Charlotte studied these pictures of strange people and savage landscapes and compared them to her carefully arranged pictures of maids and house parties, and she realised that she was jealous of Caspar’s freedom and his palette. She felt a longing to go out and record an unknown world with her camera instead of always trying new ways to make the familiar strange. Charlotte had never been abroad – the most exotic place she had visited was the Isle of Wight. Fred and Augusta had offered to take her on their wedding trip to Italy, as a way of defraying the expense, she suspected. But even the prospect of the Colosseum by moonlight had not persuaded her to spend two months travelling with the newlyweds.
The last photos in the pile were a series of portrait heads, all of the same youth, the one who had been standing under the cactus in the desert. He had an angular face with high, flat cheekbones and a square jaw. Charlotte was surprised to see that his dark hair was very long and tied back behind his head. In some of the portraits, the boy, who couldn’t have been much more than eighteen, looked straight into the camera, stern and unflinching, but there was one picture where he was looking back over his shoulder and smiling, and Charlotte had a sense of mutual affection on both sides of the camera. To catch a look like that, a moment rather than a pose, was very rare. She wondered who he was. In the last picture he was holding up a bunch of grapes, his head tipped back, revealing his long, supple throat. His eyes were tilted towards the camera and Charlotte saw something in his expression that she recognised. She had seen that look on Bay’s face, once.
Caspar was now singing ‘Silver Threads Among the Gold’, attempting all the parts.
First he sang ‘Darling, I am growing old’, in a reedy baritone, ‘Growing old’ again in a sonorous bass, and then ‘Silver threads among the gold’ in a high-pitched falsetto. It was as if he was trying to recreate the sound of a barbershop quartet single-handed.
Charlotte put the print of the youth with the grapes down, and looked around the room. It was full of the props that Lady Dunwoody used for her photographs. On a chair there was a folded Union Jack and a cardboard helmet and shield which had been used for the famous and much reproduced portrait of Ellen Terry as Britannia. A collection of white pleated muslin tunics was hanging on a lacquered coat stand; on the shelf above was a pile of laurel wreaths. A crystal ball stood on a table next to a skull and a silver candelabra with three candles that had burnt down almost to the wick, with rivulets of wax hanging down like stalactites. On the wall next to the door a heavily embroidered Chinese mandarin’s robe hung from a pole; above it on a small shelf that ran the length of the room was a collection of blue and white plates, lustre jugs and a marble cherub, one plump leg pointing towards the floor. Next to the bench where Charlotte was standing, was an easel displaying a photograph of a young girl dressed as Diana the huntress, her bow drawn back as she pointed her arrow at the sky. Charlotte recognised the model as one of Lady Dunwoody’s maids. Even the most skilled retouching could not completely disguise the contrast between the girl’s reddened hands and the classical whiteness of her neck and bare shoulder. But Lady D had caught something savage in her expression which gave the photograph an unexpected ferocity. This Diana looked as though she would hit her prey. Charlotte wondered what the model had been thinking of to produce that shaft of cruelty. Did she dream of taking up arms and bringing down her enemies, or was she perhaps thinking of Lady Dunwoody’s collection of Japanese porcelain that had to be dusted with a single goose feather?
The singing stopped mid-phrase, there was a moment when Charlotte thought she heard a sigh, and then Caspar began to sing again, picking up the song exactly where he had left it.
The verse finished and Caspar emerged from the cubicle, his arms raised in benediction.
‘I feel that we have consummated our artistic union, dearest Carlotta. I have brought your negatives into glorious life, and you have seen my humble offerings.’
Charlotte heard her cue.
‘Oh, but you have nothing to be humble about. Your photographs are exceptional. I have never seen anything like them before. Oh, how I envy you your deserts and your endless light. We have nothing like that here, that’s why we have to create little tableaux in studios,’ – she gestured to the print on the easel – ‘housemaids dressed up as goddesses. But you, you can just go out and find the perfect composition right in front of you.’
Caspar made a little bow of acknowledgement, but he was, for once, silent, and Charlotte realised that she had not said quite enough.
‘But only a photographer of great skill and talent could do those astonishing landscapes justice. Don’t worry, I know how good you are. Even if you hadn’t had such raw material to work with, I would have known it just from this picture.’ Charlotte picked up the print of the boy looking back over his shoulder and laughing. ‘Only someone with an uncommon gift could have produced something like this. It is so rare to see real emotion in a photograph. But here it is quite naked.’
Charlotte did not know why that last word had come out of her mouth. She felt as if she had said something improper. Caspar looked at her directly for a moment and then he dropped his gaze and made her another sweeping bow.
‘I am overwhelmed by your appreciation. To be praised by you is the pinnacle of all my life’s achievements. I feel like stout Cortez on the Darien peak.’
Charlotte interrupted him, ‘Who is the boy, the one holding the grapes? I can’t imagine coaxing a look like that from any of my sitters.’
‘But what about the gallant officer and his horse? You captured the love and affection between them perfectly.’ Caspar raised an eyebrow.
‘Such an unusual face. What is his name?’ Charlotte asked.
‘His name? Abraham Running Water. His father was a Sioux Indian and his mother was an Irish girl who came west in the gold rush. Abraham was the product of their brief union. I met him in the desert. He helped me carry my equipment, he showed me things. There was the skin of a rattlesnake, completely whole, lying on the sand. I would never have seen it if Abraham hadn’t stopped me and made me look.’ He paused for a second, and Charlotte asked the question to which she was afraid she already knew the answer.
‘Where is he now?’
‘Somewhere in the Mojave. I took a picture of the exact location. There were no trees, so I made a pile of stones. Not big ones, there are no boulders there, just pebbles really. He had consumption. I wanted to take him to the city, to see doctors, but he wouldn’t leave the desert.’
‘I am sorry. But these photographs are better than a gravestone,’ said Charlotte.
‘That is a delicate thought. I can appreciate it now, but I came very close to smashing the plates afterwards. But somehow, some of my best work … I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.’
‘To have a photograph of someone you cared for must be a consolation.’
‘Perhaps, but they are also a permanent reminder of what you have lost. Memories fade, after all, but I will never have to struggle to remember Abraham’s face. Is that really such a boon? Perhaps it is better to let things grow dim. Every time I look at one of these pictures I am reminded so vividly of how alive he was once.’ He shook his head and waved his hands in front of him as if trying to banish unpleasantness.
Charlotte thought of the photograph of her mother in her coffin that her father had kept in his study. The one she had never wanted to look at.
Caspar clapped his hands.
‘But enough of this, we have strayed down a very morbid byway, my Carlotta. We are not here to philosophise, but to work. What would Lady D say if she could see us now? She would condemn us as lilies of the field, gilded parasites, who indulge in idle conversation when we should be toiling.’
‘I may have been idle, but you have been developing my plates. Are the prints dry?’
Caspar blinked. ‘I suppose they must be. Let me check.’ He disappeared into the dark-room cubicle.
Charlotte wondered if it would be too conspicuous to send Aunt Ad
elaide a telegram about Bay. She decided that it probably would. A telegram would be talked about, and after all, there was no urgency.
She could hear Caspar banging about in the dark room. He was singing Mozart now, ‘Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre…’
The aria finished and Caspar emerged holding a print.
‘Here she is, your tragic heroine.’ He placed the photograph in front of Charlotte. It was the picture she had taken of the Empress on the morning of Major Postlethwaite’s accident. She was in profile. The focus of the picture was the Empress’s narrow waist between the abundance of her hair above and the spread of her skirts below. Her face was tilted away from the camera but it was possible to see the delicate angle of her jaw and the long cord of her neck.
‘What makes you say tragic?’ said Charlotte.
‘She has a melancholy shape. Something about the cast of her head. And she is clearly someone who is at the centre of things – look how everyone around is looking at her. I must say, I am curious. Is she an acquaintance of yours?’
‘Hardly. She is the Empress of Austria. She came to a hunt at the house I was staying at.’
‘An empress? Yes, I can see that.’
‘Do you think she is beautiful?’
Caspar narrowed his eyes at the picture. ‘If you had asked me that question before telling me who she was, I would have wavered. But now that I know, well, I have to say I do think she is beautiful, I simply can’t separate the form from the function. A beautiful empress is so much more romantic than a moderately attractive one. Even though I am a proud republican, I can’t deny that there is something irresistible about a crown.’
He glanced at Charlotte and then said, ‘But I suspect from the brittle set of her head that she might be rather … taxing. Not like you, dearest Charlotte, you are so easy to be with.’
‘That’s because I am not an empress.’
‘Oh, I know that you would be delightful anywhere.’ He made her a little bow and then he took out his hunter from his waistcoat pocket.
‘Is that really the time? I promised Lady D that we would meet her at the gallery at noon. We shall have to leave at once. Lady D does not like to be kept waiting.’
Charlotte helped him to pack up all the prints in a portfolio, carefully interleaving each one with tissue paper. Caspar insisted on including her picture of the maids, and the picture of Bay with Tipsy. She countered by putting in his portrait of Abraham Running Water. Just as she was placing the tissue paper over the last print, Caspar picked up the picture of the Empress.
‘You can’t leave out royalty.’
Charlotte remembered that she had taken more than one picture of the Empress. ‘What about the other plate? I wasn’t sure if I had the picture or not, because the Empress took out a fan to hide her face.’
‘How tiresome.’ Caspar put the leaves of the portfolio together and tied the strings. He put his hand on Charlotte’s elbow, shepherding her to the door.
Charlotte hesitated. ‘But did the other picture come out? I would like to see if I caught her before the fan.’ Caspar’s grip on her elbow tightened, but she broke away and entered the little dark room. In the darkness she could see one print hanging from string by a single peg. She took it down and brought it out into the light.
The photograph had come out perfectly. But the focus of the picture was not the Empress, who was bringing the enormous fan up to her face, but the rider just behind her. For a moment Charlotte didn’t recognise Bay. The expression on his face, which was turned towards the Empress, was one she had not seen before. His pale eyes were completely intent; he was gazing at the woman in front of him as if she were some precious object that would fall and break if he looked away. His mouth was open slightly. It might have been the beginning of a smile, or a grimace of pain, Charlotte couldn’t tell. He had never looked at her that way.
She felt a touch on her elbow and the photograph was taken out of her hand.
‘Photographs can be so deceptive, don’t you think?’ Caspar said as he pushed her out of the dark room. ‘That fellow there, your captain, looks as though he has seen a ghost. It’s the way the light catches his eyes. A sunny day and a short exposure and you can be seeing all sorts of things. I remember once I took a picture of a butcher at work in Chinatown, he was holding up his cleaver in such a way that it looked that he was about to murder his assistant. Just a trick of the light, of course, but so alarming – he could have been Sweeney Todd himself.’
Charlotte allowed herself to be borne along by the torrent of Caspar’s chatter out of the house and into a hansom. It wasn’t until the cab had reached the Albertopolis in the park that she spoke.
‘It wasn’t a trick of the light, was it?’
Caspar was looking out of the window at the shiny new statue of Prince Albert sitting under his canopy.
‘I can’t help feeling that he looks rather morose sitting there. I think if I was a prince, I would want to be remembered as dashing and brave, rather than brooding.’ Still looking out of the window, he continued, ‘Trick of the light, really I couldn’t say. You know the gallant captain, I have only seen the picture. And I have always said that photographs can be very misleading.’ He turned to her and smiled.
‘Promise me that when I die, you will commission a statue that makes me look like a hero. I really couldn’t bear to be a lowering presence like that.’
But Charlotte was not to be diverted.
‘If you had to describe the look on Captain Middleton’s face; if you thought that expression was a real one, and not a photographic mirage, what would you say?’
Caspar sighed.
‘I would say, my dear Carlotta, that the good Captain was enchanted.’
The Widow of Windsor
Sisi looked out of the train window at the snowy fields rushing by, stained pink by the rising sun. But she did not notice the keen sherbet colour of the snow; if she noticed the landscape at all, it was the fences and hedges that caught her eye. This was not good hunting country. It was typical of Queen Victoria to live in an unsporting landscape. Such a dowdy little woman, with no style at all. The summer before last when she had visited the Isle of Wight, she had been forced to call on the Queen at Osborne. She had been given a grindingly thorough tour of the sculpture gallery and the Swiss cottage where the royal children had their gardens. It had been one of the most tedious afternoons of her life.
But today would be quite different. She looked across at Bay, who was sitting opposite her. His eyes were closed and she wondered whether he had fallen asleep. He must have felt her gaze, even in his dreams, because he opened his eyes and smiled at her. His eyes were such a pale blue, like the stained glass in the Peterhof.
The train went over a junction and Sisi saw Bay grimace as the movement jolted his shoulder, which was still strapped up.
‘Is it very painful, Captain Middleton?’
‘Only now and then,’ said Bay and winked.
‘I have a tincture that is very good. From Vienna. The doctors there do not believe in suffering.’ She turned to Countess Festetics, who was sitting at the other end of the carriage reading a novel in Hungarian.
‘Do you have my solution, Festy? I think the Captain needs it.’
The Countess opened the crocodile skin dressing case at her side. She took out a phial with a silver top and handed it to Sisi.
‘Open your mouth, and I will put the drops on your tongue,’ said Sisi.
‘It is really not so bad,’ said Bay. ‘Nothing that a little brandy wouldn’t cure.’
‘Open your mouth, Captain Middleton!’
Bay did as he was told and Sisi put six drops on his tongue. The train shuddered as she was administering the seventh and the drop fell onto Bay’s moustache, where it glistened.
‘Missed,’ said Bay and licked it off with his tongue. He winked again. Sisi smiled and then glanced at the Countess, who was apparently too absorbed in her book to notice them, although she had barely turned a page since th
e journey began. Her presence in the carriage was necessary to avoid a scandal; the Empress of Austria could not be seen travelling in a carriage alone with her pilot. It did not matter how many hours they had spent alone on the hunting field, a train was different. Sisi had long ago learnt that it paid to observe the outward conventions. Nopsca had winced when she had announced that Captain Middleton would be coming with them to Windsor, but so long as Festetics sat there with her Hungarian novel, he could pretend that all was well.
The train was slowing down now, they must be almost there. The journey had been commendably swift, just under three hours. They had not had the indignity of changing trains; Nopsca had arranged it all very cleverly, procuring a private train which was routed round the outskirts of London. Sisi looked at her pocket watch, it was a few minutes before eleven. It was all quite an effort for a call that would last no more than half an hour, but monarchs could not always follow their inclinations. She put her hands to her hair automatically, to check that her crown of plaits had not slipped.
There was a red carpet at the station, of course, but not a band. This was a private visit by the Countess Hohenembs to Queen Victoria, not a state visit by the Empress of Austria to the Queen of England. Sisi pulled her veil right down; in England there were photographers everywhere.
The Fortune Hunter Page 23
