The American Heiress Page 9

  ‘And?’ Reggie let the monosyllable hang between them.

  ‘Oh, don’t be absurd. You’re as bad as my mother. Miss Cash is American…’ Ivo’s voice trailed away in disdain.

  ‘And spectacularly rich.’

  ‘As Mrs Cash never stops reminding me.’ Ivo filled his glass again and turned on his friend. ‘Have you taken a fancy to Miss Cash then, Reggie? I saw you whispering to her at dinner. Poor Sybil will be heartbroken.’

  Reggie laughed. ‘I’m afraid that Miss Cash has no interest in me. But I like her, Ivo. As windfalls go, you could do a lot worse.’

  But Ivo was looking up at the portrait of his mother that had been painted at the time of her first marriage. Blonde and creamy, she gazed serenely down at her son. He raised his glass to the portrait and said with sardonic clarity, ‘To the Double Duchess.’

  Reggie realised that his friend was drunk. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear Ivo talk about the Duchess. Ivo had always been his mother’s favourite and their relationship had been relaxed and mutually admiring. Mother and son were never more aware of their own beauty and charm than when in each other’s company. But that was before his mother’s remarriage. She had been barely out of mourning when the marriage took place. There were those who would have enjoyed a spell of disapproval, but that would have been a luxury when the Duchess was so charming, so hospitable and so close to Marlborough House. But if society was prepared to overlook the Duchess’s haste, her son, it seemed, was not.

  Reggie repeated his friend’s toast but without the ironical inflection.

  Ivo caught the reproof and got to his feet. ‘Time to join the ladies, I think, before Mrs Cash starts rehanging the pictures.’

  In the servants’ hall, Bertha accepted a glass of madeira from Mrs Softley the housekeeper. She was grateful for the warm length of it spreading through her chest. Lulworth was a good deal colder than Sutton Veney. There she had had the occasional sight of Jim to keep her warm. Here there was nothing to heat the chilly corridors.

  The green baize door swung open with a clatter as the footmen came in carrying trays loaded with plates and cutlery.

  As soon he got through the door, Thomas the footman burst out, ‘Did you hear what the American girl said to me when I was serving her? Said did I like having my hair powdered, like I was some kind of performing monkey. It’s not correct.’

  Thomas’s handsome face was red with emotion. The other footman laughed.

  ‘You should be careful what you say, Thomas, she might be your new Duchess. His Grace is taking her round the house tomorrow. Do you think he’s going to show her the holes in the roof?’

  The housekeeper frowned and got to her feet. ‘Thomas, Walter, that’s quite enough from you. Are the ladies still in the drawing room?’

  ‘Finishing up, Mrs Softley’.

  She turned to Bertha. ‘In that case, Miss Cash, you will be wanting to go upstairs to your mistress.’ She paused and gave the keys on her belt a little shake. ‘Thomas and Walter are foolish boys. They mean no disrespect.’

  Bertha thanked the housekeeper and began the long climb to Cora’s room. The stone flags were cold and unforgiving under her feet.

  She wondered what kind of mood Cora would be in. She wouldn’t tell her what the footmen had said. Miss Cora would be quite put out to think that in the servants’ hall her destiny had already been decided. She liked to make up her own mind. But as Bertha climbed the carpetless back staircase, feeling the chill draughts from the uncurtained windows, she wondered if this was to be her new home.

  The next morning a thick sea fog drifted in over Lulworth, muffling its towers and crenellations and concealing the shining view that gave even the dingiest rooms a splendid point. Cora felt the damp chill as she opened her window. She had hoped to take Lincoln out, to ride away some of the uncertainties that hung around her like cobwebs. But this was not weather to be riding in unknown country. She told Bertha to put away her habit and put on a morning dress of dove-grey wool with black frogging. It was as modest an outfit as she possessed. She remembered Reggie’s eyes flicking over her mother’s jewelled magnificence the night before.

  There was no one about apart from the odd housemaid. At Sutton Veney the ladies of the house had gone to the morning room after breakfast to write letters and gossip but in this house there were no ladies to join. Cora knew she should look for her mother but she did not feel ready for the conversation that she guessed would follow.

  Retracing her steps from the night before, she found herself again in the long gallery where the Duke had seen her and not seen her the night before. The stone walls reflected the light from the sea, bathing the room in a pearly haze. There was no fire lit and Cora could smell the chalky sweat of the limestone. She sat down in one of the mullioned embrasures and looked out at the grey sky. The fog had suppressed everything, even the sound of the sea was muffled.

  Cora was looking up at the carved vault of the arch, trying to make out the carved motif at the apex, when she heard music. Someone was playing the piano. She walked to the end of the gallery in the direction of the sound. Cora stood for a moment and listened. It was dark choppy music, full of false starts and minor chords, lacy pianissimo passages and startling crescendos. Cora could play the piano well enough, she had the young lady’s repertory of Strauss waltzes and Chopin nocturnes, but she knew that whoever was playing was in a different class. It was not just the technical difficulty of the piece, she had the feeling that the player was completely submerged in the music.

  A set of chords faded away into silence. Cora pushed open the door a fraction. The room was another stone chamber – like the gallery it seemed older and more austere than the rest of the house. In the centre of the room under a narrow arched window was a grand piano and at the keyboard sat the Duke. He was frowning down at the keyboard as if he was trying to remember something. Then he started to play. Cora recognised the piece, it was a Beethoven sonata – but she had never heard it played like this. The opening was allegro con brio, but in the Duke’s hands it was not just fast, it was dangerous. The Duke had taken off his jacket and had rolled up his shirtsleeves. From where she was standing, Cora could see his bare forearms, the tendons stretching and tensing as he reached up and down the keyboard. She stood motionless, not sure whether she wanted him to look up and discover her. Was she listening or intruding? This was private music and yet she could not bear to look away. She was fascinated by the way he swayed towards the keyboard as if he was embracing the instrument, and his complete absorption. He was, she felt sure, in another place entirely. The long glissando passage at the end of the first movement finished and he looked up for a moment. At first he looked straight through her and then she saw him register her presence with a wary smile.

  She said nothing, she did not know whether she should apologise or praise his playing.

  In the end he spoke first. ‘Do you know the piece?’

  ‘It’s Beethoven, isn’t it? My music master used to play it for me, but never like that.’ Cora was being quite truthful. She was amazed that the same piece of music could sound so different.

  ‘The “Waldstein”. Beethoven was in love with Countess Waldstein, but there was no question of her marrying a musician. He wrote this for her but dedicated it publicly to her brother. He was almost completely deaf when he composed it.’ He looked down at the keyboard and played a passage where the music seemed to grope for a resolution. ‘Can you hear how he seems to be looking for something? Some satisfaction?’

  Cora was about to say how sad it was that Beethoven never heard his own piece but in the end stayed silent. She realised that this was the obvious thing to say and she did not want to appear obvious. She knew that she was here on sufferance. What she had taken at first for the music room was clearly the Duke’s personal sanctum. There were piles of books on the window ledges and a desk at the far end covered with papers. There were no chairs or sofas apart from an uncomfortable-looking metal campaign bed.


  ‘You play very well,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘You’re too kind. I play adequately, that’s all. But I play very well for a man, certainly.’

  Cora smiled. He was right, she had been surprised at the Duke’s playing at all. In her experience, the drawing-room piano as opposed to the concert hall instrument was an exclusively female instrument.

  ‘My mother taught me to play when I was very young. She had no daughter and she needed someone to play duets with. She would summon me after dinner and we would perform for her guests. The house was always full then, I got a lot of practice.’ He started playing a Brahms lullaby with exaggerated sweetness. ‘This was my finale. I played my own lullaby and then I was despatched upstairs to bed.’

  ‘Do you still play duets?’

  ‘No. As I grew up, we could never keep the same time. My mother always wants everything to be charming. She is all about effect, while I simply like to play.’ He pulled his finger down the keyboard in a soft glissando. He looked up at her. ‘And you, Miss Cash, do you like to play?’ The question ended in a minor arpeggio.

  ‘Yes,’ she said firmly, ‘I do.’ If there was challenge in his question, Cora would meet it.

  ‘Well then, what about a little Schubert?’ He stood up and rummaged among the piles of music on the floor until he found the piece he was looking for. He set it up on the piano and gestured to her to sit beside him on the stool. She walked towards him slowly, conscious that she had not played properly since leaving Newport, hoping that the piece he had chosen would not be too difficult.

  The Duke gestured towards the music and said, ‘Which part would you like?’

  Cora looked at the music, and felt her heart pounding in panic. The semiquavers exploded across the page. He certainly hadn’t chosen something easy. The lower part looked marginally calmer so she pointed towards it.

  As he sat down next to her on the seat, she felt herself tense. But he was careful not to touch her. He spread his fingers out across the keys and she did the same.

  ‘When you’re ready, Miss Cash.’

  Cora nodded and began. The piece started cantabile sostenuto in her part for a few bars and then the treble part came in with the melody. She played softly at first, hoping to muffle her mistakes, but as she grew more confident, her side of the piece met the melody in the upper register and suddenly they were playing together – their hands weaving round each other in the elaborate dance of the music. At one point the Duke’s left hand passed over her right and she felt the heat from his palm cross hers like a flame. But she could not afford to be distracted; to play the piece ‘adequately’ needed all Cora’s reserves of concentration and skill. The Schubert was just outside her level of competence but her desire not to fail meant that she was playing as well as she had ever done in her life. As the music reached the finale, there was a sequence of chords that were played in unison and to her surprise they played them in perfect synchronicity. Without thinking, she reached for the sostenuto pedal to hold down the final chord, only to find the Duke’s foot already there. She pulled her foot away but he had felt the pressure and as they finished, he turned to her with a smile.

  ‘I’m sorry I forgot to negotiate the pedals with you. It’s been a long time since I played a duet.’

  ‘And me. I’ve never played with anyone as good as you before.’

  ‘Duets are not about individual skill but about the relationship between the two players. The whole must be more than the sum of the individual parts.’

  ‘And were we?’ Cora could not stop herself asking.

  ‘It’s perhaps too early to say entirely, but on the whole I think we will do very well. Shall we have a go at the second movement?’

  But Cora knew she must retreat now. She did not want to play again and be found wanting.

  ‘I think I have been lucky so far. I would like to practise before we play again.’

  The Duke smiled. ‘As you wish, Miss Cash. But as I say, I think we will do very well.’

  As Cora left the room, she heard him start the ‘Waldstein’ sonata again. It was clearly a favourite piece. As she listened to him play, she remembered his remark about Beethoven looking for satisfaction.

  Chapter 8

  We Have a Rubens

  AS AN UNDER-HOUSEMAID AT LULWORTH, Mabel Roe started her working day at five in the morning. It was still dark so she had to dress and wash herself by the light of last night’s candle. Her hands were red and chapped, her knuckles swollen from years of scrubbing. It was not so cold this morning that she had to break the ice on the handbasin, but Mabel could see her breath issuing in frosty plumes across the unforgiving air of the attic bedroom.

  Usually Mabel would linger in bed for a precious five minutes before getting up. But Iris had gone home for her mother’s funeral, so there was no extra warmth in the bed to ward off the chill, no one to grumble with about the rigours of the day ahead. Still, Iris’s absence meant that Mabel could spend more time than usual in front of the tiny square of mirror above the chest of drawers, adjusting her cap to sit becomingly on her thin brown hair. On the chair lay the thick brown holland apron that she wore in the morning while she was doing the fires, but Mabel picked up the light cotton apron that she wore in the afternoons and tied that round her waist. She wanted to look her best.

  Mabel had been startled the first time she found the Duke in his dressing gown, sitting on the window seat, looking out to sea. When he had been Lord Ivo he had never been an early riser, except when he was hunting, but things were different now. Her job was to get the fires lit in the bedrooms without waking the occupants. Under-housemaids like Mabel were not meant to have anything to do with the ‘family’. The housekeeper had told her that she must turn and face the wall if she met any of them in the corridor. To reveal that the Duke now woke with the lark would have given Mabel some status among her fellow housemaids, who discussed the family endlessly, but she had said nothing. This silent audience with the Duke was Mabel’s talisman, the antidote to her aching knees and stinging hands. It had made her nervous at first to go through the lengthy ritual of cleaning out the ashes of the night before, polishing the grate and laying the new fire with His Grace sitting there so still. Once she had dropped the poker on to the marble hearth; the noise had been calamitous, it felt like the loudest sound she had ever heard, but the Duke had hardly stirred.

  He was there on the window seat this morning as usual. She wondered what he looked at so hard. There was nothing to see out there but the green hills leading down to the sea.

  Mabel finished laying the fire, building a neat little pyramid of kindling that burst into obedient flame the moment she put a match to it. She gathered together all her tools – the stiff hearth brush, the tin of blacking, the matches – and put them back in her work box; she wiped her hands on her apron and stood up slowly, her knees cracking as she did.

  The Duke said softly, ‘Thank you, Mabel.’

  Mabel very nearly dropped the ash bucket. She scraped her knees together in something like a curtsy and mumbled, ‘Yer Grace.’ He had never spoken to her before, and yet he knew her name. She felt herself going scarlet and backed out of the room as speedily as she could. She stood in the corridor, her heart pounding and the palms of her hands clammy with sweat. She leant against the wall and closed her eyes. The Duke knew her name. She felt like a character in a Peg’s Paper story. He had noticed her; surely this was the start of something.

  Her reverie was interrupted by Betty who was coming from the Cash girl’s bedroom.

  ‘What you doing, Mabel?’ she said in a fierce whisper. ‘Don’t you know the old Duchess is coming today and we’ve got to turn out those rooms this morning? If you don’t get on you’ll miss breakfast. This isn’t the time to be daydreaming, and how come you’re wearing your best apron and it’s covered all over with smuts?’

  Mabel looked down at the black smears on the white cotton. They were, she knew, impossible to remove.

  Cora decided that she w
ould go down to breakfast that morning before meeting the Duke for her tour of the house. As she walked along the corridor that led from her bedroom to the staircase, she saw a maid with a crumpled and soiled apron running in the other direction. Cora was enough of her mother’s daughter to notice the dirty apron.

  As she walked through Lulworth she was torn between her admiration of the pictures, the walnut furniture, the faded brocade curtains, objects which looked as if they had been always been there, and her awareness of a rank, musty smell that lingered here in the less frequented parts. Cora had grown up in a dust-free world that smelt of fresh flowers, furniture polish and wet varnish. Only rarely in her native country did she enter a building that was older than she was. But here she was surrounded by an unfamiliar odour, one she was too young and too American to recognise as a mixture of damp, decay and disappointment. She did notice the chill, though, and wondered that the Duke could bear to live in such a cold house.

  He was not at breakfast. Cora ate alone and then decided that she would not wait on his whim; she would go to the stables and see Lincoln. She was walking down the immense flight of stone steps at the entrance of the house when she heard the Duke calling her name.

  ‘Miss Cash, don’t tell me you have forgotten our arrangement?’

  The Duke had evidently been riding already, he was hatless and his cheeks were flushed from the cold.

  ‘Not at all. I thought you must have found other business to attend to when I didn’t see you at breakfast.’

  ‘I went for a ride. Early morning is the best time for it. It clears my head for the rest of the day.’

  ‘I envy you your freedom. I wish riding were such a carefree business for my sex. You can just jump on your horse and go. I, on the other hand, have to spend at least quarter of an hour being laced into my habit and then I have to find a groom to ride out with me, and in my experience no groom has ever wanted to ride at my pace.’