Chapter 28 Up in the Box
Up in the Box
AT PRECISELY six o’clock, Belinda saw the anticipated carriage pull up in front of the townhouse, so she ducked into the parlour to bid her aunt and uncle goodbye.
“Darling,” Rose said, catching her hand. “I am so thankful we met with the Hartleys in Green Park on Monday. Otherwise your stay in town would have been very dull, thus far.”
George turned to her. Though half of his face drooped, there was a bright look in his eyes.
“You like…the daughter, yes?” he asked. “You always speak…highly of her.”
Lindy was pleased to see that he was taking an interest in matters outside himself.
His mind is coming back to him.
“I like her very much,” she replied, stooping to kiss his cheek. “We are often amused by the same things.”
And I hope to spend much more time with her in the very near future.
Her uncle nodded, but as Belinda tied the ribbons of her mantle, doubt began to cavil her.
Truly, Dora's parents may not see any need for her to have a hired companion. Am I not already acting as one tonight, and without them paying me a penny?
But what other doors are open to me? she wondered with a sigh, heading out front.
As she went down the steps, an arm, clad in bright yellow silk, popped out of the carriage window.
“Belinda, come, come!” Mrs Hartley beckoned. “Let’s be off!”
As she was handed in, Lindy noted that it was only Dora and her mother who had come to fetch her.
Do Davis and Mr Hartley ever join them on their ventures?
She settled in and Mrs Hartley began to chatter away. The equipage rumbled off onto the city streets while Belinda listened with half an ear.
“I’m so pleased you’ve come with us,” Dora whispered even as her mother prattled on.
Returning her warm smile, Belinda was struck with a thought.
Would not Dora, as my friend, want to help me in any way she could? Surely, being a young woman herself, she has longings and fears of her own, so if I only explain to her what has happened...
Her parents needn't actually employ me. If she would simply agree to say that she hopes they might, that would give me excuse enough to decline Mr Alwyn’s offer.
This thought buoyed her heart all the way to the Strand.
There, their carriage was caught in sudden congestion, and after nearly twenty minutes of making no progress forward, Mrs Hartley decided they would disembark and walk the rest of the way.
As Belinda hooked her arm firmly through Dora’s, they fell in with the crowd moving towards the theatre.
From the street, the Adelphi appeared rather unassuming.
The four sash windows above its entrance had flower boxes, making it look like nothing more than a well-kept house.
Only the columned portico hinted that this was a building of more importance than those that flanked it — that, and the mass of humanity who were intent on getting through its front door.
As the three ladies drew near to the entrance, a young girl in a simple dress and thin woolen shawl approached them. Shifting the heavy basket which hung from her arm, she flipped back a cloth to reveal it held a trove of ruby red fruits.
“Apples, miss?” she offered Lindy. “Sweet and crisp, on my honour.”
Pretending to admire the produce, Belinda prolonged the moment, remembering, Before she took to the stage, Aunt Rose sold fruit outside a theatre.
Nell had told her this long ago. Now, seeing a young, female costermonger before her, Lindy felt her eyes grow misty.
From such humble beginnings came the finest woman one could know.
“They look delicious. If I had a penny, it would be yours,” she told the girl who, to her relief, did not look discouraged.
Several feet ahead, Mrs Hartley was marching into the theatre, so Belinda followed behind, holding tightly to Dora.
The press of people out of doors was nothing to the throng in which the ladies then found themselves.
“This way, girls. Up the stairs.” Mrs Hartley chortled with excitement as she pushed her way through. Steering Dora onward, Belinda was eager to reach the breathing room that the staircase would afford them. But just then, she heard a voice cut through the din, its falsity prickling her all over.
“Why, Miss Belinda Everson!”
Looking up, she drew to a halt, her arm still tucked in the crook of Dora’s. Against the wall, looking like two cats espying a mouse, stood Anne and Clarice Chaffee. Lindy was barely able to keep her countenance as she nodded acknowledgment to them.
Having heard their greeting, Mrs Hartley turned back. She stood by, her cheerful face rosy with exertion, obviously hoping for an introduction to the pair of handsome young women.
They do look elegant tonight, Belinda couldn't help but think, even as they tilted their heads back, determined to stare down their noses at her.
Anne wore a moss-coloured dress, its bertha collar embellished with a wide band of blonde lace.
The bodice of Clarice’s pink gown was exquisitely ruched, and the piping on her sleeves matched the colour of the ribbon that cinched her waist. Although Lindy supposed the girls' necklaces and earbobs were merely paste, they complimented their ensembles perfectly.
The sisters were making their own observations of her and her companions, their barely concealed smirks speaking volumes.
Mrs Hartley cleared her throat, prompting Lindy to speak.
“Mrs Ophelia and Miss Dora Hartley, please meet the Misses Chaffee, Anne and Clarice.”
Anne looked Dora up and down for a second time, then stared hard at her eyes as if trying to make her out.
“So pleased to meet you both,” Mrs Hartley gushed, sticking out her gloved hand, but the crowd jostled her roughly from behind. “La! We may well be trampled in this crush! Perhaps we can chat a while during the interval.”
“Perhaps,” Anne replied lightly, her eyes drifting away as if no one was still standing right before her.
“Wonderful!” Mrs Hartley grasped the handrail with one hand, and lifted the hem of her gown with the other to tromp up the stairs. “Come, girls. Our box is up here.”
Lindy saw the Chaffees' faces drop.
"Belinda Everson, in an opera box?" Anne queried in the loudest of murmurs. "Might as well put a goat in a parlour."
Clarice did not stifle her laughter, and Belinda could still hear it when she was halfway up the staircase.
They are cruel, but they are not wrong. Her shoulders sagged as she weakly pulled Miss Hartley along.
I’ve achieved nothing though I've been in London for ten days! And even if Dora does agree to help me, her parents probably don’t think she needs a companion.
If they did, they would have situated her with one already.
At the top of the stairs now, she glimpsed Mrs Hartley down the hallway, and went after her, though she dragged her feet.
I'll probably be back in Trippingham in no time at all. But if Mr Turner’s eye hasn’t caught on another bonnet, how will I refuse him without giving offence?
Miss Hartley cleared her throat delicately.
“How are you acquainted with the Misses Chaffee?” she asked, cutting through the haze of Belinda's chagrin. Ahead, her mother's blindingly lemon gown disappeared through a low doorway.
“They are distant relations by marriage.”
“Not distant enough,” Dora quipped, and Lindy felt a little less alone as they ducked into the opera box.
“An excellent vantage point, think you not, girls?” Mrs Hartley was leaning over the railing, craning her neck this way and that, trying to take in everything all at once.
As Belinda sank into the nearest seat, she could see that Dora was squinting purposefully at her, as if trying to read her expression.
“You oughtn’t pay those sinister sisters any mind.” The girl shrugged. “Unless you are determined that we might laugh at them together.”
This wisdom, on its legs of goodwill, heartened Lindy, and she opened her mouth to say so, but Mrs Hartley was done admiring the environs on her own.
“Look there, girls!” she cried, pushing the box’s curtain aside further. “I told you we’d be able to see the players while they’re waiting in the wings!”
As the two younger women answered with feigned appreciation, a sharp cry rose up from the stalls below.
“What is it?” Dora asked.
Looking, Belinda saw that the girl who had been selling fruit out on the portico was standing by the front row of seats, hugging her basket to her chest.
“Stop him!” she hollered, pointing at a boy who was dashing away from her. Clutched in his hand was a shiny, red apple.
“A coster’s been robbed!” Mrs Hartley cried as every eye in the auditorium pinned itself on the fleeing boy.
Belinda watched, fluently relaying the scene to Dora as it unfolded.
With squirrel-like agility, the thief scampered up onto the stage, and shot towards the back as if to make an exit, but a broad man stepped out from behind the curtain, blocking his way. Spinning around, he careered towards stage-left but a second stout brute appeared there.
A collective chuckle rose up from the audience as the justice they desired seemed inevitable.
“The rascal thought he might disappear before us all?” Mrs Hartley scoffed.
The boy was pacing now, back and forth between the strongmen until he stopped in the very middle of the stage, his face full of fear.
“There’s no getting away, you sprite!” someone called out.
Staring at what he had stolen, as if pondering his transgression, the boy cast the apple upwards, then caught it with his other hand. A second time, he tossed it from right to left, higher this time.
Bellowing with indignation, the fruit-seller flung off her shawl and, with surprising accuracy, threw a second apple directly at the lad. He caught it and handily incorporated it into the arcs rising over his head.
A quiet fell over the cavernous theatre.
“Enough!” roared one of the men as they closed in on the thief from either side.