Miss Billings Treads The Boards

by Carla Kelly

  The rehearsal went without a bobble. Malcolm summoned the cast to sit in the audience chairs as he talked them through final suggestions. He smiled kindly upon Mr. Meacheam. “Sir, you are an excellent vicar!”

  The little man nodded and smiled, all the while cupping his hand to his ear. “My pleasure, sir. Who of us hasn’t wanted, at some time, to tread the boards?”

  Gerald stood up and bowed to the old man. “He reminds me, sir. We must have something written on that marriage paper that Kate and Hal sign, else when Phoebe capers about with it, the audience will see it is only a blank page.”

  “I have some paper,” Hal spoke up. “I’ll scribble a few lines on it, and none will be the wiser.”

  Malcolm continued a discussion of the small touches still lacking, then stopped suddenly at the sound of a drum. Kate looked at the stage in surprise as the youngest Bladesworth daughter entered from the wings carrying the drum on her head, while her sister pounded upon it. Malcolm rose in applause for his daughters and then turned back to the rest of his cast, holding his arms open wide to them.

  “Come, my dears and fellow thespians, let us march!”

  Maria noted Kate’s surprise. “It is such an old custom that I don’t know when it began. The youngest member of the troupe always bears the drum on her head. We will walk behind in costume, and distribute handbills for tonight’s performance.”

  Malcolm clapped his hand around his wife’s shoulders and looked down at her fondly. “And it is the last time we will do it! Kate, thanks to you, this troupe of strolling players will remain here, firmly fixed, as long as we can draw breath, open the curtain, and remember our lines. If we do our best, Ivy will have a home where she can finally plant flowers and watch them come up, instead of leaving them for someone else to enjoy.”

  He kissed the top of her head as Ivy blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes. The girls continued to pound the drum as Malcolm helped them off the stage. In pairs the actors fell in behind, grabbing up handbills as they moved through the lobby and into Banner Street.

  Her arm tucked firmly in Hal’s grip, Kate strolled through the streets of Leeds, smiling, blowing kisses, and handing out playbills advertising the evening performance. Hal nodded and waved to the merchants, shoppers, and children who stopped their daily pursuits and looked with appreciation on the players. He leaned closer to Kate. “Did you ever think you would be walking down the middle of the street with a bunch of actors?”

  She waved and tossed a kiss to one gaping farm boy who loped along beside them. “There are many things I never imagined would happen this summer,” she said and looked back at Malcolm and Ivy. “I trust I have become sufficiently flexible to suit these dear ones.”

  “We shall see,” was all Hal said in reply. “We shall see.”

  The rest of the afternoon dragged by, as though all time had stopped when the men pawned their watches. The others divested themselves of their costumes and laid down to rest, but Kate could not sleep. She pulled on her simplest muslin frock, fingered her hair, sighed, and let herself out of the theatre. She had a farthing in her pocket. It was the last one of all the money Socrates Cratch had paid her for the Giotto. She walked along the river, thinking to throw it in for good luck, when she noticed a small church beside the water.

  It was old, so old, in the Romanesque style, and almost hidden by the buildings that crowded close on either side. There was only a postage stamp of a cemetery about it, and the stones were as weathered as the building, leaning at about the same angle. ST. PHILEMON was carved into the lintel over the door. She went inside, blinking in the cool darkness, breathing in the smell of incense lingering at least from the Crusades.

  The wink of candles caught her eye, and she knew what she would do with her last farthing. She put it in the box, took up a candle, and lit it off one of those already burning. She knelt on the prayer bench and rested her arms on the railing, thinking of all the petitions, serious and trivial, that must have floated up beyond the low-ceilinged church. Her first thought was to pray for success in tonight’s bold venture, but all she could see before her was Hal’s face. “Bless him, dear God,” she whispered, “and help me to forget him as soon as I can.”

  Her mind at peace with herself, she reflected on the events of the summer. I have made friends, and bought a theatre, and fallen in love, and discovered that I could stand up for myself.

  I wonder which was most important? She rested her forehead against the dark wood, mellowed by centuries of smoke. I stood up by myself. When everything else was gone, the calm assurance would remain that nothing need ever frighten her again. She was equal to the tasks of life, no matter how onerous they were at times.

  She rose and moved to a back pew, enjoying the quiet. Someone shifted to her left, and she noticed Mr. Meacheam, sitting only in front of her, a smile on his face. Every now and then he looked down at a prayer book and then back toward the altar, his lips moving. Hal had said something about his never missing Evensong, but it was still early for that.

  She made her way back to the aisle, genuflected and left the church. The August sun was warm on her skin, and she raised her face to it, wondering why she should feel so good when her glorious hair was gone, Hal’s ring that meant so much to her was pawned, and its owner was probably soon to return to London. I think it is because I know myself now, she thought. And I do have Hal to thank for that. He bullied me into bravery.

  Her stomach began to growl as she hurried back to the Banner Street Theatre. Even oatmeal will taste excellent, she thought, and perhaps there is a touch of Madeira left. Oatmeal and Madeira! I have become quite as eccentric as the Bladesworths.

  She went in through the front door. Davy nodded to her from the box office and waved a sheaf of tickets. “We have already sold a fair amount, Kate,” he said.

  “Excellent!”

  She looked around her at the high ceiling, remembering Hal perched so precariously on the ladder, touching up the gilt, and then painting the walls. I shall write a letter to Abner Sheffield and tell him that he was entirely wrong about Lord Grayson, she told herself. He is neither lazy nor devoted to frivolity.

  The oatmeal went down smoothly, even without sweetening. The touch of Madeira helped. Malcolm found some bonbons, which he offered to the cast members. “Tomorrow night, there will be a loin of beef and—”

  “Oatmeal,” Maria chimed in as she accepted a bonbon from her papa and wrinkled her nose at him.

  “No!” Malcolm said, his good humor unruffled by his daughter’s quizzing. “I was thinking more in terms of—”

  “Oatmeal,” Phoebe stated, in her finest tragedian’s voice.

  Everyone laughed. Phoebe tucked her hand in Gerald’s and dared her father to say anything. He overlooked the gesture and continued around the circle until the bonbons were gone.

  At five thirty they lit all the candles along the walls and positioned the footboard at stage front, with its double row of candles. The chandeliers over the stage were lit and raised into place. Kate sucked in her breath and held it, captivated by the warm light that bathed the curtain, turning it from a patched piece of green baize to something elegant and magic.

  The theatre began to fill with patrons. Kate fought down the butterflies that flitted about in her stomach and hurried backstage. Hal waited for her in the wings, motioning to her to join him.

  “Is my wig on straight?” he asked, crouching down so she could reach it more easily. “I must own to a certain sinking feeling that Malcolm assures me will depart when I speak my first line. He calls it stage fright; I call it abject terror.”

  “Your wig is fine. Lord Grayson,” she whispered, making sure that the runner was nowhere in hearing. “Do you know, there is a hank of black hair, about so long and quite thick, I might add, floating about Leeds. You could probably have a wig made for your own head,” she teased.

  “You are a bit of a baggage,” he replied, straightening up. “While some of us may not be as well-endowed in certain areas
, we do compensate in others, my dear Mrs. Hampton.” He grinned at her. “And if you blush at that, I will know you have a rascally mind.”

  She was spared the necessity of comment by Davy, who stood just offstage and beckoned to them.

  “I almost think I’d rather be with Beresford at Badajoz again,” said the marquess under his breath. “Tally-ho, Miss Rowbottom.”

  Malcolm was right about that first line, Kate discovered. Once it was out, once she forgot about the upturned faces just beyond the footlights, once she devoted herself to the missish antics of Agatha Rowbottom, fear left her. In fact so heartily did she enter into the twists and turns of Gerald’s marvelous play, when the first act ended, the applause that roared across the stage startled her. Only Phoebe’s tugging at her arm reminded her to curtsy to the other cast members and then curtsy to the audience before the curtain closed.

  “Oh, well done, well done!” Malcolm whispered when the curtain closed and they gathered close together, arms about each other, on the stage. “No time to marvel; get the props in place for act two.”

  And so it went, each act more triumphant than the one before, the applause now mingled with cheers. When the third act ended and the long intermission began, they hurried into the green room to sit staring at each other in delighted stupefaction. Gerald leaped to his feet, grabbed up Phoebe, hoops and all, for a mad waltz about the crowded room. Malcolm mopped his forehead and looked on in paternal delight, clutching Ivy close to him.

  “Well, my dear, I think we are in Leeds to stay,” he chortled.

  Davy stepped into the room, grinned at his capering sister, and handed his father a folded note.

  “A gentleman told me to give this to you,” Davy said.

  Kate watched Malcolm as he opened the note, read it, paled, and handed it to Ivy, who gasped and fanned herself with it. She came closer.

  “It is not trouble, is it?” she asked, keeping her voice low so the cavorting cast members could not hear.

  His smile crooked, Malcolm retrieved the note, folded it small, and tucked it in his waistcoat, out of her sight. “No, my dear.”

  “I hope you are not keeping anything from me,” she said.

  With an expression on his face that she could not divine, Malcolm shook his head. “Rather let us say, it can keep until the play is over. Now, don’t tease me about this, Kate!”

  Before she could protest, Davy was calling for act four. She followed the others back toward the stage again. From the wings she watched the sword fight scene, the audience shrieking with laughter as Hal, his spectacles gone, stumbled about the stage and still managed to best Gerald and the runner.

  Malcolm stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder. “The lad has a future,” he murmured, his eyes on the action.

  “Who, Hal?” Kate asked, her voice merry. “Perhaps in the House of Lords.”

  “No, my super-dainty Kate. I am thinking of Gerald. He may be the next Goldsmith or Sheridan. And to think he wrote this little wonder in three days in a stuffy balcony, dodging bats.”

  “I have always been amazed what desperation will make a person do,” Kate whispered back, thinking of Mr. Cratch and the Giotto, and Hal fleeing from his wicked nephew. It makes us do things we would never attempt, she considered, watching the marquess lumber about the stage.

  As much as she still dreaded her own journey before the footlights, act five was almost fun for her, as Mr. Meacheam, smiling as beatifically as ever, “married” her to Antonionus Pinchbeck in the play within a play, right before the final scene. She boldly scratched Katherine Billings on the marriage document and presented the quill to Squire Pinchbeck.

  “ ‘Bless me,’ ” she said, her eyes a-goggle. “ ‘I trust I spelled it right this time. I can never be too sure with names, especially my own.’ ”

  With a skill borne from four preceding acts, Hal waited for the laughter to quiet down before speaking his next line in all amazement. “ ’Egad, Miss Rowbottom, do you have that same problem? I cannot believe how well-suited we are! Who would have thought it?’ ” He dipped the quill in the inkwell, dropped his spectacles several times, and then signed the document as she swooned into “Father” Malcolm’s arms and the laughter rolled on.

  It took him rather long to sign the document, she thought, as she waited, swooning in Malcolm’s arms, for the next cue. He signed with a flourish, sanded and blotted it, and handed it to Phoebe, who waved the paper about and danced around the stage. Gerald and Will winked at the audience and congratulated themselves on the subterfuge of actually marrying off the spinster. Maria and Phoebe fell into their arms, and the curtain closed for the final time to thunderous applause.

  Hal was ginning as he helped her up. “It’s done, my dear, it’s done.” He grabbed her, kissed her, and then released her as the curtain opened.

  Everyone in the audience was standing as the actors stepped forward for their bows. Incredulous, Kate stared out at the playgoers, all on their feet, all applauding, some stamping their feet. The sound hurt her ears, and she looked at the Bladesworths, wondering if it bothered them, too. They appeared oblivious to the volume, but bowed and curtsied over and over, their faces lit from within, relishing the applause, nourished somehow in a way that she would never understand, even if she stayed with them for years and years.

  She tugged Hal’s arm, and he leaned down. “Look at them, Hal,” she urged, her lips next to his ear. “This is food and drink to them, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Much better than oatmeal and Madeira, I vow. It makes them happy.” He bowed, too, and she curtsied to the audience, and then he whispered, “What makes you happy, my darling?”

  You do, she thought. Only you. “I think, my own smallholding in Kent, a cow, and chickens. The magnitude of this reception makes me think that could actually become a reality. Perhaps I will not starve, after all, and may still avoid Leavitt Hall,” she teased, hoping that she sounded more cheerful than she felt.

  They bowed again as the applause rolled on. “Fancy, Mrs. Hampton, my principal seat is in Kent,” he commented, his voice offhand, his eyes on the audience.

  “Then I shall sell your steward butter and eggs,” she said, keeping her voice light.

  “Perhaps,” he said noncommittally as he tugged her down for another bow, and then another, as the ovation refused to die.

  Finally Malcolm stepped forward, his arms upraised, and the audience quieted. He bowed. “We will perform Well Married four more nights and encourage you to return.”

  The applause began again. Their heads together, Malcolm and Phoebe consulted, and then she stepped forward toward the flickering candles and with a simple gesture quieted the house. “Lady Macbeth,” she said, and began the sleepwalking soliloquy.

  The others withdrew quietly from the stage as Phoebe put the audience under her spell and led them from Macbeth to King Lear to Hamlet, and finally to The Merchant of Venice. Kate watched from the wings, her eyes on Malcolm, who stood next her, mouthing the words, tears shining on his cheeks.

  “She is magnificent,” Kate whispered.

  He only nodded as the tears slid, unabashed, down his face. “It is the moment I have waited for.” Without another word he handed her the note.

  She unfolded it slowly, praying for good news. I have no more hair to give, she thought. It will have to be the anatomists. She read the note once, sucked in her breath and held it, and read the note again.

  “ ‘Bladesworth—may I speak to you backstage when the play is finished? We have a great deal to talk about. Edmund Kean.’ ”

  “Good God!” she exclaimed, and then clapped her hand over her mouth when the others hissed at her to be silent. She stared at Malcolm, who was smiling at her now through his tears. “Not the Edmund Kean?” she whispered. “I mean, even I have heard of him.”

  “Who has not?” Malcolm took back the note. “Pray God he is paying close attention to my darling daughter now.”

  They watched in silence until Phoebe finished. The appl
ause poured over her, as rhythmic as waves cresting on the shore. Her face a picture of joy, Phoebe extended her hands gracefully to her audience and curtsied as deeply as a debutante at court. After basking another moment in the acclaim, she quieted the audience with another simple gesture and left the stage.

  She fell into Malcolm’s arms, laughing and crying at the same time. Kate watched in complete admiration. I feel as if they are my family, she thought, and I am so proud to be counted with them.

  They progressed backstage slowly, moving against a current of well-wishers, smiling, shaking hands, bowing. The greenroom door looked so far away, but eventually the crowds thinned, and they made it inside that haven.

  A little man was seated on a packing crate. There was nothing that distinguished him from the other playgoers, and yet there was everything. He radiated a certain air that Kate could feel from the doorway. He seemed like a coiled spring, his eyes intense, a slight smile on his rather dour face. Malcolm came forward quickly, his hands extended. “Mr. Kean,” he said. “This is indeed a pleasure.”

  “I rather think the good fortune is mine,” Kean replied, standing and shaking hands. “Here I had thought to spend a boring evening in the inn, when what should arrive with my dinner but a playbill? The landlord claims that he serves them up with every tray.”

  Malcolm grinned at Ivy, who hurried to his side. “My wife has been indoctrinating the entire town, sir. Even diners are not safe.”

  Kean bowed to Ivy. “An excellent idea, madam!” He turned back to Malcolm. “I am returning from a summer’s engagement in Edinburgh.”

  “I had heard that you were there,” Malcolm murmured.

  Hand in hand, and flushed from the crowd of admirers that continued to mill about, Phoebe and Gerald entered the green room. Malcolm gestured to them to come closer. “Sir, let me present my daughter Phoebe and Gerald Broussard, the author of this play.”

  Kean bowed again and took Gerald by the arm. “Lad, you have a rare talent. And you, too, my dear.” Without releasing Gerald, he looked to Malcolm again. “That, sir, is what I wish to speak of.”