“Corwen behaved disgracefully, as we well know,” Freddie Sudley said, “and that is why the Prince – ”
“I know, I know,” the Marchioness interrupted. “There is no need to say it over and over again, but I shall have to do something soon.”
“What sort of thing?” Freddie Sudley enquired.
He had been looking up at the branches of the tree above him and now he too sat up and tightened his tie.
“I really don’t know,” the Marchioness said. “I lay awake last night after we came back from the Casino and wondered what I could be doing wrong.”
“I thought the Prince seemed pretty keen on you at the beginning of the evening.”
“He was,” the Marchioness agreed, “when we met him after he had been to dinner with the Grand Duke Mikhail, he seemed really pleased to see me.”
She gave a little sigh.
“Then when we went to play Baccarat,” she went on, “I suggested that I should sit beside him, but he wanted me to play too. He gave me some money, but you know as well as I do it’s impossible to be intimate when one is playing at the tables.”
“Did you win?” Freddie Sudley asked with a different note in his voice.
“A little,” the Marchioness replied. “Which meant I could keep everything the Prince gave me. I have brought it for you. You will find it in my bag.”
“Thank you, Lily!”
Captain Sudley reached out as he spoke and picked up the Marchioness’s pale-blue satin bag from where she had put it at the foot of a tree.
He opened it and gave a low whistle.
“Quite a haul!”
“Send some of it to your creditors in England,” the Marchioness begged. “Promise me, Freddie, you will do that?”
“We will stop at the Post Office on the way back,” Freddie Sudley answered. “Even one hundred pounds will make them feel things are moving in the right direction.”
“One hundred pounds will not go very far where Paquin is concerned!”
There was silence and then the Marchioness said,
“I have an idea!”
“What is it?”
“I have tried almost everything on the Prince,” she answered. “I have been provocative, I have been inviting, I have been cool, I have been aloof. I have even tried making him jealous.”
“With any result?”
“He has been charming, flattering and considerate, but he has never said what I wanted him to say.”
“What is your idea?” Freddie Sudley prompted.
“Do you remember how Daisy Warwick captured the Prince of Wales?”
“His Royal Highness was certainly caught hook, line and sinker, but I was never certain how she landed her fish.”
“I will tell you. She cried on his shoulder and asked his help.”
“What for?” Freddie Sudley enquired.
“You must remember, or perhaps you were abroad with your Regiment,” the Marchioness replied. “It was all over a very indiscreet letter she wrote to Lord Charles Beresford. Lady Charles opened it and threatened to publish it! The Prince of Wales tried to help Daisy, but failed.”
“And while the negotiations were taking place His Royal Highness fell in love?” Freddie Sudley enquired.
“Exactly! And the only thing I have not tried on the Prince are tears!”
“Most men dislike women who cry.”
“You care when I cry.”
“Of course I do, but you are different.”
“The Prince also must think I am different,” the Marchioness said. “I will cry on his shoulder and I will look very alluring, and very – inviting while I do so.”
Freddie Sudley made an exaggerated sound.
“Keep what you do to yourself!” he said harshly. “You know I cannot bear to think of you with another man, even while there is no alternative.”
“No, there is no alternative,” the Marchioness agreed. “But, Freddie, you know whom I love?”
He turned towards her.
“Do you really love me?” he asked. “More than any other man you have ever known?”
“You know I do,” the Marchioness said with a note of sincerity in her voice. “Oh, Freddie, if only you were rich! How happy we would be and what fun we could have together!”
“If wishes were horses, beggars could ride.”
“And we are beggars,” the Marchioness sighed, “hopelessly in debt, both of us in danger of being taken to Court and without an idea of a solution!”
“I thought you had just come up with one.”
“It is certainly worth a try,” the Marchioness said reflectively, “in fact the more I think about it, the more I am sure it will succeed. There is nothing more appealing to a strong masterful man than a weak and helpless woman.”
“Let’s hope you are right.”
“I hope so too,” she said, “and we must take no more risks. It was really crazy to come here like this, this afternoon.”
“I don’t see why,” Freddie Sudley said sullenly. “We said we were going to look at the view and, God knows, that is about the only thing that is free in this part of the world!”
The Marchioness reached out and picked up her bag from where he had put it beside her. She drew out a small mirror, looked at her reflection and gave an exclamation of horror.
“I look a mess! My hair is falling down at the back and I am sure the maid at the villa will think it strange how creased my gown is.”
“Put your hat on,” Freddie suggested, “and you will look stunning, as you always do. When you stand up I will brush you down.”
“Men are so lucky!” the Marchioness said peevishly. “Whatever you do it never seems to make any difference to your appearance.”
Freddie smiled.
“I would not care if it did! It has been wonderful to be alone with you here this afternoon, Lily. I was beginning to think that I should go crazy if I had to go on making polite chit-chat, never having you to myself, even for a second.”
“That ghastly servant, Boris, is everywhere!” the Marchioness said. “He looks at me with those hooded eyes of his and I feel that at any moment I shall find myself hysterically confessing my sins simply because I am frightened of him.”
“The Russians are masters of interrogation,” Freddie answered. “If he is being impertinent, I should tell the Prince. But then he is Her Highness’s servant and not his.”
“You know Vladimer would not hear a word against his mother,” the Marchioness said crossly. “I said something the teeniest bit critical about her the other day and he snapped my head off.”
“That was a stupid thing to do,” Freddie remarked.
“I know. I will not do it again.”
The Marchioness put her large straw hat on her head. It was trimmed with blue and white flowers to match her gown and skewered it into place with two long blue-topped hatpins.
She smiled beguilingly at the man beside her.
“I suppose we must go,” she said and realised that Freddie Sudley was looking at her with a touch of fire in his eyes.
“If you look at me like that,” he said, “I will not be able to let you.”
“Oh, please, Freddie, don’t get excited all over again,” the Marchioness exclaimed quickly. “We have been away for hours as it is. The servants will come to look for us if we are not careful.”
“The servants! You are always worrying about the servants!” Freddie said angrily. “It is my feelings you should be considering.”
“It is your predicament and mine that I am considering,” the Marchioness replied with a touch of dignity. “I am trying to get us out of the appalling mess we find ourselves in and for Vladimer to have the slightest suspicion that we were more than friends would, as you know, ruin everything!”
She spoke so gravely that Freddie Sudley capitulated.
“You are right. We must go back.”
He rose to his feet and, putting out his hands, helped the Marchioness to hers. Then he put his arms
around her and kissed her gently on the lips.
“Thank you, my darling. You have been marvellous this afternoon, but then you always are!”
The Marchioness disengaged herself and started to shake out her skirts.
“Brush me down at the back, Freddie, and there are some dried leaves on your trousers.”
They inspected each other carefully. Then, picking up her blue sunshade, the Marchioness strolled ahead of him through the trees until they came in sight of the Victoria with its liveried servants waiting at the roadside.
The footman helped them in and the Marchioness said,
“Return to the villa, but stop first at the Post Office in Beaulieu.”
“Certainement, madame,” the footman said, then climbed onto the box beside the coachman.
The Marchioness opened her sunshade and held it elegantly over her head.
She was thinking as they drove along the narrow dusty road of St. Hospice how pleasant it would be to own Victorias, broughams, cabriolets, landaus and the servants to drive them, always ready at her command.
*
Ancella went to the Princess’s bedroom punctually at five o’clock only to find that her services were not required.
“She’s got that gypsy woman with her, m’mselle,” Maria told her, “and the astrologer comin’ later. Le Bon Dieu knows they’re not worth the time and money Her Highness wastes on them, but it amuses her.”
“Shall I go to my room?” Ancella asked. “And if Her Highness needs me, perhaps you would let me know.”
“You do that, m’mselle,” Maria agreed, “and have a little rest. I hear you’ve been out walking. It’s too tiring for you in this heat.”
Ancella realised the fact that she had been out for a walk had already been discussed in the villa, doubtless by most of the staff.
She felt a little throb of fear in case they should know where she had really been, but she told herself that the Prince had been exceedingly careful.
When he had left her a little way from the villa, he had driven off to Monte Carlo and it was very unlikely that anyone would realise that he was arriving there two hours later than he would have done if he had gone there directly after luncheon.
She walked back to the villa feeling dazed and the sunshine seemed more golden than it had been before.
It was impossible not to think over and over again of what the Prince had said to her, to think of his lips on her hand, almost to feel the touch of them still lingering on her skin.
In her own room she stood looking out at the blue of the sea and thinking that everything had a new magic that had not been there before.
How could she ever have guessed or even imagined that there was a man somewhere in the world like Prince Vladimer, who would say such enchanting things and would arouse sensations within herself that she had never known existed.
‘Is this love?’ she asked and was afraid of the answer.
It was all too perplexing, too difficult to understand.
What did he mean by saying he had fallen in love with her?
And if he had, what did he intend?
He had said that he was not concerned with the future but with the present. But Ancella, unsophisticated though she was, knew that that was a dangerous creed.
In the future he could go back to Russia, leaving, as Dr. Groves had warned her, a mountain of broken hearts behind him. But for her there was only England and the restricted narrow existence of living with her aunts, unless –
Ancella’s mind shied away from the alternative.
She told herself that it was crazy to imagine for one moment that Prince Vladimer would wish to marry an unknown Englishwoman who was nurse-companion to his mother.
Even if he was prepared to contemplate a ‘mixed marriage’, such as the Princess had spoken of so scathingly, it would certainly not be with someone he thought of as his social inferior.
In those circumstances how could she trust even for one moment his protestations of love?
It was all so depressing and yet at the same time she could not help feeling an inexpressible elation and happiness just because of the things he had said and the way he had looked at her.
No man, she thought, should be so handsome, so irresistibly attractive! It was not fair on women!
She sat at the window looking out for so long and thinking of the Prince that she suddenly realised with a start that it was time she began to dress for dinner.
The lady guests of importance like the Marchioness had their baths brought by the maids to their bedrooms. Great silver cans containing hot and cold water were carried in and emptied into a hip bath that was arranged in a convenient place on the carpet.
Ancella knew that they were arranged the same way in the great houses of England and any lady of rank would be horrified at the idea of appearing in the passages wearing a dressing gown.
But the villa contained, to Ancella’s surprise, several bathrooms, and there was one almost adjacent to her bedroom, which she was told she could use.
It was lavishly decorated with a white marble floor, tiled walls and ornate gold taps and she thought privately that it was an improvement on the inconvenience of having to keep filling up the bath that was brought to one’s bedroom with either hot or cold water.
In the bathroom she could lie stretched out in the warm water and she wondered why more people did not have a bathroom attached to their bedroom, which would save, apart from anything else, an immense amount of labour.
Not that that was important in rich houses where there were innumerable men and women servants to carry the silver or brass cans for any distance and up many flights of stairs.
Ancella scented her bath with oil of violets that came, she saw on the bottle, from Grasse.
She wondered if she would ever have a chance of seeing the factory which she knew supplied all the famous French perfumes.
‘There are so many things I would like to do if I had the time,’ she told herself and wondered how long she would be able to stay on the Côte d’Azur.
When she went back to her bedroom, she went to the wardrobe to take out her evening gown and realised that while she had been bathing the maid had come into the room and laid her evening things out on the bed.
There were two gowns lying side by side, the white one that she had bought before leaving London and the black she had brought with her, thinking she might wear it if perhaps she and the Princess were alone in the evenings.
Now Ancella eyed it speculatively and thought that perhaps it was the gown that she should wear tonight.
She had been vividly conscious of the danger of someone connecting her with Mr. Harnsworth’s win, which Captain Sudley had described so graphically at luncheon.
‘Perhaps if they saw me in white again,’ Ancella told herself, ‘they would remember seeing me last night.’
It was an outside chance and yet the risk was there.
‘I shall wear the black gown,’ she told herself and wondered if the Prince disliked black and if in consequence he would not think her beautiful.
Despairingly she told herself that she must not keep thinking of the Prince and what he thought or did not think should not influence her in doing what was sensible.
At the same time, when she was dressed, she looked at her reflection in the long mirror which stood in a mahogany frame in one corner of the room and thought perhaps she looked quite drab and insignificant.
As it happened, she looked neither of these things.
The black gown was made of a very light material and trimmed round the shoulders with spotted net. It was not a heavy black and Ancella had used her unerring good taste when she bought it.
It was a young girl’s gown and did not in fact make her look any more sophisticated than did the white gown.
But what Ancella did not realise, because she was looking at the gown rather than herself, was that it was a perfect frame for her white skin.
It seemed to accentuate the fragile etherealnes
s of her small pointed face, her large grey eyes and the soft, very pale gold of her hair.
She was without jewellery and yet ornamented with a beauty that was somehow spiritual.
As she walked into the salon behind his mother, the Prince thought that she looked like the first pale fingers of the sun when rising over the horizon as they seem to push away the sable of the night that still covers the sky.
Then hastily he looked away because he was afraid that the expression on his face might be too revealing.
Tonight there were over twenty-four people for dinner, the table was decorated with orchids and lit by enormous gold candelabra, which the Princess had brought with her from Russia.
The dinner was even more superb than it had been the night before. There were too many courses as far as Ancella was concerned, although she had grown wise and ate very sparingly of those that came first so that she would not have to refuse dish after dish as the meal progressed.
Tonight among the guests there were several extremely gay and amusing French people and, as there was no stiffness at the villa parties, everyone talked across the table and did not confine themselves to their partners on either side.
Ancella found herself amused and interested just by listening to what was being said.
There were discussions on politics, gossip about many of the people staying in Monte Carlo and, of course, about the Prince of Wales, who was at Cannes.
Only the Princess seemed a little pensive. Ancella wondered whether the astrologer or the gypsy had given her discouraging predictions and then she told herself that it was unlikely. They were too clever not to give their clients hope, if nothing else, and if the Princess was quiet it might be because she was tired or perhaps she was wishing the dinner to pass quickly so that she could meet Comte André at the Casino again.
It was impossible for Ancella not to glance occasionally towards the end of the table, although she tried not to do so.
When she looked at Prince Vladimer, so handsome and so at ease, laughing and talking either to the Marchioness on his right or to a vivacious French Comtesse on his left, she wondered if she had dreamt what had happened this afternoon and all that he had said to her.
105. an Angel In Hell Page 11
