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Within a moment or two, a buxom lass with a round, rosy-cheeked face and a welcoming smile entered the room and, after bobbing a curtsey, took a seat on a faded green and gold settee by the window.
“I arrived in London on the stage early this mornin’ an’ Mrs. Mobbs ‘as bin ever so kind,” she told Kitty in her soft Welsh accent when their landlady encouraged her to give an account of her travels and the reason she’d come to London. “I’m the seventh girl in a family o’ fourteen, ‘n I came ter the city ter find work as a servant. The vicar in me village wrote me a character. I was goin’ ter stay wiv Mrs. Fairfax, a good woman ‘is wife knew who lived in the big town nearby, but then on top o’ the stagecoach, I met a woman, ever so kindly she was, ‘n she told me she knew jest the place I could find work, where they’d pay me good wages ‘n feed me good ‘n proper, so I changed me mind ‘n came ‘ere ter Mrs. Mobbs where I can rest, ‘n where I’m ter wait ‘til my new employer comes ter fetch me. The woman I met on the coach said she’d see me note were delivered ter Mrs. Fairfax. I bin ever so fortunate.” Dorcas beamed. “Yer goin’ ter be an actress, are yer, Miss Hazlett?”
“We don’t need airs here. It’s Kitty ‘n Dorcas, fer yer lasses are already great friends, I can see. And yer can stay up late as a treat, ‘n I’ll ask nuthin of yer ‘cept ter ‘elp tidy away after we’ve ‘ad our victuals. The sun is low, and yer’ll need ter rest ‘n look yer best fer the mornin’ when Mr. Lazarus ‘n Mrs. Montgomery come ter look yer both over fer ter employ yer.” She leaned back with a smile of satisfaction. “What a fine, comely pair of misses yer both are. A fine day indeed fer Mrs. Mobbs. But now, answer Dorcas’s question, Kitty. Tell ‘er yer grand plans. My, my, but I think Mr. Lazarus will indeed give yer the role o’ leadin’ lady. With yer fine bright hair yer’ll steal the performance. ‘N I reckon I’ll jest be
there meself on openin’ night.”
Kitty smiled. It had been a long time since she’d felt so happy and among people who understood her aspirations. “I know I can be a fine actress. Papa disapproved when my sister and brother and I liked to put on our Christmas performances. He was afraid it would give us ideas, but it’s impossible to turn off the wanting if something is so important here.” She tapped her chest and felt the excitement bubbling up inside her. Tomorrow she’d see Mr. Lazarus again. She’d gained the distinct impression he’d been impressed by her rendition of Desdemona when he’d asked her to give him a short display of her talent. Now that he was returning from touring the provinces and was to be auditioning for his new play at Covent Garden, Kitty felt her timing was auspicious indeed.
“I’m going to be London’s most famous actress, you wait and see,” she said eagerly. “Miss Kitty La Bijou will be a name on everyone’s lips by the end of the season. You just see if I’m right.”
“Ah now, a girlie with ambition. Reminds me o’ meself when I were a young ‘un,” murmured Mrs. Mobbs, dabbing at her eyes with a grubby piece of linen. “Jest yer remember old Mrs. Mobbs when London’s fine gennulmen can’t get enough of yer, mind?”
Kitty lowered her eyes. She wasn’t used to such talk. “I shan’t be courting the attention of London’s fine gentlemen. That’s not why I want to be an actress,” she said earnestly. “I want everyone to watch me and believe I am Desdemona, or Juliet or Portia. I want them to weep and laugh. I want to entertain them, and I want them to think I am good. Everyone else in my family has always been praised for being good, or at least good at something. Now is my chance to make them proud, even if they disapprove of me treading the boards. I can still be a fine actress and a woman of virtue, can’t I, Mrs. Mobbs?”
“Course yer can!” Dorcas interrupted, and Kitty was too busy smiling back at her that she didn’t think to look at Mrs. Mobbs.
Despite the chance to stay up late, both girls were exhausted, and the moment they’d finished eating a satisfying dinner of chops, they collapsed into the bed in the ‘guest’ room which Mrs. Mobbs said she always made sure she had ready for girls just like themselves.
After a deep sleep, Kitty and Dorcas were woken by Mrs. Mobbs who tapped on the door, before sailing in with a pot of hot chocolate. Dorcas was wide-eyed at such luxury.
“I neva thought I could imagine ‘ow a fine lady lived in ‘em grand ‘ouses with all them servants ter dress ‘em in their fancy laces, but now I can,” she confided to Kitty when Mrs. Mobbs had gone, and they both sat propped up against pillows sipping from chipped teacups. “Though from t’morra, I’ll be back ter doin’ the servin’ again. Oh, but I do ‘ope I can get a job some day as a lady’s maid. Course I got ter start at the bottom, I know that, but one day.” She raised her face to the low, soot-stained ceiling while a beatific smile lit up her face, and Kitty thought what an artless and appealing young girl she was.
“Well, when I am a fine actress who needs help being dressed in my laces, ermine-trimmed capes, and ballgowns, I shall come looking for you, Dorcas,” she promised. “So do make sure and let me know where you’re employed.”
Another knock on the door heralded Mrs. Mobbs once again, who now began chivvying them to get themselves ready as Mrs. Montgomery would be arriving shortly. She seemed flustered.
“It ain’t her usual style to be ‘bout at sparrows but there yer are, there’s no accountin’ fer any old body, is there now?” She pulled back the covers then clapped her hands, saying to Dorcas, “‘Ere’s a jug o’ water for washin’ an mind yer put yer best foot forward. Yer want ter impress the good lady, now don’t yer?”
Kitty also readied herself in her finest ensemble, though it evinced violently mixed feelings. The gown was a very flattering shade of rouge, which gave warmth to her pale coloring and looked very fine with her fair hair. Naturally, it had belonged to Araminta, who’d discarded it at the end of her first season. In fact, Kitty had heard that it had been the very dress Araminta had worn when she’d rejected the suitor she’d initially accepted; the suitor who then went off and blew out his brains. Kitty had thought this a wildly exciting and tragic declaration of a young man’s love, and wondered if any suitor would ever be similarly impassioned about her. Araminta’s reputation, however, had not fared so well, and her first season had ended under a cloud. No wonder she’d been keen to make a good match with the wealthy and well-connected Lord Debenham, even if he was a fair bit older than she was with a rather insalubrious reputation.
Dorcas was wide-eyed with admiration after she’d helped Kitty into the creation and put her hair up into a flattering topknot with natural ringlets curling about her ears.
“Oh my, but in all me life I neva seen a more beautiful lady,” she murmured. “Yer will be a famous actress, an’ soon as I get me first wages I’m buyin’ a ticket ter Covent Garden.”
Bolstered by this praise, Kitty accompanied Dorcas into the tiny parlor which felt full to overflowing as a very large, grandly dressed woman with fiery red hair piled on top of her head, topped with a lavishly adorned bonnet to match her frilled and furbelowed visiting gown, rose to greet them with a great show of appreciation.
“My, but what a fine pair you are, indeed, just as Mrs. Mobbs said,” she cried, circling the two of them as she cast her appraising eye over their feet, ankles and upwards. Kitty thought it was most odd, but was pleased that they seemed to give such satisfaction.
“What a refreshingly healthy and buxom country lass you are,” she added, looking at Dorcas. “Not one of these pinch-faced London girls, sallow and stick-thin. Oh yes, you will do very well.” The feather in her bonnet waved back and forth as she swung her head around to appraise Kitty. “And what a beauty you are. Oh, my dear, do come and work for me. I can offer you twice as much as Mr. Lazarus. Truly, I can.”
Startled, Kitty looked from Mrs. Montgomery to Mrs. Mobbs, who grinned her uneven smile and said, “Now there’s an offer yer can’t refuse. My, but Mr. Lazarus will be put out, but a girl’s got ter think o’ ’erself. And money talks, indeed it does.”
“But...I want to be an actress,” said Kitty, confused by the turn of conversation. “Not a servant.”
“My dear girl, I offer ever so many opportunities for girls of bearing and beauty like you. If you come along with Dorcas and me, we can discuss all the possibilities. I can have a contract drawn up, and before you know it, you’ll be living the high life. Mrs. Mobbs can come after me with her frying pan if I’m lying.”
They all laughed at her little joke, which cut the tension, though before anyone had a chance to respond, a loud booming voice cut the air and the curtain to the parlor was thrust aside and the doorway filled with the colorful figure of Mr. Lazarus.
He stood in the center of the room with his hands in his waistcoat pockets, assessing the scene. “Trying to steal my star actress, are you, Mollie Montgomery?” he demanded. “Looks like I got here just in time. You’re never up before midafternoon, with the hours you keep, but you heard whispers about what was in the offing, didn’t you then? Now, Miss Hazlett, allow me to welcome you to London.” Beaming, he executed a flourishing bow before fastidiously patting his garishly-colored cravat. “Ain’t you just blooming? Why, I have thought of nothing else than casting you for the role of Juliet in my next play since you introduced yourself to me. Wondrous day it was indeed when you stepped into my humble abode to offer your services. Of course, I will require that you audition properly, so as not to offend any of my fine potential leading ladies who toil with such assiduity to their craft. Can’t set the cat among the pigeons for showing favoritism so early in the piece, though to be sure I’ve not laid eyes on such a rare prize specimen as yourself, and to that Mrs. Montgomery will surely attest, else she’d not have dragged her wondrous form from her bed so early in the morning. Now, do you have your things? That is your bag, yes? Allow me to play your knight errant, and we shall quit these lodgings to find you a place worthy of so astonishingly lovely a creature as yourself. Pray take my arm, so I might convey you to a future more dazzling than any of which you ever could have dreamed.”
Chapter Three
It was all really too marvelous. The theater was a bustling hive of activity, heavy with the smell of paint and turpentine and filled, it seemed, with scurrying women in various stages of undress. Kitty was at first shocked to see chemises and petticoats on full display, and sometimes even a bare ankle with one woman being so bold as to reveal her knees in clear sight of Mr. Lazarus as she rested her foot on a stage lamp to adjust her garter. The sly look she sent the stage director didn’t escape Kitty, and when he chuckled and told her in quite a conspicuous tone that some of his girls would resort to anything to get the lead role, the fiery young redhead flounced off stage and behind the curtain.
It was clear that Kitty was a figure of great interest. A number of women had been lined up since early morning to audition for the role of Juliet, but Mr. Lazarus seemed quite happy to keep them waiting as he strolled about with Kitty at his side, pointing out various locations on stage with instructions on how she’d interpret certain positioning instructions. Kitty felt very important, and knew indeed that she was destined for a long and illustrious career if the singular time and attention her director was devoting to her instruction was any indication.
“But can you really act when put to the test?” Mr. Lazarus suddenly demanded, hands on hips and putting his forefinger beneath her chin to tilt up her head. He pointed to the lineup of hopefuls.
