Friday, August 25, 2023

CHAPTER 10: Captain Lightfoot


Three days before Christmas, the Fairweather Theatrical Company departed Kelsingham for a private engagement in Bath. The Fairweather family rode in the company caravan with all the necessary dresses and properties, which Stephen Fairweather had driven to Kelsingham in advance of his parents' arrival to set up the playhouse. The rest of the company found places in the stage coaches that carried passengers to and from Bristol and Bath. It would not do for members of the company invited to perform for Lord Seely’s private guests to arrive at their destination on foot, like common tramps.

"His Lordship fancies himself quite a patron of the arts," Jane Kennett explained to the ladies in their coach, "so he built his own theatre for private entertainments and transferred his professional patronage to Mr. and Mrs. F."

"I heard Lord Seely was sweet on Mrs. F. once upon a time, back when she trod the boards as Miss Greville," said Miss Bishop.

"No doubt you heard it from Mr. F," Jenny replied. "His Lordship is a man of whimsical temperament, as so many of 'em are, and Mr. F. likes to think our troupe has a deeper claim on the old boy’s affections. But the fact is, he’ll take after anything in breeches. So you’d best keep your wits about you, Mrs. Lightfoot."

"I shall do my best to outrun him," said Tory.

"Only just to the interlude, dear. He’ll forget all about you once he gets a look at Bishop in her pink tights."

"Mrs. Kennett!" Miss Bishop went as rosy as her tights.

"Never worry, Flora," said Mrs. Swan from her corner. "An old gent like Lord Seely won’t have much ammunition left in his piece."

This remark completely silenced the younger ladies while Tory swallowed a grin. Mrs. Swan, who was nearer forty than thirty, exchanged a mischievous look with Jenny. The principal singer did not care to waste her voice in idle chat, so she always chose her few words for maximum effect.

"And just as well," said Jenny. "We shouldn’t want Mrs. Lightfoot to compromise the memory of her late husband."

Tory immediately dropped her eyes.

"Not when she pines for him still, poor thing," Violet chimed in.

Tory’s every muscle froze as she stared at the coach floor.     

"Do you?" cried Miss Bishop, eagerly. "What was he like?"

"Now girls, don’t distress her," advised Jenny. "You can see how she grieves."

Tory cast her a grateful glance, only to find those mismatched eyes resting on her with cool expectation. Those eyes would bore straight into her soul, exposing her for the fraud she was. Hellfire, she must say something, improvise something they would believe.

"Was he very handsome?" whispered Miss Bishop.

"Very." Tory’s voice was low and halting, but her mind was racing ahead. "He was . . . fair, golden hair touched with red, like the sun, and sky-blue eyes. And . . . young. We were both so young."

"What a tragedy!" enthused Miss Bishop.

"His father owned a shipping business out of New York, in America, and he was master of one of the ships."

"A sea captain!" cried Violet. "Captain Lightfoot!"

"However did you meet?" from Miss Bishop.
    
"In . . . Portsmouth. His ship was trading there. He . . . had the fever, yellow fever. I was at the same inn . . . my brother was playing in Portsmouth . . . " had she not seen a playhouse, there? ". . .  and I was already seas — I mean, I’d had the fever before. As a child. I nursed him and when he recovered . . . we fell in love. And he took me back to New York with him."

As nervous as she was, Tory could not help a surge of gleeful satisfaction when she glanced up to see the rapt faces all around her, even Jenny’s. It was such a thrilling story and they were all so eager. What did it matter if it wasn’t true?

"Did you go back a bride?"

"Oh, yes. He swore he could not wait until New York."

"Oh, how romantic! And you had a honeymoon at sea?"    

"Yes," Tory smiled, enjoying herself, now. "We went by way of the West Indies. Have you ever seen a sunset in the Indies? No? It happens in a moment — the sky glows red, the sun goes out like a candle and a million stars swallow up the rest of the light. It’s so beautiful. The trades . . . tradewinds . . . blow gently all night and the spray off the bows is as warm as a kiss." She did not mention the mosquitoes, the debilitating night fogs, the rats that infested a ship’s hold, or the hurricanes. This was not the moment.

"What happened to him, your husband?"

"Hush, Flora!"

"But you don’t mind, do you, Mrs. Lightfoot? You mustn’t shut up your grief."

"He was . . . lost at sea," Tory temporized. "Some time later. His ship was . . . attacked by pirates . . . in the Indies. They said he fought like a lion, but . . . but they never found him."

She lowered her eyes, again. Hadn’t she given them enough?

"How tragic!" breathed Miss Bishop.

"You poor creature," seconded Violet. "We’re so sorry."

Tory was feeling more than a little sorry, herself; it sounded like one of those silly melodramas the company performed. But it was so much safer than the truth.

"How brave you are to keep working. Despite your sorrow."

Jenny Kennett’s voice had lost none of its coolness. Tory kept her eyes downcast and assumed a look of sorrow. She had only to think of how long it had been since she had held Jack, kissed him, fallen asleep in his arms, and genuine desolation flooded through her.

"One cannot live on sorrow, Mrs. Kennett."



 

"Ah, Mr. Dance," Miles Fairweather called. "Might we have the benefit of your expert opinion for a moment?"

Jack came out onstage to find Fairweather and Ingram, the stage manager, frowning down into the pit while Christopher Bell leaned on his prop sword nearby. After a luncheon laid for all the company in Lord Seely’s kitchen, they were about to begin rehearsals in his private theatre, a small space, if lushly decorated with maroon velvet and gilt.


"It seems we must restage the duel of Aguecheek and Cesario in half the space, as His Lordship has shortened the apron of his stage since last year. "

"It’s all one to me if I must tumble into the pit, so long as there is some suitably rich and titled lap for me to land in," added Bell, who was playing Aguecheek. "But I fear for Mrs. Lightfoot’s modesty."

Jack considered the narrow apron. It was a sham duel; some comic business might be gotten out of them circling back to back with their swords clutched to their bosoms. "Let me find Alphonse and we’ll work something up."

Bell picked up the new business with his characteristic aplomb, Jack standing in for Tory while Alphonse coached from the side. Half an hour later, the young actor's only other sign of exertion was a slight flush, high on his cheeks, which intensified the deep marine blue of his eyes. It ought to be illegal to look like that, thought Jack, feeling suddenly very old and tired and plain.

"That's done it, Mr. Bell," Jack announced, at last, sinking onto a stool beside Alphonse’s. "Thank you for your patience."

"My pleasure, Mr. Dance," responded Bell, smoothing back an errant strand of pale hair from his face. He nodded to Alphonse and was about to turn away when he paused and faced them both again.

"Oh, and look here, Dance, I was damned sorry to hear about your brother-in-law. Shameful waste."

Jack stared at him. "My . . . brother-in-law."

"Captain Lightfoot. Taken off in his prime like that, and still so young. Your sister must feel it keenly. I know I should."

Jack did not know what kind of nonsense he mumbled as Bell strolled off. He turned to meet Alphonse’s composed gaze.

"Captain Lightfoot?"

"Surely, you recall your sister’s dear departed husband," said Alphonse. "Fair, handsome fellow. Sailed out of New York. Heir to a great shipping fortune. Lost at sea, so they say. Captain Matthew Lightfoot."

Jack looked as if he’d taken a blow. Alphonse glanced at the activity all around them and motioned Jack into a gloomy corner of the backstage, far away from the others.

"Is there such a person?" Alphonse prompted, sotto voce.

"Oh, aye, he’s real enough," Jack answered, in the same low tone. "Matty Forrester. We sailed together. How do you and Bell know of him?"

"I had it from Stephen Fairweather, who heard it from Miss Bishop, that pretty girl he moons after. I imagine Bell had it from Mrs. Kennett."

"What else do they say?"

Alphonse repeated the rest of the tale as he had heard it. "And Victoria," he concluded, "she knew this Forrester, I suppose?"    

"She was in love with him."

Jack could not imagine what he must look like, the way Alphonse was scrutinizing him. There was so much Alphonse had prudently never asked them about their life before they knew him.

"But . . . she never married him?" said Alphonse.

Jack shook his head.

”She never nursed him through the fever?"

"No. That was me."

"Well . . . it is only a story," Alphonse reasoned. "It means nothing."

Jack wished he could believe it meant nothing, this unwelcome resurrection of Matty Forrester into their lives. Jack knew that Tory loved him, after all they had survived together. But the freedom they had shared in the islands was very far away, now. It was cold in England, and gloomy and full of rules. Tory must be very lonely, here. Why else would she conjure up Matty out of the thin air?

"And was this Forrester as handsome as they say?"

"He was a bloody god," Jack replied, oddly relieved to speak about the ghost that had haunted him for so long. "Tall, fair, broad-shouldered. Had all his teeth. And a goddamned dervish in battle. Hadn’t a lick of common sense, that boy, but he loved a good fight."

"So that is why the pirates captured him."

 Jack shook his head again. "Matty was never a captive. He swam aboard after we plundered the ship he was on. He couldn't wait to go a-pirating in the Indies."

"What a glamorous life it must have been," said Alphonse drily. 

Jack’s voice sank lower, still. "There was nothing glamorous about the pirate trade. Our crew were mostly poor cubanos — Cubans — and creoles and runaway slaves. Our Captain Hart was a Scotsman who fought in Bolivar’s revolution against Spain. Took to piracy when he thought it might be a better way for poor criollos to make a living off the wealth of their own islands. Not that it was ever much of a living. Once in a great while, we’d plunder a fat trading ship and piss away the profits, in between long stretches of boredom, fever, mosquitoes and the odd hurricane, down on the hind end of the Cuban coast."

"Could you not . . . escape?"

"To what? I joined up on my account and I was never sorry about it," said Jack. "Piracy was an improvement over the merchant fleet I'd been pressed into. And it was a goddamned holiday after the slave ship that had been my last berth."

Alphonse nodded; he had heard that part of Jack's story before. "Why give it up, then?"

"Tory blundered aboard and . . . everything changed." A wistful smile tugged at a corner of Jack's mouth. "She was an orphan, a stowaway on a brig we boarded out of Boston whose crew were too witless to know her for the female she was. They scented the Native blood in her, though, her mother's blood, and used her accordingly. She was glad enough to join us when Ed Hart made her the offer." Jack shook his head. "She was so hungry for the freedom she'd never had in Boston, so hungry for the life that had been so unkind to her. I couldn't make it out. When I came down with the fever, I expected to die in peace."

"But?"

Jack shrugged. "She wouldn't let me. We lost our berth, however, the captain had to put me off to avoid contagion, and she stayed with me. After that, we had to make our own way. That's when we met up with you."

Alphonse nodded again. "And what became of this Forrester?"

"Who knows?" Jack shrugged. "An old shipmate told us that Ed Hart decided to rejoin the rebel fleet, and put Matty off in some English port town in the islands on the way. But that's the last we ever heard of him."

Alphonse regarded him for another long moment.  "And you miss it, still," he said at last. "That life."

Jack considered this. "Tory does, although she would never say so. Not to me." He sighed again. "It's a dangerous, thankless trade, but Ed Hart was an honest fellow, according to his own lights. We were no one’s slaves."

"Ah," said Alphonse.


 

On the eve of Christmas Eve, Tory gave her Viola in Twelfth Night in the small private theatre at Seelydown Manor, the country estate of Lord and Lady Seely in the green hills above Bath. Charlotte Fairweather presented her to the Seelys afterward. The manager’s wife had not been seen much in the playhouse of late, nearly due and having a difficult time of it. She wore rose-colored silk, tonight, to reflect some color into her pale face, but Tory could see what the effort cost her. 

"How proud I will be, dear Mrs. Lightfoot, to one day boast that you and your brother made an early appearance together upon my own humble stage," Lord Seely beamed. "We are always on the watch for the next Kembles, are we not?" 

A well-kept gentleman of about sixty, he enjoyed flattering all the ladies and misquoting Shakespeare to all the men, who were too conscious of their place to correct him. Plain, formidable Lady Seely did not share her husband’s enthusiasm for the drama, but she became more animated when her army of servants cleared the pit benches away and laid out a cold buffet supper, bestowing upon her aristocratic guests the delicious thrill of mingling with members of the notorious theatrical profession.

Tory was shooed off to enjoy herself, but she couldn’t find Jack, and Alphonse was with Kit Bell, charming a flotilla of bejewelled matrons.

"Why, here you are, Mrs. Lightfoot."

And she turned to face the shark’s grin of Henry Harding.

"My congratulations on your triumph, this evening."

"Thank you, Mr. Harding."

"Surely some sort of celebration is in order after your exertions," he suggested.

"I'm afraid my exertions have exhausted me."

"One should never think it to look at you," he beamed. Then he attempted to alter his features into something sympathetic, although scarcely any less predatory. "May I also offer my condolences on your untimely loss? What a shame to be left a widow while still so young. And vigorous. You ought not to be all alone in the world." His wandering hand had found the small of her back. "Not when there is a remedy so near to hand."

"A trifle too near for my taste sir," she replied sweetly, stepping again out of his reach.

Alphonse materialized at her elbow and Harding melted away.

"That fellow is not annoying you, is he?" Alphonse asked her.

“He might, if I paid him any mind.”

“Then do not. I have found something else to interest you, Victoria. Come with me.”

Alphonse maneuvered her out of the small pit and up a corner staircase to the upper tier. He steered her past a knot of gentlemen debating politics and a quartet of ladies playing at whist in an open box and down the narrow corridor behind the boxes to the last one, nearest the stage.

"Keep to the back and the draperies will conceal you from those below," he told her. "And do not be long. You’ll be missed."

Alphonse opened the door and nodded Tory inside. She stepped into the shadows at the rear of the box as the door closed behind her, and a figure leaped out of a chair before her, making her gasp.

"Rusty?"

"Hellfire, Jack, you scared the life out of me! What are you doing up here, all alone in the dark?"

He said nothing for a moment, only stood there, looking at her. Behind him, past the draperies and over the railing, she could see part of the chandelier that hung above the pit casting soft, flickering light, making the shadows jump in the box. The tinkling of glassware and low, muted chatter wafted up from the merrymakers below like a distant dream as Tory rushed to Jack and threw her arms around him.

"What is it, hombre? What’s wrong?"         
 

His arms tightened round her for a silent moment. Then he sighed into her hair. ”I heard such an odd story, today. Seems our Matty has been promoted. Captain, now, is it? To say nothing of his promotion to husband."

Tory muttered a silent oath and straightened in his embrace. "It was your idea to make me a widow," she reminded him. "You told me . . . "

"I said you should keep silent."

"I was in a coach, Jack. I couldn't just walk away, I had to tell them something! How would it look if I couldn’t describe my own husband?"

"Did it have to be Matty?"

"What should I have said, that the man I love is tall and dark and looks a great deal like my brother?"

Jack lowered his eyes and shook his head. "But . . . was it wise to mention pirates?"

"I'm guilty of melodrama, I confess." Tory kept her voice low and urgent. "But these people know no more of pirates than they do of Turks, it was a way to end the story, that's all. I certainly didn't relish casting the pirates as villains, although you should have seen how eagerly the ladies ate it up. But it was only  . . . a device."

"And a damned effective one," Jack admitted. "Your little tale is all over the dressing rooms."

"Is it?"
    
Oh, aye. I must have heard the description of a sunset in the Indies half a dozen times."

Tory hoped it was too dark for Jack to see her smile. "I'm sorry," she lied.

"No you’re not. And why should you be, you’re a born storyteller. You ought to be, all the practice we’ve had." He sighed again, his gaze dropping to the floor. "It’s only . . . well, it’s bad enough we have to live this lie, without making it any bigger."

Tory crept a little closer. "I never meant to hurt you, hombre. I couldn't think fast enough. You know it was all lies. I have never wanted to marry Matty, not ever. Not when I have you."

He folded his arms more closely around her. "I know, mi vida. I'm only acting like a fool because I miss you so much."

"I miss you, too." Tory found her voice suddenly near to breaking. "It's so hard to pretend I don’t love you. I never thought it would be so hard." Her hand slid slowly down his chest, picking idly at his stock. "I thought it would be like acting, but it’s not. It's one thing to play somebody else for an hour onstage. But it’s quite another to have to pretend not to be who I am, not to feel what I feel, every hour of the day."

"It’s a damned mess, all right," Jack agreed, stroking her hair.  "Loving you is all that keeps me human, Rusty. And every time I must deny what I feel for you, I feel . . . diminished."

"This is all my fault . . . " Tory began miserably, but Jack shushed her and hugged her more closely to him.

"Aye, it’s your fault we’re clothed and fed and off the streets," he said. "We’ve only got to hold on to our sanity until . . . "

"Until when?"

There was a riot of feeling in Jack’s dark eyes as he gazed down at her. He took her face in both his hands and kissed her once, very gently, and she felt her body melting out from underneath her.

"Did I tell you how splendid you were tonight?" he murmured. "It’s as if the role was written just for you."

"Oh, Jack . . . "

The door handle rattled softly behind them and Jack shoved himself an arm’s length away, although Tory could scarcely stand by herself. The door opened onto the expectant face of Henry Harding, whose greedy eyes brightened when they fell on Tory. He took one step into the box before he saw Jack in the shadows beyond her.

"Why, er, Dance . . . ah, there you are! Here, I thought . . . " Harding kept looking from Tory to Jack, confused and intrigued. "I say, I’m not . . .  interrupting anything, am I?"

"Some fool keeps reminding Mrs. Lightfoot of her recent tragedy," Jack snapped. Tory prayed their incriminating flushes might be taken for anger as he took her elbow. "Can no one leave my sister in peace?"

And they pushed past Harding, out of the box and into the narrow passage, intent on the stairwell, not daring to look back.

 

 

Top: J.A. Atkinson: Costumes of Great Britain No 3 1807:  Post-Captain

Above: Twelfth Night, Henry William Bunbury, ca. 1790 

Above: Contemporary romance novel cover by Jon Paul Studios

Above: Marc Chagall, Les Amoureux en Bleu” (1930)
 

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