The marquess crooked his right forefinger and took a pinch of snuff. “A Jew?”
“I have no idea. I have never met the man. But he appears to be the proprietor of a pawnshop in Old Jewry. In Cheapside.”
“My dear child.” Manwaring sneezed. “Excuse me.” He withdrew a large white handkerchief from the deep pocket of his banyan and blew his nose loudly. “My dear child, I have been acquainted with so many shylocks in my lifetime—onstage and off—that I cannot rightly say offhand if the name rings a bell. Dingle won’t be open for business again until Monday morning—the Jews are not permitted to open their shops on our day of rest—but don’t look so crestfallen, my dear. What say you make the best of it and provide a poor soul with a couple of days of your delightful companionship?”
“Well, it’s certainly a pleasure to see you once again,” C.J. said, pretending to sip the liquor.
“We’ve got quite an extravaganza to attend tomorrow night at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.” Manwaring rang the little silver bell that rested on the table by his elbow. “Mimsy,” he said when his maidservant appeared, “run to Lady Chatterton’s with a message from me. Inform her ladyship that my daughter, Cassandra, has just arrived from Bath, and that I would be a rude mechanical indeed to attend her masquerade without the company of my long-lost child.”
The compliant and extremely energetic Mimsy sped out of the house like a squirrel after a November acorn.
“Quite a woman is Lady Chatterton,” the marquess told C.J. “Extremely generous patroness. A widow. Just turned forty but still has all the bloom of youth. Has had an eye for me for some time now.” He winked at his “daughter” and took another pinch of snuff. “What’s the matter, child? Don’t think I can still attract the ladies, do you? I’m barely fifty. Clementina once traveled to Bristol to see my Dogberry. Says she’ll do anything for me. Except marry me—until I’ve got my reputation back, she says. Drink up, now.”
“I’m sorry, Papa. I’m unused to brandy, and while I’m sure it’s of the very finest quality, I fear that it’s a bit too strong for my taste.”
“More for me then.” The marquess downed C.J.’s brandy and immediately refilled his own glass to the heart of the bowl.
Manwaring stood at his sideboard and sighed like a man in love. “There haven’t been many, Cassandra, who would sully their character by hobnobbing with the likes of me, but Clementina—Lady Chatterton—has always been in my corner.” He sank back into his chair and patted his large belly. “’Course, whenever she invites me to one of her soirees, it’s always to be a masked ball,” he laughed.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING an engraved invitation was delivered to C.J. at the Stone Buildings. “‘Dress as your favorite Shakespearean character,’ ” C.J. read. “Whatever shall I wear? Who are you going to be, Papa?” she asked the marquess.
Manwaring puffed out his chest. “In the role for which I was greatly renowned in the provinces . . . in my soberer days. I shall go as Bottom the Weaver.” C.J. laughed. “I was verrah, verrah good, I’ll have you know,” he retorted, thinking his “daughter” doubted his fine thespian talents.
“I do not disbelieve you. On the contrary, I was thinking it was perfect casting,” C.J. rejoined, smiling. “But who shall I be?”
“I think you should go to Lady Chatterton’s Midsummer Night’s Masquerade dressed as a dutiful daughter. What think you of some very attractive seaweeds? You would be quite a fetching Miranda.”
C.J. wrinkled her nose. “Ugh! Miranda is far too insipid for my taste.”
“She’s a good daughter, though,” Manwaring protested. “Then what about Cordelia? Now there’s a loyal daughter for you.”
“I’ll be hanged first,” riposted C.J.
The marquess led C.J. to a roomful of costume pieces and accessories, a veritable treasure trove of satins, silks, and velvets, of ruffs and cuffs and farthingales, of caps and helmets, staffs and swords of all variety. “I’m a bit of a hoarder,” Manwaring explained. “Many years ago, when you would have been but a very little girl, I did a season with the great Siddons. She gave me this piece as a gift for my collection. Said she was having a new one made, anyway, for her Rosalind.”
C.J. gasped and held out her arms to receive the purple velvet doublet. “Siddons wore this?” she said breathlessly.
“The very one. She was much thinner then,” the marquess said, appraising the size of the luxurious garment.
“Oh, may I really wear this?”
Her “father” nodded.
“Then it’s all settled. I shall go as Rosalind!” C.J. exclaimed, continuing to marvel over the opportunity to wear a costume that once belonged to the greatest actress of the day.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Mimsy opened the door to her master’s apartments at the Stone Buildings and gasped in amazement at the sight before her. Familiar with some of the personages in the doorway from his lordship’s theatricals, she found herself in the presence of Cleopatra and one of her handmaidens wielding an enormous ostrich- and peacock-plumed fan, most effective for chasing the city stench from the royal nostrils of the rather plump Queen of the Nile; an extremely statuesque—and aging—Titania; and a man in a filthy loincloth dripping with plants that resembled seaweed, but who appeared to be extremely fit and handsome under all the “dirt” that he had smeared across his bare chest, arms, and legs.
“May I help you?” Mimsy asked, recoiling from the live snake entwined around Cleopatra’s fleshy upper arm.
“I am the Countess of Dalrymple. Is my brother at home?” demanded the redoubtable personification of Egypt.
“Ohhh. Gone off to Vauxhall already. His lordship and his daughter. They took the boat over, as his lordship thought that the young ladyship would find the conveyance that
