‘No doubt. But I can’t stand those popinjays, Esterhazy and Liechtenstein. I don’t know why Mama takes them everywhere. And now Aunt Maria tells me she has taken up with some English groom.’
The Ambassador coughed. ‘If you mean Captain Middleton, sir, with respect he is hardly a groom. He is a cavalry officer on Earl Spencer’s staff. The Earl asked him to be your mother’s pilot. It is true that he does not have a title, but in England this is quite usual.’
‘Aunt Maria says that he is insolent and a man of bad reputation. She says that he has been flirting with my mother.’
‘I believe that your aunt tried to engage Captain Middleton’s services herself before he became the Empress’s pilot. As to the flirting, well, your mother is still a great beauty, I am sure Captain Middleton is not the only man to engage her attention in that way.’
‘But she is the Empress of Austria. He should have more respect.’
‘Having seen them together, sir, I think that the Kaiserin rather enjoys the attentions of Captain Middleton.’
The Crown Prince relapsed into moody silence, drumming his fingers on the window frame. Karolyi thought how much he looked like his mother.
* * *
Charlotte had been at the exhibition since ten o’clock that morning. Lady Dunwoody had been ready to leave from half-past eight, and although her husband and Charlotte pointed out that it would not take more than an hour to reach the Strand from Holland Park, she refused to listen. ‘Suppose the carriage’s axle breaks? Or one of the horses goes lame? These things do happen.’
Sir Alured, who was not a photographer and had only agreed to attend the exhibition because his wife had insisted, said that he would leave when he had finished his kipper and not before. Charlotte was grateful to him. She had got up at six so that the maid, Grace, who had arrived the day before from Melton, would have time to do her hair, and even at eight-thirty she was not entirely happy with her appearance.
Bay’s telegram had arrived a couple of days ago. It had been delivered when Lady Dunwoody was in the dark room so Charlotte had been able to open it alone. TIPSY LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING THE QUEEN HAS GOT NEW FROCK STOP SHOULDER CROCKED SO CAN’T WRITE BAY. Charlotte had smiled with relief.
She spent the extra minutes afforded by the deboning of Sir Alured’s kipper getting Grace to coax a few more curls at the nape of her neck with tongs. She was wearing a new dress in a mauve and white striped silk. It was far more elaborate than her usual day dresses, but Lady Dunwoody had been clear that none of her existing wardrobe was suitable for meeting royalty. The dress had a bustle with a small train, which took some getting used to. She had already knocked over a jardinière in her room by turning round suddenly; she wondered how she would be able to manoeuvre through the crowds at the exhibition.
Charlotte studied herself in the pier glass. She pushed her pancake hat down a little on one side as she had seen Augusta do. She knew from taking pictures that a good image needed just a little asymmetry. She was aiming for jaunty but she pushed it too far, making her look simply dishevelled. She righted it again and stared at herself critically. If she was going to put herself in one of her animal photomontages, she thought, she would be a field mouse – eyes a little too large for her face, nose rather pointed. Her mouth – just the right shape for nibbling. All she needed were some whiskers. In winter, at least, she wasn’t covered in freckles. It was not a face to launch a thousand ships. The only thing that she liked about it, the feature that gave her distinction, was her chin. It was firm but with just the suggestion of a dimple.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to try a false fringe, miss? Lady Augusta wears one, and the Princess of Wales. It softens the hairline.’
Grace held up the curly patch in front of Charlotte’s forehead. But Charlotte looked at herself in the mirror, grimaced and pushed it away.
Seeing the maid’s disappointed face, she said, ‘I am sorry, but I can’t wear the fringe. I would feel like a French poodle. I’m afraid I will never live up to your idea of a fashionable lady.’
The toilette was interrupted by a bell being rung violently in the hall. Sir Alured had clearly finished his kipper. Charlotte gave her hat a last-minute adjustment in the mirror and ran down the stairs.
* * *
Lady Dunwoody was resplendent in a red and gold figured silk which reminded Charlotte irresistibly of the dragons on the Japanese screen in the studio. There was something quite regal about her – it was the combination of her height and her assumption that she was being listened to with full attention. Charlotte thought that the real Queen could hardly be more intimidating.
Just as they had seated themselves in the carriage, there was a knock at the window and Caspar peered in.
‘Good morning, ladies, Sir Alured. I know that I said yesterday that I would meet you at the exhibition, but when I woke up this morning I felt my heart beating like it was fit to burst and the only way to calm my nerves is to be in your company. Will you take pity on me? If there is no room, I will happily walk alongside. I feel that unless I do a great deal of talking now I will splutter like a firework in front of the Queen.’
Ignoring her husband’s sigh, Lady Dunwoody opened the carriage door.
‘You may ride with us, Mr Hewes, but you must not crush Miss Baird’s dress. Or talk too much.’
‘I promise to make myself as thin as a pencil and as quiet as a mouse. Miss Baird will emerge unruffled, her ears unsullied by my noisome chatter. But before I embark upon my vow of silence I must just observe the splendour of the feminine apparel in this carriage.’
Caspar climbed in and sat beside Charlotte, making a great play of twisting his lanky limbs into the smallest possible knot.
‘That lilac stripe is so à la mode, Charlotte. You look like the most delicious ice, a confection of Parma violets and cream. I don’t suppose that anyone will bother to look at the photographs when they have such loveliness before them.’
Sir Alured banged on the carriage roof to give the coachman the signal to drive off and opened his copy of The Times with an ostentatious rustle.
‘And as for you, Lady D, such splendour. There are not many women who can wear that particular shade of red and emerge the victor, but you have vanquished the colour quite decisively. I bask in your reflected glory.’
Caspar let his ulster fall open a little to reveal that he was wearing a waistcoat of a rose figured silk that did indeed look like a dilution of Lady D’s vigorous crimson.
‘I think you may be assured of your share of attention in that waistcoat,’ said Lady Dunwoody.
‘Do you think perhaps that is a little too much for the morning? I did toy with something a little more discreet, but then I decided that as all the photographs are monochrome it was my duty to add a splash of colour.’
‘But Caspar, you don’t need a waistcoat to add colour,’ said Charlotte, ‘your pictures are so magnificent they will attract all the attention you could possibly want.’ Caspar smiled. Like all flatterers he longed to be praised in return.
‘Now Caspar, if you have the good fortune to be presented to the Queen,’ said Lady Dunwoody, ‘you bow very low and call her Your Majesty, and if she engages you in conversation you may call her Ma’am. But remember that, hard as it will be for you of all people, you may only speak if you are spoken to. You cannot chat away to the Queen as you would to us.’
‘Don’t worry, Lady D, even a Republican like me is awed by the presence of royalty. The only unsolicited noise I will make is a sigh as I contemplate Her Majesty in all her pomp.’
There was an audible snort from behind The Times.
Lady Dunwoody turned to Charlotte. ‘And you must talk to that goose of an aunt of yours, and warn her that the Queen must be allowed to look at the pictures in peace. Caspar is positively taciturn in comparison with Adelaide Lisle.’
‘I will do my best,’ said Charlotte.
Caspar turned to Charlotte. ‘What about the gallant Captain? Is he coming? I am
consumed with jealousy already. I may have to challenge him to a duel. I am surprisingly good with a pistol.’
‘I believe that Captain Middleton is coming, but I shall turn him away at the door if you don’t promise to behave,’ said Charlotte sternly.
Caspar put up his hands in surrender. ‘I will be a model of discretion. I shall fade into the background.’
‘Not in that waistcoat, you won’t,’ said Charlotte.
As the carriage entered the Park, Lady Dunwoody leant forward and said, ‘I believe that the Queen will not be the only royal presence at the exhibition. There is a possibility that Crown Prince Rudolph, the son of the Austrian emperor, will be there too. Alured arranged it with the Austrian ambassador. The Crown Prince is very interested in photography, isn’t that right, Alured?’
Her husband grunted behind his paper, but after a nudge he put the paper down for a moment and said, ‘Apparently so. Although from what I hear about the Crown Prince, his interest in photography may be in its less salubrious forms. I hear that he is quite a volatile young man. Not like a Hapsburg at all. They are stolid to the point of dreariness, but Prince Rudolph clearly takes after his mother.’
‘Is the Empress volatile?’ asked Charlotte.
Sir Alured folded his hands. ‘If our own queen was to behave as the Empress does, I feel confident that we would be a republic before very long. Of course, she is only a consort and there is no doubt that Franz Joseph is the most diligent of sovereigns, but he has indulged his wife in a way that could not be tolerated here. Karolyi says that she can be extraordinarily wilful. In Vienna she hired a circus troupe to teach her to do tricks on horseback. She is most reluctant to go to court functions, but she is quite happy to appear in public jumping through a ring of fire.’
‘How splendid,’ said Caspar, ‘now that would make a great picture.’
Sir Alured looked at him over his half-moon glasses. ‘Making a great subject for one of your,’ he paused, ‘photographs is not the role of an empress.’
‘Well, as a Republican, Sir Alured, I would happily trade in one of our presidents for an empress who can do circus tricks,’ said Caspar.
‘You may joke about these matters, Mr Hewes, but I suspect that as a Republican you do not understand that the mystique of royalty is a precious thing. Majesty cannot be taken lightly. It is inconceivable that our queen would jump through hoops of fire.’
Caspar whispered to Charlotte, ‘It would have to be a very big hoop.’
Lady Dunwoody said hastily, ‘Have you seen the Queen before, Charlotte?’
‘I once saw her riding out in her carriage. But she was a long way in the distance, so the impression I had was of a small black shape. Her lady-in-waiting was about twice her size.’
‘But haven’t you been presented? Surely Adelaide has arranged it?’
‘Not yet. Augusta wants to be my sponsor this season.’
‘They are always long afternoons. I remember when I was presented, one of the girls ahead of me fainted from the fatigue. She fell down in a dead swoon and all her feathers were crushed, poor thing. She couldn’t be presented after that, of course, and the Queen was asked if the girl could be counted even though she hadn’t actually made it to the throne. But the Queen said no, and the poor girl had to do it all over again. We all thought it rather unkind at the time, but I suppose it’s very important to stick to the rules.’
Sir Alured nodded. ‘How can you doubt it, my dear? That is the difference between our queen and the Austrian one. Our queen knows that she has a divine duty to perform, while the Empress Elizabeth seems to have no sense of the responsibilities that come with her position.’
‘I suppose you are right, Alured.’
The carriage was now travelling down Pall Mall and Charlotte had her face pressed to the window in case she spotted Bay coming out of one of the clubs. But a light drizzle had started to fall and the faces of the passers-by were concealed by their umbrellas. She could feel her heart beating so loudly in her chest that she thought everyone else in the carriage must surely hear it. It had been two weeks since she had seen Bay. She tried to picture him in her head but the only image she could summon was the photograph she had taken of him when he had been staring at the Empress. Caspar had tried to persuade her that the photograph should be entered into the competition, but she had resisted. It was a powerful image; the framing and the depth of field was perfect. But Charlotte had felt that it was not a photograph to put on public view. Whatever that expression on Bay’s face had been, it was a private matter.
* * *
In Harley Street Bay was putting his shirt on. He was in some pain. Dr Murchison had manipulated his shoulder, and while he now had much more range of movement, the deft twist that the doctor had given his scapula had been so agonising that Bay had cried out.
‘There, Captain. It’s all done. You should be able to use it normally now. But you can’t keep doing this. Once a shoulder joint gets loose like this, it could pop out any moment. It’s probably useless my saying so, but you should really avoid situations where you are likely to fall and dislocate it again.’
‘Perfectly useless, I’m afraid, doctor,’ said Bay. ‘I don’t intend to fall off my horse but sometimes it happens. I can’t stop riding.’
‘You could stop riding so fast,’ said Dr Murchison. ‘It is the velocity with which you hit the ground that makes these injuries so dangerous. The next time you fall and put the joint out, I may not be able to fix it.’
‘That’s a chance I will have to take,’ said Bay. ‘Meanwhile I am grateful to you, doctor, for giving me the ability to button my shirt. It’s a damned nuisance to be dependent on other people just to get dressed.’
‘Well, if you don’t take care of that shoulder, you will have your arm in a sling for the rest of your life. And who will button your shirts then?’ said Dr Murchison.
‘Once again, doctor, I suppose that is another chance I will just have to take.’
* * *
It was a quarter to twelve when Bay left the doctor’s. He had intended to walk to the Strand but the drizzle was developing into solid rain. He hailed a hansom and then immediately regretted it. The traffic in London was infernally slow in bad weather. He looked out of the window at the women sheltering in shop doorways, trying to protect their expensive new hats.
The hansom had stopped moving entirely. Bay put his head out of the window and saw that a dustcart had lost an axle and was blocking the down traffic along Regent Street. The dustman was trying ineffectively to prop up the cart so that it could be moved out of the way, but the vehicle was too heavy for him to make much headway on his own. The rain was turning the road to mud and the drover kept slipping as he tried to prop up the broken axle. The carriages coming the other way had all slowed down to look at the spectacle. Bay thought that he would have to walk and cursed himself for not bringing an umbrella. Then he saw a group of navvies and other workmen emerging from a public house – he rapped on the carriage roof and said to his driver, ‘Tell those men I will give them a sovereign if they will get the cart out of the way.’ The coachman climbed down from his box and went to negotiate with the workmen.
As the navvies set to work – clearly too drunk to mind much about the mud – Bay noticed another carriage had drawn up alongside him. It was a private carriage with a coat of arms on the side. The crest was splashed with mud, but Bay recognised the double-headed eagle crest of the Hapsburgs. He could hardly fail to recognise it; the crest was on everything that the Empress’s household used at Easton Neston, from the butter pats to the soap dishes. Curious, Bay peered into the carriage. The Empress was hunting with the Cottesmore today after much grumbling about having to ride out ‘quite alone’ with only Liechtenstein, Esterhazy, and three grooms for company. He glimpsed a profile in the carriage, and until its owner turned and Bay saw the luxurious moustache, he thought for an uncomfortable moment that the Empress had abandoned the Cottesmore to follow him to London. Then the owner of the mo
ustache lit a small cigar and Bay saw that it was a young man not much more than a boy. The high cheekbones and those deep-set eyes were so similar to Sisi’s that the man in the carriage could only be Rudolph, her son. Then the other passenger leant forward and Bay recognised Karolyi, the Austrian ambassador. The Ambassador was clearly trying to persuade the Prince of something; he was leaning forward and almost but not quite putting his hand on the Prince’s arm. But the Prince was evidently in no mood to be persuaded. Ignoring the other man, he turned his head and stared out of the window, looking directly at Bay. Bay wondered if he should smile or even touch his hat in acknowledgement, settling for a civil nod. But there was no response from the Prince, it was as if Bay did not exist.
There was a shout of triumph from the navvies as the dustcart was pushed to the side of the road. The hansom driver picked up his reins and set off at a brisk clip. Bay threw a sovereign to the mud-splattered men as he passed. As they positively cantered to Piccadilly, Bay looked back out of the window and saw that the men were brawling in the road, fighting no doubt over Bay’s sovereign. The Hapsburg carriage was trapped behind the scrapping navvies. The chill that had come over Bay when he saw the blank, arrogant face of the Crown Prince was replaced by an ignoble flush of triumph.
The rain had stopped by the time the hansom had negotiated its way across Trafalgar Square to the Strand. The queue of carriages stretching down the Strand was stationary, so Bay decided to walk the rest of the way. He skirted the front of the Charing Cross Hotel and turned right onto John Adam Street. The pavements were thick with people. As Bay tried to make his way through to the Royal Society building he could hear a hum from the spectators, ‘the Queen, the Queen’. There was a distant noise that sounded like a cheer coming from the Strand. Bay pushed his way to the pillared portico at the entrance of the Royal Society; he knew that he had to get into the building before the Queen arrived or he would be stuck outside for ages. The cheers for the Queen were getting louder. At last Bay squeezed his way through a gap in the crowd and made his way up the white marble steps.
The Fortune Hunter Page 28