finished stacking glasses on a tray. ‘Is that why it is so important we go?’

  ‘In a way. He fascinates me, that man. Imagine the contradiction in terms: a liberal-minded monarch, an autocrat talking constitutions… Call it a whim if you like, but I long to meet him.’

  ‘A whim? Yes, I can understand that. Like the one that brought Sonia and me to Frankfurt. But when you begin to talk about liberal principles and constitutions—Charles, you make me wonder about your motives.’

  He gave her a quick look. ‘Is it so strange to wish to go to a ball where half the sovereigns of Europe will be assembled? What is the matter with you tonight, Elizabeth? Has something happened to disturb you?’

  ‘She’s not well, poor Barry,’ Sonia intervened. ‘But you’ll be better tomorrow, won’t you? Think of my dress! Even Charles will think me a little beautiful in it.’

  ‘Shall I?’ His voice was teasing. ‘I do find it so difficult not to think of you in that filthy leather jacket and your brother’s breeches. No, no’—he threw up a hand in self-defence—‘don’t throw it. Our landlady values those figures highly: she told me so only this morning.’

  ‘I cannot imagine why.’ But she replaced the china horseman on its stand.
‘Anyway, I can see there is no need to save any dances for you. Which is just as well, as I have nothing left but the waltzes, and I am sure you do not waltz.’

  ‘No more are you going to.’

  ‘Not waltz! But it is all the rage. Elizabeth, tell him—’

  ‘It may be the fashionable thing here, but you will not find young ladies doing it in England. Ask your friend Lady Burgersh if she means to—and she is a married woman.’

  ‘I wish I was too, and free of your intolerable bullying. I suppose you mean me to confine myself entirely to those dreary polonaises the Czar has introduced—just walking about the room in time to the music and saying “yes,” and “no” and “quite so” and “precisely” to your partner.’

  ‘No, no, my English friends tell me that country dances and quadrilles are quite unexceptionable, but the fact remains that English young ladies do not waltz, and you, my dear, are to be an English young lady.’

  ‘Your dear, indeed! Your dupe! I wish I had gone to Aunt Gertrude!’ And with this Parthian shot she turned and flounced out of the room.

  ‘You are very patient with her.’ Elizabeth had known that this question of waltzing must arise, and was relieved that Vincent had taken so definite a stand.

  ‘I wish I could shake some sense into her, but it would not do, would it?’

  ‘Absolutely not. She has had enough of violence, poor child.’

  ‘Just the same, I hope she does not disgrace herself at this ball. I am afraid you have a good deal to endure from her tantrums.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind. I love Sonia.’ She spoke more sharply than she meant to.

  ‘Something has happened to disturb you. I wish you would tell me what it is.’

  ‘Nothing—everything. Sometimes I think I was mad to embark on this adventure.’