me all this time,’ Mercy said. She set down the salt shaker and scrubbed at its head with her napkin. ‘It’s often good for a night off, when the other seems—well, a bit of a burden.’
‘Oh, good God!’ Aurora said.
‘Have you done It yet, with him?’
Aurora shook her head.
‘With anyone?’
‘Not—not fully.’
‘It hurts a bit, the first time. The thing is to be patient. And stay calm. It’s only natural, it’s what we’re built for. If you get lucky with the man, it can be a very good time.’
But that was not her consideration, anyhow, Aurora thought. She wanted to be expert, to bind him to her. The sentimental part of it was not necessary—Mercy was proof of that. And she did not wish to be a prude. ‘I will be brave,’ she said.
Mercy looked at her and grinned. ‘Ho, yes, you will be!’ she said. ‘Ain’t we all.’
My Man Famble
Back from Missoula, Mayhew began work on his melodrama. After running lines with Aurora in every spare moment, Clover sat in the empty house to watch the first rehearsal. Aurora was Miss Sylvia; East became the theatrical producer Fibster Malverley, ‘a handsome demon,’ and Verrall oiled on and off in the minor part of Malverley’s agent, Flink. Sybil was given a brief but poignant role as Miss Sylvia’s white-haired mother, who spent much of the play visible through a window, tied up and gagged.
MALVERLEY: Of course we can wait for your dear mother—what can have detained her?
(aside) Perhaps it was my man Famble and his blackjack!
(to Sylvia) We are honoured by your presence. Can I give you a glass of ratafia?
SYLVIA: I do not know what ratafia is, sir.
MALVERLEY: Oh, it is a mild soft drink. (aside) Along the lines of Madeira or Blue Ruin …
East enjoyed his villainy hugely, chewing with relish upon his moustache as he inveigled the innocent miss into a state of drunken compliance and made his hideous assault, against her maidenly protests.
MALVERLEY: It is entirely your own fault for enflaming me, Sylvia. My heart has been yours since first setting eyes on you. Let me call you—my Own.
SYLVIA: (blushing) Please, sir! Unhand me, I beg of you!
MALVERLEY: (aside) She maddens me! But her beaux yeux will not make me marry her …
Knowing the play as well as Aurora did by that time, Clover was leaning forward in her seat, mouthing the lines, when she felt a touch on her arm and Victor Saborsky sat down beside her.
He was back! She jumped and would have shrieked, but he caught her arms and stopped her mouth with a kiss. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, in a barely audible tone. ‘I am back—we are reunited—but first, what is this appalling tripe they are playing on the stage?’
Clover explained, filling him in on the plot so far, and settled into the crook of Victor’s arm to watch the rest, as if it were a private showing just for them. In the end it was revealed that clever Sylvia and her mother had planned the encounter themselves; Sylvia gave Malverley knock-out drops and robbed him of the papers which would have compromised her mother. Nonsense, yes, but Clover thought Aurora did a beautiful job of conveying the pure-minded maiden who was so put-upon by the Producer, willing to give up even her Virtue if that could save her Widowed Mother.
Going down to the dressing rooms to help Victor unpack, Clover murmured that she found it quite impenetrable that Mr. Mayhew would be interested in staging a melodrama that so closely resembled his own life—except he did not seem to have a Man Famble.
Victor suggested that perhaps Mayhew did not see the similarity. ‘We have not always nose-past acuity,’ he said, beginning a set of pull-ups on the dressing-room door.
She laughed, and he dropped down to the floor to kiss her. She blushed.
‘I love that you blush when I kiss you,’ he said. ‘But you have no need.’
‘I know! I do not know why I do it. Because I am so happy!’
‘Reason enough,’ he said, reaching to kiss her again.
But Aurora and East came running down the stairs, arguing about a bit of business with the ratafia glasses. Clover straightened her dress as Mayhew followed the others down.
‘We’ll put it on the bill at the beginning of May,’ he told Aurora. ‘Just time enough for a new gown for the beautiful Miss Sylvia.’
Aurora laughed and turned, arms in air, to show off the exquisite dress she wore: a float of embroidered lawn, pin-tucks