Read Online Rake's Progress by MC Beaton - Free Book Online

Mr Roger, ‘She’s right on the front bench!’
    â€˜You sure she’s a lady?’ exclaimed Mr Roger.
    â€˜Yes, most definitely. I only hope the gentlemen about her realize that.’
    â€˜She’s big, I’ll grant you that,’ said Mr Roger,looking through his opera telescope. ‘But that hat’s enough to frighten anyone.’
    Esther was wearing an unbecoming black slouch hat that drooped down the back of her neck.
    The noisy bucks around her, who had been discussing her loudly while all her interest had been in the drama, had finally put her down as a dragon of a governess, one who would make a deuce of a scene if they became too warm in their attentions.
    If Esther had been left in peace to enjoy the show, it is doubtful if she would have had anything at all to do with Lord Guy Carlton in the future. But backstage, the Fates were twisting things to make them happen otherwise.
    Madame Chartreuse, that famous equestrienne, was preparing to make her entrance. The piece was quite simple. A gypsy stole her child, who was represented by a large doll. The villain threw the ‘child’ down on a pile of sacks in the glade where he and his brigands hid out from the law. In rode Madame Chartreuse, standing up in the saddle of her white horse. Crouching down, she seized the ‘child’ and rode off. Applause and curtain. Or rather, that was the way it was supposed to be.
    But her manager, Silas Manchester, who had been in love with her for years, had discovered she had fallen in love with a young actor in the cast. He taxed her with it before she was about to go on. She laughed in his face and said she was tired of him.
    The piece started. The villain snatched the child from her. She wept, her ‘mother’ wept, and thesnow fell, because they had tinsel snow left over. Next scene. The doll was placed by the villain on the pile of sacks. Silas Manchester, on his hands and knees, slid a cane onto the stage, hooked the handle round the large doll’s neck, and gently drew it offstage. Then he stood back to watch the fury on his love’s face when she found her act had been ruined.
    Now, the doll was life-sized and had red curls.
    One split second after she had ridden onto the stage, wearing a spangled tutu and flesh-coloured tights, Madame Chartreuse’s sharp eyes noticed the missing doll. In the next second, she noticed Peter with his red curls sitting on the front bench. That any respectable child would be brought to sit in the front benches, which were usually only occupied by men who came to ogle the female performers, never crossed her mind, or she would not have done what she did next.
    She rode round in a circle, standing on the horse. The stage was a sort of half-circus ring on a level with the front benches. Then, with one quick movement, she crouched down, put out one muscular arm, and lifted little Peter up into the saddle to stand next to her.
    Dazzled and excited, Peter clutched hold of one of her plump legs and hung on tight with one hand and waved frantically to Esther with the other.
    â€˜Odds Fish,’ said Mr Roger, ‘that’s torn it.’ Lord Guy had already vaulted over the box and was making his way rapidly to the front.
    Madame Chartreuse jumped down lightly, holding Peter, placed him beside her, and took a bow to tumultuous applause while her manager gnashed his teeth in the wings and looked more like a stage villain than any of the actors.
    Miss Esther Jones’ temper, so long held firmly in check, flamed up. Seizing her umbrella, she marched on the stage and brought it down full on Madame Chartreuse’s head, took Peter by the hand, and began to march back to her seat. Madame Chartreuse jumped on Esther’s back, tore her hat off, and threw it in the sawdust, leapt down and began to do a sort of war dance on it. Esther, the glory of her red hair now spilling about her shoulders, placed Peter beside his sister, told him