The Muse of Fire
Page 3
“What exactly do you do backstage?” Grace asked.
“I make sure that the actors and actresses get where they’re supposed to go onstage and that the prompter’s got the scripts he needs to keep everyone on track in the plays. I also help with the bits of machinery we use to create the big effects, and with getting the scenery up. Covent Garden’s Theatre Royal’s got the best scenery of any theater in London.”
She finished her pie and sat forward. Some of the shiny bits on the parts of her dress that Ned could see were striped brown with dried blood. Ned didn’t have any idea what dresses cost, but maybe he had enough money put by to get her a new one. Nothing so fancy as she was used to, but at least warmer. And a shawl. She couldn’t go back outside dressed the way she was. Maybe Mrs. Beecham at the theater would help.
“Tell me about the scenery.”
“We call them flies on account of some of ’em drop down from high up and go into these slots we got built into the stage. They’re huge slabs of painted wood. The man Mr. Kemble got to do the painting is famous, like. Names his own price, he does.”
“What kind of scenes does he paint?”
“Mountains, lakes, castles, deserts—pretty much anything you can imagine. He’s just done one set that looks all the world like a village from olden times—way back, you know? Medieval, I guess you’d call it. You wouldn’t know it weren’t real if you didn’t walk right up and touch the boards. He’s a wonder, is Mr. Capon. One night I overheard someone comin’ out of the theater sayin’ he didn’t need to travel out of London to see everywhere in the world.”
“Could you show me?”
“What? You mean take you to the theater? Backstage?” Ned frowned, not sure what to say. Mr. Kemble would have his head if he brought in an outsider. But backstage was dark as Hades most of the time, and he’d take care to keep her far away from where Mr. Kemble made his entrances. What was the harm?
“Please, Ned. I know it’s a great deal to ask.”
“Naw, I can do it. But you got to get better first. I can’t be takin’ no invalid to the theater.”
“I told you. I am not helpless.”
Ned wasn’t so sure about that, but something pulled at him when he looked at Grace—her eyes blue as a clear sky on a raw winter day. He’d never had anyone depend on him before, not really. At the theater, everyone called for him all the time—Ned, where’s my dagger? Ned, the thunder box ain’t working right. Ned, the dogs are fighting again! But they didn’t need him, not like Grace did.
He smiled. “I know, Grace, and I promise I won’t never think of you as helpless.”
Chapter 3
O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!
The Tempest (5.1.188-89)
“Yer got a dolly in our room? Did you think of askin’ me first? I pay half the rent.” Alec Bishop leaned against the prop table backstage, arms crossed over his bony chest.
“She ain’t no dolly, and she won’t be in our room for much longer. And you’re almost never there as it is. Ain’t Daisy keepin’ you busy?”
Alec loosened his arms, then picked up a stage dagger and ran it between his fingers as if testing the dull wood for sharpness. “When she can. But stop changin’ the subject. Who is she?”
“A lady, or leastways proper, like.” Ned grinned as Alec flung down the dagger and then clapped his hands to his mouth, black eyes bulging in imitation of an actor pretending to be surprised.
“A lady?”
“She had an accident—fell down in the street. I brought her home and got her warmed up.”
Alec recrossed his arms, thin as strips of soiled leather. “She’s stopping with the likes of you? Don’t she have no family?”
“Her name’s Grace, and if she’s got a family, she ain’t telling me. And I ain’t asking. There’s something wrong about her.”
“What do you mean wrong about her?” Alec followed Ned around the back of the stage.
“Help me here, would you?” Ned grabbed hold of a pulley and then nodded at Alec to steady the fly attached to it. During the performance, one of the callboys would crank the pulley and make the fly shake in imitation of an earthquake. The evening’s afterpiece—usually a farce or some kind of spectacle put on after the main play—featured a trio of natural disasters—earthquake, fire, flood. “Don’t know,” Ned said. “There’s just something not right about her.” Ned would have his hands full making sure all the stagehands got where they needed to be. He particularly hated doing the fire effects. Any carelessness would result in disaster. The theater was stuffed to the gills with props and costumes and flies, with paints and pots and scripts, benches and plush seats. A voluminous curtain was looped across the top of the proscenium, and most of the columns that were painted to look like marble were made of solid wood.
“Like what? Not right in the head? Should you be takin’ her out to Bedlam?”
“Don’t be daft. She’s just different, is all.”
“What are you planning to do with her?”
“I dunno. She’ll go her own way as soon as she’s better.” Ned thought it best not to tell Alec about his plan to bring Grace backstage to watch a performance. Alec might be Ned’s oldest friend, but that didn’t mean Ned trusted his friend’s big mouth.
Ned darted forward to grab hold of a rope flapping inches above Alec’s head. Where was young Bob? He was meant to take charge of the water barrel for the flood effect. “I got no time to talk now,” Ned said. “You’d best get going. The doors are set to open in ten minutes.” Alec worked out front, taking tickets and helping keep the peace when the pit goers got overexcited.
“Oy, I know me job and all,” Alec said. “You might think yer the king of shit back here, but I don’t take no orders from you.”
Ned grinned as Alec pushed past him, eyes squinting into the darkness but his lips twitching. Alec never had much patience for anger.
* * *
On his way out of the theater at the end of the evening, Ned stepped in to see Mrs. Beecham. She laughed at him when he told her his quest, particularly when he blushed to recall Grace’s figure. Eventually, she gave over teasing him and piled a gown and light wool spencer into his arms.
“Don’t tell Mr. Kemble,” she said. “I trust you to get them back to me in decent shape. Tell your mystery girl to keep them clean and to take care not to tear the muslin. Does she require a bonnet?”
Ned nodded. “And if you’ve also got a shawl, I’d be obliged.”
“I’m not a mantua maker.” She gathered up a sturdy woolen shawl—a plaid pattern Ned recognized from a recent production of Macbeth. “Go on with you, quick now, before anyone sees you in here with me.”
“Ah, Mrs. B., it’s not as if I don’t talk with you plenty of an evening.” Ned grinned down at her. Although a few years past thirty, Mrs. Beecham was still a fine-looking woman. Her husband had been in the navy and gotten himself killed at the Battle of Trafalgar back in ‘05, leaving Mrs. Beecham to shift for herself. Fortunately, she was more than up for the challenge. Ned turned quickly. It wouldn’t do to let Mrs. Beecham see him blush. She’d likely get the wrong idea.
Grace was asleep by the time he got home, so he undressed in the dark and laid her new clothes at the foot of her bed. Alec had grudgingly gone to spend another night with Daisy at Mrs. Gellie’s. Ned knew the arrangement couldn’t last much longer. Alec’s pay didn’t extend to many more full nights with a whore.
* * *
Grace saw the clothes as soon as she woke up the next morning. Ned lay on Alec’s bed, his back to her, the blanket not quite high enough to hide his bare shoulders. A thin cord rested at the base of his neck, almost covered by tufts of blond hair. She slid out of bed. The night before, she’d peeled off her filthy dress and worn only a chemise and her sleeveless petticoat. She’d removed her stays, their absence making her feel virtually naked as she pulled the gown Ned brought over her head. With her ribs so sore, she’d need to keep the stays off a w
hile longer. God only knew how she’d get the gown fastened up the back, but at least it felt much cleaner than her own, even if the fabric was coarser.
If—no—when she finally returned to her father’s house, she’d slip in when he was out and bundle the soiled dress into a closet before Betsy saw it.
“Do you need help with the back?”
She jumped at the sound of his voice and then chided herself. If he’d wanted to harm her, he’d already had plenty of opportunity. “Yes, please,” she said. “Not too tight, if you don’t mind. My ribs . . .”
“’Course. I know what it’s like havin’ bruised ribs.”
She kept her gaze on the blank wall in front of her. “You do?”
“Sure. You don’t get to my age livin’ round Covent Garden and not be in your share of fights.” She felt a slight tug as his fingers took hold of the laces. Breath warmed the bare skin of her neck. She’d never had a man stand so close before, and she felt suddenly nervous. As soon as Grace felt him tie the laces at the base of her neck, she stepped forward and picked up the bonnet. She put it on and expertly tied the blue satin ribbon in a bow before turning to face him.
“I am obliged to you, Ned.”
“I reckon you’re used to having a maid take care of your things.” He was buttoning his own shirt. Grace saw a flash of silver at his chest. A medal or coin of some sort appeared to be threaded through the cord she’d seen earlier. Probably it was some kind of token from the theater.
“I do. And I won’t pretend to not miss warm water and a clean chemise.” She laughed at the look on his face. “Truly, Ned, you are a man of many surprises. You bring me a gown and a bonnet and then blush when I mention a chemise.”
“I brung a shawl too. Mrs. Beecham, our costume lady, loaned everything to me. She’ll want them back, but no hurry.”
Grace untied the bonnet and threw it onto Alec’s bed. “I won’t be staying much longer.”
Ned didn’t say anything, because they both knew she was not wrong. Whatever world she came from, she had no business sleeping in a rough room in a Covent Garden lodging house.
“Before you go, you got to let me keep my promise,” Ned said.
“What promise?”
“To take you to the theater. Tomorrow they’re putting on Othello and then a cracker of a melo-drame. You got to see it! I’ll find a place for you to watch, out of the way of the machinery. Thank goodness we got no live animals on tomorrow.” Ned rolled his eyes and plugged his nose. “They’re the worst. Mr. Kemble favors having them, but some of the other managers don’t, so it’s only every so often we get them in. ’Course, we just about always got dogs.”
Grace laughed. “I was hoping for camels and horses.”
“Don’t you worry. We have them more often than I’d like. You don’t want to know about the mess.”
“I can imagine.” She settled herself on the bed and smoothed the skirt of her new gown. For the first time since coming to London, she felt like she had something to look forward to.
* * *
Ned was not a man to renege on a promise, but as he got closer to the stage door, holding Grace’s arm so she didn’t slip in the mud, he had his doubts. At any given time, before and during a performance, a good fifty people milled around the cavernous backstage spaces crammed full of scenery and props and dressing rooms and all the complicated machinery used to create the spectacles—the thunder drum and the rain box, the wooden waves on long sticks of doweling, the windlass for the enormous curtain.
“Mind your step,” he said. Her arm pressed lightly against him. For a woman almost as tall as he was, she felt delicate—like one of the weeping willows in the park, with arms like long fronds, swaying and supple. But like a willow, she seemed to possess a core of strength that Ned suspected could not be easily snapped.
“I don’t wish you to get into trouble on my account,” she said.
A clutch of actresses flitted past on their way into the stage entrance, chattering and laughing like they always did—a flock of pigeons with the odd dove. Olympia flashed a smile at Ned as she passed, and he swallowed convulsively. Grace’s eyes as she watched the girls go into the theater shone with anticipation in the late-afternoon sun.
What kind of a man would he be to deny her pleasure?
“Don’t worry about me, Grace. Just keep close to me when we go in. I’ll make the introductions to old Mr. Harrison, who takes charge of the stage door. He don’t act no more, but Kemble won’t let him go. He’s like that, is Mr. Kemble. Loyal.” Ned fervently hoped that Kemble’s loyalty would extend to him should he get wind of Grace’s presence. London was full of men who would be glad to take his job. And why not? He had it good—warm and dry inside, with all the pomp and excitement of the theater swirling about.
He pushed open the door. “Come on then. Move smart. I got a mountain of things to do before the plays go up.”
* * *
Grace stepped into paradise at precisely 4:50 in the afternoon. All those days when her father was away from home and she’d sat with her mother and recited scenes from Shakespeare had not prepared her for the reality of the theater. Her first impression was of a bustling kind of chaos, like a busy London street but enclosed and pulsing with an energy she’d never experienced before. Boys and men scurried past her, carrying props and ropes, shouting, jostling, laughing. A woman dressed in a gown thick with rich embroidery, panniers wide in the style of the last century, turned sideways to pass them. Brightly rouged cheeks startled Grace. Paint was for fallen women, and yet as she walked deeper into the theater, every woman—and a fair number of the men—wore thick makeup—eyes brightened with azure and jade and gold, lips like open wounds.
“Keep close to me,” Ned whispered behind her. “No one will notice you.”
He hustled her along the dark corridor. A door to their right opened, and out spilled a young woman. She didn’t move so much as dance in place, her small feet just visible under her skirt. She rushed up to Ned.
“Ned! I’m at my wit’s end. Mrs. Beecham was to have my costume ready for tonight, but it’s nowhere to be found, and she’s gone off home with a headache.”
“I didn’t know you were on tonight.”
“I’m taking the part of Elvina in the melo-drame. Mr. Kemble’s put me in, although he knows I prefer comedy.”
“You’ll be splendid.”
Grace looked sharply at Ned, saw his blush even in the dim light. So that was how it was. She was glad to see it. Ned deserved a bit of love in his life.
“Grace, this here is Olympia. She’s one of the actresses.”
“I surmised as much.” Grace smiled and held out her hand. “Very pleased to meet you, Olympia.”
“Olympia’s a cracker with the comic roles,” Ned said. “’Specially the breeches parts.”
“Dear me, Ned, you’ll have this lady thinking all sorts of dark thoughts about me.”
“I can’t imagine anything more wonderful!” Grace exclaimed.
Olympia smiled and glanced up at Ned. “I didn’t know Mr. Kemble was taking on a new actress so late in the season.”
“Oh no!” Grace said before Ned had a chance to answer. “I’m not an actress. I’m, ah, staying with . . .” She stopped, confused. “I mean to say that . . .”
“Grace is stopping with a cousin of mine,” Ned said. “I’ve brought her backstage to see the plays. Don’t tell Mr. Kemble.”
“Good heavens! I’m hardly likely to do that.” Olympia nodded at Grace, apparently taking at face value Ned’s ridiculous story about a cousin. She must have noticed that Grace was genteel by her speech, even if the clothes supplied by Mrs. Beecham were plain. “I’m pleased to meet you,” she said.
Ned took Grace’s arm and angled her away from Olympia. “I’ll see to your costume as soon as I get Grace settled,” he said over his shoulder. “You needn’t worry.”
“I never worry when you’re in charge, Ned!” Olympia called down the corridor with a laugh.
“Oy, Ned!” One of the callboys ran up, his face ashen. “We got a problem with the waves—the second set’s sticking.”
“I’m on it!”
“Waves?”
“Painted ones on rollers. They’re a bugger to work with. Beggin’ pardon, Grace.”
“You don’t need to beg my pardon, Ned, not when you’re being so kind as to bring me backstage.”
“Aye, well. Ain’t no trouble. The rollers, see, they stick if one of the boys forgets to oil ’em.” He grabbed the arm of a passing callboy. “You! Go get the oil can from the paint room. Yes, now!” He turned back to Grace and walked with her a few more yards to a dark space in the wings from which she could see the smooth boards of the stage, gleaming in brilliant candlelight. “Sorry, but I’ve got to leave you.”
“I’m perfectly fine, Ned. Please, don’t worry about me.”
“Make sure you stay put here, to the side, like. Don’t get in the way of the actors and actresses as they come through to the stage. Mr. Kemble always comes in on the other side, so you’ll be safe enough. It’s a good thing Mrs. Beecham loaned you a dark dress.”
“Are you sure, Ned?”
“Just stay quiet and out of sight. I’ll be back later to check on you.”
* * *
Ned joined her for a few minutes during the second of the evening’s two performances. Othello had already been performed, and now was the afterpiece—a musical melo-drame called The Blind Boy. The look on Grace’s face as she watched the actors, and especially as she listened to the music, made any risk Ned ran of bringing an outsider into the theater worth it. And truly, what harm was there in giving her a bit of fun?
“What’s happening?” Grace whispered.
“That’s Oberto—he’s a peasant. He’s raised a blind baby who was left in his care.”