Page 27 of These Violet Delights
It was questionable whether Lady Edith’s delicate constitution could withstand the knowledge that a soaking wet Mr. Kerr had carried a forbidden Richmond relation for two entire fields while she was in her nightgown, without so much as a shawl or shoe. The scope of her life had narrowed so grievously; she had only the art he brought home, Danforth, and Alasdair’s grasping attempts at obedience.
That brief tenderness between him and the lady seemed suddenly precious. The warm suggestion of her through the thin, torn nightdress, the tiny pink mark left by the wax on her neck just like the evidence of a passionate, sucking kiss, the scent of lavender clinging to the dark abundance of her hair…And the painting upstairs. The painting he really ought to return. Now it must go back to her. It would break his mother’s heart to discover that he had lied. He chewed hard on air, then wrinkled his nose, his entire face tightening with consternation.
“Nothing, Mother, vicious rumor and nothing more.” To this, Danforth opened his mouth to correct him, but Alasdairdidn’t give him the chance. “It would be my pleasure—and Freddie’s—to go with Mr. Danforth and his pamphlets tomorrow. What manner offilthwill we be protesting, sir?”
Mr. Danforth’s lips curled higher. “The very worst sort. A call to misbehavior and immorality if ever one was penned—the lamentable tragedy ofRomeo and Juliet.”
9
And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
Henry VI, Part 2—Act 4, Scene 7
The rain descended for three straight days, lifting its lugubrious shroud at last to the joy and relief of the Arden sisters. During those gray afternoons and while her ankle healed, Violet had decided to paint Maggie while she wrote, a risky exercise that, they all agreed, kept Violet quietly occupied. Violet painted, Maggie scribbled, and Winny sewed. The morning when the sunshine finally spread across the winking wet grass of the cottage lawn, Violet packed her paints and her case and followed Winny on foot to town.
“Go!” Maggie had chased them off, ink staining the fingertips she flashed in their vicinity. “This book will never be finished if you two buzz around my ears like silly bees all day.”
The post had come, with all the letters addressed to Maggie and Mrs. Arden.
“You don’t look wistfully at the post anymore,” Winnynoted cheerfully, hooking her arm through Violet’s as they started off on their walk. She carried a compact bundle of wrapped costumes, which she had offered to mend for the Florizel. The theater was a small enterprise, and grateful for any extra hands. Winny patched rips and adjusted hems for personal money, which was a pittance, though she prized it all the same.
“I can’t imagine what you mean,” Violet replied, perfectly aware.
“Did the Frenchman never write? Not even to explain himself or apologize?”
“It’s for the best,” she said with a sigh, and shook her head, drinking down the chill, rain-quenched air. “At least, that’s what everyone insists.”
“You smile more,” said Winny. “I missed that. And your painting is better than ever, don’t you agree?”
“Small improvements, I suppose. At least my grapes look like grapes.”
Winny blushed and looked down at her shoes. “They always did.” And a few steps later: “But theyareimproved, so lifelike you could eat them.”
“Thank you, sister, but that’s neither here nor there,” Violet began, with the exasperation of a woman twice her age. “Miss Bilbury will see to it that my studies continue, and I will see to it that Emilia stays far away from Freddie Kerr.”
Alasdair could plead for Freddie’s innocence until he was blue in the face and his spectacles cracked, but Violet held fast to her suspicions. It was too convenient: he and Emilia leave each other brokenhearted, and shortly after, Pressmore is set aflame.
“The fire,” breathed Winny, her lashes fluttering nervously. “Do you really think—”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, what matters is that Emilia is safe from him. And she has the play to anticipate! I only hope the subject matter does not discombobulate her all over again…”
“Or she will be grateful she did not end up like poor, poor Juliet.”
It was suggested cheerfully, and Violet tried to smile in agreement. Unhelpfully, her thoughts turned to Mr. Kerr and whether he would attend the play. The strangest thing kept happening—her mind would conjure his image, then again, each version of him marginally different until she couldn’t help but want to see him in person to determine whether he really was as handsome as she remembered. And to put all the wondering to bed.
She mustn’t think of Mr. Kerr and bed, for serious danger waited in that direction. The last time she had allowed a man to become her world, it had ended in nothing but humiliation.
Cray Arches had few features to distinguish it from other towns of its size. It boasted, however, a rather fine church and the Florizel. The theater, unusual for such a modest place, was the passion project of a local family and sat across the square from Winny’s favorite place in the world, Gray and Simon.
If Cray Arches was a squat table laid for a large family, then the Florizel Theatre was its lovably slipshod centerpiece, with its faded white façade and six pillars valiantly holding up the drooping triangular front. The paint was peeling, and one pillar on the right looked in danger of collapse; the wooden filigrees decorating the entrance were also in desperate need of refurbishment, but the humble establishment still felt like a dash of grandeur on a dreary day. It seated seven hundred and had almost closed five different times, saved at each perilous juncture by the charity of Aunt Mildred and the rest of theRichmonds, who were friends of the owner and devoted patrons of the arts.
According to Violet’s father, in the decades before Violet’s birth, the Florizel had been opened, closed, and reopened repeatedly in accordance with the tastes and laws of the country. It never failed to gall her that there were folk so afraid of the theater and its delights that they sought to shutter the Florizel for good.
“Who will you paint today?” Winny asked. They had nearly completed the thirty-minute walk to the heart of Cray Arches. It was good to stretch the limbs and work out the last aches in Violet’s stiff ankle. Stringy, pale clouds sketched themselves across the horizon, a coy little wind blowing harmless cyclones of red leaves in their path. “Claribel Wefling is the beauty of the company, but I think Ginny Thorpe has a remarkable nose.”
Violet and Winny were not so much welcomed into the Florizel as they were blended seamlessly into the maelstrom—Winny was immediately swept away to lend her expertise to more costume fittings; Mr. Lavin, the owner of the theater, took noisy meetings in his office, punctuated by visits from the actors to argue this or that about their lines; Mercutio and Tybalt practiced their duel in a narrow corridor outside the office; Violet was intercepted by Ginny Thorpe, who was playing Juliet and still wearing half of her costume.
