Chapter 24

C hapter 24

All I wanted to do was go straight to Bow Street. I wanted to see Nathaniel, tell him what had happened, and learn if there had been any developments while we’d been apart. But I had to go home. I needed a change of clothes, and that meant facing Mama.

I walked from Harwood House, the bustling streets doing nothing to distract me from the whirl of my thoughts. Would Mama be angry with me for leaving? Would she try to keep me from continuing with the case? I braced myself as I stepped through my front door.

“Verity?” That was Grandmama’s voice, calling from her room down the corridor. I sighed and removed my bonnet as I approached her room.

She glanced up at me from her chair near the window, a book in her hand. “I see the bezoar worked. Still in one piece.”

She was quite serious. I nearly laughed but contained it as best I could.

“Yes, thank you for that,” I said, pulling the pendant out from beneath my fichu. “I’ll keep it a few days more, if it’s all the same to you.” I could use a little more luck.

She made a humming sound, turning back to her book. “You need to go see your mother.”

“She is not here?”

“Of course she isn’t. She is rehearsing.” Grandmama glared at me. “Do you think we just sit around, waiting for you day in and day out? No, she asked me to tell you she needed to speak with you as soon as you returned home.”

She had? Mama considered the theatre sacred space. She loathed interruptions and distractions. The fact that she insisted I find her there meant ... something. “I can speak to Mama tonight,” I said. Perhaps I was lucky after all and could avoid her for a little while longer.

“And will you be home tonight?”

I hadn’t any idea. If our plan worked as we hoped, I couldn’t guess where I would be in a few hours.

“What does she need to speak to me about?” I asked hesitantly.

“I imagine you can guess.” Grandmama closed her book. “Just as I see everything that goes on around this house, I hear everything too.”

I leaned against the wall, suddenly very tired. “You heard our argument?”

“The neighbors likely heard it too,” Grandmama said wryly.

I rubbed my forehead. “I ... I said some things I shouldn’t have.”

She eyed me. “Your mother is many things,” she said. “She can be filled with her own importance, grandiose, and ambitious. Heavens, after a performance the woman is downright unbearable.”

I smiled at that. How many times had Mama come home after performing, bursting with energy, her eyes sparkling, her laugh filling the house?

“But she is more than you can imagine,” Grandmama said. “You do not know her as I do. I know every choice she has made and every consequence she has suffered. People are allowed to make mistakes. Even mothers. Especially mothers. Do you know how hard it is to raise children?” She scoffed. “It’s a trial, it is.”

“Have you a point to this, Grandmama?” How easily her monologues veered into strange territory.

“Yes.” She frowned at my impertinence. “All that to say, you ought to hear her out. She told me that if you were to come home while she was out, I should send you directly to her at the theatre.”

I sighed and glanced at the clock on the nearby table. It was only midafternoon. I hadn’t planned on meeting Nathaniel for another hour at least.

“Very well,” I grumbled. “You win yet again, you old harpy.”

“Music to my ears,” she said, opening her book. “Now leave this old harpy in peace so she can finish her book.”

I changed my clothes quickly, splashed water on my face, and fixed my hair. I waffled for a moment in indecision before adding a touch of rouge to my lips and cheeks, then dabbed perfume behind my ears. Nathaniel had seen me first thing in the morning, with my hair in a tangle and sleep still in my eyes. It seemed only fair that I be allowed this chance to fix a new image in his head.

It was a walk of but a few minutes to Drury Lane. I stopped before the doors of the Theatre Royal, took a deep breath, and went inside.

Mama still had several performances of The Grecian Daughter remaining but had begun practices for the upcoming production of Henry VIII . Not quite Macbeth , in her estimation, but close enough.

The long saloon was quiet when I entered, though I could hear the echo of voices reverberating from the stage. I took a back corridor that led to the rooms behind the stage. There I found the hubbub I was searching for—actors milling about in costume, scenery stacked against the walls, and the dramatic pull of voices.

I moved to the edge of the stage and spotted Mama in an instant. She wore a deep-blue gown, edged in pearls and trimmed with fur, and stood at the center of the crowded stage. The actor playing King Henry sat beneath the cloth of state, surrounded by cardinals and advisers. The trial scene, I gathered, a thought confirmed when Mama began her lines.

“Sir, I desire you do me right and justice,” she said, her voice appropriately meek even as she projected to the entire theatre, “and to bestow your pity on me. For I am a most poor woman and a stranger born out of your dominions.”

She swept toward King Henry, hands clasped to her chest. “Having here no judge indifferent,” she cried, “nor no more assurance of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir, in what have I offended you?”

Mama turned and saw me standing in the shadows. She blinked in surprise, then held up a hand briefly, urging me to wait. I nodded, and she continued the scene. After delivering Queen Katherine’s parting lines, she exited the stage.

“I shall need a few minutes,” she called over her shoulder, her skirts sweeping across the floor with a dramatic rustle. “Run through the rest of scene four while I am gone. It was positively dreadful yesterday.”

I nearly laughed, a smile climbing my lips. Only Mama.

But then she reached me, and her eyes tightened, her mouth settling into the barest of lines. “Let us speak in my room.”

I followed her as she wove through the organized chaos that was the Theatre Royal. When at last we reached the relative quiet of her dressing room, she ushered me inside and closed the door behind her.

I turned to face her. She looked me over from head to toe, then gave a great sigh. “I am glad to see you well,” she said. “I hardly knew what to expect after reading your note.”

I bit my lip. “I am sorry, Mama. I did not think you would let me go.”

“That is just the thing.” She moved to her dressing table and sat in a swirl of skirts. “I truly might have if you’d come to me in open honesty. Traveling to the country is likely safer than wandering the docks at night. And I know how desperate you were to find Elizabeth.” She paused. “You did find her?”

“We did,” I said. “She is well.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Mama said with a sigh of relief. “And Mr. Denning kept an eye on you?”

I sighed. “He did, though I cannot like being compared to a wayward pet.”

Her lips twitched for the first time. “Wayward pet indeed.” Then she sobered again. “We need to talk, Verity.”

“I know.”

Mama gestured to the chair beside her table, and I sat, watching her all the while. She did not look nervous to broach the subject of our argument. Instead, she looked only resigned.

“I’ve told you a great deal about your father and my past,” she said quietly. “But I haven’t told you everything. Or rather, I haven’t explained everything.”

She sat back in her chair. “I was desperately in love with your father when we first met,” she said. “It felt like a dream that I, an actress in a country troupe, had caught the eye of the Earl of Westincott. I imagined him marrying me, raising me from obscurity, and whisking me away to London.” She smiled wistfully. “When I learned I was expecting your brother, I was more certain than ever that he would marry me. But while he was pleased, he insisted the time was not right, but soon— soon —we would marry.”

I sat in silence, listening closely. I’d heard this before. But I could tell it was leading somewhere new.

“You came along a few years later,” she said, “and I was still trapped in the same web of lies. You were just a baby when I learned—from the newspaper, of all places—that your father planned to marry. But not me, of course. I was not good enough for him, for his family.”

Her voice held no bitterness, only sadness.

“Reality caught me,” she went on, “and it became clear that he had never intended to marry me. I think he cared for me, in his own way, but it was nothing compared to what I felt for him. And I was tired of him breaking my heart. So I confronted him and told him he must choose between me and his betrothed.” She paused as if the memory were still painful. “He chose her. I was angry. I said some foolish things, and he responded in kind. He cut me off financially, and you as well.”

I stared at her, mind trying to comprehend. “But he still sends money. I know he does. He paid for my schooling, for my clothing, everything.”

She smiled sadly. “No. He paid for Jack’s schooling and his commission in the army. But not yours.”

“Why?” I asked in shock. I’d always assumed I was financially obligated to my father. It was why I worked so hard to find independence.

She shook her head. “He wanted to hurt me in return, for the things I said. He knew how I loved you.”

“But he still supported Jack.”

“Jack was a boy,” she said quietly. “A girl was of no consequence to a man like him.”

“But you had your career,” I insisted. “We did not need his money, surely.”

“Oh, but we needed it then,” she said. “I did not have the fame I have now. After our argument, I never received another penny from him. And that was when the lie began.”

I met her eyes and was stunned to see a glaze of tears there. Mama never cried, save for on stage. Now a tear trickled down her cheek as she gazed at me, though her chin still held strong.

“When we traveled the country,” she said, “it was easier to simply tell everyone my husband had died rather than open our lives to gossip. But after we moved to London and my name began to be worth something, the lie took on a life of its own. We needed it, to protect your reputation. I was determined to provide for you and give you every opportunity in life.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered. “All along, I assumed that he was paying for everything—that he still did.”

“I was too ashamed,” she said. “My anger and pride had lost you your future. How could I admit that if I’d held my tongue, your father would have paid for your every need? I might’ve been the mother you needed, not the absent one you had. You might’ve worn the finest dresses, socialized with only the best families. But because of me, you wore secondhand dresses and grew up amongst traveling troupes.”

She spoke as if these were terrible things, but I was beginning to see it all so clearly. “Yes,” I said quietly. “You are right. Because of you, I was fed and clothed and cared for. You made something of yourself, provided for us both.” A lump formed in my throat.

“Oh, darling.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief as she gestured around her dressing room, lavishly decorated and richly furnished. “I never imagined it would lead to all this. When I found success, I admit that I enjoyed it. I relished the attention, the acclaim. I still do.” Her eyes found mine again, pleading. “But how I hated missing so much of your childhood. It broke my heart to leave you so often. I had to work so hard, Verity. The late nights, the long days. Yet it was only ever for you. For us.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. I considered what she’d told me, thinking over the long years where she’d been but a sometimes mother, always rehearsing, always working. Yet I saw it differently now. Because she was right. Only in the last decade had she gained her popularity. Before that, it had been smaller theatres and country circuits. I had thought she was chasing fame and fortune, but she’d worked those endless hours and sought those opportunities for me . So I could have whatever life I wanted. So I could choose.

“I wish I had known,” I whispered. “I am sorry, truly, for what I said the other night.”

Mama smiled gently. “You needn’t be. This is a conversation we’ve long needed to have. I simply wasn’t sure how to broach it.”

“Thank you, Mama,” I said. “For everything. For things I am sure I don’t even know about. I simply wish I could have done more to help over the years.”

“That was not your responsibility.” She sent me a meaningful look. “I regret so many of my choices. I was young and foolish and had no idea how my actions would affect you and Jack. But I brought you into this world, and I was determined to give you the best life I could.”

“Does Jack know?” I asked. “I cannot imagine he would not have tried to help.”

She shook her head. “I never wanted him to feel guilty for having more than you. And by the time he was old enough that he might have helped, I’d found the success I’d hoped for.”

“Still,” I said, a slight edge of bitterness entering my voice. “The earl should not have abandoned you.”

“And yet, I am glad that he did,” she said. “If I’d continued to depend upon him, I never would have pushed myself to such lengths. I would have remained lost to a man who did not love me. I would not have learned who I was.” She reached out and took my hand. “I hope we might start anew, Verity. I’ve already told Mr. Webb that I plan to pull back at the theatre. I don’t want to lose what time we have left.”

“I am not dying, Mama,” I said with a watery laugh.

“No, but you’re grown. You have a life of your own now,” she said. “I’ve too many regrets already.”

I squeezed her hand. “You needn’t sacrifice your career for me,” I said. “I know how you love it. Our lives may have taken different paths, but that does not mean we cannot travel them together.”

She gave a short laugh. “What a smart child you are. You must have a wonderful mother.”

“Beyond measure,” I said, smiling.

She patted my hand, and I knew then that Mama and I had formed a new relationship, one of honesty and trust. And I would not take it for granted.