Mr Bishop and the Actress (15 page)

The coach arrives with a blast of its horn and passengers tumble out to take advantage of the fifteen minutes it will take to change the horses, scurrying past us into the inn and calling for refreshments. We see our modest luggage loaded, and Harry gallantly assists me on to the roof of the coach where we make ourselves as comfortable as we can. By the afternoon we shall be in London; it is not so long, after all. We set off with a jolt. Our fellow passengers, a group of young men, whoop and shout as though on the hunting field, although their good spirits are dampened by the steady rain that begins to fall.

I unfold the shawl, which for all its delicacy is as strong as iron and tightly woven enough to keep out all but the most severe weather, and wrap it around myself. I steal a glance at Harry, who has turned up his coat collar and sits hunched, hands in pockets. I unfurl the shawl once more.

‘Since you bought this you should share it.’ I wrap it around us both, bringing us into closer proximity than in the bed we shared last night. We are warm and snug, his thigh against mine, his arm around me beneath the shawl. I rest my head on his shoulder and, despite the lurching of the coach, fall into a deep sleep. I hope I do not snore.

The noise of London wakes me. I am surprised how soon I forgot the din while I was in the country – the rumble of close-packed vehicles, the shouts of street vendors, the noise of a great city as all bustle and go about their business. The rain has stopped, and I am glad of it, for rain in London is a dirty, sooty nuisance.

Perhaps it is my cold that makes me stupid, for I had barely considered what we should do when we arrived in London. I suppose I had some vague idea that we would go door to door from one theatre to another until we found Amelia, but Harry takes charge. He hails a hackney and directs it to, where else, Bishop’s Hotel.

Harry

My mother gasps and sinks into a chair – or at least she sinks and I hasten to place a chair strategically for her.

She places a hand on her bosom and gasps for air. ‘Tell me you have not been sacked.’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Or—’ She glances towards the far end of the parlour where Sophie is warming her hands at the fire and whispers, ‘Or married?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Oh.’ She frowns. ‘You know, Harry, it’s high time you thought of marriage, for your pa talks more and more of retiring these days, and he’s getting tired. You’ll need a woman with a head on her shoulders to help you run this place.’

‘I doubt Sophie would be interested.’

‘That’s a great shame.’ But she continues, ‘And it is just a cold the poor dear young lady suffers from?’

Surely she does not suggest that Sophie is with child!

Sophie, whose hearing is more acute than I had guessed, turns a dazzling smile upon my mother. ‘A very slight cold, ma’am. Pray do not be concerned for me. I shall be very well once I am warmed.’

‘Oh, my dear Mrs Wallace – I beg your pardon, Harry says I must call you Mrs Marsden now – I cannot hear of Harry dragging you out all over London while you are unwell. You must stay here and we shall take tea and I—’

‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, but our business is urgent.’ In a few words I tell my mother of Amelia’s unfortunate and hasty flight.

‘Good Lord, if the girl’s not ruined by now, what difference will a few more hours make? Or even another night?’ my practical mother cries. ‘I insist. You must dine before you go out. Mrs Wallace, I mean Mrs Marsden, we have a nice joint of lamb and some cheese pies and I believe a rocket salad. You are hungry, I’ll be bound.’

‘Ma’am, you’re most kind,’ Sophie says. ‘Harry – I mean Mr Bishop – I fancy I could eat some dinner. Besides, there’ll be no one at any theatre for an hour or so.’

‘Well, then! It’s all settled. I shall go and see how things are in the kitchen.’ My mother grabs my arm and hauls me with her out of the room. ‘Why, she looks blooming if a little red around the nose. Have you not made an offer for her yet?’ she says as soon as we are out of Sophie’s hearing,

‘Ma’am, with all due respect, may I suggest you mind your own business.’

She lets out a great shout of laughter and cuffs me around the ear as though I were a boy still. ‘I’ll wager you gave her the shawl. She keeps it tight around her, but ’pon my honour I’d wager she’d rather it was your arm.’

‘She is not well, ma’am.’

My mother winks and heads for the kitchen.

I return to the parlour where Sophie now sits, gazing into the fire.

‘Mrs Bishop is right,’ she says. ‘Amelia is ruined. Our only hope is that we can keep it a secret.’

‘Come, maybe it’s not so bad.’

‘This is the theatre, Harry. Of course it’s bad.’

I have a sudden longing to kneel by her and put my arms around her and protect her from the cruelties of the world, but at that moment, my father, having heard that we entertain Mrs Wallace again, comes into the parlour and proceeds to fuss over her.

‘Punch!’ he announces, and rings the bell. When one of our waiters wanders in, he’s told to make haste and bring lemons and hot water and spirits, for my father fancies himself an alchemist of punchmaking. He proceeds to measure and pour and stir amidst clouds of steam, tasting as he goes, purely for Mrs Wallace’s – or rather, Mrs Marsden’s – health, of course. Sophie drinks a glassful of his fiendish brew and chokes a little, sneezes, and claims it’s doing her a world of good. Certainly she looks a little more bright-eyed and more like herself, but she is subdued and I suspect it is not only the cold that dampens her spirits. She must indeed feel responsible for Amelia’s escape, but there is something else, too. Does she think of her former lover, Mr Fordham? Or other former lovers? I wonder if she will take another protector now she is back in London and reminders of her former life are all around. The thought alarms me so much that I gulp a glass of my father’s punch and have to sit down, dizzy from the fumes alone.

My father slaps me on the shoulder. For sure, my parents are affectionately heavy-handed today, as overjoyed as they are to see Sophie again, and, to a lesser extent, myself.

To give my mother her due, she excels herself as a hostess, if given to complaining that I look too thin and forcing second and third helpings upon me at dinner, while advising Sophie that she should feed a cold. This inspires a discussion between my parents and eventually the couple of waiters who serve us, as to what feeding a cold in truth means, but Sophie smiles warmly and praises the dinner.

I am much relieved when we can finally tear ourselves from the table and undertake what brought us to London in the first place. My father insists we take the hotel’s gig, and my nephew Richard Shilling, who with his father Tom Shilling helped us move Sophie’s bed that first time, serves as our driver – for we will need someone to hold the horse while we search the theatres – and so we set off.

‘Would you like me to drive, Richard?’ Sophie asks as he drops the whip, tangles the reins, and attempts to drive us into the path of an approaching hackney. ‘How is your father? I hope he is well.’

‘No, ma’am, that is, thank you kindly, I shall manage.’ His voice perambulates a few octaves. He blushes fiercely and his hat falls off. ‘And Father is quite well and sends his kind regards, ma’am.’

I jump down from the vehicle to retrieve the hat. God only knows what he’d do if he tried to find it himself – more than likely, he’d hang himself in the harness.

‘Richard,’ I whisper to him as I hand him his hat, somewhat the worse for wear from the muck of the street, ‘she’s a female. Your mother is one and I know you have sisters. Mrs Marsden is not related to you but for the purposes of our sanity, may I suggest you think of her as an aunt. Otherwise the gig will become kindling and we in little better condition.’

‘Yes, Uncle.’ He gazes at his new aunt with pathetic adoration.

She smiles back at him and I grab the reins before they disappear beneath the horse’s hooves.

‘Drive on, Richard, if you please,’ Sophie says with winning sweetness. She turns to me and whispers, ‘Why, Harry, he is a worse driver than you. I did not think it possible.’

‘You wound me, ma’am.’

Our first stop is at Drury Lane, for Sophie believes that Amelia, in her
naïveté
, will have tried the bestknown theatres first. She leads the way down the narrow alley at the side of the theatre and, telling me to stand aside, has a lively conversation with the doorkeeper.

‘Yes, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,’ that person announces and bangs the door shut.

She picks her way through the refuse of the alley and returns to my side. ‘I told him I was Sophie Wallace and he didn’t believe me! I must look a fright. Oh, but wait.’

She darts away and intercepts a pair of gaudily dressed women who approach chattering, and this time I am witness to Sophie’s skill as an actress.

She drops a curtsy and launches into a long story about her poor little cousin Amelia – though to be sure, she may go under a different name now, with the prettiest voice, and do they know of her whereabouts? And my, what a handsome bonnet. You won’t see anything of that sort in the country. And so on, flattering, cajoling, encouraging them to gossip.

They smile with good humour but tell her there have been no newcomers to the company, not even any hopeful young women who have been turned away recently.

And so it goes for the next few hours until our search must end, for the curtains will be raised now, and this will be Amelia’s second night in London. Does she sleep in a doorway somewhere, like the wretches we see on the streets? Or has she been tricked into entering a house of ill repute? A person, particularly a woman, can be engulfed, devoured by the town, sinking into its depths.

‘Can you think of nothing you or she said that may tell us where she’s gone?’

She shakes her head. ‘I told her how I had started with small roles in a lesser company, but Amelia has such certainty in her ability . . .’

‘You did badly, ma’am, encouraging her.’

‘Preaching does not become you, Harry.’

‘Let’s drive home, then, Richard.’

Richard flaps the reins on to the horse’s back and we leave the fashionable part of town, heading for Aldgate and the hotel. ‘I been to a theatre once,’ he says.

‘Did you, now? What play did you see?’ Sophie asks, reducing him to a wreck of embarrassment.

‘’Twasn’t a play. Not as such, for it was Easter. There was singing and dancing and a pretty girl in tights.’

‘A pantomime?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Right near home, too.’

‘Near home?’ I think for a moment. ‘Surely not the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square?’

‘Maybe, sir.’

‘What say you, Sophie? Shall we make one last stop there? It’s in the borough of Poplar, quite close to the hotel.’

To my alarm she goes quite pale.

‘Is something wrong?’ I am afraid she is ill.

‘No, no.’

The horse plods through the evening traffic, but as we are going against the general flow we make good progress. I very much doubt the theatre will even be open – it is a disreputable sort of place, not licensed for plays, and generally presents only low forms of entertainment.

We stop in front of the theatre, forlorn-looking and festooned with tattered and shredding posters of past attractions.

‘I don’t think it’s open,’ she says. ‘Drive on, Richard.’

But one of the large front doors of the theatre is opening as though we are expected and Sophie and I both step down from the trap.

A large burly man wearing a suit of clothes a little too tight, and the skin on his face a little too loose, emerges, moving slowly through the fading light. He extends one fleshy hand to Sophie.

‘No!’ she cries.

‘My little Sophie!’ the man says in a sepulchral voice.

‘Were you his mistress too?’ I am appalled.

‘No.’ She is so pale her nose appears bright red and dark shadows appear under her eyes. ‘No. I murdered him.’

Harry

S
he murdered him? This disreputable gentleman is certainly no ghost, for he belches loudly and scratches his generous belly.

Sophie grabs for my sleeve and I put my arm around her, for I am afraid she will swoon.

‘My darling!’ says the dead man. ‘Unhand my betrothed, sir.’

I push past him, supporting Sophie in my arms, and into the theatre. The doors to the auditorium stand open and there seems to be some sort of activity on the stage, a boy turning cartwheels, and a group of people banging scenery around.

I help Sophie on to one of the wooden benches.

Someone rushes at me and grabs me by the collar, sending my hat flying. ‘What the devil are you doing with her?’

I must be in a madhouse. I push the second gentleman away, and find myself face to face with the first, who gazes at Sophie with inane sentimentality. ‘My little flower,’ he croons.

‘Your betrothed?’

‘In a manner of speaking, sir, yes. She is my sun, my joy and hope.’

‘She is not, sir, and she is certainly not yours. Yes, sir, what may I do for you?’ For the other gentleman approaches, fists clenched in a pugilistic, fierce sort of way.

‘Take your hands from my child!’

His child?

‘Oh, Pa,’ says a weak voice from around the level of my chest, ‘do hold your tongue.’

‘She lives!’ Mr Marsden cries, for indeed that is who he must be, and now I see the similarity of bone and colouring, the same fine eyes, that he shares with Sophie.

‘Of course I live, Pa. The wonder is that Mr Sloven does. I thought I’d killed him. And as for you, Pa, where the devil have you been?’

He lays his hand on his breast. ‘My child, restored to me! A most profitable and healthful tour, my dear, Portsmouth, Southampton, salubrious spots by the sea. And then we ran out of money and returned, and Mr Sloven, since you are affianced, is kind enough to finance our thespian endeavours here.’

‘I am not affianced to Mr Sloven.’

‘Ah. I see,’ says her fond parent and turns to me. ‘You keep company with my daughter, sir? She’s fond of a pretty bonnet, you know. I doubt she’ll stay long if you can’t afford better than that. Why, Sophie, I’m sorry to see you come down in the world so.’