soon?”
Frances looked at Rivington from under serious brows. “That, I’m afraid, was a lie.”
Frances found a promising ally in Mr. Rivington; sufficiently interested to offer some salient suggestions, sufficiently disinterested (or perhaps too well mannered) to demand explanations. She had taken the precaution of swearing him to silence. He had responded with the cordial proclamation that ravens were welcome to pluck out his eyes if he should utter a syllable of Frances’ interest in Kennan. Despite her reassurance on this head, however, it was inevitable that the weeds of doubt would begin to grow in Frances’ hastily cultivated plot, especially after Aunt Sophie’s forceful representations against it. Certainly there were respectable people connected with the theater! Aunt Sophie would not deny it, but she didn’t hesitate to add that by and large they were a fast group, immoderate in their use of laudanum and hard spirits. It was not the atmosphere for an impressionable young lady! Ignoring Frances’ protest that she was not impressionable, Aunt Sophie went on to say that, still worse, the theater was the hunting ground for the wolfish bucks of the aristocracy, who could be depended upon to evoke temptation in the most virtuous of feminine breasts. Since it was Frances’ considered opinion that if she could resist the temptation of a man as captivating as Mr. David, she was hardly likely to yield to what would surely be the inferior attractions of any other male that Fate should throw her way, Frances was able to dismiss this objective to her plans, telling her aunt simply that forewarned was forearmed. When Aunt Sophie pointed out that no upright youth was likely to take to wife a young woman who had mixed freely in so degraded a circle, Frances wondered aloud that her great-aunt could think so self-interested a consideration could inhibit her from her duty to dear Papa.
That was enough for Aunt Sophie! She said cordially that she guessed she’d done what she could to dissuade Frances from exposing herself to the Corrupting Influence of the stage and offered to drop her niece by the Drury Lane Theatre the next afternoon on her way to the corsetier.
* * *
The next day, when Frances arrived at the theater, she discovered the spare neoclassical façade that Mr. Wyatt had designed not many years ago in the wake of a disastrous fire to be rather disappointingly covered in the layer of dark chimney soot that disfigured the other public buildings she had seen in London. Aunt Sophie told her that the parish had the perilous task of scrubbing down St. Paul’s on an annual basis; most other architectural monuments, no matter the time and expense spent on their construction, were allowed to grow blacker and blacker. It was the way of a great city.
Frances dodged a brewer’s dray as she followed a tight side alley to the back door through which Rivington had advised her to enter.
She was admitted by a husky youth in knee breeches, who directed her up a wide circular staircase to the stage. Once at the top, a landing rank with the odor of tallow candles led to a large pair of open doors. Stepping through them, Frances found herself in the cramped stretch of the wings looking out toward the stage. To her right was the heavy iron curtain, widely touted as the latest in fire prevention. To her left and at the rear of the stage, a trio of carpenters were building a high scaffold, hammering and sawing thunderously under the direction of a harassed-looking man who was staring stark-eyed at an unrolled sheet of stage direction.
A group of some ten young women stood just outside the wing. They were a willowy, animated group, talking to each other with vivid sweeping gestures and affected voices, pointedly indifferent to a lively girl with auburn hair who was auditioning on the stage apron, giving a cheerful rendition of the popular ditty “Birds Can’t Fall and Fishes Don’t Drown.”
The other
Frances looked at Rivington from under serious brows. “That, I’m afraid, was a lie.”
Frances found a promising ally in Mr. Rivington; sufficiently interested to offer some salient suggestions, sufficiently disinterested (or perhaps too well mannered) to demand explanations. She had taken the precaution of swearing him to silence. He had responded with the cordial proclamation that ravens were welcome to pluck out his eyes if he should utter a syllable of Frances’ interest in Kennan. Despite her reassurance on this head, however, it was inevitable that the weeds of doubt would begin to grow in Frances’ hastily cultivated plot, especially after Aunt Sophie’s forceful representations against it. Certainly there were respectable people connected with the theater! Aunt Sophie would not deny it, but she didn’t hesitate to add that by and large they were a fast group, immoderate in their use of laudanum and hard spirits. It was not the atmosphere for an impressionable young lady! Ignoring Frances’ protest that she was not impressionable, Aunt Sophie went on to say that, still worse, the theater was the hunting ground for the wolfish bucks of the aristocracy, who could be depended upon to evoke temptation in the most virtuous of feminine breasts. Since it was Frances’ considered opinion that if she could resist the temptation of a man as captivating as Mr. David, she was hardly likely to yield to what would surely be the inferior attractions of any other male that Fate should throw her way, Frances was able to dismiss this objective to her plans, telling her aunt simply that forewarned was forearmed. When Aunt Sophie pointed out that no upright youth was likely to take to wife a young woman who had mixed freely in so degraded a circle, Frances wondered aloud that her great-aunt could think so self-interested a consideration could inhibit her from her duty to dear Papa.
That was enough for Aunt Sophie! She said cordially that she guessed she’d done what she could to dissuade Frances from exposing herself to the Corrupting Influence of the stage and offered to drop her niece by the Drury Lane Theatre the next afternoon on her way to the corsetier.
* * *
The next day, when Frances arrived at the theater, she discovered the spare neoclassical façade that Mr. Wyatt had designed not many years ago in the wake of a disastrous fire to be rather disappointingly covered in the layer of dark chimney soot that disfigured the other public buildings she had seen in London. Aunt Sophie told her that the parish had the perilous task of scrubbing down St. Paul’s on an annual basis; most other architectural monuments, no matter the time and expense spent on their construction, were allowed to grow blacker and blacker. It was the way of a great city.
Frances dodged a brewer’s dray as she followed a tight side alley to the back door through which Rivington had advised her to enter.
She was admitted by a husky youth in knee breeches, who directed her up a wide circular staircase to the stage. Once at the top, a landing rank with the odor of tallow candles led to a large pair of open doors. Stepping through them, Frances found herself in the cramped stretch of the wings looking out toward the stage. To her right was the heavy iron curtain, widely touted as the latest in fire prevention. To her left and at the rear of the stage, a trio of carpenters were building a high scaffold, hammering and sawing thunderously under the direction of a harassed-looking man who was staring stark-eyed at an unrolled sheet of stage direction.
A group of some ten young women stood just outside the wing. They were a willowy, animated group, talking to each other with vivid sweeping gestures and affected voices, pointedly indifferent to a lively girl with auburn hair who was auditioning on the stage apron, giving a cheerful rendition of the popular ditty “Birds Can’t Fall and Fishes Don’t Drown.”
The other
Similar Books
