The Rake's Bargain

She broke off once more as her old pony, watching from its stall, stretched to nip playfully at her shirt sleeve. ‘I’ve no apples for you, Ned! Now leave me be—you’re having a nice long rest, but I’ve got all these words to remember!’

And an awful lot on my mind, if truth be told, she muttered to herself before starting her breathing exercises again. ‘Hmmm...’

A crowd was already gathering out in the yard. They sounded to be a noisy, ale-swilling lot, but that was only to be expected, and besides, she’d been used to stepping out in front of lively audiences since she was little. Her very first role had been as one of the young, doomed princes in Richard III, and some raucous onlookers had started jeering the moment she appeared. But they’d gone absolutely silent when she’d made her poignant little speech—God keep me from false friends!—and the sense of sheer power over people’s emotions had enthralled her.

‘You’re born to it, Deb,’ Gerald O’Hara had said proudly afterwards. ‘Some day they’ll be calling out your name in Drury Lane or Covent Garden.’

Perhaps. But meanwhile here she was, struggling to remember her lines for a performance in an inn yard, and the surly innkeeper was banging on the stable door. ‘You nearly ready? All this lot out here are making an almighty nuisance of themselves.’

Deb thought of all the sixpences he would have been busy collecting from them and bit back a sharp retort. ‘I said I’d appear at midday.’ She kept her voice pleasant. ‘And that’s what I’ll do.’

‘Well, see that you keep to it, missy.’

He left before she had chance to reply.

Don’t waste your time and effort arguing with the wretch. Don’t. A feeling of deep dread lurked in Deb’s heart—but it wasn’t the crowd she was afraid of.

Her business with Palfreyman was more or less resolved. At ten this morning she’d hurried to St Mary’s churchyard, watching out for any trap that might have been laid—after all, she wouldn’t put anything past Palfreyman. But everything was quiet there, and relief swept through her when she spotted the letter under the horse trough by the church wall.

Deb sat in the sun on the village green, and carefully opened the letter, which promised that Palfreyman would lift the charges he’d laid against the Lambeth Players. The wording was brief and gave away little, though she thought she could detect Palfreyman’s fury in the jagged penstrokes of his signature.

After buying herself a fresh currant bun from the nearby baker’s by way of celebration, she enjoyed it in the sunshine before wandering thoughtfully back to the inn. What could go wrong now?

Nothing—as long as they could set Mr Beaumaris free and get away before he could catch up with them.

To have been forced to keep him a prisoner overnight was an appalling turn of events—especially as he was a friend of Palfreyman’s. His kiss—and her reaction to it—had disturbed her badly. And there was something else. She could not forget how when he’d first seen her, his incredible blue eyes had opened wide with something that almost shouted aloud: I know you. I know you from somewhere.

Deb continued to pace the stables carefully, swinging her arms and trying to calm her racing thoughts. Palfreyman had a daughter, an only daughter called Paulette, who was the same age as her. And Deb knew for a fact that between the grown-up Paulette and herself there was an uncanny resemblance, because she’d seen her, last year.

Deb and Francis had gone to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens on a hot July afternoon. There was a display of Moorish acrobats and the London crowds had thronged to see them, but Deb and Francis had been there for a different reason—they’d come to ask the manager of Vauxhall if they could put on one of their plays for a week in the autumn.

Deb’s mind had been wholly on the negotiations. But when she saw the young woman wandering by with a group of female friends, she’d quite forgotten what she was about to say, because it had been like gazing into a looking glass—a magical looking glass, that turned your clothes from cheap cotton to silks and satins, and your leather boots to dainty kid shoes. The lady Deb was staring at was clad in a lovely pale green pelisse and a neat bonnet that set off her chestnut curls exquisitely. She carried a matching parasol, and everything about her declared that she was rich and proud and privileged.

The manager had gone off to fetch his appointments book. The young woman in green had disappeared among the summer crowds. But despite the blazing sunshine, Deb had felt as cold as if a ghost had walked over her grave, especially when Francis said with wonder, ‘That young lady who went by just then, with all her friends. She bore a remarkable resemblance to you, Deborah!’

‘No,’ Deb had said, shivering. ‘No, you’re mistaken, Francis.’

But afterwards, when the business with the manager was successfully completed and Francis had strolled off to admire the acrobats, Deb spotted the woman and her friends in the crowds again, and found herself unwillingly drawn closer to them.

‘Paulette,’ one of them was calling out. ‘Paulette, do come over here, they’re selling ices, and we must have one!’

The years had rolled back. Once more she was a six-year-old child clinging to her mother’s hand as they were driven by an angry Hugh Palfreyman from his house—but before the great front door was finally slammed on them, she’d caught sight of a small girl about her age, who happened to be crossing the vast, marble-tiled hall with her nurse.

The girl had tugged at her nurse’s hand when she saw Deb and her mother. ‘Nurse,’ she’d said in a clear, piercing voice, ‘Nurse, who is that dirty girl who’s staring at me so?’

Then the door was closed, with Deb on one side, and the little girl on the other. Even at such a young age, Paulette had been dressed in expensive and elaborate finery—a complete contrast to Deb, in her cotton frock. But Paulette was the same age as Deb, her curls were the same shade of chestnut—and such was the similarity that Deb had heard her mother utter a low cry on seeing her.

What different paths the two girls had taken, thought Deb. It was inevitable, really, since one of them was the privileged daughter of a rich country gentleman and the other was a travelling player. Yet even so, to see her cousin at Vauxhall looking so very like her in feature and figure had shaken Deb badly.

She had wandered away into the crowds that day reminding herself that Paulette Palfreyman had no relevance whatsoever to her own life. Palfreyman had disowned his sister and her child completely, all those years ago; he hadn’t even come to his sister’s funeral. Deb had heard occasional news of Paulette; she’d married well last autumn, and was presumably content. No one was ever likely to link the two girls, were they? And did it matter if they did?

It might matter now. As she prepared to go out on the crude little stage, Deb was thinking—Mr Beaumaris may very well have met Paulette Palfreyman, since he is a friend of her father. What if he had spotted the likeness in the woods yesterday?

Mr Beaumaris would, she knew, be more than angry with his captors. In fact, he would be furious. But she’d comforted herself up till this moment with the knowledge that he would be unable to identify them.

Now, she had to think again.

The bells of the nearby church were beginning to strike midday. Picking up her two hats—the clown’s black-and-white pointed one and Viola’s jaunty green cap—she drew a deep breath, then stepped outside to a chorus of cheers and the occasional jeer. The inn yard was packed, she realised. Giving them a jaunty bow, she climbed lightly up to the makeshift wooden platform set in the inn’s courtyard, and several of the men whistled appreciatively at the way her breeches and hose displayed her legs. She grinned, gave them another extravagant bow, put on the clown’s hat and skipped lightly across the stage to begin one of the lively songs.

When that I was and a little tiny boy,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain...

They fell silent. They listened. After that they roared with applause, but silence descended anew as she went to put on the green cap, sat on a bale of hay placed at the corner of the stage and began Viola’s speech, recounting her sadness in finding herself stranded in a foreign country. The magic of the words took over, and her troubles were—for the moment—forgotten.

Deb was as amazed as ever to see how these country folk—rough and uneducated, most of them—completely melted on hearing Viola’s lovelorn words. After dextrously entwining the two parts and feasting her audience with some of Shakespeare’s loveliest verse, she rounded her performance with the clown’s last song.

A great while ago, the world began,

With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain;

But that’s all one, our play is done,

And we’ll strive to please you every day.

They roared their approval. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she called above the din. ‘Thank you, so much!’ She bowed again and again as they applauded, blowing them kisses. One day, she vowed, I’ll have a theatre of my own in London. I will. It didn’t have to be big, or in an expensive part of the city. She wouldn’t be able to charge a fortune and seat hundreds, as the three big London theatres did—Drury Lane and Covent Garden and the Haymarket. But she would find the Lambeth Players a permanent home; one that her stepfather, Gerald O’Hara, would have been truly proud of.

Almost skipping back to the stable, she found Ned the pony poking his head over the stall and she fed him a handful of hay. ‘It went well, Ned,’ she whispered. ‘Really well.’ Taking off her jester’s hat, she smiled with reflective pleasure—oh, it was the best of lives, to be an actor! Then she froze.

Because she’d just realised that she and Ned weren’t the only ones in here.