The Glittering Lights (Bantam Series No. 12) (4 page)

“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 said 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 a.m. train from York, so it will mean my 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 do not 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 bed-room.

She said good-night 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 going to get ready by eight o’clock tomorrow morning 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 packing,” Hannah said when finally Cassandra was ready for bed. “It’ll take me three hours. If I’m too exhausted to come with you in the morning, you’ll understand what has happened.”

“I have already told you, Hannah,” Cassandra said, “I only want a few gowns, so do not pack half the wardrobe. I shall only be staying two or three days and I shall be shopping all the time.”

“I can’t think where we’re going 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 which 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 lighted 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

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,
and the magazines like
The Lady
which 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, starting with 1878 when she first met him and adding to them year by year until they had stopped abruptly in August 1885.

She had known then that her feelings towards him had changed.

It would have been different if their engagement could have taken place when she was seventeen and had made her
debut
in London.

Then in her heart the Marquis had assumed the proportions of a hero, the ideal man who had already occupied her adolescent dreams for more than two or three years.

At times when she had gone to London to buy clothes and visit the theatre with her father, she was still in mourning and he had made no suggestion that she should meet the Marquis.

She had heard people talk about him, as of course, he was undoubtedly
jeunesse doree
of society.

Despite the fact that the Duke was known to be spending more than he could afford, the Marquis from a matrimonial angle was nevertheless a much sought after catch.

Then last year, when it had been arranged for the Marquis to come and stay at The Towers and Sir James confidently expected to announce their engagement before Ascot races, Cassandra knew that her feelings were now not the same.

It was not that he did not continue to haunt her dreams, 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 the
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 quite 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
mourtante,
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. “A 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 said.

“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 do not do 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 devils eye-balls!’”

She laughed:

“Oh well, do not 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 which 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 Chaperon and certainly not by any jealous husband.”

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

“Extremely!” Sir James replied. “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 which 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 of whom we have just been speaking, 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 only to be amused by these women, but always to feel free, untrammelled, but unless he 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 or has been divorced, are very, very stringent.”

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

“Do not 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 stable.”

“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 which had been made before his father’s death and push ahead with the marriage which 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 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 the words 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 had 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 with whom he associated 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 with whom they competed for the gentlemen’s affections.

There were exceptions of course, if one compared them with the beautiful young Lady Warwick or the goddess-like Countess of Dudley.

‘But who,’ Cassandra asked herself, ‘looks as attractive as Nelly Farran of whom the theatre critics say, “The Gaiety without Nelly is unthinkable,” or Connie Gilchrist who has found fame with a skipping rope?’

Instead of cutting out from the newspapers pictures of the Duke of Alchester, Cassandra began to collect reproductions of the photographic beauties.

Photographs of them filled the shop-windows and were in many of the illustrated papers.

There had been loud criticism about one of the poses assumed by Maud Branscombe who was the first of the photographic beauties. She had figured in a study which portrayed “The Rock of Ages.”

“Can you imagine that woman daring to display herself clinging to the Cross?” Aunt Eleanor had asked. “I cannot think why the Bishops do not protest about it!”

There were a great many other lovely smiling actresses whose photographs could be bought for less than a shilling.

Cassandra had been amused when her father, protesting about the photographs that had been taken of her in York, produced from a locked drawer in his desk some pictures of Mrs. Langtry.

“This is the sort of pose that I want,” he said.

He showed her a picture of “The Jersey Lily” leaning gracefully on a high table, the shadow of her perfect features portrayed upon a plain wall behind her.

“She looks very lovely, Papa,” Cassandra agreed.

Her father had shown her several other photographs and then he said:

“There is no need to mention to your mother that I keep these. It is just that I was trying to explain to you the way I want you to appear.”

“I quite understand, Papa.”