by Smith, Joan
She may have been the prettiest in her husband’s view, but there was no doubt her daughter took the palm in everyone else’s opinion. Rex and Foxey lay in wait for Jane’s entrance, and flung themselves forward to greet her when she came in. Even before her wrap was off, Rex was admiring her gown.
“That’s her pelisse, ninny,” Foxey told him.
“I know it. See a gown underneath. Pink. Very nice pink.”
Miss McCormack’s pelisse was removed without a word. She, likewise, was shown into the saloon without being annoyed with compliments. Once there, Lady Dewar ran an eye over her and said, “All rigged up, eh Holly? That’ll turn Homberly’s head.”
Dewar greeted them all, then cut Jane out from the pack and within two minutes was sitting with her, while Foxey and Rex complained to Altmore that, by Jove, if they’d known this was how he meant to behave, they’d have stayed at the inn and taken their mutton there.
It was for Altmore to do the pretty with Miss McCormack. He was less obvious than the other bucks in his pursuit of Jane, but even he had no control over his eyes, which slid off to the corner every few minutes. Some conversation must be made and, with an amused shake of her head, Holly said to him, “Has Dewar said anything about replacing Foxworth as Mercutio? It will be impossible to put the play on with him, don’t you think?”
“He hasn’t said anything, but he must realize Foxey is hopeless.”
“We were wondering if his other cousin—the one who is to arrive this evening—might be persuaded to fill in.”
“Who, Swithin?” Altmore asked, with a startled look at her. “Good God, no! Where did you get that idea?” Then he laughed as if he would choke.
Holly’s eagerness to see this cousin grew, and continued to grow throughout the dinner, during which several references were made to Swithin, but of so varied a nature that no firm conjecture could be made as to his physical appearance. She was still in a bewildered state when the gentlemen joined the ladies after dinner. Rex, who loved his wine equally as much as he loved Jane, solved the matter of choosing between them with his usual simple expediency. He picked up his glass and a decanter and took them into the saloon, thus securing the choice spot by Jane’s side. Holly sat with her, and learned that she was not the only one whose interest had been piqued by the many references to Sir Swithin. Jane too was on tenterhooks to see him.
“A robust, hearty rascal, this,” Rex said, looking at Jane over his wineglass.
“And how tall is he?” Jane asked.
“Eh? Tall? What the deuce! I am talking about the wine, Jane. A robust fellow, this claret. Got a deal of bottom.”
“We are talking about Sir Swithin,” Jane told him, with an amused shake of her curls.
“Ain’t robust. Ain’t hearty either. Ain’t much of a rascal, come to that.”
“Yes, but what is he like?” Holly asked impatiently.
“Won’t care for him,” Rex told her. This was the only piece of opinion they could get from him. Dewar and Foxworth were not slow in following Rex into the saloon, and they too pulled up chairs in a semi-circle around Jane, causing Lady Proctor to smile in satisfaction as she cast a meaningful nod in Sir Egbert’s direction.
Observing it, Lady Dewar felt a pronounced desire to shake her son till his teeth rattled. Dangling after the chit, and putting ideas in the mama’s head. As soon as Dewar was seated, Jane turned to repeat her question to him.
“Judge for yourself. Here he is now,” Dewar answered, nodding toward the doorway. With her pulse racing, Holly too turned to follow the direction of his glance. An uncontrolled little ripple of laughter escaped, before her fingers flew to her lips to stifle it.
Sir Swithin Idle twittered in, a symphony in golden hues, looking very much like an overgrown canary, and sounding rather like one too, with his clear, fluty voice chirping a medley of extravagant phrases to Lady Dewar at the doorway. His jacket was of gold brocade, his waistcoat a shade darker, his inexpressibles lighter, his bird-like twigs of legs encased in white silk stockings. His hair was a soft cap of tawny curlets, which had been allowed to grow longer than was the fashion in nonartistic circles, and which Holly suspected was set up in papers every night, like a lady’s.
No one had ever actually seen Swithin apply rouge to his cheeks or lips, but they bore a suspiciously high colour. Six of his ten fingers were bedizened with rings, only the thumb and index finger of each hand escaping adornment. He carried a gold-edged quizzing glass which he held aloft at a dainty angle, and occasionally tapped against his chin.
Rex Homberly made an inchoate sound in his throat, denoting deep disgust, and Foxworth said, “Damn, Dewar, I hope you didn’t ask that painted popinjay to spend the whole visit here.”
“God made it, let it pass for a man,” Dewar replied, with a slightly disdainful smile as he looked from Swithin to his companions.
“Dashed man-milliner,” Rex scolded.
“Occasionally,” Dewar agreed, “but, for the nonce, he is to be our man-modiste, and create the costumes for our drama.”
“Ain’t getting me into no yaller jackets,” Foxey warned.
“Nor breeches either," Rex seconded, though in fact he often wore yellow breeches.
In a soft aside to Holly, Jane said, “My, isn’t he pretty? I love his curls.”
Before answer could be made, Swithin was kissing his fingers to Lady Dewar and mincing across the room towards them. He drew to a stop in front of Jane, and took up a pose with one hand lifting the quizzing glass to examine her, the other placed on his hip. His left leg bore all the weight of his slender body; the right was daintily crossed over it, the toe pointed forward, just touching the floor. Holly found herself waiting eagerly to distinguish the first words uttered by Swithin.
“Quite right, Dewar, my dear boy,” he chirped languidly, his gaze never wavering from Jane. “She is Juliet. Stand up and give us a pirouette, dear, and let us see you all around.”
Jane obediently arose and turned in a circle slowly, looking back over her shoulder with a questioning face as she did so.
“Exquisite! It will be a delight to dress you,” he declared, lowering the quizzing glass and gesturing dramatically with both arms outflung.
“Land that caper merchant a facer for two pennies,” Rex mumbled under his breath, while Foxey said he’d do it for free.
“Who else have we got assembled here?” Swithin ran on, always in his high, grating voice, with something a trifle querulous in it, as he peered through his glass.
“Altmore—ah, the perennial Romeo. Dear boy, you must be fagged to death, playing the juvenile hero forever. Foxworth—Homberly—hmm. Attendant lords, scene-swellers, one does sincerely hope. And you,” the glass turned to Holly. “... Nurse to Juliet?” he asked, raising his brows and looking so extremely silly with his lips pursed that Holly could scarcely keep from smiling.
“I am playing Lady Capulet,” she managed to say.
“Ah, yes—the golden voice! Had I heard you speak sooner, I would have known. Dewar, old chap, dead on, as usual. A golden-voiced warbler. She will make us a superb Lady Macbeth one of these days. Or, if she is half so ill-natured as you say, she would make a divine Shrew. A Shakespearean shrew, to be tamed. A Kate!” he told her, as she glared first at him, then spared one flash for Dewar. “Oh my, such dangerous orbs! I come to comprehend the phrase ‘a killing glance,’ which always sounded so overdone before.”
Dewar stepped forward rather quickly as Holly drew in her breath to attack. “Everyone—I want you to meet my cousin, Sir Swithin Idle. And I shall make my guests known to you too, Swithin.”
“Only stage names, I do implore, Coz. An excess of names is too wearying after a day of travel. And what’s in a name after all? I am no saint, I promise you, though I was born on July fifteenth and bear the bishop’s name. All a hum. I shall reserve all my faculties for the task before me. I have brought you bales of the most exquisite material with me for costumes.”
With an embarrassed smile at
the Proctors, Dewar managed to insert their names very quickly. Swithin looked at them, said nothing, then turned back to his own thoughts. “We must look the materials over ensemble, you and I, Coz. I await your opinion of them. A stupendous spider gauze with iridescent threads in blue and green and shimmery, for Juliet’s party. Oh, I adore it—and a fairly satisfactory lutestring. One would not have thought it possible to wear lutestring, would one, but the colour, you will agree I know, is unexceptionable. A brocade for Lady Montague, stiff and formal. You will want that quality in her gown.
“For Nurse, you will want a plain striped cotton, with a white apron and cap, and I think I shall give her dirty fingernails. A nice common touch, a sort of symbolic suggestion of the earth, as she is an earthy wench. She suggests bigamy, you know, to Juliet.”
“A striped cotton and white apron sounds very English,” Holly said, “and very modern.”
“Yes, Kate, we are doing the play in contemporary dress, as Shakespeare himself did—in contemporary English dress, that is,” Swithin told her. “I believe I forgot to tell you that, Dew, old chap. As you are returning to the true flavour in your casting—faultless, by the by, from what I have seen—I am on thorns to see your thrust stage—ah—as I was saying when I interrupted myself—mmm, yes. I have decided to use contemporary dress. C’est tout.”
While his listeners raised a vociferous protest, with even Jane adding a shy demur to this notion, Dewar stood thinking, biting the interior of his cheeks to aid concentration. “I like it, Swithin,” he said, when the outrage had died down. “I like it excessively. An excellent idea. I am so glad you are here. There are dozens of details I have been wanting to talk to you about.”
“We’ll burn the midnight oil, dear boy. I shall adore it.”
“Ain’t getting me into no modern outfits,” Homberly said, with a defiant glare at Swithin.
“Please yourself, Rex,” Swithin said in a dismissing way.
“We shall contrive to carry on sans your portly presence. Tell me—have you ever given any thought to a Cumberland corset for that unsightly protuberance you are growing?” he asked, with a seething examination of Rex’s stomach.
“Ain’t a scarecrow, anyway!” Rex retaliated.
“Dashed right!” Foxey supported him.
“I make sure the two of you together couldn’t scare a hummingbird, less a crow,” Swithin agreed, then he turned back to Dewar. “My good man, do you really propose to put these two ruffians onstage? Do tell me in what roles you have cast them. Falstaff I could envisage, or Caliban, but in ‘Romeo and Juliet’....”
“Tybalt and Mercutio,” Dewar replied, with a wondering glance to the ungainly pair.
“Mon Dieu!” Swithin shook his curls in wonderment, then proceeded to settle the question in his own way. “You have decided on a spot of comic relief. I envisaged the duel scenes as some of the more glorious moments of the drama. I cannot quite see them as farce, but you are a genius, Dew. No question of that. I know you have some reason for this seemingly inexplicable piece of casting."
Rex had been observing the newcomer darkly, and finally gave vent to his thoughts. “Ain’t no dashed comic relief! Dashed insult.”
“Certainly is!” Foxey agreed.
“Why do you two belligerent gladiators not go out into the hallway and run each other through, hmm?” Swithin asked with an amiable smile.
It proved an entirely acceptable suggestion. “First sensible word you’ve said yet,” Rex told him haughtily, and stomped out, after lunging at Foxey with his outstretched arm which, fortunately, did not yet hold a sword.
“I am most curious to see what you have done with the duelling scenes,” Swithin said after the two had charged out the door. “I do hope those two are not let loose on stage with halberds or polearms. There won’t be a shred of scenery left standing.”
“No, they use rapiers,” Dewar told him.
“Even an épée, as we are being contemporary—but no. The point makes itself. The épée calls for restraint, formality. You will try to get the bravura effect of the Italian school. Don’t despair, Dew. I shall work out some choreography for them. Foxworth is probably capable of a simple thrust, and Rex of a parry. It is only to teach them the fine points of feint and riposte. No doubt it can be done, but have you forgotten Mercutio must also speak? What an indomitable optimist you are!”
“We are having a little difficulty on that score,” Dewar admitted.
“Not surprising. But, of more interest—the costumes. I had the inspiration of contemporary dress en route here from Heron Hall. I stopped at home to deliver Mama a new chapeau, very feathery and hideous. She adores it. I have lit on a few dramatic innovations, and I want your utterly frank opinion, Dew. Pray do not spare me. We must be brutal, for Art’s sake. Juliet—our lovely Juliet—is to be dressed in the beginning as a child. I adore it myself. Start her out with her hair down and her skirts up a little, for she is only thirteen at the time. It will set the seal absolutely on her age, create just the effect you want, of a child’s innocence being violated prematurely. And this Juliet you have found! She could play a child superbly. You did not praise her nearly enough, though you hardly spoke of anything else in London. Now tell me—what do you think of it?”
“I like it,” Dewar admitted, looking intently at Jane. “Yes, with that golden hair down and a girlish bow in it perhaps, with ribbons trailing down the back... the skirts just slightly pulled up to show a few inches of ankle.”
“Mama won’t like it,” Jane said, and felt very much that she did not like it either.
“Mama will love it, ma petite chère,” Swithin disagreed, so pleasantly that it sounded like a compliment.
“Just for the first scene,” Dewar pointed out.
“So, Dewar, what other originalities have you come up with?” Swithin demanded.
“The thrust stage, as I mentioned earlier. We are to have madrigals sung before the play, and Miss McCormack has added her mite. We mean to have the servant girls go through the aisles with oranges.”
“How entirely Nell Gwynnish! Excellent!” Idle exclaimed. “When may I see your pretty, witty Nells? Actually, that would have been the touch for your Restoration comedy a few years back, n’est-ce pas? We should have met this Kate sooner. You won’t mind if I call you Kate, dear?” he asked Holly, who obviously minded very much. “I shall design ravissant mobcaps for the orange wenches, and peasant blouses très décolleté to show plenty of snow white bosom. I hope your wenches are well-endowed?”
“Adequate,” Dewar assured him, while Holly’s mind quickly scanned the servants to determine which girls he spoke of.
Swithin nodded in satisfaction, then heaved a deep sigh. “Do you know, I am quite fatigued with so much cleverness? I shall sit these weary bones down on a sofa, and would relish something restorative, Dew. I am feeling peckish—tea and toast fingers, unbuttered, will suffice. I must chat with your mama. How adorably quaint she is. When one has no looks and no elegance, one is wise to be as gothically unfashionable as possible. At least she is something then, and not a mere nonentity. Whose reach-me-downs is Tante Hélène wearing tonight? Your late papa was used to favour that flowered waistcoat last century, if memory serves. How charmingly it suits her.” He walked daintily off, while Dewar called for tea and toast for his guest, then returned to the ladies.
“An interesting fellow, Swithin. Don’t you agree?” he asked.
“Remarkable,” Jane said in a failing voice.
“Quite casts you into the shade,” Holly told him with a mocking smile. “He has you beat in both elegance and conversation, I think. To say nothing of original dramatic ideas.”
“I do not consider Swithin to be cast in the same mould as myself,” he answered swiftly, in a repressive voice.
“Oh, no indeed! He is much fancier. A sort of deluxe version of Lord Dewar, the cover heavily trimmed in gold.”
“You wretch! You perfectly vile woman!” he said, some expression between a laugh and
a frown on his face as he looked across the room to Swithin. His cousin sat on the sofa holding aloft a pretty teacup, his little finger crooked aloft, one thin yellow knee crossed over the other, his little black patent slipper jiggling. Dewar took a deep breath and said, “I do not curl my hair, or wear a dozen rings, or lisp, or speak half in French!”
“No, I said he was fancier. Merely, you are similar, not identical. Besides, you are much taller.”
“Holly is roasting you, Lord Dewar,” Jane said in a placating way. “I like Swithin. He is so droll.”
“He is certainly very comic,” Holly agreed.
“You are not so astute as I had thought, Miss McCormack,” Dewar said. “You heard his philosophy mentioned with regard to Mama. When one has no natural distinction, one must go one’s length in some direction to avoid being a nonentity. Swithin elected to play the fop, and he does it to the top of his bent. He has good ideas and is clever for all that. I like him enormously.”
“So do I,” Jane agreed. “And so does Holly, really. It is only that she is vexed because he called her a shrew.”
“That was one of his more extravagant compliments,” Dewar informed them. “Kate is not only a shrew, but also 'Young, beauteous, brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman,' according to the play. You may be sure Idle is aware of it.”
“That is not the aspect of Kate’s character that comes first to mind, however,” Holly said.
“True, but Swithin can hardly know yet of your less appealing qualities.”
“Only what you were kind enough to tell him. Never mind, he’ll learn soon enough.”
“Not much doubt of that. But a word of caution. Tread softly, Kate.” There was an anticipatory smile on his lips as they went to join Swithin and Lady Dewar.
There was suddenly a loud bang in the hallway, followed by the unmistakable reverberation of breaking porcelain, as a very valuable Bustelli Nymph hit the floor, to be broken into a dozen pieces as it bounced along the marble. Everyone hastened to the hallway to view the damage. “My Julia! You’ve broken my Bustelli figurine!” Dewar shouted in dismay.