The Magic Hour

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘The excitement. New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town!’ Tom sang. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. We are on our way, at last we are on our way.’

  Florazel turned away as he rang the service bell for a porter to come for his luggage.

  ‘Off you go, Tom, off you go …’

  ‘See you aboard, all aboard the Q.M.!’

  He followed the porter out of the suite. Downstairs the old lady had gone, with a promise to return. Upstairs Florazel watched the love of her life stepping jauntily into the first of the waiting cars. She watched his dark head of hair, his tall slim body, and prayed that he would not turn, but he did. He turned and kissed his hand up to the window above him, knowing by some fine lover’s sense that she was probably watching him. Florazel too turned, but away from the window, tears pouring down her face.

  ‘My lady? My lady!’

  Maria went to her mistress as she flung herself on the richly cushioned chintz sofa, sobbing.

  ‘It’s nothing, nothing.’

  ‘If nothing, please why is my lady crying?’

  ‘Because – I can’t help myself.’

  The maid put a comforting arm around her mistress, understanding all too well the exigencies of love.

  ‘In Spain we say he who loves you, must hurt you. Also, I think, she who loves you, must hurt you.’

  Downstairs the hall porter held the door open for Sally Hardwick. She stepped out into a London she no longer recognised. She had done her duty. She would swait to get in touch with her grandson. For the moment, the ending of his first affair would be shock enough.

  A Rough Passage

  Mrs Smithers glanced at Alexandra over the top of her cup of coffee and then carefully replaced the gold-decorated cup on its gold-decorated saucer and looked up at her former maid-of-all-work, now housekeeper-cum-business partner.

  ‘I think you are a very wise person, Minty, to postpone marriage until after Robert comes out of the Army. National Service can change a man so greatly. Hasty marriages are not wise. The war exposed this, and now just look at the chaos we are enjoying. Divorce is becoming as usual as apple crumble, and as rampant as German measles.’

  ‘Ber-Ber-Bob – Robert – wanted to get married straight away, ber-ber-but I don’t think it would be a good idea. Ber-ber-besides I would not like to leave you, or Deanford, or the der-der-dogs. If we wait it will give us time to save up for a cottage here, somewhere near the Downs, because I never want to leave Deanford. It can only be good to wer-wer-wait, and it will be something I know you will want, won’t you, Mrs Smithers?’

  Mrs Smithers nodded. She was more than a little relieved, but anxious not to show it. Not that she thought that Minty would have left her in the lurch, because of course she knew that she would never do such a thing. A different sort of girl might, but Minty was not the average maid, and now that she was a housekeeper, and they were employing a daily lady to come in for the cleaning, now that the idea of the luncheons and dinners and At Homes were proving so popular with the older generation in Deanford, the idea of running it all – with someone else, or on her own – was not something to which she could look forward.

  ‘So what is on the menu today, Minty?’

  Alexandra glanced down at their appointment book.

  ‘The two Misses Anderson, they are entertaining an all-lerler-ladies luncheon on behalf of their favourite charity.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Der-Der-Dogs In Quarantine.’

  ‘Oh yes, a dreadful business, so many of them die of heartbreak. Such a good idea of the dear ladies to organise dogs in these kennels to have regular visitors. I shall contribute something to it myself, I am afraid I always feel more for dogs than I perhaps should. Anybody at dinner?’

  ‘No, we have no one at dinner, but you are invited to Mer-Mer-Major Cullington’s for dinner and I am—’

  ‘Chatty bridge, actually, Minty dear. The dear Major.’ There was a small silence. ‘You know he proposed marriage to me last week, Minty?’

  Alexandra stared, startled, but determined not to show it, for after working for Mrs Smithers as long as she had, she was more than used to the idea that Mrs Smithers did not appreciate overt emotions of any kind.

  ‘Really? Do you mer-mer-mind if I ask you whether you – whether you – accepted?’

  ‘No, Minty dear. Like you, I thought it better to put off the whole idea until such time as we know how well we are doing. Security first, my dear, security first. I don’t want to be supporting the Major until I am quite, quite sure that I have enough in the bank to do so.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Besides,’ Mrs Smithers went on. ‘Besides, I have to tell you the idea of sharing my life with someone else is not something I particularly relish. It is all right to have beaux at my age, admirers certainly, but I certainly would not want to be at the behest of a member of the opposite sex again. They just can’t help themselves, you know. They have to take control, and I couldn’t countenance that, not at my age. At your age, it’s different, but when one’s older one is used to one’s own way. No, it is best to keep the admirers on an end of a string, and let’s face it, half the time, they enjoy it more like that.’

  ‘Yes, I der-der-do understand.’ Alexandra smiled. ‘Perhaps this is the wrong time then to tell you that I myself am going out this evening, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Ah, Robert taking you to dinner, is he?’

  Now that Bob was no longer a threat to their little business Mrs Smithers did not seem to mind talking about him quite openly.

  ‘Ner-ner-no, well yes, but he is first taking me to the opera at Prentisbourne.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me the title of the opera?’

  ‘La Ter—’ Alexandra hesitated. ‘La Ter-Ter-Traviata.’

  ‘Ah. La Traviata. Mmm. A torrid tale if ever there was one; above all a warning to girls not to think that playing fast and loose can get you anywhere. Playing fast and loose always ends in tragedy.’

  ‘Most especially if you have TB.’

  ‘Ah yes, poor soul, poor Violetta coughing and spluttering, while at the same time singing fit to bust – heartbreaking! But we all love to believe in it, because we want to. Now be off with you, before I spoil it any more for you.’

  It was evening dress for the opera, and so Alexandra was once more able to wear the dress that Bob had bought her for her birthday what now seemed an age ago, an age during which they had become unofficially engaged, putting off the awful moment when they met each other’s parents, putting off the days of panic and recrimination, hurt and anxiety that weddings always seem to prompt.

  ‘You look smashing. So glam. So – turn around. Oh and so beautiful,’ Bob added softly.

  ‘And you ler-ler-look as handsome as handsome does, Mr Atkins, soon no doubt to be Captain Atkins, or Colonel Atkins, or something.’

  They both laughed, and minutes later stepped into the taxi that was due to take them to the local opera house.

  Despite there being fewer in the audience who, like themselves, were younger, Alexandra experienced the overall feeling not of being out of place, or of joining a large assembly of a snobbish elite, but rather of mixing with people all of whom were determined to come looking their best, not for themselves, not to show off, but quite simply to honour the artists who were to present the opera.

  From the moment the orchestra struck up the opening chords of the overture, Alexandra stilled. She had taken the precaution of listening to the music on a stack of Mrs Smithers’s pre-war seventy-eight records, but the effect in an opera house was really rather different from that of an old wind-up gramophone. Besides, as she joked to Bob in the interval, it was such a relief not to have to change both the records and the needles.

  During the second act, as the opera unfolded and the father made his entrance to plead to Violetta, a woman of bad repute, to give up his son, Alexandra remembered for the first time for months that she too had a father, albeit from whom she never hea
rd, and it seemed to her that she could hear voices from the past, her grandmother’s entreaties to Father to give up Kay Cullen, to find a girl from his own background, someone with whom he could settle down, a nice country girl.

  ‘Poor old chap,’ Bob said conversationally in the second interval, and Alexandra smiled. It was such a Bob thing to say, and because of that, for all sorts of reasons, she felt her heartache over her past ease. Bob had a way of making everything feel normal, and good, and settled.

  The third act opened to gasps from the audience. The set had been magnified so that the characters seemed dwarfed by the tragedy of their situation; powerless to overcome the awfulness of parting, of love too late realised, unable to stop the awful advent of death.

  The singing had just reached its crescendo as Alfredo realises that Violetta is not long for this world when the tenor stopped abruptly. The audience murmured as seconds later the orchestra too fell to silence, a silence finally followed by the sound of the tenor sobbing as he held the frail Violetta to him.

  Finally the conductor turned to the audience and in courteous tones explained that the two singers had only just married that week and that in playing the part of Alfredo the tenor had quite simply been overcome by the moment. This was followed by a murmur, this time of appreciation, from all over the auditorium, and conciliatory applause, before the conductor once more raised his baton, the singers began again, and the opera finally continued to its inevitable, tragic conclusion.

  If Alexandra had been moved by the opera itself, now she found herself equally moved by the situation on stage. Tears splashed unchecked onto her precious organdie-topped evening dress. So – so – so this was great love!

  ‘I say, that’s a lesson to snakes not to listen to one’s father,’ Bob joked as the curtain fell and he joined in the thunderous applause.

  Alexandra, her face now hastily powdered, kept her head turned slightly away from him, knowing instinctively that Bob would not like it if he thought she had been crying.

  ‘Something the matter, Minty?’

  Bob held her to him as they sat together on her sofa later. Alexandra smiled, and shook her head.

  ‘Ner-ner-no, of course not. It was a wonderful evening. Thank you so much.’

  ‘I say, Italians do seem to have a corner in tragedy, don’t they?’

  Bob smiled. Alexandra nodded, her eyes not quite meeting his.

  ‘Don’t worry we shan’t let it happen to us, darling. As soon as the old Nat. Service is over I will be back, bob, bob, bobbing along, and no father will stop me marrying you, I promise.’

  He kissed her warmly and pasionately. Alexandra tried to return his feelings through their kiss, but knew that in some way she had failed, and worse than that she knew that Bob knew it.

  ‘Last time I take you to the opera, young lady.’

  ‘Ber-ber-because?’

  ‘It’s made you sad. Too sad.’ He flicked her cheek affectionately. ‘Doubtless you will cheer up soon. I’m leaving next week, so that should bring a smile back,’ he added, careful to keep his tone flippant.

  ‘Oh no, der-der-don’t say that, I shall mer-mer-miss you so much.’ Alexandra flung her arms around his neck. ‘I shall miss you more than I can ever ter-ter-tell you.’

  ‘I suppose we’re right to wait so long?’

  Bob looked down at her, a wistful tone overtaking his usual bustling cheerfulness.

  ‘What else can we do? You ner-ner-know your parents won’t hear of you marrying before you’ve been in the Army. Der-der-different once I’ve proved myself to be a bit more than a maid-of-all-work maybe but at the moment—’

  ‘You’re as good as anyone. Just because your father has remarried and you have to make your own way in the world—’

  ‘Jer-jer-just joking, but you know what I mean. I’m not exactly a catch, yet, but Mrs Smithers and I – we’ve got a good business going here, and she is going to make me a p-per-proper partner one of these days. So it’s just as well to wait. It seems a long time now, but soon it will be over, the two years will be over, and we’ll have a home of our own, which is unimaginable.’

  Bob nodded but the look in his eyes was unchanged.

  ‘I just don’t want to lose you, Minty mine. I don’t want to lose you to someone else while I’m away.’

  ‘Why should you think that, Ber-ber-Bob? Not many per-per-people would per-per-put up with my hesitation, you know!’ she ended joking.

  Bob looked at her.

  ‘You know I find your hesitation endearing; we’ve talked about that. No, I do – I worry that I will lose you when I’m away, lose you to someone else.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I lost you a little tonight, darling.’

  ‘No, no, you didn’t.’

  ‘I did. Just for an hour or so, I lost you.’ He flicked her cheek again. ‘But now you’re back with me. I wouldn’t want it to happen again. People grow apart. The war’s shown that. I don’t want you to grow apart from me.’

  ‘I shan’t.’

  Tom was waiting in the suite, a glass of champagne in his hand. The roses were all white, just the way Florazel liked them. The champagne was Veuve Clicquot, just the label she enjoyed, and one that he too had been enjoying for the past half-hour.

  Outside the porthole windows the sun was shining, the sea sparkling. It would not be an exaggeration to say it seemed to him at that moment his heart would burst with happiness.

  What had he done to deserve so much? He turned to go back into the bedroom and check that everything there too was just as Florazel liked it. He had already put his own clothes away. Now he imagined her moving swiftly and elegantly among her luggage. The vast, studded trunks, the soft leather of her hand luggage: it would soon be swamping the room, and she would be laughing and teasing him, and both of them looking forward to the excitements ahead.

  Tom thought dreamily of her, as he always did when he was away from her for more than a few minutes. Everything about Florazel was amazing to him. Her air of distancing herself from the rest of the world, her smile that lit up her blue, blue eyes, the way her mouth curved at the corners, the sound of her laugh. He stroked the bedspread, imagining himself making love to her as the boat sailed off into the ocean blue, just the two of them in each other’s arms on the ocean.

  He looked around suddenly.

  The boat was sailing off. My God the boat was sailing off, without Florazel.

  Florazel!

  What a stupid thing to do, to find yourself going to the door of your suite and about to call her name.

  He put down his champagne glass and dashed through the door instead, flinging himself onto the stairs that led to the upper decks. Crowds were lining the sides of the ship, waving. They were all waving and cheering, but much as he searched among them, his eyes longing for the sight of her blonde hair, her beautiful face, there was no one among them who looked remotely like her.

  ‘Florazel? Florazel? Where are you?’

  He spun off down to their suite once more, to be greeted by a steward.

  ‘Ah, there you are, sir. We was looking for you. A letter for you, to await arrival.’ He pointed proudly to handwriting on the envelope that Tom recognised at once. ‘And now you have arrived, you are arrived, and what is more, sir, you are here. So all is well.’ He smiled.

  Tom took the letter.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid that all is far from well. Lady Florazel has missed the boat, the ship, I think that she has missed boarding the ship.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The steward gave him a sympathetic look, and then hurried off as Tom tore open the envelope.

  Tom darling [the letter inevitably began], it has been wonderful. But the time has come to part. You to the New World, which you will love, I to pastures new. On the practical side I have left a large amount of cash for you with the ship’s bursar, which you must use, if only to please me, and there is an accou
nt in New York at the Chase Manhattan Bank which I have opened in your name. Money enough I think to last you for a while. Please take it, because it is only what you deserve, Tom. There are so few words that can sum up the happiness that you have brought me in the last year, but happiness you have indeed brought me. Believe me. Great happiness. And I hope I have brought you happiness too, darling, but it can’t go on. I have a corner in ending relationships, as you doubtless know, but always remember, that does not mean that I have not loved you.

  Florazel.

  The ship plunged suddenly and so did Tom, forward onto the couch where, for the first time in his life, he found shameful tears coursing down his cheeks.

  Once the spasm of grief had passed he lay for hours on the opulent sofa, his eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open, until it was dark outside; and then gradually came light – and then more light. Happily no one came to the suite, no one rang or knocked, so he could lie there pretending that he was in some way dead from the shock of Florazel’s heartlessness. All he could hear in the distance was the sound of the ship’s engines, and occasionally, people passing the outer door, some people laughing, some people talking, but such sounds as there were only confirmed his state of lonely isolation, of being bereft, of having nothing more for which to live. Florazel had been the centre of his whole life, his waking day, his closing night, and now she had cut him loose, thrown him off, made him feel worthless.

  Finally, with the advent of morning and out of the darkness of his misery, he heard old Westrup’s voice coming to him from the old days at Knighton Hall.

  ‘Naught so dampening as self-pity, and you know what’s worse than the damp of self-pity, young Tom? It’s that in pitying thyself it leaves naught for anyone else to do, that’s what’s worse.’

  Eventually, mercifully, Tom grew hungry, rang for breakfast, and began to curse Florazel’s memory, and mock himself for feeling as he had. He had been a young fool, and she nothing but a lightweight. Lady Florazel Compton, able to throw off love as if a love such as they had enjoyed came along every five seconds, which possibly for someone like her, it did. Florazel could buy anyone. She had bought him, for God’s sake. What had he heard her say about him that evening long ago? That he was her toy?