by Louisa Trent
“Pardon?”
“My audition today must rest on my talent, not on anything else. No contingencies as far as patrons go, either. The advancement of my career must be merit-based. Do I make myself clear? I shan’t be auctioned off to patrons to support your new company.”
“My new venture aside – some girls have one or even two gentlemen looking out for their own welfare, my dear. Are you so financially well-off that you can afford not to consider a similar arrangement?”
“No.”
“Then, you will not only starve, your career will stall out and go nowhere.”
“A risk I am prepared to take, sir.” First I climbed down off my high horse. Next I ignored the chip on my shoulder. My grievance was not with him specifically, but with a system that allowed prostitution to thrive for the financial benefit of dance company owners. “My thanks for your concern, Mr. Claret. I should be able to squeak by financially on my earnings. Mind, I will not live in the lap of luxury, but a nice boarding house and some inexpensive food should not prove beyond my means.”
I could see he was pondering my stipulations. “We do keep used tutus on hand for a very small purchase price. Nothing fancy, but they will do you. Same goes for used ballet slippers. Both will save you money.”
I nodded. “I shall take pride in my willingness to work hard, not in my wardrobe. I did bring a tutu with me today for the audition. Where shall I change? Someplace private – I do insist,” I told him with a no-nonsense, direct gaze.
“A dressing room is located at the theatre. Shall we meet there? Say, an hour’s time?”
“Exactly an hour’s time, sir. I have no patience for being kept waiting.”
“I shall inform the guard of your arrival then…Emm…”
He shook his head. “Excuse my familiarity. I meant to say…Miss Jones.”
And so the terms of my employment were set, and I intended to make sure Mr. Claret stuck to them. During the audition, my talent would either speak for itself or I would start looking for kitchen positions immediately.
I was more than just an elegant pirouette. My talent for putting together a tasty French cinnamon bun was also beyond compare. And kitchen work was not all I could do, I realized in my growing self-confidence.
Regardless of what I eventually chose to do, I need not sell myself short in order to support myself. To think otherwise was an inheritance of an orphan background I would henceforth strive to overcome.
Chapter Sixteen
A year later…
After weeks of grueling training, followed by additional months of rigorous practice to prepare for the company’s two-week long performance in town, I had just danced the last ballet of the season.
Though more than amply qualified, I had not earned the lead role in Mr. Claret’s first production. That honor went to Maria Gradner, the owner’s latest protégé.
Poor, poor Maria! She very much deserved to be pitied. Whereas, she was getting by on her looks…and agreeableness in the boudoir…I earned my second string position in the troupe through a strong work ethic. First to arrive in the morning and last to leave at night pretty much described the secret to my limited success. Keeping to that schedule, along with maintaining a strict adherence to punctuality for everything required of me, allowed me to build back my waning pride while further honing my professional skills.
I did not have my own dressing room. Financially, I only scraped by. But I was at peace with my career. More importantly, I was at peace with myself.
Dance remained an all-consuming interest in my life but it was no longer an unhealthily obsessive one. Dance no longer ruled my every thought. Perhaps because I had discovered a new passion:
Teaching.
Every morning, seven days a week, I volunteered at a Boston settlement house instructing impoverished children in the discipline of ballet. Having been there myself, I understood the importance of the self-respect gained through the arts. Ballet had that artistic component, as well as athleticism.
Yes, I was at peace with myself, but peace with one’s self was not the same as happiness. I desperately missed Matthew.
He was in the audience during the two-week engagement of Swan Lake. He missed not one presentation. During the shows, though he could well afford to sit up front in the theatre’s first row, he stayed hidden way at the back. Blinded by the lights, I never saw him. It was Mr. Claret who told me he was in the audience.
Oh, well. That was neither here, nor there. He was just someone in the house watching the show.
Or so I told myself. Unconvincingly for the most part but one must start somewhere.
Thinking a clean break with the past best, I had not sought Mr. Simmons out during the preceding twelve months. Although Mr. Claret made no mention of my past employer having a wife and realizing his marital status was none of my business, I made no inquiries in that regard. I only assumed Mr. Simmons had long since married by now, perhaps even busy starting a family.
I suppose Mr. Claret thought I already knew about Mr. Simmons’s regular attendance. And, in my pride, I would never dissuade the dance company owner otherwise. After all, I had skipped out on Mr. Simmons, leaving only a note as to my resignation as a hostess. I told him nothing personal, especially about where he might find me. Such cavalier behavior would hardly classify me as a friend of his.
So long as Mr. Simmons was happy – and I knew he must be now that he was with the woman he had long considered his confidante –then I would simply go on about the rest of my life.
A life where I would teach dance, but no longer participate in any actual theatrical performances myself.
Speaking of something else I no longer felt any great urge in which to participate…
The fantasy of red roses and myself had long since parted ways. Indeed, seeking out any man’s company was far removed from my thoughts.
Why bother?
No one would ever measure up to Mr. Simmons. No other man would match what he gave me, the brand of dark carnality I craved. I was reconciled to the fact that he had been my one and only love.
At least, I had memories. Some women had less. At least, for a brief while, I had experienced true passion. At times, I could still feel that passion branded on my lips…as well as other places.
With a sigh I refused to call physical longing, I turned down the street where I now lived. The boarding house was clean, adequate to my need for shelter, and provided one meal a day – breakfast. I filled up then and took fruit back to my room to do me at dinner. What with all my exercise, I lost an indeterminate amount of weight.
No matter. Dancers were better off slender anyway. And the low room and board, plus the money I continued to put aside, would allow me to look for a paid teaching position while not earning a wage.
I would make do until I found employment.
The corner street lamp was out again. Due to the darkness, I failed to see the large man hovering in the shadows until I was practically on top of him. By then, of course, it was much too late for avoidance.
“What are you doing here Mr. Simmons?”
“I thought that readily apparent, Miss Jones. I am waiting for you but of course. Most improper to stand by the stage door in the back of the theatre and wait. Did I frighten you?”
“No, of course not. You could never frighten me, sir.”
“Thank you for saying so, but I know my size can be intimidating. Sometimes that serves me. Sometimes, like now, it does not,” Mr. Simmons replied, thrusting a bouquet of cut flowers into the space between us.
They were not red roses. Silly to have thought they might have been…
“Congratulations on all you have accomplished this past year, Miss Jones. I merely wished to personally note the achievement with flowers.”
“Thank you.” I took the bouquet from him. “From your garden?”
“Yes. You remembered.”
“How could I have forgotten something as lovely as your garden in the middle of so much city blig
ht?”
“The ugliness of the Red-light District was why I needed an oasis.” He smiled. “I have plenty of gardens now, flowers and vegetable alike. Cows and horses too. The country life appeals to me and I can still get into the city in a fair amount of time for work each night.”
He had married his widowed mistress then and moved to what had to have been her property, her farm, her animals.
“I am happy for you, sir.”
“As I am for you. Your performance night after night was outstanding. The lead dancer was good, but you would have excelled in the part. Perhaps next year?”
“There is no next year on stage for me.”
“Not an injury, I hope, keeping you away from what you love the most?”
Our formality with one another, after our explosive last encounter, felt odd. Almost at cross-purposes. But safe, all the same. And so I continued the same conversational distancing as if we were indeed strangers, without revealing he was mistaken in his interpretation of events.
Dance was no longer what I loved the most. From the moment we met, he was what I loved the most. That remained the truth of the matter, and all the more unwise and inappropriate to mention now that Mr. Simmons was a married man.
Instead, I told him a partial truth. “What I set out to do in the dance company was to obtain a role on stage without the assistance of either a benefactor or a patron. I needed to see if I was a good enough dancer do so entirely on my own merits.”
“So Claret told me after I located you finally…luckily before the first show of the season. It would have greatly distressed me to have missed any of your performances. I had no address on you, though. I never asked him where you lived, and he chose not to volunteer it. He told me he was not at liberty to discuss any personal details of your life with anyone.” Mr. Simmons nodded in approval. “And that is how it should be.”
I sniffed my bouquet, then asked, “Then how did you find me? A private detective?”
“Christ, no. Charley came round and told me. He and his gang miss nothing in the neighborhood. If not for his thieving ways, he could work as a private investigator for Pinkerton.”
I laughed. “He must have eyes in the back of his head.”
“A good woman might help occupy those wayward eyes.”
I sighed in sympathy for the woman. “That day I left – he rescued me, you know.”
“So I was told,” he supplied, sounding much aggrieved. “We had us a talk about that, Charles and I. In my stead, he was to look out for you.”
“No bloodshed done, I hope?”
“I was tempted. But we go way back, Charley and me, and so I let him off with only a stiff warning. And not to worry – Charley never comes uptown, thus eliminating his dogging your heals here. As for me doing anything to rebuke the varmint who accosted you – not much left for me to reprimand by the time you got through with the sod.”
“The orphanage taught me well.”
“We are all of us the product of our backgrounds.”
“Sadly so, sir. Sadly so.”
“Happily, the process lasts past childhood. I like to think of it as ongoing. I know I am still being shaped by love.”
His new wife, of course. Mr. Simmons would allow her in because he loved her. Mr. Simmons credited his bride for his transformation.
Without directly mentioning her, I said, “I believe you are correct, sir.”
“Then, allow me to take you back to the farmhouse with me. Not dark yet. I can give you the grand tour. The household staff has gone home, as have my farmhands. The house is empty.”
I frowned. “Empty?”
“Yes. I live at the house alone.”
I checked his ring finger.
No wedding band.
He left me no choice but to ask. “I thought you would have wed by now.”
“Who would I have wed?”
“Your mistress, of course,” I cried in exasperation.
He scowled. “No! There was no passion between us, Emma. And, as it turned out, she loathed country life. After her husband’s death, I bought the house and property from her, and she left for her sister’s place in New York City. She said she had always felt like a fish out of water on the farm.”
He looked down, then back up into my eyes. “When you entered the picture, that first night at Milton’s dancehall, she and I no longer talked as much. We remained friends though. She desperately needed one of those as her husband grew sicker and sicker. I could not have deserted her.”
Of course, he would not have done so. It was not in his character to have run out on her in her hour of greatest need.
I was unsure of what all these revelations portended, where this visit would lead. But any resentment I had clung to, I let go. Any hurt I nursed until it grew and grew, suddenly disappeared. Pfft. All gone. The past was water under the dam. And the time I spent dancing on stage? Not a waste at all. The last year had shown me I wanted something else from life, something deeper than any fleeting fame.
Him. I wanted him. In the moment. And in the future. But only if we came together naturally. No planning. No scheming. No fantasies about marriage and all the rest. No forcing it. And I vowed to have no regrets or guilt or resentments afterwards if things between us failed to work out. Whatever happened between us happened.
I was not a whore, not promiscuous, but neither was I a prude. Certainly saving myself for marriage was a lost cause. I could freely admit to myself that what others called forbidden suited me. Perhaps, owing to my extreme independence and being on my own for so long, I found the submission element of dark carnality downright soothing. His taking charge in the bedroom had acted on me like a vacation from all my usual cares and woes. Trust was everything. And I trusted him not to hurt me any more than I begged him to. For this brief time, I intended to appease my appetites and do as I please. And pleasing him, pleased me.
“Yes, sir. Show me your new place,” I said speaking up into his eyes straightforwardly, an unattached woman to an equally unattached man to whom she was attracted. “And lest there be some misunderstanding, I consent to it all. No strings. No commitment.”
I knew the realities. In order for him to get ahead legitimately in conventional Boston, he would need to wed a virtuous society lady with enough political connections to bury his illegal past. Money would help, but marrying into a good Brahmin family with clout would seal the deal. Nameless orphan me, who had once worked at a dancehall where prostitution was rampant, would only bring him down.
I smiled at him in promise. I would love him with an open hand. No tightfisted grasping and grabbing. No neediness. At that end of this tryst, I would show him I knew how to let go.
“After this last year, when I had my nose to the grindstone every single day, I could use a temporary lark now,” I told him with a flamboyant wink. “Afterwards, we will go our separate ways.”
His face darkened. Dared I believe in desire? Or was that something else tightening his features. “In that case, we leave straightaway, as soon as I ready the carriage for the trip. I shan’t show you the farm until the morrow…unless you have plans for then?”
“No plans. I am at your complete disposal for the day.”
“Only a day?” He nodded. “I see. Be that the case, there is little time to waste.”
He took my free hand and strode with me down the brick walk. I was very motivated, athletic as well, and also fleet of foot from my daily morning runs around Boston Common. I easily kept up with his much longer stride. Though, nothing if not considerate, he did match his racing steps to mine without my having to pant in overexertion…or plead with him to slow down.
He remained ever considerate. Still something appeared have changed from his presentation of the bouquet of posies and now. I could not put my finger on quite what that something was, but his attitude had hardened.
Something I said?
I shrugged it off…for all that our carriage ride was ominously silent.
Chapter Seventee
n
In just under an hour, we arrived at a bucolic farm setting, near Boston in location but miles away in attitude. Before me was a comfortable, large-roomed residence that obviously did not stand on ceremony, its very unpretentiousness exalting family, children – many, many children – all conceived on the right side of the blanket – unlike most probably me and most definitely him. This place, with its old fruit trees and sweeping meadows, had a stake in tomorrow. I could feel its welcoming arms envelop me even at a distance.
Sentimental drivel, of course, designed to bring a tear to the eye.
My jaded eyes remained perfectly dry.
Despite knowing this visit had nothing to do with homey adages, I felt months of turmoil and tension roll off my shoulders.
I had made the right choice. My decision to leave the world of theatrical performance in favor of teaching dance to children was the right one for me.
Not here in this farm community, of course. Mr. Simmons would never wish me to stay longer than it took to fuck me. I was not the woman for him. He wanted someone nice, a homespun woman to match the red checkered curtains hanging on the windows. Any bride of his would be pure of body and virginal of thought.
I would never pass muster with his impossibly high standards. My thoughts were impure. And I was no virgin – my virtue taken unknowing by him through my trickery. If not for my scheming ways, he would have left me alone and untouched.
My goodness! Eau de Resentment parfum must waft off me. And here I had lectured myself about that very thing on the way here in the carriage.
With a sigh, I admitted marriage was not a possibility for me anymore. And that was the end of that.
“This is the house,” he said unnecessarily.
My, but he sounded uncomfortable…if I read him right. Most likely, I did not read him right. How well did I know him anymore?
We had been apart twelve months. Much could change in a year. A person could. Had this man?
As soon as the heavy front door closed behind us, he was on me, his uncharacteristic impatience revealing his true motivation in bringing me here.