A Masque

32

A Masque

    “It is only,” said Mr Brentwood, leaning forward persuasively, “the merest little tableau in the midst of our humble masque. Non-speaking only, I do assure you, dear ladies. But charming, if I say so myself: charming! And perfectly, perfectly respectable: why, dear Lady Foote herself is honouring we humble players by appearing in the final tableau!” –Mr Brentwood had been very badly let down, very badly indeed, by three young actresses who obviously had no notion that that was not the way to get on in their chosen profession.

    The younger ladies were evidently very tempted. Nan, though trying not to laugh, was also very tempted: it would no doubt be great fun to take part in Mr Brentwood’s Angela In Arcady: A Musical Masque. The which sounded very odd indeed. Mr Brentwood himself had created the script, which included such items as Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” (Mr Everett), Prospero’s farewell (Mr Brentwood) and the “When you speak” speech from The Winter’s Tale, which Nan had admitted to herself she would give almost anything to see performed by the lugubrious Mr Everett in the guise of a youthful princeling! Parts such as that of “A Fayre Maiden”, “Two Amorous Young Persons”, “A Milkmayde”, “A Clown” (non-speaking) and, Nan had not quite dared to ask why, “A Comick Cooke” would be taken by members of Sir Jeremy Foote’s house party. “The Fayrie Queen” was to be played by Lady Foote herself. Non-speaking. Grandpa Brentwood was to appear as “A Rusticke”. Non-speaking: Mr Brentwood had privily confided to the ladies that it was not that he could not remember his lines, he was still capable of retaining a page of a part, but rather that speaking parts were generally recognised as deserving of higher remuneration in the Profession, and as the whole charge of Grandpa’s keep normally fell upon his humble but willing self— Added to which. a supply of baccy would really be of far more use to the old man than any spending money. Nan had not asked, though she had been very, very tempted, whether the other non-speaking parts were to receive remuneration in the form of baccy.

    The ladles avoided one another’s eyes. Eventually Cherry said in a squeak: “Um—what are the parts, Mr Brentwood?”

    “The Three Graces, Miss Chalfont. The most tasteful thing in the world, I do assure you! Classical, of course, but modest and charming!” Eagerly he opened the large portfolio he had brought with him and revealed a sketch of the costumes. They displayed a quantity of lower limb, cross-gartered with small vines, but as Classical draperies went, they were very modest, yes.

    “These are delightful sketches, Mr Brentwood,” said Ruth shyly.

    “Oh, yes!” breathed Cherry.

    Beaming and bowing, as much as was possible in a man of his girth from a seated position, Mr Brentwood acknowledged the compliment modestly. His own humble hand was that of the artist. If he said so himself, the script and the costuming were his forte, whereas Emmanuel Everett could not be bettered, where a masque was in question, for his tasteful and appropriate choice of music.

    “Does he perform?” asked Nan, unable to help herself.

    Emmanuel Everett, it appeared, performed most creditably upon the keyboard instruments, but in these circumstances it was generally his practice to honour the occasion with a song two, accompanying himself the while upon the mandolin. In the present piece, he would do so in his rôle as Harlequin.

    “Really?” cried Cherry excitedly. “How charming!”

    “I do not think I have ever heard a mandolin,” said Ruth uncertainly.

    “I can assure you that to hear Emmanuel Everett perform upon it is to hear a rare treat: a rare treat!” the actor-manager assured her.

    “It is such a pretty instrument, I have always thought!” agreed Cherry.

    “Yes,” Nan conceded weakly. This was becoming nigh irresistible! The lugubrious Mr Everett as a mandolin-playing, spangled, singing Harlequin?

    Ruth looked wistfully at the illustration of the three draped Graces. “I could not. What if someone recognized me?” she said sadly.

    Fortunately Mr Brentwood put this remark down to the modesty to be expected of a young lady of Miss Smith’s station in life, and duly congratulated her upon the sentiment. “But you would be masked, of course, my dear Miss Smith!” He turned to the next picture, which was a detailed illustration of one of the Grace’s heads. The mask was considerately elaborate, incorporating curled wings over the temples and a nose-piece. Silver. The actor-manager explained redundantly that the ribands of the costume picked up the silver theme.

    “Um...” said Nan, chewing on her lip.

    “Oh, do let us!” cried Cherry, clasping her hands and looking at her hopefully.

    “I own, I cannot see any harm in it,” agreed Ruth, her big eyes sparkling.

    “Um— Well,  eef the ladles of the house party are to be een eet…”

    “No-one could possibly recognise us, Nan!” urged Cherry.

    “No, but—um—I am persuaded that Sir Noël would disapprove most strongly,” Nan admitted reluctantly.

    Cherry’s mouth tightened. “He has nothing to say to it! And in any case he will never know: he is in Devon. Oh, do let us! I have never taken part in amateur theatricals. Uncle Ketteridge’s family is very fond of them, but Mother would never let— And this is to be a professional production!”

    Nan cleared her throat. “I am as tempted as you. But... Um, well, eet appears that a certain Royal personage weell be there.”

    “You said yourself that he was a sweet boy,” Cherry reminded her.

    “Mm. Um—well, eef Lady Foote ees to do eet, I do not see that we can be condemned for doing likewise.”

    Mr Brentwood, who knew a cue when he heard it, had silently turned back to the illustration of the Three Graces. Now he said artlessly: “White gauze.”

    “Nan, they are the prettiest dresses ever!” said Cherry fervently.

    “Oh, who cares! Yes: let us please ourselves for once, and do eet!” she cried.

    “Huzza!” cried Cherry, what time Ruth laughed and clapped her hands.

    So it was settled. Though Nan did make the proviso that they were not to do it as themselves, but as three substitute actresses. Rather puzzled, but too relieved to have his problem solved to wish to enquire further, Mr Brentwood acquiesced. And he and Emmanuel Everett would be vastly honoured to receive the three young ladies for rehearsal on the morrow, if it should be convenient.

    It was very convenient. It was then discovered that it would also be convenient for Cherry to take the part of “Clorinda, A Shepherdess.” With panniers. A mere half-dozen lines. Clorinda was not masked in the picture but Mr Brentwood quickly assured her that of course she would be. The suggestion of Pug Chalfont to take the place of the lamb in Mr Brentwood’s charming illustration was, however, vetoed in favour of a cunning wooden lamb devised by the talented Mr Everett himself.

    “Of course, Mr Brentwood. Though Pug might have worn his blue harness, with a blue bow,” said Cherry, looking wistfully at the lamb and its blue bow.

    “In any case, my dear Miss Chalfont, it would be in the nature of an anachronism. For a pug dog, you know, delightful as they are, is not the type of dog that would have herded sheep for an Arcadian shepherdess,” explained Mr Brentwood with immense tact.

    Cherry appeared quite mollified by this speech. So it was pretty clear that Mr Brentwood had her measure.

    Actually, reflected Nan guiltily as they waved him off in his hired trap, it was pretty clear that he had the measure of all of them! Oh, dear!

    “I think I have worked it out.” said Ruth gaily as the trap from the Underdene inn made its way along the coast road in the general  direction of Brighton. “Sir Jeremy Foote will have offered Mr Brentwood a lump sum for the performance, and the individual players will be paid out of it at Mr Brentwood’s discretion.”

    “Yes!” gasped Nan helplessly. “Hence the preference for remuneration in the form of baccy!”

    The three young ladies collapsed in giggles.

    ... “Now, pray solve this conundrum,” proposed Cherry as they turned inland towards Stamforth town, leaving the coast road to the Brighton traffic: “If we three be in the guise of players,”—Ruth gave a smothered splutter—“should not we be in receipt of remuneration for the parts we are to take? Wait,” she said, as they opened their mouths. “And if there is to be remuneration, should it be in the guise of coin of the realm, or—”

    “Baccy!” they screamed, all three forthwith collapsing in gales of giggles.

    “A solid-looking young fellow.” approved Mr Emmanuel Everett, looking the blushing Alfred up and down.—The ladies had not brought Richpal, it would have made them appear by far too particular.—“We could use him.”

    Alfred Weddle rolled an anguished eye at his mistress.

    “You may eef you weesh, Alfred,” said Nan weakly.

    “Thank you, me Lady! –Miss, I should say!” he gasped.—It had been enjoined upon Alfred Weddle most straitly that his mistress was to be “Miss Nan Black” for the duration of the masque, Miss Chalfont was to be “Miss Cherry Chypsley”—Cherry protesting with a gasp that it was the name of a famous great house, but being overborne—but that Miss Smith was to remain Miss Smith. The anomaly had not appeared to strike Alfred.—“Only I never done nothing like it, sir.”

    “All you will have to do, my fine young fellow„“ said Mr Everett, managing somehow to be both persuasive and lugubrious, “is to hold a spear in the one scene, and a lantern in the other.”

    Alfred looked dubious.

    “Alfred, you could do that!” urged Cherry. “What would he be required to wear, Mr Everett?”

    In order to bear the spear Alfred would need to dress as a Roman centurion.

    Alfred looked completely blank, so Cherry fetched Mr Brentwood’s portfolio.

    Alfred looked in horror at the Roman centurion’s exposed knees. “Me Lady— Miss, I should say, I couldn’t!”

    “I do not theenk we ought to persuade heem against hees weell,” said Nan as Cherry, Ruth and Mr Everett all opened their mouths. “Eef he weeshes to hold a spear, he may do so, but eet weell be een breeches.”

    “Thank you, me Lady—Miss,” said Alfred limply.

    “He cannot possibly wear breeches under a Roman centurion’s tunic,” said Ruth in a shaken voice. –Cherry was incapable of speech: she just gulped, and looked at Nan beseechingly.

    “Obviously not, no. He must be dressed as something else, eef you weesh heem to appear een that scene, Mr Everett.”

    Mr Everett turned pages dubiously. “This is a Gaul. It would not be a total anachronism, I suppose.”

    The Gaul was completely clad, the effect being achieved by enclosing him from head to toe in a sort of Pierrot costume, and cross-gartering the whole with strips of leather. In addition there was a broad leather belt and a sort of bandolier arrangement across the chest which supported several large daggers.

    Alfred consented to be a Gaul.

    Mr Everett had found the page illustrating the lantern bearers. They were, the ladies saw, peering at the page, “Attendant upon the Fayrie Queen.” Pretty much as might have been expected. He turned hastily past it. “Now, this might do. With a few minor adaptations.”

    The illustration showed a sort of Mediaeval knight. Though there were touches of the Roman in there, too. Especially around the breastplate.

    “Yes: you could wear breeches behind—well, under—these, um, pieces of armour, Alfred!” Nan encouraged him.

    Alfred agreed to be an armour-clad attendant upon the Fayrie Queen.

    “No, no, NO!” cried Mr Brentwood, artfully tearing his pomaded locks without actually laying a finger upon them.—The three newcomers eyed him in awed admiration.—“You are reclining—re-clin-ing, dear,” he said awfully—“upon a grassy mound. –Billy Quipp! Where is that CUSHION?” he boomed terribly. The chastened Billy Quipp, a tiny, thin fellow who appeared about fifteen years old until one got close and perceived the fine lines on his pale little face, scurried to retrieve the cushion from behind Mrs Lily Cornish’s back. The crushed-looking Miss Fever Falconrigg duly reclined upon it. –True, “Fever” was not an English forename. But on the other hand, “Falconrigg” was not the little ingénue’s true surname, either.

    And “Cornish” was not their leading lady’s true surname. Mrs Lily, indeed, did not even hail from the county in question, the which was just as well, for as Mr Brentwood had already confided, a provincial accent was all very well in a comic rôle, but not otherwise. Mrs Lily gave the impression of being as fresh and dewy as her name: a very white skin, touched with rose as to the cheeks; until one got very close and saw that it was largely paint, and that, though she took the heroine’s rôle in the masque, she could not be a day under forty years of age. The yellowness of the riotous curls was therefore entirely suspect. But Nan, at least, experienced considerable admiration for her: she had the figure of a girl of twenty, and she had, as she had already confided to the young ladies, trodden the boards all her life, earning her keep since she was five years old.

    Miss Fever Falconrigg reclined. Mr Emmanuel Everett took up a Romantick pose at her side, leaning on a crook with his ankles crossed. Miss Cherry Chypsley and Mr Corin Cowper (not his real name) took up Romantick supporting positions somewhat to the rear of the amorous pair, to the accompaniment of a certain amount of shouting from Mr Brentwood; Miss Chypsley’s lamb was brought, after more shouting, to the fore of where her panniered skirt would be; Mr Corin Cowper was shouted at for looking more like a loon than an amorous shepherd; and finally Mr Everett was allowed to speak the speech.

    “Oh, my goodness,” said Nan very softly at the end of it.

    Ruth was blinking and smiling. “That was the loveliest thing I ever heard!” she whispered.

    Nan just nodded mutely.

    On stage—or rather, on the area of floor representing the stage: they were not rehearsing in the ballroom of Lancewood Hall but in an empty barn on one of the farms belonging to the estate—Cherry was also blinking, and had whisked out a handkerchief.

    “No tears,” said Mr Brentwood sternly, wagging an admonitory finger.

    “It is not entirely inappropriate, Percy,” ventured Mrs Lily.

    “Lily, my love, perfect though you be, and unrivalled in the rôle of Desdemona, and I would say so before Mrs Siddons’s very face, are you a producer?” said Mr Brentwood with terrible sweetness.

    Mrs Lily shrugged, and fanned herself. A lesser woman, Nan owned silently to herself, would have burst into tears on the spot.

    “—No,” concluded Mr Brentwood with horrid geniality. “Miss Chypsley, there will be NO SNIFFLING on my stage!”

    “No,” whispered Cherry, with a wobbly smile. “I’m very sorry, sir.”

    Mr Corin Cowper, who was all of seventeen years of age, gave her a look of anguished support, but did not dare to speak.

    “This’ll be good, murmured Mrs Lily with a slight sniff.

    Mr Brentwood had discovered Alfred. “Ah! A fine, upstanding fellow!”

    Mr Everett began: “I’m already using him in some of my sce—”

    The battle raged up and down, and round about. The three novices looked in dismay towards the leading lady. Mrs Lily fanned herself unconcernedly, and produced a great pile of sandwiches wrapped in a napkin. “Beef and pickle. Help yourselves, pray.”

    Not without a wary glance at the two combatants, Nan promptly produced the basket which Rani had forced upon them. The actors fell upon these extra provisions, not even seeming to notice that they consisted of kitcheree-filled cold samosahs, cold cauliflower or potato pukkorahs, and quantities of plum chutney. With a plentiful supply of barfees, both pink and white.

    Most of the feast had vanished by the time it was settled that Alfred should continue in two of Mr Everett’s scenes but in addition should appear as a Mediaeval Squire (long robe adorned with a cross; breeches underneath) and as a Supporting Rusticke (smock, breeches) in two of Mr Brentwood’s scenes. It was fairly clear to his mistress that he did not understand why he was not immediately made to get into one of the costumes, but Nan admitted to herself that she did not have the strength even to attempt to explain.

    “This,” said Mr Brentwood sweetly to the cowering Mrs Hetty Pontifex, “is a rehearsal for lines and moves. LINES and moves!”

    The plump, middle-aged Mrs Hetty, to no-one’s surprise, really, burst into snorting tears.

    “Have a barfee, Mrs Cornish.” said Nan limply.

    “Most gracious,” replied Mrs Lily, taking one.

    ... “Get OFF!” shouted Mr Brentwood.

    Mr Corin Cowper, his lower lip wobbling, crept off.

    “What the Devil are you ABOUT, sir?” shouted Mr Brentwood. “Get ON, and take up your POSITION!”

    Tearfully Mr Cowper took up his position again.

    “Not THERE, you imbecile!”

    “I lay you five to one in sixpences, Miss B., that he bursts into tears afore the scene is through,” said Billy Quipp.

    “Don’t you take him, Miss Black!” said Mrs Lily hurriedly. “For ’tis a sure thing.”

    “Granted that he has burst into tears over every single one of his scenes since we started rehearsing, could one nevertheless not dare to hope that he has improved through experience?” sighed Mr Everett. He made an artful pause. “No,” he answered himself before anyone else could speak.

    Regrettably, Nan, Cherry and Ruth collapsed in giggles.

    “Silence in the HOUSE!" roared Mr Brentwood terribly, not turning his head.

    Nan clapped her hand over her mouth. Cherry gasped, and clapped both hands over hers. Ruth clapped a handkerchief over her mouth, but a few squeaks crept through.

    Twenty seconds later Mr Corin Cowper burst into tears on stage but no-one in the house, at least for the nonce, pointed out to the false Miss Black that she would have lost that bet.

    “Dare I enquire, Miss Chypsley, what that was supposed to be?” enquired Mr Brentwood sweetly, some considerable time later. They had “run”, which was not the word, right through the piece once. And started again.

    The cowering Cherry replied in a tiny voice: “A rustic accent. Mr Brentwood. I’m sorry.” –Muffled squeaks escaped certain of the non-speaking parts.

    “Just do—not—try,—dear,” said Mr Brentwood with horrible patience.

    “No,” agreed Cherry faintly.

    … “Pardon?” said Mr Brentwood, cupping a hand behind his ear.

    Very red, Mr Corin Cowper, in the unlikely guise of Pantaloon, shouted: “Nay, I prithee, good Harlequin, pursue not her, for the lady is the belov’d of His Grace the Duke in person!”

    “There’s no need to deafen me,” said Mr Everett lugubriously, emerging abruptly from his rôle of Harlequin. “I told you he should have taken Pierrot,” he said over the mark on the floor which indicated where the footlights might go.

    “The imbecile can’t do a SOMERSAULT, Emmanuel Everett, or had you FORGOTTEN?” replied his friend and producer.

     Mr Everett shrugged, and resumed his rôle of Harlequin.

    Five minutes later, when Billy Quipp somersaulted on expertly as Pierrot, Mr Brentwood was still not satisfied, however. Well, he shouted: “NO! How many TIMES do I have to TELL you, you imbecile?’ So it certainly appeared he was not satisfied.

    ... “Lud, I know not which way to turn!” fluted Mrs Lily Cornish in the role of “Mrs Angela Amourette, Belov’d of Harlequin” exactly as she had been told. “For if it be not he, and it be not he, yet it must not be he! Alack, I am the most unfortunate of women!”

    “NO!” shouted Mr Brentwood. “STOP!”

    Mrs Cornish shrugged, and stopped.

    ... “To be, or not to—”

    “WAIT!” shouted Mr Brentwood.

    Mr Everett shrugged, and waited.

    … “Prithee, sweet madam—” began Miss Fever Falconrigg in the persona of “Pierrette, & Confidante to Mrs Angela Amourette”.

     “Speak UP!” shouted Mr Brentwood.

    “PRITHEE, SWEET MA—”

    “NO!” screamed Mr Brentwood. “STOP!”

    Lip quivering, Miss Fever stopped.

    ... “I thought we decided that you would kneel, at this point, Everett?” said Mr Brentwood grimly, striding forward to the place where the footlights were supposed to be.

    “Look out.” muttered Mrs Hetty Pontifex out of the corner of her mouth.

    The three novices did not need the admonition. They waited, cringing, for the storm to pass.

    “It’ll be worse tomorrow,” said Mrs Lily Cornish with a wink as the shattered novices prepared to clamber into their borrowed trap.

    “What?” replied Cherry faintly.

    “The amateurs will be here. He always starts off,” said Mrs Lily confidentially, “very proper and humble. Lasts about five minutes, usual.”

    “Or less,” sighed Mrs Hetty Pontifex, fanning her plump face with her hand. “Depending on how clumsy they are on stage.”

    “Get een and sit down, Alfred,” said Nan kindly as the footman staggered up to them. “You must not stand on the step, you look exhausted.”

    “Bright and early tomorrow, mind!” said Mrs Lily with a laugh. She appeared quite energetic still, though as her paint was much streaked and run, it would not have been true to say she looked fresh. The plump, red-faced Mrs Hetty appeared neither fresh nor energetic. Mr Everett was as pale and lugubrious as ever: you would never have guessed from his demeanour that the day had been anything out of the ordinary. But then, in his chosen profession perhaps it had not been.

    “’Oo the Devil are they, Percy?” the leading lady demanded, two minutes after the trap had jolted round a bend in the lane which led to the barn.

    “Ladies who wish to remain incognita,” said the actor-manager firmly.

    Mrs Lily tried her not inconsiderable best, but got no more out of him.

    “But how many are there?” asked Captain the Honourable Charles Burns in bewilderment.

    Cherry laughed. “It is confusing, is it not? For they all play several parts, you see!”

    Captain the Honourable Charles nodded numbly. The professionals were half in costume today, and more or less masked when the plot demanded it—the which did nothing to clarify the plot’s ramifications for the non-speaking parts.

    “Mr Brentwood, Mr Everett, Mr Cowper and Mr Quipp,” said Cherry, ticking them off on her fingers, “play all the male speaking parts between them; and Grandpa Brentwood walks on as a rustic, and our footman is also walking on;”—Captain the Honourable Charles nodded numbly; he had not heretofore encountered young actresses who kept a footman, but no doubt everything was possible—and, certainly, within Mr Brentwood’s orbit nothing seemed impossible—“and Mrs Lily Cornish, Mrs Hetty Pontifex and Miss Fever Falconrigg take all the speaking female rôles.”

    “Plus yourself,” said Captain the Honourable Charles respectfully.

    “Well. yes! But I have barely half a dozen lines, and to tell the truth I have never before appeared upon a stage!” said  Cherry, laughing.

    “I see! You are doing it for a jest!” the percipient Captain realised.

    “Um—well, yes,” said Cherry, recollecting herself and casting a wary glance in the direction of where Nan and Ruth were trying unavailingly to bind up each other’s hair in the approved Classical style. “Something very like that!”

    Captain the Honourable Charles informed her admiringly she was not half game.

    Cherry smiled guiltily, reflecting not for the first time that Nan had been perfectly correct in saying that Sir Noël would not approve of her appearing in the masque. It was not that Sir Jeremy Foote’s male quests were not all behaving themselves—now. Mr Brentwood had had to speak very firmly, nay, very strongly on the matter, however. The Comick Cooke, in particular, had waxed most familiar with both Mrs Lily Cornish and Miss Nan Black.

    “I could help you with your part,” the Captain then offered.

    “Um—well, yes; thank you,” said Cherry feebly.

    Eagerly he took her script. Eagerly he read out the parts of “Bertram, a Shepherd” (normally, Mr Corin Cowper) and Harlequin (Mr Everett). Both of whom were in this scene vying for the favours of the fair Clorinda, regardless of the fact that Harlequin, who of course was not Harlequin at all but a high-born personage in disguise, was nominally in love with Mrs Angela Amourette.

     Miss Ruth Smith, meanwhile, had struck the fancy of a rather older gentleman. The question of the other two Graces’ hair having been competently settled by Mrs Hetty, who could turn her hand to most tasks related to hair, make-up and wardrobe in the theatre, as she complacently informed the grateful pair, the older gentleman rapidly sequestered Miss Smith on a convenient sofa—they were still in the barn, but Sir Jeremy had sent a waggonload of comforts with the members of his house party—and embarked on an entrancing guessing-game.

    “Let me see! Not a Gratton-Gordon?”

    “No,” said Ruth faintly. She did not know many people in Society, but as Lady Hubert Gratton-Gordon had presented her the preceding year this was one name with which she was familiar. And then, Papa was close friends with a Mr and Mrs Gratton-Gordon. –The innocent Ruth of course had no notion of just how closely acquaint Lord Curwellion was with Mrs Gratton-Gordon.

    “But you have a look of— Er—no,” said the older gentleman somewhat lamely as he recollected the precise parentage of the Gratton-Gordon daughter in question.

    “Truly I am Miss Smith, sir!” said Ruth on a desperate note.

    He laughed a little, took her hand lightly in his, and just touched it to his lips. “Of course you are. my dear, and quite charming, too!”

    Mrs Lily Cornish had been eyeing this scene askance. “’Ere, Percy, do something, for the Lord’s sake, or it’ll be tears before bedtime. Or very shortly thereafter,” she said grimly in the actor-manager’s ear.

    “Eh? –Damnation,” he muttered, following the direction of Mrs Lily’s artfully flicked fan. “Uh—well, you do something, Lily. Draw him orf.”

    Mrs Cornish snorted. “That one don’t fancy your ripened peach, Percy, more like your half-opened little bud!”

    “Er—yes. But you could speak to him.”

    “Piker.” Mrs Cornish wandered over to the pair, a naughty gleam in her eye. “Lud! I declare, ’tis never yourself, Edenlyn!”

    Lord Edenlyn rose politely, “Certainly; but I think you have the advantage of me, ma’am?”

    Mrs Lily laughed coyly. “Lud, sir! Me, have the advantage of you? Twenty year agone it was quite t’other way! And little Ruthie, here, is the living proof of it! Do you not think she has quite a look of myself at that age? We call her Smith, for Mr Cornish never would recognize her, the mean-minded thing that he was! And as you  see, she has followed me into the theatrical profession. –What, have you forgotten your little Lily Cornish, sir?”

    “Er...” Lord Edenlyn looked limply from Mrs Lily’s teasing face to Ruth’s very pink one, decided discretion was the better part, and made his escape.

    “Thank you, dear Mrs Cornish!” gasped Ruth in relief.

    “Well, I suppose it was a considerable liberty, my dear, with a young lady like yourself,” conceded Mrs Cornish, seating herself beside her and charitably fanning her with her battered black fan. “But it worked, dinnit?”

    Miss Nan Black had fallen into the evil clutches of a Mr Peter Sotheby. She had a fair notion he was the younger brother of that Colonel Sotheby who had loaned them Sunny Bay House, but refrained from mentioning the point.

    “You’re in my evil clutches, y’know,” Mr Peter informed her, leering.

    She gave a choked giggle. “Stop that, you naughty theeng!”

    “Dash it, I shall have to,” said Mr Peter ruefully as his Calibanesque hirsute garment became entangled with the entwined silver ribands and vines on the Grace’s upper-arm.

    After a lot of giggling, admonitions to stand still, and such like, the pair became disentangled.

    “That was not half good,” admitted Mr Peter.

    “Rubbeesh. You are vairy naughty,” said Nan severely.

    Highly encouraged, Mr Peter attempted to slip an arm round her waist.

    “For Heaven’s sake keep that rug away from me, or we shall have to be married tonight!” cried Nan.

    Mr Peter broke down in a sniggering fit, but conceded when he was more or less over it: “I should not half mind that, Miss Black!”

    “Pooh,” said Nan, attempting to frown. She walked away from him and sat down in the relative safety of the neighbourhood of Mr Emmanuel Everett in the nether garments and mask of Harlequin, though with his own grey waistcoat over his shirtsleeves, and a nodding Grandpa Brentwood in his rustic smock.

    “I perceive I shall have to call that fellow out,” said Mr Everett lugubriously.

    “Almost, sir!” said Nan with a smothered giggle.

    Mr Everett did not permit himself to smile, but his long narrow mouth twitched very, very faintly.

    “Frankly, I was beginning to doubt we’d ever see it before the performance,” Mrs Lily admitted as the company of players was at last ushered into the ballroom of Lancewood Hall.

    Nan nodded mutely.

    “Mind you, it’s always like that with these fine lords and ladies: they are eager enough to secure one’s professional services, you understand, but then when one arrives it is five guineas to a groat one will be treated like dirt.”

    Nan nodded again and squeezed the actress’s hand sympathetically.

    “Aye; lucky to be offered a sup of porter in the servants’ hall after the show,” agreed Mrs Hetty on a sour note.

    “Lucky, indeed; I have played in grand houses where you are shown the door the minute the curtain comes down,” noted Mr Everett.

    “They could not be so rude and inconsiderate!” cried Cherry distressfully.

    Mr Everett shrugged slightly, Mrs Lily sniffed, and Mrs Hetty warned: “Wait and see.”

    “I knowed a girl, well, she was given a shillin’ for dancing for some fine ladies and then it turned out to be a bad ’un,” contributed little Miss Fever Falconrigg mournfully.

    The three young ladies looked at the slender little ingénue with great sympathy, but Mrs Hetty cried robustly; “A bad shilling? She did ought to have knowed better than to have took it! And lucky she was the ladies did not turn out to be bad ’uns!”

    Little Miss Fever looked puzzled; Mrs Lily Cornish, shooting a look at the faces of Miss Cherry Chypsley and Miss Ruth Smith, perceived they were likewise, and giving a warning cough, turned the subject.

    … “Take—them—OFF, SIR!” shouted Mr Brentwood.

    Grinning unrepentantly, the Comick Cooke removed the hairy leggings that were rightly part of the Calibanesque costume allotted to Mr Peter Sotheby and handed them over to him.

    “Amateurs,” said Mr Corin Cowper, not quite under his breath, with a sniff.

    Cherry smiled, nodding agreement. Mr Corin went bright puce and was incapable of speech. Fortunately this was not a scene in which it was required of him.

    … “Over there, if you please, ladies,” said Mr Brentwood with heavy courtesy.

    Giggling terrifically, the four ladies of the house party who had volunteered to be the Chorus of Attendant Fayries got themselves, their trailing draperies and their wobbly wings more or less over there.

    ... “Not there, if you please, sir,” said Mr Brentwood with horrible, grim courtesy.

    Grinning cheerfully, Mr Peter Sotheby got himself more or less into position.

    … “Duke! Duke! DUKE!” bellowed Mr Brentwood unavailingly. “Where is the fellow?” he demanded in exasperation.

    The Comick Cooke replied cheerfully: “Was that the costume with the whatsit for the head? Coronet or some such?”

    “Yes,” said Mr Brentwood through his teeth.

    “Oh, that was Edenlyn, think he changed his mind,” he said breezily. “Dare say one of these could play it.”

    Managing to blench only slightly at the thought of any of the assortment of Alfred Weddle, Mr Corin Cowper and Grandpa Brentwood playing the Duke—a non-speaking rôle but the Iinchpin of his entire plot—Mr Brentwood replied with horrible restraint: “I am afraid that would not fit in with their other rôles, sir. Perhaps you would care to venture upon it yourself? It requires someone with presence.”

    “There you are, Hatters, old lad: presence!” choked Mr Peter.

    Mr Hattersby-Lough grinned, but said: “Thanks awfully and all that, Brentwood, but I know me limitations. I always do a comic cook.”

    As he was Sir Jeremy Foote’s first cousin, Mr Brentwood sighed, but did not insist.

    “I have it!” said Peter Sotheby merrily. “Young Charles! He ain’t in this scene.”

    “Got no presence,” said Mr Hattersby-Lough, shaking his head.

    “How true,” noted Emmanuel Everett faintly.

    “Shove him in a purple cloak or something: the audience won’t care,” said Mr Peter breezily.

    Mr Brentwood breathed deeply through flared nostrils, but managed to concede: “It will have to be he, there is no other resource. Where is he?”

    After some time Captain the Honourable Charles was disinterred from a small alcove where he had gone to sleep on a sofa, disentangled from his toga, and forced into the ducal coronet and cloak. Mr Brentwood looked at the result glumly.

    “Beard, Percy,” suggested the lugubrious Mr Everett.

    “There is nothing else for it,” agreed the actor-manager heavily.

    Brightening, Captain the Honourable Charles cried: “A false beard? What fun!”

    “The acting profession, sir, is not ‘fun’,” said Mr Everett with immense gloom.

    “Er—no. Apologies, and all that,” he muttered, very taken aback.

    Mr Everett did not permit himself to smile, but his long, narrow mouth twitched very, very faintly.

    “I like heem so much!” said Nan with a laugh as they drove back towards Sunny Bay.

    “Mr Everett?” replied Cherry, smiling. “Yes, I thought you would! One does not, perhaps, seize his essence just at first.”

    “No, but then one realizes that underneath, he ees mocking more than half the time!” said Nan pleasedly.

    “Yes, indeed,” agreed Ruth, with something like awe. “I near to died when he removed Grandpa Brentwood’s hat for him when Lady Foote looked in upon us!”

    “Mm. That,” said Nan, her shoulders shaking, “appears to be one of hees favourite treecks.”

    “Yes!” squeaked Cherry ecstatically.

    The three young ladies collapsed in giggles.

    Mr Perseus Brentwood’s rendition of Prospero’s farewell to his craft had gone over very well—very well indeed. The gratified actor-manager accepted three rounds of applause and a small bouquet proffered by a curtseying minor Attendant Fayrie in ringlets and gauze whom Mrs Lily had airily acknowledged as “My Hermy, young ladies.”

    Miss Hermy Cornish presented a most youthful appearance indeed and was, as the intrigued Nan privily ascertained from Mrs Hetty, not yet eight years of age. And had been upon the boards since her cradle, having made her first appearance as the infant in an affecting melodrama, The Abandoned Child, from the inspired pen of Mr Brentwood himself, when scarce three month old. The late Mr Cornish, Nan had by now been reliably informed, had seen his final curtain some twelve years since. Oh, well!

    Mr Brentwood’s genius having led him to insert Prospero’s speech towards the end of his first act, the masque was by now but a third of the way through its progress. After a short dance to the tune of what the script described as a “merrie roundel”, possibly unsuited to a cast of mixed Romans, Gauls, and Shakespearian fairy folk, but never mind, the curtain was lowered by a pair of sweating footmen.

    “What was all that about?” said Wilfred Rowbotham numbly to his host.

    Sir Jeremy Foote ceased clapping. “No idea, dear fellow. Fun, though, don’t you think?”

    The genial Sir Jeremy’s Thespian entertainments were generally considered great fun by all those who attended them—the more so since customarily before, during and after them the iced champagne flowed liberally—but Mr Rowbotham had not hitherto been exposed. “Er—absolutely,” he agreed numbly.

    “Old Peter looked dashed impressive in that hearthrug!” continued the jovial baronet happily.

    “Er—mm. Rather,” Mr Rowbotham agreed, faint but pursuing.

    “Wilf, old man, the whole thing’s a jest!” explained his little brother kindly.

    Mr Rowbotham cast Mr Shirley a look of pure dislike. “I know that, thanks. All I’m sayin’ is, what were it about? What was the fat fellow in the green wig doin’ on that—uh—was that an island? And how did the Roman fellow fit in?”

    Mr Shirley met their host’s eye and collapsed in sniggers. “Don’t—ask—me!”

    Scowling, Mr Rowbotham hunched himself into his programme.

    “That will not enlighten you, I fear, Wilf, mon cher,” said Henri-Louis kindly.

    “No!” gasped Mr Shirley.

    “Have a drink, Wilf,” continued the Prince kindly.

    “I shall have a drink, certainly, thank you, Henri-Louis,” said Mr Rowbotham with immense dignity. “But I shall get to the bottom of: this damned masquerade or die in the attempt.”

    “Then we shall have to bury you in the Arcadian wood!” gasped Henri-Louis, collapsing in sniggers.

    Mr Shirley peered over his shoulder. “Lor’, so there is! I say, look, Wilf: ‘Act Two. Scene, An Arcadian Wuh-Wood!’“ He collapsed in sniggers. His close friend, one Mr Lucius Valentine, generally addressed as “Val” by those who had been up at Oxford at the period that that great institution of higher learning had been distinguished by Mr Valentine’s presence, also collapsed in sniggers.

    Mr Rowbotham rose, looking horribly dignified, and walked away from them.

   Sir Jeremy having excused himself politely to see to his other guests, Mr Shirley and Mr “Val” Valentine looked sideways at Henri-Louis.

    “Eugh—hé bien, oui,” he admitted.

    “Lord, I say, so it is her?” gasped Mr Val.

    “Those shoulders are unmistakeable, out of course it is the Portuguese Widow,” said Mr Shirley with relish. “And what is more,” he said, lowering his voice cautiously, with a glance in the direction his brother had taken: “that little dark slip what was standing next her was Noël Amory’s fiancée!”

    “Thought you said they wasn’t actually engaged, Shirley?” said Mr Val foggily.

    “Go to sleep again,” advised Mr Shirley brutally.

    Mr Val remained unmoved.

    “Shirley, dear fellow, are you quite sure?” asked Henri-Louis. “Because it seems to me that I heard that Miss C.’s mother had lately died.”

    There was a disconcerted silence.

    “Shirley’ll be wrong,” summed up Val.

    “I ain’t,” he said obstinately. “That is Miss C. Dainty figure, soft black curls. Supposed to be in mourning or not.”

    They both looked expectantly at His Highness.

    “I tend to agree, Shirley,” said the Prince reluctantly. “Though Amory is not in mourning.”

    “You can say that again, sir!” agreed Mr Valentine with feeling.

    They looked across the ballroom to where Sir Noël, very much not in mourning, was in close attendance upon Lady Hartington-Pyke...

    There was little time for conversation amongst the players during the first interval: the echoes of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream which the more literate of the audience had already discerned in the plot gave way, though not definitively, to echoes of The Winter’s Tale, and Mr Brentwood had consequently to metamorphose from the Prospero persona (greenish beard and hair, long greenish robes, and an eerie, greenish and very elaborate make-up) into “Leon, A Neighbouring King, True Father to the Fayre Mrs Angela” (in silvering black curls, black beard, and long crimson and white robes).

    Mr Everett had likewise to discard the persona of a nobleman disguised as Harlequin disguised as a Roman of definite republican leanings though with several of Antony’s speeches from assorted sources (duly discerned by the more literate of the audience, whether ecstatically or unbelievingly) in favour of that of “Colin, an Arcadian Shepherd” (and another disguise of Harlequin’s). For this he assumed an artistic lace-trimmed shirt, pink silken breeches liberally beribboned at the knees, and a rustic wide-skirted waistcoat of creamy chamois leather. –It was not, in actual fact, but a much-rubbed, once-white velvet which according to Mr Brentwood gave the appearance of creamy chamois under the stage lights. No-one had dared to contradict this opinion. Mr Everett customarily brightened it up a little by pinning some knots of pink and yellow ribbon to its breast and by slinging an entrancing little leathern bag on a strap over its shoulder.

    Two of the three novices had but little to do during this interval; they had all already gone on in the Graces’ costumes, not precisely as these three Classical personages, but vaguely in attendance during the Roman and Gaulish scenes: it was not to have been expected that, having secured his non-speaking substitute actresses, Mr Brentwood would let them off with but a single appearance. Cherry, however, had to divest herself of the draped gauze with its artfully entwined silver ribands and vines, and get into the panniers of Clorinda. Not to mention completely change the arrangement of her hair. Two cramped little rooms at the back of the ballroom had been allotted the actors for dressing, so they hurried thither.

    Clorinda’s dress consisted largely of a yellow petticoat giving the appearance of having been embroidered with pink roses and sprays of green leaves: at close range these latter revealed themselves as green paint, and the roses were pieces cut out of some pink brocade and roughly stitched on; but, as Mr Brentwood had earlier pointed out with some asperity, in the theatre appearance was all, and might he venture to remind the young ladies of the phrase “poetic licence?” Over this petticoat was draped and looped, after the fashion of the last century, the skirt: a bright blue taffety. One might have expected the laced bodice, after the fashion of the last century, to have been of this stuff also. It was blue, but in a rubbed velvet of a rather darker shade. Ruth had wondered with a smothered giggle whether this were poetic licence or merely the appearance of it, but no-one had dared to say any such thing in front of Mr Brentwood. The bodice lacked sleeves, but the collection of large trunks which had accompanied Mr Brentwood from the metropolis had yielded a pair which very nearly matched the petticoat: yellow, with small blue flowers. Mrs Hetty had kindly sewn some ribbons onto both sleeves and bodice. The effect was very pretty. It was true that Cherry had at first been worried because sections of her upper-arms were visible where bodice and sleeves did not meet but Mr Everett had assured her with the utmost solemnity that in the first instance, this would not be visible over the footlights, and that in the second, it was very much in the style of the last century. Even though Cherry believed herself to have seized the actor’s essence she did not perceive the lurking twinkle in his cool grey eyes, and thanked him sincerely for the assurance.

    High-heeled, buckled shoes, a beribboned crook and of course the wheeled lamb accompanied the costume and, having conscientiously practised with these accoutrements, Cherry now felt as confident about her first speaking appearance upon the boards as any young ingénue about to make her début could do.

    The company’s own ingénue, by contrast, was in a state of complete placidity. Mrs Hetty had already murmured in Nan’s ear that this denoted a lack of flair, and Nan could not but agree, in her heart of hearts: even in the wake of assiduous coaching by both Mr Brentwood and Mr Everett, Miss Fever Falconrigg spoke her lines flatly and without inspiration. She looked, however, very dainty and pretty: she was a pink and white shepherdess, where Cherry was yellow and blue, and to boot had a charming chip hat after the style of the last century, with long floating pink ribands. Without her stage make-up she was a washed-out, unremarkable little thing, but, as Mrs Hetty had explained to the intrigued young ladies, she had one attribute, at least, of your true artiste: she made up good.

    Mrs Lily, being already a very pretty person, metamorphosed into something quite astoundingly beautiful as Mrs Angela Amourette. And youthful. Mrs Angela in this act had, for reasons which the ladies had not been able to determine, gone astray in the Arcadian wood discovered in the programme by Henri-Louis, thereupon encountering in a pastoral glade the afore-mentioned pastoral personalities.

    Plus Mr Corin Cowper as the shepherd, Bertram. He was very pretty also, in a lace-edged shirt and silken breeches of palest blue. His waistcoat was merely tan leather, but very skirted. And he had a very pastoral, wide-brimmed hat.

    Privately, however, all three ladies considered this charming sight could not hold a candle to the wonderful fair curls of Mr Everett as Colin, just loosely gathered in at his neck with a blue riband, and with the odd one or two falling round his face. Not one of the young ladies thought of Prince Pom-Pom’s wig for so much as an instant, as the sight of Mr Everett in Arcadian dress first struck their bedazzled eyes.

    Mr Corin Cowper, it must be admitted, could not assume the requisite pose as the shepherd Bertram: ankles crossed, leaning on his crook. He had kept tumbling over. So Mr Brentwood had fallen back upon a less Arcadian stance for him: one hand on the crook, the other on the hip, drawing the waistcoat back negligently. Mr Cowper had fallen violently in love with “Miss Cherry Chypsley” the instant he set eyes on her. Unfortunately this emotion in the young player did not by any means improve his performance. The more so as, though eventually Bertram was to win the hand of the lovely blue shepherdess, thus making, as certain ecstatic eyes had already silently observed, a perfect Dresden pair, in the earlier part of this act he was supposed, through an unfortunate conjunction of circumstances involving a magic juice from a certain flower, in the which plot device the influence of A Midsummer Night’s Dream might again be discerned, to be under the sway of a violent passion for the lovely Mrs Angela Amourette.

    “A lesser man than I,” concluded the lugubrious Mr Everett as they came off after the first Arcadian scene, “would knock your pretty teeth down your pretty throat for you, my lad.”

    Poor Mr Cowper goggled at him numbly. “Sir, what did I—”

    “Nothing,” replied Mr Everett grimly. “If it be nothing to stand like a stock with your mouth half open and your glassy eyes firmly fixed on the wrong shepherdess throughout the scene! In fact, it was cursed difficult to tell the difference between you and that wooden lamb. Equally glazed and equally incapable of communicating any emotion whatsoever.” He walked away from him, audibly grinding his teeth.

    Mr Cowper goggled after him numbly.

    ... “Charmin’,” approved Sir Jeremy loudly, slowly surveying Clorinda through his quizzing glass. At his side, Henri-Louis smiled weakly. That was definitely Miss Chalfont.

    The second act wound on its tortuous way. Scenes changed rapidly, the signal that the setting was now another part of the Arcadian wood entirely generally being the presence or absence of a large painted bush. Certain members of the audience fell into a rollicking mood, greeting each appearance of this bush with loud cheers. On stage, the shepherd Bertram became momentarily convinced he was a bear and crawled round the stage an all fours under a rug, with Pierrot leading him on a string. One or two of the audience noted: “What, no ass’s head?” in tones of loud disappointment, but this lapse of taste was generally ignored.

    Having deserted his broken reed of a brother in favour of his old friend, Mr Rowbotham was enabled to announce loudly: “I have it, Noël!”

    “Go away, Wilf,” sighed Sir Noël, his attention once again on Lady Hartington-Pyke rather than the stage.

    Ignoring this, Mr Rowbotham announced proudly: “What it is, you see, that fellow is under a spell. He’ll turn back into himself, pretty soon.”

    Young Mr Edward Claveringham, who had, with what was felt by the onlookers to have been misplaced optimism, seated himself on Lady Hartington-Pyke’s other side, objected: “Thought it was a potion, rather than a spell?”

    “The potion has created the spell,” explained Mr Rowbotham carefully.

    Even though his attention was on Lady Hartington-Pyke, Sir Noël choked slightly. Lady Hartington-Pyke, with a smothered giggle, begged Mr Edward to explain the plot to her.

     Much gratified, he proceeded to do so. “What it is, you see, see, Lady H., there is this fellow what is dressed up as Harlequin for a masquerade.”

    “Eh?” said Mr Rowbotham.

    “And he affects the woman in the pink—well, she ain’t on stage just at the moment, don’t mean the little shepherdess—pretty, ain’t she?—but t’other pink woman.”

    “So why is he pursuing the pink shepherdess?” demanded Mr  Rowbotham on a cross note.

    “Uh…”

    Sir Noël sighed and raised his quizzing glass. “How many pink women are there supposed to be?” he asked in a bored voice.

    “Never mind that, Amory!” said Mr Edward briskly. “The thing is, you see, ma’am, that the Harlequin is really a nobleman, he may even be a prince or some such, and mark my words, he will have the pink woman in the end!” He beamed at Lady Hartington-Pyke.

    “So will he not have the little pink shepherdess as an hors d’oeuvre?” she said sadly.

    Sir Noël choked.

    “Uh—no. Well, dare say not. Well, may do,” replied Mr Edward, somewhat disconcerted.

    “It is my bet that the fellow in the blue breeches will have her,” announced Mr Rowbotham across Sir Noël and Lady Hartington-Pyke.

    “Rubbish, Wilf!” returned Mr Edward heatedly. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face that the blue breeches will have the blue shepherdess!”

    Sir Noël choked again. He surveyed the pink shepherdess slowly through his quizzing glass. “Dainty,” he murmured.

    “The corset will be pushin’ her up some,” allowed Mr Rowbotham.

    “Mm.” Slowly Sir Noël surveyed Miss Fever Falconrigg again. Top to toe. And toe to top.

    Seeing that Lady Hartington-Pyke was for the moment totally engrossed in Mr Edward’s explanation of who that fat fellow with the ermine on his cloak had really been, Mr Rowbotham murmured into his old friend’s ear: “Small handfuls, but dashed neat ones.”

    “Er—yes,” conceded Sir Noël.

    “Though they can be dashed disappointin’,” he added, shaking his head sadly.

    “Eh?” said Sir Noël, his jaw dropping.

    “What? Oh! Not them, as such, dear fellow! No; actresses. What I mean is, one gets close and sees it is all paint. Had a dreadful disappointment once,” he revealed. shaking his head again. “On stage she was as pretty as nothin’. Well, very much in the style of that girl. Dainty. White skin, so forth. Red curls.” He sighed deeply.

    “And?” said Sir Noël languidly, again eyeing Miss Fever and ignoring the fact that Pierrot, to shouts of laughter from the audience, was at the precise moment making the “bear” dance.

    “It were all paint,” revealed Mr Rowbotham glumly.

    “Mm? Oh: freckles?”

    “Freckles? They was more like—” Words failed Mr Rowbotham.

    “Blotches?” suggested Sir Noël in a bored voice.

    “Worse.”

    “Splotches?”

    “Worse,” said Mr Rowbotham, frowning.

    “Er—patches?”

    “Be silent, Noël, you is the most unsympathetic personality what I have ever encountered!” replied Mr Rowbotham, hunching into himself.

    “Do not tease our poor dear Wilf, Sir Noël!” said Lady Hartington-Pyke gaily. “Mr Edward maintains that the gentleman who is a bear will have the little blue shepherdess in the end, and that poor Harlequin will have to fall back upon the lady in the pink. What do you think?”

    “Falling back upon that would not be altogether an unpleasant sensation,” he murmured, eyeing Miss Fever.

    “Not that, you naughty boy!” she trilled, vastly amused. “No, the other pink one.”

    “There ain’t another pink one, ma’am,” said Sir Noël formally.

    For mysterious reasons Lady Hartington-Pyke went into choked hysterics.

    When she was over them Sir Noël noted, under cover of the turmoil upon the stage as Grandpa Brentwood in his smock, Mrs Hetty as a Cottager’s Wife in bonnet and shawl, and Mr Brentwood himself very temporarily as a Miller, all tried to drag the bear off, Pierrot meanwhile trying to keep him on: “There ain’t a blue one, neither: did someone say there was a blue one?”

    “Aye, dainty as you please,” said Mr Rowbotham on a note of deep gloom. “Most delightful little morsel I have seen this many a long year.”

    “Well, where the Devil is she?” demanded Sir Noël gaily.

    “She will be behind that bush,” noted Mr Edward sapiently, leaning forward across Lady Hartington-Pyke.

    Forthwith Lady Hartington-Pyke gave a shriek and collapsed in hysterics again.

    On stage Mrs Hetty as a Milkmayde and one of the lady guests as a Second Milkmayde, closely followed by Mrs Angela Amourette, the pink shepherdess and the blue shepherdess, all under the temporary influence of the magic flower, chased Pantaloon round and round the stage under the impression that he was in actual fact Harlequin, and were in their turn pursued by Harlequin, still in the guise of the shepherd, Colin, but trying to persuade them he was himself, or at least not himself, but the Harlequin persona.

    Under cover of this turmoil Mr Leonard Brinsley-Pugh said in tolerant tones: “Go on, then, Edenlyn, which one was it?”

    Lord Edenlyn cleared his throat, and Mr Aloysius Brinsley-Pugh, who was Mr Leonard’s nephew and considered by some of the company as too young to be there at all, promptly collapsed in giggles.

    “Lay you a pony it were the blue gal,” drawled Lord Geddings.

    His friend Captain Postlethwaite immediately replied: “Done. My money’s on the little pink filly.”

    Geddings raised his quizzing glass and scrutinized Miss Fever—at the moment running after Pantaloon with loud screams, pink ribands flying—with minute attention. “The pink one don’t strike me as the type to turn him down, Freddy.”

    Freddy Postlethwaite collapsed in horrible sniggers.

    “Go on, Edenlyn: which?” urged Mr Leonard Brinsley-Pugh.

    His Lordship replied, trying to sound airy: “She ain’t on stage at the moment. And it were nothing: I merely—”

    “Not the one in the yellow?” said Lord Geddings hopefully. –Mrs Angela Amourette was now out of the pink and in yellow. Even though by all the laws of the three unities she probably should not have been.

    “Too old for Edenlyn,” said Captain Postlethwaite definitely, shaking his head.

    “Look, whatever story that fool Charles Burns may have told you imbeciles—” began Lord Edenlyn, rather loudly.

    “No,” said Mr Leonard definitely, shaking his head. “Weren’t him.”

    “Very well, then: that ass Peter Sotheby.”

    “Weren’t him, neither.”

    “Yes, it was, Len!” objected Geddings in surprise.

    “May have told you, yes. Weren’t him as told me, it were old Hatters.”

    “I care not if it were Hattersby-Lough or Sotheby, they are both asses!” said Lord Edenlyn, rather loudly.

    “So which one were it?” pursued Mr Leonard.

    Sighing, Lord Edenlyn replied heavily: “One of the—uh—Classical ladies.”

    Lord Geddings began: “Well, ain’t the little blue—”

    “Wait, Geddings!” said Captain Postlethwaite tensely. “Never tell me you was tryin’ to lay siege to the Portuguese Widow, Edenlyn!”

    “She must be at least twenty-one, ain’t that too old for him?” said Geddings in a confused voice.

    Mr Aloysius Brinsley-Pugh collapsed in giggles again.

    “It was— There, that one,” said Lord Edenlyn as, Classical draperies roughly covered by homespun cloaks, Ruth and Nan ran on and joined the screaming train of females pursuing Pantaloon.

    ‘Yes, well, that is the Portuguese Widow!” cried Captain Postlethwaite. “Are you mad, Edenlyn? Don’t you know she’s down here on the Sussex coast at Stamforth’s express command? Give it up, for the Lord’s sake, unless you wish to be spitted like the Christmas goose!”

    “No, the pistol is his weapon, Freddy,” Lord Geddings reminded him.

    The friends’ eyes met. Grinning, they raised their hands to their heads, described sweeping parabolas and produced the obligatory whistles. Mr Aloysius Brinsley-Pugh collapsed in giggles again, closely followed by his uncle.

    “Very amusing,” said Lord Edenlyn feebly.

    “It ain’t a joke, entirely, Edenlyn,” admitted Captain Postlethwaite, ceasing to grin. “Lewis Vane—Stamforth, I should say—is  a dead shot, y’know.”

    “Very like. But imprimis, I was not aware that she is the Portuguese Widow—”

    “That don’t count!”

    “Secundus,” he continued, ignoring the Captain, “I have not addressed a word to her, and—”

    “That don’t necessarily—”

    “And tertius, if you are worried about Stamforth’s calling anybody out, you had best express your concern to Peter Sotheby.”

    After a slightly disconcerted moment, the Captain said keenly: “Ah! So it were the other one? Little slip of a thing?”

    “Y— No!” he said in annoyance. “I barely spoke to her!”

    “It were her, Geddings,” decided the Captain wisely.

    Oddly, Mr Aloysius Brinsley-Pugh here collapsed in giggles yet again.

    How the story of Lady Benedict’s having come into Sussex on Lord Stamforth’s account had arisen, none of these gentlemen could have said. Certainly Captain Postlethwaite had had it from a Mr Vincent Harkness, who was an acquaintance of Henri-Louis’s friend, M. le Vicomte d’Arresnes. On the other hand, Lord Geddings had heard the very same story from a Sir Michael Runton, whose wife was a connexion of Captain Quarmby-Vine’s widowed sister’s late husband…

    Under cover of the turmoil upon the stage as Mrs Angela Amourette and the pink shepherdess began to quarrel over Harlequin, the Miller meanwhile attempting to draw himself to the shepherdess’s attention, Nan drew Cherry aside in the wings and murmured: “Deed you see Sir Noël een the audience?”

    “No,” said Cherry, going very pink. “And I do not care if it were he, he has nothing to say to anything I do!”

    “I am almost certain eet ees he.”

    Crossly Cherry hissed: “Very well, then, it is! And I do not care! And he will never recognise me!”

    Billy Quipp had been rapidly assuming, in the shelter of the bush, which was momentarily off, a hairy “goatskin” cloak, matching boots of an amazing shagginess, and a horned hat, in the which outfit he was shortly to appear briefly as Pan, at the back of the stage.

    “Ssh!” he hissed admonishingly, and Nan and Ruth hurriedly took themselves off to the dressing-room. Cherry, who had to go on again as Clorinda and speak an acceptance of Bertram’s proposal at the conclusion of the act, waited where she was, scowling.

    “Do you theenk Sir N. has recognised Cherry?” asked Nan as they reached the dressing-room.

    Looking anguished, Ruth shook her head.

    “What ees eet?” said Nan sharply.

    “Nan,” she said in a trembling voice, “Papa is also in the audience.”

    Nan gulped.

    Mrs Hetty and little Hermy were also in the dressing-room, so this exchange perforce took place in front of them. Mrs Hetty was re-dressing the little girl as a small Arcadian shepherdess—the which entailed the addition of a broad sash and an apron to the gauze Attendant Fayrie’s dress. She looked round in horror and gasped: “Never say you’ve run orf from your home, me love!”

    Ruth looked helplessly at Nan.

    “Um—well, between ourselves, yes, Mrs Hetty, she has, but—but I am looking after her and—and truly her Papa ees a cruel, horrid man who ees trying to force her eento a distasteful marriage.”

    “Lor’! Never say so! Why, it puts one in mind of The Fatal Marriage!”

    “Er—yes, I am sure,” said Nan limply.

    “So what’s ’e doing out there?” enquired Mrs Hetty with genial interest. “Nob, is ’e?”

    “Um—well, yes,” said Nan, as Ruth merely produced an anguished look.

    “Ah; thought so. I said to Lily, the very first day we met you, ‘Now, that little thing is a lady borned, or my name ain’t Hetty Pontifex!’ –Well, it ain’t, out o’ course,” she allowed cheerfully, “but Lordy, I’ve used it so many years now it might just as well be! –Turn round, Hermy, me dear, let’s see the bow. Well, it will have to do,” she said heavily. “But next time we does an Arcadian act, you is a-goin’ to have a pannier, like a real shepherdess, or Percy will live to regret it!”

    “Huzza!” cheered Hermy—though in a lowered sort of cheering voice, for she was, after all, a daughter of the theatre, and they were, after all, behind the scenes.

    “Has ’e recognized you, dear?” asked Mrs Hetty.

    “Well, no,” said Ruth limply. “I do not think so. He is not paying much attention,” she admitted, blushing, “and he is near the back.”

    “Good. Well, you keep that there mask on, me love, and we shall come orf all right and tight! –Don’t,” she added in an iron voice to Hermy.

    Hermy ceased picking her nose and stood up straight.

    Nan and Ruth looked at each other limply. There did not, really, seem to be anything more to say: Mrs Hetty Pontifex had said it all.

    “Whew!” said Mr Emmanuel Everett, mopping his brow, as the sweating footmen lowered the curtain on the second act.

    Mr Corin Cowper eyed him nervously.

    Mr Everett looked at him thoughtfully, but decided to save his energies. Mr Cowper, with a pale, wobbly smile, departed in order to change his dress to one more nearly suited to the persona of “Alan, A Merrie Outlaw”. –Alan was not in fact a merrie outlaw: he was a cousin of Harlequin’s real persona; but it must be admitted that very few of those members of the audience who had more or less fought their way through to an understanding of what had taken place in the second act would be capable of grasping this particular point in Mr Brentwood’s convoluted plot.

    Mr Billy Quipp, however, was in no mood to spare Mr Cowper. He burst out immediately: “Mr Brentwood, I told you as that imbecile was no more capable of letting orf a flash right than me old Granny’s knee, and look what happened!”

    “Quite.” Mr Brentwood sighed, and mopped his brow. “Shall we let the imbecile take Pan, next time?”

    “Him? Manage a quick change?” retorted Billy Quipp with awful scorn.

    `Uh—no, you’re right, Billy Quipp. Damnation.”

    “Comes of taking on young fellows what ain’t been borned to the Profession.”

    Mr Brentwood sighed again. “Aye.”

    Billy Quipp was now much brighter: Mr Brentwood’s preceding remarks had not been without art, though the actor-manager was as aware as the little comic of Mr Corin’s shortcomings.

    “Does it ’ave to be Pan, Mr Brentwood, sir?” he chirped. “’Cos what I thought was, one of the spare ladies could take it!”

    “As—er—Venus?”

    “Why not?”

    Mr Brentwood pretended to consider this notion. “It would not do,” he said sadly. “The theme of Arcadian summer madness, you know: the malicious spirit of Pan... No, I tell you what: the next time we do it, we shall veil the back of the stage there with some gauze, and one of the Graces may do it in the Pan costume!”

    “Ah! Now you’re talking, Mr Brentwood, sir!” he cried pleasedly. “And I’ll do the lantern and the flash meself!”

    Mr Brentwood put a meaty hand on his skinny little shoulder. “Aye. Then we shall be assured of nothing going wrong. What I should do without you, Billy Quipp, I know not!”

    Beaming and nodding, the little comic scurried off.

    Mr Brentwood strolled off to the dressing-rooms, humming under his breath. Mr Corin Cowper’s doating widowed mother had paid the actor-manager a not insubstantial sum to take Mr Corin into his company, and he had no intention of putting himself in a position where he might be supposed to have to return some of it. And Mr Corin had initially objected very much to having to do the flash and the lantern for Pan: it did not fit with his notion of what life upon the Boards was supposed to be. But Billy Quipp always took Pan, when they had a Pan. All in all, the thing had come off not badly.

    “To be, or not to…” Only the spell of Mr Everett’s powerful personality prevented certain members of the audience from collapsing in helpless hysterics, at this point. Well, that and the fact that the ladies were transfixed by the sight of Mr Everett in a second Harlequin suit, this one covered entirely in red, black and white spangles.

    ... “Now what’s happening?” said Mr Rowbotham in hopeless confusion as the actors milled on the stage.

    “No idea,” replied Sir Noël with a yawn. “Ask Claveringham, here.”

    Mr Rowbotham and Mr Edward Claveringham both scowled as Lady Hartington-Pyke went into a trill of silvery laughter.

    After a moment Mr Rowbotham hissed crossly: “Well, is that fat fellow what is—uh—think he’s a major-domo, or some such—is he supposed to be that same fat fellow, disguised, as that king fellow, or not?”

    Lady Hartington-Pyke at this collapsed in frank hysterics, Sir Noël shook all over, and Mr Edward broke down in sniggers.

    Very red, Mr Rowbotham got up and walked away from them with horrible dignity.

    Nearer to the back of the ballroom the resemblance between the fat fellow playing the major-domo, the fat fellow playing the king, and, indeed, the fat fellow who had earlier done Prospero, was also being remarked.

    “I tell you what it is,” decided Captain Postlethwaite, grinning: “they is all doubling the parts.”

    “Trebling, at the very least,” drawled Lord Geddings.

    “Aye!” he gasped, collapsing in helpless sniggers. Messrs Leonard and Aloysius Brinsley-Pugh followed suit.

    Yawning, Lord Edenlyn strolled away in search of more compatible company.

    … “Alas and lackaday!” fluted Mrs Lily. The quizzing glasses of the majority of the gentlemen in the audience remained riveted to her person. Mrs Lily had a new dress for the last act. Gold gauze. Though its stuff was not precisely the point.

    Harlequin entered an urgent plea for consideration. One or two of the gentlemen in the audience, much fortified by the further relays of iced champagne which had flowed during the second interval, called out words of ungentlemanly encouragement. Some of the ladies in the audience who had similarly imbibed burst into loud giggles.

    At the back of the ballroom Lord Edenlyn sighed, and allowed his chin to sink onto his breast.

    “The gold creature ain’t so bad,” drawled his neighbour.

    “I will lay you a pony she be thirty-five if a day,” he sighed.

    “Eh?”

    “I have seen her from close up,” he reminded him.

    “Ah, of course. Which was it you affected, again?”

    “That is a rumour put about by that ass Peter Sotheby,” said Lord Edenlyn on a sulky note.

    “Really? I had it from that other ass, Hattersby-Lough,” he murmured.

    “Er—to tell you the truth, it was one of the little gals that came on earlier as—uh—Roman ladies, or some such.”

    “Vestal Virgins?” he drawled, raising his slender eyebrows.

    “Very like,” Lord Edenlyn agreed, now frankly grinning. “But the gold creature. between you and me, informed me that she and I had—er—an encounter in—er—”

    “A bawdy house?”

    “I was going to say, in days gone by, but that would do!” he said with a laugh. “And that the little Vestal Virgin was the product of it.”

    “Bitch,” decided his neighbour.

    “Well, yes. But she did seem sort of familiar, when I thought about it... I decided I’d best sheer off, y’ know?”

    He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have bothered. Chacun à son goût, however.”

    Lord Edenlyn’s was a conventional personality: his raking was done very much within the bounds of the acceptable norms of society, and he was quite shocked by this utterance. He managed, however, to raise a smile.

    “So which is she?” asked his neighbour with a yawn.

    “She is not on just at the moment.”

    “Then pray awaken me, dear fellow, when she does come on,” he sighed, allowing his eyes to close.

    Lord Edenlyn replied with an uneasy smile: “Very well, Curwellion, I shall.”

    It was not generally known in Society that Ruth Norrington had run away from her home. But an observer who was aware of the fact might have supposed from Lord Curwellion’s impervious, not to say bored demeanour at Sir Jeremy Foote’s masque, that he was indifferent to the fact that his only legitimate daughter had disappeared. This was not, in fact, so. His emotions did not precisely include fatherly concern, but they certainly included a definite fear for the girl’s virtue. None knew better than he the fates that awaited a pretty girl adrift in the world without a protector. He had endeavoured to contact Major Norrington, concluding that the girl must have run off to their relative: it had not taken him long to discover that the Major had left the country well before Ruth’s fugue. He had been furiously angry from the first moment of discovering her flight: he now became seriously alarmed as well.

    The letter from Mr Quigley allayed some fears, but not all. He had all his enemies; of whom there were very many, in many different walks of life, thoroughly investigated. Colonel Vane’s supposition that his Lordship might well think to observe who left town in a hurry was well founded: several acquaintances were very surprised indeed, and in some cases considerably embarrassed, to have their carriages stopped by Bow Street Runners when they were but a short way through their journeys. General Hartlepool, indeed, went so far as to threaten to have the Runners in question dismissed from their posts, not neglecting to mention his close friendship with His Grace of Wellington. The Runners, experienced men, had taken this threat with a large grain of salt: the General was accompanied by a young and very pretty girl. So young and pretty, indeed, that at first they had thought they had their man, until she opened her mouth and screamed at them like a fishwife, in the very accents of Billingsgate itself.

    By this point in time Curwellion had by no means given up hope of finding Ruth: having followed the likely threads and found nothing at the end of them, he was now following up less likely ones. The invitation from Sir Jeremy was a longstanding one: his Lordship had not wished to arouse any suspicions in Society by departing from his usual habits, so he had come to Lancewood Hall. But at the same time he had reflected that the Portuguese Widow had never had any cause to love him: added to which she and her brother were two of the many persons in Society who gave their legal business to Mr Quigley. Well, she was as likely as another: and if he was in the area he could take the opportunity of checking up on whether she had any young female staying with her.

    He had not, very naturally, expected to find Lady Benedict or his daughter taking part in Sir Jeremy’s Thespian entertainment, so he had paid very little attention to it. Apart from ogling the more prominent parts of Mrs Lily’s anatomy, and wondering, as he normally did on such occasions, if she would.

    “Don’t ask me what she is to wear, dear fellow, for I have not been privileged to know!” said Sir Jeremy with a chuckle, as, led by the hostess, several of the ladies in the audience hurried out to get into their costumes for the final tableau.

    Henri-Louis was not in the least interested in what Lady Foote was to wear. He was, at the moment, far more interested in pondering the questions: What was Lady Benedict doing dressed up as a Classical lady in Sir Jeremy’s entertainment, apparently unbeknownst to her host? and: Did the new Lord Stamforth know of this? and: What had been her true motive for coming down to the Sussex coast? and—such-like. However, he managed a polite smile, and replied: “So it’s a deep, dark secret, is it, Sir Jeremy?”

    Chuckling, Sir Jeremy assured him it was, and beckoned to a footman. With some relief Henri-Louis saw that the man was holding a tray of small savouries: he had been wondering if they would ever get any solid refreshment; at his elbow, Mr Shirley had nodded off under the influence of the champagne, and at Mr Shirley’s far side the Vicomte d’Arresnes was valiantly trying to suppress his yawns. They had lost Mr  Valentine some time earlier: Mr Shirley had privily mentioned in His Highness’s ear that Val did not go much on intellectual entertainments.

    “I suppose,” said the Prince, swallowing his savoury and hastily taking another before the footman could disappear, “that it would not be tactful at this juncture to go behind the scenes?”

    “My dear Prince, you should have said you wished to do so! Er—well, just at this precise moment, with the ladies and so forth.:.” said Sir Jeremy uneasily.

    With a mental sigh Henri-Louis assured him he quite understood.

    Nodding and smiling politely, Sir Jeremy sat back in his seat silently wondering which of ’em the Prince had fallen for, and hoping very much it wasn’t anything that would turn out on closer inspection to be too young, too old, or too vulgar. For Henri-Louis was scheduled to stay for yet a full week at Lancewood Hall.

    Sir Noël had become bored both with the entertainment and with Lady Hartington-Pyke and had seized the opportunity of a scene change to stroll out onto a terrace and blow a cloud. After a little he was joined by Mr Rowbotham.

    “Er…”

    “Go on, Wilf, deprive me-of my last cigar,” he groaned.

    Mr Rowbotham took it, looking pleased. “That was not what I was going to say,” he noted, puffing on it. “Er…”

    “If this is going to be on the subject of Lady H.-P., you may refrain,” he drawled.

    “Very well, then, Noël, be like that! But let me tell you, if you had not been sittin’ there with your eyes on that shallow cow, you would have spotted what Shirley did!”

    “I am not interested in little actresses, Wilf, so by all means tell Shirley that the field is his,” he said sweetly.

    “Not that, you damned fool! Miss Chalfont!” said Mr Rowbotham angrily.

    “I beg your pardon?”

    “Don’t you look down your damned nose at me, Noël Amory: I have known you since you was short-coated!” said Mr Rowbotham dangerously.

    “Very well, I am not looking down my nose. Miss Chalfont is in Bath. Presumably in mourning.”

    “Well, you’re blind, that’s what!” retorted Mr Rowbotham with some feeling, “Though mind you, I didn’t spot it meself, right off. Well, Shirley’s eyesight’s better than mine, I’m not denying it, and besides, if a fellow ain’t lookin’ that hard— And then, she’s masked— OW! Let go, Noël, you’re ruinin’ me neckcloth!”

    Sir Noël did not release him. “What did you say?”

    “Let go! For the Lord’s sake, you’re ruining me neckcl—OW! It is Cherry, Noël: spotted her meself that last time she came on with the damned lamb!”

    “WHAT?” he shouted terribly.

    ‘Miss Chalfont, I mean!” gasped Mr Rowbotham.

    Sir Noël shook him hard. “How much have you drunk tonight?”

    “OW! Not that much! One ain’t never offered anything drinkable by these damned provincial fellows, y’know! –You’ve ruined it,” he said sulkily, feeling the neckcloth, as Sir Noël released him abruptly.

    “Good. If I hear any more such nonsense, I’ll ruin you. Cherry—Miss Chalfont to you, as you seem belatedly to have realised—is in Bath,” he said clearly.

    “She ain’t, and I don’t know where your eyes have been all night—well, I do know, out of course—but what I’m saying is, that was the Portuguese Widow in the Greek rig-out, earlier, and I’ll lay you a monkey she’s staying with— Don’t!” he gasped, as this time Sir Noël seized him by both lapels.

    “By God: are you telling me she’s involved Cherry in this damned improper masquerade?” he said through his teeth, shaking him.

    “Well, dammit, old man, I don’t know!” he gasped. “Looks that way!”

    Sir Noël released him and strode over to the balustrade of the terrace, nostrils flaring angrily.

    Mr Rowbotham smoothed his lapels with a trembling hand. “Weston,” he said under his breath. “Knew I should never have brought it down to the damned country.”

    “By God, it’s too much!” said Noël violently.

    “Now, Noël, dear old fellow, no need to—”

    “I shall get her out of that damned woman’s clutches and on the road to Devon tonight if it’s the last thing I do!” he said violently.

    Mr Rowbotham watched numbly as his old friend hastened inside. After a moment he muttered to himself: “Made a mull of that.” He thought on it. “Or possibly not,” he concluded, cheering up.

    … “Curwellion,” said Lord Edenlyn in his ear.

    His Lordship roused, blinking.

    “That’s she,” he said with a silly smile. “Pretty little morsel, ain’t she? Oh, well. Better safe than sorry.”

    Lord Curwellion shrugged slightly, but obligingly raised his quizzing glass. After a moment his gaze sharpened.

    “Of course, when they wear these damned masks, one never knows: but I can assure you she ain’t got a squint!” said Lord Edenlyn with a silly laugh.

    “What? No,” replied Curwellion, frowning. Impossible! Ruth with a bunch of inept strolling players? He peered again. After a moment he said tightly: “Edenlyn, how old would you say she is?”

    “Uh—well, no idea, truly!” he said with an even sillier laugh. “Young, y’know. Well, the pink woman, I mean the gold woman, t’one with the big tits, she declared she was her daughter. Well, told you that, didn’t I?”

    “Never mind that,” said Lord Curwellion through his teeth. “What was your impression of her age?”

    “Uh—sixteen—seventeen?” he said hazily.

    His Lordship rose, slender nostrils flared, and stalked out.

    Lord Edenlyn stared blankly at the stage. He had not hitherto supposed, though he did not see much of Curwellion these days, that slips of girls with slender figures were at all to his taste. He winced a little, but had no impulse to hurry after him and protect the pretty little actress from a fate considerably worse than death.

    “Aa-ah!” sighed the audience, as the curtain rose on the very last scene. Mr Brentwood had pulled out all the stops. Every single member of the cast, plus all the amateur non-speaking parts, of course, was on stage. Lady Foote was glorious as the Fayrie Queen, in the centre of the tableau. Alfred Weddle was positively gleaming in purple and gold. There were tiny lanterns and spangles everywhere. The musicians supplied by Sir Jeremy—two violins, a viola, and a weary-looking cello—burst into fayrie musicke, ably supported by Harlequin with his mandolin. The audience burst into applause, led by Henri-Louis, very glad indeed that it was all but over, and the host, very relieved indeed that his wife’s bosom was not wholly exposed. The which he had been dreading ever since the word “Classical” was first mentioned in connection with this summer’s entertainment.

    Towards the back of the ballroom Captain Postlethwaite politely did not cease clapping; but at the same time, he was counting. He announced his result.

    “There must have been more than six actresses!” Lord Geddings objected.

    “No. Look: the three Graces—ain’t they? They was in the first act in them rig-outs, remember? The one with the dark curls was the luscious little blue shepherdess. Then there’s the gold woman with the big tits, and the little Pierrette—she were the pink shepherdess, old man,” he explained laboriously, “and the old lady. See? Six!”

    The friends collapsed in sniggers.

    Mr Rowbotham had returned to the front row, having decided that as Shirley was letting the family down by dozing off in front of Henri-Louis, the diplomatic thing would be to get on back there and look awake. “Six,” he muttered dazedly.

    “What, actresses? Yes, that’s quite correct, Wilf,” said Henri-Louis kindly. “Sir Jeremy and I worked that out quite some time since, did we not?”

    Sir Jeremy nodded, beaming. “And two on ’em didn’t even speak!” he added with a laugh.

    “Précisément. –Six,” said Henri-Louis to Mr Rowbotham.

    “But—uh—” Mr Rowbotham stared in confusion at the tableau. His lips moved silently. After a moment he said numbly: “But where’s Noël got to?”

    Sir Jeremy and Henri-Louis exchanged glances.

    “Wilf, mon cher, Noël was not in it,” said the Prince very kindly.

    “Not that, y’fool!” he said tersely.

    There was a startled silence in the middle of the front row.

    “Damn,” muttered the diplomatic one, biting his lip. “Look, sorry and all that, Henri-Louis.”

    “Nonsense, dear fellow!” said the Prince with a kindly laugh.

    Sir Jeremy’s attention then being attracted by his neighbour on his other side. Henri-Louis added in a very much lowered voice: “We did notice earlier that the pretty little blue shepherdess was Miss C., Wilf.”

    “Well, exact! And yours truly went and warned Noël, for he was makin’ such an ass of himself over the H.-P. woman that he had not barely glanced at the stage, and he went off in a fury to stop her!” Mr Rowbotham paused. Under Henri-Louis’s disbelieving eyes he took out a watch in a very beautiful pink-enamelled case and consulted it gravely. “Twenty minutes since, by my watch,” he announced solemnly.

    “Er—well, perhaps he—”

    “I’m telling you, he was in a fury! And there she is, large as life and twice as natural—well, no, don’t mean that: dainty thing, ain’t she? But there she is, smiling as if she ain’t got a care in the world!”

    “Er—yes. Hush, mon cher, we shall discover it all,” said Henri-Louis hurriedly as their host turned back to them.

    Mr Rowbotham subsided into his chair, cringing. That was more or less what he was afraid of. And if it all did become public and Noël and the little Chalfont girl had another row—or continued their previous row—then it was his guess it would be all up with any idea of marriage between them. Because the fellow was his own worst enemy! Always had been, and always would be!

    Scowling, arms crossed on his bosom, Mr Rowbotham hunched his chin down into his ruined neckcloth, and proceeded to lapse into a gloom.

    So much so that he missed the quite enchanting moment, which the more sentimental members of the audience were to declare to have been the prettiest in the whole piece: when the littlest Attendant Fayrie flew, yes, actually flew, scattering rose petals and dewdrops over the Fayrie Queen and her entourage!

    The less sentimental and almost exclusively male members of the audience would later almost come to blows over whether that had in fact been the highlight of the performance: for not only were the harness and the rope entirely visible, you could clearly hear the fellow winching her down panting as he did it!

    All in all, Sir Jeremy Foote’s summer Thespian entertainment that year was voted one of the best the jovial baronet had ever put on. It had been an inspired notion to make it a masque; and he must promise to do it again, another year!