Wicked Company (52 page)

She threw open the door to the armoire and angrily snatched several items of clothing off the pegs. Stuffing them into her portmanteau, she glanced up to find her husband, clothed in a rumpled dressing gown, swaying against the door frame,

“What are you doing?” he croaked, his eyes shifting nervously between the armoire and her baggage.

“Leaving this place,” she answered quietly, looking across the room to meet his gaze. “Leaving you.”

“Oh, Sophie,” he groaned, sounding contrite, “that was the spirits talking last night. Please… those strumpets mean nothing to me. ’Twas wretched of me to bring them here… but you’ve been so—so
disapproving,
of late. And with the babe and all, I grew…” His disconnected sentence drifted off. He smiled tentatively, a naughty little boy pleading forgiveness. “Henceforth, I promise you, Sophie, I will—”

“’Tis no good making promises,” Sophie interrupted. She gazed at him with something close to sympathy. “You seem—for some reason I don’t understand—to be unable to keep your promises. And I can see from what transpired between us last night that we might one day do each other physical harm.” She sighed wearily and seized her portmanteau. “I’m sorry, too, for my part in this debacle. I was not truly in love with you either, and I should never have succumbed to—” Halting midsentence, she glanced down at her swollen abdomen. “’Tis best we separate. I must have some peace ’til the baby comes.”

Confounded by her quiet determination to leave, Peter stepped aside to let her pass. He seemed so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he never offered to assist his pregnant wife with her luggage as she swiftly departed his lodgings for good.

***

“Sophie, you’re
mad
to go to Drury Lane tonight!” Lorna protested, watching her friend lift her cloak from a peg beside Ashby’s front door. “Someone else can play your part in
The Milk Maids!
’Tis bitter cold outside, for one thing, and you’re in very great danger of having this babe in the
wings
!
”

“I feel perfectly well,” Sophie responded firmly. “’Tis remarkable what a simple change of scene will do for one’s morale.”

“Well,
please
take care,” Lorna urged her friend, shivering in the frigid blast of air that swept through the shop’s open door. “And good luck with the play,” she called after her friend, aware that Sophie had been anxious to hear whether Edward Capell would grant
Double Devils
a license.

An anemic ray of late December sunshine shone weakly through the clouds as Sophie trod gingerly along the paved roads crusted with several inches of snow. Mary Ann Skene would soon be rising from the bed over the shop to make her toilette and ready herself for another evening of trade at the Blue Periwig. In the four days since Sophie had quietly departed her husband’s abode, the strumpet had reported Peter’s new offenses with unfeigned enthusiasm.

“He looks bad… very bad,” Mary Ann pronounced.

When, at length, Sophie arrived at Drury Lane, she discovered that the largest breeches from the wardrobe chamber would barely accommodate her swollen waist. An hour later,
The Milk Maids
slowly creaked toward its conclusion. Sophie had done her level best to look cantankerous, as her part required, but her heart wasn’t in it. Suddenly, near the end of the final act, a searing pain, much worse than she had experienced before, gripped her abdomen.

“Jesu!”
she gasped, clutching the arm of Mrs. Love who was playing Sophie’s wife.

“Will you manage till the end?” whispered the alarmed actress.

Sophie nodded gamely, momentarily relieved that her discomfort had abated. Within a few minutes, however, another contraction wrenched every fiber of her small frame. She put a hand on her abdomen as the reality of what was happening came over her with frightening intensity. Her bairn was fighting to escape the prison of her womb, she thought frantically. Would the baby live or die? Would
she
live or die?

Cold, stark terror gripped her as fiercely as the pain itself. Blindly, she stumbled off stage and sank onto King Lear’s throne, which the stage servants had removed temporarily to the wings.

She tried to catch her breath, and did everything in her power to keep from screaming. However, she couldn’t stifle the low moan that escaped from her lips, causing the prompter, Mr. Hopkins, to cast a horrified stare in her direction. Just as the players recited their closing lines and the audience began applauding, David Garrick appeared by her side.

“Good heavens, dear girl!” he exclaimed. “Hopkins… flag a hackney and send a runner to Mrs. Phillips. Tell her Sophie will be needing her attention immediately!”

At length, the contraction subsided and Sophie found herself surrounded by the entire cast of
Milk Maids.

“Clear the way!” shouted George Garrick pompously. “Give the lass some air!”

“Here… George! William!” David Garrick barked at the bystanders with the authority of a stage director. “Help me get her to the coach!”

Sophie barely remembered being bundled into the hired carriage for the short drive to Half Moon Street. The Garrick brothers eased her gently up the stairs to her chambers, trailed by Lorna Blount. Sophie’s friend had just been leaving Half Moon Tavern following a late supper and spotted the commotion taking place at the entrance to Ashby’s Books. Mrs. Phillips was already inside Sophie’s flat, readying the bed that Mary Ann Skene had not long since vacated.

“Excellent, gentlemen… right in here,” Mrs. Phillips called brusquely, “onto the bed with her… that’s right… there you are, my dear… here, drink this,” she ordered, handing her a cup of something hot.

“What is it?” Sophie asked weakly.

“A bit of chamomile tea with a drop of laudanum to soothe your nerves… that’s a good girl,” Mrs. Phillips said.

David and George Garrick prepared to depart.

“Send word immediately when she is delivered… please God, we hope safely,” David Garrick said to Mrs. Phillips in a low voice. And much to Sophie’s surprise, she felt George Garrick give her hand a gentle, encouraging squeeze.

***

Within two hours, Sophie was delivered of a tiny but robust daughter.

“You’re a mite narrow to bring forth so quickly, but you labored well,” Mrs. Phillips declared with a nod of satisfaction, laying the bundled child in the crook of Sophie’s arm. Then she added with immodest pride, “May I say this was due in no small measure to my own midwifery skills which I learned from the original Mrs. Phillips, God bless her admirable soul!”

“Indeed,” Sophie agreed in a weak voice, grateful to have come through the ordeal alive and with little Danielle, warm and pink as a peach, nestled in her arms. Mrs. Phillips was overbearing, to be sure, but she had known a good deal about midwifery, and for that Sophie would be eternally grateful.

“The name you’ve chosen for her is hardly Scottish,” Lorna teased, peering down at the softly mewling babe.

“Oh yes ’tis…” Sophie murmured groggily. “She’s named for my father… Daniel McGann.”

***

During the first week of the new year of 1766, Sophie found herself showered with gifts from the Garricks, as well as presents from a number of friends at Drury Lane. Even crusty George Garrick sent over a soft woven blanket from a shop in Covent Garden.

For her part, saucy Mary Ann Skene delivered a silver and bone rattle, courtesy of Roderick Darnly, enclosed with five pounds. While Sophie put Danielle to the breast, the young courtesan sat at the desk holding a hand glass, meticulously applying a small black patch near the corner of one eye. Despite having been relegated to the makeshift pallet in the printing chamber, Mary Ann departed for her nightly chores in reasonably cheerful spirits.

Meanwhile, Lorna saw to Sophie’s comfort and then retreated down the spiral stairs into the book shop. Little Danielle slept peacefully in the roomy confines of Aunt Harriet’s open trunk placed next to Sophie’s bed. The fire burned brightly in the grate and Sophie snuggled sleepily beneath the fresh bed linen.

She was roused from this pleasant state by a light tap on the door leading to the landing. Fearing it could be Peter, come to see his progeny, she felt her heart thump uncomfortably.

“Who is it?” she called out warily.

“A former pupil…” responded a deep voice, “…come to congratulate an old man who nearly gave birth on Drury Lane’s stage!”

“Hunter?” Sophie said in amazement.

In an instant, the door swung open and Hunter Robertson’s tall frame filled the threshold.

“Your final performance is the talk of Covent Garden,” he announced, advancing into the chamber. His eyes searched her face as if to assure himself she were, indeed, alive and well. “I can only stay a moment… must get to the theater soon but I—” His attention was drawn to the open trunk at the bottom of the bed. “Ah… so here’s the babe… and a fine wee mite it is. Lad or lassie?” he inquired, his handsome features softening as he stared down at the baby whose eyes were serenely closed.

“Her name’s Danielle…” Sophie answered in a low voice, “…for my da.”

“Yes, she’s lovely,” he said in a breath. He looked at her across the bedstead. “And you? You’re truly well?” She nodded as a strange silence fell between them. “I was surprised to learn you’d shunned the comforts of Cleveland Row to have the bairn here,” he commented, glancing around the chamber.

“I… ah… do not wish to live with Peter any longer,” she replied, feeling abashed by the rush of happiness at his interest. Obviously Hunter cared enough about her welfare to pay her this visit.

“I had heard something to that effect,” he acknowledged.

“So my return to Half Moon Passage is the subject of tittle-tattle?”

“Yes, m’lady,” he answered dryly, “but no one knows the grounds for it. Why have you left?”

“There is no need to call me lady, even in jest,” Sophie announced with an ironic smile. “My husband, it seems, is no baronet.”

Hunter lifted his brows slightly and then he shrugged.

“Actually, I’m not particularly surprised to learn of this,” he responded at length. “Yet, I doubt that losing a title would be the sole reason you would depart his lodgings so abruptly.”

“’Tis not,” she said shortly, and then added, “I cannot live with a man wedded to strong spirits and endless wagering—”

“Then come live with
me,”
Hunter interrupted calmly. “I wish to be your lover
and
your friend.”

Sophie stared at him across the bed linen, stunned by his bold proposal. It was amazing that he seemingly didn’t care a farthing that she was another man’s wife or that Danielle was living proof of her intimacy with a man he reviled.

“Would a friend not tell me who pilfered my play?” she asked quietly.

“If that’s all that stands in the way,” he countered seriously, “Beard agrees I can at least tell you this much—
The Parsimonious Parson
was delivered to Covent Garden’s manager by a man none of us recognized. We were directed by him to leave the author’s share of the profits at a sedan chair stand in the Great Piazza.” Hunter sank down on the edge of her mattress and seized her hand. “Sophie, please,” he said urgently, “believe me… I had no hand in stealing your work.”

Sophie’s heart turned over at the sight of him sitting so near her on the bed. Her hand in his felt safe and secure. He seemed utterly sincere, yet, she reminded herself, he was an
actor.
She recalled how earnestly Peter had sworn all sorts of rubbish during their short acquaintance. Men could say the most astonishing falsehoods if they wanted something from a woman. She found herself silently considering the remarkable coincidence that Mavis Piggott and Hunter had both returned from Dublin this season and that she had spied Mavis disappearing down the hall the very day she proposed to Garrick in his office that she write
The Parsimonious Parson.
As much as she longed to believe Hunter, given everything she’d endured, she simply couldn’t risk trusting him… or trusting
anyone,
for that matter. She gazed at him sadly and gently withdrew her hand.

“’Tis quite an astonishing proposal you offer a woman not yet risen from childbed,” she said soberly.

“I meant it to be,” Hunter replied, scanning her face for an answer. “’Tis what we should have done in Bath,” he insisted. “We were both fools and now we should make the best of our mistakes. At least
live
with me… and marry me one day, if you can.”

She gazed at him bleakly.

“Your proposal presents rather a large problem,” she said, recalling her recent journey to the law chambers to pay Peter’s debt to Darnly’s man of business. “I had an occasion to inquire of a solicitor, a Mr. Beezle, about the possibility of a woman divorcing herself from an adulterous spouse who is forever in his cups. Shall I tell you what this man of the law revealed to me?”