On The Road

16

On The Road

    Somehow or another, in the wake of the performance of Twelfth Night at Quysterse, Mr Lefayne had become absorbed into the house party. Mr Hartington, noting sourly that it was only to be expected, rehearsed his cast relentlessly in both All In The Mind and Three Belles And A Beau over the next few days. The former was duly put on in the great house for the gentry and the latter in the barn for the locals. Miss Martingale of course had been in a quake of nerves over her rôle as Miss Fancy, but she found that, as Tilda had said, they wore off once she was on and playing her part. Mr Hartington grudgingly conceded she was “not bad.” And Mrs Hetty explained that she had really been very good, but Harold was miffed because Sid had got off with the black-haired widow.

    After that, it was Ho! for Axminster and a real theatre. Where they were still far too close to Sandy Bay for comfort, so Miss Martingale was again made to wear her frizzy black wig in Twelfth Night. Mr Lefayne’s scenes as Orsino were not received with quite such rapture by the general public; but the comic scenes could fairly have been described as a riot. And Miss Martingale observed dazedly that Mr Hartington, Mr Lefayne, Mrs Deane, and even Mr Pouteney seemed to be… exaggerating their characters?

    “Broadening them, dear,” elucidated Mrs Hetty comfortably. “Not that there’s much subtle about Sir Toby nor Sir Andrew in the first place. To suit the audience, dear!”

    “Ye-es,” she said uncertainly. “In Shakespeare?”

    “They are professionals, deary.”

    “Mm.”

    … “Well,” said Mrs Hetty with a sigh, as the manager of the Axminster Theatre Royal pressed them to stay on for another week and Mr Hartington regretfully explained that he could not: they had other engagements scheduled: “that were something like. Just don’t expect the accommodations to be nothing like Mrs Briggs’s, when we’re on the road.”

    “No. Um—what about Troilus?” ventured his mistress.

    “Get ready to grease the palms of half the landladies of the blamed south coast, that’s what!” retorted the actress strongly. “Not to say, to pay for his bones yourself.”

    “Yes,” she agreed limply. Not that that was not precisely what she had expected.

    “Um—sorry, me lovey. Dare say as Sid’d cough up for your little dog, if you asked him.”

    “I shall not,” she said, going very red.

    Mrs Hetty eyed her sideways. “You didn’t expect him not to go for the widow, when it was offered on a plate, did you?”

    “No! –I’m sorry, Mrs Pontifex, I did not mean to snap.”

    Mrs Pontifex sighed a little, but said no more.

    Mr Hartington consulted his schedule. “It’s this Selway House, next. Belongs to a Sir Michael Grainger. Dunno why Selway. Um, we have to take the Beaminster stage, and get off at… Hang on.” He produced his sketch-map. “Here.”

    “I should have asked Joe if I could keep the carriage,” returned Sid, yawning.

    “Hire yourself a post-chaise, if you’re that niffy-naffy!” he retorted sharply.

    “I might.”

    “Sam’ll take one of the waggons, of course. Think that Dinwoody can keep an eye on t’other? What I mean is, it’ll have half them boys on it,” he explained on a grim note.

    “According to my observation, Dinwoody is more than capable of keeping a regiment in order, Harold,” replied Sid, yawning again.

    “Yes. What I thought. Good. Um, if you did hire a coach, Daniel and Vic could go with you, couldn’t they?”

    “What about Margery, Lilian and Nancy?” he returned, yawning again.

    “Suit yourself,” replied Mr Hartington sourly.

    “Or I could take Miss Martingale and Miss Trueblood.”

    “And that damned Georgy. Good luck to you,” replied his manager sourly, walking off and leaving him to his yawns.

    The performance for Selway House was to be rendered memorable by its lead-up period. The which, it would turn out, did not feature the presence of Mr Dickon Amyes.

    The players’ untidy cortège arrived safely in the district, Mr Dinwoody, in the lead waggon, ascertaining: “The Blue Boar. This is it. Hop down, lads.”

    Mr Grantleigh and Mr Ardent, apparently not insulted by being addressed as “lads” by Mr Dinwoody, who in addition to dressing Mr Lefayne as and when required, seemed to have become general factotum and handyman to Hartington’s Players, duly hopped down.

    “Where’s AMYES?” screamed Mr Hartington, five minutes later.

    “Dunno,” replied Mr Dinwoody stolidly. “He never come with us.”

    “No. In fact we didn’t see him this morning,” agreed Mr Ardent. “Did we, Reggie?”

    “No, thet’s rayght. We ’sumed he was on t’other weggon, sah.”

    “He was supposed to—” Mr Hartington stamped up and down breathing fire and brimstone. “If he don’t turn up by dinnertime, he’s out on ’is ear! –All right. You lot stay here. I’m getting up to Selway House. Don’t unload the waggon; God knows where they’ll expect us to play.” Forthwith Mr Hartington mounted into his shabby hire coach, shouting at its driver, and drove off into the wilds of the countryside.

    “You lads fancy a drop of ale? On me,” said Mr Dinwoody stolidly.

    Eagerly the young actors accompanied him to the tap.

    … “It ain’t too bad,” reported Mr Hartington grudgingly, some time later. “Putting us up in the lodge. Well, it’s a fair-sized place, bigger than what the gentry usually allocate to their gatekeeper. And stir your STUMPS!”

    The company duly stirred its stumps.

    … “Where the Devil IS he?” shouted Mr Hartington, as evening approached without Mr Amyes. “We’re due to do the show TOMORROW!”

    Mr Ardent suggested that possibly he had got tired of the actor’s life. Mr Grantleigh noted that the conditions on the road had no doubt not appealed to him. Mr Pouteney, giggling, suggested that perhaps he had got off with a widow after all, but this was not well received at all. At all. And Mr Hartington announced grimly that Mr Amyes’s parts would be given to others and that he was OUT OF THE SHOW!

    … “He won’t be, Miss Martingale,” explained Mr Ardent calmly. “Not if he turns up in time for tomorrow’s performance. I heard Sam and Harold saying he was the best thing that had fallen across their paths since Sid was a lad.”

    “Y— Um, I fear he has not Mr Lefayne’s sweet nature, however,” croaked his sister.

    Mr Ardent eyed her tolerantly. “The ladies all think that of Lefayne, Miss Martingale. Well, he has always been very decent to me, and I have nothing against him; but you mark my words, Roland Lefayne can be a very hard man, when it suits. Well, he deliberately cut Amyes out with the dark-haired widow at Quysterse, didn’t he?”

    She flushed. “Yes.”

    “Didn’t want her, particularly, y’know,” elaborated Mr Ardent kindly. “He could have half a dozen like her any night of the week, in London.”

    “Yes,” she said in a stifled voice. “Pray excuse me; I must take Troilus for his evening walk.”

    “It’s true, you know!” said Mr Ardent on an anxious note, dropping the sophisticated tone he had been using.

    Miss Martingale said nothing, just hurried away.

    “Damn,” concluded Mr Ardent under his breath.

    … “Where the Devil have you BEEN?” bellowed Mr Hartington, the following day.

    Mr Amyes looked innocent. “Urgent personal business, sir. I do hope it has not inconvenienced you. Not late for the show, am I?”

    Since he was not, there was not very much that Mr Hartington could justifiably say. But he said it anyway.

    Mr Amyes expressed contrition and promised it would never happen again and he would unfailingly ask Mr Hartington’s permission if he ever needed to absent himself—etcetera.

    … “Snake,” concluded Mr Ardent bitterly.

    Selway House was duly favoured with All In The Mind. In very cramped conditions indeed, in a somewhat under-sized ballroom. However, they were fed generously enough. And since the weather was gloriously fine, Mr Hartington managed to get a local farmer to agree to their doing Three Belles And A Beau in a field. Even with the aid of all the screens and flats they had with them, most of the local boys managed to get a free show. However, Mr Hartington allowed kindly that Mr Dinwoody had done his best to keep ’em out. And did not, as at one point he had been threatening, dock anyone’s pay.

    “Bridport, next. We’ve a week there. I calculate we’d best get on up to Beaminster: they tell me there’s a stage goes direct from there,” he said, consulting the sketch map. “Nothing in Beaminster, itself.”

    Mr Lefayne consulted the sketch map. “Or we could get on back to Axminster: we know there’s a stage from there, Harold.”

    “Who’s in charge of this company, you or me?” returned his manager hotly.

    Sid shrugged. “You are, Harold.”

    They went to Beaminster. There was a stage, aye, but they’d missed it. Went once a week, it did. And if only they had been here yesterday— Grimly Mr Hartington loaded his company onto an assortment of waggons and carts, and set off for Bridport. Grimly refusing Mr Lefayne’s offer of a ride with himself, Mrs Deane, Mrs Hetty, Mrs Margery, Mr Vanburgh and Mr Deane in his very down-at-heel hire-coach.

    … “Let that creature out of its basket,” he said with a heavy sigh as, after some two hours in a waggon jolting along the very dusty track which the locals had assured them was the main road for Bridport, Miss Martingale’s wicker hamper became very agitated indeed.

    “If you are sure he would not inconvenience you, sir?” she said timidly.

    “No,” said Mr Hartington with another sigh.

    “I’ll look after ’im, Mr H.!” offered the misguided Master Trueblood brightly.

    “Just hold your noise,” warned his manager nastily.

    Master Trueblood subsided, and Troilus Martin was let out of his basket.

    An hour later he had somehow got upon Mr Hartington’s knee and Mr Hartington was stroking his warm, silky back; but as Mr Hartington had also cheered up to the point of condescending to tell Georgy a long, rambling story about his days as Atlas the Strongman, no-one remarked upon this anomaly.

    ... The shadows had lengthened, though the dust on the road had not abated. The other waggon and the carts were waiting for them at a small tavern in what was certainly not Bridport. And was apparently not on Mr Hartington’s sketch map.

    “Furze Halt,” explained Mr Speede. “Like between Nowhere-in-Particular and Halfway-There. We’ve already passed the hat: me and Nancy favoured ’em with a comic dialogue.”

    “And?” said Mr Hartington.

    “Sevenpence three farthings,” reported the character actor calmly.

    Mr Hartington went into a spluttering fit. Though acknowledging: “I’m not surprised.”

    “Sid went straight past,” volunteered Nancy.

    No-one was particularly surprised to hear that, either.

    “It’s ale or what the locals claim is rum,” explained Mr Dinwoody helpfully.

    Or that.

    ... “This is Bridport,” reported Mr Dinwoody redundantly, emerging into the yard of the Crown and Anchor as the second waggon arrived.

    “Don’t tell us,” said the actor-manager heavily: “Sid and that lot have grabbed all the best rooms, ate up all the supper, and gone to bed.”

    “No, they’re sitting in the parlour drinking up all the brandy, sir. But otherwise you’re not far wrong. There’s a Mrs Farbridge what takes in lodgers. But she won’t take dogs.”

    “Give him to me,” said Mr Hartington firmly as Miss Martingale looked from himself to Mr Dinwoody in dismay. “I’ll share with Sid, whatever his ideas about lording it in the best bedchamber by himself might be, and he can come in with us.”

    “Buh-but sir, he needs to be walked and fed and watered, and so on.”

    “Miss Martingale, I am capable of looking after a little dog,” he said heavily.

    “Yes, I am sure!” she gasped with manifest untruth. “But you have so many other responsibilities, sir!”

    “That’s right; and they’re what’ll prevent me from passing out on flesh-and-blood, or whatever Bridport serves instead of it, like that lot: and if you don’t believe me, take a look in the parlour.”

    “Er—well, perhaps Mrs Hetty…”

    “After a day on the road? All right, then: look.”

    She bit her lip, but got down and allowed Mr Hartington to conduct her into the inn. She looked. She gulped.

    “He’ll be safe with me, Miss Martingale,” he said, patting her on the shoulder.

    “Yes. Thank you very much, Mr Hartington,” she said in a tiny voice.

    Mr Hartington looked thoughtfully at the picture presented by the three older actresses half-asleep, very flushed, on a sofa, by Sid, somnolent in a large wing-chair with his neckcloth dangling loose, and by various other bodies in a similar state; and drew her quietly out again.

    “Did you imagine that Sid didn’t have feet of clay?” he said mildly.

    “No,” she admitted honestly. “But he has his good points, sir.”

    “Aye. But they’re not usually apparent after a hard day’s travelling. Now, Dinwoody’ll take you and Tilda and Georgy and Mrs W. to this Ma Whatsername’s place. Make her feed you, all right?”

    “I'll see to them, sir,” said Mr Dinwoody stolidly.

    “Good man.”

    “It's this way,” said Mr Dinwoody, assisting the yawning Tilda and then Mrs Wittering off the waggon. “Oy,” he said sternly to Georgy. “You grab them bags, you ain’t helpless. –Gimme that!” he added loudly as Tilda attempted to lift a large hamper.

    Mrs Wittering began to fuss about the wardrobe hampers which were also stowed on their waggon but Mr Dinwoody, cheerfully overriding all objections, grasped her thin elbow firmly, hoisted Tilda’s hamper with his free hand, and set off.

    Mrs Farbridge, a bony woman in an apron and kerchief, sniffed. “I don’t usually take in theatricals.”

    “Two rooms, fully paid in advance for a week,” replied Mr Dinwoody, unmoved.

    “Oh, all right, then; you can ’ave the first floor backs. But I don’t do breakfasts.”

    “Dessay we’ll be taking all our meals at the Crown and Anchor,” he said, unmoved.

    Angrily Mrs Farbridge informed him that it was dinner included, and that that Maisie Crow at the Crown and Anchor couldn't do a decent steak and tater pie to save her life!

    “That right, Missus? They tell me as she does a decent cooked breakfast, though,” replied Mr Dinwoody, apparently unmoved.

    After this it was not very long at all before Mrs Farbridge had grudgingly consented to provide a breakfast of hot sausages, bread and jam, with porter for Mr Dinwoody and milk for the girls and the little boy. And if the other lady had her own tea, she supposed, with a sniff, she could provide the hot water—aye.

    “Good,” said Mr Dinwoody cheerfully. “And we’ll be wanting a bite now, ma’am.”

    After some haggling over the price, Mrs Farbridge provided stale bread and dripping. But the fire was out, so no tea—with a glare at Mrs Wittering, who had not dared to suggest any such thing. So the party washed down its bread and dripping with Adam’s ale, and stumbled sleepily to bed yawning its heads off.

    “The beds are clean,” reported Tilda thankfully. “Well, you do see all sorts on the road, Cressida. Ma and me’ve been in some dreadful places. But this linen’s quite fresh.”

    And on that note, they got to bed at last.

    Bridport adored them. They played to packed houses, the population of the small provincial town not seeming to care whether the piece was Shakespeare, Mr Hartington’s idea of Molière, or a drawing-room farce with rural overtones. And squeezed in five matinées over four days. It would have been more, but even Mr Hartington acknowledged that his players could not perform every minute of the day. The week ended with a gala performance of Twelfth Night, with the Mayor and Mayoress in a box to the one side, and the landlord of the Crown & Anchor with the beaming Mrs Crow in a box to the other side, and no standing-room left. Fifteen curtain calls, and Tilda, Mr Lefayne, Mrs Mayhew and Mrs Deane laden with bouquets. Followed by a huge cast party on stage, with the champagne flowing. Well, until it ran out. But Mr Crow had generously provided a barrel of ale, so that was all right.

    “There is something to be said for these little country towns what never see a professional company from one year’s end to the next,” concluded Mr Hartington on the Sunday, doing sums in the sufficiently palatial bedroom he was sharing with his leading man.

    “Don’t forget you have to pay the players out of that lot, Harold,” warned Sid, yawning.

    “I’m taking that into consideration. –Not a nob in sight, and the best week’s takings ever, except for the week we did Richard Three after the nobs had found out it was you in the Russian prince intrigue!”

    “Jolly good,” said Mr Lefayne, yawning.

    “You might take an interest!”

    “I’ve just done eleven performances in six days, Harold!”

    “Oh. So you have.”

    “Where’s Troilus?” he yawned.

    “Eh? Oh, Dinwoody took him out, while you were still snoring. –It’s almost enough to make a fellow want to settle down here,” he said, admiring his accounts.

    Mr Lefayne eyed him drily. “With a wealthy widow—yes. If they had a performance every night, you wouldn’t get the packed houses, Harold.”

    “Very funny. Um… I suppose I could try out Amyes as the Beau: spell you,” he said, eyeing him sideways.

    “You could, certainly. But I was under the impression his aunt was dying and he’s rushed off to her bedside,” he drawled.

    “Yes, went last night, didn’t even stop for the party. And?”

    “Oh—nothing. But unless she pops off fairly smartly and he gets back fairly smartly, there won’t be very much time to rehearse him in anything, will there?”

    “Can’t see him stopping on to comfort the grieving relatives. Wait until the will’s read, is more his style. We might see him back within the week,” he said optimistically.

    “Mm,” replied Sid neutrally. Harold gave him a dubious look and he added: “Oh, by all means, let him try his hand at the Beau, it’s a damned boring part. Give him the inane lover in All In The Mind, too, if you like.”

    “No!” he said crossly. “Well, not in Dorchester and t’other big towns, at all events. We need your name, you know.”

    “You astound me.” Sid stood up, yawning, and slowly removed his dressing-gown.

    “Are you going out?” said his manager in astonishment.

    “Why not?”

    “Er—no reason, I suppose. Church, is it?” he asked ironically.

    Mr Lefayne merely replied smoothly: “Why not? It is Sunday.”

    Shaking his head slightly, Mr Hartington returned to his accounts.

    Tilda and Mrs Wittering were discovered in Mrs Farbridge’s small, dark parlour, yawning over their stitchery. “Where’s Miss Martingale?” said Sid without preamble.

    Pinkening, Tilda owned in a guilty voice that she had kindly taken Georgy for a walk. He had been in such a grumpy mood this morning! Georgy had claimed to have seen a whale’s tooth in a small shop not far from the theatre and had probably dragged Cressida off there to prove he wasn’t a liar. Grinning, Mr Lefayne took his leave of them.

    A scowling Georgy and a silent Miss Martingale were discovered sitting on a bench in the little square opposite the theatre.

    “Sighted any whales lately?” drawled Sid, lounging up to them.

    “I ain’t a liar!” Georgy shouted furiously, as his companion bit her lip. “It were there!”

    “Hush, you’ll shock the pigeons. –May I, Miss Martingale?” Gracefully he seated himself. “Bustling, is it not?”

    Since besides themselves, the pigeons, and several seagulls, the only signs of activity in Bridport were some nodding drivers on the boxes of a handful of carriages on the other side of the square outside a church, Miss Martingale bit her lip again, and Georgy retorted angrily: “Hah, hah!”

    “I’ve been in worse places,” he said mildly. “Dare say we might find a pastry-cook’s. And if they’re all closed, I’ll give you a slap-up dinner in a decent inn, if you’ll stop shouting for one minute,” he added loudly, as Georgy opened his mouth again.

    “Oh. Well, don't mind if I do, Mr Sid,” he admitted.

    “Really, Georgy!” said Miss Martingale, going very pink. “Thank you very much, Mr Lefayne.”

    “Yes, well, thanks,” agreed Georgy, eyeing him sideways.

    “I mean it,” he said tiredly. “Go and persecute those pigeons, will you? I wish for a private word with Miss Martingale.”

    “Mrs Wittering said,” replied Georgy conscientiously, “as I wasn’t to leave ’er alone with no gents.”

    “I,” said Sid Bottomley clearly, a glint in his eye, “am not a gent. And get off!”

    Scowling, and kicking resentfully at the gravel of Bridport’s neat little square, Georgy dragged himself off.

    “Miss Martin, what the Devil’s your brother up to?” said Sid in a lowered voice.

    She reddened. “I don’t know.”

    “Do you have a dying relative?”

    “No, of course not! Well, certainly not an aunt, we don’t have any aunts. And as far as I know, he doesn’t know Cousin Dearborn’s family. Though if Cousin Evangeline be dying,” she said grimly, “I cannot be enough of a hypocrite to pretend I am sorry for it.”

    “Understandable. Er… why? He missed a damn’ good party, and there is no heavy lifting to be done: the fellows at the theatre are doing it all quite competently, with Sam and Dinwoody to direct ’em.”

    “I know. I have no notion what he’s up to,” she said with a sigh. She smothered a yawn. “I beg your pardon, sir. Where are we to play next?”

    “We seem to be going round in a large circle, if Harold’s map is correct. We travel right over to Bournemouth, and do two village halls and three country houses. Forget the names of the first two, but the third is Sir George Drew’s place, Stippleton House, where we’ll meet up with Madam.” He wrinkled his nose. “Then back this way again: two solid weeks in Dorchester: an excellent engagement. After that we amble our way along the coast, playing in private houses, barns and assembly halls. I think that takes us right through to August: we have three weeks in Swanage at the end of August and early September, followed by two weeks in a decent theatre in Bournemouth. And back to London for October,” he said, smiling at her.

    “That seems a great deal of travelling.”

    “Mm. The actor’s lot,” he murmured.

    “Yes,” she agreed, wondering if Ricky had simply disappeared because he found it boring, and they would not, in fact, see him again.

    “Boring, ain't it?” he murmured.

    She jumped. “You are very sharp, Mr Lefayne. No, well, I am not bored, myself.”

    “I confess that I am,” he said lightly. “But don’t repeat that, will you? I owe Harold quite a lot, and whatever else I may be, I’m not an ingrate.”

    “I know,” she said, smiling warmly at him.

    “Come on,” he said with a moue, getting up and holding out his arm to her. “Or I’ll forget I’m not a gent!”

    Chuckling, she took his arm, and they collected Georgy and took him off to dine.

    Master Trueblood’s choice of fare included a spicy concoction called mullaga-tawny soup, which Mr Lefayne owned he had had in the fashionable restaurants of London, and which he had unwisely ventured Georgy would not like, a large helping of a brawn, roast chicken with a bread sauce, fried potatoes, and the better part of a soi-disant “Pompadour cream.”

    “Should he?” said Miss Martingale faintly as Georgy, having downed the soup, embarked on the brawn.

    “It’s his stomach.”

    “Slap up!” pronounced Master Trueblood at the end of the repast. “If you don't want to finish that wine, Miss Martingale, I’ll—”

    This suggestion was vetoed, and they strolled slowly back to Mrs Farbridge’s. At least, Miss Martingale and Mr Lefayne strolled. Georgy, incredibly, appeared invigorated by the immense amount he had eaten, and rushed on ahead, frightening seagulls, jumping in and out of the gutters, making dashes up steps, and the like.

    “It was good,” he said solemnly, as they reached their lodgings, holding out his hand to the actor. Mr Lefayne blinked, but shook it politely.

    “Almost as good,” added Georgy with a sigh, narrowing his eyes, “as the day what Troilus caught the rabbit.”

    At this Mr Lefayne, oddly, bit his lip and swallowed very hard; and Troilus’s mistress found she was blinking.

    “Poor damned little object,” concluded Sid, half under his breath, as the boy actor rushed inside to report to Tilda and Mrs Wittering.

    “Yes,” she agreed, trying to smile. “But he is very talented, sir. There is little doubt he has a fine career in front of him.”

    “Mm,” he said on a wry note. “Quite. –Don’t think I’ll come in, Miss Martingale.”

    She thanked him warmly for the meal, though she had already thanked him once; and Roland Lefayne bowed over her hand with languid grace, and sauntered elegantly away.

    The Bournemouth stage, at its customary easy pace, jolted slowly through lush, leafy Dorset. Major Martin’s daughter stared somewhat dazedly from the window. That journey coming in the opposite direction along this very road seemed years distant…

    “Bournemouth,” announced Mr Dinwoody, grinning, opening the door of the coach. “Let’s be having yer: we ain’t stopping here, you know!”

    “We must stop for a bite!” retorted Mrs Hetty crossly, blinking and rousing. “Where’s that dratted Harold?”

    “He rid on top, ma’am. Just seeing if our waggons’ve caught up with us,” he said, assisting her to alight.

    “That wouldn’t be difficult, the rate this lumbering great thing travels!” she said grumpily, directing a glare at it.

    “When your ship comes in,” noted Mr Vanburgh somewhat wearily, climbing down from the top of the vehicle, “you, too, will no doubt be able to afford a shiny chaise with a pale blue satin padded interior.”

    “Eh?” she said weakly.

    “Madam,” explained Mrs Deane, accepting Mr Dinwoody’s hand, and looking about her yawning widely.

    “She’s never got a thing like that out of ’im?” she gasped.

    “No. Threatening to,” said Mr Vanburgh, yawning. “Where is this place, again?” he said to Mr Dinwoody.

    “Bournemouth. What Mr Speede would call Halfway-There,” explained that worthy stolidly.

    Mr Vanburgh spluttered, and awarded him a pat on the shoulder. “You’re all right, Dinwoody.—Hoy, DANIEL!” he shouted at the roof of the vehicle. “We’re HERE!—Come on: Harold or no Harold, I intend to wet my whistle,” he said, taking Mrs Hetty’s arm.

    Yawning and blinking, the players followed Mr Vanburgh into the staging-inn.

    … “We are not,” repeated Mr Hartington grimly, “staying here! Stir your stumps!”

    “It’s the middle of the night, Harold,” groaned Mrs Hetty.

    “Rubbish.” Mr Hartington produced his watch and peered at it. He was seen to blench.

    “The middle of the night,” confirmed Mr Vanburgh acidly, peering at his own watch.

    “Never mind that, we’re expected at the Hare and Hounds in Little Pelford for breakfast.”

    With much sighing, groaning, yawning and shuffling, Hartington’s Players gathered themselves together and mounted onto the waggons and the usual assortment of rickety hired carts and traps for the journey to Little Pelford. Or, according to Mr Deane, Under Muckington in the Wold. No, he said cordially to Georgy’s questioning, he had no true notion of what a wold was, but the name suggested to him something greenish, hairy, and rustic, covered in mud to its eyebrows; and did Georgy have a better suggestion? Georgy lapsed into pouting silence, and the cortège got going.

    “It’s little, all right,” said Mrs Deane with a sigh, as they jolted into Little Pelford.

    “Is there a larger Pelford?” asked Mrs Mayhew, blinking.

    Nobody knew. Though Nancy Andrews ventured that she would take her oath there was not a smaller.

    And with that they stumbled into the Hare and Hounds.

    “This is Mr Brimley,” said Mr Hartington with a pale smile. “Mr Brimley, allow me to present Miss Matilda Trueblood and Mr Roland Lefayne, our leading players. –Mr Brimley’s in charge of things, at Little Pelford,” he explained, as Mr Brimley, a short, plump, and very spruce personage in very yellow pantaloons and a pair of Hessians that would not have disgraced Bond Street itself, bowed low over Tilda’s hand and professed himself delighted. And declared, bowing until his nose almost touched the knees of the pantaloons, that it was a great honour to meet Mr Lefayne: a great honour. And he could only wish that their humble Little Pelford could provide a better scène de théâtre than their modest village hall! But if there was anything at all they should desire, he, Mr Brimley, would be only too pleased to provide it.

    “What’s a sendee tay-whatsit?” said Mrs Hetty in Miss Martingale’s ear.

    “Er—I think he merely means a theatre, ma’am. Um, what is he?” she murmured.

    “Don’t ask me!” replied the actress, shaking slightly. “No, well, how d’you mean, deary? Like, his rôle?”

    “Yes. Is he perhaps a local landowner?” she asked dubiously.

    Mrs Hetty eyed Mr Brimley shrewdly. “Shouldn’t think so. Not quite a gent, if you ask me. Think he’ll be a local busybody, dear!”

    She gave a choke of laughter, but nodded, and said: “I see.”

    … “Lady Merrihew; Sir Clement Merrihew; Miss Merrihew; Miss Anthea Merrihew,” introduced Mr Brimley, bowing very low. Lady Merrihew looked bored and murmured: “Delighted.” Sir Clement looked down his nose and said: “Ah. A London company, hey? Expecting a good show, y’know.” Miss Merrihew looked cold and merely inclined her head. But Miss Anthea went bright pink, gasped, and squeaked: “Mr Lefayne! Oh! How do you do? Welcome to Little Pelford! May I say, I did so much admire your performance in The Prodigal’s Return this Season!” The which possibly proved something-or-another.

    … “Apart from Miss A., they don’t look ready to be entertained,” reported Miss Martingale drily, having peered cautiously round the edge of the curtain.

    “Miss Martingale, come away from the curtain, please,” said Mr Hartington on a firm note.

    Obediently she did so, though remarking, as she squashed herself into position: “Mr Hartington, will the local people care for Shakespeare?”

    “Dare say not. Brimley ordered Shakespeare, according to him them Merrihews want Shakespeare, so they’re getting him.” He winked. “Parts of him. –All right, you lot, overture and beginners. –Play on,” he elucidated drily.

    Mr Grantleigh on the mandolin, Mr Vanburgh on the flute and Mr Pouteney on the guitar struck up manfully, and as the chattering in the Little Pelford village hall died down to an expectant hush, Georgy in his ruff drew the curtain aside, to reveal Duke Orsino perched on a dais, and the very abbreviated ducal court of the three musicians and Miss Martingale in her farthingale. It was a very small stage indeed.

    The comic scenes went over very well in Little Pelford. The more serious scenes were greeted with blank silence. Malvolio’s cross-gartering was greeted with roars of laughter but only, the cast were in no doubt, because Mr Vanburgh’s playing was very broad indeed. Mr Hartington had cut Act Four, the which was probably just as well. Not to say ruthlessly excising all of the more Elizabethan references. Tilda had been ordered severely to take the wig off at the end. The which was just as well, for Orsino’s proposal of marriage was greeted with blank silence. Then, as Tilda smiled and took the wig of short dark hair off, and shook out her own brown ringlets, there was a concerted “Aah!” from the audience.

    “Gawdelpus,” concluded Mr Hartington in Miss Martingale’s ear. “Well, ’e asked for the Bard, and the Bard’s what ’e got!”

    “More or less!” she agreed, collapsing in giggles, shaking her curls.

    “At least we didn’t pay nothing for the hall,” he allowed. “Only tomorrow we got to pay the piper.”

    She looked at him in bewilderment.

    “You’ll see,” he predicted drily.

    On the morrow, she saw. Mr Brimley’s barouche arrived to drive Mr Lefayne, Mr Vanburgh, Miss Trueblood and Mr Hartington all of five hundred yards to Mr Brimley’s choice residence: Blackthorn House. Blandly Mr Hartington ordered Miss Martingale to hop in.

    Blackthorn House was a charming Elizabethan structure, half-timbered. With Elizabethan black-leading and mullions and goodness knew what. And even more Elizabethan inside, with low ceilings and plastering and beams and panelling and goodness knew what. Rood screens, very likely, as Mr Vanburgh was to note afterwards. Arrases.

    Mr Brimley was not alone: he had invited a little circle of dear friends. Not above a dozen. Well, say sixteen. The players were pressed politely to take tea. With a delicious array of cakes. Large and small. Then they were pressed to favour the assembled guests, if Mr Brimley might make to bold as to beg—

    Mr Lefayne obligingly gave forth with “To be or not to be.” He and Tilda did a sufficiently incomprehensible scene between Beatrice and Benedick. Mr Hartington obliged with a blood-curdling piece of Macbeth. He and Mr Vanburgh did a sufficiently obscure scene between Lear and the Fool. Mr Brimley then wishing to know if the other young lady could favour them, Mr Hartington replied brutally that she could not, she was an apprentice who was still learning, and did not know enough of the words. Immediately a volume was produced. Resignedly Mr Hartington allowed his apprentice to read a piece of Perdita.

    … “See, Miss Martingale?” he said drily as the players removed their hats in the tiny inn parlour on their return.

    “Yes!” she owned with laugh and a shudder. “Paying the piper, indeed!”

    “It was a damn’ good tea, however,” noted Mr Vanburgh placidly.

    Strangely, at this Major Martin’s daughter went into muffled hysterics, shaking her chestnut curls madly and gasping: “Yes! The perils of the travelling player’s life! Shakespeare and cream cakes! Oh, dear!”

    The actors looked at their apprentice, and smiled.

    “Chelford Hall. Nobs,” explained Mr Hartington kindly.

    “What sort o’ nobs?” asked Mrs Hetty without much interest.

    “Dunno. Lord Peter Bon-Dutton. Ring any bells?”

    It did not, no. Though Mrs Mayhew ventured dubiously that he must be the son of a duke or some such, if he were Lord Peter and not Lord Bon-Dutton.

    The son of a duke or some such did not condescend to speak to his performers in person, merely deputed a major-domo to see them settled. In the attics.

    “Whether or not the damned fellow knows who Sid is, we’ll never know,” noted Mr Deane mournfully as they dined that evening in the servants’ hall.

    “Never mind, Mr Deane: the roast beef is excellent!” said the company’s apprentice with a giggle.

    Mr Deane smiled slowly. “You’re getting the picture, Miss Martingale.”

    Lord and Lady Peter Bon-Dutton had a houseful of guests for the summer. In addition, a number of genteel persons from the neighbourhood had been invited to the performance of All In the Mind. Possibly these guests were all such sophisticates that they were inured to performances by real London companies. However that might have been, they certainly talked through most of it. Even Mr Lefayne’s scenes.

    “Just make sure you get the cash off the fellow, Harold,” advised Sid grimly as the curtain was drawn at last to a scattering of polite applause.

    “Yes, well, I’ll do that all right, if it means staying on till he puts it in my hand!”

    This threat did not have to be carried out; but nor did Lord Peter Bon-Dutton put the cash in Mr Hartington’s hand. The major-domo was deputed to do that.

    “Dunno what we come for, really,” concluded Mrs Pontifex. “Well, I grant you the roast beef. Only why hire us, if they don’t want to pay attention?”

    This mystery remained unresolved, and the party went on its way to the next village. Tudley Crossing. Or, as Mr Deane put it, Lesser Under Muckington in the Wold.

    “Bed-bugs,” discerned Mrs Hetty grimly as the players descended for breakfast in Tudley Crossing’s ancient inn, yawning and scratching. “Thought so. We could try washing the linen and airing it in the sun, but the blamed things’ll be in the mattresses as well.”

    “For mayself,” said Mr Grantleigh crossly, “Ay shell sleep on the weggon!”

    The other gentlemen elected to join him. The ladies looked aggrieved.

    “H’air the mattresses as well?” ventured Mrs Wittering.

    “That’ll frighten them, all right, Mrs W., deary, but it won’t kill the beggars,” replied Mrs Hetty sourly.

    No-one proposing a satisfactory solution, the company sat down resignedly to its breakfast, itching and scratching.

    … “That went over really well,” conceded Mr Hartington, in the wake of the thunderous applause, innumerable curtain-calls, and semi-impromptu encores that followed the performance of Three Belles And A Beau. “Um—could squeeze in another show tomorrow, before we go on to—”

    Forthwith the three belles turned and rent him as one belle.

    “Oh, all right. Though what’s a few bed-bugs, when all’s said and— All right! We won’t!”

    And Tudley Crossing was left behind, and they turned their steps towards Pathwell Abbey.

    “It’s just a grand house!” discovered the players’ apprentice in tremendous disappointment.

    The journey had taken a day and a half over very bad back roads, nay, lanes, and this morning it had begun to rain, so no-one was in a very good mood. Especially those who had been informed it was their turn to go on the waggons. Mrs Hetty hunched under a large cape. “At least if ain’t a blamed ruin the roof might not leak. If we gets to go under it.”

    “Mm.”

    “That Amyes is well out of it, ain’t he?”

    “Mm.”

    Their reception at Pathwell Abbey was so very different from that accorded them at Chelford Hall that they began to wonder if they were dreaming and would shortly wake up to the itching of the Tudley Crossing beds. In spite of the rain a curly-headed boy in nankeens and a large footman were on the front porch: apparently awaiting their arrival, for the boy was observed to jump up and down, and heard to yell: “It’s them! It’s them!” And was then seen to rush inside screaming: “Mamma! Mamma! It’s them! They’ve come!”

    And forthwith a stream of servants poured forth to take the bags and help unload and water the horses and lead the waggons round to the back and conduct the players to their rooms… Mr Hartington was glimpsed bowing over the hand of a pretty lady in a lace-frilled cap, uttering in a stunned voice: “Charmed, your Ladyship.” And Mr Lefayne’s hand was seen being engulfed in that of a large, broad-shouldered gentleman who was assuring him, with a jolly laugh, that he and her La’ship had seen his Richard III and his Hamlet and were looking forward tremendously to the performance—

    And then they were all hurried inside to the warmth of Pathwell Abbey. Real bedrooms. Real beds. And dinner with the family to come!

    The one person not to appreciate this positively royal hospitality to the full was Master Trueblood. Who found himself ignominiously stripped by Mrs Hetty and Mrs Wittering, every square inch of his person, not to say every hair of his head, then being inspected, scoured and scrubbed relentlessly. “For,” said Mrs Hetty breathlessly, “you ain’t a-going to disgrace Hartington’s Players by introducing no animiles into Master Lance’s nursery! Now!”

    … “And the amazing thing is, my dear Miss Cressida,” concluded Mrs Mayhew as the ladies retired at last, after a wonderful dinner followed by a pleasant evening in the drawing-room with no-one being asked to perform except Miss Angela Kendall, aged seventeen, upon the pianoforte, “that Lady Kendall is not even one of Sid’s!”

    And nor she was. The which must surely prove that a sinful old world contained some proportion of persons who were just naturally kind-hearted and generous. Or, as Mr Deane put it, that this was the last bastion of civilisation in a howling wilderness of ignorance, condescension, and biting insects.

    “Mr Deane,” ventured the apprentice the next morning, discovering him alone with a book in the little salon set aside for the actors’ use, “are you getting up in a new part?”

    “Mm? Oh—aye. More Molière. For the winter season, Miss Martingale. The Misanthrope,” he said in a vague voice.

    She retreated, smiling.

    The one performance scheduled for Pathwell Abbey having developed into four, including two for the public, actually in the ballroom, which Sir Roderick Kendall, Bart., had assured Mr Hartington was quite accustomed to be thrown open for such occasions, Hartington’s Players went on their way not only well fed but exceeding well in funds, into the bargain. Miss Martingale was actually awarded four shillings in wages, though warned she was still an apprentice, and Mr Ardent, who had had to deliver most of Mr Amyes’s lines as well as his own in Twelfth Night, received a bonus: sixpence. His attempt to point out that he had had all of Amyes’s lines as well as his own since they left Bridport was not, however, well received. The amount Mr Ardent customarily was used to consume—at the expense of his Management—was mentioned. And Mr Ardent duly subsided.

    The journey along winding lanes to Stippleton House was enlivened by a thunderstorm, by Georgy’s misguided attempt to ride an elderly donkey observed grazing in a field, by seven more or less impromptu recitations at various inns, wayside halts, and taverns, the which netted them the princely total of five shillings three-halfpence, which even Mr Hartington did not object to the performers sharing amongst themselves, and four unscheduled full performances of Three Belles And A Beau. Three of which took place out of doors, and since all who were not performing or holding up pieces of scenery were deputed to circulate amongst the crowds with “the hat”, only an approximate ninety-nine percent of all the little village boys of the villages concerned got a free show. Or, as Mr Hartington put it, not bad, considering.

    In between these diversions the company was supposed to be learning its lines in a new piece, which was due to be performed in Dorchester. Conscientious persons managed, more or less, to do so. Though slightly hampered, in the case of some, by a tendency to nod off under the soothing influence of the rumbling of the wheels.

    “It ain’t my fault!” shouted Mrs Pontifex, very red in the face.

    “It is if you’ve been sipping from that damned flask of yours,” returned her manager grimly. “Do you want me to give the part to Lilian?”

    “No!” she shouted. “And she’s been sipping, herself!”

    “Well, unless you do, you can get out in the fresh air on one of the waggons, and stay awake,” he said evilly.

    The scowling Mrs Pontifex mounted onto a waggon next the stolid Sam Speede, and Mr Hartington squashed into the shabby hire-coach with Mr Lefayne, Mrs Mayhew, Mrs Deane and Mrs Wittering in her stead. “Pass me that flask, Lilian,” he said calmly.

    Unabashed, Mrs Deane passed him the flask.

    The new piece was a melodrama, which Mr Hartington claimed would go down a treat in these provincial backwaters. One or two persons had noted that it would certainly go down better than Shakespeare, but Harold had managed to ignore them. The piece was called The Withered Hand, or, The Fate of Crestingforthe Castle. And had a distinct tendency to the Gothick. Though it did have a happy ending, the which Mr Hartington declared would please the public taste in these provincial backwaters. It had an excellent part for Mrs Hetty, as the mother of the young Melinda Makepeace whose destiny it was to encounter the withered hand. The which was wont to emerge from paintings hung on the wall, out of convenient arrases, from behind window curtainings and even, in one positively miraculous scene, from a silver bowl on a table, centre-stage. –The part of the Hand was taken by Mr Speede, wearing a tight black sleeve and a large white glove, hideously gnarled and puckered. The piece was, evidently, not one which could comfortably be performed in broad daylight in a field.

    Miss Trueblood was to take Melinda Makepeace, and Miss Martingale was awarded the part of a Lady Louisa, whose fate it was to encounter the Hand very early in the piece, succumb to it, and reappear rather later draped in white gauze, moaning. As a warning to the fair Melinda that there might possibly be something wrong at Crestingforthe Castle and that possibly its owner, one Baron Baseheart, was not as good a bet in the matrimonial stakes as Mrs Hetty’s character maintained he was. Mr Hartington, who could do an evil leer in his sleep, took the Baron. And Mr Lefayne took the hero, a Mr Geoffrey Warrender, impoverished cousin to the Baron. And, if by any wild coincidence the Baron should pop off, heir to… Quite. Mr Lefayne had not objected to the part, though he had noted that he wished it had a few more swashes to its buckles, and that David could do the matinées. Master Trueblood played the innocent Master Timmy Makepeace, destined to be rescued from the evil Hand Just In Time, thus proving to Miss Melinda the true worth of Mr Geoffrey…

    “I do not see,” confessed Miss Martingale with a twinkle in her eye, “why the piece needs an evil Baron as well as an evil Hand!”

    Mr Dinwoody, to whom this remark was addressed, grinned. “Logically, I dare say it don’t. Only, while a Hand might hold a sword, it couldn’t nip about the stage too well with it, y’see. Mr Lefayne needs the Baron for a worthy opponent for all them swashing buckles.”

    “Quite!” she gasped, going off in a gale of giggles. “I confess,” she then confessed, mopping her eyes, “that I don’t see why even a hero’s buckles should swash. What is the derivation of the expression?”

    “Dunno!” he said, grinning. “You’d best consult Dr Johnson’s Dictionary!”

    “Er—yes,” said Miss Martingale, giving him a doubtful glance.

    Mr Dinwoody gazed into the cerulean blue of the summer day, and whistled a little tune through his teeth. Then he said helpfully: “That’s a great ’uge book, Missy, with all the words wrote in it, see? I worked for a gent, once, what was awful fond of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary.”

    “I see!” she said, smiling.

    Mr Dinwoody had thought she might: yes. He gazed at the sky, and whistled his tune quietly. And did not make the mistake of assuming, five minutes later when she asked him if he could hear her words, that it was a test. “Well, I can read, all right,” he said amiably, taking the script in the hand that was not holding the reins, “only I’m not so good at them jaw-cracking words, Missy. Like what that Twelfth Night’s full of.”

    “Gaskins!” she squeaked, going off in fresh paroxysms of laughter. “I’m sorry, Mr Dinwoody: I was not laughing at you. This thing is not Shakespeare, and there are no jaw-cracking words in it, I do assure you. If you would just give me my cues, and correct me when I go wrong?”

    Mr Dinwoody thought he could manage that, all right.

    “Stippleton House,” announced Mr Hartington at long last, peering from the coach window. “Now we’ll see if Madam’s promises have any substance to them!”

    “And possibly,” drawled Mr Lefayne, pocketing the dice they had been tossing to while away the time, “if Sir George Drew, Bart., be in fact Mr George French, backer extraordinaire.”

    “He ain’t. But that don’t mean you lot don’t have to be polite to him!” he warned.

    “Oh, we shall, Harold, if so be,” said Mrs Mayhew with a glint in her eye, “Madam lets us get anywheres near him. Which I, personally, take leave to doubt.”

    Mrs Mayhew’s prediction was not very far wrong. Sir George Drew was, as some had maintained, a widower; he greeted them very genially in his downstairs salon, with Mrs Clarissa Campion hanging on his arm in bright blue silk trimmed with lace. Since it was late afternoon, they were then urged to take tea, as soon as they had seen their rooms. When they came down for it, Madam was still hanging on his arm, and as it was brought in, seated herself next him on a sofa, spreading her skirt artfully just in case a third person might have assumed there was yet room on the sofa, and coyly took it upon herself to pour for him. The assembled guests all took this without a blink, so presumably they were used to it.

    “That,” noted Mrs Mayhew evilly as they retreated to change for dinner, “were Madam’s idea of an afternoon dress! Lace! Mark my words, the dinner dress will be something flauntational!” –A combination of “flaunting” and “sensational”, they could not but conclude.

    Mrs Mayhew was of course perfectly correct, and it was an embroidered pink satin, the flounce trimmed with swaggings of the same stuff, the lowered neckline trimmed with frilled lace through which Madam’s shoulders and bosom were observed to glimmer, and the higher part of the skirt adorned with a positive apron of lace. The which assorted very ill indeed with the heaviness of the swagged flounce. Or, as Mrs Mayhew noted in Miss Martingale’s ear with grim satisfaction: “Tasteless.”

    In comparison, Mrs Mayhew in black brocade trimmed with tiny green silk rosettes looked every inch a lady. And there was no way Madam, or any of the fine ladies and gentlemen of Sir George’s house party, could possibly guess the stuff had once formed a voluminous cloak which had been destined for Baron Baseheart, but had been discovered to have the moth in it. Mrs Wittering had removed the ruined breadths but the result had not managed to swirl or even flow, when draped on Mr Hartington’s tall, broad-shouldered person. So he had accepted Mrs Mayhew’s offer. Well, at first he had held out for half a guinea, but had allowed himself to be beaten down to five shillings. And sixpence. Though noting that it would have made two short Elizabethan cloaks for them boys. Oh, all right, then—go on. But the result had better knock Madam’s eye out! Mrs Mayhew and Mrs Wittering had promised him eagerly that it would. And it must have done, for all Mrs Campion was able to manage at the sight of it, with a look on her face as of one who had just tasted sour milk, was: “Charming, Margery. Though for oneself, one has always considered black just a lee-tle ageing.”

    The which proved she was put out, for it immediately enabled Mrs Mayhew to respond: “Yes? For yourself, dear, it probably is.”

    The actors had one spare day at Stippleton House before they were due to perform Twelfth Night. The which, as was rapidly proven, was not enough to get Madam up to speed in her part.

    “You’ve got the clearest voice: you can prompt,” Mr Hartington ordered his apprentice grimly. “Mostly Orsino’s ladies ain’t on when she is, and when they are, you’ll stand near her and prompt her from the stage. Because I’m not having any so-called leading lady in any performance of mine, private or not, stop in the middle of a speech, smirk at the audience, and mince across the damned stage in order to catch what the prompter’s SAYING!”

    “No,” she said limply. “Though she did it very charmingly, sir. And—and the gentlemen, at least, will not mind, for they all—”

    “NOT ON MY STAGE!” he shouted.

    “—adore her. No, sir.”

    The actor-manager took a deep breath. “You will do it from behind your fan, Miss Martingale, and Mrs Mayhew will coach you.” An agonised expression being seen to come over his apprentice’s face, he then added kindly: “Even if it is for Madam. Margery’s a professional: don’t worry.”

    To Miss Martingale’s immense relief, this prediction was proven accurate. And so the performance went forward.

    “I draw,” concluded Mr Hartington, mopping his brow when it was all over, “a veil!”

    It was quite a long way from Stippleton House to Dorchester, and Mr Hartington warned them sternly they must not dawdle on the road. Certain persons wondered if Sir George Drew’s hospitality might extend to offering the loan of a coach—just for Sid and the ladies, perhaps? But it didn’t, and Mr Ardent resignedly handed over a sixpence to Mr Pouteney, causing Mr Darlinghurst, who had been too fly to take any such bet, to collapse in sniggers. It was a gloriously fine day, but although Mr Lefayne noted that it was a lovely day for travelling on a waggon, he did in fact hire a coach and pair, and solemnly assisted Mrs Wittering, Mrs Hetty, Mrs Mayhew, Mrs Deane and Miss Trueblood to climb into it. At the first halt, however, he gave up his place to Mr Hartington.

    “I have been,” he said dulcetly, “a very good boy, so may I sit beside you on the waggon, Miss Martingale?”

    She blushed, and gave a flustered laugh. Mr Lefayne had certainly been a good boy at Stippleton House, if refusing to be tempted by either a tall, handsome red-headed lady who was a Lady Something (not a widow, but husband not in evidence) or a short, pretty, well curved, fair-haired lady who was an Hon. Mrs Something Else (and a widow), fell within the definition—yes.

    “Um, well, of course, Mr Lefayne,” she said somewhat feebly. “Where did you get that hat?” she added limply as the actor then produced a crushed, wide-brimmed straw thing.

    “Well,” he said, perching happily beside her on the back of the waggon and swinging his legs, “I think it is the hat that your brother wore when he was helping Sam paint the scenery.”

    “Ssh!” she hissed, looking over her shoulder; though there was no need: Mr Dinwoody was driving and Georgy, who had claimed the seat beside him, had already started to tell him a very long story which was possibly apocryphal but certainly featured the adventures of himself and a small sausage-like dog.

    “Heard from him at all?” he murmured, as they set off with a lurch.

    “No.”

    Mr Lefayne adjusted the hat so that it sheltered his handsome nose, and said: “Hm.”

    They journeyed slowly on through a perfect summer’s day. The actor chatted lazily about other tours he had known, and Major Martin’s daughter, who had felt at first very awkward at being singled out by Mr Lefayne, soon relaxed and chatted happily.

    After quite some time had passed he ventured: “Miss Martin, do you have any notion who this backer of Harold’s might be?”

    “Mr French? None at all, sir.”

    “Never heard the name?”

    “Um… I think,” she said, pinkening, “that there is a French in the firm of lawyers for whom Mr Peebles works, sir.”

    “Ah, yes. That’s true enough: my brother Joe’s lawyers know the firm.” Mr Lefayne gazed unseeingly at the dust they were leaving behind in their wake. Eventually he said: “What do you know of Peebles, in actual fact?”

    She blushed again. “I suppose, what we all know.”

    “No. I mean, know, as opposed to what he himself has told you of himself.”

    She stared at him.

    “Well?” said Sid Bottomley, his handsome face expressionless.

    “I duh-don’t… Wuh-well, that he works for a firm of lawyers in the City.”

    “Does he? Have you visited this firm, pointed to Peebles, and said: ‘Does this man work for you?’”

    “Mr Lefayne, what on earth are you implying?”

    “I’m not too sure, Miss Martin. But it did cross my mind that if I could put on a convincing show as a lawyer’s clerk at the Horse Guards, why should not Peebles put on an equally convincing one for us at Beau Buxleigh’s?”

    “But why should he?”

    “Quite. But setting that aside for a moment, what was there to prove to us, except his regular disappearances to what he claimed was his daily work, that he was who he said he was? Just suspend disbelief, and think about it.”

    She thought, frowning. “He— Um, well, the day we went to that inn near Drury Lane with Mr Vanburgh, we saw him with a great bundle of legal papers.”

    “Mm. Did any of you look closely at the papers?”

    “No, of course not. Um… But he might have stayed on longer, if he was not genuine. Yet he hurried off to deliver them.”

    “I grant,” said Sid, smiling at her, “that any man in his senses, given the choice between pretending to deliver papers and staying on with yourself, would opt for the latter. Almost any man, that is. Only a very, very cunning one would have sustained the part of Peebles, the put-upon outside clerk, so convincingly as actually to hurry away.”

    “I really cannot see it! Though I concede,” she said slowly, “that it would only be a very cunning man—yes.”

    “Did he strike you as cunning?” he said lightly.

    “No.”

    “Nor me, neither!” Mr Lefayne produced a packet of sweetmeats, and offered them. “How did he strike you?” he asked, as they both munched.

    “I— There were some anomalies, I suppose,” she said in a low voice.

    “Yes; I thought, myself, his indignation over the way Vic and the others behaved at that episode at the White Lion was slightly out of character. Well, perhaps not the indignation. But certainly the dressing-down he gave Beau and Vic. One would have expected him,” he said, the black-fringed grey eyes narrowing, “to stutter and stammer—perhaps to shout—if he had nerved himself to it. But he didn’t, you know. Lilian told me he was horridly icy. Er, well, thrillingly icy and she wouldn’t have thought he had it in him!” he admitted with a grin. “But you see?”

    “Mm. I suppose his lifting the garden flagstones for me was merely a matter of having the strength and not—not necessarily out of character.”

    “No; though one would not expect an underfed City clerk to have the strength. Um—kindly treatment of Bagshot?” he said, raising a mobile eyebrow.

    “That showed he is the sort of man who has a care for the welfare of those less fortunate than himself, sir!” she said, going very pink indeed.

    Sid Bottomley did not argue with her. He was sure that she could see as well as he that it could also show that Peebles was the sort of man who, perceiving what behaviour would best please the lady he admired, would then produce that behaviour.

    “Um… There was one odd thing,” she offered dubiously. “When he rode along with us to Dearborn House, the groom remarked upon his seat on a horse. I subsequently got to know the man very well, and I discovered that his opinion on anything to do with horses is entirely reliable. Um—well, I just assumed that he had to ride long distances with urgent papers so often for his masters, that… No, it was odd.”

    “Hm.”

    “Alf Hollis—that is his name—said he had the best seat on a horse of any gent he had ever seen. And that he would not fall off going over the jumps by—by doing it with his legs alone.”

    “That,” said Sid Bottomley slowly, “does not sound to me like any lawyer’s clerk. It sounds much more like someone who was put up on a horse at about the time he learned to walk.”

    “Ye-es… I think they did live in the country when he was a boy. Why, yes, he mentioned his grandfather’s apple orchard!”

    “I dare say. He spoke of it to me, also. But being sat upon a slow old carthorse or some such would scarcely give him the seat of a gentleman rider in later life.”

    “Anyone might have an aptitude, I suppose,” she replied, her cheeks very flushed.

    “Hm.”

    “I—I suppose I concede,” she said, clearing her throat, “that we know very little of him, in truth. But the same might be said of yourself, sir!”

    “Mm? No, no: Harold, Sam, Nancy, Paul and David have all met my brother and his family!” he said with a laugh. “Not to say, my Aunt Cumbridge!”

    “Oh.”

    “One might say that we all know of yourself only what you’ve told us; but then, Major Martin was a very solid figure indeed! –You see? What every one of us knows of Peebles is only what he’s told us. He has not produced so much as a cousin, let alone a sister, brother or parent, to back up his story.”

    “Mr Lefayne,” she said with dignity: “you are reading far too much into this. A man is not culpable, merely because he is an only child whose parents are dead. Nor because he lives in a city far removed from any relatives he might have!”

    “True,” he murmured.

    “In a great city like London, the same must be true of hundreds of persons!”

    “Mm… I’ve worked in an office, y’know. Before I ran away to go on the stage!” he said with his glinting smile. “And the thing is, it’s rather like living in a family. The relationships are not necessarily always pleasant, and not always close. But one inevitably forms them. Friendships, enmities—” He shrugged a little. “Even if it is nothing but a tepid liaison between two clerks against their hated overseer—you see? One goes out for a pie and pint of porter, and stops off in Bert So-and-So’s rooms, and on Saturdays spends one’s evening with Jim, Bert and his friend Fred, going to the playhouse or making one pint of ale last, depending on one’s funds; and possibly gets invited to good old Jim’s home to meet his sister Polly and Ma and Pa over the Sunday dinner! –No, well,” he admitted, as she twinkled at him, “I admit that in my own case it was a Jim: Jim Pettinger; and although of course I had my own Ma and Pa to feed and house me, the occasional Sunday dinner at the Pettingers’ did not come amiss!”

    She laughed. “I see!”

    “By God, it was another life, all right… No, well, you see? Being a clerk does not mean one leads a hermit’s existence: very far from it. Yet Peebles to all intents and purposes did.”

    “Ye-es… Possibly he had not managed to make friends at the office, however.”

    “I think what I was trying to convey,” said Sid Bottomley slowly, “was that office friends need not be friends in the true sense. But did Peebles even talk of the fellows at the office?”

    “Um… Not to me,” she admitted.

    “Nor to me, either. He described ’em once to Vic, but if he ever mentioned so much as eating his midday meal with a single one of ’em, my name’s not Sid Bottomley!” he said strongly.

    “I suppose he did not, no… But then, his position entailed his getting out and about very much of the time.”

    “Mm. Normal fellows who have spent most of their lives in the one office mention their fellow-workers very regularly indeed. Even if they don’t get on with them and don’t spend their free time with them. And even if they do get out and about delivering papers.”

    “I do see what you mean, and I agree it seems a little odd. But most certainly not odd enough to suggest that Mr Peebles was some sort of impostor. If he was, what on earth was he doing at Mr Buxleigh’s lodging-house?”

    “Well, I have several theories,” he said lightly.

    “Mr Lefayne, I begin to perceive that you are the sort of person who must always have a theory!” she retorted strongly.

    “Aye, well, perhaps I should confine meself to writing them down on paper and turning them into plays!” he said with a laugh.

    “I think so, indeed,” she said severely.

    “Aye… Have you heard from Peebles since you last saw him?”

    “No. That is not suspicious: he would not think it fit to write to an unattached young woman.”

    He raised his mobile brows a little, looking wry. “It’s in character—yes. Have you heard from Beau?”

    “From Mr Buxleigh? Why, no, but there is no reason he should write me.”

    “No. Well, nor any of us… I might just drop him a line,” said Sid, rubbing his chin. “Just to ask him if Peebles is still there. And if not, at precisely what point he vanished.”

    “Pooh!” she said crossly.

    Sid Bottomley laughed a little. But said, eyeing her narrowly out of those thickly-fringed grey eyes: “If I may enquire, exactly how much was your late grandfather worth? And who, besides yourself and your brother, might be supposed to have an interest in his estate?”

    “I don’t know how much he was worth, and only Cousin Dearborn can be said to have an interest! And have you not already discussed this with Mr Dinwoody?” she retorted crossly.

    “No.”

    Major Martin’s daughter was somewhat taken aback and replied on a lame note: “Oh. Well, that is the position. And what are you implying?”

    “I’m not exactly sure. Something along the lines of, could a person with an interest in your grandfather’s estate have set Peebles to watch you, Miss Martin?”

    “What? Why? And who on earth could this person be?”

    “We-ell… Possibly someone who wished to be informed of your whereabouts. Your Cousin Dearborn?”

    “We had not even found out his address when Mr Peebles came to live with us!”

    “Had we not? Look: Peebles turned up after that first visit to the Horse Guards, didn’t he? And it took the damned General a very long time to produce your cousins’ address, didn’t it? Supposing that in fact he contacted Dearborn far earlier than we were led to think, and that Dearborn immediately dispatched Peebles?”

    “Yes, very likely,” she said coldly. “And why in that case did Cousin Dearborn not order Mr Peebles to dispatch me?”

    “Uh—oh. Well, that is a flaw in my theory: yes!”

    “Quite. It is a good story, however,” she said with elaborate politeness, “so why do you not turn it into a play, sir?”

    His lips twitched. “I might. After all, the play’s the thing!”

    And under her astonished eyes he took out his pocketbook and began scratching out notes.

    “I dunno where we are,” confessed Mr Hartington, poring over his now very crumpled sketch-map. “We should have headed for a main road, instead of heeding that damned fellow’s word at that damned last tavern.”

    “The ’orses won’t go another stage without a rest, sir,” volunteered the hire-coach’s post-boy.

    “I know that, thanks. Damnation. We’ll change them at the next inn, all right?”

    “Aye, but where’s that?” returned the post-boy stolidly.

    Muttering under his breath, Mr Hartington consulted his map again. “Damnation,” he concluded. “All right, everybody: get OUT!” he shouted. “Rest and rehearsal!”

    Grumbling, Hartington’s Players clambered out of, or down from, their vehicles, and prepared to rehearse The Withered Hand in a field.

    “Welcome to the Dorchester George and Dragon,” smiled Mr Amyes, removing his hat with a flourish, and bowing.

    Mr Hartington eyed him without favour. “How’s your aunt? Popped off, did she?”

    “Why, no, indeed, sir, I am glad to say!” he replied with a cheerful laugh. “She has made a remarkable recovery, and her physician assures us there is no need to worry, so long as she stays abed, takes it easy, and does nothing to tire her heart!”

    “A tarradiddle from start to finish,” breathed Mr Ardent in Mr Pouteney’s ear.

    “Mm. Carries it off well, though,” he murmured.

    “As well,” replied Mr Ardent with a moue, “as your average snake, aye! And mark, he will grab all Valentine’s lines back!”

    “Oh, and half Curio’s as well, I make no doubt,” agreed Mr Pouteney smoothly. “Hulloa! Amyes! So, what are the accommodations like?”

    Replying smoothly that the George and Dragon was reputed to be a most comfortable inn, but that he himself had a room elsewhere, Mr Amyes vanished into the inn. Staggering under the weight of two very small hampers.

    “Elsewhere? With whom, is the point!” hissed Mr Ardent, turning purple.

    “A juicy widow, is my bet,” replied Mr Pouteney without even having to think.

    “Aye, or a naice little mill’ner,” agreed Mr Grantleigh on a jaundiced note. There was a pleasant little part in The Withered Hand which had been very nearly promised to him.

    “Him? Never! There is no profit in nice little milliners,” explained Mr Ardent sourly.

    Mr Pouteney smiled a little: Tony was clearly growing up. Two months since, the thought would never have occurred to him. “Never mind, Reggie, you may do the headless corpse,” he said kindly, seizing a large hamper. “Grab t’other handle, for the Lord’s sake!” he gasped.

    Mr Grantleigh pouted, but grabbed it. The headless corpse was precisely the fate he was dreading.

    The George and Dragon was, indeed, a pleasant, commodious and welcoming house. It was, however, not cheap, and after one meal there Mr Hartington decreed that his company could look for rooms. Unless they had money to burn? Only Mr Lefayne appeared to have money to burn: the rest scattered like grass before the scythe to look for rooms.

    … “Where is Amyes staying?” demanded Mr Lefayne bluntly the following day.

    Mr Dinwoody rubbed his blue chin. “Well, he ain’t at Mrs Warburton’s with the young ladies and Mrs Sheridan and the two old dames, sir.”

    “Er—no. And for God’s sake, never let Hetty hear you call her an old dame,” he said somewhat faintly.

    “I’m more fly nor that, sir,” replied Mr Dinwoody stolidly. “Nor he ain’t with Mr H. and Mr Vic and Mr Daniel at Mrs Fairweather’s, neither.”

    “Nor with yourself, Sam and the boys at Ma Jubilee’s, I presume!” he said irritably.

    “Ma Jewberry, sir. A wonderful hand with the pastry, and done us a cherry pie last night like what you wouldn’t believe! –If she is a crone and stands six foot in ’er stockinged feet. Not that I’ve seen ’er in them, nor yet volunteering to. –No, well,” he said as Mr Lefayne choked in spite of himself, “I dunno, sir, and that’s a fact. ’E just slid orf, last night.”

    “Like a snake,” agreed the actor drily.

    “Aye,” said Mr Dinwoody stolidly. “Or a h’eel, sir.”

    “Er—mm.”

    “Wouldn’t say no to a good ’ot eel pie,” admitted Mr Dinwoody dreamily.

    Hot eel pie vendors abounded on the streets of the great metropolis, and Mr Lefayne had eaten a good many of their cheap and tasty wares in his time. “Oh, yes? Londoner, are you, Dinwoody?” he said carelessly.

    “Not born and bred, no, sir, but lived there a good many years,” replied Mr Dinwoody stolidly. “Much dressink in this Withered Hand, is there, sir?”

    “Not much, no. Geoffrey only wears two suits. But Harold thinks I can have another change as the Beau.”

    “It does go with the rôle, sir,” he agreed sedately.

    Mr Lefayne shot him a sharp glance in the actual mirror of the actual dressing-room in the real theatre in which they were about to rehearse; but said nothing.

Next chapter:

https://theoldchiphat.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-dorchester-season.html