Belgrave Square

by Anne Perry

  Charlotte drew in her breath, but did not move.

  Odelia was perfectly caught.

  “Of course not,” she lied quickly. “It is an excellent quality.” She could think of nothing else to add and fell into an uncomfortable silence.

  Fitz was biting his lip with ill-hidden pleasure in the sheer humor of the situation.

  “We perhaps should get tripped over less if we were less often in the way?” he said lightly. “But I hope we are in your way again some time soon, Miss Hilliard. In fact I shall engage to make sure we are. I trust you will enjoy the remainder of the evening.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Fitzherbert,” she said with bright eyes. “If everyone else is as charming as you are, I am sure we shall. Good evening, Miss Morden. It was a great pleasure to meet you.”

  “Delighted,” James said, still uncomfortable and avoiding Odelia’s glance. Then taking his sister’s arm he almost pushed her away and they were lost in the crowd.

  “Really!” Odelia said between her teeth. “The clumsy oaf! He has torn my gown, you know! And she is as awkward with her tongue as he is with his feet. She will be a disaster in society. She is far too brash.”

  “I thought she commanded the situation very well,” he said without a trace of ill-humor. “There is a fearful crush in here, and anyone might lose their balance and tread on someone else without meaning to, or being able to help it.” He looked at her wryly. “Anyway, you can never predict what society will do. It takes a fancy to some of the oddest people—far odder than she is.”

  “You have too little discrimination, Fitz,” she said proprietorially, linking her arm in his and moving a little closer to him. “You will have to learn to distinguish between the people one should know socially and those one should simply be civil to because one does not wish to be seen being less than civil.”

  “It sounds like a bore to me,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t think I care to have my acquaintances dictated by such criteria.”

  Odelia’s answer to that was lost as they moved away, and Charlotte was left wishing Fitz were not Jack’s rival for the nomination, because she found him most agreeable. On the other hand, Odelia Morden did not appeal to her nearly so much. She hoped that Emily would be more than a match for her, but she was not at all sure; Miss Morden had a touch of steel under that complacent, pretty face.

  During the second act Charlotte again found her attention wandering, and with Vespasia’s glasses she was able to see very clearly at least those who sat forward in the boxes where the light caught their faces.

  She was examining, as discreetly as she could, the people sitting in the tier above hers, and on the far side, when she saw the curtains at the back of one of the boxes open and the distinctive figure of Micah Drummond come in. She remembered him with personal gratitude for the understanding he had displayed towards her at the dreadful culmination of the murders on Westminster Bridge, when it would have been natural for him to have been furious with her. Instead he had been so gentle she felt her own faults without the instinctive defense which an angrier, less sensitive man would certainly have produced in her. But she had hurt so deeply, and felt so overwhelmingly frightened and guilty.

  Now she moved the little wheel on the glasses to focus them more clearly, and looked at the tense, self-conscious expression on his face as he spoke to the occupants of the box. All she could see of them was the back of the woman’s head, her beautiful black hair wound in the currently fashionable Greek style, and laced with pearls. Her shoulders were very white and she sat upright. Micah Drummond bowed to her and raised her hand to his lips. He did it so gently it seemed to Charlotte to be more than just the usual formality but rather a gesture that was meant for itself. It gave her a little shiver of empathy with the woman, whoever she was, as if she too had sat in that dark box and felt his lips brush her skin.

  The man in the box moved forward a step and his face was no longer in complete shadow, but in a half-barred light so at least his profile was visible. Charlotte knew him: the straight, jutting nose, a little short, was familiar, and the clean angle of his head, hair perfectly straight and smooth. But she could not think who he was.

  Drummond turned to the man, his brows furrowing with anxiety, and began to speak. It was listened to earnestly, the man leaning a little towards him.

  Charlotte moved on and saw Odelia Morden and Fitz sitting close together, his face toward the stage, hers towards him.

  She looked back again at the drama as the music rose to a long sustained climax and there was a rush of applause.

  When she turned back at the box where Micah Drummond had been he was no longer there, and the man appeared to be staring towards Charlotte, which made her acutely embarrassed. He seemed so close, as if he would see her as clearly as she saw him. He had no glasses, but hers magnified him alarmingly and she felt caught in a gross act of intrusion. There was a curious expression on his face, beyond her ability to interpret. Only his mouth was in the full light. He looked melancholy, vulnerable, and yet there was a driving intensity in the feeling, nothing passive about it except the openness to hurt, almost an anticipation of pain.

  The woman in the box turned towards the stage and leaned over the balcony rail. Now that she was in profile in the light Charlotte could see it was Eleanor Byam, and knew in that same moment that of course the man was Lord Byam. Now that she was aware who it was, the curve of his head was perfectly easily discernible, the hollows of his fine eyes.

  He too moved forward a bit and Charlotte realized with a blush of relief, and as if a guilt had been removed, that it was not she he was looking at, but someone beyond her and a trifle to her left. She returned the glasses to Vespasia with a whisper of thanks, and thus was able to look to her left with good excuse. The only person there was Lord Anstiss, and he was watching the singers on the brilliantly lit stage as though oblivious of everything and everyone else, the other members of the audience.

  The second interval was less diverting but Charlotte was still full of the exhilaration of the occasion and all the glamour and laughter and swirl of silks. She felt as if she walked on air and she wanted to see and hear and remember it all so she would recall everything years from now when she was back in her own home on the ordinary days that would come so soon, full of comfortable, repetitive chores. And she would have to tell Gracie as much as she could. She would want to know every detail.

  Pitt stood with his back against a pillar; this time he had fewer duties of courtesy towards the women. Jack was escorting Emily, Lord Anstiss had offered to fetch refreshment for Vespasia, which she had accepted, and Charlotte was too interested in looking and listening to care about such things.

  “Enjoying yourself?” Pitt asked quietly, putting his arm around her shoulders and leaning a little closer so he could be heard above the buzz and clatter.

  She looked at him wordlessly; the bubble of happiness inside her was too large to need description, and nothing could do it justice anyway. They stood together watching the people pass by in twos and threes, in groups, and here and there one alone. It was halfway through the apportioned time when she saw the tall, lean figure of one such man, his face intent in thought, apparently not seeing the crowd as individuals but merely as a bright mass, like a field of flowers. After a moment or two Charlotte recognized Peter Valerius, the young man at Emily’s ball who had been so passionate about finances and the rates of interest charged and the restrictions attached where certain businesses were involved in colonial countries, dependent upon the rich nations of Europe, and on Britain in particular. It was a subject in which she had no interest whatever, but his face had such a power of feeling in it she had found herself drawn to him, in spite of her complete lack of intellectual engagement. He seemed to be alone, and she wondered why he was here at such a social event, in so many ways superficial.

  A few moments after he passed, going back towards the stairs up to the boxes, she saw Lord and Lady Byam. They were walking close to each other, sid
e by side, but she was not on his arm, and she held herself very erect. He seemed a little abstracted, his mind elsewhere. He turned as something caught the edge of his vision, and saw Pitt, a little taller than the average and outlined against the pink stone of the pillar. A flicker of recognition crossed his face, then puzzlement, a small furrow between his brows as he struggled to place him in his mind.

  It was all over in a few moments. Byam passed and his attention was taken by someone else. Pitt smiled with a dark, wry amusement.

  “That’s Lord Byam,” Charlotte whispered. “Do you know him?” Pitt’s smile became softer, reflective. He came to some decision within himself. He turned to face her and exclude the party of laughing people behind him.

  “Yes. Yes I do. The usurer whose murder I am investigating was blackmailing Byam over Lady Anstiss’s death.”

  “What?” she gasped, looking at him in amazement. “Laura Anstiss. But what had he to do with that? It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “No,” he said very quietly. “She fell passionately in love with Byam, who was Anstiss’s closest friend, and when he did not return it, she took her own life. They covered it up to make it look like an accident, to protect her—and of course the family reputation.”

  “Oh.” She was stunned. Thoughts whirled around in her mind, passion and tragedy, a beautiful woman lonely, rejected and in despair. She could hardly imagine Anstiss’s grief, his sense of betrayal by a man he had believed his friend. Byam’s guilt. All that was twenty years ago, Vespasia had said. But what did they feel now? What had the years healed? Was that the strange emotion she had seen in Byam’s face as he looked out of the shadows of his box across at Anstiss?

  The bell rang for them to return to their seats, and Charlotte took Pitt’s arm and sailed, head high, back up the stairs, jostling with the crowd, the chatter and laughter, the rustle of taffeta and scrape of heels. Fortunately he was looking where they were going, so it was unnecessary for her to.

  The last act was the dramatic and musical climax and Charlotte gave it her attention, at least outwardly. Inwardly her mind was still thinking of the sharper, more immediate drama in the faces of Byam and of Fitz, and in the bright eyes of Fanny Hilliard.

  After the final curtain, when the applause had died away, they joined the queue to leave, going very slowly down the stairs, pretending indifference to the crush and the waiting. There was no point in pushing their way through; they might so easily become separated, and then their carriage would not be there yet anyway.

  It was nearly an hour later that they were sitting at a small, elegant supper table swapping gossip. Anstiss and Jack were talking quietly, sipping champagne, and Emily was telling Pitt all she could remember about Eleanor Byam.

  “Did you enjoy the opera?” Vespasia asked Charlotte, looking at her flushed face and smiling.

  “Yes,” Charlotte replied more or less honestly. Then she was compelled to add, “But I am not sure that I understood the story, and I don’t think I shall remember any of the music. I shall remember the way it looked, though. It was splendid, wasn’t it!”

  “The best I’ve seen, I think,” Vespasia agreed, the smile still hovering about her lips.

  Charlotte frowned. “Doesn’t opera ever have songs you can remember, like the music halls?”

  Vespasia’s silver eyebrows rose. “My dear girl, I have no idea.”

  Charlotte was disappointed. “But you come to the opera often, don’t you?”

  Vespasia’s lips quivered. “Certainly. It is the music halls I do not frequent.”

  “Ah!” Charlotte was filled with confusion. “I’m sorry.”

  Vespasia started to laugh. “I have heard that Vesta Tilley has a song or two that are memorable.” And very quietly, in a sweet contralto, she began a racy, lilting song. She stopped after about eight bars. “I’m sorry I don’t know any more. Isn’t it a shame?”

  Charlotte began to laugh as well, and found the hilarity bubbling up inside her till she could not stop.

  It was nearly two in the morning and they were all tired, beginning to yawn, the women to become aware of tight shoes and even tighter stays, when Lord and Lady Byam came towards them, passing close by the table in order to leave. Beside Jack, Lord Anstiss was facing towards them and it was unavoidable they should acknowledge each other.

  “Good evening.” Byam spoke first, being the one who had entered the circle. His face had a curious expression, his wide eyes were restless. Had it not seemed ridiculous Charlotte would have said he was seeking something, some answering emotion which he did not find, and the lack of it did not surprise him, and yet it still hurt. Or perhaps it was not ridiculous, if what Pitt had said was true and the old tragedy of Laura Anstiss had involved Byam. Anstiss was still alone; he had never remarried. Perhaps under his wit and outward composure the wound was still new. He had loved Laura, and even now no other woman could take her place. It was guilt and hope for forgiveness she had seen in Byam’s eyes, and in Anstiss’s face a continued courtesy, the outward show of a decent man trying to do what he believed was Christian.

  Byam had stopped by their table.

  Aiistiss leaned back a trifle in his chair and looked up at him. “Good evening, Byam,” he said agreeably, but without warmth. He smiled very slightly. “Good evening, Lady Byam. How pleasant to see you. Did you enjoy the opera?”

  She smiled back at him, though with a shadow in her eyes, an uncertainty beneath the social ease which was inbred in years of polite trivia. “It was delightful,” she replied meaninglessly. One did not own to any other feeling, unless one wished to enter into a discussion. “It was most beautifully staged, don’t you think?”

  “The best I can recall,” he agreed, equally as a matter of form. His eyes moved to Byam with an unflinching gaze. Had he been a less exquisitely civilized man Charlotte would have thought it almost aggressive.

  Byam moved as if to continue his journey towards the door, then glanced back at Anstiss, who was still staring at him.

  Eleanor Byam stood with a frown puckering her face, for once not sure what to say, or even whether to speak or not.

  Beneath the superficial inquiries and answers Charlotte could feel a tension so powerful it was like a heat in the room. She glanced at Emily, then at Pitt, and saw Pitt’s face intent in concentration. Jack was lost, uncertain whether to intrude or not. Charlotte could bear it no longer.

  “Is Wagnerian opera always like this?” she said, rushing into the silence, not caring how much ignorance she betrayed. “Lohengrin is the first I have seen. It all seems a trifle unreal to me.”

  The moment was broken. Eleanor let out her breath in an inaudible sigh. Byam relaxed his tight shoulders.

  Anstiss turned to Charlotte with a charming smile, his back to Byam. “My dear, most of it is far more unreal than anything you have seen tonight, believe me. This was eminently worldly and sensible compared with the Ring cycle, which concerns gods and goddesses, monsters, giants and dwarfs and all manner of unlikely events, not to say impossible ones.” His eyes were brilliant with wit and imagination. “I think you might greatly prefer the Italian operas, if you like your stories of ordinary men and women, and situations with which one can readily identify.” He saw that that might sound a little patronizing and went on to soften the effect. “I admit I do. I can take only a very small amount of mythology at this level. I prefer my fantasy to have an element of humor, like Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, even an element of the delightful absurd, rather than the German angst. There is a touch of sophistication combined with innocence in their conception that I find pleases me.”

  “You are too English,” Byam said from behind him. “Wagner would say your imagination is pedestrian. We make fun of the grand design because we do not understand it, and cannot sustain an intellectual passion because at that level we are still children.”

  Anstiss swung back to him. “Would he?” he said coldly. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I did not hear it,” Byam r
eplied with a touch of asperity. “I deduced it. Now if you will excuse me, it has been a superb evening, but it is now extremely late and I am quite ready to find my carriage and go home.”

  “Of course.” Anstiss was smiling again. “Such a comparison of philosophy will keep until another time. We must not keep you. Good night, Lady Byam.”

  Byam hesitated as if for a moment he would have pursued the discussion.

  “Good night, my lord,” Eleanor said with an unsuccessful attempt to keep the relief out of her voice, and taking Byam’s arm she turned him away and together they went out between the other tables towards the door, without glancing backwards.

  Charlotte looked at Pitt, but he was staring into some place in the distance, his brows puckered and his eyes dark with thought.

  “How much was said that had nothing to do with what was meant?” Vespasia said so softly under her breath that Charlotte only just caught the words.

  “What do you mean?” she whispered back.

  “I have no idea,” Vespasia answered. “Or at least very little. But I would swear that the whole conversation was merely a vehicle for a sea of feelings that were quite unrelated to Mr. Wagner or his operas. Perhaps that is so with a great deal of conversations, all the ’good evening’s and ’how are you’s. We are simply measuring each other. It gives one an excuse to stare, to meet each other’s eyes in a way that would be quite unacceptable were we standing there in silence.”

  Before Charlotte could think of a reply, which would certainly have been an agreement, they were approached by a considerable group of people who were also wending their way towards the door. Charlotte recognized the man immediately, although it was a moment before she could recall his name. Then it came to her just as the group was passing the next table. It was Addison Carswell, whom she had met at Emily’s ball, and with him were his wife, the woman she had admired for her good sense, and the three fair unmarried daughters, all dressed in shades from pink through to the richest burgundy. They reminded Charlotte of a drift of magnificent hollyhocks in bloom all toning with one another. They were a striking sight, more effective together than any one of them would have been alone. Charlotte respected Mrs. Carswell’s strategy.