Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (21 page)

   Charles Townshend punched Walpole in the side. Walpole, trying to find the freshest, juiciest orange from among those clustered in the orange girl's basket, looked up toward the boxes where Townshend was pointing. There with the young Duke of Tamworth was a dark–haired woman in a low–cut royal blue dress that showed most of her huge white breasts. She was an amazingly beautiful woman, with dark brows and hair and a perfectly shaped face with just a hint of too much flesh under the chin. Beside her was a young girl, pretty, but without the dark, spectacular looks of the older woman. He had no interest in the girl. She might not have existed. The woman was fanning herself and slowly surveying the people in the pit.

   "Diana …" breathed Walpole. As he saw her eyes move to where he was sitting he stood up and made her a bow. She stared coldly at him, no expression on her face, and her eyes moved on. He sat down and began to peel the orange, and in the process, spilled its juice over the legs of his breeches. Beside him, his brother–in–law said, "She does not look interested, Robert."

   "She will be," he said.

   In the box next to Tony's, the Duke of Montagu pulled on his wife's sleeve. She looked at him irritably.

   "Tamworth is in the next box. I think I ought to say hello." He did not bother to whisper. No one did. The show was as much in the boxes and in the pit as it was on the stage.

   "Do whatever you like."

   He stood up, leaned over the railing and hissed Tony's name. "Join us in our box at the interval," he said, his eyes on Diana. She looked at him once, smiling slightly so that he saw her teeth, white, even.

   At the interval, with Tony dropping cloaks and gloves and fans and muffs, they went to the Montagus' box. Montagu bustled to pull out Diana's chair, to help her settle her long skirts. She paid little attention to him.

   "It has been a long time," he said to her.

   She looked up at him casually. "Has it?"

   "Madame," Montagu said to his wife, who had glanced once at them as they entered the box, then turned her attention back to waving at her friends in the pit and the other boxes, "you know Tamworth, of course, and Lady Alderley. This is her oldest daughter…ah…"

   "Barbara," prompted Tony.

   "Mistress Barbara Alderley."

   She and Diana exchanged short, hostile nods, then Mary Montagu held out two fingers to Barbara, looking back toward the pit even as Barbara came forward to shake them. She was some years, but not many, younger than Diana, dressed in dark velvet, wearing a rich concoction of jewels in her hair and ears and about her throat and arms. Barbara stood beside her, awkwardly, until Tony took her by the arm and led her to her seat.

   Montagu sat down slightly behind Diana. He had a good view of her white back and shoulders and neck. Her dark hair, pulled up, made short tendrils that curled against the soft white of her neck. She settled back into her chair, and now he could clearly see down the front of her gown to where her white breasts rose from dark nipples. His breathing quickened.

   "We met several years ago," he said, "at Windmere's summer place."

   "Did we?"

   "Do stop chattering!" the Duchess of Montagu said. "The second comic scene is beginning."

   They watched the remainder of
The Comical Rivals
in silence.

   Montagu moved his head next to Diana's ear. He was so close that his breath warmed her shoulder.

   "Think," he whispered softly. "About four years ago, a hot July, the summer house at Windmere's, you were thirsty, you said. I brought you more wine, even though you had had more than enough. We were alone. We became intimate. Think."

   Diana opened her fan and held it in front of her mouth. "Was that you? I had no idea."

   She turned her wide, violet eyes to Montagu's and slowly licked her lips with the tip of her pointed, red tongue. He stared at her, fascinated.

   "Do you think such conduct could be repeated?" he whispered. She had turned her head back to the play.

   "Doubtless I was drunk," she said.

   "It might be better sober."

   "It might at that." And she suddenly laughed deep in her throat, and he laughed with her. On the stage, nothing amusing was happening. The laughter rose into the silence. It was clearly the laughter of two people who have shared something intimate. The Duchess of Montagu looked over at her husband, whose head was almost resting on one of Diana's bare shoulders. Without any change in her expression, she turned away. Barbara turned pink. In the pit, Robert Walpole heard the laughter and stood up. He could see Diana and Montagu sitting close together. His heavy black brows drew together, and he sat back down heavily. Carlyle, sitting on a bench closer to the stage, also heard. He too stood up to look.

   "Diana and Monty," he said to his companions. "Well, well, well. I must, I positively must investigate. They are having far too good a time for it to be this tired old play." He made his way out of the pit.

   The workers were clearing the stage because the Devonshire Girl was going to dance. Diana and Montagu were whispering. Everyone else in the box with them was silent, an awkward, strained silence. There was a sharp rap on the door; it opened, and Carlyle sauntered in, saying, "My precious, you must save me. I am far too close to the stage in the pit, and, therefore, hear every word. Let me stay here and visit with you—oh, but you have company. I interrupt. I positively do." He positively did, but he made no move to go. The men stood up. For the first time that evening, Mary smiled. Her teeth were rotting; there were brown spots at their top edges where the teeth met gum.

   "But, of course, you must stay, Tommy, if only to keep me company. You know everyone, I believe, Tamworth, Lady Alderley."

   Carlyle bowed over Diana's hand, She stared up at him coldly. "I do, I do. Lady Alderley, you look ravishing tonight. Does she not, Monty? But then the beautiful Lady Alderley is always ravishing. You are enjoying your new lodgings, I hope, Lady Alderley. So much more comfortable than Covent Garden, and so much more convenient—but who is this child? Surely not the mysterious Barbara! Introduce me. Introduce me at once! I bow before you, my dear."

   Barbara found herself looking up into eyes that did not smile as the rouged red mouth did. She had never seen a man before who wore that much powder and rouge and patches. A huge diamond winked in his left ear. The curls on his black, frizzy wig brushed her hand as he held it. She did not know what to think.

   "Where have you been hiding this treasure?" he was saying. "Lovely, lovely. Has it a tongue? Say something to Carlyle, child."

   "How—how do you do?" stammered Barbara.

   Carlyle let go of her hand and pretended to stagger back, one huge hand over his heart. He had the attention of everyone in the box and quite a few people in the surrounding boxes as well. The pit, too, was fascinated.

   "What a voice!" he cried. "It is wonderful. Wonderful! I lay myself before your feet as your first conquest!"

   "Some conquest," Diana said. Her eyes on Carlyle were cold.

   "But I interrupt. I do!" Carlyle was saying. "You must watch the Devonshire Girl, child. She is amazing. The grace of a goddess. Oh, but her dance is finished. I have made you miss it. Ah, well, the tightrope walkers are something to see. Mary, my pet, shall I leave? Am I interrupting?"

   "Yes," said Diana.

   "You sit right here beside me," said Mary Montagu, patting the empty chair by her side, the chair in which her husband had been sitting at one time. "I am confoundedly bored."

   "But where is Roger?" Carlyle said as he sat down. "I thought he was engaged to come here with you."

   "He was, but he sent a note round at the last minute canceling."

   "That woman," Carlyle said, crossing his long legs and sighing. "I hear he is involved with—" and he leaned forward and whispered into Mary Montagu's ear.

   "No," she said. She threw back her head and laughed.

   "Barbara," said Tony. "Going to walk in the corridor for a while. Keep me company?"

   Barbara, who had been sitting as still as a statue, leapt up
.
"Yes," she stammered. The two of them left the box.

   "That was bad of you, Tommy," Mary Montagu said. "The child heard you!"

   "Oh, no! How thoughtless of me!"

   "What a delicious liar you are, Tommy. Do you intend to gossip over the way my husband is making an ass of himself over that titled whore behind us?"

   "Of course I do."

   "Good. Be sure to bring up every dirty thing about her that you can remember."

   "Mary, my pet, do I detect jealousy in that voice of yours?"

   "You detect boredom, Tommy, excruciating boredom. She is welcome to him. God only knows I tired of him years ago."

   Carlyle pursed his lips. "Tsk! Tsk! It is a good thing the bride has left and cannot hear you talk. You would disillusion her."

   "The bride? Oh, you mean the Alderley chit. I did not know the contracts were signed."

   Carlyle leaned forward and whispered, "They are not." He jerked his head toward Diana, who was allowing Montagu to fan her while she languidly surveyed the tightrope act. "Diana is holding out for more money. I think she is a fool. She is going to push Roger too far."

   "She always was a greedy bitch."

   "What did you think of the girl?"

   Mary Montagu shrugged. "Young, thin, pretty in a pale way. Not the woman her mother is. Boring. All young girls are boring. What did you think of her?"

   "The voice is heaven. But I was disappointed. Our Roger deserves something better, something more dramatic. She is, after all, only a child."

   "Poor thing," Mary Montagu said to herself.

   "Do not turn around, dear. Your husband is practically slobbering over Diana."

   "Ass."

* * *

   Outside in the corridor, Tony was rubbing one of Barbara's hands between his own. She was leaning against a wall, as if she felt faint. Her eyes were closed.

   "Bab. Are you all right?"

   Barbara struggled not to cry.

   "Sorry you heard that, Bab. But pay no attention to it. Men like Lord Devane always have—that is—it means nothing. Please, Bab, say you are all right."

   She swallowed and opened her eyes. Tony's plump, pasty-looking face stared at her with worried, kind, pale blue eyes. He had nice eyes, almost gray. He was a dear to take her from the box, from those dreadful people.

   "Take me home, Tony," she whispered. "I feel sick."

   "But supper? Surely you will feel better if you eat."

   The thought of having to go through two hours at Pontac's pretending nothing was wrong made her feel ill enough to vomit. And what if the duke and duchess came with them? The duchess with her cold, proud face and the duke—and her mother. And that Carlyle man, what if he came? No, no, she had to go home, to her bed.

   "Please," she whispered.

   "Whatever you say, Bab. You know I would do anything for you."

   He left her leaning against the wall and went back for her cloak, whispering to Diana that Barbara was ill, and that he was going to take her home. Montagu assured him that he would see Diana home safely. Carlyle snickered, watching Tony blunder into chairs and drop cloaks and finally leave.

   "The bride is ill," Carlyle whispered to Mary Montagu. "Could it have been something I said?"

   "Bitch!" she whispered back. "Roger would kill you."

   "Roger does not know."

   In his haste to return to Barbara, Tony ran into Robert Walpole, who was just outside the door to the Montagu box. The cloaks fell to the ground. Walpole bent over at the same time as Tony. They bumped heads, but were saved from really hurting each other by their wigs.

   "Stay put, Tamworth!" Walpole said. He leaned over again and picked up the cloaks and gave them to Tony.

   "My cousin," Tony said, already starting toward Barbara, who was still slumped against the wall. "Ill, you know. Must leave."

   Walpole walked in the box, rubbing his head. On the stage, Mr. Evans's wonder horse, Hercules, was jumping through a hoop of fire. There were boos and catcalls from the footmen's gallery. The Duchess of Montagu and Carlyle, sitting at the front of the box, waved Walpole forward. Diana and Montagu, sitting over to one side, farther to the back, hardly even glanced his way. He blew a kiss to the duchess, but went to where Montagu and Diana were sitting.

   "Introduce me, Monty," he said.

   "Lady Diana Alderley, Robert Walpole, first lord of the treasury."

   At the word "treasury," Diana looked up and smiled, giving Walpole the benefit of her white, even teeth. "Mr. Walton, I am delighted to meet you."

   "Walpole," Montagu said. "And do not waste your time on him. He has no money."

   "Oh," said Diana.

   "I thought I saw him waffling in the pit like a beached whale," Carlyle whispered to Mary. "I had no idea it was for Diana's benefit. Yet another conquest for our fair, soiled one. The plot thickens."

   "If one more man walks in here and goes straight over to her, I shall scream. I have a headache, Tommy, and you are going to take me home. Monty, I have a headache, and Tommy is taking me home."

   Montagu nodded absently in the direction of his wife. On the stage, Mr. Evans was trying to lead the wonder horse from the stage, but first the wonder horse insisted on depositing a pile of dark manure stage left. There were claps and whistles from the footmen's gallery.

   "Best thing we have seen all night!" someone yelled.

   "Apropos," said Carlyle.

   Montagu did not notice. His eye was on Walpole, obviously moving in on territory he had already staked out. His wife slammed the door of the box shut behind her.

   ''You should remember Mr. Walpole, Diana," he said. "He led the investigation against your husband in Parliament last summer."

   Diana's beautiful white bosom heaved.

   "It was my duty, nothing more," Walpole began to stammer, to Montagu's intense amusement. For once, the great man seemed short of words. "Nothing personal, Lady Alderley, I do assure you."