Free Redlegs by Chris Dolan Page B

and Hernani, from a piece that was pitting audiences against critics in Paris, while Nonie spoke a soliloquy from The White Slave . The gala ensured the biggest audience of the entire year, and it was at the second interval – after a performance of dancing dogs – that Elspeth Baillie would be presented to the people of Bridgetown.
    Her final rehearsal was effected before an audience of fellow players, stagehands, writers, investors, and all their partners. She made few mistakes, found a rhythm suitable to the occasion and, all in all, discharged her duty well enough in difficult circumstances. Taking her bow, Mr. Denholm and Mrs. Bartleby offered her from their pews some little notes of advice, to which Elspeth paid no attention. Mr. Philbrick’s anxiety on her behalf – that she would have to soften her Scots, move less busily around the stage, work on her projection – insulted her, while the vociferous encouragement of Nonie and Ginny, Bella and Christy buoyed her almost as much as George’s obdurate trust in her powers.
    George Lisle had turned up faithfully for each and every one of her rehearsals, offering his own nuggets of advice, but in such humble tones, as from a pupil to a maestro, that she listened attentively to him.
    “I think you will do well enough now, Miss Baillie.”
    “Well enough?” cried George. “You’ll hear gasps and sighs such as you, Philbrick, are a stranger to.”
    He ran up to the stage, took her hand and stood proudly by her side. “I predict instant success. If this woman is not completely and immediately the official darling of the entire colony, I’ll eat my best hat, and then yours.” He presented her with a variety of boxes, tied prettily with ribbons, one marked “Robe en style Pauline Bonaparte”. Inside, a beautiful, diaphanous dress, double-layered in muslin and crinoline, the outer part hanging low at the neck, the inner, more translucent still despite its intricate laced pattern,would cling closer, and not much higher, to the décolleté. An exquisite little box contained silk slippers with silver stitching.
    Virginie and Isabella were more excited by the raiment – so unusual now that bustles and pantalettes were the standard fashion, and so fragile that they must be breathtakingly expensive – than by Elspeth’s performance. They managed, eventually, to tear themselves away from the boxes and say everything expected of them. Nonie clapped loud and long. Derrick and the rest of the boys cheered at the tops of their voices. Christian stood up on his seat and declared, “She won’t leave a dry eye in the house!”
    “Nor even a dry seat!” rejoined George.
    “Especially if she wears that on stage!” whispered Virginie to Isabella.
    The young Turks left the older members and repaired to the Ocean View, and after an innocent tea and rum, George walked Elspeth back to her quarters, strolling arm-in-arm, saying their halloes to all who passed, and then, when the rain came on unexpectedly , making a sudden dash, laughing and shouting.
    Elspeth revelled in the new experience of warm rain, the drops soaking her hair, running down her neck and back like fingertips stroking her. She held her face up to the sky, marvelling that such puffy little clouds in a blue, blue sky could produce any kind of downpour. The rain showered her eyelids and lips – without a hint of the stinging cold that used to permeate her skin and make her insides shiver. She and George ran into her rooms and took off their outer layer of clothing, leaving George in his shirt and she in her shift. They laughed at the audacity of it, like children illicitly dressing up in their parents’ clothes.
    “No harm in it. The dressing rooms are like this all the time,” said Elspeth.
    “You must invite me round sometime.”
    “Back home we were always like this. Cattle sheds don’t have changing rooms. Aunts, cousins, brothers, parents all together.”
    “But did they all feel quite so naked as I do