A Fatal First Night

by Kathleen Marple Kalb

  “I do my best, Mrs. G.”

  She handed me the basket, tutting. “Some nice date-bread sandwiches and a hot bottle of good cinnamon-orange tea for your throat.”

  “I can vouch for that cake, er, bread,” Preston said, cutting his eyes to Mrs. G.

  “I don’t doubt you can.” I gave them as neutral a smile as I could manage, carefully ignoring the plate of lemon-curd tarts on the table, since we youngsters aren’t permitted to acknowledge the doings of our betters until they want us to. “We’ve got to go walk Ruben through so he’ll be ready for tonight.”

  “Long day and long night for you,” Preston observed.

  I chuckled. “I’m planning to spend tomorrow lying about the house.”

  “And good luck, Heller,” Tommy said as he walked in and took the basket. “Marie and her family are coming over for tea tomorrow, remember?”

  “Of course they are.” I sighed. We’d planned the little family-only gathering long before last night’s unpleasantness. Now, though, instead of relaxing together, we’d likely be reassuring each other.

  Even with graver matters at hand, both Toms and I would enjoy seeing the junior Winslows, who are the sweetest small people ever invented, excepting only Anna and Louis’s little boy, the Morsel.

  “I’ll make a nice batch of monkey faces,” Mrs. G offered with a smile. “I know the small ones love cookies.”

  “So do the big ones.” Preston shot Tommy a grin.

  Tommy chuckled and nodded to me. “Well, next week it will be matinee Wednesday, and you can be early to bed and late to rise.”

  “Mr. Ben Franklin would not approve,” Mrs. G, who’d been to a lecture on the American Revolution not long ago, put in, “but he never had to sing every night.”

  Preston smiled. “You’ve got that right.”

  I grabbed a tart from the plate in front of Preston. “Off to the Wars of the Roses.”

  “Have a good afternoon, you two,” Tommy called as we swept out, giving me an impish smile and deliberately not giving Preston a chance to comment.

  Chapter 3

  Enter the Second Richard III, Stage Left

  At the theater, Ruben Avila was already onstage, in cape and old breeches much like mine. He is Cuban and quite glorious to look at in that dark Spanish way, with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache framing his caramel face, and big, sweet brown eyes. That sweetness of personality is the other major reason I didn’t fight Tommy to make him our first Richard; Ruben was still inexperienced enough that it takes a good bit of extra effort to radiate the appropriate degree of menace. He would get there with practice, but in the meantime I was not entirely certain I wanted to duel every night with an evil king who inspired nothing so much as a desire to feed him cookies.

  Eamon Morrissey was onstage, too, taking his rehearsal for Neville. No one will ever mistake Eamon for anything but a big Irishman. He’s an inch or so taller than Tommy and sturdier of build, with the flaming ginger hair people associate with our brethren. My father, who lived only long enough to give me his blessing and his name, was a redhead; and on the strength of my mother’s stories of the man she adored, I have always had a soft spot for them.

  Poor boy, Eamon needed the full benefit of my soft spot and Tommy’s willingness to give a fellow Irishman from a tough part of town a chance. He had an utterly magnificent voice but not yet enough of the acting and movement skills to go with it. That would come with time, and a run of understudying Neville would be very good for him. Well, he’ll either sink or swim now, I reflected, watching the two of them.

  They were practicing the scene in which Neville notifies Richard of Gloucester that the princes are dead and he is king. Neville is a baritone role, purposely written so either a heavier-voiced tenor or the basso who understudies Richard could do it well, with a few adjustments. His announcement here is fairly short and simple. His big moment comes a little later, when he brings the same news to Queen Elizabeth Woodville, quavering in entirely justified fear and guilt, then flees in absolute terror before her devastating rage.

  Louis’s music is intricate, and Neville’s feelings are complex, so it can be a real showcase. It had been for Ruben, and now, even though he was holding back so he would have a full voice tonight, it was proving to be for Eamon. The young singer’s burly awkwardness read as ambivalence, and the sureness of his voice combined with the uncertainty of his body struck exactly the right balance.

  I smiled at Tommy as we slipped in at the back. Eamon was going to be just fine.

  Within a few measures, we learned that Ruben was going to be even better. One of the rare true bassos, he was comfortable with the deepest range of the role as written and quickly relaxed into Louis’s glorious music. I could hear him trying to hold back for tonight and grinned at Tommy.

  “We’ve got a winner.”

  “That we do.” He cocked his head at me. “We were still right to go with Albert.”

  “I don’t disagree. Ruben wasn’t ready, but he seems to be stepping up now.”

  “No ‘I told you sos,’ Heller.”

  “Me? Never.”

  I noticed one of the hands in the wings, watching and glowering at Ruben as we walked up. I hadn’t seen him before, and I wondered briefly why he was just standing there with a menacing stare.

  “Who’s that?”

  “New hand. Drumm, I think. I’ll tell Booth to keep him busy.”

  “Good idea.” Booth, our New York stage manager, would work the glaring Mr. Drumm like a mule once he knew he’d been playing spectator. He is as hardworking as Tommy and me and has no tolerance for laziness.

  “All right!” Louis called from the piano in the orchestra pit. “Very good. Madame Marie is not here, but let’s have Ruben walk Eamon through the beginning of the vengeance scene.”

  Tommy and I walked to the front as the singers worked the scene. After, Eamon did a half-voice sing through of his big aria.

  “Take a few moments, gentlemen. We’ll work the death and duel scenes next, now that Miss Ella is here.”

  “Looks good to us,” Tommy said as Louis stood up from the piano. “Are they ready?”

  Louis pushed his glasses back up on his nose and smiled. “They’re doing well. I’m actually quite impressed with them both.”

  “Excellent.” I returned Louis’s smile.

  It faded almost immediately, though. “Any word on Albert?”

  “Being held on a murder charge.” Tommy took that. “He knew the victim from his neighborhood, but we don’t know much more right now.”

  Louis nodded thoughtfully. “Ah. That explains why Eamon seemed so much more rattled than Ruben. He’s from the same part of town, isn’t he?”

  Tommy nodded. “Weird as it seems, the Germans and Irish share a parish in that part of the East Side.”

  “I’m sure it must make for interesting Sundays,” I observed.

  “Saturday nights are probably easier.” Tommy grinned. “They all agree on beer.”

  “Not the same kind, though.” Louis laughed.

  “I’m told the German bock isn’t so far from our fine red ale, but I’ve never gone to a bierstube to test the theory.”

  “Don’t expect me to join you.” Louis’s amiable smile faded a bit. “A fair number of Germans aren’t especially fond of us.”

  “I’d argue that there are ignoramuses in every nation,” I cut in. My mother was Jewish, and if not from the same village as Louis’s people, certainly a refugee from the same basic idea.

  “Well, there you are right, Miss Ella. And I never sensed any prejudice from Albert.”

  “He would not have been here if we had,” I assured him.

  “I would not have let him within ten feet of her,” Tommy growled. The Irish, in general, are not known for their enlightenment in matters of faith, but they are absolutely known for defending their own. And the minute my father, Frank O’Shaughnessy, fell in love with my mother, Malka, soon to be Molly, Steinmetz at Immigration, she was part of t
he tribe. So, too, their daughter.

  “At any rate, we’re waiting to see what becomes of him,” I moved us along, “and we’ve got to prepare for tonight.”

  “We’ve run most of the vocals.” Louis nodded. “But we should rehearse the blocking.”

  “Do we need to do the death scene?” I asked. “Eamon’s simply staying in his usual spot as henchman, right?”

  “Unless the murder gave Ellsworth a sudden growth spurt.” Tommy chuckled wryly. “I don’t think you want him trying to drag you offstage.”

  I had a good three inches on Ellsworth, a marvelous young tenor who had picked up several small parts in his first ever professional engagement. He was the henchman designated to kill tiny Marie, which was fine.

  Eamon had charge of me, and that wasn’t going to change with his promotion. Though slim, I am not a small girl, and we don’t have any other males in the company who could reasonably murder me. The final duel at Bosworth Field was an entirely different art form; it had to look convincingly like single combat between men. Ruben is about the same height as poor Albert, an inch or two taller than me, which would work nicely.

  As I’d told Cousin Andrew, Ruben was an excellent swordsman, almost as good as my fencing master, although like most men I’ve dueled, he took a while to get used to the idea of being at crossed swords with a woman. Albert had, too, and we’d spent extra time working on the scene, because it has to look real, and it is exceedingly difficult to get a properly brought-up man to come after me with the right look of blood in his eye.

  Eamon actually had less trouble killing me on a nightly basis than either Ruben or Albert did fighting me. I did not ascribe this to any fault in his upbringing, but simply to the promise of better acting ability. Also, admittedly, there was the fact that attacking me with a pillow in half-light does not require nearly the same level of ferocity.

  In any case, we ran the duel a couple of times, and Ruben settled in quite well, despite the stressful challenge of taking over for a colleague who was very likely a murderer. After the last time, I gave him a hand to his feet, and we walked to the edge of the stage together.

  “How am I doing, Miss Ella?”

  Think about the show, not why we’re here. I understood completely.

  “Wonderfully. You’ll be magnificent tonight.” I patted his arm. “Just remember, it’s a fight. I’m there to kill you. I’m not your singing partner or even a woman. I’m your mortal enemy.”

  Ruben smiled sheepishly. “My mother taught me to treat women with nothing but respect.”

  “And I admire her for it. But her son has a job to do.”

  He nodded.

  “Almost all men have a hard time fighting me at first. I’d be worried about you if you didn’t.”

  “I don’t have a problem fighting you,” Tommy said as he walked up to us with a laugh. “But you usually throw in on my side, so I don’t have to worry.”

  Tommy and I had never actually fought, beyond the usual chasing and hair pulling that all kids do when they grow up together. A few years older, and far smarter and kinder than the average boy, he’d been my adored protector when his parents took me in after my mother’s death. A couple years later, when the neighborhood bullies came after him because he wasn’t the kind of brute they were, I’d done my best to help him.

  All I had to hear was one of those baboons snarling something like “Sissy,” their favored opening, and I was right in the fray. Even if Tommy tried to stop me. There’s more than one future Five Points gangster who ended up with a good bald spot thanks to my jumping on his back and yanking out a handful of hair when he tried to get a shot at Toms.

  Within a couple of years, Tommy was half a foot taller and the star of his boxing gym, I was the legendary soprano Madame Lentini’s protégée, and our street-fighting days were over. So were the taunts. We in the family know that Tommy isn’t the marrying kind, but most people just assume that he’s chosen to take care of me and Aunt Ellen instead or that some girl broke his heart. No one would be fool enough to inquire further of the Champ, never mind use playground slurs. Really, it’s none of their damned business, and people leave it that way.

  For our part, Aunt Ellen and I are rather selfishly glad that we will never have to share him with another woman. We are both, though, also quite glad that he has many good friends and a full and happy life, as is entirely possible in our modern age for a person who does not marry, for whatever reason.

  Street fighting is almost—almost—a fond memory these days. One of his old nemeses sometimes even comes to the opera when I’m in town and sends a bouquet to “the Champ’s Spitfire Cousin.” Connor Coughlan is bad news to most of the world, but he looks at Toms and me with affection. Which is fine—and safe—from a distance.

  “Hopefully, we won’t be fighting our way out of anything for a while.” I joined in Toms’s laugh.

  Ruben, who’d lived in his own tough part of town until his last role, grinned. “I knew about the Champ, of course, but I didn’t know you mixed it up, too.”

  “Not since before I started singing seriously.” I chuckled as I quoted my mentor, Madame Lentini. “Bloody noses are bad for the instrument.”

  “Of course.”

  “Not as bad as you think,” Eamon contributed, emerging from the wings as we got close to the stage edge. “Every once in a while, I still have to explain to someone that singing opera doesn’t make you a sissy.”

  Tommy tensed beside me, and his eyes narrowed a little at Eamon. “People are who they are, singing or not.”

  Eamon backed right off, the usual reaction to that look from the Champ. “Sure thing. I do get sick of what people think about opera singers, though.”

  I intervened before tensions could rise any further. “Imagine how bored I am with what people think of a woman who dresses up as a man to sing for a living.”

  “It must be awful.”

  “Eventually, you decide that the people who matter know who you are . . .” I started Tommy’s favorite line.

  “And the hell with everyone else.” He finished it as we took the stairs down into the pit.

  Louis smiled at us all. “Acquainting the crew with Mr. Tommy’s maxim, I see.”

  “I’d embroider it on a sampler if I did fancy work.” I returned the smile. “What do you think, Mr. Composer and Conductor? Are we ready for tonight?”

  “As ready as you’ll ever be.”

  Tommy, Louis, and I exchanged glances. We knew, as our young singers did not, that you never really know until you’re in front of the audience. But there was every reason to hope for a good night, if not a good night’s sleep.

  As it turned out, both of them were wonderful onstage that night, entirely justifying our faith in their skills, and the extra hours of preparation. Ruben even managed to seem almost menacing in the final duel, no doubt to the horror of his mother, who, he told me with a shy smile at curtain call, was in the audience. I was glad she got to see him receive such thunderous applause for his first lead.

  I expected him to bring her backstage after the show, but he didn’t. Perhaps just overwhelmed by the excitement of his debut. Perhaps he simply wanted to be home, so he could drop the cool façade after being so professional in the face of a dreadful situation. I could certainly understand that.

  Eamon acquitted himself well also, other than a bit of awkwardness at curtain call because he’d never before had a role that allowed him an individual bow. Marie and I had to shove him in front of the audience, and everyone shared his laugh and cheered. A delight to be there for a fellow singer’s first big moment.

  Still glowing with a share of their fresh triumph, Tommy and I returned to the town house with much lighter hearts that night, not least because our immediate worry for the future of the show had been lifted. Moreover, after the hours of extra rehearsal, with another performance night coming up fast, neither of us had the energy to lose sleep over our myriad other worries.

  They would return soon enoug
h.

  Chapter 4

  In Which Our Divas Prepare

  By Friday, things were starting to settle into a routine. With three smooth shows to our credit, and Ruben’s and Eamon’s strong transition into their new roles, we had put the ugly beginning of the run firmly behind us. At least on the stage.

  Not as much backstage. Marie had been especially troubled, since the murder took place just a few doors down from her, with two of her wee ones right in the theater, never mind the in-laws. Tommy and I had allayed most of her concerns at our tea Wednesday midday, during a long conversation with her and Paul while the young Winslows did their best to demolish the drawing room and, not incidentally, a large batch of Mrs. G’s monkey faces.

  I didn’t blame her for being worried; I was quite unnerved with no maternal instinct in play. But as unhappy as we were about Albert’s arrest, it rather settled the matter and made it quite clear that there was no wider threat. Especially when Preston swung by to bounce the baby and inform us that Florian’s late wife was Albert’s sister.

  Motive, opportunity, and a bloody knife in hand. Damning indeed.

  That was enough for Marie and Paul, and the rest of us, too, though we still had a very difficult time believing our colleague as a killer. Not to mention Cousin Andrew’s clear, if unsaid, doubts.

  The alternative, though, was far more frightening.

  In any case, when I wandered in a bit early Friday, a stop at a nearby bookshop having proved less than satisfying, the theater was humming. Booth, the stage manager, and the prop master were laughing at some kind of joke that left them blushing like bad little boys at the sight of me, as stagehands circulated about to check the set pieces, and the place was filling with that wonderful buzzy feeling that comes as the clock moves closer to curtain time.

  Rosa was already in my dressing room, brushing my black velvet doublet and fussing over the brocade Henry Tudor cloak. It was one of Anna’s lovelier creations, but it never draped to Rosa’s satisfaction.