The Play's The Thing

19

The Play’s The Thing

    “This here note,” reported Mr Hartington, scratching his thick, iron-grey hair, the which was very possibly almost its true shade, “says that t’other one don’t want the Molière after all.”

    “See? I told you this was the hole to end all holes,” replied Sid, yawning.

    “No, it isn’t, see, because it’s Sare Park itself, and they want something fresh!” he retorted smartly.

    Sid’s eyebrows rose. He got up and twitched the note out of his old friend’s hand. “Writ by a minion,” he noted drily.

    “Fellows that own half the county don’t write their own notes to travelling theatricals,” responded Mr Hartington heavily.

    “How true. Shall we give him Lord Bibbery’s Bobbery?” he suggested with a twinkle in his eye.

    Harold smiled reluctantly. The title of Sid’s new melodrama was actually Lord Stradley’s Stratagem: no-one was admitting to ownership of the soubriquet, but it had rapidly achieved immense popularity with Hartington’s Players. “Aye, well, at least you don’t wear pink silk in it,” he conceded. “Why not? It’s new, if not fresh.”

    … “Look, Sid,” said Mr Vanburgh very cautiously indeed, after Harold had announced the decision, “if by any wild coincidence you have hit the nail upon the head with this damned farrago, Lord Sare won’t be best pleased, will he?”

    “No. But I don’t really think I have, Vic,” he admitted with a smile and a shrug.

    “Given that he's one of the richest landowners in southern England, I shouldn’t damn’ well think so! Well, I can see him setting Peebles on—just; though if he was that interested in Miss Martin, why the Devil didn’t he just hail her out of Beau Buxleigh’s to safety? Not to say respectability. But actually taking the part himself?”

    “No,” admitted Sid, his lips twitching. “I suppose I did go overboard there, just a little. But—er—to tell you the truth, Vic,” he said, biting his lip a little, “I began to envisage myself in the double rôle.”

    “The audiences will say it’s the damned Prince of Persia nonsense over again, if you take it to London,” he warned.

    “Oh, but it’s so different, Vic!” protested Sid, opening his eyes very wide. “On the one hand, I’m this frightfully don’t-touch-me, high-in-the-instep lord of all I survey, in the choicest of Hessians or most restrained of evening wear, and on t’other, I’m the meekest of little clerks! Snuff coloured. Subfusc,” he elucidated.

    “That secretary in The Prodigal was subfusc enough,” objected Mr Vanburgh.

    “Too bad. We made a mint out of it, in any case,” he said calmly. “Dare say this thing’ll be a howling success, too.”

    “Look, write something decent for yourself, for London!” urged the comic.

    Sid shrugged. “Can’t think of anything decent. Must be the weather. No, well, one cannot force the muse, Vic,” he said primly.

    Mr Vanburgh sighed. “No. Oh, well. But just in case it is Lord S.—”

    “It isn’t. Well, he might just be the principal, but I’m damned if I can see why,” he admitted. “But I have taken the theatrical motif quite out: no reason he should make the connection. Not if,” he said on dry note, “he’s paying as much attention as the nobs usually do.”

    Mr Vanburgh sighed, but conceded he had a point. He thought of urging him not to cast Miss Martin in the rôle of the young heroine; but looked at Sid’s face, and thought better of it.

    Mr Hartington, however, had other ideas. “No,” he said firmly.

    “But Harold, I wrote it for her!”

    “No, there’s nothing in it. Give it to Tilda,” he said firmly.

    “But—”

    “Miss Martingale,” said the actor-manager firmly, “will take Melissa Marvell.”

    Miss Marvell was a very thinly disguised portrayal of Clarissa Campion: Mr Lefayne had the grace to gulp. “Can she?” he said feebly. “I thought we would have to give it to Nancy.”

    “You would be surprised,” replied Mr Hartington with horrid geniality. “Miss MARTINGALE!” he bellowed.

    This conversation was taking place in the theatre itself; after moment a panting Miss Martingale appeared from the back regions.

    “Read Melissa Marvell,” ordered Mr Hartington, thrusting a script into her hands. “VIC!” he bellowed.

    Mr Vanburgh had been lounging on a chair with his feet up on another chair, reading a book. He came to with a start. “What?”

    “Come and read Sir Mortimer Baddeley. –Baddeley!” noted Mr Hartington with a snort.

    “I did refrain from naming the hero Lord Steadfast, Harold,” protested the author mildly.

    “Shut it. Can you remember Lord Bibbery’s lines in this scene?”

    “Yes,” said the author meekly.

    “Very well. Now,” said the actor-manager firmly to Miss Martingale: “Melissa Marvell’s the Madam Campion sort: get it? At the moment she’s playing Sid’s character, that’s Lord Bib—um, Lord Stradley, off against Vic’s character, the evil Sir Mortimer. She quite fancies Sir M., only she don’t want him, really: she's fallen good and hard for Lord B. Dammit, Lord S.! All right?”

    “Yes,” said Miss Martingale meekly.

    “And put some gumption into it, girl!” said Mr Hartington on an irritable note.

    She put considerable gumption into it. So much so that most of Hartington’s Players, who had gathered to hear her, collapsed in streaming hysteria as she finished: exiting on Sir Mortimer’s arm, pressing her bosom against said in arm in precisely the way Madam was wont to, and somehow managing to cast a languishing look up at him at the same time as she cast a mocking but encouraging one at the stony-faced Lord Stradley.

    “Well?” she said, coming back on as herself.

    “You’ll do,” said Mr Hartington weakly.

    “Oh, tiny me?” she gasped, putting a hand to her bosom. “Harold, darling, I protest I am quite overcome!”

    “Stop that,” said Mr Hartington weakly.

    She grinned, and stopped.

    “Just see you wear a corset as Madam Marvell, and make damn’ sure it pushes you up like hers does,” said Mr Hartington, still sounding somewhat feeble.

    “Oh, I shall positively pout, sir!” she assured him, opening her eyes very wide.

    At this, both Lord Stradley and Sir Mortimer, who had held up very well indeed thus far, collapsed with yelps of laughter. And Miss Martingale, grinning, curtseyed to the hall and made her exit.

    … “Just as well,” admitted Mr Vanburgh privily, quite some time later. “Because if he is him, it’d make it too pointed for her to be her.”

    “Mm? Oh: mm,” agreed Sid.

    “You haven’t ever laid eyes on him, have you?”

    “Who? Lord Sare? No, why?”

    “Because he may be fifteen stone, fat as a flawn, and nothing at all like Peebles. And on the whole, I’d prefer it if he were!” said Mr Vanburgh with feeling.

    The Reverend Mr Bigelow, being almost entirely at the mercy of Miss French’s innocent wiles, had obediently invited Mr Lefayne to take tea. At around the time Miss French’s afternoon lesson was due to finish…

    Mr Lefayne eyed Miss French’s script, and Miss French’s wide-eyed person, somewhat drily.

    Miss Hutton, who had coincidentally called at the vicarage in time to be awarded the terrific privilege of seeing Mr Lefayne drink his tea, in her turn eyed the handsome actor drily. And noted to the ambient air: “Mr Lefayne is a professional, who earns his living from the theatre. And, one would assume, in professionally written plays.”

    Reddening, Miss French began: “I’m sorry, sir. Of course, my papa weell be pleased to offer you—”

    “That’s very kind,” said Sid with his charming smile. “But quite unnecessary, I assure you. I should be very happy to help with your play. Er, and the stuff we perform, Miss Hutton,” he added on an apologetic note, but with a concealed twinkle in his clever grey eye, “ain’t always as professionally written as all that!”

    “Do it have frogs in it, though?” asked Mr Arthur Simpkins on a glum note. He had been having second thoughts about some of the grotesques in the Sowcot version of Beauty and The Beast.

    “Oh, worse!” replied Sid cheerily. Happily he described Mr Hartington’s production, some years back, of The Russian Avenger. The one with the horse, yes. And the flambeaux on which the Avenger’s beard had caught, just as the steppes were about to run red with blood—yes. That production. His audience laughed so much that he probably did not need to describe Percy Brentwood’s recent frightful version of The Tempest, but he did so, anyway.

    India Hutton, though laughing as heartily as anyone, was not quite so overcome by Mr Lefayne’s charms as to permit his escorting of Miss French back to Little Sare, tête-à-tête; and, grimly assuming the rôle of gooseberry, mounted into the Little Sare barouche with them. Doubtless Mr Lefayne was perfectly well aware of what she was up to. Too bad.

    A pleasant period was passed in the Little Sare small salon, overlooking the embryo Little Sare rose garden; as there was no sign of Miss French’s chaperone, Miss Hutton grimly stayed on for it. Miss French’s script featured largely, but, it must be admitted, relatively little acting was done. Though Mr Lefayne did praise India’s portrayal of the elderly mother.

    “Thank you. The rôle suits me. I’ll wear a cap, of course,” said India drily.

    “Yes, of course. Though you could play her as less than eighty years of age, you know,” he murmured.

    “Er—very well. Um, I did think,” said India to her young hostess, clearing her throat, “of modelling her on Mrs Garbutt. What do you do think?”

    “Why, yes!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Firm and sensible, but with such a sense of ’umour that haides under that grim manner of hers! I laike her so meuch! What a pity that she has only daughters, do you not theenk?”

    “Well, yes, though there is no saying a son would have inherited her good sense, let alone her sense of humour.”

    “No. –You see, sir, there are no young men of sense een thees neighbourhood,” explained Annette, pouting very much, but with a definite twinkle in her clever dark eye.

    “You must persuade your father to bring you up to London for the Little Season this autumn, Miss French,” responded Sid immediately. “Not that one can guarantee any young men of sense there, either, alas.” He allowed himself to give her a meaning look.

    Miss French collapsed in gratifying giggles on the spot.

    Miss Hutton was just wondering, somewhat frantically, for the rôle of substitute chaperone had never been hers heretofore, if she would be forced to suggest that Mr Lefayne had outstayed his welcome, or to demand his escort back to the village, or some such, when fortunately Miss French’s father walked in. And Mr Lefayne, though whether this were coincidence or no India could honestly not have said, very soon remembered he was due at a rehearsal, and took himself off to it, accepting with all the grace in the world Mr French’s offer of the Little Sare trap.

    “I collect I have to thank you for protecting my ninny of a daughter, Miss Hutton,” said Mr French on a grim note into the silence in the small salon.

    “No such theeng!” cried Annette loudly before the startled India could utter. “I am not a neenny, and I know not to overstep the laine!”

    “Yes, but does he?” replied Mr French in a hard voice. “Where’s Aunt Anstey?”

    “She accepted an invitation to veesit weeth Mrs Dunne,” said Annette in a small voice.

    “I see. Just mind you don’t put yourself in the position of being alone with Lefayne again, my lass, or it’ll be the schoolroom for you for the rest of the year.”

    “Beut Papa, you are unjeust!” she cried, very red.

    “I think you are, a little, Mr French,” said India coolly. She quailed as he turned a hard eye on her, but held her chin up and looked at him as calmly as she could. “I would say that he most certainly has too much sense to overstep the line with your daughter, whether in your own salon or not. But also, I rather think that his sense of humour, had he the inclination to do so, would prevent him.”

    Mr French rubbed his chin. “Ah. You’d claim he sees her as just a silly little girl, eh?”

    “Not quite,” replied India honestly. “I would say that he is the type of person who, while perceiving her on the one hand as a very charming young woman, on the other is fully capable of seeing the incongruity of his offering any serious advances, given his age and experience, to a girl scarce out of the schoolroom.”

    Mr French smiled, just a little. “You would, hey? Well, setting aside the fact that not many human beings are capable of that sort of general thing, ma’am, I think I should point out that very few men are capable of that precise thing: not when the little girl in question is presenting the picture of a charming young woman.”

    “I have not much experience of men, true,” said India frankly, “but I would say that Mr Lefayne is one of the very few who are.”

    Annette had been attending to this exchange with bright-eyed interest, not seeming in the least to mind the insult to herself. Now she cried: “Why, yes! He ees so vairy intelligent, Papa! And as a matter of fact, eet was quite clear to me—for I have some experience of men,” she added to India, “that he was teasing, only! Feunning, no?”

    “Yes,” agreed India with a smile. “I truly think so, sir.”

    Mr French pushed his tongue behind his top lip and produced a lugubrious grimace. “You liked him, then?”

    “Me?” said India, rather startled. “Why, yes, I suppose I did.”

    “Beut she ees not at all taken een by heem, Papa!” contributed Annette helpfully.

    Ignoring this, Mr French got up. “I hope she remembered to offer you refreshment, ma’am. I have an appointment in the village shortly. May I drive you back to Dove Cottage?”

    Somewhat numbly India accepted this offer. She had expected Annette to urge her to stay, for they had intended studying their parts together; but Miss French merely got up and accompanied them out to the front sweep.

    “I hope I did not offend your daughter,” said India somewhat limply as the barouche reached the gates of Little Sare and Mr French had not uttered.

    “Eh?” he said, blinking.

    Reddening, India repeated her remark.

    “No. She likes you,” said Mr French somewhat dully.

    India looked at him uncertainly. “I’m glad. I like her very much, too.”

    “Mm. Good,” he said with an effort.

    India thought she perceived what the trouble was. “Sir, I am persuaded she was never in the least danger from Mr Lefayne. Not of the mildest impropriety.”

    “Well,” he said with a wry smile, “he’s a man, not a mouse, Miss Hutton; I think she might have been in danger of the mildest. But nothing more than that, I grant you. And from what I’ve seen of the fellow I quite like him, myself. But I didn't bring her to England for her to encourage actor fellows, you know.”

    “No, well, rest assured that I shall not breathe a word to Lady Bamwell,” said India drily.

    “Never thought you would!” replied Mr French, apparently recovering himself. “I don’t mind admitting to you, Miss Hutton, that I had certain hopes of young Sir Bernie—well, once I found out he’s a decent young fellow, for a nob, and the right age, and so forth.”

    “He seems a very pleasant young man,” said India temperately.

    “Yes. But she thinks he’s a ninny. Um, well, I've forgotten if you can say that of a man, in English. Never mind, a male ninny. And she don’t approve of his not taking an interest in his estates.”

    “I see.”

    “There is an agent: Buddle. Quite well spoken of, but he don’t seem a patch on Solly,” said Mr French moodily.

    “Possibly Sir Bernie is the type of young man who only needs to be taken firmly in hand by a sensible wife to see the error of his ways,” said India, very dry.

    “Am I boring you?” replied Mr French bluntly.

    She reddened. “No! Um, well, it is just that the whole county has stuffed the glorious Sir Bernie down my throat ever since I— I do beg your pardon.”

    “No need. Natural enough,” said Mr French, grinning at her. “I won’t bore on. But I must point out that he’s got a sensible, not to say managing mother, and that don't seem to have done much for him. I’d say he’s on course to remain an amiable fribble for the rest of his days. Let the sensible wife manage the estates: certainly. But not pull his stockings up, himself. I don’t want that fate for my little girl. There, I’ve stopped.”

    India smiled at him. “No, of course you don’t. Not that many women do not seem quite happy with such a fate. But I would not give up hope because one eligible has proven to have feet of clay, sir. And Annette is such a bright, clever, lively girl; there is no fear that she will not attract many admirers, given the right circumstances. Do you intend a London Season for her?”

    “Aye, next year. Don’t know about a suitable chaperone, though. Aunt Anstey’s a decent woman, but she don’t know the English nobs.”

    “No, well, there is only one thing for it, sir,” said India with a naughty twinkle in her eye. “Since Lady Bamwell does not have an unattached sister.”

    “No,” he said faintly, closing his eyes.

    “Oh, no, sir, I would not presume to suggest that!” replied India in shocked tones.

    Mr French opened his eyes and grinned at her. “Me heart nearly stopped, there, Miss Hutton! Well, all right, then, who?”

    “I am sure that Lord Sare’s widowed sister, Lady Hartwell, would make the perfect society hostess and helpmate, sir,” said India primly.

    Mr French at this laughed so much he nearly fell out of the barouche.

    “I suppose that was very rude,” admitted India, biting her lip.

    “No!” he gasped, blowing his nose. “You met her yet?” India shook her head, smiling, explaining that she had seen her only, and Mr French elaborated: “She’s the most frightful little thing: spoilt rotten, all frills and furbelows, flirts with anything in pantaloons, and thinks marriage consists of driving a fellow to distraction while she chucks his gelt away with both fists!”

    “Doesn’t it?” said India in bewilderment.

    Mr French went into another paroxysm. “Not in my book!”

    Smiling, India returned: “May I ask what your late wife was like, sir?”

    “Mignonette? You certainly may. She had those petite dark looks of Annette’s, though a little taller. But she was a very serious girl—too serious, really, poor little thing,” he said reminiscently. “Clever, you know: had she been a man, she would have made a redoubtable scholar. It was an arranged marriage,” he said frankly. “Her father wanted it. I did my best to make her happy, and I think she was content enough; but I was always aware that she found very little scope in the sort of domestic life that was necessarily ours. Couldn’t travel all that much, with Boney rampaging up and down. She died ten years back, poor little soul, when Annette was but eight years of age. She don’t remember her, hardly at all,” he said with a twisted little smile, “though she claims she does. She lost the baby, too: it would have been another boy. Oh, well. She was never very strong.”

    India was blinking back tears. “I see,” she said in a restricted voice.

    “I learnt a lot from her,” said Mr French dreamily.

    At this India gave a different sort of blink, and looked at him in astonishment.

    “Well, I’m a lad from the back streets of Dorchester, Miss Hutton. By the time I met her, I’d made a considerable fortune, and picked up several languages, and taught myself to read and write in a couple of them, too. But I had no notion of opening a book for pleasure, or of attending the opera for any purpose other than to ogle the dancers. She taught me better, bless her. And old Pierre Meinhoff, her father, he collected pictures: taught me a great deal about art. Besides a great deal that I imagined I already knew, and then found I didn’t, about finance!” he said with a smothered laugh. “Not to say about the ins and outs of European politics.”

    “I see. You have certainly had an interesting life. I envy you,” said India frankly. “I’m from Dorchester, too; I suppose, if only I had been born a boy— No,” she said with a sigh. “My family would have put me into the Army, like my father.”

    “Aye, the customary fate of the sons of the gentry,” said Mr French drily. “A damned waste.”

    “Mm.”

    He bit his lip. “Dammit. He’s dead, is he?”

    “Yes. Waterloo,” said India, swallowing.

    “I’m sorry.”

    “No, don’t be. I suppose I did not see very much of him… But we had quite a lot in common. I liked him,” said India slowly. “He had an analytical mind, and would consider carefully before making any judgments. In fact, he was not much given to judgments at all. Mamma was used to say he was too tolerant, but I did not agree.”

    Mr French evinced no surprise at a daughter of the gentry’s admitting she had liked her father: he merely nodded. And said: “Miss Pinkerton is t’other side, hey?”

    “Yes, my mother’s sister. Though very unlike her,” said India with a little smile. “When I was younger I used to wonder that Papa had not picked her instead of Mamma: I think their temperaments would have suited much better. But Mamma was very, very pretty in her youth.”

    “Aye: very, very pretty will do it in ninety-nine cases out of an hundred, however much the man may be of an analytical turn of mind, at least if he be under forty. And in ninety-eight cases out of an hundred, if he be over it,” said Mr French calmly.

    “Why, so I have observed, sir!” agreed India with a laugh.

    She had taken but two steps into Dove Cottage before Miss Pinkerton was at her elbow, gasping: “So you had tea with him?”

    “No, he merely drove me home.”

    “What? Goodness, no, my dear, not Mr French!” she said on a note of light scorn. “Mr Lefayne!”

    “What? Oh!” India went very pink and admitted lamely: “Um, yes, so I did, at the vicarage.” It seemed, somehow, a lifetime ago.

    The first night of The Withered Hand in Sowcot was a howling success. Even though, as a scowling Mr Hartington ascertained through the peephole in the curtain, most of the local nobs weren’t there. This scarcely mattered, for the whole of the village appeared to have come. Kindly Miss Martingale pointed out that Mr French with his son and daughter and their aunt were there, in the front row, and the people next them were the Dunnes: she and Tilda had met their eldest girl, who came to Mlle Barraud in the Sare Apartments for French; see, that was she; they must have brought her for a treat! Mr Hartington, scowling horribly at Mrs Anstey in low-cut black silk with feathers in the hair, did not so much as glance at little Miss Dunne, but he did note sourly that Mr French did not seem to have managed to get that Lady Bamwell along.

    “No, well, I think a melodrama would be beneath her notice; but doubtless she will attend if we do the Molière.”

    “That’ll make one, then,” he noted sourly.

    “I believe she has a son.”

    “Two. –What about all them nobs from Sare Park?”

    “I very much doubt that any nobs from Sare Park are aware of the existence of the Sowcot Theatre & Assembly Rooms, alas,” said Miss Martingale dulcetly.

    Scowling, Mr Hartington abandoned the peephole and ordered her to put some more white on her face and arms. And to make the moans loud, or this lot wouldn't get that point that her character had now passed on.

    “Shall I rattle a chain or two, sir? –I’m going!” Miss Martingale fled.

    Mr Hartington, scowling, retired to the wings.

    Certain people were much buoyed by the fifteen curtain calls and the huge bunches of flowers passed up by Mr French to all of the female players at the end of the piece. “Just you wait,” predicted Mr Hartington sourly.

    The experienced actor-manager was not wrong. Because all of the village and environs had come to the first night, very few persons turned up for the second performance of the Hand.

    “Take it down!’” hissed Mr Hartington angrily as Mr Dinwoody, who was in charge of the curtain, looked enquiringly to see, after the scattering of applause at the end, if the cast were going to take another bow. It was not that sort of curtain; but Mr Dinwoody got the point and drew it across.

    “I knew it,” concluded Mr Hartington sourly.

    The reception accorded Twelfth Night at Little Sare should have gone some way towards sweetening its producer’s temper. Most of the salons were rather small, but Mr French had had the inspiration of offering the disused conservatory for an afternoon performance, with the Elizabethan house itself as a backdrop. All of the genteel persons from the neighbourhood had been invited, and the elegant pantaloons, silk gowns and frivolous bonnets in evidence certainly indicated that most of them had accepted the invitation. However, Mr Hartington joined his cast, after chatting to Mr French and his chief guests for some time, with a scowl on his wide countenance.

    “Now what?” sighed Sid.

    “Nothing. Well, some of them nobs from Sare Park have come. There’s a Sir Something and a Major Something Else. And the lad what’s sitting with Mr Gerard, he’s the Bamwell boy. The fat female in the puce what’s just sat down bang in the middle of the front row is his Ma.”

    “Isn’t that good?”

    “It’d be better if Lord Sare and that Lady H. had deigned to put in an appearance.”

    “Lady H. has seen it, Harold,” he reminded him. His lips twitched. “Twice, actually.”

    Georgy was looking cautiously round the edge of the curtain. “There’s ladies with parasols,” he reported dubiously.

    “That was going to be my next point,” agreed Mr Hartington sourly.

    “French claims his minions are going to draw those great sheets of canvas across the roof to shade the audience, Harold,” said Sid soothingly. “Doubtless the ladies will then lower their parasols.”

    Predictably, Harold just snorted, and ordered Georgy to get away from the curtain. Georgy retreated, reporting sadly: “They’re having things to eat.”

    “And that was going to be my final point,” noted Mr Hartington, stumping off to get into the costume of Sir Toby Belch.

    Orsino and his small non-speaking page looked at each other, and shrugged.

    Mr French’s guests, duly shaded by the canvas, gave every evidence of thoroughly enjoying Hartington’s Players’ Twelfth Night. But alas, its producer’s temper did not noticeably improve.

    “It’s the Dutch widow,” discerned Mr Vanburgh in the intervals between Acts One and Two. “Did you see her, Sid? In the front row, with her assets well displayed in black silk.”

    “Mm, and a smart bonnet that don’t actually hide that very fine head of hair,” he noted drily.

    “Quite.”

    Miss Martingale then being observed to be leaving the stage, Sid hastened after her. “Don't go,” he said on a dry note. “I think you know what I am about to say, but I’ll say it anyway. You must let Lord Sare know about that note to old Neddy, Miss Martin.”

    “I just thought I’d leave it until the end of the summer, for we are to play in the nearby south-coast towns, are we n—”

    “No. We’re right here at Lord Sare’s doorstep. And I am very sure that he would be extremely annoyed to learn that a young lady who stands in the position of his ward had flaunted herself on the boards in the nearby south-coast towns for half the summer. Write him, or I shall.”

    “But I want to do Melissa Marvell! Please, sir!”

    He groaned. “Very well. Far be it from me to stop you doing your first big rôle. But after that.”

    “We have Three Belles and A Beau in the village after that, and there is no-one to take my part, if he stops me.”

    Sid took a deep breath. “After that, then. And pray excuse me for so doing, but I must demand your promise on that, Miss Martin.”

    “Yes,” she said gloomily. “I promise.”

    Sid tottered off to his dressing-room, mopping his brow. The rôle of stern mentor was not one that had come his way, before. It was damned exhausting. Especially when they looked up at you with those great amber eyes… Yes, well. The sooner she was whisked safely away out of Hartington’s Players’ orbit, the better.

    The performance of The Tempest went very well, even Troilus, who was now, as Georgy had pointed out more than once, a seasoned player, behaving like a true professional, and finished to tumultuous applause and relays of flowers. Though no-one actually threw any, the which perhaps said something or another about the relative mores of the genteel classes and those who were out of the very top drawer.

    Afterwards, at Mr French’s pressing invitation, the players circulated amongst the guests, still in their costumes. Under, of course, threat of all sorts of dire consequences should any of the champagne which was also circulating get spilled on the property of their Management.

    Congratulations were naturally in order; and even Mrs Sardleigh, very grand in a dark grey silk, congratulated Miss Trueblood on a most ladylike performance. Tilda smiled weakly; it had not been precisely the impression she had intended.

    “Did you enjoy it?” said Mr French, suddenly appearing at India Hutton’s elbow.

    “Oh, very much, sir!”

    He winked. “More than that silly thing t’other night, hey?”

    “Well, that was very amusing, I suppose. But frankly, words cannot express the degree to which I more enjoyed this afternoon’s performance!” said India with a laugh.

    “Good. They cut it a bit, though. Didn't notice?” he said as she looked puzzled. “No, well, didn’t matter, then, did it? Cut it about a bit, too: to let Lefayne change for his two rôles, I presume.”

    “I did not notice that, either, sir, even though I re-read it quite recently,” admitted India. “Wasn’t he good?”

    George French looked at her sparkling eyes and eager smile, and swallowed a sigh. “Yes, very good. More than just a pretty face, ain’t he?”

    “Indeed! I would say he has true talent!”

    “Yes,” he said heavily. “So he do.”

    Mrs Garbutt had allowed all four of her girls to come: Mr French had urged her to bring them all, and of course Dotty and Jessie had begged for the treat.

    “Well?” she said somewhat drily as they piled into the carriage for the drive home. “What’s the verdict?”

    Sally just sighed deeply, but Robina responded vividly: “Mamma, it was beyond words! How can you ask?”

    “Beyond words, eh?”

    “Yes,” said Dotty with a deep sigh. “Oh, wasn’t it… magical!”

    “Indeed,” sighed Sally. “Roland Lefayne was wonderful, wasn’t he?”

    The other three girls agreed fervently with this, even Jessie, who had appeared sunk in thought.

    “He was good, yes,” said Mrs Garbutt on a judicious note, but, if they had been looking, with a discernible twinkle in her clever eye. “Much better than the Sir Andrew Aguecheek I saw in Southampton, that time.”

    “Not that!” said Dotty with immense scorn.

    “No! Mamma, how can you! As Duke Orsino,” said Robina fervently, clasping her hands and rolling her eyes. “Oh, was he not…” Words apparently failed her.

    “Manly,” said Sally deeply.

    “Yes!” they all agreed fervently.

    Manly in pink silk: quite. Well, Mrs Garbutt would be hanged if she could see how, exactly, he had been, but as there was no doubt of it at all, she did not argue. But she did say, as Jessie seemed to be plunged into thought again: “Something on your mind, Jessie?”

    “N— Um— Well, who was the very pretty lady who played Olivia?”

    Dotty felt in her reticule and carefully unfolded her carefully preserved programme. “Mrs Margery Mayhew,” she read out with a sigh. “Wasn’t she the prettiest lady ever?”

    “Y— N— Um, yes,” said Jessie uncertainly. “I had thought we had seen all of them… Dotty,” she said cautiously, “remember the morning they arrived?”

    Dotty was very slowly re-reading her programme, mouthing the names over to herself. “Mm? Of course! We met Miss Trueblood in person: see? Wasn’t she wonderful? You would never have believed she wasn’t a boy!”

    Mrs Garbutt’s opinion of Tilda’s performance more or less coincided with Mrs Sardleigh’s: she eyed her youngest daughter drily but did not attempt to disillusion her. Besides, she had a fair idea that Jessie was about to do more or less that.

    “Not her, Dotty,” said Jessie, her brow wrinkling. “I am very nearly certain that Olivia—Mrs Margery Mayhew, I mean—was the actress we saw on the cart. In the puce and apple-green satin.”

    “What? No!” she cried scornfully. “She was old, Jessie!”

    “Olivia was no spring chicken,” noted Mrs Garbutt idly.

    “What? Don’t be silly, Mamma!” cried Robina. “She was very young! Young and beautiful!”

    Dotty was thinking it over. “I suppose she did look a bit like Olivia. Perhaps it was her mother!” she produced brilliantly.

    Mrs Garbutt sagged limply in her seat as the girls agreed that it must have been Olivia’s mother. Oh, well. You were only that innocent once. Let them believe it, bless them.

    “As Tilda is far too modest to come along to a rehearsal of an amateur production and tell ’em what they’re doing wrong, perhaps you would care to accompany me in her stead, Miss Martingale?” said Sid with a stately bow in the dim, under-furnished room that passed for Mrs Jessop’s parlour. Not allowing his eyes to twinkle.

    “Ugh!” replied Miss Martingale in frank horror.

    “If my constitution can support it, surely yours can?” he said plaintively.

    “N— Um, wait; could we not bring Mr Vanburgh and Tilda as well?”

    “She might perhaps come, with you to support her. But why inflict it on poor Vic?” he drawled.

    Since Tilda was safely out in the yard, communing with the despised Tom Harkness, she hurriedly explained.

    Sid’s eyebrows rose. “He’s known her, more or less, more or less all her life. But if you say she'd be ideal for him, I shan’t argue. Er—ain’t there a wife already, though?”

    “No! She’s dead!” she hissed crossly. “Don’t you notice anything outside of yourself?”

    Sid made a stately bow. “I have that reputation, ma’am.”

    “Hah, hah. Wait there!” she ordered fiercely, hurrying out.

    Sid shrugged. He sat down beside the cold grate and assisted Troilus Martin onto the knee of his immaculate breeches. How many young ladies would have refused a tête-à-tête with his elegant self? …Had she done it on purpose to avoid the tête-à-tête, though? Er—no, alas: there was no hope even of that faint consultation. “Pooh,” he concluded, fondling Troilus’ silky ear.

    The rehearsal of Beauty and The Beast was being held in the real theatre! The excitement of this fact was possibly affecting the players. Or maybe they were just naturally incapable of remembering their lines, walking across five feet of flooring, remembering their positions, picking up their cues, giving the impression that they were addressing the character whom their lines indicated they were— Oh, well. Amateurs, in short. True, Mr Simpkins was keen. He did not, however, have anything like the commanding stage presence that was required for a convincing Beast. Even if one imagined him in hairy costume and make-up: no. True, Miss Garbutt was almost convincing as the self-sacrificing Beauty, if inaudible past the first three rows. And yet her natural speaking voice was quite loud! The five sisters who refused to sacrifice themselves to save their father from whatever fate it was that the Beast had dreamed up for him, the which was not at all clear, could not, apparently, get it into their heads that they were supposed to be more than sweet, simpering Misses. Whether they were Sardleighs or Garbutts or the one with the foreign accent.

    Mr Vanburgh drew the perspiring Mr Simpkins aside. “Don’t you think you ought to cut Miss French’s lines? That Dutch accent, or French accent, or whatever it be, scarcely lends verisimilitude.”

    Mr Simpkins went even redder than he already had been and hissed: “But she's so keen! And at least she’s remembered her words! And the thing is, sir, it’s her father’s theatre!”

    “Oh, of course. A phenomenon not unknown in professional circles,” he recognised. “So be it. Let us hope that Mr Lefayne succeeds in persuading ’em all not to smirk throughout the entire scene when the father’s detailing the fate that’ll be his if one of them don’t go off to the Beast.”

    “Um, yes; um, the thing is, sir, he’s making them worse!” he hissed desperately.

    Mr Vanburgh’s eyebrows rose.  “Flattering.”

    “Eh? No!” he gasped, going from bright red to purple. “They keep looking at him, instead of— They’re all so thrilled he’s come, y’see,” he ended on a glum note.

    The comic’s shoulders shook. “Mm. He has that effect.”

    Mr Simpkins eyed Mr Lefayne’s immaculate fawn breeches, chaste tan coat, immensely discreet waistcoat and flawless neckcloth gloomily. “If only he’d turned up in a green velvet waistcoat or some such— Oh, well. Um, I say, sir, you were absolutely splendid as Malvolio!” he said on an eager note. “Don’t suppose you could give me a few tips as to how to play the Beast, could you?”

    Tactfully Mr Vanburgh endeavoured to represent that the Beast was an older person, and very gruff and grim, and… The resultant performance came over like nothing so much as Mr Perseus Brentwood’s famed portrayal of the bear in The Bride and The Bear; but Mr Vanburgh consoled himself with the reflections that in the first instance, none of these local yokels were likely to have seen that, and that in the second place, it was better than playing him as an unfledged stripling.

    Eventually, at the joint urging of the entire cast, the actors played a couple of scenes themselves, with Tilda doing Miss Garbutt’s part of the Beauty, Mr Vanburgh taking the Beast, Miss Martingale gleefully taking the crone who apparently played propriety in the Beast’s house (Mlle Barraud), and Mr Lefayne even more gleefully taking the part of the frog-like persona customarily assumed, without conviction, by Mr Gerard French.

    The amateurs all clapped furiously as they concluded the scene.

    “I say, sir, you would not care to be a frog for the actual performance, would you?” offered Mr Gerard hopefully.

    “No,” said Sid baldly, grinning at him.

    “How the Devil do you manage to come over as a frog-like grotesque when you ain’t even in the costume?” he demanded. —Mr Vanburgh shut his eyes for a moment, though it was no more than he had expected.

    “A combination of movement, posture, and voice: weren’t you watching?” returned the leading man airily.

    “Aye, but the thing is, I’m no actor!” admitted Gerard with a laugh.

    “Come here,” said Sid resignedly. Resignedly he twisted Mr Gerard forcibly into the posture. “Get it?”

    “Ow! I think so!” he gasped.

    “I wish you could twist me into it,” admitted Robina Garbutt ruefully to Tilda. “How on earth did you manage to seem both brave and frightened at the same time?”

    “Try for one,” advised Mr Vanburgh brutally. “That was very good, actually, Miss Trueblood.”

    Tilda smiled and blushed, and thanked him shyly.

    “The rôle suits you,” he said with a smile.

    “Unlike that of Viola: yes,” she said, holding up her chin bravely.

    Vic Vanburgh blinked. “No, I didn’t mean to imply—”

    “It's all right; I know you’ve all been thinking for ages that Cressida would do it so much better than I; and as a matter of fact, I quite agree. Um, perhaps if we all sit down with them and—and take them through their lines, word by word?”

    “Get ’em to parrot it: yes,” said the comic actor with a sigh. “Come along, then. Sid!” he said loudly, as Mr Lefayne appeared to have been absorbed into a giggly group of girls. “Can you take the other male parts through theirs, if I do the Beast?”

    “I shall help with the other ladies,” said Miss Martingale, “but I’m afraid we cannot stay for very much longer, Mr Vanburgh; we have an appointment, do we not, Mr Lefayne?”

    “Eh? Oh!” he said, jumping, as her steely eye met his. “So we do, aye. For a little writing, isn’t it, Miss Martingale?” he added meanly.

    “Yes,” she agreed, glaring.

    Sid’s lips twitched but he sat down amiably enough to give Mr Bigelow some coaching as the father and assorted village idiots some coaching as the attendants, grotesques, et al. One could only thank a kindly Providence that their bumbling incompetence would be largely hidden within their costumes!

    “Village idiots,” he noted grimly as he set off to nowhere-in-particular with Miss Martingale on his arm.

    “One of them was Sir Bernie Bamwell, and another Mr Gerard French,” she said detachedly.

    “Exactly. Village idiots.”

    She obligingly collapsed in giggles; he smiled, patted her hand, and said: “Where shall we go?”

    Concealing her relief that he apparently did not truly intend that she should sit down and write the dreaded note, she suggested: “Shall we just stroll out into the countryside? Troilus would like that.”

    Amiably Mr Lefayne agreed, and they strolled along under a perfect summer sky.

    He had her to himself for all of twenty minutes. They were not perhaps the most delicious, nor on the other hand the most agonised, of his life: but as to whether he would have described them as delicious or agonised, Roland Lefayne would have been quite incapable of deciding. She was not wearing anything remarkable, and she did not have the exaggerated figure which he had always tended to admire in the past; but somehow, with those great sparkling amber eyes, and that sweet smile, and that clever little head of hers, and the way she had of tilting it just a little and giving one a naughty look when she was teasing… On the whole he was quite glad—well, almost glad—when damned Dinwoody turned up out of nowhere and tacked himself onto their party.

    “They’re having,” explained Mr Hartington in tones of the deepest gloom, “a damned masquerade ball. It’ll be dinner first, then our show, and then the ball.”

    “At Sare Park? Harold, the dinner would induce inattention, not to say stupor, even without the ball, so why worry?” said Mr Deane with a shrug. “All nobs are like that; if this damned tour has proven nothing else, it’s proven that, surely?”

    “Not all: remember how decent they were at Pathwell Abbey? Ninety-nine out of an hundred, though. But the ball will make it worse: all the women’ll be concentrating what passes for their minds on which of the young sparks might ask ’em to dance, and all the young sparks’ll be thinking of whom they’ll dance with and how much they’ll get way with during and after.” He eyed Mr Deane sourly as the saturnine-faced actor dissolved in sniggers. “Yes, hah, hah.”

    “It’s a piece of airy nothing, in any case, Harold,” put in Sid peaceably.

    “It’s a piece of airy slander, you mean.” –Mr Hartington played one, Prince Leander. A very, very thinly disguised portrait of the gentleman who was now His Majesty King George IV.

    Mr Deane grinned. “Pooh, they’ll lap it up!” –Mr Deane’s character was one, Duke of Lancaster. A very, very thin disguise for H.R.H. the Duke of York, quite. He had to pad tremendously in order to bring it off, not to mention stuff his cheeks, but had confessed he didn’t mind doing that: it was quite a change, for him. The character was portrayed as addicted to deep play, but very fortunately Mr Deane was not become so far sunk in the rôle as to have lost a fortune which he did not possess.

    “Look, half of them probably actually know the Prince of Orange, and Paul’s Prince of Lemon will—” Mr Hartington stopped, Mr Deane was in hysterics. “It’s all very well for you, it’s not you that’ll end up in court at the wrong end of a libel suit!”

    Mr Deane wiped his eyes. “Thought you said it was slander? No, well, they’ll sue Sid for libel, since he wrote it. And you for slander, Harold, since you’re responsible for the company getting up and sp—”

    Glaring, Mr Hartington stamped out.

    “—speaking it,” finished Mr Deane placidly. “Who is this Admiral Dauntless character that Sam takes, Sid? Can’t be Lord Nelson, wasn’t he a thin little fellow?”

    “A nob called Admiral Dauntry, Daniel. Close friend of the Duke of Wellington.”

    Mr Deane choked slightly, though admitting: “Never heard of him. But I’m damned sure the nobs at Sare Park will know of him.”

    According to Lady Hartwell, Admiral Dauntry would actually be one of the house party; Sid agreed smoothly that he was sure they’d know of him.

    “I rather wish I’d taken the Duke of Ironside, now,” Mr Deane admitted, grinning.

    Mr Lefayne took the Duke himself, other aspirants, notably Mr Darlinghurst, having proven incapable of sustaining the character. “It’s a bit too late to exchange rôles, Daniel. But if we do it in London, you can have him and I’ll get Harold to cast someone else as Lancaster.”

    Mr Deane nodded and grinned. Adding: “And if Sir Jeremiah Pew ain’t meant for Sir George Drew, you may call me a Dutchman!”

    Sid merely winked, so Mr Deane concluded that he would not see himself hailed as a Hollander this summer.

    In the front row Queen Elizabeth shrieked, and collapsed in helpless laughter, as the Duke of Ironside entered in full dress uniform and nose paste. –Lukey had been very taken by the Twelfth Night Elizabethan costumes and had been thrilled, if astonished, when Edward had suggested they might like to make it a masquerade ball. And had had her personal maid slaving for weeks over the costume. A great many of the jewels sewn into its stiff bosom and its huge, upstanding ruff were actually a part of the Hartwell patrimony, but as Lord Sare had noted, if Pip was stupid enough to let her, on his own head be it.

    At her right hand, Mr Rowbotham, very point de vice in a black silk domino over his own exquisite evening clothes, the which had caused Lukey to accuse him bitterly of lacking bottom, choked and hissed: “I say! Old Hooky to the life! They ought to bring it to London, it’d be a riot. Wonder who ’tis?” He peered at his programme but was unenlightened: The Duke of Ironside was apparently played by “Mr A. Smith.”

    At Lukey’s left hand the elderly Mr Hugh Throgmorton, maternal uncle of the Marquis of Rockingham, smiled slightly and fanned himself gently with his programme. Mr Throgmorton was in a black domino over his own flawless evening clothes but no-one at Sare Park had dared to accuse him of lacking bottom. To his left, the little Marchioness of Rockingham, fetchingly got up in green gauze as a nymph, complete with the Hammond emeralds round her slender neck, collapsed in helpless giggles, and groped in her reticule for a handkerchief. Tolerantly old Mr Throgmorton passed her his own spotless one.

    … “Ooh!” gasped Lukey as “Mrs Melissa Marvell” swept on, in clouds of grey muslin, tumbled yellow curls, and a huge picture hat.

    Towards the back of the crowded Sare Park ballroom, Mr French allowed his eyes gently to close.

    “Papa!” hissed Annette crossly, digging him in the ribs.

    “The thing is,” he murmured with a sigh, “all these characters are meant to be London nobs; this lot recognise them, you see.”

    “Even you should recognise the Duke of Wellington!” she hissed crossly.

    “I should say so,” agreed Gerard drily across her. “Not to say, his signature.”

    “Ssh!” Annette sat up very straight and watched intently as Lord Stradley’s alter ego, one Maurice Meek, expressed his humble gratitude to Tilda’s character, Miss Prudence, for having defended his humble self against the blighting sarcasm of Mrs Marvell. One point of the plot being that he was beneath Melissa Marvell’s notice as Maurice Meek but the object of her hot pursuit as Lord S. Though whether the author meant any moral lesson other than a mild joke at the expense of the Clarissa Campions of the world was not altogether clear.

    After various other characters had entered and offered Mr Meek slights of various sorts, in accordance, more or less, with their ranks and supposed dispositions, Mr French murmured to his children: “Does Meek put you in mind of anyone?”

    “No. Well, of the Duke of Wellington?” replied Gerard in a bored voice.

    “Sss!” hissed Annette.

    Mr French shrugged. “Hé bien?” he said very quietly to Mrs Anstey, on his other hand.

    “Mais… non: c’est pas possible,” she said slowly. “Mais—mais si: il ressemble à Milord Sare, tu trouves pas?”

    Not blinking at the tutoiement, Mr French nodded thoughtfully. “Plus que Milord Stradley, il ne lui ressemble?” he murmured after a while.

    Mrs Anstey turned an astonished face to his, and nodded numbly.

    “Sss,” warned Mr French.

    Mrs Anstey nodded numbly.

    Having placed himself firmly near the back, Mr Ashleigh-Peet had been quite prepared to sleep through the whole thing. However, it had been quite amusing, in especial with Admiral Dauntry himself in the second row—laughing, as far as could be observed, as heartily as anyone in the room—and so he had stayed awake. Added to which, the girl playing Melissa Marvell was a little peach. As the play wore on he, too, realised that the reason that Mr Meek’s tones and gestures off and on struck as so eerily familiar was that the actor fellow was taking off damned Edward when he was at his most provoking. It was odd, then, that the portrayal of Stradley was in fact rather less like Edward—though there, too, there was the odd eerily familiar gesture. Gradually, as various details of the plot penetrated, not to mention as a blue-chinned bit-part by name “Dimwits” came and went, an astounded expression grew on his amiable countenance.

    “Oh, there you are, A.-P.,” said King Lear mildly as Pierrot came up to the front in what the programme announced was the final interval.

    “A.-P., darling!” cried Lukey across Mr Throgmorton and the Marchioness of Rockingham. “What do you think? Isn’t it delicious?”

    “Quite amusing, mm. Come out for a little air, Edward,” he said on a grim note.

    Excusing himself to the nymph, King Lear got up and wandered out with him. “Cigar, A.-P.?” he offered mildly, as Mr Ashleigh-Peet propped his back on the railing of the wide balcony outside the Sare Park ballroom.

    “No. And don’t you, unless you wish to set that damned beard afire and,” he said pointedly, “ruin your disguise.”

    “Oh, I should hate to do that.”

    “Look, you may drop that, Edward! What the Devil’s going on? All that rubbish about lost wills and so forth; and that damned Meek’s you to the life when you’re doing the Frew thing! That or maddening half your acquaintance by pretending to be as ineffectual as Wilf Rowbotham and his ilk,” he noted sourly.

    “I thought Meek was meant to be representative of the clerking stratum of society?” he said innocently.

    “Stop it! That Dimwits is Max Blunsden, or I’m a Dutchman!”

    “A.-P., you really must try to stop seeing Max Blunsden lurking in every corner every time these fellows put on a pl— Er, sorry,” he said, as his old friend took a furious breath. “I don’t think it’s really meant to prove I’m the Devil incarnate or murdered my brother in the arras, or anything of that sort.”

    “Very FUNNY!” shouted the driven Mr Ashleigh-Peet.

    “Ssh! Er, well, I concede that Meek and Stradley are meant to be myself, and Dimwits is Max, not that the young fellow who’s playing him can act for toffee, but then, with the blue chin, I suppose he don’t need to. But the whole thing is a bow at a venture.”

    “What’s all this plot stuff with little Miss Prudence?”

    “Sweet, ain’t she? That’s the little girl that took Viola down at Quysterse; the rôle suits her much better, don’t it? Er, well, nothing, really, old man.”

    “Nothing, really?” he shouted.

    “Or nothing of which I am aware,” he said smoothly.

    “Much!” replied Mr Ashleigh-Peet with feeling. “Well, if you won’t tell me, you won’t. But just tell me this: have you been masquerading as some sort of Meek character? –And I won’t ask, how did the author of this farrago nose it out, for I’m aware you won’t tell me.”

    “On the contrary: he nosed it out because he is an extremely sharp fellow; but on the other hand, not quite sharp enough; for the fact that they are putting it on for us indicates, not that he truly suspects me of the masquerade, but that he don’t,” he said, a smile lurking behind the voluminous beard of Lear,

    “Eh?”

    “Well, I am sure he would not mind if I broke down and confessed all in front of Rockingham and old Hugh Throgmorton; but I am also sure he don’t anticipate it.”

    “Who is he?” asked Mr Ashleigh-Peet with a frown.

    “The programme will tell you that. –If you will excuse me, I had best go back and rescue little Lady Rock.’ before damned Lukey manages to persuade her to have the Hammond emeralds sewn into a stomacher,” he murmured, drifting off.

    Mr Ashleigh-Peet breathed hard for some time. After which he felt sufficiently soothed to conclude: “I might have known it. And if there was ever anything in this world that might come as a shock to damned Edward, I should like to be present when it did, for I could then die happy!”

    Various persons, behind the drawn curtain, being very much occupied in carrying potted plants on, or off, and rearranging sofas, and so forth, the creator of Lord Stradley’s Stratagem, having duly flattened his hair over his forehead into the resemblance of a Brutus and assumed the subfusc garments of Mr Meek, wandered without haste along to the dressing-room shared by the two young female leads.

    “Very sweet,” he drawled as Mrs Wittering finished fastening Tilda into a yellow print gown. “May I ask, did anyone notice anyone in the front row who, er, struck a chord?”

    Miss Martingale was industriously brushing at the tangled yellow curls of the Melissa Marvell wig. “No, unless you mean one of those silly ladies from Quysterse who came to the rehearsal in the barn?” she said breathlessly.

    “Allow me,” returned Sid in a stately manner, removing the brush from her hand. She goggled as he began brushing the curls over his finger into ringlets. “Lady Hartwell. She’s Lord Sare’s sister; I thought you knew?”

    “We may have known, though I cannot swear to it, sir,” she said dulcetly. “Can you, Tilda?”—The little ingénue swallowed a giggle, and shook her head.—“No. But in any case, I fear we are not interested in the fact.”

    “And h’if I may make so bold, Mr Sid, that don’t ’alf serve you out!” noted Mrs Wittering on a militant note. “Though I’ll say this, me dears, ’e’s got a lovely way with ’air.”

    “Well, that is not proven, though I see no reason to doubt it,” said Miss Martingale very drily indeed. “Certainly he has a lovely way with a wig, however. –I am afraid I, at least, did not recognise anyone amongst all those dominoes and masks and Pierrots and so forth.”

    “I did see Miss French, only she was not in the front row,” put in Tilda meekly.

    “Exactly. But pray feel at liberty to come and brush my wig and ask us if we recognised any of the front row at any time, Mr Lefayne,” said Miss Martingale dulcetly.

    “I tell you what it is,” said Sid, admiring the effect of the ringlets he was creating, “you are letting the rôle get to you, like damned Daniel.”

    “No, I’m afraid it comes naturally,” she replied sadly.

    “You may be right,” he said with a grin. “Try it on.”

    Obediently she tried the wig on, and the leading man carefully adjusted it over her forehead, combing out one or two careless little curls.

    “Madam to the life!” squeaked Mrs Wittering, suddenly going off into a paroxysm of giggles.

    “Aye: truly horrid,” agreed Sid smoothly. “Er, did you notice the beard in the front row, Miss Martingale?”

    “Three, by my count. I think one was possibly meant to be King Charles I, though personally I wouldn’t choose the rôle of a king who had his head cut off, for what is presumably meant to be a merry occasion.”

    “And one was Sir Francis Drake: did you notice he was trying to make eyes at the Queen Elizabeth, but she ignored him?” added Tilda eagerly.

    “You were immersed in my great opus,” said the author sadly.

    Poor Tilda looked abashed, but Miss Martingale countered swiftly: “Large sections of that part consist of nothing but looking sweetly maidenly; what else is she supposed to do but look at the audience?”

    “And to think that once upon a time, in my foolishness,” murmured Sid, investigating the row of dresses hanging up, “I imagined I had based the sweet Miss Prudence on yourself.”

    “Pooh!” she retorted strongly.

    He turned, smiling, with a scarlet satin gown in his hands. “Here you are.”

    “You turn your back, Mr Sid!” commanded Mrs Wittering in scandalised accents, bustling forward.

    “This is the woman what stripped me of me stockings in front of Lady Hartwell herself,” he complained, nevertheless politely turning his back as Mrs Wittering got Miss Martingale into the scarlet garment. “God help us all,” he concluded, turning round.

    “You do look terribly like her, Cressida!” admitted Tilda with a laugh.

    “Yes. Pity she ain’t here,” drawled Sid. “Never mind, Margery will enjoy it enough for two. Did you notice the druid-like figure smack, bang in the middle of the front row?” he said clearly.

    Miss Martingale was twitching at the bosom of the gown. “Mm? Oh; yes, it was hard to miss him. That lady next him is wearing a very pretty gown.”

    “And very pretty emeralds worth an emperor’s ransom: that’s the Marchioness of Rockingham,” said Sid with a sigh. “One collects the beard is our host himself.”

    “Lord Sare? Well, I suppose that is logical: the host would sit in the middle of the front row. –I don’t think I pout as much as she does,” decided Miss Martingale sadly.

    “Few human beings could, Miss Martingale,” he said, peering around the room in baffled way. “Are you not going to bring Troilus on, then, Tilda?”

    “Yes, of course. Look!” said Tilda with a smile. There was a small sofa set against one wall, with a cloak draped over it. She drew back the cloak to reveal Troilus, asleep under the sofa.

    “Wise little fellow,” noted the proud author, wandering out.

    The three ladies looked at one another blankly. “What was all that about?” said Tilda feebly at last.

    “Maybe ’e wanted to see if you was h’obeyink orders, Tilda, and really a-goink to bring Troilus on, bless ’is ’eart,” contributed Mrs Wittering.

    Perfectly comprehending, in spite of a certain confusion of personal pronouns, that she did not mean Mr Lefayne’s heart, the girls nodded, and agreed, though somewhat dubiously, that that must have been it.

    Mr Lefayne wandered back to the comfortably appointed dressing-room he was nobly sharing with Mr Vanburgh. And expertly adjusted his make-up for him, giving Sir Mortimer Baddeley more of an evil leer.

    “That looks better, Mr Vic, sir: now you can really go orf with yer cloak over yer face,” approved Mr Dinwoody.

    “Aye,” agreed Mr Vanburgh mildly. “Oh, by the way, Sid,” he said, straight-faced, “Dinwoody, here, was struck by the coincidence of some aspects of your plot with real life; and was wondering if possibly the Dimwits character that’s in cahoots with Meek might be meant for himself?”

    “It just struck me, like,” said Mr Dinwoody modestly. “It ain’t that that David D., ’e’s much like me in figure or voice or nothink, only, ’e does sort of look a bit like me. And helping Miss Prudence and all, like what I helped Miss Martin, you see.”

    “Funnily enough, I was inspired by aspects of Miss Martin’s story, yes,” said the author smoothly. “And I admit the soft impeachment: Dimwits is based on yourself. Though I would never claim, as played by David, he could go three rounds with the great Jackson.”

    “Thanks, sir,” said Mr Dinwoody gratefully. “Dunno as what I could, neither, supposink as I ever ’ad the honour. But I’d give it me best!” he finished, grinning, and making a fist.

    “Mm. What do you think,” said Mr Lefayne airily, sitting down at one of the dressing-tables and eyeing his own makeup dubiously in the mirror, “of my theory as regards Lord Sare and Peebles?”

    “Eh?” replied Mr Dinwoody blankly.

    Mr Vanburgh, who was seated at the other dressing-table, turned to sling an arm negligently over the back of his chair and drawled: “Don’t tell us you haven’t spotted that Meek is meant for Peebles, Dinwoody.”

    “I ain’t that thick,” replied the blue-chinned one with dignity. “‘But wotcher mean, Lord Sare?”

    “The nob,” said Mr Vanburgh with precision, “for whom Miss Martin has a paper.”

    “Ye-es… I do know ’e’s the nob what owns this place, sir. If you mean,” he said laboriously, “as maybe ’e was pretendink to be Peebles like what your lord in the play is pretendink to be Meek, I must say I can’t see it, meself. Not a fellow what owns a ’uge great place like this. Can’t see why ’e’d want to. Well, ’e might of, if so be as ’e’d seen her and was a bit struck, like. Like your Lord Whatsit, Mr Lefayne. But I don’t think I ever ’eard as Lord Sare, ’e’d ever set eyes on Missy. Nor even on ’er pa, come to think of it. Acos ain’t ’er bit of paper writ to the nob what popped orf?”

    “The late unlamented ‘Neddy’. Mm,” said Sid with a sniff.

    “I know of at least three ladies who lamented him, Sid!” objected Mr Vanburgh. “Well, two and a half,” he murmured.

    Choking slightly, Sid owned: “I stand corrected. No, well, Dinwoody, you have a point.”

    “Ah,” he said pleasedly. “And ’oo’s ’e, then?” he added, picking up the coat that Mr Lefayne would wear in his final appearance as Lord Stradley, and brushing it carefully.

    “Who?” asked Sid, delicately separating his lashes and applying a little more black.

    “That Dimwits. ’Oo is ’e?”

    “Have you not watched it all the way through, Dinwoody?” asked Mr Vanburgh with a laugh in his voice.

    “Well, can’t say as I ’ave, Mr Vic, sir,” he said apologetically. “Like, with all these changes Mr Sid’s got, I’ve general been too busy once you started doing it in the costumes, and then, afore that, Mr Haitch ’ad me rushing about like a ’en with its ’ead cut orf, if you’ll pardon the expression, gents, a-fixing curtains and ’unting out sofies and I dunno what.”

    “You’re excused, then!” allowed Mr Vanburgh, grinning.

    “Thanks. So ’oo is ’e?” he pursued.

    “Er, haven’t we been through this?” murmured Sid, fluttering the eyelashes modestly. “Look, Vic: Peebles to the life!” he said pleasedly. “Dimwits is meant for yourself, but as portrayed by David, lacking the—er—pugilistic prowess. Not to say,” he said, fingering his own straight nose, “the pugilistic attributes.”

    “You’ve given ’im a funny ear, though,” said Mr Dinwoody with approval. “Didn’t mean that, though, sir. I mean, ’oo does ’e turn out to be in the end?”

    “Oh! In the end!” said Sid with a laugh. “No-one, I’m sorry, old fellow: he is just the faithful Dimwits, servant to Lord Stradley. Frightfully sorry and all that: did you have a hankering to be a belted earl, Dinwoody?”

    “Not me,” he said in relieved accents, carefully hanging up the coat. “That Tony Ardent, ’e was saying that that ear of Mr D.’s, it looked as if it was about to come orf in the last scene.”

    “Was he? Then you had best cut along and help him make sure it don’t.”

    “Well, if you don’t need me, Mr Lefayne? Right you are, then,” he said disappearing.

    Mr Lefayne and Mr Vanburgh looked dubiously at each other.

    Eventually the comic actor admitted: “Either all of that was genuine, or Drury Lane has lost the greatest character actor of our time.”

    “Yes. That accent never slips, either. Traces of Norfolk, along with traces of London town, I think? Aye,” he said as Mr Vanburgh nodded. “But then, I doubt if any fellow who had led as varied a life as he appears to have done would have retained the accent he grew up with.”

    “Oi don't think ’e would, no: nothing loike, Sid,” replied Mr Vanburgh smoothly in the accents of Sid Bottomley’s own county.

    Grinning, Roland Lefayne owned: “No. Well, no confessions will be surprised out of Dinwoody, then.”

    “No, quite. –It is Lord Sare in the beard, is it?”

    “Mm. Lear, according to my information.”

    “Yes, well, there is no hope of telling if your plot strikes a chord, behind that!” he said strongly.

    “No.” Sid wandered over to the window and twitched the curtain aside.

    “What?” said Mr Vanburgh after he had stared out blankly for some time in silence.

    “Vic, don’t it strike you as a little suspicious that on the very evening we do our play within a play, Lord Sare chooses to hide his face in a great bush of Learish whiskers? Thus disguising himself, please note, from all who knew Peebles at Beau Buxleigh’s, as well as hiding his reactions to the plot from us.”

    “Ye-es… Logically, if he knew of the plot he would not need to hide his reactions.”

    “No, well, in that case his intent is merely to keep us guessing. As well as to hide the fact that under that damned beard there lurks the face of Peeb—” He broke off abruptly as Mr Hartington burst into the room.

    “Are you DEAF? You’re ON!” he shouted.

    “—of Meek,” he said pointedly to Mr Vanburgh.

    “In that case, Dinwoody is his man, and has apprised him of the whole. In which case, Drury Lane may well lament his loss. –I’m coming, stop fussing,” he said to Mr Hartington.

    “YES!” said Sid loudly, giving his manager a push. “Go! We’re coming.”

    Mr Hartington exited, scowling horribly.

    Sid lounged over to the door. “So, what’s his game?”

    Mr Vanburgh adjusted his neckcloth fractionally and came over to him. “Loyal servant to his Lordship, as you surmised.”

    “No: Sare’s. My plot has him, as Dinwoody so acutely noted, falling for Miss M. In real life, he has never laid eyes on her. As, please note, Dinwoody also stressed!”

    “Er… I give up,” said the comic with a sigh. “But I’ll think about it during the last act, if you like,” he offered drily.

    The proud author’s shoulders shook slightly, but he answered calmly: “You do that, Vic.”

    The play had finished to tumultuous applause and much laughter, Admiral Dauntry going so far as to rise from his seat in the second row and show “Bravo!” at Mr Speede; Miss Trueblood and Miss Martingale had been showered with bouquets; Mr Lefayne had been showered with choice blooms plucked from the corsages of ladies; and at long last the curtain had finally been closed. And the Sare Park guests had been herded off to supper, while a bevy of minions cleared the ballroom in preparation for the masquerade ball.

    “They’re taking the seats away,” reported Georgy on an aggrieved note, peering.

    “That’ll be because you don’t dance on chairs,” returned Mr Ardent. –Mr Ardent had merely played “a young nobleman” in the last act and so had worn his own best evening clothes. And had therefore not had to change. Georgy had worn a red velvet suit, a reference which the Sare Park audience had recognised, judging from the laughter and clapping. Left to himself he would have removed this, the more so as Mr Dinwoody, on first setting eyes on him in it, had gulped and said: “Lumme,” the which Master Trueblood was not so green as to take for a compliment. But Mr Hartington, scowling, had ordered him to leave it on, the ladies would like it. But if he spilled— Etcetera.

    “Yes, well, when are we going to have supper?” he demanded aggrievedly.

    “Soon, I think. I say, I could take Troilus—”

    “No!” snapped Georgy, gripping his lead tightly.

    Mr Ardent had had the brilliant idea that, as the ladies had cooed over Troilus’s on-stage appearance, they would inevitably be drawn to his side afterwards. And if he, Antony Ardent, were to be in charge of him… “But he’ll be a nuisance during the supper.”

    “No, he won’t, see, ’cos he’s the best-trained dog in Christendom!”

    Blinking slightly, Mr Ardent allowed glumly: “Have it your own way, then. Have they even asked us to join them for the supper?”

    “Dunno.” Georgy peered. “’Ere comes a fellow what looks important.”

    Mr Ardent also peered. “Butler, would you say?”

    “He does look a bit like what Mr Hartington did in The Amazing History of Mr Portwayne.”

    “Yes. –That was damned good, they ought to revive it.”

    “He don’t want to, acos Madam, she’ll demand to take Lady Mifficent again, and he says ’is nerves won’t stand it.”

    Mr Ardent merely replied mildly: “I think you mean Lady Munificent. –Good, he is heading this way.”

    The important-looking fellow was, indeed, Sare Park’s butler, and he did, indeed, have a pressing invitation to the cast to join his Lordship’s guests in the supper room.

    “Huzza!” concluded Mr Ardent.

    Subsequent events—though the supper was, as all conceded, excellent—did not provide any enlightenment as to the putative involvement of Lord Sare with Peebles, the possible master-servant relationship between Lord Sare and Albert Dinwoody, or even the actual physical appearance of Lord Sare.

    “I thought,” noted Mr Vanburgh drily as the yawning players were loaded into a succession of carriages kindly provided by Sare Park, “that these masquerade balls of your typical nobs usually ended in the unmasking of all concerned?”

    “Possibly they only do so in such dramatic, or possibly over-dramatic, representations of ’em as The False Lady Marmaduke, or that thing with the butler—The Amazing History of Mr Portwayne,” replied Sid, yawning widely.

    “You were damned good in that, Harold: you ought to revive it,” said Mr Deane.

    Mr Hartington returning the expectable reply to this suggestion, the actors duly shuddered and conceded he had a point.

    “Well?” persisted the comic.

    Sid yawned again. “I’ve only ever been to a handful of the things, Vic. Uh, well, didn’t stay on for the end, always.”

    Mr Hartington here produced the expectable knowing snort.

    “Quite,” agreed Mr Vanburgh. “That apart, did they have unmaskings?”

    “Yes, think so. Most of the participants were too fuddled by that time to care, if I remember rightly. And as the nobs only invite the nobs they know, everyone had recognised everyone else anyway. Possibly Lord Sare decided not to bother, in all innocence, Vic.”

    “Eh?” said Mr Hartington.

    “Yes, and possibly he didn’t,” replied the comic actor. “Did you see him eat, by the by?”

    “No, but then, he’d probably finished by the time we’d changed and got to supper, Vic.”

    “What in God’s name are you two drivelling about?” asked Mr Deane, yawning.

    “Nothing,” murmured Sid. “Er, did Lord Sare speak to you, Daniel?”

    “Yes. Congratulated me on a very realistic portrayal of York!” he said with a pleased snigger.

    “Mm. And while you were preening yourself, did you happen to recognise his voice?”

    “Eh? No,” he said blankly.

    Sid sighed. “No. Did you, Harold?”

    “No. Which, if I’ve interpreted your damned plot correctly, is just as well, ain’t it? Dare say he could have us all clapped up in Newgate by merely lifting his little finger—what I am saying, by merely blinking! Why couldn’t you just have worked in the comic characters without having to get libellous?”

    “The comic characters are libellous!” objected Mr Deane with a laugh.

    “Sid knows what I mean. –Well?” he said evilly.

    “Oh, well, I started writing out a possible scenario with Peebles, Dinwoody and Miss Martin, you see, and once I’d added a nob or two the rest sort of happened. What I mean is, I didn’t set out to include York, or the Prince of Orange, and so forth.”

    “This is the way genius works,” explained Mr Vanburgh kindly.

    Mr Deane broke down in sniggers at this, so Mr Hartington, somewhat mollified, merely grunted.

    And the rest of the journey was accomplished in silence.

    “Do you want to hear my conclusions?” asked Mr Vanburgh, at an advanced hour of the following morning.

    Sid was yawning over a plate of ham. “No. But tell me.”

    Mr Vanburgh sat down, helped himself to some of Mr Lefayne’s coffee and one of his rolls, not to say to quantities of his butter, as an afterthought added a slice of ham to the roll, and chewed slowly. “Mm!” he said approvingly. “Well, they’re observations more than conclusions, Sid.”

    “Two of us!” he noted in surprise.

    “What? Oh. Oh, well, anyway. Given that Sare never took that damned beard off all night, and never danced with any of the actresses, especially not Miss Martin, in fact avoided so much as glancing her way, and given that they didn’t have an unmasking, it might all be very suspicious indeed, if we could discover any motive, however slight, for his wishing to involve himself with Miss Martin’s affairs; or any indication, however slight,” he said pointedly, “that he had ever laid eyes on her, nay, ever heard of her, in his life!”

    “Two of us,” agreed Sid on a sour note.

    “Possibly this play-within-a-play stuff,” said Mr Vanburgh kindly, liberally sugaring his coffee and sipping it with great appreciation. “Aah!—Possibly this play-within-a-play stuff only comes off in the Bard, dear old lad. Not,” he elaborated kindly, “in real life.”

    The author of Lord Stradley’s Stratagem merely glared, so Vic Vanburgh, smiling a little, concluded he’d already thought of that one, too.

Next chapter:

https://theoldchiphat.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-plot-thickens.html