“How hoydenish!” Polly exclaimed in lofty tones, but Roderick asked, “What are they like on the inside?”
“Like giant brick-and-mortar barrels—on legs, of course.” I gave a shudder that was only half affected. “They look so fierce by night that I should hesitate to behave in so familiar a fashion with them, though I don’t recall finding them as alarming—or as lifelike—by daylight.”
Thoughts of the strange prehistoric creatures faded from my mind, however, as we mounted the steps of the two terraces and entered the palace itself. It was a remarkable feat in itself, this giant structure of iron and sheet glass, whose chambers were filled with replicas of sculptures and other artistic creations from all over the world, and the long central hall filled with greenery and pools bedecked with water lilies. The vaulted glass roof overhead was invisible against darkness.
The play was to be staged in the south transept, a portion of which had been cleverly laid out to mimic a theater auditorium, with a raised stage fitted with wings, though no curtain. Partitions set off a backstage area. The reception area was set off from the seating area by nothing more than a series of potted palms, those wonderfully versatile objects, and there were long tables in white cloths that would no doubt be furnished with punch and edibles at the conclusion of the entertainment.
Although I sought familiar faces, I had seen none by the time we had to seat ourselves for the performance. The electric light was harsh, and there had been little time for my eyes to adjust. At least the reception would afford a better opportunity to look for acquaintances.
Martin leaned over to address me as some of the lights were extinguished, to my relief, to mark the start of the play. “I believe I’ve seen some old acquaintances,” he said.
“I’ve no doubt. You can become reacquainted after the performance.” I thought I caught sight of the wife of my old leading man Clement Griffiths and gave a little wave.
She turned away as if she had not seen me. It might have been the transition from bright light to dimness, but it might also be that she had not wanted to recognize me.
I reached for Roderick’s hand and held it as electric footlights switched on and Gerhardt Atherton strode onto the stage to address the audience.
At the sight of his familiar form my heart gave a little leap, half affectionate, half anxious. I knew he couldn’t see me with the bright footlights shining into his eyes, but I still found myself holding my breath and clutching Roderick’s hand too tightly.
Atherton looked just the same as I remembered: stout, with artificially dark hair and plump hands covered in rings, he looked out at us over the footlights with a beaming smile on his amiable, double-chinned face. Fond recollections of this man rushed into my mind, dissolving all my doubts and fears. No, Atherton had not changed after all. He was still my dear friend. When he bowed, I applauded until my palms burned beneath my gloves.
“Good evening, kind gentlefolk!” he proclaimed. The round, rich diction of each syllable bespoke his origins as an actor. “How pleased I am to welcome you here this evening to a truly unprecedented entertainment. Thanks to the wonder of electric light, and of course our resident goddess, Narcissa Holm”—he paused for applause—“tonight’s performance of The Scottish Play will be unlike any other you may have beheld. Prepare to be astonished—riveted—thrilled”—here he widened his eyes and dropped his voice to a piercing whisper—“transformed!”
Beside me, Roderick whispered, “Was he always like this?”
I nodded, smiling. Larger than life, that was Gerhardt Atherton.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” he continued, “I ask you to imagine yourselves transported to a desolate plain in Scotland during the reign of good King Duncan nearly eight hundred years ago. A barbaric time. A time of superstition, of witches, and of bloody deeds. And now—Macbeth!”
He departed the stage to hearty applause. I was startled by his having spoken the name of The Scottish Play inside what was, at least temporarily, the theater, but I was too interested in the play to dwell on this notoriously unlucky slip of the tongue.
Let this be said for Atherton: he did not scrimp on the sets and costumes. It was a lavish production, and I could imagine every length of tartan and each antique sword as a thumbing of the nose to Tom Taylor. When Narcissa first appeared as Lady Macbeth, there was a flurry of applause for her, and she did look beautiful in her velvet gown with its elegant tartan shawl and heavy antique jewelry, her dark hair braided with leather thongs. Beside me, Polly caught her breath and whispered, “She’s wonderful!”
The difficulty was when she opened her mouth. For although her voice was trained to be audible in large theaters, the glass walls and vaulted ceiling of the Crystal Palace did not reflect sound in the same way, and much of the time her voice was too small to be heard clearly.
The audience grew restless as her first long speech continued, with only a random word here or there clearly audible.
Perhaps realizing this, she began to strain, and I shook my head involuntarily as her voice went higher. She needed to go lower as Lady Macbeth, to give her words more sinew and strength. But as she grew more and more nervous, she began to have trouble catching her breath, and her lines tumbled out so quickly they lost all meaning.
On that night last winter, when I had felt that she was knowingly trying to upstage me after my final performance, I might have taken a mean pleasure in her failure. Now I felt sorry for her. There were few worse feelings than being onstage and knowing your performance is failing yet having to go through with it. And I suspected that Narcissa was not accustomed to failure, making this all the more painful for her. I wished I could follow her about invisibly, whispering directions into her ear. It was a painful experience for actress and audience alike whenever she was onstage.
Roderick leaned over and whispered, “What’s the matter with her?”
“She’s nervous,” I whispered back. In the strain of the situation she had forgotten how to use her breath properly. Though I pitied her, I couldn’t help but recognize that this was an excellent lesson for Polly.
I said softly into my sister’s ear, “This is what happens when an actress forgets her training.”
But Polly gestured fretfully for me to be silent. She was rapt.
Stifling a sigh, I subsided.
I had not forgotten the conversation I had overheard between Narcissa and Gertrude Fox, in which the ingénue had lamented how unfit she was for the role. Sad to say, she had been entirely correct. Even if she had been able to triumph over the disastrous acoustics, her entire manner and bearing were those of an ingénue. As Shakespeare’s Viola or the virtuous heroine of a melodrama, she would have been perfect. Atherton had made a dreadful misjudgment when he cast her as the ruthless, cold-blooded wife who spurs her husband to assassination. Imposing contralto Gertrude Fox, now, who was playing the first witch, would have been far better suited to the role.
In honesty, it was a relief when Lady Macbeth died and the play could continue without her. All around me I could feel the audience relax. Not, perhaps, the emotional effect Atherton was striving to create with the bloody tale of ambition and vengeance, but far better than the discomfort of watching a young actress’s career crumble around her.
Where had her manager been all this time? It was his job to prevent this sort of disaster from happening in the first place. Then I recalled Narcissa saying that business matters had preoccupied Treherne. Well, his protégée’s career ought to have been his first order of business. I wondered that she had not dismissed him and sought another manager.
Perhaps there were ties more than professional partnership that bound them together, though. She had said something about his not having had time for her, which had hinted that they were more intimately involved.
I found myself shaking my head again. The poor girl. Her manager had failed her.
THE MOOD OF THE RECEPTION was subdued at first, as everyone tried to avoid discussing the play’s shortcomings wh
ile waiting for the cast to emerge. The harsh glare of the electric lights also discouraged revelry.
It also seemed to be blinding a great many people, to judge by the lack of response whenever I tried to catch the eye of someone I knew. At least, that was what I tried to tell myself as familiar faces gradually joined the group.
“Clement!” I called, spying my onetime leading man. He still wore his tartan costume. Glancing toward me, he seemed on the point of speaking, but then someone clapped him on the back and drew him away.
I ought to simply march up to him and refuse to let him overlook me. Passively waiting did not suit me. Drawing myself up, I prepared to confront Clement. But before I could do so, the murmur of conversation was drowned out by the sound of an argument.
“I had nothing to do with it!” It was Atherton’s voice, but nothing like the genial tones in which he had addressed us at the start of the entertainment.
The answering voice I did not recognize. It was a man’s, calm, measured—and very angry. “All I know is that I deposited the money one week, and it was gone the next.”
“It was none of my doing! I’ve told you before—"
“You cannot keep blaming our shortfalls on an actress who left the troupe more than half a year ago.”
A chill sank into the pit of my stomach. Roderick’s hand went to my back, assuring me of his presence and support.
Somehow the men locked in argument had not noticed, or did not care, that they were surrounded by total silence. Even the wait staff had frozen motionless in place.
Then it came. The worst blow I could have imagined. Atherton’s voice, conciliating, wheedling. “I tell you, Sybil Ingram is the cause of all of our troubles.”
Heads swiveled to look at me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw actors gathering to listen as well. I will not cry in front of these people, I vowed fiercely, clenching my fists. Among the listeners were some of my oldest friends, but not one of them had uttered a word in response to what we were hearing.
Roderick’s hand at my back was steady and firm—not only to comfort but, I suspected, to urge me to depart. But I could not look away from the partition from which the voices came.
“Somehow she managed to hoodwink me,” Atherton continued. “I practically raised her, you see—”
A small sound escaped me, and Roderick bent to whisper, “We leave the moment you say.”
I shook my head. I had to hear it all.
Treherne, if it was he, had had enough. “This stops now,” he snapped. “I have indulged your prevarications for far too long. It’s clear to me that you are the most irresponsible businessman I have ever known. Miss Holm’s contract with you will end as soon as I can find a lawyer to break it.”
“You mustn’t do that! Everything will come right, my dear fellow, I promise, once we dig our way out of the hole that Sybil left us in—”
Perhaps Treherne had backed him against the partition. Perhaps Atherton panicked. For whatever reason, the flimsy partition screening them from our view shuddered and then fell to the floor with a sound like a thunderclap, and Atherton and a thin bearded man who must have been Treherne were revealed, startled into stillness by the realization that their discussion had been overheard.
Then Atherton’s eyes met mine, and widened.
Two short hours ago I had found comfort in the sight of him, with his familiar beaming face and genial flourishes. But now I felt a sickening jar when I looked at him. This man who had been family to me for nearly half my life might as well have been a stranger. Worse, a malicious stranger who cared nothing for my good name or my career. After all these years of trusting him, the betrayal was almost dizzying, as if I had tumbled off a cliff where I had expected to find firm footing.
He raised his plump hands as if to ward me off. “Now, then, Sybil—”
I took a step toward him. “You told me,” I said into the silence, and had to stop for a moment to get control of my voice. “You told me in your letter that you had explained everything and cleared my name. But all this time you’ve not only hidden the truth but have been adding more lies to those you already told?”
His eyes darted around the crowd as if he were seeking rescue—or a means of escape. “Now, now, you are upsetting yourself. You are not thinking rationally, fair nymph.”
His old endearment for me made me flinch; he might as well have laughed in my face. “Will you not tell them now, at least? Tell them that I’m innocent!”
His Adam’s apple jerked visibly in his throat as he swallowed. “Be reasonable, my dear Sybil. Let us discuss this in private.”
In private? I could scarcely believe I was hearing him aright. Somehow, surely, I could make him see that he must help me.
“I’m asking you as my old friend, my mentor. Tell our friends the truth. I deserve it—and so do they.” His face showed no signs of yielding. I whispered, “Atherton. Please.”
He licked his lips. With one finger he tugged at his stiff collar as if it had grown too tight, and he even darted a pleading look at Treherne, as if he could expect help from that quarter. The other man was looking at him with utter contempt. But Atherton said nothing.
Nothing.
In the moment of decision, when he could have redeemed himself for all his past faults and all the distress this fiction had caused me, he was failing me.
As I stared at him, hearing the sound of my own heart thudding in my ears, I found that the pain was being submerged in a rising tide of crimson anger. That Atherton was weak I had known for a long time. But that he was so selfish that he would make the choice to throw me to the wolves before my very eyes... I had not thought him so low.
“I trusted you,” I said in a voice that shook with anger. “We all trusted you, but I thought of you as a father—far more so than my father by birth.”
That made him wince. Perhaps that should have been satisfying, but it only showed how far gone he was. For he still had nothing to say to me. Now I could see that there was nothing that would make him rally to my aid—neither ties of love and loyalty, nor appeals to his honor, nor even shame.
The room was entirely silent. No one would speak up on my behalf, it seemed. Atherton had done his work well.
I could not bear to look at him another moment. Turning away, I said in a low voice to Roderick, “I want to go now.”
But the next moment Roderick was no longer by my side. Startled, I looked around just in time to see him advance on Atherton, his face like thunder. He drew back his fist and struck him on the nose.
Down went my onetime mentor, and when those around him failed to catch him he collapsed onto the floor. Blood was streaming from his nose, looking ghastly against his white shirt, and the crowd woke into a startled murmur.
Roderick flexed his hand once and smiled down at the supine man. A shark’s smile it was, dangerous and cold. “You deserve worse than that,” he said. “But it will have to suffice.”
“Ruffian!” Atherton sputtered, trying to right himself. “Help!” No one seemed eager to assist him, however.
Roderick crouched down by him, and Atherton at once went still with apprehension. “Consider yourself fortunate,” he said softly. “There was a time when I would not have hesitated to call you out for insulting my wife.” Flashing the smile again, he straightened and said in his normal voice, “Should you wish to meet me in a court of law, however, I think a judge would be most interested to learn how you have cheated your employees and blackened Sybil’s name.”
“Roderick, let’s go,” I whispered, mortified as the whispering grew louder and more heads turned to stare at me. Martin looked shocked, and Polly’s eyes were as big as dinner plates.
Elaborately courteous, Roderick offered me his arm. “He is the one who should leave, not you,” he said, and he didn’t trouble to lower his voice. His anger had not been dissipated when he unleashed it on Atherton, but now it was reined in.
I risked a peek over my shoulder as we left the building. Atherton’s wife
had appeared at his side and seemed to be applying her handkerchief to his nose. The commotion was rising. I was deeply relieved to step outside onto the terrace, although the glass walls did little to separate us from the scene inside. I drew Roderick farther away from the building and the glare of the light, desiring the merciful cloak of darkness to hide my humiliation.
“You need to go someplace quiet to soothe your nerves,” Martin said sympathetically. “Best to take Sybil home, I think, Brooke.”
“But—” Polly began, then bit back whatever she had planned to say.
Martin was the one who responded. “Yes, Miss Ingersoll?”
“I was just going to say, I’ve not had the chance to meet your friends, Sybil.” She hesitated, darting a glance back toward the reception. “But then, this doesn’t seem to be a good time.”
“Nor do they seem to be Sybil’s friends,” Roderick said. “I notice that not one of them spoke up on your behalf.”
“Perhaps they are still too astonished to think of that,” said a new voice, startling me, and I found to my surprise that Mrs. Atherton had joined us. “Sybil, I am most heartily ashamed of my husband. He swore to me that he would clear your name.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. Never the most courageous of men, Atherton probably would have said anything in order to placate his wife—or whatever party was present—rather than engage in conflict.
“I shall insist that he make amends at once,” she was saying, when Roderick interrupted her.
“Forgive me, ma’am, but if he wouldn’t retract the story even when faced by Sybil herself and all the ties of long friendship that she brought with her, I doubt there is a force strong enough to persuade him.”
“There is money,” she said, perhaps more tartly than she had intended, for her cheeks seemed to gain color. “Perhaps if he learns that his allowance is to be reduced, he may behave more sensibly. But I oughtn’t to air our domestic matters before you. I just wanted to apologize.”
“Thank you,” I said, and put out my hand. “It does me good to know that at least one person here does not think the worst of me.”
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