Mrs. McVinnie's London Season (25 page)

She knew the captain
was looking at her. He is probably examining me as he would a
fretful child, she thought. She sneaked a glance at his face. It
was indistinct in the darkness, but she felt his breath on her
cheek.

He said nothing, and
she directed her gaze to the stage again. I shall return to
Scotland and set about the business of finding another husband, she
thought seriously. I cannot continue to be a drain on Galen, no
matter what Tom made him promise as he lay dying. And I cannot
trespass on the good nature of my sister. She has enough to deal
with. I cannot precisely recall how one goes about finding a
husband, though, and even if I did, could I possibly get lucky
twice in one lifetime?

The captain nudged her
out of her reverie. He leaned close and his gold epaulet tickled
her shoulder. “You must tell me what you are thinking, my dear Mrs.
McVinnie,” he whispered. “Your face is so set and your mouth all
screwed to one side. It would appear that you are contemplating Dr.
Guillotine’s famous remedy for head lice.”

She stifled a laugh and
looked at Lady Smeath, who was engaged in a deep discussion with
Larinda and paying no attention. “Very well, sir, since you asked.
I was merely thinking that when I return to Scotland, I should
seriously get down to business on this task of finding another
husband.”

The captain laughed out
loud, and the man in the next box hissed at him to be silent.

He put his arm about
her shoulder and drew her closer. “This is such an onerous
task?”

“
Well,
yes, it is,” she considered. His epaulet was tickling her
collarbone now, and she wished he would back away a bit. “Not
everyone wants a widow, even one who is—or at least has been
thought—amiable. Now, if I had a fortune, Will, someone might be
tempted. But as it is ….” She was silent.

He patted her shoulder,
and she thought he would relinquish his grip on her, but he did
not. He whispered in her ear, his breath on her ear sending little
shivers down her spine. “It shouldn’t be so difficult, Jeannie,” he
said. “Do you know, one of the nicest things about you is that you
always look as though you were possessed of a handy fortune.” He
was so close that she felt, rather than heard, his chuckle. “I
suppose it is the way you hold your head, or maybe it is the look
in your eyes. No, you shouldn’t anticipate any trouble in Scotland,
unless the men there are from another galaxy, and somehow, I doubt
that.”

He did release his hold
on her then and she edged carefully away from him and sat on the
edge of the settee, her arm resting on the railing. As she centered
her attention on the stage once more, she could still feel his eyes
boring into her back. She turned to him. “See here, Will, we had
better enjoy this play. Only think how much you spent on
tickets.”

He threw back his head,
stared at the ceiling above, and laughed. Lady Smeath glared at him
and slapped his knee with her fan. “Brother, this is beyond
enough,” she hissed.

“
I
would be better,” he whispered back, “but Mrs. McVinnie insists on
being such a nonsensical wit-cracker.”

“
I am
no such thing,” she declared indignantly, and then covered her
mouth with her hand as the much put-upon man in the next box shook
his fist. “Dear me,” she said. “I am merely prudent,
merely—”

“
Scottish,” the captain concluded.

Jeannie set her face
resolutely toward the stage again, determined to enjoy herself. It
would be scandalous to spend so much on tickets and then not enjoy
anything. The ax will fall soon enough, she reminded herself
grimly. Might as well kick up my heels while I can.

And then Scene Three
began, and suddenly, in the space of only a few scant minutes,
Jeannie knew that Captain Summers had been amply repaid for the
price of admission. She watched, her mouth open, her eyes riveted
to the stage below, as the unknown Mr. Kean from the provinces
sidled and insinuated his way toward the footlights in his black
gabardine robe and skullcap, and grasped an audience in his
hands.

He spoke only a few
lines before the audience finally became silent. There was a brief
rustle of playbills as everyone took a glance to see who had become
Shylock before their eyes, and then the audience was still, all
discussion of fashion hushed, all ambitions and schemes thrust
aside for the moment. When the curtain came down to signify the
interval and the chandeliers were slowly lowered again, no one
moved. No one spoke. There was only silence for a long space and
then a wave of rhythmic applause, and more applause.

“
Magnificent,” the captain murmured. “I must confess that that
display was almost worth my change of address to Wendover
Square.”

The applause roared on.
People were standing now.

“
Do
you know, Jeannie, I am reminded of Trafalgar.”

“
What?” she asked, surprised out of her single-minded
contemplation of the closed curtains.

“
I was
only a fourth lieutenant then, God bless me, and commanding on a
lower gun deck, but something told me—God knows what—that we were
into something very big. And so it was. So it is tonight.” He
leaned forward confidentially. “I do not think the unknown Mr. Kean
will be unknown anymore, do you?”

She shook her head and
looked across to the royal box, which swarmed with visitors.
Captain Summers followed the direction of her gaze.

“
I
think that the Beau is too busy to enjoy a stroll around the dress
circle right now.”

“
Just
as well,” Jeannie replied as she stood up. “I’m too busy to
entertain him right now. Excuse me, please.”

He stood and looked at
her, a quizzical gleam in his green eyes. She offered him no
explanation, and he asked for none. “I’ll be right back.”

“
I
never doubted it,” the captain replied. “You, madam, are made of
stern stuff.”

The stairway was
crowded with playgoers buzzing about Mr. Kean, or else heatedly
discussing the meaning of the red rose in Brummell’s lapel. Her
quick descent to the street level was unnoticed. Fools, Jeannie
thought as she hurried across the wide lobby and onto Catherine
Street.

The air was cool and a
stiff wind blew from the river. Jeannie sniffed the fog-laden air
and wrinkled her nose. Better not to speculate on the source of the
odors that drifted about London like the eleventh plague of Egypt.
As she looked about her, Jeannie thought briefly of Kirkcudbright,
with its spanking breezes and crisp air.

She shook her head in
dismay. The scene was much as Larinda had described it. A flower
girl scrabbled about in the roadway, still gathering her flowers
that Sir Peter Winthrop and his cronies had strewn about in their
search for red roses.

Jeannie watched in
surprise, wondering why it had taken her so long to collect such a
few flowers. As she looked on, the flower girl patted the stones in
front of her, and Jeannie realized she could not see.

Without a word, she
crossed the flagstones to the gutter, crouched by the flower girl,
and collected all the flowers that appeared to have any life in
them. The girl stopped her restless search when she heard Jeannie,
and then her face filled with fear. Jeannie touched her hand.

“
No
harm intended, my dear. It appears to me that you could use some
help.”

After a moment’s
consideration, the flower girl nodded and continued her blind
search for her wares.

Jeannie quickly plucked
up the flowers and replaced them in the basket. She got to her feet
and brushed off her gown. “There, now. That should make it a little
better,” Jeannie said. She helped the flower girl to her feet and
shook out her dress.

“
Might
this help, too?”

Jeannie looked up in
surprise. Captain Summers stood on the curb with Larinda. He
pressed a crown in the flower girl’s palm.

The child felt the coin
all over as wonderment grew on her face. “Mary and every saint
bless you, sir,” she said.

“
I
have need of it,” the captain said quietly. He offered Jeannie his
arm, and she took it. “We must return now, my very dear Mrs.
McVinnie. Larinda here was anxious after you and wanted to assure
herself that you had not bolted the theater. And here we came
outside, to find that was precisely the case.”

“
Don’t,” said Larinda. Her expression was unreadable, remote.
She started to say something else, but closed her mouth, turned
about on the steps, and hurried inside the theater again. Captain
Summers watched her go and then tucked Jeannie’s arm tighter in
his.

“
Dare
we hope—is it too much to ask—but did I just spy the slightest
glimmer of uncertainty in fair Larinda’s eyes?”

“
Don’t
tease her, Will,” Jeannie said. “No one ever declared that growing
up was easy.”

He turned to face her,
both hands grasping her elbows. “And yet you will defend her, after
she has been so rude.”

“
Of
course.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “Had you ever been
seventeen, you might understand.”

He said nothing for a
moment, until she shivered in the cool air. “Ah, mercy,” he
exclaimed finally, the exasperation alive in his voice. “Children
are wretched and should be drowned at birth, every last one! How
grateful I am that, to my knowledge, I have none.”

“
There
is Clare.”

His frown only
deepened. “So there is. But she is not my child.”

Jeannie said nothing.
The captain released his grip on her as his frown lifted, and he
gave a self-conscious laugh. “Mrs. McVinnie, you are a wonder.”

“
No,”
she said baldly. “I am bossy and inclined to pick fights and say
what I should not. I shall have to owe you that crown until
tomorrow.”

The captain shrugged.
“Your credit is unimpeachable.” He patted her hand, his good humor
restored. “Besides, I happen to know that because you are Scot, you
surely have not spent all of our whist earnings. There, now, that
is what I was searching for.”

Jeannie couldn’t help
but smile at him. She turned back for another look at the flower
girl, who was carefully wiping off each flower with the hem of her
dress. “Do you think she can find her way home?”

The captain nodded. “I
am sure of it, my dear. Come along and let us finally ring the
curtain down on our own adventure. I weary of waiting for battle.
The tubs are full now and the guns run out.” He laughed. “It
remains only for the fuse to be lit.”

Larinda was already
seated in the Taneystone box when they returned. She sat in the
shadows this time, her face averted from the stage, engaged in an
inward contemplation that the captain was kind enough to overlook
as he walked past her to the front of the box.

The now-familiar grind
of rope on pulley signified the raising of the chandeliers as the
next act commenced and then the next. Friends came to the box
during each interval, and with every knock on the door, Jeannie’s
heart thumped. She watched Beau Brummell as he still sat in the
royal box with the Prince Regent, wondering if he enjoyed toying
with her like a cat with a mouse. Only one interval remained
now.

But then Portia was
before them in her lawyer’s robes. “The quality of mercy is not
strained,” she began, her voice clear and striking the back walls
of the Theatre Royal like daggers thudding into a target. Portia
pled with the judges of Venice while Larinda sat in the rear of the
box and sniffled.

“
I
definitely sense a change of heart coming on,” the captain
whispered as Portia cautioned Shylock to extract his pound of flesh
and shed no blood in so doing. He took out his handkerchief and
handed it behind him to Larinda.

Jeannie rested her
elbows on the railing, hardly aware of him. She heard Larinda blow
her nose vigorously and asked herself, Why is it that we are so
often too late to be of any use?

It was the wrong
thought. It was the same thought that teased her and pulled her
back to last year and the dreadful knowledge that she would always
be too late for Thomas McVinnie, even as Larinda’s wisdom had come
too late to spare Jeannie. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she
was grateful for the darkness.

The captain placed
another handkerchief in her lap. “I seldom travel without two,” he
whispered. He looked closer. “But you do not cry for Bassanio and
Portia, do you?”

Jeannie wiped her eyes
and shook her head. Don’t ask me, please. Then it would be too
much.

He said nothing more,
only grasped her hand and did not relinquish his hold on her until
the chandelier lowered again and the interval was upon them.

Jeannie dabbed at her
eyes one last time, smiling faintly to herself as she looked about
the audience and observed the numbers of ladies clutching
handkerchiefs. She brushed at the dress again where she had knelt
in Catherine Street, took a deep breath, and turned to Larinda.

“
My
dear, shall we stroll about the dress circle? I know it is what you
wish and I shan’t be the guilty party in depriving you of your
pleasure.”

Larinda started and
then shook her head. “No, Mrs. McVinnie, let us not.”

“
But
we must, Larinda,” Jeannie reminded her gently. “When one chooses
to set something in motion, there is often no turning back.” She
smiled in a recollection. “Indeed, my dear, I chose to play a
little prank on Jeannie McVinnie’s name, and you chose to ruin me.
Let us play out our hand.”

Lady Smeath was the
first out the door, her face a mask of worry where first there had
been only triumph. Larinda, after a fleeting look at her uncle’s
face, followed her aunt. Captain Summers offered Jeannie his arm
again.