Chameleon in a Mirror Page 3

  “This your first time in a theater, Will?”

  Billie started to shake her head but caught herself, falling into her role instinctively — acting as if all this were real.

  “My direct experience is limited to American theaters, I must admit.” At least her voice, a rich, deep alto, would be the last thing to betray that she was a woman in boy's clothing. And this was probably one of the few centuries in history in which her long hair wouldn't betray her either.

  Wait, she didn't have to worry about that. This was a dream. A dream.

  Ravenscroft's eyes, a warm brown with flecks of gold, glowed with amusement. “I didn't even know the Americas had 'em. Isn't life in the Colonies little better than that of savages?”

  “Surely the playwright has informed you otherwise,” Billie said, nodding in Aphra's direction.

  “Touché,” Ravenscroft said, chuckling. “Tell me, how do you come to know so much about our fair author?”

  “I admire her greatly,” Billie said.

  “As do we all, Will, as do we all.” Ravenscroft's gaze wandered to where Aphra had been distracted from her duties by the attentions of his two friends.

  Billie nodded, astonished at the way she was beginning to revel in the imaginary masquerade of her opulent dream. “Who are the two enjoying her attentions?” she asked, doing her best to sound the part of the jealous swain.

  “The dark one's John Hoyle, and the other's Jeffrey Boys, Aphra's present beau. Gray's Inn lawyers, both,” her companion informed her. Billie nodded. She'd read about Boys and Hoyle, and, as opposed to Ravenscroft, most sources agreed that the lawyers had been Aphra's lovers. Consecutively. Which meant it must soon be Hoyle's turn.

  “Our fair charmer is Royalist through and through,” Ravenscroft continued, “but her taste in men tends toward the Parliamentarian end of the scale. Unless you are a radical, you are out of luck, lad.”

  Suddenly the ridiculousness of the situation was too much for Billie, and she let out a ringing laugh. Hoyle looked up from the contemplation of Aphra's shoulder, sending Billie a hot stare out of intense dark eyes that were almost black. Billie felt her cheeks grow warm again.

  “Pay Hoyle no mind,” Ravenscroft said. “He chases everything on two legs, whether the legs are covered by skirts or not. They'll get him for buggery yet.”

  There, yet more proof she was making all this up. What she knew of Behn's biography fit right into what Ravenscroft told her; Hoyle was eventually arrested for homosexual acts, though not convicted.

  She glanced at Ravenscroft under her eyelashes. He had the same heavy-lidded eyes as Aphra. She wondered why that feature was so common in the seventeenth century: did it have to do with some kind of prevalent vitamin deficiency? Not that Billie minded: she was very attracted to that particular feature. Richard had eyes like that. Ravenscroft's eyes were a different color and surrounded by more laugh lines, but it still gave him a vague resemblance to her boyfriend. But while his manner was friendly and open, his eyes seemed veiled.

  A slow smile spread across his face. Billie looked away quickly, back at the group surrounding Aphra. She must have been staring. He was very pleasant to look at, though. She wished the men in her dreams were always so attractive.

  Her dreams? Yes, her dreams. It had to be her dreams. The past wasn't an option.

  “I hear you may replace Hendricks,” Ravenscroft said. Billie looked at him, not following. “The musician who came down with the clap, man!”

  “Oh. Well, I'd like to try.”

  Ravenscroft glanced at the lute clutched under Billie's arm. The dark hue of the aged wood didn't seem to impress him the way it had Billie. “If you are to be a part of the play, lad, we'd best get you a new lute.” Ravenscroft's incredibly mobile eyebrows formed an “S” across his forehead. She could swear he was looking at her with desire — or maybe that was just the way libertines looked all the time. Or the way she imagined they looked. She hoped it wasn't her own confused wishes reflected in his expression. Perhaps Ravenscroft had even recognized that she wasn't a boy. On the other hand, Hoyle might not be the only one who indulged in “buggery.”

  And here she was, once again reacting as if Ravenscroft were real, as if Hoyle were real, as if she really had been transported to the seventeenth century, as impossible as it seemed. No! How could that be? And what was she supposed to do about it if it were true?

  If it were true, Billie had just met Aphra Behn. In the flesh. The first professional woman writer in the history of English literature. The thought made her giddy.

  If it were true, she was so far from home, she might never see Oregon again.

  Her head swam. If she had to keep up with this much longer it would mean a serious headache. “I must see if this lute will even let itself be tuned anymore. Excuse me, sir, while I find a quieter spot.”

  Billie bowed as she'd seen Ravenscroft do and headed for the changing room. Once there, she closed the door behind her with one hip and leaned against it, her head sinking to her chest. Maybe she should start working from a worst-case scenario: she really was in the seventeenth century. And if she was in the seventeenth century, how the hell was she getting back to the twenty-first? To get here — assuming here was where she thought she was — she'd recited Behn's verses in front of a mirror. She had recited from The Dutch Lover, and she had ended up at a rehearsal for exactly that. So how were lines from The Dutch Lover, or anything else Behn wrote for that matter, supposed to get her back into her own time and out of this crazy dream, populated by dashing, debonair and highly sexy men?

  At least she could try the same thing that had gotten her here in the first place. Lute in hand, she approached the mirror, racking her brain for the verses she'd read from Behn. Pre-marital sex, that's what it had been about, she remembered that much. She'd have to reconstruct it.

  Pulling a notebook and pen out of a back pocket of her jeans, Billie sat down at the table in front of the mirror. The little pocket-sized notebook was her constant companion, her resource for notes for all occasions. She liked to “collect images” as she called it; they were the raw material for her poems and songs.

  Desperation made her memory especially clear, and she soon had a working copy of the lines to Clarinda.

  Her stomach clamping painfully, Billie looked into the mirror and read the verses out loud. Nothing. She read the verses last line first. Nothing. She read them backwards, word by word. Still nothing. She stood up, gripping the lute, posed and pranced and tried all three methods all over, but the only feeling of nausea she experienced was from disappointment. She sat down again, her insides hollow.

  She drew a deep breath, and another. She wished she could force herself to wake up, but since she couldn't, she might as well acquaint herself with the lute. Unfortunately, she'd never played a lute before. She knew it was related to the mandolin somehow, but that didn't solve her problem of how to tune the damn thing. What was she supposed to do with the extra pair of strings or that last single string?

  Simple: ignore them. The main thing was to get the instrument into some kind of working order so she could play it. She would tune the fifth to second courses like a mandolin and the others an octave higher. That way at least she'd know where to put her fingers.

  Luckily, the strings appeared to be relatively new; the lute must have been restrung before it was stashed in the cellar. By the time she had urged the instrument into “G”, “D”, “A” and “E”, she'd regained some of her usual equilibrium. But just as she almost reached the second “G”, the string snapped with a loud twang. She jumped, the lute sliding out of her lap and onto the floor.

  Billie put her head in her fists and burst into tears.

  3

  — Hah, I vow to gad a lovely Youth . . .

  This stripling may chance to mar my market of Women now —

  . . . Would I could meet him somewhere i'th' dark,

  I'd have a fling at him, and try whether I were right Florentine.

  Aphr
a Behn, The Amorous Prince

  Aphra turned away from her actors and glanced over at the strange American lad. Will was watching her with a look of wonder, and Aphra smiled and winked. The young man turned back to Ravenscroft, confused; he was so artless! Would it be fair to Will if Ravenscroft corrupted him only shortly after he arrived from the colonies? She had never known Ravenscroft to indulge in the Italian taste for boys, but Will was undeniably a lovely youth — not the worst place to start if one was about to begin with such so-called vices. No, she couldn't blame Ravenscroft at all. Aphra possessed an eye for male beauty, and Will, with his perfect features, smooth cheeks, and silky dark hair, obviously natural, but full and curling nonetheless, was a striking lad. He was a bit too young and too naive for Aphra's taste, though, with those large eyes that seemed wider than humanly possible.

  On the other hand, he might not be as innocent as he looked. When Will had caught Hoyle looking him up and down, he'd blushed to his ears. The lad might be artless, but perhaps not naive.

  There was some mystery about him — he dragged a lute around that looked as if it should have been discarded a century ago, while the cost of the lace alone on his fine silk shirt would buy him a new lute easily. Not to mention the high leather boots of an obviously excellent make and the perfect pearls in his ears. Perhaps he was a runaway from a good family in the colonies. But that too was odd; his accent was most extraordinary, nothing like the English spoken in Surinam.

  Surinam. Good families were few and far between there. The colonies seemed to draw rabble. Perhaps it was different in the northern colonies, which were older after all, but Aphra doubted it. Still, she recalled her time in South America with fondness, and when Surinam went over to the Dutch after the Treaty of Breda, Aphra felt it as a personal loss. It wasn't just the physical beauty of the place that she missed — the colonies bred independence. You could see it in Will: despite his blushes, he had the straight back and open look of a young man who wouldn't be forced into a mold. In that respect, he had a strange resemblance to her former lover Will Scot. There was no real physical resemblance, but the bold look in his eyes and the way he held himself, proud and free, reminded her of that other Will.

  She shouldn't be worrying about the fate of a stranger, anyway. The lad looked to be quite capable of staying out of both Ravenscroft's and Mrs. Leigh's clutches if he cared to. Her own clutches were another matter entirely. But she had no erotic designs on him, and the danger from Mrs. Leigh was minimal as well. The actress was only interested in someone who could set her up in her own house, and despite the fine silk shirt, Will didn't look as if he had the means for that kind of extravagance. Ravenscroft's clutches were probably the more immediate danger — if danger they were.

  “Faith, Aphra! Have I grown so uninteresting that you cannot even answer a simple question?” Jeffrey complained, taking her arm playfully. “Where are your thoughts wandering?”

  “Probably to her fair young musician,” Hoyle said, one dark eyebrow inching up his forehead. “Look to your interests, Boys, or you will soon be as much a part of history as her Surinam adventures.”

  “What am I, a horse to be bartered, gentlemen? I look to my own interests, if you please.”

  “That you do, Astrea, that you do,” Hoyle said, giving her a bow just deep enough to avoid losing his periwig. Billie was surprised to hear Aphra referred to in conversation with her pastoral pseudonym, the name with which she had signed many of her poems. But then, her contemporaries had often referred to her as “the incomparable Astrea” — perhaps “Astrea” was as much nickname as literary conceit.

  “Enough of this,” Aphra said. “My actors are growing impatient.” She returned her attention to the members of the Duke's Company, leaving Boys and Hoyle to entertain each other.

  When she finally dismissed the troupe, Ravenscroft had rejoined his friends. “Don't overwork Angel, Aphra; he is to play in my next comedy,” Ravenscroft teased.

  “Which has yet to be written,” Jeffrey threw in.

  Ravenscroft shrugged. “The young players have asked me for a play, and I will oblige them.”

  Aphra gave an impatient shake of her head. “Angel will have the better of me first, I am sure. I cannot understand why he is so popular with the audiences — the man is an ass!”

  Hoyle cocked his head to one side. “How appropriate. Isn't he to play one?”

  “To be an ass on stage and to play an ass on stage are not the same.”

  “Give ye five shillings for a guinea if you survive this play, Astrea!” Jeffrey said, casually shaking out the lace at his wrist.

  “You offered the same if I survived the year,” Aphra replied, her good humor returning. Jeffrey played the fool with such great good nature, he had a talent for cheering her up.

  “By the by, where has your new musician gone to?” Hoyle asked.

  Aphra lifted one eyebrow. “I can well imagine that you would want to know, Mr. Hoyle, hmm?”

  “He said he needed to find a quiet place to tune his lute,” Ravenscroft informed the others.

  “Let us hope you are not making another mistake by offering him a part in the play,” Hoyle said.

  “I will be the judge of that,” Aphra informed him.

  As Billie's sobs ebbed, she realized what her crying fit really meant. She rarely cried, and yet here she'd broken into tears at a snapped lute string. The tears weren't for the string, they were for the fear that this wasn't a dream. Everything that had happened since she found herself in this tiring room was much too vivid, much too realistic. Her own behavior was too strongly dictated by everyday logic, not dream logic. There were too many smells and sensations and not enough radical and unmotivated changes in scene and plot. As fantastic as it was, it felt like the real world.

  The door of the changing room opened, and Aphra entered. The playwright took in the lute on the floor and Billie's reddened eyes and shook her head. “A broken string is nothing to cry about, Will,” she said gently.

  Billie sighed and wiped her face with a Kleenex she pulled out of the pocket of her jeans. “It wasn't the string.”

  “I imagine not. Is London too great a challenge for you, fresh from the colonies as you are?”

  “I — it's not London. I've been places you probably never heard of, places you couldn't even imagine.”

  Aphra sat down next to her, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Did you run away, lad?”

  “Not exactly. It's not what you think.”

  “'Tis rarely what people think.”

  At that oh so appropriate answer, Billie found herself chuckling, despite the hopeless situation she found herself in. Or imagined she found herself in.

  She took a deep breath, reaching for the top button of her silk blouse. “I'm not what you think either.”

  “Now, lad, restrain yourself!” Aphra said sternly. “There are still many others in the playhouse. I'll —” Her voice died away as Billie opened her blouse to reveal her undershirt and minimal amount of cleavage.

  Aphra's eyes went wide and she let out a ringing laugh. “Excellent masquerade, Will! Or what should I call you now?”

  Billie raked her mind for a name that might suit and lit on the lines she'd recited in front of the mirror. “Clarinda.”

  “I see you do not yet trust me,” Aphra said with a faint smile. “So be it. I, too, have my alias. You may call me Astrea — most people do.”

  Apparently Billie's chosen name was in the pastoral pseudonym department, the kind given to figures in poetry and plays; Aphra had just offered her own pen name in exchange. But hey, how was she to know? She was a literary critic, not a historian. Which didn't bode well for her if she really was in the seventeenth century, and not breathing shallowly on the floor of a classroom at Blackfriars, plagued by unusually vivid dreams.

  “It's not that I don't trust you —” Billie began.

  “Peace, lass. 'Tis obvious you have something to hide. Faith, there's an excellent story there, to be sur
e, but I promise not to pry. Do you have a place to stay, Clarinda?” There was a faint lilt of irony in Aphra's voice as she said the name.

  “No.”

  “Then perhaps you should come home with me for the time being.” She picked up the crumpled Kleenex from the table and dabbed at the corners of Billie's eyes, almost sending her into a renewed bout of weeping.

  “I wouldn't know how to repay you.”

  “Mayhap you will be free to tell me your story someday, my dear. If it is good enough, I may make a play out of it.”

  Billie found herself chuckling. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

  “Does that signify?” Aphra asked gaily. “The story is the thing. What a curious handkerchief,” she said, holding the tear-soaked tissue in one delicate hand.

  “American.” What a wonderful, all-purpose explanation that was.

  And then it occurred to her — if what Billie feared were true, then the woman in front of her examining the Kleenex really was her hero, Aphra Behn. A woman who'd been defeated repeatedly, only to buck fate and reinvent herself again and again and again, eventually reinventing herself as the first professional woman writer in the English language.

  “Oh, I have a plan!” Aphra cried out, dropping the tissue. “Are you up for an extended prank, Clarinda? We could have all of London talking about you — and coming to the play to see you!”

  “Me?”

  “Certainly you! You make a very stunning youth. Just as I am sure you will be equally handsome as my female protégée. London society will be dying to learn your secret.”

  “My secret?”

  Aphra stroked Billie's dark curls carelessly. “Lad or lass? That is the question.”

  Billie looked into Aphra's laughing brown eyes and nodded, smiling.

  The playwright clapped her hands. “Oh, this is famous! What an excellent jest it will be!”

  Billie woke up expecting a lean, warm body by her side. It took her a few drowsy minutes to realize Richard wasn't there. And a few more drowsy minutes to realize where she was. Or at least where she thought she was. She stared up at the hangings of the bed, a hole growing in the pit of her stomach. She was waking up, but the dream wasn't over. It was beginning to look more and more as if she'd somehow stumbled through a hole in the fabric of time — and she didn't know how to get back. Normal logic wouldn't help her now. Billie wondered what her brother Bruce, a physics professor at the University of Washington, would think of all this. Then she wondered if she'd ever get the chance to talk to him again. At the thought, she could feel tears threatening to spill over.