Wicked Company (33 page)

“She danced very prettily,” his taciturn companion allowed, although Sophie sincerely doubted that he was overly impressed with any portion of the entertainments. She guessed Roderick Darnly was a young man of culture and sophisticated tastes. Bath’s local diversions surely could not measure up to his high standard.

Despite her firm resolve to ignore the tête-à-tête taking place between Hunter and Mavis, Sophie couldn’t help but stare at the actress as she folded her arm possessively around that of her companion and drew him out of the room.

Hunter Robertson freely dispenses kisses, to be sure, but he never even said a proper thank-you for my taking Betsy’s part,
Sophie fumed silently. She had a violent desire to fire a cannon through the door where he and Mavis had just disappeared.

“Have you learned whether you can come out with us on the morrow?” Peter asked eagerly, distracting her from brooding further over the couple’s abrupt departure. “After all, we claimed you for a friend
before
your fame commenced…”

“I think ‘fame’ is a bit of an exaggeration,” Sophie replied, trying to smile. “Actually, though,” she informed her backstage admirers, “I’ve not been notified that I
must
rehearse tomorrow. If your offer still stands, I’d be delighted to join you.”

***

Sir Peter Lindsay-Hoyt and the Honorable Roderick Darnly rendezvoused with Sophie at the early hour of eight o’clock in the morning. Roderick Darnly’s coach deposited the trio in front of the arched entrance to the King’s and Queen’s Bath adjacent to the celebrated Pump Room. Both men had cast an appreciative eye at the green velvet gown Sophie had wheedled out of Maude, the wardrobe mistress, before she’d departed the previous night from the theater.

“’Tis such a pity Beau Nash is no longer Master of Ceremonies,” Peter commented on the demise of the legendary social dictator who had died two years earlier in 1762. “I think some of the standards of decorum in Bath have slipped, would you not agree, Darnly?”

Richard Nash had set strict rules of conduct and dress in the baths themselves, the Pump Room where visitors drank the medicinal waters, the card rooms, and the assembly rooms. And he had been the only city official successful in forcing the sedan chair men to refrain from tossing their passengers out of their hired vehicles if they balked at paying exorbitant charges.

Inside, they parted company. A uniformed matron led Sophie to the changing room where she was handed an odd garment made of thin yellow canvas.

“’Tis stiff as a board and cut like a parson’s gown. ’Twon’t cling to the body when it gets wet, I guarantee it, miss,” the matron added with a wink and handed her a chip hat made of finely woven straw and a handkerchief “to wipe the sweat from y’face.”

Feeling slightly ludicrous in this bizarre costume, Sophie followed the matron down a stone-sided corridor, through an archway and into a hot, humid chamber, open to the air, where a steaming pool fed by natural hot springs stretched at her feet. She could hardly keep from laughing at the sight of Sir Peter and Roderick Darnly padding toward her dressed in drawers and waistcoats constructed of the same sort of thin canvas as was her gown.

“Not the most fetching attire, is it?” Darnly commented dryly.

Sophie had been shocked when first she’d discovered that men and women bathed together in these public spas, but now having seen the getup that was de rigueur, she thought them the least seductive garments imaginable.

“Cross Bath, here, is a delightful temperature, don’t you agree?” Peter informed her as an attendant assisted him down the steps and into the water. “At King’s, one is all but parboiled!”

Steam was boiling up around Sophie and her costume ballooned out to absurd proportions as she teetered on the last step, nearly submerged in the stone-lined cauldron. Fortunately, she was able to grab on to a ring at pool side where she established her footing on the floor of the basin, floundering in water up to her neck. An opaque mist hovered over the bath itself and she could hear the strains of a string quartet playing Vivaldi. Viewing terraces overhead ringed the mineral pool. When the vapors parted occasionally, she could glimpse elegantly attired ladies and gents promenading in front of the bathers who were taking the waters below.

“Quite the thing, eh Sophie?” Peter laughed, eyeing the spectators. “’Tis nice to be able to socialize while the old pores cleanse themselves, don’t you think? Let’s out all the poisons, they say…”

“Takes some
in,
I’ll wager,” Darnly asserted. “Too many people with unidentified ailments in one place, if you ask me.”

Sophie nodded, growing hotter by the moment. She retrieved her handkerchief from atop her straw hat and wiped her flushed face. Then, she scanned the crowded waters themselves, relieved to see several other women bobbing nearby and she smiled at them tentatively. “I must look frightful,” she exclaimed, inspecting her wrinkled fingertips.

“You appear the lovely mermaid,” Peter said gallantly, his own face flushed scarlet. “But let us repair to breakfast.”

The female attendant took Sophie back to the dressing room where she was wrapped in a flannel blanket while she adjusted to the temperature outside the bath. Feeling somewhat faint, she sank down on a small bench and waited until she felt cooler before dressing. Soon, however, she’d recovered enough to join her escorts in front of the colonnaded bathing area.

“What say you we go to the chocolate house?” Peter proposed as Roderick Darnly hailed his coachman.

Following a hearty repast of Bath buns, eggs, and chocolate, the trio advanced to the Pump Room, an enormous chamber large enough to serve as a ballroom. Near one wall stood a tall fountain spilling warm mineral water of a slightly greenish tinge into a round stone basin.

“I drink three pints a day,” Peter confided, his eyes briefly scanning the room on the lookout for any luminaries present.

“I never touch the stuff,” said Darnly. “I can’t help thinking there is some regurgitation from the baths into the cistern of this pump… can’t abide the thought of quaffing water that’s boiled diseased bodies in the preceding hours.”

His observation was enough to convince Sophie she would do anything but accept Peter’s invitation to sip the warm liquid.

“No thank you.” She shuddered but was pleased to see she had earned an approving nod from the imperious Roderick Darnly.

Next, her two escorts led her on a leisurely walk along the Grand Parade, a gravel path that bordered the river Avon. The ice from the previous day’s storm had melted and the temperature had become pleasant enough at midday to stroll outdoors. At half past three, Roderick guided them to an eating house on Kingsmead where they dined on mutton, followed by river fish and braised parsnips.

“Darnly and I prefer to arrive at the ball after eight,” Peter announced, patting his stomach with a satisfied gesture. “That allows us time to return to our lodgings so you may scan a few pages of my play.” Sophie gazed back at him, somewhat unsettled. “Oh, Sophie, for an Orange Girl, you can be such a goose,” Peter laughed affectionately. “Darnly’s housekeeper will make us tea and ’twill be all prim and proper, we assure you, don’t we, Darnly?”

“Speak for yourself, Peter,” Roderick Darnly said dryly. At Sophie’s raised eyebrow, he reached over and patted her hand. “I’m sure you shall be safe enough in our company, my dear.”

Somehow, Sophie did not feel reassured, but as they had been so generous in entertaining her all day, she concluded the least she could do was skim Sir Peter’s play. She was curious to see what he considered an amusing comedy.

Darnly’s coach headed up Gay Street, away from the center of town, eventually entering the half-constructed Circus. It soon drew up in front of a handsome door in the solitary row of town houses that had been completed by the celebrated architect, John Wood, the Younger.

“The building will be so beautiful when ’tis finished,” Sophie said in a breath, craning her neck to survey the graceful crescent of columns decorating the front facade.

A housekeeper dressed in black bombazine and a white batiste mobcap greeted them at the door and ushered them into a well-appointed sitting room whose fireplace crackled with glowing logs. Darnly and Sir Peter removed their coats and settled in front of the hearth with the day’s journals, while Sophie was directed to a desk near the window.

“The Footmen’s Conspiracy,”
she said aloud, surveying the sheaf of papers in front of her. She swiveled in her straight-backed chair. “Well, I like the title…” She smiled encouragingly.

“Excellent!” Peter beamed, looking up from his reading. “Let’s hope you find the rest of the tale amusing. ’Twas capital fun composing the thing. There’s pen and a quill there,” he added. “If you find gross errors—just change ’em!”

Sophie returned to the manuscript and began to read. Tea was brought in and absently she nodded her thanks to the housekeeper as the serving woman set a cup beside her on the desktop. Except for logs falling in the hearth as they burned to cinders, the only sound in the room was Sophie’s pen scratching against the paper. She had to suppress a smile at Peter’s atrocious spelling and some of the stiff, unnatural dialogue—not to mention the severe lack of plot—but she found the setting and characters reasonably engaging. It was, as Garrick would have called it, a noble effort by an amateur.

“Well?” Peter demanded as the shadows lengthened across the sitting room floor. “Your verdict, madam.”

Sophie remained silent, gathering her thoughts in an effort to say something sensible.

“The lass is trying to be diplomatic,” Darnly interjected. “Allow her time to think of something charitable.”

Peter’s dark brows knit together in consternation and Sophie hastened to say, “Really, that’s quite unfair of you, Mr. Darnly.
The Footmen’s Conspiracy
has some very appealing qualities. It wants a bit of story line, and I must admit, your spelling’s fairly erratic, Sir Peter, but—”

“My dear, Sophie,” the young baronet urged earnestly, “let’s dispense with titles… ‘Peter’ will do nicely.” He appeared pleased and excited by her gentle verdict. He glanced at his friend triumphantly. “See, Darnly, and you thought I was just an idle scribbler. Sophie, here, is
in
the theater! And she says the work has merit!” He rose from his chair and walked over to the desk. “I see you’ve made some changes,” he noted, peering over her shoulder. “What a fine hand you have. Perhaps you’d be willing to check
all
the spelling… and recopy it. I’d
pay you, of course. I wish to send it to George Colman before the month is out. Darnly, here, is thinking of purchasing a mortgage on some of Lacy’s shares in Drury Lane. The man’s always short of cash, is he not, Darnly?” he added, looking over at his companion, who merely gazed back at them expressionlessly. “If Darnly’s an investor, that’ll add a bit of push, won’t it?” He smiled broadly. “With your help—and Roderick’s—I just might become a proper playwright!”

“Sophie’s corrected your spelling,” Darnly said sardonically, “but she hasn’t amended your plot.”

“He could easily improve it,” Sophie said suddenly, irritated by Roderick Darnly’s veiled condescension, “if he wrote a scene where all the footmen gather to plan their revenge against the old skinflint character. It should be here,” she said, pointing at a sheet of paper with many crossed out sections and additions, “at the beginning of the second act.”

“Of course!” Peter agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “That’s precisely what’s needed. Perhaps you could jot down a few appropriate lines when you do the recopying?”

Sophie looked at her host narrowly.

“Are you engaging a copier or a collaborator?” she asked pointedly.

Peter Lindsay-Hoyt flushed and glanced over at Darnly.

“A collaborator, to be sure,” Roderick laughed. “I’ve enjoyed dabbling in a bit of play writing myself,” he avowed, “for little entertainments put on at my club. I’ve found that two heads are always much better than one… and that’s especially true in your case, Peter. I suggest you sign her on immediately as your coauthor.”

“If you think so,” Peter said tentatively. Then he glanced down at all the additions and deletions he had made in his struggle to put his work on paper. He sighed. “Right, then. ’Tis agreed.” Suddenly he smiled at both of them with renewed enthusiasm. “Together, Sophie and I shall rewrite this play!”

Fourteen

Over a glass of champagne provided by Roderick Darnly, Sophie and Sir Peter toasted their agreement to work together to improve
The Footmen’s Conspiracy.
Then, as dusk deepened into evening, the three departed for Harrison’s Assembly Rooms situated on the east side of Terrace Walk overlooking a formal garden that bordered the river Avon.

Sophie was astonished at the sheer size of the ballroom. It appeared to be nearly a hundred feet in length and its stucco ceilings more than thirty feet high. Huge, ornate crystal chandeliers hung over the wooden dance floor at intervals of twenty feet.

“We shall take tea later,” Peter advised, his heightened color betraying his excitement at being part of the lively scene whirling around them. “But first, let’s stroll around the ballroom to determine if there is anyone here worthy of notice.”