The men stood on the step behind, which made the difference in heights all the more evident: Chicken Hartopp’s enormous frame towered over the others. Charlotte wondered if she could ask all the other men to go up a step so that the difference in height would not be so great; Lord Crewe was not excessively tall, and Captain Middleton had looked rather slight beside Hartopp. But now Captain Middleton was not there.
‘What has happened to Captain Middleton?’
‘Don’t worry, Mitten, he’s just gone to get something. He’ll be back directly,’ Fred answered.
‘But I have the plate all set up. Couldn’t he have waited?’ Charlotte hated it when her brother called her ‘Mitten’ in public. He told her it was because she had looked like a mitten without a hand when she was a baby. She had often asked him to call her something else, but of course, the more she protested the more he clung to the nickname.
‘Well, can’t you just take the picture without him, Charlotte dear?’ Lady Lisle said. ‘It is is getting rather chilly.’
‘But that would ruin my composition,’ Charlotte said. This was true – she wanted the four men in the background to frame the women in the centre – but it was Bay’s picture she wanted to take. She wanted to see how he would look through her lens.
Just then Middleton came running down the steps and took his position next to Hartopp.
‘Forgive me, Miss Baird, I had to adjust my necktie. I thought you would want me to look my best.’
Charlotte put her head back under the heavy drape. She could see Bay’s outline upside down on the plate, his head six inches below Chicken Hartopp’s. She had told them all to stand perfectly still for as long as it took them to recite the Lord’s Prayer in their heads from the moment she raised her hand and squeezed the bulb. Not only was the prayer just the right length, but the act of remembering the words stopped her sitters from fidgeting. Her godmother Lady Dunwoody had told her that taking a photograph of someone captured a piece of their soul, ‘So you want to take them in a state of grace, Charlotte, if you can.’ For ever and ever, amen. Charlotte came out from under the cloth and smiled at the group in front of her.
‘Thank you for your patience. I hope you will be pleased with the results.’
The group began to stir, moving stiffly after the enforced stillness. Bay was the first to break ranks. He jumped down the steps to where she stood.
‘May I help you carry your things inside?’
‘That’s very kind of you. I hope you don’t mind waiting while I dismantle the camera.’
He watched attentively as Charlotte slid the exposed plate out of the camera and put it into its leather box.
‘You have a great deal of equipment, Miss Baird. When you told me that you were interested in photography, I had no idea that you were such an expert.’
Charlotte smiled. ‘Oh, I am hardly that, but I enjoy it very much. I am flattered that you remembered our conversation.’
‘Of course I remembered. I don’t often meet young ladies who tell me they would rather stand behind a camera than have a dress made.’
‘No. I suspect that I am in the minority. Augusta, for example, finds it quite incomprehensible. She was very disapproving yesterday when I excused myself from a conversation about her trousseau because I had a print to make.’
Bay laughed, revealing white teeth. Charlotte was glad that he was as sympathetic as she remembered him from the Spencer ball. Even through the lens, he had looked so much more vigorous and alive than her brother or Hartopp. There was a springiness to him that made him a much easier presence than most of the young men she knew with their ponderous movements and their mutton-chop whiskers. He was wearing a suit made out of very dark green material. The jacket had an unusual diagonal facing and elaborate horn buttons. Charlotte recognised the style as the ‘university’ coat. Fred had told her about it: ‘Latest thing, everyone’s wearing them at the clubs.’ It was not a style that suited Fred, as it accentuated his barrel-shaped torso, but on Bay’s lean frame the cut looked stylish rather than absurd. She was relieved too that Bay had not grown the dundreary sideburns that were so fashionable at the moment. Charlotte had spent many evenings trying not to stare at a breadcrumb or tobacco strand adhering to the luxuriant facial hair of her dancing partners. She had once stopped Fred in the middle of one of his homilies about ‘feminine behaviour’ by finding a sizeable crumb of Stilton in his whiskers. Bay, she was pleased to see, had restricted himself to a neat moustache.
‘Here, let me do that. I don’t think I can do much damage to this.’ He took the tripod out of her hands and began deftly to collapse the extendable wooden legs. ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten your promise, Miss Baird.’
‘My promise?’
‘To take a picture of Tipsy, my horse.’
‘I don’t think I am skilled enough to take a portrait of a horse alone, but I could probably manage horse and rider. Remember that you have to stay very still.’
‘That won’t be a problem for Tipsy, Miss Baird, she’s a very serious horse. I, on the other hand, am a terrible fidget.’
Charlotte smiled. She picked up the camera and the slide case and started towards the house. As they made for the disused nursery that Lady Crewe had allowed Charlotte to use as her photographic studio, they had to pass through the crenellated gloom of the Great Hall. Although Melton was of Jacobean origin, it had just been extensively remodelled in the fashionable Gothic style, and all the windows of the hall had been replaced with stained-glass depictions of the Arthurian legends, so Bay’s face was washed with yellow then blue then red as he walked across the hall under the windows depicting the Lady of the Lake, Sir Galahad and Lancelot and Guinevere.
‘Will you be hunting on Monday, Miss Baird?’ he asked as he followed her up the narrow staircase. He was carrying the tripod, a footman followed with the camera and Charlotte herself held the case with the photographic plate.
‘I don’t hunt, Captain Middleton, but I shall come to the meet. I am going to take some pictures.’
Bay laughed. ‘Not sure you will get anyone to stay still enough to say the Lord’s Prayer at a meet.’
He put the tripod down.
‘But why don’t you hunt, Miss Baird? I suspect that you are an excellent rider, and Fred has a quality stable.’
She laid the plate carefully in the developing tray. She tried to speak as lightly she could, not wanting the circumstances of her life to shadow the conversation.
‘My mother was my father’s second wife. He married her when Fred was seven. My mother was very young, very rich and, I believe, very reckless. She died in a hunting accident when I was four years old. My father decided that he didn’t want his daughter to run the same risk.’ The silence was broken by the noise of the footman putting down the heavy camera.
Bay spoke. ‘I think if I was your father I would feel the same.’ He looked at her and then gestured around the room which was full of Charlotte’s photographic paraphernalia.
‘But you have something else to fill your time. I had no idea that photography needed so much stuff.’
‘Oh, but this is only some of it. At home I have even more.’ Bay picked up one of the brown holland folders that Charlotte kept her work in.
‘May I?’
‘Of course. But I should warn you that I am more enthusiastic than expert.’
Bay started to look through the photos. ‘They look very accomplished to me. I admire this one of Fred and Augusta, you have managed to make her look quite benign.’
Charlotte laughed. ‘Yes, that was quite a test. I had to promise her that I would make her look just like the Princess of Wales.’
Bay chuckled and continued leafing through the photographs, then he stopped and made an exclamation.
‘But this is capital.’ He held up the Royal Menagerie print. Charlotte had photographed her original collage and set it in a black oval border. ‘The Queen as a codfish, there is the most uncommon resemblance. And Bertie makes an excellent bas
set hound. I see that you have a sense of mischief, Miss Baird.’
‘Perhaps. Fred thinks that I am peculiar.’
Bay studied the menagerie photograph closely. ‘Well, I think on the evidence of this that he is quite right.’
He looked round and laughed when he saw Charlotte’s look of disappointment.
‘But much better to be peculiar than to be “fashionable” like Augusta. I, for example, collect porcelain and, as you know, I like to listen to opera rather than talk over or sleep through it. My fellow officers find that peculiar but I am rather proud of my eccentricities. Fond as I am of Chicken Hartopp, I don’t want to resemble him more than I have to, and I am quite sure that you feel the same about Augusta.’
‘You can’t expect me to be rude about my future sister-in-law,’ Charlotte protested. ‘I am an orphan. Augusta will be my family.’
‘You have my condolences.’ Bay smiled. ‘Tell me, Miss Baird, if you were to make one of these creations with the group you took this morning, which animal would you choose to replace me?’
Charlotte put her head on one side. ‘Oh, but that is unfair. If I am truthful I may offend you, and if I flatter you, you will think I am a simpering young lady currying favour.’
‘I promise that nothing you could say could offend me, and we have already established that you could never be mistaken for a simpering miss.’
‘Well, in that case, let me see…’ Charlotte half closed her eyes in mock deliberation. She had known from the moment she had first set eyes upon Bay exactly what sort of animal he was.
‘I would say that you are something wild but not exotic. A predator who makes his own way. You are not to be trusted around chickens or ducks, but you are capable of giving a day’s capital entertainment. I would make you a fox, Captain Middleton. I trust I haven’t offended you.’
‘On the contrary. I have a great deal of affection for foxes. They have given me some of the best days of my life.’
The gong sounded for lunch.
‘We must go, Captain Middleton. Lady Crewe does not tolerate tardiness. And Augusta will be wondering why we have been up here so long without a chaperone.’
‘Shall I tell her we have been flirting, Miss Baird?’
‘Is that what we are doing, Captain Middleton? Thank you for enlightening me.’
Easton Neston
It was raining the morning that the empress was due to arrive, so the servants were waiting inside. The first thing they heard was the sound of the wheels on the gravel; the second was a weird, high-pitched, pulsating yell. The head housemaid got to the window first.
‘She’s getting out of the carriage and there’s something on her shoulder. It’s a monkey. She’s only got a pet monkey.’
‘Nasty smelly things,’ said Mrs Cross the housekeeper. ‘My last lady was given one and luckily it died a couple of weeks later. No one missed it, I can tell you.’
Wilmot, the butler, shouted for them all to get into line. The housemaid took her place beside Mrs Cross. She could hear the housekeeper humming under her breath. It sounded like a hymn. Mrs Cross was Chapel and she was not happy about working for a Catholic, even if she was an Empress. She had almost resigned when the letter came from Vienna asking for a room to be set aside for the saying of mass. In the event, she had not given her notice, aware that a letter of royal approval would be valuable whether the monarch was protestant or catholic. But she had assigned the coldest, draughtiest room on the North Front for the popish ritual.
The doors were opened and the housemaid saw the silhouette of a woman walking up the steps against the grey morning light. She was tall, an inch or so taller than the man who was holding an umbrella above her head. As she stood in the doorway, the fur mantle slipped away from her body and the housemaid was astonished to see how slender she was – Mrs Cross had said she was a grandmother already – but she had the waist of a girl. The maid instinctively drew in her own stomach.
The Empress was walking towards them now, the man with the umbrella who, although he wasn’t wearing a uniform, looked like some kind of servant following just behind. When she reached Mrs Cross, the housekeeper made a surprisingly graceful curtsey. The maid tried to imitate her, keeping her eyes lowered as instructed. ‘Never get in their eyeline, Patience,’ Mrs Cross had said, ‘foreign royalty can be tricky.’ But the Empress was stopping in front of her. Surely it would be rude not to acknowledge her in any way. She glanced up at the veiled face and heard the Empress say in a soft, lightly accented voice, ‘What is your name?’
The housemaid tried to speak but found she could not make her mouth work. She heard Mrs Cross say, ‘This is Patience, the head housemaid, Your Majesty.’
‘Such a charming English face. I feel sure I will like it here.’ As the Empress walked away the maid caught a trace of violets and something else that smelt rather like brandy.
There was another eldritch scream as the monkey, who had been lurking in the doorway, scuttled across the hall towards the Empress. She seemed not to notice the racket that the animal was making and continued down the line of servants. The housemaid saw the monkey stop in front of Mrs Cross and watched, horrified, as it squatted down and proceeded to urinate on the housekeeper’s skirt. Mrs Cross made a sound like a badly oiled door creaking in the wind, and the Empress looked round just as the housekeeper was kicking the animal across the floor.
There was a moment of quiet and then the monkey started screaming again, this time with a high-pitched chatter that ricocheted around the pillars of the entrance hall. The housemaid saw that the Empress’s shoulders were shaking, and she realised that she was laughing. The monkey was rocking back and forth on its haunches; Mrs Cross was muttering under her breath. The maid saw the Empress extend one shaking hand towards the monkey and heard her say something in German, then the little man, who had carried her umbrella, picked up the animal and carried it out of the house. As he turned his back on his mistress, the maid could see that his face was as sour as Mrs Cross’s had been.
* * *
The Empress sat by the fire in the Great Hall. The monkey had been been sent to the stables, but her favourite wolfhound was lying at her feet. The room was enormous, the double height ceiling as high as a cathedral. Elizabeth felt faintly irritated – everyone imagined that because she lived in palaces that she could not be happy in anything else. Yet really she longed for a room where she could speak without hearing her voice echo. Still it was a beautiful house, and more importantly it was in the heart of the English hunting country.
Baron Nopsca, her chamberlain, came into the room, looking worried.
‘Earl Spencer is here, Majesty. I told him that you were indisposed after your journey, but he was very anxious to pay his respects.’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘But I am not in the least bit tired, Nopsca. Send him in.’
The Earl, Elizabeth noticed, did not kiss her hand. He bowed rather stiffly when he was presented, but there were none of the sycophantic contortions of a Viennese courtier. He was very tall and Elizabeth had never seen a man with quite such red hair before. She tried not to stare at him.
‘I hope Your Majesty is happy with the house?’
‘It is hardly a house. In Austria we would call it a palace; even the stables are magnificent.’ She smiled and was rewarded by seeing the Earl blush.
‘Stables are the most important part of the place in my view, Ma’am. When I was rebuilding Althorp, I had them do the stables first, so at least the horses would be comfortable. The Countess was not happy about it at all. She wanted the kitchen block done, said the food was always cold by the time it got to the dining room, but I said what was the point of eating if you couldn’t hunt.’
‘I can see that we are destined to be great friends, Lord Spencer. Like you, I would much rather hunt than eat.’ Elizabeth laid one hand very briefly on the Earl’s arm and watched as his skin darkened to a rich magenta. She enjoyed the Earl’s confusion, such a delicious contrast from the perfectly controlle
d manners of the Viennese.
‘I am so looking forward to my first “meet”, I think you call it. I am relying on you to teach me all the right hunting argot. I don’t want to disgrace myself.’
The Earl interrupted her gallantly, ‘Oh I am quite sure there is no danger of that, Ma’am. I have heard what a fine horsewoman you are.’
‘And I have heard how fierce the English are in the field.’ She looked at him through her lashes. The Earl pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow, which was beaded with sweat, even though the temperature in the room was chilly.
‘What time is the hunt tomorrow? I should so hate to be late on my first day.’
The Earl froze, his massive hand at his temple. ‘Tomorrow, Ma’am? But tomorrow is Sunday.’ He was now such a regal shade of purple that Elizabeth wondered if he was about to have some kind of seizure.
‘Sunday?’ she asked. ‘I suppose people will attend church first.’ But Spencer shook his great head.
‘No hunting on the Sabbath, Ma’am. Even though every parson round here is a hunting man, the Church won’t have it.’
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. ‘I had no idea that the English were so religious. In my country we hunt every day, in fact the Sunday hunts are usually the best. Everyone rides with a clear conscience.’ She laid her hand again on the Earl’s arm.
‘I am sure, Lord Spencer, that if you were to talk to these, how did you call them, parsons, you could persuade them to bend their rules a little? I have come such a long way, and I would so like to hunt tomorrow.’
Baron Nopsca, who was standing in attendance behind the Empress’s chair, began to listen carefully. His English was not perfect but he could hear that note in his mistress’s voice which indicated that she had set her heart on something, and he knew all about the repercussions if she did not get what she wanted.
The Fortune Hunter Page 4
