by Jaima Fixsen
“Tell them we’ve quarreled.” It was fairly close to the truth. “Tell them I’m an unmanageable harpy with the devil’s own temper and—”
“Laura. Tom knows you mean everything to me.”
She glared. “Then what do you suggest?”
“Well, he hasn’t actually recognized you…”
“Yet,” she qualified.
“Maybe he won’t,” Jack said. “You are, or at least you tell me so, quite a wonderful actress. Act.” He smiled tentatively. “You won’t necessarily be giving up your career, you know, staying in the country.”
“I just don’t like the part,” she grumbled.
“It’s my sister you’ll be playing, not a mouse,” he retorted.
“Yes, but she can’t resemble Gemma Holyrood.” Anything could give her away—a smile, a glance, a laugh. The only characteristics left for Laura Edwards were the old, the dour, the awkward, and the plain. She also had plenty of scope to play dull-witted and stupid. She never should have teased Mr. Rushford about Cleopatra. “I’ll have to be—to be—” She couldn’t say it.
“He won’t be around that long. A few weeks—”
“That long?”
Jack leaned away, shrugging shiftily. “Babies come when they come. Tom wanted me here in plenty of time. Bit anxious about it, in fact,” he said.
“I’m not doing it for that long. A couple of days. Just until I invent a reason to get out of here.” She pushed away from the dressing table and strode toward the door.
“Just don’t—don’t overdo it,” Jack said.
She pinned him a full five seconds with her glance, then released one of their mother’s sounds, a Gallic noise erupting from her throat that was the very essence of frustration. “Bah! You think I’m so stupid?”
Jack knew better than to answer and let her bang out the door.
Outside in the hall Laura collected herself, relaxing clenched shoulders and tight fists. She didn’t like any of this, but she knew better than to expect the world to order itself to please her. Jack was right. She may as well treat this as a challenge, a test of her skill. Pursing her lips, she turned for her own room. It was too late for major alterations, but there was still much that could be done with the subtle use of cosmetics. She wished she’d worn a wig instead of her own hair, even if it meant days of sweat and prickles.
He’s already seen you blonde, she reminded herself.
*****
Laura came down to dinner in the full panoply of her trade, her complexion dulled, shadows brushed into her cheeks and beneath her eyes. Unnecessary tactics, she discovered, for her opponent didn’t step onto the field. Aside from a formal introduction of perhaps a dozen words, Mr. Rushford didn’t spare her a glance and devoted himself to Mr. Bagshot’s mother.
“See? You worried for nothing,” Jack whispered as he took Laura’s arm and escorted her to the table.
She knew it was childish to fume behind a false smile as she helped herself to duck and roasted vegetables, but the man had been her devoted admirer for months. He’d promised her kisses with his eyes, reached after her trailing gauze (her Titania costume was scandalous but wonderful), stood in his box and applauded. There’d been witty notes delivered with flowers, tributes to her elbows and ankles—all the symptoms of passion, destroyed by a coarser face and plainer frock. It was terribly lowering.
She was just a prop—noticeable only when gilded with the romance of the theatre. How naive to think she’d become something different, when it was only lights and a stage. Laura took a spoonful of cauliflower, waving away the cow’s tongue. The footman offered the plate to Jack who helped himself to a thick slice and ladled on a heavy coat of sauce. Masking her distaste, Laura prodded her food until it was clear of the gilt and painted flowers edging her plate. It had been a lifetime since she’d seen a table so laden with silver and flowers, but she ate automatically, not bothering to reach for the salt. This character had no tastebuds and only took timid sips of wine.
“You must be so happy to have your brother restored to you,” Mrs. Bagshot said from the end of the table, recalling Laura to the conversation.
“Oh yes,” she said, longing to simper or make a scene. She could play vulgar and at least that would be interesting. But it wasn’t her role. She was anonymous, dull as a dictionary. “Thank you for inviting me here.” Her spine was rigid, her fork precise as a scalpel.
“You must consider yourself at home,” urged Tom Bagshot’s young wife. “Have you seen the town?”
Laura shook her head. You are porridge. Disinteresting. She kept her face still, her eyes blank. “I’m sure it’s lovely.”
“It’s a pretty place. And we’ve our eyes on a house for you, close by, but near enough to the surgery in Bury St Edmonds. It’s a charming house, though it needs a feminine hand. Do you garden?”
“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Bagshot.” Gardening was probably an acceptable pastime for this persona, but Laura knew nothing about the subject. She’d have to think up a suitable fossilizing hobby—history or cutting paper silhouettes.
“Please call me Sophy.” Tom’s wife smiled at Laura, still undeterred. “It gets so confusing otherwise. Perhaps Tom and your brother will take you by the place tomorrow. Or you could look in on the village.”
“If it’s no trouble.” Laura felt bad for her, trying so hard to coax smiles from her conversationally handicapped guest, but it couldn’t be helped. She smiled, a facial contraction without any warmth. “That would be nice.”
It was easy after that to slip into silence. Jack and Tom were lost in shared memories of their time at sea when Tom had been impressed onto the crew of the Leander. His stint in the navy had been shorter than Jack’s, but they had grown close in the year they sailed together. Mr. Rushford, looking far too comfortable for a man in such impossible shirt points, volleyed witticisms at Mrs. Bagshot and his sister while Laura dissected her vegetables. Even after the meal when Sophy excused herself from the drawing room to rest upstairs and Tom summoned Jack meaningfully to his study, Mr. Rushford devoted himself to the elderly woman, winding her knitting, which covered his breeches and coat sleeves with fluff. Laura sat at a small table on the other side of the room all but forgotten, trying to convince herself this was due to her convincing performance and not Rushford’s shallow snobbery. She wasn’t a pathetic creature dependent on adoration and praise. She’d just…gotten used to it. She reached for a nearby deck of cards and started laying out a half-hearted game of patience.
Past sixty and gently fading, Mrs. Bagshot had the fragile, translucent glow of a fine tea saucer. Despite the clever way she set down her knitting at intervals, Laura noticed an occasional tremor in her fingers. Tom and Sophy hadn’t seemed to notice, but Mr. Rushford, for all his smiles, watched keenly. Why else was he always ready with a quip at the right time, so she could put down the needles and clasp her hands?
Laura moved a card, studying them.
“I’m knitting for the parish now,” Mrs. Bagshot told him.
“Yes, I expect Sophy’s infant has enough jackets for every day of the year,” he said.
“There’s plenty,” she said. “But they grow quickly and who knows? There might be more of them.”
“Infants? Yes, I suppose so.”
She turned the knitting, counted off the row, but fumbled the first new stitch. Before her mouth could pucker, before the shaking grew more than a twitch, Mr. Rushford had her hands in his.
“You’re a marvel,” he said, with a smile and a squeeze.
“You’re a rogue,” she answered. “But a charming one.”
He acknowledged the compliment with a nod, releasing her hands. “Let me get you a footstool,” he said and rose to fetch one from across the room.
“No, I think I’ll put it away now, so you can stop waiting on me.”
“And deny me my greatest pleasure? You wouldn’t.” He was skilled, acting a farce but making the feeling sincere. He liked Mrs. Bagshot, Laura realized, and wanted
her to smile and laugh.
Mrs. Bagshot rewarded him with both. “I’m quite comfortable and Miss Edwards—”
“Don’t worry about me, ma’am,” Laura interrupted. Dull mouse she might be, but she was not allowing Mrs. Bagshot to force Rushford to notice her. She was not an object of pity to be targeted with intentional kindness.
“You are so quiet there. May we join you in a game?” Mrs. Bagshot asked.
“I think I’m tired,” Laura said, hastily scooping up the cards and destroying the nonsense plays she’d made to cover her scrutiny of them. She slid the cards together, tapping the sides even. “From the journey. I’ve no head for it tonight.”
“Oh, we can count penny points and—”
“Truly, Mrs. Bagshot. I’ve no wish to play. Is it—am I allowed to walk in the garden? I’ll sleep better after a turn outside.”
“Of course you may! Remember, you are quite at home.” Mrs. Bagshot hastened to tell her where she might like to walk, where to find a comfortable seat, where the flowers were at their best, and which of the long windows were always left unlocked. Laura, making for the door, nodded without catching the details.
“Are you sure you don’t want company?” Mrs. Bagshot finished.
“Oh, no. I shan’t be long.” Laura slipped from the room and down an impressive gallery to a larger formal drawing room with a collection of bronzes and seascapes. The windows stretched from the floor to the ceiling, giving a view of the terrace. The latch gave with a well-oiled snick and Laura escaped into the cool of the evening.
Her persona didn’t help, but even without it this place oppressed her. She didn’t belong, yet it brought back uncomfortable memories, faded sketches of another life. She remembered the smell of gardens in the evening, the eye-pleasing symmetry of neatly clipped hedges, the loosening of muscles one felt gazing out at a stretch of green lawn. Quiet trees, aged stone, gravel paths that glistened as the sun dipped out of sight: she had known all these. But it wasn’t memories of gardens or chateau that pricked her eyes and made her nostrils flare. It was her grandmother, stately in red-heeled shoes and a towering wig with a miniature ship tossed in its waves. Her eldest brother, handsome in his military uniform. Her father, the lines of a hundred thousand carefree smiles embellishing his mouth and eyes. And her mother, hosting salons, maintaining a large and glorious correspondence avec les Pensées. As a child Laura didn’t understand this as more than the pleasures of thick stationery, lavender ink, and scented sealing wax. Now she knew better. Her mother, an intellectual beauty who’d never so much as laced her own gown, had learned to cook underfed chickens and bargain at the market for fruit and eggs. She’d toiled as a seamstress and played maid to Laura for years, keeping a wary eye on her only daughter, helping her manipulate the crowd from the stage and behind the dressing screen in the green room.
Remember, Laure, the way to flirt is to flit in and away. To tease, but to surrender nothing. A dandelion puff tossed on the wind.
That lesson came after her first run as Lydia Languish, with the heady rush of success burning under her skin. Then, during a failed revival of She Stoops to Conquer:
That one’s a danger, Laure. You must be careful with him. Let other girls wreck themselves on him…
The second time Laura did the play, when her Kate Hardcastle was the toast of London, she got careless with her heart. Young Lord Harvey caught it and slipped it into his pocket. Her mother said nothing, just quietly handed Laura a written list reminding her what she might lose if she accepted Harvey’s offer of carte blanche. The next day Laura sent Peter the doorman with a tactfully worded refusal, bearing no hint of the heart wringing it had taken her to pen each word.
“You did right,” her mother said afterward. “He’s handsome as ever a man was, but he never tips the doorman. If Peter doesn’t like a man it’s best keep to him at arm’s length. With a fan in your hand, too. Harvey would love you my darling, but not for long.”
They’d cried and laughed together over the gossip in the papers, danced with joy at some reviews and hurled others into the fire. Maman always fussed over Laura’s costumes, even after she was too weak to go to the theatre. From her bed she inspected every tuck and every seam, making sure it was shaped just so.
She never admitted missing her life in France where she’d had a house and gardens like these. If she were here she could have told Laura what to do with the troublesome Mr. Rushford. Laura sighed, tearing a leaf from the hedge and rolling it in her fingers, letting the green juice soak into her skin. It was sticky with a bitter scent.
Chapter Six
Investigating
When he left Mrs. Bagshot Jasper was reasonably certain Miss Edwards was still outside. Twice he’d looked round at the sound of someone passing in the corridor, but the first time he saw a footman, the second a housemaid. Miss Edwards did step quietly though. He might have missed her, so he strolled out to the terrace to investigate. It was dark now but there was a half moon, enough light to venture beyond the perimeter of the house. He watched the shadows but nothing moved. There was no breeze.
No reason why she shouldn’t sit out as long as she pleased—Bagshot’s gardens were extensive and safe from prowlers. Still Jasper found himself descending the wide steps to the paths that quartered the lawns, his steps on the gravel beating a pulse that was too loud, too quick for the night. He slowed down and moved to the grass.
He knew his way even in the weak light round the box trees, beneath the elms. Her dark gown would hide her more effectively than it had in the drawing room or at the dinner table. Was she shy? He hadn’t thought so, not when she mocked him in the Egyptian salon. He’d meant to quiz her about it at the dinner table, but she was so self-effacing that even when you looked straight on her edges seemed blurred. In the drawing room she’d chosen a seat in the shadows as far from him as she could get. He’d watched covertly, looking for an expression or a trick of movement to explain the sense he’d seen her before—maybe she spoke like one of the ladies he knew or had a similar way of dressing her hair. After a second glance, Jasper was certain that none of the ladies he knew styled their hair like that. The chestnut mass, gathered clumsily above her neck and ears, seemed duller than it had in the library, her eyes tired, her skin sallow. He didn’t care for that dark gown or those long sleeves. If it was her way of talking that was familiar he couldn’t say; she’d relinquished about a hundred words all evening.
He could ask her, but it was an awkward question, insulting. Besides, where could he have met her before? She lived the retired sort of life necessitated by constrained finances and the death of her mother. It would be a good thing for her, settling here with her brother.
Jasper finished the shortest circuit and glanced up at the house. She might have completed her walk and gone in ahead of him; it was growing late. He was ready for brandy, a book and a good doze—soon, after one more pass through the park. He’d take the longer path this time. She might have been tempted by the dainty bridges spanning the water and lingered there. Quickening his pace, Jasper set out again, passing the maze. He was no help to her if she’d ventured in there for he’d never mastered the trick of it, and his wretched sister refused to part with the secret.
He walked out of sight of the house past the cutting gardens, the stables, and the empty kennels. At the turn into the wilderness he saw her, but some instinct drew him back into the shadows. He knew from the way she stood, she’d come out here to be alone.
She moved after a time, walking slowly, a gently stepping piece of shadowed sky. At the path’s crossing she paused again, glancing back where she had come, then looking ahead to the square little bridge that would conduct her past him and back to the house. Weary, she leaned against the rail, her head dropping, her study turning inward or perhaps to her clasped hands. Her neck was pale and thin in the dark, too slender to support that heavy twist of hair. Tempted to step forward, he halted as her pale hand dashed up to her cheek—brooding he could interrupt, but not t
ears.
Muffling his feet, he stepped back behind the kennels meaning to hide until she passed, but as he moved she turned her head, framing it in profile against the weak light of the moon. He stopped, arrested by the arabesque curves of lip and chin. He knew them, knew the short nose above and the straight brow, not quite as high as fashion decreed. As he blinked she finished turning, the features melting into shadow once more. Jasper moistened his lips, uncertain. It was some trick of the light, some fancy of his own brain. Lord knows he thought too much on Gemma Holyrood. She was not, could not be here. He waited but the moon didn’t move and neither did she, refusing to oblige him with another glimpse. She just wilted against the low wall and Jasper couldn’t say if it was fact or the contortions of his own mind that made him see the forlorn pose of Gemma Holyrood’s Titania. She sighed, a tremor that ruffled the water and flew into the trees. Pulling herself upright, she set off for the house, the crunch of her footsteps fading in the distance.
Jasper waited until all was silent, frowning as he picked a loose bit of paint on the kennel door with his fingernail. Miss Edwards and Gemma Holyrood…surely not.
*****
A cautious hunter, Jasper dawdled in his room the next morning, trying to time his arrival in the breakfast parlor with Miss Edwards’—guesswork, since she’d been put on the other end of the house. He passed the time writing in his diary.
Driving time to Chippenstone: average sixteen miles per hour with two changes at Chelmsford and Braintree. Ostlers at the Red Lion confoundedly slow, but gained time in the last ten miles. Good road.
On inspection, S appears a baffling size but well. Physician on premises. I’m to second her in a duel with the Mater today. Shall try to keep blood off the carpets.
Interesting developments in wager with P re: seduction of actress G. H. (remember—stake raised to £200 in April). Either I’m mad or she’s here, masquerading as a genteel spinster! The mind reels…
The more Jasper thought on it, the more impossible it seemed. Sitting here with a pencil in his hand yesterday’s suspicions were hardly credible. Gemma Holyrood? Here? Not bloody likely. A good look-over at the breakfast table should give him the truth.