“Ah.” Percival turned to Grace. “I suggest we go in, my dear. My mother will be waiting on us.”
“Tell my aunt I will be in shortly,” Grace said. “I wish to talk with Ned.”
“I should like to announce the good news to Mama without delay.”
“I have not given you an answer.”
“No, but I believe you will. Do not be long.” He touched the brim of his top hat to Ned and then mounted the steps to his mother’s front door.
“What good news?” Ned asked as soon as the door closed behind Percival.
Grace shook her head. “It’s nothing. My cousin has made a mistake. So why are you here? Did the theater not forward my letters to Olympia? Please tell me something hasn’t happened to her. How is everyone in the company? I miss them all so much!”
“I don’t know about any letters. Mr. Brandon—he’s the box office keeper? He’s out this week, so happen he didn’t get them to send on. Or could be Mr. Renfrew kept hold of ’em. He was workin’ in the office this week.”
“Mr. Renfrew is not my friend,” Grace said ruefully.
“Maybe not, but he don’t make the decisions. And Olympia’s fine. She told me that she can’t wait to see you.”
“How did you know to come here?”
“I didn’t really, not the exact house and all, but remember when you stayed with me?”
“I’m not likely to forget.”
“You left a letter there. From your aunt. I figured you might have come here, and if you hadn’t, I’d ask around a bit, find out where she lived.”
“You were willing to take all that trouble to find me? Why? I’m sure you’re not here just to tell me that Olympia misses me.”
“With any luck, she’ll be seeing lots more of you soon.”
“How?”
“I come direct from Mr. Kemble, Grace. He wants you in the company.”
Grace stared at Ned and then started to laugh.
Chapter 11
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
Macbeth (4.1.10–11)
The company warmly welcomed Grace back. Little Tommy presented her with a posy he’d bought in the market, and Mr. Harrison kissed her cheek. Any doubts she had about turning down Percival were quickly dispelled. How could she even consider any other future? Her aunt had threatened to throw her out on the street, but Percival, surprisingly, had taken Grace’s part with his mother and did not appear to despise her for refusing him. She felt a tiny nugget of disappointment. She had been used to thinking of Percival as a haughty, proud man with no claim on her affections. She hadn’t expected to like him.
But all that was past now! She was back at the theater, and although still living with her aunt, Grace was confident that within a year or two she’d rise through the ranks and begin making enough money to afford a tolerable independence. Perhaps she and Olympia could find lodgings together. Grace knew Olympia hated living with her mother and the general.
Mr. Renfrew made his displeasure at her return known to Grace and by extension Olympia, but he had the sense to keep his opinion from Mr. Kemble. He welcomed Grace with his usual stiff formality and assigned her to the chorus for the opening night performance of Pizarro. She made no objection. She’d keep her head down and her ears open, and spend every morning learning the parts that she’d one day play onstage.
Olympia had told her once that Mrs. Siddons was renowned for how carefully she studied the texts to prepare for her performances. Well, Grace would work just as hard. The future was paved with opportunities. Maybe London really would be the place for dreams.
* * *
Ned knew he should be tending to the thousand and one backstage details that cropped up during every performance, but several nights after the start of the fall season, he couldn’t resist stopping in the wings to watch Olympia onstage in a breeches role. She was playing Rosalind in As You Like It and looked enchanting. She wore a pair of red breeches, wide at the hips and ending at garters just below the knees, her ankles shapely in soft leather boots. A wide lace collar framed her face above a tightly fitted gold jacket.
The audience—disappointed that the role was not being taken as it usually was by Mrs. Dora Jordan—hissed and booed during Olympia’s first scene. Any actress who took a role associated with the most famous principals ran the risk of inciting the ire of the crowd. Fortunately, after a few minutes’ uproar—mostly from the young men in the pit—the crowd quieted and allowed Olympia to charm them.
In Ned’s opinion, Olympia at the age of twenty-four made a much more convincing Rosalind than Mrs. Jordan, a mother of ten children with the Duke of Clarence. In her day, she had been the toast of London, but at close to fifty, Ned thought she was getting a bit too old to be squeezing herself into breeches.
Ned stood aside to let Olympia pass as she skipped offstage, smiling broadly, the applause still ringing in her ears.
“Oh, Ned!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe it!”
“You’ve won them over, to be sure.” Ned only just stopped himself from wrapping his arms around her and lifting her off her feet, then carrying her to the paint room where they could . . . He blushed and turned away. Who did he think he was? After this night’s performance, Olympia Adams could well be on her way to becoming one of the principals herself—a star to be fawned over and celebrated. She’d then be even less likely to consort with a lowly orphan from the Foundling Hospital. She deserved the best, did Olympia.
And the best wasn’t Ned Plantagenet.
* * *
Ten days after opening night, Grace waited in the wings to go on with the chorus at the end of yet another production of Pizarro. Since starting at the theater, she’d several times sung her heart out in the chorus and had the satisfaction of hearing Mr. Kemble tell her she was coming along well. She hadn’t had the nerve to ask him when he’d offer her an acting part, but she knew it was only a matter of time. Mrs. Siddons, wonderful as she was, could not take on all the tragic roles. To be sure, the company included a handful of younger actresses all vying for parts, but Grace was not worried. Her voice was by far the strongest, and she’d been working diligently on her acting. Almost every day, she practiced with Olympia, who had no taste for tragedy herself but knew how to project her voice and wring emotions out of the text.
Mr. Renfrew barreled offstage and handed her the still-smoking prop gun that he’d use to shoot Rolla, played with incomparable zeal by Mr. Kemble. Grace was too surprised to do what she should have done, which was throw the gun right back at him. Mr. Renfrew had barely spoken to her since her return to the theater. He had not forgiven her for Bath and, worse, for coming back to the theater at Mr. Kemble’s invitation. Grace had already resolved to keep well out of his way, although when Mr. Kemble finally got around to giving her real acting roles, she’d inevitably be acting opposite Mr. Renfrew.
The prop gun was heavy and still hot.
“Come on, Grace!” Olympia ran up and grabbed Grace’s hand just as a flourish of trumpets signaled the start of the funeral procession that ended the play about the conquest of Peru by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro.
Grace dropped the gun onto a table piled with scripts. Ned would see to it later. With Olympia, she joined several young women dressed as Incan priestesses to walk alongside six male utilities dressed in pagan priest costumes and carrying Rolla, the doomed Incan commander, on his funeral bier. Grace and the other girls chanted a dirge while the actor and actress playing Alonzo and Cora knelt on either side of the bier and kissed Rolla’s hands, their expressions somber with the misery of loss.
The pathetic scene ended finally with the slow descent of the curtain. The cheers and calls of the audience shook the stage. Grace squeezed Olympia’s hand.
“Aren’t you glad you refused your cousin?” Olympia asked as the curtain rose again.
Grace stepped forward with the other actresses and swept into a curtsy. Nothing could stop her now�
�not her father nor her aunt nor even the memory of the accident that had claimed her mother’s life. She would learn to replace the past with this glittering present and an even more enchanting future.
* * *
The mildness of the September night suited Ned’s good mood as he walked the short distance from the stage door on Bow Street to Hart Street and home. The theater had been open for less than two weeks, and so far no crises had marred any of the performances. Grace was settling in nicely, Olympia was still basking in her triumphal turn as Rosalind, and Mr. Renfrew was keeping out of Ned’s way. And as for Mr. Kemble, he reigned with his usual stern benevolence over them all.
That evening, both the play and the afterpiece had gone off well. All the actors and actresses attended to their cues, and Mr. Kemble himself took the trouble to commend Ned for making sure the prop gun fired as planned in the climax of Pizarro. Ned had spent a fair bit of time fussing over the gun used to shoot Rolla. The wadding needed to be dry and the small explosion neither too loud nor too soft.
He remembered seeing Mr. Renfrew, who had fired the gun, hand it to Grace, who was standing in the wings waiting to go on for the finale. He’d not had a chance to ask Grace where she’d put the gun, but surely she’d know enough to place it on one of the property tables. He should have checked before leaving for the night, but the truth was that he was done in. Every production of Pizarro was a nightmare for the backstage crew—the spectacular sets, large cast, and multiple effects required split-second timing. The production even included a collapsing bridge. Ned promised himself to go to the theater early the next day and have a good look around to make sure everything was neat and tidy for the evening performances.
Four hours after he fell exhausted onto his bed, Ned woke up so suddenly that he wasn’t even sure he’d slept. He sat up and peered into the darkness, his head still stuffed with sleep. In the distance, the church bells struck five, and then into the silence following the last peel burst the one word capable of striking the most fear into the hearts of all city dwellers.
“Fire!”
Ned bounded out of bed and dashed to the window. A pillar of flame shot into the night sky. He called out for Alec and then saw that his bed was empty. Ned pulled on a shirt and his boots and clattered down the stairs to Hart Street and raced toward the Piazza. He’d gone only a few yards when he crashed into a dark form running around the corner from Russell Street.
“Oy!”
“Alec!” Ned recognized his friend only by his voice. He looked like a stick of charcoal set against the flames licking the black sky ahead of them. “What’s bloody ’appened? I woke up real sudden and saw the fire from our window.”
“We ain’t had no warning—no smoke, nothing!” Alec cried. “I was comin’ out of Miz Gellie’s place—having my time with Daisy. There was this awful noise and then so many flames. I swear I could see to read if I was able. Come on! We’ll go round to the Bow Street entrance.”
Ned ran with Alec toward the theater. Watchmen swinging rattles joined them, the crackling din competing with the roar of the fire. People—most still in nightclothes—emerged from houses on both sides of the street. Shrieks of terror brought the dead night to life.
The Piazza Coffee House burst into flames along with three tall houses on the other side of Hart Street. Ned and Alec rounded the corner into the Piazza just as several water engines drawn by neighing, stamping horses pulled up in front of the theater. A half dozen firemen surged through the front entrance. Across the Piazza, Covent Garden market disgorged hundreds of people. At this time of the morning, the market was packed with farmers and merchants bringing their goods in from the countryside.
“We should go into the theater!” Ned cried. “Get out what we can.”
“No!” Alec grabbed Ned’s arm and pulled him away. “We’d best find water.” Bright embers glowed in Alec’s shock of black hair. Ned lunged forward and swatted at his friend’s head.
“Never mind that. We got to help.”
Ned followed Alec to the market where they plunged into a melee of screaming people. Alec found a bucket and filled it with water from a rain barrel. He passed it to Ned, who yelled for others to help. The bucket bobbed from hand to hand, finally splashing into the flames to produce a fizzle of smoke. Ned broke from the line and ran toward the theater. He had to get close enough to salvage what the firemen brought out.
A blazing piece of debris fell at his feet. He recognized one of the wooden stage swords, its gold-painted hilt charred black. All around him bits of stage life fluttered to the ground from a scarlet sky. Ned kicked at scraps of costume, fragments of scenery, props, scripts with edges curled and singed. The air was alive with burning splinters tossed by an east wind. He bumped into Mr. Brandon, the box office keeper.
“Mr. Brandon! Are you hurt?”
“What? No. I escaped in time.” He clutched a pile of books and papers. “I got out some of the accounts, but not all. Mr. Kemble will be angry.”
“Mr. Kemble!” Ned looked past Mr. Brandon to where the great man himself stood before the front door of the theater. “No! You must not!” He rushed forward and grabbed his arm. “It’s too dangerous!”
“My theater! I must save it!”
“No, sir. Please, step back. The heat’s too much. You’ll be burned alive.”
Mr. Kemble, his hair wild with sparks, looked like a pagan god. “Stand aside, man,” he said with quiet authority. “You’ll not keep me from it.”
Ned let go of Mr. Kemble’s arm and watched as he strode toward the burning building. Firemen swarmed around the engines, pumping water in streams too weak to quench the flames. For over an hour, Ned scurried back and forth across the Piazza, helping to carry buckets of water, encouraging anyone not able to help to seek safety. To his disgust, the area soon teemed with pickpockets taking advantage of the distracted crowds. Ned caught hold of a lad no older than eight and yanked him off a large man so engrossed in watching the fire that he failed to notice the dirty fingers clutching at his watch. Ned stopped carrying buckets and applied his fists to the pickpockets until, just before sunrise, a troop of Horse Guards clopped into the Piazza and restored order.
As Ned returned to helping fight the fire, he wondered how it could have started. He was always so careful. One of his jobs was to pile blankets soaked with water on either side of the stage before every performance. Their purpose was to smother the first hint of a spark. Once ignited, the heavy curtains and wooden scenery, the densely packed costumes and piles of books and scripts, would provide enough fuel for a fire to feast upon until everything was reduced to ash. The theater had been empty, except for Mr. Brandon, since midnight. Ned was one of the last people to leave, bidding Mr. Brandon goodnight and locking the stage door behind him.
That damn pistol! Ned should have tracked it down and made sure the wadding was fully extinguished.
Was the fire his fault?
Several firemen emerged coughing from the front door of the theater. A few carried props and other objects, but most were empty-handed. Their sweat-striped faces and grim expressions proved the hopelessness of the fight. Ned ran toward them. One of the firemen staggered into him, his eyes streaming. “We can’t stay inside any longer. Get back!”
With a crash loud enough to rouse everyone within a mile of Covent Garden, the roof of the theater caved in.
“Is anyone hurt?” Ned asked the fireman, who just shook his head and with several of his companions lumbered toward the portico to the left of the entranceway to join at least half a dozen firemen operating a water engine under the stone canopy.
Mr. Kemble was talking intently to a fireman. Ned ran to his side. “What can I do, sir?”
“Ah, Ned. They’ve stationed one of their largest engines under the vaulted passage. Help me convince the firemen to move it back. The passage roof is not stable.”
“Don’t you worry, sir,” said the fireman, his teeth flashing in his soot-streaked face. “We’ve got it sorted. The big
engine’s got more water than the others. We’ll save what we can of your property.”
“We should go back into the Piazza, sir,” Ned said. “The firemen know what they’re about.”
“Pray God that is true,” Mr. Kemble said, turning away. Despite the cacophony of bells and screams and clashing pistons from the water engines, his voice was as measured as if he were giving orders to the scene changers. “I will be ruined, Ned.”
Ned kept his hand on Mr. Kemble’s shoulder as he took one step backward and then another, raising his other arm to shield his face from the scorching heat. The theater was a smoking, empty cavern abandoned by most of the firemen, who were now under the stone-vaulted portico, helping to operate the water engine.
Ned and Mr. Kemble had walked only a few yards into the Piazza when the paving stones under their feet shuddered and bucked. A shower of sparks shot skyward and then slowly, with almost balletic grace, began to fall—a parody of the fireworks that in summer burst across the sky above the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. When they were boys, Ned and Alec often snuck out of the Foundling Hospital and ran across the bridge to hide in the bushes and marvel at the spectacle put on for the toffs.
“Run!”
Ned would never forget—no, not until his dying day—the sickening crash of stone striking stone. A blast of heat roared toward him. He sprinted into the open Piazza. His back was being roasted over blazing coals. Later, he’d discover that much of his shirt had been burned away. He swung around to see how he could help others to safety. Mr. Kemble’s long legs had taken him well out of danger, so Ned searched for Alec’s black head. The bells tolled seven. The fire had been raging for over two hours with little progress made to contain it. In the east, a thin strip of light ushered in the morning. Where was Alec? He must have outrun the flames. Alec was a survivor.
Bodies littered the ground, some screaming, others staring with eyes like pinpricks set in bloodshot whites. A few people rushed to help them. Ned ran toward the smoldering portico, sure that at any moment Alec would grab hold of him and laugh at how close they’d come to death. They’d been through plenty of scrapes together. This was just one more.
The Muse of Fire Page 11