The Bargain

by Jane Ashford

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, they walked past the stage and down a long uncarpeted corridor. The wooden walls were unadorned. It was rather dusty. It was a complete contrast to the lavishness of the painted scenery, Alan thought, and even to the backstage areas he had visited once or twice when he was living in London.

  Ariel stopped before a half-open door near the end of the hall. “Mr. Balfour?” she said, pushing it farther open. “It’s Ariel Harding.”

  Alan caught up with her in time to see the surprise on the face of the slender man who sat at a shabby desk inside the small cluttered room, the evening’s receipts spread out before him.

  “Ariel?” he said, as if he couldn’t believe it. He rose and held out a hand. “You’ve grown up. Has it really been that long?”

  “I’m afraid it has. This is Lord Alan Gresham.”

  Watching the man closely, Alan thought he recognized the name. But the only sign was a flicker in his pale blue eyes, and he couldn’t tell what thoughts lay behind it. He examined Balfour, realizing that he was older than he first appeared. The stage makeup he still wore covered lines in his face. And his blond hair was liberally streaked with gray, less noticeable against its paleness. He was a small man, but lithe and wiry; probably much stronger than he looked, Alan concluded.

  “Lord Alan is helping me look into my mother’s death,” Ariel was continuing.

  A shadow passed across Balfour’s narrow, mobile face.

  “He’s working for the regent as well,” said Ariel.

  Implying, Alan thought wryly, that he was working firstly for her.

  “Of course you’ve heard about this haunting at Carlton House.”

  Balfour nodded, with another flicker in those unrevealing eyes. Alan understood suddenly how difficult it was going to be questioning actors, who were accustomed to counterfeiting feelings of all kinds.

  “Mr. Cyrus Balfour is the manager of the theater,” said Ariel, turning to Alan. “He is an actor as well, but he oversees everything.” She smiled at the smaller man. “My mother used to say that he does all the worrying, so the rest of the cast doesn’t have to.”

  Balfour’s face grew shadowed again. “We all miss her like the very devil.” He paused. “It was so sudden, so… horrible.”

  “I know.” Ariel’s smile had faded, and she looked fierce. “I want to talk to you and the others about what happened that night. I must discover why she—”

  “None of us was there,” Balfour protested.

  “And about this supposed haunting,” Alan put in firmly.

  Ariel waved her hand as if this was obviously secondary. “People must know things,” she urged. “Someone must have noticed—”

  “There was nothing to notice,” Balfour interrupted. “Bess was the same as ever.” He shook his head. “Chance, fate, an overwhelming despair; I suppose it could happen to any of us at any moment.”

  Alan eyed him, not sure if this was genuine emotion or acting.

  “Well, if it happened to me, I hope someone would try to do something about it,” declared Ariel. “You will help me, won’t you?”

  “I don’t want it all brought up again,” Balfour replied. “Everyone’s been nervous as a sack of cats. They’re just beginning to calm down.”

  Alan was about to argue with the man when he realized that Ariel was looking at Balfour with wide, injured eyes, as if she could not believe that he would refuse her this simple request.

  The manager shifted uneasily. “You know how it is in a theater. Actors are… volatile. The least thing oversets them.”

  Ariel continued to gaze at him like a startled deer.

  “And then the play doesn’t go, and the audience stays away…” He glanced at her, then looked quickly away and sighed. “Oh, very well. Ask your questions. I suppose the harm has already been done.”

  Ariel smiled sweetly, and Alan felt a twinge of sympathy for Mr. Balfour. “I knew I could count on you,” she said. “Bess always said you were steady as a rock.”

  He grimaced. “When she was happy with me, she did. But if she didn’t get a role she wanted or if one of the young ones upstaged her…” He shrugged expressively.

  “Were you in her black books when she died?” asked Alan.

  Mr. Balfour turned to look at him. “Just what do you mean by that?” he demanded.

  Alan met his irate gaze without wavering. “It would be useful to know if she had quarreled with anyone. Particularly the man in charge of the theater where she performed.”

  “Are you suggesting—”

  “Bess and Mr. Balfour were friends for years and years,” explained Ariel, throwing Lord Alan a reproachful look.

  Balfour took a deep breath; his fists were clenched.

  “I am merely seeking information,” replied Alan blandly.

  For a moment the tension in the small chamber rose, then the anger seemed to drain out of the manager suddenly; he sat down and hunched over the desk. “No one could draw the audiences like Bess,” he said heavily. “See this?” He gestured at the coins and crumpled bills strewn before him. “It would have been twice as much with Bess onstage tonight.” Forgetting his makeup, he rubbed a hand over his face, smearing it slightly. When he saw the paint on his palm, he swore. “We were friends, but I had more reasons than that to keep Bess happy.”

  “Had my mother quarreled with anyone?” said Ariel quietly after a moment.

  Balfour sighed. “You know how she was, Ariel. She and Maria were forever sniping at one another. She raked one of the young girls over the coals a month or so ago, and then gave her a silk gown a few days after. There was nothing unusual that I saw.”

  Ariel nodded somewhat sadly.

  “What about outside the theater?” asked Alan. “Had she any… that is, were there any particular ‘friends’ who…?”

  “Who was her latest conquest?” put in Ariel without embarrassment, earning a surprised glance from Alan.

  “The Earl of Dunbrae,” answered Balfour matter-of-factly, “gave her a ruby the size of a quail’s egg.”

  Ariel’s eyes had narrowed. “I didn’t find it in the house. I suppose one of the servants may have…” She trailed off.

  “She might have hidden it,” suggested the theater manager. “Wasn’t something you’d just leave lying about, believe me.”

  Ariel nodded. “Bess and the earl were…?”

  “He seemed mad about her—as they all were. And she was leading him a merry dance.”

  Ariel nodded again, as if this were what she had expected to hear.

  Alan remained silent, having been suddenly struck by the notion that he would no doubt be expected to approach the earl, an irascible man thirty years his senior, and attempt to interview him about the death of his mistress. He was having no difficulty, unfortunately, picturing the scene.

  “We’ll talk to the others,” Ariel was saying. “If you should remember anything else…”

  Balfour shook his head. “Nothing to remember,” he replied. When she started to speak again, he waved a hand. “I’ll try, I’ll try.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at him, and the manager gave her a wry look in return.

  They returned to the dusty corridor and followed it until it took a sharp turn into another, which clearly stretched across the back of the entire building. A series of doors opened off it, and a number of voices could be heard. “You should let me talk to the actors,” said Ariel.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re likely to upset them,” she explained. “You did Cyrus, and actors will require an even more delicate touch.”

  “I am capable of questioning all sorts of people,” declared Alan. “My ability to get to the heart of a matter and elicit the facts has been much admired.”

  “But we want much more than the facts.”

  “More? Ther
e is nothing ‘more.’”

  “Of course there is. Just let me take the lead,” said Ariel.

  “And ask nothing about the events at Carlton House, as you did with Balfour?” He shook his head. “I think not. That is why I am here, and I shall certainly question everyone about it.”

  “It is only because of me that you have the opportunity,” she answered. “And I think you might be a little more—”

  A head appeared at one of the open doorways along the corridor. “Hullo?”

  “Mr. Padgett,” said Ariel, sweeping forward to greet the man. “It’s Ariel Harding.”

  The head cocked, then the rest of the figure appeared—a tall, muscular fellow, Alan observed, with a magnificent profile and a leonine mane of pure white hair. His face was handsomely craggy and showed few signs of age, though he must be past fifty.

  “Little Ariel?” boomed the newcomer. His voice was deep and resonant, clearly trained to reach the farthest balconies. “My brave and tricksy spirit?” he continued. “‘Thou shalt have the air at freedom.’”

  Ariel stood straighter and clasped her hands in front of her like a child making a recitation. “‘Full fathom five thy father lies,’” she intoned. “‘Of his bones are coral made / Those are pearls that were his eyes / Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.’”

  “You haven’t forgotten! Good, good.” The older man turned to Alan as if they had been acquainted for years. “I taught her the whole part of Ariel when she was eight years old. I thought it might go over well—a child as the magician’s helper, you know. We were going to suspend her from a cord and let her fly across the stage. Even had the wings made.”

  “How I wanted to do it!” declared Ariel.

  “Pluck up the backbone, you were,” agreed Padgett. “But Bess didn’t like the idea, so it came to nothing in the end.” He looked very solemn suddenly. “My condolences, my dear. Awful thing.”

  “Yes.” Ariel paused and swallowed. “This is Lord Alan Gresham,” she said then. “He is helping me look into Bess’s death. Lord Alan, this is Mr. Charles Padgett. But you will have heard of him, of course.”

  Padgett preened a bit.

  Refusing to be pushed, Alan said, “Will I?”

  The older man drew himself up into a magnificent huff.

  “We came to talk to you about Bess,” Ariel added quickly.

  Neatly implying, Alan noticed, that they were consulting him first and foremost, without of course saying so.

  Padgett appeared to consider remaining offended, then gave it up for a more congenial role. “Come into my poor premises, and I will do what I can,” he replied, gesturing them grandly into the room behind him.

  It was a tiny, wildly cluttered chamber, the walls bulging with costumes hung on hooks, the floor crowded by an overstuffed armchair and a mirrored dressing table on which pots and vials and tubes vied for space with scraps of false hair, bits of putty, and a vast litter of personal objects. The disarray, and the closeness of the atmosphere, made Alan take a step back. When Ariel sat down in the armchair, he indicated with a gesture that he would stand. Padgett spread his hands, then took the stool before the vanity. There was barely an inch between his knees and Ariel’s, Alan saw. How did the man bear such disorder?

  “A sad, sad thing,” Padgett intoned. “Poor lovely Bess. We shall not see her like again.” He put a hand over his heart and bowed his head.

  After a moment, Ariel said, “Did you notice any difference in her? Had anything happened to make her… despondent?”

  The older man shook his head slowly. “Our lives outside the theater were quite separate, of course. But she seemed the same as ever. There may have been a bit of wrangling now and then.” He made an eloquent gesture. “But that is the nature of our profession.” He looked at Lord Alan. “We pour out our souls, you know, on the stage. It taxes the nerves and makes it difficult to tolerate the… quirks and foibles of others.”

  “How difficult?” inquired Alan.

  Padgett smiled at him in a kindly way. “We murder one another only on the stage, my dear sir. Naturally, we have our jealousies and romantic mishaps and irritations.” He put his hand over his heart again. “We are but human, after all. However, our work gives us a splendid outlet for our humors.”

  “Not always, apparently,” Alan pointed out.

  There was a horrified silence.

  “There has to be a reason she did it,” Ariel burst out.

  Padgett looked grave. “Dear child, I don’t think you will find it here. Bess was admired by most everyone, and even those who had… less cordial feelings knew she filled the seats.” He looked suddenly shrewd. “Actors don’t risk their livelihood.”

  This was the most honest thing he had said so far, Alan thought.

  Ariel was looking at the small patch of floor under her feet. “There must have been some sign,” she insisted.

  “Bess was simply Bess,” Padgett said. “Well, except…”

  Ariel’s head came up. “What?”

  The actor shrugged. “This can’t have anything to do with her death. It is too long ago.”

  “Please tell me.”

  “A year or so ago,” he began, then paused. “No, I suppose it’s more like two years; I noticed that Bess seemed… distracted—as if she had something important on her mind. Our work here at the theater had always been her life, you know. She thought of little else.” He frowned. “It’s hard to explain, really. It was an impression, a vague feeling. Before that time, one could feel Bess present in every fiber. Afterward, she wasn’t entirely here any longer. She still performed brilliantly, of course. Yet something was missing.” He waved a hand in the air. “Perhaps you noticed it yourself, Ariel.”

  “I saw her only for short visits,” she answered quietly. “She had Miss Ames arrange special instruction or expeditions for most of my long holidays. I didn’t really have the chance to notice.”

  Watching her, Alan saw a flicker of hurt in the depths of her hazel eyes.

  “Probably, it was nothing,” said Padgett cheeringly. “People do change, after all. And I may have been mistaken.”

  In silent agreement, Alan shifted slightly in the doorway. “Tell me,” he said. “If you wished to make it appear—onstage—that an actor was floating above the ground, could it be done?”

  The older man swiveled around to look at him.

  “Being behind the scenes here, I find myself becoming interested in stagecraft,” Alan added.

  “Ah.” Padgett brightened. “You’re thinking of something like the ghost in Hamlet, perhaps?”

  “A perfect example,” he agreed.

  The actor was nodding. “It’s very hard to place the ghost high off the stage,” he declared. “If you use a platform or a harness, they’re almost always visible. But you can achieve a fine effect near the ground. You shorten the costume, you see, so that it doesn’t reach the floor. Then you put on dead black stockings and make sure the lighting is all upward. The feet just disappear into the shadows and voilà”—he made a dramatic gesture—“the ghost is floating.” He beamed.

  “Fascinating,” replied Alan. “Do you know anything about this supposed haunting at Carlton House?”

  Padgett looked startled. “I’ve heard of it,” he replied cautiously.

  “No more than that?”

  He shook his head, his gaze seemingly riveted on Lord Alan’s face.

  “Such a trick with the lighting would come in very handy for creating Bess Harding’s ‘ghost,’” Alan pointed out.

  “I haven’t been near Carlton House for three months,” stated Padgett. He ran a hand through his mane of white hair. “I’ve never been one of that set. Prinny don’t like my politics.”

  “Can you prove that?” asked Alan.

  “Are you calling me a liar,
sir?” The actor stood, throwing out his massive chest. “I may not have been born to the nobility, but my word is good.”

  “Of course it is,” soothed Ariel, also rising. “Lord Alan wasn’t doubting you. He is merely looking for information.”

  “Well, I haven’t any,” answered Padgett truculently.

  Ariel moved toward the door of the tiny room. “We must catch Maria before she goes. You will let me know if you remember anything further about Bess?”

  The older man took a visible breath. “Anything for you, my dear child,” he replied finally. His tone clearly implied that the same did not go for others who might be present.

  Ariel gave him a brilliant smile. “Thank you,” she said and urged Lord Alan out into the corridor once again.

  “We will never get anywhere if you continually undermine my lines of questioning,” Alan protested.

  “We will never get anywhere if you antagonize everyone we speak to,” she retorted.

  “We are not here to engage in amiable chitchat or to hear useless reminiscences. We must get to the heart of the matter and adhere to the facts.”

  “But what he said about my mother being different the last two—”

  “Moonshine,” snapped Alan. “A waste of time.”

  Ariel gave him an exasperated look. She started to speak, but they had reached a closed door near the end of the hall, and instead she raised her hand and knocked on it.

  “Yes?” replied a resonant female voice. The door opened to reveal a tall, statuesque woman with lustrous black hair and a striking, hawk-like face. Her dark eyes showed a sharp intelligence as she looked from one to the other of them. She was dressed in street clothes, clearly ready to depart. “Yes?” she said again.

  “It’s Ariel Harding.” She looked more hesitant than before. “How are you?”

  “Ariel?” The woman looked her up and down.

  “This is Lord Alan Gresham. Lord Alan, this is Maria Edgecombe, the chief actress at the theater here.”

  Maria gave her a piercing look. “Since your mother died,” she amplified. She subjected Lord Alan to a thorough examination. “One of Langford’s sons?” she asked.