“Mona!” Miss Wren cried, in shock. “What will your uncle think?”
“The Earl may be capable of intrigues, and dissipation, and schemes of the most pernicious kind — but as to comporting himself respectably, and in a manner that might ensure any woman’s love—”
“Brava, my dear,” the Dowager said comfortably. “You speak the part well. How I wish that a grandchild of mine might respectably tread the boards!”
“With respect, Your Grace,” Miss Wren interposed, “the Duke of Wilborough sees nothing objectionable in Lord Swithin — and in my day, a father’s approbation should have been enough. It is unbecoming in a lady to think so firmly for herself. It smacks of stubbornness and caprice, and neither may recommend her to the stronger sex. When you are as blessed with experience as I, my dear Mona—”
“—I shall undoubtedly be the happier, in having followed my heart,” Lady Desdemona concluded. “I may wonder, Wren, that having presented so biddable a nature in your day, you failed to find a husband.”
The mortification of this last remark was admittedly shocking; but I could not suppress a smile, nor a quick look for Lord Harold, whose countenance betrayed a smothered animation. The unfortunate Wren retreated hastily in a dignified silence, but declared from her looks that all enjoyment in the evening was at an end. A moment’s reflection seemed to chasten the Lady Desdemona; her cheeks flushed and her eyes found her lap; and so the curtain rose.
MISS CONYNGHAM, AS IT HAPPENED, WAS NOT INDISPOSED.
To the Dowager Duchess’s delight, the actress appeared in the very soul of Agatha — arch, too-intimate, and vulgar by turns — with a heightened colour and a depth of intonation that must captivate even the stoniest of hearts. Lord Harold, I observed, was most keenly aware of the lady — and fixed his quizzing glass upon her for the duration of the first act.
We had borne with the diverse fates of the inhabitants of a small German village — their incestuous proximity, their fantastic doubts; had heard love proclaimed, rejected, denied, and at long last embraced — and had, with relief at least for my part, achieved the space of an intermission. Lord Harold let fall his glass at last — and his countenance, to my surprise, was a study in abstraction. What quality in Maria Conyngham could so enthrall his thought?
“If you will excuse me, Mother, I believe I shall take the air,” he said abruptly, and bowed his way from the box.
“The devil tobacco,” Eugenie declared with an indulgent smile. “It is the sole influence he cannot master.”
“Are you comfortable, Your Grace?” Miss Wren enquired anxiously. “I am sure you must be warm. It is decidedly overheated — dreadfully close — and such odours as will rise from the pit—”
“In truth, Wren, I am feeling a trifle cold,” Eugenie replied serenely. “Perhaps you will fetch my shawl.”
The Dowager’s shawl — a formidable square of cashmere — being hung even now in the cloakroom, Miss Wren let slip a martyred sigh, and went in search of the stairs.
I turned my attention to Lady Desdemona. “The excellence of this evening’s performance must do Mr. Portal credit. The company might almost have exerted themselves to honour his memory.”
“Indeed,” the girl replied. She glanced at her grandmother, who gave every appearance of dozing behind her fan, and lowered her voice. “It is a pity, is it not, that he was denied the pleasure of witnessing their glory? The success of this theatre was his dearest concern, and Kotzebue his delight. It is incredible that he should be with us no more — he was so full of life, so animated with hopes for the season, and the new theatre in Beauford Square! Mr. Portal looked to the mounting of Lovers’ Vows to quite ensure his success; for it cannot fail to fill the stalls.”
“And so he has done. By the simple act of dying in so sensational a manner, Mr. Portal has brought all of Bath to Orchard Street,” I observed with deliberate coldness. “Were he on the brink of bankruptcy, we might accuse him of having staged his death merely for the sake of profit!”
“Miss Austen!” Lady Desdemona cried in horror; but horror swiftly gave way to amusement. Not for Lord Harold’s niece, Miss Conyngham’s outraged sensibility; and this alone could tell me much. She looked again at the dozing Dowager, and then dropped her voice to a whisper. “Had Mr. Portal suspected there to be money in the act, I do not doubt he should have entertained the notion. He prized riches above all things — even, perhaps, the glory of his company.”
“Did he, indeed? And did he possess considerable means?”
“I cannot undertake to say. He was hardly murdered for his purse, if that is what you would suggest, Miss Austen. For it was discovered upon his person.”
“I merely wondered how such a man — with reputation, wealth, and every consideration of good society — should have occasion for making enemies. For someone must have despised him enough to end his life. You were acquainted with the gentleman, my lady — surely you must have formed an opinion on the subject. What can Mr. Portal have done, to warrant his violent end?”
“I do not know,” Lady Desdemona replied. Her brow furrowed. “I have worried at the subject like a terrier at a bone. My acquaintance with Mr. Portal was hardly so intimate, as to permit me to form anything but the most cursory judgement of his character. He perpetually ran in a high flow of spirits; he was fond of company and of wine; he possessed energy enough for ten; and was rarely so nice in his sentiments or expression, as to render him the safest of companions. In short, he was boisterous and crude, and sadly wanting in tact.” She shook her head. “I could imagine him to offend any number of persons without the least intention of doing so, and forget the insult as readily as he ignored his engagements — which was repeatedly, I assure you.”
“Does want of tact, then, explain the gentleman’s scene with Lord Kinsfell?”
Her eyes slid away. “Of that I may say even less. For Kinny is chary of taking offence, particularly among his friends; and so I must believe the injury to have been a peculiar one. My brother was excessively grieved.”
“Mr. Portal does not seem an ideal lover for Miss Conyngham,” I mused. “I wonder what she saw in him to recommend his suit?”
“Was he to marry her, then? How come you to know of it?” A quickening of interest, and a faint blush to the lady’s cheeks. “I had not heard that rumour.”
“Nor had I. I speculate, that is all. Miss Conyngham was sadly shaken by Mr. Portal’s murder — and must have felt the loss quite deeply.”
“—Though not so deeply as to forgo her present performance,” Lady Desdemona retorted. “She would sacrifice everything to the goddess of success, I believe.”
“You do not esteem her.”
My companion shrugged. “I cannot claim any great knowledge of the lady. But I have observed, Miss Austen, that they who earn their bread in the performance of a role, have often difficulty in quitting the stage. They dissemble, as it were, in everything — and the truth of their characters is difficult to seize. I should never be certain whether Miss Conyngham were dying of grief at Mr. Portal’s loss — or if her feelings were quite the reverse.”
I had not looked for such penetration in a girl of eighteen; but she was, after all, Lord Harold’s niece.
“You do not endure a similar sense of ruin?” I enquired gently.
“My brother, indeed, is sadly circumstanced — but I can have no occasion for despair. Now Uncle is come, all shall soon be set to rights.”
I was prevented from pursuing this interesting line of intelligence, by a circumspect cough from the direction of the box’s door. Lady Desdemona’s head swung round, her grey eyes widened, and involuntarily, she seized my arm.
The cold blue glare of a fair-headed gentleman, arrayed in all the brilliance of fawn knee breeches and a bottle-green coat, met my interested gaze. The very Lord Swithin. He was a remarkable figure of a man — and yet the good looks of his countenance were undoubtedly marred by the arrogance that suffused them.
“Lady Desdemona.” He
bowed with exquisite grace, but the hauteur of his glance might have guttered a candle-flame. “I am happy to see you. Your Grace—”
The Dowager Duchess awoke with a start, glanced about, and then held out her hand with all the appearance of cordiality. “Swithin! I declare! It is like your insolence to come to Bath at such a time. I could wish that all our acquaintance were as careless of convention.”
If he took the measure of her ambivalence, the Earl betrayed no sign. He bent low over the Dowager’s hand.
Eugenie patted the empty place beside her, with a look for Lady Desdemona, who sat stiffly upright in her chair. “Do sit, Lord Swithin, I beg. We have not talked this age.”
“I fear that the honour is beyond my power at present to indulge, Your Grace. A large party of friends awaits my attention.”
“Of ladies, you mean?” Lady Desdemona cried, and lifted her glass to peer about the theatre. “Now where is your box? I should dearly love to see the rogues’ gallery you’ve carried in your train.”
“You have quite failed to acquaint me with your friend, Mona,” said the Earl in a tone of quelling severity.
“And are you due any such civility, Lord Swithin? I am not entirely convinced. But since you shame me to the courtesy — Miss Austen, may I present the Earl of Swithin. Lord Swithin, Miss Austen.”
The gentleman bowed and clicked his heels. “You are visiting Bath, Miss Austen?”
“A visit of some duration, my lord,” I replied easily, “since it has been prolonged now these three years and more. You are only just arrived, I collect?”
“I am.”
“For the Christmas holiday?”
“I may, perhaps, remain so long. I cannot undertake to say.”
“You do not attempt a trial of the waters, then? For their effects cannot be felt, I am assured, in less than two months.”
My brilliant line of chatter had not so entirely engrossed my attention, that I failed to notice Lady Desdemona’s furious regard for the Earl, nor the intensity of his returning stare; and the evident unease of the Dowager Duchess, as she surveyed the pair, did little to soften my anxiety. All attempt at forestalling a dispute, however, was as naught; for rather than responding to my gentle interrogation, the Earl abruptly broke out with—
“What the devil do you mean, Lady Desdemona, by throwing yourself in the path of a common upstart, who must necessarily get himself killed in your grandmamma’s house, and involve us all in the very worst sort of scandal?”
“Scandal? Is that now to be laid at my door?” Lady Desdemona retorted indignantly. “And what, might I ask, were you thinking, my lord Swithin, when you threw down your glove at poor Easton’s feet not a month ago — and all for the impropriety of having named your mistress in my hearing!”
“Easton is a fool.” The Earl replied with contempt. “He observes me riding with a married woman in the park, and suggests the greatest calumny. When I consider the injury that poor pup visited on Mrs. Trevelyan — I should have killed him when the opportunity served. But such vengeance, even in an affair of honour, is beneath me. Having no desire to flee the country on Easton’s account, I barely winged the fellow at twenty paces.[49] And what of Easton, indeed? It is hardly Easton who has driven me to Bath! Your conduct and impropriety, madam, have so involved my reputation, that I am forced to require an explanation.”
“And I shall certainly never give it!” Lady Desdemona cried. Her face was pale with anger. “I cannot conceive how my private affairs should involve a gentleman so entirely a stranger to my interest and happiness as yourself. But if ever I require your opinion, sir, regarding the intimates of Laura Place, I shall not hesitate to solicit it.”
“You may attempt to brave this out, Mona,” the Earl retorted in a warning tone, “but you shall not do so by abusing your friends. You will require as many as you may command in the coming weeks. Do you remember that, when the faint among them desert you. I could do a vast deal for Kinsfell, did I choose. You would do well to remember that also.”
“Your concern for my brother quite overwhelms me, Lord Swithin,” Lady Desdemona observed with a sneer. “Had you formed no intention of profiting by the Marquis’s misfortune, I might almost have credited the sincerity of it.”
The Earl bowed with frigid care and turned for the box’s door.
“Whatever they may say of Richard Portal,” Lady Desdemona threw at his retreating back, “he at least attempted to play the gentleman — in which guise you appear, my lord, as the merest caricature!”
Chapter 7
Performance of an Ingenue
13 December 1804, cont.
“OH, GRANDMAMMA — HOW DISTINCTLY ODIOUS SWITHIN is!” sighed Lady Desdemona despairingly, when the Earl had left us. “That a man may seem the very soul of elegance — possessed of understanding, education, and knowledge of the world — and yet be so utterly abominable.!”
“He is a hateful fellow, indeed,” the Dowager replied with a soothing pat. “He would have us all fear and love him to distraction, for which no one can forgive him.”
“Perhaps,” I said thoughtfully, “if he expected that adoration a little less—”
“I am sure I can have given him no expectation of the kind,” Lady Desdemona said stiffly. “I made every effort to assure him of my indifference.”
“And so appeared as spiteful as a cat,” the Dowager observed. “Your comment about his rogues’ gallery was far too broad, my sweet. I can detect no other ladies in the Swithin box than his sisters, Louisa and Augusta. You are far too attentive to the company he keeps. I might recommend, pauvre Mona, that the best way to turn a man enrage, as I suspect you mean to do, is to ignore him completely.”
“That should not be difficult,” her granddaughter retorted.
“Ah, Wren,” said the Dowager, “there you are at last.”
Miss Wren was revealed as drooping in the doorway, Her Grace’s wrap in her arms; and so the interesting discourse on Desdemona’s heart was allowed to fall away.
The young lady herself sank into her seat, lost in contemplation of the deserted stage; I guessed her thoughts to be wandering along the paths laid out by her helpful grandmamma. But at last, with a look for me, she attempted to elevate her spirits.
“You must be thinking me a terrible shrew, Miss Austen! I behaved just now with the height of incivility. I find that I cannot see Swithin without I abuse him hatefully.”
“I cannot think that Lord Swithin comported himself any more admirably; and he must be held to a higher standard. He is, after all, some ten years your senior — and yet you seem to have reduced him to the querulousness of a schoolboy!”
“I dread meeting him,” Lady Desdemona confessed. “It is excessively awkward to be thrown in the way of a man one has refused! It was to avoid scenes of that kind that I quitted London. And now — Swithin is come to Bath! What can he mean by it?”
“Perhaps he hopes to persuade you of the brilliance of his suit,” I suggested gently.
“Then I shall have to use every means within my power to convince him of my indifference!”
“By encouraging the attentions of other gentlemen, for example?”
She started up hotly, as though to protest, and then subsided in her chair. “I had entertained the notion,” she murmured.
“And chose Richard Portal as your primary object?”
“Mr. Portal does seem to have thoroughly enraged Swithin, does he not? It is too delicious! For the abominable Earl to accuse me of inciting scandal — and with such a man!”
Any answer I might have given was forestalled by Lord Harold’s return to the box, and the sounding of the bell that signalled the recommencement of the play.
WHEN THE CURTAIN HAD AT LENGTH RUNG DOWN ON Lovers’ Vows, and risen again for the gratification of the players’ vanity, and was at last required to close forever the scene of that forsaken German village — the Dowager Duchess thrust herself to her feet with some difficulty, and the assistance of her ebony cane. “W
ren!” she cried. “Make haste! Make haste! To the wings, I beg you, with our felicitations for Miss Conyngham! Lord Harold and I shall follow.”
I linked arms with Lady Desdemona, and we proceeded in company towards the stairs.
What a soaring infinity may be hidden by a proscenium curtain! What shifting worlds, in sliding panels of scenery — what hustle and bustle of figures to-ing and fro-ing about the business of the play — and what odours of beeswax, powder, paint, and scent! I stood upon the threshold of the stage’s wings, and felt myself at the border of another world. The most democratic of worlds, too — for any may rise to greatness in treading the humble boards. There is a nobility bestowed by art that mere birth can never imitate, as Mrs. Siddons and her brother have shown. Would Maria Conyngham achieve a similar elevation one day, and be celebrated in word and deed? Or would she end a discarded drab — full of blasted hopes, and riven dreams, and the oblivion drunk from a cup of gin?
“Your Grace,” called a voice from the obscurity of a screen.
Our party turned, and discovered the figure of Hugh Conyngham, arrayed still in his paint and court dress, a formidable Frederick. A slim, lithe figure, with a cap of dark curls arrayed in the fashionable Brutus; a sulky line to his mouth; restless blue eyes the colour of the sea. He bowed stiffly, but offered no other word.[50]
“Our deepest felicitations, Mr. Conyngham,” the Dowager cried, with all the energy of an enthusiast. “It was nobly played, sir — you do our Kotzebue great credit, I am sure.”
“And Mr. Portal as well, I hope,” the actor returned. His eyes were fixed upon Lord Harold; but he seemed disinclined to an introduction. It was as though, I thought, the actor wished to be anywhere but in the presence of the Wilborough clan.
“I am Lord Harold Trowbridge, Mr. Conyngham,” the Gentleman Rogue offered smoothly. “I must join my congratulations with my mother’s. For a company so thoroughly bowed in mourning, you comported yourselves with the utmost distinction. I was particularly struck by Miss Conyngham’s performance. She was as unmarked by grief as the Comic Muse.”
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