The Muse of Fire

by Carol M. Cram

  “What truth? That she threw me away when I was a babe and then arranged to have me pressed into the navy now I’m a man? I ain’t having nothing to do with her.”

  “If it was me, I’d go,” Alec said quietly.

  Ned turned to stare at him. “You don’t know that.”

  “Aye, I do, Ned.” Alec kept staring at the ceiling. “I’d give anythin’ to meet my ma, ask her why, like.”

  “You know why. It’s the same story for all of them.”

  “I doubt they thought about it like that. For them, for her, it were the only story.”

  Ever since he could remember, Ned had carried an ache in his chest—quiet most of the time, but sometimes, like now, flaring up to remind him just how little he’d mattered to the woman who had given him life.

  “Well you ain’t me,” Ned said. He leaned over and snuffed out the candle.

  * * *

  Even the surgeon was surprised by how quickly Percival appeared to recover from his wound. Five days after the rescue, he was sitting up and taking soup. His ordeal softened him in Grace’s eyes. He no longer appeared quite so haughty with his neck swathed in bandages. Betsy tended to him with quiet sullenness. As soon as Percival regained his strength, Grace would arrange to have Betsy sent back to the West Country. The poor girl didn’t look happy in London, and she seemed to be developing an unhealthy regard for Percival, spending more time than necessary tidying his room and bringing him cool cloths.

  Grace smoothed the cover across Percival’s chest and was tempted to bend forward and kiss his forehead—the simple act of a fond wife. But no, it was a role she was not yet prepared to play.

  “Mr. Kemble asked after you last night,” she said.

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “That you are much improved.”

  “You played Lady Anne again, did you not? I trust you were pleased with your performance.”

  “It went well enough, considering the disturbances are still going on. Why do you ask?”

  “Don’t look so surprised, my dear,” Percival said. “I realize I have rarely asked about your roles, but that does not mean I am not interested.”

  “Mr. Kemble has asked me to play Desdemona on the fourth of December.”

  “Desdemona, is it? You never told me.”

  “As you said yourself, you did not appear to be interested.”

  “Then I have been remiss.” He reached for her hand. “I promise to pay more attention in the future.”

  Grace let her hand stay in his, the dry warmth of his palm an unfamiliar sensation against the smooth skin of her own palm. She curled her fingers around his. To her surprise, a jolt spread into her belly, like the yolk of a cracked egg sliding to the floor. The last time she’d been with a man . . . No, she wouldn’t think about that. It was in the past. Maybe Percival would be in her future. She smiled down at him. “I’d like that.”

  “Good.”

  A relaxed silence stretched between them. Since her marriage, Grace had learned to turn away from the silences. If obliged to share a tête-à-tête dinner with Percival, she’d occupy her mind with learning lines rather than spend any energy on the kind of idle talk that filled the hours for happy couples. Could she love him? The question popped into Grace’s head and stayed there, waiting for her to receive it with something other than her usual curt dismissal. Renfrew had been a mistake, and Percival had risked his life to save a man whom he must wish was never born.

  Gently, she disengaged her hand. “I am going out this afternoon,” she said.

  “Oh?” He smiled up at her.

  “Betsy will see to you if you need anything. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Was it her imagination, or did he look like he wanted her to stay?

  Chapter 32

  . . . for truth is truth

  To th’ end of reck’ning.

  Measure for Measure (5.1.45–46)

  “Why did you not send for me sooner? He might have died.”

  Augusta’s first words to Grace when she entered the small sitting room at the front of her aunt’s house fortified Grace’s resolve. What point was civility with a woman so determined on incivility?

  “And if he had, Aunt, you would deserve all the blame.”

  “Good heavens, Grace, there’s no call for you to take such a tone with me. Remember who I am.” Augusta swept aside the train of a long gown too fussy for day wear and lowered herself onto a hard chair next to the window. Tea for one was laid out on a small table. She nodded toward another chair but did not ring the maid to bring a second cup.

  “I’m well aware of who you are.” Grace did not sit.

  “You are hardly one to talk, Grace. When Mr. Renfrew came to me with his scheme to get rid of Ned, he told me about you.”

  Grace sank to the chair. “He lied.”

  “I doubt it.” Augusta regarded Grace appraisingly. “You would not be the first to be infected by the loose morals of the theater.”

  “I was not aware that you knew Mr. Renfrew.”

  “Then you were misinformed. He is Mrs. Partridge’s younger brother, and Mrs. Partridge is a particular friend. By chance, Mr. Renfrew and I discovered a mutual interest in your Ned. Mr. Renfrew’s scheme had all the virtues of economy and expediency.”

  “What interest could you possibly have in Ned? He has done nothing to you.”

  With surprising agility, Augusta sprang to her feet and walked restlessly back and forth across the room. Her eyes—blue like Percival’s—turned to ice chips as she gazed past Grace into memories. “You know nothing about it. Just like your mother. She said that I deserved everything I got.”

  “My mother?”

  Augusta fixed her gaze on her joined hands. The fine lines webbed across fading cheeks could not disguise the ghost of a young girl in trouble. “You think you understand, Grace, but you do not. You cannot.”

  “Then tell me. Why did you want to harm Ned? He could have been killed.”

  “I doubt it. Men survive the navy all the time. And they should be glad to go. Britain cannot win this war without men.” Augusta picked up a thin teacup, examined it as if looking for cracks, then put it down without taking a sip. “You may think me a monster, but what I did was for the best—for Percival and for you too, my dear, although you’re too blind to realize it. The public does not quickly forgive scandal. If the truth about Ned’s parentage ever came out—and such things always have a habit of coming out—you would be ruined. The theater will not protect you.”

  “What does my mother have to do with anything?”

  “Charlotte and I had the misfortune of falling in love with the same man,” Augusta said. “And to your mother’s dismay, that man chose me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You have no idea about love, Grace. I’ve seen how you look at Percival. You don’t deserve him.” Augusta’s face twisted in a sneer, the resemblance to Percival startling. “But I can see that I’m wasting my breath. You’ll take your mother’s side no matter what I say.”

  “My mother can hardly speak for herself.”

  “Then ask your father.” Augusta regarded Grace coolly, as if trying to decide how next to wound her. “I’ve had enough of this interrogation.” She resumed her seat.

  “I wrote to my father last week.”

  Augusta threw back her head and laughed. “He won’t believe anything you say. Why would he? You were not there.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “Your father believes your mother bore a child before her marriage—a child that she was forced to leave off at the Foundling Hospital.”

  “Why would he believe that?”

  “Because that’s what I wrote and told him.”

  “When?”

  “Two years ago—not long before your poor mother died.”

  * * *

  Ned was working alone in the paint room when Olympia slipped in to stand next to him, watching as h
e moved out a new fly to examine it with the aid of a candle.

  “We could never have predicted this,” she said. “Fifty nights! We thought it would all be over in a week.”

  “Mr. Kemble’s stubborn.” Ned wished he could gather her in his arms, hold her close, and protect her from the jeers and the whistles, the stomping, and the bellowing of the rioters, who the night before had celebrated the jubilee of the riots like it was a royal event. Fifty nights of rioting—and they were proud of it.

  “People say these riots are like a call to revolution, that the next step is bringing in troops.”

  “Mr. K. won’t allow it,” Ned said with more conviction than he felt. “So far as I can see, the riots are just an excuse for men to act out, like they got nothing better to do. I wonder how them puny clerks that come in every night would like it if I went round to their offices and waved rattles in their ears while they were trying to fill in their damn ledgers.”

  “You’d never do such a thing, Ned.”

  He grinned down at her. “Try me.”

  Unlike most of the rooms backstage, two large windows at the rear of the building brightened the paint room. A beam of sunlight cut through the dust and shone like a halo around Olympia. She was to play a peasant woman in the farce that evening and wore her hair in two braids wound tightly around her head. Ned swallowed hard and returned his attention to the fly he was examining. It was stretched upon a large frame and showed a mountain scene of rocks and ice below a sky of swirling storm clouds.

  “It can’t last much longer,” he said. “Mr. K.’s got to bend.”

  “Do you believe that?” Olympia’s voice caught. He saw tears in her eyes before she turned away from him.

  Alarmed, he put down the candle and gently cupped one hand under her chin. She tensed for a moment and then softened into his touch. “What’s troubling you, Olympia?” he asked. “It ain’t just the riots, is it?”

  She placed her hand over his. One tear slid down her cheek as she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ned.”

  “What do you have to be sorry for? The riots ain’t your fault, and neither is whatever’s bothering you.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But I know you, Olympia,” he said, pulling her close. He was on dangerous ground now, but he no longer cared. His brush with death had given him a new appreciation for life. Maybe it was time he stopped being alone. For several blessed moments, she stayed close, not even flinching when he wrapped his other arm around her. For the first time, Ned dared to hope. He’d do the right thing by her if she’d have him.

  He tilted her chin up and kissed her. She met his kiss with a gentle passion that promised the world. He tightened his hold and molded his body against hers. He’d never felt anything like this before—like he’d finally come home.

  And then she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him back, breaking the connection so abruptly that Ned felt as if he’d severed a limb.

  “I’m sorry, Ned. But we can’t. I can’t.”

  “Why not? I love you, Olympia. I can take care of you. Marry you.”

  “I can’t marry you.”

  “What’s stopping you? I ain’t quality, I know that, but I won’t let you down, Olympia. I can take care of you, if you let me.”

  But Olympia shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ned,” she said again. Before he could stop her, she ran toward the door past a table piled high with charcoal sketches of ancient buildings. The door thudded open, and she disappeared into the maze of backstage corridors.

  Ned smoothed his palm over the roughly painted rocks in the foreground of the fly. He’d been alone his whole life, with no one to care for him or about him. He should be used to it. So why did he feel like he’d just fallen through one of the trap doors onstage, crashing through to the cellar, shattering every bone in his body?

  * * *

  “Dreadful woman!” Olympia exclaimed. “Why would she do such a thing?”

  “My aunt believes that Ned was her son. She wanted him out of the way to avoid scandal if the truth came out.”

  “I suppose we can be grateful that she didn’t succeed.” Olympia stared out the front window of Grace’s house to iron palings slick with rain. She had come to help Grace prepare for Desdemona, but the play lay unopened on the table between them.

  “You care a great deal about Ned,” Grace said.

  “I’ve never said.”

  “You don’t need to. I’ve seen how you look at him and how he looks at you. He adores you, Olympia. I believe he’d do anything for you. And you do like him, don’t you?”

  “Of course I like him.” Olympia smiled. “Please, Grace, let’s not talk anymore about Ned and especially about the future. No matter how much he likes me—or I him—nothing can come of it.”

  “I don’t understand why not.”

  “Let us turn the subject. Please. Have you told Percival why his mother tried to get rid of Ned?”

  Grace shook her head. “Percival knows his mother wrote the note that lured Ned to the docks, and perhaps he even suspects why, but he doesn’t know that Augusta wrote to my father. I don’t want to tax Percival with the truth when he’s still so weak.”

  Olympia picked up the copy of Othello and then laid it down again. “She wrote to tell your father that your mother had borne a child?”

  “Yes. My aunt has admitted to deliberately lying to my father, although she wouldn’t tell me why. My mother is innocent.” Grace took a deep breath. “I’ve never told anyone this before, but the day my mother was killed . . .”

  “Do not say if it distresses you.”

  “Please, I must. For almost two years, I’ve been convinced the accident was my fault. My father insisted it was. He changed so much after that morning, Olympia. Until now, I never understood why.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Just before the horse bolted, I heard a loud sound—a sort of crackle like the rattles the OPs swing.”

  “A branch?”

  “No, nothing like that. I think it was someone deliberately making a noise to spook the mare.”

  “You suspect your father?”

  Grace shrugged. “I’m sorry, Olympia, I’ve said too much. You came here to help me rehearse.” She picked up the copy of Othello and handed it to Olympia. “I go on in two days, and my grasp of the last scene with Emilia is not yet as strong as I would like.”

  “You are sure?”

  Grace nodded. “Please, would you read the part of Emilia? I must practice.”

  The two girls read the scene together. Grace got along very well until she faltered over Desdemona’s last words before Othello entered her bedchamber to kill her.

  “Why I should fear I know not

  Since guiltiness I know not, but yet I feel I fear.”

  Chapter 33

  Time shall unfold what blighted cunning hides:

  Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.

  King Lear (1.1.280–81)

  Grace arrived early to the theater on the afternoon of December 4. The women’s dressing room was empty and quiet. A pale blue gown hung on a rack—her costume for the first of her scenes as Desdemona. She wondered if her mother had ever had the chance to play her. Poor Charlotte Johnson had died too soon—a victim, like Desdemona, of a lie she had no part in telling. Hatred for Augusta welled up, but Grace forced herself to close her mind to it. She had a role to play that night—her most demanding yet. She could not let herself be distracted. The day before, she’d rehearsed the violent ending to Desdemona’s young life with Mr. Cooke, who was playing Othello. Her neck still felt bruised from the pressure of his fingers.

  It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.

  Othello’s line thrilled and terrified her. Why had Augusta lied? What cause? How could she have betrayed her sister so cruelly? She had deliberately written to Tobias to tell her that Charlotte had borne an illegitimate child. That knowledge must have led Tobias to seek revenge upon his wife. Grace could n
ot help wondering if he’d intended to kill both his wife and his daughter on the cliff top that breezy April morning.

  If so, it was little wonder he hated Grace for surviving.

  Grace tried to imagine the feelings of Augusta—a young woman desperate and in trouble. She placed her hand on her own stomach. Bile churned up her throat. Surely not. She’d rather die.

  “Grace?”

  Ned knocked on the open door of the women’s dressing room. “There’s someone come to see you, Grace. He’s at the stage door with Mr. Harrison.”

  “Who is it, Ned? I don’t have time to receive visitors.”

  “It’s your father.”

  * * *

  Grace had not seen her father since the previous January—almost a year earlier. He seemed smaller than she remembered, his skin sagging from cheeks mottled red with drink and neglect. He gave the impression of a man who had given up on life.

  “I stopped first at your home,” he said. “Your maid directed me here. I can’t believe your husband has continued allowing you to act. I misjudged Percival.”

  “Hello, Father. Will you stay to watch me tonight? Ned can find you a ticket—for a box, of course. You would not want to be jostled in the pit.” Grace instinctively stepped backward to avoid his fists, although she knew he would not dare—not with Ned standing close to her and Mr. Harrison rising from his chair, his face ashen.

  “Still impertinent,” Tobias sneered. “Like your mother, until she learned obedience.”

  “She learned despair.”

  “How dare you!”

  Grace stepped forward, emboldened by Ned’s presence. She would not let her father hurt her again.

  It is the cause.

  “I am not afraid of you, Father,” she said. “You destroyed my mother’s life, and then you tried to destroy mine. My aunt told me what she wrote to you.”

  “Augusta did me a favor. I’d long suspected the truth about your mother’s past.”

  “Augusta lied.”

  “Augusta?” Mr. Harrison was on his feet now, his gnarled hands clamped hard on his cane, his legs quivering. “What’s this?”

  “My aunt, Mr. Harrison,” Grace said. “Augusta Knowlton, once Augusta Grant. She was an actress, like my mother.”