Perdita Read online

  I outlined my plan to Perdita. She was inordinately pleased. "You must not put too much hope in it, my dear,” I told her. "It is not certain Aunt Maude will be in a position to have us.”

  "If she cannot, I’ll go to Alton’s,” she answered, undaunted. “John is in London for the Season. I can stay with him and his mother.”

  “Your papa will not like your putting up with a bachelor, even if he is a neighbor.”

  “His mother is there. Papa is only afraid I might marry him, but I never would. He is not at all romantic.”

  John Alton was not rich or socially high enough to be eligible for Perdita, whereas Mr. Croft owned an abbey. “What I would do is find some other hand­some gentleman to marry. So long as he was rich and preferably noble, Papa would not care in the least.”

  “True, but that can be done from Brighton. We’ll try Aunt Maude first.”

  “Promise me you won’t make me go back,” she pleaded.

  “I shall do what I can. I can’t promise. If your Aunt Maude cannot have us at this time, we must go home, but I shall help you escape Mr. Croft. I prom­ise you that.”

  She looked at me, a half-disappointed, disillusioned look, but in the end had no choice but to accept it. I wrote to Maude, and Perdita left the letter off at the desk while I arranged for our trunks to be unloaded. The carriage must be sent home, to make Sir Wilfrid think we had made contact with Aunt Agatha, as arranged. We had to hire a sleeping room, as we would be staying for a night or two. Our trunks were taken above, and for the remainder of the day we enjoyed a holiday, walking around the town, looking through the shops, and discussing at length what form our future was likely to take. I could not like to worry her, but if Aunt Maude was not agreeable to have us, I would certainly be turned off from my post for having abetted Perdita in this scheme. It was not a detail to sit lightly on my heart. How should I help her, in that case?

  Before dinner, I tired of walking and went to our room to go through my address book, canvassing other possible havens for us, if things turned out for the worst. Perdita became bored, and went belowstairs to get some newspapers. Later, we had dinner in our room, which looked out on the main street of the little town.

  “There is one of those carriages from Tuck’s, still at the Red Lion,” I mentioned.

  “There is to be no play tonight,” she told me. “Mr. Daugherty was going ahead to arrange the business and finances at Marlborough, then the others are to join him tomorrow, and put on their play at night. Do you suppose the woman in the ostrich feathers was his wife, Moira? He did not say he was married.”

  “I have no idea. Is Daugherty not an actor after all, then?”

  “Oh yes, the leading actor, also the manager, and he writes their stuff too, like Shakespeare. I wonder what the Tuck stands for. You would think he would call it the Daugherty Players.”

  “I am surprised he does not call it the King’s Men.”

  “He was not allowed. They made him change it last year when he went to London. Shall we go for a walk before we turn in for the night? It will be a long, dull evening in our room.”

  “We cannot go on the streets unescorted. It is nearly dark.”

  “The actresses are having a stroll.”

  "Precisely!”

  Instead of walking, we went to the window and observed the passing parade. It provided an excel­lent hour’s entertainment. I had not seen so inter­esting a spectacle since first clapping my eyes on the new Lady Brodie. The girls were not walking, but making up to any male pedestrian who passed by. As often as not, the man in question would enter the Red Lion with the actress. Before our show was called off because of darkness, I believe every one of the girls had picked up an escort in this highly irregular fashion. We had some difficulty in sleeping for the racket coming to us from across the road, where the windows were open, with singing, shout­ing, and the hammering of an out-of-tune piano blaring into the night.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  I awoke in the morning to the unusual sight of King George III in his parliamentary robes, glaring at me from the foot of the bed. He was in a frame, of course, hanging from the wall. By his side hung a hideous green parrot, done in clothwork. I was trying to decide which was the uglier when I became aware of something unusual. Glancing across at the pillow beside me, I saw it was empty. The imprint of Perdita’s head was on it still, but the girl was gone. No terror consumed my being. I knew she was not a late sleeper. She was up and dressed, probably in the dining room below having her breakfast. A look at my watch told me it was after eight, time that I arise and join her.

  I rang for warm water, made a leisurely toilette, as there was really nothing to do all day long but wait. We could not expect to hear from Maude before the next day. My hope was that she would come in person to collect us. A half hour had elapsed before I entered the dining hall. Still no panic surged when Perdita was not there. She had finished and gone for a walk, before the town was bustling with activity. I had toast and tea, and stopped at the desk to see if the newspapers had arrived yet. The clerk, the same I had been badgering for word of Aunt Agatha the day before, was on duty.

  "This time I have your message waiting for you, ma’am,” he said, handing me a white folded paper.

  “Thank you,” I replied, wondering who it could be from. Mr. Daugherty popped into my head. Before I read a word, I recognized Perdita’s peculiar pen­manship. Her somewhat childishly-formed letters were always ornamented with swirls and curlicues, while her i’s were dotted with v’s. And still, fool that I am, I thought only how considerate she was to have left me word in what direction she was walking, in case I wished to join her.

  It was nothing of the sort. She started right off her epistle with a melodramatic outburst of how she could not endure this cruel life that was before her, and to free her soul of the fetters of constraint, she was fleeing ‘while still Time Remayned.’ Spelling was never her forte. Any word that was not given a capital was underlined to add force to her persua­sions. No destination was named, but it hardly took a wizard to conclude she had run to Tuck’s Traveling Theater. I darted out the door to see if the carriage were still standing by. The roadway was empty.

  I had to screw up my courage to enter the disrepu­table Red Lion alone to inquire when they had left. “The actors went last night, miss,” the proprietor told me. “It’s their custom to leave at night. In that way they can sleep in their carriages, and save a night’s lodging. Their regular way of carrying on,” he added in a disparaging, gypped tone.

  “But they were here late last night. I heard them.”

  “Aye, so did the whole town. They stayed drinking and hollering till past midnight, but they didn’t sleep over. I’m not sorry to see the backs of them.”

  I asked, pink with shame, if a young lady had joined them, but he had no knowledge of my charge. While I had the ear of a local, I asked for the hours of the coach, only to learn I had missed one by fifteen minutes. Another would not be past till noon. He was kind enough to direct me to a hostelry that rented carriages.

  I darted back to the George first to get my money, and have our trunks brought down for loading on a hired carriage. That was when the day’s second calamity struck. I was painfully aware too that mishaps generally occur in three’s. The maid had been in our room and made it up. I went rooting through the trunk for the precious stocking holding our money, to find our things had been thoroughly rifled. The money was gone, likewise a few small items of wearing apparel. I needed that money too desperately to do without it.

  I stormed down to the desk, demanded the manager, made a great thundering brouhaha. Maids were called into his office, a search of their persons and rooms carried out, the whole of it using up a great deal of precious time and patience.

  "Nothing for it, ma’am, we’ll have to call in a constable,” the manager said apologetically.

  "I am in a great hurry. Could you not forward me some money? I don’t need the whole twenty-three pounds. Fi
ve or ten will do.”

  The fisheye he raked me with was a revelation. He did not believe a word of my story. Suggesting less than the whole sum convinced him I was shamming it. "Afraid that is impossible. Go to the constable—if you dare,” he said, with a brazen look.

  Before I left, he added one dim ray of hope. “Maybe your cohort took the blunt with her when she ran,” he said, in an odiously offending manner.

  I hoped and prayed she had, but could not believe it. Perdita had not bothered to take her own things; why would she have taken my tippet with the mink tails, or my best lace collar, which items were also missing?

  My next stop was the hiring stable. Having left it so late, there was nothing to be had but a whiskey. It hardly mattered. I could not have afforded a regular carriage, team and groom in any case. In fact, I had to leave my obligation at the inn unfulfilled, as I had less than two pounds to see Perdita and myself to safety. Our trunks were left behind as hostages. I would go after Perdita, come back to the George and sit tight till Maude got in touch with us. If she did not come in person, we were sunk.

  The nag they hitched up to the whiskey was as old as Adam. Dawdle is too racy a word for her gait. I could have walked on my own two feet faster, though not so far. The old jade, Ginger she was named, hinting at a livelier youth, poked along at a frisky two or so miles an hour, till at last a road marker loomed ahead, at a crossroads. I was alert for the markers as the territory was not familiar to me, but I remembered Marlborough had been named by Perdita as the troupe’s next stop. The word Marl­borough did not appear. Devizes, five miles, the marker said.

  Fearful that I was on the wrong road, I stopped at the next farm for direction. Yes, the farmer’s wife told me, I would have made better time had I turned left a mile back, but there was no sign posted, as she recalled, for everyone knew well enough the route to Marlborough. I was not more than a mile or two out of my way, if I just cared to turn Ginger around and head back. There was a tantalizing aroma of freshly-baked bread on the air, the sizzle of bacon coming from her kitchen, and a hole as big as a boot inside of me, for the day was wearing on. A feeble question as to the closest inn where I could take luncheon brought forth the hoped-for offer.

  "Have you not ate yet?” she asked, astonished. "Why, miss, it’s two o’clock. I’ve fed the hands an hour ago, and am just making up a mess of beans and bacon for myself. Join me, do. I don’t get much company.”

  I bolted the meal with unseemly haste, outlining as I ate that I was in a dreadful hurry, but changing some of the details to protect the guilty party. I implied I was on my way to a deathbed, which satisfied the woman as to my incoherent condition. Ginger did not increase her pace as the afternoon dragged on. Quite the contrary. I was strongly tempted to jump out and push her up the hills, of which there are an inordinate number, all of them going up, on the road from Chippenham to Marlbor­ough. There was ample time to worry myself sick, to plan lectures for Perdita, to pity her, to wonder if I had done the right thing in not taking her home, to know I had not, yet to confirm that almost any fate was better than Mr. Croft. The sun became hot as the afternoon wore on, but when I put off my pelisse, the wind was chilly. All in all, it was about the least enjoyable drive I have ever endured.

  There was some doubt too, towards its end, as to whether Ginger was going to go the course. A dead horse to cope with seemed an appropriate third calamity to visit me. When we approached the har­bingers of Marlborough, Ginger was still hacking. The houses grew closer together, signs of commer­cial establishments sprang up—bakery, abattoir, tannery. The sun had not quite set when at last I pushed Ginger into town.

  I decided to stable her at once, leave her off at the hostelry agreed upon in Chippenham, before she dropped from exhaustion. With this done, my next project was to discover my charge, before she mounted a stage, to discredit her fair reputation forever. Tuck’s Traveling Theater had their handbills posted along the main street, proclaiming Reimer’s Hall as the scene of the night’s performance. Unsure whether they had booked into an inn or planned to sleep in their caravan, I asked for the location of the hall, knowing they must show up there sooner or later, but certainly sooner than seven-thirty, the hour the show was to begin. The place was at the edge of town.

  It was six-thirty when I reached it. It was not so large as to have any noble clients or anything of that sort. There would be no one to see her, if by any chance she had sweet-talked Daugherty into letting her take to the boards. I sound like a very ineffectual person to confess that, after coming so far, I was unable to gain entry into the hall, but so it was. The front door was locked, the back door was locked. I banged and hammered at both entrances, without getting an answer. The windows were too high off the ground to effect an entry in daylight. Had it been dark, I would have tried it.

  I was so tired and so frustrated that in the end I decided to have some dinner, and go like a patron to the hall a quarter of an hour before the performance began. Dinner was only nominally dinner. A lone lady did not venture into a common room. I had a sandwich at a teashop, the last customer to enter, just before the door was locked. Anger was rising to the top of my emotions as I paid my way into Reimer’s Hall, reducing my cash to practically noth­ing. Once inside I did not take a seat, but went backstage, ready to pull Perdita by the scruff of the neck out of the disreputable place.

  I blush to relate the conditions under which the troupe made their preparations. The females were wedged, three or four to a cubicle, behind hanging curtains that did not even come to the floor. There were ten or twelve inches of ankle and leg exposed. The women darted in and out with no great regard for pulling the curtain closed behind them. The place was a voyeur’s delight. There were several greasy-looking men just outside, peering greedily in each time the curtain was opened. Being a stranger in their midst, I was subjected to my share of scru­tiny from the bucks. When one of them rolled up to me, with his great wadded shoulders sticking out a foot from his body, I asked in the haughtiest tone I own for Mr. Daugherty.

  The man looked me boldly up and down, hunched his wadding as though to imply my anatomy was not up to the company’s high standard, then walked away, waving a hand for me to follow in his foot­steps.

  Mr. Daugherty had set aside a cubbyhole for him­self amidst the backstage squalor. I think it was a broom closet actually. In it he sat with a wine bottle and a glass, bent over a sheet of closely-written figures, balanced on his knee. He did not recognize me.

  After repeating the ocular examination that was apparently an inevitable result of a female’s ventur­ing behind stage, he asked "What’s your act, miss? I have all the girls I can use, unless you have something special to offer.”

  “I am not looking for work, sir. I am looking for my charge, who joined you at Chippenham last night.”

  He raised his brows, hunched his shoulders, threw out his hands and regarded me with a conning smile. "I don’t know what you’re talking about, miss. I was in Marlborough last night,” he said, with an Irish accent that I shan’t attempt to duplicate. It added something to his speech, but would detract from the telling to go jumbling up the letters.

  "Your outfit was in Chippenham. She joined it,” I said coolly, though I did not actually know anything of the sort. “If you do not produce her this instant, I shall call in a constable. She is a minor, under my charge.

  “A minor, you say?”

  “That’s right. Any attempt to force her . . ."

  “Force! Nay, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick I swear. There was no forcing,” he said at once, an expression of alarmed fear lighting on his visage, which was rather handsome, incidentally.

  “When it is a minor in question, the onus falls on the older party,” I said, not sure of my legal facts, but sure Mr. Daugherty would have no notion whether they were true, nor question them, so long as they sounded bold and menacing.

  He licked his lips, ran his fingers nervously through his hair, and blurted out the truth. “She’s gone to si
t in the audience and see the show.”

  As I turned to leave, he called after me, “But I didn’t force her. She came running after us!”

  I knew perfectly well it was true, so said nothing, but only hurried out to scan the audience for her bold face. What an audience it was! The worst rabble ever assembled in the country, ninety percent of it male, and the other ten percent lightskirts. I felt perfectly degraded to enter the hall, but at least Perdita was sitting in a dark corner with an elderly, decent-looking woman to guard her. She tried to slink down behind the woman when she spotted me, but she knew it was futile, and finally sat up and waved instead.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  The show had not yet begun. I slid onto the chair beside her and got a hard hold of her arm. “Get your pelisse. We are leaving this hole, at once.”

  “Must we?” she asked. “Can’t we stay and see the performance at least? It is just about to begin.”

  Between a desire to see it, fatigue, the lack of anywhere to go when we left and plain dereliction of duty, I allowed myself to be talked into remaining for a while, which of course turned into the whole performance. The production owed everything but its title to John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera. It was so close a copy of the work that Mr. Daugherty ought to have been imprisoned as a plagiarist for daring to attach his name to it as author, and changing the title to The Warder’s Daughter. Mr. Daugherty played Cap­tain Macheath, under the title of Colonel Maciver. Our leading lady of the ostrich plumes played Lucy, and a rather pretty blonde was Polly. It was an extremely entertaining performance. I doubt there was a troupe in London who could have done better. Mr. Daugherty looked very handsome in his officer’s uniform, sporting every manner of ribbon and medal.