Love Plays a Part (3 page)

“Ah, yes, I see.” Mrs. Gordon strove valiantly to set her features in a serious mold, but the cheerful roundness of her cheeks and the friendliness of her eyes made such an attempt ineffective. She was, however, silenced, and with the help of Mr. Pomroy’s coachman they got their boxes up to the rooms.

Samantha accompanied Mr. Pomroy to the door. “I have one more favor to ask of you,” she said.

Mr. Pomroy looked slightly apprehensive, but he replied immediately. “Of course, Miss Samantha. What is it?”

“I want to go to the theatre as soon as possible. Can you get seats for tomorrow evening, and will you accompany me?”

The little solicitor’s relief was obvious. “Yes, yes. I shall take you to see Kean. He’s doing Richard III. The man is superb. Such fire. Such power.”

“Why, Mr. Pomroy.” Samantha gave him a teasing smile. “I had no idea that you were a devotee of the theatre.”

The solicitor looked somewhat sheepish. “Of course I keep up with the stage. How could I do otherwise, living in the city as I do? But I do not carry my devotion so far as you, my dear. Really -”

Samantha raised a detaining hand. “Please, Mr. Pomroy, I have made up my mind. I intend to work in the theatre in whatever capacity they will have me.”

“Very well. Very well. I shall be by for you with the carriage shortly after six.”

“Good. And thank you.”

Samantha closed the door and turned back to Hester. “Well, we had best get to work. I want to get settled in today.”

Hester barely refrained from answering this with one of her snorts, but she removed her bonnet and set to work unpacking boxes.

So it was that some time later, when a brisk knock on the door announced the arrival of Mr. Pomroy’s man, Jake, all the contents of the boxes had been sorted and put away. Samantha went to the door herself, since Hester was occupied in the bedchamber. The man who stood there was certainly not young. His gnarled hands and lined face spoke of years of labor. There was something about him that Samantha immediately liked.

“My name is Jake,” he said with a grin. “Mr. Pomroy sent me.”

“Come in, Jake.” Samantha found herself grinning in return. “We’ll be glad to have your help in getting around the city.”

“And I’ll be glad to give it, miss. I been in the city many years, and I knows my way around.”

A slight sound behind her caused Samantha to turn. There stood Hester, her face set in a strange expression that Samantha finally recognized as a smile. “This is Hester,” she said. “You and she are my entire establishment here in the city.”

“When you got the two of us,” Jake said with another grin, “you don’t need nobody else.”

“Good,” replied Samantha. And so it was that Jake became a member of the household.

Chapter 2

Next evening Samantha stood before the old cheval glass with a smile. Her dream was about to come true. She was going to see a Shakespearean play, a real play on a real stage!

They had not had many callers in Dover, but they had received several London papers.
The Morning Chronicle,
she remembered, had been rather strong in its praise of Kean in the role of Richard III. “He is more refined than Cooke, more bold, varied and original than Kemble,” the
Chronicle’s
reviewer had written. And now she was going to see the great man in action.

She eyed her best gown. It was not exactly new, having been purchased several years previous, but it still fit well and it was not stained. She wondered if such plain white muslin gowns were still in fashion, but the thought was not particularly disturbing to her. She was going to the theatre to see, not to be seen.

She grabbed up bonnet and gloves as the sounds of altercation echoed from the small room that served as a sitting room. She was grateful for Mr. Pomroy’s offer of the man Jake, but it was obvious that Hester and Jake did not deal well together. The new man was not at all reluctant to voice his opinion on household matters, and Hester was not about to surrender her prerogative in such things. Their present difference of opinion seemed to be centered on the placement of a particular chair, she saw as she entered the room.

“You ain’t got the idea a-tall,” said Jake in a voice of such smug reasonability that Samantha wondered that Hester did not throw something at him. “If you set the chair here, Miss Samantha can have the morning sun at her back. Over there, it’s gonna hit her smack in the peepers.”

Hester gave him a disdainful look. “You don’t know nothing about such things,” she said firmly. “Miss Samantha ain’t going to be sitting in this room in the morning. In the morning women’s got work to do.”

Jake shook his head, but his grin remained wide. “You’re a stubborn one, Hester. I grant you that.”

“Stubborn I may be,” said Hester grimly, “but I don’t need no city man telling me so.”

Samantha decided it was time to interrupt. “Hester. Jake. Must you always be at each other? You’re like a couple of hissing cats.”

Jake turned a smiling face toward her.
“We
don’t mean nothing by it, miss. It serves to pass the time, that’s all.”

Samantha suspected the truth of this statement, but she did not reply to it. “Come, Hester, tell me if my hair is secured properly. Do I look all right?”

“You should get one of them new haircuts,” said Jake. “Alla Titus, they calls ‘em. Short and curly and all tumbled up.”

“Miss Samantha got beautiful long hair,” said Hester stiffly. “Why for should she cut it all off?”

“To be fashionable,” said Jake. “All the ladies in the
ton
dotes on fashion. They can’t talk about nothing else.”

Hester snorted. “That shows what sense you got. Anyway, Miss Samantha don’t set up to be no lady.”

Jake winked. “That don’t make no never mind to me. I ain’t been in London all these years without knowing a lady when I sees one.”

“Thank you, Jake.” Samantha smiled. “This is a special night for me. My first time at the theatre.”

The lines on Hester’s face deepened. “That terrible abomination! I wish you’d never heard of that Shakespeare person.”

Samantha was about to speak out in defense of her dream, but she was forestalled by the loquacious Jake. “The theatre’s a great place,” he said. “Ain’t no ‘bomination there. Me, I go whenever I can. After the third act, when the price is lower.”

“Kean,” cried Samantha. “Have you seen Kean?”

Jake nodded. “Course I have. ‘Tis a great man he is. Little, mind you. Not taller than yourself, I’d guess. But, oh, when he’s a-playing a part, why you’d swear he swells up to bigger ‘an normal. Oh, I ain’t never seen such a great ‘un.”

“The two of you is both tetched in the head,” scolded Hester. “Them plays is wicked. People pretending to be what they ain’t. It’s wrong.”

“But, Hester, you don’t understand. The theatre is good.” Samantha felt frustration again. She and Hester had been over this so many times, and to no avail. “What’s wrong with pretending?”

“Sure there’s nothing wrong with a man fergetting his troubles fer a little while, now is there?” said Jake.

Hester considered this but did not reply.

“Sometimes the play makes me laugh,” continued Jake. “And sometimes it makes me cry. But it always makes me feel better.”

“Foolishness,” said Hester grimly. “Pretending to be what they ain’t.”

“Have you ever
seen
a play?” asked Jake suddenly.

Hester drew herself up stiffly. “Course I ain’t. Don’t intend to neither. I only come to London to look out for Miss Samantha in this wicked place.”

“If you seen a play,” said Jake, “if you seen Kean, you’d soon change your tune.”

“Well, I ain’t -” Hester began, but she was interrupted by a noise below stairs.

“That must be Mr. Pomroy,” said Samantha. “Quick, Hester, my cloak and bonnet.”

Hester hurried forward with the required articles, and when Mr. Pomroy reached the little room, only slightly red in the face from his exertions on the stairs, Samantha was ready to go.

“It’s really kind of you to do this for me,” she began, but Mr. Pomroy waved aside her thanks.

“Nonsense, Miss Everett. I love the theatre. And to witness your first exposure to Kean will be quite a pleasure for me.”

“Like to see that myself,” said Jake in a voice clearly audible.

A slight frown creased Mr. Pomroy’s forehead, but he made no comment to his former servant. He turned to Samantha. “We’d best be going. The doors open at six thirty, and the crush will be just dreadful tonight. This is Kean’s first night as Richard this season. Everyone will be there.”

For the first time the thought struck Samantha with some force that she would be appearing among a very elite company. She felt a little trepidation at the thought, especially as her mind presented her - and rather forcibly - with a sudden picture of the darkly handsome face of Lord Roxbury. How utterly ridiculous, she told herself. That meeting with the haughty Lord Roxbury had been a one-time occurrence, a chance thing. London was a large city, very large, and it was quite unlikely that she would ever see Roxbury again. And a good thing too, she told herself grimly. She had little use for such creatures, acting as though they owned the world.

Mr
.
Pomroy’s tentative hold on her elbow recalled her to the present. “Yes, yes,” she said, perhaps a little too brightly. “I’m all ready. Let’s go.”

Mr. Pomroy nodded and escorted her carefully down the stairs. Samantha, looking back over her shoulder, caught a glimpse of Hester’s disapproving face and Jake’s smiling one. Then Mr. Pomroy was settling her into the carriage.

Of course it was only a matter of moments before the carriage reached the theatre. In the evening, with the links all ablaze, it looked quite different from the way it had that morning when Samantha, accompanied by Jake, had taken the time from their settling in to go peek at it. Then everything had been calm and sedate. Now all was noise - the clatter of horses’ hooves, the shouts of competing coachmen, the cries of the playbill sellers. Now light blazed everywhere and gleamed back from diamond tiaras and be-jeweled bosoms, from dress uniforms and gentlemanly attire alike.

Samantha, overwhelmed by the sight of so much display, turned to her escort. “Mr. Pomroy, such clothes, such jewels. I didn’t know.”

“Your attire is perhaps a bit plain,” he said soothingly. “But it really doesn’t matter. I took seats in the two-shilling gallery. No one will notice us there.”

“Of course,” said Samantha, suitably cheered by this logic, and she allowed him to guide her toward the great theatre. Now the crowd was so large that she could only get a glimpse of the
basso-rilievos
that filled the spaces between the windows and the projections at either end of the front of the building. Samantha recalled them dimly from her morning excursion. The northern side had been filled with figures from the ancient drama. She had not been able to recognize them. But the southern end, which presented modern drama, was occupied by Shakespeare and Milton. The great playwright was surrounded by the characters of his creation.

As Mr. Pomroy guided her through the throng, Samantha recalled them in her mind. Caliban had been there, as had other of her friends from
The Tempest:

Ferdinand, Miranda, Prospero, and Ariel. They obviously represented Shakespeare’s comedy. Also represented were Lady Macbeth and her husband, drawing back in dismay from the body of the murdered Duncan. These Samantha took to stand for the master’s tragic work.

At Mr. Pomroy’s side Samantha ascended the grand staircase. “I’m afraid we’re up rather high,” he said as they passed through the long hall divided by two rows of columns and into the anteroom, where she got a glimpse of what looked like a statue of Shakespeare on a pedestal.

Samantha only nodded. Her eyes were growing wider and wider at the splendor of the place. Finally they reached the gallery, which was really quite high. But Samantha did not complain. She was in the theatre at last.

She gazed around her in awe. The theatre seemed extremely large. Three rows of boxes encircled the house. The upper side-boxes had no roofs or canopies. Immediately behind them rose the slips, their fronts in a perpendicular line with the back of the upper side-boxes. The gallery in the center ranged with the fronts of the slips, making a circular form which upheld a range of arches supporting the circular ceiling. She tilted back her head to look at the ceiling, which was painted to imitate a cupola, in square compartments in a light relief. The panels were gray, decorated with wreaths of honeysuckle in gold. The box fronts were also ornamented in gold, and slender reeded pillars in gold supported each circle.

Samantha looked toward the stage. It seemed very far away. Would she really be able to see Kean, to hear him? She leaned forward in anticipation. Two pilasters with gilt capitals graced the sides of the stage and supported a circular arch which was painted in light relief. The royal arms decorated the center of this and the crimson curtain hung from it. The ceiling of this arch was finished in the same manner as the cupola. Patent lamps and elegant chandeliers spread their light over the whole.

Unconsciously Samantha heaved a great sigh. Mr. Pomroy, who had been gazing out over the throng, turned to her, a little frown on his round face. “You are not disappointed, are you?”

Samantha shook her head. “Oh, no! It’s all very tremendous. But I am eager to see Kean.”

“The curtain will not go up for some time yet.” Mr. Pomroy’s face took on a fatherly expression. “Look around you, Miss Everett. Everywhere you will see ladies and gentlemen of the
ton.
You should take your rightful place among them. Your birth and your inheritance entitle you to such a place.”

Samantha let her eyes rove out over the boxes full of elegantly dressed people. She saw young women attended by young gentlemen, older women escorted by older men. Here and there a lovely woman was surrounded by men. In one box several such women sat; the rest of the box seemed to overflow with men. One woman seemed more important than the others, Samantha saw, a small woman with auburn hair. The other women wore more jewels and more elaborate gowns, but it was clear that the auburn-haired one held the authority. Samantha turned to Mr. Pomroy. “Who is the important lady in the box down there? The one with the auburn hair?”