Under A Dancing Star

by Laura Wood

I think for a minute. “Do you suppose drawing would help my anatomical studies?” I feel a real tingle of enthusiasm at this.

  “I don’t see why not,” Ben replies. “Anatomical study made Stubbs a better painter; drawing might make you a better scientist. Worth a try, anyway. Why don’t you find a suitable subject and see where it takes you?”

  While Ben continues with his painting I go off on a hunt for subject matter. While not squeamish about dissection, I don’t like the idea of killing anything just for the sake of a drawing; but about forty minutes later, I find a beautiful and categorically dead Lucanus cervus in one of the flowerbeds. Cradling the stag beetle carefully in my hand I return to find Ben hard at work.

  Sitting down on the blanket that we have brought with us, I pull a sketch pad and pencil from Ben’s bag and set to work, carefully trying to capture the insect on the page. Looking so carefully at the insect is revealing an intricate world of minute detail that I haven’t really seen before. I try to remember what Ben has said about form and perspective, and though the drawing I create is far from perfect it is, at least, recognizably a beetle. I feel a huge sense of satisfaction at having observed so much, having learned so much, about the creature itself.

  I look up when Ben comes to sit beside me. “Nice.” He gestures to the drawing.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I haven’t got the maxillary palps quite right.”

  “What exactly is a maxillary palp?” Ben asks, leaning over.

  “These bits here.” I point to the small feelers between the beetle’s large, horn-like jaws. “They’re sensory organs for tasting food. I never noticed how wonderfully complicated the whole jaw was before.”

  “Seems like sketching could be helpful for a natural historian.” Ben leans back on his elbows. “Perhaps you can go to Vienna and draw those man-eating plants at the end of the summer.”

  “The plants are carnivorous, not man-eating,” I say automatically, but my head is buzzing. No one has called me a natural historian before and it leaves me feeling a bit breathless. It sounds so serious somehow, as if he’s taking me seriously. “And I’m not a natural historian,” I say. “I just enjoy studying it. I’m completely self-taught.”

  Ben shrugs. “So are lots of experts.”

  “I suppose,” I say. “But to be able to study properly, to learn from true specialists and to attend lectures and demonstrations…” I feel something leap in my chest. “Well, that would be a dream.”

  There is a brief silence. I realize that I am bracing myself, holding my body taut as I wait for the dismissal, the cold water thrown over my enthusiasm.

  “I understand,” Ben says. “That’s how I felt when I was studying art in Florence. Being immersed in it, surrounded by so much knowledge and expertise and trying to take some small part of that for yourself, to improve, to do better… It’s a powerful thing.”

  I look at him in surprise. He does understand. At least, more than anyone else ever has.

  “So why don’t you go and study?” Ben asks. “At university, I mean?”

  “My family would never approve.” I twist my fingers together.

  “You don’t strike me as someone who seeks approval,” Ben says dryly.

  I shake my head. I could never explain to him what it’s like at home. “We couldn’t afford it anyway,” I say instead. “University is expensive, and any money my parents have goes straight into the estate.”

  “What about a scholarship?” Ben presses.

  “A scholarship?”

  “Yes,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “You’re clearly clever enough. I mean, you’re the most intelligent person I know.” He grins. “That head of yours contains so much knowledge I’m surprised it doesn’t weigh you down.”

  “It doesn’t feel possible.” Saying the words aloud I realize that they aren’t exactly true any more. What seemed completely impossible in the insular world of Langton Hall doesn’t seem as unlikely here.

  “You could make it happen, Bea,” he says with total confidence. He lies back and laces his fingers together behind his head, closing his eyes against the sunshine.

  Impulsively, I lean over him and press a quick kiss on his cheek. The sweet, cut-grass smell of his skin is heady, making my limbs tingle, and I find myself thinking that if I could bottle it I might make a fortune. His eyes flicker open.

  “What was that for?” he asks.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “I just felt like it. Do you think that marks a new stage in our romance? I should probably record that.”

  Ben smiles, a slow, sleepy smile. “Oh, I don’t know, Bea.” He reaches up and pulls me towards him. “I feel like kissing you all the time.”

  By the time we get back to the villa the sun is starting to go down and I feel loose-limbed, drugged on kisses. Ben holds my hand the whole way back and I can feel myself grinning inanely at nothing in particular. This whole summer romance thing really is quite enjoyable.

  When we get to the terrace Klaus is sitting with a drink. He looks up as we approach.

  “Bea,” he calls. “Your uncle is back.”

  “Oh. That’s nice.” I can’t keep a hollow note from my voice. Uncle Leo being back feels like the end of something and I wonder why.

  “He’s not alone,” Klaus murmurs. “He has brought with him an English woman … Lady Frances somebody.” He glances at Ben. “And he has brought Sir Hugh.”

  There is a silence. I look at Ben’s face and see that it is stony.

  “Who is Sir Hugh?” I ask.

  “No one worth talking about,” Ben mutters, and with that he turns and strides towards the doors.

  I look at Klaus for answers, but he is not giving anything away. We follow him inside. When we reach the entrance to the drawing room I go in, but Ben and Klaus remain behind me in the doorway.

  The drawing room looks like a carefully arranged scene from a painting. Everyone is gathered there, drinking tea, though the heat in the room is stifling. I stand silently for a second, taking it all in.

  Hero sits on a sofa beside Uncle Leo. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap and she looks bored. Her hair is tidy, her dress perfectly pressed; she looks, I realize, like a demure young lady. Next to them is Filomena, a frozen smile on her face. Ursula stands by the window, her back to the rest of them, a cigarette held in one hand. Her posture is rigid, frozen.

  In the chair nearest the enormous fireplace is a woman who looks to be in her late forties. She is expensively dressed in black; a collar of glossy black feathers trims her dress, a necklace of enormous pearls circles her throat, luminous as tiny moons against her skin. Her pale hair is swept away from her aristocratic face and her make-up is subtle. She looks very relaxed and is mid-sentence.

  “And, of course, I told them that such behaviour was simply unacceptable,” she says, picking up a dainty teacup and taking a delicate sip. “My husband was the ambassador, after all, and I think I would know better than them what the fascist position would be.”

  “Hello,” I say, taking another step forward.

  “Bea!” Filomena stands and reaches out a hand to me. I think I see relief flicker in her eyes.

  “There you are, Bea.” Leo also gets to his feet. “Where have you been?”

  “With Ben,” I say simply, accepting a perfunctory kiss on my cheek.

  “Just the two of you?” Leo’s glance darts towards the woman by the fireplace.

  “Well, yes.” I am surprised. “He’s been giving me art lessons, remember?” I add.

  “Of course.” My uncle’s face clears. “Good to make the most of having these artist types about.” His tone is jolly, but the words feel wrong somehow. I slant a look at Filomena, who is sitting again, with a frozen smile on her lips.

  “Now, Beatrice,” Leo says, “I’ve been very rude – may I present Lady Frances Bowling?”

  I move obediently forward to shake the woman’s cold, smooth hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” I say.

  Her mouth lifts in an approxi
mation of a smile. “I know your mother, of course.”

  “Do you?” I ask. I’ve never heard her mentioned before.

  “Yes, we came out together, oh, a hundred years ago now.” Frances’s voice is light, her tones well rounded. My uncle laughs politely at her joke.

  “I didn’t know that,” I murmur. “How interesting.”

  “You’re a Langton of course,” she says, looking at me as though sizing up a horse she might like to buy. “Good breeding always tells.” Her gaze flickers towards Ben, standing with one shoulder resting against the door frame, Klaus hovering beside. “And bad blood will out.”

  I don’t understand the slight, or why she’s looking at Ben and Klaus like they have crawled out from beneath a rock, but I feel a strong shudder of dislike pass through me and I eye the woman with distaste.

  “You’re right, of course,” I agree. My mother would know that trouble was brewing from my casual tone, but this crowd are blissfully unaware. “But then, unlike so many of the aristocracy, my parents are not related. Criminal what all this snobbish inbreeding has led to, don’t you think?” My question hangs in the air like the challenge that it is.

  A horrified silence is broken by the sound of laughter. Ursula finally turns away from the window. “Wonderful, Bea.” She exhales a stream of smoke. “Wonderful.” Her eyes snap around the room, landing on Frances with an expression of open dislike. “I think I need a drink,” she says shortly, and she leaves the room, with Klaus in her wake.

  “Lady Bowling and I met in Milan,” Leo says quickly, his words spilling into the tense silence. “I suggested she and her friend Sir Hugh stop off here on their way to Rome. We’re having a few people over for dinner tonight to welcome them.”

  “I see,” I say. “So you are just … passing through?”

  The smile Frances gives me is ice-cold. “Unfortunately, yes,” she says in wintery tones. “Such a shame we won’t get to know one another better.”

  “Yes,” I agree with a smile that shows my teeth. “Such a shame.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Odious woman,” Ursula hisses while pouring drinks. “These frigid, fascist types make my blood boil.”

  Across the terrace, the fascist in question is serenely accepting a glass from my uncle. They are surrounded by people I don’t know, a smarter set than we typically see at the villa.

  “Who are all these people?” I ask.

  Ursula snorts. “They’re your uncle’s friends,” she says derisively. “Dull, dull, dull, and painfully bourgeois.”

  “I wonder where Ben is?” I say. After the scene in the drawing room he slipped away and he hasn’t returned since.

  “I’m sure he will be here soon,” Klaus says. “He’s probably just trying to get used to the idea of Sir Hugh being here.”

  “Who is this Sir Hugh?” I ask.

  Klaus looks surprised. “No one told you?” I shake my head. “Sir Hugh Falmouth. The artist, you know?”

  “Sir Hugh Falmouth?” I repeat, startled. Even I’ve heard of that Sir Hugh. His paintings hang in the National Gallery; we’ve got books about him in the library at Langton.

  Klaus nods. “He is an old friend of Filomena’s, I believe. He was caught up with Lady Bowling in Milan somehow, and Leo brought the pair of them back with him. I understand he has been resting after the journey.” Klaus’s eyes light with amusement. “I believe your uncle considers his visit quite the social coup.”

  In fact, Uncle Leo has been strutting around with the self-satisfaction of a peacock and this does rather explain that.

  “Gosh, even Mother and Father will be impressed when I tell them.” It will, I think, be something about this trip I can actually share with them. “But why doesn’t Ben like him?” I ask, puzzled.

  “There is a history between them,” Klaus says. “I don’t know exactly what.”

  “I can’t believe I’ll get to meet Hugh Falmouth,” I say wonderingly.

  “Well, brace yourself,” Klaus whispers, his lips close to my ear. “He’s coming this way right now.”

  I follow Klaus’s eyes and see that Filomena is approaching, her hand tucked into the crook of a man’s arm. He looks about sixty and his hair is completely white, swept back from a high forehead. There is a roguish twinkle in his blue eyes. A silver-topped cane is hooked over the arm that isn’t holding Filomena, though he moves easily, jauntily even. He must have been startlingly handsome in his youth, and he still has a commanding presence. He is dressed impeccably in a light evening suit, and as I watch, he leans in close to Filomena to say something to her, something which makes a languorous smile break out on her lips. My uncle follows behind the two of them with Hero at his side. He is beaming from ear to ear.

  “Ah, Beatrice!” Leo booms. “There you are!” He insinuates himself between Filomena and the dapper gentleman. “Sir Hugh, allow me to present my niece, Beatrice Langton – of the Northumberland Langtons.”

  It’s such a strange, formal introduction that I hesitate, not quite sure how to respond. It feels like I’m being presented in an Austen novel, like I should curtsey.

  “My dear.” Sir Hugh solves the problem by stepping forward and taking my hand. “What a delight to meet you.”

  “Sir Hugh,” I murmur.

  “It’s silly, isn’t it?” The man himself chuckles, squeezing my fingers. “This Sir Hugh business – but I’m afraid after the knighthood some rather shameless young friends of mine began calling me that and then it stuck.” I look down at my hand in his. He has lovely hands, I notice, neatly manicured and graceful.

  “And these are the other young people we have staying with us,” Filomena says, “Klaus and Ursula.”

  “More of Filomena’s artists,” Leo puts in.

  “And you know Benedick,” Filomena adds, glancing over my shoulder.

  I hadn’t noticed him there. He steps forward, and his usually expressive face is a blank.

  “Hugh,” he says quietly.

  “Ah, Ben.” Sir Hugh’s voice is easy. “Filomena told me you were staying. What a nice surprise.”

  “I didn’t realize the two of you knew each other,” Leo says, his eyes travelling between them.

  “Many years ago now, when Ben was just a boy,” Sir Hugh says. “I knew Ben’s mother – oh, a lifetime ago. How is she?”

  An odd look passes over Ben’s features. “She’s dead,” he says flatly.

  “My dear boy,” Sir Hugh starts, lifting a hand to his throat. “I am sorry to hear it.”

  Ben’s hands hang by his side, and I notice his fists clench. A strange tension that I don’t understand fills the air.

  “How do you and Filomena know each other, Sir Hugh?” I ask quickly.

  “Filomena modelled for me several times over the years.” Sir Hugh’s eyes light up as he looks over at her.

  “When I was much younger,” Filomena adds firmly.

  “Alas,” Sir Hugh says, “I cannot persuade her any more.” His glance drifts over to me. “I must say, my dear, that if you would agree to model for me while I’m here, I would be thrilled.” His voice is silky, coaxing, but there’s something in the way his eyes crawl over me that makes me shiver. “I think you are something … quite out of the ordinary,” he finishes softly.

  “Did you hear that, Beatrice?” crows Leo. “What an honour! I’m sure she would be honoured, Sir Hugh.”

  “Oh, I don’t think she would,” Ben says at the same time that Filomena says, “She has her lessons…”

  “Filomena is right,” I say, determined to have my own say in the matter. “Not to mention that I’d be an absolutely useless model. I absolutely cannot sit still.” I put enough finality into my voice to indicate that the subject is closed, even though Uncle Leo’s mouth is set in a straight line and I can tell he is not best pleased.

  “Not to worry,” Sir Hugh says mildly. I see his eyes flicker towards Ben who is standing, still stone-faced, beside me. “You’ll let me know if you change your mind?”
>
  Filomena takes hold of Sir Hugh’s arm again. “Come, Hugh,” she says. “I want to introduce you to Felix – he is around here somewhere, and his miniatures are most charming…” She disappears into the crowd, chattering away to Sir Hugh who nods happily beside her.

  “Well, Beatrice,” Uncle Leo says, looking after them, his expression sour. “I think you’ve looked a gift-horse in the mouth there. A portrait by Sir Hugh Falmouth… Any number of young ladies would jump at such an opportunity.”

  “I prefer to keep my feet firmly on the ground, Uncle,” I say.

  Leo shoots me a look then that reminds me so much of my parents that I feel another chill run through me, and I cross my arms defiantly across my chest.

  “Sir Hugh is a guest here, Beatrice,” Leo says, and there’s a note of steel in his voice. “I trust that I can rely on you to remember your manners.” With that he turns on his heel and walks away. I exhale slowly.

  I watch my uncle move through the crowd and somewhere behind me I can hear Hero laughing at whatever Klaus is saying to her.

  “Are you all right?” Ben asks.

  “Oh yes,” I say brightly. “I’m fine. Disappointing my family members is something of a full-time occupation for me.”

  “He shouldn’t be disappointed,” Ben says. “It’s a very good thing that you didn’t agree to model for Hugh Falmouth.”

  “Filomena modelled for him,” I point out.

  “And she didn’t seem keen to repeat the honour, did she?” Ben looks at me.

  “No, I suppose not,” I admit. “And to be quite honest, the man gave me the heebie-jeebies.” I nudge him. “Not to mention that I’d be a complete disaster as a model. Can you imagine? I’d get bored and end up doing something outrageous.”

  Ben grimaces. “God, that’s true.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “I’d almost feel sorry for the man.”

  “Hey!” I exclaim.

  “You said it,” Ben retorts.

  “Just because I said it doesn’t mean you have to agree with me,” I reply, biting back a smile.

  “I can’t win.” He’s smirking now. “Even when I agree with you, it seems I’m in the wrong. It’s a special talent.”