Powerscourt had known it was coming. It was fruitless to resist. He had said how nice in what he thought was a friendly fashion to Lady Lucy in the taxi that brought them here to the evening performance of the Ballets Russes in the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. She looked at him with deep but silent suspicion. Now he was in their box. He waved to Natasha and Mikhail in their box on the opposite side of the auditorium. He could hear the orchestra revving up. He remembered an old saying of his father’s about going to the dentist: just remember when it starts that you’re much closer to the end; to the whole visit being over.
There were garlands on the stage already and things hadn’t even started. Now they had! They were off! The music seemed to be almost a lullaby. The curtains rose to reveal a small pack of ballerinas, as Powerscourt referred to them, apparently frozen on stage. He remembered this one from his last visit all those years before. They’re going to start prancing about now, he told himself. Then that one in the outrageous costume will wake up on her high bed and she too will start prancing about. Round and about, up and down, forward to the front of the stage went the ballerinas. Powerscourt thought that it was like a moving harem, a tableau of female flesh on display. When the music stopped you could pick your girl. You might have to dance your way off the stage with her, but you could retire to some invisible box behind the curtains. But no. The music did not stop. Instead, as Powerscourt had prophesied, the one on the bed woke up. She too began strutting about. The others retired to the back of the stage, wares still on display, minimum clothing, maximum length of leg still available. It was a miracle the Lord Chamberlain, keeper of theatrical virtue in the capital, hadn’t intervened. Any moment now, Powerscourt said to himself, the music’s going to change gear and became more urgent, more dramatic. It did. And — Powerscourt felt on top of his form now — some bloke is going to appear and jump about. He did. The fellow appeared capable of some of the highest leaps Powerscourt had ever seen. The audience were on the edge of their seats. Powerscourt felt this chap could win Olympic gold for the high jump if he ever bothered. Only later was he to learn that his name was Nijinsky. Passion offered, passion rejected, passion offered again — yet more leaping about, higher still and higher, and at last the first ballet of the evening was over. Passion seemed to have been resolved as the high jumper and the sleeping one seemed to move off together. The applause was deafening. One ballet down, only two to go, Powerscourt said to himself. He felt quite cheerful. If he could sit through one of the bloody things, two shouldn’t be a problem. The evening at the dentist’s would soon be over.
That same evening another telegram arrived for M. Diaghilev at the Savoy Hotel in London. It came from Venice. The message was short and to the point: ‘Regret, repeat regret that your outstanding bills with the Grand Hotel have still not been cleared. No repeat accommodation will be offered here until they are settled. Giulio Baggini, General Manager Grand Hotel Venezia.’ The message joined its companions, unopened and unread, in the guests’ letterboxes in the Savoy Hotel reception.
9
A highly accomplished male ballet dancer. The female equivalent is Prima ballerina (Italian) or danseuse (French). A danseur noble is not just any dancer in the world of ballet, but one who has received international critical accolades from the dance community. . Most boys and men who dance classical ballet are just called danseurs.
The excitement in the Servants’ Hall at Blenheim was almost palpable. The footmen and the chambermaids and the gardeners and the coachmen and the chauffeurs hadn’t been so excited since they learned that their lord and master, the 9th Duke of Marlborough, was to play an important role in the coronation service of King George V. But this was something different. The Duke’s man of business had mentioned it to the manager of the Bear Hotel in Woodstock. He had been overheard by one of the barmen. The barman, in his turn, told his brother, who kept a clothing shop in the town, but who was married to a local girl whose sister was one of the chambermaids in the big house. The intelligence took strange shapes on its voyages. The Russian Ballet was coming to the palace. That was definite. There were varying attempts to guess the size of the company. Some said thirty. Some attested that that must be rubbish, there had to be at least a hundred of them. The Tsar was coming, said the monarchists below stairs. No he wasn’t, said the others — the whole thing was run by a big man called Diaghilev who spoke no English but swore at everybody in Russian. On two points there was general agreement. The ballerinas would be very beautiful. And that it would be a triumph for Blenheim Palace, making it for a time the most famous big house in the country — which it was anyway, they acknowledged, but people needed to be reminded of it from time to time.
Upstairs in the Big House, the mood was different. Blenheim Palace had been built for a man said to have been the finest military commander in Europe. The building, constructed with such elaborate panache and sense of triumph, was one of architect Sir John Vanbrugh’s finest achievements. The original Duke’s successors had not inherited his military prowess, or his political skill. They were not even particularly good husbands. The 9th Duke of Marlborough, one Charles Spencer Churchill, had, as it were, won the Derby and the Grand National in one go when he carried off Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughter and heiress to the vast Vanderbilt fortune, acquired in the trains and steamships of New York, and a great beauty to boot. Hundreds of thousands of pounds from her dowry were poured into the fabric of Blenheim. She, for her part, bore him two sons. She also brought an American friend of hers to stay, one Gladys Deacon, reportedly one of the most beautiful women in Europe. Her services soon replaced those of the Duchess in the marital bed.
La Vanderbilt lived with this for a while but then departed. Perhaps the Blenheim train services weren’t up to the standards she had been used to on the Vanderbilt lines in and around New York. And she refused to get divorced. The Deacon woman, who might have been convinced that her presence in the marital bed gave her the right of Duchess by virtue of position, as it were, was permanently annoyed, not to say livid, to be fobbed off with the title of Your Ladyship inside the household and plain Mrs Deacon without. It was this acute awareness of the inferiority of her position that roused her to battle stations when the question of the Ballets Russes reached the State Drawing Room of Blenheim Palace.
‘Think of it, Charles, just think of how famous these Russian dancers will make us.’
‘I don’t understand. They’re far too expensive. I could buy the winner of the Oaks for less than that.’
‘Who cares about winning horses? People say this is the finest ballet company in the world. We could invite anybody who is anybody from London. The trains to Oxford from London run all the time. Think of the attention! Think of the newspapers!’
Her Ladyship did not say so, but she planned to be at the Duke’s side at all times. Those photos should put that railroad woman from New York in her place.
‘It’s all very vague still, anyway. Nobody’s even decided where the ballets should take place.’
‘You mark my words,’ said Mrs Deacon, preparing a grand departure from the room, ‘that if those dancers don’t come, I shall be seriously displeased. To hell with the money. You’ve got loads of it tucked away for buying racehorses and things. I’m depending on you!’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said the Duke to the departing figure. He knew only too well what serious displeasure meant.