“Someone left a baby?”
“Common enough even now,” Ned said. Grace was surprised by the bitterness in his voice. He put his hand on her arm. “Listen to this bit. It’s one of my favorites.”
A messenger strode onstage and handed a letter to Oberto, who was being performed with great pathos by one of the older actors. The violins shivered out a stream of notes meant to indicate Oberto’s agitation.
“Edmond, the son of Stanislaus, Heir to the Throne of Samartia . . .”
“Here comes the important part,” Ned said. He stayed by Grace’s side to watch. The music turned softly lyrical, and the actor wiped tears from his eyes. “My Edmond! My dear boy, my Prince?”
“He’s just found out that the blind boy he’s raised is a prince,” whispered Ned. “I still get choked up, even if it’s make-believe and all.”
Oberto strode around the stage, his arms slicing the air with great vigor as the music swelled. The orchestra wove in and out of the action with strings quaking and woodwinds trilling.
“He looks upset.”
“How’d you like to find out yer livin’ with royalty?” asked Ned.
“I shouldn’t think there is much chance of that.”
Grace heard him chuckle as he moved off to attend to a scene change. She continued watching the action unfold onstage, her heart banging with delicious pain against her bruised ribs. How did these people do this night after night? The women especially! Grace had never before thought of a future beyond her father’s house and perhaps a dutiful marriage.
And now this.
* * *
For the first time in many months, Ned sensed a touch of warmth in the night air, a promise of spring. He drew Grace’s arm through his as they walked along Bow Street, quiet now an hour after the theater closed. Olympia had been so grateful when he’d found her costume. She’d thanked him with a peck on his cheek. Hours later, the memory of her lips on his skin still made him blush.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked Grace.
“I never thought I’d see such things!” she exclaimed “That Mr. Pope in Othello? He was marvelous.”
“It’s Shakespeare and all, ain’t it? Folks in the theater are always banging on about Shakespeare like he was some sort of god. Give me a lively melo-drame any day. I like the music.”
“Yes, but the play! It was . . .” Grace sighed. “I’ve read it but never seen it performed. I don’t know the best word to describe it.”
“Long?”
“No! It was wonderful. And poor Desdemona! She died so beautifully. Who was the actress?”
“That would be Louisa. She’s settin’ herself up to be the next Mrs. Siddons, but if you ask me, she ain’t got what it takes.”
“Why?”
“Can’t say exactly. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what most of the actors and actresses do once they get onstage. I’m more worried about helpin’ the prompter get them on and off at the right time and makin’ sure the scenery don’t fall on them.”
“Olympia was delightful in the melo-drame.”
“You’ll get no argument from me about Olympia.” Ned wanted to say more, maybe even tell Grace what he felt, but what purpose would that serve?
“Does Mrs. Siddons act often?” Grace asked.
“Oh, aye. There ain’t no one like Mrs. Siddons for making people believe in what she’s acting.”
“What about Mr. Kemble? Why did he not take the part of Othello?”
“Don’t know, but Mr. Kemble always takes Iago.”
“I can see why he is so admired. He made my skin crawl.”
“He’s a wonder, and that’s for certain. You should see him when he plays Macbeth.”
Ned resolved to find another opportunity to take her backstage. The season would be over in a few weeks, but as soon as the plays started up again in September, he’d find a way.
And then he remembered that Grace would be gone from his life long before he had a chance to take her anywhere. The realization left him feeling hollow and vaguely uneasy. He didn’t like the idea of Grace going away with no one to look out for her.
Chapter 4
Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,”
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means,
To do’t.
Hamlet (4.4.44–46)
For the first time since her mother’s death a year earlier, Grace slipped into a dream that she did not want to end. The light and color and noise of the stage embraced her. Even in sleep, the sharp tickle of sawdust in her nose mingled with the miasma of drying paint and strong perfumes and overheated bodies. She was alive to the promise of happiness to come, just like she used to be when she stood upon the cliffs at Clevedon and imagined a world beyond the sea.
The last moments before waking from her dream exploded with the sounds of metal scraping across rock and a horse’s anguished neighing. Blood flowed across a leather seat and dripped onto sodden grass.
“Oh!” She sat up so quickly that the blanket fell away from her bare arms and shoulders. Ned was already up and dressed. He had his back to her as he knelt in front of the fireplace and poked the coals into flame.
She pulled the blanket around her before he turned. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I startle you?”
“Don’t worry about me, but you look as if you’ve had a proper nightmare. You was moaning something fierce before you woke up. I figured I’d get a fire started and go out for pies.”
“You are very kind, Ned.”
“Ah, well, so you keep saying.”
“I cannot stay.”
Ned scrambled to his feet and sat heavily on Alec’s bed. “Have you got a place to go?” He stared down at his hands. Not for the first time, Grace was surprised at their fineness—long fingered with narrow nails and strong, slim wrists. “You’ll be safe?”
“I hope so.”
He clenched his hands into fists. “Hoping ain’t what I want to hear.”
“It’s the best I can do, Ned. You know it’s not right for me to stay.”
“No, I suppose not, but give me a few more days. I’ll ask one of the girls at the theater to find you a place to stay. They’s mostly good girls, respectable enough, all things considered, ’specially Olympia.”
“You’ve been very good to me, Ned, but I can’t stay here or with Olympia, or anyone.”
“It ain’t no trouble.” He ducked his head, blond hair still tangled with sleep. “Will you at least stay until later today? I got to get to the theater early, but I can be back midafternoon and go with you to wherever you’re going, make sure you don’t get lost. London’s awful big.”
“I’m quite capable of making my own way, Ned. My father’s house is not far.” She clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide.
“Your father? You ain’t tellin’ me that he was the one what hurt you?”
Grace shook her head, but she could tell that Ned did not believe her. “It was just the one time, and I’m sure he doesn’t remember anything. My father has had difficulties . . .”
“Ain’t no excuse. No man hits a woman.”
“Yes, well, Ned, you know that isn’t true.”
“I suppose not, but it still ain’t right.” Ned stood up and went to the door. “It’s not my business to stop you, but are you sure you won’t let me ask Olympia about you bunkin’ in with her? She lives with her mother and is respectable enough, although there’s some talk about a general who pays the bills.” Ned shrugged. “Ain’t none of my business.”
“I can’t, Ned. I must return to my father’s house.” Grace sat back against the bedstead.
He stayed a moment longer, looking down at her. She had a sudden urge to gather him in her arms, to soothe the hurt from his face like he was a child. She straightened her spine and regarded him evenly, drawing a veil around her heart and pinning it tight.
“I will be perfectly fine, Ned,” she said.
“You’re sure ’bout that?”
The look on his face as he turned toward the door tore at her heart. She’d had so little time to get to know him, but she’d begun to suspect that Ned lived with a hurt so deep that he didn’t know what to do with it.
“Don’t be a stranger,” he mumbled, then opened the door to the landing and started down the stairs. Moments later, the front door opened and then slammed shut, the sound of footsteps quickly swallowed by the clatter and clash of the London street.
Grace threw off the blanket and planted her feet on the rough floorboards. If only for her mother’s sake, she had to give her father another chance.
* * *
“There you are! I was all set to send out the constables.” Mr. Harrison was out of his chair and leaning against his cane. “We’ve got a problem!”
What’s happened?” Ned asked wearily. With the certainty that Grace was about to leave him, he felt flat, as if he no longer mattered in the world. “Mr. Kemble hasn’t gone and gotten camels again, has he?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Mr. Harrison’s knees cracked like gunshot as he lowered himself back into his chair. “We’re short a girl for tonight’s performance.”
“Who’s out?”
“Agnes.”
“Again?”
“She said she was feeling poorly when she left last night, and this morning she sent a note. I don’t want to be the one to tell Mr. Kemble.”
“What about a replacement?”
“Do you know anyone?”
Ned shook his head and then stopped. Well, why not? There wasn’t any law against asking. “As a matter of fact, I do!” He pulled open the door. “Don’t say a word to Mr. Kemble. I’ve got someone who’ll fit in just fine in the chorus. Agnes don’t have no speaking parts tonight, does she?”
“Not so far as I know,” Mr. Harrison said. “She’s scheduled for the procession in the afterpiece, so you just need someone who can sing. Failing that, she can mouth the words so long as she’s got the looks. Mr. Kemble don’t like seeing ugly faces in the chorus.”
But Ned wasn’t listening. He was already out on to Bow Street and sprinting in the direction of Hart Street. When he got to his lodgings, he wrenched open the front door and took the stairs to his room two at a time.
* * *
Olympia’s costume shimmered and shifted as she moved—and in the short time Grace had known her, she seemed always to be moving. “Stay close to me and copy my actions,” she whispered.
Grace thought Olympia was very much like a seabird—compact, graceful, poised to take off when the wind was right. “Shall I sing?” she asked.
“If you wish. Do you?”
“Sometimes.” In Clevedon, Grace had been the center of her mother’s small social circle of respectable families—her singing a welcome addition to evening parties so long as her father was away. And she often sang on her solitary walks. With the wind as accompaniment, Grace would stand alone on the cliffs overlooking the Bristol Channel and let her voice soar, relishing the tang of freezing air in her lungs and accepting with a curtsy the caws of the seagulls for applause. Her mother had often told her that she had a beautiful voice, sometimes smiling wistfully and joking that she was as good as any professional.
Grace smiled down at Olympia. With hair neatly coiled around a headdress of white feathers, her head barely came to Grace’s shoulder.
“I am a trifle nervous,” Grace said.
“I’d be surprised if you were not.”
Grace smoothed one hand over the fabric of her own costume—it was rough with tiny glass beads that she guessed would catch and fling the light thrown from the candles. A crescendo rose from the orchestra.
“Here we go!” whispered Olympia.
With eight other young women, Grace and Olympia marched with slow solemnity from the stifling dark wings into an inferno. The stage blazed with light and heat. Grace squinted and stumbled but was saved from falling by Olympia’s hand on her arm. The music was so loud that Grace was sure her ears would burst, and at the same time, the sound made her feel like she’d been picked up and taken on a golden chariot to a glorious new heaven.
The other girls started to sing. Much to her surprise, Grace recognized the song. Her mother had taught it to her years earlier. She said she’d learned it when she was at school in Bath.
Grace opened her mouth and let the notes spill out, blending at first with the voices of the other girls and then soaring high above theirs with perfect tone and clarity. Dimly, she was aware of Olympia pulling her hand. Mr. Kemble, black eyes snapping, posed downstage, resplendent in a jewel-encrusted gown.
The song ended, and the girls circled the stage in front of Mr. Kemble. A huge yellow star rose above them, and the wind machine cranked up and blew their skirts so they billowed out like silver-tipped clouds. Grace followed Olympia’s lead and held out her arms and twirled. A procession of actors carrying spears, faces thick with blue makeup, gathered upstage on various levels, some peeking out from behind cutout slabs of wood painted to resemble large boulders. The orchestra reached a shattering climax with Mr. Kemble standing center stage and the entire company singing the final chorus. A shower of sparks burst upward, and the thunder box rumbled. Gears under the stage ground and rattled, and seconds later Mr. Kemble was borne aloft on a square of stage pushed up from below. When he was five feet above the stage, the curtain fell in a swish of red velvet.
Grace joined hands with Olympia and another girl and stepped forward. When the curtain rose, the massed company took their bows and then stood with their arms raised while Mr. Kemble was lowered back to the stage. He stood unsmiling and in profile to accept the cheering and stomping of the crowd.
“What do you think?” Olympia shouted in Grace’s ear. She had no need to speak lower with the noise rolling and cresting from every corner of the auditorium.
Grace did not reply. She could not.
* * *
“I’ll be a while yet,” Ned said. “Do you mind waiting? Mr. H. will keep you well entertained. He acted with Garrick back in the seventies.”
Grace had never before felt so full—brimming over like a river in flood. A thousand smooth pebbles clacked and clattered around her skull, bouncing off bone, smacking into each other. How did the other actors and actresses go about the business of winding down after performances—scraping off makeup, pulling gowns and tunics from sweat-damp bodies, taking a quick drink to soothe nerves sharpened to steel by the applause?
“I’ll be fine, Ned,” she said. “Take your time. I’m too excited for bed anyway.”
“The stage can do that to people, especially when they’re new.” He smiled. “I won’t be more than an hour. Promise you’ll wait?”
Grace remembered her own headlong flight through the streets before collapsing on Bow Street. “I’ll stay with Mr. Harrison,” she promised. She walked along the dark corridor to the small room adjacent to the stage door, reaching it at the same time as several actresses, many of whom she recognized from the procession.
“Grace! There you are!” Olympia bustled forward. “You’re a sly one. What a voice!” She gazed around at the other girls. “Did you hear her?”
“We weren’t likely to miss her.” The girl who spoke was close to Grace in age and decades beyond her in experience. Grace recognized her as the actress who had played Desdemona the night before. She had a brazen kind of beauty—all apple cheeks and staring eyes that regarded Grace with all the warmth of a desert-dwelling lizard.
“Don’t pay any attention to Louisa. She sings like a frog.”
Grace burst out laughing and had the satisfaction of seeing Louisa recoil and turn away in a huff.
“I’m obliged to you,” Grace whispered to Olympia. “For helping me.”
“I didn’t need to do much,” Olympia said cheerfully. “Far as I can see, you belong on the stage.”
“Thank you.”
“Olympia!” called one of the other g
irls—a bouncy, smiling one, who Grace thought might be called Caroline. “We best get going. I’m that parched.”
Olympia took Grace’s arm and pulled her toward the door. “Come with us. We go to a tavern across the Piazza. Mr. H. here will tell Ned where you are.”
“A tavern? On no! I couldn’t.”
“Too much the lady, are you?” asked Louisa. She swept past them to the door. “She’s got no business being here, and I’ll wager Mr. Kemble won’t be happy with what she done.” Louisa hooked arms with Caroline and another girl and slammed open the door, leaving Mr. Harrison to half rise with arthritic protest. Grace hurried to catch the swinging door and then pulled it in against the damp spring night.
“Those girls could learn more ladylike behavior,” he grumbled. “Are you two going out? I don’t fancy spending half the night sitting in a draft.”
“You have your hands full tending to us, Mr. Harrison,” said Olympia. “I’m sorry for Louisa’s rudeness. She’s just angry because Grace here put us to shame with her singing tonight.”
Mr. Harrison sank gratefully into his chair. “Is that so? Grace, is it? You’re new, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what is your genius?”
“Sir?”
“He means what do you do onstage, your passion, what delights you,” Olympia said.
“I can’t say.” The brimful feeling was back. Grace wanted to laugh out loud with the novelty of her new situation. Fancy being asked what delighted her! She’d never really felt passionate about anything, unless it was wanting to disappear from Clevedon during her parents’ long silences. “I think,” she began and then stopped and looked at Olympia, who was smiling encouragement. “I am very new, but perhaps, if I was given the chance, I’d like to excel at tragedy. Like Louisa as Desdemona.”
“Tragedy, is it?” Mr. Harrison’s gaze was frank and assessing. Grace wondered if she ought to feel affronted, but sensed that he was regarding her only with curiosity. Ned had told her that Mr. Harrison was a formidable tragedian in his day. Would he see something of the same potential in her?
“Yes,” he said finally. “You have the height, and your features appear capable of expressing strong emotion. You are not a beauty, and for tragedy that will serve you well.”
The Muse of Fire Page 4