Outrageous Fortune

by Freda Lightfoot

  It was late afternoon when he returned, and when she asked him about the problem of language he merely laughed loudly and said she would find no difficulty in making herself understood. Neither would her customers.

  ‘You mean I’ll be taught sufficient French for the audience to understand me?’ she asked.

  Fosdyke’s blue eyes glowed in the light from one of the candle lanterns which lit the dark narrow streets along which they hurried away from the theatre, and he smiled. ‘You will be taught all you need to know,’ he said.

  Fortunately Charlotte had little to say in her first part. Her main function seemed to require her merely to express suitable astonishment at the antics which took place around her, and look bemused, which was not at all difficult. A young girl of the name of Arabella taught her three lines in slow, careful French. Dressed in a cheap, tawdry blue silk dress which scarcely covered Charlotte’s breasts, causing her to flush with embarrassment, she was shown how to stand and where to move. When Charlotte suggested that perhaps a more decorous gown would be more suitable, Arabella laughed out loud and said she should be glad she had something to show, many hadn’t.

  ‘So how did that go?’ asked Fosdyke when Charlotte came off stage at the end of the first performance.

  ‘I believe I was the oddest French maid this theatre has ever seen,’ she said. ‘And I still have not a clue what the play was all about, but I suspect it is just as well. It seems just a little...’

  ‘Risqué?’

  Charlotte laughingly conceded that she had meant something of the sort.

  ‘Now for supper to celebrate your first night’s success. Fanny is meeting us at the Globe. I thought the audience most appreciative. They applauded splendidly when you came on.’

  ‘Then it could hardly have been the quality of my acting, could it,’ said Charlotte wryly, ‘since I had not at that point spoken a word?’

  Charlotte soon discovered that although she was well paid she had to work hard for the money. There were two performances a night plus several matinees. But by the end of the first week she felt her confidence begin to return and was able to add a little more feeling to her performance. As a consequence her audience rating soared.

  Fosdyke watched her with close, though guarded, attention, as did the manager, Monsieur Cartelet. Each night after the performance ended Fosdyke took Charlotte and Fanny out for supper. Many of the girls stayed behind at the theatre while others went to similar establishments, or so Charlotte assumed.

  After the last performance on the Saturday evening Monsieur Cartelet came over as they were pre-paring to leave.

  ‘That was a good first week,’ he said, in perfect English. ‘Next week, Lottie, I’ll put you on to full pay.’ He gave a lopsided smile. ‘For which I’ll expect full return on my investment.’

  ‘You shall have it,’ agreed Charlotte, eyes shining. ‘And, Monsieur Cartelet, I would like you to know that I have bought myself a book and am starting to learn French. I mean to go far in the theatre and I appreciate your giving me a start.’

  He went off laughing as if she had said something exceptionally amusing.

  * * * *

  ‘You must know where she is.’ James was visiting Lady Susanna for the sixth time that week. On the first two occasions she had been out, or so her maid had said. On the third she had refused point blank to see him.

  Driven by his need to find Charlotte, he’d thrust aside the new maid and footman and, guided by Clara, had found his way to the inner sanctum of Susanna’s bedchamber, a room she would gladly have taken him to herself in earlier days.

  He’d burst in, unannounced.

  Susanna had taken refuge in a fainting fit, her usual recourse in ticklish situations. Unmoved by this show of hysteria, James had bullied and cajoled her, but to no avail. Susanna had clung to the hartshorn, holding it to her delicate nose, turned her face away and refused to utter a word. When this hadn’t succeeded in making James leave, she’d crumpled limply to the ground, albeit with exquisite delicacy, into feigned unconsciousness. The uncomfortable interview, so far as she was concerned, was over.

  Grimly determined, James had returned every day until now, when, wearied by his persistence and knowing it would continue indefinitely, Susanna faced him, bleary-eyed and unusually subdued across the green parlour.

  ‘Well, where is she?’

  ‘I cannot say. I have not the least idea. I do not know, nor do I care. I have told you a dozen, a thousand times already.’ Susanna took a steadying sip of her cordial, for with James in his present mood she doubted that an sign of hysteria or fainting fit would work. He had bludgeoned his way in yet again and there was nothing else for it but to see it through. Ironically enough on this occasion she was telling the truth when she said she had no idea where Charlotte was, but could she make James believe that? She was vastly weary of the whole affair, and wished he would go away and stop pacing her oriental carpet in this agitated manner. He would quite wear it out. Yet there were things she could tell him, even now, should she choose to help. But she did not.

  ‘Do try to stay calm, James. Charlotte Forbes is a grown woman and can surely be allowed to arrange her own life. Frankly, I heartily wish I had never set eyes on the silly chit. The last I saw of her was at Lady Alsager’s musical soiree when you both left early.’

  James stopped his pacing to pay closer attention and force his mind back to that night. Before he’d been called away by that silly fool Bletherington, Charlotte had been her usual cheerful self. There had even been a particular awareness between them, when they’d both seemed sweetly conscious of every touch and scent of skin and hair, a delightful intimacy which might well have developed. But when he had joined her later in the garden he’d been almost sure she’d been crying, though she made no mention of it. In the ensuing quarrel his disappointment in her had made him vent his anger. Something he found difficult to forgive.

  ‘What did you say to her that night?’

  James asked the question softly, but Susanna knew he was not a man to be ignored. Now he was like a terrier with the smell of a rat in his nostrils, he’d not let up until he had the whole tale out of her. He looked so threatening, so huge towering over her in her tiny parlour. Tears trembled becomingly on her lower lids as she gazed up at him but James felt not the slightest stirring of pity, for despite her beauty he knew Lady Susanna Brimley to be more than capable of callous acts of heartlessness.

  ‘Well?’ he barked.

  Susanna winced at the cutting quality to the sharp demand. ‘I suggested merely that it would be better for everyone if she were to go home.’

  There was a long silence. Unconvinced that this was all, James was waiting for more, and finally, in nervous little whispers, it came.

  ‘I confess that I wanted you for myself, James. I love you. I have always loved you. You know that I do.’ The words and the tears tumbled out. ‘I wanted her to go away so that you and I could be as we once were.’

  ‘There was never anything beyond friendship between you and I, Susanna, and you know it,’ James said, but kinder now as he saw her genuine distress. ‘You only imagine you love me. In truth I doubt you are capable of loving anyone beyond yourself. But there must have been more to it than that. What did you say that upset Charlotte so much that she refused my admittedly clumsy offer of marriage and fled my house the very next day?’

  The eyes snapped wide. ‘Marriage? You offered her marriage? Why, for God’s sake?’

  Silence.

  Susanna flung back her head and brushed the tears from her china blue eyes and the veneer of charm from her sulky, rosebud lips. She knew when she was beaten. ‘Oh, very well, I told her no one would speak to you or to her if she stayed; that your career would be ruined. I said that no politician should marry his mistress, particularly one who was an actress without any sign of breeding whatsoever.’

  James was horrified, imagining all too clearly the effect this would have had on Charlotte.

  ‘Of course
no one had spoken to her that night. I’d made perfectly certain they didn’t.’

  Susanna was on her feet, clinging to James with clutching, clawing fingers. ‘She is entirely wrong for you, my darling. She can bring you nothing but trouble, while I can bring advancement. Riches and glories you’ve never dreamed possible.’

  With commendable self possession, James took a punishing grip upon Susanna’s arms and placed her firmly and abruptly back in her chair. Speaking slowly so that she did not miss a word, nor possibly misunderstand him, he said, ‘Can you not see that it is Charlotte I want, not power, not riches, not any advancement you can procure for me? Clara has told me of your earlier attempts to tamper with my life, and with Charlotte’s. Now I am telling you to leave me, and Charlotte, alone, or you’ll be sorry for it. It might then be you whom no one speaks to. Do I make myself clear?’

  Susanna could do nothing but collapse in her chair and sob.

  As James strode to the door she called after him one last time. ‘If I help you is there still hope for us?’

  The expression upon his face spoke of the hopelessness of this plea, but she’d said too much now for James to allow her to hold silent.

  ‘If you know something, for the sake of our one-time friendship, tell me.’

  Knotting her fingers in her lace handkerchief, Susanna related through her sobs the tale of a visit from Fanny only a day or two ago, informing her how Charlotte would soon be out of her hair for good. ‘She apparently visited the family lawyers to accept her inheritance, preparatory to going abroad.’

  It was all James needed.

  * * * *

  Fosdyke’s original intention had been to marry Charlotte. Now he pondered on the necessity for it, for he could have access to her fortune without resorting to such drastic measures. Besides, hadn’t he kept Fanny dangling for years? Maybe it would be worth his while making an honest woman of her at last. He could have them both, if he fancied it. Once the rustic innocence had been eradicated from Charlotte he doubted she’d object. Didn’t the French have a name for it? Ménage à trois! It should prove most interesting.

  But first must come the unburdening of Charlotte’s maidenly inhibitions. He wouldn’t mind deflowering her himself. But the first time was worth a considerable sum of money, and he was never one to turn away a good business prospect. There would be other opportunities.

  ‘Have you prepared her?’ asked Cartelet as soon as they met at the theatre that Monday evening. Fosdyke shrugged expressively. ‘What is there to prepare?’

  ‘Is she willing?’

  ‘Willing or not, the arrangements will go ahead,’ said Fosdyke, and there was no sign now of the gleaming smile, only a wry twist to the thick lips. ‘Have you found a suitable client?’

  Monsieur Cartelet’s small eyes gleamed. ‘A count. A rich one.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  It took but moments to make the arrangements which would seal Charlotte’s future, and the two men walked away, content.

  * * * *

  Charlotte dressed unhurriedly in the somewhat cramped conditions of the dressing room, her mind on her future. One day she would play at the finest theatres in Paris, London and Rome. She would make a fortune, buy a house of her own, perhaps a small dog for company, and retire happily away from grasping, greedy people for the rest of her life. She had already discovered that life in a Parisian theatre was not as much fun as those weeks on the road with the strolling players. The other girls were not at all friendly, nor could she understand what they said to her. Some of them were none too clean either. She missed Sally and Peter, Carl and Phil in their various roles of hero or villain. Most of all she missed James. Sometimes the pain of her need was so great it felt as if her heart had been scoured out of her body, leaving a raw gaping wound in its place. In desperation she dreamed her dreams, knowing them to be nonsense, but they at least helped to keep her mind from dwelling on James too closely, and on the life they might have had together.

  ‘I hear you are coming with us to Babette’s house tonight,’ whispered Arabella as they were about to go on stage.

  ‘Am I?’

  Arabella’s smile faded slightly and she shrugged. ‘Funny, I thought you might be different, more class than the rest. But if you wish to be one of us, why not, eh?’

  Charlotte smiled a response and was still trying to puzzle out why not going with the other girls for supper had put her in a higher class. She was delighted to be going with them. Perhaps it meant that she would at last start to make some friends.

  There was something about the whole performance that night which felt different. It was the same part. She had the same inconsequential lines to say. She smiled and postured in exactly the same way as for every other performance, but somehow it was different. Charlotte felt vibrant with energy, filled with an unquenchable optimism. She bounced, and giggled, and flew from bedroom to hall, from hall to bedroom, on and off the stage in a dizzying delight of confusion, and the audience loved it. And she loved them. She could almost feel their presence. For all her part was a small one, Charlotte made the most of it, and received a most satisfying applause at the end of it.

  Hot and breathless from her efforts, she stripped off her gown to change into a fresh one. Not tonight one of the many silk and satin gowns she now had in plenty. Fosdyke had insisted that she wear a dress as simple as a milkmaid’s, in pink and white striped muslin with a lacy shawl to drape demurely about her shoulders. She rather liked it, for it reminded her of the Charlotte she had once been before this new, money conscious one had happened along, whose one thought was how many guineas she could save in a week.

  ‘Come, we must hurry,’ urged Arabella, and hurried Charlotte from the dressing room.

  * * * *

  The noise at Babette’s was astounding, the atmosphere stuffy, the rabble around the gaming tables decidedly seedy. Charlotte wished, very fervently, that she had not come, and admitted as much to Arabella.

  ‘Can you find a chaise to take me home? You were right, this is not for me.’

  ‘What is not for you, my cherub?’ asked Fosdyke, coming up behind her. Charlotte turned to him with relief.

  ‘Oh, thank heavens. I am so tired, and this place seems a trifle disreputable for my taste, Mr Fosdyke. Would you mind very much taking me home?’

  The last thing Charlotte had expected was for him to refuse. ‘What nonsense! The entertainments have scarcely begun. Come, let us find a booth and we can sup. You will feel more yourself then.’

  Taking her hand, he led her to a small square booth, completely empty and curtained on three sides by a dingy threadbare fabric that had never seen the inside of a washtub. Charlotte felt quite light headed. The very smell of the place was making her queasy. Placing her within, Fosdyke called for food, and great bowls of steaming chicken broth were brought. The smell of it almost made her faint, but Charlotte drank what she could, hoping it would make her feel better. The stinking atmosphere ate into any flavour there might have been in the soup and at last she set it aside, the dish still more than half full. Fosdyke gave her a sharp look, eyes narrowing with speculation.

  ‘Are you unwell, my dear? Have we been working you too hard?’

  ‘I do feel rather giddy,’ Charlotte admitted. ‘It is so hot and steamy in here. And the smell, so oddly sweet, yet sour. What is it?’

  Fosdyke was on his feet in an instant, ushering her from the booth. ‘What you require is a little lie down, my dear. I’d take you home at once, only I have business to attend to and that must come first, as I am sure you will understand.’

  Charlotte felt worse than she had done before the soup, so made little protest as Fosdyke led her upstairs to a small room and, thrusting her within, begged her to lie down and close her eyes.

  ‘When you wake you will feel a new woman,’ he promised. ‘I shall then be ready to take us all home.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Charlotte whispered, giddy with tiredness. She felt so very sleepy, her eyes were so heavy and
her head starting to ache.

  Much pleased with the simplicity with which he had carried out his plan, Fosdyke withdrew downstairs to the gaming tables where, as far as he was concerned, the real action took place. He had no more need to worry about Charlotte for several hours. The Count would take care of her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  James walked into Babette’s establishment and took only a moment to discover that Charlotte was not present, at least not in sight. And less than a second to ascertain the exact nature of the place. Not a man to waste time he went straight to Madame herself, his mind sharpening in preparation for rapid changes in plan. As a politician, he was adept at thinking on his feet.

  ‘Madame.’ He bowed over the podgy hand as he kissed it and then addressed her in perfect French. ‘Sir James Caraddon, if you please. I have heard much of your establishment, and of your…’ he glanced significantly about him,’…excellent service.’

  ‘You will find nothing but quality here,’ she simpered, much flattered. What a man! How she would have made him dance to her tune once upon a day. Madame Babette heaved a sigh into her pounds of flesh that flopped in their usual state of exhaustion in the wide, cushioned chair. Once her body had been voluptuous and captivating, if not a hand-span waist then at least a bosom never to be forgotten. Time had played its cruel tricks and her games must be played outside the bedchamber now. But she’d done well, brought up several ‘nieces’ and ‘nephews’ who now owned vast mansions in the more affluent areas of Paris, denying all knowledge of their ‘aunt’, which quite delighted her. To Babette it was a mark of her success to lift even a part of her family from the gutter into the fringes of the French aristocracy.