City of Ash (22 page)

“Oh good. Then there’s nothing to worry about, is there? As far as the others go, I believe you underestimate me. I’ve charmed Sarah Bernhardt. Edwin Booth was a guest at my home each time he was in Chicago. I don’t think a Seattle company … well, I suspect we will all be friends quite quickly. We’ll be drinking wine together by the end of the week, I promise you.”

“Mrs. Langley, this play isn’t just an opportunity for you—”

“I realize that. I’ve already told you; it’s not for my benefit
that I do this, but yours. And I vow I’ll be on my best behavior, if that’s what worries you. I will win them over, you know.”

“I’ve no doubt of that, but—”

“I won’t embarrass you, Mr. DeWitt. I value your friendship. I would never do anything to harm it.”

That made him pause. He considered me with those strange eyes for a moment, and then he sighed and smiled—not so broad as he could, or had, but enough that I suddenly realized how tight was my stomach, how much his approval meant to me already. “I value your friendship as well, Mrs. Langley.”

His words warmed me. “Do you think … might I ask you a favor, Mr. DeWitt, in the true spirit of friendship? Will you come with me to meet Mr. Greene this morning, if you’ve no other obligations? I confess I’m a bit nervous. It would comfort me to have you there.”

“As it happens, I was on my way there myself. For rehearsal. I’m making revisions.”

“Revisions? But it’s quite brilliant as it is. Surely Mr. Greene can’t want to change too much.”

He made a face. “I imagine that remains to be seen.”

“I cannot think how discouraging that must be, to have your words be at the mercy of lesser men. I’ve always thought criticism to be the bane of artists.”

“I should say it was reality instead. And necessity.”

“In any case, the play is perfect as it is.”

“Perfection too is in the eye of the beholder.” He held out his arm. “Shall we go then? You don’t want to be late.”

I placed my hand in the crook of his arm, and together we went to the waiting carriage. With him beside me, my nerves quieted. We spoke of small things on the journey to the theater. I think he saw how strung tight I was and thought to put me at ease. But when the carriage finally pulled up in front of the theater, my nerves flared again. I was almost giddy. “Oh, I can hardly believe I mean to do this!”

He said, “I can hardly believe it myself.”

We went in through the parquet door, which led to the back of the theater, into rows of empty seats, cast into darkness. But on the stage, the footlights were lit, and men shouted back and forth
to one another as they painstakingly painted a canvas backdrop suspended from hooks. A backdrop for
my
play, I realized, and felt that stabbing little thrill of excitement again that caught my breath and made me cough a little—the lingering residue of my cold—and Sebastian DeWitt stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Greene will be waiting for you,” he said. “This way.”

He led me down the aisle between the seats, and up the few steps to the stage, and then ducked behind the curtains flanking it. I followed. The backstage was in near darkness, barely held within the periphery of the lamps onstage, and the heavy curtains did their part to keep out the light as well. Dim shapes of props and sets loomed before me as Mr. DeWitt took my arm and led me to the stairs, narrow and falling into shadow, with a light glowing at the bottom.

They ended in a hall, musty, dim, dusty, and narrow, with doors lining either side and scenery and props leaning against the walls and creating a confusion of obstacles. I could not imagine there was an office down here, but Mr. DeWitt was not the least hesitant, and finally we came to it. There was a key box on one side and a row of narrow boxes with names scratched beneath each on the other, and on the door was painted in black:
LUCIUS GREENE, MANAGER
.

Mr. DeWitt knocked sharply on the door. “Greene? It’s Sebastian DeWitt. With Mrs. Langley.”

“Come in, come in!” The voice came from the depths of the office, and it was booming and welcoming.

Mr. DeWitt opened the door and stepped aside to let me precede him, and I was face-to-face with the manager of the Regal Theater.

He was dressed rather flamboyantly, in a coat of an earthy reddish color and a satin vest of purple. His thick brown hair stood up on his head, and his mustache was waxed at the tips, and everything about him, even the way he moved, was theatrical, as if he’d been nursed not on mother’s milk but on the very essence of the stage instead.

Mr. DeWitt introduced us, and I smiled and said, “Mr. Greene, I am very pleased to meet you.”

“And I you, madam.” Mr. Greene came around the edge of
the desk, nearly colliding with a dressmaker’s dummy clad in a red satin cape. He reached for my hand and made a little bow over it. “As I told your husband, Mrs. Langley, I had thought that the leading role would fit you, but now that I’ve seen you I must say I’m overwhelmed at how perfect it is! Do you not think so, DeWitt?”

“She looks the part indeed,” said Mr. DeWitt smoothly.

Mr. Greene fumbled with the papers on his desk, pulling forth a sheaf bound with a tie. “Ah, here it is.” He handed it to me. “
Penelope Justis, or Revenge of the Spirit
. A spectacle to end all spectacles! That is the script—well, not in its entirety, you understand, but the pages containing your lines.”

“I shall devote my evening to them,” I told him.

“Just so, just so. The rest of the company has been rehearsing for a week or so, but you should have no trouble catching up. We will need you here every morning at ten, Mrs. Langley, for the next few weeks.”

I nodded, trying to contain my excitement. “I look forward to the challenge, Mr. Greene, but I do hope you all will be kind.”

“Mrs. Langley has enthusiasm rather than experience, you realize,” Mr. DeWitt told Mr. Greene.

“Yes, of course, of course,” Mr. Greene said quickly. “Our company is delighted to host her.” He took a rather ornate watch from his pocket. “In fact, they should be gathered now for rehearsal. Will you come and meet them, Mrs. Langley?”

“Oh yes. Yes indeed.” I could hardly wait to make them my friends.

“You’ve a few hours to work with us, I hope. Time is of the essence in the theater.”

This, I had not expected. I glanced at Sebastian DeWitt, who raised a brow and said, “She’s barely looked at the script.”

Mr. Greene led the way from his office. “No matter, no matter. My dear Mrs. Langley, you shall work from the book as long as you like. As long as you know the lines by the night of our performance, I shall have no complaints.”

I nodded, and Mr. DeWitt and I followed him to the stage.

“Children! Children!” boomed Mr. Greene as we stepped upon it to see a group of people milling about. At Mr. Greene’s
words, they quieted and looked up, some of them looking past him to me, their gazes curious. “Here is our most special guest, whom I mentioned to you all yesterday. Mrs. Nathan Langley, who will be playing Penelope Justis from this point on. I know you will greet her with open arms, and we will all be a merry family!”

I stepped forward. “Good morning to you all. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I’m so pleased to meet you, and I trust we shall become great friends.”

There was a pause. It was uncomfortable and puzzling; I had the distinct sense they were waiting for something. One or two of them looked to a woman with hair as dark as mine, loosely coiled at the nape of her neck, pin-straight strands escaping. She had pale skin, and she was trim and neat, clad in brown broadcloth. She met my glance; I was taken aback by the venom in her dark eyes.

“Perhaps you could be the first to welcome Mrs. Langley, Bea,” said Mr. Greene, and even on such short acquaintance, I recognized his tone; there was no brooking the request.

The woman smiled, showing even white teeth, incisors a bit too long, but her smile was about as welcoming as that of an attacking dog. She sauntered forward—saucy, no, more than that, insolent—and held out a limp hand. “Mrs. Langley. I’m Beatrice Wilkes. I’ll be playing … your servant. Marjory.”

She did not like me; that was clear, and I had no idea why. But I took her hand and smiled and said, “I saw you in
Black Jack
. You were Sweet Polly’s sister. You have a lovely singing voice.”

She nodded as if the compliment were no more than expected and wearying at that, and stepped back, and I saw the way she looked at Mr. Greene—again with a bit of insolence, and I wondered why he didn’t chastise her, but then the others came forward as if they’d been waiting for her to make the first overture, and I found myself overwhelmed with names and faces, some of which I remembered from
Black Jack
. Mr. Wheeler, for example, and Mr. Metairie, who had made such a superb villain, and Mrs. Chace, who was so corpulent it was difficult to forget her figure upon the stage. The others were kind, though more reserved
than I hoped. I told myself it didn’t matter. This was only our first meeting. I would do my best to win their affection. I was confident that soon we would find ourselves gathered together after rehearsal to discuss art and philosophy over a few glasses of wine.

“Shall we begin then, children?” Mr. Greene called out. “Act one, scene one, for Mrs. Langley.”

Mr. DeWitt touched my arm and leaned close to whisper, “Courage, Mrs. Langley,” as if he knew how quickly my nervousness had bloomed again, and then he and Mr. Greene and Mr. Geary went to the table set to the side of the stage. The others spread out. Mrs. Chace sat laboriously on a riser; Mr. Metairie and the young man whose name I could not remember sat on a settee just off to the side, and Mr. Wheeler sighed and lay down on the floor near the edge of the stage, spreading out his legs and closing his eyes as if he meant to go to sleep.

“We’ll start with Penelope’s entrance, stage right, upstage,” Mr. Geary said.

The right side of the stage nearest the audience, I supposed, and I crossed to go there.

“Stage right,” Mr. Geary corrected with a gesture.

“Oh.” I paused. “It’s quite the opposite then.”

From the floor, Mr. Wheeler laughed.

“Stage directions are as you look at the audience, madam,” Mr. Geary explained patiently.

“Perhaps you should give her a primer, Lucius,” said Mrs. Wilkes. “So we aren’t all wasting our time.”

“An excellent idea,” said Mr. Greene acidly. “Perhaps you’d care to be her tutor, my dear, and show Mrs. Langley the blocking for this scene?”

Mrs. Wilkes clamped her lips together tightly. Rigidly, she pointed toward the back wall of the stage. “
That
is upstage, Mrs. Langley.” She marched to the spot. “We’re at the funeral of your dear sister Florence. I don’t imagine even you will find it too difficult to pretend to listen to a sermon.”

I chose to ignore her rudeness. I was determined to make this woman my friend—of all of them, I knew she and Mr. Metairie
were the most talented, and therefore the most worthy of my attention. I went to where she stood and smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Wilkes.”

“And now”—Geary rapped his hand upon the table—“Townshend, the line is yours.”

The young man barely glanced up from where he sat on the settee with Mr. Metairie. “ ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to—’ ”

“It
is
to be a waterfall, right, Lucius?” yelled a man from behind the curtain. “Not a stream?”

“ ‘—dust,’ ” Mr. Townshend went on. “ ‘In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life.’ ”

“Not a stream,” Mr. Greene called back. “A quite large waterfall.”

“Twenty feet up good enough?”

“Mr. Townshend has given you your cue, Mrs. Langley,” Mr. Geary said above the noise. “The next line is yours.”

The next line. I fumbled with the script; the pages slipped apart, some of them falling to the floor. I bent to retrieve them and heard Mrs. Wilkes’s loud sigh of exasperation, and she said, “Mrs. Langley, the line is: ‘My poor dear sister, struck down in the bloom of youth!’ ”

It was the way she said it, with assurance and theatrical intonations—a quite different voice from her usual—as if she’d practiced it many times, that gave me pause. I remembered what Sebastian DeWitt had said, how the company had already been rehearsing the play for some days, how my coming might offend them. Suddenly I felt uneasy.

I picked up the pages and rose. “ ‘My dear sister, struck down so young.’ ”

“ ‘My
poor dear
sister, struck down in the
bloom of youth,
’ ” Mrs. Wilkes corrected impatiently.

Mr. Galloway said, “ ‘How could my dear girl be gone?’ ”

I glanced down at the pages in my hand. I could not find the words Mr. Galloway said anywhere.

“You say: ‘How fragile she was! How well she believed Barnabus Cadsworth’s lies,’ ” Mrs. Wilkes filled in.

I looked at her. A suspicion began to grow in my mind. I tried to smile. “You know the lines so well.”

Mr. Geary threw up his hands in exasperation. “Please, Mrs. Langley—”

Mrs. Wilkes’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, of course I do. This is how I make a living, Mrs. Langley.” She spoke as if I could not hope to understand, and her contempt for me colored every syllable.

“Children!” Mr. Greene said. “Your line, Bea.”

“ ‘Miss Penny,’ ” said Mrs. Wilkes, but this time in a simpering voice—Marjory’s no doubt—“ ‘do not grieve so. She is gone to a better place.’ ”

The line dropped into silence. I glanced down again at the pages, shuffling through them. “They’re out of order. Please, if you’ll give me just a moment to right them—”

“ ‘Oh, Marjory, I pray heaven loves her as well as we have,’ ” went on Mrs. Wilkes, not missing a pause, the tempered voice she’d used before, and then she dropped again into the simpering voice, “ ‘I am sure of it, miss, and the little unborn child too.’ ” Then again to the Penelope voice, “ ‘Did he know of it, do you think? Did he know of the child he got on my sister before he abandoned her?’ ”

Miss Jenks burst into laughter. From the floor, Mr. Wheeler said, “Perhaps we should do
Jekyll and Hyde
next, Lucius. Bea would be sheer perfection in the role.”

“I only asked for a moment,” I said to Mrs. Wilkes. I was angry now, though I made an effort to speak politely.