The Muse of Fire

by Carol M. Cram

  “Mr. Kemble and his partners are going to be stretched to the limit to recoup expenses,” said the second man.

  The third man cut in. “If you ask me, the whole enterprise is absurd. Admission prices are bound to rise.”

  “Yes, but you must agree that would be a good thing.”

  “How so?”

  “Higher prices will keep out undesirables.”

  “True,” the second man said. He had large teeth and blotchy cheeks. “They never should have pushed the start time for performances to past six o’clock.”

  “Now every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks they’ve a right to come in.”

  “Drawn to the dreadful melo-drames and spectacles, more’s the pity.” The older man shook his head. “I’ve heard that the New Theatre is going to be enormous—bigger even than the last one. The words of our great poets are lost in such cavernous spaces.”

  “There is nothing to be gained watching an actor’s lips move when we cannot hear the words,” said the pink-chinned man.

  “Can’t be helped,” said the dark-haired man. “Old Kemble will reap his profits even if it’s at the expense of art.”

  “Shall we join a table?”

  “Quite.”

  Grace sat very still. Brandy-fueled voices doubled the sound level in the room, and the candles seemed to burn hotter. She imagined herself on the stage of the New Theatre. She’d heard that it was designed to seat more than three thousand spectators. What would it be like to speak lines into such a space?

  “Grace?”

  She looked up, startled. “Mr. Renfrew?”

  “At your service.”

  “What are you doing here? Are you a friend of our hostess?” Surprise robbed her of manners.

  “Friend is perhaps too strong a word. I am the younger brother of Mrs. Partridge, our host’s wife.” Mr. Renfrew gestured to the free chair next to Grace. “May I?”

  “Please.” She could hardly refuse him and make a scene in the drawing room.

  “I trust you are well, Miss Green,” he said. Away from the theater, his bluster was somewhat diminished, replaced by a kind of awkward attempt at urbanity that did not suit him. He’d even grown a pencil-thin mustache that sat above his upper lip with all the elegance of a severed mouse tail.

  “I am Mrs. Knowlton now.”

  “Ah, you have married since we last met?” Like twigs against a sunset sky, strands of thinning hair covered a ruddy-skinned skull.

  “Obviously.” Grace nodded toward Percival, who was deep in conversation with an elderly matron across the room. “My husband is Percival Knowlton. Have you met?”

  “No, although I believe my sister is acquainted with his mother. Now that you are married, you perhaps do not wish to be reminded of the past.” He bared his teeth in a smile. “We did not part as friends.”

  “That is true, Mr. Renfrew, but since we now find ourselves in the same room, we can, I’m sure, be civil. Did you attend the laying-of-the-stone ceremony yesterday?”

  “It was a damp affair, but we are all happy to see the New Theatre on its way.”

  “I wish Mr. Kemble well with it.”

  “You will return in the fall?”

  “I do not know. My husband . . .” Grace glanced over at Percival. He had promised to help her, but as the months wore on, she could not help worrying. Five nights out of seven he arranged for them to go out to dinners, dances, whist parties—the extent of his acquaintance in London was alarmingly large. Every day, the likelihood that he’d allow her to return to the stage grew dimmer.

  A group of musicians at the other end of the room struck up a jig. Ladies rose with alacrity; the younger men moved among them in search of the fairest hands. The melee of pairing up soon resolved into ten couples forming along the length of the room. The successful women flushed with anticipation; the rejected ones settled, with bruised hopes, into chairs lining the dancing area.

  Percival strolled over.

  “This is Mr. Renfrew, Percival,” she said. “From the theater.”

  “Good evening to you, sir.” Percival scarcely moved the air with his bow before leaning down to speak with Grace. “You do not care to dance, my dear?”

  “No, thank you. I am no dancer.”

  With a brusque nod, Percival moved off as Mr. Renfrew rose to his feet. “I am pleased to have met with you again, Grace, Mrs. Knowlton,” he said. “My sister is waving for me to join a whist table. Good evening.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Renfrew.” She inclined her head in response to his bow and then snapped open her fan. Red poppies flashed in the candlelight. She stood and walked to the edge of the dance floor. Couples whirled and laughed.

  “Will you dance?”

  The youngest of the men who had spoken earlier about the New Theatre bowed and offered his hand.

  Grace caught Percival’s surprised look across the room. She turned to the gentleman and smiled.

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  Chapter 15

  I have no spur

  To prick the sides of my intent, but only

  Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself,

  And falls on th’ other . . .

  Macbeth (1.7.24–28)

  The last time Grace had seen her father’s house high on a cliff above Clevedon, she was still in mourning for her mother. She’d certainly never expected to enter the musty sitting room on Percival’s arm. Her father rose as they entered. He swayed slightly, one hand wrapped around a full glass of wine.

  “You must think yourself very clever, marrying your cousin so you can keep your hold on my property,” he said by way of greeting.

  “No, Father, I do not think that.”

  Tobias turned to Percival. “You played a pretty trick on me, sir.”

  “It was no trick, sir. I love Grace.”

  Grace glanced at her husband in surprise. Love? What was this? He’d never said, and surely it was impossible in the face of her indifference. She took her seat and said nothing. The sitting room at the house near Clevedon that Grace had lived in for most of her life was as small and dark as ever. Her father walked over to the window. Against the white glare of the late-January day, he turned into a black wraith with no distinguishing features. Beyond the window stretched an unkempt expanse of brown grass—a view as confining as the dankest prison. The sea in all its shimmering glory was not visible—a defect in the placement of the house that had always depressed the spirits of Grace’s mother. She often complained that the house should be moved a few hundred feet closer to the cliff edge. No matter how many times Grace’s father explained that, first, the house could not be moved and, second, the current aspect protected them from the ferocious winter winds, Charlotte refused to relent. She professed herself exempt from tedious logic. In rare moments of connection, Grace traded resigned looks with her father behind her mother’s back.

  She did not dare look at Percival, although she sensed him looking at her.

  “I suppose you plan on staying with me,” Tobias said.

  “We wrote to you, Father, and you replied with an invitation.”

  “Did I? More the fool I. Can’t imagine what I was thinking. But I can’t turn you out, considering Percival’s claim on the place.”

  “You are very gracious, Father,” Grace said. The smell of wine encasing her father like a thick London fog made him impervious to sarcasm. Percival, however, was not. She heard him stifle a laugh.

  “I was on my way out,” Tobias said. “Business in the town.”

  “Percival and I will take a walk along the cliffs until your return.”

  “We are grateful, sir, for your hospitality.”

  “Tell her to show you the place.”

  “Sir?”

  “Good afternoon, Father. We shall see you at dinner.” Grace seized Percival’s arm and steered him out of the sitting room into the narrow, dark hallway. “This way,” she said grimly. “The path to the cliffs starts behind the house.” She should never have agreed to
come to Clevedon. But Percival had been so insistent. He believed that reconciliation with her father was not only desirable but possible.

  He had no idea.

  “Slow down, Grace. Your father will be out for some time. We have no need to rush.”

  She didn’t reply as she passed through the kitchen to the back door. As soon as she was outside, she let go of Percival’s arm and ran ahead along the path bounded by a high hedge that led through the garden to a gate. Without stopping to wait for Percival, she flung open the gate and emerged onto the path that led to the cliff edge. Spreading her arms wide, she embraced the wind like an old friend—her only friend. Grace had always loved the sea, loved the wind whipping off cream-topped waves, loved the fresh edges and clean smells. So often growing up she had escaped to the cliffs to avoid her father’s rages and her mother’s silences.

  “I say!” Percival said when he came to stand next to her. “This is a fine view. I so rarely get to see the ocean.”

  “It’s the Bristol Channel, Percival.”

  “You have missed your calling, Grace.”

  “How so?”

  “If you’d been a man, you would have made a fine lawyer. Fancy quibbling at my calling this stretch of water an ocean! I see waves and water and wind. What more do I need?” He offered her his arm. “Shall we walk?” Below the cliff swirled gray water bubbling with foam. Seabirds dipped and soared through a brittle blue sky. A freezing wind reddened their cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Grace,” Percival said, breaking the silence after several minutes. “I did not realize.”

  “Surely my father’s changing his will must have been a clue as to his state of mind concerning me.”

  “I see that now, but at the time, I was thinking only about the increase to my fortune. Can you forgive me?”

  “My agreeing to marry you is forgiveness enough.”

  “You are coldhearted, Grace.”

  “I have learned to be rational. As you well know, marrying you was my only option in the circumstances.”

  Percival said nothing. As they walked on in silence, Grace was surprised to find herself wishing that she could think more fondly of Percival. She wondered if his reasons for marrying her were more to his credit than she wanted to admit.

  “Your father . . . ,” Percival began and then stopped.

  “Please, go on.”

  “Your father’s actions are not those of an honorable man,” he said quickly. “Forgive me.”

  “You don’t need to spare my feelings, Percival. My father has rarely been amiable.” She took a deep breath. Perhaps now was the time to finally tell Percival the truth. Up ahead, the path narrowed, bounded on one side by a stone wall and on the other by a sheer drop to the shingled beach below. This was the place. She broke away from Percival and rested gloved hands against the wall. The wind had been sharp that day as well, but not so frosty. It had been April—a bright and breezy day in April.

  “My father blames me for my mother’s death,” she said quickly before she could change her mind. A line from Richard III came to her. An honest tale speeds best being plainly told. Yes, the tale she had to tell was honest. Painfully honest.

  “You told me it was an accident.”

  Grace shook her head. “My father does believe it. He tells me that I am at fault.” She paused, the hurt not lessened by time. “He said it was my clumsiness that crashed the gig—that if it hadn’t been for my poor driving, we’d never have overturned.”

  Percival came to stand next to her, but he did not touch her. His presence reassured her, emboldened her. She’d never spoken of the accident to anyone except her father.

  “My mother often suffered from bouts of melancholy, Percival. She responded sometimes to fresh air, so that morning I decided to take her out. She was particularly low. Most of the time, when my father was home, they maintained a civil silence, but the night before, they had quarreled—violently. I heard him shouting, but I could not make out the words. The next morning my mother would not rise from the sofa. I begged her to let me take her out for a drive to restore her spirits. She did not want to go.” Grace gulped a ragged breath that tasted of the sea. “I persisted.”

  “And your father? Why did he not try to stop you if he was worried about your driving?”

  “That was the strange thing. He did not. In fact, he told old Patrick, our groom, to harness the horse to the new gig that he’d bought just the week before and to lead it out to the pathway along the cliff top. I had not yet driven the gig, and for my first time, I’d have preferred to drive farther inland where the track was smoother and easier for the horse. But my father—I remember him saying that sea air was what my mother needed.”

  “And so you took her out and . . . ?”

  “The track was rocky, just as I expected. I still can’t say what happened. I was driving carefully along the cliff edge, and my mother had roused herself enough to speak to me.” Grace paused, remembering the words that were to be her mother’s last. She shook her head and continued. “One minute my mother was talking, and then the next minute the horse bolted. I don’t know why. It was a calm day with little wind.”

  “Had an animal run across the path?”

  “I’m sure I would have seen it, and an animal would not have startled the mare. She was a placid horse.”

  “What happened next?”

  “The horse reared up, and I lost control of her. She crashed her shoulder into the wall . . . this wall. The gig overturned, and I was thrown clear. But my mother . . .”

  “Do not distress yourself, my dear. I understand.”

  Before Grace could object, he gathered her in his arms, held her close, her cheek softening against the fine wool of his jacket. For a few blessed moments, she let herself feel safe.

  And then she pulled away and started back in the direction of her father’s house, not turning to see if he followed.

  * * *

  Grace and Percival stayed three days in Clevedon—three days of dreary dinners and dark looks and the anguish of being reminded of her mother at every turn. Percival thankfully did not ask again about the accident that had taken Charlotte Johnson’s life. He engaged Tobias in conversation about politics and accompanied Grace on silent walks along the cliff top. In the long evenings, he did not object when she retired early.

  On her last afternoon in Clevedon, when Percival and her father had gone into the town, Grace finally entered her mother’s room. She sat on the bed and let herself remember.

  In death, her mother’s radiant face was a soft mask, the eye sockets sunken, the cheeks flaccid. A layer of blankets hid most of her broken body. Grace gently placed her mother’s hand over her mother’s heart. The flesh felt solid, like one of Mrs. Gale’s overstuffed sausages. Grace wanted to be weeping. Why was her heart not breaking? It beat its regular rhythm in her chest—the pulse of life forever denied her mother.

  Charlotte Johnson looked smaller in death, as if she’d already started shrinking back into her bones. Grace wanted to reach up and catch her mother’s soul before it ascended to heaven.

  “Mercutio’s soul is but a little way above our heads.”

  Yes, that was exactly right. Shakespeare always got it right. Her mother’s soul was but a little way above Grace’s head. Was it too far to grasp back? Just two nights earlier, Grace’s father had been away from home, leaving Grace and her mother free to indulge their favorite pastime. They’d read Othello that night, but many other times, they’d sighed over Romeo and Juliet.

  Grace lifted her eyes to the ceiling. A brown water stain bloomed across the plaster. When her father was at home, he never concerned himself with house maintenance. He was gone again from the house, but this time it was to make arrangements for her mother’s burial.

  The emptiness vanished in a sudden, sharp pain—like a squall battering the cliffs below the house. Grace’s heart fractured in two. She let one long, low sob escape and then breathed it back. She saw her father’s face dark with fury. He
’d stood above her like an avenging angel, his fists clenched, iron-colored curls wild in the wind.

  “Murderer.”

  Grace smoothed a wisp of blonde hair off her mother’s cold forehead and bent to kiss her cheek.

  The door latch turned, and Mrs. Gale lumbered into the room. “Ma’am? I’m sorry to disturb you, but I thought as you’d want to see this.”

  Grace glanced up from the empty bed. Mrs. Gale had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. Charlotte had often said that she could never do without Mrs. Gale. “Yes?”

  “This here, it belonged to your mother, ma’am,” said Mrs. Gale. She filled the small room like rising dough. “The master don’t know about it, but I be thinking as you should have it. She’d have liked that.”

  Grace took the small wooden box from Mrs. Gale and opened it. She gasped. The box overflowed with glittering pieces of jewelry—rubies, emeralds, sapphires, pearls, all set into sparkling tiaras and golden bracelets and necklaces thick as ropes.

  “What’s this?” Her mother had never worn any jewelry except a plain amber cross. Grace picked up a string of pearls that were each the size of her thumbnail.

  “They’s glass and paste, of course,” Mrs. Gale said, “but your ma thought the world of them.”

  “Why have I never seen them before?”

  “Don’t know, ma’am. Your ma, she had things from her past that she didn’t want anyone to know about.”

  “What things?” Grace wanted to shake the housekeeper. “What are you talking about?”

  “Beggin’ pardon, ma’am, I’ve said more than I should. I just thought you’d be wanting the box and all, seeing as you be married now. The master never comes into your mother’s room, but I keep it dusted and swept in memory of her. I’m not sure your father ever knew about the box. Your ma was very particular to keep it well hid. She had a special place for it at the back of the closet. No one else but me knew about it.” Mrs. Gale’s broad face quivered. “You’ll not be telling the master, would you?”