Leo looked at me sideways and laughed. He had a wide, intelligent face and heavy eyelids. “With it docked, I guess it do. Now, tell me the truth: You haven’t been up in town yet, have you?”
I was surprised, but then I guessed that he saw everyone go on and off the boat. “I kept meaning to, but something always got in my way.”
“Well, you have a speck of work, then. Here, let me take some of those posters. I can help put ’em up.”
The main street in the upper town was neither cobbled nor paved, and a raised sidewalk ran along a line of attached wooden houses that served as stores. I was used to cities farther north with brick buildings and cobblestone streets; here it was like stepping back in time: the post office was still a log cabin. However, compared to the little towns I would see as we traveled farther down the Ohio River, North Bend was absolutely modern and new.
The grocery store stood by itself up from the main road. It had a small porch with a red awning over it and a handwritten sign in the window: “Brown’s Goods.” Leo told me that Helena always gave two free tickets to the grocer, Mr. Brown, in exchange for a bucket of water and some flour to paste up the show posters around town. While he waited on the porch, I went inside, determined to get through this business as quickly as possible. It was past noon now and the show would start at about eight, when the sun went down. That gave me only a few more hours to finish the costumes. As I waited for the grocer to finish tying up a cardboard box of nails for another customer, I looked around for spools of dyed lace to trim Liddy’s bonnet.
“Well, now.” Mr. Brown finally turned to face me. He was a tall man with a hefty gray moustache like a bit of mop stuck to his face. “You’re not from around here.”
“No, sir. I’m from the showboat. I’m here to give you a couple of free tickets.”
“The showboat. Is it that time of year already? Where are you all tied up? I haven’t heard you were here. And”—examining me with no change of expression—“you’re not Miss Helena.”
“Miss Helena had an unfortunate accident. I’m May Bedloe.” I held out my hand. “I was hoping—”
“What happened to Miss Helena?”
“She was on the Moselle.”
“The Moselle? That the steamer that went down? What was she doing on that?”
There was no one else in the store and Mr. Brown was in no hurry. After we finished with Helena’s accident, he wanted to know whether I acted or sang.
“Mostly I see to the costumes. And put up show posters. I was hoping to get some flour? And a bucket of water? To put them up.”
But hearing about costumes made him want to tell me about the show last year, and it was another ten minutes before I managed to obtain a paper cone of flour and some water.
“Man sure can talk,” Leo said when I finally came out, taking the water bucket from me. “That’s why I don’t bring Oliver when I come here, he get too hot.”
We pasted the show posters on the trees and fence poles near Brown’s, slapping the paste on with a paintbrush, and then I went into the log cabin post office and asked if could I put up a notice on the outside wall. After that I wanted to get back to the boat.
“Miss Helena always went to put a few up on some barns, too,” Leo said. “And don’t forget up that bluff.”
“I don’t have time anymore to go wandering about.”
When we got back, everyone was in the theater rehearsing—even Hugo, who was playing Sir Hugh Evans in the Falstaff scene wearing a green cravat and a tall black hat, the whole of his costume. I thought the boat shirt and trousers he was wearing took away all semblance of character, but he told me that morning, when I asked him if he needed anything, that he considered a hat costume enough, so I counted it as a small victory that he decided to add the cravat.
• • •
At supper there was the usual bustle, the actors and actresses too excited to eat (except for Mr. Niffen, who always ate slowly and methodically) but never too excited to talk. The sun slanted into the dining room on its way down and a rising wind blew loose willow leaves against the glass. “I hope it won’t rain,” everyone kept saying to each other. “Will they come if it rains, do you think?” Some said yes, some said no. It was the first night they would perform with Thaddeus, and two new acts had been added including the buck basket scene. I told young Celia that after supper I would help with her makeup. This, Liddy told me, was Celia’s favorite part of the show.
“She’s a crowd filler. She doesn’t have any lines but she likes to be made up just as well.”
In the green room Celia found a tin of Pears’s White Imperial Powder and applied it liberally, giving her face the shade and texture of rice flour. Afterward I held her chin and drew on eyeliner with a toothpick.
“Here, May,” Liddy said, holding a box of pink lip rouge. “Let me do your mouth.”
“I’m just playing the piano,” I protested. “No one will look at me.”
“How do you know they won’t look at you? Anyway, you’re on stage. You have to have a little something.” She outlined my mouth, and as she leaned in I felt her warm breath on my cheek. “I wish I had your lovely long lashes,” she said.
Comfort almost never gave me compliments, and certainly not about my appearance. She was the pretty one. When Liddy finished my mouth, I took up a hand mirror to study my face.
Liddy began ironing her Falstaff dress and she thanked me for all the changes I’d made to it. “I never felt like I was in a proper costume before tonight,” she told me. “Of course, I wouldn’t complain, but I do think it makes a difference.”
“My cousin always said a good costume helped her feel the part.”
Liddy smiled. “She’s right.”
“Sun’s behind the tree line,” Celia said from the window.
Liddy looked at me. “You’d better get out there, May.”
I decided that the first song I would play would be “O Swiftly Glides the Bonny Boat,” and after I helped collect tickets I went up on the stage to play it while people found their seats. The piano was the shortest upright I’d ever seen, fitted with small wheels so it could be rolled out of the way. The show opened with a poetic address given by Hugo, followed by the Tambour jig danced by Mrs. Niffen with Mr. Niffen on his fiddle. Next, a scene from the farce “ ’Twas I!” and then Liddy and Thaddeus sang two songs together. After the intermission, Mrs. Niffen sang a solo, and then Jemmy and Sam did an act whereby they drew a story with changing characters on a large square of white paper. The show ended with the Falstaff scene, always a crowd-pleaser, especially when Oliver the dog danced around the large basket of soiled laundry where Falstaff was hiding. Hugo instructed me to play “something jaunty” after the show, when the audience took up their lanterns to walk home.
I was pleased because I had done everything I wanted to do—even added the lace to Liddy’s bonnet. The mistake I made was believing that the costumes would mask my other deficiencies. That night only ten people came to the show. And it wasn’t because of rain: the clouds had moved off and the evening was cool but clear. They just didn’t come. One man, seeing that he had a whole bench to himself, stretched out along it and fell asleep with his hat over his face. Another man laughed loudly and stamped his feet at the end of every act but left at the intermission. I kept playing the piano as I was supposed to, adapting to Mrs. Niffen when she realized she could not hit a high note and abruptly changed keys, but at intermission Hugo informed me with a very red face that there would be no community sing after the show. The sleeping man woke up when Oliver came onto the stage and danced around the laundry basket, and he talked to him like he was his own dog and there was no one else in the room. “What’s that, then, a rat in there? What have you got? Show old Joe what you’ve got.”
At twenty cents a ticket, we made two dollars. That almost covered our landing fees.
When the show ended, the remaining nine men unhooked their lanterns from where they hung on the walls and made their way down the s
tage plank and back up the riverbank into town. From the auditorium window I could see the dots of their lights moving away as the actors and actresses came out onto the stage so Hugo could give them their notes.
“Sam, you were late on your cue. Come onto the stage while Jemmy’s still talking.”
His voice was firm and loud, not quite raised to a shout.
“Celia, my darling, don’t touch your hair when you’re on stage: we all can see you and it takes our attention away from the action. And, Mrs. Niffen, fix the key you want to sing in and keep to it. All right, that’s it, everyone. Good show.”
We were all in low moods. Although Hugo waved us off, Pinky said, “What about the house, Captain?”
“What about it?”
“We can’t make a living off of that.”
“You do your job,” Hugo said gruffly. “Don’t worry about the house. I’ll take care of that.” Then he turned to look at me. “You. Wait.”
“If you’re going to close up shop,” Pinky continued, “give us some warning. And do it near a real town, will ya? Not out where we can’t get back from.”
“I’m not closing up shop,” Hugo told him, but he was looking at me like I was the one he would close up if he could.
Liddy glanced at me and then at Hugo. She said, “Captain, I asked May to do so many alterations to my costume. I probably asked too much, but she did every one.” She looked like she was going to say more, but Hugo cut her off: “I know that; be off with you now.”
I watched them all file out, some into the green room behind the stage and some down the aisle and out the side door. Mrs. Niffen took a particularly long time to leave and then stood out on the guard with Celia without closing the door until Hugo called out, “Thank you very much, ladies. Good night!”
When we were alone he asked me what had happened in town that afternoon.
“I did what you said. I gave free tickets to the grocer and hung up the posters.”
“Who else did you give free tickets to?”
“Who else? No one.”
“What about the bluff? Did you go up there?”
“I didn’t have time.”
We both looked back as the door from the ticket office opened and Leo walked in with Oliver. “I’ve come to bed down,” Leo said. At night he slept on the stage on a straw tick, which could be rolled up out of sight in the morning. Oliver was still wearing his costume ruff. I thought, I need to rescue that before he sleeps in it.
“Give me a minute here, Leo, if you please,” Hugo said.
Leo backed up and whistled to Oliver. When the door shut behind him, Hugo thrust his hands in all of his pockets looking for something. We were standing in front of the stage, and I could see some of his face in the partial light; two small lanterns were still glowing at the foot of the proscenium. My hair was coming down my neck, and as I reached up to re-fix a pin, he stopped searching his pockets to look at what I was doing with a fierce expression. I put my hand back down without changing the pin. But I found I could not do both—keep my hands still and also wait silently for him to give me a scolding.
I said, “The costumes looked good from where I sat.”
The very worst thing to say, and I knew it at once. I was spending too much time on costumes and not enough time on the other parts of Helena’s job—wasn’t that what he was about to tell me? But still I went on; I couldn’t help myself.
“If I had a bit of chain, I could make a clasp for Thaddeus’s cape. I noticed the ties came loose while he sang with Liddy, and after that he had to hold the two ends together to keep it from falling. And I’d like to make a loose strap for Pinky’s cap. And the women in the Falstaff scene should all be wearing bonnets, even Celia.”
I kept talking and talking. I could not seem to stop. Every point I brought up was true, but that wasn’t why I continued on, hardly taking a breath, like Mrs. Howard. Maybe I thought that if I spoke long enough, Hugo would forget to fire me. Or maybe I would say something that might make him think in the future I could be more useful. I liked working on so many costumes at once instead of just one, Comfort’s. It felt like progress. A promotion. I did not want to leave.
“May,” Hugo said.
I didn’t look at him. “If you tied your cravat a bit looser, you could take it off for the final bow and wave it in your hand. The audience loves that,” I said. “And—”
“May.” This time he touched my arm, and at that I finally stopped. He took a long breath, as if getting ready to raise his voice, and I turned my bad ear toward him. But to my surprise he spoke in a lower tone than before. “You need to find the important people in every town and give them tickets. The justice of the peace, the sheriff, the man who owns the biggest house—anyone who has half a pull. If they come, the others will follow. And always give them two so they can bring their wives. Wives talk to other wives. And don’t skimp on the show posters. Get them up far and wide, understand?”
He felt his vest pocket and this time drew out a packet of tobacco.
“All right?” he asked.
I waited for more. “All right,” I said when no more came.
“Leo!” Hugo called out. “We’re done here.”
I left the auditorium as quickly as I could, my face burning with embarrassment and an urge to cover myself. As I made my way up the stairs to my stateroom, I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Niffen’s skirt sweeping around the corner on the lower deck. It would be like her to stand outside the auditorium door so she could hear every word. My face burned again, this time with a shot of anger mixed in with the shame.
I still had no sheets—another errand I’d meant to do in town—so I wrapped myself in my blanket like a swaddled baby. After a while I heard Hugo come into his room, the room next to mine. I listened to the scratch of his pen as he wrote in his log and then I heard his footsteps crossing over the floorboards and the creak of a window opening. My window was closed but I could still smell the river. I would grow used to that smell in time, like everything else, and even later come to miss it, but that night I turned my face into my pillow and breathed in its scent of feathers and old smoke, only marginally better than river mud. I thought about the boxes and trunks in the green room, which Liddy thought might contain torn costumes and props. Hugo’s window creaked again, and then I heard the creak of his cot. Mrs. Niffen would probably know what was stored in the trunks, but I would rather break open the locks with a crowbar than ask her.
8
The next morning I woke to the sensation of movement. I went outside to the guard to find that the boat was already unmoored and we were traveling down the current in the middle of the river. Below me, Leo was working his thirty-foot oar hard to keep us there, and I could see Hugo steering the boat with a long, rudder-like sweep. He had his captain’s hat on and a thick linsey-woolsey coat with a broad yellow stripe, the kind of coat I’d seen on many a boatman but never yet on a stage director.
“Heave her head to port!” he shouted.
The river was at its widest at Cincinnati and now it narrowed, moving faster, the water as dense and brown as unplowed earth. A long keelboat was shoving itself as fast as possible downstream and three men on the starboard side—the side I could see—were poling hard. They crossed our wake and left us behind. It was exhilarating to be out in the moving boat with the wind in my face. I’d been on deck on the Moselle many times, but here the movement felt much closer to my body, almost as if I were advancing the boat with my own limbs. I felt no seasickness; perhaps it had only been nerves after all.
I’d probably been standing there for three-quarters of an hour, watching Leo and the river, when Hugo tethered the sweep and began walking up the stairs. Halfway up he stopped and shaded his eyes with his right hand.
“Is that you, May? Lend me a hand, would you, and knock on Jemmy’s door: we’re about ready to land.”
Jemmy came out in his nightshirt and breeches. They were landing the boat on the Kentucky side of the river today, and Sam and Pink
y came over from the other side of the boat, where they’d been working the starboard sweep. As we neared the bank, Hugo rang the bell three times. “All right, now, Pinky, get the spring line! Leo, on the stern! Ready with that head line! Sam, move us in! All right now, Jemmy, jump! Jump, Jemmy, jump!”
Jemmy jumped into the muddy water with a two-inch hawser tied to his waist, found his footing, and then waded heavily through the muck until he was near enough to grab an overhanging willow branch that he used to pull himself up onto solid ground.
“Splendid! Right, then, Jemmy, tie her up to that cottonwood!” Hugo shouted. “I’ve got the spar pole out. Wrap her up tight!”
Jemmy began wrapping the hawser around the thickest tree trunk, his pants and the bottom of his shirt dripping wet. The boat jerked like a horse suddenly reined in, and I tightened my grip on the railing, which I was now holding with both hands, as the boat rocked itself in increasingly quieter waves. My breath caught like a breeze inside me and I found myself excited, even thrilled, by the men’s skill. Hugo ran to the upper deck taking two steps at a time and threw a second line to Jemmy, who found another cottonwood tree to tie it to before he stretched out on the ground to catch his breath.
When the boat was secure, Hugo came over to where I was standing. He said, “Welcome to Kentucky. Ever been here before?”
I shook my head. “Jemmy looks done in,” I said, for he was still lying prone on the bank with the crook of his arm over his eyes.
“Landing is hard work. Leo’s better at it but he won’t tie up here.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Won’t set foot anywhere in the South. His mother was a slave in Carolina, don’t you know. Ran away to Florida with her brother when she was a girl. That’s where she met Leo’s father, the Seminole.”
“But why does that mean Leo can’t step foot in the South?”
“Didn’t say can’t; said won’t.”
The town was called Jacksonville, and as before we tied up a little ways down from the town’s main pier to save a few dollars. When the bell rang for breakfast, I went to my stateroom to fetch Helena’s satchel with the show posters and tickets. My plan was to go into town immediately after breakfast. I was determined to do better today.
The Underground River Page 10