T hey were doing a scene from Richard III —the dowager duchess, Peggy’s grandmother, and her mama—in the Duke of Westleigh’s large drawing room. All whilst several of the children read, others drew in their sketchbooks, and some were clearly practicing monologues of their own.
Calchas was at the pianoforte playing suitably ominous music.
Maximus was deep in a novel.
They were all clearly accustomed to this behavior, each engaged in their own creativity.
Peggy had never seen anything like it in her whole life.
The three women were each playing parts that were not quite right for their ages, but none of them cared, and they were doing it before the incredibly large fireplace in the drawing room.
Half the room was watching. She was one of them. Peggy stared, unable to look away. They seemed not to care at all if people were watching them, so engaged were they with each other and the text. They’d chosen one of the most dramatic scenes between the women of the play.
It was remarkable.
When they got to the end of the scene, those who were watching erupted in applause.
It was such a harrowing moment in the play, in which the ladies knew that disaster was coming. The three women looked at each other and then, much to her amazement, her grandmother turned to the dowager duchess and said, “You know, you really should do a bit of Marlowe.”
The dowager duchess let out a cry of horror. “Everyone thinks he is better than Shakespeare, but he is not. Shakespeare was clearly the better playwright. It’s why we still do him so often. Leave Marlowe to people who are obsessed with studying form over feeling.”
Her grandmother let out a laugh. “You always were terribly opinionated.”
“I know,” the dowager duchess said. “It gets me into terrible trouble.”
“Clearly, the right kind of trouble,” her mother teased.
The three ladies began to chatter on about Shakespeare and plays and the works of Marlowe.
Peggy still watched, captivated by them and how vital her mother and grandmother now seemed in the glow of the fire and the candlelight.
It was so completely unlike her life of the last years with her grandmother and her mother. Usually, they sat quietly about a weak fire in the evenings, with a single candle. Their spirits would sink, and they would finally go to bed because they could not afford to keep the candles burning.
Here, the two of them were completely animated.
“Now,” the dowager duchess declared as she threw herself down with surprising grace onto a green silk settee and indicated the other ladies should join her, “have you given any thought to the idea that I had for the institution?”
Her grandmother gave a nod, her wiry silver hair somehow softer and arranged in gentle folds about her face. “I think it is a remarkably good idea. There are far too many former actresses who are falling through the cracks.”
It was if her grandmother was an entirely different person. For years, she had sat in the corner of their small room, barely able to walk about, quiet, lost in dreams as if she preferred to live in the past. But now her grandmother was very much in the present.
Peggy’s mother nodded. “I think it would change the lives of so many women and their children. I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Then you agree.” The dowager beamed, but it was more than just happiness. It was relief, as if a great weight was being lifted from her shoulders. “We shall do it together.”
Her grandmother and her mother nodded.
“What’s this?” Peggy asked, unable to hide her curiosity.
The dowager duchess turned to her and waved at her, causing the rings on her fingers to glitter in the candlelight. “Come here, my dear.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. Maximus was still, but he was quite absorbed, lost in the world of his book. It was a beautiful sight, the way his dark hair tumbled over his forehead and the way his sensual lips pursed ever so slightly in thought.
He did not need her at present and so she crossed to the dowager.
“We are going to open a house for retired actresses,” the dowager began before frowning. She cleared her throat, clearly unsure how best to explain it. “You see, so many women fall on terrible times when—”
“Oh, I am aware,” she cut in quickly.
“You are?” the dowager duchess said softly, blinking.
Peggy smoothed her hands down her skirts. “I have seen it directly, of course, with my mother and my grandmother. The streets are full of such women. Women who were once on the stage and adored by many. Women who had good parts but were never famous. Now, they are doing whatever is necessary to buy a bit of bread or gin,” she said sadly. “No one has ever taken notice of them before.”
The dowager’s eyes darkened with pain, and she looked as if someone had taken her heart out and crushed it.
“I feel terrible that it has taken me this long to realize what needs to be done. I have helped so many other people, but I never helped the people that I came from. Not in this way. My son has an institution to help poor children in the East End by teaching them Shakespeare. But I never thought to help the very women who acted upon the stage.”
“It must be done,” her grandmother, Liza, said. “And I cannot wait to get started.”
Peggy gaped. “You are going to assist her in the making of it?”
“Oh yes, my dear,” her grandmother enthused. “Isn’t it a wonderful thing? The dowager duchess has offered us this possibility. It’ll be a wonderful form of employment for both of us to keep us busy.”
“Both?”
Her mother nodded. “I have been offered a position too. Your grandmother and I will have a unique understanding of these women, and they’ll trust us to help them in a way that they would trust no one else.”
“But America,” Peggy protested.
Her mother and her grandmother shared a glance. “Well, America sounds very interesting, my dear, but if at all possible, we should prefer to stay in England.”
“You would?” she said, her voice shaking.
“Yes we would, and then you shall no longer have to worry about taking care of us,” her grandmother said, her voice firm for the first time in years. “For we shall both be gainfully employed with good purpose in our lives.”
“And they will stay here,” the dowager duchess said.
“What?” Peggy blurted, trying to wrap her mind about the turn of events.
“I will have a small cottage built on the grounds if they don’t wish to live in the house.” The dowager looked to Liza with such fondness that it shone like a golden light. “But I think that, after all these years and our rekindled friendship, I should like them to live here. Besides, you’re here.”
“For now,” Peggy pointed out.
Her grandmother and her mother looked at her, and the dowager duchess smiled. She looked at her grandson and then back to Peggy.
“Yes, for now.”
Peggy worried her lip. “I’m glad you understand.”
“Oh, it was always my plan to aid you to get what you need,” the dowager replied evenly. “Still America-bound?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” she asked.
“Oh, no reason at all,” the dowager duchess said, her lips curving as she glanced at Maximus.
And then Peggy looked at her mother, who had a strained look upon her face, and she vowed that she would not forget her mother’s teachings.
Peggy had to remember that just because things were changing quickly, it did not mean that she was free of the past. It did not mean that everything would work out. It did not mean that Maximus would not prove to be like all the rest, even though she wanted to believe that he was different.