The Truth-Teller's Tale (10 page)

“Oh—I wish I could,” I said. “But I'm usually working on Summermoon.”

“Working?” He glanced around the dress shop, which was getting more crowded by the minute. More than one woman had cast curious and envious glances my way while I stood there chatting with Edgar Beauman, and I must confess that this made me feel extraordinarily pleased with myself. The handsomest man who had ever been seen in Merendon, and he was talking to
me
. “Are you one of the seamstresses here, then?”

“Oh, no! My parents own the Leaf and Berry Inn down the street. Summermoon is one of our busiest times of the year, because so many people come to town for the festival. I'd never be able to get away to see a play.”

“Well, but, we'll be putting on performances for the next three weeks,” he said in a wheedling tone of voice. “Couldn't you get away one night, at least? You could see
Rebecca's Revenge
or
The Lost Kingdom
—though I wouldn't recommend that one, to be honest—or
The Devil of a Time
. That one's fun, and we're putting it on tomorrow night. I'll give you a free ticket if you say you'll come.”

I laughed. He was probably handing out free tickets all over town—I understood that was a very common ploy entertainers used to swell their audiences—but it was still most flattering to be coaxed. “I might be able to come tomorrow night,” I conceded, “but I'd have to have two tickets. My parents would never let me go to such a thing alone at night.”

He promptly presented me with two slips of paper, hand-printed with tomorrow's date and the title of the play. “Who will you bring with you?” he asked. “Your brother? Your beau? Maybe I don't want you to come after all if you're going to bring your beau.” He pretended to try to snatch the tickets back.

I quickly put my hands behind my back, the tickets safe in my fingers. “No, I'll bring my twin sister. I'll bet you won't know which is which.”

He took a moment to study my face, smiling as if the task was a pleasurable one. “I bet I will. Does she look so much like you?”

“Most people can't tell us apart. Though there are distinguishing characteristics.”

He held up a hand. “Don't tell me! I want to prove to you that I know who you are. Though I—” He paused, and suddenly that comical expression crossed his face. “Though I don't know what your name is, precisely.”

I could not help laughing at that. “Eleda,” I said.

“And your sister's name?”

“Adele.”

He thought about that a moment. “Eleda. Adele,” he said. “Am I right in guessing that your names are the same, except that one is the other backward?”

I caught my breath. No one had ever realized this before until one of us had pointed it out. How could he be so sensitive, so attuned to every detail? “Yes,” I said. “We mirror each other exactly.”

“Then I must suppose she is as pretty as you are, though I find it hard to believe,” he said.

“I must suppose you say things like that to every woman you have a conversation with.”

He put his hands to his chest as if to feel for the jeweled hilt of a dagger. “Stabbed through the heart!” he exclaimed. “You scarcely know me, and already you accuse me of inconstancy.”

I was enjoying myself hugely. “I am a very truthful girl,” I said demurely. “And the truth is, you seem to me to be an unregenerate flirt.”

“Ah, well, every man must employ his own particular talents,” Edgar said in a philosophical voice. “A blacksmith uses his strength—a barrister uses his intellect. I'm an actor, and all I have is charm. You can't fault me for using it.”

“Not at all,” I said politely. “In fact, I compliment you on your skill.”

He burst out laughing. “You
are
a funny one!” he said, but he seemed delighted, not offended, so I smiled. “No girl has ever talked to me that way before.”

My smile went slightly awry here. “Yes, well, I'm often accused of being—blunt.”

“But I like it,” he insisted. “You're an original. So will you come to the play tomorrow?”

“I will try very, very hard.”

He turned back to survey the selection of fabric before him. “And will you tell me which of these materials I should buy? Because I've already forgotten what you recommended.”

I gestured at the bolt I considered the best bargain. “You might ask Lissette if she'll give you a better price if you buy twice as much as you planned,” I said. “Sometimes she'll give a quantity discount—and if you're going to wear those clothes so often, you might need to replace them quicker than you think.”

“Excellent advice!” he said. “I can't tell you how glad I am that I ran into you.”

I smiled. “I am happy to have pleased you.”

He laughed at that. “Oh, you please me very much, Eleda the innkeeper's daughter. And I'll see you tomorrow night? You promise?”

I never made promises I wasn't sure I could keep. “I'll try,” I said again. “Thank you for the tickets.”

He held out his hand, and for a moment I thought he wanted the tickets back. But then I realized he wanted to shake my hand to seal the bargain. It was probably a bit too familiar on such short acquaintance, but we were in a public place, and he was a delightful man, and I rather wanted to discover what it would feel like to touch him. So I put my hand in his, and he bent down and kissed my knuckles.

Excitement ran like a ribbon of fire from my fingers straight to my heart.

I snatched my hand back. “
Mister
Beauman!”

He was laughing as he straightened up. “
Miss
Eleda!”

I was confused and blushing, but I have to say I was not at all upset. On the contrary. But there were consequences to such behavior. I knew that more than one woman, shopping in the store, had witnessed the playful gesture and would be reporting it to my mother before the hour was much older. “I have to go home now,” I said, backing away from him and edging toward the door. “Good luck with the rest of your purchases.”

“Thank you for all your help. I'll see you tomorrow night,” he said, raising his voice as I made it to the threshold so that absolutely everyone in the shop could hear what he said.

“You're welcome,” I said, and fled out the door. My cheeks were still hot with embarrassment and excitement when I reached home.

 

 

Adele was most willing to accompany me to
Devil of a Time
, and my mother merely laughed when I breezily related to her the encounter in the dress shop. “Actors,” she said complacently. “They behave most scandalously. I was courted by an actor once.”

Adele and I both stared at her with complete astonishment. “You
were
?” Adele said faintly. It was one of the few times in my life I could remember that Adele didn't claim she had always known something that heretofore had never been whispered aloud by anyone.

“Oh, it was before I met your father, of course,” Mother said. She touched a hand to her cheek and smiled. For a moment, she looked exactly the way Adele did when she was contemplating some sweet secret. “Such a romantic boy. And utterly
striking.
But so unsteady. Hardly to be relied upon. Nothing like your father.” She smiled again and then shook her head a little as if to shake free of strong memories. “Well! That was a long time ago.”

Adele turned to look at me, her blue and green eyes at their widest. “I suppose this actor of yours is unsteady and unreliable as well,” she said.

I shrugged a little pettishly. “Not that it matters. I'll probably never even speak to him again. I'd just like to go to this play, is all.”

“Yes,” Adele said, “I'd love to go.”

Since our parents didn't object, and we worked hard during the next afternoon to get our day's chores done, Adele and I actually did attend
Devil of a Time
the following night. We wore the dresses that we had commissioned last year for the Summermoon festival—fine enough for an outdoor summer play, but no longer the most elegant outfits in our wardrobes—and walked the two miles to the edge of town, where the theater had been set up. The streets of Merendon, in winter so empty at this time of day, were still full of tourists and townspeople enjoying the late sunshine and fine weather. We knew at least a third of the people who joined us in the rather rickety stands built three-quarters of the way around the makeshift stage. We had arrived early, so we secured excellent seats—in the center of the fourth row. We would be able to see everything.

And it was a wonderful play. Oh, it was silly and melodramatic and every once in a while the actors would deliver a particularly ridiculous line. At that point, they would turn to glance at the audience as if to say, “It is not my fault this is such a nonsensical play!” which only made everyone in the audience laugh even harder. The heroine was so pretty and so engaging that I would have hated her for standing up there onstage, flirting with Edgar (the hero), except that her quick asides to the audience made it clear that she thought he was a big overgrown boy who was not nearly as interesting as most of the men in the stands probably were. Edgar himself, even when he was down on his knees proclaiming undying love to her, managed to make it seem as if he was laughing at his own lines without diminishing the power of the play in the least. More than once, when he was supposed to be making some impassioned speech to his ladylove, his eyes were scanning the crowd, and it was clear he was telling the audience, not the actress, who really owned his heart.

All in all, a most impressive performance.

He saw me the very first time he came onstage. I know, because even while he spoke his part, his gaze was restlessly roving over the stands, searching for someone. He stopped looking when he saw me. A small smile touched his mouth, even though his character was not, at that particular moment, supposed to be happy; his hand went surreptitiously to his heart. As soon as his speech was over and the other actors were engaged in a long-winded argument, his eyes came back to me; the smile returned. And then he glanced away from me, to Adele, and back to me. The smile widened. I felt myself blushing in the incomplete darkness of the stands.

Perhaps it was no wonder that I thought the play the most marvelous entertainment I had ever seen.

It lasted nearly three hours and was still too short. The minute it ended and the ill-rigged curtain came clumsily down, the crowd erupted into applause. “That was certainly enjoyable!” Adele called into my ear as we rose to our feet, clapping and stamping along with everyone. “And how beautiful your young man is!”

“He's not my young man!” I called back.

She laughed. “He certainly seemed most enamored of you!”

“Can we wait a little bit?” I asked. “To see if the actors come out? I'd like to tell him how marvelous I thought his performance was.”

“I wouldn't even dream of leaving without meeting him,” she said, sounding amused.

Many of the rest of the audience members had the same idea, but the stands had almost emptied by the time the actors came ducking out from under the curtain. The heroine was instantly surrounded by a coterie of adoring young men; no wonder she had not seemed so moved by Edgar's scripted professions of love. Even the older actors, who had played outrageous characters, had their share of supporters. I was willing to bet that all the young women who had lingered in the stands had done so with the sole purpose of expressing their admiration to Edgar . . . but none of them got a chance. He swept aside the curtain, vaulted over the edge of the stage, and hopped up the first two sets of steps. He came to a halt one row below us.

“Eleda,” he said, taking my hand and bowing over it very low. He had not even seemed to hesitate for a moment before deciding if I was the correct twin. “I'm so happy you're here tonight! What did you think of the play?”

“I thought it was very silly and very fun,” I said, laughing and pulling my hand away. “You make the most convincing hero. I imagine you have quite a following in the towns you play at on a regular basis.”

“That may be,” he said. “But more and more I find myself wishing to play for a smaller and smaller audience—the same one every night—and a most faithful audience at that.”

Adele laughed, reminding me of her existence. I said, “Edgar, let me introduce my sister, Adele, to you. She enjoyed the play, too.”

He bowed over her hand with as much flourish as he'd displayed to me, but he dropped her fingers instantly, whereas he had shown a disposition to cling to mine. “Thank you so much for coming to my play with your sister,” he said.

Adele smiled. “Thank you so much for the tickets. It was quite a treat.”

“I suppose you don't often get a chance to attend the theater and watch people make fools of themselves?” he asked.

She was smiling still. “Oh, you'd be surprised at how often people can be found playing one role or another,” she said. “And not always on the formal stage.”

That made me raise my eyebrows, but Edgar didn't seem to notice the barb. “What was your very favorite part?” he said, directing the question at both of us.

“The scene where the heroine hid the diary,” said the Safe-Keeper.

“The scene where the villain was unmasked,” said the Truth-Teller.

He glanced between us, smiling again. “I don't think, for sisters, you are very much alike,” he said.

“But we are closer than most people realize,” Adele said.

“Will you be able to come back sometime in the next three weeks?” Edgar asked. “We have two more plays in our repertoire even before we open
Killed by a Kiss
. You could come see them all.”