“Lily! Shall I say how overjoyed I am to see your beautiful face?” a deep voice exclaimed.
A man of about forty, rather large and overpowering, was raising Mrs. Langtry’s hand to his lips.
“I have brought a little friend with me,” Mrs. Langtry said. “I hope you don’t mind?”
Cassandra felt the man’s eyes take in every detail of her face and her sensational gown.
“But of course, I am delighted,” Lord Carwen said. “Will you introduce me?”
“Miss Sandra Standish,” Mrs. Langtry said. “And this, dear, is your very kind and generous host – Lord Carwen!”
Cassandra made a graceful curtsey.
“I hope your Lordship will forgive me for coming uninvited to your party,” she said with a smile.
“I am prepared to forgive you anything, if you will dance with me later,” Lord Carwen replied.
He held out his hand to Freddy Gebhard.
“Delighted to see you, Freddy. I hope my party measures up to some of those I hear you give in America.”
Cassandra did not listen for Mr. Gebhard’s reply.
She was staring round the ballroom, her eyes alight with curiosity.
It was a beautiful room with huge chandeliers and decorated with fabulous pictures and very valuable mirrors.
It was in fact the type of room Cassandra had seen often enough in the homes of her father’s friends, but it was the occupants on this occasion who were unusual.
The men were all gentlemen, the majority of them of Lord Carwen’s age.
Many of them were obviously distinguished and they had an elegance that could be achieved only by an Englishman in evening dress.
But the women were to Cassandra’s eyes quite fantastic!
‘It is extraordinary,’ she thought, ‘to see so many pretty women all together!’
Then she realised that it was because, using cosmetics, they looked far prettier and far more attractive than their contemporaries in the Social world who dared not employ such means to beautify themselves.
Eyes enlarged with mascara and eye shadow, very pink and white skins and laughing red lips made a picture that Cassandra could understand most men would find alluring and desirable.
Their gowns too were fashioned to attract attention.
Never had she seen so much naked flesh, such yards of tulle, so many sequins or such a profusion of artificial flowers.
The majority of the women wore jewellery that Cassandra could tell at a glance was not real.
Nevertheless it added to the glamour of their appearance.
She was so amused and interested in everything she saw that she gave a start when she heard Mrs. Langtry say beside her,
“As I expected, I see the Duke of Alchester over there. Let me introduce him, otherwise we may become separated in the crowd and then I should not have been able to keep my promise to you.”
Cassandra drew in her breath.
Mrs. Langtry swept ahead of her and once again she followed in the wake of the grey bustle, moving through the throng of guests who seemed to be talking animatedly at the top of their voices or laughing with a kind of wild gaiety that almost shook the chandeliers.
For a moment Cassandra felt that she could not look at the Duke.
She felt a sudden shyness creep over her.
She wanted to run away.
Then she told herself that she was being ridiculous.
This was what she had planned – this was what she had schemed and dreamed about. Now it was up to her!
It was certainly not a moment for shyness or embarrassment. She had to convince the Duke that she was a gay rather pushing young actress.
She had to amuse him and to make him notice her! Mrs. Langtry had stopped and now Cassandra saw him, the man who had been in her thoughts ever since she was twelve.
He was far better-looking than his pictures suggested. He was no longer the thin, rather cadaverous boy she remembered in his white flannels and Eton-blue cap at Lords.
He was tall, broad-shouldered and had an almost commanding presence that she had not expected.
She had somehow not imagined that he would have such natural dignity or would have a pride in his bearing that she sensed immediately.
It was obvious even in the grace with which he rose from the chair where he was sitting to greet Mrs. Langtry.
“I expected to find you here, Varro,” Mrs. Langtry began.
“I am honoured that you should think of me,” the Duke answered.
As he spoke, Cassandra knew that she remembered his voice. There was some quality in it that she had never heard from anyone else – something she, in particular, found strangely moving.
“You have not been to see me in my new play,” Mrs. Langtry said accusingly.
“I assure you that it is only because I have found it impossible to obtain a seat,” the Duke replied.
Cassandra watching him realised that his eyes twinkled as he spoke and, when he smiled, there was a dimple on the left side of his mouth.
‘He is wildly, overwhelmingly attractive!’ she told herself. ‘Much more so than I had imagined! There cannot be a woman in the whole of London who would not try to marry him if he so much as looked in her direction!’
“You should not be so popular!” the Duke was saying to Mrs. Langtry. “They tell me there have never been such long queues as I see outside The Prince’s day after day.”
“You should have seen them in America,” Freddy Gebhard interposed, who had followed Mrs. Langtry and Cassandra across the room.
“Hello, Freddy!” the Duke exclaimed. “When are you going to find time to come and have a drink with me at White’s?”
“The next time that Lily doesn’t want me,” Freddy Gebhard replied.
“But I always want you,” Lily Langtry said softly.
“Then I withdraw my invitation,” the Duke said. “Who am I to interfere between two people who obviously enjoy each other’s company?”
He spoke quite seriously, but Cassandra could see that his eyes were laughing.
“And now, Varro,” Mrs. Langtry said, “I have someone with me who is very anxious to meet you. She had something to tell you, which I expect you will find interesting.”
She turned towards Cassandra.
“Miss Standish, may I present the Duke of Alchester? Varro – this is Miss Sandra Standish, who I understand, is an extremely talented young woman.”
Cassandra put out her hand and, as the Duke took it, she had the strangest feeling that all this had happened before.
She could not explain it to herself.
It was as if they were enacting an episode that had taken place, not once but a dozen times all down the ages.
“You have something to tell me?” the Duke said raising his eyebrows.
“Yes,” Cassandra answered and she was relieved to hear that her voice did not quiver. “But at the moment it would be impossible to make myself heard.”
Even as she spoke, the band that had been playing when they first arrived in the hall, started up again.
It was a waltz and Freddy Gebhard said to Mrs. Langtry,
“This is one of our tunes.”
He did not wait for a reply, but put his arm round her and led her on to the centre of the room.
The Duke and Cassandra stood alone, facing each other.
“Will you dance with me first?” he asked.
“I would like that.”
She felt herself tremble slightly as he put an arm round her and hoped he would not notice.
Then he was swinging her round the floor and she found that he was easy to dance with and they seemed to be perfectly matched.
If she had wanted to talk to him, it would have been impossible.
The noise and laughter from the other guests was quite deafening and the band played louder than was usual at other parties that Cassandra had attended.
The dance was by no means decorous even for a waltz. It was in fact quite riotous and as
it ended Cassandra moved from the floor to the other end of the room, which seemed a little less crowded.
“Let’s find somewhere where we can sit down,” the Duke suggested.
He put his hand under her arm with a lack of formality that she knew he would not have indulged in at a more formal ball.
He led her out through a door and she saw that there were various drawing rooms and anterooms leading off the room where they had been dancing.
There was one that she guessed was a writing room, beautifully decorated in soft colours with French furniture that must have been worth a fortune.
There was a sofa in front of the curtained window, the lights were discreetly low and there was the fragrance of hothouse flowers to scent the atmosphere.
The Duke led Cassandra to the sofa and, when she had seated herself, he sat beside her, turning a little sideways so that he would look into her face.
“Who are you?” he asked, “and why have we never met before?”
“Surely that is a very conventional remark for someone like you?” Cassandra replied.
‘Why for me in particular?”
“Because you have the reputation of being original, dashing and very intelligent.”
“Good Heavens!” The Duke held up his hands in pretended horror. “Who has been telling you such lies about me?”
“In my profession,” Cassandra replied, “they chatter about you almost as much as they do about the productions in which they hope to appear.”
“I think you are being rather unkind to me,” the Duke said accusingly, but his eyes were twinkling. “Have I done anything to offend you?”
“On the contrary,” Cassandra said. “As Mrs. Langtry told you, I was very anxious to meet you.”
“Why?”
Cassandra hesitated a moment and then she said,
“For one frivolous reason and one serious one. Which will you have first?”
“The frivolous one!” the Duke replied. “At this sort of party one never wants to be serious.”
“Well – the frivolous reason is that I have often wondered why someone as gifted as you are should find the theatre more amusing than anything else.”
She realised as she spoke that she was being deliberately provocative.
Yet she knew she had to hold his attention, to make him curious about her or else she might lose him as quickly as she had found him.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
Cassandra laughed.
“Are you really surprised that I can read?”
“You mean the newspapers! You should never believe all you read in those scurrilous rags.”
“Nevertheless, they cannot invent all the things they say about you,” Cassandra said. “I read for instance that you attained a First Class Degree at Oxford and that at one time you considered a career in the Diplomatic Service. That must mean that you are able to speak several languages.”
“That was a long time ago,” the Duke answered. “I suppose I was ambitious once, but then I decided that it was all too much trouble.”
“I think people are happier when they are working at something that interests them.”
“Is that what you find?”
“I am always interested in what I am doing,” Cassandra answered truthfully.
“Tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Are you acting at the moment?”
“No, I have come South to London for singing lessons. There is a chance of my getting a good part in a musical comedy, but my voice is not yet strong enough and I have to work hard at it for at least a month.”
“Who has arranged all this for you?”
It was a question Cassandra had not expected and she had to think for a moment before she replied,
“A – friend has given me an introduction to a good teacher.”
As soon as she spoke, she saw the Duke’s eyes glance at the diamonds in her ears and in her hair and she wondered if he thought a man had paid for them.
She felt the blood rising in her cheeks and a little ripple of fear run through her in case the Duke should be shocked.
Then she told herself not to worry, as it was what he would expect from anyone in the theatre world.
Had her father not said that men liked giving presents to actresses they took out to supper?
“So you are spending a month in London,” the Duke said reflectively. “Will you be very busy all of the time?”
She smiled at him.
“I am always ready to be – tempted into playing truant.”
“They tell me that is a part I play extremely well,” the Duke said. “Will you come to the theatre with me one night?”
“I would enjoy that,” Cassandra said simply. “I had not been to a theatre in London for a very long time until tonight when I saw Enemies.”
“What did you think of it?”
“I think Mrs. Langtry was magnificent in the part.”
“She is extremely adaptable,” the Duke said.
Then, as if Mrs. Langtry did not particularly interest him, he went on,
“Now will you tell me the serious reason why you wanted to meet me?”
Cassandra had her story ready. She had thought it all out coming down to London in the train.
“Do you remember a groom your father once had with the name of ‘Abbey’?”
There was a little frown of concentration between the Duke’s eyes.
“Do you mean a man who was at Alchester many years ago when I was a child?”
“That would be Abbey,” Cassandra replied. “I knew him when he was very old. I used to visit him in the cottage he retired to.”
“Of course, I remember old Abbey!” the Duke exclaimed. “Even when I was a child his face was like a withered walnut. He must have been a hundred when you knew him.”
“He was eighty-seven before he died,” Cassandra said. “He asked me, just before his last illness to tell you, if we ever met, that he still had the horseshoe that you gave him.”
“Good Heavens!” the Duke exclaimed. “I remember the incident well! Abbey was an inveterate gambler. He never had a penny to his name and he was always full of stories of how his horse had been ‘pipped at the post’.”
“Yes, I heard them too,” Cassandra said with a little smile,
“One day when he was taking me out riding,” the Duke went on, “we stopped for a rest and I was running around, as small boys do, and found a discarded horseshoe.
‘Look Abbey,’ I cried, ‘I have found a horseshoe!’
‘So you have, Master Varro,’ he replied. ‘It’ll bring you luck’.”
“I remember debating with myself for a moment, because I wanted to take the horseshoe back home to show my father, but then I said,
‘I think you need luck more than I do, Abbey’ and I gave it to him’.”
“That is exactly the same story he told me,” Cassandra said with a little cry of delight. “The horseshoe stood on his mantelpiece right up to the day of his death. It was in the place of honour and I think it did bring him luck.”
“I have not thought of Abbey for years,” the Duke said. “I have an idea he went to work for a racehorse owner called Sir James Sherburn. Is that right?”
“He may have,” Cassandra responded lightly. “When I knew him he was far too old to work. He talked of nothing but horses.”
“And what could be a better subject?” the Duke enquired. “Except, of course, beautiful women.”
There was no disguising the expression in his eyes.
“I believe you are an acknowledged judge of both,” Cassandra smiled.
“Again you flatter me. Shall I tell you I cannot resist a fine horse or a lovely woman. And you are very lovely, Miss Standish!”
Cassandra could not prevent the blush rising in her cheeks and for a moment her eyelashes flickered shyly.
Then she forced herself to say,
“Your Grace is obviously also an exper
t flatterer.”
“You say that with a cynical note in your voice that I do not like!” he said accusingly. “How can I convince you that I am sincere? Surely in the North, or wherever you come from, there must be men who have eyes in their heads and are not completely blind?”
“They can see with their eyes,” Cassandra answered, “but perhaps they are not quite as glib with their tongues as you gentlemen in the South!”
The Duke threw back his head and laughed.
“You have an answer to everything. Come, let’s go and dance again and I hope that, as you are a stranger to London, you don’t know many other men here tonight.”
“As a matter of fact, I am throwing myself on your mercy,” Cassandra answered, “as I don’t wish to keep bothering Mrs. Langtry for introductions.”
“There is no need for that,” the Duke said firmly. “I will look after you and that is something at which I can assure you, without boasting, I am very proficient!”
The dance floor was even more crowded than when they had left it, but the Duke skilfully steered them round the room and Cassandra wondered how she had ever enjoyed dancing in the past.
It was something quite different to be held in the Duke’s arms, to feel her hand in his and know the tulle trimming her décolletage brushed against the satin facing or his evening coat.
“You dance divinely!” he said. “Do you dance on the stage?”
“I am a better – actress,” Cassandra replied.
The party was getting even noisier than it had been in the earlier part of the evening, and now as the dance came to an end the band started up the loud gay music that heralded the ‘Can-Can’.
“We will watch this,” the Duke suggested. “It is always amusing.”
Cassandra had read in her father’s sporting papers of how the Can-Can had startled London some years before.
Brought from Paris by a troupe consisting of two men and a girl, who were brothers and sister, they appeared at The Oxford Music Hall and packed the place night after night.
The Can-Can was considered the very height of impropriety and even The Sporting Times had some very scathing things to say about it.
Cassandra did not read this paper bought by her father, because she was not interested in the seamy side of London, nor in the broad jokes that she did not understand.
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