A Sowcot Welcome

18

A Sowcot Welcome

    Miss Dunne peered excitedly from Mlle Barraud’s window. “The actors have come! Two great waggons!”

    “En français,” objected Mlle Barraud feebly.

    “Deux—um—j’ai oublié le mot. Two waggons, Mademoiselle! Do but look!”

    Mlle Barraud gave in and came to join her pupil at the window. She was not positively best placed to observe the Assembly Rooms, being at the farthest end of the Sare Apartments building, but nevertheless the view was not at all bad. Given that Lady Bamwell’s scheme to transplant a half-dozen mature ash trees from the Bamwell Place grounds to Sowcot Square had never come to fruition. “En effet,” she agreed. “Look, they go around now, I think?”

    “Only one of them. I suppose it will be more convenient to haul those large things in from the back. What a good thing that Mr French thought to enlarge the back gate!” said the fourteen-year-old Miss Dunne with great approbation.

    “Yes,” agreed Mlle Barraud feebly. Oh, dear! Mrs Dunne did not send her daughter for French lessons in order to have her spend her time spying on the square, she was quite sure.

    “How lucky that my lesson was today! –Mamma said,” said Lotty with a sunny smile, “that I must be absolutely sure to take a good look at the square and report everything! Especially if it looked likely to annoy Lady Bamwell!”

    “Yes,” said Mlle Barraud very weakly indeed. “I see. But she patronises the theatre, you know.”

    “You mean she is its patroness, Mademoiselle. The other means she looks down her nose at it,” said her pupil kindly.

    “I see.”

    “Ooh, look! Do you think those are actresses, Mademoiselle?”

    Mademoiselle looked at the crushed bonnets and the tawdry finery, and agreed, very weakly indeed, that those must be actresses.

    “At least it’s a real theatre,” said Mrs Pontifex, righting her bonnet.

    Miss Martingale jumped down nimbly from the cart which had brought them on the last leg of the journey from Dorchester and turned to give her her hand. “Yes, indeed.”

    “It looks,” said Miss Trueblood, following Mrs Pontifex, “as if it has been done up very recently.” She turned to help Mrs Mayhew down.

    “Thanks, dear. Possibly it may not be too impossible, in that case. The square is quite fine, I think?” she said on a gracious note, in turn righting her bonnet.

    “Well, yes, but did you notice as we drove in that there is almost nothing behind it? Just a scattering of cottages,” said Tilda, making a little face. “Where is the audience to come from? It’s even smaller than Little Pelford.”

    “Just so long as it ain’t as infested as that other dump—Tudley Crossing,” noted Mrs Hetty grimly. “Lor’, never a man in sight when you want one! Typical!” she declared loudly, glaring round at a view of dozing Sowcot, the closed front door of the establishment which had now been renamed “Sowcot Theatre & Assembly Rooms”, and Mr Dinwoody, apparently asleep on a waggon. “OY!” she bellowed. “DINWOODY! Stir yer stumps!”

    Mr Dinwoody came to with a jump. “Want me, Mrs Hetty?”

    “No, but I wants your brawn, you useless lump!” she cried fiercely, brandishing a battered parasol at him. “And where’s that blamed Harold?”

    “Dunno. We lost sight of him, on the road. Sam’s taken t’other waggon round the back.”

    “Useless,” she muttered. “Look, we can’t leave the costumes out here!”

    “It don’t look like rain, ma’am.”

    Mrs Hetty glared at three small boys who had suddenly popped up from nowhere and were staring at the actors with their mouths open. And in the case of the smallest, the thumb in the mouth into the bargain. “No, but it looks like petty thievery from where I’m standing! Not to say, filthy paws!”

    “Aye. But I ain’t got a key, Mrs Hetty,” said the blue-chinned one stolidly.

    “Should we perhaps move on to the inn?” ventured Miss Martingale. On the forecourt of the ancient inn, facing them from the nearer end of the square, a large man with his thumbs hooked into the armholes of his waistcoat could now be seen.

    “And unload this lot twice, perchance?” retorted the plump actress arctically “And we don’t know where we’re staying, and it don’t look big enough to accommodate the half of us!”

    “No. But we cannot stay standing here, Hetty,” said Mrs Mayhew.

    Mrs Pontifex gave her an evil look. “Added to which, that dump probably does serve flesh-and-blood, even if it is a dump: aye.”

    “Does Mr Speede have a key to the back, Mr Dinwoody?” ventured Miss Martingale.

    Mr Dinwoody looked at her with a twinkle in his eye. “Dunno. Let’s ’ope so, eh?”

    She gave a smothered giggle. “Mm!”

    “Look,” he said pacifically, “if you ladies want to get on over to the inn, I’ll keep an eye on this lot.”

    “What ’e means is,” said Mrs Hetty to the ambient air, “he’ll keep an eye on it until some other male comes up and tells him to do something else, at which point he’ll forget all about it!”

    “Well,” decided Troilus’s mistress, lifting her wicker hamper down, “I shall take Troilus for a little walk while we wait.”

    “Good,” said Tilda with undisguised relief. “I’ll come, too.”

    Troilus, who had not been banished to the hamper but was merely sleeping in it, was woken and released, his lead was clipped on, and the three escaped.

    “What on earth is the matter with Mrs Pontifex?” hissed Miss Trueblood.

    Miss Martingale’s eyes twinkled. “I think, nothing very much, except that Mr Hartington was very rude at her breaking down in the middle of her big speech during the final performance of the Hand in Dorchester, and passed some cutting remarks about being—er—too elderly for the rigours of the profession.”

    “Ooh, help,” she said in hollow tones.

    “Quite! Not that Dorchester noticed!” said Miss Martingale with a laugh.

    “No. –I am quite sure we shall never find such excellent accommodations again,” said Tilda wistfully.

    “No. Nothing could match Mrs Warburton’s meals. And this place does not seem even to have a pastry-cook’s shop: Georgy won’t like that.”

    Georgy’s sister shuddered. “No.”

    “There is a baker’s,” she discovered, peering. “Look, not far from the inn. If we walk round that way?”

    “Yes, why not?” And they continued on round the square.

    “Oh, dear,” concluded Tilda. The baker had said, emerging from the back regions in person, that there was not much call for fancy rolls and buns round these parts.

    “Had you ever thought of marrying a baker?” said her colleague in a dreamy voice, as they strolled slowly on.

    Tilda blinked. “A baker? No! Why, Cressida?”

    She smiled. “He seemed such a lovely, burly man, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, in his nice white apron, and rather floury…”

    Tilda looked dubious. “If one married a baker, one would have to work in the shop.”

    “With the continual smell of baking bread. Delicious!”

    “But it would be so boring!” objected the ingénue.

    “Well, it was just a thought. Not that I know of any eligible bakers in want of a mate! But do you wish to remain on the boards all of your days, Tilda?”

    “I suppose so. I haven’t really thought about it. Our family has always been in the profession.”

    “Yes. But your Pa is not, is he?”

    “No.” After a moment Tilda added in a low voice: “Pa is not truly my father, you know. Though he is Georgy’s.”

    “I see,” she said calmly, nodding.

    “Um—my real father was a gentleman.”

    Grimly Major Martin’s daughter returned: “I am sure he was of the gentry, but a person who could leave your mother in such a situation does not fall within the definition of a gentleman in my dictionary, whatever he may do in Dr Johnson’s!”

    “Who?”

    “Er—never mind. May I ask, was it the fact of his being a gentleman, or the fact of his being already married, which prevented his offering marriage to your ma, Tilda?”

    Tilda looked at her in bewilderment. “I never heard whether he was married or not. But as he was a gentleman, of course he would not offer marriage.”

    Her friend’s nostrils flared angrily. “No, of course!”

    “Um, it is the way of the world,”  ventured the little ingénue.

    “Yes, but do we have to like it?”

    “Um… Well, no, I suppose. I think Ma truly affected him, Cressida,” Tilda ventured timidly.

    “I am very sure she did, Tilda. The integrity of her feelings is not in question, I do assure you!”

    “Um—no.”

    Her friend sighed a little, and they wandered on, hand-in-hand.

    “Cressida, do you not wish to remain in the profession, yourself?” murmured Tilda, as they paused outside a little shop with a collection of strange oddments in its window.

    “Yes,” she owned with a sigh. “I enjoy being upon the boards, and I like the variety of the touring life—though I concede I have as yet experienced it only in summer!” she said with a laugh. “But Mr Lefayne is insisting I use that letter.”

    Tilda now knew all about the letter; she nodded.

    “I have pointed out to him,” she said with a cross frown, “that in all likelihood Lord Sare will turn out to be just as venal as Cousin Dearborn, and so I shall be no better off!”

    “Then you must escape, and come back to us, Cressida,” said Tilda firmly.

    “A second fugue,” she said with a sigh. “Well, yes, if it does not work out, I shall, certainly. But what if Mr Lefayne insists I go back?”

    “Um, I do not think he will do that,” she ventured.

    “I hope you are right, Tilda. I did think—” She bit her lip. “Well, he is no saint. But he has principles,” she stated grimly.

    “I think so,” agreed the little ingénue timidly.

    The two stared silently into Mr Twin’s window. After quite some time Tilda noted: “One of our play bills.”

    “Yes. Good.”

    More silent staring.

    “There was a gentleman, last year,” said Tilda abruptly. “He asked Ma if he might—you know. But I could not care for him.”

    “No,” agreed Miss Martingale, squeezing her hand very hard. “May I ask, do you like any of the company?”

    Tilda’s hand moved agitatedly in hers. After a moment she admitted in a low voice: “The only one I really like is Mr Vic.”

    Her companion’s jaw sagged.

    “He—he is not pretty, or charming, buh-but—”

    “Tilda, he is the nicest man! And so very intelligent!” she cried enthusiastically.

    Tilda blinked. “Yes, I think so.”

    “Um, he’s not married already, is he?”

    “No. He is a widower. The wife was an older lady: Ma said it was a marriage of convenience, but they were happy enough. She was in the profession, and quite eminent. But she died quite a long time ago. They did not have any children. He never speaks of it.”

    Miss Martingale nodded somewhat dazedly. No-one, in fact, had breathed a word of it. “Could you not—well, encourage him, dear Tilda?”

    “I don’t think he notices actresses: he sees them all the time, you see,” she said wanly.

    “Mm.” Miss Martingale was privately resolving to bring them together. For, once the thought had occurred, it seemed ideal! Mr Vanburgh was not young, but then, he was not old, either. And if he had a quiet temperament, Tilda for her part was so sweet and gentle that she would never wish to bully him, or try to make something of him that he could not be. Yes: ideal! “Well,” she said lightly, “the summer is by no means over, and there is no reason why he should not notice you! We shall see.”

    “I wish it could be so,” said Tilda wistfully.

    “It shall be,” replied her friend with great determination. “Now, as this little shop is closed, and I for one do not have sufficient funds even to enquire the price of that exquisite ivory bangle, and Troilus is pulling at the lead, shall we walk on?”

    “I was looking at it, too!” confessed Tilda with a smile. “Yes, come on. Shall we go right round?”

    Miss Martingale nodded, and the two crushed print dresses and somewhat battered straw bonnets strolled slowly on in the sunshine.

    The sun shone, the village dozed. Two pretty girls, aged about fifteen and sixteen, were observed in the garden of a pleasant house. They smiled eagerly at the actresses.

    “Good-day!” cried Miss Martingale cheerily.

    “Good-day!” they responded, coming down their path to their neat little gate.

    “What a dear little dog!” added the younger one on a longing note. “What is his name?”

    Miss Martingale and Miss Trueblood stopped. “His name is Troilus,” said his owner with her friendly smile.

    The two girls smiled and nodded uncertainly.

    “It is out of Shakespeare,” offered Tilda kindly.

    “So you are actresses?” gasped the younger girl.

    “It must be a thrilling life!” gasped the older one, clasping her hands to her bosom.

    “Well,” said Miss Martingale with a twinkle in her eye, “we have just rid all the way from Dorchester on a succession of carts, and very often we travel on the waggons, but if you count that as thrilling, yes, it is.”

    The girls smiled uncertainly.

    “We hope you will come and see the performance,” she added kindly.

    “Ooh, yes! Mamma has said we may see both plays!” agreed the older girl, beaming. “May I ask, which parts you play?”

    Miss Martingale and Miss Trueblood kindly explained which parts they took, and bidding the young ladies good-day again, escaped before they could be asked to give a demonstration. Though not before the younger girl had obtained the information that Troilus was a German badger hound.

    In their wake, Jessie and Dotty Garbutt looked at each other uncertainly. Finally Dotty ventured: “Well, I think it must be thrilling!”

    “You? Travelling from town to town on carts and waggons? You complained all the way of the jolting, when we went to visit Aunt Gertrude, and that was a perfectly comfortable hire-coach!” retorted Jessie swiftly.

    Dotty pouted, but muttered defiantly: “Well, the rest of it would be thrilling. –And if I were an actress, I would have a little dog just like that!”

    “Their bonnets are not very fine,” responded Jessie dubiously. “And their prints are positively dowdy.”

    “Well, they were travelling upon a cart, after all.” Dotty leaned over the gate and peered. “I can see some other ladies! One of them is very fine: look! Satin, I swear!”

    Even though it was prohibited as unladylike, Jessie immediately joined her sister and peered. Mrs Mayhew was to be seen, remounted onto the cart, fanning herself. It certainly looked like satin. Bright puce. The wrap was possibly also satin. Shiny, at any rate: bright green. Jessie ventured dubiously: “Satin? At this hour?”

    “Why not? If one is an actress!” Abruptly Dotty ceased peering, and rushed inside again.

    Jessie followed her slowly. Puce and apple green satin? At this hour?

    Mr Hartington produced a piece of paper, looking important. “I have it all writ here. Mr French will meet us tomorrow morning.”

    “Or his ghost?” suggested Sid.

    “He is a REAL PERSON!” he shouted.

    “Very well, Harold, he’s a real person. That it?”

    “No. He’s arranged everything for us. You, me, Daniel and Vic at the inn—decent rooms, before you start. Then there’s an attic room that the boys can fit into.”

    “It’ll be hot as Hades up under the thatch,” said Mr Pouteney crossly.

    “As I was saying,” returned Mr Hartington with a horrible frown, “seeing as how it ain’t much, we won’t be charged nothing extra for it. So certain persons, provided that their performances come up to the mark, may receive a small bonus. He's jacked up lodgings for the rest. Sam and Dinwoody with a fellow called Twin, over a shop somewhere in the square, but meals at the inn with us.” He consulted his paper. “Miss Trueblood, Miss Martingale, Master Georgy, with a Mrs Jessop at the Sare Apartments. Mrs Wittering, Mrs Pontifex, with a Miss Enright, ditto. Mrs Mayhew, Mrs Deane, with a Mrs Solly in the square. Mrs Sheridan with a Miss Lucy Peebles—Sare Apartments again.”

    “Eh?” said Mrs Pontifex feebly. “Did you say Peebles, Harold?”

    “Possibly,” drawled Sid, twitching the paper out of his manager’s hand, “it is not an uncommon name in these parts. Yes. Well, what it actually says is ‘Miss Lucy Peebles and sister.’ And he’s noted next this Mrs Jessop ‘mem. Don’t like cats’; so Troilus will be all right there.” He handed the paper back to Harold, looking bland.

    “Rubbish, how could he know about Troilus?” said the actor-manager irritably. “Right? Everybody got it?”

    Nobody had, so he read it all out again.

   “The dressing-rooms are the size of cupboards, but at least it’s got ’em,” reported Mrs Pontifex with a sigh. “But there ain’t a stove.”

    “It’s MIDSUMMER, woman!” he shouted.

    “Don’t you shout at me, Harold Hartington! It may be midsummer, but how are we going to heat the irons without a danged stove?”

    “Oh. Damnation. Um… iron the costumes at your lodgings and bring ’em over, Hetty.”

    “Right! I’ll just trot back and forth with armfuls of blamed jerkins and cloaks and ruffs between every scene!”

    “We’re not doing Twelfth Night in the theatre,” he said with a sigh.

    “We’ll manage, Mr Haitch!” piped Mrs Wittering.

    “Yes, I’m sure you will. –That it? Any more objections?” he said nastily.

    “That Treadwell, he’s a noddy. Willing, but a noddy,” noted Mr Dinwoody fairly.

    “Thank you for that, Dinwoody. Anything else?”

    Surprisingly, there was nothing else, and Mr Hartington adjourned his meeting.

    “It ain’t one of the best apartments,” pronounced Mrs Jessop lugubriously. “But then, if I were a man, dare say I’d of died at that there Trafalgar alongside Jem and Wat. Mustn’t complain, hey?”

    “No, indeed, ma’am,” agreed Miss Martingale respectfully, since Miss Trueblood seemed struck dumb at the sight of their new landlady, a tall, gaunt figure dressed all in black. Georgy, similarly, had not uttered since clapping eyes on her. “May I ask, were they relations, perhaps?”

    “My brothers, Miss. Old enough to know better, too. My Clem, that were my husband, Miss, and a decent enough fellow within ’is lights, he went into the Army, and got ’is at a place called Baddy-something. Spain, or some such, they tells me. Will Jakes, he lost ’is arm there. But come ’ome safe enough, to tell us all about it.” She sighed gustily.

    “It were bad, all right, ma’am!” squeaked Georgy suddenly.

    “It were that, young shaver,” she agreed solemnly.

    “I seen a man with one arm,” he volunteered. “He was a soldier, too.”

    “Aye. Takes something real stupid and male to go off and make war, so just you bear that in mind,” said the grim Mrs Jessop, “when you grow up, me lad!”

    “I’m going to be an actor!” replied Georgy firmly.

    The grim, angular Mrs Jessop sniffed. “I dessay. Well, no ’arm in it. Now, there’s two rooms, see? One for the young ladies, and one for the boy and the little dog. It ain’t big, but it’ll do. If that suits.”

    “That suits us very well, ma’am,” said Tilda, suddenly finding her tongue, “although the little dog is Miss Martingale’s, not Georgy’s.”

    “He’s coming in with me!” returned Georgy loudly, gripping his lead fiercely.

    “That’ll do, no need to set yer breeches afire,” noted Mrs Jessop drily. “If ’e’s yours, Miss, then you has the say,” she said definitively.

    “Of course he may go in with Georgy,” replied Miss Martingale somewhat feebly.

    Mrs Jessop duly showed them into their rooms. They were on the ground floor, looking into the cobbled yard. And rather dark. Very quiet, however: there was nothing at the far side of the yard but a high blank wall, over the top of which some trees could be seen. The yard itself held nothing very much but some lines of washing, a battered wooden chair set in a patch of sun, a pump, and, near to their windows, a large barrel in which some plants were growing.

    “That there’s mine,” allowed Mrs Jessop, peering out from the girls’ room. “And if you spot a black and white cat near it, it’s that dratted Tom ’Arkness, and just you make sure you chase ’im off. Your dog ain't much bigger nor a cat, is ’e?” she added glumly to Miss Martingale.

    “No, but he hates cats, ma’am,” replied that young maiden cheerfully.

    Mrs Jessop sniffed but concluded: “Good. ’E can ’ave a go at that Tom ’Arkness any time ’e feels like it. The beds are clean, and dinner when you want it, I ain't partickler.”

    “Thank you, Mrs Jessop,” they said faintly.

    “Miss Enright’s all right,” reported Mrs Hetty.

     When Georgy was over the spluttering fit this utterance provoked, he admitted: “Ours is all right, too, but she ain’t got a stove. She hates cats,” he added with satisfaction.

    “None of them apartments’ll ’ave proper stoves,” explained Mrs Wittering. “But they got a baker in the square, see? They takes their Sunday roasts or their pies h’along to ’im.”

    “Them as can afford Sunday roasts, aye,” allowed Mrs Hetty drily. “Well, I seen worse.”

    “For our part,” opined Mrs Mayhew, “Lilian and I are very well suited indeed—very well. Are we not, dear?”

    Mrs Lilian winked at her fellow players. “Yes. Old Mrs Solly’s reputed to be the best cook in Sowcot. Wouldn’t know a chaise longue if she fell over it, mind you. What’s yours like, Nancy?”

    Grinning, Mrs Sheridan revealed: “Two old ducks, one of them not quite dotty, t’other mad as a hatter. Clean as a whistle, though.”

    “Have they got a cat?” demanded Georgy.

    “No. A stuffed bird,” she said insouciantly. “If you mean the notorious Tom ’Arkness, he belongs to a fellow called Harkness what’s an Exciseman. We’re near the coast, you know: it’s less than two mile away. Miss Lucy tells me there’s nothing there but a clutch of fishermen’s cottages. A fellow called Pretty, he usual turns up at crack o’ dawn with a load of fish to sell off his cart. Or,” she said with a twinkle in her shrewd eye, “you can send your maid or cook down to Frenchman’s Cove in your trap, with orders to purchase sufficient for the household, direct. –They got their knife into the gentry, hereabouts!” she explained with her robust laugh.

    “So we’ve gathered,” agreed Miss Martingale, her eyes twinkling. “A Lady Bamwell?”

    “Yes. And a Mrs Sadly, or some such, what Miss Lucy’s really got her knife into!” owned Nancy, going off into a peal of laughter.

    “Miss Enright’s mentioned them,” admitted Mrs Hetty with a grin. “It got a bit mixed up with something real bitter to do with sides o’ beef, but we got the general drift, did we not, Mrs W.?”

    At that Mrs Wittering, nodding hard, whisked out her handkerchief and, clapping it to her mouth, collapsed in giggles.

    So the players also got the general drift.

    “Well,” concluded Mrs Hetty, “they can be Lord and Lady Peter How’s-Your-Hyphen-Fathers, or Merrihews till they come out your ears: just so long as they come!”

    “Amyes,” said Mr Hartington, very grim indeed, as the players convened at the theatre on their first morning in Sowcot, “has gone off again.”

    “Couldn’t stand the heat up under the thatch?” suggested Mr Pouteney laconically.

    “It ain’t that bad: at least your windows open!” replied Mr Hartington crossly. “No, the old aunt’s got worse. Or so he claims. Now, Mr French has sent me a note of what he wants us to do at the country houses—”

    “So he’s not going to turn up after all?” drawled Sid.

    “He IS!” he shouted. “And he is a real PERSON!”

    “Yes,” said Miss Martingale hurriedly. “The landladies at the Sare Apartments were all very impressed that he came himself to ask what rooms were available, rather than send a servant.”

    Mr Hartington glared at his leading man. “See? Damnation, where was I? Oh—yes. One of them wants Twelfth Night—that’ll be him, he asked for Shakespeare from the outset—and t’other the Molière. But he says here there’s a third what might want a comedy. To be ascertained. So what I’m trying to say is,” he said loudly, as his cast murmured amongst themselves, “you will have to do Amyes’s lines in Twelfth Night again, Tony; and—”

    “What? But that ain’t fair!” he cried. “Well, this time I want two sixpences for it!”

    Mr Hartington eyed him drily. “And, as I was going to say before being interrupted, you had better have three shillings. But we’ll make it two sixpences if you prefer.”

    “Nuh—um—thank you very much!” he gulped, very red.

    “Two sixpences,” Georgy explained solemnly, “make a shilling, Miss Martingale.”

    At this, sad to relate, Major Martin’s daughter collapsed in gales of giggles, shaking her chestnut curls. “I’m so sorry, Mr Hartington!” she gasped at last, wiping her eyes. “I do apologise, Mr Ardent. Georgy has found out that my knowledge of English money is somewhat shaky.”

    “Finished?” asked Mr Hartington arctically.

    She subsided, nodding.

    “Thank you. Those who were required to write out parts from Sid’s new piece last night may now produce them,” he said coldly.

    There was a certain shuffling of feet and rustling of papers.

    “Our candle guttered, didn't, it, Margery?” said Mrs Deane at last.

    “Um—yes!” she gulped.

    Mr Hartington did not even bother to point out that the sisters were lying in their teeth; he merely directed an unpleasant glance at them. “And?”

    “I writ some,” admitted Mrs Hetty.

    Mr Hartington held out his hand for it. Reluctantly she passed it to him. There was a short silence. “A child of ten,” pronounced the actor-manager icily, “could do better. Though I do not deny this hand much resembles that of a child of ten.”

    “Mr Hartington, that is not fair!” cried Miss Martingale angrily. “Mrs Pontifex wrote as best she could! Writing is not everyone’s gift, you know!”

    “Miss Martingale, your opinion was not solicited,” he said blightingly.

    “No, I dare say, but nevertheless,” she said, sticking out her pointed chin, “I am giving it. And I must request you to cease victimising dear Mrs Pontifex this instant.”

    “Good for you, Missy,” approved Mr Dinwoody into the sudden silence. “Give us a look.” He twitched the paper out of Mr Hartington’s nerveless hand. “Neater nor I could write.”

    “Dinwoody,” warned Mr Hartington, taking a deep breath, “stay out of this.”

    “No, well, if I was you,” replied the blue-chinned one, unmoved, “I’d ask people to write what done it from their cradles, so to speak. That Twin, what’s putting me and Sam up, he writes good, dare say he’d do some; don’t seem busy, do ’e, Sam? For a remuneration, mind.”

    “We do not have extra cash to fling around at Twins,” replied Mr Hartington, frowning awfully.

    Mrs Pontifex was very flushed but at this she protested: “Ignore that, Mr Dinwoody. We gets a remuneration, you see. Only it ain’t much.”

    “I’ll write some, Mr Haitch!” volunteered Georgy.

    Sid lounged forward, looking bored. “You see? You have behaved so badly, Harold, that even a child of eight is emboldened to offer his services. –If you please.” Mr Dinwoody, his square face expressionless, handed him Mrs Pontifex’s effort. “Very neat indeed,” Sid approved. “I’ll commission this Twin to finish it, myself. On the assumption,” he noted, fixing his manager with a hard look: “that you do want the piece?”

    “Yes,” he said, looking sulky.

    “Splendid. Anyone else care to have theirs finished by Twin?” said Sid airily.

    Thankfully the Thespian sisters passed him theirs, and their master copy. “We were sharing,” explained Mrs Deane. “Like, we split up the master copy, you see, and Margery starts in the middle, and I start at the beginning. It usually works out quite good. Only it’s a bit much on top of all the travelling, Sid.”

    “Mm. Can you take care of it, Dinwoody?” said Mr Lefayne lightly.

    Nodding, Mr Dinwoody took the bundle of papers “I’ll get off straight away. It's only t’other side of the square. Unless required, Mr Hartington, sir?”

    “No, no: go,” said Mr Hartington with a sigh so deep it was almost a groan.

    Mr Dinwoody vanished, and a short silence fell.

    “I am surrounded,” said Mr Hartington deeply, “by incompetents.”

    “Not by juicy widows, at all events!” gasped Mr Pouteney unexpectedly, breaking down in splutters.

    The younger players looked at him in some horror, unable even to smile. Even the older actresses, Mr Deane and Mr Vanburgh did not venture to laugh. Mr Lefayne, however, was not in awe of Harold Hartington. “That,” he agreed, grinning, “is very probably the trouble—yes! Or is it indigestion, Harold?”

    “Or,” said Mr Speede sourly, “is it the fact that this French hasn't coughed up what you reckon he has coughed up, and if he don't turn up this morning after all, we’re dropped right in it?”

    Mr Hartington was opening his mouth to deny this hotly, when a quiet, deep voice from behind them said: “Good morning.”

    And the players gasped, and swung round as one player.

    Mr French proved to be very affable indeed, asking to be introduced to all the cast, and assuring Mr Lefayne that he had heard a great deal of him and was looking forward exceedingly to his performance, and Miss Trueblood that he could see she would make the most delightful of heroines and would look forward exceedingly to her performance. Though without, certain other members of the cast noted with considerable relief, anything of the leering about him.

    “He ain’t,” concluded Mrs Hetty with a sigh, as he then sat down with Mr Hartington and a bundle of papers, “a George Drew, at all events.”

    “One was envisaging,” Mrs Mayhew explained to the younger women with a moue, “all sorts of eventrialities, my dears.”

    “Mm. Wanting his pick, was one,” noted Mrs Lilian drily. “Dunno that I’d mind, personal!” she hissed huskily, her shoulders shaking. “Quite a fine figure of a man, ain’t he?”

    “He’s quite old,” ventured Miss Martingale dubiously.

    “Well, I dare say he’s older than, to name but one, Peebles, by five year or so—aye,” she agreed with a dry look.

    “Leave the girl alone, Lilian,” said her sister mildly. “Any fellow that subsidises the tour, don’t eye up our young actresses, and invites the lot of us to partake of a fine dinner at his own house, with, remark, a day’s notice, so that we have time to finish our unpacking and sort out something decent to wear, must be a true gentleman!”

    “Or mad,” said Mrs Hetty dubiously into the pause that followed this speech.

    Mrs Lilian looked uncertainly at her sister and admitted: “’Tis a bit odd, Margery.”

    “Oh, fiddle-faddle!” she said with a pettish shrug.

    Mrs Hetty eyed Mr French uneasily. “He do look all right. But you never can tell.”

    “Oh, pooh! Of course you can!” objected Nancy Andrews.

    Miss Martingale had more or less recovered herself after her confusion at Mrs Deane’s barbed remark. “If we arrive at his house tomorrow evening to find an orgy in preparation, I suppose we can conclude that his looks belie him,” she said lightly.

    Somewhat regrettably, Nancy at this collapsed in giggles.

    “That ain’t funny, Miss,” reproved Mrs Hetty grimly. “And a young lady like yourself did not ought even to know the word!”

    Miss Martingale’s eyes twinkled. “If you do not approve, then I shall not use it before you again, dear Mrs Pontifex. But I thought you were of the opinion that it is as well that I do know a little of the ways of the world?”

    “That’s one for you , Hetty!” choked Nancy, going off in a fresh fit.

    Mrs Hetty glared: both of the Thespian sisters were now shaking helplessly, and even Tilda and Mrs Wittering had clapped their hands over their mouths.

    “I tell you what: under that prim manner, you is in a fair way to turning into a naughty little minx!” she said crossly to her protégée.

    “She has learned—it—off—the acting—profession!” gasped Mrs Deane, suddenly giving way entirely.

    Mrs Hetty sniffed, and turned her shoulder on the lot of them.

    … “Thing is,” she owned to Mrs Wittering considerably later that day, as the two conferred over the costumes, “it’s all very well when it’s just us. But what do we do once she starts to use that naughty little smile on the men?”

    Mrs Wittering looked at her limply. “But I don’t think Miss Cressida’s that sort.”

    “Rats!” she said crossly. “They is all that sort, Mrs W., acos Nature won’t let ’em be nothing else!”

    “She is a lady, when all’s said and done, Mrs Pontifex. She wouldn’t h’overstep the line.”

    “Her! No, maybe not!  But what about them?” she said darkly.

    Mrs Wittering looked at her limply, and could think of nothing at all to say to comfort her.

    “Amyes,” predicted Mr Ardent with glee as they were ushered into the elegant salon of Mr French’s charming and not small Elizabethan house, “will kill himself!”

    The other young actors agreed fervently that the discovery that he had missed out on an invitation to dinner at a real gentleman’s country house would in all likelihood cause the absent Mr Amyes to become suicidal. And gratefully accepted glasses of something-or-another from their genial host’s own hands.

    A slender, dark-haired, smiling young man then entering, Mr French, encircling his elegant shoulders with a heavy arm, introduced him generally as: “My son, Gerard.” And individually made known to him Mrs Pontifex, Mr Hartington, Mr Lefayne, and, with a twinkle in his eye, Miss Trueblood and Miss Martingale.

    Mr Gerard, truth to tell, though he had refrained from saying so in so many words to his revered Papa, had been expecting all of the actresses to be—well, like the three older, very painted ones to whom his Papa had not introduced him, frankly. He duly blinked at Miss Trueblood’s pretty fragility and Miss Martingale’s dainty face and figure. But made a very speedy recover indeed and was soon drawing them out happily. Miss Trueblood, indeed, becoming quite animated. And Miss Martingale, who was normally quite animated anyway, positively blushing and giggling. From his obscure corner, Mr Ardent glared.

    “Go over there yourself,” said Mr Pouteney in his ear. “No reason he should have ’em both. Dare say even the son of a fellow what has a place like this can’t manage two at the once.”

    Mr Ardent pouted, but did not work up the courage to join the son of the house and the two young women.

    “Pretty, ain’t it?” added Mr Pouteney carelessly.

    “Yes,” he said, staring resentfully at Miss Martingale in a soft drift of apricot muslin that had been intended for Mrs Addle until Mr Hartington discovered that it made Margery look “orangey all over.”

    “No, you noddy! The house!” hissed Mr Pouteney, shaking. “Oh, I say!” he added, his eyes on stalks, as the door then opened to admit the prettiest little dark-haired morsel imaginable.

    Mr Ardent glared resentfully as in the twinkling of an eye, Mr Pouteney somehow inserted himself at his host’s elbow. Where he could not possibly miss out on a personal introduction to Miss French. It just was not fair! The fact that Miss French appeared visibly unimpressed by Paul Pouteney and visibly very much impressed by Mr Lefayne did not console him. That wouldn’t make the fellow give up. And she was far too young for Sid, and not his type, at all!

    The door then opened again, but as it was only a tall dame with an elderly aunt or something, Mr Ardent lost interest, and returned to gazing resentfully at Miss French.

    “This is so thrilling!” shivered Miss Pinkerton, clasping her hands, and gazing up into Mr Lefayne’s handsome face. “Of course I hardly ever get up to town, but I once saw you do Benedick at Drury Lane, sir! –Quite some years since, of course!” she added hastily, just as Sid was beginning a conventional speech in reply.

    “Er—yes,” he said lamely. “Did you, ma’am?” He was aware that the tall, handsome women with the little old dame was trying not to laugh. And that Harold was likewise. “These days, of course, I take older rôles,” he said smoothly.

    Harold gave a smothered cough; and the little withered lady gulped; but the tall, handsome young woman said smoothly: “Yes, we had heard you played King Lear, sir. Or, no: stay; I have confused the names; I think that was a name that began with a K, not an L.”

    At this Mr Hartington broke down in delighted splutters, and Sid grinned and admitted: “You have me there, ma’am! I don’t aspire to be a Kean; and would not in fact venture upon a Macbeth, let alone a Lear. Though I did play Richard III last year.”

    “That must have been interesting,” she said thoughtfully.

    Sid looked at her with considerable approval. “Yes, it was, ma’am. Have you seen the play, may I ask?”

    “No; I have read it, but I have never been to the theatre at all,” she replied cheerfully. “I’m looking forward very much to my first live performance. What is this comedy you are to do for us, sir?”

    Smiling, Sid began to tell her about their pieces. He was in full flight when Harold, who was standing by listening tolerantly and now and then putting in a word, was seen to gape incredulously, and then turn very red. Sid turned his head.

    “What is it?” said Gerard French as he appeared suddenly to have lost the attention of the two pretty little actresses.

    “Cressida: surely…” said Tilda faintly.

    Miss Martingale’s eyes bulged. Mrs Anstey, completely at home, had just walked into the room!

    Nearer the door, Mr French was happily making his sister-in-law known to Miss Pinkerton and Miss Hutton, and was expressing his gratitude at having her act as his hostess, the which was, of course, what had enabled him to have their delightful company tonight! And now, he must make Aunt Anstey known to their other guests: Mr Lefayne.—Sid bowed gracefully, his eyes twinkling: he was damned sure it was the handsome widow from Harold’s erstwhile lodging-house, but if she wasn’t going to admit to the acquaintance, far be it from him to open his mouth.—And Mr Hartington, the manager and proprietor of the troupe.

    “So delightful; how do you do, Mr Hartington?” said Mrs Anstey without a tremor.

    Harold was now rather blue around the lips; the thought that was going through his head could more or less have been summed as up as “The cow!” Well, if she didn’t want to be recognised, he wasn’t going to show her up. But what the Devil a lady that was supposedly the sister-in-law of a gent what lived in Mr French’s style had been doing in Ma Fairweather’s house in Dorchester— “How do you do, ma’am?” he replied tightly, bowing.

    “Now, you must come and meet some of our other guests, my dear Sister Anstey,” said Mr French genially, leading her off.

    Harold was aware of Sid’s eyes mockingly on his face. His lips tightened.

    “You know,” said the leading man lightly, “I could al-most swear I had met that lady before.”

    “We believe she is Dutch,” murmured India Hutton, her eyes flickering from one face to the other.

    “Really? So that is a Dutch accent,” said Sid airily. “Oh, well, I don’t think I have ever met any Dutch ladies before. Have you, Harold?”

    “No,” he said grimly. “Not Dutch ladies, certainly.”

    Sid relented. “No, well, think you once played a Dutchman, didn’t you?” he said kindly. “Pray excuse me, ladies: I must just have a word with one of my colleagues.”

    “I beg your pardon?” said Mr Hartington lamely, as it penetrated that the little old dame had asked him a question.

    Miss Pinkerton repeated her question, and with a great effort Harold managed to chat airily about Drury Lane, and the demands of his profession…

    “Now,” said Mr French with a fatherly beam, as the three young people rose politely, “these two pretty little girls, you see, my dear sister, are what they call in the English theatre the ingénues.”

    “The which,” said Miss Martingale with a twinkle in her eye, looking at burly Mr French with considerable interest, “is after what they call them in the French theatre, ma’am!”

    “Yes, it is,” said Gerard on a severe note, giving his outrageous Papa a minatory look; the other little ingénue was looking quite overcome. “Aunt Anstey, please allow me to present Miss Trueblood and Miss Martingale. This is our dear Mamma’s sister, Mrs Anstey, who is looking after us all in Papa’s house!” he said with his pleasant smile.

    “I am delighted you could come, my dears,” said Mrs Anstey graciously. “And may I say, how pretty you both look?”

    Miss Trueblood, still looking overcome, merely dropped a timid bob; but Miss Martingale, also bobbing, rose composedly. “Thank you, Mrs Anstey. How do you do? We are delighted to be here,” she said, looking the fair lady in the eye.

    “Yes? We look forward so much to the play-acting, you know,” said Mrs Anstey, smiling graciously.

    “Thank you. And may I congratulate you on your command of English, ma’am?”

    Unblushingly Mrs Anstey returned: “Oh, but I have had excellent teachers, you see, Miss—Martingale, is it? Yes. And vhich parts shall you both play, in the pieces you are to do?”

    Over by the window, meanwhile, Sid had buttonholed Mr Deane and Mr Vanburgh. “Yes, I know it is damned odd, Daniel,” he said as Mr Deane tried to tell him it was damned odd, “but it is none of our business, and if they wish her to be known as a lady that lives in a fine house and chaperons his little girl, rather than an incumbent of a Dorchester theatrical lodging-house, so be it. Lord knows I've undertaken sillier masquerades, in me time.”

    “Oh quite,” said Mr Deane. “Don't care who she claims to be, if the dinner’s decent, actually.”

    Mr Vanburgh said nothing, merely nodded.

    The dinner offered by Mr French proved to be entirely delicious, causing Mr Ardent to reiterate his remark in re the suicide of the absent Mr Amyes, and Mr Deane to remark wistfully to his host that he could wish the company was permanently settled in these parts. If Mr Hartington was very silent throughout the meal, few persons remarked it.

    “That,” concluded Mr Pouteney with a deep sigh, as the players headed back to their lodgings, very late, in the carriages provided by the hospitable Mr French, “was something like! And if only the place was slightly bigger than a pocket handkerchief, one might be tempted to settle down here!”

    “Pooh, you would miss the life of London,” said Mr Vanburgh, yawning. “Nowhere to go on the strut here, y’know.”

    “Uncle Vic, thet’s what he meant!” objected Mr Grantleigh.

    Mr Vanburgh merely yawned.

    Mrs Pontifex, meanwhile, was expressing very much the same opinion as Mr Pouteney; indeed, the phrase “a welcome and a half” was used.

    “Yes. Let’s hope,” said Tilda on an anxious note, “that the houses we get live up to it.”

    “Dunno as I care, all that much!” she admitted with a chuckle.

    “It is a very small village,” murmured Miss Martingale.

    “Oh, well,” said Mrs Hetty comfortably, “dare say they’ll all come. –That young Mr French were a pretty lad, weren’t he?”

    “Very pleasant-looking: yes,” agreed Miss Martingale without interest.

    “Yes. I thought he seemed very young for his age. I suppose he has led quite a sheltered life,” put in Tilda on a dubious note.

    In the gloom of the carriage Mrs Hetty rolled her eyes a little; but reflected that it was just as well. Two ingénues mooning over pretty young gents they did not need!

    In spite of the late night, Major Martin’s daughter was up betimes the following morning. Georgy, who had had a late supper with their grim-visaged landlady, was still snoring, but Troilus was awake and eager to go out. So off they went. In the entranceway to the Sare Apartments a uniformed man was discovered: Excise Officer Harkness, without any doubt at all. Miss Martingale bade him good morning.

    “Good morning, Miss,” he replied politely. “May I ask, if perhaps you were with the party that came home late last night, Miss?”

    “Yes. Oh dear, did we disturb you?” she said in some dismay.

    “Nothing like that, Miss, no. Merely, if I might h’enquire, did you remark any person in the square, or thereabouts, as you come through?”

    “Not a soul, sir.”

    “No: right,” he rejoined grimly. “Keeping their heads low, they are. Well,” he added with a sigh, “since that Jakes don't show no sign of sending over my horse like what I’ve only asked him to these past three months, seems like I better go and fetch it. And believe you me, if there was any stabling anywhere else, he wouldn’t get no custom from me!” With that he nodded grimly and stalked off towards the inn.

    She looked after him dubiously, and set off in the opposite direction.

    The air of the square was fresh and cool: the smell of grass and trees mingled with what after a little thought she decided was definitely the smell of baking bread. Good: in that case they would go right round, for after all that travelling on carts and two days in rehearsal Troilus was certainly in need of the exercise, and then purchase some rolls for breakfast!

    Troilus, however, had other ideas: those lanes that led off the square smelled much more interesting! After he had pulled strongly while they crossed two of these lanes, his mistress gave in, and let herself be tugged down the third. It was a sleepy lane, containing a scattering of cottages; after a few moments she let Troilus off the lead and he pattered ahead happily, rounding one of the large old oak trees which lined the lane, and disappearing from view. His mistress hurried after him: he was a good dog, but that did not mean he might not get carried away at the sight of a cottager’s cat. The clatterings and clinkings of which she had been conscious for some time became louder; and, as she rounded the great old tree, there it was!

    “The smithy!” she said with a smile. “Troilus! Viens ici! Come here!”

    Troilus did not appear, and so she ventured into the shadowy depths of the smithy. “Good morning,” she said to the large back bent over the anvil. “Did a small dog just come in here, sir?”

    The smith straightened, but before he could speak, a quiet voice said: “Here he is.” And out of the shadows stepped Mr Peebles. Holding Troilus, and appearing quite composed.

    “What on earth are you doing here?” she said limply. “You are supposed to be in London!”

    The smith cleared his throat, but said nothing, as Mr Peebles looked at him enquiringly.

    “My horse lost a shoe, you see. I was on an errand,” he said meekly.

    “Ye-es… Oh! Would the Misses Peebles from Sowcot be your relatives, sir?”

    “Nothing of the sort, Miss!” said the smith in offended tones.

    “Never mind that, Tom Jakes,” said Mr Peebles mildly. “Shall we step outside, Miss Martin?”

    It was very warm in the smithy; she accompanied him gladly. “I don’t know that I would care for that trade, in the summer!” she said with feeling as he stopped in the deep shade of one of the old oaks.

    “Nor I, indeed.” Mr Peebles glanced up and down the lane. After a moment he said lamely: “You are out and about very early, Miss Martin.”

    “I suppose so. But it is such a lovely day.” She looked at him awkwardly. He seemed… different, somehow, though she could not have said precisely how. Well, his hat looked much smarter: perhaps it was new. And his coat, also.

    “Damnation,” said Mr Peebles half under his breath as a cheerful whistling was heard from beyond the huge old oak, and the burly form of Mr Dinwoody rounded its trunk.

    Mr Dinwoody’s blue jaw was seen to drop.

    “Sir,” said the Major’s daughter with desperate dignity, holding her pointed chin up very high, “I perceive that the notion that there is something between the two of you may have some truth in it. And as Mr Dinwoody has already denied it—or at least, wriggled so much at the mere suggestion that he might as well have denied it outright—I must beg you to tell me the truth.”

    Mr Dinwoody came up to them cautiously, clearing his throat. “Dunno what you mean by wriggled, Miss.”

    She glared, as he added: “’Morning, Mr Peebles. Fancy bumping into you in this out-of-the-way village.” He removed his battered tricorne, and scratched his short, greying dark hair. “Er—that Harkness was in the square,” he offered.

    “Was he, indeed?” returned Mr Peebles noncommittally.

    “The Exciseman? What has he to do with anything?” said Miss Martingale crossly.

    “Nothink, I don’t suppose,” replied Mr Dinwoody, looking sideways at Mr Peebles. “I dare say that what’s between us, Miss, might be said to be the notion that you did ought to do what Mr Lefayne has advised you, and get off to Sare Park and show that letter of your Pa’s to his Lordship.”

    “I am going to!” she said crossly.

    “When?” he demanded baldly.

    “Um—well, I thought, after the performance,” she admitted in a small voice. “They need me!” she cried as Mr Dinwoody opened his mouth.

    “That Nancy Andrews, she could do the ghost lady,” he returned, unmoved.

    “Yes, but she could not do Miss Fancy, for she is in Three Belles And A Beau!”

    “Personal, I would advise that it had best not be put orf,” said Mr Peebles in a squashed voice.

    “Ho, yus!” retorted Mr Dinwoody fiercely. “Would you, just?”

    The two eyed each other for a moment in silence.

    “Yes,” he said meekly. “I would.”

    “I cannot let the players down,” stated Miss Martingale flatly, “and that is an end to it.”

    Mr Dinwoody rubbed his blue chin. “Supposing if someone was to forbid you to go on with this play-acting stuff, Missy?”

    “You, I suppose!” she retorted angrily.

    “Not necessarily,” said Mr Dinwoody calmly.

    She waited, but Mr Peebles did not volunteer himself. “I shall write a small note to Lord Sare. If he brushes it aside like a fly, that will prove that I was right about him in the first instance, and perhaps you may stop bothering me,” she said coldly to the air between the two men.

    Neither of them said anything; indeed, they both avoided her eye.

    “Very well!” she said angrily. “Put my dog down, if you please, Mr Peebles!”

    Slowly Mr Peebles bent to place Troilus on the ground.

    “’Ere—gimme the lead,” said Mr Dinwoody with a sigh, clipping it to his collar.

    “I do not know what you are doing here, sir,” said Miss Martingale crossly to the air some six inches to the left of Mr Peebles’s head, “and I am sure that it is nobody’s business but your own. Though if I were your employer I own I should have a question or two about the route you have apparently elected to take from Salisbury to London! But I dare say they have exploited you sufficiently for you to feel you have a right to retaliate in kind. Good-day.” With that, and a sharp tug on Troilus’s lead, she walked away from them.

    “That,” said Mr Peebles after some time, “was not meant to happen.”

    “What the Devil are you doing, wandering about the village when you know she's here?” replied Mr Dinwoody with some heat.

    “I’m not. My horse shed a shoe,” he said with a sigh. “I didn't even come through the square: I was over— Oh, drop dead.”

    Grinning, Mr Dinwoody touched his forelock. “Yes, sir, your Reverence! Begging your Honour’s pardon, I’m sure.”

    There was a short pause.

    “Look, for God’s sake, Dinwoody, make her write that note.”

    “She won’t take no more notice of me than she would of Peebles,” he replied insouciantly.

    “Very funny.”

    “Well, all right, then: I’ll speak to Lefayne, get him to make sure she writes it. That suit you?”

    The other’s lips tightened: he turned and went back into the smithy.

    Mr Dinwoody, shrugging, retired to lean his back peacefully against the old oak tree and await his pleasure.

Next chapter:

https://theoldchiphat.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-plays-thing.html