The Magic Hour

by Charlotte Bingham

  Alexandra was lying, tousled, languorous, her expression dreamy as she looked at Tom’s suntanned back, and marvelled at what had happened to her in the previous hours.

  ‘Whatever you say …’

  ‘I do say.’ Tom turned and looked at her. ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘The Ritz.’

  He reacted to this as if she had said something tactless, as if she had mentioned Bob.

  He paused before saying, ‘OK, so where are your things? I mean which suite are they in?’

  ‘I’m not in a suite, not like this. Just a single room and bathroom.’

  ‘I’ll ring them, and you can tell them to send your luggage round here.’

  ‘I should go and pack—’

  ‘No, no. I don’t want you going back there. I’ll pick up the tab, you just tell them to pack up your things, they’ll send them on.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want them to pack for me!’

  ‘Hotels do it all the time.’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘No. No, no “no, buts”, just tell them to send your things.’

  He asked to be put through to the Ritz and held out the telephone to Alexandra who did as asked, frowning. She replaced the receiver. She wanted to know why she was not allowed back to her hotel, but something stopped her from asking, something telling her that this was enemy territory, that such a question would break the spell, and she really did not want that.

  The next two days they walked around London hand in hand, strolled in the parks, went to the cinema again, lunched, dined, danced to the orchestra downstairs, went back to the suite, made love, and Alexandra was in heaven, but it wasn’t until she heard a snatch of La Traviata on the radio as they were dressing to go down for dinner that the reality dawned on her.

  So this was love! And once again she remembered Bob flicking her cheek and saying ‘I lost you a little tonight,’ and her trying to deny it, but realising that it was true, that he had lost her, if only for a minute or two.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Tom was standing over her.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Something.’

  Alexandra looked up at him with sad eyes.

  ‘Yes, actually, something.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  She couldn’t say what she now knew to be true, that she had thought she loved Bob, and she had – but not like this. This really was love.

  This was the tenor breaking down in a passion of tears because he so identified with Violetta dying in his arms, when the arms held the woman he loved in reality. This was love that knew that the impossible could happen, that you could lose love, and never ever find it again.

  Tom took her hands and pulled her to her feet, and taking her head he kissed her forehead gently.

  ‘I’m kissing away whatever you are thinking. You are not to think it again, do you hear?’

  Alexandra closed her eyes briefly before opening them again. She did not want to say what she knew to be true, which was that try as he might, Tom could not kiss away that particular thought. It was just a fact.

  Florazel had been visiting Mrs Posnet, which she sometimes did when she was staying at her brother’s estate, all part of what she called her ‘basket of scones’ duties, since many years before Mrs Posnet had used to work for the Duke as a housekeeper, and the family always prided themselves on not losing touch.

  This particular visit Mrs Posnet was looking and sounding strangely glamorous, petticoat rustling, smelling strongly of expensive French scent.

  ‘Have you been on holiday, Mrs Posnet?’

  Florazel smiled encouragingly, her beautiful blue eyes crinkling appreciatively, because she was always curious about people.

  ‘No, Lady Florazel, no, I have not been on holiday, I have been visited by a certain young gentleman newly returned from America. He’s the one who’s on holiday. Come back to see his old landlady.’

  She started colouring, as she remembered the scandal attached to Tom O’Brien’s sudden departure, and how Lady Florazel had paid up his rent for him and, rumour had it, lived with him in fine style for a long time.

  Florazel knew at once to whom she was referring, but she said no more, as neither of them would expect her to do. She had long ago regretted throwing Tom O’Brien over in such a hasty way, as if what that stupid old woman had said counted in the least. What would it have mattered if she had dragged the family name through the mud? But now the stupid old woman had died, she was quite sure that throwing Tom over had been a mistake. He had been the love of her life, and she was quite sure that she had been the love of his, and such love did not, alas, come along with a snap of the fingers.

  Of course she had been so-called in love since Tom. She was not someone who was ever content not to have an affair on the go, but the men who had followed Tom O’Brien had been less than satisfactory. They had been handsome, some of them, amusing, some of them, but none of them had done for her what he had done, and there was no denying this. She remembered their long affair, and how they had lived in such bliss – really there was no other word for it – at the Ritz, how she had turned him into an elegant, fashionable man about town, how much money she had lavished on him, both during the affair and after it. How she had sent a large sum to start him off in New York, how guilt had made her feel that she should endow him with enough funds to start him over again.

  But that was a long time ago, or seemed a long time ago, and now the realisation that Tom was back in England was exhilarating. More than that, she realised he really rather owed her now. She realised this because she knew, from what Mrs Posnet was saying about his having made such a success of his advertising company in New York, that Tom must have made a go of everything except perhaps love, because Mrs Posnet also mentioned that he was still a bachelor. So all in all she was very grateful that she had visited Mrs Posnet.

  Florazel smiled her really rather pretty cat-like smile, and she left Mrs Posnet as soon as she could, which was very shortly afterwards, so shortly afterwards that Mrs Posnet had the strangest feeling that she had said something wrong. She just couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Something. But what? Something, certainly. She went upstairs and removed her new taffeta petticoat from under her felt skirt, feeling somehow ashamed that she had worn it for Lady Florazel’s visit.

  Meanwhile Florazel drove to London in her new Bentley Continental feeling quite certain that the time might have come to pick up where she had left off with Tom O’Brien. After all, he had loved her with a passion, and now surely she had only to snap her fingers and he would do so again?

  Once back at her new London flat Florazel started to ring around the smartest hotels, starting naturally with the Ritz, and finally finishing with Claridge’s, which she had imagined might be just a little staid for Tom. How wrong she proved to be.

  She left a message for him. The hall porter put it in the relevant place, and when Tom and Alexandra checked in after dinner and the theatre later that evening he handed it to Tom. Come to the Ritz for a drink tomorrow lunchtime, the downstairs bar, will you? I long to see you, if only for old times’ sake. FLORAZEL.

  ‘Something interesting?’

  Tom shook his head and threw the note into a nearby wastepaper basket.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, not really, just someone who’s a bit of a menace.’

  He smiled at Alexandra, and kissed her quickly on the cheek. He too wanted to see Florazel, if only to write her a cheque, to repay her for the start she had given him, and to tell her that he was grateful to her for throwing him over, that he had met someone else. It would be just a drink after all, just a drink and then he would be back with Alexandra. As he asked for their key Alexandra glanced back at the wastepaper basket wondering why Tom had thrown the note away quite so quickly.

  The Devil’s Comedy

  The following morning Tom and Alexandra parted, neither making it particularly clear where they were going, but arrangin
g to meet back at the hotel after lunch, where love would most definitely be on the menu.

  Alexandra, filled with love and wonder for the happiness she had enjoyed for the past days, went to Bond Street where she bought Tom a beautiful pair of enamelled cufflinks. She had never bought a man a present before, at least not a present that was not for a birthday or Christmas. It seemed almost shocking. The assistant seemed to understand her vague embarrassment and was sympathetic, wrapping the present in exquisite paper and making sure that the smart sticker on the box proclaimed the jeweller’s name.

  Tom went shopping for Alexandra. He went to a myriad places: to Halcyon Days, where he bought her an exquisite marble jar and a woman’s hand holding a mirror with a pearl ring on one finger. He then went to Harrods where he bought her a matching pearl ring and earrings, and then, almost satiated, but not quite, he bought her a dozen LPs of the kind of music he now knew that she loved.

  And so it was that loaded down with the gifts that he wanted to give his beloved Alexandra, he went to the downstairs bar of the Ritz, to meet Florazel.

  As soon as he saw her he remembered just how much he had loved her, and just how much she had hurt him, and his feelings were torn between both extremes, but as he set down his carrier bags beside the chair which she indicated, he remembered that how he was feeling was how he had felt but no longer.

  Now was different. Now he had found Alexandra.

  ‘Tom.’

  She smiled, crinkling her eyes at him.

  ‘Florazel.’

  ‘You’re different. So much a man.’

  ‘You’re not, still so much a woman.’

  She immediately took that as a compliment, but then her eyes dropped to the carrier bags with their smart labels and gift-wrapped contents, and since Tom was making no obvious move to hand one, or any of them to her, a light frowning look came into the beautiful blue eyes, and she knew at once. Or at least she guessed that the presents were intended for someone else, that he must believe he was in love with someone else, not Florazel, and she was immediately glad that she had done as she had, that on leaving Mrs Posnet’s house she had driven to London and telephoned round, not just to the smart hotels, but to a friend of a friend who had been at school with one of the gossip columnists, a paid public-school snitch who liked to earn his corn by passing on tidbits, which so many of them did.

  Alexandra was meeting Jessamine and Cyrene for lunch. They were both rather silenced by her new look.

  ‘Wow, you look like the cat’s pyjamas, Alexandra Stamford. Really, twice the thing, if not three times.’

  Jessamine stared at her smart suit, her suede gloves and elegant shoes.

  ‘What happened to the home-made look, dear coz?’

  ‘I chucked it for the London look.’

  Both girls stared at her now, closely. They could see that she had changed, and not just because of her clothes.

  ‘Shopping at smart shops too.’

  Now they both stared at her small, chic parcel, so obviously a present for someone.

  ‘Nice present to yourself?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  They were all sipping drinks, and eyeing each other, wondering which way the lunch would go, how much they would tell each other, or how much they would not tell each other.

  Alexandra leaned forward, and dropping her voice she confided with a smile and a small fond look towards the parcel.

  ‘It’s a present for the new man in my life.’

  It was a cheap way to describe what she felt for Tom, but it was the kind of phrase her cousins would understand.

  ‘Oh, who?’

  ‘Do tell.’

  She paused, not quite willing, but not quite unwilling either.

  ‘He’s called Tom O’Brien. And he was a friend of my late fiancé and he wrote to me, ages ago, and we met this week – and, well, it seems that we’ve fallen in love.’

  There was a short silence.

  ‘We knew a Tom O’Brien,’ Cyrene said slowly, frowning. ‘You knew a Tom O’Brien, at Knighton. Remember?’

  Alexandra shook her head.

  ‘Yes, you do remember. Remember “the oik”?’

  ‘I remember you talking about him, but I never met him, no, I don’t remember him.’

  For some reason she could not name Alexandra felt her mouth going dry. It was something to do with the way the girls were staring at her, something to do with the way the girls were watching her so closely, as if they were waiting.

  ‘He was tall, dark and handsome. Very handsome, but you know – common.’

  ‘I expect there are literally hundreds of tall, dark, handsome Tom O’Briens in this world—’

  Jessamine picked up a copy of the newspaper beside her handbag, and opened it rather officiously as if about to make an important announcement. Alexandra watched her, saying nothing, but not liking the expression on her face.

  ‘Here. That’s him. That’s the oik. Used to be our groom until Daddy discovered him in one of the barns without a stitch on and had to boot him out. Bad boy O’Brien, that’s him.’

  She turned the newspaper towards Alexandra.

  The piece was headed: ‘New Love for Old?’

  Lady Florazel Compton, voted the débutante of the year during her Season, has remet a former love, one Thomas O’Brien, co-founder of Bodel O’Brien Inc., New York and London. Fingers are crossing for the ill-starred Duke’s daughter, everyone hoping that Cupid will finally hold sway and she will be hacking it up the aisle very soon. ‘I can’t comment at the moment. Let’s say it’s all going really rather well,’ my source was coyly told by Lady Florazel. Let’s hope so indeed. Lady Florazel has been a footloose filly for far too long.

  Alexandra had read the piece all too quickly, now she read the piece again all too slowly, and then she looked across at Jessamine.

  ‘Yes, that’s him,’ she admitted. ‘That’s Tom O’Ber-Ber-Brien.’

  The girls were silenced.

  ‘Oh dear, we could have warned you.’ For once in her life Cyrene looked genuinely upset. ‘He was always such a bad boy. Always flirting with us in the stables, always on the lookout for himself.’

  Alexandra stared around the restaurant blankly. She had been taken for one great ride. She had thrown herself at the Millingtons’ former groom, the oik, and now he was obviously intent on hacking off with this Lady Florazel Compton, whoever she was when she was at home. God, how could she have been so stupid?

  ‘I say, er, would you mind if I don’t have anything mer-mer-more? It’s all been a ber-ber-bit of a shock. I-er think I will just go back to the-the hotel.’

  She swallowed hard, tried to smile, and left.

  Jessamine stared after her.

  ‘What a thing to happen.’

  Cyrene sighed.

  ‘It would have to be the oik, wouldn’t it? Trust her to fall for him.’

  Tom stared at Florazel. She was still crinkling her eyes at him, but it was not having much effect, because her mouth was telling him something that he realised was still so painful to her.

  ‘How could I have gone on with you, knowing as I did that I had told you such terrible things about – about Gerald Hardwick, once I realised that …’

  She paused, waiting for maximum effect.

  ‘That he was my father.’

  She stared at him, stunned.

  ‘You knew? You knew all the time that I had run off with Gerald and that he was your father?’

  Tom shook his head and lit a cigarette.

  ‘No, as a matter of fact I didn’t know, I only found out a few weeks ago. You see my partner, Alfred Bodel, he was getting married, and in the States, very wisely, before you marry, you have to have a blood test, so that you know what is what about your blood as far as having children is concerned. So seeing Al going through all this, I decided to try and find out about my own background. I confess I was interested, particularly once I had received a much delayed notification from England that my grandmother had died, lea
ving me a large bequest, which thanks to lazy English lawyers falling behind in their work and being unable to trace me, had only just come to light. Of course from there the trail inevitably led back to Gerald, and to a whole new set of questions about my mother. Why had she taken a job so near to the Millingtons of all people? Guilt perhaps? They say you always return to the scene of the crime and she must have believed that she in some way caused Laura Millington’s death, however inadvertently.’

  Florazel was looking vaguely bored now. Sally Hardwick had died shortly after their meeting. They had never liked each other. It was not a subject she wished to discuss. She turned her attention back to Tom, not wanting to remember Sally and her threats.

  ‘So that’s how I realised that I had as it were, shared the same mistress as the late, and I gather, very unlamented Gerald Hardwick – my father,’ Tom finished.

  ‘I never wanted you to know. But the morning we were leaving for America Gerald’s mother turned up and she wanted to see you, but I didn’t want you to know about the past, didn’t want everything spoilt for us.’

  Tom looked at Florazel, feeling patient but unsympathetic, not believing her. Of course he would have liked to have known his grandmother, but since it was too late, he had every idea that keeping Sally Hardwick from Tom had not been Florazel’s only motivation. She would not have wanted the old lady to tell him about Florazel’s past, a past that she had kept so carefully hidden from him, for like all women who did what they wanted when they wanted with little regard to the outcome, Florazel had obviously fondly believed that poor Tom O’Brien had known nothing of her previous lovers, had perhaps always imagined that Tom lived in a state of complete innocence, thinking that Florazel enjoyed only one brief unhappy affair before finding love with him.

  ‘Florazel.’ He smiled at her. She was still stunning, but she was nothing compared to Alexandra. Certainly she was more beautiful, yards more sophisticated, but what was more than obvious to him now – Florazel was devious. ‘Florazel, you know you remind me of a dog?’

  Florazel’s eyes narrowed.