Leading Lady (11 page)

****

She was quite relieved as still more weeks went by without sight of letter or flowers from Douglas. When he did not appear out of nowhere at London’s King’s Cross Station on the tenth of December, the end of Michaelmas Term, she breathed another prayer of gratitude. Without the fear of him lurking behind every pillar or post, she would be able to enjoy the Christmas season.

Her optimism was dented a bit the following afternoon when Mr. Whitmore and Mr. Birch stepped out from behind the dressing screen in the Royal Court’s wardrobe room.

“Oh dear,” she said, fingertips up to her chin.

The actor, clad in brocade shirt, velvet cloak, padded short breeches and tights, turned to look in the cheval glass. “What is it, Miss Rayborn?”

Bethia glanced at the seamstresses. Miss Lidstone sent her a perplexed nod. Mrs. Hamby, sewing a sash at a machine, ceased pumping the treadle to gape at Mr. Whitmore. Mr. Birch, on hand to help the male actors into their costumes, merely shrugged and said, “He looks fine to me.”

But he looked anything but fine, for Mr. Whitmore had gained some weight during the two months Bethia had been away at school. In fact, his shirt strained at its buttons. And four other completed Romeo costumes lay on the table, waiting to be fitted.

The actor cleared his throat. “Well?”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to let out some seams, Mr. Whitmore.”

Not only that, but she’d need to find some way to alter all five costumes to conceal the problem. The critics would have apoplexy over a Romeo with a paunch.
This isn’t a disaster,
Bethia thought with more wishfulness than sincerity. Fittings had to be completed by the eighteenth, when full dress rehearsal was scheduled, and after which the theatre would shut down for eight days. With Danny arriving home this evening and Guy on the twenty-first, Bethia wanted more
than anything to conclude her work on the
Romeo and Juliet
costumes as soon as possible.

“That hardly seems necessary,” Mr. Whitmore said, raising arms to peer down at his bulging shirt. “And by the way, this purple suits my complexion. Do you agree, Mr. Birch?”

“Suits you very well, sir,” the head attendant replied, but with an odd glint in his gray eyes.

A corner of Richard Whitmore’s mouth twitched.

Folding her arms, Bethia said, “Mr. Whitmore . . .”

The actor unbuttoned his straining shirt enough to reach in and pull out a cushion of gold velvet. “Well now, how did this get here?”

Bethia laughed with the others, too relieved to be angry, and besides, the humor of it was a welcome relief to the strain of the day. Actors were not the most patient lot when it came to standing still for fittings.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Whitmore,” scolded Miss Lidstone, who at fifty-three was more than twice Bethia’s age. Her face had sharp features, especially a long pointed nose, and she wore a gown of torturous pink that clashed with her ginger-colored hair. She stepped up to plop a flatcap upon the actor’s soon-to-be-dyed locks. “Worrying us that way.”

“Oh, but I am, Miss Lidstone,” he said, and sent an unrepentant wink at Bethia.

****

“Mrs. Steel is late, ha-ha,” Mrs. Hamby said with a glance at the wall clock at half-past two. She was an attractive woman, tall and broad shouldered, aged twenty-nine with thick brown hair. But the nervous laugh trailing the end of almost every sentence made her company a bit taxing in close quarters. Bethia thought it would be a kindness if someone would take her in hand and draw her attention to the habit she probably was unaware that she had. Someone with more
fortitude than herself, she thought wryly, which was probably why the habit persisted. Everyone hoped someone else would act.

“We’ll just fill in with others,” Bethia said. This was not a problem, for the utility actors tended to show up early, and several were milling about the corridor. She and the seamstresses began fitting twenty-two-year-old Corrie Walters, flush with excitement over her first speaking part as Juliet’s nurse. While she had a feminine face with high cheekbones, full lips, and turned-up nose, her boylike figure required padding in strategic places.

“We’re taking the stuffing out of one actor and putting it in another,” Miss Lidstone quipped as Bethia began fastening a girdle about Corrie’s waist. The ruffled muslin attached gave the actress instant hips.

“I beg your pardon?” Miss Walters asked, holding arms raised.

“Mr. Whitmore,” Bethia explained. “He wore a pil—”

The door opened, and Mrs. Steel breezed into the room. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, pulling off gloves. “I had an appointment with my dressmaker.”

Mrs. Hamby let out a nervous twitter. Bethia shook her head at her and fastened another hook to the girdle. “We’re almost finished here, Mrs. Steel,” she said pleasantly.

“I’m in rather a hurry,” Mrs. Steel said.

“Then we’ll work faster. Do please have a seat.” To Miss Lidstone, Bethia said, “Will you hand me that chemise?”

The seamstress did so, but with a cautious glance toward Mrs. Steel, who was still standing, arms akimbo now.

“Please . . . I don’t mind waiting,” Miss Walters said.

Bethia was opening her mouth to explain that they only needed three more minutes at most, when she caught the pleading in Miss Walters’s expression. She breathed a silent sigh. How easy it was to take for granted the security afforded her by her prosperous family. While she strove to get on with everyone she met, it was simply because it was her
nature to do so, and not out of any peril to her livelihood. But Miss Walters could ill afford to get on the wrong side of a lead actress.

She turned to Mrs. Steel. “Very well. Miss Walters is willing to wait.”

“Oh, never mind,” Mrs. Steel said abruptly, moving over to the drafting table and the open tin of shortbread Mrs. Hamby had brought in this morning. “Are these for sharing? I’ve not had lunch and feel a bit light-headed.”

Mrs. Hamby’s head bobbed. “Please, help yourself, ha-ha.”

****

By six o’clock the fittings scheduled for the day were finished. Bethia, followed by the seamstresses, descended the staircase on leaden feet. On the ground floor, Jewel stepped out of the office. “I’m glad I caught you,” she said over the pleasant strains of Tchaikovsky’s
Romeo and Juliet
from the orchestra in the rehearsal room. “Everyone is pleased with their costumes so far. Thank you for all of your hard work.”

Mrs. Hamby twittered and Miss Lidstone tried, unsuccessfully, not to appear
too
pleased. Bethia smiled, amazed at how effectively a compliment could cure fatigue. After a round of good-byes, she was turning to accompany the seamstresses on toward the lobby when her cousin said, “Can you stay a minute longer, Bethia?”

“Of course.”

“Grady’s meeting with the printers,” Jewel said, steering her to the greenroom, where actors and actresses waited during a performance for the callboy to stick his head through the doorway and give notice of who was required onstage. Five sofas and several upholstered chairs were set about, and a long mirror was propped in a corner. Hanging upon serene mauve walls were framed photographs of past performances, as well as a poster titled
Rules During Performance.

1. Any performer not present in the greenroom at the time announced in the playbills shall forfeit eight shillings.
   
2. Any performer who keeps the stage waiting after having been called shall forfeit three shillings.
   
3. Any performer standing in the wings in sight of the audience shall forfeit two shillings.
   
4. Any performer who steps onstage in a state of intoxication shall forfeit two pounds.
   
5. Any performer absent from a performance with no advance notice shall forfeit five pounds.
   

“I appreciate how you diffused the situation with Mrs. Steel,” Jewel said, closing the door.

Bethia wasn’t surprised that she knew. Grady had once said, half jokingly, that a person could whisper something in an empty room at the Royal Court and see it printed it in the
Times
the following morning.

“It wasn’t really much of a situation,” she replied. “And Mrs. Hamby’s shortbread helped more than anything.”

“I’ll be sure to thank her” Jewel was saying, while worry lingered in the green eyes behind the lenses. “That’s actually not why I stopped you. Let’s sit for a minute, shall we?”

“Is something wrong?” Bethia asked as they took places at either end of the nearest sofa.

Jewel blew out a long breath. “Have you received any recent letters from Douglas?”

The quickening of pulse, the faint wave of nausea surprised Bethia. After two months of no contact, she had assumed that the mere mention of Mr. Pearce’s name could not affect her in any adverse way.

“Bethia?”

Bethia focused her attention upon her cousin again. “No, not since mid-October.”

“Tell me of the last time you heard from him.”

Jewel would not ask out of idle curiosity, Bethia reminded herself. “He surprised me at church, telephoned afterward pretending to be Danny, and then sent flowers after I begged
him not to.” Her pulse raced from the memory. She swallowed. “I’m afraid I overreacted. I sent him a harsh letter.”

Jewel’s expression suggested she already knew of the letter. “He drove you to it, Bethia. Never forget that.”

“But I could have phrased it more . . .” The weight of her cousin’s second statement struck Bethia. A chill passed through her. “What is it, Jewel? He hasn’t gone and—”

“No, not that.” Jewel rested her hand upon Bethia’s arm and leaned forward. “You’ll forgive me for keeping this from you while you were at school. Grady agreed with me that it was best, with all you have on your shoulders. But Douglas left for Canada in early November.”

Bethia’s relief turned into panic. “Canada? Because of me? My letter?”

Jewel shook her head. “Because he hasn’t the sense God gave a goose, and some palm reader took advantage of that. But frankly, yes, his infatuation with you is what’s fueling this nonsense. He figures to come back with a fortune in Klondike gold to make you reconsider.”

Klondike.
Newspapers were filled with accounts of the gold rush, focusing on the hardships the miners were going through more than the fortunes carried back to England. Fatigue returned with a vengeance. She probed her temples with her fingers.
You could have telephoned Jewel or William for help. Why did you have to write such a letter?

“Stop that, Bethia,” Jewel admonished gently. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re not responsible for this foolishness. But we felt you should be informed now that you’re back in town and could conceivably cross paths with Muriel.”

“She blames me,” Bethia said in a flat voice.

“If she does, that doesn’t mean she has a valid reason. You have to understand my mother’s side of the family, Bethia. They quarrel like blue jays, but let one suffer a perceived snub, and the rest fall into rank behind him. It matters not one whit if that person is right or wrong, it only matters that he’s a Pearce.”

****

“I wonder why they’re like that,” Danny said in the parlour of the Cannonhall Road house that evening. He had declared his intention to savor every minute of his first evening home, and so Bethia and John obliged him after the older Rayborns and Doyles had gone to bed. They sat at a table near the fireplace, with the boys taking turns stoking the fire or adding more coals.

Bethia clicked a black wooden domino in place. The conversation with Jewel still preyed upon her mind, and she had poured out the story to her brother and nephew. “Family loyalty is admirable, but only up to a reasonable point.”

“What reasonable point?”

“When it makes a person
willfully
blind toward an injustice perpetrated on someone outside the family,” Bethia replied. “If I knew either of you were purposely hurting someone else, I couldn’t in good conscience take your side.”

“You couldn’t?” John picked up a domino from the semicircle facing him, put it back, and then placed another next to the one Bethia had just played. “I’d take your side no matter what.”

Bethia smiled at the boy. “But you wouldn’t be helping me, by shielding me from the consequences of my actions.”

“And what if she murdered someone?” Danny asked. He was tall and gangly and freckled, with strawberry-blonde hair shot with brown and auburn. His big hands and long fingers befitted a pianist and future surgeon, and a pair of oversized feet kept him from losing his balance.

“Bethia wouldn’t do that.”

“Just for the sake of academics, what if she did?”

“I would encourage her to turn herself in,” John replied. “But I couldn’t do it myself. And you?”

Studying Bethia’s face with an appraising eye, Danny replied, “That depends. Would there be a reward?”

“It’s obvious who loves me the most,” Bethia said with an affectionate smirk.

He wagged a long finger at her. “Ah, but didn’t you just declare that you wouldn’t want to be shielded from the consequences of your actions? Would you begrudge your brother a little profit at the same time?”

“Frankly, yes.” Bethia nodded toward the five dominos still facing him. “And we’ll have to nudge each other awake in church tomorrow if you won’t take your turn.”

“Sorry.” He placed a domino beside the one John had played, connecting the
threes.
“Must be all the haggis I ate.”

“Pass,” Bethia said when none of her numbers matched the dominoes at either end.

John clicked a domino into place. “Haggis?”

“Quite popular in Scotland.” Enjoying the effect the description would have on his nephew, Danny said, “It’s the lungs, heart, and liver of a sheep, chopped and mixed with oats and onions, then boiled in its stomach.”

“That’s disgusting.” John pruned up his face as if he’d actually tasted the dish. “I’m never going to Scotland.”

“They don’t exactly tie you down and force you to eat it, you know,” Danny said. “And besides, why is eating a sheep organ any less appealing than eating its muscle?”

“Really Danny, that’s enough,” Bethia said, taking pity on John and feeling just a bit queasy herself.