“He’s not a gentleman caller,” I retorted, more tartly than the situation warranted. “He’s a fellow actor from the Comédie. We’re to discuss a collaboration for the season.”
“Here?” Madame G. eyed me in the mirror. “Not at the theater, as is customary?”
“It’s a secret collaboration. And no more questions. I can’t hear myself think—” I went still, gazing in horror at the base of Régine’s bed. “Where is Clotilde?”
Madame G. paused in her threading of a ribbon through my hair. “I have no idea. She was just there. Perhaps she went into the garden to relieve herself?”
“Dear God.” I started to rise as in a simultaneous crescendo I heard pandemonium erupt downstairs: a sudden cry, the crash of something, and then rushing footsteps, followed by Caroline’s horrified “Clotilde, no!”
I bolted down the staircase, Madame G.’s painstaking attempts at my coiffure gone awry as I burst into the parlor and precisely upon the very scene I’d hoped to avoid.
Mounet-Sully stood with his back against a bookcase. Not fearfully, but with definite caution. One of my pedestals was overturned; the clay bust I’d been working on in my spare time lay shattered on the floor. The pedestal had toppled a birdcage, and my hapless canaries swooped about in panic, for they knew the cats roamed the bookcases, and they refused to land there. I came to a halt, gazing in disbelief at another unexpected sight: a plump man in a linen summer suit, cowering on the settee before the table with my Limoges tea service, his bronzed complexion gone completely ashen.
An overturned platter of petits fours lay a few feet away from him. As did Clotilde, crushing a straw boater between her jaws.
“Alexandre?” I said in disbelief.
Alexandre Dumas fils, eldest son of my beloved patron, and a mirror image of his father, with his red-gold curls and protuberant blue-gray eyes—now wide with terror—could barely open his mouth to say, “My hat. Your…your lion is eating my hat.”
“She’s not a lion. Clotilde.” I stomped my foot. “Let go of Monsieur Dumas’s hat.” I had to reach down to pry it from her mouth; she snarled, leaping up to retrieve it until I smacked her on her snout. “Bad girl! Go upstairs at once to Régine.”
As Clotilde stalked off, her tail twitching, I regarded the ruined boater in dismay before returning it to Alexandre. “I must buy you a new one.” I paused. “Why are you here?”
He righted himself, tugging at his rumpled frock coat. “We had an appointment today. To discuss my play. Don’t you remember?”
My expression must have betrayed that I did not, for he pouted. “Sarah, you promised. I adapted the novel for you in Papa’s honor.”
“Yes. I know,” I said, embarrassed by my own forgetfulness.
I didn’t meet Jean’s gaze until he stepped from the bookcase to murmur, “If this is an inconvenience, I can always return at another time.”
“Whatever for?” My laugh sounded high-pitched in my ears. “It’s entirely my error. I didn’t recall inviting Monsieur Dumas, but you’re both here now, are you not?”
“Evidently,” he replied. Though he didn’t smile, I heard mirth in his voice, which brought a rush of heat into my cheeks.
Dumas peered at Jean. “Are you an actor, Monsieur…?”
“Jean Mounet-Sully.” He held out his hand. “Yes, I am an actor. I’m honored to meet you, Monsieur Dumas. I am a great admirer of your father’s work. And of yours, naturally.”
Having failed to make the introductions, I determined to seize control of whatever dignity remained in the occasion. Turning to Caroline, I hissed, “Fetch a pot of fresh tea and more petits fours. And open those back-parlor doors to let the birds into the house.”
“But the cats—” she started to protest.
“Never mind that. The birds know to avoid cats.” As there was no hiding the upheaval, I didn’t attempt it. I assumed my seat on the settee opposite Dumas and motioned to Jean. “Please, sit. Caroline will bring more tea in a moment.”
Ducking to avoid a canary flapping about his head, he uncoiled his long limbs upon the settee, reminding me somewhat of a lion himself.
“I’ve read the play,” I said, turning to Alexandre. “It’s sublime.”
I was fond of him. Born from one of his father’s innumerable liaisons, he’d benefited from my late benefactor’s generosity toward all his children, receiving a superior education followed by encouragement when Alexandre expressed the desire to take up the paternal occupation. He’d collaborated with his father on later works; upon Dumas’s death, he’d unearthed the play my benefactor had drafted for me, which I, pregnant with Maurice, had never had the chance to perform. He’d converted it into a novel. The publication of his tale of a tragic affair between a courtesan and her lover of means had proved an instant success.
“But I’m afraid it must wait,” I went on. “Your father’s Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle was not well received, so I can’t possibly ask to stage your Dame aux Camélias this season.”
“But the Théâtre du Vaudeville has already expressed interest,” he said.
“A pity. Seeing as I’m not under contract there.”
“What am I to do? I’ve spent over a year on the play. I have my family to support.”
“Then you must accept the Vaudeville’s offer.” I reached over to pat his hand, remembering with a pang how his father had saved me twice, at moments when it seemed my life was unsalvageable. “Do not let my obligations impede you. There will be another opportunity for me to play the role.”
He looked crestfallen. “Marguerite Gautier was written for you.”
“And I will play her. I want to play her.” I actually didn’t, at least not at this time. While the role had all the drama I could desire, his courtesan perishes of consumption, which reflected my sister’s circumstances too keenly. “Who else have you in mind?”
“Eugénie Doche,” he said, lowering his eyes, as the actress was his current mistress. “But,” he hastened to add, “I told her I must ask you first and she understood.”
“I’m sure she’ll be wonderful.” I had to say it, even if it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I might not want to play a woman with the same affliction as Régine, but I certainly didn’t relish another actress taking the part.
He finished his tea, making conversation with Jean, who asked about the role of the courtesan’s suitor. Then Alexandre took his leave with his shredded boater in hand.
“I’m so sorry about the hat,” I told him at the door. “And the play. I’m not in the same position at the Française as I was at the Odéon, but that will change.”
“I could try to delay.” He had a pained note in his voice. “It was Papa’s dream to see you in the role. Before he died, he told me no one else could do her justice.”
“I miss your father every day,” I whispered, embracing him. “You mustn’t delay if you cannot afford it. I don’t expect you to wait for me.”
When I returned to the parlor, I found Jean still on the settee, with a cat on his lap, purring under his caress. He smiled. “I prefer them this size.”
“That one still has its claws,” I remarked.
Now that we were alone, I experienced an unsettling reluctance to reveal my intention. As I sat opposite him and his intense gaze focused on me, as it had that night in my dressing room after the premiere of Ruy Blas and later in the greenroom at the Comédie, it took all my self-possession to not look away. What did he see, to regard me thus? I wasn’t naïve; I’d plied my mother’s trade long enough to recognize attraction in a man, even if I found his opaque. My aunt and mother had drilled into me that if one couldn’t interpret a man, one should turn one’s sights on less elusive prey. As this warning crossed my mind, a jolt went through me.
Did I harbor more than professional interest in Mounet-Sully?
“When did you bec
ome so handsome?” I heard myself blurt out, my own discomfort prompting me to disturb the impassivity of his gaze.
“I don’t think I am.” His fingers slid through the purring cat’s calico fur.
“You must know that you are. Yet somehow, I never noticed it before.”
A smile crept to the corners of his mouth. “You mean at the Odéon?”
“Where else?” I reached for my teacup, aware I was venturing into dangerous waters. It wasn’t wise to pursue this approach. I needed a successful play, and I needed him to achieve it. A dalliance between us would only complicate matters.
“I think you must have been too occupied to notice me, even when I noticed you.”
“Oh?”
“From the moment I first saw you.” He didn’t stop caressing the cat nor did he elucidate, but it was there between us; if I invited further intimacy, he would oblige.
“Well.” I smiled, thinking I could enjoy this little flirtation as long as I didn’t let it get too out of hand. “Sophie Croizette certainly noticed. She recommended you to me, in fact. She believes you’d make a superb Britannicus to my Junie.”
I hoped to startle him. The role was a renowned leading part he could never have anticipated only a season into his first contract at the Française; however, yet again to my disconcertment, he appeared unaffected. “I doubt Monsieur Perrin would agree with Sophie Croizette.”
“He might if he hears you play the part.”
“Maybe you should hear me play it first.”
I contemplated him for a moment before I went to my bookcases. Before I could locate my copy of the play amidst the jumbled volumes, he said from behind me, “I know it by heart. I recited it for my exams at the Conservatoire.”
As I looked back to him, realizing I’d not asked him a single question about himself, he came to his feet. “I won first prize in tragedy with the role. I’d hoped to play it in its entirety before an audience, but then we went to war. I enlisted to fight the Prussians. When the war ended, over a year had passed and I thought I’d never return to the stage. I had few credentials, so I was making plans to return to my parents’ vineyard in Brittany—”
“Brittany! I was raised there myself.” I found it a delightful coincidence that he hailed from the same rugged region where I’d once lived as a child.
“Then you can understand why the eldest son of a Calvinist family wasn’t supposed to be an actor,” he said. “My father railed against my decision to move to Paris and apply to the Conservatoire; he said I’d fail miserably and bring dishonor to our family name.”
“Yet you did it anyway. I know all about parental disapproval,” I said, surprising myself with my voluntary admission. “My mother also thought me a fool to think I could ever be an actress. She did everything she could to dissuade me.”
“Yet you did it anyway.” He took a step toward me, imposing in his stature, like a tower of muscled granite. “Why are you doing this? You’re the most well-known actress in Paris. Why me, when you could have your choice of any actor at the Comédie?”
Perhaps it was the way he spoke of my fame, with near reverence. Or perhaps it was the unexpected vulnerability I discerned beneath his impressive façade, of a rebellious nature that despite his undeniable advantages had driven him, as it had driven me, to defy his family’s expectations. Kindred souls, I thought, as I met his eyes. This was why he looked at me as he did. He had recognized it before I had.
“Because,” I said softly, “I don’t want any actor at the Comédie.”
He shifted back, not as a befuddled boy might, but with the self-restraint of a man who knew he must contain himself. “I should go,” he murmured, half-turning away.
“Scene six,” I said. “Recite it for me.”
He went still for a moment. Then he slowly turned back to me, his large hands pressing to his chest and his face filling with yearning as he pronounced in that great voice which could fill an arena: “ ‘Ah, princess! Do I again behold you? My palpitating heart can scarcely trust the happiness it feels.’ ” One of his hands reached toward me, as if to release my withheld breath. “ ‘Repeat, dear Junie, all that has befallen thee. Our enemy, deceived, has let us free. Speak then, Junie. Tell me all thy thoughts.’ ”
I said, “Lower your voice. There’s no need to shout the lines.” And as he looked taken aback, I averted my eyes from him and whispered my response: “ ‘This place is full of Nero’s power. The Emperor is ever present. The very walls have eyes and ears.’ ”
He stepped so close, I could smell the scent of tobacco on his black velvet waistcoat, the hint of lavender in the pomade that couldn’t subdue his thick mass of hair. “ ‘Such timid circumspection was never wont to interrupt the freedom of our love. Have you forgotten the vows so often sworn, that Nero himself should envy our condition? Banish then, Princess, your ill-founded fears. We still have powerful succor.’ ”
“ ‘And I know, my lord, such thoughts are not your own….’ ” My voice faded as the rest of my dialogue failed me, as I felt the fire of alchemy between us and saw in his sudden immobility that he felt it, too.
In the silence that abruptly enveloped us, which seemed too precious to break, I finally said, “Now do you see why?”
He did not lower his gaze. “I see you could be dangerous to my heart.”
* * *
In the greenroom, Perrin gathered us to announce the season’s assignments. I waited anxiously, perched on the edge of my chair. The moment he spoke my name, I stood. “I have a request,” I declared, bringing an immediate glower to Madame Nathalie’s face.
“We do not request at the Comédie. Do you think us a street troupe, perhaps?”
I ignored her, meeting Perrin’s glacial regard. “Mounet-Sully and I would like to recite a scene from Britannicus for you, Monsieur Director.”
“Recite a scene!” Madame Nathalie shifted her outrage to Perrin. “Will you please inform this—this pensionnaire, as she’s not shown herself worthy of another designation, that the director assigns the roles and the company complies. All of us comply,” she said, returning her stare to me. “Even those of us in the position to make our wishes known.”
Perrin gave me a razor-thin smile. “And deny ourselves the pleasure of Mademoiselle Bernhardt’s recital? By all means, mademoiselle, proceed.”
Jean stood up to join me, appearing, as ever, unperturbed, even as my heart pounded and Madame Nathalie looked ready to launch herself at me like an avenging titan.
Stepping into the center of the room, the company surrounding us in disapproving silence, I didn’t fail to note Marie Colombier’s sneer as Jean and I commenced the scene we’d rehearsed for two weeks during our brief summer reprieve. Every day, for several hours, we’d practiced until we could have performed it blindfolded, though he’d grumbled about my obsessive attention to every detail. I was determined to impress; to my satisfaction, I now felt the tension in the room thaw as we performed Junie and Britannicus’s secret reunion before Rachel’s sad-eyed portrait, that spark from our first day heightened by my perfectionism. While Jean had an innate gift for tragedy, I’d insisted that he moderate his propensity for enlarging his voice, which diminished the subtlety of the verse, and refrain from speaking directly to the audience, an archaic tradition from the past when actors felt compelled to assert their own identity rather than their character’s.
“We no longer have an emperor in the imperial box,” I told him, when he protested that Perrin mandated adherence to the custom. “Stepping to the footlights to declaim distracts from the moment. We must be our character, not wear the character like a costume.”
He grumbled—I’d learned that, true to his Breton blood, he could be combative—but once he performed it as I instructed, the joy on his face was genuine. “I forgot there was an audience,” he said, as if it were an unforeseen revelation. “I
forgot myself.”
“That is how it should be,” I replied. “Even if our esteemed director thinks otherwise.”
When we finished the scene, with me draped against Jean, I peeked through my downcast lids to see Perrin regarding us with an inscrutable expression.
Madame Nathalie shattered the spell. “In all my years in this house, never have I witnessed such a spectacle. If you think I will reprise a role I’ve made famous, playing Agrippina to such intolerable mannerisms, let me assure you that I will not.”
Perrin stood so still, I feared he must agree with her. Instead, he set the roster of assignments aside. “Madame Nathalie, I intend for you to play Agrippina this season.”
As she gasped out her protest, he aimed his next pronouncement at me: “Mademoiselle Bernhardt, are you aware of how we assign roles in this house?”
“Yes.” I made myself step away from Jean. “But we agreed on Britannicus and I—”
“We do not agree. We do not request. You appear to have forgotten or you choose to ignore the fact that you are not a sociétaire in this company. Did I err in thinking your time at the Odéon had improved your disposition?”
“I should be a sociétaire,” I said, suddenly no longer caring if he dismissed me. I’d had enough of the House of Molière’s condescension. “I left the Odéon, where I was already playing lead roles. I had no need to prove myself, but I was grateful for your invitation to remedy my unfortunate past here. Had I known the limitations, I would have declined.”
“Have a care, Perrin,” gloated Madame Nathalie, having clearly longed for such an outburst from me. “Lest she puts you into an early grave as she did Monsieur de Chilly. I did warn you, did I not? We are not so indebted as to permit this Jewess from an inferior playhouse, who thinks too much of herself, back into our ranks.”
The First Actress Page 29