The Wooden O

3

The Wooden O

    Major Martin’s daughter had not expected, though she had not revealed the thought to any of the kind persons from Mr Buxleigh’s lodging house, that the theatre in which Mr Lefayne’s play was being performed would be a very fashionable venue; and thus she was somewhat startled to find not just the expected crowds and the blaze of lights, but a house thronged with very fashionable persons indeed. Even the pit was crowded with evening suits, splendid waistcoats, and officers’ dress uniforms. And the circle of boxes, where their own seats were, was positively brilliant with satin gowns, jewels and orders. It did not need Mr Buxleigh’s kind information for her to realise that their own box was very choice indeed: very choice. It was not a stage box, for, said the knowledgeable Mr Buxleigh, one was then too close for the illusion to have its full effect; but within the first circle, towards the near left—stage left, me dear, he elaborated as the puzzled Miss Martin looked from her left hand to her right. With an excellent view of the house as well as of the stage.

    “Sid,” explained Mrs Mayhew in mincing accents, seating herself well to the forefront of the box and directing a languishing look at the boxes opposite, “is exuberantly popular with the Upper Ten Thousand.”

    “Aye, and could have supper any night of the week with half a dozen real ladies,” agreed Mrs Pontifex.

    “And does,” noted Mr Buxleigh. “Eh?” he said as Mrs Pontifex dug him in his substantial ribs. “Oh, well, Miss Martin, it ain’t no more than the truth,” he admitted cheerfully.

    She was a little flushed. “Yes. Of course.”

    Mr Buxleigh had politely urged Miss Martin and Mrs Wittering to the front; he and Mrs Pontifex were seated behind them, Mrs Pontifex explaining that she had seen it twice afore, as Miss Martin tried to give up her seat to her. The stout landlord now leaned forward, his quizzing glass raised. “Ah,” he said with huge satisfaction. “Thought so! See that gent opposite?” he said, breathing heavily in Miss Martin’s ear. “Dressed real plain, only with a couple of ’uge great orders a-sparkling on ’is coat?”

    Mrs Mayhew looked in the indicated direction over her fan of scarlet feathers. “Grim-visaged,” she said with a little shiver. “Puts one in mind of the wicked Sir Hugo Malfeasant, in The Wicked Baronet’s Revenge.”

    “Huh!” returned with Mr Buxleigh with relish. “Baronet me no baronets! That, my dear Miss Martin,” he said impressively, “is the Duke of Wellington ’imself, or I’m a Dutchman!”

    “Get away!” gasped Mrs Pontifex, craning her plump neck.

    Reflecting that Dutchmen were evidently not well thought of in England, the which she had more or less gathered from her papa’s attitude to his neighbours in their last place of residence, Major Martin’s daughter looked doubtfully at the gentleman with the orders. “Really?”

    “’E’s got a great hooked nose,” conceded Mrs Hetty.

    “A right-down privilege!” squeaked little Mrs Wittering.

    “Aye…” sighed Mrs Mayhew, giving His Possible Grace a positively languishing look. “Mind you, Madam will claim that he’s come a-purpose to see her, you mark my words!”

    The box agreed sourly that Madam would, but nevertheless settled down to enjoy itself.

    Before very long at all several gentlemen were observed to be ogling the box eagerly; one particularly bright spark in a box on the opposite side of the circle, indeed, standing up and blowing kisses; and Mr Buxleigh had to reprove Mrs Mayhew severely, reminding her that they had a young girl with them. Obligingly she directed a minatory look at the standing gentleman, and turned her shoulder on him in a pointed fashion.

    “See him, Miss Martin?” she said, pointing quickly with her fan at one of the stage boxes. The gesture was so artfully discreet that, had one not been seated next her, one might have missed it.

    “Ye-es…” The gentleman in question was a man of middle years, very fashionably dressed, with something of a mild expression.

    “Lord Edenlyn,” said Mrs Mayhew.

    Mrs Hetty bent forward. “Lor’, so ’tis! Well, he won’t be here for Madam, I can tell you!”

    “She can give the appearance of youthful freshness, Hetty,” allowed Mr Buxleigh weightily.

    “Appearance is right! No, told you about that time when we was down at Sir Jeremy Foote’s country place with Percy Brentwood’s company, did I not?”

    “Several times, dear!” said Mrs Mayhew with a shrill giggle.

    Superbly ignoring this, Mrs Pontifex revealed, with considerable circumlocution and explanation, that Lord Edenlyn had had his eye on the youngest and freshest girl in the piece. And, with great relish, related the successful routing of his Lordship in his endeavour to pursue the same, by one, Mrs Lily Cornish.

    “Were she one of his, twenty year back?” asked Mr Buxleigh in tolerant tones.

    “Well, dunno. Could of been. She knowed ’im, all right.”

    “I dare say half the theatre world knows him. –Now, that slim gent over there, Miss Martin, with the young lady in pink and the older lady in the violet with the turban, I do know him. A Mr Rowbotham. ’Is brother’s an ambassador. Think that might be ’im, with them.”

    Miss Martin obediently followed the direction of Mr Buxleigh’s quizzing-glass. “The gentleman with the very amiable expression and the pink flower in his buttonhole?”

    “No, dear, the stout one with the orders and the ribbon!” cried Mrs Margery shrilly.

    “No, no, no, you’ve mistook me meaning,” said Mr Buxleigh heavily. “The stout one, think he’s the brother, acos of the orders and so forth. The slim one with the pink flower, he’s Mr R. Quite a well-known face in the greenrooms of London, me dear.”

    Mrs Margery peered. “I know ’im!” she agreed. “Never got nowhere with Lucy Fisher,” she noted with a sniff.

    “No, well, thought she had better fish to fry at that precise time,” conceded Mrs Hetty, also with a sniff. And apparently sublimely unconscious of her own choice of phrase. “What it never worked out, Miss Cressida, deary, acos the pa, he come down hard and dragged young Whatsisface back home to the country. Added to which, turned out he didn’t have a penny to bless himself with. Well connected, they was, but that was all you could say for them. Lived orf the sleeves of their rich cousins.”

    “What about Mr R., anyway?” asked Mrs Margery, looking at him over her fan.

    “Well, nothink, I don’t suppose,” conceded Mr Buxleigh. “Quite a nob, you know. Seen ’im driving his phaeton, onct. Only ’ad a pair poled up. –That’s right, Sid was with me: said he was cack-handed!” he remembered with relish.

    The company sniggered over the reputed cack-handedness of the elegant Mr R.

    Conversation continued in very much this vein; it was not very long at all before Miss Martin realised that those of the fashionable gentlemen whom her companions recognised were, of course, the sort of gentlemen who haunted the stage doors and greenrooms of London, and the pretty ladies whom they recognised were, almost without exception, not ladies.

    After some time Mrs Margery’s elbow connected gently with her side. “Pray observe the lady just come in, two boxes on from Mr R.’s, in the gold brocade, my dear Miss Martin.”

    Obediently she observed. She was a handsome, brown-haired lady, perhaps not in the first blush, but very good-looking indeed.

    “One of Sid’s. Well, used to be, three or four years back. Forget her name. Mrs Peter Something, was it? But I do remember as she was bosom-bows with a Lady Ivo: her husband owns a castle up in Scotland. What she, Lady Ivo, I mean, was carrying on at the time with a very handsome young fellow. Baronet, I think.”

    “Yes, that’s right. Now, he can drive!” approved Mr Buxleigh. “Seen ’im in the Park, complete with a four-in-hand, me and Harold and Sid was on the strut. Bowed and smiled very nice, he did, Miss Martin, but didn’t stop—had a young lady with him.”

    “Ye-es… I am sorry, Mr Buxleigh, do you mean the baronet or the lord?”

    “Oh, bless you, my dear, Sir N.—the baronet! Don’t think Lord Ivo would know Sid from me granny’s old cat. Well, ’im and ’er Ladyship go their own ways, you see. The way Sir N. told it, they had rooms at the opposite ends of a ’uge corridor in this castle of ’is, and she had told him he didn’t need never come near ’er.”

    “I believe that such arrangements are not uncommon with the upper classes, Mr Buxleigh.”

    “Yes, well, the pot didn’t ought to call the kettle black, and I will say Lilian and Daniel agreed to part most amicable,” said Mrs Mayhew with a slight sniff. “But letting your wife carry on under your own roof is something I don’t hold with and never did!”

    “Smacks of ’ypocrisy, dunnit?” said Mr Buxleigh thoughtfully.

    Comfortably the company agreed that the conduct of the upper classes did, indeed, smack of hypocrisy.

    The handful of musicians in the orchestra pit now struck up, the chattering began to die down, and the Major’s daughter sat forward with shining eyes, ready to be plunged into the fiction of The Prodigal’s Return, or, The Heir to Chateau de Mornay.

    It was a costume-piece. No-one had thought to apprise Miss Martin of this fact, and she gulped, as the curtain swept up to reveal a gentlemen in dispirited pose at a writing desk, ’neath a huge mass of tumbled light brown curls. She gulped again as this gentleman looked up, sighed, and uttered: “Alack the day! My father a care-for-naught, my older brother a gambler and wastrel, lost to the family these past ten years; and behold myself, a younger brother with all the cares of the family on my shoulders, the most unappreciated fils cadet within the realm of Sa Majesté, Louis the Sun King.” In the lugubrious accents of Mr Daniel Deane.

    “Makes up well, dunn’e, dear?” hissed Mrs Mayhew out of the corner of her mouth. She nodded dazedly; Mr Deane, indeed, appeared scarce a day over twenty-five years of age.

    The first act duly proceeded, Mr Deane’s opening speech being a fair indicator of the quality of the whole. The plot appeared very complex indeed, although there was not a very large cast of characters: Miss Martin had met most of them at dinner. There were two ladies whom she had not met: a thin, older woman who played Mme la Comtesse, wife to Mr Runcorn, or the Comte de Mornay; and a pretty little brown-haired girl, the younger sister to the tumbled light brown wig of Mr Deane. And to whom Mr David Darlinghurst’s character, one Chevalier d’Arnois, was paying court. A burly neighbour, who was perhaps the nearest thing the piece had to a comic rôle, was also an unknown, as were the Comte de Mornay’s lawyer and Mademoiselle de Mornay’s maid. Though the last was not unknown to Mrs Mayhew: she hissed informatively: “Nancy Andrews!” Miss Martin’s programme said “Mrs Sheridan”; but by this time she was quite willing to accept Mrs Mayhew’s word for it.

    It gradually emerged that Mr Deane’s character was wishful to marry a wealthy young widow, but that the widow’s family did not desire it, as he was but the younger son of the house de Mornay. With much circumlocution the plot built up to the entrance of this widow: and at last in she swept, a glorious sight in drifts, nay, festoons, of palest grey muslin, with floating black veils and scarves, and the most adorable of huge black picture hats, plumed in smoky grey, setting off the luxuriant, very fair curls. Mrs Clarissa Campion, of course.

    There was immediate applause from the house, certain gentlemen, indeed, leaping to their feet and shouting in their enthusiasm; and, though possibly it broke the illusion somewhat, Mrs Campion floated gracefully forward to the front of the stage, and kissed her hand, to more applause.

    “Lacking,” said Mrs Hetty grimly, not quite under her breath.

    Mrs Mayhew nudged Miss Martin. “Just wait,” she reminded her.

    After Mrs Clarissa’s entrance the play gained considerable momentum, though whether this was because the house had “warmed”, as Mr Buxleigh maintained, was not certain. Nor whether it had simply warmed to Mrs Campion. The actress certainly seemed to have a presence, though it was true that she did not manage to lend her character anything of particularity; but then, thought Miss Martin dubiously, possibly that was the fault of the writer rather than the performer. …Who was the writer? She examined her programme but gained only the information that the piece was “based upon the original French of M. Dupont as performed upon the Paris stage, and rendered into English by A. Smith.” She had never heard of either name and could not prevent the suspicion that they might be equally pseudonymous.

    Tortuously the plot wound its way to the end of the act, which, clearly, must be the entrance of Mr Lefayne as le fils prodigue. And, at long last, in he came: in heavy disguise, to the cast if not the audience, as a prodigiously wealthy Prince of Persia. To thunderous applause. Miss Martin gulped once more: in the first instance Mr Lefayne looked not a day above twenty-five years of age; in the second instance, he wore a giant wig of glossy black ringlets, and in the third instance, he was clad from head to toe in glowing sky-blue satin. The silver-laced and frogged coat just managing to be not quite a robe, the tight silk breeches very definitely not à la Emperor of Persia, and the huge picture hat, with its sweeping white ostrich plumes and silver bows, positively miraculous.

    “Pretty, ain’t he? Always does make up good,” allowed Mrs Mayhew as the curtain swept down upon this ravishing sight, to more thunderous applause and even, from one or two of the female members of the audience, flowers plucked from the bosom and tossed to the stage.

    “Yes,” agreed Miss Martin weakly as Mr Lefayne was seen to pick up a bloom with the utmost grace and direct a respectful bow, and a look which indicated something very different from respect, at the box in question, before the curtain definitively hid his glorious form from view.

    “In the next, he don’t wear the blue no more,” said Mrs Hetty helpfully. “What it is, my dear, he has discovered that the ladies likes to see him in as many changes as possible. So he wears pink.”

    “Pink?” she echoed faintly.

    “Aye. Very exotic, it do look, too, with the curls. –The blamed thing weighs a ton, out of course, but he would do it in costume. We all said to him, it will translate not half bad into modern dress, and is costume pieces in the mode, quite? Only he maintained as it were time his public saw him in costume again. –What you cannot deny, Richard Crookback were costume, only not his usual style, dear. Then this last winter, he played a Mr Makepeace, that was modern, you see. A vicar.”

    “A vicar?” she croaked, unable to imagine it.

    “Aye: he was pursued by a wicked lady, but took the virtuous little maid what was devoted to him, in the end,” explained Mrs Mayhew, peering over at the box of the possible Duke of Wellington. “The ladies was aux anges, as they say, and we did hear as what church attendance in the environmentations of the metropolis had gone up like you would not believe, Miss Martin. –The Duke don’t look impressed,” she reported.

    “In that case it most probably is him,” conceded Mrs Hetty. “For, say what you will, the men what is men generally cannot stomach the sight of Sid Bottomley in silks and satins!”

    Miss Martin found she was incapable of returning anything at all to this.

    The interval was enlivened by the appearance in their box firstly, of two very young men in officers’ dress uniforms, whom Mrs Hetty sent briskly about their business, unaided; secondly, of one very young man in a splendid waistcoat whom Mr Buxleigh dispatched with the cross remark: “This is not an actress, and if Lucy Fisher knowed what you was up to, Lulu my lad, she would have your guts for garters;” thirdly, of a portly man in his middle years who was welcomed, if not with very great enthusiasm, introduced as Mr Prettyjohn, and allowed to sit behind Mrs Mayhew; and, fourthly, of Lord Edenlyn.

    Mr Buxleigh, Mrs Hetty and Mrs Mayhew all turned the same alarming shade of puce, and the portly Mr Prettyjohn rose to his feet, his fists clenched.

    “We know who you is,” said Mrs Hetty grimly, as his Lordship smiled and opened his mouth. “And must beg you, my Lord,”—this last with a hugely ironic intonation—“to take yourself orf about your business.”

    “Oh, I say!” said his Lordship with a laugh, quite unabashed. “–Think I have had the pleasure, ma’am,” he admitted.

    “For myself, I will merely remind you, sir, that I witnessed with my own eyes the bodily transputing of yourself from Mrs Alethea Sullivan’s dressing room by Mr Sullivan himself,” said Mrs Mayhew, horridly cold and lofty and with not a head-toss, eyelash-flutter, or waft of the fan to be seen.

    “Did you? That were a mistake!” he admitted cheerfully.

    “In that Mrs Sullivan is a respectable woman, sir, it must of been,” noted Mr Prettyjohn hoarsely.

    “Well, no: in that on stage, y’know, she appeared not a day over eighteen!” he said, laughing again.

    “Pray, ladies and sir, leave this to me,” interposed Mr Buxleigh weightily as several persons opened their mouths. “Get—orf,” he said loudly and clearly, approaching his substantial person to Lord Edenlyn’s graceful one.

    “Oh, Lor’! Not even an introduction? But anyone will tell you I am a terrifically generous fellow!” he protested, eyeing Miss Martin up and down.

    Mr Buxleigh moved even closer, his stomach now brushing his Lordship’s immaculate waistcoat. “Get—orf.”

    “Oh, certainly. No offence. But should you change your minds—”

    “We shall not change our minds while we have an innocent maiden in our charge, sir!” cried Mrs Margery shrilly, suddenly dropping the coldness.

    “No. And get orf, unless you want a taste of the ’ome-brewed,” growled Mr Prettyjohn, his plump cheeks suddenly bright pink.

    Laughing, his Lordship cried: “I’m going, I’m going!” And went.

    There was a certain silence in Mr Buxleigh’s box.

    “I must apologise, Miss Martin,” he said clearing his throat.

    “No, that’s quite all right, Mr Buxleigh, I perfectly understand: he is a gentleman who likes very young actresses. It was natural he should assume I was one.”

    “Yes, well, you has to admit he was very generous to that Millie Marmount. Set ’er up in a little house at Margate, never denied the brat was his,” allowed Mrs Hetty. “But it ain’t respectable for a gentleman’s daughter to even think of such a thing.”

    “She’s marred to a carter, now. Jim Drake. Decent fellow, but older, y’know. And very good with the little boy,” explained Mrs Mayhew. “But that don’t give him the right to think he can barge in here and take you off under our very noses! –Sit down, Pretty, it’s all over, Edenlyn has the sense to see when he’s wasting his time,” she said kindly enough, patting his arm briefly.

    Mr Prettyjohn sat down slowly, frowning. “H’unforunately, one h’encounters the raff and scaff of all classes at the theatre, Miss Martin,” he said solemnly.

    “Aye. Pretty don't approve of the profession!” admitted Mrs Mayhew with a giggle. “Only I keep telling him, it’s not our blame the way our public treats us! Why, there would be hundreds of young girls what would never have gone astray, Miss Martin, without they were tempted by the lot that hangs round the stage doors offering trinkets and dainty suppers what a poor working girl cannot afford for herself!”

    “No, of course,” she agreed warmly.

    “Yes. Which h’in this partickler h’instance,” said Mr Prettyjohn severely, “does not h’excuse that person. And I am sure you would h’agree, Miss Martin, that a respectable widow would be better orf h’accepting the offer of a respectable widower.”

    “Er—yes, sir,” she agreed uneasily, glancing at Mrs Mayhew,

    Sure enough, the actress cried with her customary shrill vivacity: “What, become unpaid housekeeper to a bootmaker when a person might tread the boards nightly as a Duchess or an Empress? And will venture to inform you, Miss Cressida, my dear, that in my last, I played Lady Grandison of Grandison Hall!”

    “Admirably, too,” concurred Mr Buxleigh weightily.

    “But you ain’t acting now,” said Mr Prettyjohn on a cross note.

    Would there be an outcry? No: Mrs Mayhew only tossed her plumed head, laughed, and said: “No, nor I ain’t slaving over a certain person’s intrinsical Persian carpets, neither! And a glass or two of refreshment would be lavishly appreciated at this juncture!”

    And Mr Prettyjohn, with very good grace, took himself off to fetch the party refreshment.

    “Did you mean lavishly?” asked Mrs Hetty dubiously. –Miss Martin did not think she had; nor had she meant “intrinsical”, which was very possibly not an English word at all. Mrs Mayhew’s vocabulary was gradually revealing itself as somewhat uncertain.

    “Well, something very like it!” she said with another toss of the head.

    “I wouldn’t call him a bootmaker, neither,” said Mr Buxleigh dubiously. “Very warm man, y’know. Owns a manufactory and I dunnamany shops. You could do a lot worse, Margery.”

    “Not while I have my looks, I could not; and I have been promised a most meretricious piece in Harold’s summer show!” she reminded him gaily. –Meritorious, it must be, thought the Major’s daughter, having to bite her lip.

    “If it comes orf. And if ’e comes back, come to that.”

    “Out of course he’ll be back,” said Mrs Hetty hurriedly, as Mrs Margery turned, under the paint, almost as scarlet as her dress. “For one thing, all his stuff’s in your second-floor front, Beau.”

    “Yes. Should of insisted ’e took the back. Would of, if I’d knowed he’d be away, half the time,” he said glumly. “That’s too good a set of rooms to let moulder away empty.”

    “’E’s paying for them, ain’t ’e?” retorted Mrs Hetty. “Stop moaning about it, you old miser! We ain’t even asked Miss Cressida what she thought of the piece!”

    Miss Cressida had been dreading this moment and, what with all the uninvited visitors to the box, had almost managed to persuade itself it would not come, after all. “Very colourful,” she said feebly.

    “Sid’s colourful enough, aye!” conceded Mrs Hetty, shaking.

    “It ain’t got no thought to it; but that’s what his public likes,” admitted Mr Buxleigh.

    “Not a ceriseable piece, no,” conceded Mrs Margery.

    “I thought that was pink? It’s pink enough, in the next!” said Mrs Hetty, shaking slightly.

    “Of the brain, dear.”

    “Oh! I think you mean cerebral, Mrs Mayhew!” cried Miss Martin, forgetting a very recent silent vow not to correct a person who was kind enough to give her a lovely evening-cloak.

    To her relief Mrs Mayhew did not appear in the least put out, but replied graciously: “Thank you, my dear, I stand corrected. And adventitious it is, to have a young lady in the house. –What Madam,” she noted darkly, “might learn something from, too, if her nose weren’t so high in the air as to prevent the preception of anything that might be under it!”

    “And so say all of us,” concluded Mr Buxleigh.

    Mrs Wittering at this collapsed in muffled giggles, pressing a spotless linen handkerchief to her mouth.

    Mrs Mayhew raised her fan, winked at Miss Martin behind it, and lowered it again, in one easy, practised motion. At which the Major’s daughter was driven to say: “Mrs Mayhew, I wonder if you could possibly spare some time during the day to teach me to handle a fan? For I have never seen anything so elegant as the way you do it!”

    Very gratified, Mrs Mayhew agreed. Though noting that Sid would be as good a teacher.

    “A man?” she gulped, turning very pink.

    “An actor, dear,” corrected Mrs Hetty placidly.

    “Yes,” they all agreed, looking at her kindly, even little Mrs Wittering.

    She smiled weakly.

    Mr Prettyjohn had long since returned with refreshment, the refreshment had long since been drunk, and personalities in the crowd had been well reviewed, by the time the curtain rose on the second act. It was immediately apparent why the interval had been so long: the scene had changed from a room in the Chateau de Mornay to an amazingly elaborate outdoor setting, with terraces and balusters and statues, and great vases of blooms and trellises of other blooms, and cypresses and moving clouds, complete with birdsong and a fountain that really played… The audience burst into applause.

    “Which them clouds, they go orf before Madam comes on, acos we ’ad a tantrum over being upstaged by the scenery,” Mrs Hetty informed Miss Martin helpfully. “Not that you can altogether blame ’er.”

    She could not but agree: the moving clouds, though very pretty, were also very distracting.

    Act Two revealed further convolutions to the plot, the main one being Mr Lefayne’s further disguising himself as an impoverished gentleman in search of a place as a secretary, and then paying court to Mrs Campion in both disguises. The impoverished gentleman managed to be both earnest and charming, in what might have been meant to be his own brown hair and a sober black suit of clothes, down to black silk stockings. The Prince of Persia wore pink, as threatened. This time a positive robe, not a coat, over the satin waistcoat, and a plumed turban, not a hat, atop the luxuriant black ringlets. The tight satin breeches, however, remained very European in style, if not positively Louis Quatorze, and so did the tight white silk stockings and high-heeled shoes which in combination set off the shapely calves to perfection. The robe was long, incorporating a train, and the wearing of it seemed to involve a lot of twirling and whirling, and gathering and switching and twitching hither and yon. And a lot of flashing of the white calves. Miss Martin had begun to think this last was her imagination but after quite some time of it Mrs Hetty leant forward and muttered in her ear: “See them legs?”—She gulped, but nodded.—“To hear Harold tell it, the reason why he won’t never be no Kean, acos a Lear or a Macbeth don’t wear no silk stockings. ’E done it in Richard III, y’see, me dear. What if he could bring himself to give ’em up, he might be a great tragedian. Though meself, I don’t see it.”

    “No,” she whispered, blushing.

    Mrs Hetty patted her shoulder approvingly, and murmuring: “No, well, at least you ain’t blinded by ’im,” sat back.

    Miss Martin stared at the stage unseeingly for some time, her cheeks aglow.

    By the end of the act it was not at all clear what was actually happening; although it was certainly clear that the Prince of Persia had a considerable wardrobe with him: Mr Lefayne’s last appearance had been in glowing orange, with an huge train of cloth of gold, the excuse being a ball at the chateau. The wealthy widow’s wardrobe almost rivalled his in variety of choice if not of colour, as she had now appeared in black silk, extremely low-cut and not giving the appearance of mourning at all, in white silk with black ribbons and a straw hat, possibly suited to the gathering of strawberries, the ostensible occupation of the scene, if one’s imagination were generous enough to concede that strawberries could be gathered without kneeling, which that of Major Martin’s daughter was not, and finally, for the ball, in clouds of gold gauze, her family having forced her to forego her mourning in favour of nabbing the Prince.

    “Will she, or won’t she?” demanded Mrs Mayhew on a cross note as the curtain fell to the now expectable tumultuous applause and a positive rain of blooms directed at both leading players. The scenes between whom had all most certainly been thrilling enough to warrant them.

    “She must do, in the end, Margery,” said Mr Buxleigh with a yawn.

    “No, but will she take him as the Prince, or the poor man?”

    “Or as ’imself, maybe?” wondered Mrs Wittering.

    “Mrs Wittering, dear, she don’t know he’s himself,” said Mrs Margery with heavy patience.

    “She may do, before the h’end,” objected Mr Prettyjohn. “Mrs Pontifex, can you h’enlighten us?”

    Mrs Hetty shook her head, twinkling. “Don’t want to spoil it for Miss Cressida, Mr P.!”

    Mrs Mayhew pondered on it. “If she takes him as the Prince, that will show she has a mercenarious heart. Which ain’t the sort of rôle as Madam accepts, no longer. So she won’t.”

    “Yes, but dear Mrs Mayhew,” objected Miss Martin: “the family may force her into it! And—and besides,” she ended doubtfully, “is she not as much in love with him as the Prince as she is with him as the poor man?”

    “Wait for the nightgown scene,” advised Mr Buxleigh, yawning again. “Reveals all. In more ways than one.”

    “No, that was her last piece, Beau!” cried Mrs Mayhew.

    “No. Well, yes, it was. But she has one in this, too: made ’em put it in.”

    Regrettably, at this point Miss Martin, Mrs Wittering, Mrs Pontifex, and Mrs Mayhew all collapsed in helpless giggles. And even the solemn Mr Prettyjohn had a choking fit.

    That seasoned trouper, Beau Buxleigh, merely eyed them tolerantly.

    During the second interval a tray of refreshment arrived with Mr Lefayne’s compliments. And also Mr Antony Ardent and Mr David Darlinghurst, very much painted and panting slightly. And both bowing very, very low to Miss Martin. Mr Ardent attempted a flowery compliment but was brutally cut short in his flow by Mr Buxleigh. Mr Darlinghurst did not say much, but he looked volumes. Mrs Mayhew and Mrs Pontifex having in chorus forbidden them to touch champagne during the show, they had nothing to do but bow to Miss Martin again and take themselves off. The which apparently not occurring to them, Mr Buxleigh duly pointed it out, and off they went.

    “Spoils the concentration,” explained Mrs Hetty, draining a glass.

    Act Three opened to a view of the chateau’s ballroom and Mrs Hetty’s involved explanation in re “moving flats” and backdrops being raised and lowered. The which proved to be more than justified, as the scene proceeded to change with remarkable rapidity during the act; so much so that it quite succeeded in distracting one from the plot. The which was possibly just as well, as Miss Martin, having re-read her programme to no avail, silently admitted.

    All over the house handkerchiefs fluttered as Mr Lefayne, in the garments of the poor secretary, decided in a moving and very long soliloquy that she was never going to love him for himself.

    All over the house gentlemen rose to their feet applauding as Mrs Campion came on in the promised nightgown. Her soliloquy was even longer, although not all that much of it was audible, for the continued cheers. After frequent interruptions in order to pick up flowers from the stage, she finally ended it to a storm of applause and the handing up of fifteen actual bouquets. One seemed to have a bracelet attached; at least she certainly detached something from it, attached the something to her wrist, and blew kisses to a certain box. Mr Buxleigh’s box duly craned its necks.

    “That’ll be ’im,” decided the landlord, at his most judicious.

    A very grand-looking gentleman, not in the first blush of youth, was certainly visible in the box. Seated, not on his feet cheering.

    Mrs Mayhew and Mrs Hetty collapsed in ecstatic hysterics, Mrs Wittering clapped her handkerchief to her mouth, shaking all over, and Mr Prettyjohn coughed violently. Miss Martin looked from them to Mr Buxleigh in some bewilderment.

    “She claims,” he explained genially, “to be in daily expectation of a proposal of lawful marriage from that gent. Added to which she claimed he ain’t bald, only that’s beside the point.”—Mrs Mayhew gave a helpless wail.—“Well, more or less.”

    Miss Martin peered but second impressions merely confirmed the first. “His hair is certainly very much receded,” she ventured.

    Mrs Hetty gave a shriek, and collapsed all over again.

    Looking entirely judicious, Mr Buxleigh winked solemnly. “Aye. Added to which, me dear, he won’t propose lawful nothing—or the moon’ll be made of green cheese afore he do. This time last year he were at Mrs Lovelace’s feet, and two year afore that it were another lady entirely, and what is more, ten year or so back, he were one of Lily Cornish’s!”

    Mrs Hetty gave another shriek, nodding madly, and uttering something unclear but ecstatic, in which the words “little Hermy” might have been discerned.

    “Aye, dare say as Lily’s little Hermy might be his,” allowed Mr Buxleigh judiciously.

    Mrs Mayhew fumbled in her spangled black reticule, withdrew a handkerchief, and mopped her eyes carefully. “Oh, Lud, I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much! Here, explains why she was so demned coy about him, don’t it?”

    Mr Buxleigh winked. “That it do. –She would not divulge his name, my dear Miss Martin. Had us all in what you might fairly call a fever of speculation.”

    Mrs Hetty was blowing her nose. “Sir George Drew. Lily always said he were quite a decent feller. Deserves better then ’er,” she noted with a darkling glance at the stage, where, to a last thunder of acclaim, Mrs Campion was making her exit.

    Most regrettably, at this point Miss Martin gave way entirely and collapsed in giggles, nodding in frantic understanding.

    After that, it did not, really, matter at all that Mrs Campion had failed utterly to make it clear in her soliloquy which of Mr Lefayne’s two disguised personages she preferred. In any case Mrs Pontifex gave in and clarified it for them: “She ain’t taking neither of ’em. Goin’ back to her first love.”

    “Mr Deane!” gasped Miss Martin, clapping her hands softly. “I am so glad: his character is so admirable!”

    “We never thought of that,” admitted Mrs Mayhew, very crestfallen.

    “No,” said Mrs Hetty clearly—and perforce loudly: Mr Darlinghurst, or rather the Chevalier d’Arnois, was paying loud court to Mlle de Mornay at the moment, accompanied by a very loud fiddle from the orchestra pit. “Her—first—love.”

    They looked blank.

    “You won’t ’a’ noticed, and no reason you should; but about three hours since, before all them nightgowns and fol-de-rol, Daniel explained it. –One, 1!” she hissed.

    “In the very first scene? I was busy looking at the wig,” admitted the Major’s daughter.

    Mrs Wittering this time positively buried her face in her handkerchief.

    “Odd, weren’t it?” agreed Mrs Hetty comfortably. “Well, he did explain it: Sid were her first love, see, before ’e run orf. –The prodigal son!” she hissed.

    Miss Martin read frantically though her programme again but Mrs Mayhew just heaved a heavy sigh and conceded: “We might have known.”

    And so, indeed, it turned out. Mrs Campion, with much passionate heaving of the bosom, this time from within a glorious green satin garment—she seemed to be definitively out of her mourning—informed the poor young secretary that much though she appreciated his virtues she must remain faithful to her first love. Handkerchiefs fluttered again. Then she informed the Prince of Persia, the bosom more than playing its part from within voluminous pale blue silk draperies, which possibly were meant to be a morning dress, in that a minute white muslin apron, lace-edged, was worn with them, that she must remain faithful to her first love.

    At this Miss Martin suddenly blinked, and hissed: “But what about the late husband?”

    “Rich nabob. Don’t count,” replied Mr Buxleigh simply.

    Alas, she collapsed in giggles again and so missed most of Mr Lefayne’s affecting speech in reply. Though she had already registered the truly splendid robes—silver from top to toe, with three striking notes of colour from three purple ribbons: one at each knee, and the third across the chest, itself strikingly displayed within a lace-edged white shirt, worn under an abbreviated silver satin waistcoat, the both open to the waist, where they were tightly confined by a silver satin sash. Possibly the style favoured by the Persians? For it had certainly never been a style favoured in the realm of le roi soileil.

    At the end of the leading actor’s speech Mr Prettyjohn, acknowledging he should have known, solemnly handed Mr Buxleigh a shilling.

    “The chest, Miss Martin,” the Beau explained, calmly stowing it away.

    “Pretty, you never took that one? You ape!” cried Mrs Margery.

    “He said it was a French piece,” explained Mr Prettyjohn sheepishly.

    “Give it him back, Beau!” she cried.

    “Certainly not. I had no prior information, except what Daniel had told me: that it was French. Well, Sid said it was demned silly,” he admitted. “But I could not see how a French play could lend itself to the displaying of the chest. Only I knew it would.”

    “Of course it would: give it him back!”

    “No; he had the same information as me.”

    “Yes,” admitted Mr Prettyjohn.

    The company sighed and shook their heads. And after a moment Miss Martin whispered, since on the stage nothing very much was happening except for flats moving hither and yon, and Mr Ardent and Mr Grantleigh rushing off and on with small gilt chairs and potted palms and the like: “Did he, in Richard III?”

    “Twice,” replied Mr Buxleigh with relish. “End of the scene with Lady Anne: dunno how ’e worked it in, exact, but he sort of tore ’is shirt open. Then at the end, when ’e’s staggering round yelling for ’is ’orse. All be-draggled-like, with ’is cloak torn and dirtied—not really, my dear, they make a dirty one up special—and ’alf orf his back.”

    “Buh-but what about his armour?” she faltered.

    “Fell orf in the battle?” suggested Mrs Hetty drily.

    “Must of,” conceded Mr Buxleigh, winking.

    Regrettably, Miss Martin collapsed in further giggles, gasping: “Oh, I wish I had seen it!”

    The concluding scene of the play, in which the fils prodigue of course revealed his true self—the which, as Mrs Hetty noted acidly, could hardly cause much more disturbance than what his two disguises had—featured transformations, trumpets, backdrops rising and lowering alarmingly, flats sliding in and out frantically, and flashes of coloured light accompanied by muffled explosions. Plus the prodigal son, having flung off his Persian robes, in nothing but his breeches and shirt (the latter open to the waist)—until Mr Ardent ran in with a much-skirted, gold-laced, green velvet coat for him. By contrast Mrs Campion, about to reap the reward for all that self-sacrifice, was shrouded in a black cloak. The which, when the dénouement was finally reached, was flung back to reveal floods of scarlet satin draped with clouds of black gauze. More than sufficiently emphatic around the area of the bosom. The male half of the audience rose to its feet as one man, applauding; and Mrs Mayhew rose to her feet in her black gauze and scarlet…

    Miss Martin collapsed in giggles of the most agonising sort, as did Mrs Wittering. Mrs Hetty, who of course had been looking forward to this moment throughout, also collapsed, though with something more, it must be admitted, of a malicious tone to her giggles. Mr Prettyjohn choked. Only the Beau remained superbly unmoved.

    “Knew she was up to something,” he explained tolerantly as Miss Martin's fit abated.

    “Yes!” she gasped. “Oh, dear; I’m sure she’s noticed!”

    Mrs Margery was applauding with a kind of languid elegance. “Out of course,” she said serenely.

    Miss Martin collapsed again, and was hardly even able to applaud, as the prodigal son, who had whisked out into the wings, whisked on again, now sporting the earlier mass of tumbled black curls topped with a green velvet plumed hat to match the coat.

    “Richard’s himself again,” noted the brilliant Mrs Hetty.

    Alas, this time Miss Martin laughed so hard she had to mop her eyes.

    “Dreadful, weren’t it?” concluded Mrs Hetty placidly.

    There was to be no farce; for, as Mr Buxleigh had already noted, who needed it, after that? But a warm invitation to go round to the dressing-rooms was conveyed.

    “You don’t want to,” advised Mrs Hetty heavily as their guest’s eyes lit up.

    “But Mrs Pontifex, I have never been behind the scenes of a theatre! Er, would it not be quite the thing?” she said dubiously.

    “With ourselves escorting you, my dear Miss Cressida, it could not be considered uneligible,” allowed Mrs Mayhew graciously. “But Hetty is in the right of it: you don’t want to.”

    She did want to, very much; she looked appealingly at Mr Buxleigh.

    “It’ll be sickening, out o’ course, but come on, might as well,” said that worthy at his most judicious. “Get it over with, hey?” Courteously he offered his arm.

    She grasped it eagerly. “Oh, may we really? Oh, thank you, Mr Buxleigh!”

    And the party exited in a bunch, Mrs Hetty looking very dry, Mrs Wittering with a dubious expression on her thin, wrinkled little face, and Mrs Margery, leaning heavily on Mr Prettyjohn’s arm, confiding: “Sickening is the word. And I charge you most serially, Pretty, to restrain me, should I show signs of bursting out at the sight of her.”

    Mr Lefayne was discovered holding court in his dressing-room. It was largely ladies in splendid gowns and jewels, with resigned-looking escorts in their trains. Telling him how wonderful he was—quite. They could not possibly have got near him: all they could see was a glimpse of dark head and a flash of gold brocaded dressing-gown. They could hear his mellifluous laugh, though. Saying nothing, Mr Buxleigh led Miss Martin away.

    Mrs Campion was discovered holding court in her dressing-room. Crowds of persons of the opposite sex, telling her how wonderful she was—exactly. And pressing yet more flowers, not to say gifts of a more substantial kind, upon her. They would have needed an assault engine to have got anywhere near her. They could not see her at all. They could hear her trilling laugh, though.

    “See?” said Mrs Hetty.

    “Um, yes.”

    Mrs Hetty relented. “But if you would like to see a real dressing-room, deary, I'm sure as Nancy Andrews’ll be right-down pleased to see you. And little Tilda Timms won't mind. Nor Mrs Timms, neither.”

    “Miss Matilda Trueblood and Mrs Evangelica Trueblood, in the profession. Often take mother and daughter parts,” explained Mr Buxleigh. “Dare say they won’t, no.” And forthwith the party headed for the female dressing-room.

    It was very small, hot, and very crowded: not with elegant visitors, but with its legitimate occupants, plus one, Master Trueblood. A short, stout, curly-haired person of possibly as much as eight years of age; who explained seriously to Miss Martin: “Able to take the part of an infant, boy or girl, as needed, ma’am.” With a very low bow, of which, had she not seen it with her own eyes, she would have considered a person of his rotundity incapable.

    “Georgy has been on the boards from his cradle, Miss Martin,” explained little Miss Timms (or Trueblood), proudly.

    “In his last, the Infant of Spain,” added Mrs Trueblood graciously, hanging up the silk gown of Mme la Comtesse and shrouding herself in an ancient blue cotton wrapper.

    Miss Martin looked dubiously at Master Timms’s yellow curls, but said nothing.

    The actresses had all welcomed Mr Buxleigh’s party most kindly, not seeming to mind at all that two of its members were of the male sex and that they themselves were in various states of undress. Mrs Trueblood, a slender, faded, elegant woman, invited them to make themselves quite at home and be seated—though as there was no uncovered surface in sight it was not quite clear how they might do that. And the cheerful Nancy Andrews (or Mrs Sheridan) explained with great readiness the intricacies of the make-up and the costume changes. The which, in such very small, inadequate, cramped surroundings, could not have been at all easy.

    “Out of course, when you’re a star, you gets a whole room to yourself,” she added neutrally.

    “You need it for all them blamed flowers what you order up for yourself in the case that certain gents might be remiss,” noted Mrs Hetty.

    “Well, at the moment, Hetty dear, I have to say it,” said Nancy Andrews heavily, “they ain’t. Give her ten more years a-kicking dirt in their faces, and then we’ll see them drop like flies as she begins to lose them looks.”

    “Or ’er teeth,” noted the slender, elegant, faded Mrs Trueblood on a vicious note.

    Mrs Sheridan sniggered and little Miss Trueblood, revealed without her stage make-up as a pale-faced, timid-seeming thing who did not look very strong, gave a loud giggle.

    It was now very evident that Mrs Campion’s fellow actresses more than shared Mr Buxleigh’s female lodgers’ prejudice against her; Miss Martin smiled weakly.

    “Which there’s some, Miss, as would give you a sweetmeat from their box, only she won’t,” confided the stout Master Trueblood, à propos.

    She nodded limply. One could only conclude the prejudice was general.

    The party had just accepted Mr Buxleigh’s earnest invitation to join him for a neat little supper, when a smiling Mr Ardent entered, in his street clothes. “Miss Martin, Mr Lefayne would be frightfully glad if you would join us for supper,” he said, bowing very low.

    “No,” said Mr Buxleigh instantly.

    “Um, no, all of you, Beau,” said Mr Ardent very lamely indeed.

    “Get off!” cried Mrs Sheridan in loud disbelief. “Us, too?”

    Mr Ardent looked limply at the crowded dressing-room. “I'm not sure,” he admitted feebly.

    “Useless!” replied Mrs Sheridan, with a sort of energetic but tolerant scorn—it was now evident that she was a very energetic sort of person. “Get out of the way, do!” Pushing past Mr Ardent, she vanished.

    “Mr Sid is known in the profession for his generosity,” said little Miss Trueblood, blushing.

    “True, but there’s a fair bunch of us, Tilda,” replied Mrs Hetty kindly.

    “’E give me a slap-up supper of chops and treacle pie, onct,” remembered Master Trueblood, licking his lips.

    “More fool him, then,” noted Mrs Margery smartly.

    “The labourer must be worthy of his hire, Mrs Mayhew; and I venture to state that my Georgy was a remarkable feed to him, in Richard Three. Remarkable,” said Mrs Trueblood firmly.

    “A h’image, Miss Martin, that you will ’ear used a lot amongst theatricals,” said Mr Prettyjohn hurriedly, after one glance at her face.

    “Played the elder of the Little Princes,” explained Mrs Hetty. “Did it not bad, too. Mind you,” she added, directing a sapient glance at mother and son, “Sid ain’t one as to let no creature, be it horse, dog, or boy, upstage him!”

    “Mrs Pontifex,” said the mother indignantly, her thin bosom swelling, “there was no question at all—”

    “Not with Sid on the same stage with ’im: no,” she agreed flatly.

    It was perhaps as well that at that point Mrs Sheridan reappeared, panting. “All on us!” she gasped. “But we’ll ’ave to put up with Lady Nob and Mrs Percy Nob, mind!”

    “Dare say we might bear it,” noted Mr Buxleigh. “It will be a slap-up supper, Miss Martin.”

    Since the attention of the whole dressing-room was now fixed unwinkingly upon herself, Major Martin’s daughter perceived that the decision was up to her. She did not know, to say truth, that she entirely inclined to sup with Mr Lefayne in the company of Lady Nob and Mrs Percy Nob, but nonetheless agreed firmly: “It sounds delightful. I should like it of all things.” And almost managed to pretend she had not heard Mrs Trueblood’s aside to little Miss Trueblood: “There you are, Tilda, that is how a real lady behaves!”

    And off they went in a laughing, chattering crowd to supper.

    In spite of her youth, the owner of the old chip hat was a person of considerable common sense. The which had stood her in very good stead, both in her father’s lifetime and since his death. Helping to settle what little remained of his estate and travelling to Belgium to call on Petite Maman’s relatives, and then the journey to England and the search for Mr Buxleigh’s address had proven more of a strain than she believed she had let the kind Mr Buxleigh and his lodgers perceive; and she had been very, very glad to creep into the little trundle bed off Mrs Hetty’s room and fall asleep with Troilus nestled against her stomach, on that first evening. Since then, however, with the aid of the solid food provided by Mrs Harmon, she had had more than time to recover her strength and gather her wits about her again. She was thus quite aware that in spite of what most persons would have considered their lack of a moral sense, Mr Buxleigh and his theatrical friends were truly kindly people. The actresses, certainly, were full of affectations and undoubtedly no better than they should be. Even little wrinkled, dried-up Mrs Wittering had a certain history: there had been a son, who had, very tragically, fallen at Trafalgar. Mr Buxleigh himself was not entirely scrupulous and certainly not above lying to save his tenants the embarrassment of paying their debts: she had now witnessed his ruthless dismissal of a dun who had come after Mr Deane. Mr Lefayne clearly was the type of man who would accept, more or less, whatever was offered him, and this evening’s entertainment had indicated that in his artistic life he would also do, more or less, whatever was required of him.

    Very possibly not a soul in Mr Buxleigh’s house would have fallen within the normal definition of a decent person. But all of them, even the odd, silent Mr Bagshot, fell within that of the girl in the old chip hat. Mr Bagshot had adopted a little stray cat, as crippled as he was, and fed it from his own meagre portion. And, although he appeared to ignore Bessy Hinks as much as he did any other female creature, regularly saved her half his supper. Even the gruff Mrs Harmon had a heart of gold beneath that very rough exterior: the supper provided regularly to Mr Bagshot was rather more than one person could have managed with ease. And Fred Hinks got as many spoonfuls to taste as he did loud orders.

    So, although the restaurant to which the actors were taken for their supper was very, very fine, and the persons entertaining Mr Lefayne and his friends were also very, very fine, the Major’s daughter was not taken in by appearances for a moment. And speedily decided that any one of the actors was worth ten times more than the elegant, laughing Lady Rosamund Frake, the stout, complacent Mr Frake, whom she addressed consistently as “Frakey, dear”, the elegant Mr and Mrs Percy Wainwright, or the exotically lovely Lady Needham. All of whom, though Mr Frake, as the host, saw to it that all were served generously, alternately patronised and ignored the players. She was a trifle startled to find herself introduced to the party by the bowing Mr Buxleigh as “Miss Martingale,” but accepted almost without blinking Mrs Hetty’s whispered explanation that it was just a precaution, in the case that she might ever have to enter elegant society as herself. Though at the moment this was hard to conceive of.

    The champagne having flowed very freely, and the fine ladies having imbibed very freely, neglecting the delicious savouries and other delicacies which the actors gobbled up, both their tongues and their behaviour became considerably looser. Mr Frake seemed cheerfully indifferent to this, and Mr Percy Wainwright positively amused by it; and Lady Needham did not have an escort of her own, apparently being in the Wainwrights’ party for the evening.

    “Naturally one adores him!” explained Lady Rosamund, positively draping herself on Mr Lefayne’s left arm. She chose a raisin from the dish in front of her, and delicately held it to his lips. Mr Lefayne did not refuse it.

    “Added to which, all the town knows of his masquerade as a Russian Prince last year, and so of course everyone flocks to see whether he will dare to wear his princely purple ribbon!” gurgled Mrs Percy, draping herself on his right arm. She offered him a sip of champagne from her own glass, fluttering her lashes at him terrifically. Mr Lefayne did not refuse it.

    “I would not claim,” he then said with a mocking glint in his long grey eyes, “that all the town knows of it. I dare swear there are some at this very table who have never heard of it.”

    “Can’t say as I ’ave, no,” admitted Mr Prettyjohn, taking the remark unto himself. His round cheeks were very flushed and his once handsome neckcloth was slightly crushed, but otherwise he appeared as neat and stolid as ever. “H’in a piece, were it?”

    “No, Pretty, old fellow, it was—er—in what is loosely called real life,” drawled the actor, refilling her Ladyship’s glass. “Well, it made an entertaining diversion for the summer.”

    “He will never disclose,” said the voluptuous Lady Needham, leaning forward very much, so that the bosom was displayed quite in the manner of Mrs Campion, “how far it actually went. Though as La Marsh accepted an offer of marriage, one is at liberty to conclude what one will!” She rolled her huge dark eyes at the table generally, and laughed her gurgling laugh. Then adding: “Naughty boy!” and tossing the remains of a bread roll playfully at Mr Lefayne.

    He merely dodged, smiling, and raised his glass to her.

    “I own, I should not half like to hear the story from the horse’s mouth,” drawled Mr Percy Wainwright. “Go on, Lefayne: tell us.”

    Roland Lefayne shrugged. “My patron set me on to draw the Marsh hag off Lord Sleyven and get her out of his county for reasons of his own—let us say, an obligation in that quarter. And as it was difficult to think of anything that could compete with a rich earl we decided we had best go the whole hog, and offer her a principality. So behold me, His Highness the Prince Alexei Alexandrovitch.” He shrugged again.

    “A principality and yourself,” corrected Lady Rosamund, looking into his eyes over the rim of the champagne glass.

    Mr Lefayne picked her hand up with a careless gesture and dropped a careless kiss on it. “Merci mille fois, or, as we say in Russia, mushy dushyer.”

    At this, mysteriously, Mrs Sheridan collapsed in painful paroxysms.

    “Nancy played the Russian cook to our Russian household. We owe the phrase to her,” said Roland Lefayne smoothly.

    The whole table, or at least those who had not imbibed too much of Mr Frake’s champagne to care, duly collapsed. Though “Miss Martingale” also eyed him dubiously.

    Mr Lefayne smiled somewhat ironically, and drawled: “Well, a man of conscience would not have led the creature on and left her standing at the altar; but then, one is only a poor player.”

    “Yes. And a pity it is that his face is so well known in theatrical circles, acos if ever there was one what deserved a similar fate, Madam C. is it,” noted Mrs Hetty grimly.

    “Oh, but Mrs Mayhew has given her her own again, surely, with her scarlet and black!” cried Lady Needham, with her gurgling laugh.

    “Indeed,” agreed Mr Lefayne solemnly. “A toast to Margery!”

    And, even though Mrs Mayhew had earlier been well toasted for her effort, they all toasted her again.

    The evening finished with Mrs Hetty informing Mr Buxleigh severely that he had drunk too much brandy, and bundling the lodging-house party into a hackney coach. The Frakes went off in their own coach, not offering anyone else a ride, the Percy Wainwrights likewise. And the last glimpse of Mr Lefayne was of him tenderly assisting the laughing Lady Needham into a hackney coach and mounting into the same after her.

    “Is there a Lord Needham?” asked Miss Martin after quite some time.

    Mrs Hetty yawned widely. “Eh? Oh—no, ’e’s a Sir. Never comes up to London. They goes their separate ways. –Well, you knows as them Society nobs is like that, me dear. And if you’ll forgive the indelicacy, Sid Bottomley has never been one to look a gift-horse in the mouth.”

    “No. I had come to that conclusion myself.”

    Mr Hetty patted her knee. “’Course you had, you ain’t stupid!”

    “No. And—and I am very sure,” she said in a voice that shook a little, “that he has not had an easy life. One cannot blame him for—for snatching at a passing pleasure.”

    “Aye. Enjoy it while your looks last, is more or less the player’s motto, deary.”

    “Yes. But I cannot see, though I admit I do not know the circumstances of her life, that there is very much excuse for her. She does not even work for her living!”

    “Eh? Oh, Lady Bosom? No, well, works damned hard at it, I’d say. –Begging your pardon, me dear. Never mind; tied to a man she don’t care for, and what don’t give a damn about her: it’ll give her something to remember, in her old age.”

    Suddenly Major Martin’s daughter squeezed her plump hand hard. “That is very true.”

    “Aye,” said Mrs Hetty with a little sigh, squeezing hers gently in return. “Aye.”

Next chapter:

https://theoldchiphat.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-visit-to-horse-guards.html