A Miracle in Music

Chapter One ~ 1860-2

It was something he feared that he would never find, although just once or twice in his life he had thought for a very short while it was really his, only to be disappointed.

As he lay back against the soft cushions of his carriage and raised his feet onto the small seat opposite him, he reflected that he was not usually so introspective at this time of the night.

But the question in his mind was undoubtedly what it was that he was seeking in life and what would happen if he ever found it?

He thought now that the question arose simply because he was alone and that was unusual.

As was inevitable in his position, he had an enormous number of hangers-on. They were people who made it almost their life’s work to interest and amuse him and whom, because he liked them, he counted as his close friends.

Ordinarily he would have driven home from a party with two or three of them to join him in a nightcap.

Unless, of course, he was involved with either a beautiful lady at the house where he had dined or driving on to where one would be waiting for him, however late he might arrive, he was seldom alone.

Tonight, perhaps because he had anticipated that he might stay with Lady Lawson, he had not asked any of his friends, although there had been several of them at the reception, to accompany him home.

In fact he had slipped out before they were aware of it and he knew that they would either be surprised or suppose he had an assignation elsewhere that they were not aware of.

The thought brought back to him the question of what he was seeking and why tonight he had decided not to play the role that was always expected of him.

‘I must be getting old!’ he thought with a twist of his lips and wondered if that was really the answer.

Then he knew that the reason why he had abstained from doing the obvious was because it was too obvious.

“I am sick to death,” he said aloud, “of being chased, cornered and trapped by women before I am even aware that I want them!”

That, he told himself, was the real answer to the whole problem of himself and his increasing propensity to become bored almost before he had begun to enjoy himself.

‘I should be the hunter, not the hunted,’ he thought to himself.

Now he was frowning and his train of thought was leading him to a kind of anger that his intelligence told him was quite ridiculous, but at the same time it was undoubtedly there.

Most men would be only too pleased and proud to be in his position, to own so much, and yet have a different personality and be very much a man.

But he knew that the edge of everything he did was taken off it simply because it was all too easy and there was really nothing that he had to strive for.

For a moment he wondered whether, if he attempted to climb peaks in the Himalayas, cross the Gobi desert or sail up the sss, that it would make him feel any better.

Then he knew that what he was seeking was not a physical achievement but a mental one or perhaps the right word was ‘spiritual’.

Because that in itself seemed a surprising word to use, he thought that it was a long time since he had found any woman who appealed to his imagination, his idealism and his sense of chivalry.

Physically they aroused him and artistically he enjoyed their beauty, but that was all.

“What do I want? What the devil do I want?” he asked aloud and realised as he spoke that his voice sounded somewhat eerie to himself in the confines of the carriage with the horses now drawing up under the portico of Arkholme House in Park Lane.

The red carpet was run down the steps, a footman wearing the Duke’s livery opened the door of the carriage, and he stepped out to see in the hall three other footmen on duty and his butler waiting for him.

He handed over his evening cape lined with red silk, his gold-topped cane, his white gloves and his tall hat.

Then he hesitated for a moment and then the butler said,

“There are sandwiches and champagne in the study, should Your Grace require them.”

“I am going to bed, Newman,” the Duke replied and walked up the stairs.

He knew that as soon as he had gone the door would be locked and bolted and the night-footman would take up his position in the large padded curved-top chair by the door.

The lights would be extinguished, except for two or three in the silver sconces and the house would be very quiet until the first housemaids came bustling to work at five o’clock the following morning.

He walked along the corridor that led to the Master suite, which had been occupied by the Dukes of Arkholme ever since the house had been built towards the end of the last century.

Because the same architect, Henry Holland, who had redesigned Carlton House for the Prince of Wales, had also been employed by the Duke of that time, the house was one of the finest in the whole of Park Lane and certainly the largest.

The austerity of it had mellowed over the years, as the last Duke had had a penchant for gardening.

It was he who had planted the climbing vines, the clematis and wisteria, which trailed up the walls at the back of the house and had added balconies that were now covered with them.

When the flowers were in bloom, they not only looked beautiful but brought a fragrance into the rooms that made those who slept in them believe that they were in the country.

The Duke, however, was not thinking of his vast possessions in other parts of England, nor of his ancestral home in Oxfordshire, which was magnificent and so large that it was difficult for a visitor to realise that it was a private house.

He was still thinking of himself and the impulse that had made him refuse Lady Lawson’s invitation tonight, which meant that she was doubtless thinking resentfully, if not plaintively, of him and wondering why she had failed.

His valet was waiting for him and the Duke undressed in silence.

When at last he was alone, he blew out the candles by his bed, determined to sleep and thereby rid himself of the cross-examination that came from his own mind.

He knew that it was going to be difficult.

Although he had often laughed at people who told him they were unable to sleep and lay awake either worrying or yearning for the unobtainable, he recognised that once his brain became overactive, it was hard to drift away into unconsciousness, hoping that tomorrow would bring the answer to his problems.

Not surprisingly sleep eluded him and he lay in the darkness thinking back over the past.

He wondered if he had wasted the years up until now and if there was something else he should be doing rather than filling his life with sport and women with just a sprinkling of politics when he thought it incumbent upon him to attend the House of Lords.

‘What alternative is there?’ he asked himself.

He knew uncomfortably that the real answer was marriage with a wife and family to occupy his time.

That would inevitably mean that he would spend longer in the country than he did now and certainly would not pass so many hours in boudoirs that contained a new Steinway or answering the faintly scented invitations that poured into Arkholme House almost every hour of the day.

‘Women! Women!’

When he thought about it, there seemed to be a host of them besieging him and he felt as if he fought a battle against them in which, if he was not careful, he would be defeated.

He could almost see himself the only survivor on a tiny hilltop with the enemy surrounding him, knowing that it was only a question of time before his last shot could be fired and he would be forced to surrender.

“Why am I being so introspective?” he said aloud. “Nobody can make me do anything I do not wish to do and I will not be pressured by women, whether it is to go to bed with them or marry some flat-faced girl just because she is a suitable wife from a breeding point of view and will therefore make me a competent Duchess.”

The whole idea made him shudder and yet what else was there except to go on as he was doing now, which for some unknown reason had tonight suddenly turned sour on him?

He turned over restlessly determined to sleep and, when there was no answer to his problem, not tonight at any rate, thinking that in the morning he would laugh at his preoccupation with himself.

He remembered that one of his closest friends was coming to breakfast with him and afterwards they were going together to Covent Garden where he was to judge a competition he had set up over a year ago to encourage new composers.

In fact it was Queen Victoria who had said to him that it seemed a pity that England was not leading the world in music in the same way that France and Austria were doing.

The Duke looked surprised.

“I have heard so much about the greatness of Strauss and Offenbach,” the Queen went on, “and, when Prince Albert and I were in Paris for the Exhibition, the air seemed to vibrate with music from the Opera House.”

She smiled and added,

“I found Paris the gayest town imaginable!”

“The French are a music-loving people, ma’am,” the Duke had answered.

“So are the Austrians,” the Queen replied. “And I think it would do us as a nation, good to be a little more musical and perhaps make us happier.”

“You are quite right, ma’am,” the Duke said.

He had in fact, been surprised that the Queen should think of such things, remembering that he thought that Windsor Castle was so gloomy and the same might be said of Buckingham Palace.

Then, because he was perceptive, the Duke thought with a little smile that the Queen was in fact envious.

She had once been a pleasure-loving girl, who had come to the Throne when she was only eighteen. She had adored dancing and had always thought of herself as being musical, even though the Duke regarded that somewhat sceptically.

Because he was a great lover of music and gave generous donations to the Covent Garden Opera House every year, he told himself after he left the Queen that what she had suggested was a good idea and something that he would wish to take in hand apart from knowing that it was more or less a Royal Command.

The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden had been burnt down twice and the third theatre had been opened two years before in 1858.

The Duke had arranged with the Managers of the Opera House that a competition should be set up for budding composers of every nationality so long as their work was original and not yet published.

He would give prizes for their work, which, if it was good enough, he would see that it was published and if possible performed.

The idea was hailed with enthusiasm and the Duke dutifully sent particulars of what was happening to the Queen to receive a letter of congratulations and approval written by her Lady-in-Waiting.

It would be interesting, he thought, to see tomorrow what the second audition of musicians would produce.

The first had been disappointing, there were one or two compositions that he thought would be worth being published with a great deal of work on them, but he doubted that they would win much acclaim.

What he was looking for was something original, sparkling and with that inestimable touch of magic that could not be taught or explained, but which lay in the composer himself.