Chas decided to call at Westlake Hall to retrieve his dog.
Ada’s home made the Meadows look like a peaceful haven. Most of the hustlers and bustlers here were laughing, though, singing or dancing or reciting lines while carrying paints and fabrics and ladders. Half of the workers barely came to his waist.
He found Ada upstairs in Tess’s attic, hand-coloring a huge stack of programs that had Leo Tobin’s picture, in pirate guise, printed on the front. The viscount’s mood was not improved by the sight of hundreds of his half-sibling, half-dressed, nor by how fatigued Ada seemed, and pale, as if she hadn’t been sleeping enough or getting any fresh air.
Her welcoming smile almost made up for the past week’s botheration, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, until she told him he could not take his dog, his own pet, home with him.
“What do you mean, you won’t give me back my dog? I didn’t give her to you, for heaven’s sake. I did not even lend her. I merely asked you to watch her, dash it!”
“I am not keeping her, exactly, Chas. It’s just not the right time to move the puppies. It’s too cold out for one, and they are enjoying being cuddled by all the children, for another. You wouldn’t want them to grow up unused to people, would you? As you said yourself, Tally is not permitted in your home as long as Lady Esther’s cat is there. You couldn’t drag the poor thing and her babies away to your drafty stables, could you?”
“My stables are not drafty, by Jupiter. And I meant you to find her a bunk in your kitchens, not your blessed bedroom. Why, I cannot even go see the babies while they are up there!”
“You could if we were ma—”
“And what the devil do you mean, making me the narrator of the pestilential play? I won’t do it, and that is final.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Once upon a time ...” Chas began, looking out at the Lillington-sized audience in his ballroom. The viscount’s voice faltered, so Ada played a few encouraging notes on the pianoforte. The violinist behind her, her butler Cobble with his fiddle, played a trill. Chas frowned at her, then at his mother, who hissed at him to stop acting like some niminy-piminy prig and get on with it.
Lady Ashmead was seated near his lectern at the side of the stage in her usual oversized chair, befitting the benefactress of the orphanage and patroness of the play, they had told her. No one, wisely, had told her she was to have a role in it.
“... In a long forgotten kingdom”—her loving son continued reading from his script, one hand gesturing toward his mother’s throne-like chair—“there lived an evil queen who was jealous of her own stepdaughter. The dead king’s only child was to inherit the crown and rule Pitsaponia as soon as the young princess came of age to take a husband. The queen had Princess Pretty kidnapped the day before her fifteenth birthday ...”
“Hah!” Lady Ashmead said, loudly enough that the first five rows of the audience could hear. “As if I wouldn’t walk through hot coals to see my last child wed. Look what tomfoolery I am putting up with tonight.”
“... and carried off to the shore where the fierce, finned, fanged kraken hunted.”
Ada played a fanfare and the stagehand boys, dressed in dark skeleton suits, skipped across the stage, opening the curtains.
The playgoers, villagers, Londoners, servants, and orphans, all went “Aah” when they saw the set.
“Aha! So that’s where all my ferns got to,” Lady Ashmead complained.
The greenery was banked along the rear of the stage, with vines and flowers and fanciful birds painted on the backdrop, which had last seen service as a sail. Blue wooden waves bordered the performance area.
Ada played the “Princess’s Prelude,” and Lady Esther ran onto the stage. Her satin gown dotted with colored rhinestones, she glistened as she turned, looking behind her. The jewels in her crown glittered like diamonds, as well they might, since the earl’s daughter was wearing her own heirloom tiara. Esther looked more like a princess than Ada ever could have, although Miss Westlake could have done a better job of appearing abandoned on a deserted shore after a three-months’ journey. The little beauty looked more like she’d just left her dresser’s hands, which she had, but she shrieked quite artfully.
At the second shriek, Ada gave a nod, and the green serpent entered the stage. The audience went “Ooh.” One of the children inside the fabric body went “Ouch,” but Ada did not think anyone else heard. The first child rotated the huge painted head this way and that, searching for a tender morsel. The princess ran across the stage to the left; the dragon slithered after her. The princess ran to the right; the kraken followed. Left, right, while Ada played a scary, pounding tempo and the fiddle thrummed and Lady Esther shrieked.
The boys pulled the curtains across to thunderous applause.
Chas started reading again. “The dead king’s ministers offered a great reward for Princess Pretty’s return.”
A shower of coins was hurled over the top of the curtain at the audience, one of whose members loudly called, “Bit of all right, I say. I usually have to pay to be so entertained.” The wit had obviously missed the donation jars at the entrance, for the orphans’ fund. Epps was watching; he’d find the fellow before he left.
“So the Scourge of the Sea, Sebastian the Pirate, set out to find the missing princess and claim the reward, which included the hand of her royal highness in marriage.”
The curtain opened again, but this time the backdrop was plain, solid blue except for a single cloud where one of the helpers had spilled paint. Ada played the “Pirate’s Theme.” Then she played it again. Finally the prow of a boat appeared, with Leo balanced on the gunnel, shouting “Row, me hearties, an’ there’s an extra tot o’ rum for the lad what spots land.”
The boat rocked—unintentionally, Ada knew—and Leo sat down hurriedly, but not before the watchers had seen his corded chest and muscular thighs. Half the audience sighed. The other half elbowed their husbands, with their padded shoulders and spindly shanks.
“Sebastian and his band of pirates searched for days into weeks, weeks into months. They captured a warship and a whaler and a wealthy merchantman, but still they kept searching ...”
“Sail ho,” came from offstage.
“Hard abeam.”
“Belay that, matey.”
“... until one day they came upon an island that was on no map. And there they found the princess.”
“Oh, thave me, Thebathian. Thave me from the thea therpent!”
The audience roared and so did the children in the dragon costume. The princess rushed off the stage, shrieking, of course, and Sebastian climbed out of his boat, his sword flashing in the air. Swish! Slash! Slice! While Ada played and Cobble fiddled, Leo fenced and feinted across the stage, nimbly avoiding the monster’s teeth in finest swashbuckler style. Finally he cut the dragon’s head clean off, and strode away, offstage, to claim the princess, his bride.
Ada softened her playing. Cobble plucked a string here and there.
“Even the worst of us,” Viscount Ashmead told the audience, “can be loved by someone. The kraken had once been the lover of Sirenia the Sea Goddess before he turned evil, and she came to mourn his loss.”
Tess came on stage in her flowing robes, keening her lament. She picked up the severed head and danced with it, singing her troubled eulogy, showing her bare legs. She swayed, she spun, her voice filled the huge ballroom with young love turned bitter, with all the lost chances, all the wasted years. The audience was enraptured. Many wept. Ada herself could barely read the music in front of her through the tears in her eyes, tears of pride for her sister’s success.
Chas cleared his throat to reclaim the audience’s attention. “Done with her mourning, the sea goddess grew angry. Someone had dared enter her province, had dared take the life of her lover. That someone would pay.”
Cymbals crashed, drums rolled, Ada pounded the keys of the pianoforte. The goddess stood at the side of the stage—the side as far away from Lady Ashmead as pos
sible—with her hands raised in wrath, the trident pointing at the sky, calling down the storm. Sebastian’s boat was rocked and bounced, then the bow was raised and the pirate was tipped out. The sea sprites draped the blue backdrop over him.
“Sebastian and his men were all taken to the bottom of the sea, drowned.”
The curtains were quickly pulled, the noise drowning out Lady Ashmead’s: “Good. Now can we have refreshments?”
“Some of Sebastian’s men were still ashore, however. One of them was the officer from the captured warship, Captain Corazon ...”
(Emery had refused to be Generalissimo Markissimo.)
Ada played a sprightly march.
“... who discovered the weeping princess on her island prison. Despite his injuries, the officer freed the damsel, but she captured his heart, and he won hers with his bravery and goodness.”
The curtains parted to show the fern island, with the young couple ready for their duet. Emery was in some foreign uniform, with ribbons and medals and gold braid strung across his chest. His own injured arm was strapped against his body under the white coat, which did not do much for the jacket, or Emery’s arm. Still he managed to put his good arm around Lady Esther at the end of the song, and drew her to him for a remarkably well-rehearsed and well-acted kiss that continued while the audience whistled and stamped their feet.
Before Chas could read further, there was a disturbance from the rear of the room. A well-tailored gentleman of mature years but less than impressive stature shoved his way through the standing servants at the back, down the narrow aisle between crowded rows of seats, forcing his way toward the stage.
“Thtop!” he shouted.
Thtop? Chas looked to Ada and whispered, “Did Tess rewrite the script?”
She shook her head.
The diminutive gentleman shook his fist at the stage and yelled to Emery, “Unhand my daughter, you cad!”
Lady Esther threw her arms around Emery and declared: “I am Princeth Pretty and thith ith the man I love.”
“The devil it ith!” the Earl of Ravenshaw swore, waving his cane like a sword. The audience was confused, but they applauded anyway.
“Archie?” Lady Ashmead lifted her lorgnette. “Is that you? Stop making a fool of yourself. It is only a play.”
“A play? My daughter ith no common performer!”
“But thith ith thtill the man I love.”
“Oh, do sit down, Archie.” Chas had signaled one of the servants to fetch another chair, which he hurried to position next to the viscountess’s throne. “You can argue about it later, without that ridiculous lisp.”
The play went on as the earl sat. He leaned toward Lady Ashmead. “Irmentrude? Who is that chap with his arms—one arm, by Jupiter—around my girl?”
She whispered back: “He is Sir Emery Westlake, recently of the Army, a nice, decent lad. A baronet.”
“A baronet? Bah. Who’s t’other fellow, the handsome one behind the curtain waving his sword like he knows how to use it?”
“That is none other than my husband’s by-blow, who died in the last act. If I can stomach him, you can accept the heroic young baronet who loves your daughter.”
Chas took up the narrative: “Seeing the young lovers melted Sirenia’s frozen heart, like the first buds of spring awaken the earth after winter. She could not bring her wrath to bear against them.”
While the young sea sprites sang their song, dancing around Tess, Lord Ravenshaw leaned toward the viscountess again. “How many butter stamps did old Geoffrey leave you with, anyway?”
She rapped his knuckles with her lorgnette. “They are orphans from the foundling home. Now stubble it, Archie. I want to see the end. Demme if the Westlake gel doesn’t have something between her cars after all.”
Chas frowned at both of them, speaking louder: “Repentant, the sea goddess decided to bring courageous Sebastian and his men back to the land of the living, with the help of her water fairies.”
They dragged Leo’s once more inert body across the stage, where Tess sang another stanza, affirming life. The pirate sat up and stretched, and espied a goddess. He went down on one knee to her, vowing his undying—unless he had a relapse—devotion.
“But what of your princess?” the goddess asked, pointing across the stage to the young lovers, standing so close together her father’s cane could not have fit between. “The kingdom you could rule, the fortune she would bring?”
Instead of the baritone’s aria that should have followed, Leo turned to the audience and slowly, carefully spoke his lines: “Leave them to tend the soil. I am a man of the sea, where my beloved resides. As for riches, what good is wealth if a man’s heart is poor?”
They walked off the stage, hand in hand.
When the cheering died down, mostly from the members of Leo’s crew and the ladies, and the curtains were drawn, Chas read the envoi. “The princess and her noble captain returned to Pitsaponia, where”—he improvised with a nod toward his mother and the earl—“the Queen and her ministers approved the match. The royal couple lived long and ruled wisely, and had many children to gladden their days.”
“Hmph,” Lady Ashmead snorted. “I hope they got more pleasure out of their brood than I get from my aggravating offspring.”
The earl glowered at the closed curtain as if he could see through it, to where Emery and Esther were still embracing. “Amen to that.”
“As for Sebastian and the sea goddess,” Lord Ashmead continued, “they went on adventuring, ridding the high seas and far reaches of fire dragons, fiends, and tax collectors.”
Lady Ashmead patted Ravenshaw’s hand. “At least you can be happy you aren’t that chit’s father.”
Ada struck a chord so Chas could finish.
“Everyone lived happily ever after, which is what we wish for you, dear listeners.” He bowed, then added, “Oh, and the sea sprites all found good homes.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Bows. Curtsies. Applause. Hugs, kisses, more applause. More bows, more kisses, more bouquets. They were a success. The play was a masterpiece. Tess was a genius. Strangers from London were clamoring to talk to her, waving contracts and checks in front of her face.
Glowing with stage makeup and pride, Tess took up a post in the library, signing programs for all of those who did not want to know her in the past, but now wanted to prove that they did. Her future looked rosy indeed.
Tess put off the London businessmen, telling them she had to consult with her financial adviser in London, Monsieur Prelieu, before committing herself. Meanwhile, they were welcome to present their proposals to her business partner, Leo. The eventual checks, she made sure they all knew, were to be made out to Mrs. Leo Tobin.
After supper and celebrations, Mr. and Mrs. Holmdale gathered up the foundling home children, with two likely prospects of families for such bright, handsome, and hard-working boys.
The earl was seated in the Crimson Parlor with a glass of Lord Ashmead’s finest cognac in his hands. He was scowling at his daughter, who was accepting her rightful homage from her court, from Sir Emery’s right side. Emery had changed into his own scarlet regimental jacket, with his injured arm in a sling.
“At least the clunch has two arms,” the earl conceded to Lady Ashmead, sitting beside him on the sofa.
“Does that mean he is two times as acceptable, you old dodderer, or that he will love her twice as much?”
The earl did not reply, looking for answers in the swirling cognac.
“Fustian, you old goat, and you know it. It’s a good lad, Sir Emery is, solid as stone. Not like that here-and-thereian brother of his, Rodney, who married into a parcel of the dirtiest dishes he could find. Emery will do.”
When Lord Ravenshaw still made no comment, the viscountess rapped him with her looking glass. “So the boy might not have vast lands, deep pockets, or high title. Isn’t your girl’s happiness more important? Did your own arranged marriage bring you any joy, besides the riches you did not need?�
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“Brought me my gel,” the earl pronounced.
“Aye, and I would trade my youth all over again for my own three children, no matter how much I complain about them. But do you not wonder, sometimes, what it might have felt like, wed to someone you truly loved?”
He put his hand atop hers. “Perhaps it’s not too late, Trudy.”
Perhaps not.
* * * *
While Lady Ashmead was holding private conversation with the earl, her son had Ada stand beside him to accept the congratulations of their friends and neighbors. The viscount had not asked; he simply held her arm, holding her at his side as if she were the lady of the house. It was not quite the thing, of course, since there had been no formal announcement of a match between them. There had been no formal offer, either, to Ada’s despair, and could not be, in all this crowd.
She could not outstay the company, especially since many were Lady Ashmead’s house guests. The erstwhile sea sprites were yawning, besides, so Ada decided to take them home. Tess was to follow with Leo, but Ada knew better than to wait up. No matter how late they returned, she would not have to worry. Emery’s future looked assured too, for the earl had shaken his good hand and invited him to come take tomorrow’s breakfast at the Meadows. No, all she had to worry about was her meeting in the morning with Chas, in the orchard where they would not be disturbed.
Her prayers that night were particularly poignant.
* * * *
The day dawned bright and warm for autumn, which meant Ada had no excuse for delaying. She harnessed Lulu to the cart and loaded into the back a basket full of puppies, wrapped in blankets with a hot brick underneath. Tally sat on the bench beside her, eager as always.
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