He Dropped Three Women in One Night, Then We Took His Estate novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: The Swan Goes Dark

The Gilded Swan went dark at noon on a Saturday, and by dusk the whole company was in the dower house barn.

Ottilie walked them up the hill herself, nineteen people in a line with trunks on their backs.

The bailiff watched them go from the playhouse door and took off his hat.

She did not look back, because she knew she would not manage a straight face.

The barn was long and cold and smelled of hay.

Calista had it swept and lit with lanterns, and four stoves borrowed from the village stood in a row down the middle.

She had said nothing about it, only handed Ottilie the key and told her which loft was dry.

Ottilie had said thank you in her stage voice.

It was the only voice she trusted herself to use around the wife.

Now she stood in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips and counted heads.

The prompter had the rug.

The two sisters had found a swallow's nest and named it.

Her leading man had put on his best coat to unpack a trunk.

"We keep the company," Ottilie said, to all of them. "The building is a building. The company is the thing. We rehearse here, and when the lease is settled, we go home."

"And if it isn't settled?" the prompter asked.

"Then we play in the Princess's own ballroom and send her the bill."

They laughed, and then began to work.

The next afternoon she set them to painting the backdrop for The Glass Orchard.

It was a twelve-foot canvas of apple trees in bloom, stretched on the barn wall, and they needed every hand.

Elowen Tarn had come out of the house after breakfast with a basin of whitewash and a look of fierce shyness.

"May I?" she asked.

"Can you paint?"

"I can copy anything," said Elowen. "It was part of my lessons."

"Then you can do the left side."

She did.

She painted the blossoms in tiny dabs of pink on white, with the tip of the brush, so carefully that Ottilie went to look over her shoulder and stopped.

They were better than her own.

"Who taught you that?"

"A miniature painter. He came to the Hall to paint the Marquis's mother." Elowen frowned at the branch. "He told me my hand was too steady for a lady."

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