Kitty Little (21 page)

More importantly in Kitty’s eyes, there should have been evidence of the transport with Reg and co. on board, not to mention all their equipment, which had been expected to arrive first. Where were they? The pinch of concern had grown into a knot of cold fear. What if there had been an accident?

‘Nor am I accustomed to being kept waiting, I do assure you,’ Jacob Warburton was saying, checking his fob watch for the umpteenth time. ‘If no one comes soon, I for one will wait no longer.’

Kitty viewed this high-handed attitude with fortitude since these actors wouldn’t have agreed to join a new group of group of travelling players if they’d been at the top of their profession with other, more lucrative, offers of work. Nevertheless she was concerned. To save costs and get everyone on their toes from the start, since it would more often than not be a one night booking, Kitty had elected not to arrive a day early. Now she regretted that decision, based on optimism that the team would pull together, high on energy due to first night nerves.

Taking their cue from the two grandees, grumbles quickly spread amongst the rest of the cast. Only Felicity Fanshaw remained relaxed and silent, leaning against her bicycle which had fortunately survived the journey in the guard’s van. ‘Probably had a puncture. Motor cars, in my experience, are always breaking down. Bicycles are far more reliable.’

‘Yes of course.’ Why hadn’t she thought of that? Kitty breathed a sigh of relief. She must simply be patient. In the meantime she could do something about getting them all inside, out of the rain.

Having found the caretaker and gained entry it took less than five minutes to place a table and four chairs on the small, bare platform which stood at the end of the hall, ready for
The Pedlar Woman,
their first one act play. But they could do little more until the Jowett arrived. Without the fitup, as the whole rig and stage equipment was termed, they couldn’t even begin preparations. Not without the curtains and lighting, folding flats, cardboard fireplace, or the trees and bushes they’d so painstaking fashioned from strips of wood and hessian for the Shakespeare. Nor make use of the numerous boxes of costumes.

One or two would-be landladies were already hovering at the door, peeping curiously inside, anxious to see what a real live actor looked like in the flesh. One glimpse told them they were disappointingly the same as everyone else. The next hour was fully taken up with assigning accommodation as several more village ladies drifted in to offer the loan of their spare room in a show of civic pride and duty.

The Players soon discovered that the onus on who was to sleep where, was largely in the hands of these good women who insisted on making their own selection, a trait they were to find repeated time and again in the weeks to come. Some would only board females while others took quite the opposite view.

‘Oh no, I do like a man about the house. They’re so much easier to please.’

Smothering her giggles, Kitty would watch Rod or Sam being borne away by some motherly matron, wondering whether she should feel pity or envy for the care he would undoubtedly be given.

She arranged digs for Archie and Reg with a whiskery lady who ran the local tea shop, thinking they’d at least be sure of being well fed. Mrs Pips was to stay at the Rectory. Suzy was stationed with the school mistress and Felicity Fanshaw with a dear old lady who promised her currant buns for tea. Kitty, Esme and Charlotte when they arrived, and Tessa Crump their scatterbrained pianist, were to share a couple of rooms at the home of the church organist who also acted as clerk to the parish council. It had been she who’d made the booking and now informed them that tickets were still being sold at the post office, for no one wished to miss the show, not for the world.

‘Well that’s a relief at least,’ Kitty agreed with a smile, half glancing at the door where she imagined she’d caught a flicker of movement that might have been Esme but unfortunately wasn’t. ‘A show does need an audience.’

 
By half past five everyone had gone ahead to their digs save for Kitty, and Tessa who was attempting to come to grips with an instrument that had clearly stood in that spot since Victoria was a girl. It boasted twin candelabras which, Kitty feared, might be the only lighting they would have for the entire performance if the Jowett didn’t arrive soon. How they would manage without Charlotte, Esme or the two men, she couldn’t begin to imagine. She tried to keep her mind off such worries.

‘Is it in tune?’

Tessa grimaced. ‘It’ll do,’ playing a few notes of
Green Grow the Rushes O
to prove her point. Kitty pulled a face too, not quite convinced.

By six, even Tessa had drifted away to unpack, change and grab a bite to eat. She’d promised to return with a sandwich for Kitty who steadfastly remained, still sitting on her bag and chewing on her nails, anxiously worrying over what she would do if they didn’t turn up at all, when she heard the cough of an engine. The Jowett had at last arrived.

Tightening her resolve not to make a fuss, she ran out to greet them. All that really mattered, she told herself, was that they were here at last, and, if everyone buckled to they might just get the fitup done in time. ‘Did you have a terrible journey?’ she began and then skidded to a halt.

Apart from Esme who was in floods of tears, the other three were all screaming with laughter and singing at the tops of their voices. ‘Dear Lord,’ Kitty said, shocked to the core. ‘You’re drunk.’

The curtains opened on that first night to a packed house with everyone struggling to remember their lines, be in the right place at the right time and become accustomed to unfamiliar surroundings.

The set was somewhat hastily hooked together, the curtains slightly wonky and the cardboard fireplace with no sign of the artificial glow it should contain. The door which Reg had so carefully constructed stuck fast and refused to open, forcing Esme to make her exit by walking around it which brought gales of laughter from the audience. Suzy had to be prompted twice, Rod and Sam were each late for an entrance and Archie missed one altogether. But he was by this time suffering from a thumping headache which Kitty considered he rightly deserved.

Reg had been at great pains to express his regret over the fated journey, not once but over and over again, relating the tale at least a dozen times. Apparently they’d suffered not one puncture, but two. On the second occasion while he’d got down to mending the tyre, since they’d already used the spare wheel, the other three had been entertained with parsnip wine provided by a friendly householder. Poor Esme had assumed it to be innocuous enough, since it was home made, but it had made her rather ill. By the time Reg was done, he too had been persuaded to partake of a glass or two, to “wet his whistle after all that work”, and between them they were soon far gone and completely forgot the time.

‘It’s a wonder,’ he said, ‘that we didn’t end up in a ditch.’

Any further post-mortem into the whys and wherefores over the state of the hapless quartet had been postponed, for it had taken several cups of stewed tea, and a good deal of ducking in cold water before any of them were fit to go on stage. Now, as they stumbled through a diabolical performance, there were stifled giggles from other members of the cast, but from Kitty only a stiff-lipped and ominous silence as she held to her resolve to be patient and forgiving. Though no one was in any doubt that this dammed-up reserve of fury would ultimately explode.

Charlotte, at least, appeared as composed and beautiful as ever and enchanted the audience with her recitations, not to mention a superb and lively performance as Miranda. Even Esme managed to pull herself together and deliver her lines with creditable aplomb, if with exceptional concentration. Despite everything, the show was a huge success. The residents declared they could never remember a more enjoyable evening in the entire history of the village, and the parish clerk instantly booked them for a second occasion later in the year.

Afterwards, several bottles of beer were downed to celebrate their success since everyone was in too high spirits to go to bed, though Archie and the rest of the party from the Jowett, declined, opting to stick with lemonade. Rod went out and bought them each a hot meat pie from the cook shop and they all sat in a happy row on the edge of the platform eating and drinking, laughing and talking all at once.

Despite what had very nearly proved to be a catastrophic start to their tour, to Kitty it seemed like the most perfect night of her life.

‘Wasn’t it wonderful?’ she kept saying, high on euphoria. All her dreams seemed to have come to fruition. Simply the glory of hearing the audience roar with laughter in all the right places, be silent and sorrowful when the mood of the play dictated it, and then the heady joy of the tumultuous applause at the end was even more gratifying than she could ever have bargained for. They’d even enjoyed her own play, loudly applauding
The Pedlar Woman.
‘This is the life. What glorious fun we’re going to have.’

She looked about for Archie, ready to share her happy mood and to apologise for being so grumpy earlier; though by rights the apologies should be coming from him.

He was standing some way off and although she was perfectly certain that he’d heard her call out his name, he slipped out through the door to vanish into the darkness. Seeing him go, Esme burst into a fresh paroxysm of tears and fled out of the back door in the opposite direction. Whatever was the matter? Had Archie hurt her in some way to cause her to react so badly? Kitty almost felt like doing the same, except that witnessing her friend’s distress seemed to rekindle her anger. He was clearly behaving like a small child dodging a well-deserved scolding. His complete disregard for punctuality on this, their first night, coupled with no sign of the due apology, served to demolish the last of her patience and the dam of her anger finally burst.

‘Where the hell is he off to now? Drat the man,’ and jumping down from the platform, Kitty snatched up her coat and marched after him. None of the rest of the company dared move a muscle. She’d reached the door, even had her hand on the door knob, when the world shifted and she fainted clean away.

It was Charlotte who insisted on calling in the local doctor and Esme who put her to bed, scolding her gently for allowing her anger to get the better of her. He examined her and coldly gave his opinion that in view of her condition, she should be in a home for wayward girls; that if she were his daughter she most certainly would be. When he had gone the three girls stared at each other in shocked dismay.

Charlotte said, ‘Oh dear. How very cross he sounded.’

‘A wayward girl?’ Kitty repeated. ‘My reputation is in ribbons. Scarlet ones no doubt.’

‘What would father’s parishioners have said?’ Esme murmured on a rare note of dry humour and, despite their differences, they collapsed into a fit of nervous giggles, rolling about in hoots of laughter as if having a baby out of wedlock were a huge joke and not a moral calamity.

‘I’d still prefer this to be our secret. If you don’t mind,’ Kitty managed, when the paroxysms of hysterical mirth had finally subsided.

‘Of course darling,’ Charlotte sweetly agreed.

Kitty was up at seven the next day as usual, ignoring Esme’s exhortations to take heed of the doctor’s advice and rest. ‘You can’t go on working this hard.’

‘But I can and I must. Doesn’t the show always have to go on? Besides, I shall have another mouth to feed soon.’

If Kitty ever doubted the wisdom of her decision to keep her secret from Archie, or if she became filled with an overwhelming desire to share the miracle of this new life with him, watching Esme sink into gradual despair curbed that need. The girl hardly seemed to touch her food, drifting about half the day in a soulful reverie, never hearing when anyone spoke to her, and constantly jumping at shadows. As for her performances, she’d had more prompts over these last few nights than throughout the four week tour.

She wasn’t the only one to be concerned. Reg confided his worries to Kitty one day, as if he expected her to have a solution at her finger tips.

Everyone saw her as a strong person, and that’s what she strived to be. But sometimes Kitty could take no more and would snatch an hour or two between rehearsals to walk on the Lakeland hills, hoping the lone cry of the curlew or the soft hues of the heather would bring her some peace. And in the solitude of the countryside the tears could fall unchecked. When there were none left to shed, she would walk back to their digs and lie awake, dry-eyed and sleepless in countless strange beds, only to find the next day that her vibrant energy was entirely lacking and her brain too tired and bemused to give a good performance.

With an increasing sense of helplessness, Kitty berated herself for not making it clear to Archie that if he truly loved Esme, she wouldn’t stand in his way. Yet day after day she kept making excuses over why she failed to do so. Perhaps because she was too afraid of making a fool of herself, for why should she assume that he even needed her permission? More likely she didn’t speak to him because in her heart of hearts she prayed that Charlotte might be wrong. Deep within her burned a stubborn hope that it was she who Archie truly loved, and that one day he would say as much.

In the meantime, until that glorious moment dawned, or she’d summoned up the courage to tackle him on the subject of Esme, Kitty became utterly obsessed with concealing her condition. She took to wearing flowing skirts and loose tops, acquiring a bohemian style of dress which attracted either a teasing jocularity or rare compliments, but thankfully little curiosity.