Found: Fiction, historical. Boy raised in acting troupe suddenly declared heir to a lord
Original topic subject: Fiction, historical. Boy raised in acting troupe suddenly declared heir to a lord
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1Chrestomancy
I read this in school, but can't remember the title. Google is not my friend.
This is a UK English book, set in England either 18th or 19th century, I think. The plot feels very Victorian, everybody is pretty much constantly miserable throughout.
Central character is a boy, early teens I think, who has spent his life with his family who are travelling players, performing plays across the country. One day, a myserious man arrives on horseback, says some cryptic things to the boy's "father", at which point the acting troupe travel to a nearby Lord's house where they drop the boy off with little explanation.
The boy is then given instruction on how to be a proper young aristocrat, with a stern and cold Lord, mostly unpleasant housekeeper, and occasional other relatives. Early on in the book, the boy gives an acting performance, and it is made very clear to him that acting is considered horribly common, and he is never to do it again.
Plot gets slowly revealed; the wife of the Lord had apparently had her infant son stolen from her shortly after birth, and had not managed to produce any other living children as heirs. There's a brother to the Lord, who is keen to inherit. The protagonist turns out to be this stolen boy. There's a slow build to a dramatic conclusion where the brother to the Lord persuades the protagonist to perform another feat of acting, which results in the Lord revealing the truth - that his actual heir died shortly after birth, the story about him being stolen was made up so he could keep the pretense of having an heir alive. The lord had ridden to town, found that another boy had been born around the same time, and was pale and skinny, much like his dead baby. He'd arranged to provide regular monies to the acting troupe, on condition that when he sent a message, the boy would be sent to him, where he would be raised as a noble.
Our protagonist returns in the end to his acting family. Everybody seems just about as miserable at the end of the book as they were at the beginning, except possibly the protagonist - who hated everybody pretty much in the noble household, and gets to return to the life he was actually born into.
This is a UK English book, set in England either 18th or 19th century, I think. The plot feels very Victorian, everybody is pretty much constantly miserable throughout.
Central character is a boy, early teens I think, who has spent his life with his family who are travelling players, performing plays across the country. One day, a myserious man arrives on horseback, says some cryptic things to the boy's "father", at which point the acting troupe travel to a nearby Lord's house where they drop the boy off with little explanation.
The boy is then given instruction on how to be a proper young aristocrat, with a stern and cold Lord, mostly unpleasant housekeeper, and occasional other relatives. Early on in the book, the boy gives an acting performance, and it is made very clear to him that acting is considered horribly common, and he is never to do it again.
Our protagonist returns in the end to his acting family. Everybody seems just about as miserable at the end of the book as they were at the beginning, except possibly the protagonist - who hated everybody pretty much in the noble household, and gets to return to the life he was actually born into.
2MissSquish
Devil-in-the-Fog by Leon Garfield?
3Chrestomancy
>2 MissSquish: Wow, MissSquish, I think you've got it! Probably obviously enough, the summary doesn't give the actual plot away, but from what I can see it's exactly in keeping with my memory. Thank you, that's been bothering me for literally *years*
