Allegra had never had the opportunity to decorate a house, or even part of one; the Constantines’ London home was rented, and her father’s manor in Surrey was not large, and of Elizabethan construction besides, so most of the rooms were panelled in slightly worm-eaten dark oak. Such newfangled ideas as painted and gilded wood or expensive wallpaper had not made an appearance, and probably never would. If she ever had ahome of her own and any say in the matter, she had no idea what it would look like, but it wouldn’t be decayed Tudor, or this. One might as well live in a museum in either case.
Lord Milton greeted them with a cool smile and presented them to the lady at his side, who was indeed his mother. Allegra, curtsying, found herself uncomfortably aware of scrutiny from a pair of sharp colourless eyes, set above an intimidating nose and a small, pursed mouth.
Mrs Constantine in her wisdom had decided that this evening Allegra would be dressed more modestly than was the current mode even for debutantes. This had involved the sacrifice of yet another outmoded gown from her apparently bottomless trunks, one of rich jonquil satin this time. Its neckline was higher than she had been accustomed to of late, it had more substantial sleeves, and it was covered once again with the flimsy gauze over-dress sprinkled with brilliants. But this drapery had been rearranged somehow so that it didn’t draw quite so much emphasis to the ample curves of her hips, and she had a small gold cross around her neck for the first time in her life. She wasn’t quite carrying a prayerbook in her reticule, but she gave the impression that she’d know where to find one if anybody happened to ask. She had a white ribbon threaded demurely through her hair. Mr Severin would no doubt have laughed and made some satirical comment at the sight of her pretending to be something she was not – but he, of course, wouldn’t be here.
‘Hmm,’ said the lady in arctic tones. ‘So this is the girl, is it, Alfred?’
Allegra’s eyes, which had been modestly downcast, shot up.
‘Yes, Mama,’ responded Lord Milton with no appearance of dismay. Clearly he was accustomed to being addressed in this discouraging manner. ‘But we must greet our other guests now, must we not? I am sure that you will be able to have a comfortablecoze with Miss Constantine and her mother a little later in the evening.’
Lady Milton’s face and manner suggested that his hope was highly unlikely to be realised. She was a tall, lean, grey-haired woman dressed in dark shades of purple that, though they did not precisely signify mourning, were not too far removed from it either. If any of her guests were to drop down dead tonight, she’d be ready. Her gown was trimmed with great quantities of exquisite black lace, and her elaborate coiffure was decked with several trembling plumes, dyed black and held in place with a diamond aigrette. She could not possibly have dressed with the express purpose of making Allegra feel even shorter and plumper that she normally did, since they’d never met before, but that was the effect. And her expression could not be described as welcoming. Forbidding, perhaps. She made no reply to her son, but merely nodded in obvious dismissal, and the Constantines moved on, to Miss Constantine’s relief. Her mama, extraordinarily, had not had the opportunity to speak beyond a murmur of greeting.
‘Oh, dear,’ Allegra whispered inadequately.
‘She might be like that with everyone,’ Leontina responded in a similar low tone. ‘No need to despair – we are here, are we not? Let us find some place where we can observe her discreetly and see how she goes on when she greets others.’
‘In preparation for our comfortable coze later on?’ Allegra whispered. ‘I can hardly wait.’ But she made no other objection, and they looked about them for a safe corner into which they could retreat.
It transpired that shewaslike that with everyone, or almost everyone. The only persons Lady Milton greeted with any approach to enthusiasm – and it could not have been described as a close approach – were dowagers of her own age, and a crustyold general or two. Younger persons, anyone under sixty, were generally favoured with an icy stare, as if the lady had no recollection of inviting them and wished they hadn’t had the temerity to come. It could hardly be described as a recipe for an enjoyable party; it would have cast a pall of excessive gloom even at a wake.
Few of the other people present were anything more to Allegra than names. They represented, as far as she could see, the stiffest, stuffiest, dullest section of society. As the time passed, slowly, it became harder and harder to understand what she could possibly be doing here, and correspondingly more and more difficult to believe that a woman like Lady Milton could harbour the slightest wish for her son to marry a mere nobody like Allegra Constantine.
17
Max was indeed not at the Season’s most boring soirée, though he was aware that it was taking place. It would be a cold day in hell before someone of his obscure origins and undesirable complexion crossed over the Milton threshold. He was at home again, alone, having unaccountably lost his taste for the sort of enjoyments he and his friends usually indulged in. Tom had accused him of becoming a damn dull recluse just the other day, and perhaps it was true. He was so deep in the past just now that it was a wonder he didn’t drown in it.
There had been no more revelations, after Madame Severin’s slip on the day of his arrival in Kent, and despite his close-held expectations, no Rose arrived in a grand carriage to catch him up in her arms and take him back home with her. After a while he almost ceased to expect her, even on his seventh birthday in August. And his eighth, ninth and tenth…
Life was very quiet for the only child in the big house, though everyone was unfailingly good to him and he wanted for nothing money could buy, nor even for affection. They did love him, he knew. He became more and more accustomed to speaking andeven thinking in English as the years passed. But he still dreamed in Matinik.
In due time he went to school, as gentlemen apparently did, and by then he really was tall and strong, which meant that when English boys called him foul names and tried to knock him down, he could hit them till they thought twice about what they’d said, as they lay in the dust themselves, groaning. Mr Severin had warned him how it would be, and had taught him to box in preparation. The old man had told him, ‘I could keep you at home and have you tutored, as your mama wishes, Max, but then I fear that the outside world would be even more of a shock when you finally meet it. I only hope you won’t hate me for sending you. I know that your life won’t always be easy, at school or afterwards. Maybe I’m deluding myself that you can force them to accept you.’ This was a question that he thought still hadn’t been fully resolved, so many years later.
He’d been away at school through large parts of 1793 and 1794, so he’d missed a lot of the anxious discussions that must have gone on at Severin Court during that time. He knew, of course, even as a schoolboy, that there was a great uproar in France just then. They’d had a violent revolution and killed the King, later the Austrian Queen too, along with thousands of others, and in England people of all ranks could talk of little else, with varying degrees of vicarious excitement and genuine, open-mouthed horror.
At school, this news could be measured by the fact that people stopped taunting him because he was brown and a bastard, and began taunting him instead because he was French and a bastard. He was frequently accused of chopping people’s heads off, which was blatantly, ridiculously unfair. It was so preposterous that it was very nearly funny, though of course hecouldn’t in all honesty deny that he might on occasion have wanted to, if the opportunity had arisen.
When charged with regicide, he usually replied with impressive belligerence that yes, he had done that, and he’d be quite happy to take their heads off too, and would, they could be sure, as soon as he’d finished building his new guillotine and sharpening the blade. He’d accompanied this threat with various blood-curdling gestures and sounds – CHOP, THUMP, GASP – and the whole performance had been satisfyingly effective, even causing some of his more impressionable would-be tormentors to burst into tears and call out piteously for their mamas.
Now he thought that it had been childishly obtuse of him not to realise that he might have some personal cause for anxiety. If he’d known that his own mysterious French-Creole mother was locked away in a foul prison all through this time, in fear of her life by precisely the same grisly means, he’d have kept quiet and endured the taunts. But they hadn’t told him.
There was so much they hadn’t told him. And now, now that he knew it all, his youthful ignorance seemed like bliss.
18
At last it happened. Lady Milton swept inexorably over to their peaceful corner, and crooked an imperious finger. She was, it seemed, summoning Miss Constantine so that they could talk alone. This was a horrifying prospect, and something Allegra had not anticipated. She felt a sudden sharp pang of attachment to her safe little alcove, and tried very hard not to shoot a panicked gaze at her mother as she left it. There was no point – she knew that even Leontina could not save her now.
As she followed in her hostess’s wake, she reflected that however unpleasant the interview proved to be, she could bank on the fact that she surely wouldn’t be in any actual physical danger. People – even people like Lady Milton – didn’t ask guests to parties and then lay violent hands on them, or order henchmen to throttle them and then throw their lifeless bodies in the river. Not in the nineteenth century. This wasn’t Ancient Rome or Renaissance Italy.
She soon found herself in a small chamber that appeared to be Lady Milton’s private sitting room, and the fount and source of all the greyness in the house. It was oppressively tasteful and shefelt enormously out of place; she was too short, too plump, too foreign-looking, and her dress was far, far too yellow. It seemed unlikely that even the demure cross around her neck would be enough to protect her.
Lady Milton gestured at a grey satin sofa and Allegra understood this to be a command to sit, not a request or an invitation. She did so, and they looked at each other. She wouldnotrush into speech and say something she would immediately regret.
‘My son appears to be wooing you,’ the older woman said coolly.
Was that a question? Allegra, now that she had met this woman and conversed with her a little, was convinced that nothing she could do or say would make Lady Milton approve of her, not if they sat here looking at each other for a month. So she might as well be honest; at least it would save time. ‘It seems so,’ she responded with a fair show of calm indifference. ‘But I don’t know why.’
‘Neither do I.’
