Wicked and Wonderful (15 page)

“Regardless of his questionable character,” Miss Currivard offered, “Mr. Hemyock is quite talented. There can be no two opinions on that score. I have truly enjoyed the juggling and the various displays of swordsmanship, but I must say that I was very pleased to hear so much music included throughout the troupe’s unique presentations.” She then stopped for a moment causing Judith to pause with her, and added, “I just wish you to know how much your songs have spoken to my heart. I am certain by now you must have a rational understanding of how well-received your performances are but, truly, Miss Lovington, you have a quality that I have never before heard, which must in part explain…that is, who could possibly not find you absolutely enchanting.”

Judith felt her cheeks grow warm. She suspected Miss Currivard was referring to Lord Kelthorne. “I thank you most sincerely, but now you have made me blush.”

Miss Currivard set her feet in motion once more. She began marching once more uphill. “Oh, dear,” she murmured. “I keep wanting to ask you the most impertinent questions, which I know I should not. When I go beyond the pale, pray give me a setdown for I would not offend you for the world, but I am utterly intrigued by your presence in this acting troupe. There is, however, something more, something quite inexplicable about you that is even more a mystery to me.”

Since she fell silent, Judith glanced at her wondering what it was she had meant to say. “Do go on,” she encouraged her, “for you have quite intrigued me.”

“Well, I am not certain how to say this, but I have never found it so easy, so comfortable to speak with anyone before now. I cannot explain it except that it must be something in your manner or perhaps your kind disposition.”

Judith was surprised. “But I have seen you with your friends and there appears to me to exist a quite enviable camaraderie among you.”

“Harriet is my good friend, but I fear our friendship is centered almost exclusively on the worst habit of gabblemongering. But her heart is good. As for Faith, she is very sweet but scarcely has two words to say for herself and will not speak unless prodded with a stick.”

“I have been fortunate in the troupe. Margaret is my dearest friend and we have a wonderful rapport. Only four years separate us. She was eighteen when I joined the troupe. So many years later, we have numerous shared experience, Shelly amongst them.”

Miss Currivard turned to look at her, a frown between her brows. “But that would make you, good Lord, still in the schoolroom when you came to be with the troupe.”

“Yes,” Judith said, “but on that subject I will not for the present say more.”

The shots that reached them now were scarcely troubling.

Miss Currivard smiled. “And I thank you for saying so much as you have.”

Judith did not know how it was, but she was inclined to confide in Miss Currivard. “There is one thing I am not reluctant to speak of.”

“Indeed?” Miss Currivard smiled broadly.

“Well, I am not without my own plans for the future. I hope very much to one day purchase a cottage in Devonshire, and live as respectably as a retired actress may, in some village or other.”

“And you would be content after such a life as this?” She whirled about and swept a broad stroke with her arm encompassing the fair-like atmosphere at the bottom of the incline.

“More than you can imagine,” Judith said. “Such a life might be grand for a season but there is a weariness that attends the troupe, particularly in the depth of winter when traveling is labored. Tempers grow short and our funds dwindle. We must work very hard all summer to sustain ourselves through the dark months.”

“I see. I suppose on a beautiful day such as this, I am seeing the life of your troupe as something quite idyllic but not necessarily realistic.”

“On such a beautiful day as this, even I can see the troupe quite easily through your eyes.”

“Do but look. There is Mr. Doulting waving to us. I see that the tables are now laden with food.”

Judith called to Shelly. “We are to have our nuncheon now. Come, dearest.” Shelly stepped from the stream, shook off her feet, plopped to the ground and began replacing her stockings. Once her shoes were on her feet, she began running down the hill.

Judith might have hurried after her but in the distance she could see that Margaret had caught sight of her and was even now running in her direction with her arms wide open. At the base of the hill, Kelthorne’s servants were busily arranging nuncheon for the castle party and for the troupe.

Mr. Doulting approached them, his expression grim.

Chapter Seven

“What is it, Mr. Doulting?” Miss Currivard asked.

Mr. Doulting turned to walk beside her. “That fellow, Hemyock,” he said in some exasperation. “He will be the death of us all. I hope I do not give offense, Miss Lovington, but he is as deuced a fellow as ever was born. ”

“You cannot offend me by saying such things,” Judith said, smiling but keeping her voice low. Sounds could travel quite nicely the length of a stream. “Poor Mr. Hemyock. I fear all his abilities are in his acting voice since in all other ways he is a perfect cretin. Only, what has he been doing?”

“I chanced to stand beside him while he was firing his rifle and I cannot tell you how many times he pointed it at me while adjusting the pan or asking the servant if he needed more powder. And worse, he did not comprehend why I kept tilting the barrel away from me or suggesting he do so. ‘My hand is not on the trigger,’ he would shout as though I had lost my mind.”

“It is so like him,” she said, sighing. “It is almost as though there is no one else in the world but him.”

“Well, at least we are to eat.”

“Are you grown a trifle peckish, Mr. Doulting?” Judith asked. She could not help but smile. There was something so endearing about Laurence Doulting. Perhaps it was his curly hair, which served to give him a youthful appearance, or perhaps the keen look of intelligence in his eyes. Or maybe it was because he supported her opinion of Charles Hemyock. Whatever the case, she liked him.

“I confess that I am. Only tell me what it is you both have in your hands.”

Miss Currivard explained about Shelly’s bee. Mr. Doulting laughed then addressed Judith. “On another subject, however, permit me to say that your song earlier was quite magnificent. I had tears in my eyes.”

“Indeed?” Judith queried.

He then whispered, “Only pray say nothing of it to Aubrey, that is, Kelthorne, or I will not hear the end of it for a twelvemonth.”

“Your friend seemed less pleased with my performance. For if I recall, he spent most of the time looking at the horses.”

For some reason the pair next to her began to fidget, plucking at shirtsleeves and gloves and clearing throats. She wondered suddenly if either knew of his visit to her tent two nights past. She tried to keep a blush from rising on her cheeks.

“I feel quite certain,” Miss Currivard said, “that his lordship was only looking at the horses so that he would not follow Mr. Doulting’s lead and become a watering pot as well.”

“At the very least,” Mr. Doulting said, but he laughed.

Miss Currivard as well.

Judith wasn’t entirely certain what was behind all these gestures and remarks but fortunately, Shelly ran toward her and called out, “‘Tis time to eat, Judy. ‘Tis time to eat.”

Judith parted company with her new friend and Mr. Doulting and moved to a separate table where the troupe had already taken their seats. She was grateful to return to her more usual surroundings but was dismayed to find that the only seat remaining was at the very end, which turned out to be opposite Kelthorne. At least the tables were some ten feet apart. Still, she could hardly avoid meeting his gaze now and then.

Fortunately, Mr. Emborough, who proved to be garrulous, sat beside Kelthorne and was busy taunting him. The latter had apparently lost the shooting contest to Mr. Emborough.

Freddy addressed John quietly, “Mr. Emborough is also skilled with the sword. Mr. Doulting said as much. Maybe we could ask for a demonstration. He might show us something we could use in one of our performances.”

Before John could answer, Charles said, “He’s an amateur in every sense of the word and a buffoon.”

Horace, who had risen from his seat to assist Mrs. Marnhull, stared at Charles angrily. “He helped me wi’ the horses when you would not. ”

“I am an
actor,”
Charles stated boldly and in a voice that caused the party at the next table to turn to stare at him.

“And we ain’t never permitted to forget it, are we?” Horace returned hotly.

Laughter rang around the table. Judith joined in, but she had never quite seen Horace so enraged before. Charles, however, had quite worn out his welcome. From nearly the day he joined the troupe, his demands were consistently high-handed and on every occasion requested as though he held supremacy among all the actors. When Horace was not quick enough to perform a given task for him, Charles often read him the riot act.

Presently, Charles leaned back slowly. He lifted his chin, raised a brow, and crossed his arms over his chest. “In even one passage from Shakespeare by my reading, I am more than ye could ever be in a thousand.”

“Oh, Charles,” John said. “Do stubble it, fer God’s sake, man. Ye sound like a coxcomb.”

He swept a dramatic arm in Horace’s direction, a young man at least sixteen years his junior, and said, “Well, he began this nonsense.”

“Then see that ye finish it.” John. Always the voice of reason.

“I should be happy to,” he stated grimacing, “but I do not believe it an honorable thing to engage in fisticuffs with my inferiors.”

Horace made a move in Charles’s direction.

John instantly rose from his seat and grabbed at Horace whose face was now flaming. He turned him around and walked him in the direction of the horses.

“He’ll hardly grow into a man if John keeps protecting him,” Charles stated.

Judith, who saw that both Henry and Freddy were ready to tear Charles limb from limb, interjected softly. “Has anyone explored the caves yet? Miss Currivard and I passed by them but we did not venture inside. What of you, Bobby? I saw you there earlier. Did you chance to make even the smallest exploration?”

“Nay,” he responded, casting a dagger-glance at Charles. “I looked in. Had I not been in costume, I should have explored as far as I could go but ‘twas too damp.”

Judith, seeing that Charles would speak again, once more interjected. “Mrs. Marnhull, would you pass the bread, please, and the butter? The ham looks marvelous. Angelique, you will be content today, for I know how much you like ham and that is perhaps the finest I have seen in a twelvemonth.”

“‘Tis a wonderful thing to have friends wat live in a castle,” Angelique said.

Since Judith’s request sent the food once more moving about the table, tensions dwindled in quick stages. Judith observed, and not for the first time, that it would never do to allow men to get very hungry. Tempers never raged more, than with too many hours stretched between one meal and the next.

A moment later, the dropping of a linen to the ground at Kelthorne’s table, caused Judith to glance in that direction. She found that the earl was looking at her in a somewhat marked manner. He smiled and nodded, and in his eyes she saw his approval.

She inclined her head in response, but since her heart fairly leapt in her breast at such a smile, she set to vigorously decimating with knife and fork, the ham on her plate.

After what in the end became a pleasant dinner, Henry, Freddy, and Bobby entertained the castle party with another powerful display of tumbling. All three young men were quite strong, lithe, and skilled so that there were as many bursts of applause as there were sudden gasps in fear that the entire act would fall off the stage. But the tumblers held fast.

Later, several of the men of the troupe exchanged their costumes for more serviceable clothes and with Mr. Doulting and Mr. Emborough, explored the caves that proved, indeed, to be quite damp. John very sweetly took Shelly within as well though they emerged but a few minutes later with Shelly in tears. “She became frightened,” he explained, holding her close.

“I expect she would,” Judith said. “I cannot even bring myself to go within. Shelly, you are far braver than I. Let me take her, John. I know very well you wish to return.”

Since Shelly reached for her, John smiled somewhat sheepishly. “Thank ye, Judy. I do, indeed, but are ye certain? I would not wish to trouble ye.”

“Pray, do not be absurd. Now go. As for you, my dear,” she said drawing back and meeting Shelly’s gaze, “why do we not find things to make a house for your bee in addition to the bed?”

Shelly agreed with a sniff and a quivering of her lip. Judith continued to hold her and walked back down the hill. In the distance, she could see Charles near the wagons. He was alone and she could not help but wonder what mischief he was plotting this time.

Not far distant, she saw Lord Kelthorne extend his hand to Miss Currivard as he assisted her in crossing the stream not far from Charles. Judith thought they made a rather stunning pair since they shared the same thick, wavy blond hair. The knowledge that she was regarding a future that could never be hers forced her to look away and to refuse to ponder the longings which of late had been dogging her heels.

She lowered Shelly to the ground and helped her to cross the gentle stream. They jumped from boulder to boulder and in the end both their gowns were wet to the knees. But the day was fine and they proceeded to the opposite side of the narrow gorge in search of woody treasures fit for bee-house building.

“Look!” Shelly cried, pointing up. “He’s come back.”

Judith lifted her gaze to the top of the cliff and there, poised at a lower edge of a narrow footpath was a young stag. She still marveled that the animals were so fearless with so many people around and wondered if they often canvassed this lower portion of the gorge for bits of food once picnickers had departed.

Suddenly, a rifle shot boomed in her direction and in a split second, the stag leaped into the air, twisting and turning then striking the granite wall once before falling to the earth but a few yards from where she stood with Shelly.