Miss Billings Treads The Boards

by Carla Kelly

  “Please, Will, let him go,” Kate urged, tugging on his arm.

  To her relief Will released the marquess. “I’m not sure you are worth the trouble,” the runner said. “I really thought you cared about Kate.”

  “I do,” Hal replied.

  “Well, you have a damned strange way of showing it.”

  He turned to go, then whirled around suddenly and cracked the marquess hard across the face with the back of his hand. Hal reeled from the surprised blow, crashed against the wall, and slid to the ground, his hand to his face. As Kate watched, her face white, he struggled to his feet. Will stood his ground, his breath loud in the alley.

  “I should call you out for that,” Hal said.

  Will thrust his face closer. “I wish you would,” he declared, spitting out the words. “But I am sure it would be too much exertion! Stay away from him, Kate.”

  He left then, hurrying away from the theatre, heading toward his lodgings at the Scylla and Charybdis.

  Hal leaned against the wall and dabbed at his lip, which was bleeding freely. “Remind me to make sure those foils are buttoned tomorrow during dress rehearsal,” was all he said. Without another word he went back into the theatre.

  Kate stared after him. She listened to the runner’s rapid footsteps receding down the empty street. She covered her eyes with her hands, but no tears came. She was beyond that. Her whole body numb, she walked to the tree, sat on the lower limb, and wrapped her arms around the trunk. She closed her eyes, wishing with all her heart that Will had not said those things. He had expressed the doubts she was feeling, but was afraid to voice.

  “You could help me, Hal, I know you could,” she whispered into the bark. “You could probably snap your fingers and three hundred pounds would appear, but you will not.”

  The tears came then, but she forced them back. Surely Hal could reveal himself as Lord Grayson. Algernon would not dare do him harm, especially after that botched kidnapping. Hal could demand protection from the magistrate, and if the runner had been sent by Algernon, as she feared, he could do no harm. Then Lord Grayson could easily arrange a bank draft for the money and her worries would be over.

  “But you will not,” she said. As she sat in the tree and watched the stars come out, the thought occurred to her that Hal expected her to solve her own problems. She looked up at the night sky, watching the stars through the slowly moving leaves. “Why are you so determined that I should stand on my own two feet? What does it matter to you?”

  Her questions remained unanswered. She watched the sky until she was too tired to hold onto the tree, then went back into the theatre. It was dark, and she was grateful that everyone had taken her at her word to go to bed. She tiptoed onto the stage, which was still set for the fifth act, with its play within a play and wonderful conclusion. She stood in the front of the stage and held her hands out.

  “How nice it would be if everything could be so tidily wrapped up by the fifth act,” she said out loud, pressing against her stomach and remembering all of Malcolm Bladesworth’s patient lessons on projection to the back wall.

  To her amazement someone in the dark began to applaud. She stood there, her hand to her stomach, and then she smiled and tossed a kiss into the darkness. “Hal, go to bed,” she said. “I’m perfectly all right.”

  “Oh, I know that, Mrs. Hampton. I know that.”

  Kate woke in the morning, feeling better than she had any right to, considering that she was no closer to three hundred pounds than when she fell so solidly asleep. She stretched and lay there with her hands over her head, staring up at the ceiling, wiggling her fingers.

  The gleam of gold on her third finger caught her eye. She wiggled her hand, watching the light catch the precious metal. I wonder what this is worth, she thought idly, and then sucked in her breath. She leaped out of bed and threw herself beside her trunk. She rummaged in the bottom of it and drew out a small velvet bag. In another moment she was in her clothes. “Bother this long hair,” she exclaimed in irritation as she swept it over her shoulders, looked around for her shoes, and hurried into the hallway, still buttoning the last button.

  As she had suspected, the company was assembled in the green room, that refuge from reality that actors always turned to. She went to the packing crate cupboard where they kept their dishes and pulled out a soup bowl, setting it on the table. The others watched her with interest, but no one said anything.

  Without a word she pulled apart the drawstring bag that she held and dumped the contents into the bowl. She steeled herself for the effort, but discovered to her pleasure that she didn’t even feel a pang as her father’s wedding ring and her mother’s pearl necklace tumbled into the soup bowl.

  “It’s all I have, and I am going to pawn it.” Her voice was deadly calm, even as her insides quivered, and she feared another run into the back alley to retch up an already empty stomach. “If you have any faith in this venture …” She paused and winked back tears. “No. If you have any faith in me, please give me everything you have.”

  The others sat staring at her, and her heart sank into her sorely tried stomach. Lord Grayson was the first to move. He drew out his heavy gold pocket watch and clicked it open. He inclined it toward Kate and pointed to a dent on the lid. “Badajoz, my heart,” he said, and his voice was unsteady. “A little closer and I would have had more than a bruise.” He snapped it shut and added it to the meager pile. “No reason why it won’t bring you good luck, too.”

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling for the first time. She looked into his eyes and liked the reflection she saw there.

  Phoebe darted out of the room and returned bearing a ring triumphantly overhead. “It’s only garnet,” she apologized, tossing it in the bowl.

  Maria burst into tears. “I don’t have anything!” she cried. “Oh, I wish I did! You could have it all!”

  Kate dabbed at her own eyes. Will, sitting on the side of the room far away from the marquess, pulled out his wallet and threw in a handful of sovereigns. “See here, Kate,” he admonished, his voice gruff, “I expect a return on that, or else I will owe my soul to the Scylla and Charybdis.”

  “Silly! Papa can show you how to shinny down a rope, and with your baggage, too,” exclaimed Maria. “It’s called an actor’s fire escape.”

  The Bladesworths burst into laughter. “You’re not supposed to confess things like that to a runner,” Will protested, but his eyes were merry.

  Malcolm was next. He made his ponderous way to the room next door and returned with a silver-tipped cane. He flourished it from the doorway, and his daughters and son gasped.

  “Papa, not Shakespeare’s cane!” Davy said, speaking in hushed tones.

  “Well, as to that, I do not know that it really belonged to Willie the Bard, though it has made a prodigious fine story all these years,” Malcolm said as he twisted off the head. “But I do know this is silver.” He plunked it on top of the pile. “And here’s my watch, too.”

  Gerald had been sitting silent throughout the growing excitement. He got up quietly and left the room. Phoebe looked at Maria. “Sister, you don’t think he will …”

  Maria took Phoebe’s hand. “It’s all he has. Oh, Mama, don’t let him!”

  Ivy shook her head as Gerald returned. In his hand was a porcelain music box, exquisitely gilded and painted with a delicate hand over its entire surface. He wound it and opened the lid, smiling faintly as the gentle tones of a French lullaby filled the room.

  Maria took Kate by the arm. “It is all he has of his mother. Oh, Kate, don’t take it!” she whispered.

  The tune finished, and they were all silent for a moment more as Gerald closed the lid and handed the music box to Kate. “I know the tune,” he said as her fingers closed over the precious box. “The memory will hold me.”

  “That does it!” said Ivy. She leaped to her feet and hurried to the next room. The girls looked at each other, frowning. “Mama pawned her last bauble years ago,” Phoebe said. “What can she be
doing?”

  Ivy returned, moving slower than she had left. She did not look at her husband, but continued resolutely forward and handed a small bag to Kate. She pressed it into Kate’s hand and tightened her fingers over it. With a sigh she let go and patted Kate’s cheek. “I have every confidence in you, my dear,” she said, and there was only the slightest quaver in her voice. “You have become very much like a daughter to me.”

  With fingers that trembled, Kate opened the bag and gasped. The others gathered closer around the table as she pulled out a magnificent ruby brooch, emerald-cut with diamonds winking around it. It glowed in her palm, the deepest red imaginable, the color of a magical beating heart.

  Malcolm took Ivy’s hand. “My dear wife, I thought that was gone years ago,” he said, his voice hushed for a change.

  Ivy shook her head. “No. I have hung onto it through thin times and thinner.” She smiled at Kate. “Perhaps I was saving it for just such an emergency.”

  “I … I couldn’t possibly …” Kate began, holding out the jewel to its owner.

  “Of course you can! We have a magnificent play that deserves to be seen.” Ivy raised her chin and swallowed. “I refuse to be defeated by small-minded merchants.”

  Malcolm brought Ivy’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “You are a wonder. Just when I think I know you and nothing you do can ever surprise me—” He stopped, unable to continue. He coughed and cleared his throat while his children admired other parts of the room.

  Ivy only sighed “Well, Kate, now we have to give until it hurts.” As the others looked on in further amazement, she removed her wedding band and set it gently in the full soup bowl.

  “I can’t,” Kate whispered. She looked down at her hand and the band Hal had tossed so carelessly in her lap a month before. It is all I will ever have of him, she thought, that and the paltriest memories. She stared down at the ruby in her hand and considered all that it meant to Ivy. Her face set, she put the brooch on the pile and stripped off her ring, too.

  She clasped her hands together so they would not shake. “Very well, then,” she said. “Does anyone have the time?”

  Hal burst out laughing and pointed to the soup bowl. “You’ll have to dig for the time, my darling,” he said.

  The others joined in the laughter as Hal pulled out his watch by the chain. “It is eight o’clock.”

  “Very well, then,” Kate said. “Ivy, I submit that you and I should go to the pawn shop. Perhaps if we cry for them, we will get more money.”

  “It’s certainly worth the attempt,” Ivy agreed. “Malcolm, find a bag for this. Maria, you and Phoebe look over the costumes one more time while we are gone. Kate, do you have the writ of guarantee? We will go directly to the magistrate from the pawn shop.” She reached for her bonnet on the hook by the door. “Hal, don’t stand there like Squire Pinchbeck! I know I saw a bat circling in the fly loft this morning.” She tied the ribbons firmly under her chin. “Kate, I will wait while you create some order out of your hair and find a hat.”

  Kate hurried to do as she was bid, grateful for Ivy’s brisk commands. She quickly braided her hair and wound it around her head, and stuffed on her bonnet. Hal met her in the hall as she swirled her shawl about her shoulders.

  “Suppose it is not enough?” he asked, his voice serious.

  She kissed his cheek and darted away from him as he reached for her. “Then I will find a medical college and sell my body to the anatomists,” she called over her shoulder.

  “I would call that a shocking waste!”

  She laughed and closed the door behind her. Ivy waited for her on the stage, a small basket over her arm. Holding tight to each other’s hands, they ventured into the street, walking with brisk steps and eyes straight ahead, each afraid to speak to the other for fear of bursting into tears.

  Their steps slowed as they reached the street of the money lenders. “Courage,” Ivy whispered under her breath and tugged Kate after her into the first promising shop.

  To Kate’s relief it wasn’t necessary to cry more than a few tears for the pawnbroker. He remained noncommittal as each item was proffered to him, until Ivy’s brooch was laid in his outstretched palm. Kate noted with secret delight that his eyes opened wider and his nostrils flared before he remembered his audience and resumed his frosty, offhand demeanor.

  “A pretty good piece,” he allowed at last.

  “A magnificent brooch,” Ivy corrected.

  He folded his hands in front of him and eyed his customers across the counter. “I can give you two hundred and seventy pounds for the lot.”

  “We need three hundred,” Ivy said quietly.

  “I can go no higher.”

  Kate burst into tears with no difficulty and slid to the floor in as graceful a faint as Steinberg and Sons had ever seen in their establishment before. Her eyes rolled back in her head as the broker hurried around the end of the counter and began to fan her. Perched on the brink of laughter, she heaved her bosom as he leaned closer.

  “Well, perhaps two hundred and eighty,” he said, his face close to her breast.

  Her eyes fluttered open and filled with tears again.

  When he could see that she was well on her way to complete and total recovery, the broker helped her to her feet, holding her rather nearer than she would have liked. She thought of how much fun it would be to tell this adventure to Hal and leaned against the broker.

  “Two hundred and ninety,” he amended as he gazed at her bosom. “That is my top offer,” he stated as the shop door opened and another customer entered. “And do not think you will get better on this street.”

  “Very well, we accept,” Ivy said, her arm around Kate.

  In a few moments they were on the street again, the money tucked discreetly in the basket, along with a notarized list of the pawned items. When they were out of sight of the building, Ivy permitted herself a smile.

  “Kate, you were positively shameless,” she said. “That was a sterling performance. I defy even Sarah Siddons to duplicate it.”

  “I cannot wait to tell Hal,” Kate said, and then she sobered. “But look you, we are yet ten pounds shy of the mark!” She tucked her arm in Ivy’s. “I told Hal I would find a medical school and sell my body.”

  Ivy stood still and grabbed Kate by both arms. “I have an even better idea! Oh, come with me!”

  Chapter 17

  The deed was done in a matter of minutes. Kate kept her eyes tightly shut during the entire ordeal. She took the money and hurried into the street again, her head high.

  Ivy didn’t give her a chance to mourn. “On to the magistrate’s, my brave one,” she said. “Chin up, Kate. We have a theatre now, and it will grow back.”

  They hurried back to the theatre a few minutes after ten, the magistrate’s license clutched in Kate’s hand. The green room was empty, and they could hear voices from the stage.

  “Goodness, I must hurry,” Ivy declared after listening to the dialogue. She tossed her bonnet toward the green room door. “My costume must wait. I am on in only a few minutes!” She hugged Kate and darted for the stage.

  Kate rummaged in the green room, found a tack, and fixed the license to the doorsill, where everyone could see it. She listened to the dialogue and hurried for the changing room.

  Her dress was laid out and already unbuttoned down the back, and her wig waited close by on its stand. “Bless you, Maria and Phoebe,” she murmured as she took off her bonnet, gulped as she fingered what remained of her hair, and hurried out of her walking dress. I won’t think about it, she said to herself as she struggled into the narrow hoops of the Georgian era. Truly, the hair did curl prettily around her face, but she would miss it.

  As she stood there in hoops and chemise, wondering how to get the costume on, there was a light tap on the door. She hurried across the room, exclaiming, “Maria, I hope that is you,” as she opened the door.

  Hal stood before her in his elegant tapestry coat. His eyes opened wide and his jaw drop
ped, and he leaned back against the doorframe as if someone had shot him. Before the tears had time to well up in her eyes, he grabbed her, hoops and all, and whirled her around the room.

  She pushed against his chest. “Hal, this is so improper!”

  “I don’t give a hang,” he said when he set her down. He touched her curls, a grin on his face that only grew wider as he walked around and looked at her shorn hair from the back. “You are so à la mode, my dear wife, and simply the most magnificent fighter I have ever known.”

  Kate grabbed for her dress and held it in front of her. “I obtained ten pounds for all that hair.” Tears started down her cheeks. “And it will grow,” she wailed.

  Without a word Hal took the dress from her, set it aside, and held her close. She clung to him and sobbed into his coat. Finally he tipped her chin up and looked deep into her eyes.

  “Silly, I don’t love you for your hair,” he said, his voice soft. “You know I love you for your bosom.”

  “Wretch!” He ducked as Kate swung at him and then dissolved in laughter. Her face flaming even as she laughed, she scooped up the dress, pulled it over her head and turned around for him to button it. “Button it fast, and don’t look!” she commanded.

  “You mean I cannot stare in absolute admiration at your more-than-perfect shoulders?”

  “Hal, you try me,” she said. “Just button it.”

  “I have to keep my eyes open,” he protested, “else how can I button? And these are deucedly small buttons.”

  When he finished, she set the wig on her head, pulling it down firmly, and noting with grudging satisfaction that it rode much better on her head without all that hair tucked underneath. There wasn’t time for makeup, except to snatch up a star patch from the dressing-room table and fix it by her mouth.

  “Well? Shall we?” she asked and held out her arm.

  He took it. She angled sideways through the narrow doorway and let him hurry her to the wings, just in time for him to put on his spectacles and enter together on their cue.