‘You can’t keep a good man down,’ said Lucy cheerily. But I wasn’t inclined to see the funny side. Drowning in my youthful egotism, I could only fear that Damian’s appearance might in some way damage me.
He, needless to say, was enjoying himself enormously. I could see at once that, like a child who will be naughty until it is smacked or a gambler who must play until he loses, Damian had to promote his uninvited appearance until somehow the law enforcers registered it. He danced first with Joanna, as if to announce his arrival. He was the best-looking man in the room and she was the best-looking woman in Europe, so they made quite a pair. Other couples turned to watch them and admire, parents glanced over and asked each other about the glorious duo. A little while later, the ball now well and truly under way, the band announced an eightsome reel. It may seem curious to a modern reader that we should have danced a Scottish reel in the middle of a perfectly normal party, not at some Caledonian festival or even a Burns Night in Kircaldy, but we did. In fact, we danced it at most of the parties that year and, with the steps demanding a less cluttered and less crowded floor, it was a sure way to be noticed, so it came as no surprise to see Damian walking forward to take his place in one of the sets with Terry Vitkov on his arm. She gleamed and beamed, this way and that, clearly enjoying her newly found status as troublemaker, as she leaned proudly on the arm of the rebel. I wondered later whether it was at this particular party that Damian’s own position began to shift from social observer (or climber, depending on your generosity of vision) to subversive. From admiring student to hostile agent. Am I jumping the gun and did it remain in the balance that night? Or had he already decided he hated us all?
Watching them take their places, waiting for the chord that would start us off, it struck me then that he and Terry were rather a good pair. Both outsiders in their different ways, both with everything to gain from the future and nothing to lose with the vanishing past. I assumed she had money – she did, but less than I thought at the time – just as I assumed that Damian would make money – again, I was right. He did. And much more than I thought at the time. Might they not combine and conquer the world? They were both adventurers. Why should they not join forces?
I was partnering a rather dull girl from somewhere near Newbury and now we set off, marching round in our hand-held circles. Glancing across, I was momentarily impressed by the skills Damian had already acquired in this, so recently foreign, territory. He knew the steps and performed them well; he took his turn in the centre of the ring without a trace of self-consciousness, holding himself erect, executing the different parts of the reel with a degree of grace and dignity I could not have claimed for myself. He chatted to the girls around him and to the other men, part of their crowd now, part of their world, after only a few cocktail parties and dances. We had almost forgotten that we did not know him.
After that the pop group resumed, but Damian showed no sign of flagging. He danced with plenty of the girls, Lucy Dalton and a raucous, ruddy-faced Candida Finch among them. He was about to dance with Georgina Waddilove, who would certainly have betrayed her country to make him stay by her side, but in that instant, just as the music started he seemed to get a stitch and beg her, instead, to join him in a drink. I lost sight of him as they drifted away together into the room serving as a bar. It is hard, looking back, to state with any accuracy my precise feelings at that stage towards this cuckoo I had brought into the nest. As I have said, I’d begun to suspect he had an agenda more complicated than I had first understood, but I still admired his chutzpah, and never more so than when he returned to the ballroom that evening. Somehow, while he was away, a happy conjunction had allowed him to achieve what he came for. To my amazement and the admiration of all those present who knew he was there illegitimately, he reappeared in the open doorway leading the hostess, at least the girl who but for her indomitable mother should have been the centre of the evening, Princess Dagmar herself, onto the dance floor. It was a slow number. The lights were lowered, the band strummed away and, in full view of her guests, Dagmar slipped her arms round the interloper and pressed her tiny face into his chest. Lightly caressing her lank hair as they smooched, Damian noticed me watching him from across the floor. He caught my eye. And winked.
The trouble, which I suppose we all knew would come in the end, happened at the breakfast and in a way it was a miracle it was delayed until then. The custom, at every private dance, was to provide breakfast towards the finish, starting usually at about half past one or so. These repasts varied in quality and were sometimes, frankly, not worth waiting for but the Grand Duchess had clearly invoked the old proverb of ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ and laid on the best the hotel was capable of, which was very good indeed. We waited in a group, rather than a queue, ready to help ourselves to eggs and bacon and sausages and mushrooms, all laid out before us in silver chafing dishes.
Damian was standing a little ahead of me. He appeared to have resigned his charge of Dagmar, who was nowhere to be seen, but moved on to the equally great, or greater, prize of Serena, who was as animated as I had ever seen her, laughing and chatting, and leaning her head close to his. I remember I was surprised at the time to register how well they appeared to know each other. She had come as Caroline Lamb dressed as a page, taken from the famous portrait by Thomas Phillips and, of course, the trim tailoring of her velvet coat, displaying, as it did, her wonderful legs in stockings and knee breeches, made all the other girls present look stuffy and dowdy by comparison. Damian, at her side, was a convincing Byron and perhaps that had been the original idea behind his costume. In fact, they could almost have planned it, they made so well-matched a pair. Serena was not as beautiful as Joanna Langley – no woman was – but she had a fineness of feature that offset it. In short, they looked wonderful together and once again Damian found himself the cynosure of all eyes. ‘Excuse me, Sir, but do you have an invitation?’ The voice, loud and with a trace of a Midlands accent, transcended the chatter and hung like a seagull in the air above us.
The question had come so entirely out of the blue that it succeeded in silencing everyone present. I saw one girl stop dead, half a fried egg hanging from a spoon until it slipped and fell back on to the plate beneath. A suited man, presumably a manager or something similar, was standing next to Damian. He was standing too close, impertinently close. So close that he was obviously using his closeness to express that he belonged there, in this room, in this hotel, but that in his opinion Damian Baxter did not. Of course, the truth was more complicated. Most of those present knew that Damian did not have an invitation, but he had been present at the party for so long by that stage that for the majority this argument seemed to have become semantic. He had not created a disturbance, he had not got drunk, he had not been rude, all the things that people dread from gatecrashers had simply not happened. Besides, he knew many of the other guests. He had come as a friend and chosen the correct costume. He had danced and talked and even partnered the girl whose ball it was, for heaven’s sake. What more did they want? The answer to this was, apparently, proof of an invitation. He blushed, something I do not believe I ever saw him do again. ‘Look,’ he said softly, laying a placatory hand gently on the man’s grey, worsted sleeve.