This chapter is very choppy and changey, I am sorry. Hopefully it will be comprehensible. It has driven me mad trying to write it.

The Performance.

Anna and Mr Bates had deliberately avoided sitting in the front row with Mrs Patmore and Daisy. Knowing what would happen to both of them if she happened to catch William's eye while he was either dancing dressed in a curtain of doing his famous lunges- which were reported to be able to distract even Mrs Hughes-, they had opted for seats in the middle of the audience.

"Gwen and Lady Sybil are brilliant together," she whispered to John, applauding with the rest of the audience as the lights went down and the scene ended. Lady Sybil and Lord Strallan disappeared and- when the lights came back on- were replaced by Mr Crawley's friends James and Christopher.

Mr Bates nodded.

"I think even they might have been impressed," he jerked his head towards the back, where they had seen Miss O'Brien and Thomas settle themselves.

Anna craned her neck as unobtrusively as possible. Finding them, she noticed that both looked mildly sour-faced. They must be enjoying themselves, then.

"Well, they aren't complaining," she told him quietly, "Can't find anything to criticise, I don't think."

He smiled wryly.

"Nothing's gone wrong yet," he commented, "But there's still the lunges to come."

Anna bit her lip to stop herself laughing. That scene was followed by another one with Gwen, this time with Sir Anthony. She was doing very well, Anna thought; given the basis on which Lady Sybil chose the leading ladies- one because she was Scottish and the next because she looked enough like someone- she had been remarkably fortunate that they both transpired to be able to act. But Gwen was still a very Gwenish Viola, Anna thought, though perhaps that was because she saw her every day and knew her mannerisms very well. She did not know much about the character, apart form what she'd overheard from various discussions that had sprung up at different times around the house, but when the scene ended there was another burst of applause from the more learned ladies and gentlemen in the audience.

"It was a good idea," John spoke again in a low voice during the applause, "The present. I think she'll suit it."

"I thought so," Anna agreed, "It was a good suggestion of Mrs Hughes'. And she'll need it, if she's going to this here party tonight. Do you think she's guessed that we're up to something?"

"I don't think so. She was busy enough learning her lines last night. Where have you all been keeping it?"

"Mr Molesley hid it for us in the cupboard at Crawley House."

They fell silent once more. Mr Carson and William had appeared on the stage. Though Anna had never thought she'd say this;- in this play at least- their presence seemed to act as something of a harbinger of sheer madness. She gave Mr Bates a sideways smile- suspecting that he was probably thinking something along the same lines. All they needed now was for Mrs Hughes, Mr Branson and possibly Lord Strallan to turn up and they would have the "dreadful hoo-hah" they had heard Lady Violet complaining about earlier in the week.

…...

Elsie was enjoying herself enormously. Her very favourite part of the play was coming up; she had just finished her singing- and hadn't messed the notes up- and, not to put too fine a point on it, it was time for things to get silly. She was rather ruing the prospect of having to return to the sombre business of housekeeping after this; and only hoped that her young charges wouldn't choose to remember how fond of having a good time she had been, they might hold it against her.

It was all fine at the moment, her character was supposed to have a sense of humour, and she was allowed to give the odd giggle to demonstrate as much. She thought that if she'd have to keep a straight face while William danced around it a curtain she would have surely imploded. There was, however, the small problem of Lord Strallan and his Serious Face. Well she thought, for a good fraction of the time he was on stage, she was busy looking at his legs and for the rest of it she could just watch his shoulder or the top of his ear. If she managed to avoid eye contact with him she would be alright. Or she could bare in mind the fact that tonight Isobel was going to tell him that she wasn't going to marry him after all and that he was shortly to have his heart broken. Yes, she thought, that should keep her nice and sombre.

…...

"Well done everyone, well done."

Her Ladyship had come to see them during the interval, as she seemed to enjoy doing. To her right hand side stood Lady Violet, glaring her approval at them, leaning imperiously on her walking stick. This gave the backstage area a much more inhibited air than last time, perhaps that was why her Ladyship had brought her along with her. This inhibition was the case in every contingent but one.

"Costumes!" Isobel called, standing briefly on a chair to attract their attention, "Anyone who's costume needs adjusting or fixing, over here!"

Lady Violet looked haughty at this gratuitous frivolity, though probably more because it was Isobel than the particular degree of the frivolity. Mr Branson went to have his troublesome banjo strap seen to, was reprimanded for having been so careless with it, and then her Ladyship continued. Perhaps, Elsie reflected momentarily, Isobel's overt exuberance was her way of channelling her nerves.

"You're all doing splendidly," her Ladyship told them, "Sybil dear- where is she?- oh yes. Sybil, your anguish it your first scene was the best you've done!"

"It ought to have been," Sybil announced, far more loudly than Elsie wished she would, "Mrs Hughes had just walloped me around the head!"

Lady Sybil probably sounded far too proud of that, she thought. She was about to protest to her Ladyship that she had meant no harm by it and had done it for all of their sakes but didn't quite manage to before Lady Violet spoke.

"Well done, Mrs Hughes," the Dowager sounded genuinely congratulatory- almost as if she wished she'd had the idea herself.

Her Ladyship evidently picked up on this note in her mother-in-law's tone, for she decided not to pursue the matter any further for the moment.

"Anyway," she continued, "Just keep at it, everyone. And remember to get Mrs Hughes well out of the way before you start the duelling scene! Cousin Isobel? Where are you? Have you got the stockings ready for Act 3 Scene 4?"

"They're there on the props table."

There was a pause. As most of the cast had taken upon themselves to sit on the props table, there was much shuffling about as they all got up to look for them.

"Mrs C?" Sybil called, hovering awkwardly beside Matthew, "They're not here."

"They must be," Isobel got up to look for herself, "That's where Sir Anthony put them when he took them off for the interval."

There was a sense of looming dread. In the absence of yellow stockings, they simply could not go on. It sounded ludicrous, but if they had come to appreciate one thing over the past four weeks it was how much of Twelfth Night pivoted around flamboyant stockings.

"Keep calm," her Ladyship instructed them, her voice suggesting that she was doing quite the opposite herself, "William, how long do we have left before we're on again?"

"Ten minutes, m'Lady."

"Right," her Ladyship took a deep breath, "We have nine and a half minutes to find these stockings. Everyone find their own space and search it to within an inch of its life." Under this sudden strain Lady Grantham's diction had become deadly.

Everyone went to it with a fervour. All except one, that is.

"Amateurs," Lady Violet declared, leaning heavily on her walking stick, "I'm working with a band of amateurs!"

…...

The second half only began five minutes later than scheduled, but it certainly didn't go unnoticed in certain contingents.

"Wonder what they were all up to?" Thomas asked as the curtain went back up to rather relieved applause from the rest of the audience.

Sarah shrugged in reply.

"Maybe old Hughsie got the stage fright again."

Thomas snorted.

"I highly doubt that kissing old Carson'd give her stage fright. Poor woman," he added, thoroughly unsympathetically, "From what you said they get up to enough of that anyway."

"Keep it quiet, man," she glanced around their neighbouring spectators with some alarm, but they were all concentrating on the stage where Lord Strallan had appeared- looking like a right idiot, she might add-, "I told you I only overheard the end of what got said."

"You overheard," he hissed in reply, "Mrs Crawley asking her if he'd ever asked her to marry him. And her saying yes, if I remember rightly."

"Still, like you said, we need to save something like that up for when we really need it," she told him, "That's if it turns out to be true."

He gave her a sceptical glance.

"Since when do you care if what you tell people's true? If they're fool enough to believe a lie, you usually let them."

Sarah said nothing in reply; old Hughsie was on stage herself. With her reported fancy man.

…...

And now, it was time for what was the highlight of the play for most of the cast. It was silly, it wasn't even a creation of Shakespeare's. The sheer genius was all William's; in the way he marched onto the stage- the picture of comic misplaced self-assurance- brandishing a sword about; and looking as if he was preparing to run the hundred yards. He was going to do his lunges.

Gwen and Sybil peered around the curtain, mercifully, they were not in this part of the scene but were need on stage shortly enough to be able to get in the wings. Standing side by side, they peered around the curtain to get a good view. Oh, how they pitied Mrs Hughes for being in the audience's line of vision and having to keep a straight face. As it happened, the housekeeper had devised the ingenious contrivance of keeping her back largely to William throughout the scene, but they both knew she still had problems keeping herself in check.

Then Mr Carson began reading that ridiculous letter:

"Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art but a scurvy fellow."

From where Gwen stood she could just about see Mrs Patmore in the front row- dressed impressively in her Sunday best- and laughing her head off.

…...

It could not be put off forever, Elsie realised. This blasted kiss had to be done. Close your eyes and think of England. Excluding the portion of England that seems have crowded into this drawing room to ogle at you. It's not difficult. "Nothing you haven't done before," Lady Sybil had told her slyly one day in rehearsals. Goodness, she was glad she'd walloped the girl!

So she took a deep breath, and did it. There, nothing to it really. Mrs Patmore's eyes were on stalks. It was alright she told herself, feeling herself blush in a little in this ridiculous frock; all you have to do is to stand there, look at Mr Branson and then you can leave the stage.

And then Mr Branson winked at her. In an exaggerated manner. So that the audience could see.

Well, it was nicely in character, really. The audience laughed appreciatively. Elsie wished she could vanish off the face of the stage.

…...

And finally, finally, it was time for the final scene. Gwen and Christopher stood there, looking at each other, so strangely similar except that she was a little bit shorter. There was a definite sense of finality about it. It was a shame, really, that they were already signed up to do a tragedy next time; comedy was so much more comforting in the oddest of ways. None of the characters had been murdered for one thing; ridiculed to within an inch of their life, yes, but not murdered.

When the curtain went down it was to thunderous applause from the audience. A sigh of relief was breathed amongst the cast.

Once again, I am sorry about the hectic nature of this chapter. Please review if you have the time. The After-Show is still to come.