by Deryn Lake
After a virtuoso performance of such magnitude, he shouldn’t have given an encore. But the students were in full voice so he played silly things for them: Russian songs, Fritz Kreisler jokes, the Beatles. They stood to applaud, every one of them, even the very old, and Sidonie through her tears saw that he had gone from her for good — that Alexei was too special, too extraordinary, ever to belong to one woman, that before him lay the glittering prizes of life and all he had to do was stretch out his talented hands to take them.
“Hail and farewell,” she said as she rose with everyone else, a flame of a woman, enormously beautiful at that moment, and let the waters of sadness and joy course down her cheeks.
There was a vast crowd in the star dressing room in the Usher Hall, fellow musicians, journalists and critics and, surprisingly, Chantal de Chenerilles.
“Good heavens,” said Sidonie, struggling to get to her side, “I didn’t realise you were going to be here.”
The Frenchwoman gave her an elegant kiss. “I am staying with the McDuff of McDuff for six weeks. I intend to tour and see something of the Festival. But, of course, I couldn’t resist Alexei.”
Sidonie wondered if she ought to read anything into that remark, but simply said, “It’s lovely to see you again.”
“And you, my dear. I shall be attending your concert, of course.”
“It might seem something of an anticlimax after this.”
“Your music is different,” answered Chantal intelligently. “When you play it is like listening to drops of crystal. When Alexei plays he takes hold of one’s soul.”
“And one’s heart?”
Madame de Chenerilles smiled her enigmatic smile. “No doubt he does that too.”
*
They left Edinburgh three days later, Chantal in her Rolls Royce, Sidonie and Alexei in their hired Volkswagen. The Frenchwoman had pressed them to join her but Sidonie, acutely aware that this was the last time she and Alexei would be alone together, refused.
“We’re going to all sorts of places — Loch Ness, the Isle of Mull, even hunting for the love nest of a heroine of mine in Berwickshire. We’ll probably go to Glenfinnan, too. Where Bonny Prince Charlie landed,” she added as Chantal looked blank.
“At the beginning of the ’45?”
“Yes, indeed. God, if only he’d marched on to London instead of listening to his advisers and turning back. We would have had to rewrite the history books.”
“It was as close as that?”
“A whisker away,” answered Sidonie, and thought how different things would have been for Sarah who, presumably, would never have met George, reigning as Elector of Hanover and exiled from England as he would have been.
As they headed out towards Loch Lomond, the sight of which had Alexei craning out of the car window, she said, “Would you have preferred to go with Chantal?”
He put one hand over hers on the driving wheel. “Sidonie, this is our holiday, not hers. She’s a marvellous woman, has been very kind to me, but you and I have something very special together. We are the same kind of people.”
“Are we?” she asked, in some surprise.
“Yes, most certainly. We have a talent shared by only a few. We are closely linked because of it.”
“You wouldn’t think so to see the way some of our fellow musicians go on.”
“Disregard that, we are loving friends.”
“Which is probably better than lovers.”
“Probably,” Alexei answered, and just for one revealing moment looked enormously sad.
They stayed in a castle converted into an hotel on the bonny, bonny banks of the loch, Alexei absolutely insisting that they did so. And it was there a lovely thing happened. Being so close to Edinburgh, people were staying who had attended his concert and, after dinner, he played for them, other guests crowding in to hear, the staff cramming the doorway. It was a night that Sidonie was never to forget, her last great memory of him, her final realisation that the brashly extrovert young man she had met in Moscow now not only had an international reputation but a following wherever he went.
“I’m proud of you,” she said in bed afterwards.
“And I’m proud of you, prouder of you than of anyone I’ve ever met in my life. Do you remember once when I asked you to go on honeymoon with me on the Trans-Siberian Express?”
“How could I forget?”
“Does it matter to you that it will never happen, that life got in the way?”
“Not at all,” answered Sidonie serenely, lying only a tiny bit. “I told you recently that I never expected anything to come of our relationship.”
“Then that’s all right,” said Alexei, and closed his eyes, falling asleep in her arms as softly and as easily as a child.
*
It was hard to say when Sarah first realised how desperately unhappy William had become. One day, or so it seemed to her looking back, they had been walking on the wooded banks of the river hand-in-hand, his handsome poetic face calm and beautiful, the next a scowl had appeared on those romantic features and he had adopted the distressing habit of sighing.
There had never been a more comfortable little house than Carolside, nor one set in more picturesque surroundings. Built on the very shore of the river, the woods sloping down to the water’s edge, it should have been a haven where a lifetime of harmony could be spent. And yet, or so it seemed, no hiding place, not even in Scotland, was remote enough. Somehow or other both families had found out to where Sarah and William had fled, and a bombardment of letters promptly began.
The Gordons wrote to their son that he was a fool to have resigned his commission in the army for the sake of a woman, that he would have to exist on a mere £500 a year without his salary, and that unless he returned home and resumed his military career it was the only sum he could look forward to for the rest of his days. And this above all, romantic though he might be, spelled out to the runaway lordling the dire prospect that stretched ahead.
To Sarah the approach was different. With every letter she received she was informed of yet another illness in the family, all caused by her wicked behaviour. Caroline had taken to her bed, Lord Holland was sinking, Louisa was hysterical, Emily depressed. As for little Louisa, she was condemned to a life of sneering and ostracism even though Sir Charles, who had incarcerated himself in Suffolk in order to avoid the pity of his friends, would gladly take her off his unfaithful wife’s hands.
The cracks began to appear in their relationship when a copy of Town and Country was sent to them anonymously. In it was contained a vile article in which Sarah was described as Messalina and William as Gordianus, and which also said that when Sir Charles Bunbury had contemplated challenging Lord William Gordon to a duel he was dissuaded by one of his friends who told him that Sarah had had so many lovers if he were to work his way through them alphabetically, Gordianus’s name would not appear for ten years.
“They call you whore, Sal,” said William, reading it.
“I told you when we first met that I had indulged in some squalid affairs. I have never been anything but honest with you,” she had answered, the tears springing in her eyes.
“But this article makes you out a cheap drab.”
And with that he had banged out of the house and had not come back until after dark. The poison was in and spreading and the first heady unrepeatable weeks of passion were over and done for ever.
In April the showers came and did not go away so that William, who relied on walking and fishing to keep his spirits up, was kept prisoner in the house. It was at precisely this time that Louisa began to cut teeth and cried morning, noon and night, developing a series of rashes that made the poor child even more miserable.
“Can’t you keep her quiet?” William had asked moodily.
“No, I can’t,” answered Sarah in exasperation. “You try.”
“Damned if I will,” he had retorted, and slouched off into the downpour.
Finally though, the weather had cleared and the
pair of them had taken the opportunity of getting a little air, going along the riverside path which they had named Lovers’ Walk when they first arrived in Scotland and all was rosy.
“What did your parents say in their latest letter?” Sarah asked, more by way of conversation than out of curiosity.
“That they have no intention of increasing my allowance and that Sir Charles Bunbury’s divorce, if it ever comes off, will take at least another eight years.”
Almost as if she were scoring points, Sarah answered, “Well, Lord and Lady Holland are both ill, my sisters have put on mourning, and the Duke of Richmond has boils. And all because of us.”
Lord William had stopped walking and turned her to look at him. “It’s hardly worth it any more, is it?” he had said softly.
“What do you mean?”
“That if we are causing so much pain to other people, let alone ourselves, it’s time one of us saw sense.”
And with that he turned on his heel and strode away in the direction of the house.
“William,” Sarah had called after him. “William.” But there had been no answer.
Not wanting to crawl, to be so lily-livered that she ran begging, she had delayed her return, rocking Louisa in her arms until the baby slept. Then, finally, Sarah had pulled the bassinet home slowly, hoping that she would find William in a better frame of mind.
He was not there. And when she searched through the rooms, Sarah had found that his clothes and toilet items were missing. Panic-stricken, she had run to the stable, only to see that the horse he had bought to convey the two of them around, was gone. With dusk falling she was alone in the house, miles from anywhere or anyone, with nothing but a small and defenceless baby for company.
“Bastard!” she had shrieked to the hills. “Bastard!” But there had been no reply except the sound of the gurgling river.
After two of the most terrifying days and nights of her life, the sound of hooves had had Sarah running breathlessly to the front door, simply to see the post-boy. None the less, Sarah had seized his arm and almost pulled the poor thing out of the saddle.
“Here,” she said, “take this letter to the postmaster. I will give you a shilling to get it to him at once.”
The boy gazed at the address, scratching his head. “His Grace the Duke of Richmond, Goodwood, Sussex. That’s a mighty long way for i’ to gae, Ma’am.”
“Never mind that now. Tell me, has your father got a horse and cart?”
“I ha’ nae father but I ha’ a mam.”
“Well, would she drive me to catch a public stage from Berwick? There’s a guinea in it for her.”
The boy brightened. “Aye, she would tha’.”
“Good, on what day does it leave?”
“Thursday, a quarter tae midnight.”
“What an ungodly hour! I’d best spend the night before in Berwick. Tell her I’ll expect her on that day at noon. Now, here are two shillings for being a good and helpful boy.”
And that was how Lady Sarah Banbury left Scotland, not in a grand carriage but bumping along in a farm cart, her wordly goods in bags around her, her baby daughter held tightly in her arms. The adventure had turned into a farcical escapade, the romantic dream gone sour. She was left with nothing in the world except her marriage portion of £500 which Sir Charles had returned to her and a fatherless baby. At twenty-four years old, Sarah Bunbury had become a hopeless outcast, the sort of woman Polite Society shunned, one who could only look forward to a life of ostracism and isolation.
*
“They used to walk here,” said Sidonie to Alexei. “And took the time to plant trees, I see.”
“Yes, talk about the rose grew round the briar.”
“Romantic though.”
“Very,” and Sidonie snapped a piece from the two hawthorns, each one planted so close to the other that they must inevitably entwine.
“In fact,” Alexei went on, “it’s so romantic that maybe I do the same thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I’ll buy a rose tree for your garden to remind you of me.”
“When you’re back in Russia?”
“When I’m there, when I’m on tour, anywhere really.”
“You’re lovely,” said Sidonie, putting her arms round him. “You knocked every sensible thought out of my head, but you’re still terrific.”
“Who wants to be sensible?” he answered. “You have all the rest of your life for that. Just think that for ten whole months you’ve been utterly and delightfully irresponsible.”
“And all good things must come to an end?”
“Most unfortunately, I think they probably do.”
And it was there, in the place where Lord William Gordon had walked away from his responsibilities, abandoning his mistress and child to their fate, that Alexei Orlov and Sidonie Brooks, despite the fact that they still had a few days left together, took their final leave of one another.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“The art of life,” said the Duke of Richmond, crossing one fashionably clad leg over the other, “is never to be caught. And you, Sal, simply hadn’t the wit to cover your tracks. You’ve brought your entire troubles on yourself and so I’ll vow to my dying day.”
“But what was I to do?” Sarah asked humbly, her head bent, standing before him like a penitent child.
“Have been more discreet about your extramarital liaisons, that’s what. You should never have allowed yourself to become the talk of London and most certainly should have foisted Lord William’s bastard off onto Bunbury. As for eloping! God save us, but you must have taken total leave of your wits.”
“I suppose so, yet I did it all for love, Brother. I thought it wrong to go on using Sir Charles simply as a provider. I also believed I could not live without William and the time had come to act.”
“And look what a mess it got you into!”
“I know, I know. I have brought disgrace on everybody through my stupidity.”
“The only stupid thing was to be discovered,” reiterated Richmond.
A little of Sarah’s fire came back. “But you, Sir, have mistresses and bastards all over the place and everyone knows it. You have not covered your tracks.”
“Men have no real need to do so.”
“What?” cried Sarah, incensed at last. “How’s that? How could such gross inequality exist?”
“Always has, always will,” the Duke answered carelessly. “A randy man will be called a lecher in any age, frowned upon maybe, but never ostracised. A randy woman will be called an old trollop, a draggle-tail, and ignored by women, who will hate her, and by men who, having secured her favours, will no longer wish to be seen with her. ’Tis the way of the world.”
He was right, that was the terrible part about it. Listening to his words, Sarah could sense the truth of them.
“Then there’s no hope for me,” she wailed.
“None at the moment,” her brother answered briskly. “The best thing you can do is lie low, keep your nose clean, and hope that the great healer cures your particular malady and eventually people will forgive and forget. With this end in view, I suggest you do not live in the big house with us but go to one of the farmhouses in the Park. Out of sight, out of mind, another old truth I fear.”
“I have little choice,” Sarah answered bitterly. “I must do as you wish.”
The Duke’s high-handed tone became more gentle. “It’s for the best, Sal, believe me. You really have made the most ghastly blunder, a gaffe to crown them all, and your only course is to try and restore your reputation by living quietly.” He came towards her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I know it isn’t fair, I know that you did nothing more than I have. But the difference between us is that I stay married to the Lovely, while you ran off. For that crime you will be hounded for years to come.”
“What a grim prospect,” she said, despairingly.
“Your family will rally behind you, never fear,” he answered.
<
br /> But they had not so far, only her wayward brother, who saw in Sarah’s conduct a reflection of his own, rising to the occasion. The Duke of Richmond had gone to London in his largest coach, meeting his sister and her baby off the public stage and escorting them to Goodwood House, overseeing all their pathetic bits and pieces personally. Though he would never have admitted it to Sarah, to whom Richmond felt it his duty to maintain a forceful front, he could have wept at the sight of her, reduced and struggling, with only a spotty crying baby for company.
It had been the Duke’s own decision that his sister and her child should take up residence in Halnaker Farm, one of the many dwellings on his estate. Anyone of importance passing through Goodwood made it their business to call and pay their respects to him, and it was thought best, particularly by the Duchess, that Sarah was kept away to avoid embarrassment to either party.
Mercifully, family attention was not focused on her either. Sarah’s youngest sister, Lady Cecilia, had contracted consumption and was slowly and painfully travelling to the south of France in the company of Lord and Lady Holland. Compared to the blameless invalid, the healthy sinner became of secondary importance in the eyes of all of them.
Sir Charles, too, knowing what fate had befallen his wife, remained proudly aloof, announcing that he would be seeking a final divorce by Act of Parliament and that there was absolutely no hope of a reconciliation. To put the situation at its most blunt, Sarah was now totally shunned by family, friends and the man to whom she once had been married.
Looking round the simple house where she, as a deserted mistress, would be expected to live her solitary life, the outcast fought back tears. Her days of frivolity, of flirting, of highly charged sexual games, were over for ever. She was a prisoner of the crime of passion and must serve her sentence in full before she could ever enter Polite Society again. A depressingly empty future stretched before her and Sarah Bunbury, having unpacked her things and put her child to bed, sat alone in the shadows on that first night in her new home and wept until darkness came.