Chapter Twenty
The atmosphere in the ballroom was fairly pulsing with excitement. It had been transformed into a theatre.
The high walls were all draped in red, pink, and deep burgundy, and hundreds of candles were lit around the edge of the room.
One half of it had been curtained off, and a wide platform a few feet tall had been erected as a stage, crimson curtains gathered above it and framing the stage on both sides.
The platform was lined with floral arrangements, and behind it was a painted backdrop of a castle and an Italian village.
Dozens of elegantly upholstered chairs and sofas had been brought in for the audience to be seated – not only the guests in residence, but many of the neighbors who had attended the ball the night before.
Lady Rosamund motioned for Lady Rebecca to accept a glass of wine offered by a footman. “Drink something, before we take our seats – for your nerves.”
Lady Rebecca sipped the wine coolly. “My nerves, madam?”
“Some of the other ladies said that they were nervous about performing, and so Dorothea said that the actors should go first, and do the entire play – The Tempest – and everybody could drink some wine and get in the… ah… the spirit of the evening. And then you will all do your scenes, after the whole party is….”
“Lubricated?” Lady Rebecca knew what the old Goulding girls were about, getting everybody good and foxed before they all made themselves ridiculous – just as she knew what they meant by assigning her and Bingley to perform Much Ado About Nothing.
Lady Rebecca downed the glass of wine and carried another off to her seat as she went to join Elizabeth and Bingley.
She took the open space on a sofa between the two of them moments before Darcy would have done so, and she grinned at him as he was obliged to take the chair nearest Elizabeth.
She sipped her wine again, giving him a cheeky look as she wondered how he and his lady had gotten on in their rehearsal.
He nodded to her. “Nervous?”
“I have not the slightest objection to performing before so many people – new acquaintance, my most imposing relations, and even the trained actors and actresses – but I am rather curious how our performance shall be received. Mr. Bingley and I have taken an approach to our scenes that is… not what I think our hostesses intended.”
“Imagine that,” he drawled.
Elizabeth made a droll face. “It is interesting that you were given my favorite of Shakespeare’s comedies.
Two clever menaces to their friends and relations, both forced to acknowledge their love for one another.
What a fine trick their friends play on them, causing them to each overhear that the other admires them. ”
Rebecca held her friend’s gaze with a look of absolute innocence.
Privately, she was delighted at this admission that Elizabeth had indeed heard what she had contrived for Darcy to say of his feelings, after that little gambit with the balcony.
“They must consider themselves very fortunate in their friends.”
Richard joined them, goblet in hand, and he pressed between Rebecca and her friend, obliging her to move closer to Bingley.
“Lord, it looks like a bordello in here! But Rebecca, you are still in your regular clothes! And you, too Bingley! We are all in costume already – it is more festive! But how were your rehearsals? I was grouped with Miss Bingley and Miss Elliot, who are in competition to throw themselves at Mr. Willoughby, who is to be Count Orsino. Miss Elliot has thrown a tantrum to secure the role of Viola, though she is vexed she must make love to him while dressed as a man. That leaves me the distinction of wooing Miss Bingley, and naturally I should rather be murdered. I have bribed Lady Blanche to announce our scenes first, to have it done with, and then I might make love to whomever I choose.”
Rebecca and Bingley shared a look of humor at Richard’s idle rambling, and a laugh bubbled from her throat. Her brother nudged her, and she swayed against Bingley. “Hush, it is beginning!”
The play was well done, and wine flowed throughout the performance. After her third glass, Rebecca and Bingley were exchanging many more looks of mirth and excitement; she felt certain that he, too was convinced their little act of rebellion would prove a stroke of genius.
Rebecca was eager to enact her scene, though she was far from insensible to what the Gouldings meant to insinuate by assigning her this play.
It was entirely too on the nose; at times she could scarcely practice her speeches to Bingley without considering how much she wished to really say such things.
But when Elizabeth had suggested there might be more than friendship between them, they had both been cowards.
Tonight, she might just have enough wine to tell him… .
When it was their turn to perform, Rebecca and Bingley were led to the other half of the ballroom, which served as a backstage.
Two retiring rooms had been made up as dressing rooms for the actors and actresses, and they separated to don their costumes.
When she and her friend met again just beyond the curtain, they both burst out laughing.
Rebecca donned the costume that Bingley wore at the ball the night before, with the distinguishing addition of Darcy’s ermine cape, and a false beard pasted to her chin.
Bingley, not wanting to damage the heirloom gown, had borrowed a costume from one the broader built actresses, and he looked positively lurid in a bright red wig of curls that cascaded to his waist.
“Fair Beatrice,” she cried.
He shambled into some semblance of a curtsey. “Handsome Benedick!”
They performed with great vigor, and were as well received as the rough-and-tumble antics of Darcy and Elizabeth, which had rather amazed everybody.
They received as many laughs as they had hoped, and the jest of their gender reversal softened the ache in Rebecca’s chest as she spoke words of love to Bingley.
She had never felt so confident, and yet so exposed.
What followed was one of the most riotous parties Rebecca had ever attended, and she relished every moment of it.
All the guests were completely debauched, playing boisterous games and demanding the furniture be cleared away for dancing.
The actors and actresses who had performed The Tempest so beautifully mingled with the guests of the house and the neighbors in attendance, treating them as familiar acquaintance.
Some of the performers continued to entertain them. Jugglers moved about, making pithy japes at the guests, and others regaled anybody who would listen with ribald tales of their exploits onstage.
Rebecca enjoyed herself immensely. She scandalized her brother by dancing with several actresses, still clad in her costume, and she encouraged all the ladies to play with her false beard.
She joined Miss Dashwood in singing a rather bawdy song with a pair of actors, in what was undoubtedly a shameless bid to draw the notice of the young lady’s erstwhile beau.
She and Elizabeth baited a pair of actors into delighting a small crowd of revelers with a robust sword fight.
She moved through the ballroom, engaging in every manner of diversion to be found, but she was always searching and scanning for Bingley.
He, too, had remained in his costume, entirely unabashed, and she loved him for it.
Despite being a bit of an idiot – or perhaps because of it – she really thought him quite perfect.
She discovered Bingley on the stage, well into his cups, reciting sonnets to a few of the actors and actresses, who cheered him with hoots and whistles. “Lady Rebecca!” Bingley spread his arm wide. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? No, for a summer’s day does not frighten me out of my wits.”
She grinned. “Bingley, wherefore art thou well and truly foxed?”
“Aye.”
“Come and see Lizzy and me sword fight! They said they would teach us how.”
Bingley’s countenance brightened for a moment, but then he grimaced, and held up a hand, a rose in his grasp. He blinked at it. “They did not have a skull, or I would have been Hamlet. But I cannot advise you to do any sword fighting – oh, but where is Caroline?”
Rebecca looked for some steps up to the stage but could not find them. Bingley leapt off the stage with a great flourish, the gown he wore billowing up to reveal linen trousers under the skirts. He swatted at them and knocked over a flowerpot as he righted himself.
Rebecca steadied him, grumbling at his stupidity as she smiled at the look of dazed admiration he gave her. “Perhaps you ought to retire, instead.”
“Where is Darcy, and that great big sea captain? Someone must drag me up all those stairs. But not yet, Rebecca – let us go and join the dance.”
Despite his intoxication, Bingley rallied himself, devoured several small cakes, and danced with her until the wee hours, when the rowdy affair finally came to a close.
Rebecca had drunk her brother quite literally under a table, and Elizabeth had consumed just enough to very charmingly tell everybody what she thought of them.
The two women were among the last to go up, arm in arm, humming a tune together as they exclaimed over their favorite parts of the evening.
Elizabeth had been pleasantly surprised that Mr. Darcy accepted her challenge and concluded their scene by stealing a kiss, and Rebecca felt a small pang of envy.
In her room, Rebecca removed her costume and the false beard, and once she had donned her finest nightgown, she picked up the discarded tunic and raised it to her face, smiling at the traces of Bingley she could smell.
And then she put on a fine silk robe and stepped into her slippers, carrying the shirt up to the third floor.