Leading Lady (14 page)

Sending a message with his eyes, Grady said, “Jewel, will you make sure the stove is lit in Mr. Whitmore’s room?”

“Certainly,” Jewel replied.

“That’s not necessary,” Mr. Whitmore said, making motions to rise, but Grady’s hand held him in place.

“We wouldn’t want you to catch a chill, old chap,” Grady was saying as Jewel hastened into the corridor.

On her way to the staircase she spotted Mrs. Ainsley through the open doorway to the greenroom, ostensibly dusting chairs.

“Come with me,” Jewel said, motioning.

Dressing rooms lined both sides of the corridor above ground floor. Leading actors and actresses had their own, and others were shared, depending upon how many characters were necessary in a production. Jewel opened the door to Mr. Whitmore’s room and turned to the cleaning woman.

“Please light the stove while I look about.”

Mrs. Ainsley nodded knowingly. “I’d check under his cot first if I was you.”

The half-filled bottle turned up in one of Romeo’s short leather boots. “I would appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself,” Jewel said as she concealed it in the folds of her skirt, should she happen upon Mr. Whitmore in the corridor.

“Mum’s the word, Mrs. McGuire,” Mrs. Ainsley replied, brushing soot from her hands while her eyes betrayed her eagerness to rejoin her co-workers.

“Really, Mrs. Ainsley, this is important.” But as she had neither the time nor legal right to tie a gag around the woman’s mouth, Jewel left her and hastened to the water closet to pour out the gin. She met Grady and the actor on the staircase,
the two men flattening themselves against the stone wall so that she could pass.

“I shouldn’t have brought Mrs. Ainsley up there with me,” Jewel fretted when her husband returned to the office. “It’ll be all over London.”

Grady rubbed her back and soothed, “It wouldn’t have made any difference. Everyone could see what condition he was in before you even arrived.”

“Will he sober up by performance time? We can’t have two understudies in lead roles.”

“He’ll sober up. You forget, I’m an old hand at this, with my father and brothers so fond of their cups.”

That reassured Jewel a little. Until she recalled her earlier errand. “Miss Love declined the part. I offered her twice Mrs. Steel’s wages.”

“Ah, I figured as much,” Grady said. “Not much we can do, with three weeks left. But look on the bright side—we’ll have the whole month of March to plan ahead.

The stage was to be consigned to a New York touring group and their production of
The Runaway,
allowing the Royal Court performers to devote all of March to rehearsals of
Lady Audley’s Secret.

With the aid of the nap, supper, and several cups of coffee, Richard Whitmore recovered before curtain. Grady was relieved not to be forced to impose the two-pound fine, for in Mr. Whitmore’s state of mind, the actor could very well walk out of the production. And then the Royal Court may as well close its doors for the rest of February.

****

“We dropped to twenty-one percent vacancy last night,” Grady said the following morning after counting the receipts. He ran a hand through his reddish hair and nodded toward the
Times
folded upon his desk. “And Shaw’s column raked us over the coals.”

Now it was Jewel’s turn to comfort him. She rose from her desk and stood behind him to massage his broad shoulders,
digging her fingertips into knotted muscles. He groaned appreciatively, moved his neck from side to side. “That feels good. Ah, Jewel, in times such as this, your love is all that’s keeping me from leaping into the Thames.”

Flattered as Jewel was by the compliment, this was a bit disturbing to hear. Grady was not the sort even to joke about suicide. “Surely that’s not the only restraint.”

“Well, that and the fact that I can’t swim.”

She laughed, grateful that even this latest discouragement could not douse the spark of humor at the core of his personality. Still kneading muscles, she said, “Let’s leave all this today. We’ll find a matinee at another theatre.”

“Sorry, love. Another theatre is the last place I want to be right now.”

Jewel leaned close to his ear. “We could just go back home, then.”

Her husband turned his head enough so that she could see the light in his gray eyes. “Yes?”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Wonderful timing,” Grady muttered.

“We’ll send whoever it is away,” Jewel said, then went to answer. Her sister stood there, one hand holding a parcel wrapped in pink paper and ribbons, the other holding the hand of four-year-old Nicholas.

“Catherine! Nicholas!” Jewel exclaimed. “What a pleasant surprise!”

“It’s good to see you too.” Her sister deposited the parcel on a chair, while Nicholas made a beeline for Grady and the peppermints all three Sedgwick children knew they could expect.

“Well, I’m not sure I have any . . .” Grady was saying in a teasing tone to the sound of a desk drawer opening, while Jewel and Catherine smiled and embraced.

“Are the other boys in school?” Jewel asked. She could never quite keep straight when the terms began and ended. Eight-year-old Hughie and seven-year-old Miles attended
Sedgwick School, which their father had founded and where he acted as headmaster. Catherine had taught there for the first five years of their marriage.

“They are.”

“Here, give me your coat.”

“We can’t stay.” Catherine went over to peck Grady’s cheek and shook her head at Nicholas for taking two handfuls of peppermints. At thirty-five, she could still turn heads, with her stunning gray-green eyes set in an oval face and a wealth of chestnut-colored hair. “Have you forgotten what day it is?”

“Forgotten?” But before her sister could reply, the significance of the pink parcel sank in. Jewel hurried over to her desk, took her handbag from a drawer. “Georgiana’s birthday! I’m so glad you stopped by. . . . I’ll just have to buy something on the way.”

“Jewel, we’re not going. I came to ask you to take our gift over.”

“Not going?”

“I thought I could, for Georgiana’s sake. But I just can’t.”

Jewel nodded understanding. Milly Holt was one of Catherine’s best friends. It mattered little that, now that the trauma of infidelity and divorce were distant memories, Milly was happier than she ever was when married to Lord Holt. Friendship was friendship.

Were it not for Lord Holt’s untimely demise, Jewel thought, she herself would still have nothing to do with Muriel. Neither she nor her family members had attended the wedding, which had caused hard feelings from Aunt Phyllis’s side of the family. But at Lord Holt’s funeral, attended by all of Jewel’s family, Jewel and Muriel had embraced and declared they would again be as close as they were as children.

Catherine, not able to go that far, had decided that she would
tolerate
Muriel’s company when necessary for family harmony. But she would never set foot in the house where Milly had lived with Lord Holt.

“I’ll be happy to take your gift by,” Jewel said, and for curiosity’s sake, asked, “What is it?”

“A doll. She probably has hundreds, but with boys, I seldom have an excuse to shop for one. I’ll write your names on the card as well, if you like.”

“No, thank you. There’s a toy shop just across the Square.” Jewel nodded in her nephew’s direction and mouthed,
Shall I take Nicholas?

Her sister shook her head. “Thank you, but we’re on our way to Oxford Street to buy shoes.”

“Boots,” Nicholas corrected, a lump in each cheek.

“Boots,” Catherine said.

“I’ll walk you out.” Jewel planted a quick kiss on Grady’s bulldog-like jowl on her way to the coatrack. “You’ll see to your own lunch?”

“Of course,” Grady said. “And take your time.”

She said farewell to her sister and nephew in front of the underground station.

“Sorry to burden you with this,” Catherine said, handing Jewel the parcel.

“It’s no burden. I planned to go anyway.”

Her older sister hesitated. “You must think me terribly stuffy.”

“I would
never
think that.” Jewel embraced her again. “You have the right to choose your friends.”

Sloan Square, once a village green where boys played cricket, was now where shop assistants and accounting clerks took their sack lunches on pleasant days. Today the Square was empty, save the newly planted plane trees with young boughs quivering in the February breezes. Jewel crossed the Square to W. H. Cremer’s and scanned the shelves in a panic. What was appropriate for a three-year-old? Another doll? If only she had asked Catherine’s advice!

“They enjoy picture books at that age,” the young woman behind the counter suggested and produced three she said were very popular: Henry Anelay’s
A Child’s Picture Alphabet,
Christina Rosetti’s
Sing-Song,
and George Routledge’s
Tiny Tales in One Syllable.

“Yes, thank you,” Jewel said.

“Would you like these wrapped?”

Jewel looked at her watch. “No, thank you. A bag will be fine.”

A bundle under each arm, she stepped out onto the pavement and headed toward a hansom stand, for Victoria Station, the nearest underground railway stop near Belgrave Square, would still be a walk of several blocks. The two-bedroom Kensington flat she and Grady leased had no mews, and they saw no need to waste money on horses, a driver, and coach, as well as a rented stable, when one could get anywhere in London via underground railway, omnibus, or hansom cab.

After a twenty-minute ride she stepped down in front of a familiar mauve stucco house and paid the driver. There were no signs of life, no chaperoned children ringing the doorbell.

Joyce answered Jewel’s ring and took her hat, coat, and gloves.

“Are there no guests?” Jewel whispered.

The parlourmaid gave her a somber nod. “Not a soul but you, Mrs. McGuire.”

In the parlour Muriel was pacing the carpet. She had dressed to the nines, in a double-breasted short jacket of teal green velour, with jet buttons, and a skirt of black woolen sateen. Behind her, treats of all sorts were arranged in silver trays around a beautiful but forlorn-looking white birthday cake at the center of a table.

Jewel laid the parcels on the arm of a chair just in time, for Muriel advanced and fell into her arms. “Oh, Jewel . . . no one’s coming!”

“There, there, now.” Jewel patted her cousin’s heaving back. “Perhaps everyone else had plans.”

“Every child in the neighborhood?” Muriel said bitterly. “I sent out sixteen invitations, three weeks ago. Their mothers don’t want to be seen here. I know what they think of me,
but I didn’t think they would hold it against a three-year-old! I could just spit in their faces!”

Painful as it was to admit to herself, Jewel could understand the neighbors’ reluctance to involve themselves with Muriel. After contributing to the breakup of Lord Holt’s six-year marriage, she had moved into Belgrave Square naïvely confident that the same respect and acceptance Milly had earned would be automatically transferred to herself.

“Why don’t you move?” Jewel said. “You certainly have the means to live anywhere you wish.”

“Allow them to run me off?” Muriel stepped back and gave a violent shake of her head. “I’ll not give them that satisfaction. I lived in this same neighborhood when I was a girl, remember. I’ve as much right to live here as they have.”

“That’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face, you know.”

“It’s my nose to cut off, if I wish,” Muriel sniffed, snatching a napkin from the table to wipe her eyes.

Tenacious to a fault,
Jewel thought, including in that description Douglas’s obsessive pursuit of Bethia. Changing to a happier subject seemed the best thing to do, and fortunately, one was available just upstairs.

“When may I see the birthday girl? I brought her some gifts.” She hesitated. “And Catherine sent something.”

Muriel’s expression darkened. “She’s not coming?”

“You have to understand . . .”

Her cousin muttered something Jewel could not discern but at length shrugged and said, “What did you bring?”

“Picture books.”

“Books?” Muriel said skeptically. “She’s only three.”

Jewel restrained herself from rolling her eyes at her cousin. There were times that they may as well be nine years old again and arguing over such things as whether to roller skate or dress up their dolls. “Mother was reading to me when I was three. She’ll love them.”

“If you say so,” Muriel said, reaching for the bell cord.

Eleven

Georgiana’s nanny ushered the girl through the doorway.

“Why, aren’t you a little princess!” Jewel exclaimed, holding out her arms. And indeed, she did look fetching in her dusty-rose velvet gown, trimmed with cream-colored lace. She showed promise of becoming as strikingly beautiful as her mother, with her late father’s blue eyes and dimpled chin, and Muriel’s blonde curls and heart-shaped face.

“My dressmaker ordered the fabric from Paris,” Muriel said with a wave of dismissal for the nanny. “But I wish her birthday were a few months later. Spring fabrics are so much prettier.”

Jewel lifted the girl to balance her upon one hip. “And how old are you today?”

Georgiana hesitated. “Free year old.”

“You’re not a baby anymore, are you?”

This time Georgiana did not have to think. She shook her blonde curls. “I not a baby.”

“Well, would you like to see your presents?”

“Want to see them,” she replied, craning her neck to peer over Jewel’s shoulder.

The doll held her interest for all of ten seconds, but she clapped her little hands at the books. “Read to me?” she said, holding out
A Child’s Picture Alphabet.
Jewel obliged, taking the girl in her lap on the sofa.

Meanwhile Muriel drifted from sofa to chair to sofa again, occasionally going to the window to peer into the street and mutter such things as “I’ll make them sorry.”