Mistletoe Mischief

by Sandra Heath

  Megan was relieved when Evangeline rose from the sofa, her gown of green-and-blue shot-silk shining in the candlelight. "'Right, my company of actors and actresses, let us proceed to our stage," she said. "I plan a phantasmagoria of awe-inspiring lighting effects that will bring the Adriatic of the seventeenth century to modern Brighton. I intend to give you a demonstration of the opening of Act I, Scene 2-you know, the storm scene."

  There was a sudden whiff of orange blossom water, and Megan realized that Rollo had crept up softly beside her, for he spoke to Evangeline. "Lighting effects? 'Angels and ministers of grace defend us!' What sacrilege! Is not ye Bard perfection as he is?"

  Evangeline's nostrils flared. "Oh, do be quiet, Rollo!" she said.

  Everyone exchanged glances, but no one said anything. Except Oliver, who was mystified by her strange remark. "Er, who is Rollo?" he inquired.

  "Who is Rollo? Who is Rollo?" The ghost was dismayed by such ignorance. "What manner of ginger-headed pippin asks this?" he demanded.

  Megan lowered her eyes quickly, and bit her lip to prevent herself from laughing. Ginger-headed pippin? Oh, if only Oliver could hear!

  Evangeline ignored the specter. "Come, mesdames et messieurs, for if we delay any longer, we will not have time to see anything tonight, and I am so looking forward to showing off my grand Laterna Magica."

  "Your what, Aunt E?" inquired Rupert.

  "My Laterna Magica, magic lantern, or sorcerer's lamp, call it what you wish. This one is larger than any you may have seen before, and can project the most astonishingly lifelike images."

  Greville spoke up quickly. "I will see your wonders in due course, Aunt E, but first I have to write an important letter for tomorrow's mail. I meant to write it earlier, but it slipped my mind. It is little more than a note, and so will not take long."

  Evangeline was rather miffed with him. "Oh, very well, but I vow I will be very displeased indeed if you linger."

  "You have my word," Greville replied, and as everyone else-including Rollo-followed her from the room, he went to the writing desk and reached for a sheet of his aunt's fine monogrammed paper.

  Evangeline hovered by the entrance to the theater as everyone else went in, and when the ghost tried to pass as well, she hissed angrily at him. "Sir, you vex me with your carping!"

  "Sweet lady, I do not seek to vex," he protested, his steps halting as he apparently turned to face her.

  Megan waited dutifully just inside the theater, placing herself just so to eavesdrop. Evangeline was still irritated with the specter. "I wish I knew what you do seek, sirrah! You hound me everywhere, yet will not say why! How am I supposed to help you end your haunting if I do not know what it is all about?"

  "It is for thee to discover my purpose, not for me to tell thee. 'But for now, cudgel thy brains no more about it,' " he replied infuriatingly.

  "I'll give you Hamlet! Oh, you are a most tiresome spirit, and no mistake. I am fast becoming a laughingstock because you prick me into responding to your sly remarks!" Evangeline's wrath was palpable.

  "I suffer ye earth's very end of ennui, mistress. Pray envisage an eternity of waiting, and thou hast my predicament."

  "Waiting for what?"

  "For thou to do what must be done."

  "Which rather brings us back to where we were before. How can I do what has to be done, if I don't know what it is? And anyway, to return to your carping, why exactly do you find fault with my plans for lighting the play? I am sure Master Shakespeare would be flattered by my wish to do him full justice."

  "I think not, mistress, I think not."

  "How can you presume to be so sure?" Evangeline demanded smartly.

  "Because I am grandnephew to ye sainted Bard, as well as a member of King Charles II’s Company of Comedians, and keeper of this theatrical house. I know my business through and through again, and can vouch that the Poet of Avon would abhor thy fancy lighting effects. His words stand upon their own merit, and were the actors, feeble as they are, to be upon a naked stage, his star would not shine less."

  His pompous tone provoked Evangeline still more. "Fie, sir, I believe you have no connection whatsoever with Master Shakespeare, and that your knowledge of acting is confined to being prompter at farthing shows in country barns."

  "O, villain, villain! I will have thee know that I was king of Drury Lane. My Mithridates could not be surpassed! Nor my Falstaff!"

  "Aye, sir, but in what way could they not be surpassed? In excellence, or mayhap in execrableness?"

  "Such heinous lies! Such disrespect! Oh, may thou be forgiven!" cried the spirit, then stomped irately past Megan into the theater, where everyone else had now gathered around the black tent containing the prized lighting equipment.

  Evangeline followed him in, on her face an expression of some satisfaction. She had had a little of her own back a little on the vain, sharp-tongued specter, and the feeling was clearly good. But then she remembered something. "Oh, my notes!" She noticed Megan. "Ah, Miss Mortimer, would you be so kind as to bring my notebook? I left it on the writing desk."

  "Yes, Lady Evangeline." Megan returned very reluctantly to the drawing room, where Sir Greville the Grim was at the writing desk.

  Greville was so intent upon his letter to Bath that he did not hear her enter, nor was he aware as she came up behind him. She saw her name and that of Lady Jane Strickland, then he straightened with a start and hastily drew another sheet of paper over what he had written. "Are you much given to creeping up behind people, Miss Mortimer?" he inquired acidly.

  "I-I didn't creep, sir," she replied. "Lady Evangeline sent me back for her notes." She reached quickly past him for the little book, then fled the room with it.

  But Oliver was waiting for her in the hall. She hesitated in alarm, then tried to pass him, but he caught her arm. "Stay now, coz, for we have things to clear between us," he breathed, keeping a wary eye on the open door of the drawing room.

  To her relief there came the sound of Greville's chair scraping as he got up. Oliver released her, and she hastened into the theater with the notebook.

  Chapter 17

  Everyone was now assembled for the phantasmagoric illusions. The theater was in shadow, and the only light permitted to escape the tent's thick material was through a small hole, from which a bright beam struck the stage curtain as if wishing to burn a hole in it.

  Evangeline was secreted in the tent with so many lighted candles and lamps that her face was quite hot and red as she fussed with painted transparencies and complicated equipment. Suddenly she waved a frantic hand outside. "A glass of water, if you please, Jocelyn! Fosdyke will have left a jug and glass by the stage steps."

  The admiral hurried to attend to it. "It must be a positive oven in there, Evangeline. Are you sure you are all right?" he asked in concern as he pressed the glass into her fingers.

  "All is well, Jocelyn. Besides, it will not take much longer. Please tell everyone to be seated." The hand withdrew into the tent's fastness, and there came the sound of turning pages as she looked through the notebook Megan had retrieved.

  The small party went to sit down, but as Megan tried to place herself well behind the others, Evangeline remonstrated with her from the tent. "Don't seek splendid isolation, my dear. Sit in that empty chair next to Greville."

  Megan looked at the tent in puzzlement, wondering how on earth Evangeline could see anything from where she was.

  "Well, do as I say, my dear."

  "Yes, Lady Evangeline." Megan had no choice but to obey, for Greville had already risen politely to his feet. She refused to look at him as she sat down, but his closeness affected her. From beneath lowered lashes she noticed how he toyed with the shirt frill protruding from his cuff, how his heavy gold signet ring found light even in the shadows, how strong and graceful he was; how heartstoppingly attractive he would be if only she liked him a little…

  From the tent there came more page rustling, accompanied by impatient muttering, but then Evangeline's hand e
merged again, this time with a lighted candlestick. "'Rupert? Please be so good as to raise the curtain! You will require a candle to see what you're doing."

  "Certes, Aunt E," he replied, and got up. As he did so he caught Chloe's glance, and she smiled hesitantly at him. He smiled back, and then hurried up the steps on to the stage with the candle, then vanished behind the curtain.

  "I'll give you a hand," Oliver said, and went after him.

  A moment later the drop curtain was hauled up to reveal a shadowy set of rather unrealistic rocks, with a badly painted background of a wrecked ship and a headland topped by a Greek temple, presumably to convey a sense of the Adriatic, for Twelfth Night was set in the ancient land of Illyria. The beam of light from the front of the tent fell so brilliantly upon the vessel's rigging that it showed up the inferior brush strokes.

  Rupert's candle fluttered brightly as he and Oliver returned and began to descend from the stage. But then Oliver stumbled, and Rupert was pitched right to the bottom of the steps. The candle went out as it fell from his hand, and Chloe leapt to her feet with a cry of dismay.

  As Greville and Sir Jocelyn ran to help the fallen man, Oliver lingered wretchedly on the steps. "Oh, I say! I say! I do hope you're all right, sir!" he cried, apparently much put out that his clumsiness should have caused such a mishap.

  Light flooded dazzlingly as Evangeline thrust back the flap of her tent. "What has happened?" she demanded anxiously.

  Rupert sat up awkwardly to rub his elbow, which he'd struck during the fall. "It's all right, there's no harm done, Aunt E."

  Chloe rushed to him in a flurry of lavender satin. "Are you sure, Rupert?" she cried. "Have you broken any bones?"

  "Of course not. It was only a little fall," he replied nobly, and accepted Greville and Sir Jocelyn's assistance to haul him to his feet.

  Chloe was not reassured, so the moment he could, Rupert caught her hand and drew it gallantly to his lips. "I am perfectly all right," he said gently, and gazed into her anxious blue eyes.

  As she responded with another little smile, Oliver hastened solicitously down the rest of the steps. "Can you ever excuse my clumsiness, Radcliffe?" he said. "I completely misjudged the steps, and-"

  "It was an accident, March," Rupert replied.

  But Oliver's apology was not good enough for Chloe. "He might have been badly hurt, sir!"

  "What more can I say except that I am truly contrite?" he protested.

  Rupert wished the matter at an end. "Think no more of it, March," he said magnanimously.

  "That's good of you, Radcliffe," Oliver said with a grateful smile.

  Behind Megan, Rollo suddenly whispered another quotation. " 'O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!'' Her glance flew to Oliver. Did the ghost suspect him of stumbling deliberately?

  Evangeline was still anxious. "Rupert, are you absolutely certain you have not suffered an injury?" she asked.

  "Will you all please stop fussing?" he said, but then had second thoughts and turned quickly to Chloe. "Perhaps I do feel a little unsteady. If you could assist me…?" he asked, a weak note creeping into his voice.

  "Oh, yes, of course." She took his arm solicitously, and he glanced smugly at Oliver, whose immediate scowl was ample reward.

  Everyone resumed their places, and Evangeline closed the tent flap again. As the shadows returned, Megan mulled over what Rollo had said. She glanced toward her cousin, whose profile she could just make out in the dim light. Oliver was quite capable of foul play, as she knew to her cost, so it was well within the realm of possibility that he would attempt to incapacitate a rival. He probably regarded the smiles exchanged between Rupert and Chloe as more than enough cause ta act. A few timely broken bones would keep Rupert out of the way…

  The thoughts broke off as Evangeline addressed them all from the depths of the tent. "Very well, ladies and gentlemen, I trust you are prepared. Envisage if you please a storm-swept beach in Illyria, with Viola, a captain, and several sailors struggling ashore, the only survivors of a shipwreck. Viola is distraught because she believes her adored brother Sebastian has been lost overboard, presumed drowned." Light flickered and lurched, then suddenly the stage was drenched with lurid color. A jagged streak of permanent lightning was caught against skies where ominous clouds jerked to and fro as Evangeline tried unsuccessfully to pull the painted transparency smoothly past the source of light. Seagulls wheeled dramatically, and Evangeline mewed unconvincingly in an endeavor to imitate their cries. Then everyone jumped as she picked up a thin sheet of metal and rattled it to make thunder.

  Megan watched with fascination as everything jolted, flashed, and resonated, but then her eyes widened as Rollo suddenly strode on to the stage, clearly visible in the shaft of intense light from the tent. He came to a swaggering halt in front of the shipwreck, and raised his voice above Evangeline's racket. " 'O my prophetic soul! This is all unworthy flimflam!' “ he cried.

  Megan saw and heard him so well that she was sure everyone else could not help but do the same. However, although Evangeline immediately dropped the sheet of metal and poked her head out of the tent to glare at the spirit, the four men did not seem to notice anything. Chloe was a different matter. She had been quite enraptured with the lighting illusions, but then Rollo's translucent figure appeared. That was all, just his vague outline; she didn't hear anything. She rose to her feet with a little cry of fright, then fainted gracefully to the floor in a cloud of lavender satin.

  Rollo made himself guiltily scarce as consternation broke out. Megan rushed forward, in the process managing to unwittingly block Oliver's way so that Rupert was the man to reach Chloe first. Excluded, Oliver could only stand with Greville as Sir Jocelyn flapped anxiously over his unconscious daughter. Rupert, his bruises entirely forgotten, gathered Chloe into his strong arms and bore her off toward the drawing room. Everyone crowded after him, including Evangeline, who was now more incensed with the ghost than ever.

  "Oh, just wait until you and I meet next, Master Witherspoon!" Megan heard her mutter under her breath.

  Rupert laid Chloe gently on a drawing room sofa, and Evangeline produced some sal volatile from the writing desk drawer as Sir Jocelyn knelt beside his daughter, chafing her limp little hand between his large manly paws. "Chloe? My dearest? Please open your eyes!"

  The smelling salts pricked Chloe's nostrils, and she stirred a little. Her lashes fluttered prettily against her pale cheeks, then she looked up. "Papa?"

  "Are you all right, my darling?" he cried.

  "Yes… What happened?"

  Evangeline leaned over her. "You fainted, my dear," she explained.

  Much to Rupert's chagrin, Oliver was the one who thought of hurrying back to the theater for Evangeline's glass of water, which he now made much of putting to Chloe's lips.

  She smiled wanly up at him. "Thank you, Oliver," she whispered, but then remembrance flooded back and her breath caught. "I-I thought I saw…"

  Oliver gazed at her. "Yes, dearest? What did you think you saw?"

  She glanced around at everyone. "There was a man on the stage."

  Megan and Evangeline met her gaze as if they did not know what she was talking about, and the four men were genuinely puzzled. Rupert shook his head. "There wasn't anyone there. It must have been Aunt E's wonderful illusions."

  Chloe bit her lip. "Now I feel foolish. I was so carried away that I let my imagination go too far." She sat up and smiled sheepishly at Evangeline. "I think your illusions are quite amazing. The thunder was, well, thunderous, and I even liked your seagulls."

  Evangeline shifted a little uncomfortably. "They need a little attention, but will come along nicely, I'm sure."

  "I cannot wait to see what else you have planned."

  "Nothing more for tonight, that is certain. If you are feeling well again now, my dear, perhaps Sir Jocelyn should take you home. A good sleep, and all will be well come the morning."

  "All is well now, truly," Chloe replied.

  "Tomorrow we w
ill rehearse a scene."

  Oliver spoke up swiftly. "I do trust you have a task for me, Lady Evangeline? I gladly proffer my services, even if it is only to move the scenery."

  "Why, yes, Mr. March, that will be most helpful. Please come along as well."

  Rupert glared at his aunt.

  Chloe was still embarrassed about fainting. "I really did think I saw a man," she said again, shaking her head at such a silly notion.

  "Light can play tricks, especially phantasmagoric light," Sir Jocelyn said kindly, then he looked at Evangeline. "Do you recall what happened at the Marine Pavilion? It was just such an eerie display-ghostly monks amid the ruins of a monastery, I believe-and Mr. Sheridan the playwright sat suddenly and very deliberately upon the lap of a very gullible, fainthearted Russian dowager?"

  "Madame Gerobtzoff. Yes, I recall it very well," Evangeline replied with a chuckle.

  Sir Jocelyn rose to his feet. "However, that is an aside, for I think you are right; I should take Chloe home now."

  Chloe looked quickly at Evangeline. "I have a great favor to ask, Lady Evangeline?"

  "What is it?"

  "May I borrow Miss Mortimer tomorrow morning? I wish to go into the town to do some shopping in readiness for the ball, and I would like some female company," she said pointedly, as both Rupert and Oliver began to offer their services.

  Evangeline was only too pleased to surrender her companion to Chloe. "Of course, my dear, in fact it would please me immensely because there are a few errands I wish her to do for me."

  Megan smiled at Chloe. "I look forward to it, Miss Holcroft," she said, studiously avoiding Oliver's steady gaze. She knew he wanted her to find a reason to decline, but there was little she could say when Evangeline wished her to go.