A Royal Likeness Page 19

“… and now, ladies and gentlemen, I offer you now a reenactment of that most noble and tragic of lives, one that every Scotsman should have imprinted upon his heart. Prepare your minds and souls as you gaze upon that rightful queen, Mary of Scotland!”

  Their host scrambled down a set of stairs on the opposite end of the stage from where he had gone up. A set of wildly made-up and costumed actors entered where Mr. Baird had done minutes earlier.

  Each actor brought a prop up on stage, among which were a chair that was presently demonstrated to serve as a throne, a long-handled ax, and a stuffed dog. After the pieces were set, the actors stood at specific points around the stage. Within moments, a woman richly clad in black velvet ascended the stairs regally. Even without the high ruff and frizzed red hair, Marguerite knew they were being introduced to Queen Mary. The musicians began playing a rousing Scottish air. First she entered a dance with one of the actors dressed in pre-Revolution French court garb. Mary whirled around happily with him. Then the actor pantomimed illness and death while Mary wept over his body. The musicians played on, and Mary caught herself up in another dance, this time with trepidation on her face before her snakelike suitor. He, too, ended in death, but this time other actors illustrated his murder by strangling, while Mary left the stage. She reentered, dressed in luxurious robes of state and a babe clearly swelling underneath her gown.

  A scene of hilarity followed, as Mary’s lying-in resulted first in the birth of the stuffed dog, then a head of kale, then a bottle of whisky, each one being examined by the midwife in disbelief then thrown off to the side. Finally the midwife produced a swaddled babe, holding it over her head in victory. The audience cheered wildly.

  From Marguerite’s vantage point, the baby appeared to be a wax figure, but she couldn’t be sure. She made a mental note to check with Mr. Baird as to who supplied their wax characters. Perhaps she and Marie could secure custom with theatres like this one.

  The play made another sharp turn into seriousness. A third man came to dance with the now svelte Mary. He handled her with the ease of a practiced rake, and she gazed rapturously at him while the other actors stood around shaking their heads and gesticulating their displeasure at her choice and were soon chasing him off the stage.

  Next were scenes displaying the Scottish queen’s fall from grace among her subjects, and her subsequent flight to England and two decades of imprisonment under her cousin Elizabeth. Whereas Mary was elegantly attired, the English queen was portrayed as a frumpy old maid in a bedraggled dress draped with jewels. The actress playing Elizabeth opened her mouth to the audience and pointed to her plethora of rotting teeth. One of Mary’s male attendants walked past Elizabeth and ostentatiously held his nose while waving his hand. The Scottish audience hooted its approval.

  Then came the expected denouement. Mary was brought to trial before bewigged actors wagging their fingers at her. She protested her innocence loudly in a speech worthy of Shakespeare, then was led off the stage in shackles. In the next scene she was escorted back up to stand facing the audience in the center of the stage with a rust-stained block before her. Twenty years of detention in cold, forbidding castles had had no effect on the Mary of this play, for she was as fresh and beautiful and elegantly coiffed as she was in the opening scene. Except now she was wearing a loose-fitting, martyr red gown that flowed around her like a roiling ocean of blood.

  The queen dramatically ripped open her scarlet dress to offer herself up for execution, revealing a red underskirt beneath, and the crowd gasped at the ear-splitting noise it made. But it was not only the queen’s dress that had torn. One of the seams of the tattered old tent had frayed open, and the wind was catching it and unraveling it further.

  At first the audience clapped wildly while pointing up, and the actors tried bravely to go on, practically shouting their lines. The queen got on both knees and tried to make her farewell speech while a masked executioner got on stage with his ax and block to conduct his ugly duty. The audience booed the masked actor, but their derision turned into joy when the executioner seemed unable to make his mark. Whap! went the false-headed ax against the floor next to Mary’s head. He tried again and struck one of the witnesses, who made an exaggerated death swoon. Whap! Whap! Whap! The ax could never find Mary’s neck. The queen raised herself up, putting one elbow on the block with her chin in her hand, and drumming the fingers of her other hand against the block in impatience. She rolled her eyes heavenward at the English axman’s utter incompetence, sending the Scottish audience into gales of laughter.

  But before the Scottish queen’s fate could be entirely decided, the entire roof of the tent came off in an ear-splitting slash, as if an outraged demon had brought the winds of hell with him to visit the geggy theatre. The wood and canvas walls of the tent, no longer securely supported by its roof, began to tremble.

  The audience began to panic. The benches scraped and clattered as people started jumping up and running toward the open tent flap. Even the actors realized their performance was over and hopped ungracefully from the stage to join the stream of patrons who wanted out. But, as it happens whenever a crowd becomes frightened, the cluster of geggy-goers became panicked and aggressive when they could not get out of the tent fast enough.

  “Marguerite,” said Philipsthal, his voice remarkably calm. “I believe the performance is over. Unfortunately, we are quite far from the exit. Take my hand and I’ll get us out of here.”

  To her surprise, he led her away from the flap and farther down the same side of the tent. The wind was screaming like a wild banshee above them now, so there was no question of regular conversation. A chill was setting in as well, since the braziers were no match for an open air theatre.

  He stopped near the corner of the tent and pulled a dagger no bigger than the palm of his hand out of his coat pocket.

  Whatever was he doing with that? Did he always carry it about as though he suspected attack at any minute?

  But the wind would not permit a question even if she wanted to ask it.

  Philipsthal firmly gripped a section of tent and used the blade to cut out a hole, enabling them to pass through. As he handed Marguerite out, she looked backward and glimpsed the bedraggled chair boy behind Philipsthal, tugging on his coat for help.

  She watched, stupefied, as Philipsthal reached back in and pushed the boy away. The youngster ran to the older man again, a pleading look in his eyes, and this time Philipsthal let go of Marguerite to turn back in and use a fist across the boy’s shoulder, which sent him sprawling.

  A fleeting look of pure satisfaction crossed Philipsthal’s face.

  But there was no time for admonishment as he came through the cut opening, grabbed her hand, and began to run from the vibrating structure. She allowed him to pull her along against the blowing wind for several hundred yards, then she slowed down, resisting his tug. Her wrap flew away from her in an angry tangle. She stopped altogether and turned to look back at the tent at the sound of cracking and popping that could be heard even over the rushing air. Wood braces were breaking and the entire makeshift building was collapsing inward. People were progressing from mild panic to absolute horror.

  “Paul!” she shouted over the roar of wind, breakage, and screaming. “That young boy. He’ll be killed in there! We must help him.”

  “No, come on. He’s just a street urchin. He’ll never live to see manhood anyway.” Philipsthal was pulling on her arm again.

  Marguerite wrenched herself away from him, the cold forgotten despite her now modest attire, determined to concentrate later on how right Madame Tussaud perhaps was about Philipsthal’s character. She started to run back toward the tent, and at least now she had the wind to her back, moving her along. She had nearly reached the makeshift theatre, which she imagined had been serving its owner well for some years, when it gave a great shudder and collapsed on top of the stage and whoever was left inside.

  The screaming around her was deafening. Or was she herself screaming?

  She
tried to lift the edge of the tent near where she thought the little boy would be. As she did so, the wind was already beginning to lift the flattened theatre and within moments it began rollicking across Glasgow Green like a woman wearing a petticoat on fire.

  But it would seem that the wind, having now caught its prey, was bored of it. And in its boredom the blustering current died down as though it had never had an angry moment in its short life. The wreckage from the tent was now plain for all to see.

  Other than a splintered stage and cracked braziers, the only casualty was the little boy.

  Marguerite whipped around to find Philipsthal beside her once again. His normally neat appearance was ruffled, his hair moving in all directions and his face ruddy. She could imagine that she looked like a wild and demonized witch by comparison. She wished she was one so that she could curse him.

  She pointed to the boy’s prone figure, which was now surrounded by a weeping and costumed man and woman, presumably the boy’s parents. “That poor child is dead. Why did you force him back inside? Why didn’t you help him? Why did you strike him?”

  Philipsthal looked confused at her accusation. “My dear Marguerite, he was nothing. My first duty was saving you, not that filthy creature. I couldn’t risk his grabbing your skirts and pulling you to the ground. Surely you understand that.”

  “But that’s just it. I don’t understand.” She pushed away the arm he was offering her and began walking back toward the road.

  What have I done? Am I completely addlepated?

  No. 10 Downing Street, London, April 1804. The outer room was busy with messengers, aides, and other government minions buzzing in and out of Pitt’s office, now that he had regained his position as prime minister. Darden Hastings was reminded of a frenetic hive of bees, the drones all rushing in to bring food and news to the queen and thus fulfill their sole duty in life.

  As he waited his own turn to meet with the prime minister, his mind drifted off to the woman whose queenly grace was stinging his thoughts far too frequently than made sense. After all, Mrs. Ashby clearly thought him a fool. Three times he had been in the lady’s presence and had somehow managed to present himself as a horse’s rear on each occasion.

  What was he thinking, implying that she was some sort of radical dissenter while she was showing him about, as he had asked her to do, and appraising him with those liquid amber eyes. Her intoxicating fragrance had left him quite unable to focus on her explanation of the wax characters. Damned if he knew what the scent was. Something floral, he supposed, but whatever it was, it had the same drugging effect on him that he had seen in the East India Company sailors who succumbed to the craving for opium.

  Still, no excuse for abruptly stalking off like a lout. Was he deranged?

  Alfie always said he was an imbecile when it came to women. But his brother had been married to Honoria since he was barely breeched, so what the hell did he know?

  And now it was too late.

  Darden had manufactured an excuse to return to Edinburgh, in order to meet with the governor about future fortifications. The business was concluded quickly in a straightforward manner, and he had proceeded directly to the wax salon. The building had been relet to a wallpaper printer. The windows that once displayed replicas of the notorious now held only pattern samples. Only a sign indicating that the wax exhibition had moved to Cardiff remained as evidence that there ever was a bewitching young woman who had lived and worked there.

  Discreet inquiries revealed that the exhibition was no longer in Cardiff, if it had ever been there, and he wondered for the thousandth time why the two women would be traveling so mysteriously from place to place. If only he had spent more time in Mrs. Ashby’s beguiling presence when he had the opportunity.

  Fool.

  He shook his head. Alfie will have plenty to say about my incompetence in handling the situation, no doubt. He’ll tell me I should never have left Edinburgh, that I should have written Pitt that I was unavoidably detained in the town.

  But then Alfie doesn’t understand how important my work is. That I cannot rest until I’ve seen things come to rights. And this female distraction was not part of the plan. No, this schoolboy infatuation would not do at all.

  “Hastings! What are you about?”

  Darden was jolted out of his reverie by the presence of Brax Selwyn, a fellow naval officer in direct service to Pitt. Two more different men had never been such amiable colleagues. Darden had been the last child in a family of four sons, and therefore happily seen off to His Majesty’s navy. He had done well, advancing from midshipman to lieutenant in just three years. Obtaining the notice of Admiral Nelson for his coolness under fire during the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, he was quickly selected for a variety of secret and dangerous assignments.

  Which suited his ultimate aims quite well.

  Brax, on the other hand, was the spoilt and pampered only child of Lord and Lady Selwyn, descendants of an old and fading title. Although his father had wanted him to manage the family estate, Brax Selwyn was not content to be, as he put it, “an oafish sheep farmer.” He wanted grand adventure and decided the best place for it was on the high seas.

  And Brax had managed to convince his father that going off to the navy was actually in homage to his sire, since he could never live up to Lord Selwyn’s deft handling of the family properties, and would spiral it into debt before the next barley harvest. Lord Selwyn had jovially agreed to the outside world that his gregarious, effervescent son would be better suited to a life of great daring, but everyone knew how disappointed he really was. Darden could easily imagine how Brax’s father had capitulated to his son, because he had witnessed many of their superior officers granting Brax special favors on just a charming word or two from the young officer. His rise through the ranks had been as stellar as Darden’s, and today they were both lieutenants in service directly to Lord Nelson.

  But to Darden’s knowledge, Brax had not been given a special assignment by the prime minister. So why was he here?

  Darden stood to greet his colleague. “You know I run message errands between Lord Nelson and Pitt. But what’s your business here in the hive?”

  Brax grinned broadly. “To solicit Mr. Pitt’s help in my next promotion. You know, to influence Viscount Melville, our esteemed first lord of the Admiralty.”

  Darden shook his head. “Selwyn, I’m downright stupefied by your cheek. You cannot possibly get promoted that way. How do you manage to secure appointments with men far above your station, anyway?”

  Brax’s face fell at his friend’s implied insult, but brightened up at his own rejoinder.

  “Tut-tut, Hastings. Let not your heart be troubled. I’ll see to it that you pick up some scraps from me. Perhaps I’ll get you an assignment as my boot boy.”

  “More like I’ll be placing a boot up your—”

  Brax threw up his hands. “Easy, friend. No need for jealousy over my superior skill and cunning.”

  “I can out-navigate you any day, Selwyn. As well as whip you soundly in cricket and shooting.”

  Brax looked up pensively. “Ah yes, quite true. But you’ll never be my equal when it comes to the art of winning the fairer sex, will you?”

  “I happen to be more selective than you.”

  “Selective? Hastings, come, when was the last time you courted a damsel?”

  “I’ve courted plenty a lady,” Darden said through clenched teeth. He did not like where this conversation was going.

  “And were these ladies aplenty vaporous in nature? I’ve not seen one of them. Perhaps they were the ethereal spirits of real ladies from the past.”

  “Perhaps I should soak your head in a butt of malmsey, Selwyn. You annoy me.”

  Brax laughed, the sound hearty and affable. The man had the unique, and irritating, ability to infect others with his joy. It now worked as always, silencing the buzzing bees around them as the workers stopped momentarily to find out where the pleasing noise was coming from.

 
; “Honestly, Hastings, you’re such a rigid little prig. I really must take the time to teach you how to live life, not grind your molars through it.”

  Brax was spared Darden’s scathing reply by one of Pitt’s clerks, who came to notify Darden that the prime minister would see him now.

  Darden nodded curtly to Brax and followed the clerk. He heard Brax call after him, “Hastings, a group of us are going to see The School for Scandal at Drury Lane next week. You must come with us. I insist.”

  Darden let the door to Pitt’s inner office click behind him without answering.

  Marguerite had a sleepless night following the geggy theatre tragedy. She had run all the way back to Ingram Street and secreted herself in her room without ever emerging for supper or to visit with Madame Tussaud and Joseph, even though she heard them in conversation with Mr. Colin later that evening.

  The next morning she saw dark circles under reddened eyes set in the ashen face reflected in the chipped mirror on her dressing table. Well, there was no help for it. She pinched her cheeks to bring some color into them and went down to the exhibition, willing herself to be in good spirits at the same time that she prayed Paul would not show up today. She needed a day or two to compose herself, and then she would demand that he take care of the legalities that would release Marie from her obligation to him. Of her future with Paul Philipsthal she could not think right now.

  As she entered the salon, she saw that bespectacled man shaking hands with Madame Tussaud, who was laughing openly with him. She held documents in her left hand. Marie’s hair sported a beautiful cerulean ribbon woven through her curls. Even her coiffure seemed happy this morning. How unusual. And ironic. Wasn’t it typically Marie who needed cheering up?

  Marie caught sight of her. “Mrs. Ashby, come! I introduce you. This is Mr. Curran. He’s a very important lawyer here and he has been helping me. Helping the exhibition. Look.” She handed the documents to Marguerite.

  Marguerite shook hands with Mr. Curran before glancing at the papers. They looked very official and had multiple seals and signatures on them.