The music began, Florian’s Song. Hands clutched, on they went, right foot first, in the chain-step of the village maidens, ‘Ah, s’il est dans votre village …’ The backdrop was charming and they were charming, and the audience was led into the French countryside. When the dirndl skirts flew off as they went round a maypole, and they transformed into Moulin Rouge petticoat girls with that funny-sad song Mon Homme, the crowd went there too. Clover and Aurora slid off stage left, where Mama was waiting for them with their quick change into the Lakmé costumes. They could look over their shoulders, in between ducking and fastening, to see Bella still translating Mon Homme, making it both sadder and funnier than she ever had before, maintaining a hint of a French accent in the English version.
‘Two or three girls has he that he likes as well as me
But I love him!
I don’t know why I should—he isn’t true—he beats me, too—
What can I do?’
She will be very good someday, Clover thought, letting Mama swing the pearl-beaded Lakmé dress over her tiny hoop. She already is!
Bella drooped off stage right, betrayed and downtrodden but with some inexhaustible sprig of optimism still springing in her gait, and the lights swirled through a transformation.
Scrim forest-panels descended to the cello-swoops of Delibes, and revealed a Brahmin princess and her maid-servant, gathering flowers and singing the interweaving, looping, many-petalled duet—Aurora finally at rest on the wings of this absurdly pretty song, Clover happy to serve her: the two of them able to sing to each other with no veil between them, as there had been ever since the wedding night.
‘Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin,
Ah! descendons ensemble!’
Their voices, sweeter in tandem than they could ever be apart, twined on as they descended, together, together … The flowering lights dimmed, and the audience took that priceless moment to pause and remember, and then broke into a wave of applause.
As the wave went on and on, the girls were rushed back onstage for another bow, all three of them—they had no encore ready, and in the fluster of the moment did not dare return to one of their non-French old favourites in case Mayhew might disapprove, so they merely bowed again, apologetically, and danced off, and the pictures began.
A conquest, Mayhew declared. He appeared in their dressing-room doorway within minutes of the final curtain, bearing in one hand a bottle of champagne, and in the other silver-wrapped boxes for each of the girls.
Mama came close behind him, weeping a little with the excitement—her girls, their first night as headliners! She admired the pretty coral beads that Bella pulled out of her box, and the pearls curled in Clover’s, and gasped at Aurora’s box: diamonds set in small flower clusters, pretty as falling water when Mayhew clasped the necklace round Aurora’s neck.
The crowd descended, and Mayhew drew Aurora out into the hall to meet some of her admirers, pressure on her elbow indicating the more important of the pressmen.
Clover turned back to her mirror to steel herself to follow, and found a long parcel on the dressing table, marked with her name. Another present from Mayhew? Then she saw the sender’s address: San Francisco. Inside, scribbled in Victor’s jagged hand: Only a fiddle, made by a Métis in Montana, they tell me, but it has a sweet true voice. Like you. She folded back the velvet that cradled the violin, and gazed at its chestnut glow. Then wrapped it, quickly, before anyone else could see.
An Honest Charm
The papers in the morning were as fulsome as the night’s admirers. The Herald’s man reported that the entire bill made for a red-letter week at the Starland. Aurora read aloud that article, which hailed Mayhew as a bona fide New York producer, a boon to the city’s artistic life. One reviewer called East & Verrall’s hotel sketch ‘horseplay and low comedy, which everybody wants at least once on a vaudeville bill; people laughed until they were ashamed of themselves.’ East & Verrall were used to good notices. But it was new for the girls, basking in the parlour at Mrs. Hillier’s (where Aurora and Mayhew had moved into a double front room), to read about themselves:
The newest sensation on the vaudeville circuit, Les Très Belles Aurores de Nouvelle France, have an honest charm about them. Musical modesty, refined and accurate, without strain or artifice, gives their vocal acrobatics warmth without ever succumbing to egoism. The charming dual-language rendition of Mon Homme, a Mistinguett cabaret favourite, will remain with this reviewer. Two of the sisters gave us the finely executed Flower Duet from Lakmé, accompanied by a pleasing Oriental dance, with fragrant hints of musical exoticism.
Miss Aurora Avery’s performance was crucial to the success of the playlet. The melodrama The Casting Couch is an examination of innocence. The production was not laden with excessive emotion or elaborate gestures, offering simplicity, grace and directness.
And now, Aurora thought, they had to do it all again.
Men of Vision
As it turned out, the climax to their Starland time came sooner than expected. After little more than a week, the consortium that ran the Starland out of Winnipeg sent their Mr. Cocklington to inspect the operations. He congratulated Mayhew on his management and foresight, and paid extravagant compliments to Aurora. The praise continued through a lavish dinner and both evening performances—lasting in fact until Mr. Cocklington came back next morning, after having spent the night at the Palliser Hotel poring over the ledgers.
At which point Mayhew and Mr. Cocklington closeted themselves in the manager’s office, and the shouts began.
Mayhew slammed back to Mrs. Hillier’s before the women left for the theatre and warned Aurora—as an introduction to his topic—not to take over to the theatre any costumes or accoutrements she didn’t mind losing when the locks were changed.
Aurora stood stock-still in the parlour, one glove on and one off. She saw how quietly Clover set her violin case behind the sofa, and the way Mama sat down, holding her side and breathing very shallowly as if at a sudden cramp. Bella crouched beside Mama, fingers crammed firmly into her mouth.
It’s a long time since we’ve been at the mercy of a man’s temper, Aurora thought, surprised at the thought. She looked at Mayhew, searching for signs that he was worth it.
Mayhew prowled round the room, laying it out against the Cocklingtons’ cowardly, penny-pinching ways, beginning with a controlled disquisition on Smallness of Outlook and Mishandling of Opportunity but soon descending to diatribe and invective, until Mama put her fingers tight into her ears.
‘Men of vision is what modern vaudeville requires!’ he shouted, so loudly that Mrs. Hillier came to the parlour door. Seeing him in a rage she backed away again, but she gave Aurora a grimace of sympathy and stayed behind the door in case she might be needed.
‘Had the opacity to question my management decisions,’ Mayhew cried, banging his hat down on the card table in the centre of the parlour. ‘I can’t be overseen by a chump! You don’t get an enterprise off the ground without expense of the most rudipentary, and who is he to question what is paid out? The door receipts, that’s his business! And my only argument!’
He crashed the lid of the piano down as he went past. Aurora remained silent, and so did the others, although Aurora could see Bella biting down hard on her hand not to let that laugh burst out.
The echoing bang of the piano lid seemed to give Mayhew some relief. He took up a pose by the fireplace, stared into the middle distance for a moment, and said in a grave, reasonable tone, ‘I’ve cabled Winnipeg and Duluth. They will rescind this pup’s admonishments, but it’s too late for that. We’ll take the high road and head out of here on Monday—work out the week so as not to leave bad feeling behind us, that is never good policy. Arriving a few weeks earlier in Edmonton will suit my plans very well.’
Mayhew pulled East & Verrall off the Starland bill as well, insisting that The Casting Couch required them and could not be remounted with new actors, and producing their contract, which held them to his pr
oduction company, rather than to the Starland. Standard practice, he assured Aurora, and only the petty incompetence and lack of true vaudeville experience caused the ire of the Starland types.
That ire extended on Mr. Cocklington’s part to talk of ‘papers being served’—whatever that might mean—and led to a buzz of scandal among the vaudeville people in all the theatres. When Mayhew took the girls to luncheon at the Palliser on Sunday, a steady stream of newsmen and producers visited their table, bewailing their impending departure or prodding Mayhew for more information.
Aurora held her breath when the first plump producer came to the table with a jolly laugh and a sting in his conversation’s tail. But Mayhew had had his flash of temper and was perfectly urbane, dismissing the curious and the comforting alike with a laugh. ‘My interests in Edmonton proceed apace,’ he told the pressmen, genially. ‘It’s the City of Tomorrow, and I aim to be top of the heap up there.’
Aurora could not help but applaud his resilience. She’d expected him to stay in a temper for days after this new setback.
‘Happens all the time,’ he told her. ‘All we need is a free hand, free rein—and that’s what we’re going to have at the Muse. Besides, we’re no worse off for a couple of weeks’ receipts from the Starland. Calgary is a terrible one-horse town, I’ve always hated it,’ he said, glaring out the window at the broad expanse of 9th Avenue, empty on a Sunday of anything but his car, left parked on the dusty street, and a single lonely wagon.
The Pierce-Arrow shone in the sunlight, hungry for the open road again, even if it was heading farther north.
INTERMISSION
7.
North Pole
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1914
The Muse, Edmonton
Always leave the audience wanting a little bit more, but by all means take your share without overdoing it, as you will find at times some audiences that seem frozen to their seats with a North Pole expression to their faces.
FREDERICK LADELLE, HOW TO ENTER VAUDEVILLE
September in Edmonton—sixteen months they’d been stuck in this North Pole city. The streetcar ran through backyards on its way to the High Level Bridge, as they rode home from the Muse after the matinee. Bella and Clover liked to stand along this stretch, ready for the dizzying view off the top of the bridge.
Aurora sat with hands clasped in her lap. Overgrown rhubarb reached up rusty fluted leaves to the car window; small leaves shifting on the city’s spindly trees were tinged with yellow. Everything was aging, turning back to winter. It made Aurora want to leap up and run south.
But you don’t run from the lap of luxury. Fitz had moved them out of the King Edward Hotel (last June, when things began to run tight at the Muse), but the Arlington Apartments were luxury too, the newest and best in the city. The very desirable top floor, riverside corner, for their own suite; a separate apartment for Mama and the girls, two floors down, so they were not living in each other’s pockets. Bella took great delight in the Murphy bed in their suite’s parlour, swivel-flipping out of its shining mahogany pocket like Long Chak Sam’s conjurer’s boxes; her pleasure made Aurora happy. Pretty kitchenettes let them do for themselves, at least breakfast and cups of tea. Aurora had caught herself resenting it when Fitz told her to have eggs and bacon on hand, and then laughed to think how quickly she could progress from fearing for their lives and dining on bread-and-milk—if at all—to being too fancy to cook an egg.
Fitz was not often in for breakfast these days. He was busy doing the rounds of the other theatres, wooing backers and the press with all his might. The Muse was teetering, although her sisters and Mama were not to know that. Aurora could not bear Mayhew to fail again, at another theatre, with no one else to blame.
The streetcar jolted, coming round the tunnel for the run across the bridge—Aurora did not like it. And did not like that she did not like it. Stupid to feel so low in the belly as the car swung. A daring dash across a chasm was just what she used to love; now she was mouse-like, tremulous, squelched and afraid, hiding in Mayhew’s big fur coat.
She thought of Lady Conan Doyle, who had been like this, yielding to her man. A natural-enough pliancy, but it chafed Aurora somehow. When the Conan Doyles had visited Edmonton a few months ago, also staying at the King Edward, Mayhew (who’d been unable to get a leg in when Sarah Bernhardt was in town) had arranged a dinner for Sir Arthur, whom he had met in London years before and wanted to cultivate. It had been a difficult evening for Aurora, and for Mama and Clover too; even for Bella, who had sulked for days after Mayhew refused to let her attend. War was imminent—was declared a few weeks after—but Sir Arthur had talked of nothing but suffragettes, how they put all thinking men out of patience and would never get the vote. An insufferable man. Especially beside Mayhew, always on top of the joke. If she was older, she would be an equal partner with him, not a—a concubine.
Aurora had not despised Lady Conan Doyle for being a chattel until she’d leaned across the table to confide in a stage whisper that her husband was ‘quite silly when she was about.’ Sir Arthur had stretched his hand across the table, declaring with a sentimental smirk that she had been a wonderful companion to him. ‘Not one clouded or grey moment since we started from England!’ (Unlike the suffragettes, who must be down-pouring regular monsoons on their husbands, Clover had said, when she and Aurora left the table to tidy their hair.)
Delightful, Aurora reminded herself, to be in company with the great men of the world. To wear a fur collar to one’s coat. To take the streetcar as a treat, an outing, rather than as the only way to get about.
To eat. Although she had no great appetite these days.
Clover saw Aurora’s white face, and let down the upper window for a breath of autumn air as the car came out into the light, out of the coal-dust smell in the tunnel. Up the trundling incline, then out onto the beautiful iron height of the bridge, lost in air between the two high banks the river had cut through the city. There were the old fort palings, the tiny clustered houses along the riverbank, and rising up from that the fine built-up city. Clover loved cities. The pale provincial buildings (the pattern of civilization, exactly like Helena’s capitol building) hid the Arlington, but over the bald stretch of hill she could see the water tower, even the edge of the Journal building, where the man painted the day’s headlines on the bricks each morning.
At the end of June, Clover and Bella had stood in the street watching the Journal man on his ladder, painting WAR DECLARED. And now there were soldiers in the streets, and you could hear shots and the shouts of them training, and already audiences had fallen off; every time a new shipment of soldiers left, the house emptied by another row of seats. Clover remembered the crowd watching the painter, more and more people stopping as they saw the word WAR. There had been sighing and cheering, except for one foolish old man who moaned and held his jaw with the toothache of patriotism.
She and Bella had been on their way from the King Edward to mail a letter to Victor, whose latest letter, from the Pantages Theatre in Cincinnati, she held tight-folded in her hand now. She knew it by heart already.
I am a pacifist, as are all followers of Galichen. But it is hard to bear—hearing wild rumours, not knowing what is true. With his usual contrariness, Gali tells my mother he can help me into the London Territorials, having some pull. I will work out my remaining tour dates till Christmas but I feel an urgency to be there. I know those fields very well from childhood.
The Fabians say, for the right moment you must wait … but when the right moment comes you must strike hard. It is not that I sentimentalize the politics, or feel a patriot pull, but on the ground, in the towns I knew in Belgium and France, people are in dire need—and I am strong and wily. If I cannot help, who can?
Clover, I must enlist.
I will make my way back to London after Christmas. But before then I will find my way to you, my heart.
Clover wished she had not opened the letter. It was not real, anyway, the war—Mayhew said it would
be over very soon: posturing in Europe, not to be indulged. Even thinking about it felt false and romantic. A little fanfare of tin bugles.
Bella returned from talking to the driver, strolling back along the car as it ran forward, feeling she was walking in air because she was so high-transported above the river. That would be Life, if she could ride the streetcar all day long like the driver did, and wear a nice little uniform! But girls could not be streetcar drivers or train drivers, could only prune-and-prism, pout and marry well, or be schoolteachers (which Mama had made them promise they would never be, considering how Papa was treated by the superintendents, who never appreciated his learning or his temperament); or else get out of all that and go on the boards—and marry anyway, like Aurora had.
But she herself would not marry very soon, Bella thought. The Ninepins were at the Muse this month, and she saw Nando every day, but even if she was old enough and he wanted to, his father would never let him marry. And Nando could not abandon the act, because then who would look after his mother? It was too bad that Joe Dent would not let her train for knockabout, because she thought she might do very well with it. She was as clumsy as anything, always falling down or tripping. It was good for comedy. Sadly, East and Verrall were out in Winnipeg; she missed them very much, especially since they were working on the golf sketch again, which was really about love and had many gags for her.
She snugged in beside Clover, slipping an arm around her waist, and was surprised to get a tight hug back from her. Clover tucked her letter away and pulled Bella back to sit on her knee beside Aurora, lacing fingers over Aurora’s the way they both liked. The three of them together in one seat was comforting to Bella, who had not even known she was sad—but this was a dreadfully boring life, staying in one place for so long. The air was cold over the river; she would be glad of the brisk walk to the Arlington. Where Mama would be lying tangled in the blankets on the Murphy bed, dead to the world.
The Little Shadows Page 27
