CHAPTER 4
‘Is now a good time?’
I hadn’t heard him come in, and jumped violently. I turned, and there he was, a scant foot behind me.
‘Oh my,’ I fanned myself with my book and placed a hand on his arm to steady myself. ‘I didn’t see you there, Michael.’
He smiled and clasped his hand over mine, before bowing and muttering his apologies.
‘I do hope you are quite well.’
I smiled winsomely, tossing my hair slightly as I did so. I have always been fond of my hair, which is very long and thick like Mother’s, and he had caught me with it down.
‘I shall do my best not to swoon,’ I said, ‘but I can promise nothing. You have done me quite a mischief.’
Michael looked at me for a second and I couldn’t fathom what he was thinking.
‘Do you mind if I talk to you now? Or are you too busy?’
‘No, no, sit down, please.’
I dragged one of the chairs against the wall so he could sit opposite me at my desk.
‘I see you found my lair,’ said the spider to the fly.
‘Your mother directed me.’ Michael loosened his collar slightly. ‘She insisted I visit you here. Just so you know, I wasn’t trying to be improper.’
‘What a shame,’ I said, tossing my hair again. ‘But we digress. What can I do for you?’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook and pencil.
‘I was hoping to talk to you about the production you’ll be putting on. I asked Parker Davis, but he said I’d be best asking you? He said he was too busy with renovation so had decided to let you handle the play itself. That’s a brave decision to make when so much is at stake.’
I straightened my back, and pulled the most supercilious look I could muster.
‘It may have been something of a gamble on Parker’s part if I hadn’t been responsible for every successful production we have had in the last eight years.’
Michael looked surprised. Good. I was full of surprises.
‘Eight years? But you can’t be that much over twenty.’
I raised a brow and tilted my head back, so I could look down my nose at him.
‘Quite. I started when I was sixteen.’
He coughed and shifted in his seat.
‘And Lady Hamlet?’
‘One of Parker’s, I assure you. Not, of course, that Mother wasn’t up to the part. But it isn’t very commercial.’
‘No?’
‘No. Of course she can play Hamlet – she’s one of the greatest actors of her generation – if not the greatest. But she doesn’t get chance to use her full range because there are so few great parts for women. But the world isn’t ready – men aren’t ready to see a woman play that part. I wonder if they ever will be.’
Michael cleared his throat and looked down at his notebook for a moment, but didn’t write anything.
‘I’ve never seen your Mother act. Not on stage.’
‘And you’ve never seen me direct. Oh, I know, Parker saved face and you believed him. And I daresay you oughtn’t put any of this in your article, however much I wish you could. And I daresay you wouldn’t – it’d hardly paint a popular view of the production if the Duke found out it was a woman’s work.’
‘I’m afraid you might be right.’
I supposed I might as well be placated. It was an argument I’d had to face many times before.
‘I meant to talk to you about this on Thursday, actually. If you had seen any of our plays, you wouldn’t have heard of me anyway. Nobody has. I act, sometimes – trees mostly, or the occasional line if I absolutely can’t help it. Then I’m credited as Hope Thompson. For production, direction, everything either goes to Parker, or more recently, occasionally, to E Thompson.’
Michael leaned back in his chair and surveyed me through half closed eyes.
‘So you don’t want to be credited in this production, is that what you mean?’
‘Quite the contrary,’ I said. ‘I want to be credited as Evelyn Thompson. I merely don’t want you to specify my gender.’
‘So the world assumes you’re a man?’
‘I wasn’t aware the readership of The Advocate extended quite that far.’
Michael raised a brow at that.
‘Sorry. I don’t mean to be a bear. I just can’t seem to reconcile getting no credit for what I do.’
‘How lucky that Evelyn is androgonous,’ Michael said with a smile. ‘Oh, not that you are, I mean. Just the name. You aren’t. You’re definitely a lady.’
I smiled.
‘So pleased you noticed.’
He avoided my eyes.
‘Well, I – your hair looks very nice today. It’s very long, isn’t it?’
I laughed.
‘Thank you. I’m a little too long in the tooth to wear it down now, but I miss it when I don’t.’
And it was my greatest asset, being as it was down past my backside and wildly curly.
‘Must be very warm. In summer. I’d imagine.’ Michael looked uncomfortable, then suddenly smiled. ‘Am I flirting with you?’
Amused, I confirmed that yes, he was.
‘Oh, good. I’m not very good at it. Never know when it’s happening. Lucky you told me you were trying to seduce me yesterday, else I’d never have realised.’
‘I’m not sure I believe you.’
‘Oh, it’s true.’ He leaned forward in his chair earnestly. ‘It’s like German to me – I just don’t speak the language.’
‘But you’re so handsome,’ I said – because he was. ‘Surely you’ve had plenty of women throwing themselves at you?’
He shrugged.
‘I’m not saying I haven’t. Merely that the gentle art of flirting has passed me by.’
I stared at him for a few seconds before laughing.
‘I do believe we are going to get on famously, Michael. I adore it when people say what they mean, and I have a feeling you are precisely that sort of person.’
He smiled at me, his lips parting to reveal bright, white teeth. I had seen him smiling once or twice before, but not facing me directly and never with genuine good humour. The sunlight teeth were brighter than ever, and a little part inside of me felt as though it had melted.
‘Shall we return to the matter in hand?’ I asked, trying to regain control of the situation. I gestured to my desk, the surface scattered with papers.
‘As you wish,’ Michael bowed his head in deference to me. ‘Have you decided on your play?’
‘It’s not been easy,’ I said, twisting my lips a little. ‘It’s a lot of pressure on one decision. And I don’t know the Duke, so I have little to no idea what his tastes are. With the theme, as well, that puts restrictions on the plays we can use.’
‘How do you resolve a quandary like that?’
‘I want to play to our strengths. I think quality shines through regardless of taste. I mean, if I see a picture which is beautifully painted, I may not appreciate the subject matter, but I can still admire the brushwork.’
Michael lifted his notebook and elbows on to my desk and resumed scribbling, propping his head up on one hand.
‘I say, make yourself quite comfortable.’
‘I wish you would,’ he said. ‘Sit back, put your feet up on the desk if you wish it.’
‘Is that what Evelyn the gentleman would do? Ought I turn my chair backwards and sit astride it, like Andrew and Jackson often do?’
Michael looked at me through his lashes.
‘I certainly shan’t stop you.’
‘You are definitely flirting,’ I said with a smile. ‘I no longer believe that you don’t know German, either.’
‘Am I? I was merely being truthful. You may sit as you wish in your own study. This is your study, is it not?’
He waved his pencil at the walls, and I glanced proudly at the shelves all along two of them which overflowed with plays, and at my neat little desk, for all that it was pock-marked and stained by years of use by others less careful than I. My room may have been small, but it was mine.
‘It is.’
‘It’s a lot neater than the other rooms,’ Michael said conversationally.
‘It has to be. No room for mess. It used to be a props cupboard, but I cleared it out when it became apparent I needed somewhere to work.’
‘It’s very nice,’ he said, but I worried he was humouring me. ‘Now, I take it you have come to a decision on the play?’
‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s Pope. The Rape of the Lock.’ It had to be – there simply wasn’t time for me to work on anything else. I still hadn’t figured all of the details out, but I hoped they would come together once we started rehearsing. The Duke’s men would approve it. I was sure. Mostly.
‘That’s a brave choice,’ Michael said.
‘No it isn’t. Is it?’
‘He’s had a bit of a dip in popularity, hasn’t he? Since he died. Now he can’t write those angry letters anymore.’
‘Oh. I don’t think I knew that. I just know I quite like his poems.’
‘Quality will out,’ Michael said, punching the air with his fist.
‘Hmm. Still. No accounting for taste, is there? Perhaps the Duke’s a Pope enthusiast. At least it’s not French.’
‘He’d definitely prefer Pope to something French.’
‘That’s some consolation,’ I said, with a half-hearted smile. ‘But either way, it’s far too late to change it. We’ve sets and scenery to build, and I’ve barely finished the casting. We haven’t even had a read through yet.’
Michael started scribbling in his notebook again.
‘Oh God,’ I said quickly, ‘Please don’t put all that in. Don’t let them know how unprepared I am.’
‘Stop worrying,’ Michael said. ‘I’ll make you all sound wonderful. I’ll make you sound like a man and will harp on about what a brave and avant-garde choice Pope is. How it amplifies the theme and enhances Augustine’s work, all that.’
‘Such is the power of the press,’ I said. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword and all that.’
‘Well, precisely.’ Michael leaned on his hand again and smiled at me, his blue eyes seeming to twinkle slightly. ‘And if I say anything bad, you’ll stop trying to seduce me. And I don’t want that, do I?’
‘Neither of us do,’ I said. ‘I do so hate being thwarted.’
‘In work as well as life? Or does Parker Davis leave you alone to get on with his good work?’
I shrugged.
‘Occasionally he will have to be reminded of my past successes, to ensure that we continue to have success in the future. He doesn’t like it – he sees it as letting me play with plays. But he doesn’t mean it badly. Luckily he still adores Mother, so I let her talk him into it most of the time.’
‘Except for Hamlet?’
‘I didn’t want to stop her. I just advised Parker that it wouldn’t pay. I wished it would, though.’
Michael put his pencil down and leaned back in his chair.
‘Do you know, I think I’m beginning to figure you out,’ he said.
My eyebrow shot up at that.
‘I’m not sure I like that. There’s something far more romantic about being an enigma, don’t you think?’
‘You have your moments, don’t worry. But just so you know, you’re lucky you got me here with you, reporting all this. You could have had Colbert.’
I thought back, recognising the name.
‘Oh yes, The Advocate’s critic. I don’t see why not – he’s always been lovely about our productions.’
Michael leaned forward with an air of confidentiality.
‘Now, don’t tell your mother I said this, but word is he hated her Hamlet. Wrote such vitriol that they couldn’t print it.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly repeat it. It’s not fit for a lady’s ears.’
‘How simply hideous. Mind you, he always did strike me as being somewhat old-fashioned.’
‘Practically prehistoric.’
‘Lucky indeed that we got you then,’ I leaned forward too, and our faces were scant inches apart. I breathed in, and the breath tasted like warm bread. ‘Is that why we have you, then? Because we sent Mr Colbert into an apoplectic fit?’
Michael leaned back and shrugged, entirely ruining the tension and seductive possibilities of the moment.
‘You couldn’t have seduced your way out of his rage.’
I leaned back too and rolled my eyes.
‘Oh, for that I’d have sent in Mother. She’d have won him over before she’d finished her first glass of champagne.’
He smiled, and crossed a few things out in his notebook. I didn’t believe he had me figured out for a moment. Not before I’d dissected every last inch of him.