The Healing Season (8 page)

“Come and sit here.” She took him to the group of gentlemen, who eyed him with scarcely disguised scorn.

One of the young bucks snickered.

“May I present Mr. Russell, a surgeon from St. Thomas’s? He saved our poor dear Betsy’s life when she was very nearly off the hooks.”

One of the young men rose and offered his hand. “Well, ’pon my honor, why didn’t you say so in the first place? We thought you were one of those dull Methodist coves.”

The other young gentlemen burst into rude laughter.

The young man let his hand go. “We’re much obliged to you, Doctor. We miss Betsy sorely. When will she be back on the boards?”

“Not for a while,” he answered curtly. Was this perhaps the young man responsible for Miss Simms’s plight? Or perhaps one of the others? His gaze traveled over the lot.

“You must excuse me a moment, Mr. Russell, while I change.”

“I can’t stay,” he told Mrs. Neville. “I merely wanted to pay my respects.”

“How did you like the show?” she asked eagerly.

“The show itself was a piece of rubbish, but your individual talent rises above it. You have a very nice singing voice.”

From dismay at his first remark to pleasure at his compliment at the end, her face underwent a variety of expressions. He felt pleased that he could somehow put together some kind of compliment from something he had been thoroughly disgusted with.

“I hope the piece didn’t offend you.”

“You should rather hope it didn’t offend your Maker.”

She looked askance. “It was all in good fun. That’s what burlettas are—they poke fun at everyone and everything.” She shrugged. “At any rate, it’s an old piece. I don’t know why Mr. Dibdin decided to revive it. Wait until you hear what we will be doing next.” Her eyes shone. “It will be a brand-new piece.”

He looked down at his folded hands. It was a mistake to have come. “I really must be off.”

She looked crestfallen. “So soon? I wanted to invite you to dinner. Not only to share my good news.” She lowered her voice. “I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for Betsy. You truly saved her life.”

He felt his resolve weakening at the softness in her tone.

“Besides, if you don’t take me, I’m at the Duke d’Alvergny’s mercy, and I find him quite tiresome tonight.”

Ian followed the direction of her gaze to the gentleman who sat eyeing them. Ian judged him to be about a decade older than himself, at least in his forties. He was dressed in black evening clothes, making Ian’s black frock coat look shabby. Pomade darkened his blond hair. His neck cloth held a diamond stud pin and his face had a ruddy, well-fed look where his shirt points met his clean-shaven jaw. He’d probably suffer from gout or a bilious liver in another ten years.

The man sat back in the chair, resting one ankle on his knee. He studied Ian coolly as he dangled his quizzing glass from its silk ribbon from one hand. It swung back and forth, tapping against the shiny black half boot. Something in the expression of his eyes challenged Ian.

“Very well,” Ian replied, turning his attention back to Mrs. Neville. “I’ll wait here while you change.”

“You are a dear.” She gave him a sweet smile. At the protest of the lounging dandies, she blew them a kiss and exited the room.

Ian walked away from the group and stood near the entrance. He watched the antics of the other actresses with the wealthy young men. One by one he could see arrangements being made. D’Alvergny ignored the other young women. After a moment he unfolded himself from his chair and stood, and Ian could appreciate what a large man he was. He exited through the door
Mrs. Neville had taken. Ian tensed, tempted to follow him out.

He stopped himself. What business was it of his? Mrs. Neville was an actress, he reminded himself. She’d doubtless had many liaisons with these society men.

Disgusted at his own weakness for accepting Mrs. Neville’s invitation, he turned his back on the company and studied a playbill on the wall. He was no better than any of those men present, he told himself. Why had he come tonight?

When Mrs. Neville returned, Ian looked at her closely, to determine if d’Alvergny had addressed her. He could discern nothing from her features, but he was relieved to find she had washed all the makeup from her face. The ringlets were gone, and her hair was gathered simply beneath her bonnet.

“Come, my carriage is at the rear.” She put her hand in the crook of his arm and directed him out the back. They walked down a shadowy corridor directly behind the stage. Discarded scenery lay stacked against the wall, and stagehands were busy putting things away.

“Good night, Eleanor,” said several workers, and she bade each one good-night.

“Have you ever been on a stage?” she asked him.

He shook his head.

Before he knew what she was about, she led him through an arch and he found himself at the rear of the stage. She walked forward with him.

“Watch your step. There are trapdoors and grooves for the scene flats.”

He looked down and saw what she meant. There were large slits in the floor where scene backdrops were raised and lowered.

She took him to the forestage where the actors habitually stood. It thrust out with columned doors at either side. In front of it lay the orchestra pit, with the galleries and boxes surrounding them at either side.

Although the seats were empty, he felt the sensation of being exposed to many eyes.

“What does it feel like addressing a crowd?” he asked.

“Tonight was nothing. We’re almost at the end of our run. But when the theater is full, as on an opening night, it is quite heady.” She let his arm go and took a step forward, facing the nonexistent audience. Clearing her throat, she began:

Her voice was rich and carried easily across the auditorium. With a flourish, she turned to him and smiled.

He couldn’t help smiling back, beginning to under
stand the draw she held for the audience. “What was that from?”

“Gay’s
The What D’ye Call It,
an early burlesque comedy.”

“Is that what you were doing this evening—making the audience laugh?”

“Or moving them to distress,” she added significantly. “I’m sorry if you were displeased.”

He shook aside the apology, preferring to forget the play. “Shall we go and dine?”

“Yes, I’m famished!” she replied with another captivating smile.

He followed her out, amazed at how easily his scruples disappeared when he was in her company. All it took was one smile from her, and he was willing to be led anywhere.

They sat in a noisy oyster house on the Strand. “I so adore oysters, don’t you?” she asked after they had placed their order and the waiter left them.

He smiled at her enthusiasm. “If they are fresh, and the place is a reputable one.”

“Oh, these are very fresh. And this eatery has been here as long as I can remember. You shall see, they make the best oyster pie in puff pastry.”

They sat at a window side table overlooking the busy street. Many late-night theatergoers sat at the surrounding tables.

“I haven’t received your bills yet for Betsy’s care,” she said after a moment. “Please send them to Ten Bedford Place, right off Bloomsbury Square.”

He shrugged. “I hadn’t planned on billing Miss Simms, since she won’t be able to earn her living for some time.”

Her eyes widened in astonishment. “You saved her life, she owes you a great deal.”

“I simply did what I was called to do. The Lord saved her life.”

“I shall not refine too much upon the matter, but I do insist on paying her medical bills. It’s the least I can do after all you did for her.”

Ian made no reply as the hot pastries and tankards of porter were set before them. As soon as the waiter left them again, he bowed his head to ask a silent blessing over the food.

“You are a pious man,” Mrs. Neville remarked as he was unfolding his napkin.

“I was raised by some very pious people and I work with others at the mission. As for myself…” He shrugged. “I don’t think of myself as pious, only as God-fearing.”

“I have little time for piety.” She lifted her tankard. “Tonight is a night of celebration for me.”

“So you mentioned,” he said, going along with her change of topic. “What is the occasion?”

“I have been offered the part of Leporello in Dibdin’s
new burletta of
Don Giovanni, or The Spectre on Horseback.
”

“
Don Giovanni,
isn’t that an Italian opera?”

Her laughter tinkled over the sound of cutlery. “A travesty of the opera. In this play, Don Giovanni kills Donna Anna’s father and must escape to London. He ends up falling into the Thames and is rescued by some fishermen, at which point he immediately tries to woo their wives, whose names are Shrimperina and Lobsteretta.”

Her laughter died when she noticed he hadn’t joined in her amusement. “Don’t you think that’s funny?”

“It sounds ridiculous.”

“It is. Don’t you see? The humor is found in the rhymed couplets we sing. The story itself is a silly version of the Don Giovanni story, but it’s Dibdin’s libretto and our rendition of the lines that bring amusement to the audience.

“The Don pursues every woman he meets before being caught in the end. It’s all quite droll. I read a bit of the script earlier today, when the manager told me about the piece. In this version, Donna Anna is bent on revenge, but another part of her wants Don Giovanni for herself even though she is engaged to another.”

He frowned. “Isn’t that a bit capricious?”

She shrugged. “It’s a better role than many. Most of the heroines in today’s melodramas and burlesques are
such simpering fools, always needing to be rescued as you could see from tonight’s piece. Donna Anna is another stamp altogether.”

She took a healthy bite of her oyster pastry and washed it down with a swallow from her tankard. Then she laughed afresh, and he could see nothing he said could dampen her spirits.

“We shall be rehearsing next week to open in a fortnight,” she continued. “I hope you come on opening night.”

“After what I saw tonight, I think I was right in staying away from the theater.”

She drew herself up. “What do you mean?”

“I was brought up to believe the theater was devoid of morals. What I saw tonight has not disabused me of this notion.”

She flicked aside a flake of pastry from the tablecloth. “Morality is for those who have the blunt.”

“Your young Miss Simms might have saved herself a lot of trouble if she’d had a higher moral standard.”

“Betsy is young and ignorant. She’ll learn the ways of the world soon enough.”

“If the conduct of those young actresses backstage tonight is any indication, they haven’t learned from their mistakes. They seem to believe they may have any man they please with no consequences.”

“Any man who can make it worth their while,” she countered in a hard voice.

“What is the difference between that and one of the lightskirts hanging about the theater entrance?” he asked, his tone matching hers.

“Between a common streetwalker and a woman who knows how to secure herself a tidy nest egg for her old age? There is a vast difference, Mr. Russell—the difference between ending up dead in some alleyway or living out one’s years in a comfortable house in a respectable part of town.”

He swallowed, shaken by her convictions despite himself. “Is that what you have done?”

“That is an impertinent question, Mr. Russell.”

“You are right, Mrs. Neville. My apologies.”

“Don’t use that disapproving tone with me. Come,” she said, her tone softening, “it is all very well for a young woman who has a father to defend her virtue. What happens to the one whose stepfather strips her of her virtue before she has scarcely entered womanhood?”

“Is that what happened to Miss Simms?”

She shrugged and looked away. “Who knows? ’Tis often enough the case.”

She leaned her head back and stared at him through half-closed lids, looking in that moment dangerously seductive. His glance strayed down her slim white throat, and he felt his own throat go dry.

“What about your morality, Mr. Russell? Dining late in the evening with a common actress, while your wife sits at home with the little ones? Does she wait up for you? Is she sitting by the fireside? Does she believe you are on a medical call?” Her soft, sultry words mocked him.

“I am not married,” he answered steadily.

“I am sorry.” She leaned forward, immediately contrite, the image of seductress vanished with the speed of a snuffed candle. “Have you been widowed long?”

“I am neither wed nor widowed.”

Her gray eyes opened wide. “I can scarcely credit what you say. You look old enough to have long since wed.”

“The fact remains I have never entered into the state of matrimony.”

“Excuse my impudence, but how old are you, Mr. Russell?”

“Two-and-thirty this past summer,” he answered stiffly.

She raised her eyebrows. “Why haven’t you married? Are you waiting for a woman who satisfies your high moral caliber?”

“‘Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies,’” he quoted softly.

She made an inelegant sound. “That’s because she probably doesn’t exist except as a figment of your imagination.”

He ignored the mockery in her tone. “I am waiting
for the Lord’s choice for me. Up to now, He hasn’t made it clear. And, yes, she will be a virtuous woman.”

She gave him a pitying look. “You are so sure about that. Women can be very crafty about their purity, you know. I have an acquaintance who has feigned virginity a half-dozen times.”

“I know that my future wife will serve God, and her purity of spirit will shine through her.”

“And how will you know she is the one God has chosen for you? Will He beat a drum when this virtuous woman appears and you will know you are to wed?”

“I don’t know how He’ll let me know. I only know that He will.”