Love Plays a Part (8 page)

“Some has done it.” Maria smiled. “Some men, when they wants something, won’t stop at nothing to get it. But I think Miss Lily’s off the mark here. Roxbury ain’t no stripling just out of leading strings. He’s been on the town these many years. He ain’t gonna marry no player. Not that one.” She nodded wisely. “Certain sure he ain’t gonna marry that Lily. He’s just looking for a new dasher. And if she don’t come across with what he wants soon, he’s gonna go looking in other places.”

Samantha did not reply to this but pretended to be deeply engaged in examining a gown that she had picked up. There was no doubt that Maria was right about Roxbury. The man was obviously only interested in amusement. The thought of him marrying a little nobody like Lily Porter was utterly ridiculous. And, if he did marry, he would surely continue his man-about-town ways. Not a prospect that little Lily would countenance, Samantha thought with a small smile.

“I’ll go ahead and do her gown,” she said. “We might as well keep her happy if we can.”

Maria nodded. “You’re a good girl, Samantha. There’s some as would take offense at her being so pushy and all.”

Samantha shrugged and smiled. “I do not let myself be concerned by little things like that. Not when I can be part of the theatre.”

Maria nodded. “You got sense, Samantha. I just hope some man don’t come along and steal you away.”

Samantha laughed. “There’s no need to worry about that. I told you, Maria, I’ve no use for men - at least not like that.”

“Yes, you told me,” said Maria with a smile that showed that she was not at all convinced.

* * * *

The afternoon passed swiftly. There was always something for Samantha to do. She only found time for her meal because Maria insisted on it. And then it was time for the performance to begin.

As she took her place in the wings for the opening scene, Samantha was joined by Kean. The brown makeup changed him greatly, but Samantha would have known him anywhere from those piercing black eyes. He glanced down at the richly embroidered tunic which stopped shortly above his knees and the open Roman sandals and smiled ruefully. Then he leaned close to Samantha to whisper, “Your manservant was right. This get-up is terribly drafty.”

Samantha could not help but smile at this piece of humor on the great man’s part. Together they watched the villainous Iago go about his machinations. Samantha shivered slightly. “How evil the man is.”

Kean chuckled. “Wait till you see
my
Iago, if you think
that’s
villainy.” He grinned at her. “You may not even like me afterward.”

Samantha frowned. “Of course I should still like you. You are not that kind of person.”

Kean regarded her seriously. “There are those who contend that a man plays best those  characters  that are most like his own. And my Iago is very wicked.”

“Nonsense,” said Samantha. And then, seeing the twinkle in his eyes, she smiled nervously. “You are funning me. That’s not fair.”

Kean shrugged. “Just a little practice. I am an actor, you know.”

And then it was Scene Two, and Kean entered with Iago and the attendants with torches. Before her eyes the man was transformed. He seemed to grow bigger, and though Samantha knew for a fact that he stood no taller than she, still he seemed to project so much power, so much manliness, that he looked bigger than anyone else on the stage. She stood there spellbound as he spoke, and when he said, “I fetch my life and being/From men of royal seige,” he looked every inch a prince.

There was a movement beside Samantha as someone took a place there but, engrossed as she was in the play, she took no notice until someone whispered, “He does it quite well, don’t you think? The little man is a far better specimen of royalty than our own beloved Prinny.”

Samantha turned to look up into the darkly smiling face of the Earl of Roxbury. “What are you doing here?” she said coldly, trying not to let him see how his closeness unsettled her. In the past several days she had resolutely pushed all thoughts of the man from her mind on those too frequent occasions when they had intruded there. She was not to be driven away from her long-awaited dream by any toplofty lord. “You have no business backstage.”

“Au contraire,”
said his lordship. “As a patron of Drury Lane, I have free ingress to its inner sanctuaries at all times.” He reached out a gloved finger and lightly touched the furrow between her brows. “Do not scowl so, little one. You will mar that lovely face.”

“I am watching the play,” said Samantha, thinking how difficult it was to be icily correct when one was forced to whisper. “And I’ll thank you to leave me alone. Lily is probably in the greenroom.” She regretted this last remark the moment it was made, for it revealed a familiarity with his lordship’s concerns that indicated far too much interest on her part.

Just as she feared, he was not slow to pick up on its implications. “Jealous already, my pet?”

For a moment Samantha almost forgot where she was. She opened her mouth to shout at him angrily and then, remembering, closed it sharply and turned back toward the stage, where Othello was entering the duke’s council chamber with the others.

“A noble figure, is he not?” continued Roxbury, quite as though she had never told him to leave her be. “I particularly like this speech.”

On the stage Othello was saying, “Little of this great world can I speak,/More than pertains to feats of broil and battles.”

“See how warrior-like he looks,” Roxbury went on. “What noble simplicity and self-confidence he portrays.”

“I do not need your comments on the play,” Samantha almost hissed at him, so distracted was she by this continual whispering in her ear.

Roxbury chuckled softly. “You may as well relax and enjoy my enlightened company,” he continued cheerfully, “for I am quite conversant with the ways of the theatre, and I know that you cannot leave your station here. Your presence in this place, with your ever-ready needle, is required. And, since I find your company interesting though a trifle surly, I shall stay right here through the remainder of the play.”

Samantha could barely suppress her fury at this nonchalant disregard of her wishes. Must her dream be spoiled by the interference of this arrogant lord? “Are you too cheap to rent a box?” she asked acidly.

A momentary tightening of his lordship’s strong mouth told her that she had scored a hit, but his voice maintained its same even quality as he replied. “No. In fact, I have rented a box for the season.” He took a step closer, so that the sleeve of his corbeau-colored coat brushed against her arm. With difficulty she stood her ground. Surely he would not repeat his kiss of the other day. Not here, where everyone could see.

“But what you do of necessity - observing from the wings - I sometimes do from desire. The play looks different from here. It is usually easier to observe the varying expressions on Kean’s face, though, master of the art that he is, every limb is capable of portraying his emotions.”

Samantha, remembering Maria’s earlier advice, strove to calm herself by counting slowly and silently to ten. Perhaps if she presented his lordship with a pose of indifference, he would tire of his game. That it would have to be a pose was very clear to her. There was something strangely disturbing to her about the Earl of Roxbury, something that must be based on more than his unflattering remark that she was plain, especially since he was now pursuing her in a way that indicated quite the contrary.

Unconsciously Samantha sighed. His attack on her person in that stolen kiss had been provoking, certainly, but neither could it account for the strange combination of feelings that warred in her breast. Her few days in the city had already showed her that lords of Roxbury’s ilk considered all the young women of the theatre as game. And, to be perfectly fair, Samantha was convinced that most young women saw things the same way. Also in fairness, she supposed she should concede that Roxbury would be a plum for any young woman. Though obviously past the age of thirty, he was still in his prime. In his black coat, his black silk breeches and stockings, with his precisely tied cravat rising above a white marcella waistcoat and his
chapeau bras
under his arm, he was quite a figure of a man. That much she could in good conscience admit. And she supposed that she must be rather an anomaly to such a man, into whose strong hands young women most likely fell like ripe fruit.

As the play proceeded, she continued to stand silent, not condescending to reply to his remarks, though after some time she was forced to admit to herself what certainly she would never have conceded to him: that, for all his rakish airs, the Earl of Roxbury really did know his theatre. This thought was followed almost immediately by one even more striking: Perhaps she could learn something from the man. Since he was entirely correct about her not being able to leave her station, she might as well receive his remarks with an open mind. After all, the fact that he was a rake did not necessarily say anything about his knowledge of the stage.

So it was that when Othello, responding to Brabantio’s accusations that the Moor had used magic to seduce Desdemona, said, “She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d/And I lov’d her that she did pity them./This only is the witchcraft I have us’d,” and his voice rose sharply on “Here comes the lady, let her witness it,” causing the audience to break into applause, Samantha turned to the earl. “How well he does that.”

Roxbury smiled languidly. “So the audience thinks. Some critics, however, believe this to be out of character.”

“Why?” asked Samantha curiously, quite forgetting that she was piqued with his lordship. “It is very effective.”

Roxbury nodded. “Yes, it is. But these same critics protest that the Moor, as Shakespeare conceived him, would not have descended to such withering sarcasm as Kean brings to the lines. Rather, they contend, he might have smiled with lofty disdain or rebutted Brabantio’s accusations quite calmly - both in better keeping with the character he has so far revealed of proud dignity and a complete knowledge of his own worth.”

Samantha was about to fly to Kean’s defense, but she was faced with the certainty that it was precisely in the style of proud dignity and confidence that she had always imagined the words spoken. “I shall have to think about that,” she said finally.

Roxbury smiled a brash boyish smile, entirely unlike the languid one he usually affected. “Well now, my hopes are confirmed. There is a competent understanding behind that pretty face.”

Samantha felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. “I did not say that you were right,” she pointed out.

“No,” said his lordship, still wearing that delighted grin. “But for the first time you did not insist I was wrong.”

In spite of herself, Samantha smiled. In this boyish mood his lordship was quite charming. It was easy to see how he had conquered many a female heart.

By the time the curtain fell for intermission, Samantha felt she had learned a great deal. She still found his lordship’s presence disturbing, but when he behaved as a patron of the theatre instead of as a rake on the prowl for a new dasher, he was quite an entertaining companion.

“I must see a few friends during intermission,” he said softly. “But I shall return.” The last was said with the wicked grin of the rake.

“I’m sure you needn’t bother,” said Samantha sharply, but the earl was already out of hearing, and a player came to her for a repair.

By the time that was done, the curtain was rising again. She looked once for Roxbury and then, realizing what she was about, frowned. The earl was probably busy with some light-skirts from the galleries - or maybe the famed Harriette’s sister. Or perhaps - she smiled wryly - perhaps he had finally found his way to Lily, though she did not see what a man of Roxbury’s obvious mental powers could want with a girl like Lily. The color flooded her cheeks as she recalled that, for the lower orders of Cyprians, good understanding was far less important than beauty and knowledge of how to please a man.

She would have to stop thinking along such lines, she told herself sharply. Such things were not part of the knowledge of decent young women.

She focused her attention on the tragedy unfolding before her. What dreadful emotions suspicion and jealousy could be, she thought, wreaking havoc on a relationship that had been based on trust and love. But then, from what she could tell from her reading, love had always been a most volatile emotion, difficult to comprehend and still more difficult to escape.

She watched in fascination as Iago poured his words of suspicion into Othello’s unwilling ear. When Iago cautioned him to beware of jealousy and he replied, “Not a jot, not a jot,” the simple words seemed to reveal a soul in agony.

A slight movement beside her told her that Roxbury had returned. “I believe this is my favorite scene in all of Kean’s repertoire,” he whispered.

Samantha could not refrain from asking, “Why?”

“Every tone of his voice, every movement of face and limb, speaks of the agony of great love struggling with invidious doubt. Now watch. He will bid Iago be gone with the authority of a man used to command. Now you’ll see how he gazes until the first burst of passion recoils upon him. He’ll drop his arms and fall into an attitude of absolute exhaustion.”

Samantha watched as Kean did all as Roxbury had said. Then, as Othello cried, “I found not Cassio’s kisses on her lips,” he jumped to his feet and uttered a cry of wild desperation.

Samantha was so startled that she shifted nervously and brushed against Roxbury, who put out a hand to steady her. “Easy, little one. He’ll quiet down now.”

Before her eyes the Moor sank into the quiet despair of the passage in which he bids his love farewell. Tears stood out in Samantha’s eyes. Never, never had she imagined the scene like this. The power of every word seemed to grab at her heart, and tears ran freely down her cheeks through the rest of the play.

To her surprise Roxbury made no comment on this - or on what was taking place on the stage. When the tears first escaped, he pressed a fine white cambric handkerchief into her hand. Then he stood quietly beside her till the end.