104. the Glittering Lights Read online

She read it because, so often, the Duke, as the Marquis of Charlbury, was mentioned in it.

  Every few months or so The Sporting Times gave a list of what they called ‘The Young Bloods About Town’.

  It also referred to the ‘Mashers’ who haunted the stage door of The Gaiety and were to be found at the promenades of all the Music Halls.

  Cassandra added cuttings that mentioned the Marquis to her album, but, when she was searching for his name, it was impossible not to be interested in the theatre gossip with which she realised he was so closely connected.

  The Can-Can was later to lose The Alhambra its licence because of the slim legs and high kicks of a young lady called ‘Wiry Sal’.

  Cassandra had often wondered exactly what it was like and now she was to find out!

  Quite a number of Lord Carwen’s female guests considered they were proficient at the dance, which had been denounced even in Paris because it revealed what women wore under their skirts – and what they did not wear!

  It was obvious that the ladies of Lord Carwen’s party wore extremely frilly and lacy underclothes.

  Amid the roars of applause from the gentlemen guests present, they kicked their legs and went on kicking them round and round the room.

  Cheeks became flushed, hair became loosened, but the high kicks went on with more and more frothy underclothes being revealed until, despite every resolution, Cassandra found herself really shocked.

  The Duke was looking amused, but he was not cheering and shouting like the other men, who endeavoured to incite the girls to kick their legs even higher and be even more daring than they were already.

  She felt that she could not go on looking at members of her own sex making such disgusting exhibitions of themselves and it was as if she too was degraded because she was a woman.

  “It is very – hot,” she murmured and turned away from the dance floor towards a window.

  The Duke followed her.

  Cassandra stood looking out into the darkness of Green Park. She could just see the branches of the trees silhouetted against the sky.

  “You have never seen the Can-Can before?” the Duke asked.

  “No.”

  “You are surprised? It is not what you expected?”

  “No.”

  “I have the feeling that you are shocked,” he said, his eyes on Cassandra’s averted face.

  “It – seems somewhat – abandoned,” she faltered.

  “I understand. I don’t expect that such extravagances have yet reached the North.”

  “No.”

  Behind them the dancers had collapsed into chairs around the ballroom and even onto the floor itself, panting and exhausted. Now the band changed from the exuberant music to a soft dreamy waltz.

  Cassandra looked at the Duke expecting him to invite her once again onto the floor, when a voice came from beside her,

  “You promised me a dance, pretty lady!”

  She glanced up and saw Lord Carwen standing beside them.

  “I hope Varro has been entertaining you,” Lord Carwen said, “while I was regretfully too busy to do so.”

  “He has been very kind,” Cassandra murmured.

  “And now I must see if I can equal or even excel his kindness,” Lord Carwen suggested.

  He drew Cassandra into his arms and they began to dance.

  She realised that he was holding her too closely and too tightly. When she tried to move a little further away from him, he merely laughed down at her.

  “You are very lovely, Sandra.”

  She felt herself stiffen at his familiar use of her Christian name and then told herself it was out of character.

  “You have a lovely house, my Lord.”

  “I am not interested in my house, but in the loveliest person in it,” he replied. “Lily Langtry tells me you have just come to London. You must allow me to show you some of the amusements.”

  “Thank you,” Cassandra answered, “but I am afraid I shall be very busy with my singing lessons.”

  Lord Carwen laughed.

  “It does not matter whether you sing or not. You only have to look as you look now and you will fill the theatre for a thousand nights!”

  He paused and added,

  “That is, if the theatre is really important to you. I can think of more interesting things to do.”

  “And what could they be?” Cassandra asked without really considering what his answer was likely to be.

  “That is something I can explain to you in great detail,” Lord Carwen said, tightening his arm around her waist.

  As he did so, Cassandra realised that she disliked him.

  It was not only because he was treating her in a familiar manner. That was her own fault, as she had invited it upon herself.

  But there was something unpleasant about him as a man and she was a good judge of people.

  Even as a child she had seldom been wrong in judging the character or the characteristics of the people who came to The Towers and Sir James had encouraged this perceptiveness.

  “How did that man strike you?” he would ask when someone had come to luncheon or for dinner. “What did you think of that fellow?”

  Sometimes Cassandra would say,

  “He is all right. Rather stupid, I thought.”

  But occasionally she would add,

  “Have nothing to do with him, Papa. I am sure he is crooked! There is something about him I mistrust.”

  Over the years Sir James found that she was invariably right.

  Once he came to her to say,

  “You remember that man you warned me against, who came here about six months ago? His name was Bull.”

  “Yes, I remember,” Cassandra answered. “There was something about him I mistrusted.”

  “He has just received a sentence of eight years at the Old Bailey for fraud.”

  Cassandra knew that she was not wrong now. There was something about Lord Carwen that made her involuntarily wince away from him.

  “Will you dine with me tomorrow night?” he asked. “I want to talk to you.”

  There was something in his tone that told her that conversation was not his main objective.

  “Thank you, but I have an engagement.”

  He smiled.

  “Are you playing hard to get, little Sandra? I assure you I am very persistent and I know that we are going to see a great deal of each other.”

  “Do you give many parties like this?” she asked in an effort to try and change the conversation.

  “I will give any sort of party you wish me to give,” Lord Carwen replied. “Ask Varro. He will tell you I am a very agreeable host and very generous to those I like.”

  The band stopped playing.

  “Thank you for our dance,” Cassandra said.

  She would have been unable to move away from him because Lord Carwen still kept his arm around her waist, if at that moment some new arrivals had not diverted his Lordship’s attention.

  Quickly Cassandra hurried away.

  She was relieved to find that the Duke had not taken another partner, but was standing alone, leaning against a pillar at the far end of the room.

  She almost ran towards him.

  As if he knew instinctively that she had not enjoyed her dance, he said,

  “Shall we go and find the supper room? Or better still, shall we slip away and I will give you supper somewhere else?”

  Cassandra’s eyes looked up into his.

  “Could we do that?”

  “Why not?” he answered. “Come with me. I know another way of reaching the hall so that we need not embarrass our host by bidding him goodbye.”

  Like two conspirators they slipped out of the ballroom and the Duke led Cassandra through several reception rooms back to the hall where guests were still arriving.

  “You are not leaving, Varro?” a pretty woman cried, putting out her hand towards the Duke.

  “I am afraid so.”

  “How disappointing!”

 
Two red lips pouted very invitingly.

  “I will doubtless be seeing you in the next day or two.”

  “Come to my dressing room in the interval and have a drink.”

  “I will,” the Duke promised.

  Cassandra stood on one side feeling for the moment forgotten.

  Yet she could understand why the Duke found this gay informal life he had chosen amusing.

  So much more so than the type of entertainment to which he received an embossed invitation card and where he must make desultory and stilted conversation.

  Also being a Duke, he would always have to escort an old Dowager into supper because she would be of higher social rank than the pretty young girls he would have preferred.

  ‘Of course he finds this more fun,’ Cassandra told herself.

  She felt despairingly that nothing she could say or do would ever make him think differently.

  “Do you mind if we take a hansom? I have only one coachman in London, and he is getting old, so I send him home at twelve o’clock.”

  “I would love to go in a hansom,” Cassandra answered.

  She was well aware that it was considered very fast to travel in what Disraeli had called ‘London’s gondolas’.

  Her father had once taken her for drive in one when she was only fifteen, but no young man of her acquaintance would have dared to suggest such a thing.

  As the cabman closed the glass front over them, there was something very intimate in being so close to each other in a tiny isolated world of their own.

  The Duke reached out and took Cassandra’s hand.

  “I am so glad that you agreed to come away with me,” he said. “I want to talk to you! I want to listen to you teasing me with that provocative note in your voice that tells me that you are not quite as impressed with me as you ought to be!”

  Cassandra felt herself quiver. The touch of his hand sent little shivers down her spine.

  She was thrilling to the warmth of his fingers, to the knowledge that their shoulders were in contact and their faces were very near to each other’s.

  “You are lovely! Ridiculously and absurdly lovely!” the Duke said and she thought that his tone was sincere. “How could you possibly have blue eyes with that strange, half-red, half-gold hair?”

  “There must be Irish blood in me somewhere!”

  Cassandra felt as if it was difficult to speak. Her throat was contracting as strange little feelings were rippling through her. She could not help wondering if the Duke felt the same.

  “Your eyelashes. Do you darken them?”

  Cassandra shook her head.

  “They are natural.”

  “If you are lying to me, I shall wash them and see.”

  “You can do that. They are what the Irish call ‘blue eyes put in with dirty fingers’ and I promise you that they resist rain and tempest. Water is completely ineffective.”

  “I would still like to try,” he said softly.

  By the lights shining into the hansom as they passed through Trafalgar Square she could see the look in his eyes.

  They had that curious searching expression that she remembered so well.

  “There are so many things I want to ask you and so much I want to hear and I am delighted beyond words that you did not wish to stay at that noisy party.”

  As he spoke, he drew her kid glove very gently from her right hand. Cassandra did not speak because she did not know what to say.

  The Duke turned her hand over, as if to look at the palm.

  “Such a small and very pretty hand,” he muttered.

  As he spoke. he pressed his lips on her palm.

  Cassandra told herself that she ought to stop him. She ought to protest that he must not do such a thing to her!

  But her voice dried in her throat.

  It was a wonder such as she had never known to feel the warm persistence of his mouth and to know deliriously and incredibly that her dreams had some true.

  Then she remembered that it was all play-acting. She was acting and so was he!

  This was amusement – this was fun! This was just the bubbles one found in a glass of champagne!

  Nothing real, nothing serious, nothing permanent about it and to forget the truth for one moment would be disastrous.

  The Duke released her hand.

  “Here we are!” he said. “I thought you would like to go to Romano’s.”

  They seemed to have reached the Strand very quickly.

  Cassandra was well aware of how famous Romano’s Restaurant was. She had heard it spoken of so often, but she had never expected it to be as gay as it was.

  The oblong room with its dark-red draped curtains and plush sofas was filled with men and women eating supper after the theatres closed.

  Cassandra guessed that many of them were Gaiety Girls, simply because they seemed more attractive, more alluring and far better dressed than the other women.

  Nearly every one of them wore flowers in her hair, their décolletage was extremely low and their waists so tiny it seemed as if a man’s two hands could easily meet round them.

  They all appeared to have perfect complexions, they all appeared to be laughing until the whole restaurant was filled with their gaiety.

  Romano himself, a dark, suave little man, greeted the Duke with respectful delight and led them to a sofa underneath the balcony.

  As she walked towards it, Cassandra realised that at least three-quarters of the women in the restaurant knew the Duke and waved and smiled at him whenever they could catch his eye.

  There appeared to be flowers everywhere and she was to learn later that the Gaiety Girls had special tables kept for them, which their admirers decked with flowers. Some sat under a veritable canopy of blooms.

  Some had bells of blossoms with their names emblazoned on them suspended over their heads.

  It was quite unlike any restaurant that Cassandra could have imagined and once again she could understand why the Duke found it amusing.

  The sofa where they sat close together was very comfortable.

  The waiter brought them a hand-written menu and the wine waiter hovered behind him.

  “What would you like to eat?” the Duke asked.

  “Very little,” Cassandra answered. “I am not hungry, but please order for me.”

  The Duke gave the order and then chose a bottle of champagne from the wine list.

  It seemed that the champagne was almost compulsory in Romano’s, for huge silver wine-coolers stood beside every table.

  Before the night was out, Cassandra saw what she had often read about but hardly believed, champagne being drunk from the white satin slipper of a beautiful young woman whose table was festooned with the most expensive orchids in the room.

  Her admirer poured champagne into her shoe and stood up to toast her. The other men in the party raised their glasses.

  “Who is that?” Cassandra asked.

  The Duke looked at her in surprise.

  “Do you really not know?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “That is Connie Gilchrist. You must have heard of her.”

  “Yes, of course, I have. I recognise her now from the portrait sketches of her in the illustrated papers, but she is far prettier in real life.”

  “She is very attractive,” the Duke agreed, “as half the men in London will tell you.”

  “Are you in love with her?” Cassandra enquired.

  As she spoke, she was astonished at her own daring and yet she felt that in some way she had to arrest his attention by keeping him amused, if only by her boldness.

  “No!” he answered.

  ‘“Then who are you in love with?” Cassandra enquired. “Or is that an impertinent question?”

  He looked at her, his eyes twinkling.

  “You are very direct. You have asked me a lot of intimate questions and yet you have not answered one of mine. I think it is my turn.”

  “Very well,” Cassandra answered, “what do you want to know?�
�

  “The thing is,” the Duke said in rather a strange tone, “I want to know so much that I cannot put into words. I have a feeling there is a great deal behind everything you say. Behind everything we have talked about this evening there is something I don’t understand.”

  Cassandra did not answer and he added,

  “I am not explaining myself well and yet I have the feeling you know what I mean.”

  “I think you are curious,” she said. “When you look at people, you have a curious look in your eyes.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked sharply. “People have said something of that sort to me before, but we have only just met.”

  “Yes – I know.”

  “I know what you are thinking,” he said unexpectedly, “and I believe you feel the same way I do, that we are not strangers to each other.”

  “Why should we feel like that?” she asked, without attempting to deny his assertion.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, “but it is something I am determined to find out.”

  Chapter Five

  Cassandra and the Duke sat talking and time seemed to speed by so quickly that it was with genuine surprise she found that it was after two o’clock in the morning.

  She had never before had a meal alone with a man except her father.

  She realised now how much more interesting and indeed entrancing it was to talk intimately with the Duke, to feel the stimulus of his mind and above all to know that their eyes were saying so much more than their lips actually spoke.

  There was no mistaking the admiration in the Duke’s expression.

  There was something very personal in their conversation, something that made even the most banal subjects somehow seem special to them both.

  They talked about horses and the Duke quizzed her,

  “You sound as if you have ridden quite a lot.”

  “I have,” Cassandra answered.

  She saw a question in his eyes and added,

  “Perhaps it is easier when one is living in the North than it would be in the South.”

  “Maybe it is less expensive,” the Duke conceded. “At the same time I am sure wherever you are there will always be men who will wish you to ride their horses.”

  Cassandra knew he was thinking that an actress would not be able either to afford horses or to have much time for hunting!