“How so?” Grace had no illusions about her own beauty, but she’d never thought to hear its lack described as an asset.
“Pretty girls like little Olympia here are made for comedy. But when it comes to tragedy, audiences want to see the face of suffering.”
“Dear me, Mr. Harrison, you’ll scare Grace away from the stage just when we’ve found her.” Olympia grasped Grace’s arm. “Come out with us.” She encircled Grace’s waist and turned her toward the door. Grace gasped at the pressure against her ribs.
Olympia drew back. “Are you injured?”
“Please, don’t trouble yourself. I just need a moment.”
While Olympia watched with concern, Grace leaned one hand against the wall, then wrapped her other arm across her chest and breathed shallowly.
“Grace?”
“I am perfectly well.” She stepped forward and took Olympia’s hand, let her lead her toward the door, the sensation of willingly giving up control unfamiliar and welcome. She had so long been used to ceding control of her life to the will of her father. How intoxicating to choose to give herself over to lovely Olympia.
Olympia steered them toward the Piazza, still bustling with carriages and ablaze with light from the torches carried by boys running in front. Dogs barked and horses stamped. Grace had never seen London like this—another world from the cloistered life at her father’s shabby townhouse in Russell Square. And as for comparing the scene before her to sleepy little Clevedon, the two locations may as well be on different planets.
“It’s so noisy,” she said.
“You’ve never been in the Piazza at night?”
Grace shook her head. “Ned brought me to the theater from Hart Street.”
“It is a bit overwhelming, I suppose.”
“I’ve lately come from a house overlooking the sea. The nights were exceedingly dark.”
Olympia did not ask for details, which Grace was glad about. This dream could not last—she had to drink it to the dregs.
A man stepped in front of them.
“Excuse me, sir,” said Olympia. “We are respectable women. You will allow us to pass.” She drew Grace closer. “Come, Grace. This gentleman does not mean any harm. He is merely mistaken.”
Grace did not move. A wide-brimmed brown hat too provincial for London perched atop greasy gray curls. Her father held his ground like an aging elm in a windstorm.
She was at least relieved to see that he was sober.
Chapter 5
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.
Henry VI, Part 3 (2.2.17)
Mr. Tobias Johnson paced back and forth in front of the fire, as usual built too high for the size of the room. Grace thought she might faint from the heat.
“You have made a fool out of yourself and of me.”
“No one at the theater knew me.”
“And how long did you expect to keep up the charade?”
When Grace didn’t have an answer, her father shook his head. “As I suspected! You paid no thought for any consequences. I’d not have believed a daughter of mine capable of such behavior.”
Still Grace remained silent. She could not let him rattle her. Not this time, not now that she’d glimpsed another life.
“You cannot be so cavalier of your mother’s memory.”
Grace clasped her hands in her lap, felt bone grind on bone. Her ribs still ached from his blows. “My mother did not expect her husband to lay hands upon her daughter.”
“What the devil are you talking about? I’ve never laid hands on you in my life—not that you don’t deserve it. If you were a child, I’d have every justification for laying you across my knees and teaching you your duty.”
Grace jumped up. She was taller than her father by several inches, and half his width. “You don’t remember what you did the night I ran away?”
“I did nothing. You cannot begin to comprehend my shock when I realized you were gone—and concern I might add, although I see now that it was sorely misplaced. You were hardly worried about my feelings when you exposed yourself onstage—little better than a harlot. At least I have Providence to thank that I was in the audience and was able find you after.”
“Why were you there, Father?” Grace asked, distracted for a moment. “You despise the theater.”
To Grace’s surprise, her father’s cheeks flushed. He turned toward the mantel and absently stroked a figurine of a shepherdess that had once belonged to Grace’s mother. “Not that it is any business of yours,” he said to the wall, “but an acquaintance of mine procured a ticket for me. I deemed it polite to accept.”
“I was not aware that you knew anyone in London.”
“You are misinformed.” He turned back to her, his expression again angry. “I can at least thank God you were well disguised in that absurd costume.”
Grace walked closer to her father and with one hand held back the hair she’d arranged to cover her forehead. “This is what you did to me, Father—and you shoved me so hard my ribs are bruised.”
“Ridiculous! I have no time for such nonsense.” He pushed past her without even glancing at her forehead. “You are deluded.”
* * *
Mr. Kemble still wore the costume of an oriental potentate. The turban, crouched like a plump peacock on top of his head, added another foot to the man’s already-considerable height. Black soot outlined his eyes, and a robe shot with gold swept to his knees. A jeweled belt cinched his waist.
“Who was she?” he demanded.
Ned gripped his hands behind his back and took a deep breath.
“Ned?”
“Her name’s Grace, sir. She was, ah, stopping with me for a few days. Agnes was out sick, sir, and Grace being willing and all and the right size for Agnes’s costume, well, she stepped up, like.”
“And you did not see fit to inform me? I am still manager of this establishment, am I not?”
“Yes, sir, sorry, sir. There weren’t time. And no one heard, sir. Did they? The orchestra was loud, and she was at the back.”
“I heard.”
“Sir.” Ned knew better than to give more excuses—Mr. Kemble loathed excuses—so he stared at the floor, feeling like he was six years old and being scolded by Mrs. King at the Foundling Hospital. What had he been thinking putting the only good job he’d ever had at risk? He’d end up back on the streets, lucky to get taken on to push a dust cart, ringing a large bell and calling Dust O!
Mr. Kemble paced the length of the room. A rack of costumes lined an entire wall, and a jumble of hats, gloves, and belts covered a small table. He stopped abruptly and turned on Ned. “Did I not warn you, Ned, the last time you let Renfrew go onstage when he was drunk? I have a mind to dismiss you now and be done with it.”
Ned stayed silent. He hadn’t prayed since he was a lad and couldn’t find the words, so he just waited. His fate was in Mr. Kemble’s hands, anyway. Praying couldn’t do any good.
Mr. Kemble stopped pacing and slid into the chair in front of a burnished mirror. For several minutes, Ned waited and watched, the only sound the clinking of pots full of chalk and pigment powders that Kemble’s hand brushed past in his efforts to clean the heavy stage makeup from his face.
“Are you familiar with the story of Miss Peg Woffington?” he asked without looking at Ned. Leaning close to the mirror, he wiped a scrap of linen across the smudges of black cork above his eyes.
“What? No, sir.” At least Mr. Kemble was still talking. That was something. Maybe he’d steer clear of the dust cart after all.
“I don’t suppose you could have. She died back in the sixties.” He put down the linen and turned to face Ned. “Miss Woffington was an Irish actress of some renown. She also lived quite openly with David Garrick, among many others, but that scandal is not relevant to our purpose. The point is that she was discovered singing on the street in her native Dublin and rose to become one of England’s finest actresses.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yo
u don’t get my drift?”
“Ah, no, sir. Sorry, sir.” Ned hoped Mr. Kemble would get on with it. If he wasn’t going to get the sack, then he had a thousand things to do to put the theater to bed for the night.
“This girl who sang, she’s got the potential to be another Peg Woffington. Do you understand?”
“Not really, sir.”
Mr. Kemble sighed loudly, his dark brows furred into one thick line above piercing black eyes famous for making the ladies in the boxes swoon. “Bring her to me, Ned. I may have a position for her next season.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me. I can forgive you for bringing her into the theater without my consent, although I ask that you never do such a thing again. But I cannot be angry about her voice. Have her come see me tomorrow afternoon.” He nodded toward the door. “Now get back to your duties, man. I’d like the theater closed up before dawn.”
Ned bolted from the room.
* * *
Ned went first to Mr. Harrison’s room to look for Grace. He was surprised to find Olympia, her eyes red from crying. He rushed forward and grabbed her arm. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Why are you crying?” For a moment, he forgot all about Mr. Kemble and the pressing need to bring Grace to the great man or risk losing his job.
Olympia looked down at his hand on her arm and then back up at him. “Grace is gone, Ned.”
He dropped his hand and stood back. “What do you mean gone?”
“We was walking out into the Piazza, and this man came to stand in front of us—like a brick wall, he was. He wouldn’t step aside when I asked him to. At first, I thought he’d taken us for Cyprians, but then Grace didn’t move when I tried pulling her away. She looked at him like . . .” Olympia shuddered. “I don’t know what, but her face got deathly pale, and I was afraid she’d swoon.”
“Did he lay hands on her?” Ned had not expected the anger that flushed through him like a cold rain in November. It was not as if he had improper feelings for Grace. If anything, he felt a kind of warm regard that had nothing to do with desire. But he did know that he’d cheerfully disable any man who tried to harm her.
“No, not like that. He just held out his hand palm down like you would to a child. And she took it.” Olympia’s lips quivered, and it was all Ned could do not to wrap her in an embrace. Instead, he waited patiently, arms at his sides.
“Did she say anything?”
“She told me not to worry, that she was in no danger. And then before I could think what to do, she was walking away with him to a carriage.”
“Did you see a crest? Footmen?”
“No, it was a hackney coach.” Olympia sank to the only other chair in Mr. Harrison’s room and gratefully accepted the cup of hot tea he’d made the moment she’d slammed open the stage door. “I should have stopped her.”
“Sounds as if she went freely,” Ned said. “You said this man didn’t force her?”
“No, but oh, Ned, her face! I’ve never seen anyone look like that before—so resigned—as if she knew there was no escape.”
Ned rested one hand on Olympia’s warm shoulder and was gratified when she didn’t pull away. Olympia was the only one of the young actresses who treated Ned like he was more than a big lad to be flirted with.
“We didn’t have much hope of keeping her,” he said. Now that he knew Olympia was safe, all he could think about was what on earth he’d tell Mr. Kemble.
* * *
Alec slapped Ned on the back as they walked into the Piazza. “What’s wrong with you? She’s just another dolly, and there’s no shortage of them around here. And if you’re not wanting to avail yourself of the local talent, then come with me to Miz Gellie’s. Daisy’s got some fine-looking friends.”
A man held out a basket brimming with flat cakes of hot, spiced gingerbread. Alec threw him a halfpenny and took up the cake in both grubby hands.
“I’m not looking for a whore,” Ned said. “And it ain’t like that with Grace.”
“You just keep telling yerself that.” Alec transferred his cake to one hand and dodged out of the way of Ned’s fist. “So she’s gone off, and you got no idea where? Is that about the size of it?”
“Pretty much. I got to find her, Alec. Mr. Kemble heard her sing last night, and now he wants to meet her. He thinks she might be a great talent. I can’t tell him that I don’t know where she is. Hell, I don’t even know her surname.”
“She’s ladylike, right?”
“That’s how she talks.”
“That’s a start. Did she mention any family? Friends?”
“Just her father, and she didn’t want me to know that he was the one what beat her up. She did say once that she’s not been in London long. Came up from some place in the West Country.”
“You remember where?”
“Naw—Cleve something. Does it matter?”
“It could.” Alec hopped back and forth on small feet, bits of gingerbread spraying the cobblestones like dried currants. A plump rat slipped between Alec’s legs and swiped tiny claws at the crumbs.
“If you’ve got an idea how to find her, then tell me. I got until this afternoon.”
“Did you check our room?”
“What? Why? She wouldn’t leave nothin’ there.”
“Yer sure ’bout that?”
Ned stared at Alec and then smiled. “No, I ain’t. Come on then. Let’s go take a look-see.”
* * *
“I’ve made up my mind,” Tobias Johnson said the next morning at breakfast, which he took with Grace—an unusual occurrence. “We leave in a week. I trust you will be ready.”
“Leave?” Grace asked. “Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“To Clevedon?” Grace stared at her father, her heart racing. “You said we needed to start again, that London was where you could find your way after Mama . . .” Her voice trailed off. She could not return to Clevedon, to a life of solitude with no mother to lighten the days, not after what she’d seen at the theater.
“I was wrong,” her father said. “I miss the sea. This house does not suit me.” He rose from the table and stood aside, waiting for Grace to precede him into the sitting room. No candles had been lit to soften the shadows cast in the half light of a spring morning on a cloudy day.
“I can’t go with you,” Grace said.
“And how do you propose to stay in London? Have you a husband waiting in the wings? I won’t give you money, and there’s nothing you can do to earn your keep.” Grace sat in a hard chair while Tobias settled himself in a stuffed chair next to the fireplace. He stretched out legs grown too stout for his tight breeches. Two unshined brass-buckled shoes gleamed dully. Grace was glad her mother could not see how her death had reduced the man she’d called her husband for over twenty years.
“That’s not true,” she said.
“I suppose you think you’ll get an engagement with that theater.”
“Mama used to say that my voice was as good as any professional’s.”
“Your doting mother’s opinion is irrelevant to this discussion.” Tobias crossed thick arms across a sunken chest. “She knew nothing about the theater.”
“I want to try.” Grace rose from her chair and stepped toward her father. “Will you at least allow me to do that?”
“Make a fool of yourself?” He shook his head. “No.”
“I could ask my aunt if I may stay with her. I won’t need much money to live.”
“Augusta?” To Grace’s surprise, her father’s scowl deepened. She knew he’d never had anything good to say about his wife’s sister, but there was something menacing in his expression that she’d never seen before.
“She wrote to me,” Grace said.
“What’s this?” He gripped the arms of the chair with his hands and started to rise. “Show me.”
Grace stepped back. “I, ah, I no longer have the letter.”
Tobias settled back into his seat. “Whatever it says, you can depend u
pon it that Augusta is no friend of yours. And even if she were, I’m not giving you money to live in London. No, Grace, you will return with me to Clevedon, and that’s an end of it. I do not wish to live alone, and your place is with me.”
“I said that I cannot go with you, Father.”
For a man well into his fifties and not in robust health, Tobias Johnson moved much faster than Grace thought possible. He shot to his feet and gripped her wrist. She tried to step back, but he held on, his fingers tightening.
“I am not afraid of you.” She kept her voice steady, trusting that he was too distracted by his own anger to notice her flushed cheeks or hear the pounding of her heart. She breathed shallowly, her ribs still sore. Surely he’d not dare hit her again, not after he’d sworn that he’d not struck her the first time. Grace kept her eyes on his, noting with some satisfaction that even when standing, he had to crane his head back to meet her gaze.
“No?” He drew back one hand and slapped her hard across the side of the head.
The room exploded. Grace fell back against the side of the fireplace. He lunged forward to grab hold of her again. She flung her arm up and swept from the mantel to the hearth the figurine of a shepherdess swathed in a white toga and cradling a lamb.
Tobias teetered back on his heels and fell back into his chair, his reddened palm outstretched as if to catch the figurine before it hit the hearth tiles. But he was too late. Brightly painted shards scattered and bounced. He let out a low moan. “That was your mother’s favorite! She brought it with her when we married.”
Grace staggered to her feet and clutched the mantel with both hands. Only the head of the shepherdess—her red smile painted and pert—remained intact. She remembered her mother stroking the length of the figurine from tight curls to sandaled feet with one finger, her face clouded with memories she never shared with Grace.
Tobias nudged the head with one scuffed toe. “She said it was one of a pair but that she’d lost the other one.”
Her father man slumped into the chair next to the fire, his eyes closing, blue-veined hands splayed across his knees. The burning of her cheek was nothing to the shame that twisted her heart. Her father blamed her for the death of her mother, and nothing she could say or do could change that—or bring her mother back.
The Muse of Fire Page 5