‘How delightful, your ladyship—’
‘How very good of you to ask us, dear Lady Strathord, how very affable—’ She hurried on as fast as her limp and ebony stick would allow her, to avoid hearing more.
There were a number of pretty young women present, for as Francis Drake had said of York in his book Eboracum a few years back, ‘The women are remarkably handsome; it being taken notice of by strangers that they see more pretty faces in York than in any other place’; and Daniel Defoe had said in his book, ‘The ladies of the north are as handsome and as well dressed as are to be seen either at the Court or the ball.’ Henry hurried off as soon as he was in the room to take advantage of his name and his good-humoured countenance to fill a few blanks on the young women’s cards. He may not have been as handsome as his elder brother, but he was very little less popular at balls, making half the looks go twice as far by the economical addition of charm. Thomas would have done the same, but Rupert, with whom they had been standing, did not seem at all inclined to move, and Thomas felt obliged to wait for his cue.
They had met yesterday at the dinner-party, and despite being expected to be friendly by their seniors, they had been sufficiently attracted to each other to have arranged to spend the morning of the ball together. Thomas was fascinated by Rupert, by his fashionable appearance, his languid elegance, and above all by his talk. He had hoped to repay the entertainment, and perhaps win a little admiration of his own, by taking Rupert riding that morning, for there was no doubt that Thomas was the best horseman in the county and that the Morland horses were the best, probably in the country. Lord Meldon accepted the invitation readily enough to flatter Thomas’s hopes, but though he appeared at the arranged time, dressed in splendid style, and though he sat his horse well enough, he did not take any notice either of Thomas’s horse or his horsemanship. Lord Meldon’s idea of a ride, indeed, was quite different from Thomas’s, being a leisurely amble at walking-pace through the fields, broken by a short and gentle canter over the most level ground. He did not wish to see any of the countryside, nor jump hedges, nor gallop over the moors, nor dare the quarryside or the river-crossing.
He did not talk horses, either, which puzzled Thomas, for in Yorkshire young men talked little else. All Rupert’s conversation was the theatre, and ‘my friend Garrick, the actor, you know’. However, the theatre was a new field to Thomas, and undeniably fascinating, especially when Rupert larded his talk with cant phrases and technical terms and flatteringly assumed that Thomas would understand them. Nevertheless there was something odd about him, Thomas thought, though he could not quite decide what.
Seeing Harry dash off, however, he thought it wise to give Rupert a hint.
‘I say, Meldon, would you not like to speak for a partner for the first dance? I know there are the minuets first, but the best girls are snapped up so quickly, that we shall be left out if we delay too long. See, my brother has already asked Miss Nevill – she is considered quite a beauty at the Assembly Rooms.’
Rupert looked around from under his half-closed eyelids and said languidly, ‘There is not, my dear Morland, a woman fit to be stood up with in the whole room except our hostess. Your Miss Nevill a beauty? Do not say it! The frightful hag your brother is talking to this minute? The creature with the bird’s-nest hair? My dear, you cannot mean it.’ He sighed. ‘I did not at all want to come to Yorkshire, you know, but my father insisted upon it, and as he has control of my allowance I cannot say him nay. I hoped Lady Strathord might provide me with a little amusement, but of course even she cannot make bricks without straw.’
Thomas was looking a little puzzled. He had never come across anyone who talked like Rupert. He tried again, hesitantly. ‘But the young woman over there, in the blue sack, with the golden hair?’ he said, indicating Miss Pobgee, with whom he had hoped to dance the two first. ‘Do you not think her handsome?’
Rupert bestowed the favour of half a glance on her, and turned his head away, closing his eyes. Thomas, aware that Miss Pobgee was watching him from behind her fan, blushed with embarrassment.
‘Monstrous!’ Rupert cried. ‘But come, my dear Morland, we shall not harm our senses by looking at such creatures. Dancing is so stupid, as tedious to perform as to watch. Let us find something to drink, and a quiet place to drink it, and talk instead. I wish to tell you about the cruel, cruel satire that Foote has made on my friend Garrick.’
He walked away, looking for a servant to send for wine, and Thomas trailed after him, half admiring anyone who could so despise the best society of York, and half disappointed, since he had looked forward to the ball for days. Yet there was no resisting Rupert’s fascination.
Despite the horrors of the journey across the Irish Sea, Maurice was well pleased with his visit, and wondered that he had never gone before. Dublin was not at all what he had expected: it had public and private buildings of great beauty, and a society of wit and learning whose taste for the arts, and especially for music, was voracious. It was a small society, of course, and everyone knew everyone else to an even more claustrophobic degree than in London; the gossip was wittier and also more cruel; the women seemed to enjoy a greater degree of freedom than at home. There was a strange mixture of native Irish nobility and gentry, and English pensioners and placeholders, and one or two eccentrics who, having once lived in Dublin from necessity, simply refused to live anywhere else. Maurice was also aware that outside the glittering circle of the society was the mass of silent, poverty-stricken aboriginals, just as outside of the architecturally acceptable centre of Dublin lay the mean streets and squalid hovels that he had anticipated and was now able to ignore completely.
He and Handel were staying at the Castle with the Viceroy, and on the day after their arrival a reception was given for them, at which they met the people whose faces were to become so familiar in a matter of days. Handel was greeted rapturously, for this was not his first visit, but Maurice was amused and flattered to find that he, too, was a hero, and the degree to which his music was known and, at least professedly, admired amazed him. He expressed his surprise to one of the leading lights of Dublin musical circle, a Mrs Estoyle. Despite the obviously French origins of her name, she pronounced it with a heavy emphasis on the first syllable, as if it were completely Irish. She was a widow of around thirty, beautiful in a ripe, Roman way, evidently extremely rich, to judge by her diamonds. She had glossy red hair and long green eyes, which gazed into his with unmistakable promise, and long white fingers which seized his arm to keep him close by her, and a magnificent white bosom at which he found it difficult not to stare. Her salons were famous, and she was reputed to have had a hundred lovers. Maurice was not at all sceptical.
‘But my dear Lord Chelmsford, I assure you we know all about you here. I wonder, do you understimate yourself, or us?’
‘As I cannot, in politeness, confess to the latter, I must admit the former,’ Maurice said, amused. She pouted a little, and her bosom lifted towards him invitingly.
‘I do not believe you. Your music – so heavenly! So absolutely what one likes! And I believe Karelia herself sang your Herodias? Wonderful, wonderful woman! We invited her here, you know, but she would not come. No, I’m afraid she had the same thoughts, the same unworthy thoughts, about Dublin society as I see plainly you had, despite your denials. Well, my dear Earl, let me tell you, a few, only a few years ago, you would not have been so very wrong. Why, when George I came to the throne, Dublin was nothing but a dirty, ill-built little town with nothing to recommend it.’ Maurice made polite noises of disbelief. She smiled coquettishly.
‘But it is true, I vow and swear. Do not, now, be disbelieving me, or I shall have to be angry with you! Yes, hardly a house fit to be visited. But we have pulled down, you know, and built up. Whole streets demolished, others widened, hovels torn down and such a multitude of lovely mansions erected in their place, for all the best people in Ireland. The Duke of Leinster, and Lord Tyrone – there, you will meet them all, may dear Lord Chelmsfor
d, and think me impertinent for wishing to inform you. But my dear sir, may I hope that while you are here you will favour us with a performance?’
‘A performance?’ Maurice said, wondering for a wild moment whether she was making a gross sexual advance to him. She widened her already wide green eyes.
‘Why yes! We know that you are the greatest exponent of the trumpet of our age, and we are hoping so much that you will give a recital.’
‘Madam,’ Maurice laughed, ‘you must spare my years. I have not given a public performance for years. I play only in private for my own and my friends’ amusement.’
‘I am sorry, Lord Chelmsford,’ she said with pretended gravity, ‘but I do not believe you. I think you are afraid for your dignity. But I assure you in Dublin, music is all. Lord Mornington does not disdain to perform in St Stephens or St Patricks. We take a collection, you know, for the hospital. But you have lived in Venice, where the noblest in the land perform in public, and you are merely playing with me, I know it. You will perform while you are here.’
‘Madam, I can only say I have no intention of doing so,’ Maurice said. She inched even closer, her marbled bosom heaving.
‘And you must promise me that as soon as the official parties are over, you will make mine the very first house you visit. I insist upon having the honour. I wish to present you to everyone, all my dearest friends who love your music so much. And afterwards, when they have all gazed their fill, I shall send them away, and then you and I may have a little private supper and talk,’ her voice became liquid, ‘and talk to our hearts’ content. About music, you know.’
Maurice had much ado to keep from laughing. It was very flattering to be found so attractive at his age, by a woman of half his years. When she finally left him for some other conversation, he sidled over to Handel, who was sorting through some music in a quiet corner of the room.
‘Who is that extraordinary woman?’ Maurice asked, shaking his handkerchief out of his sleeve to wipe his brow. Handel glanced up.
‘Oh, Mrs Estoyle. She’s very rich. And very musical.’
Is she? She asked me to her house in the most extraordinary manner.’
‘Nothing extraordinary about it. She has a salon. I’ve been on a number of occasions. All the best people go. She is a very generous patroness – subscribed a score of tickets for my Messiah. You won’t be required to sing for your supper, you know.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Maurice said. ‘Were you one of her fabled hundred lovers, George?’
Handel looked no more than mildly surprised. ‘My dear Morland, that sort of thing is not in my line at all. My attractions for her are entirely artistic’
‘I wish I could say the same,’ Maurice murmured.
The performance of the Messiah was to be given in the Music Hall in Fishamble Street on 13 April, and there had been a remarkable seven hundred subscribers. ‘Two hundred more even than last year,’ Handel said in delight. ‘I can’t imagine how they are all going to get in.’
It was indeed a problem, as Maurice appreciated when he had seen the size of the hall. Eventually it was decided to ask the subscribers to help by coming to the conceit, the ladies without hoops to their dresses, and the gentlemen without swords. Having regard to the relentless fashionableness of society, Maurice wondered if the appeal would have any effect, but in fact almost all complied, leaving at home the very symbols of their gentility in the cause of art.
Handel was as nervous as a novice before the performance, and begged Maurice to accompany him up until the last minute, which Maurice was only too delighted to do. He was worried about the reception the piece would get, for it was certainly very odd, though some of the music, which he had only seen in manuscript, was ravishing. The Lord Lieutenant’s coach left them down at the back door, and as soon as they entered, the continuo player rushed up to them waving his hands in panic and telling a tale of woe. In a moment he had led them to the back-stage room where the musicians were assembling, and there they found the trumpet-player who was to perform Handel’s special obbligato sitting in a sorry huddle, a bloodstained handkerchief to his face.
‘It was an accident, I swear to God it was,’ cried the timpanist. ‘I didn’t see him bending over there.’
He had been bringing in one of his great drums, unable to see much over the top of it, just at a time when the trumpeter had been bending down to fasten his shoe, and had walked straight into him.
‘The lip isn’t split, thank heaven,’ Handel said, having examined the man’s swollen mouth and nose, ‘but he can’t play today, that’s clear. Well, we shall have to manage without the second trumpet part, and second trumpet can play the first trumpet part. Where is he?’
A thin, pale boy of fifteen was shoved forward by his fellows, who were, in the way of all flesh, enjoying the disaster. He turned paler still and said, ‘I couldn’t, sir, I really couldn’t. Ifs too hard for me, that part. Patrick there, he’s the only man in Dublin could play you such a piece, and no man in the world could do it on sight, without a bit of a practice beforehand.’
Handel turned to Maurice, and the two men read each other’s thoughts and began slowly to smile. ‘Not so, lad. I know one man who could play it on sight,’ Handel said. Maurice raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘Don’t overawe the lad, George. Remember I’ve seen it before.’
‘You, sir?’ gasped the boy. Handel put an arm over his friend’s shoulder.
‘This is the great Maurice Morland, boy,’ he said.
‘There, and I thought he was only a nobleman,’ said the child innocently. Handel raised an eyebrow at Maurice.
‘Well, Lord Chelmsford? Will you?’
Maurice gave his most Italian shrug. ‘I don’t see how I can refuse. But for God’s sake, don’t announce it, and try not to tell anyone. I hate to think how Mrs Estoyle will gloat.’
On the day after the ball, Nicoletta did not get up. She had been feeling very tired for the last few days, and now she had a headache, and odd pains in her back. Alessandra came at once to see her, and sat by her, holding her hand in concern.
‘I had better call for the doctor to come and see you,’ she said. ‘My poor Nicoletta, you look quite flushed. I think you may have a fever.’
‘Oh no, it is nothing. Too late a night, too much excitement, too much dancing,’ Nicoletta said. ‘ Do not trouble anyone, please, cara. I shall have a lazy day in bed, and I shall be well tomorrow. What is that noise outside?’ They both listened.
‘It is Rupert, going out riding with Thomas again,’ Alessandra said. ‘I’ll tell them to be quiet.’
‘Oh, no, please ask Rupert to come and see me for a moment; I want to see him in his new coat. It is so good for him being here, away from London and all those actors. I am sure they are not respectable. Thomas is such a nice boy.’
Alessandra gave a curious grimace, and went to bring Rupert in. Thomas came with him, looking pink and shamefaced, and apologized for making a noise. Rupert went over and kissed his mother on the mouth like a lover, which Thomas thought odd – but then so much that Rupert did was odd. Nicoletta smiled and pushed Rupert’s hair from his face.
‘How nice you look, my darling. And did you have a good time at the ball?’
‘Oh yes, very nice’ Rupert said, curling a lock of her hair round his finger.
‘But you did not dance with anyone, my darling. I made sure you would dance a little.’
‘I did not care to. You are the only woman I love, madonna. Besides’ he looked over his shoulder at Thomas, ‘I had a much nicer time talking – didn’t we, Morland?’
‘Oh – much’ Thomas said awkwardly. Nicoletta smiled at him kindly.
‘And you take my Rupert riding again today. How kind you are. Well, I won’t keep you. Come and kiss me too, Thomas. Goodbye. I hope you have a pleasant time.’
‘We will, mother, we will. Come on, Morland, don’t dawdle’ Rupert cried, and grabbing Thomas’s hand, hurried him out. Al
essandra watched them go thoughtfully.
‘He didn’t dance at all, did he?’ she said. Nicoletta brought her thoughts back with an effort.
‘No, not at all. But then’ she brightened, ‘nor did Thomas.’
By the afternoon, the headache was worse, and she had begun to have shivering fits, and was obviously feverish. She ate no dinner, but Alessandra persuaded her to take a little gruel at tea-time, which she vomited up soon afterwards. She still insisted she would be better the next day, but in the morning the fever was worse, and Alessandra called for the doctor. He came in the afternoon, and shook his head gravely.
‘I cannot tell what it is. It could be any one of many different things, which all display the same symptoms at first. In a day or two we shall know. But in the meantime, she must be kept in isolation, and nothing must go out of this room unless it is thoroughly scrubbed and fumigated.’
Alessandra’s hands clenched nervously. ‘What – is it you fear?’
‘Smallpox,’ the doctor said. ‘It is the most infectious disease known to man.’
CHAPTER NINE
On the third day of her illness, Nicoletta woke feeling better. The fever had abated and the pains in her back and the headache had gone.
‘You see’ she said triumphantly to Alessandra, ‘I told you I should be well again.’
‘But, my darling,’ Alessandra said in concern, ‘your face is so flushed. Surely you cannot be right about the fever having gone?’ She leaned forward to examine Nicoletta’s face more closely, and then said, ‘Shew me your hands.’ Nicoletta spread them forth, and they both stared at them as a slow horror spread over Nicoletta’s face. Her hands, like her face, were covered in a rash of tiny red spots, so close together that they had at first resembled a blush. Nicoletta gave a terrible cry.
‘What is it? Christe Maria, what is it?’
Dynasty 8: The Maiden: The Maiden (The Morland Dynasty) Page 19
