Epilogue: In England

Epilogue

In England

    “You must not expect too much,” said Lady Sare with an anxious smile.

    Edward helped her to a seat in their box. “No, I shan’t expect that,” he murmured.

    “It is so like Isabelle, not to let us know what she was up to until the thing was done,” she admitted, still looking anxious.

    “My angel, you are not responsible for the vagaries of your siblings,” he murmured.

    Lady Sare arranged her pale blue silk skirts and admitted: “No, well, I suppose I must learn to remember that, now I am settled down in England!”

    “Yes,” he said, putting his hand over hers. The amphitheatre of the Palace Theatre, Drury Lane, hummed with noise and excitement, but in the Sares’ box a besotted silence reigned for a moment.

    Then he said lightly: “I see Edenlyn has a stage box.”

    Cressida gulped. “Not really?”

    “Mm. It is his custom. Are there any very young actresses in the play?”

    “Um, well, Isabelle did not say. There will probably be some walking on as court ladies.”

    “Then let us hope there is a strong-minded woman like Mrs Pontifex to protect them.”

    Cressida's private opinion was that Lord Edenlyn was not an unattractive man, and that a protectorless young actress might do very much worse for herself. “Mm.”

    Edward consulted his programme. “Ah: Mr Daniel Deane is to take Sir Toby Belch. He was very amusing as Wellington a year back. Have we seen him in anything this year?”

    “Yes, but a very different rôle.” She reminded him of Mr Deane’s last part.

    “Oh, yes. Vanburgh’s taking Malvolio, of course: good. I do not think I know any of the other names.”

    “Edward! Matilda Trueblood!” she said indignantly. “That is Tilda! I always thought she would make a good Olivia.”

    “Oh, yes. I suppose we shall have to go to her wedding to Vanburgh?”

    His wife frowned awfully. “Noblesse oblige.”

    “Yes, but my darling, they all remember me as Peebles, and I find it so awkward,” he said plaintively.

    Cressida gulped. “Oh. Yes. Er, perhaps you could have a tactful head-cold, then.”

    “Thank you.”

    “I am sure they respect your performance, though,” she added anxiously.

    His shoulders shook silently. “I’m flattered!”

    Cressida smiled a little, and looked around the house. “I think they must be sold out. What a crush!”

    “All the world and his mistress, mm. Well, Lefayne’s name is always a draw.”

    “With the ladies, yes,” said Cressida drily. “I wonder— Well, wait and see.”

    “What?” he murmured.

    “Actually I was wondering if he would have the temerity to play Orsino in pink silk as he did on the tour. Do you remember?”

    He winced, so apparently he did.

    “He is only an actor, after all,” murmured Lady Sare.

    He picked up her hand and kissed it lightly, smiling into the amber eyes. “Quite!”

    On stage, Orsino said to his Viola: “Can you see them?”

    “Yes. Just the two of them, in a very good box, stage left. She is in pale blue.”

    He looked through the peephole. “Oh, yes. I should have known, when she turned up in pale blue after the show, that time. After she went to live in his house.”

    “Known what?”

    “That it wasn’t you. I’ve never seen you wear blue.”

    “No, I don’t like it. She has always been fond of it. I suppose those are the diamonds that Josephine was moaning on about the other day.”

    “Mm?” Sid applied his eye again. “Oh, indubitably. What a blaze of blue-white fire. No doubt designed to knock out every other lady’s eye and kill stone-dead any unkind rumours that might be circulating about Lady Sare’s antecedents.”

    “Designed by him or by her?” said Isabelle uncertainly.

    “Both.” He peered again. “His face is as unreadable as ever.”

    Isabelle pinched his arm. “Probably because he expects to be bored solid: that will be his noblesse oblige face!” she hissed, swallowing a giggle.

    “Mm,” agreed Sid in a vague voice, putting his arm round her. “Nervous?”

    “Very!” she admitted with a shudder.

    “Good,” he said calmly, hugging her into his side.

    “You’d better take up your position, Sid,” she said, as the voice of Master Frederick Hinks could be heard calling for First Act beginners. And incidentally ordering Mr Grantleigh to move his great carcass and get on over to the prompt side.

    And the play duly proceeded…

    “I never thought,” said Cressida with shining eyes, as Miss Isabelle Amyes was showered with bouquets, to a roar of warm applause, “that she had it in her!”

    “Excellent!” agreed Edward, clapping hard. “Shall we go round?”

    “No, no: they will be in the thick of it. They have promised to meet us for supper,” she said happily, naming the restaurant.

    “Darling, that is not— Well, it is respectable enough, but, er—”

    “Not a place where gentlemen take their wives: I know. But they had already chosen it, you see, and—”

    “Mm,” he said, putting his arm round her. “It’s all right, my darling.”

    The restaurant was of course crammed with glittering orders, dress uniforms, and ladies who were not ladies… Edward swallowed a sigh and guided her carefully through the crush to the crowded and noisy table where the actors were sitting. He watched resignedly as the half-sisters embraced ecstatically. Miss Isabelle Amyes was in bright emerald satin, with a large spray of emerald feathers on the head, the gold- and emerald-striped cloth which bound them thereto just managing by a whisker not to be a turban: ye gods. There had already been several calls upon his purse from damned Ricky Martin, in spite of the paper he had signed agreeing that the amount he got with Josephine would be all he could expect, and he was damned sure that Josephine had got money out of Cressida more than once. Now this half-sister would no doubt be calling on their assistance, too, if Lefayne’s damned theatrical ventures failed or, God forbid, the man dumped her…

    The self-styled Isabelle Amyes was not, really, as pretty as Cressida. Thinner, for a start. And the hair much redder. Possibly the brows and lashes were not that dark in their natural state, however; and why a very young woman should deem it desirable, let alone seemly, to darken them like that when she was not actually standing upon the stage— Well, she had taken up the right profession, that was certain. But it was a great pity she could not have done so in the Lowlands! Well—capitalising on Cressida’s connections, of course; she might not have a right to the name but she was clearly a Martin through and through.

    He greeted her with great amiability, professing himself delighted to meet Cressida’s sister at last, and congratulating her quite sincerely on her performance. And duly shook Lefayne’s hand and congratulated him on his performance, not quite so sincerely, for if the man had not worn pink he had certainly worn a different costume each time he had come on as Orsino. And offered his felicitations on the coming nuptials. Reflecting sourly that that, alas, was one celebration for which his wife would never allow him to have a convenient head-cold.

    “Did he suspect you, do you think?” said Mr Lefayne to his fiancée as they, Daniel and Vic journeyed home together to Mr Buxleigh’s.

    “No!” replied Isabelle with a laugh. “Could you not see? He was too busy loathing me to have time for any such thing!”

    “That green satin horror certainly helped,” conceded Mr Deane, grinning.

    “It was the black lashes, I think,” murmured Mr Vanburgh with a laugh in his voice.

    “Yes: I am afraid I took a leaf out of dear Mrs Deane’s book!” she admitted.

    “You had best write and tell her so: she’ll appreciate it,” admitted Mrs Lilian’s estranged husband with a chuckle.

    The players jogged on in comfortable silence…

    “I had the impression,” murmured Mr Vanburgh, “that he was calculating exactly how much, in the end, all these odds and sods of relations of his wife’s might be expected to cost him.”

    Mr Deane laughed, but looked a little anxiously at Mr Lefayne and Miss Amyes.

    “I had exactly the same impression,” murmured Sid.

    Giggling, Isabelle agreed: “And I! I really do not think there is any risk of his ever suggesting we all meet in the harsh light of day!”

    Conceding that was just as well, the players lapsed into comfortable somnolence.

    “I never thought you would make it this morning, my dear!” admitted Cressida with a laugh as Isabelle and Troilus hurried up to her and Petit Louis in the Park, only a week after the marriage of Mr Roland Lefayne and Miss Isabelle Amyes. They had not had a honeymoon: there was the current show, and too many other productions in the planning stages, including preparations for a Christmas show guaranteed to knock both Mr Perseus Brentwood and Mr “Lucky” Devine into a cocked hat. Next summer would be time enough to take a holiday from the theatre.

    Isabelle’s breath steamed in the frosty air of a November morning in London. “Nor I you! What was it last night: an embassy reception? The opera?”

    “The Dutch Embassy. The Ambassador spoke French solidly: I did not get the chance to utter a syllable of Dutch!” she owned with a chuckle.

    “Cressida, can you bear it?” asked Isabelle fearfully.

    “Yes, silly one! I keep telling you, I am blissfully happy!” she said with a laugh.

    “Josephine maintains the gilt will wear off the gingerbread once he stops giving you extravagant gifts. That, for instance,” she said, staring at her sister’s giant fur cloak.

    “Well, it is a very chilly morning, and he would be very cross if he thought I was not keeping warm, with the heir on the way!” owned Cressida gaily.

    “Just be sure it is a boy,” said Isabelle in a hollow voice.

    “Silly!” she said, tucking her free arm in hers. “He is not a curmudgeon.”

    “No. But I think he could develop into one, Cressida.”

    “Edward?” she said with a smile in her voice. “I do not think you could have known him at all, if you can think that. But in any case, I shall not let him.”

    “No,” said Isabelle in some relief. “Of course.”

    “And are you happy, my dear one?” she asked. “Still quite sure that Mr Lefayne is the right man?”

    “I am not sure that ‘Mr Lefayne’ anything, but I am quite sure that Sid is the man for me, with all his faults. ‘Sidney, with all thy faults, I love thee still!’” misquoted Isabelle loudly to the misty grey sky of the frosty London morning.

    “Hush!” said Cressida, laughing. “Seriously?”

    “Mm, seriously: I am persuaded that there is nothing like matrimony,” said Isabelle with a twinkle.

    Cressida smiled feebly. “Yes. –We are to leave for Sare Park very soon, dearest, so I shall take your love to all your friends.”

    “Thank you. Um, and just promise me one thing: you must absolutely swear it, Cressida!”

    “What?” said Lady Sare calmly.

    “Promise me utterly you will never, under any circumstances whatsoever, let Mrs Hetty anywhere near Lord Sare when she has liquor taken.”

    “I think,” said Lady Sare solemnly, “that I can utterly promise you that, Isabelle—yes.”

    “No! Don’t laugh!” she said in anguish.

    Cressida replied calmly: “I am not laughing. I have had a foretaste of that very thing. It would be of all things the most foolish, and I shall never allow it to happen. I know what Edward is, and I am not so besotted as to believe that he would not turn against me, if he found it all out. But he will not. And in fact, I shall be careful not to see too much of them all. I shall never be the real Miss Martin to them, in any case. And fortunately, though of course he has not said anything, he desires to—er—wean me off their company.”

    Isabelle gulped. “Yes. Good.”

    “You must come down very often,” she said with a smile. “Honeysuckle Cottage will always be there for you. And the country air will do your Sid so much good, you know!”

    Isabelle nodded. “We shall, as often as possible. And, um, of course Mrs Jessop knows it all, and some of the other villagers may guess, but you may rest assured that they will never breathe a word that will get back to the gentry.”

    “I know,” said Cressida mildly. “So, it has all worked out for the best, has it not?”

    Isabelle hugged her arm. “Yes, you horrid old plotter, indeed it has!”

    And Major Martin’s daughters walked on arm-in-arm through the misty November morning, their little sausage dogs pulling eagerly on their leads, perfectly content with their fates.

    It was a sufficiently obscure little London tavern, almost empty at this time of day. The report was given, and the investigator watched respectfully as his principal thought it over.

    “Hm,” he said.

    “Only another lady, sir!” he reminded him. “Sorry—me Lord,” he corrected himself.

    “Sir will do,” he murmured. “Ah—red hair, and with another little sausage dog?”

    “That’s right, sir.”

    Suddenly he smiled at him: the investigator blinked. “Her sister. Might have known!” he said. “Well, she thinks I don’t approve of this particular sister. No, well, you’ve done well, Masters. But I think, from now on, all surveillance can cease.”

    The former Regimental Sergeant-Major Masters touched his forelock, refused absolutely any pecuniary remuneration, but accepted a glass of something warming and drank it off, toasting: “The regiment!”

    And not quite saluting, took himself off.

    His principal sat on for some time, staring into space, until the waiter came up and asked him if there was something else he’d care for.

    “What? No, thank you.” He gave him a tip and stood up slowly. “Let it drop, I think,” he murmured. He strolled out of the tavern, a smile hovering on his lips. “Sleeping dogs—sausage dogs!” he said to himself with a laugh. “No, well, at all events, I very clearly have the best of the bargain.”

    With that he disappeared into the misty November morning.

    The waiter had discovered, to his mingled delight and consternation, that the tip was a golden guinea! Had the gent awarded it to him by mistake? He hesitated for a moment, but did not run after him.

    And concluded cheerfully: “Least said, soonest mended!”