“Why, thank you, Thomas.” She blushed again, from different cause.
“And you must fall in love with these words, learn to cherish these lines, rather than anyone who stands behind them. This should give you a proper balance,” he concluded.
They continued their run-through, Davenant having seen nothing objectionable in Arden's seemingly newfound passion. She tried to take Betterton's advice for the rest of the rehearsal. She succeeded well enough to neither depress her director nor upset her fellow actor―or, more importantly, her fellow actor's wife.
Maybe I can get through this, and maybe even do credit to Brian, Arden thought, walking home afterwards. She stopped into a baker's shop, regretting she had not done so in the morning for a better selection of loaves. She looked back through the doorway as the baker's apprentice wrapped her purchases. The man dressed solely in Puritan black, who had followed her from the theater, had stopped as well. To all appearances he waited upon her to finish making her purchases. She turned nervously back to the 'prentice, making a few nonsensical remarks about the weather, while he collected her change and she gathered her resolve. When the exchange was complete, Arden exited the shop with her loaf cradled in her arms.
The Puritan stood a few feet away in the street, and Arden sensed he deliberately avoided her gaze, deliberately tried to be unobtrusive. She did not recognize him―he was not Treadwell, or any Fanatick friend of his that she remembered from her old home. He also did not have the placid air of one of Margaret’s Friends, though beneath his hat and coat he looked a stout, sturdy country man. He seemed somewhat out of place.
“Good day, sir,” Arden ventured. She repeated it, louder, when he pretended not to notice. At last she moved directly in front of him, forcing him to acknowledge her presence. “Good day, sir!”
He looked at her and nodded somewhat sheepishly, then hurried away down the street. Arden, in turn, hurried home to Bonnie and Helena.
*****
Robert Courtenay stared at yet another of the blasted fly bills, this one tacked to one of the front posts of Will's, and swore under his breath. Could they make Malley's demise out to be any MORE of a devastation to the English stage?
“You know you're going to go see it, so just stop muttering curses and admit it,” said Sam. “And let me invite Bonnie and Helena to your box while you're about it,” he added.
“Impertinent chap, aren't you? Still, you are right, rot your soul. I won't be able to stay away, and having the babe around for the evening would be diverting,” Courtenay admitted. “All right, Sam, you may ask your paramour. Perhaps an evening in a fancy theater box with me around to entertain her usual charge might finally get you under her skirts.”
Sam flushed deeply. Courtenay knew his valet was completely honorable when it came to the Malley girl, but one simply couldn't allow the man's cheek to go unchallenged.
*****
“Sometimes I wonder if we're better off not knowing things,” said Bonnie, coming through the flat door with Helena after an outing in the park.
“Knowledge is always a good thing,” replied Arden, taking her daughter from Bonnie. The recent arrival of the tooth had been a signal to Arden to wean Helena from the breast, so she gave her the bottle of cow's milk she had warmed by the fire.
“Well, if that's what you believe, I shall tell you,” said Bonnie. “Sam has invited me to bring Helena along to watch the play from Lord Robert's box.”
“Ah, taking advantage of his master's absence, is he?” Arden remarked.
“No. That is part of the treat, according to Sam. Lord Robert will be there, and has offered to keep Helena entertained so that Sam and I may enjoy ourselves.”
Something very like fear shot through Arden. Though the thought of Lord Robert not seeing the play had left her vaguely wistful and disappointed, the knowledge he did plan to attend turned her stomach over. What would he think? Would the dialogue and the performance just reinforce his opinion of Brian as a mere scribbler of convenience, and she no better? Or worse, would he view the ending as a pathetic ploy on her part, begging the return of his affections? What-ever the case, there was no help for it now.
Bonnie interrupted her thoughts. “Er—you don't mind, do you?”
“No, of course not,” she lied absently.
Interpreting this as permission to babble, Bonnie gushed: “Oh, this is going to be so wonderful and exciting! Whatever shall I wear?”
Arden couldn't help smiling a little. She had never seen Brian's cousin so animated. Then the thought occurred. As long as I am making pathetic ploys, I may as well plunge to the depths. “You may borrow something of mine,” she offered Bonnie. “How about the green apple silk?”
Chapter Forty-Two
Arden had done it deliberately to torture him, Courtenay suspected. Sam appeared sufficiently enchanted with the Malley girl in her borrowed finery, but it struck him as little less than travesty. Arden had worn that apple green silk the first time she had come to him, the first time she had given herself to him. To see it on a mousy-haired girl with slate-blue eyes―plus, she had already tripped on the hem a few times. Courtenay’s sigh came out half groan.
“Ba?” queried Helena, from his lap. Her wide brown eyes looked concerned as she reached up to pat her father's cheek.
“Quite right,” he said, smiling with what he hoped was reassurance. So far, the babe appeared calm and cheerful. He knew Bonnie had brought a supply of milk in case the child grew hungry, and a good hard crust for teething. Still, he had no idea how Helena would respond to the sounds of either play or audience. He hoped Bonnie would not be too distracted by the charms of his valet to help soothe the child if he himself proved unable.
The moment Arden strode onto the stage, Helena crowed with glee. She then babbled something completely unintelligible, which her father could have sworn from the inflection was actually another query, asking if he didn't agree that her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. And, God help him, he did. Though he was not yet inclined to admit it, even to his infant daughter.
Soon, however, Courtenay became oblivious to his daughter’s response. Or anyone else's. My God, she's put the whole bloody thing on stage for all of London to see! he seethed. Even so, as the play wore on, he grew increasingly involved. His initial outrage, too, grew less and less. By the time the stage action depicted Arden's encounter with Peter Shire, Courtenay’s musings had softened to: Is that how it seemed to her? Is that how she felt?
When the alter ego of scribbler Malley lay still on the stage floor, Arden let loose with a deafening howl of anguish. Courtenay’s concentration broke briefly to worry how Helena would respond to such a wail from her mother. A glance revealed the child had fallen asleep in his lap. A small frown crossed her countenance, then vanished without causing her to stir. His own response astonished him far more. Arden's cry of grief brought an answering pain in his own throat. Truly, Courtenay admitted to himself, that one so full of purpose and good will should be cut short, with his last request to be his purpose carried on―yes, it is a tragedy.
A short time later came the realization. That is what bound them. They both needed to create beauty and foist it upon the world. No wonder she still wanted to see him. A voice within himself, one he had not heard in a long time, demanded: And what of beauty will you create? What will you foist upon the world? He softened its harshness with another look down at the sleeper in his arms. At least this, he sighed.
At play's end, Courtenay marveled. She still wants me. She still wants me after everything. He knew then what he had to do. He handed his sleeping daughter to Bonnie and left the box.
*****
The performance had drained Arden, and she barely had the strength to make her curtseys to the audience. Yet she retained the presence of mind to realize the applause seemed only tepid at best. At least you knew, Brian, she thought. And it didn't appear to bother you, thank God.
Before she knew what happened, gentle hands lifted her out of her curtsey, and gen
tle arms swept her into an embrace. The applause grew suddenly thunderous. Robert held her, and tipped her face up to look into his smoldering dark eyes before he kissed her.
“I understand,” he told her. “I understand it all. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Of course,” Arden answered.
“I love you,” he declared. “I want to be with you forever. Do you feel the same about me?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
He kissed her again before affirming: “Good. Now you must only trust me, Arden. I must leave you again for a brief time, to put all in order. When I return, we will be together, and we will devote ourselves to whatever your goodness and wisdom tells you we should. Will you wait for me, Arden?”
“Yes,” she repeated, somewhat dazed. She could not believe what she heard, could not fathom exactly what he meant, but it sounded wonderful. All she knew for sure was that he loved her and wanted her, and that sounded more than good enough for the moment.
He kissed her yet once more. “Until we meet again, love,” said Robert, turning from her and striding toward the theater exit.
Arden had difficulty not calling him back. Whatever he had to do was all well and good, but she would have thought he'd want to have another night with her first, to assuage the longings of the past few months. Apparently the audience concurred. Though they had parted for Courtenay’s walk to the door, a chorus of hoots and catcalls followed him out.
Later, when Arden arrived with Bonnie and Helena back at their lodgings―Sam had his recreation cut short to prepare for travel with his master―her hopes momentarily rose. She saw a dark figure lurking in the shrubbery, and she thought surely Courtenay had reconsidered his hasty leave-taking. The figure fled, however, at the sound of the trio's approach. Arden felt too mystified and bemused by the whims of her lover to ponder the figure's identity further.
Chapter Forty-Three
The dreary atmosphere of his father's drawing room almost suffocated Lord Robert. Despite the relative modernity of the family's large Tudor mansion, he had preferred since childhood the open ruins of the old mott and bailey on the hill a few furlongs to the north. Sam, the coward, busied himself upstairs pretending to unpack their things. He'd told the valet such preparation would be futile. The moment he'd finished having it out with Lord Courtenay, the old man would chase them right back over the threshold. If one was to be sent packing, 'twere best not to have unpacked in the first place.
Robert wondered vaguely if he ought to have secured an inn room in the nearby village of Chichester. After all, he doubted he'd feel like making the passage over to France at night. He stood up quickly as his father entered the room.
“Robert, my boy, what tears you away from the pleasures of London and the excesses of young Charles' court?” Lord Courtenay belonged to the generation of the late martyred King, and Robert knew he would never think of either the present royal Stuart or his own son as anything more serious than young pups. Even more so, once I've declared myself, Robert thought. He accepted his father's embrace, wondering if he'd ever get another.
He looked at his father carefully before speaking, using a long intake of breath as a method of buying time. He had always been told he resembled the old man, and so far as he could judge, this still held true. His father's hair had gone completely silver, and the lines of his face were etched more deeply than those on his own. The senior Courtenay still appeared hale, however, which gave Robert comfort. It lessened the chance he would send his father into a fatal apoplexy. “I mean to marry,” he announced finally.
“Why, of course you do, but the dear girl is only thirteen. T'would be unseemly to rush,” Lord Courtenay replied, gesturing towards the chairs nearest the fire.
“You misunderstand me,” Robert said flatly, though he took a seat along with his father. “I mean to marry someone else entirely.”
“You're having your poor father on, aren't you?” The words fell lightly, but Robert could see the creases deepen between his father's eyebrows. The storm had begun brewing.
“No, Father,” he said, without flinching.
“But this is nonsense,” the senior Courtenay protested firmly. “The match with Mademoiselle Braquilanges has been arranged since her birth. She will bring a huge dowry, great family influence, an even better bloodline than our own. No, Robert, I will hear no more of this.”
“Hear or not, you cannot turn me aside. I will marry Arden.”
“Arden?” His father sprang from his chair, looking incredulous. “Not that actress slut you used to keep! Now I know you've lost all sense. Just because a woman spurns you is no reason to run mad. I thought you old enough to know, boy. There are plenty of other holes to put your cock in, and they all feel roughly the same!”
Robert had never known his father to be quite this vulgar. He could not remember ever deluding himself about the nature of his parents' own marriage, but he had thought his father's preference for one of the tenant widows since his mother's death indicated some degree of tenderness towards the woman. He also suddenly recalled the sickness he'd felt after having Kitty Brinks, and shuddered. He knew his father to be wrong. He didn't know any other way to respond, except to keep his seat and say, “Arden is the most worthy woman I have ever known. Her breeding is adequate, if I cared for such things.”
“Such things,” repeated his father, in terse tones. He turned his back on Robert, tending the fire rather vehemently with the poker before returning to his chair. “Such things,” the older man continued, “as your birthright? Such things as becoming Lord Courtenay one day, and inheriting this land? For I cannot allow this to happen, if you are so careless of it all as to marry an actress.”
Robert allowed himself a sigh, and felt lighter for it. Now the moment had arrived, a certain relief came swiftly upon its heels. “I admit I have considered the probability,” he replied. “You may give it all to Edward, with my blessing. Arden and I shall be comfortable enough on what Mother left me.” Robert's conscience did not trouble him when it came to his younger brother, Edward. He felt fairly certain he would not be ruining any great plans of his brother's by suddenly saddling him with the family title and estate. He also felt sure Edward's careful and studious ways would serve the land and its tenants better than he ever could have. Though second sons were often encouraged in the direction of the Church, the Courtenays' Catholicism had made that option problematic. For Edward to become a member of the Anglican clergy would have been distasteful for the whole family; for Edward to join the priesthood of the True Church would have exposed the Courtenays' illegal preference. Not to mention Lord Courtenay would not have had the heart to force a son to even the appearance of celibacy.
“And what am I supposed to do about the daughter of the Braquilanges?” his father asked. “Edward is already betrothed to another girl, one with an even fatter dowry than Mademoiselle’s—”
“I'm sure you'll manage, Father. You always do.”
The anger was gradually leaving the senior Courtenay’s face, to be replaced by puzzlement. “And this doesn't grieve you at all, to give everything away to Edward?”
“It only grieves me to grieve you,” said Robert. He offered up his previous thoughts about Edward's suitability as evidence.
“You would have done well enough,” his father sighed. “Caring how Edward will fare is proof of that.”
“I have only begun to care for the rightness of things since Arden opened my eyes.”
A bitter laugh escaped Lord Courtenay. “Well, you are a fool, my boy. But you are still my fool, even if you will no longer be my heir. You will still be welcome here.”
Hopefully Sam has unpacked after all, Robert thought with a small smile. Aloud he asked, “And Arden as well?”
“You could never leave off a subject while you were ahead, could you?” the older man rejoined.
“But we have such a lovely granddaughter to show you,” Robert coaxed.
“So the child I've heard of actually is yours?”
“No doubt about it, Father. Her eyes are just like ours. Only prettier.”
“Very well then, I suppose,” Lord Courtenay conceded. “Just try not to let all of the London gossips get wind of the visit.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Arden knew Brian hadn't expected any better, but it still disappointed her that Love and Life closed so quickly. Not even the excitement generated by her public reconciliation with Lord Robert had been enough to stretch it beyond a four-night run. Especially after word circulated that Courtenay had left London, and audiences realized they no longer had a chance of witnessing any real-life theatrics.
“And he's gotten into this bit lately where some nights he won't do bleeding anything but suck on my toes and have himself off,” complained Kitty, intruding upon Arden's thoughts. She had kindly accompanied Arden homeward after the last performance, seeing Bonnie hadn't shown up with Helena. Arden chuckled appreciatively, realizing it better to let herself be distracted by Kitty's awful banter than dwell on things she could not control. She had done her best, after all, and Brian could seemingly rest content.
“It's bloody borin', that's what,” said Kitty, continuing her lament. “I know for sure you got far better the other night from Lord Robert!”
Arden gave Kitty what she hoped was a mysterious smile. She did not actually mislead her fellow actress. Surely Robert's kisses and declarations easily surpassed the bizarre attentions of Kitty's increasingly eccentric keeper. Nevertheless, Arden didn't want Kitty to know Courtenay had left town without first returning to her bed. Bad enough she and the rest of London know he's already gone.
“You know,” Kitty prattled on, “if the weather continues mild this winter, I'm sure I won't need so much coal. I may just cut 'im loose. Make it on my own, see?”
“Don't you love him anymore?” asked Arden, drawn into Kitty's world in spite of herself.
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