Outrageous Fortune

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad. I forgot to return the shawl,’ Charlotte said, handing over the small neatly packed parcel.

  ‘Dear Lord, you needn’t have run after us just for that fleabitten thing,’ put in Sally.

  ‘I didn’t. I mean, there was another matter.’ She turned to Fosdyke and her jade eyes, darkly starred by thick lashes, had never looked more appealing. Yet he would have agreed to her request if she had been as ugly as a cow and twice as stupid. Fosdyke was not a man to be won over simply by a pretty face. They were two a penny, as he was often wont to say, and didn’t give half as good service. ‘I wished to ask a favour of you.’

  ‘A favour?’ Fosdyke stuffed his chest with air so that it bellied grandly out like a pigeon’s, though he would have preferred to think himself a swan, and smiled beatifically, revealing the perfect white teeth. ‘You have only to name it and it is yours. How could anyone refuse so charming a young lady?’

  Charlotte had meant only to ask if she might travel with them to London where she intended to search out the whereabouts of her mother. But a wild thought catapulted into her head and before she could stop herself she asked, ‘Might I join you?’

  Even Fosdyke was surprised. It was the last thing he’d expected. Yet, when he thought about it, why should she not wish to join them? The girl had talent, that much was certain. She’d read the piece, which she’d never set eyes on before, with the skill and ease of a seasoned professional. There was no question but that he could make something of her. ‘Now why would you want to do that?’ he probed. ‘Not fallen out with your uncle, have you?’ This thought alarmed him for a moment. What use a fortune if it was cut off? But Charlotte hastened to reassure him.

  ‘Oh, no, not at all. Only...’ And here for the first time in her life Charlotte decided that some form of an untruth might be safer. She had no wish at this stage, or to these people, kindly though they seemed, to relate the full sordidness of her problem. ‘...I have relatives in London, and if you should be going in that direction I wondered if I might accompany you. I have always longed to act and it would be so much more fun than taking the coach. 1 do so love an adventure.’ Her smile vanished. ‘But if I’d be a nuisance you have only to say. However, I do assure you I would work hard.’

  Fosdyke decided that the gods must be pleased with him this day. The teeth positively glittered in the darkness as he smiled upon Charlotte. ‘Nothing would give us greater pleasure, my dear, than to have you become a member of the Fosdyke Players.’

  * * * *

  James awoke later than usual and at once became aware of a great hubbub of noise outside his room. Running footsteps, banging doors and the loud clamour of voices. Hastily pulling on his shirt and breeches, he went to investigate. Alice and Molly were hurrying in confusing and alternating circles up and down stairs, along passages and into and out of various rooms. He watched this odd performance for a second or two before managing to catch a hold of Molly and halt her madcap dash.

  ‘What on earth is going on, Molly? You all seem quite demented.’

  ‘Oh, sir! ‘Tis Miss Charlotte,’ Molly gasped, heaving great gulps of air into her flat chest.

  James felt a prickle of foreboding. ‘What of Miss Charlotte?’ He gripped tighter upon Molly’s arm and she winced.

  ‘She have gone, sire. Leastways we can find no trace of her either in the house or in the yard. Please don’t squeeze my arm so, if’n you please sir, I ‘ad a drop too much cider last night and I do hurt all over.’

  James lessened his grip only to shake Molly as if she were in some way to blame when he knew it was himself. ‘You’re sure she’s not out riding the new horse?’

  Molly groaned as the headache worsened. There was something she kept trying to remember but for the life of her, couldn’t quite get to grips with it. What with Alice’s shouting and scolding and now this gentleman shaking the life out of her she doubted she ever would. ‘No, we’ve checked and the mare is eating her head off in the stable, sweet as you please. No sign of Miss Charlotte. Oh, where can she have got to? My head, sir.’

  James relented sufficiently to release the girl’s arm and, brushing her to one side, went in search of more alert members of the household. He found Alice on her way into Nathan’s study, her old face a wrinkle of anxiety.

  ‘She’s nowhere to be found, master. If you ask me she’s taken off somewhere.’

  James did not miss the long look which passed between them. ‘Do you think you can guess where that is, Alice?’ he asked.

  ‘I can, sir,’ Molly said as she hurtled into the room, her thin face wreathed in smiles.

  James felt his heart give an odd jolt, which surprised him more than a little. ‘Have you found her?’

  ‘No, sir, only I’ve remembered something. I saw Miss Charlotte go out last night.’

  ‘You saw her go?’ gasped Nathan, white faced.

  ‘That’s right, sir. I was just seeing to the ashes, from the fire you know, and I saw her crossing the yard. Off to return a shawl to the players, she was. Said to leave the kitchen door on the latch for she wouldn’t be long.’ A heavy silence fell upon the room.

  Alice was the first to recover. ‘I knew it. Never any other thought in her silly head but play-acting.’

  Turning to Nathan, who sat ashen-faced and strangely silent at his desk, she continued, ‘But why now, on her birthday? She hasn’t even ridden the new mare yet. I could understand it better if something had upset her... if she’d heard ... if you had told her, master. . .’

  ‘I told her.’ James had never felt so sick in his entire life as each pair of eyes swivelled to look at him in open incredulity.

  Nathan got slowly to his feet, suddenly looking a very old man, and leaned across the desk. ‘You told her?’

  James inclined his head. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I meant her to hear it from a woman.’ His voice was a cracked whisper.

  ‘I know you asked my grandmother to do it, but she is not the most - well the fact of the matter is…’ James fumbled for words. ‘The conversation came round to Charlotte’s mother quite by accident last evening and before I knew what was happening my grandmother had elected me for the task of enlightening Charlotte. Possibly she thought I would employ more tact than herself,’ James finished miserably.

  ‘It seems that you failed, boy,’ came a voice from the door.

  Lady Caraddon sailed into the room, swathed in her favourite pink and purple house-robe, and surveyed the assembled company with a critical eye. ‘What long faces! Good heavens, the girl has only run off with a tom-tiddle band of players. Anyone would think she’d been clapped in Newgate. She can easily be found and brought back. Charlotte Forbes is not the first young lady to have done a runner, nor will she be the last. It’s the shock of learning she may not be who she thinks she is, I dare swear. But that’ll pass. A day or two with that bizarre crew and she’ll be begging to come home. James shall set off at once, won’t you, dear boy?’ She smiled confidently at her grandson.

  James felt no inclination to return the smile. ‘This is none of my concern,’ he told her through narrowed lips. Then, turning back to Nathan Pierce, continued, ‘I’m sorry, sir, that your family matters have alarmed and upset Charlotte, but I did no more than inform her of them because no one else seemed willing to take on the task.’ There was the very slightest hint of reproach in his tone. ‘If she has indeed run off with the players, it would be my guess that she’ll head for London, and you would do as well to try to catch up with her there. I’m afraid I can be of no further assistance, and have more than enough problems of my own to attend to.’ Instructing Lady Caraddon to dress as quickly as may be while he got the carriage ready, James turned to go.

  ‘You would leave us in this pretty pickle?’ Nathan finally abandoned the security of his desk to stride to James’s side. ‘I fully accept my part of the blame. I confess I should have told Charlotte myself but it was difficult and embarrassing. I believed it would be best for her were it to come from
a woman. For that, sir, I hold you equally responsible. You have indeed upset and embarrassed my niece over a subject which needed handling with the utmost delicacy. You can hardly walk out on the result of your bumbling. Your grandmother is quite right. You must go after her with all speed.’

  James was speechless with rage as he looked from one face to the next. Alice’s creased with loving anxiety, Molly’s a wreck of guilt and anguish, Nathan’s concern, and on his grandmother’s placid acceptance. Perhaps it was this last which exasperated him the most, for she had played tricks upon him all his life. For all he knew Constance Caraddon could well have engineered the whole thing, making absolutely certain that he was put into this impossible position.

  ‘I doubt they’ll have got further than Plymouth by the time you catch up with them, boy,’ she said, in mild tones. ‘Unless you delay your departure too long, that is.’

  James sighed and closed his eyes. He could see no way of refusing this admittedly reasonable request without seeming totally churlish. ‘Have my horse saddled. I’ll try Plymouth. If she has gone much beyond that, sir, you must make other arrangements.’

  James took a step closer to Nathan to issue a piece of advice in a low hoarse voice. ‘And no matter your embarrassment, sir, when she returns be prepared to discuss the whole matter through with her and answer all her damned questions without demur.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Nathan, ‘for your action, and for your advice. I will think on it.’

  Less than ten minutes later James was on the road and he still couldn’t work out how his quiet Christmas in Cornwall had gone so badly wrong.

  * * * *

  That first morning, as the players trudged along the road, Charlotte was happy to talk with Sally Drew and her son, Peter. They proved to be both friendly and informative and Charlotte gleaned all she could from them. The first thing Charlotte learned was that there was little done by way of rehearsal. Fosdyke as actor-manager issued a few instructions to which the cast listened with varying degrees of attention. Everyone was then expected to write out their words from the one book, if the play was new to them, and be word perfect by the first performance, often with only hours’ notice. The second thing Charlotte learned was that everyone was expected to perform at least two parts in the larger cast plays and since Fosdyke was fond of doing Shakespeare, Sheridan and Goldsmith this was quite often. The reason, she discovered, was not so much artistic preference as Fosdyke liking to get value for money. He paid a weekly wage to his players and he meant them to work hard for it.

  ‘We’ll be doing Othello this evening, at Plymouth Dock,’ Fosdyke informed them as they stopped by the wayside to eat a meagre lunch of bread and cheese and drink water from a nearby stream. ‘The main part played by myself, of course. Phil, you will be Iago and Carl will play Cassio as usual. Fanny can be Desdemona and Sal will be Iago’s wife. As for our new member here,’ Fosdyke smiled expansively, ‘you can play Bianca, mistress to Cassio. What think you of that, eh?’

  ‘I usually play Bianca as well as Desdemona,’ grumbled Fanny, her lip trembling in a sullen pout.

  ‘Well, then, you’ll have an easy night of it for once, won’t you?’ retorted Fosdyke unfeelingly.

  ‘I don’t mind simply watching, for the first night,’ put in Charlotte, quickly disguising her instant flush of delight at being handed such a part, but equally anxious not to cause offence to Fanny.

  ‘Poppycock. Everyone here has to do their bit. We don’t carry passengers in the Fosdyke Players,’ declared Fosdyke forcibly. ‘Sal will find the words for you and fill you in on the moves. And there’s no more to be said about it,’ he finished, giving Fanny’s thigh what might have passed for an affectionate squeeze had he not looked so unsmilingly at her. Fosdyke then proceeded to hand out the rest of the parts. Much to Charlotte’s relief, there were few female roles in Othello so she had just the one part to remember. She spent the rest of the journey saying over the words and desperately memorising Sally Drew’s instructions.

  Yet it was like no Shakespeare she had ever read. Sally told her that in order to accommodate the fact that each actor was playing several roles so could not be in two places at once, and to liven up ‘the dull bits’ for the audience, the great playwright’s famous words naturally needed a bit of alternation here and there. Whole chunks were cut out and in parts the story rewritten to such an extent that Charlotte found it hard to equate it with the tragic love story of the Moor and his doomed wife. She was appalled to find that at times it fell almost into farce, certainly painfully close to melodrama. But she dared say nothing. She learned her lines and vowed to do exactly as she was bid.

  As they drew closer to Plymouth the nut of excitement deep in her stomach grew and she could scarcely wait for the performance to begin. Wasn’t this exactly what she had longed for? And it was infinitely preferable to dwelling on the unpleasant news Sir James Caraddon had so bluntly revealed to her, or on the gentleman himself. And if her mind did keep returning to him more than she cared to admit, that was purely a temporary state of affairs which would soon pass.

  * * * *

  If she had imagined a pretty little theatre at Plymouth Dock, Charlotte was soon disenchanted. The Fosdyke Players assembled their makeshift stage by way of deal planks upon boxes in the corner of a warehouse smelling strongly of fish. A row of candles was stuck across the front and it was Peter’s task to make sure that they did not set light to the curtains; a prospect not to be contemplated in such a confined space. Nor did the audience prove to be particularly salubrious either, consisting as it did mainly of sailors passing bottles of rum back and forth and making ribald jokes at a group of women penned slightly apart in a roped off section of the shed, but making their calling more than plain.

  They’d arrived early and embarked upon a series of hallooing, catcalling, shrieks and shouting, not to mention the popular pastime of tossing nuts and orange peel at the respectable persons who had happened along and taken the trouble to pay for a seat at the back where they had believed themselves safe from such abominations. None of this did anything for Charlotte’s nerves.

  ‘Is it always like this?’ Charlotte asked Sally, as she peeped through the makeshift curtains, strung across a piece of rope, to view her first audience. She felt more than a little alarmed by the sight of them.

  ‘Sometimes it’s worse. This lot look quite civilised, considering. Mind you, it’s early yet. Wait till the rum goes down.’

  Fanny was at Charlotte’s elbow. ‘Not worried, are you? If you think yourself a bit too fancy for all this you should get back home before it’s too late. Young ladies such as yerself ain’t usually seen on a stage and they might not like the looks of yer at all. Then ‘oo knows what they might do?’

  Charlotte gazed at Fanny in horror. ‘I never thought. You don’t mean they might attack me?’ Charlotte’s eyes grew wide and dark with dismay. Until now she had not considered any possibility of being disliked. Her mind had been firmly fixed upon learning her lines and preparing to give of her best so as not to let anyone down. Now it seemed that might not be enough.

  ‘I’ve known ‘em throw rotten eggs, stinking vegetables and all sorts at folk they take a dislike to. We’ll just have to hope for the best, won’t we?’ said Fanny and strolled away, hands on hips, swaying in the long Desdemona gown, the trailing hem more grey than white.

  ‘Jealous cat. Take no notice of her,’ muttered Sally. ‘Only, I wouldn’t recommend you audition for the heroine’s role while you’re with us, not if you value your eyesight. That’s always belonged to Fanny and it wouldn’t be healthy to dispute it. Not that it mightn’t do her a bit of good to be brought down off her high horse.’ Chuckling softly, Sally moved off to get herself ready, for the performance was about to begin.

  Before she went on Charlotte knew a moment of terror but, as with her performance in the parlour at Caperley, once she was on stage she found that the tight breathlessness faded and to her delight the lines came out clear and strong, and
word perfect. As the evening progressed she began, very surely, to enjoy herself.

  ‘I can do this, Sal,’ Charlotte told her new friend during the interval, her delight bubbling over.

  ‘Course you can, love. Who said you couldn’t? You’re a natural. Perfect timing and impeccable diction. But don’t let old Fosdyke work you too hard. He will if you give him half a chance.’

  ‘But I must earn my keep, and my fare to London,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Aye, well, that’s as may be,’ continued Sally with some doubt in her voice. ‘But mind what I say.’

  Fosdyke clasped Charlotte to him in an effusive display of emotion. ‘Lottie, Lottie, what a delight you are! Can you not tell how they love you?’

  Charlotte blushingly thanked him, pulling herself free from rather crushing embrace pressed against his protuberant belly. He smelled of greasepaint, candle wax and brandy. He certainly issued forth a pleasant aura of contentment far from in keeping with the character he was playing. His nose positively glowed scarlet in startling contrast to the white of his teeth. Aware of Fanny only a step away, Charlotte denied any skill in her performance.

  ‘You must thank Sally, for she has tutored me all along the way. I could not have gone on without her.’

  ‘Well, they certainly seem a merry audience,’ said Fosdyke with beaming satisfaction, ‘and enough of them to cover our expenses for once.’

  The trouble began in the last act. The seamen became so engrossed with the play that they took it to their hearts in deadly earnest. And when Othello, after a suitably shortened dialogue with the ill-fated Desdemona, covered her face with a pillow, pandemonium broke out.