The Passing Bells (10 page)

“Charming!” Fenton said loudly, watching the girls prance about the room. Their images reflected back from the mirrors on the walls—mirrors installed when Alexandra had been twelve and avid to study ballet. “Most inspiring!”

Roger stepped fully into the room, arms spread wide. “All hail the antic Bacchae . . . chaste and fair!”

“Oh, don't be an ass, Roger,” Alexandra called out over her shoulder. “Dance with Winnie.”

Winifred looked startled. “Oh, no . . . I don't know how.”

“Of
course
you do,” Alexandra said breathlessly. “Don't be a frump.”

The frantic music came to an end and the two girls broke apart, flushed and laughing.

“Oh, I did enjoy that,” Alexandra said. “I could do the Texas Tommy all night.”

“I prefer a waltz myself,” Roger said.

“That's because you're staid and dull.”

Roger stiffened with indignation. “I am not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“All right, play a tango then. I'll show you how staid and dull I am
not.
I dance the tango with a great deal of
sensuality.”

Fenton helped Winifred find a tango record among the stack in the Victrola cabinet. The girl's hands, he noticed, were trembling slightly.

“Don't you really know how to dance?”

“No,” she whispered. “I never learned . . . at least not properly. I have no ear for music . . . that's the trouble. I can't keep time.”

“I'm sure I could teach you in a few minutes. It's really quite simple. No trick to it at all.”

“Which tango are you playing?” Alexandra asked.

Fenton glanced at the label. “ ‘The Sans Souci.' ”

“Fine. I like that one.” She held out her arms. “Come on, Roger . . . and try not to step on my toes.”

Charles bowed to Lydia with exaggerated formality. “Miss Foxe, may I have the pleasure?”

She curtsied. “You may indeed, Mr. Greville.”

He put an arm about her waist and she moved closer to him. Their hips touched and his body became tense. When he took her right hand in his left, she could feel the dampness of his palm.

“Relax,” she said softly.

“We must talk, Lydia.”

She smiled coquettishly into his taut, pallid face. “Why, Mr. Greville, whatever about?”

The music began, the pulsating Latin rhythm that had all Europe in thrall. Charles stumbled slightly, as though his knees had become locked from tenseness, and she had to lead for a moment until he was able to coordinate his body to the throbbing sound.

Fenton took Winifred by the hand. “Shall we try it?”

Her smile was wan. “I . . . I don't think I can.”

“Nonsense. I saw you swaying to the Texas Tommy when I came into the room. You were keeping perfect time.”

“Oh, I can dance by myself. It's just that . . . when I . . .”

“I quite understand.” He held her firmly, one hand in the small of her back. “It's simply a question of practice . . . and confidence in oneself. I know I could teach you to tango in a very short time.”

“You don't mind?”

“Why, of course not, Winifred. It would be a pleasure.”

She was really quite pretty, he was thinking, smiling down at her. She smiled back, shyly, a pink glow spreading across her cheeks and throat. She had been casting glances at him all day. A young girl's sudden infatuation, a crush—he had done nothing to encourage her. Always he had been the correctly formal officer and gentleman, her brother Andrew's friend. He guided her expertly through the steps, the sensual movements of the dance.

“You're doing very well,” he said. “Just follow me . . . don't look at your feet.”

She had little grace, but that was probably nervousness. Her hand clenched his tightly and the hand on his shoulder kept straying down as though she were not sure where it belonged. Her eyes were hazel, he noted, and her hair the palest shade of brown. Yes, a very pretty girl, and if she lost a stone or so in weight she would have quite a fetching figure. The Most Honorable Winifred Sutton, only daughter of the Marquess and Marchioness of Dexford. A substantial yearly income when she reached the age of twenty-one. A dowry of—ten thousand pounds?

“Are you going up to London for the season, Winifred?”

“Oh, yes,” she blurted, staring down at her feet. “Mama will open the house next week. Number twenty-four Cadogan Square.” She looked up at him, and there was a wistful look in her eyes. “That isn't very far from the Guards' barracks, is it?”

“No. And it's just a short walk from my flat on Lower Belgrave Street.”

He detected a sudden change in her breathing. The exertion of the dance? Hardly, she was barely shuffling her feet across the floor. A faint line of perspiration had formed on her upper lip.

“Perhaps . . .” she said hesitantly, “perhaps . . . you could attend one of our . . . entertainments. That is . . . if . . . if your social schedule isn't completely filled.”

“Why, no, it isn't. I'm quite flexible this season. Quite flexible indeed.”

Her hand tightened on his arm. “My debut ball is on the twenty-second of next month. Alexandra will be there, of course . . . and Charles . . . and I know that Mama would be pleased if you could come, also. Do you think that you could?” she added anxiously.

He appeared to think about it. “Why, I believe so, yes. You can tell your mother that I'd be honored to receive an invitation.”

She smiled brightly and her dancing improved to a remarkable degree.

Passing them, Lydia caught part of the exchange and the smile and decided that Fenton was toying with Winifred. The Fenton charm. Was it just for her benefit, Lydia wondered, or did he have a serious motive in mind? Winifred Sutton was rich, as Fenton well knew. Rich and dowdy, with a good deal of poundage and not an ounce of chic. No one knew that more than her mother and father. A dashing, handsome man like Captain Fenton Wood-Lacy, son of the late Sir Harold, nephew of Major General Sir Julian Wood-Lacy, would hardly be ignored if he asked permission to call on their daughter. Would he do that? He was smiling at her and Winifred was smiling back. Lydia looked away.

Charles bent closer to her. “Let's dance out onto the terrace.”

“Oh,” she said, forcing her attention back to him, “if you wish.”

They stopped dancing as soon as they had tangoed out of the music room. Taking Lydia by the arm, Charles led her across the terrace and down the stone steps into the Italian garden.

“You've been practically ignoring me all evening,” he said, his hand pressing into her bare arm. He stopped at a stone bench and pulled her down on the seat beside him. “You look so beautiful tonight, Lydia . . . that dress . . . your hair . . . everything about you is like music . . . poetry. You knew I wanted to talk to you alone before dinner, but you deliberately stayed in . . . in
groups!
”

“It would have been rude not to mingle.”

“So much has happened today,” he said excitedly, running a hand through his hair. “I told Winnie, in a very nice way, that I could—well, that I could never become
emotionally
involved with her. She took it quite well.”

“So I noticed,” she said stonily.

“But that doesn't really solve anything, darling. I'm afraid that Father is going to be as intractable as ever as far as we're concerned.”

She smoothed her dress over her knees. It was a long evening dress of pale-green silk embroidered with seed pearls, the bodice cut with a discreet plunge.

“Charles, I think that the time has come to be honest with each other. I love you and . . . I
think
you love me.”

He stared at her with his mouth open. “You
think
? Good God! You dominate my thoughts day and night. I wake up in cold sweats a dozen times a night because I have nightmares of losing you. There's not another woman on this earth that I would care to even
look
at, and you
think
I love you!” He put his arms around her and pressed her close to him. Her perfume made his head reel. “Oh, Lydia, how can you question my feelings?”

She pulled back from him slightly and placed a slim, cool hand on the side of his face. He was gravely handsome, with a noble, intelligent face that reminded her somehow of the portrait of Shakespeare—the engraving in most editions. He was much younger, but had the same high-domed brow, the soft eyes—an Elizabethan man, courtly and gallantly romantic.

“You had a talk with Winifred, and I'm sure that you were very tactful and considerate.”

“And direct,” he cut in.

“Yes . . . direct. But tell me, Charles, are you ever that direct with your father regarding us?”

He looked away from her, toward the house, which reared up against the moon-streaked sky; most of the rooms were lighted, and yellow squares of light fell across the dark lawns.

“I . . . I intend to . . . have a long talk with him.”

“You might begin by reminding him that we're living in the twentieth century.”

He smiled sardonically. “The twentieth century? Father doesn't recognize it socially.”

“Perhaps he doesn't, but most people are beginning to. I don't think he would be ostracized in the House of Lords if I married into the family. After all, it would be apparent to everyone that I hadn't
bought
my way into the peerage. Now, if I should marry Lord Peter Manderson, or the Earl of Cromer, that would be quite a different story, wouldn't it? There are a number of impoverished peers in this country, Charles. You'd be utterly amazed at how easy it would be for me to marry one of them if that was all I wanted . . . as your father seems to think.”

He was staring at her with a look of dread. “Lydia . . . you . . . you'd never marry a rotter like Cromer. My God . . . I—”

“Of course I wouldn't.” She draped her slender white arms about his neck and pulled him gently down to her. Her lips roamed teasingly across his face. “You're my own, sweet darling and I love you very much. I want to stop being
Miss
Foxe and start being
Mrs.
Charles Greville. I want to experience all the joys of marriage . . . and I want to experience them with you . . . no one else.”

He held her tightly, kissing her lips, her neck, the soft hollow of her throat. He could feel her firm breasts against his chest.

“Lydia . . . Lydia . . .” he murmured.

She stroked the side of his head and traced a finger tip across his earlobe. He was really such a boy, she was thinking, so torn between duty and desire, so deferential to the Victorian codes of his father. The future Earl of Stanmore pressing trembling kisses on her skin.

“I've thought of a way to approach your father, Charles,” she said quietly, stroking his soft hair. “It will require a positive attitude on your part, darling. You'll have to beard the lion in its den . . . but I've given quite a bit of thought to this—”

“Whatever you say, Lydia,” he mouthed against the narrow opening of her dress, the deep cleft between her breasts.

“But we must talk it over thoroughly first. Spend the day with me tomorrow. Daddy's still up in London . . . we can be alone . . . have the day to ourselves. . . . Perhaps take a luncheon basket to Leith Woods and talk . . . talk . . . talk . . .”

“Lovely,” he murmured, “lovely—” He suddenly stiffened and pulled away from her, his face even more pallid than it had been before. “Oh, God! I can't. . . . I . . . I have to go to Southampton tomorrow and greet some bloody cousin from America. Oh, damn . . . I'm sorry, darling, but . . .”

Her smile was cryptic. “I understand, Charles. There's no need to explain. I quite understand.”

4

Martin Rilke double-checked his tiny cabin to make sure that he had left nothing behind. He had packed in a hurry, having spent the entire morning on deck gawking at the coast of England as the S.S.
Laconia
moved up the channel toward Southampton.

“You won't see a better day than this in a long while,” one of the ship's stewards had told him. “We 'ave quite a bit of mist most days, sir.”

Not a speck of mist that morning. Martin had gulped down his breakfast and had gone on deck to share a pair of binoculars with a fellow passenger, a Dr. Horner from Cincinnati, who was on his way to London for a month's seminar on neurosurgery. Both men had been fascinated by the vivid greens and whites of the land, the sparkling blue of the sea. The passage had been marred by a summer storm on the second day out of New York, gray seas and a clammy rain staying with them as far as the coast of Ireland. Of the Emerald Isle they had seen nothing but great banks of cloud, but the clouds had parted when they entered the English Channel and there was not so much as a scrap of vapor to mar the scenery.

“ ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle . . . ' ” Dr. Horner had recited grandly as he leaned against the rail, the binoculars cradled in his hands. “Shakespeare,
Richard the Third
.”

“
Second
,” Martin had corrected. “
Richard the Second
. ‘This precious stone set in the silver sea.' It does look like a precious stone, doesn't it?”

“Fire opal, Martin. Gosh, I wish my Agnes had been able to make this trip. And she thought
New
England was beautiful when we went up to the Berkshires last summer. Can't hold a candle to the old.” He had handed over the glasses. “Take a squint at that little village beneath those cliffs. If that doesn't put the icing on the cake, I don't know what will.”

The landscape had at last given way to less pastoral views, reminding them both that England was not all quaint villages and rolling hills. By noon they were steaming up the Solent into the crowded roadstead of Southampton, whose shoreline was cluttered with iron cranes, docks, wharves, and warehouses.