Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Julia approached Covent Garden on opening night of The Poison Pen with the same anticipation she had approached it on the first night of the Season.
No, greater anticipation.
In fact, she wasn’t even sure anticipation was the proper word to describe the emotions currently at war within her. Her stomach was twisted in knots, and so were her fingers—both, thankfully, invisible to Aunt Mildred. Surely, though, she could feel Julia’s leg, bouncing nervously beneath her skirts.
As evidence that her state of agitation had not entirely escaped notice, when the carriage turned onto Bow Street, Aunt Mildred admonished Julia with the same words she used every time: “Settle yourself, my dear. We’re nearly there.”
Nearly theredid nothing at all for Julia’s nerves.
Against Graham’s insistence that he would propose again after the play, she balanced the fact that she had heard nothing from him for a week. True, he had evidently sent word to Aunt Mildred—or at least, she had made the announcement over dinner—that they were to have the use of his box on opening night. But there were six of them: Mama, Mr. Remington, Jeremy, Laura, Aunt Mildred, and her. And only six seats in the box. Which meant that Graham would not be joining them tonight, either.
Had he succeeded in revising the play sufficiently to keep her and the rest of the Magazine for Misses out of danger?
Or had he changed his mind? Was this the invitation to Miss on Scene he’d always intended to send?
Oh, if only she could have a look or a word from him before the play began. If only he could be seated beside her and, when everyone else was focused on the stage, reach out and give her fingers a squeeze of reassurance.
The four ladies had traveled in Aunt Mildred’s barouche, while Jeremy and Mr. Remington had elected to call for a hackney. When Julia stepped onto the pavement, she could not determine which of the cabs waiting in the long line of carriages in front of the theater might contain her brother and stepfather.
With Laura’s assistance, she helped Aunt Mildred from the coach. Though improved even more from what she had been a week before, she still moved slowly and stiffly. A jouncing ride across the city had rendered her pale beneath her rouge. But there was a familiar twinkle in her eyes as they joined other theatergoers in the vestibule and waited to be reunited with the rest of their party.
The crush was breathtaking—quiet literally. Fashionably dressed people pressed in on them from all sides. The staircase ascending to the long saloon flowed like a waterfall of humanity, and Julia could imagine that the benches in the pit would be crowded past capacity tonight. Rumor had it even the Prince of Wales intended to make an appearance in his father’s box.
She could not help but think of what Graham had said, about English theatergoers’ eagerness to be mocked. What accounted for their enthusiasm?
Or had they heard rumors about the target of tonight’s satire? The Magazine for Misses certainly had its detractors. Had some number of these people come to join in the mockery at her expense?
Was the person who had sent those awful notes among them?
Julia glanced from one person to the next, from silk gown to quizzing glass, from balding head to elegant coiffure. Which of them had claimed to be R.B.?
Finally, she caught sight of Jeremy straining to search above the crowd. Heedless of propriety, she thrust a hand into the air to signal them. Beside her, and much to her amusement, Laura did the same. Mama sent them both a gently chiding glance, but Julia also noted the eagerness of her expression as Mr. Remington pressed through the throng to appear at her side. The two of them had first met many years ago, before Mama’s marriage to Papa, but circumstances and an ocean had come between them and kept them apart for almost thirty years.
Mama’s face made clear that she did not intend to lose sight of him again.
“About time,” Aunt Mildred grumbled, not quite under her breath, as the six of them formed a phalanx to tackle the stairs.
The curtain to Lord Dunstane’s box stood open, anticipating their arrival. Six empty chairs with blue upholstery awaited them, as always. Julia bit back her disappointment. She had been hoping one of the ushers had been ordered to squeeze in a seventh chair, as was sometimes done. She had been hoping Graham would join them, as a surprise.
After some discussion, Laura, Mama, and Aunt Mildred took the seats in the front. Jeremy and Mr. Remington sat behind their wives, and Julia took the chair behind Aunt Mildred, despite that lady’s objection.
“You won’t be able to see as well,” she insisted. “And worse yet, you won’t be seen.”
But Julia didn’t mind the relative obscurity, tucked behind Aunt Mildred’s turban and almost against the silk-covered wall dividing their box from the next. She could see perfectly fine. Or well enough, at least. And the curtain at her back promised the possibility of escape, if all did not go as planned.
In a box across the way sat the Marquess and Marchioness of Estley and their daughter, Lady Clarissa, who had inherited her father’s golden good looks and her mother’s gift of music. Clarissa caught Julia’s eye; she, too, looked faintly queasy. With a surreptitious tilt of her head, she directed Julia’s gaze to a box closer to the stage, where sat Lord and Lady Stalbridge with her stepson, Lord Manwaring.
Tonight, there was no mistaking that young man for anything but a dandy, in a russet velvet coat paired with a purple- and green-striped waistcoat, a jewel-encrusted quizzing glass, and artfully mussed brown curls. It was a costume that invited even the most jaded theatergoers to stare.
If the world was to discover tonight that he was the famous Mrs. Goode, he appeared to be ready for the attention, prepared to defy their anticipated scorn.
Half past six o’clock came and went. Twice, Mr. Remington pulled out his pocket watch and showed it to all the ladies. In a most uncharacteristic gesture, Jeremy reached out and covered her hand where it lay clenched in her lap. The noise around them rose and fell in waves of speculative chatter and anticipatory hush. At long last, the curtains on the stage moved and finally parted enough for a single person to step through.
Graham appeared, and Julia’s breath caught in her throat.
Even alone on the stage, dwarfed by the gilded proscenium, he cut an imposing figure. The light from the chandelier struck fire from his hair. And he was wearing a kilt! Heat rushed into Julia’s cheeks at the sight of his legs, the memory of his teasing words at the cottage, and the possibility—nay, the certainty—that he had done it for her.
Someone in the audience—Julia felt sure it was Lord Manwaring—whistled.
Graham bowed in acknowledgment, but his stern features did not crack. Against the murmur that began to ripple through the crowd, he raised a hand until silence fell once more.
“On behalf of the playwright and the actors, allow me to offer my thanks for your patience. We have all been waiting eagerly for some time to bring you The Poison Pen. Unfortunately—”
At that word, noise from the audience swelled again, whispered speculations, murmurs of disappointment. Julia leaned forward, gripping the edge of her seat with her free hand, wishing she had the power to make them all hush.
Graham stood, saying nothing more until he was sure he would be heard.
When the uproar had settled, amid reprimands from various spots about the theater for “Quiet!” he crossed his arms behind his back, dipped his head, and began again. “Unfortunately, we will be unable to bring you tonight’s performance, as we find ourselves without our leading lady, Mrs. Cole, who plays the part of Perpetua Philpot.”
Mutters of disappointment surged, fans snapped open, and a few people stood to depart.
Julia’s heart pounded. Had this been Graham’s plan all along, not to go through with the play? But no, she could not imagine he would have allowed the theater to fill with people who were now poised to leave, even more disgruntled than if they’d sat for two hours having their taste criticized and their flaws made ridiculous.
Had Mrs. Cole refused to go on after all the last-minute changes?
Or had Graham discovered that she had something to do with the notes? Might she be the mysterious person who had signed herself R.B.?
Then again, it could simply be bad luck. A head cold or sore throat might make it impossible for her to perform, and Julia could not remember having heard any mention of an understudy.
And if that were the case . . .
“Wait!” she called down, scrambling to her feet. Jeremy’s hand gripped hers, urging her back to her seat. She slipped free of his grasp and stepped to the front rail of the box. “Wait.”
Throughout the audience, heads began to turn. Ladies whispered behind fans and gentleman pointed discreetly. Quiet, though not silence, returned to the theater. Most of the people who had stood up sat down again. Graham tipped his head to one side, his expression that familiar mixture of disapproval and bemusement. “Aye?”
She held up a finger, asking for a moment, and then turned to leave the box.
Jeremy stepped between her and the curtain. “What do you intend to do?”
“Julia, Julia,” Mama sighed. “You’re making a scene.”
“Is there a better place for it than the theater?”
That voice belonged to Aunt Mildred, who had turned partly in her seat, the better to favor Julia with a sly wink. “Let her go.”
When that command was not immediately heeded, she struck the floor with her walking stick to reinforce it. With the closest thing to a glower Julia had ever seen, Jeremy reached out a hand and drew back the curtain at the rear of the box. “I hope you know what you’re about,” he said in a low voice as she passed.
She didn’t. Or at least, not entirely. But her slippered feet carried her swiftly down the staircase and through the vestibule. Two ushers guarded the heavy double doors into the theater. Startled, one of them reached for a handle so as not to impede her progress. In another moment, she was at the foot of the stage, looking up at Graham. The little staircase had been taken away.
Graham squatted at the edge of the stage and said in a low voice, “What is it I’m waiting for?” His bare knees above his stockings were a distraction.
“Let me help.”
One brow arced. “Help?”
“I can play Perpetua Philpot.”
The expression that crossed his face was only slightly less doubtful than the one he had worn during rehearsal when she had first taken the stage. “Aren’t you worried about your good name?”
She wasn’t certain whether he’d intended the play on words—good and Goode, her “Goode name” being the name under which she wrote for the magazine. Still, she returned a mischievous smile. “I thought you might be more worried about yours.”
Blackadder’s name, that was. But also the name he’d offered to share with her.
His lips quirked in answer. Then he motioned to her right with a nod of his head.
“Psst!”
She turned to see Mr. Sawyer gesturing to her through the crack of what would otherwise have been a hidden door.
“This way,” he directed, urging her through.
Julia slipped past the actor into a narrow corridor, and as the door shut behind her, she heard Graham say to the audience, “If we may beg your indulgence for a few more moments, it seems the show will go on after all.”
“What happened?” she demanded of Sawyer who was already hurrying back along the corridor, which ran below and along the right side of the stage. “Where’s Mrs. Cole?”
“No one knows,” he answered without a backward glance. “Not like her to be late. Dunstane even sent a boy to her rooms. No sign of her anywhere. Here.” He pushed open another door, where she found a room full of costumes. “Be ready in five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” Julia echoed. “But I—”
The dresser, a girl a few years younger than Julia, her light brown hair covered by a kerchief, looked her up and down in patent disbelief and said, “Who’re you?”
“I’m Miss—” she hesitated over her choice of answers, then shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Tonight, I’m Perpetua Philpot. Will you help me please?”
Though the girl shook her head, she jerked her thumb to point behind a screen. “Let’s get you dressed, then. Can you do your own paint?”
No lady’s maid had ever got her mistress out of one gown and into another with the efficiency of a theatrical dresser, who even had time to complain about the work she had done tailoring the costumes to the more statuesque figure of Mrs. Cole. “All for naught,” she grumbled around a mouthful of pins. “All right. That’ll do. Sit down at the dressing table.”
Julia did as she had been bid, her eyes sweeping over a bewildering array of cosmetics as the girl fussed over a selection of hairpieces, none of which matched her hair.
“Never mind it.”
Glancing into the looking glass, Julia met Graham’s eyes over her shoulder. He was standing just inside the doorway to the dressing room. Impatience had been added to the mixture of expressions he had been wearing a few moments before.
And something that looked like worry.
“You’re certain about this?” he asked.
“I am,” she told his reflection, then she spun on the stool to address him directly. “Unless you think I’ll make things worse.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” he answered dryly. “The papers on Perpetua’s desk are pages from the script now. You can read most of the lines directly from them and make it look as if you’re reading from your notes. When you get to the third act—”
“Places, everyone,” a voice called down the corridor. “Curtain going up!”
“Go on, then,” Graham said, stepping away from the door so that she could slip past.
“But the third act?” she cried.
“But her face?” cried the dresser. She snatched up a pot from the table. “At least let me dab on a bit of rouge.”
“Allow me,” Graham said, taking Julia’s hand to pull her onto her feet and into a swift kiss. As always, color rushed to her cheeks. “I dinnae ken whether you’re a brave lass or a foolish one,” he whispered into her ear, no longer attempting to restrain the Scots in his voice. “But I love you, all the same.”
Before she could even react to those words, he practically pushed her down the corridor, at the far end of which Mr. Sawyer stood, motioning for her to hurry. “Up you get,” he said, handing her up another set of wooden stairs, almost a ladder, that led to the back of the stage. “Fanshawe’s already in place. And for God’s sake,” he called after her as she scurried toward Perpetua’s writing desk, “speak up!”
“You?” Mr. Fanshawe sneered as he motioned for the stagehands to draw the curtain. Then he picked up his pen and squared himself to his own table. “Perfect.”
A packed theater was nothing like an empty one, she quickly discovered. It buzzed with a sort of electricity—and with conversation, as speculation over her identity passed in whispers behind fans and hands. Fanshawe had some trouble making himself heard over the noise.
She wanted to glance up at her family in the box but didn’t dare. Instead, she picked up the extravagant quill, bowed her head over the escritoire, and pretended to write on a page already filled with the lines she was shortly to speak. Lines which bore a remarkable similarity to the words she had jotted down at her first rehearsal. A sensible critique from a writer who was twice the poet as sickly Robert Briggs.
And when she stood to deliver Perpetua’s first speech, she forgot to be nervous. Forgot to wonder what changes were in store for the third act. Forgot everything but what Graham had said right before she stepped onstage.
She wished she had had time to tell him she loved him too.
But for the next hour, her performance would have to speak for her. She was determined to earn his praise.