The Fortune Hunter
Page 2
A Night at the Opera
The opera house was full. It was Adelina Patti’s last performance of La Sonnambula before she returned to New York. Every box was full, every seat from the stalls to the gods was taken. Bay Middleton sat in the second row, so close to the stage that he could see the lattice of blue veins that snaked across La Patti’s décolletage, the rivulets of sweat that ran down her painted cheeks.
But though he had his eyes on the stage, Bay Middleton’s senses were concentrated on a box in the Grand Tier. He felt Blanche’s presence as vividly as if she were sitting next to him; he knew without looking round that her shoulders were bare and that two blond wisps of hair would tremble on the back of her neck. He could almost smell the cologne she used to bathe her temples. Still, he would not look up. He had been aware that he was making a mistake in coming tonight even as he fastened the dress studs in his shirt and adjusted the points of his white tie. But tomorrow Blanche would be gone and he wanted to be near her even if he could not bear to look at her.
The music fed his melancholy. He was not, like most of the audience, here merely to be seen. Bay felt the music; sometimes he would find the hairs on his arm standing on end, just as they did when he knew he was about to win a race, or when a woman looked at him in a certain way. It had happened the first time he had seen Blanche. She had pressed her foot against his at dinner and he had known, at once, that it was no accident. She had looked at him with her heavy-lidded eyes and had smiled, showing small white teeth and a glimpse of pink tongue. It had been the first of many such moments. She had been looking at him across dinner tables and ballrooms for the last year. There had been other women before her, of course, but Blanche Hozier was the first woman he had ever missed a day’s hunting for.
She had not been smiling earlier that afternoon as she stood in front of the mirror, tucking away the curls that had come loose a few minutes before. He had been marvelling, as usual, at how quickly Blanche could change back from the woman who had led him by the hand to the chaise longue to the one who stood there now checking that every hair was in place. She was still flushed, but she was once again the mistress of the house and the Colonel’s wife. She had caught his eyes in the mirror and had said without expression, ‘I am going to Combe tomorrow.’
He had said nothing, sensing that this was a declaration.
‘The Colonel is there all the time working on his drainage schemes, and as there is no chance of him coming to London, I must go to him.’ She turned to face Bay, tilting her head a little to one side as she looked at him, one of her diamond ear drops catching the light and dazzling him.
He considered this for a moment. There could be only one reason why Blanche would leave London before the end of the Season. His eyes dropped to her waist.
He blinked. ‘Are you sure?’
Blanche lifted her chin. ‘Sure enough.’
He stood up and walked towards her. She crossed her hands in front of her like a gate. He stood still. ‘A child? Oh Blanche, I am so…’ But she cut him off, as if she couldn’t bear the emotion in his voice.
‘Combe is lovely at this time of year. Isobel has a cough and I believe the country air will do her good.’
The slight huskiness that he found so beguiling had gone and she had resumed the commanding tones of Lady Blanche Hozier, the daughter of an earl and the mistress of Combe. He looked in vain for some trace of her former softness, but she was as hard as the looking glass behind her. He felt both desolation at the thought of losing her and irritation that he should be so summarily dismissed.
‘You will write to me.’ It was not a question, but Blanche had shaken her head.
‘No letters, not until afterwards. I have to be careful. If the child is a boy…’ He had seen her twist the wedding ring around her finger.
‘I will miss you, Blanche,’ he had said, putting his hand out to take hers. But she had shrunk away from him, as if he had become red hot. He had punched his fist into his other hand in frustration.
‘I wonder that you didn’t tell me, earlier?’ His eyes flickered over to the chaise longue.
Blanche looked at him, her drooping eyelids belying the fierceness of her tone.
‘I think you should leave now before the servants come back. They have seen too much already.’
He had wanted, very much, to tear her hair down and to shake her porcelain composure, but he had let his arms drop and said, ‘Are you sure the child is mine?’
This time she had turned her whole body away from him and had just pointed to the door. He had picked up his hat and gloves from the chair and left without another word.
Now, as he listened to Adelina Patti as Amina singing of her love for Elvino, he felt the blood creeping to his ears as he thought of that last remark. He wanted to look up and show Blanche that he had not meant to wound her, but he could not turn his head. He knew that her retreat to the country was the only prudent course, but he had been hurt by the manner of his sending off. If only there had been some expression of regret, some tenderness. But their liaison had ended as abruptly as it had started. He suspected that he was not Blanche’s first lover, but she had always been discreet. Bay knew that her marriage with Hozier was not a happy one. Indeed, there had been a moment when he thought that Blanche had wanted more than their afternoons in the blue drawing room and he had been terrified and excited in equal measure. But that moment had passed and he had felt nothing but relief. To elope with Blanche would have meant leaving the regiment, the country, probably. So he knew he had no right to feel aggrieved, but still – a child. He remembered the way that Blanche had refused to look at him as he left that afternoon, as if she had already erased him from her life.
La Patti hung her head at the end of her aria to receive her applause. The stage was soon covered with flowers thrown by her admirers. Bay looked up at the other side of the theatre from Blanche’s box and saw his friends Fred Baird and Chicken Hartopp in a box with two ladies. One he recognised as Fred’s aunt and the young girl he thought must be Fred’s sister. He supposed that Lady Lisle must be bringing the girl out as the mother had died years ago. He picked up his opera glasses to get a better look at the girl, conscious as he did so that Blanche might be watching him. It would do her no harm, he thought, to see that he had other interests.
But the Baird girl had drawn back, her face was in shadow, and all Bay could see of her was a kid-gloved hand tapping a fan on the side of the box. He held his glasses up for a minute longer, waiting for a glimpse of her face, but she did not reappear. It was almost as if she were hiding from his gaze.
At the interval he decided to leave; he thought he would go to his club and have a brandy. He thought of Blanche looking down at his empty seat. But as he reached the corridor he felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘Middleton, what are you doing down here?’ Chicken Hartopp looked down at him, beaming. His dundreary whiskers covered almost his entire face, but what skin there was visible was flushed with the heat. ‘Thought you would be in a box, old man, not down here with the plebs. Couldn’t help noticing a certain lady sitting opposite.’ Chicken squeezed one eye in a clumsy wink.
Bay said quickly, ‘I thought I’d listen to the music for a change. This is La Patti’s last performance before she goes back to America.’
‘An opera lover too, eh?’ Chicken started to laugh at his own joke. Bay was about to leave him to his mirth when he saw Fred Baird coming towards them.
‘Middleton, my dear chap, I thought I saw you down in the stalls. Will you come up to the box and meet my sister?’
Bay was about to refuse, but then he remembered the Baird box was in full view of where Blanche and her companions were sitting. He followed Bay and Hartopp through the crimson corridors to the box.
‘Aunt Adelaide, you know Captain Middleton, of course, and may I present my sister Charlotte.’
Bay bowed to Lady Lisle and turned to Charlotte Baird, who was small and dun-coloured, quite unlike her brother, who was large
and vivid. She stretched out her hand to him and as he brushed his lips against the knuckles of her glove, he felt her hand tremble slightly.
‘How are you enjoying the Opera, Miss Baird? La Patti will be a sad loss to the company here, when she returns to New York.’ Bay was standing with his back to the auditorium. He turned slightly to the left so that an observer might notice that he was talking to a young lady. Charlotte Baird looked up at him. Bay was not as tall as Hartopp or Baird, but Charlotte still had to tilt her head up to address him.
‘I haven’t had much chance to form an opinion about the music, Captain Middleton. I don’t think my brother or Captain Hartopp have drawn breath since we arrived.’ She gave a crooked little smile. ‘Perhaps you can persuade them to be quiet. I should so like to hear the opera as well as see it.’ Bay noticed that she had a trace of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
‘I will do my best, Miss Baird, but I doubt that even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself could silence Chicken Hartopp.’
She looked at him and he saw that her eyes were the most definite thing about her face: large, with very long black lashes. He could not quite make out the colour in the gloom of the box. She held his gaze.
‘But you, Captain Middleton, you like to listen. Is that why you sit down there in the stalls?’
The crooked smile reappeared. He realised she had noticed him earlier. He thought again, how different she was from her brother. Fred was an amiable bully who was happy as long as he was in front. But this girl came up on the inside, in the blind spot.
‘I like to look up at the singers, Miss Baird; I want to feel in the middle of things.’
‘But that’s what I want, and yet here I am, surrounded by distractions.’ She waved her hands at the young men who were standing with her aunt and shrugged. The bell rang to signal the end of the interval.
‘Delighted to have met you, Miss Baird.’ Bay looked over at Fred Baird and Chicken Hartopp and said, ‘I hope you are allowed to enjoy the rest of the opera in peace.’
‘I hope so too. But Captain Middleton, you aren’t thinking of returning to your seat already? There is a lady in blue who has been staring at you these last few minutes while we have been talking; she looks as though she wants to tell you something. Won’t you look round and see what it is she has to say?’ Charlotte Baird’s voice was soft but there was something sharp in there as well. Bay did not look round, but made his way to the door at the back of the box.
‘I don’t believe anything can be more important than the Second Act, Miss Baird.’ He nodded to the others and left. Rather to his own surprise, he found himself making his way back to his seat in the stalls, aware now that he was being observed from two sides. He thought with some satisfaction of Blanche watching his conversation with Charlotte Baird from the other side of the House.
The Second Act was not as good as the first; the music could not push away his swirling thoughts. As he fidgeted in his seat he caught a faint whiff of the gardenia in his buttonhole. The flower had come from a corsage he had ordered for Blanche to wear this evening. He had been going to take it with him that afternoon, but it had arrived too late. It had been lying on the hall table when he had returned to his rooms, a mute reminder, as if he needed one, of how much had changed in the last few hours. His first impulse had been to throw it away, actually to crush the waxy white petals and the dark green glossy leaves under his heel, but as he picked up the flowers to destroy them he had been overwhelmed by their scent. The heavy sweetness was the smell of all their afternoons together in Blanche’s blue drawing room. He remembered the dust-laden motes of light that had fallen like sequins on her bare throat. The smell of the gardenias was as abundant as Blanche herself, the waxy smoothness of the petals as dense as the white skin of her shoulders. He could not resist pulling out one spray and fastening it in his buttonhole. But now, as he touched the fleshy white petals, he thought that he had never seen Blanche completely naked and now he knew that he never would. The thought made him shudder, and crush the flower between his fingers.
He was still intending to go to his club, but as he was leaving he saw Fred Baird handing his sister and aunt into their carriage. They must be going to the Spencer ball. He had been sent a card, of course, having been one of Spencer’s aide-de-camps in Ireland, but he had decided not to go. He didn’t really care for balls; there was so much clamour he could never hear what the girls were saying in their light little voices. Not that it mattered. Those debutante conversations were all the same – did he care for waltzing or polkas? Wasn’t the steeplechase most awfully dangerous? Had he ever been to Switzerland in the summer? He was standing on the corner of the Strand, when the Baird carriage passed him and he saw Charlotte’s small face looking at him through the glass. He touched his hat and she raised her hand in reply but did not, rather to his surprise, smile.
He hesitated for a moment, before turning north towards Spencer House. Blanche would be there, but then so would little Charlotte Baird. She would be grateful for a dancing partner who was not Chicken Hartopp. He knew that Hartopp was seriously pursuing the girl – she was an heiress, of course, and like all rich men, Hartopp wanted to be richer. But now he had met Charlotte, Bay found that he did not like the idea of Hartopp marrying her. Any girl who went to the Opera to listen to the music was not the right match for the cloth-eared Hartopp. He looked around for a hansom but then decided he would walk. It was a fine evening and it would not hurt to arrive a little late. Perhaps Blanche would be looking towards the door, wondering if he would arrive.
The Spencer Ball
The ball was at its height. It was at the point where the women were rosy from the dancing, but before the moment when coiffures began to slip – carefully curled fringes flattening in the heat. The guests, who had been delaying their arrival so that it would appear that they had been dining at one of the more fashionable houses before the ball, had finally dared to make their appearance. The parliamentary lobbies on the Suez bill had closed and the ballroom was spotted with MPs and ministers. It was the last event of the season before people disappeared to the country for the summer, so there was an energy to the occasion as the guests tried to make the most of this last opportunity to squeeze what they wanted from the world: a promotion, a liaison, a husband, a mistress, a loan, or simply a piece of delicious gossip. No one wanted to miss this party; it was the final opportunity to acquire the baubles of hope and intrigue that would make the arid summer months bearable before the fashionable world reassembled in the autumn.
As Bay Middleton made his way up the double staircase, he saw that Earl Spencer, the Red Earl as he was known, was still standing by the door to welcome his guests. The last time Bay had seen Earl Spencer in evening dress had been in Dublin at the Vice Regal lodge. There he had been the Queen’s representative, and with his great height and golden red beard he had looked the part. But now the political wind had changed, the Whigs had been ousted by the Tories under Disraeli, and Spencer looked a little less burnished. His kingdom was on the hunting field, not here under the chandeliers. But he had daughters to bring out and a Party anxious to manoeuvre itself back into power, so there was no help for it. Still, he hovered on the edge of the festivities as if ready to follow more promising sport at any moment.
Spencer caught sight of Bay at the bottom of the stairs and called to him before the footman could announce him.
‘Middleton, my dear fellow. I am uncommon glad to see you here.’ He squeezed Bay’s hand in his great freckled paw.
‘It’s not the same as Dublin, eh?’ Spencer’s pale blue eyes clouded. ‘Still, we have royalty tonight. The Queen of Naples, no less, or should I say the former Queen. Very grand, like all these deposed monarchs, but lively enough.’ He pointed a stubby finger at Bay. ‘I shall rely on you to entertain her. She speaks perfect English but she has a way of sighing that is altogether foreign. I believe the King is not altogether to her taste. No doubt you could bring a smile to those handsome lips.’
Spencer laughed and put his arm around his shoulders.
‘They were high times in Ireland, eh Middleton? Best hunting in the world. Still, who knows? Disraeli can’t last for ever and then we will be back with a vengeance.’
He propelled Bay into the ballroom where the orchestra was playing a polka.
‘There she is, Queen Maria, the heroine of Gaeta. They say she took command of the garrison and fought against Garibaldi and the Risorgimento while her husband the little king locked himself in his bedroom.’ Spencer pointed to a tall dark woman dressed in white who stood surrounded by a group of men in uniform.
‘It appears that she is still in command of her troops.’ Bay thought that the Queen looked as if she was posing for a portrait, her arms positioned in a perfect oval and her head turned slightly so that everyone could admire her clear profile and the long curve of her neck. She wore a small tiara that sparkled against her dark hair.
‘At least she looks the part,’ said Spencer. ‘Not like the Widow of Windsor. And a horsewoman too. She came out with the Pytchley last year, led the pack all the way. I suppose a day out with the Pytchley is compensation for losing a kingdom, eh?’ But Bay was no longer looking at the Queen in her frame of courtiers. He had seen Blanche’s blond head and he could not help following it as it tacked across the dance floor. Spencer followed his gaze and made a small tutting noise.
‘I believe you are not listening to me, Middleton. Still, I shall leave you to your own pursuits, even if no good can come of them. It’s high time you got married. The right sort of wife would make all the difference.’ The Earl moved off towards the supper room, leaving Bay watching Blanche as she danced around the room. He was dismayed to see how very gracefully she was dancing tonight. She was coming around again and he knew that if she were to turn her head she would see him. He stood there, unable to move, and then just as they were about to come face to face, he saw a flash of white to his left and turned his head. It was Charlotte Baird – still small and dun-coloured but just then a most welcome sight.