Redlegs (7 page)

“Rest! thy chase is done,

While our slumbrous spells assail ye.”

Coak smiled and followed closely every tiny movement of her hands, her fingers. She felt with him the way she did with an
audience
who were keeping pace with her; an audience whose single mind worked in unison with her own. She undressed. Not lewdly – the way she had glimpsed Glasgow hoors doing in vulgar city taverns – nor even delicately. But plain and prosaic, like a woman humming as she readies herself, alone, for bed. And in so doing, she actually felt alone, Coak’s presence fading from her. She was an isolated woman, stepping out of skirts and drawers, shaking off shoes, for no one’s enjoyment – not even her own. Her song sounded above her casual actions, as if sung by another; and Coak ebbed away like George’s Buddha, fading happily into nothingness.

“Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,

Here no bugles sound reveillé.”

With Coak gone, Elspeth found herself more and more in the
company
of George Lisle. He was a much admired – not least by himself – and risqué humorist. He liked to inform everyone that he was a disciple of the philosophy of Free Love. “Naturally, it’s the theory which appeals, intellectually. Not necessarily the vulgar practice.”

She was perfectly aware that Lisle’s position allowed him to take mistresses, all the while conspiring with his father to marry well. But wouldn’t the former of the two destinies – lover rather than wife – be a cannie adventure! Elspeth felt she had the skills required to play the scandalous
innamorata
.

Like any other young woman, she had dreamed of a handsome young man – a gentleman not unlike George – falling so deeply and irrevocably in love with her that he would horrify polite society, sacrifice his heritage, and take her publicly as a wife. But there was enough of the hardened travelling player in her to know that such romanticism was best left between proscenium arches. She could waste her life hoping for such a bold champion to happen along. A more realistic proposition was to settle for being mistress, and enter into an arrangement which would allow her to live independently while continuing unhindered with her career. If any children were to result from the liaison, she judged it preferable that they enjoyed a moneyed, rather than a legitimate, start in life. In Scotland, she had heard tales of supposed noblemen without a farthing to their name. And, even if George tired of her, she calculated he was not the type to throw her overboard altogether. When the time came – as come it must – when he forsook her, she considered it likely that he would continue both their friendship and his financial support. She even considered suggesting such a scheme to George
himself
. But it occurred to her that, should he reject her and the snub
become known, it would have a detrimental effect on her standing, and be too harsh a blow to withstand personally. And what would Lord Coak make of such an arrangement? Four months her patron would be gone – not long enough for her and George to live out the three-act drama that was forming in her head. And doubtless, even from abroad, Coak was being kept up to date of goings-on at Bridgetown by Philbrick and others.

So, for the meantime, she let the friendship grow. George became more liberal in his attitude towards her: taking her hand in company, remarking openly on her figure and costume,
kissing
her delicately on the cheek. All this in the bare light in open society. On those nights when Isabella made up her Dalby’s Turbo, the kissing became less subtle. On the mornings following those parties, events of the night before were a little hazy. Certainly, they all drank, played dice sometimes with the gamesters, swam, always talking and always cavorting. She could taste George’s lips on her own, but sometimes, too, she thought, Derrick’s, and even Christian’s, though he and Nonie were devoted fiancés. As the sun trickled early into her room, before Tuesday or Dainty brought her her bowl-and-water, her drowsy head was strewn with pools of dark seawater, the tang of mauby, twinklings of stars, of Nonie’s white and Isabella’s brown breasts, suggestions of the boys’ naked backs, and suspicions that she might well have surpassed them all in acts of public indecency. No one ever made mention of what they had got up to the night before, until they reconvened, by which time all details were lost or dismissed.

During waking hours she practised her poem in a room made specially available for her by Mr. Philbrick. At luncheon, and of an evening – sometimes instead of joining the others at the View – George took her to the Careenage, where they walked and talked, and sipped tea on the porches of grander hotels. She loved how the boats – from tiny skiffs to magnificent yachts and ocean-going ships – rocked on the water, masts and ropes chiming like Sunday bells. Just as he had taught her the names of plants and animals, George instructed her on shipping, pointing out across the harbour, distinguishing clippers from windjammers, sail from steam.

“The old three-master is a supply ship. Raises its sails thrice a
year to return to Bristol. You ought to see it at full rig – a sight dying on our seas, sadly. It’ll be replaced by the likes of that ugly great hulk there. A steamship, bringing wood and coal in from the forests and mines of America.”

They sat together on the terrace of the Regency Hotel, the
waiters
bowing to her in her distinguished company.

“The clipper out beyond the quay? You won’t see many more of those either, if there’s any justice. A slave ship, ferrying its foul cargo from Senegal to Liverpool to here.” George declared himself to be an Emancipist. “Though don’t tell my father. That’s a little surprise I’m saving up for when I’m master of my own fate.”

He spoke to her about politics as if she were already tutored in the subject, and took for granted her interest in it. Wilberforce and the Houses of Parliament in London, the local contest between the aristocratic Pumpkin faction and the merchants of the Salmagundi alliance. For that fortnight in the summer of 1831 Elspeth dallied with her beau, planned her stage debut, dreaming of great
achievements
from Georgetown to Washington., while she learned about the evils of slavery, and tasted the delights of the beau monde.

Excitement was building for the imminent debut of the new young talent from the British stage. Playbills had been pasted up and the local newspapers carried half-page advertisements. The financiers of the Lyric were animated by her long-term plans. She brought to their attention new works which had been highly praised in Great Britain, by Sir Walter Scott and her own namesake Joanna Baillie. She caused great argument with the suggestion, casually mentioned during an interview with the
Gazette
, that the Lyric produce its own version of Mrs. Shelley’s terrifying tale Doctor Frankenstein. She went so far, on the whim of the moment – the memory of her meeting with Henry still fresh in her mind – as to suggest that a Negro be cast in the role of the Creature. George and even Mr. Philbrick congratulated her on achieving more publicity in one fell swoop than the Lyric had received in its entire
existence
. The radicals were divided on the issue. Of her own circle, Virginie and Nonie argued passionately about it, while the
traditionalists
– including Mr. Bartleby and, to her alarm, her landlords Mr. and Mrs. Overton – were outraged at the very idea of a darkie
performing on a civilised stage. Whatever the politics of her sally, Elspeth succeeded in making a name for herself throughout the island.

George convoyed her daily from the theatre to her lodging house, trying to shock her with jokes and remarks and off-colour observations. Elspeth laughed and remained staunchly unshocked. Together they made their way, she with her parasol and Mr. Lisle in his hat, across the Careenage, past the bright clean stone of Lord Nelson’s statue, along Bay Street, the sea to their right stretching all the way to South America, where lay jungles and mountains and savage Indians who tore the beating heart from maidens to offer as sacrifices to the gods. And on towards Garrison where the comely couple would pass companies of soldiers on drill and the officers commanded the men to salute the lady.

“They can’t realise I’m just an actress.”

“It’s your beauty they’re saluting. They don’t give tuppence for your status. Sensible chaps.”

A short six months ago it was all so unimaginable. Elspeth Baillie, elegantly dressed and parasoled, hair gleaming like the
setting
sun, complexion bright, traversing a capital city on the arm of an affable, young heir to a fortune. She had sworn to herself that she would never write home. She would never again make
contact
with those dreary people of the drenched and muddy world she had been made to inhabit utterly against her nature. The only shame of it was that now she couldn’t describe all the wonderful things that were happening to her dismissive father, her timorous mother, or her faithless friends, not one of whom had seen her off on her life’s journey, nor even congratulated her on her stroke of extraordinary luck.

Her debut recital at the Lyric Theatre was scheduled for the
eleventh
of August. The announcement was made on a Wednesday, at the end of the run of the present season of plays. One last gala performance at the season’s official close – traditionally a short play accompanied by sketches and comical interludes – was advertised to take place that weekend. Calderon de la Barca’s
La Aurora en
Copacabana
, severely edited and freshly translated by a
young colonial scholar, John Colliemore, distilled the saga of the Conquistadors down to several moving scenes between Pizarro and an Inca Princess. That role was to be played by Mrs. Bartleby, though the father, in the shape of Christy Bloom, was twenty years her junior. Virginie and Derrick were to perform the finale, the death scene of Dona Sol and Hernani, from a piece that was
pitting
audiences against critics in Paris, while Nonie spoke a soliloquy from
The White Slave
. The gala ensured the biggest audience of the entire year, and it was at the second interval – after a performance of dancing dogs – that Elspeth Baillie would be presented to the people of Bridgetown.

Her final rehearsal was effected before an audience of fellow players, stagehands, writers, investors, and all their partners. She made few mistakes, found a rhythm suitable to the occasion and, all in all, discharged her duty well enough in difficult circumstances. Taking her bow, Mr. Denholm and Mrs. Bartleby offered her from their pews some little notes of advice, to which Elspeth paid no attention. Mr. Philbrick’s anxiety on her behalf – that she would have to soften her Scots, move less busily around the stage, work on her projection – insulted her, while the vociferous encouragement of Nonie and Ginny, Bella and Christy buoyed her almost as much as George’s obdurate trust in her powers.

George Lisle had turned up faithfully for each and every one of her rehearsals, offering his own nuggets of advice, but in such humble tones, as from a pupil to a maestro, that she listened
attentively
to him.

“I think you will do well enough now, Miss Baillie.”

“Well enough?” cried George. “You’ll hear gasps and sighs such as you, Philbrick, are a stranger to.”

He ran up to the stage, took her hand and stood proudly by her side. “I predict instant success. If this woman is not completely and immediately the official darling of the entire colony, I’ll eat my best hat, and then yours.” He presented her with a variety of boxes, tied prettily with ribbons, one marked “Robe en style Pauline Bonaparte”. Inside, a beautiful, diaphanous dress, double-layered in muslin and crinoline, the outer part hanging low at the neck, the inner, more translucent still despite its intricate laced pattern,
would cling closer, and not much higher, to the décolleté. An
exquisite
little box contained silk slippers with silver stitching.

Virginie and Isabella were more excited by the raiment – so
unusual
now that bustles and pantalettes were the standard fashion, and so fragile that they must be breathtakingly expensive – than by Elspeth’s performance. They managed, eventually, to tear
themselves
away from the boxes and say everything expected of them. Nonie clapped loud and long. Derrick and the rest of the boys cheered at the tops of their voices. Christian stood up on his seat and declared, “She won’t leave a dry eye in the house!”

“Nor even a dry seat!” rejoined George.

“Especially if she wears that on stage!” whispered Virginie to Isabella.

The young Turks left the older members and repaired to the Ocean View, and after an innocent tea and rum, George walked Elspeth back to her quarters, strolling arm-in-arm, saying their
halloes
to all who passed, and then, when the rain came on
unexpectedly
, making a sudden dash, laughing and shouting.

Elspeth revelled in the new experience of warm rain, the drops soaking her hair, running down her neck and back like fingertips stroking her. She held her face up to the sky, marvelling that such puffy little clouds in a blue, blue sky could produce any kind of downpour. The rain showered her eyelids and lips – without a hint of the stinging cold that used to permeate her skin and make her insides shiver. She and George ran into her rooms and took off their outer layer of clothing, leaving George in his shirt and she in her shift. They laughed at the audacity of it, like children illicitly
dressing
up in their parents’ clothes.

“No harm in it. The dressing rooms are like this all the time,” said Elspeth.

“You must invite me round sometime.”

“Back home we were always like this. Cattle sheds don’t have changing rooms. Aunts, cousins, brothers, parents all together.”

“But did they all feel quite so naked as I do under your glare?”

To warm their innards, George concocted a cheroot of tobacco and another leaf she had already seen, but never tasted, at the Lyric. Nonie had advised against it.

“She says bang enslaves the mind.”

“Nonie’s mind does a good enough job of enslaving itself. If I were to worry about the ill-effects of crops on public health, I would be more concerned by cotton than bang.”

“Cotton!” Elspeth laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone drink or eat cotton to their detriment.”

“Cotton does something much worse – enslaves the majority of humankind. One way or another.”

The cigarette smoked, they shared a nightcap of rum, and finally fell together onto Elspeth’s bed as the evening outside brightened after the rain.

Her hair was still wet and she was drenched through to her undergarments, though she could no longer discern what moisture belonged to the shower and what was her longing for George. In her dreams of how it would be to make love to a fine and
sophisticated
gentleman, she had imagined crisp, clean linen and a large bed, something approaching both of which she now had. But she had also pictured the scene to take place in darkness, yet here there was still a soft light flushing the room. The gentleman would have whispered to her in French – a language she knew nothing of, save for the odd word or phrase in speeches she had learned. He would undress her slowly in the velvety darkness, kiss her gently, woo her into submission. She would be wearing exactly the kind of garments George had just given her that day: delicate, sensuous fabrics, revealing more than was decent. She’d never got round to opening the boxes and changing into the exquisite clothes. The remainder of the reverie was lost in a blur of enchantment, but had very little in common with her rather more mundane experiences with ploughboys.