Becoming Belle

by Nuala O'Connor

  Mr. Hitchins clapped sharply. “Thank you, Miss Bilton.” Isabel stopped. “Now, sing,” he said.

  Again she was disconcerted; he had cut her off. She had planned a final move where she would land on one knee, fan covering her face. Isabel stood, uncertain, and tried to control the panting that consumed her. She breathed hard through her nose and heard Flo’s voice telling her to collect herself at once.

  “Yes, Mr. Hitchins,” she said, “I will sing for you.”

  Isabel stood where she was, took a deep inhalation and released the first lines of “My Wild Irish Rose,” a song her English father sang to her Welsh mother for who knew what reason. Still, it was a beautiful air and Isabel, after a few bars, lost herself in the words:

  “My wild Irish Rose, the sweetest flower that grows.

  You may search everywhere, but none can compare

  With my wild Irish Rose.”

  “Enough!” Mr. Hitchins shouted, one hand aloft. Isabel stopped singing and looked at him, unsure. Was that all she was to do? Did he not need to see and hear her for longer than that? Had her performance been poor? “Re-attire yourself, Miss Bilton, and meet me in the foyer.”

  * * *

  —

  Mr. Hitchins had his back to her and she was guarded as she approached him but, when he swung around, he grinned and held his pipe aloft.

  “Fifteen pounds a week to start, Miss Bilton. Rising to twenty and beyond if you please me. If you continue to please me.” He puffed on his pipe. “Begin Monday.”

  Fifteen pounds a week! How Father would rejoice! Isabel stepped forward. “I thank you, Mr. Hitchins. I thank you ever so much.”

  “We will have Alexander Bassano photograph you, yes, that much we must do. I will arrange for you to go to his studio at Old Bond Street. Your extraordinarily pretty visage will soon be known, Miss Bilton.”

  “Mr. Bassano takes pictures of royalty.” Isabel knew his portraits from The Lady and The Evening Star and many other publications besides.

  “He most certainly photographs the royals, Miss Bilton, and very handsomely he does it, too.” Mr. Hitchins studied Isabel. “Look here, girl, I mean for you to bypass the chorus. I have a role in mind for you.” He pointed the stem of his pipe at her. “You are to be my Cupid.”

  “Isn’t Cupid a boy?” Isabel blurted, and felt instantly stupid for saying such a thing.

  “He is a boy, Miss Bilton, he is, ordinarily. The tiny god of large desires, that’s Sir Cupid.” Mr. Hitchins threw his arms wide. “But this, my dear, is a theater. This is bohemia. And here we do anything we please. Here we transform beautiful young ladies into Eros.” He winked, strode through the Empire’s front door and let it slam behind him.

  Fifteen pounds! Alexander Bassano! Isabel did a quick jig on the spot, giggled into the air, composed herself and followed Mr. Hitchins out to the street.

  AN APPEAL

  March 1887

  Pottery Lane, London

  Darling Flo,

  You will not believe what I have to tell you, but I have done it. Your incapable sister has found a job! There, do I not surprise you? You thought I would return to Aldershot like a lamb, woolly tail down, but here I am, a woman of means in London. Mr. Hitchins of the Empire took a liking to me tout de suite and I am to earn fifteen pounds a week. Isn’t it marvelous, Flo? In a year I’m sure I will be richer than Father.

  A bruised five-pound note will have fallen into your lap when you opened this letter and, yes, that is for you, my darling. Do please come as you so fervently promised you would, the day we parted; I’m like half a girl without you. The money will pay your fare and afford you the price of a meal at an inn along the way and you will have coins ajingle in your pocket besides.

  London is even more charming to live in than it is to visit, Flo. By day it bustles with workers and by night it swarms with dilettantes and aristocrats. I now quite prefer life after dark—I sleep half the day! I like the Empire very much, I feel at home, though the ladies of the company snub me, rather, but Mr. Hitchins says they are always begrudging and envious at first “when a new favorite arrives” and I’m not to fret, they will warm up, he says. So you see, though I’m not completely alone—the gentlemen are kind to me—I need my Flo to keep me right. I miss you, my darling, come to me!

  Your loving,

  Isabel

  PS Mr. Hitchins wants to audition you, he says he has “a scenario in mind” but will not tell me what it is.

  PPS The cat gutters of Pottery Lane make the street smell worse than a slaughterhouse, but my room is warm and my landlady is willing to let you lodge if you share my bed. Come!

  * * *

  —

  Flo stood at the far edge of North Camp, Isabel’s letter in hand, and looked back at the rows of huts, the parades of men passing back and over, and the new brick barracks off in the distance. She listened to drums, the call of a trumpet, the whinnies of horses. Though it was all as familiar and comfortable as her own carcass, Flo found she no longer wanted to be in Aldershot. Since Isabel had left, things were lifeless; she and Violet conducted their days in an unusual silence, as if each had sent the sociable part of themselves away with their sister. Mother had turned her full attention to her younger daughters and, though her behavior was moderate mostly, she seemed always to dangle on the brink of rampage.

  Isabel’s letter was a lantern in the dark; Flo clutched it, scanned it again. Would she go? She must! Would Father let her go? Would Mother? She would no doubt be against it. And if Flo left, how would Violet fare? That Vi was Mother’s favorite was a comfort. And, perhaps, with Flo and Isabel both gone, Mother would not be as harried and, therefore, Violet would encounter few storms. There was no way to be sure, but Flo knew that she would go to London, for what, really, was there to keep her in Aldershot? There was no proper work for actresses in Hampshire, especially not ones of her slender talents. In London there would be a chorus she could muddle along with; it would not matter so much that she was more hearty than able.

  And she could not be Violet’s protectress forever. Anyway, Mother would surely be softer with Isabel and Flo away. Vi was a pet, an easy girl to love. She had neither Isabel’s petulance nor Flo’s single-mindedness. All would be well for dear Violet.

  Flo held up the letter and reread Isabel’s words: I need my Flo to keep me right. I miss you, my darling, come to me! Flo tucked the money into her pocket and resolved to speak to Father.

  A BARON

  Isabel only needed to be forty miles from Aldershot in order to unlock liberty. In the six weeks she spent alone in London, waiting for Flo to join her, she began to have a life. Once the curtain closed at the Empire, her nights were a whirl of the Pelican Club and the Café Royal, and wherever else the crowd was keen to spend time after the show. There was sparkling company in the form of fellow performers, directors and assorted theater folk. Aristocrats and bohemians, city men and night birds of every stripe flocked together. These were hedonists: they drank all night and slumbered by day, the better to enjoy the next night’s party and the next. Along with them, Isabel began to eat in well-appointed restaurants and hotels; and she now bought her clothes from the finest of modistes. It pleased her that her life was no longer ordered by the routines of the barracks—here everything was do as you please and it stimulated her to the tips of her nerves. It all felt daring at first and then, by and by, it felt like her natural milieu. She could bend her hours to whatever shape she wished, and keep company with any motley troop, and society be hung.

  On the days she roamed the city, eager to know it, Isabel took her leisure as she walked, sucking up the fetid air, rank with horse manure and slaughterhouse stenches. Despite its high smells and unavoidable filth, she grew to truly love London; she yearned toward the city even when she was in it. A view of Trafalgar Square or the Crystal Palace always whisked up within her a contented wonder that was part pride, pa
rt longing. She had been born in Marylebone and she felt in her marrow that London was the only place she ever had belonged. The years spent in the barracks in Hampshire with her family had only made her more determined to return as soon as possible to the city of her birth. Nowhere else suited her so well and, of course, London was far enough away from Mother for her not to impinge on Isabel’s life. Father was another matter, but the two were entwined so Isabel had to leave him behind also. She wrote to him, of course, economical notes that told only of the sensible parts of her doings; Isabel did not want him to worry about her.

  On one such day of strolling she saw a pair of ragged boys taunt a sandwich-man wedged inside his two boards.

  “Where’s the mustard, then?” one called, while the other poked the man around the cheeks with a straw blade. He was defenseless, ensconced like a beef slice between the heavy boards.

  “Leave off, you two,” Isabel shouted, and the boys, their eyes haunted with hunger, took her in, then sauntered on, as if they had better places to be.

  One called back, “Spare us a bender, miss? You can surely give sixpence, a fine lady like you?”

  “Get out of it!” Isabel roared and the pair scuttled off to find somebody new to bother.

  The sandwich-man grinned his thanks at Isabel as she passed; she never found it hard to raise smiles from her fellow Londoners with her sybaritic looks and elegant dress. Men were drawn to Isabel even before they knew she was a dancer at the Empire Theatre. Society women were wary of her, which did not bother Isabel as she rarely sought their company. She was unguarded, cherishing conversation with fishmongers as much as blue bloods, as long as they were men.

  * * *

  —

  The first time Isabel went to the Corinthian Club in Soho, she met Alden Carter Weston. She arrived to the club in a froth of Empire performers; though the other players had softened over the weeks she still did not have a particular friend among them. But soon Flo would be here and Isabel would be easy again; there was nothing like her dear sister’s presence to make her feel whole.

  Isabel stood to take in the scene at the Corinthian. Like most clubs, the decor was unfussy: squat brown chairs, paneled walls and soft gaslight. But there was a frisson in the air here: it was where the best and brightest night owls came to nest for hours at a time. She knew the clientele were referred to as Corinthian steamers and it was not hard to see why. Some men and their girls were already full up to the knocker, hooting and falling about. But it was all good-natured, there was little seamy about them; and Isabel giggled when one gent got tangled in his petite amie’s beads and spilled champagne down her bosom.

  Isabel looked away and apprehended a man’s eyes trained on her; she kept his gaze and nodded when he would not break it. She turned away for a moment, then back in his direction. He held out his hand and, glancing briefly to find her companions, who had scattered it seemed, Isabel walked to where he stood. He was not handsome—Mother would have called him swarthy—but he had fine blue eyes and a commanding yet genial stance. He was old, though, probably in his thirties and, therefore, almost certainly married. A book sat open before him on the bar top and Isabel wondered what kind of person brought reading material about with them at midnight.

  The man stepped forward. “Good evening to you, Miss . . . ?”

  “Bilton. Isabel Bilton.”

  He held out his hand and Isabel took it. “I saw you laugh, Miss Bilton, at that clumsy fellow and his now sopping girl.” His accent was American. “She is doused in champagne! Was it altogether kind to snicker at her humiliation?”

  Isabel looked down, unsure if the man meant to scold or tease. “Well, sir, I didn’t mean to be unkind. To laugh at her, exactly.” She looked at him and he was grinning. “Oh, it was funny,” she said and laughed. He was still holding her hand aloft. “Now, do you mean to tell me your name, sir?”

  “I have several names but you, Miss Bilton, may call me Alden, for I let my dearest friends do that.”

  “But what are your other names?”

  “My, you do like to pry, young lady. Well, I am Baron Loando to some, and Alden Carter Weston to others.”

  Isabel chimed with his light tone. “Well, then, I shall call you Alden seeing as we are such dear friends.”

  “And I shall call you Isabel. Or Issy, when the fancy takes me.”

  A shiver of unease ran through Isabel’s stomach but it was, somehow, welcome. This was what she had come to London for—to throw off the shackles of childhood and live as bohemians lived, wasn’t it? Less than two months in the city and already, because of her performances and because of the company she kept, she had become a new person. She was emboldened, better able to push herself along. Yes, this Mr. Weston was forward but there was something divine in the way he carried himself, too; his brash confidence was alluring and it raised hers. Though he was rugged, his bearing was august. Here was a man.

  Weston ordered wine and invited Isabel to join him at a table.

  “My friends are here,” she said. “I shall invite one of them to sit with us, Alden. You do understand.”

  “Do you really need a chaperone? I should rather like to have you all for myself.”

  “What would people say if I sat alone with a married man?”

  “Married? I have no wife in this town!” He grinned and held her stare.

  Which surely only means she resides elsewhere, Isabel thought. “I only . . . it’s simply that . . .” She balked at mentioning his advanced years. Flustered she said, “I thought perhaps you would have a wife. Here. In London.”

  “I do not.” Weston leaned forward and spoke close into Isabel’s ear. “And, Issy, what sort of man does not live with his wife?”

  Isabel looked at him, and the grayish whiskers and brawny frame receded, all she saw were his bright eyes. She found that his strange accent and light tone were seductive beyond measure, and her faculties pooled so that she felt at once sensible and simple. Her skin expanded in his presence, it seemed, so that she became aware of every lift of her own hand, every stray curl that caressed her neck, and the slicks of sweat that bloomed in her warmest places. Isabel observed him and was very glad indeed that this night had brought her to the Corinthian Club and Mr. Alden Carter Weston. The Baron Loando.

  “What say you, Miss Bilton? Will you come to a secluded corner and drink a glass with me?”

  “Sir, you would not have me gossiped about. Let me call one of my companions and we shall all three enjoy some wine.”

  He held up one hand. “As you wish, Miss Bilton. I have no desire to compromise any young lady.”

  Isabel had a waiter fetch one of her Empire colleagues and, as the trio sat together, Weston said, “Well, am I not beyond lucky to be in such stylish company?”

  “As are we, baron,” Isabel answered, knocking her glass to his and reveling in the quake of expectation that shuddered through her bones.

  AN ARRIVAL

  Flo stood in the foyer of the Empire waiting for Isabel; she knew she might stand a long time, for Isabel was not always punctual. She eyed the valise at her feet and wondered if it would look ugly if she were to sit on it and read her book. Flo was tired and she wanted to devour a few more pages for, as the coach reached London, she’d had to close her novel before finding out if dear Emma Woodhouse would ever realize she really loved George Knightley. Flo didn’t sit, deciding it would not do. Instead, she admired the dazzle of the foyer’s black and gold decor, its sparkle of mirrors, and she watched couples and groups of men pass by, all chitchat and smart attire.

  Feeling self-consciously alone, she turned to study the photographs on the wall beside her. Each picture was of an Empire player; here was funnyman Ed Looby, there Mr. Tusso and his dummy Coster Joe. Flo strolled along the gallery of photographs, stopping to read the names of actors she didn’t recognize. She was brought up short by a large picture of Isabel, her e
yes luminous and her name huge. This was the Bassano portrait her sister had mentioned in her last letter. How very fine Issy looked! A true star. Flo felt a whisk of pride for her sister who was not six weeks in London and seemed already to be feted. She went back to stand by her valise and fumbled Isabel’s latest letter from her pocket.

  I hardly have time to breathe, dear Flo. Mornings I stay abed (how Mother would rage!), afternoons I rehearse, evenings I dance, act and sing. The hours after the show are for fun. Sundays I spend with Alden Weston, whom you will meet by and by. He’s an American and a baron, too, my dear, and just as intriguing as that makes him sound. He and I ride Rotten Row and sup at the Star and Garter Hotel. I am really living, Flo!

  But, you must know, I work ever so hard, too. Often we rehearse a new show by day and dance an old show by night, and we must concentrate mightily so as not to muddle the whole lot. Mr. Hitchins believes in variety and we are constantly revamping and adding in order to lure our audience back with fresh scenes. But soon you will be in the thick of it all.

  And I have such news! Hitchins has finally revealed to me his great plan: we are to be a sister act. Can you believe it, Flo? He says we’ll be “like the Machinson Sisters, only fewer.” He thinks it a glorious scheme and, I have to say, I do, too. What could be better than to share the stage with you, my darling?

  So, now you see you must come to London ever so quickly, as Mr. Hitchins wants us to begin rehearsing straightaway for Babes in the Wood and Robin Hood. And here’s the most wondrous bit, Flo—you are to be Robin!

  Flo’s breath caught in her throat. Mr. Hitchins was surely the most trusting man alive to give her such a role without even meeting her. Isabel had clearly talked a tempest about Flo’s abilities when, in truth, they were meager compared to her sister’s. No matter. Flo could hold a tune and beat out a dance and, if she were to get on in life, wasn’t a breakneck plunge the best way to begin? She would work like a demon.