Angel in Scarlet (33 page)

“The table! Where's the bleedin' table?” a hoarse voice shouted. “Gotta have the pitcher and glasses, too. Quickly!”

“Twenty minutes! Twenty soddin' minutes! Shrubs! Bring on the shrubs at once!”

From the other side of the stage a man rushed on with a huge plaster statue of a Greek goddess, setting it in place, while another carried on four leafy shrubs and set them about. James Lambert came rushing into the wings with rich brown locks atumble, his green-brown eyes flashing dangerously. He wore brown breeches and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a natty green and yellow checked vest. Spotting Dobson, he stormed over and seized the youth by the shoulders and began to shake him vigorously.

“Where
is
she! I told you not to come back without her! I swear, Dobson, if you've failed me, I'll—”

“Mrs. G-Gibbons couldn't c-come,” Dobson stammered. “She s-sent an assistant in her p-place.”

Lambert released him and brushed a heavy brown wave from his brow and gave me a savage look.

“You!” he snapped. “Can you sew?”

“Of course not,” I retorted. “Dottie merely hires me to insult the customers.”

His eyes flashed with emerald fire. “Get her to the dressing room and get her to work!” he ordered Dobson. “It's less than twenty minutes till curtain! Everything is chaos! Inefficiency on all sides! How do I endure it?
Why
do I endure it? I'm surrounded by blithering incompetents!”

“I'll expect five pounds for the job,” I said crisply.

“Five pounds! That's robbery!”

“I've been sorely inconvenienced, have missed my evening meal, have rushed through bitterly cold streets to get here in time, and—”

“You'll get your five pounds!” he shouted.

“Thank you,” I said.

Dobson led me behind the painted backdrop, through a cluttered area and into the wings on the other side of the stage. We moved down another narrow hall, finally stopping in front of a door with peeling white paint. He knocked timidly. A heavy object crashed against the door from inside. There was a piercing shriek. Dobson gave me a worried look and shook his head. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman with gray hair and anxious blue eyes. She was wearing a black dress and a white apron and mobcap and was obviously a maid. A tall and decidedly statuesque blonde in a white silk petticoat and belted pink lace robe stood in front of a littered dressing table, fuming. She grabbed a box of powder and hurled it violently. A puffy white cloud filled the air as it exploded against the wall.

“How dare him!” she shrieked. “How dare him speak to me like that! I've made a bloody fortune for the son of a bitch and does he appreciate it, does he appreciate me? Not for a bloody minute! Treats me like I'm dirt under his sodding feet! Treats me like I'm some strumpet he picked up off the street! I'll show him! Call
me
a sow, will he? Mr. James bloody Lambert is going to regret he was ever
born
!”

She picked up a pot of face cream and hurled it, too. It crashed over the top of the doorframe. Dobson fled. The angry blonde noticed me standing there in the doorway.

“Who the hell are
you
!” she shouted.

“I've come to mend your gown,” I said. “I think perhaps you'd better put it on so we can see how much damage there is and how much stitching will be required.”

“There's no need to mend the bloody gown! I'm not wearing it! I'm not going on! I'll never step foot on that stage again as long as
he
's in charge. I have my pride! I have my principles! Mr. James Lambert can find himself another leading lady! He can go straight to hell! He can
rot
there!”

Theatrical folk were certainly a volatile lot, I reflected. I wondered if any of them ever employed a normal voice or uttered a sentence not ending in an exclamation mark.

The maid began to wring her hands, eyes more anxious than ever.

“Now, Coral dear,” she said, “you know you can't refuse to go on tonight. You wouldn't be hurting
him
, you'd be disappointing all those lovely people who have come out on a bitterly cold night just to see
you.
”

“He'd be nothing without me! His bleeding play wouldn't last a week!”

“That's quite true, dear. Everyone knows it. Do calm yourself and put on the gown so this nice young woman can mend it for you. Let me get you a cup of hot tea.”

“I don't want any tea! I want something to eat! I'm starving!”

“I tell you what, dear, you put on the gown and I'll go find that pleasant Mr. Dobson and have him send someone to Hatchard's Coffee House and buy some of those nice chocolate cream puffs. You can have them here in your dressing room during intermission.”

“Oh, all right,” Mrs. Tallent said petulantly, “but I'm not doing it for
him
. I'm doing it for my
pub
lic!”

She flung off her robe and pulled the purple and mauve gown from the rack. The maid shot me a relieved look and scurried away like someone just let out of an asylum. I took the sewing things out of the bag and removed my cloak as the actress struggled impatiently into the gown.

Although Carol Tallent
was
overweight, she certainly didn't resemble a sow, nor did she look like a baby whale. She was, instead, voluptuously hefty, like those women Rubens was always painting a hundred and fifty years ago. Her dark blonde hair was the color of honey, pulled back sleekly from her face with elaborate waves arranged in back. Her large brown eyes were sullen, her mouth petulant and provocative, a deep, rich pink. Though far from beautiful, she nevertheless had that potent sensual allure that drove men crazy. Made you think of cheap perfume and sweat and rumpled bedclothes, I thought.

“Well!” she snapped. “Are you going to hook me up?”

I stepped behind her and did up the tiny hooks in back. The purple velvet bodice had split along the seam on the right side, leaving a four inch gap, her white petticoat visible beneath.

“Shouldn't be at all difficult to mend,” I told her. “No need for you to take the gown back off. If you'll raise your right arm I can sew it up easily. Just let me thread my needle.”

“Hurry up! I've got to do my makeup after you've done. I don't know
why
I endure this!”

“You endure it for your public,” I said sweetly.

“You're right. I can't let them down. One mustn't forget the little people, no matter
how
celebrated one becomes. They're the ones who buy the tickets. They're the ones who make it all happen. The indignities one has to suffer for one's art!”

I wondered if James Lambert had written that particular dialogue, too. It was certainly worthy of him.

“Just raise your arm up,” I said. “Try to stand still. Wouldn't want to jab you. This is good, strong thread. It'll hold nicely. Gown'll be right as rain in a matter of minutes.”

“If it had been done
right
in the first place this wouldn't have happened! I
begged
Lambert to use Mrs. Dane, she makes divine costumes, but no, he had to use that wretched Mrs. Gibbons who doesn't know sod about color or—”

Mrs. Tallent let out a bloodcurdling scream that must have startled humble folk on the outskirts of Plymouth.

“I'm
so
sorry,” I said. “I told you to be still. These little accidents
will
happen.”

“You bloody idiot! You've
wounded
me!”

“Just a teeny little jab with my needle. Let me see—is there any blood? Nary a drop. You're not hurt at all. Just a minute or so more now. It's coming along nicely indeed.”

“Clumsy fool! It
hurts
!”

“You'll live, Mrs. Tallent. There. All done.”

Mrs. Tallent jerked away from me and examined the gown in the mirror, then gave me a murderous look as I put the things back into the bag and picked up my cloak. I smiled a sweet smile. Mrs. Tallent called me a bumbling little bitch and said she intended to see I lost my job. “Enjoy your cream puffs, Fatty,” I said sweetly and left, closing the door behind me. I heard something splintering against it just as I got it shut.

Charming creature, Mrs. Tallent. Now to find James Lambert and collect my five pounds. I moved back down the hall to find the wings on the right side of the stage crowded with men in handsome blue and white uniforms trimmed in golden braid. Sewed the braid on myself, I had, made most of the white breeches as well. The men were buckling on their sabers and milling about, paying no attention to me as I moved through their midst. I crossed behind the backdrop again and found utter confusion prevailing on the other side of the stage. A girl in blue with a white gauze apron was giggling merrily as she lolled in the arms of two stagehands. A third stagehand was holding up an empty gin bottle. Lambert was ranting, waving his arms in the air.

“How did she
get
it! Who
gave
it to her! You all know I never permit any kind of liquor backstage! My God! There must be a full moon! Curtain's going up in less than ten minutes and the little slut can't even
walk
much less deliver her line!”

The girl tittered and kicked one leg high and tried to grab the empty bottle. A plump, middle-aged woman in black wig and luscious pink satin gown told Lambert the girl's lover had deserted her that afternoon, and Lambert glared at her and then placed his hands over his temples and shook his head, looking woeful now, looking tragic. “I'm cursed!” he cried. “Cursed!” Although Dottie had never mentioned it, I was willing to bet a month's salary James Lambert had spent some time as an actor. They probably booed him off the stage, I thought. Lucky they didn't stone him.

“What are we going to
do
?” Dobson asked. “The house is packed. We can't turn them out!”

“I don't
know
what we're going to do! I'll think of something.”

I decided it was not a propitious time to collect my five pounds and started toward the hall leading to the stage door as unobtrusively as I could. Lambert looked up then. He saw me and stood up straight, suddenly galvanized with purpose.

“You!” he shouted. “Stop where you are!”

My heart leaped. I was terrified. He rushed over to me and fixed me with a hard stare and then nodded. He seized my cloak, seized the bag, tossing them aside. “Get that apron off her!” he ordered. “Bring it over here!” And then he reached up and pulled the puffed sleeves of my violet silk dress down off my shoulders. I should have slapped him across the face as hard as I could, but I was too stunned. I stumbled back. James Lambert clamped his fingers around my wrist and held on tightly.

“You'll do. You'll have to do! The dress is all wrong but the apron will help. Yes, I think it might work.
Get that apron over here
!”

“Let go of me!” I cried. “Have you lost your—”

“You've got to help us out, wench. It's an emergency. I want you to do a little favor for me. It's very, very simple, and I know you can do it, and you
will
do it, do you hear me? You're going to go onstage tonight. You're going to—”

“You're out of your bloody mind!”

I tried to pull free. His fingers tightened around my wrist. I was genuinely terrified now, and James Lambert saw it and sensed he'd better change his tactics and smiled a reassuring smile.

“There's absolutely nothing to be worried about,” he assured me, speaking in that persuasive voice I had heard him use on Dottie. “When the curtain goes up the audience discovers Mrs. Tallent and Mrs. Pearson sitting at the table in the garden and you're in the background, you're the maid, you've been gathering flowers and—”

“I won't do it! I couldn't possibly! I—”

“—and you're just loitering there in front of the backdrop, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Mrs. Tallent and Mrs. Pearson are talking about Prince Karl whose armies have conquered the country. The Prince has requisitioned the villa and will soon arrive to take over. Mrs. Tallent looks fearful and shakes her head and says ‘I fear we'll all be ravished' and when she says those words, you point stage right and say ‘Lo! The Prince and his army approach!' and then you drop your flowers and flee stage left in terror.”

“You're mad!” I protested. “I've never been on a stage in my life! I've never even been inside a theater until tonight! If you think I'm going to—”

“I know you're a bit nervous, wench, and that's understandable, but you've got absolutely nothing to worry about. No one is going to pay any attention to you, they're going to be looking at Mrs. Tallent and Mrs. Pearson and listening to their exchange of dialogue.”

“I don't care! I—”

“You just have that one bit, that one line—‘Lo! The Prince and his army approach!' You can remember that! Then you just drop your flowers and run offstage and that's it, that's all.”

“Let one of the supers do it!”

“I don't have any female supers. They're all men. They're all soldiers. You can't expect me to slap a dress on one of
them.
”

“They did in Shakespeare's time!”

“This isn't Shakespeare!”

“
That
's for bloody sure!”

A man came rushing up with the white gauze apron. Lambert seized it, eyes flashing dangerously. He jerked me to him and angrily tied the apron around my waist and then, fingers clamped on my wrist, dragged me toward the stage. I struggled furiously. “Be still!” he snapped. Mrs. Tallent and the middle-aged woman in pink satin and black wig were sitting down at the table onstage. James Lambert dragged me past the white plaster statue, past trellises and shrubs, finally stopping.

“You can do it,” he said tenderly, wooing me with his voice. “I know you can. You just stand here and gaze at the sky and—”