by Jaima Fixsen
Inconsequentials
London, 1813
Eight years later
Family. They were nothing but trouble. If he weren’t inordinately fond of his half-sister, Jasper would never abandon London at this time of year, not if she were birthing a litter of children instead of merely one—he hoped. Apparently the odds were less promising when women dropped more than one. Everyone seemed optimistic: Sophy, his half-sister; Tom, her husband; and Tom’s plump rattle of a mother. Even the numerous physicians Jasper consulted said, to the best of their knowledge and without examining the lady in question, it seemed there was no reason for alarm. Henrietta, his other sister, already the mother of two terrifying sons, told him he was taking leave of his senses—she doubted Sophy would enjoy the experience, but the birth would proceed exactly as it ought.
“Is it wrong of me, though, to wish she might have a girl?” Henrietta asked.
“I don’t have opinions about the sex,” Jasper informed her. “Do you think—”
“Stop worrying. You’re worse than Mama,” Henrietta retorted. “Just go. And give Sophy a kiss from me.”
Henrietta, though invited to Chippenstone, had smugly informed him she was required to stay home as she was also in an interesting condition. It made one feel quite overwhelmed.
“You won’t stay to see the boys?” she asked, seeing he was ready to leave.
“I’d rather not,” he said. The younger one was cutting teeth. On his brother, judging from the yowling penetrating the drawing room walls. “I’m going to the theatre tonight.”
Henrietta pouted, but only half-heartedly. “Then you go to Suffolk tomorrow? Promise me you’ll tell me anything that passes between Sophy and Mama.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Jasper said. “The Mater might forget temporarily in the fuss of the birth, but it won’t take her long to remember why she forbade the marriage.” Sophy, always a game little thing, had eloped.
“Oh, go away. I can’t stand you when you’re gloomy.” Henrietta paused mid-dismissal and eyed him narrowly. “Are you sure you’re all right? Everything seems to nettle you lately.”
“I can’t think what you mean,” Jasper said, bending to plant a swift kiss on her cheek. “Give my regards to that husband of yours. And tell him it’s positively indecent you’re breeding again. I’ve a mind to put a bolt on your door.”
“My dear,” Henrietta said, her cheeks betraying her with the slightest blush, “I’m afraid this time, you would have had to lock his.”
Jasper bowed and fled.
*****
At half past six Laura knew she had plenty of time to reach the theatre. She’d be in trouble though, if she delayed any longer. Peter and Mr. Rollins didn’t like her venturing out after daylight hours. It made getting about much more complicated.
“Everything’s in the basket,” Laura told Alice, the girl doubling as her maid and understudy. “If you take the longer way down St Martin’s Lane, I’ll catch up with you at Mr. Rollins’ house.” Laura didn’t like putting the theatre manager to all this trouble, but the last few months she’d been forced to conceal her whereabouts. None of her neighbors must connect Miss Edwards, a spinster of straightened circumstances, with the actress Gemma Holyrood. She didn’t fear them, of course, just who they might tell.
With Alice on her way, Laura packed away her brother’s letters. Tomorrow or the next day, when Jack came home they could weep together and remember Maman. For now, it was best to put those feelings aside and forget herself in her work.
Shedding her morose mood with her day dress and apron, Laura retrieved her disguise from the box under the bed. It took only a moment to lace up the breeches and pull on a shirt and leather vest. She slung a ragged coat over her shoulders and stuffed her hair into a worn-out hat. Pulling the brim low, she ran down the stairs on light feet, glad at last to be released into the street.
Enjoying her man’s stride, she made short work of the distance to Mr. Rollins’ house where Peter waited just inside the servant’s door and Alice in a room upstairs. With Alice’s help, she effected the second change—pinning up her curls, garbing herself with the usual delicate white muslin dress. Her grimy man’s neckerchief was exchanged for Gemma Holyrood’s gold chain and simple cross, her face powdered, her neck and wrists dressed with rose scent. Quite the production, and all to keep away a man who responded to her stage presence a little too much.
“Ready, you think?” Laura asked, turning around in front of Alice.
“Lovely as usual, Gemma,” Mr. Rollins put in, sticking his head round the door. “Are you ready to go?”
Picking up her shawl and fan, Laura followed Mr. Rollins outside to the carriage waiting to take them to the theatre and waved good night to Mrs. Rollins and her three daughters still at home. Peter and Alice climbed up with the driver and they set out rumbling through labyrinthine streets. They made fitful progress with innumerable stops and starts, wrestling through the clogging press of carriages, ramshackle hackneys, and crowds on foot.
“I hate all this extra bother for you,” Laura said, looking past the serrated rooftops to the purpling sky.
“I don’t,” Mr. Rollins said. “Your guilt over it has kept you from asking for a larger share of the receipts. We’ve had a very profitable quarter.”
Laura smiled. It was true enough. She knew what she was worth and liked to be well paid, but Rollins was her friend. His help, in her current difficulty, was worth more than she could say.
“Do you think he’ll come tonight?” Rollins asked.
“Probably, just so he can glare,” Laura said. “Don’t worry about me—I’ve got iron nerves.” She knew how to make it look that way at least. Acting skills were useful off stage and on.
“I know you do,” Rollins said. “Here we are. You ready?”
He helped her down from the carriage, displaying her for the early arrivals come to fill the pit. With lifted chin but a warm smile, Laura cut through the crowd, acknowledging the flattering clamor with a raised hand and a nod. Maman’s court training had proven useful after all.
Inside, Laura stepped into the waiting arms of the stagehands, ready to bustle her to the dressing room. Rollins was summoned to manage the chaos accompanying an intermission performance of an acrobatic trio and departed for the box office. “Break a leg, my dear,” he called to Laura over his shoulder.
It was a relief to slip into the relative quiet of her dressing room and see nothing but flowers. Last week she’d unwrapped a package and found a dead starling, its neck twisted and wings broken. “I think we pulled that off rather well,” Laura said to Alice as they got her into her third costume of the evening—an elaborate sacque gown of blue brocade and a pale blonde wig. Worries left her as Alice powdered her shoulders and décolletage. Laura smiled. Tonight’s role was one of her favorites, but the best part of them all was Gemma Holyrood. Threats and glares were nothing. She’d survived broken hearts, bad reviews and oily admirers. There was a play to put on tonight. She was ready.
*****
After visiting his sister, Jasper returned to his rooms in St. James where he read the newspaper and then draped it over his face and took a nap. He woke, changed his clothes, spoiling only three neckcloths before getting the knot right. When his friends arrived to accompany him to the theatre he was arrayed in his full glory, but frowning and rereading a letter from Sophy.
“Pardon? Yes, I’m ready,” he said, stuffing the sheets of paper under a Vincennes vase. He groped inside it for his quizzing glass and found instead a crumpled letter from a scandal-seeking widow. This he tossed to the fire. His second fishing trip for the glass proving successful, he draped the ribbon round his neck and slid the glass inside his waistcoat pocket. He sighed inwardly, noting his friend André Protheroe was again wearing a new coat and skintight pantaloons.
“Haven’t given up yet?” Jasper asked.
“No,” André said cheerfully. “She’s still the most enchanting thing I’ve ever seen, and if I succeed you�
��ll owe me two hundred pounds.”
There was no disputing the actress Gemma Holyrood’s considerable charms, but after nearly a year Jasper felt their wager over her had gone stale, sunk now to the back pages of the betting book at White’s. “Wait until she’s long enough in the tooth, then she might take you,” he said and yawned. Seven years Miss Holyrood had ruled the London comic stage. In all that time rumor supplied her with only a single lover and even that one was debatable. The fellow, identifiable only by his height and swarthy complexion, had appeared with her a handful of times over the years. No one knew who he was, but he was the only man besides the theatre manager with whom she’d ever been seen. Although each sighting sparked feverish speculation, Miss Holyrood’s mystery man never spoiled her persona. She always dressed in white, her only ornament a chaste gold cross.
They’d all tried to win her, of course, without any success. She’d flirt and laugh and send witty replies to his flowery notes, but she’d never let any of them see her outside the green room. Jasper had given up hopes of cutting out Protheroe and taking his money months ago, but that didn’t stop him from trundling down to the theatre at nearly every chance. She was something of a habit with him and he did like looking at her.
Jasper followed André into a hackney carriage, seating himself by another friend, George DeClerc, known to his intimates as Boz.
“She’ll never take you, Protheroe,” Boz said. “Not when she’s keeping the Duke of Saltash at bay.”
“That old stick? Is he courting her?” Jasper frowned. The man was mean to dogs and a brute to horses—you never bought either from him.
“Well, he’s been hovering almost since coming to town,” Boz said.
“Yes, but he’s delusional if he thinks he’s flirting with those scowls. He looks more likely to kill than kiss her,” Jasper said. The man was like a vulture, but despite his obsession with Miss Holyrood, he hadn’t discarded his current mistress.
“She doesn’t take fright, though,” Protheroe said, a little downcast. “And she doesn’t slight him.” More than once they’d seen her bow to the duke’s box and blow kisses. “He’s a duke. She’ll take him no matter what he looks like.”
“Not unless he drops his current ladybird. She’s got too much self-respect not to insist on that. I’m more worried about being cut out by the Mystery Man,” Jasper said.
“That masked fellow? Hasn’t been seen in over a year,” Boz said.
“But he’s been cropping up for a long time. The Morning Chronicle said yesterday they’d learned his identity,” Jasper told Protheroe. “It’s Chisholm.”
“No! Is he that tall?”
“Jasper, you’re a worse gossip than my sister,” Protheroe said.
“I’ll show you the article,” Jasper protested. “It could very well be. I presume it isn’t you since you haven’t claimed my two hundred pounds.”
“Alas, no,” André said. “But I don’t agree that he’s her lover. He could be merely a confidante. A friend.”
“Believe it if it makes you feel better,” Boz said.
“Thank you, I will,” said Andre.
Boz snorted. “For all we know, he’s her pimp.”
“You would think so,” Andre retorted, turning icy.
“Enough! Just let me enjoy the play,” Jasper interrupted. This one was more subversive than usual, but he always enjoyed the plays of Elizabeth Inchbald. With Miss Holyrood in the principal role of Maria it was delicious. He’d already seen it twice.
“What is it again?” Protheroe asked.
Jasper sighed. “Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are,” he said.
Boz grunted. “Mouthful isn’t it? We’d be better off leaving all women be.”
André laughed. “And so we shall. Except for Miss Holyrood.”
“Good luck to you,” Boz said sourly.
The air was dense with smells of sweat, perfume, and the heat of innumerable candles. It was usually more fun to prowl in the pit, but tonight Jasper was happy to climb to the theatre’s boxes, which displayed their inhabitants like oysters yielding pearls. Up here there was at least the illusion of cooler air, and he wouldn’t have to worry about pickpockets.
Across the theatre sat Miss Lowell and her sister—both fast, but not nimble enough to catch him. Further up were his country neighbors, the Misses Matcham. Despite a two-inch difference in height they were equally boring. Jasper saw a good number of the jeweled hags from his mother’s coven and a sad lot of roués, already salivating over the bosoms and arms out for viewing. Telling himself he wasn’t shameless enough to belong to that fraternity, Jasper turned his eyes to the stage, tamping down his eagerness. Miss Holyrood, though unattainable, was worth every glance.
She parted the curtain with her slippered foot, giving a glimpse of her lovely ankle before stepping onto the stage. She curtsied, bestowed a few kisses in general directions, then spoke:
“Good ladies, kind gentlemen, welcome to our play,
Forswear bad fruit and sneers and yawns,
If ye allow, we’ll please anon,
With tales of love and gallantry.”
Jasper raised his glass to his eye. Beautiful features, but sometimes he thought he was caught more by the happiness in her eyes and the buoyancy of spirit he inferred from her light movements. No wonder the manager always sent her out to plead indulgence in the prologue. A script was hardly necessary for those expressive eyes and fingers. Jasper knew he wasn’t the only one captivated by her teasing smile and gently rolling hips as she sauntered across the boards. Miss Holyrood finished and bowed to generous applause. Protheroe, the silly fool, leaned on the edge of the box, his eye fixed to his glass—mirroring his own pose, Jasper realized. He straightened his back and tucked away the glass, imagining the wink she gave was for him, instead of the audience at large. His breath hitched as she lifted one arm, the loose sleeve falling back to reveal a dimpled elbow. He’d read an ode to that dimple last winter, proving he wasn’t the only admirer of that delicious bit of flesh. She also dimpled when she smiled. Jasper was quite sure that if he ever got a glimpse he’d find another pair of tempting dents right above her round little bottom.
It was a good play, the exits and entrances both farcical and fast, the story jammed full of peril, humor, and sly wit. Jasper liked her in this role almost as much as he liked her playing Lydia Languish, though he thought the costume for that one suited her better. Melting and mellow by the final curtain and giving wholehearted applause, Jasper didn’t resist when Boz suggested they try to cram their way into the green room. It was good sport, after all, edging through the crowded corridors, bribing the blunt-faced doorkeeper for a few inches of space on her dressing room floor.
Inside they were packed close enough he could smell both his neighbors and see nothing but gentlemen’s heads. Past experience told him Miss Holyrood spoke from behind a screen as her maid lifted away her heavy costume. The lucky fellows who were closer would catch a glimpse of soft arms and bare shoulders. Beside him a hopeful Protheroe rose up onto his toes. Jasper, who hadn’t come to admire the enamel-like properties of some fellow’s pomade, knew there were better ways and jammed his knee into the leg in front of him. The man half-stumbled and as he righted himself, Jasper slid into his place. He could see her now, chestnut curls swept high on her head, smooth shoulders visible above the scrolled edge of the screen. Her skin was warm, slightly golden, her cheeks bright, flushed from the heat of the stage and her own success.
“A triumph, Miss Holyrood,” he said, holding out the bouquet he’d purchased on his way down from the box, noticing now it was violets, done up with paper lace and dove grey ribbon. Pretty enough but paltry next to the foliage spilling over the dressing table. The silent maid—it was months now since the elderly French one had been replaced by a new girl—took them from his hand as she circled the room depositing her armful of posies onto an empty chair. Miss Holyrood emerged from the screen clad in a thin silk dressing gown with Japanese flowers and
a wide blue sash. It was thin enough that he could see the lace-edged shape of her underclothes beneath. His mouth went dry.
“Gentlemen, you overwhelm me,” she said, moving to the table. Jasper, who was quick, beat the maid to the brush.
“Thank you, Mr. Rushford,” Miss Holyrood said, accepting it from his hand.
“Will you trust me to take out the pins?” he asked, knowing he was asking in vain.
“Alice always does my hair,” Miss Holyrood said, seating herself on the stool. “I can’t be sure, Mr. Rushford, that you have a sufficiently delicate touch.” She buried her face in the flowers as another man pushed forward, offering a folded letter.
“Lord Willbank, you shouldn’t,” she said, making it disappear into the folds of her robe. “You too, Sir John?” But she paused before taking the next one, meeting the gaze of the Duke of Saltash. “Your Grace. I daren’t accept such honor.” Her voice was low, but determined.
Saltash held it out a moment more before sliding it back into his pocket. His grimace chilled the room, but only for a moment. Miss Holyrood had turned back to the mirror and was calling out questions. “Do you gentlemen approve the play?” she asked. “I fear Miss Maria is a regular hoyden. What would you do if all women were so independent-minded? I’m not sure you’d care for it.”
Saltash quelled the chorus of denials. “No gentleman would care to have his female connections behaving in such a manner. Your Miss Maria, I think, learned her lesson by the end.”
“I am sorry you disapprove, Your Grace. What sort of character do you fancy? Ophelia? Mrs. Siddons in The Grecian Daughter? Some do favor tragedy, but I’m afraid I have little talent for it.” Letting the duke fall from her attention, she reached into an offered box of sweets. “Mr. Shortcross! You’ve learned my weakness! I really shouldn’t,” she said, popping one into her mouth and licking sugar from her fingers. Jasper shifted, suddenly uncomfortable in this crowd of men watching her eat. It felt distasteful and he didn’t like the currents swirling around Saltash. She might be quick and clever, but she was no match for a duke. Baiting him was reckless.
