Lovers' Vows (22 page)

A hushed silence fell over the group, while their eyes, full of accusation, turned as one toward Dewar, the immediate cause of her tears. He had reminded her with some impatience that the play was to be performed in slightly more than two weeks and, if she was ever to put any expression into her speeches, she really must memorize them at once.

Fatigue, frustration, anger, and embarrassment welled up inside the girl. She wanted to shout at Dewar, but in the end it was a great heaving sob that came out, then she turned and bolted from the stage, out the back door of the refectory hall, to disappear into some small room to recover her composure.

“Shabby behaviour!” the flower ladies declared. They were firm supporters of Dewar in any and all affairs.

“Dashed tyrant!” Homberly charged, and was supported by Foxey.

“Bloody dictator. Won’t stand for this,” Foxworth added, and sat down.

“Too cruel,” Swithin mumbled, but there was some confusion as to whom he accused of cruelty. He was sitting with Kate in a corner at the time, holding up the tail of his saffron shirt while she stitched some lace on the cuffs. Not what one would expect to see on a shepherd’s shirt, Kate thought, but he assured her that if
he
were a shepherd he would sell his last sheep to buy lace.

“I had better go to her,” Holly said, and ran off to follow her cousin. She soon became lost in a maze of rooms and corridors. She was about to return to the refectory when she heard from a doorway beyond the sniffles of a lady in distress. She hastened forward, then stopped. Dewar had arrived before her, and was drying Jane’s tears, with an arm around her shoulders. His words were unintelligible, but the tone—gentle, consoling, loving—was having the required effect on Jane. The sniffles were her final display of temper. She lifted her pretty, tear-stained face and smiled shyly.

While Holly stood stock-still, watching but unwatched, Dewar said, “Forgive me, love. I’m a beast, and I am very sorry.” Then he reached down and kissed Jane lightly on the lips.

Holly slipped away back to the hall, feeling upset and guilty for having seen what was not intended for her to see. When Jane came back, her hand was tucked into Dewar’s arm. His treatment of his leading lady was more gentle from that time onwards, and Jane’s performance markedly better. Dewar’s attention to Juliet during the ensuing days was little short of lover-like. All the ladies were gossiping, lifting their brows, and wondering amongst themselves when the announcement would be made. Swithin, with his alacrity for similes, declared Lady Proctor was as pleased as an Ascot Cup winner.

“Methinks she gloats prematurely,” he said to Holly. It was his invariable custom to stick to her like a burr. She made not the least effort to be pleasant to him. In fact, the more he stuck, and bothered her with his high-flown nonsense, the harder she tried to shake him off. He blossomed into ever greater blooms of rhetoric, complimenting her on her ‘character' in wearing the plainest gowns she owned when not even he could devise a compliment on her wardrobe.

“We shall see. I have watched Coz fall in love an even dozen times. He always falls in love with his leading lady. It would not do to suggest he does it on purpose to screw them up to a good performance. Indeed, it would be unfair. You improve my character, Kate. Its being unfair would not have prevented my saying it a month ago, so long as it was clever. I tell you everything. It is a sure sign a man is in love, don’t you think, when he can’t keep any secrets from a lady?”

“I expect it is only the sign of an indiscreet nature,” she answered, with a great lack of interest.

“You are the cruellest she alive,” he smiled fondly.

“Thank you, Swithin. Tell me, what does your cousin do
after
the performance? With regard to the lady he has been making love to during it, I mean?”

“He usually leaves the vicinity as soon as possible. Dashes off to the next production, or exhibition, or party. The lady cries willow for a week, then forgets him.”

“Where do you two dilettantes go after this particular production?”

“Odd Dew has not said anything. It is unlike him to have nothing in mind. He mentioned doing a Molière thing, but our English audiences are too lazy to appreciate a play done in French. The fault of having nothing lined up may well be my own. I mentioned going to Heron Hall—my home—for a period of quietude and work.
Work,
Kate.”

“The drama of Boadicea?”

“Ah, no. That will be pleasure, sheer self-indulgence. I refer to accounting,” he shuddered. “Speaking to bailiffs, looking at wet fields, admiring animals of a domestic nature.”

Occasionally Lady Dewar bestirred herself to join the players. “Dear
Tante Hélène,
do join us,” Swithin offered, drawing up a chair for her. “We were just discussing your son, and what he means to do after Christmas. Has he said anything to you?”

“Gracious, no. I am only his mother. He doesn’t tell
me
anything. What have you jacks-of-all-trades in mind to amuse yourselves?”

“Jacques-of-all-arts would be more to the point,
Tante.
We are innocent of trades and labour.”

“Parsons was here this morning, coughing all over me. He has had a miraculous recovery from whatever ailed him. I will be lucky if I don’t come down with a wretched cold. He said something about Dewar writing a book.”

“The pandect,” Swithin nodded. “Work will not be resumed on it immediately, I think. He has been touching up the Elizabethan bits while they are fresh in his head. New work will require a change of scene, and of lady.”

“What happened to the Grover gel he was seeing earlier?”

“Someone or other married her. She was a totally uninteresting female. She would not have done for your
fils
at all, dear
Tante.”

“I begin to wonder if he will ever find anyone to do for him for more than a month at a time,” she confessed, with a little worried look at Jane.

“He will never find such a rock, an utter foundation, as his papa found in
you,
and that is what Dew really needs, I expect. We flighty
artistes
seek an earth mother, in our deepest heart of hearts. We do not want a female competing with us in beauty and elegance and charm. We want the centre of the stage for ourselves. Some nice, plain, sensible girl.”

He did not add ‘like Kate,’ though his glance included her in passing. Then he turned his interest to the stage, where he was soon taking exception to Homberly’s nonchalant meandering onto the boards.

“Good God, Tybalt is supposed to be a hot-headed, swaggering, reckless buck. Only look how Rex is turning him into a puppy. Homberly, dear boy, I say!” he shouted, and darted off.

“Oh these play actors!” Lady Dewar sighed, rolling up her eyes in disgust at his departing form. “And my own son every bit as bad. He would like to wear the patches of a Harlequin, I suspect, if he did not have to wear his title instead. He delights to act up in that theatrical way, and is always a deal worse when he is with Swithin. They urge each other on, only Dewar don’t dare to pull it with me, or I call him Chubbie to bring him into line. He hates it. He knows
I
am not taken in by his role of worldly player. There is no doing anything with Swithin.
He
is past redeeming, but I sometimes entertain the slim hope that the right woman might do something with Chubbie. Your cousin, though she is a pretty little ninny, is not the one. He is at the top of his bent to act the role with her, so I know he does not really care for her.”

Holly listened closely, then turned her attention to the stage, where Swithin had taken the rapier in his own hand to demonstrate a riposte to Rex. “Come, we shall practice elsewhere, and let our Director get on with Juliet’s scene,” Swithin said.

“Juliet, my pretty,” Dewar said, “a little more from the lungs, if you please, and not quite so much awareness of your tragedy. Don’t act as though you know the play’s ending, A little-girl-lost sort of quality is what I am looking for, not Mrs. Siddons. Just be yourself, pet.” Then he stopped and looked back over his shoulder toward the rear of the hall.

“Holly, can you come here a minute?”

She went towards the stage. “Would you mind walking to the far door and telling me if you can hear her? This throwing-the-voice business always sends her into her tragic vein. It would be better if she could use her normal tone. Do you mind?”

“No.” She went to do it. In a few moments, he joined her there to test for himself what volume and timbre Juliet was achieving.

“We have our choice—a melodramatic bellow or a perfectly inaudible whisper. Which is it to be?” he asked.

“It is important to hear the words, don’t you think? And really, Dewar, I doubt our local audience will be so critical as you fear. They would appreciate a good rant. They can hear Jane
talk
anytime. They want to hear her
act.”

“A percipient comment, but the audience will not be composed entirely of neighbours. I have friends coming from London, fellow enthusiasts who are curious to see what I am doing.”

“It won’t be so bad. You’ll see,” she consoled him,

“So
bad?
My dear girl, we are not competing with
bad
amateur productions. We are competing with the
best.”

“Which do you consider the best?”

“Why,” he said, considering, “I think my own production of it when I was still a student in Cambridge ranks as high as any I can remember. An entirely different play from this one. I used all men, in the Shakespearean tradition, with a good deal of ranting and raving. A fine production, of its sort. Sir Harold Peacock made an exquisite Juliet. But not so beautiful as Jane,” he finished up, with a long, appreciative look at the stage. “One wonders who Shakespeare had in mind,
n’est-ce pas?
Certainly not his wife. There is intriguing research to be done on the Bard’s life.”

“Why don’t you undertake it, as an addition to your pandect, Chubbie?” she asked with a gurgle of laughter, then escaped before he had recovered.

Jane’s feelings for Dewar were not formally known. She was pleased and flattered at his attention, as any young girl would be. Whether there was more to it than that, Holly had not enquired, and her cousin had not said. Jane seemed equally happy with the attentions of Rex and Foxey. Dewar’s true feelings were also in some doubt.

At the next opportunity that offered, Holly asked him, “What will you do after the play has been presented, Dewar?”

The look he cast on her was full of suspicion. “What have I neglected to do now? I am not so conceited as to think you care for my plans, and you have no small talk, ergo you have some thoroughly unpleasant chore cut out for me.”

“No, I am not so presumptuous....”

“Yes, you are,” he interrupted swiftly. “What is it? Has friend Prendergast decided we require a new school? Is that it?”

“You must speak to him on that score. I have not seen him since he was appointed schoolmaster.”

“What!”

“He is very busy. Besides his new position, he is planning to marry, you know. Or perhaps you did not, but he has long been engaged to Miss Peabody, and they are now looking about for a cottage.”

“But I thought
you....
Good lord!” His eyes darted to Swithin.

“What did you think?” she asked, with some rather strong idea of the answer already.

“Oh—nothing. Swithin will be happy to hear it. He took the notion he had a rival in Prendergast.”

She bestowed an eloquent, silent, expressive stare on him. “Swithin is without rival in his own particular sphere. Unless perhaps you....” She stopped, as he adopted a menacing aspect. After an exchange of challenging looks, she cleared her throat and said, “You did not say what you plan to do after Christmas. Will you be helping Swithin with his Boadicea
drame,
or....”

“No. We are not twins, as you seem to think. We have each our own interests, which sometimes overlap. I have been giving some thought to music. A nice balance of interests is what I seek. Something modern, or at least not Elizabethan. On the other hand, there is the whole field of theology that I have hardly touched these last several years. Johnson has brought a few items to my attention, and I have not had time to look into them.”

His voice became artificial-sounding to her ears as he continued. “Or I might revert to my old interest of painting, do some research into the Byzantine school, for instance.”

“The Byzantine school! How interesting!” she said, in a drawling imitation of his accents. “Pity you had not thought to have a Byzantine mosaic put in your dairy pavilion, Chubbie.”

“You have been talking to Mama!” he charged.

“I confess. And she is perfectly correct. Your old name has brought you right down to earth. Odd to think of your being a chubby baby. So very un-Byzantine. They always make the babies look like little midget adults, don’t you think? I should have thought you were that sort of infant, born with a book and sceptre in your fingers. You must look into the reason for these child-men when you are researching the Byzantine school,” she said, then turned quickly and escaped before he could retaliate.

He looked after her as she hitched a thoroughly dilapidated old shawl around her shoulders and sauntered off to seek a seat near the grate, for she had caught a cold. He continued looking, worrying the inside of his jaw, all unaware of Swithin creeping up on him.

“You are amazed at my choice,” Swithin said, following his gaze. “A case of succumbing to kindness in a woman, and not her beauteous looks.”

“Kindness? There is not a charitable bone in the woman’s body. She is an unmitigated shrew.”

“That too. A kind shrew. I adore paradoxes. I adore my Kate. Will you stand best man at our nuptials, Dew? I must begin to work on the arrangements. I will want a monumental celebration.”

“What—has she accepted you?” Dewar asked, with a sudden, convulsive leaning forward of his body.

“I startled you.
Do
forgive. No, I have not yet proposed. I thought to propose in verse—one of my illustrated parchments. It will make an interesting heirloom for our children.”