by Megan Chance
Dear God, what was I to do now?
The answer came to me in a surge of desperate panic.
Run.
But where to? And how? I tried to remember: Nathan would need a second doctor to commit me without my consent, and I remembered his asking if Mr. Edwards had come to watch rehearsals, and I realized who Mr. Edwards must be. A second doctor, the one who would see me upon the stage and say I was mad, because what sane woman of my status would do such a thing? Oh, how well Nathan had planned it! But Edwards had not yet attended rehearsal, and so there was some time … probably not much. I would need to plan it well, to go where they could not find me, at least until I had time to decide what else to do. If they found me, there would be no escaping.
I forced myself to think logically. First, I must not raise suspicion; I must allow Nathan to believe his plan was proceeding as he meant it to. If he suspected I knew, he would move more quickly. Better to go about my days as I usually did. To gather my resources, to pack, to find a place to go.
I would need money. A steamer ticket out of this godforsaken town. And I could not be seen getting those things; I could leave no trace, no trail to follow. I needed help, a friend to procure the ticket, but what friends did I have but for—
Sebastian DeWitt.
He would help me, I knew. And this morning, he would be at rehearsal, just as always.
Although it was now the last thing I wanted to do, I knew that I must go to rehearsal, pretend nothing had changed, hope Dr. Edwards was not in the audience, and plan. Panicking would only help Nathan.
I took a deep breath. The thought of seeing Mr. DeWitt gave me strength of mind and purpose as I readied to go. At least Mrs. Wilkes would not be there—how unimportant that seemed now, compared to only an hour ago. But with her gone, I would be assured of Mr. DeWitt’s full attention.
Some of the others were already at the theater when I arrived: Mr. Metairie, for one, and Mrs. Chace, who lolled on a settee, fanning herself vigorously. Behind them, the painters worked steadily on the drop that had begun to take on color and shape: a painted cast-iron fence, marble statuary, a pretty gazebo bordered by pink rhododendrons. I glanced to the parquet—no one sitting in the seats, no visitor, expected or otherwise, and I was relieved until I realized that, while Mr. Geary sat at the prompting table, there was no sign of Mr. DeWitt, which was strange, as I had never arrived before him.
Mr. Geary glanced up as I came onto the stage and gave me a curt nod of greeting, which I took no offense to, having already seen that he greeted everyone the same way. But Mr. Metairie crossed to give me a little bow.
“I wish you good morning, Mrs. Langley.”
His voice was so deep and smooth, his smile so genuine, that I told him the truth. “I do hope it gets better, Mr. Metairie.”
The others had arrived as we spoke, all except for Mrs. Wilkes, whom I was not of course expecting, and Mr. DeWitt, whom I was. Mr. Greene asked irritably, “Where is DeWitt?”
No one answered; Mr. Greene sighed and spoke in a low voice to Mr. Geary.
Mr. Metairie said thoughtfully to me, “Perhaps our playwright is not so evenhanded as I’d supposed.”
I had not thought of this. “You mean he’s protesting … her removal?”
Mr. Metairie stroked his dark beard. “Precisely.”
I felt a little stab of panic. “Oh. But … you don’t really think he’d stay away?”
“Perhaps. He can’t have liked her being removed from the play he wrote for her. Regardless, he’ll achieve nothing by his absence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our Bea has a pragmatic soul. She won’t look upon him the more favorably for it.”
It hardly surprised me; I was not inclined to believe Mrs. Wilkes was possessed of anything but the most prosaic nature, and if Mr. DeWitt was protesting on her behalf, it was a gesture of such romance that I could not imagine she could appreciate it. And it only gave me one more reason to dislike her. Still, I could not quite believe Mr. DeWitt wouldn’t make an appearance. But when Mr. Greene called for us all to take our places, Mr. DeWitt had still not arrived, and I was distracted and short waiting for him. But at least Nathan’s “visitor” had not made an appearance either.
Rehearsal went long. Everyone seemed tired and irritable; we had to repeat scenes three and four times. The stage grew hot from bodies and the footlights, and we were all sweating. Mrs. Chace had ceased moving completely and was lying prostrate upon the proscenium, too hot even to fan herself.
As the hours went by, it seemed clear that Mr. DeWitt would not show, and my temper bloomed with everyone else’s. I would have to go to Mr. DeWitt’s rooms after rehearsal—I tried to remember if he’d ever told me where they were and realized he had not. But surely Mr. Greene would know. I resolved to ask him the moment rehearsal was over—which, at this point, looked to be never.
We were at the edge of the “pool” now, its boundaries marked by a circle of rope, and Mr. Wheeler had his arms about me, as I was supposed to be looking up at him in adoration, though it was too hot to do more than wish we were standing apart from each other, when Brody Townshend—who was supposed to come running to take a final try at killing Keefe—tripped over a bucket and sent it flying. Blue paint spattered across the stage, and he went skidding into it, falling flat on his back, cursing at the top of his lungs. The whole company erupted in chaos. Mr. Galloway swore as a bit of flying paint hit him squarely in the chest. Mrs. Chace yelped and clambered to her feet as if afraid it might touch her.
Mr. Wheeler dropped his arms from me and said in exasperation. “For God’s sake, this is ridiculous!”
“Fire! Fire!” yelled a stagehand, racing onto the stage.
Mr. Wheeler sighed. “Not fire, boy. Paint. And you’re a bit late. We already know it’s spilled. Townshend’s covered with it, as you can plainly see.”
“It’s true!” the boy insisted. “The Opera House is on fire!”
“Frye’s Opera House?” I asked.
“Really?” Mr. Greene said with interest. “I suppose it’s too much to hope it’ll burn down.”
“Good God, Lucius, why would you say such a thing?” Mr. Metairie asked.
“It would take months to rebuild. In the meantime, where would everyone go? Why, here, of course.”
“You’ve all got to get out afore it spreads,” the stagehand said.
“It’s blocks from here,” Mr. Greene said dismissively. “The fire department will have it well in hand. Now go on, boy. We’ve a rehearsal to tend to.”
“But, sir, it’s the block—”
“Go on.”
Mr. Wheeler groaned. “Do you really mean to make this the longest rehearsal in history, Lucius? It’s already after three. We’ve got to be back in an hour for Old Debts.”
Mr. Greene took his watch from his pocket and glanced at it. “Ah, just so. Very well, my children, finish this scene, and then we’ll be off.”
Mr. Wheeler sighed and held out his arms for me to step obediently into, which I did, though I felt as he did; I wanted only for rehearsal to be over, so I could find Mr. DeWitt. I was also faintly concerned for the Opera House as well. Other than the Territorial University, Frye’s was the most opulent building in Seattle.
“Do you think they’ll save it?” I asked him.
“The Opera House?” He shrugged. “It depends on whether they can get water. Is the tide in or out?”
When the scene was finally done, the theater was so stifling and hot that it felt like an oven, and it was after four and already time for the actors to be at the theater to prepare for tonight’s performance. No one made a move to go downstairs, however. Mr. Greene and Mr. Geary sat at the prompt table, haggling over a scene and complaining that Mr. DeWitt was not there to rewrite it. Mrs. Chace and Mr. Galloway sent a prop boy to the bakery down the street for “sustenance” and settled to wait. Brody Townshend wiped at his paint-soaked clothes with a rag and tried to avoid Miss Jenks’s tender ministration
s.
Mr. Metairie sat with a sigh upon the settee one of the stagehands had pulled out for a scene in A New Way to Pay Old Debts. “By God, no doubt it’s hot as Hades downstairs. I’m taking a short nap right here. Someone wake me in twenty minutes.”
The painters were raising the paint frame up and out of the way so they could lower the drop for tonight’s play in front of the newly painted one. It shrieked and creaked like a dying thing. Mr. Wheeler jumped off the proscenium into the parquet. “A perfect plan. Though I’ll do it here, out of the way of the preparations.”
I went to the table and waited until Mr. Greene looked up. “Yes, Mrs. Langley?”
“Mr. DeWitt was not here today,” I said.
Mr. Greene said, “Yes indeed. I am aware.”
“I had something … important … to discuss with him. Could you tell me where he keeps his rooms?”
“Rooms?” Mr. Greene laughed. “I doubt it’s as grand as all that. I believe he stays at the Biltmore. But, Mrs. Langley, that part of town is no place for a lady.”
“What street is it on?” I asked.
Mr. Greene frowned. “You cannot mean—”
“What street, Mr. Greene?”
“Washington.”
“Thank you.” I grabbed my purse and headed into the wings, toward the short flight of stairs that led down to the backstage door. It was even hotter there, in the darkness of backstage, and the air was hazy with dust. There was a strange acrid scent that burned my nose—some newly noxious potion of the set builders, I guessed.
I had just reached the landing before the door when someone came barreling up the stairs from the dressing rooms below.
Beatrice Wilkes. She paused when she saw me.
“I thought you’d be gone by now,” she said.
“Good afternoon to you too, Mrs. Wilkes,” I said stiffly. “As it happens, rehearsal ran late.”
She gave a quick nod. “Is Sebas—Mr. DeWitt still here?”
“Mr. DeWitt declined to appear this morning.”
Mrs. Wilkes frowned. “What?”
“Shall I speak more simply for you? He wasn’t here.”
“Why not?”
“I’m hardly privy to Mr. DeWitt’s thoughts, Mrs. Wilkes. Now, if you don’t mind—”
“FIRE!” Someone shouted from above. “Fire coming from the north! Get the hell out! Everyone get out NOW!”
Something dropped hard; I heard shouting, scraping, a cacophony of confusion.
“Fire! Fire!” The voice echoed down the stairwell. “Get out! Get out!”
“Fire?” Beatrice Wilkes said. “God damn it!” She spun on her heel, racing back down the stairs, and I stared after her in surprise as she disappeared into the gloom below stage. I had no idea where she thought she was going. The door was right here, for God’s sake—
I reached for the handle. It was burning hot. I jerked back in pain. It was then I noticed the smoke seeping from beneath the walls. The acrid scent. The haze in the air wasn’t dust but smoke. From the north, the boy had said. This was the north door. Dear God, the fire was just outside; it was already here.
Something crashed behind me. The floor shook. I forgot Sebastian DeWitt and everything else as clouds of smoke billowed from the stage. Mrs. Wilkes had raced down the stairs. She must know another exit. She knew the theater so much better than I. I tripped over my skirts in my haste to follow her, stumbling down the bottom few.
“Mrs. Wilkes! Mrs. Wilkes!”
There was no answer. The hallway was dim as always, but now it was like trying to see through a fog. Something else crashed above me. The struts of the stage quaked. There was a roar from above like a rush of air. “Mrs. Wilkes!” I heard the panic in my voice.
But there was no answer. No one was down here. Everyone else had been onstage. No doubt they were gone already. I knew where the doors were upstairs. I should not have come down here. I should turn around and go back to where I knew.
I spun around; my bustle caught a piece of scenery, dislodging it. It slid, cracking to the floor before me, splintering, blocking my way, and I started to step over it before I saw the clouds of smoke rushing down the stairway I’d just descended. Boiling, black, poisonous clouds. That way was gone. And if I could not find another way out—
Don’t panic. Now is not the time to panic. But the smoke swirled around me, heavy, caustic. My eyes teared up so I could hardly see, and I stumbled forward, more from instinct than anything else. Just ahead, there was a light glowing through the darkness to the left, an open door. Gratefully, I stumbled to it, nearly falling against the doorjamb in relief.
But it was no door outside. It was a dressing room, and Beatrice Wilkes knelt on the floor before a large, open trunk, jerking out bundles of what looked like clothing.
“What are you doing?” I screamed at her.
She turned with a little jump and frowned when she saw me, but she didn’t pause. She pulled out gown after gown, bundling them in her arms, and then she got to her feet. “Take these.”
I stared at her in dumb astonishment. “What are they?”
“Costumes,” she said grimly. She shoved them at me, and I took them because I could do nothing else, and she turned back to the trunk and grabbed up another armful.
“We have to get out of here!” I said. “You’ll get us both killed.”
“You didn’t have to follow me,” she said.
“I thought you knew another way out.”
She slammed the trunk shut and hurried past me into the hall. In one glance she took in the billowing smoke, and her mouth set in a thin line as she shoved the clothes beneath her arm. “Christ. We’ll have to use the parquet door.”
“The parquet door? But that’s upstairs, and the fire’s blocked—”
“We’ll take the stairs by Lucius’s office.” She moved swiftly down the hall, and I stumbled after, afraid I would lose her in the smoke. I dropped a gauzy scarf. The roaring sound grew louder. Smoke seared my lungs; my eyes watered so badly now I could see nothing, and I grabbed her skirt as she dodged before me, fisting the fabric hard so as not to lose her.
Something exploded behind us. She jerked around, her face white in the near darkness, and I glanced back to see flames leaping from the struts beneath the stage.
“This way!”
She ran, and I tripped and stumbled after her, dropping other scarves and a skirt and corset and letting them lie. The smoke was so thick now I wouldn’t have known she was before me but for my desperate lock on her skirt. I coughed and choked, blind with stinging tears. I brought the bundle of clothes to my nose to try to filter the air. But she didn’t hesitate, and suddenly we were plunging into a darkness that seemed less foggy; the smoke was not so heavy here, and I fell hard on the first step because I couldn’t see it. I dropped my hold on her skirt, and all the costumes, and screamed, “Wait!” and impatiently she turned around and grabbed my arm, jerking me to my feet, pulling me after her.
And then, suddenly, we were at the top of the stairs, and the air grew lighter, though smoke boiled up from below, and the roar filled my ears. She pulled me with her from the wings onto the stage before she let me go. She held her armful of clothes in a death grip, though I had dropped the ones I’d carried.
She started across. Flames danced up the wall on the far side, leaping about the ropes and rolled canvas drops in the heavens, shimmying down the border curtains. A rain of ash fluttered to the stage floor. Firebrands smashed down, shattering and skittering everywhere. I stumbled to a stop, overwhelmed, horrified.
She yelled over her shoulder. “Come on!”
I heard a terrible crack. A frame swung down from the heavens, a mass of flame, crashing upon the stage, splintering, sending fire shooting in every direction. Something exploded behind me, and I screamed and jerked around to look.
When I looked back again, Beatrice Wilkes had disappeared.
Chapter Twenty
Beatrice
One moment the floor was ben
eath me, the next it was gone and I was falling. I screamed and slammed into the ground so hard it burst the breath from my lungs. Pain shattered into my spine and my skull and one elbow, and I was pelted with broken boards. The costumes I’d been holding floated around me like spirits. The dressing gown caught fire in the air, bursting into floating, live flame, and I rolled to escape it as it spiraled down.
Above me was the hole I’d fallen through. I was below stage again, and there was flame everywhere, a wall of flame where there had once been struts. I could not see beyond it to the hallway I knew was there. Smaller flames licked along the beam above my head. What remained of the trap was shattered all around me, nothing but little torches now, the rope that ran its pulley a line of flame to where it anchored on the winch. I’d fallen through the grave trap—an irony I didn’t want to think of just then. A brand fell on the carriage just beyond me, and the papier-mâché went up before I could blink. Pieces of fire fell; it became a hellish game of tag as I rolled to escape them, and my whole body hurt so damn bad. Beside me, my satin gown suddenly exploded in a burst of flame.
I jerked up hard, scrambling back from it, screaming, “Help!” But the roar of the fire was loud, and even if she was up there, even if she were still alive, I doubted she would hear me.
I was going to die.
Then I heard, “Mrs. Wilkes!”
Her voice was a little squeak through the noise; I wouldn’t have heard her if I hadn’t looked up just at that moment. Mrs. Langley peered over the edge of the hole.
“Stay back!” I screamed up at her. “For God’s sake, don’t fall in! Can you get me out of here!”