The Glittering Lights (Bantam Series No. 12) (10 page)

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

But occasionally she said:

“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 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 which 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 which 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 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 hand 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 good-bye.”

Like two conspirators they slipped out of the Ball-Room 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 importance 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.

Outside the house the Duke said:

“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 about twelve o’clock.”

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

She was well aware it was considered very fast to travel in what Disraeli had called “London’s Gondolas.”

Her father had once taken her for a 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 which 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 so strange little feelings were rippling through her. She could not help wondering if the Duke felt the same.

“Your eye-lashes. 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 they will 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 said.

As he spoke he pressed his lips on her palm.

Cassandra told herself 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 her dreams had come true.

Then she remembered 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 Romanos.”

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 were 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, 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 on which 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 from the wine list a bottle of champagne.

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,” Cassandra replied. “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 answered, “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 with whom are you in love?” 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 do not understand.”

Cassandra did not answer and he said:

“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,” Cassandra answered.

“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?” Cassandra answered, without attempting to deny his assertion.

“I do not 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 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 which made even the most banal subjects somehow seem special to them both.

They talked of horses and the Duke said:

“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! So she excused herself by saying:

“My father keeps horses.”

“Your father lives in the North?”

“Yes.”

“I would like to see you on a horse,” the Duke said.

Then with a different note in his voice he said: “Will you come with me to Tattersall’s tomorrow?”

“To the Sale-Rooms?”

He nodded.

“Tomorrow is Friday,” Cassandra said. “I thought as the sales are on Monday, one could only inspect the horses on Sunday.”

“That is true for the general public,” the Duke answered, “but my horses are arriving at Knightsbridge Green tomorrow morning from my stables in Newmarket and from Alchester Park.”

“You are selling them?” Cassandra exclaimed.

“I am selling the last twenty of my father’s stud.”

She heard the pain in his voice and said impulsively:

“But you must not do that! Your father’s horses are famous.”

“I have to sell.”

“But why?”

There was a twisted smile on his lips as the Duke replied:

“Is not the reason obvious? Why does one have to sell anything that one treasures except for money?”

Cassandra was silent. She could not understand what was happening.

If the Duke thought he was going to marry the rich Miss Sherburn, why should he dispose of his precious horses? She knew from the expression on his face that they meant as much to him as they had to his father.

The Alchester Stud was famous, and the late Duke in the last years of his life had won a great number of races.

He had also been a notable Patron of the Turf, a member of the Jockey Club, and was so popular that whenever he appeared on a race-course he was cheered by the crowds.

It seemed incredible to Cassandra that the new Duke should dispose of the Stud that had taken his father a life-time to build up and on which he had expended not only money but loving care.

She was finding it difficult not to ask the questions that were trembling on her lips when the Duke went on:

“I would like you to see my horses. It will be the last time that I shall look at them, except perhaps when they are racing under someone else’s colours. I could not bear to attend the sale on Monday.”

“I can understand that,” Cassandra said. “But surely if you need money so badly, there is something else you can sell?”

“Do you suppose I have not thought of that?” he asked almost sharply. “No, there is nothing.”

It seemed to Cassandra as he spoke that he withdrew from her, so that for the first time that evening they were no longer close and friendly, but strangers.

Then the party which included Connie Gilchrist rose to leave the Restaurant.

The women’s voices were so loud and shrill as they said goodnight to each other that it was impossible to go on talking until they had moved down the Restaurant towards the door.

Connie Gilchrist however turned back and walked towards the Duke.

He rose to his feet as she approached.

“How are you, Varro?” she asked. “I’ve not seen you this last week.”

“I have been out of London as it happens,” the Duke replied. “I
only returned this evening—too late to come to the Theatre.”

“We all wondered what had happened to you,” Connie Gilchrist said.

She was blonde, very pink and white and attractive, Cassandra thought, but her voice was not as pretty as her face. There was something slightly harsh about it, and just a touch of commonness in the way she pronounced some of her words.

“I’ll see you tomorrow evening, I hope,” Connie said. “Goodnight, Varro.”

“Good-night, Connie,” he replied.

She hurried after her friends, an exaggerated bustle of pink satin rustling behind her.

The Duke re-seated himself beside Cassandra.

“I did not introduce you,” he said. “Did you wish to meet her?”

“I am quite content to admire her from afar,” Cassandra answered.

“She is a great draw,” the Duke said. “I will take you to the Gaiety one evening; it will amuse you.”

“Thank you,” Cassandra replied.

The Duke signalled to the Wine-Waiter who filled up their glasses.

Cassandra began to think that she ought to suggest leaving, and yet she could not bear the evening to come to an end.

Perhaps tomorrow the Duke would regret the various invitations he had given her. Perhaps he would not find her so interesting or so attractive as he had appeared to do earlier in the evening.

Since they had talked of his horses it seemed as if his mood had changed.

“I must try to think of a way to amuse him,” Cassandra told herself.

Then as she was frantically searching for a new subject, the Duke said:

“What do you think about when you are acting?”

Cassandra considered for a moment.

“When I am playing a part,” she answered, “I am trying to think of the effect it will have on the people who are listening to me.”

This was the truth, she thought. For she had not thought of herself during the evening, but solely of the impression she was making on the Duke.

“That is not the answer most actors and actresses give,” the Duke said. “They usually say that they think themselves into the role they have to play so that in fact they become the person they depict.”

“I suppose that is how it should be,” Cassandra said.

“They are lucky!” the Duke exclaimed. “Actors and actresses can play a role, and then discard it. When they leave the stage, they can become themselves. They do not have to go on pretending!” There was a note in his voice that told Cassandra that he was speaking personally.

“I think what you are trying to say,” she said slowly, her eyes on his face, “is that the people who are not on the stage have to go on acting indefinitely.”

She smiled and continued:

“Have you forgotten that Shakespeare said—All the worlds a stage and all the men and women merely players?’ ”

“That may be true,” the Duke said, “but the trouble is the play goes on too long. There is no escape. Only actors and actresses can change their roles and, as I have said, are free to be themselves.”

“Do you really think that is so desirable?” Cassandra asked. “I think actors and actresses are mimics and, if they are really professional, they have to subordinate their own personalities to the part they are playing. If not, they become even on the stage, like so many of our famous actors, themselves ... very thinly disguised.”

“What do you mean by that?” the Duke asked.

“If an actor has any personality,” Cassandra answered, “he is not Julius Caesar, Bottom, or, if you like, a Crossing-Sweeper or a Policeman. Instead, he is Martin Harvey, or Beerbohm Tree in that particular part, and one can never really forget the person beneath the trappings.”

She paused and went on: “Just as when I watched Mrs. Langtry tonight, I was not thinking of the miserable, unhappy woman trying to save her brother, but how skilfully Lily Langtry was pretending to be her.”

“I have never thought of it that way,” the Duke said slowly. “Can you not see that a good actress should have as little character or personality of her own as possible?”

Cassandra continued. “Then when you watch her in a part you are not distracted by the knowledge that she herself is doing it.”

“You are destroying my illusions about the stage,” the Duke said accusingly.

“I think that you are envious merely of actors because you are bored with your own part,” Cassandra said daringly.

“Who would want to play the Duke?” he asked bitterly.

“A great number of people,” Cassandra answered, “and actually it is a hero’s role. How much you make yourself a real hero is up to you.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course I believe it! If we are assuming as we have been, that we each have in life a special part to play, a Lawyer must be a Lawyer, that is his profession. But whether he is a good or bad one is up to him!”

She went on:

“The same applies to a Salesman or Labourer or a Duke! I think in life we cannot often alter our role, but we
can
improve the performance!”

The Duke looked at her for a long moment and then he said: “You are a very remarkable person, Sandra. You have given me a lot to think about. Something I certainly did not expect to happen this evening!”

“What did you expect?”

The Duke paused for a moment as if he considered his words.

“I expected to be amused, beguiled, captivated. You are, as you are well aware, one of the loveliest people I have ever seen.”

“Again you speak as an expert?” Cassandra smiled.

“Of course!” he answered. “But now you have opened new vistas, unlocked doors that I had thought were closely shut. How shall I describe the effect you are having upon me?”

There was an expression in his eyes that made Cassandra feel shy.

She saw that while they had been talking the Restaurant had been emptying and now there were only a few couples like themselves left, and the waiters were yawning.

“I think ... I should go ... home,” she said.

“I suppose we must,” the Duke answered reluctantly.

He asked for the bill.

Cassandra sent for her wrap and they walked towards the entrance. Romano was waiting with a bunch of pink roses in his hand.

“May I ask you to accept these?” he said to Cassandra. “His Grace has brought many beautiful women to my Restaurant, but tonight you have eclipsed them all.”

“Thank you,” Cassandra said a little shyly.

She took the roses, a doorman called a hackney-carriage and the Duke assisted her into it.

“Tomorrow, if you will dine with me,” he said, “I will try to produce a vehicle more worthy of you. I am ashamed that tonight I must treat you in such a shabby fashion.”

“It has been a wonderful evening,” Cassandra said softly.

The cab smelt of hay, old leather and horse.

But it was close and intimate to be sitting next to the Duke and she knew as he put his arm around her shoulder that he was thinking the same thing.

She felt a thrill run through her! Then as he drew her closer and she realised he was about to kiss her, she turned her head away. “No!”

“No?” he questioned. “I want to kiss you, Sandra, I want it more than I can possibly tell you.”

“We have ... only just ... met,” Cassandra murmured.

It was difficult to speak sensibly with his arm touching her. She had a feeling of weakness she had never known before, a weakness combined with a kind of wild excitement which made it hard to think clearly.

“I feel I have known you for a very long time,” the Duke said in his deep voice. “I feel too that we were meant to meet. There is something inevitable about it.”

Cassandra did not speak and after a moment he said:

“You are so lovely, and so completely and absolutely different from anyone I have ever met before.”

He gave a little laugh.

“You will tell me that it sounds banal, and yet it is true. I cannot explain it in words, but I know that this is different.”

“In what ... way?” Cassandra asked.

“That is something I intend to explain to you, but not tonight.” The Dukes arm tightened.

“You tell me not to kiss you, but I have the feeling, Sandra, that if I insisted you would not resist me.”

Cassandra felt a little quiver run through her at his words. He felt it too.

“But because this
is
different,” he went on, “because I want you to think of me in a very special way, I will not kiss you until you allow me to do so. But do not keep me waiting too long.”

He was silent for a moment and then he cried:

“Time is short. I cannot explain, but the sands of time are running out as far as I am concerned.”