Death Sits Down to Dinner (19 page)

They were accompanied by Lady Ryderwood and Aaron Greenberg, and after Lord Montfort had settled Lady Shackleton and Lady Ryderwood on either side of his wife at the front of the box, he took a seat at the back of it next to Aaron Greenberg, where they fell into quiet conversation.

Sandwiched between two devotees of Italian opera, Clementine felt rather like a fraud. For her, the appeal of a first night was watching fellow opera-goers at play before the curtain rose on an extravagant production with ornate sets and lavish costumes. The singing, which she enjoyed for the most part, was a rather secondary appreciation. Leaving Veda Ryderwood and Olive to discuss the merits of various sopranos most suited to the role of Butterfly, she gazed down at the packed auditorium to watch society’s overture to the performance.

The Royal Opera House had undergone a tremendous change in the last few years and had been thoroughly refurbished. Tonight it reminded Clementine of a great gilt-and-plush jewel box. The red-velvet tiers were festively swagged with glossy green foliage, bright with autumn berries, entwined with winter-flowering jasmine and hothouse lilies to scent the soft, rarefied air. Gathered below and on either side of her were London’s beau monde: women, sumptuously dressed, shone like stars in their jewels, accompanied by meticulously tailored men who provided a perfect black-and-white foil for the brilliant oriental colors in fashion this year inspired by the exotic sets and costumes of the Ballets Russes.

Clementine nodded to friends among the glittering, shifting crowd below as she watched them greet one another: the younger women with little cries of surprise and exclamations of delight at a particularly magnificent dress; the older with stately inclinations of the head before, barely moving their lips, they fell into a long, murmured exchange of information and gossip. In boxes on either side of her, a more illustrious crowd fluttered fans to cover whispered assignations and the more scurrilous news of the day, causing heads to be thrown back in trilling laughter and bright, malicious eyes to flash. Handsome young men regarded the throng through half-closed, insolent eyes, exhibiting habitual boredom, or brayed with loud foolish laughter, as they waited to be released for the real business of the night’s pleasure at the card tables of their clubs. Standing apart from the distraction created by life’s partygoers, England’s politicians, industrialists, bankers, and landowners talked among themselves. Their faces betrayed nothing but polite, well-bred interest, that particular air of the patrician Englishman for which he is renowned, the reserved demeanor the Germans called arrogance and the French sangfroid. They talked of war, they talked of cabinet placement, and they talked of money. Clementine noticed them in their familiar groups and her gaze traveled onward until it alighted on the tiny, birdlike figure of Lady Cunard, who was busily making the rounds among the especially rich and highly titled, darting from box to box, disappearing and reappearing like a marionette in a puppet show. Clementine turned to Olive to indulge in a little information-gathering of her own.

“What were you telling me about Maud Cunard the other day, Olive?” Olive Shackleton spent most of her time in London when her husband was in Thebes on his archaeological dig, and was far more au courant with London’s more salacious gossip than Clementine was. “She was at dinner with us the other night, I could only suppose it was because of her success in drumming up funds for the opera house. Hermione was possibly hoping Lady Cunard would divert a little toward the Chimney Sweep Boys.” Clementine had been surprised to see Maud Cunard at Chester Square, as Hermione though well connected was hardly considered fashionable.

“Not remotely possible, real acts of philanthropy are not Maud’s strong suit. She has taken to inviting her friends to call her Emerald, by the way.” Clementine immediately thought of her cook Ginger.
What,
she wondered,
is the appeal of concocting a persona by renaming oneself?

Olive went on, “She’s made short work of London; it has become chic to be invited to her salon.
Everyone
goes, at least once. But it is not for the fainthearted. Maud loves to serve people’s frailties up for luncheon as a special treat. Asquith actively discourages his senior ministers from going to her parties, after she put Sir Edward Grey completely on the spot about foreign policy. She actually made the poor man admit that whether he liked it or not, his hands were tied by the terms of the Entente Cordiale when he muffed things so badly in the Agadir Crisis. I try to stay clear of her, and so should you, Clemmy, she can be positively dangerous. Ambition doesn’t come close to describing … and I think Sir Thom,” Olive was an old and intimate friend and she giggled as she used the Talbot’s pet name for Lady Cunard’s lover, “is rather scared of her. He does, by the way, have a bit of a thing about…” She nodded toward the Marchioness of Ripon, who was seated in a box across the opera house.

“Everyone has a bit of a thing about Lady Ripon. Perhaps it’s her height.” The Marchioness of Ripon was easily six feet tall, always splendidly dressed and extraordinarily charismatic. “I thought Maud was done for after that business with the window cleaner.” Clementine remembered the unfortunate incident of Sir Thom and Maud Cunard caught in flagrante by a window cleaner at her husband’s country house, Neville Holt, threatening scandal for months.

“Oh good heavens, yes, so did I.” Olive shook her head in silent laughter. “What a to-do! Can you believe the man—he was a laborer from the estate,
not
a window cleaner—saw them both tucked up together as clear as day. If it wasn’t for Bache Cunard’s immense influence in squashing that newspaper story, Maud would be twiddling her thumbs on the Continent somewhere, just like poor old Daisy Warwick.” Everyone understood that infidelity, one of the unrecognized pastimes in society, if kept under wraps was acceptable, but revealed to the world in newspapers or divorce courts was quite unpardonable and resulted in the culprit’s being ruthlessly excised from society, until it chose to forget.

Clementine watched Maud Cunard making the social round and realized that by the end of the night everyone in London would know of Hermione’s calamitous party for Mr. Churchill. Another thought occurred to her: Maud was an observant woman, who understood human nature well. Clementine made a mental note to see if she might glean some of her observations on the night’s events at Chester Square.

The muted murmur behind her grew in intensity and glancing over her shoulder she was pleased to see her husband was still immersed in conversation with Mr. Greenberg, who appeared to be explaining something of great interest. Every so often Ralph would nod slowly with his lips pursed, a sign he was being extra attentive.

Clementine had met Mr. Greenberg on many occasions and had found him intelligent and well read, a thoughtful and considering man with the careful, cultivated manners of an arriviste, albeit one with an established provenance, as Mr. Greenberg had been a close friend of the late king.
He is one of those men
, she thought,
who enjoys society to its fullest extent, but never betrays a confidence and is always ready to play the role of financial adviser.
Neither was Mr. Greenberg ever seen to embrace the vulgar or outré interests of the more jaded members of the exceedingly rich. He was a paragon of restraint and virtue. And he had to be, she realized. Aaron Greenberg was welcomed into society—everywhere. He was gifted with the ability to recognize a potentially lucrative investment and so was on everyone’s guest list, but Aaron Greenberg was not of society nor ever would be. No matter how many august families invited him to dine, to shoot, to dance and flirt decorously with their wives and daughters, there his connection with them ended. He might watch his Thoroughbred win the Derby, sail his yacht at Cowes, and singlehandedly fund the opera season after season. He might well be taken into the confidence of princes, dukes, and earls, even kings, but as a Jew he could not marry one of their daughters. Clementine, as the mother of an unwed daughter, thought it was regrettable that race counted for so much, and it was certainly an indication of how hidebound the English aristocracy continued to be—even those of them who were still struggling to support estates that had leached their fortunes decades ago. But having been brought up in India, that outpost of the British Empire where race and religion set unbreakable lines among the three million people the British referred to loosely as Indians, she knew only too well the cultural and societal importance of not breaking caste.

There was a smattering of applause that gradually grew in strength as Sir Thomas Beecham strode out into the front of the opera house. He stopped and glanced up at the royal box, but as always it was dark.
What a disappointing king George has turned out to be,
Clementine thought
; he is probably busy spending the evening sticking stamps in his album, before retiring for the night at ten o’clock
. She felt a stab of nostalgia for dear old Bertie, who never missed an opening night, always accompanied by the beautiful wife of one his closest friends and a lively procession of coming and going amid clouds of cigar smoke and laughter, before he discreetly disappeared during the entr’acte.

Sir Thomas bowed his head and waited before them to be feted. He bowed again and the applause grew. Satisfied with his welcome, he walked down into the orchestra pit and inclined his head toward his first violinist, to be rewarded by more applause. Finally, taking his place at his conductor’s podium, he turned once more for a final round of adulation before he picked up his baton and with arms extended turned toward his orchestra, inviting them to stand and acknowledge the house.

“Great heavens, is he ever going to
play
?” murmured Olive Shackleton, who had been in love with Sir Thom for years and had almost given up on him, being neither young enough, beautiful enough, nor rich enough for the great impresario. And great impresario he most certainly was, Clementine thought, as she watched him nod his handsome head at the adoration he expected to receive. Undoubtedly a fine musician and tremendously gifted, he was also rich enough to have his own symphony orchestra and he held absolute sway over both His Majesty’s Theatre and the opera house. He also held absolute sway over the hearts of many of its financial contributors too. Successful and handsome as he was, Sir Thom was not to Clementine’s taste; she disliked conceited men and though she admitted that he had immense charm and could be tremendous company, she preferred men who appeared to be disinterested in their appearance and if they flirted did so with dignity.

Veda Ryderwood, sitting quietly on Clementine’s right, fixed her large dark eyes on the stage, her lovely face expectant, her hands resting quietly in her lap, waiting. The murmured voice of Mr. Greenberg behind Clementine stopped its instructive conversation and said, “Ahhh,” in anticipation. Out of the corner of her eye Clementine noticed that Mr. Greenberg had fixed his attention forward, whereas her husband had settled back in his chair, arms crossed on his chest and chin dropped down onto the starched front of his boiled shirt.

The curtain rose on an elaborate version of a traditional wood-framed Japanese house, with paper walls and a blue-tiled roof, set amid a garden frothing in pink cherry blossoms and suffused with golden light from a glowing backdrop of Mount Fuji at the peak of a splendid sunset. There was a deep sigh from Lady Ryderwood, probably not in appreciation of the splendors of the set but because Enrico Caruso had strolled onto the stage, dressed in an American navy uniform with his hat tucked under his arm.

Despite his girth, or perhaps because of it, Caruso was, thought Clementine, undoubtedly impressive. She lifted her opera glasses and along with several hundred other women examined the handsome, dark features of the famous tenor as he stood center stage to bask in their approval. She glanced again at Veda Ryderwood and saw on her face such wonder and reverence that she felt a small shiver, which intensified as Caruso filled his powerful lungs and the opera began.

As Butterfly’s tragic story of enduring faith in a man who has every intention of abandoning her unfolded, Clementine found her mind wandering at times between arias. She found the set and costumes both sumptuous and exotic, and there were parts of the opera that were extraordinarily moving, but she privately agreed with her husband that sometimes it was hard to keep up with what was going on, especially when everyone sang together at once. And although Luisa Tetrazzini’s voice was remarkable in its power and thrilling tone, her short, buxom figure simply wasn’t set to its best advantage in a kimono, especially with that large, flat bow-tie arrangement in the back.

As Tetrazzini began her aria “One Fine Day,” Clementine found herself comparing her quality with that of Lady Ryderwood the other evening, and decided that she preferred Lady Ryderwood’s version. There had been more determination and thrust to Lady Ryderwood’s performance, she thought. Lady Ryderwood’s Butterfly would never give up on reuniting with her errant husband, whereas she felt Tetrazzini’s Butterfly was lying down somewhat on the job and was all for throwing in the towel.

Then, with the shocking suicide of Butterfly, which left the audience feeling breathless and some of the less sophisticated in tears, the opera ended in a storm of applause from the stalls, as those in the dress circle and boxes turned to one another, patting gloved hands together politely, smiling and nodding their approval, most of them already thinking about their champagne and lobster salad for supper.

It took a while before Lady Shackleton’s party actually left the opera house. There were so many little farewells to be made, and Clementine sensed that her husband was not only hungry but bored with waiting. She put her hand on Lady Ryderwood’s arm and said, “Should we leave for the Savoy now? I think Lady Shackleton still needs to talk to a few people.”

Aaron Greenberg must have felt the same because he was holding out Lady Ryderwood’s opera coat for her, and Olive Shackleton, who was stuck like a burr to Lady Busborough’s side, must have noticed them wrapping themselves up, because she said, “Oh yes, do go on. We won’t be long, we just need to…” And once again she was drawn into another group of exclaimers, all chattering brightly and gathering around Lady Cunard like moths to the flame. This gave Clementine the opportunity to say something to Maud Cunard about recovering from the upheavals and shocks of the last time they had met, hoping to draw her in. But Maud turned a blank face to her, thin brows arched in surprise, and after staring vacantly at her for a moment drawled, “I had a perfectly lovely evening, Lady Montfort. What an extraordinary voice Lady Ryderwood has, you would think she sang for a living.” And having delivered both a barb and a snub, she turned back to join her group of friends.