“Shall we sit together, Miss Jewell?” he suggested. “Unless you have other plans, that is.”
“No.” She smiled at him. “Thank you.”
And so she had all the pleasure of observing and listening to the entertainment in company with a gentleman who was not also someone else’s husband. It felt absurdly exhilarating.
Joshua and Lady Hallmere sang a few English folk songs first, with Joshua accompanying them on the pianoforte. They were surprisingly good, though Lady Hallmere began with a disclaimer.
“I have absolutely insisted that we be the opening act,” she explained to the audience. “I have a strong suspicion that the others are going to be vastly superior—IknowJudith will be—and I have no wish to be forced to follow them.”
Joshua, at the pianoforte, grinned while the audience laughed.
One could not help liking Lady Hallmere, Anne thought, for all her prickly ways.
“Just sing, Free, and put us out of our misery,” Lord Alleyne called out.
Mrs. Llwyd—a small, dark-haired, very Celtic-looking lady—played next on her large, beautifully carved harp, and Anne soon found herself blinking away unshed tears and feeling as if she had been transported into another world and another culture, so beautiful was the music she produced.
“It always seems to me,” Mr. Butler said softly, leaning toward Anne during the short pause between pieces, “that the harp somehow captures the very soul of Wales.”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes, you must be right.”
And then Mr. Llwyd got to his feet and sang to his wife’s accompaniment in a light, pleasant tenor voice to which Anne could have listened all night though he sang in Welsh and she did not understand a single word.
She felt rather sorry for Lady Rannulf, who was to conclude the entertainment. Lady Hallmere was the wise one in having insisted upon going first.
Lady Rannulf was extremely beautiful, with a full, voluptuous figure and glorious red hair. But the idea of her acting alone, without any supporting characters, somehow embarrassed Anne even though she had been told that the lady was a good actress.
“I hope,” Mr. Butler said, “she does Lady Macbeth. I have seen her do it before, and she is quite extraordinary.”
She played Desdemona first, her hair down, her elegant green evening gown somehow transforming itself into a nightgown purely through the power of suggestion as Desdemona waited in bewilderment and misplaced trust for Othello to come to her in her bedchamber and then pleaded her case with him and begged for her very life.
It truly was extraordinary, Anne agreed, how she gave the impression that her maid and, later, Othello were there in her bedchamber with her and yet carried the scene alone. It was more than extraordinary how she lost all resemblance to the Lady Rannulf Anne had known for almost two weeks and became the innocent, loving, loyal, frightened, but dignified wife of Othello.
The return to reality when the scene was over was disorienting for a moment.
And then, at the special request of the Duke of Bewcastle, Lady Rannulf did indeed play the part of Lady Macbeth, also with hair loose and dress become nightgown—also a night scene. But there the resemblance between the two scenes and characters—and even the actress herself—ended. She became the powerful, ruthless, mad, tormented Lady Macbeth, sleepwalking and trying desperately to wash away the blood of her guilt. Anne found herself sitting forward on her chair, her eyes fixed on the lady’s hands, as if she really expected to see the blood of King Duncan dripping from them.
She was, she realized as she applauded enthusiastically with everyone else, in the presence of greatness.
Mr. Butler was looking expectantly at her.
“Well?” he said.
“I have not been so well entertained for a long time,” she told him.
He laughed. “I thought perhaps you would admit that you haveneverbeen so well entertained,” he said.
“I have a friend,” she explained, “who has become all the rage throughout Europe. She has the most glorious soprano voice I have ever heard. She taught at Miss Martin’s school until just two years ago.”
“And she is?” he asked.
“The Countess of Edgecombe,” she said. “She was Frances Allard before she married Viscount Sinclair, now the earl.”
“Ah,” he said, “you mentioned her before, and I believe I had heard of her before that. But I have never had the pleasure of listening to her sing.”
“If you everdohave the chance,” she said, “you must not miss it.”
“I will not.” He smiled again while all about them family and guests were getting to their feet and conversing and laughing, the formal entertainment at an end.
