by Jane Feather
“I will not always be here to assist at your toilet,” he pointed out. “I am certain the goodwife will offer what help she may, but she has other duties. Nay, you have need of a tiring woman.”
Polly looked at him, aghast. “I could not possibly! I would not know what to say or how to go on or—”
“Nonsense,” he interrupted. “Of course you will. It is simply another part that you will learn to play.”
“I learn to play those parts that please me,” Polly said. “And it does not please me to play the mistress of servants.” She spoke with firm purpose. “I do not mean to be disobliging, Nicholas, and I am sure you intend only to be kind, but it would not suit me at all.”
Nick drew his snuffbox out of the deep pocket of his coat and flicked it open with a deft thumbnail. He took a pinch, thoughtful and deliberate. This was obviously one of those issues on which Polly was like to prove intractable; nothing would be gained by pushing the point to animosity.
“Why do you not try the shoes?” he suggested affably.
Polly had noticed that when Nick dropped a potentially contentious subject as abruptly as he had just done this one, it usually meant that he had decided to choose different ground on some other occasion. The subject was certainly not closed. It was a tactic that left the opposition in an uneasy position, since one could not continue to press a point when no argument was offered, yet dropping the issue, under even such passive compulsion, smacked uncomfortably of concession. But there was nothing to be done. She turned her attention to the high-heeled shoes.
“They require practice,” Nicholas comforted as she teetered precariously around the room. “In ten minutes I guarantee that you will be quite at ease.”
Polly muttered doubtfully, but found to her surprise that Nick was right. Practice did make, if not perfect, then a fair approximation of that happy state.
She was demonstrating a very creditable turn in the parlor, managing to control the volume of her skirts as they swung around her, when the knocker sounded from below. Nick glanced surreptitiously at the watch at his waist. Thomas Killigrew was punctual to the minute. Goodman Benson’s voice came from the hall, adjuring the visitor to mind the turn at the corner of the stairs.
“Is it a visitor?” Without thinking, Polly moved into the light from the window. The knowledge that the shaft of afternoon sun would catch the golden tints hidden in the honeyed curls clustering on her shoulders was a subliminal one, yet she possessed it nevertheless.
Kincaid smiled to himself. She was standing very erect, the elegance of her attire set off by the natural grace of her posture. The exciting prospect of an audience other than himself had deepened the glow of her complexion, made, if such a thing were possible, the forest pools of her eyes even more lustrous. Her lips were slightly parted over those even white teeth, and she radiated her own special inner energy that defied all resistance.
It was this latter quality that Killigrew noticed the minute he walked into the parlor. No damsel with die-away airs here, but a young woman with her eyes set upon a prize; every inch of her absorbing her surroundings; intent on ensuring that no opportunity evaded her watchfulness, on ensuring that her responses were those to make the most of every eventuality. It was only after he had assimilated this that the full impact of that extraordinary beauty struck him.
He looked at Lord Kincaid, who had been watching the visitor’s reactions with a tiny smile beneath arched eyebrows. “It would be too much to hope that she might have some aptitude, also,” Thomas murmured. “God is too sparing of his gifts—and those he has already bestowed … !” He raised his hands in a gesture of one rendered speechless.
Polly had been listening to this exchange in some puzzlement. Now she cast an imperative glance at Nick, and one foot tapped with unconscious impatience.
“Your pardon, Polly.” He bowed slightly. “Pray permit me to introduce Master Thomas Killigrew. Thomas, Mistress Polly Wyat.” Then he stood back and prepared to enjoy the play.
Polly was thrown off balance for no more than a second. Then she was sinking into a curtsy, murmuring how delighted she was to make Master Killigrew’s acquaintance. Her salutation was answered in kind; then the manager of the Theatre Royal said, “Make your curtsy again, but this time you are making it to one whom you would have as lover if your husband can be successfully deceived.”
Polly thought for a minute. This was not how she had imagined her first meeting with this man. Somehow she had thought there would be ceremony, that it would all take place in the hushed glory of the theatre, which she had never yet entered, investing the meeting with all the magic of fantasy. But if this was the way it was to be, then she must adapt.
She imagined herself in a crowded drawing room, her husband standing to one side, Nick, as the prospective lover, bowing before her. Master Killigrew was clearly the audience, so she must ensure that he had the full benefit of her décolletage, the curve of hip when she pointed one delicate toe, and allowed her rear to sink onto her bent back leg. It was a very slow descent, her eyes lowered modestly as she dipped. But once in position, she raised her eyes and looked directly at Lord Kincaid. It was no more than the merest whisper of a glance, since to hold his gaze would bespeak an effrontery that would draw unwelcome notice from those around her. She had no fan, but it was not difficult to mime the unfurling as she fixed melting yet mischievous, inviting eyes upon the chosen one, while she held the position of subjection just long enough to underscore the invitation, and to allow both men full appreciation of her bare shoulders, artlessly tumbled curls, the rise and fall of her semiexposed bosom. Then she was swimming upward, turning her eyes discreetly to one side as if to deny that the exchange had taken place, gliding sideways as if she were moving on to another guest.
“Superlative!” breathed Killigrew. “You have had no experience of the stage?”
“To quote the bard, as far as Polly is concerned: All the world’s a stage,” laughed Nick. “She rarely loses an opportunity to perform.”
Polly colored, imagining a note of reproof beneath the laughter. He had made it clear often enough that it was one of her habits which tended to displease him. “I have not served you such a trick for this age, my lord,” she said with frigid dignity. “It is ungallant to refer to matters that I had thought were past.”
“You misunderstand, moppet. I was but paying you a compliment on this occasion.”
The flush of annoyance faded, the stiffness left her shoulders. “I beg your pardon, sir. I did not mean to jump to conclusions.”
Killigrew listened, fascinated. She had the prettiest voice, light and musical, and was giving rein to her emotions quite without artifice, as if there were no one but herself and Kincaid in the chamber. A lack of selfconsciousness was a great gift for an actor as long as it could be channeled. If she was impatient of counsel and direction, however, it would not matter how beautiful her face and form, how natural her talent—and meek and submissive she most definitely was not.
Where had Kincaid found her? he wondered. There was a naïveté about her, a curious innocence that belied her position as a kept woman. She was very young, of course, and her speech and manners were not those of one who had been bred in Covent Garden or its equivalent. But the name was unknown to him, so presumably she was not the scion of some impoverished noble family, either. A merchant’s daughter, maybe, willing to exchange her virtue for social and financial advancement. Impoverished nobility, genteel tradesmen’s daughters, Covent Garden whores, had all found their way to the stage in the last few years, all in search of material or social advancement. Both were available for such a beauty as this one along the path she had chosen, and indeed, it would be a crying shame to leave such a paragon to the mediocre destiny of a merchant’s wife.
“Do you care to accompany me to the playhouse, Mistress Wyat?” Killigrew said now. “I’d like you to read something for me, if you would be so kind.”
Polly was about to say that she would be more than willing so
long as the words were not too difficult when she caught Nick’s eye, reminding her that she must give no indication of her true background. “I am at your service, sir,” she said instead, the carefully formal response concealing both the quickening of excitement at the prospect of entering a playhouse at long last, and an apprehensive sinking at the knowledge that the moment had come to put to the test all that she believed she possessed. What if she was wrong, if she had no aptitude, if Master Killigrew rejected her? It was a prospect that afforded a most dreadful void of hopelessness—the void that she had fought so long and so hard to escape. “I will fetch my cloak.” She went into the other chamber.
Nicholas picked up his own cloak from the chair in the parlor, slinging it around his shoulders. “You do not object if I accompany you, Thomas?”
“If you think she will not be distracted by your presence,” spoke the manager of the king’s company, no longer concerned with formal courtesies that were irrelevant to the making of a business decision.
“On the contrary, she will be less apprehensive,” responded Kincaid, with a dry smile that encompassed his understanding both of Polly’s feelings and of Killigrew’s position. “The situation will be quite strange for her, and I would not have her ill at ease if I can prevent it.”
Killigrew looked a little surprised. Such gentle concern was unusual in a court where the softer emotions were derided as lack of sophistication, as lack of understanding of the realities of a world where no man could be truly called friend, and only fools put their trust in another’s word. The women were as hard-bitten as their menfolk, as quick to take advantage of another’s disadvantage, as eager to bring about another’s downfall if it would mean their own advancement, and as unscrupulous as to the methods they used in such work. If Lord Kincaid was going to cast a protective umbrella over his protégée, it would give rise to much comment, and not a little contemptuous amusement.
Nick had little difficulty in guessing the other man’s thought processes. He shared them, indeed, and his rational self found his present obsession with the well-being of a seventeen-year-old miss a matter for considerable incredulity. But since he seemed to have little control over his feelings at the moment, he was obliged to accept love’s shaft and follow where it led him.
It led him now into the bedchamber, where Polly had been closeted in search of her cloak for an inordinate length of time. He found her sitting on the bed looking like a paralyzed rabbit, hands clasped tightly in her damask lap, eyes gazing sightlessly into the middle distance.
“Perhaps I cannot do it,” she said without preamble as he came in, closing the door. “Perhaps I have been mistaken all these years, and I cannot act at all. What will I do then, Nicholas?”
Nicholas reviewed his options rapidly. He could imagine the pit of desolation into which she was staring as the moment of trial loomed. For so long she had seen only one way out of the vicious and complete impoverishment of the destiny she had been dealt. If this way failed, she could at this moment see only a return to that destiny. He could offer her reassurance that he would not permit that, whatever happened in the playhouse; he could be hurt and accusatory at her failure to trust him; or he could put the steel back into her spine by stinging her into a resurgence of her old confidence.
“Are you telling me you mean to cry off?” he demanded, no sympathy in his voice. “For weeks you have made my life wretched with your constant importuning that I arrange a meeting for you with Master Killigrew. You have lost no opportunity to demonstrate this talent you insist that you have. Am I now to believe that the whole was a sham?”
Polly had stood up in the middle of this speech. The color ebbed in her cheeks, but her eyes had focused again, her lips were set. She picked up her cloak. “You will see that it was not a sham!” With that, she brushed past him and marched into the parlor. “I am ready to accompany you, Master Killigrew.” Without waiting for either of them, she continued her march out of the parlor and down the stairs.
“Mistress Wyat appears to be of a somewhat tempestuous temperament,” observed Killigrew, drawing on his gloves.
“Only when provoked,” Nicholas responded with a smile. “In general, she is of a most sunny disposition.”
They were obliged to follow her impetuous progress along Drury Lane, since she showed no inclination to slow for either of them, and to catch her up would require a hastening of their own speed that was hardly consonant with the dignified lassitude of the courtier.
Polly waited for them when she reached the steps of the playhouse. The march in the cold air had served to clear her head, enabling her to view Nick’s intervention in a new light. “That was done deliberately, was it not?” she asked when he reached her. There was a slight smile in her eyes, and when he nodded she laughed. “I beg leave to tell you, my lord, that your tactics are most underhand.”
“But most effective,” he countered, grinning.
“Aye.” She sobered, saying, “I am most grateful … for that, and all else.”
“I am amply recompensed,” he said softly. That same intensity caught them again, held them in breathless acknowledgement of its force.
Master Killigrew, who had gone up the steps to unlock the great door, turned to see what was delaying them. He saw the naked emotion flickering between them, an almost palpable current. He drew in his breath sharply, then the force receded, freeing the lovers from its grip. Nick gestured courteously to the steps, and Polly came up ahead of him.
The door swung open, and Polly found herself in the king’s playhouse. They had entered from Drury Lane by what she would soon call the stage entrance, and stood now in a dark passageway. “The tiring rooms are there.” Killigrew pointed to the left as he pushed through a door ahead. Polly, following him, stood for the first of what would be countless times upon the stage of the Theatre Royal.
She stood and stared. A glazed cupola covered the pit that stretched below in front of the stage; there were boxes, ranged in galleries, to the side and the back of the theatre. She tried to imagine those seats filled. Why, there must be seating for at least four hundred souls. How lonely and exposed one would feel on this tiny, bare wooden platform. She shivered as cold despair threatened again.
Killigrew had gone to one side of the stage, where he picked up a sheaf of papers and began rifling through them. “This scene, I think.”
“What play have you in mind?” Nick, with considerable interest, came to peer over Tom’s shoulder. “Oh, Flora’s Vagaries.” He chuckled. “I could not have chosen better myself.”
“Why do you not read Alberto?” Killigrew offered the suggestion casually, as if he had not drawn the conclusions that he had about Lord Kincaid and Mistress Polly Wyat. “You will perhaps find it less uncomfortable, Mistress Wyat, if Kincaid plays opposite you.”
“I am no actor,” Nick demurred.
“You have no need to be. Just read the lines. We will leave the acting to the lady.” Killigrew, smiling, crossed the stage to where Polly still stood, taking in her surroundings, seemingly unaware of this exchange. “I will tell you a little about Flora,” he said, and she shook herself free of her reverie. “She is a most sprightly young lady, not one to be dominated by circumstances or individuals, and most particularly not by men.” He watched her as he drew the word picture of one of the stage’s most engaging and daring heroines. “She is the ward of a foolish boor, a lout, who would keep both her and his daughter incarcerated to prevent their falling under the eye of love or lust.”
Polly smiled, giving him a look of complete comprehension. Killigrew nodded and continued. “In this early scene, Flora’s suitor, Alberto, commits the grave error of telling a story about the lady that is not entirely to her credit. Flora overhears and treats her would-be lover to a tongue-lashing of some considerable eloquence.” He handed her the pages. “Read it through for yourself first,”
“May I ask how Alberto reacts to this upbraiding?” Polly flicked through the pages, praying that the words would be easi
ly made out.
“He decides that this is a lady worthy of serious respect.” It was Nicholas who answered her. “It is for you to convince the audience that a railing female is not simply a scold in need of bridling, but one who is entitled to object to mockery, and to speak her mind.” He took her elbow. “Come, let us go into a corner and read it through together. I have never ventured to try myself in such a matter, and have need of a few moments reflection.”
Polly felt such a surge of gratitude that threatened to overcome her already frail equilibrium. But she said only, “By all means, sir. I would welcome the opportunity to familiarize myself with the text.”
“I will sit in the pit.” Killigrew stepped off the stage into the auditorium, lit by the gray afternoon light filtering through the cupola. “Begin whenever you are both ready.”
“Read it for yourself first,” Nick instructed in an undertone. “If there is a word you cannot make out, just point to it.”
Polly concentrated with frowning intensity on the scrawled pages, her anxiety that she might stumble over the text superseding the fear that she would be unable to act the part. But as she read, she could hear in her head how the lines should sound, could picture Flora—pretty, witty Flora with a sharp tongue and a firm belief that she was second to none. She looked up at Nick with a grin. “I find myself in some sympathy with this lady.”
He nodded. “If you are ready, then, let us engage in this duel for Master Killigrew’s benefit.”
Thomas Killigrew sat forward on the bench as the two came to the front of the stage. One hand rested lightly on the lacquered knob of his cane, firmly planted upon the floor; his other lay upon the hilt of his sword. He was quite motionless. After three lines he knew he had been offered a female actor who would make the most of the spirited love game that so entranced his audiences. With every vivacious toss of her head, every ringing accusation directed at the hapless Alberto, every provocative movement, she spun a web of excitement and titillation that could not fail to entertain even the most abysmally ill-behaved audiences—and there were plenty of those. Add to that the peerless beauty of face and form, contemplate her in the deliciously provocative breeches parts, and Mistress Polly Wyat was destined for greatness.
