The Spider's Touch (24 page)

Of the King there was no sign, until Mr. Handel made a deep bow to one particular box. The audience hastened to their feet, craning their necks to see what he had seen.

The second royal box still stood empty. The box which had attracted all the notice was private, and there Hester saw the Baroness von Kielmansegge, sitting in all her bulk. In response to the bows, she inclined her head as graciously as her many chins would allow, exposing another broad figure behind her in the shadows.

Hester would not have known it was the King, if George had not been flanked by his grooms of the chamber, Mehemet and Mustafa, but there was no mistaking the exotic dress of the King’s Turkish servants.

A monarch who preferred not to be noticed was something that no English audience could understand. It simply did not suit their image of a king. People murmured amidst their applause, and more than one face evinced sullen dissatisfaction. Some with greater cheer waved their hats above their heads until George was obliged to acknowledge them with a wave. Then he retreated, giving no mark of pleasure at having been seen.

Mr. Handel waited for the royal nod before taking the director’s place at the harpsichord.

Then the music began, and from the very first note, Hester forgot everything but the spectacle on the stage.

The story was a Spanish tale of chivalry, the romance of Amadis of Gaul, his beloved Oriana, and the attempts of Melissa, a jealous sorceress, to come between them. Hester was carried away by the magnificent scenery—which moved with hardly a squeak with the aid of pulleys and ropes—the dramatic story, and the virtuosity of the Cavaliero Nicolino Grimaldi, the famous castrato, who, as Amadis, raised his  pure, angelic voice in alt.

But it was the character of Melissa, sung by the Signora Elizabetta Pilotti Schiavonetti, who captivated Hester from her very first aria.

Until the aria was sung, Melissa had seemed only a simple villainess, conceived for the sole purpose of throwing Oriana’s goodness into bright relief, but suddenly, in song, Melissa’s unrequited love for Amadis was revealed, pricking at a tender spot in Hester’s heart.

By the light of the great chandelier, hanging from the ceiling, she could read the words in the crude libretto, which Harrowby had bought for Isabella in the street. Without it, Hester would never have understood the anger with which Melissa began her song. But when her  notes turned plaintive, with the aid of a solo hautboy, the painful emotions of the rejected lover required nothing else to make them felt.

“Ah! Spietato!”
Oh, pitiless man, are you not moved by so constant a love, which makes me die for you?
The notes of the music alone conveyed an inconsolable sadness. Her tenderness and longing ended in despair. To Hester, it was a major revelation to learn that music was a language, too, that the secrets of a woman’s heart could be expressed with nothing more than a sequence of notes. Perhaps no other woman in the audience felt these emotions as keenly as she, but every sigh of Melissa’s plucked a chord in her breast, revealing feelings even she, in all her honesty, had not acknowledged.

True, she had done nothing purposely to separate her cousin from St. Mars. And Isabella had not returned the love he had nobly offered. But he had been in love with her cousin. He probably loved her still.

And, as Melissa’s mood drifted between gentleness and misery, defiance and despair, Hester admitted to herself that she had experienced all of those feelings. She had merely pushed the ones she could not tolerate down, so that even she was unaware of them.

Had the fact that she possessed them kept her from doing all she could to prove St. Mars’s innocence? Had she feared to clear him, when, outlaw that he was, she could keep his friendship to herself? What had she done, or not done, to aid him? Could she be as selfish and deluded as Melissa?

For the remainder of the first act, she could not stop these guilty questions from rising, so by its end, her spirits were morbid. The intermezzo was announced, and her companions stood to stretch themselves, chattering about the music, laughing and waving to friends, smothering yawns—in Dudley’s case—and preparing to leave the box. Harrowby was the first to leave, having as his object a neighbouring box. Colonel  exited with Dudley. Lord Lovett took Isabella on a stroll, making Hester’s company unrequired, and Mrs. Mayfield found her escort in Sir Humphrey. Mr. Blackwell was the only person besides Hester to remain in his chair.

Hester could not bring herself to join the crowd. Her conscience hurt. She would have preferred to have been left alone, so she could think without worrying that her thoughts might be written on her face. But Mr. Blackwell took no notice of her, and she might have forgotten his presence altogether, if half-way through the interval, he had not stood up to peer into the pit.

After only a moment of staring, he gave a backwards start, and moved into the shadow cast by the curtain that separated their box from the next. It was as he had glimpsed someone he did not wish to see. He abruptly turned, when, taking note of Hester, he tried to disguise his haste.

Making her the briefest of bows, he said, “Pray, madam, will you convey my apologies to our host? I have recalled a prior engagement and fear I shall not be able to stay for the rest of the entertainment.”

Then he left with no further word, and Hester gained the privacy she had wanted.

The performance, with its revelations, had affected her more than she was willing to accept without an examination of her feelings by day. Unused to reveling in guilt, she was still familiar with the effects of night upon the emotions, and knew how the hours of dusk could magnify morbid thoughts. The power of the music had taken her unawares. She had not expected the composer to be able to express the mortification of unrequited affection, or certainly never so eloquently. What had shaken her more, though, was the suspicion of a selfish core she might possess, whose existence she would have denied. Nothing short of a complete examination of her actions from first meeting St. Mars to last night’s rendezvous would resolve whether she had one or not.

She was so taken up with this soulful search that she hardly heard the others returning to the box. Smiling, in absentminded greeting, she was vaguely aware of the sorting and shuffling that often takes place during an interval. Harrowby, by some rare miracle, returned with his own wife upon his arm. Lord Lovett followed shortly with Colonel Potter on his heels. And Mrs. Mayfield arrived on the arm of an old admirer who wished to be presented to her children, the earl and countess.

This gentleman, if the title could be applied to one who gazed so lecherously on a former lover’s daughter, seemed disinclined to leave. He kissed Isabella with the freedom of an old friend, queried Harrowby on the number of livings in his possession and offered to provide him with the names to fill them, flirted loudly with Hester’s aunt, and kissed Isabella again, this last time risking injury to his back in attempting to squeeze her waist as she was seated. Isabella accepted his attentions good-humouredly and only laughed at his more outrageous attempts to kiss her.

An acquaintance like this was not one Hester wished to make, and she

gladly kept her distance. Lord Lovett and Colonel  did the same. As sullen as ever, and with no reason left to hide his opinions from Lord Hawkhurst, the Colonel made no effort to hide his disgust at the visitor’s vulgarity. Lord Lovett chose to be amused instead, and even bestowed on Hester a winking glance.

It was only a few minutes more before the musicians resumed their places, and only after the music started that Mrs. Mayfield’s swain was persuaded to depart. At the door of the box, he bumped into Dudley, who was just returning. Hester felt a moment’s uneasiness when she saw the droop of his eyelids, a certain sign that he had been drinking. As he stumbled into his chair, the odor of wine wafted through the box. Mrs. Mayfield whispered to him sharply to behave himself, drawing a sneer from the Colonel, and a frown from Lord Lovett, who glanced at Hester again, this time with concern.

Then Hester noticed that their host had not reappeared. She felt a stirring of alarm, but the feeling was quickly tempered by the fact that they had heard no commotion outside their box. If Dudley
had
lost his temper, surely someone in their party would have heard him, or at least another member of the audience would have thought to complain. No one could do anything about it now without calling attention to Dudley. So, by tacit assent, she and Lord Lovett turned their attention to the stage.

In the second act, Melissa’s aria was accompanied by a solo trumpet. As the sorceress threw off all tender emotions and gave herself entirely to revenge, her mood was defiant—even cheerful. And rather inappropriately so, Hester thought, still smarting from the wounds to her conscience. But she no longer felt a kinship with the villainess, so her burden began to lift.

A sound of scuffling behind her intruded on the music. Frowning, Hester tried to ignore it, but her companions, who were not engaged as deeply by the music as she, all turned around in their chairs.

Something was wrong. To Hester’s right, Isabella and her mother froze, staring at the entrance to the box. As Hester turned to see what had startled them, she saw that everyone else had frozen, too.

Sir Humphrey stood in the doorway with wide, staring eyes and a strange, unfocussed look upon his face. A sheet of perspiration gleamed on his forehead. An ashen pallor had erased his normally rosy cheeks. The hands that habitually fluttered at his belly were still, pressed against the framing to support him.

“Humphrey? Dear fellow, what it is?” Lord Lovett was the first to break the silence. His colour had gone white.

A man of action, Colonel Potter jumped to his feet, just as Sir Humphrey fell forward. As he caught him, everyone gasped, except Mrs. Mayfield, who made a huffing sound and spoke indignantly of people who would blame other gentlemen for their over-indulgence. Sir Humphrey’s round, wild eyes stared up at them with a plea.

“‘Pon my word!” Harrowby exclaimed. He was hushed by people in the neighbouring boxes, as Nicolino started to sing.

With a start Colonel held up the hand he had used to lower Sir Humphrey’s back to the floor. They could see what it held.

“My God!” Lord Lovett said. “Is he
...
?”

“Yes,” Colonel  answered, staring in amazement at the bloody knife in his hand. “I’m afraid that Sir Humphrey is dead.”

Chapter Eleven

Virtuous and vicious every Man must be,

Few in the extreme, but all in the degree;

The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise;

And even the best, by fits, what they despise.

‘Tis but by parts we follow good or ill;

For, Vice or Virtue, Self directs it still;

Each individual seeks a several goal;

But H
EAVEN’S
great view is One, and that the Whole.

That counterworks each folly and caprice;

That disappoints th’ effect of every vice;

That, happy frailties to all ranks applied;

Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride,

Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief,

To kings presumption, and to crowds belief.

II. vi.

Sir Humphrey Cove had been murdered with a knife from Hawkhurst House.

This became obvious in the chaos that followed his collapse. Isabella was the first to spy the Hawkhurst arms on the hilt of the knife, which shocked her so forcibly as to prevent the screams she might have produced. She had no sooner pointed to the knife and blurted out its ownership than her mother fell into hysterical shrieks.

The audience booed and hushed, ignorant of the crime that had taken place in their midst. The trumpets, hautboys and harpsichord continued to produce their beautiful notes, while Nicolino’s tragic voice soared eerily above them. Visibly distressed, Lord Lovett took charge and, with no concession to rank, instructed Harrowby to remove his mother-in-law at once. He turned to Hester and, placing a hand upon her shoulder, quietly requested her to escort Isabella and her mother home, both his manner and choice of words carrying implicit confidence that she, at least, would not lose her head.

She complied, agreeing with his plan, but Hester was far from tranquil herself. To see Sir Humphrey, with his harmless cheer and innocent goodwill, so brutally cut down was more upsetting than anything she had ever witnessed. Her hands and knees trembled as she put her arms about Isabella and urged her past the corpse, whose blood lay pooling on the floor.

At first, Isabella refused to go. She clung to Lord Lovett, who in addition to making order out of confusion had to soothe her by promising to call as soon as he had finished here. He helped Hester get her cousin out of the box, suggesting she lift Isabella’s skirts so they would not be stained. With both of her hands engaged in supporting Isabella, Hester’s own gown was not so fortunate. She cringed as her hem dragged through the blood.

Busy as she was, and nearly overset, she did not realize the full importance of the knife until she, her aunt, and her cousin were seated in their coach, Isabella was huddled within her arms, and the clop of the horses’ hooves had broken the tense silence. Then, when she realized the truth, that someone who had been in Hawkhurst House must have committed the murder, she chastised herself for not observing everyone’s reactions. Without them, she could not even venture a guess as to which person might be a killer.

Universal fear and shock were all she could recollect, but whether those emotions had been shared by everyone was something she would never know. For now, she was too shaken to do more than regret the disturbance of her mind.

Mrs. Mayfield said suddenly, “Hester, you must say that you strolled about with Mayfield during the
intermezzo
.”

For a moment Hester was too stunned to reply, but as soon as she found her voice, she protested firmly, “That would be perjury, Aunt, and I cannot believe you wish me to commit a crime.”