Leading Lady (35 page)

“It’s good you remembered what you read,” Mother said. “I can hardly recall what I wore to church last Sunday. Avis has to remind me. But I can remember songs we sung on the play yard when I was but a girl.”

“Will the man let you know if he’s better?” John asked while rolling a tennis ball from wrist to shoulder and back again.

“I’m sure he will,” Bethia replied. Mr. Carey seemed to be a grateful sort of person, who would not leave everyone in the wardrobe room wondering.

She realized, at that moment, that she owed the actor a debt of gratitude as well. For the better part of a day, she had not thought to grieve over her part in Douglas Pearce’s death.

****

On Thursday, the day before final dress rehearsal, Mr. Carey came back up to the wardrobe room to report that his condition was improving almost by the hour.

“Last night I slept soundly for the first time in weeks,” he said.

“Marvelous, Mr. Carey,” Bethia said.

The actor smiled. “And I’ve telephoned your Mr. Somerset. He kindly directed me to a tailor near Leicester Square who agreed to make a couple of suits from Henrietta cloth, at a price within my budget. I’m going in for a fitting Saturday.”

“The others will be happy to hear it.”

“Do you not take lunch, Miss Rayborn?” he asked after a glance about the empty room. “May I bring you something from one of the cafés?”

“I had a sandwich from home, thank you,” she said, touched and a little embarrassed by his eagerness to do something for her. “I wanted to pack up cloth remnants for the Aged Widow Society. They sew quilts from them.”

“Very practical.”

“I hate to throw anything useful away. And yet I tease my mother for saving wrapping paper.”

He smiled again. “So does mine. May I help?”

“Oh, no thank you,” she said. “After such a hectic week, I enjoy the solitude.”

“Then I’ll not infringe upon it,” he said, taking a step back toward the door. “But if there is ever any way I may repay your kindness, you have but to ask.”

Bethia shook her head. “You’re not under any obligation to me, Mr. Carey. I happened to have some knowledge that was useful to you.”

“You were compassionate enough to share that knowledge, Miss Rayborn,” he said with voice a little thicker. He hesitated, added, “I fully believe you were an answer to prayer. I was at my lowest point when you came after me in Sloan Station.”

****

“I saw your light under the door,” Jude said softly after sticking his head into Noah’s room. “Was afraid you’d fallen asleep with it on.”

“You’re back already?” Propped up on his two pillows, Noah glanced at the page number—37—and then closed the copy of Thackeray’s
The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne: Written by Himself.
“Come in. What time is it?”

Jude eased the door shut and approached. “Almost midnight.”

“I lost track of time.” Noah nodded toward the open carton upon his chest of drawers. “Mother sent some books and two tins of ginger cake. One is for you.”

“Bless that woman.”

“Amen. How was the show?”

“Mark Sanger came down with hiccups onstage, poor chap. But the audience didn’t even seem to notice.” Quietly he lifted the ladder-backed chair from the small table that served as Noah’s writing desk and brought it over to sit near the bed. “And we start rehearsals for
East Lynne
next Wednesday.”

Noah grinned. “Your first speaking part.”

“Well, a short one.” A streak of greasepaint reflected lamplight where Jude’s forehead met his grayish-brown hair. “Who would have imagined just three months ago that we would both be here—with jobs?”

“Not I. Not in a million years,” Noah admitted. “I shudder when I think of how close I was to slinking back to Yorkshire in shame.”

“I wouldn’t have envied you that. I’m glad you’re better.”

“I went up and thanked Miss Rayborn today.”

“Miss Rayborn?”

“The wardrobe mistress,” Noah reminded him.

“Ah, yes.” Jude scratched his jaw. “The name rings a bell.”

“I wish you could meet her. She’s quite a remarkable woman.”

Jude stared at him for one, two, three seconds.

“Well, what is it?” Noah said.

“Oh no. . . .”

“It was a simple
courtesy.
”

“And I’m the Prince of Wales.”

Noah frowned at him. “I suppose you’ve taken up mind reading?”

“That’s not necessary. I’ve seen that look on your face before.”

“What look?”

“That doe-eyed look. Did you learn nothing from Olivia? You practically proposed before you knew her name.”

Noah opened his mouth to deny the charge, closed it. It was an exaggeration, but only a slight one.

“And that Morgan girl,” Jude was saying. “The headmaster’s daughter.”

“Edwina Morgan.” Noah had to chuckle, but softly, so as not to incite knocks upon the walls. “We were
twelve.
And you were as infatuated with her as I was.”

“
I
wasn’t given licks for carving her initials on a desk. Admit it, Noah. You’re a hopeless romantic. You hardly know this wardrobe mistress. It’s a bit soon to be cutting out valentines, old friend.”

“I’m simply grateful,” Noah insisted.

Not only for discovering the source of his rashes, but for such a seemingly little thing as her hand in the crook of his arm. The memory brought a lump to his throat. She had not been afraid to touch him.

“When I was one and twenty . . .” Jude’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I heard a wise man say, ‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas, But not your heart away.’ ”

Noah groaned. “Housman?”

“From
A Shropshire Lad,
” Jude replied.

Pointing to the tin beside a carton upon his chest of drawers, Noah said, “Hand me that tin. We’ll have a midnight snack, and no more advice, if you please.”

****

“You’re dressed already?” Richard Whitmore said the following morning, sticking his head into Noah’s closet of a dressing room.

Even understudies for the leading parts participated today, with scenes repeated after the lead actors performed their parts. Noah, clad in shirt-sleeves, waistcoat, and trousers, paused from combing his hair and admitted sheepishly. “I was the first one here.”

The lead actor laughed. “I remember those days. Only a matter of time before you’re a jaded old fossil like me.”

“You’re hardly a fossil,” Noah said.

“I’ve the gray hair to prove it.” Mr. Whitmore touched the brown bristles growing from his scalp. “Somewhere beneath this dye.” He pointed to the blue-and-black striped cravat hanging from a hook near Noah’s mirror. “I say, Carey, did you turn up with an extra one of those? Mine seems to be missing.”

“Here, take this one.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’m almost dressed.” Noah handed it over. “I’ll just run up and ask about the other one.”

“That’s awful decent of you.”

“I assure you, I don’t mind.”

His eagerness for an excuse to go back up to the wardrobe room surprised even himself. He took to the steps with almost a lightening of his heart in his chest. Across his mind Jude’s voice echoed,
“Admit it, Noah. You’re a hopeless romantic!”

Indeed, what
did
he know of Miss Rayborn, he asked himself in an attempt to tether this budding infatuation within the bounds of reality. With others in the company not exactly lingering in his presence, he was not in the flow of backstage gossip.

She was kind. That was obvious. And there was no snobbery in her character, or she would not have helped him, a mere understudy.

Intelligent.
That also was obvious. Her voice was pleasing to the ears. Calm, soothing. And yes, there were those elfin blue eyes. He would not lie to himself by discounting the physical attraction. But some of the actresses—such as Lady Holt—were even more beautiful, but it was not
their
faces he was looking forward to seeing upstairs.

Mrs. Hamby was sweeping the wardrobe room and Miss Lidstone sewing a button on a coat. Noah gave the room a
quick look-over while trying hard not to appear to do so. Miss Rayborn was not there.

“Ah, there you are, ha-ha!” Mrs. Hamby said. From a table she picked up the identical cravat to the one Noah had given Mr. Whitmore. “It was hanging from our doorknob this morning. Someone must have found it in the corridor.”

“You really should take better care of your costumes, Mr. Carey,” Miss Lidstone scolded, but in a nurturing way that was not abrasive.

“Yes, sorry. I’ll do that.”

The older seamstress smiled. “I was going to bring it to you on my way to the changing room. If you’ll kindly wait, you may drop this coat off with Mr. Stephens and save me the trouble.”

“But of course.”

Mrs. Hamby beamed at him. “Miss Rayborn says you’ve almost recovered, ha-ha!”

“We’re very happy for you,” Miss Lidstone said.

“I have, thank you,” Noah replied, smiling. Casually he added, “Is she not here today?”

“She went downstairs a bit ago to wait for her father and her fiancé,” Mrs. Hamby replied.

“Mr. Russell isn’t her fiancé,” Miss Lidstone corrected. She bit off a thread and tied a knot. “But we expect her to come up here with a ring any day now.”

“A girl can be a fiancée without a ring, Mildred,” Mrs. Hamby said, and just when it seemed she would forget for a second time, added, “Ha-ha!”

“Not
officially.
”

“
I
married without getting a ring beforehand. Are you saying I never—”

“Shall I take that coat now?” Noah said. He gave the women an apologetic look. “They’ll be calling us to the greenroom.”

****

On his way down the stairs, he muttered, “You’re a hopeless something, all right.”

But at least he had not reached the point of carving her name upon a desk. And his gratitude to her was no less than before. The least he could do was to be happy for her, that she had love in her life. He only hoped the fiancé—official or not—appreciated how fortunate he was.

Twenty-Six

He would climb down there and join them if he could, wouldn’t he?” Father said to Bethia on Friday morning. Seven rows ahead, Guy leaned over the orchestra pit to watch the musicians warm up with Chopin’s Concerto in E Minor.

Bethia smiled. “But only if they asked.”

Between University and working in his father’s shop, Guy had never found the time to observe a dress rehearsal at the Royal Court until today. Even so, he would have to slip out in little over an hour for the Royal Opera House and rehearsal of Wagner’s
The Flying Dutchman.
Father was the only family member able to accompany Bethia this time, for Danny was still in Edinburgh, William and John had accompanied Sarah to Liverpool to inspect a steam-powered ship, and Mother was nursing a summer cold.

“That trumpeter is quite good,” Guy said, returning to the seventh row. He sat on the end seat, his violin case resting on the floor just inside the aisle.

“His name is Mr. Swaine,” Bethia said. Onstage, Mr. Webb was showing a hammer-wielding carpenter a loose board, and the scenic designer, Mr. Bruton, was testing the pulley to the first drop scene, which depicted a summer sky, the verandah of the Bellevue Tea Garden, and some shrubbery.

“Do they ever start on time?” Father asked.

“Almost never,” Bethia replied. At least dress rehearsals. “But once they begin, they’ll try to time it as if it’s an actual performance.”

Jewel and Grady entered the auditorium through a side door. Guy and Father got to their feet, and above the hammering and music they traded greetings and the men shook hands.

“We could have used Danny here last week, Mr. Rayborn,” Grady said. “I suppose Bethia told you what happened.”

“Yes,” Father replied, “but I don’t know if I would trust Danny to remove gallstones just yet.”

Grady chuckled, and Jewel said, “Bethia’s a fair doctor herself. She saved poor Mr. Carey’s career.”

“What is this?” Guy asked, for Bethia had not yet had the opportunity to relate the incident to him.

“It was nothing, really,” Bethia said, although she had to admit to herself that she was pleased over how the situation had turned out.

“He was suffering from a severe rash,” Jewel replied. “She suggested he stop wearing wool and it cleared up.”

“Mr. Carey is Mr. Whitmore’s understudy,” Bethia explained. “I had read of wool intolerance months earlier and happened to guess that was his problem.”

Grady shook his head. “The poor fellow was at the end of his rope when you helped him.”

“Runs in the family,” Guy said and smiled at Father.

Father smiled modestly.

A loud
thump
drew all eyes toward the stage.

“Careful, there!” Mr. Webb exclaimed.

“Sorry,” said Mr. Norris, a stagehand, while righting a chair again. “But the thing’s as tipsy as my uncle Luke. I barely touched it.”

“Have a look at that chair!” Mr. Webb barked to one of the carpenters. “We’re trying to maintain a schedule here!”

Bethia drew Jewel aside while the men’s attention was drawn toward the activity on stage. “May I speak with you?”

“But of course,” Jewel replied.

When they were several feet down the aisle, Bethia said, “It struck me this morning that my being out here might affect Muriel’s performance. Should we move back to the balcony or—”

“Absolutely not.” Jewel shook her head for emphasis while sawing sounds came from the left wing. “You’ve more than cooperated with her, and we’re very grateful. But she can’t expect you to dig a hole and bury yourself.”

Bethia wasn’t too certain if that was not exactly what Muriel expected.

“Besides,” Jewel continued and nodded toward the stage, “once Muriel’s up
there,
she’s so caught up into character that she wouldn’t notice the Queen herself out here.”

“Very good now!” Mr. Webb said, clapping hands as a carpenter carried the repaired chair back to the set and causing a flurry of stagehands. “Time to clear the stage!”