“No one,” Adah answered crisply. “She is no one.” Charlotte was puzzled.
Adah turned to face her, her expression a mixture of amusement and distaste.
“Such persons may pass in front of you, my dear, but you do not see them. To a lady, they are invisible.”
“Oh—oh, I see. She is …”
“Precisely.” Adah waved her arm very slightly towards one of the boxes farther around the tier of the balcony. “On the other hand, or perhaps not. That is Mrs. Langtry—the Jersey Lily.”
Charlotte did not bother to hide her smile. “Has anyone ever seen Mr. Langtry? I’ve never even heard him mentioned.”
“I have,” Adah answered dryly. “But I shall not repeat what was said—poor man.”
She obviously meant it, so Charlotte did not ask. Instead she looked farther around the tier of boxes for other people of interest. It did not take her long to observe that at least half those she watched were turned towards one particular box over on the far side where there was a considerable amount of coming and going, of both men and women. The men especially were dressed in the height of fashion, although what fashion was harder to say. Their hair was far longer than customary, they were clean-shaven, and large, floppy ties overflowed their collars. However, there was an elegance about them, almost a languor, which was quite distinctive.
“Who are they?” Charlotte asked, her interest piqued. “Are they critics?”
“I doubt it,” Devlin replied with a smile. “Actors come frequently very well dressed, but a little more conventionally than that. They are almost certainly members of the aesthete set, very self-consciously artistic of soul, even if not necessarily of output. I am afraid Mr. Gilbert guyed them terribly in his opera
“I shall, quite definitely.” She smiled back at him cordially, then suddenly remembered what she was here for. She froze, still looking at him. For a moment the situation struck her with all its farcical quality. They were dressed in their very best clothes, he in black dinner suit with gold cuff links, and onyx and mother of pearl studs, she in a gown borrowed from Caroline and retrimmed to be more up to date, but a shade of dark wine which suited her marvelously, and she knew it, deep at the bosom and with only a tiny bustle. They were here as guests of Prosper Harrimore, waiting for the curtain to go up on the stage where the people who had brought them together by virtue of a notorious tragedy were going to play out a comedy of manners, all saying words no one meant, on stage or off it. And all the time she was trying to determine whether he was the person who had murdered and crucified Kingsley Blaine and allowed Aaron Godman to be hanged for it.
Devlin O’Neil was looking at her curiously.
She forced her eyes away, turning her head to look back at the great sweep of the auditorium, the boxes tier on tier, plush lined, filled now with expectant people, the pallor of their faces turned towards the stage. Their own dramas were played out, or temporarily forgotten. Lillie Langtry sat well forward, not only to see, but to be seen. Even the aesthetes were for once oblivious of each other and had their faces towards the curtain, their own wit set aside.
What an extraordinary convention that a few hours of precise and formal unreality should hold mem spellbound, together and yet unreasonably separate, all held by the power of the imagination woven by a few men and women in borrowed costumes speaking borrowed words.
The murmur of voices died and the silence quivered with indrawn breath, and the faint rustle of fabric and creak of whalebone. The curtain went up. There was a sigh like a wind stirring leaves. The lights picked out Tamar Macaulay standing alone in the center of the stage. She did not move, and yet she was a figure of such arresting power that every eye was fixed upon her. Even Lillie Langtry ignored her admirers and stared ahead. Tamar had not the Jersey Lily’s beauty, nor her fame, but she had a depth of emotion that surpassed both, and for this space of time, the audience was hers.
Joshua Fielding came onto the stage. Beside Charlotte, Caroline stiffened, held her breath and leaned a little forward. The drama began.
Charlotte watched the stage as well, but more often she turned to look at the people in her own box. Kathleen O’Neil sat graciously, a slight smile on her lips, her eyes on the figures on the lit stage below her. Charlotte searched her expression when she looked at Joshua and saw nothing in the smooth cheeks, the slanted eyes, no suspicion, no curiosity. If she wondered about Aaron Godman’s guilt, about Joshua’s part in the tragedy, those thoughts did not seem to occupy her now.
Then Tamar was back on the stage, the lights brilliant on her face as she spoke her lines, her voice ringing with emotion.
A flicker crossed Kathleen’s brow. Her mouth narrowed and her tongue touched her lips. She would have been less than human had she not wondered what this woman was like, what fire burned in her, that Kathleen’s own husband had risked so much to stay with her. But even staring as openly as she dared, Charlotte could see no hatred in Kathleen’s eyes, no violence of feeling, only a sad curiosity, and behind her Prosper’s hand on her chair tightened, the knuckles white. Perhaps he relived her pain more than she did herself.
Kathleen turned, not seeing Charlotte, and smiled at Devlin O’Neil, standing behind Adah. He smiled back, a warm, gentle look, and her lips curled upwards as she moved her head back to watch the stage.
How long had Devlin O’Neil been in love with her? Long before Kingsley Blaine’s death? It was a very ugly thought, and Charlotte resented its necessity. She liked them both. One tragedy was more than enough.
She looked again at Devlin’s arm on Adah’s chair. His hand was fine, well manicured, the cloth of his jacket excellent gabardine, his shirt with its gold links was made of silk. What had it been before his marriage to Kathleen?
Charlotte looked away, her eyes going to Adah, seeing her face set in hard lines of some emotion that troubled her deeply. It was not new, there was no urgency in it, only an old pain she had borne a long time. It had already cut deep into her; it was a matter of enduring it.
What was it? Disappointment? No, it was too sharp. It was not fear. It was harder than grief.
Charlotte turned to Prosper where he stood beyond Caroline, his hand still over Kathleen’s chair. His heavy face with its deep-set eyes and hatchet nose was fixed on the stage, oblivious of his family and guests. Was it the drama which held him, or Tamar Macaulay, who had stolen his daughter’s husband?
Everyone else was totally unaware of Charlotte or the O’Neils, or Adah or Prosper Harrimore. Only Joshua Fielding turned and moved in the spotlight.
