"Oh ... only brothers."

"What do they say about our marriage?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "They are concerned mostly with their own affairs. Look here, Sarah. I shall only be away a short time, then I shall be back and we will talk over everything. We'll make plans. I did not want to think of anything else during this wonderful time except that we are together. Do you understand?"

"Oh yes, but ..."

"Let's forget all this. We must be happy together. Now, no more of my parting. I shall be back before you know I have gone. I tell you what I intend to do. Early tomorrow morning, we will start for London. I'll take you to my lodgings. You will be well looked after there. You think of what we shall do. I shall expect well-laid plans by the time I return. It's going to be wonderful, darling. Don't look sad. Everything is in order, I tell you. Think about it. Where shall we live? You love the old city, do you not? Life is going to be better than you have ever dreamed of, I promise you."

"I wish you did not have to go."

"So do I. But these things happen, you know. Being away from you will be torture, but think what it will be like when we are together again."

"But ..."

He put his finger on my lips in a playful gesture. "Do not let us talk of miserable parting. I forbid you to talk of it. There! Husbandly authority. You promised to obey me, you know. I insist. We are not going to spoil this night by thinking of tomorrow."

A week had passed. I felt desperately lonely without him. The days seemed unendurable. I saw little of the servants who were in their quarters below. One of them came up as before in the morning to take my orders. Often I compared them with Martha and Rose and I thought how I should like to see them.

I was so delighted when the week came to its end and I was expecting Jack to return at any moment. I thought it would be like him to want to surprise me and I expected to hear his voice calling me.

Instead there was a letter from him.

My dearest.

This is a sad, sad disappointment for me. I cannot return to you for another week. I miss you so much. But never mind, we'll make up for it when we do meet. I cannot wait for that.

God bless you, my darling.

Your ever loving.

Jack

My disappointment was intense. I felt wretched and uneasy.

I had not gone far from the house as yet, but now I decided that I would go to Drury Lane. I would go and see Martha and Rose. I should enjoy telling them about my wonderful marriage and how happy I was and how my husband had had to leave for a little while on important and urgent business. When he came back we were going to find a house in London. He had a place in the country but he had insisted that we should also have a residence in London.

I felt a great emotion when I saw the house. I remembered so vividly the day when Kitty had brought me there.

Martha and Rose cried out with delight at the sight of me.

I flung myself into their arms.

"Ooh!" said Rose. "You're a ladyship now, aren't you, my lady?"

Martha said: "You didn't bring his lordship, then?"

I told them he had had to go away on business.

"We have been in the country and just returned," I said. "As I am staying not far away in his London lodgings, I thought I would come and see you."

They were excited.

"And you a real lady," said Martha. "It's more than I can take in. Our little Sarah. Wouldn't Mistress Carslake have been proud?"

I felt the tears in my eyes then.

I sat in the parlor with them. Martha brought out her homemade wine.

They wanted to hear so much—where had the wedding taken place?

"I'll swear it was a great affair," said Martha.

"No, Martha. We did not want to wait for that. It was in a chapel in the house of one of my husband's friends. It was very simple."

"And then he took you to his grand home, I reckon."

"No. We wanted to be alone."

"Ah yes," said Martha, smiling knowledgeably. "I'll swear Mistress Maggie will be as proud as a peacock at your rise in society, that I do. You becoming a little ladyship and all that. That is something I never thought to see. Oh, and I'd forgot. In all this excitement, it slipped out of my mind. It's the letter. Go and get it. Rose."

"A letter?" I said.

"It came by the same one as brought it here before. He was traveling down on the coach and he'd promised Mistress Maggie to bring it. It's for you, he told us, so we kept it and we've been wondering how we were going to get it to you. It only came two or three days ago."

Rose went off and came back with the letter. I seized it eagerly. It was in Maggie's writing and it had my name on it.

I opened it and they all looked at me in anticipation as I read it.

Dear Sarah,

I shall be coming home in a week or so. My sister died. It was the best thing. She would never have been well again. There are several matters that have to be dealt with here, and I shall just stay to clear them up. My poor nephew has no idea how to manage. But I shall be starting back, I reckon, in say a couple of weeks from writing this. I am not looking forward to the journey, but I am to being home with you all.

Tell Martha and Rose Til be glad to see them, and you don't have to have me tell you that it is the same with you. The truth is I am just longing to be home.

Your loving Maggie

When I told them she was coming home their pleasure was intense.

"What a day!" said Martha. "A ladyship comes to see us and the mistress is coming home."

We decided that she might be in London by the end of the week, considering when the letter must have been written.

They were too excited for talk of anything else, which relieved me, for I was finding some of the questions they had been asking rather difficult to answer, and now that I was no longer under the spell of Jack's presence, I was beginning to realize that there was something unusual about our marriage.

After that, I could not resist calling at the house each day to discover whether Maggie had come home.

There might be another letter, I thought. And, as she did not know what had been happening during her absence, she would expect me to be at the house and so would write to me there.

I marveled that I had not attempted to communicate with her. I had been so completely absorbed by Jack, and he had somehow insisted that I give no thought to anyone but himself, while implying that he preferred our marriage to remain a secret for a while.

When I looked back, it seemed that I had acted very strangely. Indeed, from the moment I had gone to that house in Knightsbridge and there had followed that most unusual marriage ceremony, I felt that I had been living in a dream.

I could never resist taking the way past the theater. Then I would think with some nostalgia of the excitement I had experienced—that feeling of mingling fear and triumph when I stepped on to the stage. There was nothing quite like it. Kitty had known exactly what I wanted. Dear Kitty. Now that I was alone I thought of her constantly, of her grand marriage and her inability to give up the theater. Her story was like mine in a way, for I was now realizing how much I missed my growing knowledge of the theater people and I wondered whether there would come a time in my life, as there had in Kitty's, when I should have regrets.

But I was deliriously happy with Jack. I wanted nothing more. It was only because he was not with me that my thoughts were following this line.

I paused for a moment to look up at the theater, and as I did so I heard someone call my name. A young woman was coming out of the building, and I recognized her as Joan Field, an actress with whom I had played on one occasion.

"Sarah!" she was saying. "If it isn't Sarah Standish! How fare you? And what do you here? Where have you been? You just disappeared mysteriously."

I was on the point of telling her of my marriage when I remembered that Jack had been rather anxious that it should not be announced just yet. In that moment I wondered why, although previously it had seemed such a trivial matter that I had not given too much thought to it. I felt he probably had his reasons and I naturally wished to do what he wanted me to, so I did not tell her of our marriage. She would learn about it in due course.

"I wanted a rest from the theater," I said.

"And now you are back?"

"Well, not exactly. I was just passing."

Fortunately Joan was absorbed by her own good fortune and wanted to talk of that, so she was not very interested in my affairs.

"I have the most wonderful part," she said. "You know it was decided to change Measure for Measure. They altered it a bit, and they brought in some of the characters from the other plays. They wanted Benedick and Beatrice in it and, well, I'm Beatrice."

"A good part. Til swear," I said.

"Oh indeed, yes. Why, I think it is the best part, and I do believe the audience were of that mind. There's been such a to-do. Well, bringing Beatrice into Measure for Measure! You can imagine."

"I can indeed," I said.

"Let's go along. I'm meeting someone at Will's Coffee House. Have you been there?"

"Yes," I said.

"These coffee houses, they are so fashionable now. We can talk there. Do come."

I hesitated only for a moment. The days were so long. It would be pleasant to pass an hour or so in Joan's company.

We sat in the coffee house, where we talked—at least she did. She was so excited, first by the new part and even more so by a new admirer.

"He liked my Beatrice," she said. "He was there every night I played. Then ... well, you know how it happens. He was waiting after the play. He is very distinguished. Sir Harry Fresham, that's his name ... a very noble gentleman. He has breeding. Oh, you can always tell. He gave me a diamond brooch."

"Does he ... want to marry you?"

She looked at me in amazement. "Well ... there's been nothing said. He's talked of giving me a nice little place near the theater."

"Oh, I see," I said.

"As a matter of fact," she went on, "you may be meeting him. These coffee houses are good places to meet your friends."

She went on talking and I noticed how her eyes kept straying to the door. I said I thought I should go, but she prevailed on me to stay for a while. I had the notion that she was certain that her new friend would come into the coffee house sooner or later and she was eager for me to meet him so that I might admire and perhaps envy her.

And so it happened.

She was alert suddenly; a look of great delight spread across her features as a man came towards our table.

"Oh, Harry," she cried, as if in surprise. "I wondered whether ... Oh, this is Sarah Standish."

He took off his hat and bowed and a deep shock ran through me. It was only the wig which might have deceived me for a moment. It was light brown, with luxuriant curls reaching to his shoulders. I saw the freckles across the bridge of his short pert nose and the long upper Up. It was a face I had seen before in the chapel in the house in Knightsbridge.

I was stunned. I could only stare at him in amazement.

"Sir Harry Fresham," Joan was saying proudly.

"I am delighted to make your acquaintance," he said.

It was the same voice which had said "We shall pray together" in the chapel.

I stammered: "I thought we had met before."

Both he and Joan were looking at me in surprise. I had been so taken aback that I feared I was behaving oddly.

"Mistress," Sir Harry was saying, "I think there must be some mistake. If we had met before, I am sure I should never have forgotten the occasion."

"They say we all have doubles," said Joan lightly. "I am glad you were able to meet Sarah. She is an actress, you know."

He was smiling at me and the likeness seemed more pronounced than ever. His was an unusual face, and the more I saw him the more like Reverend Martin he seemed to become. Mannerisms ... voice, and that long upper lip. It was quite uncanny.

"What are you ladies drinking?" he said, and it was the voice of Reverend Martin.

"Coffee," said Joan.

"Coffee," he said, faintly contemptuously, and then smiling at us both. "You must use a little wine for the stomach's sake. That is a command from the Bible," he added, looking at me with an expression which might have held some mischief in it.