Page 55 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Now Grandmère looked angry. ‘She would not stir herself! Lying on her chaise longue , with a silk shawl of hideous Oriental style over her legs, and a carafe , positively, of madeira at her elbow. Sip, sip, sip, mon dieu !’

‘You didn’t know? Or is it a recent habit, do you think?’

She shrugged in her most French manner. ‘ Qu’importe? ’

‘But what did she say about the divorce?’

She winced at the word, but answered, ‘She said that they had discussed it in a most civilised manner and that she had agreed to it.’

‘She didn’t mind ?’

‘Of course she minds , but she will not admit it. She said she wanted him to be happy. Pah! Quelle bêtise! I tried to persuade her of the horrors of the scandal. I tried to awaken in her some indignation. But she sipped, and smiled, and said she would do very well, with the house and a pension and her circle of friends – and the magician in the bottle, bien s?r ,’ she added sourly.

There was a moment of silence. She resumed.

‘So nothing can stop it now. There will be a decree nisi today, and it will be absolute in January. The newspapers and magazines will be filled with gossip, and scandal, and all their foul glee, and who will care but me?’

‘I will,’ said Richard.

‘Well, I go at the end of the week with Caroline to the South of France, and perhaps there one may find a little perspective.’

He had never seen her look unhappy, and it struck him to the core. He reached across and took one of her thin, cold hands, feeling how fragile it was. ‘He does not deserve you,’ he said.

She came back abruptly from her reverie, raised her eyebrows at him, snatched her hand away impatiently. ‘Of course he does not,’ she said briskly. ‘He never did. What has that to do with it?’

‘I would have thought everything.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense. My tea is cold, ring the bell.’

‘Thank God, there have been no reporters here. I suppose they don’t know about me yet,’ Molly said. ‘Or I’m not important enough.’

‘Chloe’s name won’t be mentioned in court,’ Richard said.

‘Even the professional co-respondent isn’t named when the petitioner is a woman.

’ It was thin comfort. There would be few in the ton who would not soon know the real reason for the divorce, if they hadn’t guessed it already.

And the press would easily trace Chloe back to her mother.

Molly knew it too. ‘Well, when they do work it out and come here, they will find me gone.’

He felt a prickle along his scalp. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I met her yesterday at an hotel – she didn’t want to come here, in case it drew attention to me – and she told me their plans.

They’re going abroad at once, to do a concert tour.

France, Germany and the Low Countries to begin with.

Then Italy. Christmas in Vienna. He is taking a string quartet as well, and he’ll hire other musicians locally as they’re needed.

Apparently he has been working on the details for months.

All the bookings are in place. Chloe will have a dresser with her, but he insisted she must have a chaperone as well.

He wants no breath of scandal to touch her, so he said. ’

‘But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? That he’s being careful?’

‘Oh, Richard!’

He knew what that exasperated cry meant: It would have been better if he had left her alone!

But he believed that the business had been driven as much by Chloe as by Sir Thomas.

She knew what she wanted, and in pursuit of her career she was ruthless.

Sir Thomas, though ruthless in his own way, was the one who was helplessly in love: the trembling dragon in the clutches of a fire-breathing maiden.

‘So, what has all this to do with your leaving this house?’ he asked.

She met his eyes steadily, in the way that told him he was not going to like the next part.

‘He was going to hire a chaperone, but Chloe asked me, and he reinforced the request, strenuously. Oh, don’t look like that!

It makes sense, you know it does! A young artist travelling in the company of her mother: what could be more respectable?

A chaperone might be suspected by those determined to look for scandal, but never a girl’s own mother. ’

‘So you will be gone for four or five months?’ he said, carefully controlling his voice.

Now her eyes moved away. ‘The decree will be made absolute in January, and they intend to marry immediately, or as soon as it can be arranged.’

‘So you will see them married? And then you will come home?’

‘They are going to marry in New York,’ she said.

‘The east coast of America is very strong for music. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington all have rich patrons and enthusiastic audiences. He thinks of building his own concert hall – in Manhattan first, but perhaps later a string of them. A Burton Hall in every big city. And then there are phonograph records. Musical artists are becoming known over there by their recordings, quite independently of actual concerts. Fortunes can be made that way. There’s a new business, the Victor Talking Machine Company, in New Jersey – Caruso has a recording contract with them. Imagine if they took up Chloe—’

‘Stop, stop!’ Richard begged. ‘They are going to live there, permanently?’

She gave a nervous smile. ‘Divorce is not frowned on in America in the same way. They can make a life over there without shadow. Once they are established, I expect they may come to Europe on tours. But the American market is so big, they would not need to.’

‘And you? You still have not answered my question. You will come home?’’

‘No, my dear,’ she said steadily. ‘I will make my home with them. Chloe will need me to keep her feet on the ground, especially if her career takes wings. And if there are children, they will need me – dedicated artists do not make good parents.’

‘But what about me? I need you.’

She reached out and took his hand. ‘It’s better this way. You know that you and I can never marry.’

‘I don’t accept that! Just because—’

‘Yes, just because . It would be wrong. You know that. Society forbids it, God forbids it. It’s in the Bible. Leviticus: thou shalt not uncover thy father’s nakedness. Cursèd be he—’

‘Oh stop!’ Richard cried. ‘The Bible ? I love you. Don’t you understand? I love you, and if you love me, that’s all that matters.’

‘I do love you. But it’s never all that matters,’ she said sadly.

‘I’ve had to deal with Chloe’s situation, and it almost destroys me.

I’ve thought about you and me, night after sleepless night, longing for you, wishing we could .

. . But we can’t, we just can’t. This is for the best. To be here, always tempted, always struggling, is more than I can bear.

And you – when I’m gone, you can make a proper life for yourself.

You’re young. One day there will be someone else. ’

He was holding her hand so tightly it was hurting her. There were tears on his face. ‘This is the end? You’re leaving me?’ She didn’t answer, only looked at him with immense sadness. ‘How can I live without you?’ he cried.

‘Don’t make it harder for me,’ she said. ‘Try to understand.’

‘I want it to be hard for you,’ he said passionately. ‘I hope your heart will break.’

She stood up, and he had to stand too. ‘It’s breaking now,’ she said.

‘Kiss me,’ he demanded. ‘One last kiss.’

But she pulled her hand free and shook her head, turning her face away. ‘You must go now. I can’t bear any more.’

He gave her one long, searching look, then turned away.

‘God bless you,’ she said softly, as he reached the door. ‘Richard, I will never . . . There will never – be anyone else. You understand? If that comforts you.’

‘It doesn’t,’ he said harshly, without turning round. And then he was gone.

For the last big dinner of the Season, the Morrises had pulled out all the stops.

Every leaf had been put into the dining table, and straying dining chairs had been gathered from the places they had been put to temporary use.

The best double-damask cloth had been ironed in situ to eliminate the fold marks; the best silver and crystal glittered.

And Mawes had borrowed two footmen from the obliging Lord and Lady Leven to wait at table, to make sure nothing hindered the free flow of pleasure.

Mr Cowling and Decius had just come back to London from Cambridgeshire.

Nina was glad to be going to a dinner party on her husband’s arm, for a change.

Decius had been invited too, as had Nina’s Aunt Schofield.

The other guests were a typical Morris mix: the music publisher John Benson; two sisters, Sylvia and Evelyn Partridge, who were both writers of popular and slightly steamy novels; Dame Myra Lang, the opera singer; Mannox Launde, the Irish playwright and poet; an immensely rich Russian Jewish furrier, Ilia Malkin; and the well-known painter Ivor Wentworth.

In such variously talented company, Nina worried that someone might ask her, ‘And what do you do?’ to which she would have had to answer, ‘Nothing at all.’ She had Launde on her left, so was obliged to speak to him first, but fortunately he was not at all inclined to ask her anything about herself.

He was tall and lean, with slightly over-long hair brushed straight back from his brow, the better to emphasise the hooded eyes and the bony beak of a nose, which made him look like a supercilious predator.

He was famous for his acerbic tongue, and for his ‘difficult’ plays which satirised the leading characters and mores of society.

She felt that out of politeness she ought to let him know that she knew who he was, so she began with, ‘I must tell you that I saw your play Tiberius last month, and enjoyed it very much.’