Intermezzo (6 page)

“Miss Adela Trowle, you have made
quite
a conquest of the Russian count.”

“
I
have not made the conquest, my
music
has.”

“No, I do not think you are entirely correct. He is, of course, charming, but a trifle old, don’t you think?”

“Not really, Aunt Sophia. If I were to think of marriage, and I do not anticipate doing so, it seems that such a man would make a very pleasant husband. I would never again want to be entrapped by a very strong emotional commitment. The Count
is
a lovely, fatherly gentleman.”

“Well fortunately, Papa Orlov is returning to Mother Russia tomorrow. Drink your milk, child.” And Sophia kissed her, snuffed the candle, and left the room.

Four

It snowed the next afternoon and continued to snow for several days during which time Rebecka grew increasingly restless. On the third snowbound afternoon when Rebecka was behaving in a particularly mopey way, his lordship casually began to discuss a new production of
Hamlet
with Kean in the leading role. “I don’t suppose that, in your present state of melancholia, Rebecka, you would care to attend a performance of the play?” her uncle asked innocently.

“Me! A play? Do you mean me?”

“I
had
intended to have you and Miss Trowle and your aunt Sophia if you are at all interested.”

“Oh yes! yes! yes! Adela, have you ever been to the theater?”

“Yes child, quite often.”

“It must have been grand.”

“Yes indeed, Becka. Richard Brewer and I used to go quite regularly. We used to sit in the pits or the galleries and cheer with riotous abandon. The theater is a whole new world, Becka, almost as rich as the world of music. It is a grand experience, and very exciting.”

“
Riotous abandon
, Miss Trowle?” Waterston asked with only the hint of a smile in his eyes. “Somehow I had not expected it of you. I cannot think you will be a good example to Rebecka.”

Adela gathered herself together and answered demurely, “I suppose the theater, seen from the boxes, is quite another thing altogether.”

“Just so, Miss Trowle,” Waterston agreed. “But I think it is just as well that Rebecka does not know about the pits.”

“Quite right, sir, I shall endeavor not to mention it again.”

“Stuff and nonsense, I know all about the pits—John Coachman tells me. Besides,
who
is Richard Brewer?”

“Yes, who is Richard Brewer, Miss Trowle?” Waterston asked, his eyebrow quirked.

“Richard Brewer is a very dear friend of mine. He has not come to call because he felt he might be out of place in this house, but he remains a very dear friend. He is a violinist, you see, and helped me find lodging and students when my father died. We were a small group of musicians, and although I was always something of an outsider, I enjoyed working with Mr. Brewer and the others. We played at small routs and then afterward we’d have mulled punch and a party of our own at the Brewers’ house. His mother would bake the most incredible pastries and I would eat and eat and eat. You would like Richard Brewer, Rebecka. He is always so cheerful and dependable. Perhaps he will come someday and we will play duets and trios.”

“This Mr. Brewer, is he a don?” Rebecka asked.

“No, of course not, whatever made you think so, Becka?”

“Adela is going to marry a don, Uncle Charles.”

“No, no! I am not going to marry
anyone,
child. I
was
to marry a don and my brother was to become a vicar and we were ... but those were all childhood fantasies.”

Rebecka seemed relieved. “Good, Adela, because I cannot think that you and the don would suit.”

“Rebecka, it is over and done with—I do not even want to recall those dreams.”

“They were
stupid
dreams. I think your brother had some
stupid
notions. He must have been a wretched stupid boy.”

The Sevres teacup in Adela’s hand was suddenly shattered, and dabbing at the tea on the cloth, she looked up, stricken. “My brother, Rebecka, was not stupid.” Glancing at his lordship with a look of mute entreaty, she asked to be excused and rushed from the room. His lordship sent Becka up to bed, Adela retired to the music room, and his lordship to the library. It was not a pleasant evening.

The next morning his lordship requested Adela’s presence in the library shortly after breakfast.

Waterston seemed, for the first time in her presence, to be distinctly ill at ease. He hesitated before speaking.

“Miss Trowle, can we speak as friends—more than friends, as two adults who have been entrusted with the care of Rebecka?”—then after a moment when she did not answer—”I realize that, in your case, this burden has not come by
choice,
but such responsibilities, I find, seldom do come by choice, Miss Trowle.” Then he began in an almost formal voice, “I wish to apologize, Miss Trowle, for Rebecka’s conduct of last night.”

“You needn’t apologize, sir.”

“On the contrary, I must. Rebecka has been in my charge and she behaved very badly—cruelly perhaps. I know I am asking a great deal of you,
but please
try to understand her. Rebecka is a
sprite like
excessively affectionate child by nature, and since her mother’s death there has been no one else for her to love. It is quite natural that Rebecka should seek to cling to you like a limpet, believing that she has found, in you, a kindred spirit, another mother so to speak. Do you understand?”

“I sympathize with her need, sir, but I cannot accept your interpretation. Last night ... I hesitate to say this.”

“Please say it.”

“Last night she tried her best to hurt me.”

“Not you—she tried to hurt your Jonathan.”

“Jonathan! She has never met Jonathan!”

“Miss Trowle, did you know that siblings often hate each other? I realize that this was not the case in your family, but in many families it is nevertheless true. My brother, Becka’s father, detested me from the time he could walk and knew me for a brother. Once, when he was three, completely unprovoked, he came up behind me and bit a solid chunk out of my back. Do not laugh. I still bear the scars and I am convinced that he would have plunged a dagger into me, as readily, had he been something more than three and had he had access to a dagger. My brother felt the almost total lack of affection in our family, and I suppose, since he knew he was getting no affection himself, he inferred I was getting all of it. Rebecka wants your love. Perhaps she might be willing to share it with another child, but she sees that Jonathan has
all
your love.”

“Jonathan, my lord, was not my son. He was my brother.”

Jonathan, his lordship thought, was son, brother, lover, and father. But Waterston refrained from saying so. Instead he said simply, “Rebecka is too young to make such distinctions.”

Adela hesitated and then nodded. “I suppose, sir, that I can sympathize, but I do not know that I can tolerate Rebecka’s malice.” And after a moment’s thought, she added, “Jon would never have thought of hurting anyone—certainly not anyone he loved.”

“Rebecka, Miss Trowle, is not an
angelic
child; she is an all too human brat. It would be a poor world indeed if all our love were reserved for the angels.”

“My lord, now it is you who do not understand. Perhaps all my love is vested in Jon and my mother. I do not know. I do know that when they died my ability to love died as well. I can no more give Rebecka what she needs than a one-legged man can run. She would be wiser to look to you for affection.”

“To me—no, child. Surely you see me for what I am. I am a person almost devoid of natural affection. I have never given it nor received it—I do not even crave it. My parents were models of propriety. I cannot recall so much as a single embrace from either my mother or my father, and I was sent off to schools at the earliest possible age.”

“Surely you exaggerate, sir. You are capable of affection—you are not a senseless block.”

“No, I am not senseless. I am a person of strong appetites, desires, passions if you will—but not affections. If Becka has no one but the two of us, you who have lost your ability to love, and I, who was born without that ability, she is doomed. Poor Becka, raised by a pair of emotional cripples.”

Adela did not know whether her sympathies were more with Rebecka or with the stern ashen-faced man before her.

“My lord, I will
try
to help Rebecka, but again I think that you exaggerate the need. Rebecka has Sophia, and if I may venture to speak of it, Rebecka will have Lady Diana as well.” Laying her hand impulsively on Waterston’s arm, Adela looked up and said, “Do not
you
despair, my lord. You and the Lady Diana will make a good home for Rebecka and any number of other fine loving children. I wish you the very best of good fortune, sir.”

Ignoring the hand on his arm, Waterston stiffened and answered, “Do not pity me, my dear Miss Trowle. I will, in all likelihood marry the fair Diana, so like my mother, and raise two healthy boys without once embracing them, and I will send them off to school at the earliest possible opportunity. I will, you see, be bent on repeating the sins of the fathers; but
I
shall not be unhappy—heartless people are seldom unhappy. Do not, I beg you, spare me a single tear. I am not worthy of it.”

“Nonsense, sir. I waste no tears. I do not cry and I have not cried in eight years.”

Grasping her by the shoulders, he shook her gently. “Miss Trowle, you are a fool.” And then, after a moment or two, he said, “Come, let us both go up to Rebecka.”

Five

Adela intended to enjoy the outing to the theater. She had been accustomed to wandering through the theater district, sampling the fruits from the vendors, and hanging on to Richard Brewer’s arm in order to avoid being swept away by the milling crowds—crowds which were always moving to make room for crested carriages. Tonight, she herself was not among the jostling anonymous crowds, but rather a personage in a crested carriage, and the reversal of roles was not entirely pleasant. She was, of course, familiar with the theater but not with the footman, the boxes, and the almost excessive ceremony. Waterston was an important man and every person in his box was a legitimate object of attention. Adela was uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was being stared at, as were all the inhabitants of the box, but she was unaware that her presence in the Waterston box had immediately become the subject of speculation among the members of the ton present that evening. Fortunately, Sophia Spencer had taken great care to inform a few of her select friends that Miss Adela Trowle was a long-lost but valued cousin of the Beaumonts. Sophia’s group of select friends were quite capable of nipping any rumor in the bud, and so Miss Trowle could go on sitting demurely, unaware of the minor sensation she had momentarily become.

Adela, in her turn, admired, as she had always done, the painted figures in the other boxes. And noticing her interest, Aunt Sophia discreetly pointed out to her Lady Diana Rathbone. Although Lady Diana was some distance from their own box, Adela could see that Waterston’s intended was beautiful. A vision of incredible porcelain perfection. She was not demure but majestic. She sat like a silver queen quietly and graciously holding court. As always, Adela could find nothing to fault in his lordship’s taste.

Adela was also unaware that while both she and Becka sat with their eyes riveted on the stage and their faces a moving kaleidoscope of emotion, his lordship, with his seat set slightly back, was looking at both of them with tolerant and warm amusement. Strange, he thought, how compartmentalized was the human soul. One could almost believe—now—that the little prim person with the burning eyes and the occasionally laughing passionate expression was indeed the source of the splendid disembodied music he listened to in his library. There
was
a burning vitality buried in that plain drab little form, although in the cool light of day he had only seen closed features—occasionally some show of anger or grief.

The play began, but Waterston’s attention continued to wander from the actors on the stage to the still figure in cinnamon velvet. He could not help but contrast the small self-contained little Miss Trowle who appeared so quiet—except for her burning eyes and mobile features—with the exotic redhead who was tonight’s Ophelia. There on the stage beneath them was a piece of truly elegant femininity. Miss Trowle might aspire to be a professional. Miss Oliver, tonight’s Ophelia, was a professional and in at least two distinct professions. A man didn’t have to
search
for Jeanette Oliver’s passions; they were there for the purchase and Charles Beaumont had, at least for the past several months, purchased them. In fact, he thought dispassionately Miss Oliver was rather better in bed than she was on the stage.

During the intermission, Lady Spencer introduced Adela and Becka to several of her more august friends. While they were making polite conversation, his lordship paid his respects to his proposed fiancée, the fair Lady Diana, and then, wandering down, handed a trusted porter a note for his inamorata, informing her of his plans to join her later in the evening. All in all, it was a delightful outing, even if, in his judgment, the production of
Hamlet
was not as good as he had been led to expect.

Later, in the carriage, they began a critique of the play. Waterston was astonished to find that Miss Trowle, although she had been only an hour earlier, totally immersed in the drama, was now quite capable of an intelligent critique of the production. She was no longer the little dab of a gray girl with the passionate countenance; she was now Miss Trowle on her great dignity as a drama critic.

“Miss Trowle, you seemed favorably impressed by the Hamlet tonight,” he said.

“I am almost always favorably impressed by Shakespeare—each production is itself an illumination.”

“Actually, Miss Trowle,” his lordship continued casually, “I found Hamlet rather coarse tonight. I believe there was an excess of emotion displayed and rather not enough poetry.”

“Do you believe then, my lord, that great art must be
delicate
?”

“Not
delicate.
That, perhaps, is an inappropriate term. But I do believe that art must have balance and form and that
marked
violence of character often obscures that balance and form. Tonight, Kean’s ravings certainly obscured Shakespeare’s meter and Hamlet’s princely attractiveness.”

“I have always thought that, in Shakespeare at least, meter and attractiveness were of secondary importance. I quite agree, my lord, that Hamlet tonight was quite violent in his emotions, but I cannot believe that in this respect he was unfaithful to the original. After all, Hamlet’s poetry is not meant to be
pretty.
Its beauty, I believe, is in its power, its desperation, its philosophy, if you will, and not simply in its meter.”

“Ah, but I have an entirely different conception of the beautiful. To be beautiful requires a species of perfection. Look about you, Miss Trowle, at the world outside these windows. It is an ugly brutal world as I am sure you will agree. Is it not beyond everything wonderful that a man, a great artist, can take such a world and add to it proportion, balance, and elegance? In a word, beauty? An artist is like the gods, creating, in free expression, a world of perfection. A sculptured Venus de Milo with a wart is not only ugly, she is a contradiction of the very principles of art.”

“What an excessively small view of the beautiful you have, my lord. The role of great art, and Hamlet
is
great, is not to erase the ugliness and suffering as a child might in a daydream but to transcend it and in transcending it to reveal it as beautiful.”

“Dear sweet prim Miss Trowle, can it be that appearances to the contrary, we are harboring a romantic in our midst. I should have thought you would only approve of a sober prim little Hamlet spouting sensible emotions in well-measured iambic pentameters.”

“You do me a disservice, Lord Waterston. A reasonable person cannot expect Shakespeare to read like Pope, nor do I uniformly approve of the production myself. I have seen better Hamlets and I was quite disappointed in Ophelia.”

“You were disappointed in Ophelia? Why?”

“Miss Oliver was, of course, absolutely stunning, but I think Ophelia is better played as a fragile blonde rather than as a vibrant redhead. Miss Oliver is beautiful but somehow lacking in vulnerability. She is too much woman for Ophelia and not quite enough girl. I should like to see her draped on the barge in
Antony and Cleopatra
.”

Becka, who had been listening silently and feeling just a little excluded, saw an opening. “Uncle Charles, is that the Jeanette Oliver that John Coachman says...”

“Becka, I’m certain we are not interested in what John Coachman says,” her uncle interrupted.

Adela, believing that his lordship was being rude to the child added, “Becka, if John Coachman is acquainted with Miss Oliver we would all be interested. Miss Oliver is an actress of undoubted ability. She is quite talented as well as beautiful. I would like to meet her myself.”

Lord Waterston, who had a rather better idea of Miss Oliver’s talents than had either Miss Trowle or John Coachman, was sorely tempted to shock his listener and could not entirely smother the temptation.

“I can’t think how you, Miss Trowle, can regard as a legitimate professional a woman who night after night parades across a stage less than half-clothed.”

“In acting, your lordship, a state of dishabille is reflective more of the low tastes of the audience than of the talent, or lack thereof, of the actress,” Miss Trowle answered blithely as she ushered Becka out of the carriage and into the hall.

Becka still had not received an answer to her initial query, but knowing very well that she was being audaciously provoking, she continued, “But John Coachman says...”

“Silence,” Waterston boomed. “I am not in the least bit interested in what John Coachman says, brat.”

“Becka,” Adela interrupted, “I believe that it is time for bed. Say good night and thank you to your uncle.”

“Good night and thank you, Uncle Charles,” Becka said with the slightest of curtsies and a look of unholy mischief in her eyes. “Miss Oliver
is
very beautiful.” Then she ran up the stairs.

“Miss Trowle,” Waterston added, finding it difficult to refrain from chuckling, “I believe we have a precocious little brat on our hands. You really must monitor her exposures to John Coachman.”

“I don’t know that that is possible, sir. Surely it would be simpler to speak to John Coachman yourself and have him censor what he says in her presence.”

“On the contrary, it would not answer at all, Miss Trowle. John Coachman is an aged retainer who taught me how to handle a team when I was Rebecka’s age. I, least of all, can restrain him. I’m afraid he has always been determined to boast of all my exploits.”

Adela’s eyes lit up. “My apologies, sir, I had not realized that Miss Oliver was one of your
exploits
and my compliments on your taste.” Then, before he could manage a suitable response, she dropped into a deep curtsy. “Good night, my lord, and thank you for a lovely evening. Becka was right, you know, Miss Oliver is
very
beautiful.” Adela turned and ran up the stairs.

Waterston was strangely pleased to see that look of impish mischief on Miss Trowle’s pert little face. He grinned as he turned into his library to wait for the music. When, after half an hour, the music did not begin, he noticed that it was really quite late and he called for his hat and his cane and went back out into the night.