Leading Lady (52 page)

In her most fierce Cockney, Susan said, “Shall I box ’is ears for you, Miss Rayborn?”

“No, thank you,” Bethia said, though grateful to both women. It felt good to be reminded, once again, that she had allies. “Please have him wait in the parlour.”

With Susan’s grumbling assistance, she changed from her dressing gown into her white blouse and burgundy wool skirt. She refused to follow her initial impulse toward the blue silk, one of Guy’s favorites because it complemented her eyes. Her hair hung damp down her back as she walked downstairs. He was standing at the fireplace in the parlour.

“Hello, Guy.”
Dignity,
a voice said inside her mind. She may not have Muriel’s exotic beauty, but she could maintain dignity if it killed her.

“Bethia.” Guy advanced across the carpet.

Fearful that he would attempt to embrace her, Bethia took a step backward. He noticed and halted obligingly. Shadows lurked beneath his eyes.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Why are you here?” she asked in return. He had given up the right to know how she was keeping. And there was too much history between them to go through the motions of social niceties.

He nodded and said in a hollow voice, “I’m so sorry, Bethia. You were right about Muriel. I couldn’t even see her flattery for what it was.”

There was nothing she could add to make that any more true, so she simply waited.

“Mother and Father . . . the girls,” he went on. “They were so angry at me. They miss you.”

The thought caused warning needle pricks beneath her eyes. Bethia blinked, willing tears away. “I miss them too.”

“Perhaps you could stop by one day? Visit them?”

“One day.” It would have to be a long while from now, but she could not see herself simply forgetting the Russells were part of her life since her earliest years.

“Thank you.” He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, looked up at her again, and blurted, “I never felt good enough for you.”

“What?”

“You were always so perfect. And I held it against you instead of appreciating—”

“Don’t say that,” Bethia cut in.

“I can’t help but say it!” A sob broke his voice. “I miss you so much, Bethia. You always understood me better than anyone. I’ve no right even to ask, but can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

For days she had dreamed of this, his asking her to take him back, promising faithfulness for the rest of their lives. The wall between them consisted only of memories of his lies—and of her imagination’s tormenting pictures of him in Muriel’s arms. How easy it would be to destroy that wall. One step forward on her part, and life could go on almost as before.

It was the
almost
that gave her pause. For the immediate now, that would be good enough, surely better than walking about with the knot of pain in her chest. But what of the years to come? Did she really want to settle for an
almost
trusting relationship, just to keep from being alone?

If Guy had never been born, would her destiny be to wander through a life devoid of meaning? Or did the fact that she had devoted so much of her life to him mean that she had failed to notice other worthwhile paths branching out during her journey?

There are always other paths
passed through her mind.

She cleared her throat, looked at the face she had loved
for so long. At some point the love had become such a habit that she ceased to evaluate its merit.

“I promise you, I’ll never even so much as look at another woman,” he was saying.

“It’s not just ‘the other woman’ that’s the problem,” Bethia said, having realized it herself just seconds ago.

“Then what is it? I’ll do any—”

“The violin Muriel bought,” Bethia cut in. “It wasn’t for Bernard, was it? She gave it to you.”

She was guessing, but the flush that passed over his face was her answer.

“It’s . . . ah . . . I’ll get rid of it.
Anything,
Bethia.”

The fact that he had not thought of doing so on his own saddened her more than anything. “You said I was perfect,” she said. “I’m not. Far from it.”

He closed his eyes, opened them. “Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.” She shook her head and said gently, for she could still be moved by the misery in his expression. “But Guy, I do deserve better.”

****

“Bethia?”

“Just a minute, Mother.” Bethia wiped her eyes and blew her nose again. She tucked the wadded handkerchief beneath a bolster, stood, and brushed the wrinkles from her skirt.

“Come in.”

Her mother opened the door and entered. Father followed.

Oh no.
Blinking as if just awakening from an afternoon nap, hoping the red splotches that were surely on her face could pass for pillow marks, she said casually, “How were your mornings?”

“Claire says Guy was here,” Mother said without answering her question.

Father’s spectacles magnified the worry in his green eyes. “He asked you to take him back, didn’t he?”

“He says he made a mistake,” Bethia replied.

“A mistake?” Father shook his head. “Evading someone
you professed to love because you haven’t the courage to admit some misgivings . . . That’s not a mistake. That’s a character flaw. And as fond as I was of Guy at one time, it doesn’t bode well for a good life in the future.”

You don’t even know the half of it,
Bethia thought as Muriel’s face flashed before her mind’s eye.

“What did you say to him?” Mother asked.

The tension in the room was palpable. They were so afraid that she would ruin her future. “I forgave him.”

“You did?” Mother said, face falling as if she would weep.

Bethia rubbed her mother’s back and met her father’s worried stare. “And then I asked him to leave.”

****

“Have you seen the marmalade?” Jewel called, moving jars and bottles about in the kitchen cupboard Thursday morning.

“It’s here at the table,” Grady called back.

“Not the orange. I want to try the quince we bought yesterday.”

“I brought it to the table. And your tea’s getting cold, love.”

They shared two newspapers over breakfast—the
Times
and
Illustrated Morning News.
Jewel heaped quince marmalade upon her toast, stirred sugar into her tea, and scanned the
Times
front-page article concerning the growing tension over France’s claim to the left bank of the Nile. “Has there ever been a time when we and France weren’t at each other’s throats?”

She looked up when her husband did not even humor her with a distracted “Hmm?”

Grady was gaping at the newspaper open before him as if reading his own obituary.

“Grady?”

“Oh no . . .” he groaned.

She reached over to touch his arm. “Grady, what’s wrong?”

Finally he raised his color-blind eyes to her bespectacled ones. “She’s broken the camel’s back this time, love.”

Thirty-Nine

“Telephone, Lady Holt,” said Muriel’s mother’s chambermaid, Priscilla, whose cleaning duties had been extended to the parlour now that Florence was acting as nanny.

Prescott!
Muriel thought. Hopefully, the nanny had decided to look for a new situation in Sheffield instead of London and had remembered that she would be here this week. With Georgiana alternating between frenzied activity and weeping for her nanny, Muriel did not know how she would manage her on the train this afternoon. And she could not ask Florence to come for the ride. The maid could hardly get the child to obey without bribes.

“It’s Mrs. McGuire,” Priscilla went on.

Another reason for hope, Muriel thought. Jewel ringing her, even if only to remind her of tomorrow’s dress rehearsal, meant her anger was cooling. Perhaps somehow word had reached her that Guy was no longer a part of her life.

Perhaps the situation can be repaired after all,
she thought. If not back to the way it was before, at least patched well enough so that everyone she had hurt could eventually put this behind them.

She closed the parlour door, picked up the telephone from its table. “Hello, Jewel?”

“Muriel.”

Just the dead, flat way her cousin said her name made Muriel lower herself to the edge of the sofa. “Yes? What is it, Jewel?”

“Mr. Gatcomb devoted his column to you today.”

Muriel’s blood chilled. “Oh dear.”

“How
could
you—”

“I can explain,” Muriel cut in, her speech as rapid as her pulse. “I said something about Bethia in the heat of anger
that I realized later wasn’t true, but I rang his office Monday, and his secretary promised to tell him I’d made a mistake.”

“Muriel, he did some digging, found Douglas’s obituary, and then nosed around Sun Insurance. That led him back to the Royal Court. We’ve a lot of employees. I’m sure it wasn’t hard to find someone to talk.”

“I’ll sue, Jewel! I’ll demand a retraction! It wasn’t fair how Mr. Gatcomb ambushed me that way right after . . .” The full weight of the situation hit Muriel like a slap in the face. “Bethia will never forgive me now.”

“Bethia?”

Muriel swallowed. “I said she killed my brother and . . . that she was a heartless trollop.”

She heard the sigh through the earpiece, her cousin’s resigned voice again. “Muriel, Mr. Gatcomb obviously couldn’t resist finding out what you meant. Gossip sells newspapers. But it doesn’t libel
Bethia.
It puts the blame where it belongs.”

“Where it belongs,” Muriel muttered.

“It’s all here. Some of Douglas’s former co-workers saying how he ignored his job to follow Bethia about. A maid up at Girton College even confirms that. And then it goes on about how you blamed her when he died and . . . seduced her fiancé.”

Hard to breathe,
Muriel thought, a hand to her throat, where her pulse fluttered like mad.
You had everything! Why couldn’t you sit back and enjoy it instead of causing such chaos?!

“ . . . Frye and Mr. Cumberland,” Jewel was saying. “Grady and I agree.”

Twin tears trickled down Muriel’s cheeks. “Agree what?”

Another sigh. “It’s over, Muriel. There is a clause in your contract forbidding you to cause the Royal Court any adverse publicity. And you’re not likely to find work in any other London theatre.”

“Jewel, you can’t do this!” Muriel shook her head, as if her cousin could see her. “
The Bells
starts in two days! What
about the posters? I’ll visit Mr. Gatcomb personally and demand a retraction!”

“You can’t retract the truth, Muriel. And now I have to get back to work.”

****

“It’s good to see your appetite improving,” Daniel Rayborn said when Bethia went to the sideboard for seconds during lunch.

“Thank you, Father.” As she spooned beets onto her plate, she wondered why something so delicious had tasted so vile to her as a child. But she had no time to ponder this question, for she heard footsteps and turned to see Jewel walk into the dining room with a folded newspaper in her hand.

“Why, Jewel!” Mother said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Father got to his feet. “And you’re just in time.”

“No, thank you. I can’t stay.”

Still, Jewel waited until Bethia was seated, then pulled out the chair across from her and unfolded the newspaper. “Have you seen the
Illustrated London News?
”

“Why, no,” Father said. “We take the
Times
and the
Chronicle.
”

Something about the way Jewel looked up at her caused Bethia a sensation of faint nausea. But why?

“I’m afraid there is something I need to read to you.” Jewel pushed her eyeglasses up her nose and cleared her throat. “ ‘It seems the stage is not the only place where dramas are acted at Royal Court Theatre. . . .’ ”

Five minutes later, Mother and Father were giving Bethia stricken looks.

“Why didn’t you tell us about Muriel?” Mother asked.

Bethia lowered her head. “Well . . . it was such an ugly story.”

She could not bring herself to look at her cousin. And yet, how long could she have hidden something printed in the
newspaper?

“Do you know how that makes us feel?” Father said. “Being shielded from unpleasantries, like children?”

“Her motives were always pure,” Jewel reminded them, folding the newspaper again.

“We realize that,” Mother said and turned to Bethia once more. “Perhaps we could have helped you. We may be old, but we’ve gained some wisdom over the years.”

They were right, Bethia realized, looking at the dear faces. “I’m sorry. I just never wanted to worry you.”

“We worry
more
when we can’t believe that you’re doing as well as you say.” Father sighed. “I didn’t inform my parents of every minute in my day when I was your age. But please, never carry a burden like that alone again.”

“Yes, of course. Really, I’ll be more mindful in the future.”

Jewel smiled wearily. “Forgive me, but now that I’ve dropped in and ruined your meal, I have to get back to work. We’ve dress rehearsal tomorrow. And we’ve let Muriel go.”

“You have?” Bethia gaped at her cousin. As little as she cared for Muriel, there were jobs at stake. Jobs belonging to good people. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Absolutely. We can’t tolerate that sort of publicity.”

“Is her understudy up to the task?” Mother asked.

“She knows her lines.” Jewel pushed out her chair. “But Grady has an idea he’d like to try first. Please pray that it works.”

****

“I’m not sure I’m up to this,” Bethia said the following morning as her father opened the front door. Past him, she could see Hiram waiting in the carriage drive with the coach. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m a little tired.”

Mother put a hand upon her arm. “You’ll feel more energetic when you see the results of all your hard work.”

“But what if there are reporters?”

She had a strong feeling there would be, what with this morning’s
Times
confirming that Lady Holt had been fired from Royal Court. There was speculation over the success of
The Bells
with
two
understudies in the leads, but the article did embellish Mr. Carey’s—or Lord Danby’s—riches-to-rags-to-riches story. Perhaps just the novelty of it would keep ticket sales at least healthy enough to keep everyone employed.