‘Justin tells me that you have genius in your fingers, Mr Royde.’ Lucas modestly denied all claim to genius. ‘Do you think an Elizabethan manor house near to collapse would be too daunting a commission for you to undertake?’
‘It sounds exciting rather than daunting, Mr Fennimore.’
‘In that case I wonder if you’d care to eat your mutton with us tomorrow. My sisters will be present, and it’s them you’ll have to please. You can break the ice, see how you like them and they like you. Come for luncheon, drinks at twelve, and in the afternoon my carriage will take us to the property. You’ll need to see it before you decide.’
‘I can’t have you jumping the queue, Francis,’ the earl joked. ‘Your manor house will have to take second place to my chapel.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of suggesting otherwise. I’ve put up with the caterwauling for the last five years so another will make little difference.’
Lucas retired a very happy man that night. He could hardly believe his luck that a second possible commission—and a prestigious one at that—had come so close on the heels of the first. It seemed that he was ringed by a halo of gold. He had intended leaving early Sunday morning so that he would be back in London by the afternoon and able to set out in search of Alessia immediately. He was sure that by now she would have written to him again, only this time giving her address. But it was certainly worth delaying his departure for a few hours, particularly if Mr Fennimore paid as well as the earl. And why would he not? He was a very rich man; he might even pay better. Warmed by this wondrous vision, Lucas laid his tired head on the goose down pillow and slept the sleep of the contented.
By the time he boarded his train at Norwich station late Sunday evening he was ecstatic. The manor house had proved to be less derelict than his host had forecast, and he could already visualise several solutions for restoring it to a modern and comfortable home without destroying its history. The Misses Fennimore had been amenable, more than amenable. They had taken one look at his slim figure and blue eyes and decided that whatever he said must be right.
Despite his tiredness, the thought of what he’d accomplished kept Lucas’s spirits high and soaring. There was much to tell Alessia and once at Red Lion Square, he bounded up the stairs two at a time to his small attic room, expecting to find her message. But there was none. Why had she not written? A note might have been delivered into the hands of Mrs Stonehouse, he supposed. He quailed at the thought of confronting his landlady, but in any case it was too late to rouse her. He would go there early tomorrow morning before he set off for Great Russell Street. He was sure that he hadn’t mentioned to the boy the day of his return, so Alessia would not worry unduly, and in the meantime she was safe and well and living agreeably on the money he had sent.
Before eight o’clock the next morning, he was knocking at the downstairs apartment.
‘Ah, Mr Royde.’ His landlady, arms folded, looked him up and down. ‘I was wishful of speaking with you.’
‘How can I help, Mrs Stonehouse?’ He hoped his voice didn’t sound as nervous as he felt.
‘You came in very late last night and banged the front door,’ she responded accusingly. ‘You woke me. If you are to continue as my lodger, you will need to show greater consideration—not just for me but for your fellow lodgers.’
Relief pulsed through him. He was not after all to be interrogated over his unwelcome visitor. He was ready to grovel.
‘Please accept my apologies, Mrs Stonehouse. I have been away on business and was unable to catch an earlier train from Norwich last night. I am unlikely to return so late again, but if it should happen, I will be sure to close the front door very quietly and remove my shoes in the hallway.’
She snorted a little impatiently, and he forced himself to annoy her further by asking after a possible message.
‘No messages, Mr Royde. Were you expecting one?’ And she peered intently at him, suspicion written large across her face.
‘My employer said that he might need to contact me over the weekend,’ he lied fluently, ‘but I was detained in Norfolk and am anxious that I might have let him down.’
Another impatient snort and the door closed on him. He set off for de Vere’s in a perplexed state of mind. He longed to tell Alessia his good news, but he had no idea of her direction and thought it strange that she had not again tried to contact him. Perhaps his warning not to visit his lodgings had hit home and she was responding with extreme discretion. She was a blessed creature. She would send a message soon, he was sure. In the meantime he would look for new lodgings in London away from Red Lion Square. He could see now that it would be some weeks before he could make the move to Norfolk, and he could not bear to be away from her a day longer than necessary. He would take lodgings in a false name, making certain that there was no way of tracing either of them. They could dissolve into London’s anonymous millions and surface weeks later in Norfolk, to all intents and purposes a properly married couple.
At Great Russell Street, Fontenoy was as annoying as ever. ‘How did your country weekend go, Royde? Make another conquest?’
The teasing slid harmlessly away. He felt as though he was shrugging off a skin that he had outgrown. Soon he would be saying goodbye to Fontenoy, the cramped desk, the mindless office routine. He would be his own man and a well-paid one at that.
‘It went well,’ he responded cheerfully. ‘Conquests aplenty, but not the kind you have in mind,’ and despite all his colleague’s efforts to probe, he refused to elaborate further. The last thing he wanted was to jeopardise his carefully laid plans by making them public too soon.
The week ticked by and still there was no message from Alessia. He began to feel uneasy and cursed himself that he hadn’t had the forethought to ask the urchin for her direction. He had found lodgings some distance away in Westminster where neither of them was known and hoped she would approve. He felt slightly aggrieved that she had made no attempt to get a note to him, but in the depths of his heart he had to acknowledge there was relief, too. If Alessia had come to his lodgings again or even to de Vere’s… His face paled at the thought. No, it was better to maintain this distance. There were moments when he considered trying to find her, but in the end he decided against making such a search. It might arouse unwelcome curiosity and the last thing he wanted was a scandal. There was just one week left before the opening ceremony of the Great Exhibition and nothing must overshadow his day of triumph.
Chapter Sixteen
London, 1 May 1851
Lucas was awake before dawn. It was not a day to sleep. This morning the great Exhibition Hall along with its hundred thousand exhibits and seventeen thousand exhibitors would be formally opened by Her Majesty Queen Victoria. He felt a heady mix of expectancy and apprehension. The spectacle would be amazing, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and his would be a prime view. He would be helping to make history, and it was a sobering thought. But such history would be personal, too; he was building his future, ready to impress all who visited the Renville display, any of whom could be potential clients.
The exhilaration bubbling within belonged also to a lover. He was convinced that he would see Alessia today, even though he had received no message. The two weeks since his return from Southerham Hall had been burdensome. He had been plagued by contrary emotions, at first imagining that discretion was rendering her silent but then finding himself a prey to doubt. She was a woman in love, passionately in love. Was it likely that, free now from the tyranny of her marriage, she would not have found a way to meet? The days had passed very slowly, and slowly he had become alarmed. He could not think why she remained silent and shocking possibilities began to chase themselves through his mind.
But then reason had taken over. There was a simple and obvious explanation, he decided. She had returned to Wisteria Lodge. When she sent the boy to him, she had been desperate. She’d written that she had left the family home but given no address. He had assumed that she’d been too distraught to discover h
er whereabouts, but now he was sure it was because she had not yet found lodgings. Her letter had been stating what she intended to do rather than what she had done. The reality of her situation must have dawned, he believed, when the boy returned with his message and gave into her hand money for her expenses. The enormity of what she was proposing must have struck hard. In her letter she’d said that she had left her darlings, but Lucas was certain that she would never, ever abandon her daughters. Not when the moment came. Instead she had decided to follow his advice and appear willing to agree her husband’s arrangements, even to the extent of braving a temporary incarceration in St Albans under the gimlet eye of her mother-in-law. She would know that she could depend on him to come to her rescue. And if she had not yet left to live with the formidable Florence and was still at Prospect Place—and Lucas believed she was—she would accompany Edward Renville to this morning’s opening ceremony. And he would see her at last.
The Exhibition Hall was not to open to the general public until nine o’clock, but Lucas intended to be there well before eight, when, along with exhibitors, he would be allowed into the building. It was important that he ensure the Renville pavilion was perfect, and he was hopeful of reserving a good vantage point for himself from which to view the opening ceremony. Already as he walked from Holborn towards Hyde Park, the streets were filling. He could see that within the hour every square inch of pavement and grass would be jammed to capacity with visitors from all over the country and abroad. The streets were awash with different languages and different skins. The nearer he drew to Hyde Park, the denser the crowd grew. Many souvenir stalls and refreshment booths had set up business and were already attracting custom.
Crossing Park Lane to the newly constructed Prince of Wales Gate, he glanced down the road in the direction of Buckingham Palace. Guards lined the route that the Queen would take later that morning, ready to protect her should the crowds get out of hand. Always the fear of riots, he thought. But the crowd was good-natured, laughing excitedly, occasionally jostling each other but making light of any discomfort. He walked quickly across the park towards the immense building that had arisen in its southwest corner. A shaft of sunlight sent the crystal dancing like shifting diamonds caught in candle flame. A stiff wind had risen and the flags on the roof were blowing wildly. He walked on, hundreds of people on either side of him spread across the grassy slopes. Despite the overnight rain they had kept vigil, sleeping in the park to ensure their place from which to view the Queen. Many of them had brought picnics and were unconcernedly eating breakfast as one of a number of regimental bands tuned up nearby, their uniforms a splash of vermillion against the brilliant green.
Lucas joined the queue of those waiting to be admitted to the Exhibition Hall ahead of the public: not only exhibitors but members of their families, government officials with their minions and those charged with the overseeing of the building. Anyone in fact who could lay the slightest claim to be there was queuing for admission at the stroke of eight. Once inside he saw that in the weeks since he last visited, thousands of plants, banks of colourful azaleas, had been positioned along the nave while above large sheets of canvas had been placed over the glass roof to avoid glare and overheating. The curved roof of the transept stretching between north and south entrances had been left uncovered, creating the effect of a broad rectangle of sunlight driven through the middle of the building. In turn the sun’s rays hit the crystal fountain and beamed its reflections into every corner.
There was no sign of Edward Renville and no sign of his wife. They would arrive later, he thought, but now that he was actually in the building he and Alessia had both known so well, her absence made him curiously disinclined to make his way to their pavilion. It would seem wrong, worthless without her. Instead he wandered idly along the nave looking at the various stalls that had sprung up on either side. He stopped at a large souvenir shop. Among its many wares it boasted a stack of printed engravings of Joseph Paxton and of the Exhibition Hall, sheets of piano music featuring twelve different Crystal Palace Polkas, rows of mugs adorned with the portrait of Prince Albert and tiers of sweet tins and boxes of soap. A Post Office stood next door so that visitors could send letters or telegrams postmarked from the Great Exhibition. And the small restaurant where Alessia and he had drunk tea together had vanished, replaced by a vast cordoned area large enough to feed the thousands that would attend that day.
Eventually he walked back along the nave and up the staircase that he and his lover had used so many times. By now it was nine o’clock and the public had begun trickling through the turnstiles. The upper gallery was still empty except for exhibitors and for a moment he paused at the head of the stairs, looking down on the hive of people below, the mass of men’s hats and women’s bonnets swarming like bees. Tickets for the opening day were prohibitively expensive and only likely to attract the upper classes, but despite that, a slow-moving mass of humanity was already winding its way around the ground-floor exhibits, moving from stand to stand with a determined seriousness. Here and there, where a display was proving particularly popular, a bubble of people bulged into the nave.
He was finally at the Renville pavilion and looked around the display space with attention. Nothing was out of place; it was perfect. Emptily perfect. Not a trace of their love remained. And still there was no sight of her. A cough sounded behind him and he whirled around. Not Alessia, but Mr Dearlove, whom he had last seen the day he’d collected materials from the Renville warehouse, the day he had first kissed her.
‘Mr Royde, isn’t it?’ Mr Dearlove nodded in his direction and removed his hat, which he placed carefully beneath one of the love seats. It was a sacrilege Lucas tried to ignore.
‘Mr Dearlove,’ he said in as warm a voice as he could manage, ‘I am delighted to see you again. I imagine you are here to help customers appreciate the fabrics.’
Mr Dearlove nodded again but said no more. He was a man who rationed his words, his volubility saved for the silks he loved. People had now begun to drift into the space through the veils of jewelled coloured gauze, and Lucas forced himself to put on a smile and a welcome. Over the next few hours he seemed to do nothing but talk; explaining, describing, answering questions, many of them foolish. One excellent opportunity presented itself, a manufacturer entranced by the Italian tiles that were Lucas’s own speciality. If he could interest another half dozen such businessmen, the day would surely be worthwhile. But not without Alessia, a voice in his head whispered distractedly.
The opening ceremony was to take place at noon and to be sure of his place, he decided to make for the entrance a good thirty minutes beforehand. Here a space had been cleared for the Queen’s dais and an auditorium erected for the musicians, choirs and special guests that were expected. As he retraced his steps towards the central staircase, a heavy shower buffeted the glass walls with a sudden violence that sent people in the park scurrying for cover. It seemed to Lucas to signal the end of the morning’s bright promise. He shivered but kept walking. When he reached the rows of red velvet, he saw that most of the chairs had already been taken and was forced to squeeze past a number of stout matrons to secure one of the last seats. Then he wished that he hadn’t. Sitting elbow-to-elbow and jammed between two majestic females, he felt himself suffocating. Minutes passed and his frustration mounted. He was quite unable to see the comings and goings taking place around him and though he tried craning his neck at an extreme angle, he could not discover whether or not Renville and his wife had joined the gathering.
Guns firing in the distance and deafening cheers nearer to hand heralded the arrival of the royal party. Another stray beam of sunshine lit the entire hall as a diminutive figure alighted from her carriage and made a stately progress towards the assembled throng. Everyone stood and the National Anthem boomed. The Queen was resplendent in a pink silk dress embroidered with silver and studded with diamonds and with a matching headdress of diamonds and feathers in the shape of a crown.
Once the roy
al party had been accommodated, the audience resumed their seats and Albert took his place at the front of the dais. In a voice that lay bare his German ancestry, he read the formal address, setting out the purposes of the Exhibition and listing a mystifying array of statistics that had attended the planning and construction of the Crystal Palace. When he sat down, the Queen rose to reply briefly with praise for the splendid spectacle they were enjoying. A special prayer for the occasion was offered by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the massed choirs of St Paul’s, Westminster and St George’s, Windsor, sang a rousing version of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
Surely that must be the finale, Lucas thought, but it was merely a pause in the official programme. Everyone remained just where they were while the royal party took a small tour of the Exhibition Hall, first to the north side and then along the southerly stands, before returning to the centre. The tour took no more than thirty minutes but trapped as he was, it seemed a prison sentence. When after half an hour the Queen mounted her specially prepared dais once more and declared the Exhibition opened, his sigh of relief was audible. A flourish of trumpets, mass cheering and waving of handkerchiefs and then another rousing chorus of the National Anthem and the Queen and her entourage were on their way back to Buckingham Palace. The semicircular electric clock dominating the entrance with its stately presence showed the hour as just past one.
As soon as he was able to extricate himself, he hurried back to the Renville display and was greeted by the thin, clipped voice he had come to hate.
‘Ah, there you are, Royde. At last! I imagined—evidently wrongly—that you would have thought it proper to remain in the pavilion.’
It was Edward Renville, alone. Which meant that Alessia must even now be sitting in Florence Renville’s drawing room.
‘I have been on duty since eight o’clock this morning, Mr Renville. I left only to see and hear the Queen.’ He wondered why he bothered to reply. He had no need to excuse himself and this arrogant man would in any case accept no excuse.
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