Lisa Noeli Page 2

  Lord York looked into the wings, noting the painted scenery flats that could be moved in tracks along the floor; and then looked above at the cavernous ceiling into the flies, where the backdrops were hung. There were many, each tied to a long pole that ran the length of the stage, and counterweighted with sandbags in strategic places.

  “Hoi! Who’s up there?” Tom shouted. He waved to a small man with black hair and a pointed mustache who balanced nimbly on the backdrop poles, hopping from one piece of rigging to another.

  A dancer called, “Signor Arlecchino is installin’ the new drops. We was afraid to watch. Most likely he’ll break his bloody neck,” she added, not without compassion.

  That was a distinct possibility, Lord York thought. The man was at least forty feet above the stage.

  “We bought sets and costumes from an Italian opera company as what was returning to Naples,” Tom said. “They seem to have thrown in Signor Arlecchino as well. I wonder if he speaks English. Hoi! You there!”

  “Hallo! Hallo!” the small man called back.

  Tom grinned. “Well, p’raps he does. Arly, could you show us one of the drops?”

  “Si, si,” Arlecchino said excitedly. “Which one you wants?”

  “Is there a scene with sheep?”

  “Si, the sheep. I have the sheep.”

  High overhead, he tugged on a rope or two, released several sandbags, and let a huge piece of painted canvas unfurl. Tom and Lord York jumped back just in time. The bottom of the backdrop hit the stage with a thump, raising a cloud of dust.

  Tom waved the dust away from his face and let out a prodigious sneeze. Lord York pulled out a handkerchief and covered his nose and mouth. When the cloud of dust settled, both men found themselves staring at a dramatic depiction of a fully rigged man-of-war, cannons blazing, rolling on a stormy sea.

  “Battlesheep,” the man called. “It is very fine, no? Perhaps you have a play with the pirates.”

  “No, Signor Arlecchino. We need sheep, not a ship.” Tom looked up into the flies. “Sheep are animals. Woolly, stupid animals.”

  “Perhaps if we made a noise like a sheep,” Lord York murmured. He cleared his throat, feeling a little foolish. “Baaa,” he said. “Baaa.”

  A faint sound of feminine mirth made him turn around, but all he saw was a moving bump in the heavy curtain drawn to one side of the proscenium arch. He glimpsed a pair of slender feet in white silk slippers beneath the curtain, but they quickly disappeared.

  Ah. So someone was following him. But why? For the moment, he put the question out of his mind and baaaed again, a little more loudly.

  Tom joined in. “Baaaa! Baaaa! Do you understand, Arly?”

  “Si, si! Le pecore!”

  “Is that what you call them?”

  “Yes!” The man moved fearlessly from pole to pole high above, looking through the furled backdrops. “But we have no sheeps. I am so much sorry. Perhaps I paint some for you.”

  “Not today.” Tom gestured toward the man-of-war backdrop. “Now roll this up. We need the stage. Rehearsal starts in an hour, ladies.”

  Signor Arlecchino obliged as Tom and Lord York crossed the apron and walked through a carved door built into the proscenium.

  “Mr. Shy ought to be in his office. I know he is expectin’ ye,” Tom said.

  “Very well.”

  They made their way down another corridor—this one crowded with bare-chested men with fake beards, wearing coarse brown breeches shredded to look like fur, and soft black shoes.

  “The sadders, sir,” Tom murmured. “We have to keep them apart from the nimps as long as possible. Otherwise there is high jinks, if you take my meaning.”

  Lord York nodded.

  “I understand.”

  The satyrs seemed more interested in lunch than lechery at the moment. Shoving and jostling, they formed a queue leading to a table at the end of the corridor, piled high with meat pies and other fare that could be eaten easily without plates or forks.

  “We find it best to provide a feed,” Tom explained. “The men are apt to drink too much when they go to the taverns, and then they are good for nothing. And the women are not to be trusted outside the theater. So we keep them in.”

  “A wise plan,” Lord York said. A lifetime of theatergoing and music-loving had taught him nothing of this. But he supposed it was well that he learned every aspect of the business, since he planned to invest in shares of the theater’s royal patent, just as Tom had said.

  If the opening production was a hit with London’s notoriously hard-to-please audiences—and that would depend on everyone from the star of the show to the bit players now grumbling over who had snagged the largest of the meat pies—Lord York might well double or triple his investment overnight. Or he might lose it all.

  They came to a nondescript door that swung open at Tom’s touch. He poked his head in. “Mr. Shy? Here is Lord York.”

  “Thank you, Tom.” Terence Shy set aside a heavy ledger that he had been poring over and stood up to greet his visitor. “Daniel—it is good of you to come. Has Tom given you the backstage tour?”

  “He has. Most interesting.”

  Terence laughed. “I suppose you met some of the talent.”

  “That Molly tried her wicked wiles on him, Mr. Shy,” Tom said. “I sent her packing.”

  “She is the boldest of the lot,” Terence said. “But I am sure Daniel can look out for himself. Besides, Molly claims to be madly in love with one of the satyrs, the blond lad with the bulging calves. What is his name, Tom?”

  The stage manager thought for a moment. “Oh, you mean Charlie. No, that was last week. She has throwed him over for Fred.”

  “The furry little fellow? You don’t say.” Terence seemed mightily amused. “We didn’t have to issue him a beard, Daniel. Fred grew his own and a luxuriant specimen it is.”

  “He has a powerful roar as well for so small a man,” Tom added. “Deep and loud enough to be heard over the whole damned audience on opening night.”

  “Yes, they never stop chattering, do they? There seems to be nothing anyone can do about it.”

  Lord York raised an eyebrow. “I understood that you intended to raise the tone of this theater, Terence, and attract a more elegant clientele.”

  Terence shrugged. “The ton comes to the theater to see and be seen. I dare not dim the houselights for that reason. If Lord Rake wishes to admire Lady Fickle’s bountiful décolletage and whisper sweet nothings in her ear while her husband is looking the other way, who am I to stop them? Especially if they are all subscribers.”

  “Still, the upper classes ought to prefer intelligent entertainment.”

  Terence shook his head. “They enjoy low humor just as much as the rabble in the pit.”

  “Perhaps if the gin sellers were discouraged, the crowd would be more decorous.”

  Tom held up a hand. “It is not the gin sellers’ fault. Me old mother, bless her sainted memory, sold gin. More money innit than oranges, she always said. She started out as an orange-girl at the Drury Lane Theater before she came here to Covent Garden.”

  “Nell Gwynn followed a similar path, as I recall,” Terence mused. “King Charles thought the world of her.”

  “So the story goes, Mr. Shy,” Tom said. “Though I think me dad was an ordinary man and not royal. But Mother didn’t believe in explanations. I never knew him.”

  A brief silence fell.

  “Well, it is our good fortune that you grew up in Covent Garden,” Terence said affably. “You will find, Daniel, that no one knows this theater as well as Tom Higgins. He is an invaluable resource. Ask him anything. And he knows everybody.”

  “I will keep that in mind,” Lord York replied.

  “Now then, we have much to discuss. Tom, ask Ginny Goodchurch to bring us a bottle of port, and see if you can nab four or five meat pies before the satyrs devour them all. I find that I am dreadfully hungry.”

  Tom looked doubtful. “They will complain, Mr. Shy. If w
e can’t pay the actors, we must feed them.”

  “Take only two pies then,” Terence said irritably. “The satyrs won’t bite.”

  “You never know, sir,” Tom said. “Some of ’em seems quite ferocious.”

  Terence gave him an exasperated look. “They have intimidated you, that is clear.”

  “No, but I sympathize wif ’em. I have not been paid meself.”

  “You will be,” Tom said. “As we all know, there are only two legitimate theaters in London. Our performers—and you, Tom—have nowhere else to go, unless you want to play the provinces.”

  Tom shuddered.

  “Remind everyone that Lizzie Loudermilk is sure to sell out the house. She always does. Just you wait.”

  “How long?” Tom said with a stubborn frown.

  “Until the box office receipts are tallied on opening night. We will be sitting atop a mountain of golden guineas, my good man.”

  Terence’s breezy assurances made Lord York uneasy. But he said nothing. Fortunes had been made in the theater, and it was his task to listen and learn. He reminded himself that fortunes had also been lost and to listen very carefully.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but opening night is weeks away.”

  “What of it?” Terence said airily.

  Lord York did not approve of rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul financial management. He wondered what he was getting into. Still, what choice did he have? The ever-increasing debts on his family’s vast holdings would not go away. Borrowing more money was out of the question. There were mortgages too numerous to count as it was.

  Gerald, his older brother, who had come into the title and was now the earl, paid not the slightest attention to such matters. In fact, Gerald was gambling away their inheritance at a terrifying rate. They might lose everything on the next roll of the dice.

  It had fallen to Daniel, the dutiful second son, to step in. According to his solicitors and his banker, a gray-whiskered gentleman of grave mien, the entire estate was at risk: the country house in Richmond and the Mayfair house in London, the acres of farmland worked by generations of their tenants, the deer park and the carefully tended gardens of botanical rarities—everything Lord York held dear.

  He had liquidated assets left to him by his late mama to buy shares in this theater, though his inborn prudence made him reserve more than half of his cash. When it came right down to it, he was buying shares of Lizzie Loudermilk. If the famous singer drew the crowds that Terence expected—if the production ran for months and recouped its costs—if he could make the next round of payments on the estate debts … He did not even want to count the number of ifs.

  Chapter Two

  An hour or so later, a young woman dressed in a pale blue gown and white silk slippers paused in front of an office door.

  Josephine Shy could just make out the low buzz of masculine conversation and recognized the voices of her older brother, Terence, and the visitor he had been expecting, Lord Daniel York, a childhood friend. Precisely what they were saying was not clear. She listened more closely, her ear to the door.

  Aha. They were discussing an immense frog they had never managed to catch and laughing immoderately. She remembered that frog.

  Terence and Daniel were big boys of thirteen then, and Jo, just four. Her nursemaid had allowed her to sit on the riverbank and watch the young hunters pursue the frog, which always eluded their grasp with a thrilling leap.

  Daniel had been kind to her, in an absentminded, big-brotherly way. He had even invited her family to the great house for impromptu musicales when Jo was a little older, much taken by her singing voice, which he compared to a nightingale’s, and joining in with his own unsteady baritone.

  By the sound of it, his voice had improved and become much deeper and deliciously mellow. But Jo was well aware that she ought not to be listening at doors, and she felt a little guilty.

  She had hoped that their meeting would prove happy. It seemed to be at an end.

  She heard Lord York push back his chair and begin his good-byes, mentioning urgent business in the City and an afternoon meeting with his solicitors. He promised to call on Terence again and very soon.

  Josephine continued down the corridor, smiling to herself. How well did Lord York remember her? Perhaps not at all. Why would he? She had been a plain child and quiet, a vicar’s daughter. He was the scion of a wealthy and powerful family, and had much more important things to think about than a little girl he had once known, the sister of a boyhood friend.

  Her brilliant brother, Terence, had been the one who people remarked on, his bright future seemingly assured when he left the sleepy village of Richmond for London five years ago. He had made friends with ease among the wealthy and well-connected, but Terence’s early promise had come to naught.

  Yet Lord York had remained loyal, she knew.

  Josephine had been delighted to see him again, though she had made sure Lord York did not see her. She had followed him through the backstage corridors, observing his embarrassing encounter with Molly; and watched from behind the stage curtain, muffling her laughter when he baaed at Signor Arlecchino.

  She halted at an intersecting corridor and followed an arrowed sign that pointed to the dressing rooms. There was no one about. She broke into song, as she liked to do when she was alone.

  Jo walked with confidence, having quickly learned her way through the many corridors and staircases that honeycombed the back of the huge theater. The dressing rooms were some distance away.

  Even Terence, who had taken over the theater’s management months before her arrival, was not as familiar with the building, relying on Tom Higgins and her to be his eyes and ears. He seemed happy that she was at home there; but he thought it best not to tell their parents or anyone else that Josephine spent so much of her time at the theater. She assumed that Terence wished to seem as respectable as possible and at least appear to observe the necessary proprieties.

  Her father, now retired, and her mother, whose health was frail, would have been shocked to know the truth: Josephine, like her brother, adored the theater.

  He had gone into it as a moneymaking venture, acquiring the right to run Covent Garden and its company of players on little more than a whim. Her brother had not done as well in life as he had expected, and had not found an heiress who would have him.

  But she wondered at times if the responsibility was all too much for him. In desperation, Terence had written to her a few months ago and begged her to come to London. She had said yes at once, thinking it would be a lark.

  Josephine supposed she would have to go back to Richmond eventually but could not imagine doing so. She hoped to remain in London forever. It was a pleasant fantasy and unlikely to ever come true.

  But, thanks to Terence’s imaginative correspondence, which made up in verbiage what it lacked in truthfulness, their parents assumed that she was living quietly in the house he rented on Guilford Street, near Queen Square. They had also been told that their son was interviewing prospective suitors by the score, that he permitted his sister to attend only the most sedate balls and afternoon assemblies, and that she was always in bed by nine.

  It seemed a great pity to disillusion them.

  But Josephine had no desire to live as she had in Richmond. In truth, she had been in danger of perishing from boredom before she came to London. She had answered her brother’s summons with joy, knowing that she could not endure one more twittering tea party with the other unmarried young women in her social circle, or devote another evening to the dreary art of cross-stitchery.

  Her life in London was free of such constraints, and Terence let her do as she pleased. In fact, she worried about him more than he worried about her.

  Her brother had become moody, given to maniacal bursts of energy that alternated with fits of gloom. She had no idea why, or what she might do to alleviate his mental misery. Perhaps he suffered from the strain of trying to do a hundred things at once.

  That was something else she did
not wish to explain to their parents. Her dear brother might yet succeed. He was certainly trying.

  Terence had told her that he had asked Lord York to invest in the theater and buy shares in the royal patent he himself had bought with borrowed money. The scheme was complex but perfectly legal. Nonetheless, Josephine did not understand how her brother could ever pay back what he already owed.

  Having to pay Lizzie Loudermilk’s outrageous salary in full and in advance had not helped matters. The star proved to be well able to negotiate a lucrative contract for herself, saying that she was no one’s fool. She’d sung for her supper as a young girl and no one got the better of Lizzie Loudermilk.

  Many of the lesser performers had been lured by the prospect of appearing on the same stage with Lizzie, hoping that her fame would rub off on them. They had not yet received their wages, Josephine knew. A throng of creditors was also awaiting payment. Fending them off with carefully phrased letters and endless promises was Jo’s job. And it was not the only one.

  She was also Lizzie’s understudy. Josephine had agreed to it only because no one had ever replaced the singer onstage. She never got sick. Jo’s reputation was safe enough.

  Jo turned the corner of the long corridor and headed down another one, tracing her fingertips along the rough brick wall, thinking.

  Lizzie was as famous for her robust constitution as she was for the beauty and remarkable power of her voice. She had listened to Jo sing, of course—she would not have accepted her as an understudy otherwise—and seemed much impressed by the purity of the younger woman’s soprano. But Lizzie had made it quite clear that she never, ever missed a performance and that Jo was not to get her hopes up.

  Jo did not care in the least. She loved to sing but she had no ambition to perform, and treading the boards was quite out of the question for a vicar’s daughter, anyway.

  She finally arrived at the door to Lizzie’s dressing room and knocked. “Miss Loudermilk?” she called. “May I come in?”