Chapter 9
And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
The rain descended for three straight days, lifting its lugubrious shroud at last to the joy and relief of the Arden sisters.
During those gray afternoons and while her ankle healed, Violet had decided to paint Maggie while she wrote, a risky exercise that, they all agreed, kept Violet quietly occupied.
Violet painted, Maggie scribbled, and Winny sewed.
The morning when the sunshine finally spread across the winking wet grass of the cottage lawn, Violet packed her paints and her case and followed Winny on foot to town.
“Go!” Maggie had chased them off, ink staining the fingertips she flashed in their vicinity. “This book will never be finished if you two buzz around my ears like silly bees all day.”
The post had come, with all the letters addressed to Maggie and Mrs. Arden.
“You don’t look wistfully at the post anymore,” Winny noted cheerfully, hooking her arm through Violet’s as they started off on their walk.
She carried a compact bundle of wrapped costumes, which she had offered to mend for the Florizel.
The theater was a small enterprise, and grateful for any extra hands.
Winny patched rips and adjusted hems for personal money, which was a pittance, though she prized it all the same.
“I can’t imagine what you mean,” Violet replied, perfectly aware.
“Did the Frenchman never write? Not even to explain himself or apologize?”
“It’s for the best,” she said with a sigh, and shook her head, drinking down the chill, rain-quenched air. “At least, that’s what everyone insists.”
“You smile more,” said Winny. “I missed that. And your painting is better than ever, don’t you agree?”
“Small improvements, I suppose. At least my grapes look like grapes.”
Winny blushed and looked down at her shoes. “They always did.” And a few steps later: “But they are improved, so lifelike you could eat them.”
“Thank you, sister, but that’s neither here nor there,” Violet began, with the exasperation of a woman twice her age. “Miss Bilbury will see to it that my studies continue, and I will see to it that Emilia stays far away from Freddie Kerr.”
Alasdair could plead for Freddie’s innocence until he was blue in the face and his spectacles cracked, but Violet held fast to her suspicions. It was too convenient: he and Emilia leave each other brokenhearted, and shortly after, Pressmore is set aflame.
“The fire,” breathed Winny, her lashes fluttering nervously. “Do you really think—”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, what matters is that Emilia is safe from him. And she has the play to anticipate! I only hope the subject matter does not discombobulate her all over again…”
“Or she will be grateful she did not end up like poor, poor Juliet.”
It was suggested cheerfully, and Violet tried to smile in agreement.
Unhelpfully, her thoughts turned to Mr. Kerr and whether he would attend the play.
The strangest thing kept happening—her mind would conjure his image, then again, each version of him marginally different until she couldn’t help but want to see him in person to determine whether he really was as handsome as she remembered. And to put all the wondering to bed.
She mustn’t think of Mr. Kerr and bed, for serious danger waited in that direction. The last time she had allowed a man to become her world, it had ended in nothing but humiliation.
Cray Arches had few features to distinguish it from other towns of its size.
It boasted, however, a rather fine church and the Florizel.
The theater, unusual for such a modest place, was the passion project of a local family and sat across the square from Winny’s favorite place in the world, Gray and Simon.
If Cray Arches was a squat table laid for a large family, then the Florizel Theatre was its lovably slipshod centerpiece, with its faded white facade and six pillars valiantly holding up the drooping triangular front.
The paint was peeling, and one pillar on the right looked in danger of collapse; the wooden filigrees decorating the entrance were also in desperate need of refurbishment, but the humble establishment still felt like a dash of grandeur on a dreary day.
It seated seven hundred and had almost closed five different times, saved at each perilous juncture by the charity of Aunt Mildred and the rest of the Richmonds, who were friends of the owner and devoted patrons of the arts.
According to Violet’s father, in the decades before Violet’s birth, the Florizel had been opened, closed, and reopened repeatedly in accordance with the tastes and laws of the country.
It never failed to gall her that there were folk so afraid of the theater and its delights that they sought to shutter the Florizel for good.
“Who will you paint today?” Winny asked.
They had nearly completed the thirty-minute walk to the heart of Cray Arches.
It was good to stretch the limbs and work out the last aches in Violet’s stiff ankle.
Stringy, pale clouds sketched themselves across the horizon, a coy little wind blowing harmless cyclones of red leaves in their path.
“Claribel Wefling is the beauty of the company, but I think Ginny Thorpe has a remarkable nose.”
Violet and Winny were not so much welcomed into the Florizel as they were blended seamlessly into the maelstrom—Winny was immediately swept away to lend her expertise to more costume fittings; Mr. Lavin, the owner of the theater, took noisy meetings in his office, punctuated by visits from the actors to argue this or that about their lines; Mercutio and Tybalt practiced their duel in a narrow corridor outside the office; Violet was intercepted by Ginny Thorpe, who was playing Juliet and still wearing half of her costume.
“Mr. Lavin brought Philippe all the way from Paris to paint our scenery, but he fell painting last night and broke his arm,” said Ginny, out of breath and flustered. “Oh, but it’s only half done and looks a right shambles.”
“Let me put my paints in Mr. Lavin’s office,” Violet replied, eager. “Have you sent word to Pressmore? Perhaps Miss Bilbury and I could be of assistance? We both paint, though she is the superior talent.”
Ginny melted with relief. Mr. Lavin was notified of Violet’s desire to pitch in, and a request was dispatched to Pressmore.
She could imagine her aunts’ faces when they discovered Violet had volunteered to assist a bunch of actors.
“Practically prostitutes!” Aunt Eliza would say with a gasp, fainting away.
Violet’s aunt on her father’s side had been an actress, shunned for it, and died recently in London, impoverished.
Impoverished but not lonely, at least, for the Arden sisters had tried to care for her in the end.
Beatrice Arden had been a strong woman, determined, leaving a lasting impression on Violet.
Let Aunt Eliza faint, she thought. The Florizel needs us.
Cristabel agreed. She considered the scenic challenge perfect for Violet, who was accustomed to painting at small scale.
Each afternoon, Violet would meet Cristabel at the theater, and they would paint in companionable silence, bringing to life Juliet’s balcony, the interior of a chapel, and a basic piazza in Verona.
Winny came along, hemming skirts and sewing on buttons when such things were needed.
Ginny Thorpe’s beloved orange cat, Sailor, snoozed beside Violet while her brush swished, Cristabel gave her corrections, and the actors rehearsed their lines.
“Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” asked Romeo, a few feet from where the ladies worked. The man playing him was hilariously old to be portraying a teen, but he gave the words the right feeling. Cristabel rolled her eyes at every romantic declaration in the play, and there were plenty.
Ginny, as Juliet, answered. “ ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face. O, be some other name belonging to a man!”
Romeo flubbed his next line, and the whole scene started over again.
“Perhaps Mr. Lavin is trying to tell you and the Kerrs something by choosing this production,” said Cristabel one afternoon, as they continued painting and rehearsals progressed. Sailor, no matter what, slept on Violet’s shawl.
“It’s a popular play,” Violet told her.
“Of course.” Her teacher fell silent for a spell, but Violet could hear the thoughtful steam hissing from her ears. Cristabel proved her right moments later. “Have you sketched him again?”
Him. Violet growled and hunched her shoulders. “No. My paints haven’t moved from Mr. Lavin’s office since we agreed to help. I hope you haven’t been pouring poison in Ann’s ears. She is terribly suggestible.”
“Why would I do that?” Cristabel laughed. “Romance is a distraction. Art is truest love. Even if you try to hide it, I can see all this cloying drivel moves you. You sigh and flutter your lashes whenever the confessions start. Ha! That ridiculous Romeo is old enough to be Juliet’s father.”
“My father loved this play, and so do I, that’s all. Maybe it is drivel, but I still have a heart. Even so, do not worry yourself—I haven’t painted or sketched him, and I never will.”
Despite Miss Bilbury’s teasing, each day ended with a deep sense of satisfaction.
The ladies worked well together, and Mr. Lavin and the company were effusively grateful.
But gradually, both women had noticed a strange phenomenon; it began with just the one irksome preacher standing outside, glaring at everyone who came and went from the Florizel, but by and by, a small army built up around him.
The following morning, Emilia and Cristabel called at Beadle Cottage.