Merrick sighed and sat down heavily on a chair. "Go and drink several cups of tea, Uncle Claude, and get yourself ready for dinner. We will all be too nervous tonight to do anything wrong. We would be too terrified of Grandmamma's wrath, anyway, if we dared do anything as reprehensible as forget a line. Not to mention Grandpapa. I have the feeling that tonight he might really prove to be the ogre that Grandmamma always makes him out to be if we do anything to spoil her day."
"And we promise for your sake to do our best," Anne said, smiling at Claude. "You really have worked very hard, Uncle Claude, and have been very patient with us. I may speak only for myself, but I must say that these two weeks have been very happy ones, working with almost the whole family on a project like this. I thought it would be quite impossible when Grandmamma first mentioned it."
"Do let us go to the drawing room for tea," Hortense pleaded. "We are missing all the new arrivals and the latest news from town."
Anne would have retired to her room, suddenly shy at the knowledge that the house was full of strangers. But Merrick crossed the room to where she was quietly piling the books, which were no longer needed, and extended his arm to her without a word. He had made a decision, and he was intending to put it into effect immediately.
In the drawing room the duke and duchess were holding court with obvious relish. They were surrounded by friends of other days, some of whom they had not seen for several years. The room became suddenly much overcrowded and loud with greetings when it filled with the family members who had been acting their play.
Merrick placed Anne's hand on his sleeve and circled the whole room, speaking to each new arrival in turn. All appeared to know him so well and so freely called him Alex that Anne shrank closer to his side, wishing that she could disappear in the process. But he would not allow her to remain either invisible or anonymous. He constantly drew her forward and introduced her as his wife. She was smiled upon and spoken to until her mind was bewildered and she gripped Alexander's arm as if it were a lifeline.
The duchess's eyes were frequently on the pair, and she smiled rather smugly as she conversed with those closest to her chair.
Chapter 12
Forty people sat down to a very early dinner that evening, the performance of She Stoops To Conquer having been set for eight o'clock. The male actors left the dining room with the ladies, so that they might be ready in their costumes by the time the dinner guests had drunk their tea and port, and the outside guests had arrived. Claude had to ask his actors what the main course at dinner had been; he could not for the life of him remember. No one answered him.
Hortense was the first to be ready in her maid's outfit. She went to help Anne dress in the elaborate lady's outfit that she was to wear for the first part of the play until she changed into the housemaid's dress that her father in the play preferred. Bella had been loaned to some of the guests from town who had come without their own maids, though she would be in Anne's room after the play to help her dress for the ball.
"I am more than ever glad that Grandmamma saw fit to give me a small part," Hortense said. "Are you not positively petrified, Anne? Has your mind not gone totally blank?"
"Don't," Anne said. "I refuse to believe that I have forgotten my part, and I have no intention now of trying to recall lines, just in case I might find that you are right. Do help me with these buttons, Hortense. There must be at least two dozen of them down the back."
The peacock-blue gown was soon in place, the panniers evenly arranged over her hips and the bow neatly centered at the back. Anne tugged ineffectually at the bodice to try to cover her breasts more completely.
"Do you think I should wear some insert here?" she asked Hortense, gazing anxiously into a mirror.
"Definitely not," the girl replied. "You look quite ravishing, Anne. All the men will be ogling you."
"Oh, dear," said Anne.
The wig came next. Hortense helped her adjust it snugly over her own curls and then carefully powdered it before inserting the plumes so that they stood proudly above her head. Anne hesitated over the patch box. Was it really necessary to wear a patch? It would be hardly visible to the audience, anyway. However, she finally found herself placing the heart shape beside her mouth again and turned away from the mirror before she should lose her spirit and peel it away. She caught up the peacock-feather fan that the duchess had brought to her the day before after finding out that Anne was to wear her old blue gown, and was ready to go. Her stomach felt rather as if the arms of a windmill had got inside it and were turning. She still dared not try to remember any of her lines.
All the actors were assembled behind the stage that had been set up at one end of the small ballroom, except Freddie. Peregrine announced that he was still undecided about which waistcoat he should wear. Sarah had found him a white one to wear beneath the plain black coat that he must have as the servant Diggory, but Freddie felt that his costume was too plain. He had been wearing the canary one when Peregrine had gone to accompany him downstairs, but even Freddie had realized that that particular waistcoat was unsuited to a servant. He had been considering a lime-green one when his cousin had lost patience and come downstairs without him.
"Alex," Claude said with ominous calm, "go upstairs and find that nincompoop without delay. Tell him that I want him here inside the white waistcoat within two minutes, or within five minutes he will be wearing-it inside his throat."
Merrick grinned and left.
The ballroom was filling up with chattering, gorgeously clad ladies and gentlemen. Anne sat bolt upright on a chair. She dared not lean back for fear of crushing her bustle, and she dared not move her head lest plumes or wig or both come tumbling down about her face. She would be able to relax more, she felt, once her first two scenes were over and she could change into the plainer but by far more comfortable housemaid's dress. She looked about her. Everyone did indeed look quite splendid clothed in the fashion of half a century before. There seemed to be something so much more stately about those earlier styles.
Alexander had left the room, having gone in search of poor Freddie. But Anne had noticed every detail of his appearance in the few minutes during which they had been in the room together. She had always considered that his thick dark hair contributed largely to his handsome appearance. But tonight she found his powdered wig, tied at the neck with a black ribbon, quite suffocatingly charming, especially when he had carelessly put the black tricorne on his head while helping Martin rearrange his neckcloth. His long brocaded waistcoat beneath a well-fitting skirted frock coat also suited his tall, well-built figure to perfection. Had she not loved him before, she would surely have fallen in love with him tonight, she thought with disgust.
"Aunt Jemima and Uncle Roderick have just made a grand entrance," Claude announced, blanching noticeably. "We should be ready to begin in five minutes' time."
And they all became aware of the hush that had begun to descend beyond the curtains that divided the stage from the rest of the small ballroom. Merrick reentered the room with Freddie in tow almost at the same moment. Freddie was wearing a white waistcoat.
"Oh, you do look distinguished, Freddie," Anne said.
Freddie beamed and both Merrick and Jack grinned. Martin and Maud stepped onto the stage and took up their positions for the opening scene.
Freddie had been quite right. The performance proceeded quite flawlessly if one ignored the fact that Freddie, Hortense, and Constance, who were supposed to be caught in a fit of the giggles when Mr. Hardcastle mentioned one of his old jokes, really did become hysterical and laughed for much longer than the script called for. Freddie said afterward with some indignation that he could have remained perfectly serious if the audience had not laughed so loudly and destroyed his control.