The Duchesss Tattoo (7 page)

Teddy saw that it had not occurred to her that he might refuse to accept her proposal.

‘You are the one who is being disingenuous now. Do you really think that I can elope with you? Not only would it break your mother's heart, it would surely break my mother's too. The Van Der Leydens are not as rich as the Cashes but they are honourable. People would say I was a fortune-hunter.' He tried to take his hands from her waist but she held them there.

‘But they would say that about anyone. It's not my fault I'm richer than everyone else. Please, Teddy, don't be all…scrupulous about this. Why can't we just be happy? You like kissing me, don't you? Didn't I get it right?' She reached up to stroke his cheek. And then a thought hit her, amazing her with its audacity. ‘There isn't someone else, is there? Someone you like more than me?'

‘Not someone, something. I want to be a painter. I'm going to Paris to study. I think I have a talent but I have to be sure.' Even as he said it, Teddy realised how weak he sounded against Cora's passionate intensity.

‘But why can't you paint here? Or if you have to go to Paris, I could come with you.' She made it all sound so easy.

‘No, Cora,' he said almost roughly, afraid she might persuade him. ‘I don't want to be that kind of painter, a Newport character who sails in the morning and paints in the afternoon. I don't want to paint pictures of ladies and their lapdogs. I want to do something serious and I can't do that here and I can't do that with a wife.'

He thought for a moment that she would cry. She was waving her hands in front of her face as if trying to push away his words, swaying clumsily in her galleon of a dress.

‘Honestly, there is no one I would rather marry than you, Cora, even if you are too rich for me. But I can't now; there is something I want more. And what I need can't be bought.'

She looked back at him crossly. He saw with relief tinged with regret that she was not so much heartbroken as thwarted. He said firmly, ‘Admit it, Cora, you don't really want to marry me as much as you want to get away from your mother. A sentiment I can fully appreciate, but if you go to Europe you will no doubt find yourself a princeling and then you can send her back to America.'

Cora gave him an angry little shove. ‘And what, give her the satisfaction of being the matchmaker? The mother who married her daughter to the most eligible bachelor in Europe? She pretends she is above such things but I know she thinks of nothing else. Ever since I was born my mother has chosen everything for me, my clothes, my food, the books I can read, the friends I can have. She has thought of everything except me.' She shook her head sharply as if trying to shake her mother out of her life. ‘Oh Teddy, won't you change your mind? I can help you; it wouldn't be so very terrible, would it? It's only money. We don't have to have it. I don't mind living in a garret.'

Perhaps, he thought, if she really cared for him…but he knew that what he principally represented to her was escape. He would like to paint her, though, angry and direct – the spirit of the New World dressed in the trappings of the Old. He couldn't resist taking her face in his hands and kissing her one last time.

But just as he felt his resolve weaken, as he felt Cora's shudder, the Spirit of Electricity exploded into the darkness and they were illuminated. Mrs Cash stood like a shining general at the head of her legion of guests.

There was a ripple in the air as a sigh of surprise was expelled across the terrace.

The radiant bulbs cast harsh shadows across the contours of Mrs Cash's face. ‘Cora, what are you doing?' Her voice was soft but penetrating.

‘Kissing Teddy, Mother,' her daughter replied. ‘Surely with all that candle power, you can see that?' The Spirit of Electricity brushed her daughter's insolence aside. She turned her glittering head to Teddy.

‘Mr Van Der Leyden, for all your family's pride in your lineage, you appear to have no more morals than a stable hand. How dare you take advantage of my daughter?'

But it was Cora who answered. ‘Oh, he wasn't taking advantage of me, Mother. I kissed him. But then my grandfather
was
a stable hand so you wouldn't expect any better, would you?'

Mrs Cash stood in shining silence, the echo of Cora's defiance ringing in the air around her. And then, just as Mrs Cash was about to deliver her counter blow, a tongue of flame snaked round the diamond star in her hair, turning her headdress into a fiery halo. Mrs Cash was all at once ablaze, her expression as fierce as the flames that were about to engulf her.

For a moment no one moved. It was as if the guests had all gathered together to watch a firework display, and indeed the sparks springing from Mrs Cash's head shone prettily against the night sky. And then the flames began to lick her face and Mrs Cash screamed – the high keening noise of an animal in pain. Teddy rushed towards her, throwing his cloak over the flaming head, and pushed her to the ground, pummelling her body with his hands. The stench of burnt hair and flesh was overwhelming, a gruesome echo of that hint of feral musk he had smelt on Cora moments before. But Teddy was hardly aware of this; later, all he remembered was the band striking the opening bars of the ‘Blue Danube' as Cora knelt beside him and together they turned her mother over to face the stars above. The left side of her face was a mess of charred and blistered flesh.

Teddy heard Cora whisper, ‘Is she dead?'

Teddy said nothing but pointed to Mrs Cash's right eye, her good eye. It was bright with moisture and they watched as a tear made its way down the smooth stretch of her undamaged cheek.

In the conservatory the hummingbird man took the cloth from his cage. The gong had sounded, that was his signal. Carefully he opened the door and then stood aside as his birds scattered like sequins over the dark velvet of the night air.

A minute later Bertha found him standing in front of the empty cage.

‘Samuel, I have something I want you to take to my mother. This should take care of her while I am in Europe.' She held out a little purse with the seventy-five dollars. She had decided to keep the ‘boulder', it was not the sort of thing her mother would be able to sell easily.

The hummingbird man said, ‘There was nobody to see them fly out. They looked so fine too.'

Bertha stood there with her hand still outstretched. Slowly, Samuel turned to face her and without haste he took the purse. He said nothing, but then he did not need to. Bertha filled the silence.

‘If I could leave now I would, but we sail at the end of the week. This is a good position. Mrs Cash, she's looked after me.' Bertha's voice rose, as if asking a question.

The hummingbird man's stare did not waver. ‘Goodbye, Bertha. I don't reckon I'll be coming up here again.' He picked up his cage and walked into the darkness.