104. the Glittering Lights Read online

  “No, Papa, you know how much it would bore you if I was having fittings all day and I don’t expect that I shall stay too long.”

  “I know your aunt is at our house in Park Lane,” Sir James said. “I had a letter from her yesterday telling me that she had engaged a new cook.”

  The widowed Lady Fladbury had, after her husband’s death, made her home in her stepbrother’s house in Park Lane.

  It was convenient for Cassandra if she wished to go to London at any time to have a chaperone on the premises and it suited her aunt, who had been left in somewhat impecunious circumstances, to live rent-free.

  “Aunt Eleanor never goes away!” Cassandra said. “So I was certain I would find her there.”

  “You will take Hannah?”

  “Of course,” Cassandra replied. “I know you would not like me to travel without her.”

  “Then the sooner you go to London and come back, the better,” Sir James said, “and by the way, while you are there, have a photograph taken. We shall need it for the newspapers when your engagement is announced.”

  “Oh, Papa, you know I hate being photographed.”

  “I cannot abide the last one that was taken by that man in York,” Sir James said. “I want an attractive likeness to console me when you have left home.”

  “Yes, of course, I had not thought of that. It would be awkward if you forgot what I looked like!”

  He smiled at her fondly.

  “You know I could never do that. At the same time I want a very good one. Go to Downey’s of Bond Street, who photographed Lily Langtry. I liked the last one I saw of her.”

  Cassandra was still for a moment and then she said,

  “There is something I want to ask you, Papa. I would like to meet Mrs. Langtry.”

  “You would?” Sir James exclaimed in surprise.

  “I have heard so much about her,” Cassandra replied, “of her beauty and the sensation she caused when she went on the stage. I was reading how when she returned from America last year, she was cheered as she stepped from the ship. There were crowds of people waiting on the quay to see her.”

  “I read that too,” Sir James nodded.

  “It shows what a place she holds in public affection,” Cassandra went on. “Write me a letter of introduction, Papa, and I will go and see her new play.”

  “It is called ‘Enemies’ and it is on at the Prince’s Theatre.”

  “Have you seen it yet?”

  He shook his head.

  “No. I saw the play she was in before. She was good, a little stiff, but she looked entrancingly lovely.”

  “Did you take her out to supper, Papa?”

  “As a matter of fact, no, I did not,” Sir James answered, “and, as you are so curious, I have not seen her since she returned to England from America last year.”

  “Then she will be looking forward to hearing from you again, Papa. Give me just a few words of introduction.”

  “I don’t know her address. You will have to get the coachman to leave it at the theatre. At the same time, I am not really certain your mother would like you to meet an actress, even if it is Mrs. Langtry.”

  “We can solve that problem by not telling Mama. I expect she knows that at one time you were fascinated by the most beautiful woman in England, but she may now have forgotten all about it.”

  “Then we will not tell her,” Sir James smiled, “and I would rather like you to meet Lily. You are as lovely in your way, Cassandra, as she is in hers.”

  He sighed.

  “Let me think, she must be twenty-nine and when I knew her first she was only twenty-two and the most beautiful creature I ever encountered.”

  “You understand. Papa, why I want to meet her? I will just talk to her and see how she captivated the Prince of Wales and Prince Louis of Battenberg and why the Prime Minister Mr. Gladstone is her friend.”

  “I cannot think who has been talking to you about such matters,” Sir James said, but there was no reproof in his voice.

  “If there is any scandal I have not yet heard,” Cassandra suggested with a smile, “Aunt Eleanor will be full of it as soon as I arrive in Park Lane.”

  “You can be quite sure of that,” Sir James agreed. “Then you had best write me a letter now,” Cassandra insisted. “If I am going to London, I will catch the nine o’clock train from York, so it will mean me leaving early.”

  “Will you order the carriage for me, Papa, and as soon as I go upstairs I will tell Hannah to start packing. She will be furious at having to do it at what she will call ‘the middle of the night’.”

  “And don’t worry your mother,” Sir James admonished. “You know she is rather anxious when you go to London without me.”

  “I am sure Mama will want me to look my very best when the Duke arrives,” Cassandra said demurely. “Like every woman you have ever known, Papa, I literally have not a thing to wear!”

  Sir James laughed at that and, walking across the room, went through the hall and into his study.

  He sat down at the desk and wrote a short note in his strong upright handwriting and put it into an envelope.

  Sir James addressed it to, “Mrs. Langtry, The Prince’s Theatre”.

  “Thank you, dear Papa,” Cassandra said and bending, kissed his cheek.

  She slipped the letter inside the bodice of her dress before she went to her mother’s bedroom.

  She said goodnight to Lady Alice, told her that she was about to go to London and found, as she expected, that her mother apparently understood her need for more clothes.

  It was Hannah who protested when Cassandra, going to her bedroom, found her there waiting to help her undress.

  “Really, Miss Cassandra, you might give me a little more notice,” she scolded. “How do you think I’m goin’ to get ready by eight o’clock tomorrow mornin’ unless I stay up all night?”

  “You know you never go to sleep early,” Cassandra replied, “and it is important, Hannah, it is really or I would not have made up my mind so unexpectedly.”

  “Are you up to some of your monkey tricks again?” Hannah asked. “Because if you are, you can take someone else with you. I shall not be responsible to her Ladyship and that’s a fact!”

  Cassandra paid no attention.

  She had heard Hannah talk like this far too many times before to be taken seriously.

  “I’ll go and start packin’,” Hannah grumbled when finally Cassandra was ready for bed. “It’ll take me three hours. If I’m too exhausted to come with you in the mornin’, you’ll understand what’s happened.”

  “I have already told you, Hannah, I only want a few gowns, so don’t pack half the wardrobe. I shall only be staying for two or three days and I shall be shopping all the time.”

  “I can’t think where we’re goin’ to put any more things. There’s no room for what we have already,” Hannah remarked as a parting shot.

  As soon as she was alone, Cassandra jumped out of bed and put on the silk wrap that Hannah had left lying over a chair.

  She tied the sash around her small waist and went from the bedroom into her sitting room, which adjoined it.

  It was a lovely room and had been done up only two years ago by her father who had spared no expense.

  Everything that Cassandra treasured, everything that meant something special to her, was housed here in the room that was essentially her own.

  She lit the lamp, which had been turned out by Hannah before she left and found a key in its secret drawer, which was indiscernible to anyone who did not know where it was concealed.

  With it she opened the lower drawer of her desk in which reposed two large green leather albums.

  She took one out and put it on the table beside the lamp.

  For a moment she stared at it as if she was half-afraid to turn the cover with its silver edges and reveal what lay inside.

  Then very slowly with a strange expression on her face, she opened the album.

  Chapter Two

&nb
sp; Cassandra turned the pages.

  On every one there were portrait sketches, cuttings from newspapers and magazines, all referring to the Marquis of Charlbury.

  She had started to collect newspaper reports of him after she had seen him at the Eton and Harrow match.

  There had been quite glowing descriptions of the way he himself had batted and how expertly he had captained his team.

  Cassandra had cut them out of the many newspapers her father read and from The Illustrated London News, The Sporting and Dramatic News and the magazines like The Lady that amused her mother.

  Later she thought she had done it instinctively, because subconsciously she had known even then that the Marquis was to mean something in her life.

  After her father had told her that he intended her to marry the Marquis, she had bought the leather album and stuck in the cuttings.

  She started with 1878 when she first met him and added to them year by year until they had stopped abruptly in August 1885.

  It was not that he did not continue to haunt her dreams and to linger at the back of her mind whatever she might be doing.

  It was just that she knew that, unless things were very different than they appeared to be at the moment, it would be impossible for her to marry him.

  Three months after his father’s death and the Marquis had not suggested a visit to Yorkshire, Cassandra was saying to herself, ‘I cannot marry him.’

  She had been idealistic enough to believe romantically that when they met they would fall in love with each other and live happily ever afterwards.

  She was well aware that she was beautiful and it would be unlikely for her not to appeal to the Marquis’s taste in women.

  Then she discovered grounds for thinking that he would in all respects be quite unresponsive to her attractions.

  When she visited London the spring before her debut was cancelled because of the death of her grandfather, Cassandra had somewhat shyly asked her aunt whether she would be likely to meet the Marquis of Charlbury at the balls she would attend during the Season.

  “The Marquis of Charlbury?” Lady Fladbury had exclaimed. “Whatever makes you think that he might be a suitable partner?”

  Her genuine surprise told Cassandra that the Duke and her father had kept their plans for their children a secret.

  If there had been any gossip about their intentions, her aunt most certainly would have heard of it!

  Cassandra did not answer and after a moment Lady Fladbury went on,

  “But of course, I forgot, your father races with the Duke. Well, I should not bother your pretty head over young Charlbury. He is far too interested in the footlights to dance attendance on any debutante however attractive!”

  “In the footlights?” Cassandra questioned.

  “He is one of the many ‘men about town’ who hang around the stage door at The Gaiety,” Lady Fladbury explained. “There are a whole number of them making fools of themselves over pretty girls who have no breeding and who most certainly will not make them good wives.”

  “Good wives?”

  Cassandra was aware that actresses were considered fast and extremely improper and were not accepted by any Society hostesses.

  “Kate Vaughan, who starred at The Gaiety, married the Honourable Arthur Wellesley, nephew of the great Duke of Wellington, last year,” Lady Fladbury said. “And Billie Bilton is now the Countess of Clancarty. The Earl has made an idiot of himself and his mother is in despair, as you can well imagine.”

  “I did not realise – that gentlemen actually – married actresses,” Cassandra stammered.

  “These women are very astute!” her aunt replied. “They make the men who pursue them so infatuated that they cannot escape from escorting them up the aisle!”

  “And you are saying that the Marquis of Charlbury is also – interested in these – actresses?”

  “They don’t do very much acting. Not on the stage at any rate!” Lady Fladbury snapped. “But they are very gay, their faces are painted like a herbaceous border and their jewels glitter as my old nurse used to describe it, ‘like the devil’s eyeballs’!”

  She laughed,

  “Oh, well, don’t worry, my dear! There are plenty of other men in the world besides those who are dazzled by the glittering lights in The Strand.”

  She did not see the expression on her niece’s face because Cassandra had turned away, astonished and shocked by what she had heard.

  When she had the opportunity, she talked to her father, knowing that Sir James would tell her the truth. She only half-believed the gossip that came so easily to her aunt’s lips.

  “Aunt Eleanor says that many young men are actually marrying actresses from – The Gaiety, Papa. Is not that somewhat – unusual?”

  Sir James had glanced at her quickly before he replied,

  “Certainly not as many as your aunt makes out. The majority of the men, Cassandra, find it amusing to take actresses out to supper and give them presents.”

  He paused to continue as if he sought for words.

  “A man disports himself in the company of these ladies with a freedom which would not be permitted by any chaperone and certainly not by any jealous husband.”

  “Are they very – pretty?” Cassandra had asked.

  “Extremely! And they are easy-going, which young men find attractive in contrast to the stiff formality of more respectable occasions.”

  He spoke lightly and then as if he realised why Cassandra was questioning him, he said with a perception that surprised her,

  “Have you been hearing stories about Varro Charlbury?”

  Cassandra did not reply and after a moment he said,

  “I thought you might have. A young man, my dearest, has to sow his wild oats. In most cases he makes a better husband because of it.”

  “But – supposing he falls – in love?” Cassandra asked in a low voice.

  “The word ‘love’,” he said after a moment, “reflects a multitude of emotions. What a man feels for an attractive woman of the type we have just been talking about, is not really love, but desire.”

  He watched Cassandra’s face and went on,

  “It gets dolled up in a great many pretty words, but he wants not only to be amused by these women but also to feel free and untrammelled!”

  He paused before he added,

  “Unless a man is very stupid, he has no wish to spend the rest of his life with a lovely face that has nothing behind it.”

  “Aunt Eleanor was saying – ”

  “Your aunt is exaggerating a few isolated instances where men have married what are known as ‘Gaiety Girls’ thinking that what they were doing was worth the cost.”

  Sir James paused a moment before he went on,

  “They pay a very high penalty for what you call ‘falling in love’. A man who is in the Army must leave his Regiment. If he is in the Diplomatic Corps or in politics, the same thing applies. His wife will not be accepted in most instances by his mother or by any of his relatives and even if his men-friends visit him, their wives will refuse any invitation.”

  Cassandra gave a little sigh.

  “It seems unfair.”

  “Society has to have rules and the rules where a man marries a woman beneath his station or one who is notorious because she is an actress of has been divorced, are very very stringent.”

  Sir James looked at Cassandra’s serious face and added,

  “Don’t worry over the tales you may hear about Charlbury. I am convinced it is all a passing phase and when he marries he will settle down and be an extremely respectable and respected Duke.”

  But things had not quite worked out the way Sir James had expected.

  When the new Duke of Alchester had not suggested, after his father’s death, that he should make his postponed visit to The Towers, Cassandra contrived in one way or another to make enquiries about him.

  She had found, as she had anticipated, that he was incessantly in the company of the Gaiety Girls or of
other actresses.

  “Alchester is known as ‘The Merry Marquis’,” one of Cassandra’s hunting acquaintances told her. “Have you never met him?”

  “No,” Cassandra answered. “I was only interested because, as you know, Papa and the old Duke did a lot of racing together and I was just wondering if the new holder of the title had kept up the stables.”

  “If he has, I expect he will soon have to sell up,” her friend replied.

  “Why?” Cassandra enquired.

  “I believe he is badly dipped.”

  If this was so, Cassandra asked herself, why then did not the new Duke of Alchester fall back on the arrangements that had been made before his father’s death and push ahead with the marriage that would bring him, through his wife, an enormous fortune?

  She could find only one reasonable explanation.

  It was that, despite everything her father might say, the Duke was in love and had no wish to make an arranged marriage.

  By the time the winter of 1885 had come and there was no word from him, she was convinced that her father’s plans had finally and completely gone astray and that they were unlikely to hear any more from the Duke.

  But Sir James was optimistic.

  ‘There could be no question of your being married while Alchester is in deep mourning,” he said. “He will wait the conventional year. Then I am sure we shall take up the negotiations where they were left off.”

  ‘I will not be treated in such a manner!’ Cassandra told herself, although she did not say so aloud to her father.

  Every month that passed strengthened her determination.

  She would not marry a man whose heart was given elsewhere and who wanted her for one reason and one reason only, that she was rich!

  She saw now how childish her expectation has been that because she was pretty he would fall in love with her.

  She might have far more brains and certainly be far more cultured than the women he associated with in London, but that was not to say that he would prefer such qualities.

  She took to studying the photographs published of the actresses who were beguiling London audiences.

  It was hard not to see that they certainly looked far more attractive and indeed more amusing than the stiff portraits of the Society girls they competed with for the gentlemen’s affections.