The Fortune Hunter Page 6

  But it was unfair that she should be getting laughter lines. There had not been so very much to smile about. There was a scratching at the door and Elizabeth smelt the monkey as it bounded into the room.

  Elizabeth thought of the expression on the English housekeeper’s face when she saw the dark stain spreading on her skirt. She knew that it was cruel of her to laugh, but it was such a relief to see something real in the middle of all that stiffness. It had felt like a good omen. Maybe, she thought, she could be happy here. She smoothed the skin round her eyes with her fingertips. The lines would come anyway; perhaps it was more important to find something to laugh about.

  There was a knock at the door. Countess Festetics, the thin Hungarian lady-in-waiting, came in, her sleek head down and slightly forward as if she were an otter parting the waves. She was carrying a letter.

  ‘Majesty.’ She curtsied and handed the envelope to Elizabeth.

  ‘Dearest Sisi, I hope you have arrived safely and that the house is to your satisfaction…’

  It was a letter from Maria. Elizabeth felt her face tighten. Of her four sisters, Maria was the nearest to her in age, and they had been very close when they were little, but like so many things the relationship had changed with her marriage. Helena had been dignified about losing the chance to be Empress, but Maria was too young to conceal her envy. Things had improved when Maria had married the King of Naples, but she had barely had a chance to enjoy her status before the Revolution. And now she was a queen in exile, married to a man she could barely tolerate, with no children to comfort her.

  The letter went on, ‘I have been sorely tried these last few months; when I think of the riches I took for granted in Naples … and there are so many minor indignities. Only the other day the Duchess of Savoy was given precedence over me at a Drawing Room.’ The letter continued with a catalogue of misfortunes and slights that Maria had been forced to endure. At the end there was a postscript, ‘But now that you are here, dearest Sisi, I feel sure that my fortunes must improve. I hope that a little of your imperial glory will reflect on me.’

  Elizabeth put the letter down; reading Maria’s letter had made her feel weary. She knew that her sister wanted sympathy, but Elizabeth felt something close to irritation. Why should she be made to feel guilty for still wearing a crown?

  Festetics was saying something in Hungarian about the dinner tomorrow. Elizabeth felt her spirits lift as she replied in the same language, ‘Tell Count Esterhazy and Prince Liechtenstein that my sister is coming for dinner tomorrow.’ Her cavaliers could be relied upon to pay court to Maria. Max and Felix were always charming, and so handsome. Of course, she would always be the object of their most intense adoration, but she would not object to a little flirtation with Maria. She was probably starved of that kind of distraction. Judging by the lumbering manners of Earl Spencer, English men had no idea how to flatter a woman. Her life had become considerably more pleasant now that Max and Felix had become her cavalieri serventi. The fact that they were inseparable meant that there could be no flicker of scandal in their slavish devotion to their Empress. Her husband, Franz Joseph, had made one of his rare jokes about them, ‘I shall call them the dual monarchy – an Austrian and a Hungarian yoked together in the service of a greater cause.’

  She looked at the clock; it was a little after ten. At this hour her husband would be sitting in his apartments in the Hofburg going through the state papers with his magnifying glass.

  In the early days of their marriage she had been so jealous of those piles of paper. They were always there, waiting for him at five in the morning and still there at midnight when he went to bed. When she had dared to complain, he had looked at her as if he didn’t understand what language she was speaking. ‘I am the Emperor, this is my work.’ She had retreated then in the face of his seriousness, but as time went on she realised that even if the country didn’t need him to approve every appointment in the civil service or to sign every document relating to the management of his vast empire, Franz could not wake up in the morning or go to sleep at night without his paper mountain of responsibilities. Once she had resented the time he spent scratching through forestry reports from Carpathia; now she thought of those bundles of paper tied up in red tape with relief. While he had his head down over the paper trail of his empire, he could not look up and reproach her for leaving him alone.

  She pictured his study. So spartan for a Hapsburg emperor. Franz slept every night on his iron campaign bed. The only colourful thing was the Winterhalter portrait hanging over his desk, the one of her holding up her hair in a great knot. Not her favourite portrait, but Franz was so fond of it. Probably by now he preferred it to the real woman. In the picture, at least, she was smiling at him.

  Sisi picked up her pen and started to write. She certainly found it easier to write affectionately to her husband now that they were safely in different countries. At this distance Franz’s inflexible routine seemed comforting rather than irritating. She liked the idea that she always knew where he would be and what he would be doing at any hour of the day. But it was better to know of it than to see it in its daily monotony.

  By the end of her letter Sisi felt quite warm towards her husband. She thought that if he were here she would like to put her head on his chest for a moment and feel his warm hand on her shoulder. A moment, though, would be enough.

  Franz had not protested when she had proposed this trip to England. In fact he had been almost eager, doubling her allowance and giving her the imperial train to transport her horses. For a moment Sisi wondered whether he actually wanted her to go and felt a little hurt; but then she dismissed the thought as incredible, Franzl would never ever admit even to himself that there was anything untoward about their marriage.

  She signed her name Sisi with her usual flourish and sealed the letter. Her duty done, she allowed Festetics to settle her into the vast bed. The day after tomorrow she would be hunting.

  The Orchid House

  The next day was a Sunday. There had been a private chapel at Melton since it was built in the early 1600s. The original had been an austere building, almost Lutheran in its simplicity. But Lord Crewe’s enthusiasm for the Gothic had extended to every part of the house, and the architect, who was a disciple – there was no other word – of Pugin, had transformed the chapel into a polychrome tribute to High Anglican devotion. The simple clerestory windows had been replaced with a riot of stained glass depicting Noah’s Ark (Lord Crewe had always wanted a menagerie). The flagged stone floor had been taken up and a tessellated pavement of the latest encaustic tiles had been laid down in a design taken from the floor of the Cathedral at Chartres. Every pew had a gilded finial; the ceiling was covered in lavishly painted beams with wooden gargoyles sprouting at every groyne. Lord Crewe had done very well out of the railway boom, so no expense or trouble had been spared. Many visitors had, in his Lordship’s hearing at any rate, compared Melton favourably with Keble College in Oxford or even to the Houses of Parliament.

  But the Gothic splendours of Melton were not popular with everybody. Every time Augusta knelt to say her prayers on a tapestry kneeler depicting the Miracle at Cana, she would reflect rather bitterly that the lavishness of the chapel was the reason for the modesty of her dowry. As the daughter of an earl, Augusta had expected from childhood to make a Great Match. She had gone into her first season fully prepared to flirt with younger sons, but to save her affections for the heir. To her surprise and chagrin, however, she had found that none of the names she had perused in the nursery copy of Burke’s Peerage was finding its way on to her dance card. At the end of her first summer, she had danced with a couple of baronets and had supper with the younger son of a viscount and had taken one heady turn round the conservatory of Syon Park with the nephew of a duke, but none of these young men had come back for more. In her second season she had had high hopes of an Irish peer, who was most attentive until a tenants’ revolt had summoned him back to his estates. She had waited for him to return the
following year, only to find that he had become engaged to one of the Drummond sisters, who happened to have a dowry of £50,000. When Augusta looked at the gold and lapis mosaic of the Virgin Mary above the altar, she could not help thinking that if the chapel had been left in its original unadorned state, she would now be Lady Clonraghty.

  Fred had proposed in her fourth season, just at a point when she was beginning to wonder whether she, like poor Princess Beatrice, was doomed to be the unmarried daughter living at home for ever. She had refused him the first time, of course; it was vital that he realised that she was not an easy conquest and she had not altogether given up hope of a title. But Fred was so excited by the thought of winning an aristocratic bride that he pursued her from ball to ball, claiming every dance that decorum allowed and making sure that he always procured her the peach ices that she coveted from the supper rooms. Although Fred was not aristocratic, or particularly handsome, he was more than respectably connected, and the shortcomings in his face and figure were disguised by the splendour of his Guards Uniform. Kevill, the Baird estate in the Borders, was not as grand as Melton, but thanks to the novels of Sir Walter Scott its location and its ancient pele tower had become quite fashionable. Border society was not so illustrious that it would be indifferent to the importance of a Lady Augusta Crewe. It was not the match she had hoped for, but it was a great deal better to be Mistress of Kevill than to be the domestic angel of some rural deanery. Fred had an estate of 20,000 acres and an income of £10,000 a year. She hoped it would be enough to take a house in town during the season, for while Augusta was an admirer of Walter Scott, she did not want to moulder in the Scottish foothills for ever, like the Bride of Lochinvar.

  It was unfortunate that the Lennox fortune would leave the family when Charlotte married. Fred had confessed to Augusta that he had managed to save a substantial amount in the past few years since his father’s death by living off the interest on his sister’s inheritance. The house in Charles Street and the refurbishment of Kevill had all been paid for with Lennox money, so that the heiress might live in suitable style. Of course, that style would continue if the heiress remained unmarried, but Augusta could not believe that Charlotte, even with all her peculiarities, would be single for long. Hartopp was clearly making a play for her, however Augusta had seen the look on Charlotte’s face when Bay had taken her into dinner. Middleton was handsome, of course, and she had observed that he was an excellent dancer, although Bay had never actually asked her to dance. But he was quite unsuitable and only a girl as naive and inexperienced as Charlotte would fail to recognise that. Augusta thought, not for the first time, how fortunate Charlotte was in having her as a mentor. How easy it would be for Charlotte, without Augusta’s guidance, to be swayed by the smooth tongue and nimble feet of a Bay Middleton and diverted from the excellent match that surely lay ahead for her. Not that there was any hurry. Charlotte’s prospects would be much improved by spending a season or two under Augusta’s tutelage.

  Augusta was not the only member of the congregation whose attention was diverted from the young curate, who was preaching a heartfelt sermon on the subject of brotherly love. The Hon. Percy, Augusta’s younger brother, was a fervent Tractarian, and he could tell from the priest’s elaborate robes and choice of quotations that he too was of the same mind. Lord Crewe was admiring, as he always did, the procession of lions, elephants and zebras making their way up the ramp to the shelter of the Ark. Next to him, his wife was wondering if Lady Spencer would hold a reception for the Austrian Empress; she couldn’t help but be curious.

  In the pew behind, Lady Lisle was thinking about lunch.

  Fred was contemplating whether he should have a coat made up with the new American shoulders as his tailor had suggested. Next to him, Charlotte was trying to decide whether the pricking feeling on the back of her neck meant that Bay was sitting in the pew behind her.

  It did. Bay had not woken up with the intention of attending the service, but when he saw Hartopp wearing his frock coat and clutching his prayer book, he realised that he too might benefit from communing with the Almighty. He made a point of sitting directly behind Charlotte Baird and singing as loudly as he could. He wondered if she would turn round. But she didn’t.

  At the back, the indoor servants enjoyed the respite. If you had been up since dawn laying fires, then half an hour sitting down listening to the importance of Christian charity was divine intervention indeed.

  After the service the household dispersed. Lord Crewe went to the gun room; Lady Crewe and Lady Lisle took the carriage to visit a sick villager; the Honourable Percy stayed behind to have a word with the vicar about a recently acquired translation of Josephus; and Augusta and Fred went to see if the lake had frozen. The housemaids stood up, their knees clicking as they got to their feet, and waited for Charlotte, Bay and Chicken Hartopp to leave the chapel.

  Charlotte walked quickly. She had no intention of lingering, but if anyone chose to intercept her, well, she could not be held responsible for that. She walked up the flight of steps that connected the chapel to the rest of the house. There were fourteen steps, and on the thirteenth she heard his voice.

  ‘Miss Baird, I think this is the moment.’

  She stopped and turned her head.

  ‘The moment for what?’ She knew, of course.

  Middleton was bounding up the steps towards her, two at a time, as if trying to escape from Hartopp. When he reached her, Bay said, ‘You haven’t forgotten poor Tipsy? She has been beautifying herself all morning.’

  Charlotte laughed. ‘I very much doubt that I can do such a paragon justice, but I will attempt to take a picture of you both if you can promise to keep her still.’

  ‘Splendid.’ He turned to Hartopp, who stood on the steps below, visibly dismayed by their banter.

  ‘Chicken, old fellow, why don’t you help Miss Baird with her equipment while I bring Tipsy round to the front of the house?’

  Hartopp hesitated, but when Charlotte said, ‘Oh that would be very kind, Captain Hartopp,’ he followed her obediently.

  As they climbed the stairs to the old nursery, Hartopp said, ‘Middleton has some cheek expecting you to take a picture of his horse. He thinks altogether too much of that creature.’

  ‘Oh I don’t mind, and besides, I want to take a picture of Captain Middleton, and I suspect that he will be a much better behaved subject if his horse is present.’

  They entered the nursery, and Hartopp saw the print of the group photograph that Charlotte had taken yesterday on the table. He looked at it carefully and saw that Bay was the only person in the photograph who was smiling. Hartopp bristled.

  ‘Middleton looks very pleased with himself in this picture.’

  Charlotte turned around from the shelf of photographic plates. ‘Not many people can smile in a photograph like that. Holding your expression can make even the most genuine expression seem forced.’ She took one of the plates over to the window to examine it.

  Hartopp did not reply immediately. He stood staring down at the picture, his face filling with colour, one massive hand pulling at his whiskers. His chest heaved and the buttons of his jacket strained at the buttonholes. Finally he spoke, his voice emerging in a rapid mutter.

  ‘Miss Baird, Charlotte if I may call you that, you must be aware that in the last few months I have come to admire you greatly. My admiration is so great that it compels me to take a step which might appear to be premature, but which I, after much deliberation, have decided that I can no longer put off. You see, I am at that stage in a man’s life where he feels the need to settle down, and there is no one in the world that I would rather—’

  He broke off as Charlotte, who had clearly not heard a word of his speech, gave a squeal of excitement. ‘Oh, look at that! Captain Middleton is making his horse stand on its hind legs, surely he will fall off.’ She pressed her face against the window.

  Hartopp sighed and cleared his throat, preparing to start again. ‘Miss Baird, Charlotte if I may
call you that—’

  Charlotte, who was picking up her camera and plates, interrupted, ‘Come along, Captain Hartopp, we must hurry. I am afraid that if we don’t go down there and restrain him, Captain Middleton will break his neck.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no chance of that,’ said Hartopp with regret.

  But Charlotte did not hear him, and put the tripod into his hands.

  Outside, Bay was preening and curvetting on Tipsy as if he was in a circus ring. He could see the white faces of the housemaids pressed against the glass, and he couldn’t resist jumping up so that he was standing on the saddle as Tipsy cantered around the turning circle. Then he bent down, held onto the edge of the saddle and pushed himself up into a handstand. He managed two circuits before bringing himself upright. He could hear the faint sound of clapping from inside the house, and he gave his audience a little bow.

  ‘Oh, I was hoping that you were going to stay like that a little longer. It would have made a delightful picture.’ Charlotte was standing on the front steps setting up her equipment, a thunderous looking Hartopp at her side.