The Plain Old Man (21 page)

“Now, Emma, don’t start slobbering over me. I did it for myself as much as anybody. I’m in this circus, too, you know. Go check your patient, and let’s get started.”

They went into the drawing room, where Gillian Bruges was still lying inert under a mohair throw on one of the sofas. “Gillian, are you awake?”

“Unh? Oh.” The eye that was still operable opened. “Yes, Mrs. Kelling.”

“My dear, we have to leave now. I’m putting a telephone and the numbers for the police and the hospital right here on this table beside you. And here’s some aspirin and a carafe of water, and more ice for your face if you need it. You know where the bathroom is, don’t you?”

“Yes, I can manage. Thank you, Mrs. Kelling.”

“Now we’ll make sure all the doors and windows are locked and the burglar alarms switched on so you’ll be perfectly safe. I wish there were a neighbor I could get to come in and sit with you, but I’m afraid they’re all coming to the show.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m used to being alone in my apartment.”

“Then you just get some rest and we’ll see you later.”

“Good luck with the show. I’m sorry I let you down.”

Emma straightened the mohair throw as a last proprietary gesture and went out, counting noses.

“Let’s see. Three, five, six of us plus the two Heatherstones. Too many for the Buick. You people did walk over, didn’t you, Martha?”

“Yes, we thought it would make one fewer car in the parking lot. Jenny will be coming home with Parker, I expect. She can sit in her father’s lap on the way over.”

“Oh, let her ride with me,” said Sarah. “Max told me he’d try to make it back for the performance. If by any wild chance he does, we’ll need another car anyway.”

This was wishful thinking, but Sarah didn’t feel like being squashed in with Jack Tippleton. She needed time to brood.

She didn’t get it, of course. The too-often-silent Jenicot chattered nervously all the way to the auditorium, mostly along the lines of, “Aren’t you scared to death, having to jump in at the last minute without even a proper rehearsal?” which didn’t do much for Sarah’s faltering morale. Jenicot herself was plainly in a state of hear panic, though she tried to cover up with far too much semihysterical laughter. Much as she disrelished what lay ahead of her, Sarah was glad when the short ride was over.

At least her demure village maiden’s costume was no great chore to get into. Sarah put on the polka-dot dress, tied the apron over it, found to her relief that the corkscrew curls and the flirty cap were all of a piece and pulled them over her own hair. Then she painted her face with china-doll spots of rouge on the cheeks, and went to cope with Aunt Emma’s bustle.

She found she wasn’t needed. Martha Tippleton was already in Emma’s dressing room, and the two of them were having a lovely time. “Remember when I first came to Pleasaunce and you got me into your little theater group?” Martha was saying. “I played Lady Windermere and you were my wicked mother. We thought we were being so terribly racy. Turn around so I can get at those hooks. Did you know you’ve got writing on your bustle?”

“Oh yes, some nonsense the boys got into ages ago,” Emma lied with an ease that astonished her niece. “Where’s that mermaid’s tail thing that goes over it, Sarah?”

“Right here. Want me to put it on?”

“No, we’ll manage. Run along and get started on the makeups. You do know your lines?”

“I think so. If I dry up, you’ll have to bail me out, Mrs. Tippleton.”

“Please say Martha. I’m not really your mother, you know. I’m sure you’ll be fine, Sarah. It’s hardly the thing to say under the circumstances, but I never did feel altogether at ease with Gillian. She’s an odd sort of girl, don’t you think? Aside from her predilection for my too-frequently loving husband, that is.”

Martha flushed. “That was in atrocious, taste. I don’t know what’s got into me tonight.”

“Something you could have used any time these past thirty years, in my candid opinion,” Emma rejoined. “I do wish we hadn’t had to leave Gillian alone in the house. Like her or not, she’s my responsibility.”

“You can phone her during the intermission.”

“But she might be asleep. I’d hate to wake her up just to relieve my own conscience.”

“You’ll think of something,” Martha said. “You always do. There, your fishtail’s on straight. Now struggle into this.”

Martha hopped up on a chair, dragging the billows of purple taffeta with her. Sarah saw there was nothing here for her to do, and went out to the makeup table, trying to remember her lines for the opening scene. She had rather a lot to do then, between her ballad of unrequited love and her dialogue with her stage mother. Fortunately, Martha would have far more lines than she, but Sarah didn’t want to have to get by on sobs and flutters alone.

After that, though, she didn’t make another appearance for a long time. A better-rehearsed Constance might have gone skipping about with the village maidens to fill in the interval between her songs, but she’d serve the cause better by lurking in the wings and keeping out from underfoot. She was supposed to pop out and hand Dr. Daly the teapot later on, but she didn’t have to say anything, merely drink her tea along with the rest and fall, like them, into an enchanted sleep until it was time to wake up and become unwillingly engaged to Cousin Frederick. That wouldn’t occur until after the trio and chorus at the opening of the second act.

Sarah wished she could have a session alone with the book; it was hard to concentrate on her part while she rouged cheeks and raised eyebrows. Jack Tippleton showed up at her table tonight, and allowed her to convert him into a proper old country squire without any protest. Sarah wondered if this was on account of the tongue-lashing he’d got from Emma at the dress rehearsal, or because Gillian Bruges wasn’t around to be impressed by his youthful virility or dismayed by the lack thereof. He’d given up trying to impress Sarah Bittersohn, obviously.

Sarah couldn’t have cared less one way or the other. She had too many others lined up waiting for her artistry. It occurred to her as she got toward the end that Sebastian Frostedd wasn’t among them. Maybe he’d decided to do his own face tonight, now that she’d set a pattern for him to go by; or maybe he just thought he’d wait and avoid the crush. He had lots of time, since he didn’t appear until so late in the first act.

She did think of sending one of Frederick’s hired guards to check on him, but then Ridpath Wale slid into the chair beside her, so she asked him instead. Ridpath only grunted, “In the men’s room, most likely,” and demanded her full and undivided attention to his makeup, as well as a good deal of sympathy for his heroism in going on with a damaged ankle. He must not have noticed that he only limped when he’d made sure somebody was watching.

At last Sarah got everybody painted up who required painting and was free to mull things over while she put the finishing touches to her own cheeks and eyes. By the time Lady Sangazure sailed forth in her purple panoply, Sarah had both her face and her mind made up.

“Aunt Emma, I’ve been thinking. Once I’ve gone offstage, I’m not needed at all till after the intermission. Martha could manage that little business of handing Dr. Daly the teapot. That would give me a chance to dash back to the house and check on Gillian.”

“Let me think.” Emma hunted around on her bosom for the large gold watch that was one of Lady Sangazure’s many accouterments and studied the time. “Yes, you could. You’d never be missed in the teapot scene, there’s such a mob milling about then. You are supposed to be in the Marvelous Illusion number singing the soprano part with Aline, but that’s a tricky one and you haven’t had a chance to rehearse with the group, so perhaps it’s as well you don’t try. Besides, we all wind up shrieking at the tops of our lungs, and I don’t suppose one shriek the fewer would matter. You’d have to be back here for your big number with Frederick at precisely nine thirty-five; but for heaven’s sake don’t cut it that fine or I’ll have a heart attack and mess up the finale. Now if you forget your lines during the opening scene, just hurl yourself on Martha’s shoulder and begin to cry. She’ll clue you in. Ready? Places, everyone.”

T
HE OVERTURE ENDED, THE
curtain parted. The bells rang forth their clarion sound, and from the throats of men and maids poured assorted sounds of rejoicing. Sarah dithered in the wings. Martha squeezed her hand. The male members of the chorus proclaimed for one last time that joy did definitely and incontrovertibly abound, then made their exit. The two Partletts entered, one downcast, the other perturbed, to show how wrong men can be about women.

Beginning in trochaic tetrameter and winding up in iambic pentameter, Mrs. Partlett begged to know the cause of her daughter’s strange depression. Constance delivered her agitated rebuttal, insisting that all her blushings and palings, her long-drawn sighs and tremblings of limb were nothing for a mother to fuss about. Undeceived by this reply, as what concerned parent would be, Mrs. Partlett motioned the girl choristers offstage and left Constance free to make her plaint. She made it, all forty lines of it, without a hitch.

From then on it was a piece of cake. Aunt Emma, as a last-minute inspiration, had provided Sarah with a beribboned basket, in the bottom of which lay a well-marked script, and Emma’s friend Millie, the prompter, sat ready to hiss from the wings, but Sarah needed none of their help. That was mostly because she had hardly anything to say once Dr. Daly hove into view bemoaning those long-gone, halcyon days when love and he were well acquainted, little noting that he was still the object of a comely young woman’s affections. Mrs. Partlett tried her hand at matchmaking, the effort came to nothing, Sarah fell sobbing on Martha’s bosom and was led away to be comforted.

The applause from the audience was sweet, the hugs and hand-squeezings and slaps on the back from members of the cast back-stage were sweeter, but Sarah didn’t pause to revel in their accolades. Dragging Frederick aside, she whispered, “Where’s that policeman you hired?”

“Which one?”

“I’ll take any one I can get. Quickly!”

“What’s the matter?”

“I have to go check on Gillian, and I’m not going alone. And I have to be back here by half-past nine, so quit stalling and find me that policeman.”

“I could—”

“You could not. You’re on in about ten minutes. Frederick, move!”

Grumbling something about Cousin Mabel, Frederick moved. He was back in a moment, towing a man who’d been trying unconvincingly to look like a stagehand.

“Officer Murgatroyd,” Frederick barked. “Take him, he’s yours.”

“Thanks,” said Sarah. “Come along, please, Officer.

Officer Murgatroyd took a look at Sarah in her polka dots and curls—she’d have no time to change, of course, though she had remembered to park her basket backstage—and willingly followed her out to her car.

“I suppose I should have told Sergeant Formsby I was leaving the hall,” he remarked as they got started, “only he told me not to bother him for anything short of murder.”

“Yes, well, I hope it won’t come to that,” Sarah told him. “In fact, it may not come to anything at all. It’s just that there’s been another spot of bother.”

She described the current bother, and he nodded. “I see what you mean. Too bad you had to leave the injured person by herself.”

“I know, but there was nothing else we could do at the time. Miss Bruges refused to be taken to the hospital, her injuries looked to be ugly but superficial, and she wasn’t in a bad state of nerves, at least not by the time we left. In fact, she seemed to be taking the incident more or less in stride,” Sarah added rather caustically.

“It takes them that way sometimes. It’s the shock. They get sort of I-don’t-care, then they fall apart later. The victim’s probably chewing her fingernails off up to the elbows by now, wondering if those two guys are on their way back to finish her off.”

“I’m not sure but what she may have cause to wonder,” said Sarah. “That’s why I’ve been thinking we may be wiser not to drive straight up to the house. I don’t want to turn this into a melodrama, but I’d as soon leave the car somewhere out of sight and slip into the house quietly.”

“But if she’s alone and okay, won’t she get scared if we go sneaking in on her?”

“If she is, the chances are she’s asleep and we can just sneak out again without her even knowing we were there. My aunt gave her something for her headache. Why don’t we just drive by the house and take a peek in? I can pull up behind the neighbor’s hedge.”

“Can’t do any harm.” Officer Murgatroyd peeked, and not in vain.

“Say, is that your aunt’s van in the driveway?”

“My aunt doesn’t have a van. I think we’re in business.”

Sarah stashed her car, first dousing the lights, then led Officer Murgatroyd at a quick scurry through the hedge and around behind the carriage house to the side door. The special door key she carried would deactivate the burglar alarm.

Warning each other not to make a sound, they went in. Luckily, Constance’s costume called for soft, heelless slippers. Officer Murgatroyd solved the dilemma of Mrs. Kelling’s polished floors by taking off his sturdy bluchers and carrying them in the hand that wasn’t resting on the butt of his gun.

Sarah wasted no time checking the drawing-room sofa. She knew by now where Gillian would be. Beckoning the policeman into the breakfast room, she inched open the door that connected it to the big dining room. Through the crack they could spy somebody short and thin, in blue denim pants and jacket, examining one of Emma Kelling’s silver epergnes with what looked like professional interest.

“Put that down.” The voice was Gillian’s, and she didn’t sound a bit frightened. “And for Christ’s sake, wipe off your fingerprints. Haven’t you any brains at all? You’re not lifting so much as a tooth-pick. We’re not leaving one single sign that anybody’s been here but me. When that bunch get back, they’re going to find me on that couch just where they left me, nursing my goddamn eye. Did you have to slug me so hard, Lev?”

“You said we couldn’t get away with any faking because the old dame knows too much about makeup.”