City of Ash

by Megan Chance

  I couldn’t think of what to say. “I—I’m flattered, Mr. DeWitt, truly I am. I … I’m sorry, I know you’ve meant to speak to me before now, but I … I didn’t realize.…”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t forward enough. And you’ve been busy with other … admirers.”

  “Admirers that keep the cash flowing into the coffers, don’t forget,” Lucius said. “Couldn’t have bought the play without Langley, you know. My sweet Bea, you’ve done doubly well. Better than Stella and Arabella both.”

  “I feel stunned,” I said with a laugh. “I hardly know what to make of all of it.”

  “Oh, I feel sure it will come to you soon enough,” Lucius said wryly. “We’ll begin rehearsals in three days. Mustn’t make Stella feel as if we’re rushing her out, you know. Now go on. You’ve a performance to prepare for.”

  I went to the door and stopped, turning to look back at him. “What kind of a part is it, Lucius? An ingenue? Royalty? I need to know for costuming.”

  Lucius waved his hand dismissively. “Take DeWitt with you. He can explain it.”

  Obediently Sebastian DeWitt followed me out into the hallway, closing Lucius’s door behind us, and I’ll admit I was nervous and there was a part of me that believed I might ruin everything if I said the wrong thing. His gaze came to mine; he had the oddest color eyes. I couldn’t decide if they were gray or blue.

  He said, “You know you’re even more beautiful offstage.”

  That set me at ease. Flirtation was second nature. I laughed. “You’ve been around actors all your life, I can tell that already. You know just what to say.”

  He grinned. “In this case, it happens to be true.”

  “But a waste of your time to say it. You had my attention already.”

  “In my experience, flattery is never wasted.”

  “Ah. Well, then, how am I to judge how sincere you are? How do I stand in comparison to all the other subjects of your compliments? Do you write a play for every pretty actress you see?”

  “You’re the first.”

  “Am I really? Should I believe you?”

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  “Because you seem a clever enough fellow to know it’s what I want to hear.”

  “Well, then, I’ll leave you to determine my veracity,” he said. “Quiz me all you like, and see if you find the answer.”

  He was amusing; I liked him, though of course I had plenty of reason to. “But I don’t know you well enough to tell if you’re lying or not. That could take months.”

  “I’m at your disposal, Mrs. Wilkes,” he said, smiling again. “I have months, if you require it.”

  “You’d be my own personal playwright, then?”

  “I suppose that depends upon the payment.” Again, his eyes caught mine.

  I saw his desire. I heard what he didn’t say. But even if there hadn’t been Nathan to consider, I wasn’t going to fuck Sebastian DeWitt—at least not until he proved himself. Selling a single play did not a success make, and he looked just the type to think sex and love were the same thing, and I didn’t need that kind of trouble, at least not from someone who looked as if he rarely managed to afford a meal.

  But I could keep him happy enough without that, I knew, at least for a time, so I smiled to ease the change in subject and said, “Tell me about this play.”

  “It’s called Penelope Justis, or Revenge of the Spirit. It’s a drama. That is, it was a drama.”

  “Was?”

  “I think Greene has some changes in mind.”

  “Lucius loves a spectacle.”

  DeWitt winced. “Yes, I’ve gathered so.” A sigh. “Well, I shall do what he requires.”

  I didn’t think I imagined his reluctance. An artist, on top of everything else. How well I knew the kind. I managed to keep from sighing myself. “Well, you’re lucky it’s Lucius. He always knows what an audience wants. Is this your first play?”

  “I’ve written one or two others. Unfortunately, they weren’t great successes. But I’ve high hopes for this one. I’ve never been so directly inspired.” Again, a challenging glance. “You seem made for melodramas, Mrs. Wilkes.”

  “Really? Do I seem such a mewling innocent?”

  “Oh, hardly.”

  “Is that an insult or another of your compliments?”

  “I only meant that I see a kind of … purity … in you.”

  “Purity?”

  “Which is not the same as innocence. Or chastity,” he said wryly. “My Penelope has that quality too. Your Mrs. Bernardi would make a hash of her. But you’ve more subtlety than that.”

  “Yes, well, Stella’s fond of playing to the gallery.”

  “And she’s very young.”

  I wasn’t sure whether or not to be offended. I settled on not being so and said, “I don’t want to talk about Stella. Tell me more about your play.”

  “I’ll do better than that.” He flipped open his bag, reaching inside to pull out a sheaf of papers, which he handed to me. I saw the title written upon the front page in a hand that was at the same time scrawling and easy to read.

  “This is it?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Greene already has one he’s having copied.”

  “I’ll read it tonight and have this back to you tomorrow,” I told him.

  He smiled at me. “I don’t want it back. I copied it out for you, Mrs. Wilkes.”

  It was very thick. It would have been an effort to make an extra one for me—the entire play, not just the scenes I was in, as our prompter Marcus Geary would do. I looked at him in surprise.

  DeWitt leaned over me, thumbing through the pages I held. “I’ve made notes for you here and there that aren’t in Greene’s copy. A few things … not many, but they’ll help you understand.”

  “Prompting cues?” I asked.

  “Character cues,” he said, and then his voice deepened and went soft. “There’s no reason you couldn’t be brilliant in this, Mrs. Wilkes. If you’d care to try.”

  I could not help but stare at him. Suddenly I didn’t know what to make of him. I hardly knew what to say.

  He didn’t wait for me to say anything. He reached into his pocket and drew out a battered tin watch, glancing at the time. “I’m off, I’m afraid,” he said, giving me a quick smile. “You can tell me if you have questions at the rehearsal.”

  “You … you’ll be at the rehearsals?”

  “Cutting and rewriting at Greene’s request.”

  He said good-bye, and then he was gone, striding down the hall, his frock coat flapping.

  As it turned out, I couldn’t read Penelope Justis right away, much as I wanted to. There was that morning’s rehearsal to attend, and then a crisis over a set, so that some scenes of Divorce had to be reblocked before curtain call, and then it was too late; I had to dress and put on makeup for the show. I put the script in my costume trunk and tried not to think about it—because there would be no time tonight either, as I saw Nathan watching from one of the boxes when I delivered my final lines. I resigned myself to putting off Penelope until tomorrow.

  Nathan did not like to be kept waiting, and so I didn’t delay or loiter about with the others as I made my way to my dressing room after the show. Susan Jenks was already there, taking up the one mirror.

  “Where are you off to in such a hurry tonight?” I asked her.

  Susan smiled. “Tommy’s waiting for me.”

  Her latest conquest. A miner who spent most of his wages on whiskey.

  “Why do you waste your time on men like that?” I asked, turning to her to undo the buttons up my back. “He’ll never be able to help you.”

  “But he fucks like God’s own angel,” she said with a grin, making quick work of my gown. “And I guess I don’t need him to do more, if the rumors I hear are true.”

  “What rumors?”

  She gave me a sly look. “Why, that I’ll be first soubrette before the end of the week.”

  I tried to keep a straight face. “You
will? Do you mean to kill me off then?”

  “Don’t tease, Bea. Everyone already knows Stella’s leaving and you’re to have the lead.”

  “Has Lucius said something?”

  “He doesn’t have to. Stella’s been hinting about San Francisco all week. Didn’t you hear her at rehearsal today? ‘I shan’t have to stand a prop boy’s insolence where I’m going.’ ”

  Susan mocked Stella’s style perfectly. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “How long before Lucius tells us?” she asked me.

  “I think tomorrow,” I said. “But pretend to be surprised, will you, please? I don’t want him thinking I said anything.”

  Susan threw her arms around me. “Oh, I’m so glad! And not just for you either. It’ll be nice to have a leading lady who can act.”

  I thought of Sebastian DeWitt. “There’s no reason you couldn’t be brilliant in this.…” I glanced anxiously at my trunk.

  But just then there was a curt knock on the door. “Mrs. Wilkes? Mr. Langley’s waiting.” The voice of Nathan’s driver.

  I sighed and called back, “I’ll only be a minute!”

  Susan laughed and twirled to the door, waving at me before she went out, and quickly I changed and put up my own hair, angling the butterfly hairpins, two above one ear. They sparkled in the gaslight, the jewels trembling as if they were alive. Nathan’s driver was outside the door, and I found myself looking past him for Mr. DeWitt. But he wasn’t lurking in the shadows as he’d done nearly every night the last weeks. I followed the driver to where Nathan waited, at the top of the stairs leading to backstage, looking impatient and mildly annoyed.

  “There you are,” he said. His glance swept me approvingly, and then he shook out something he’d had folded over his arm—a cloak of fine blue wool, a beautiful thing that he put about my shoulders. “Perfect,” he said, standing back to look at me while I preened in the cloak—I had never had anything so fine, and with it and the hairpins I felt as grand as Pauline in Lady of Lyons. His driver opened the carriage door and helped me inside. And then Nathan climbed in, and we started off.

  “Did Greene move you up?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “As soon as Stella leaves.”

  “Excellent,” he said, sitting back. “You no longer doubt me, then?”

  “I never did,” I told him.

  “He gave you the new play too, I take it?”

  “Yes. I met the playwright.”

  “Ah.” A pause. A passing streetlight shone through the open window, momentarily illuminating his face. “I understood him to be talented.”

  “Wherever did you find him?”

  “He went to your Mr. Greene,” Nathan said. “Apparently he knew of our … relationship and thought I might be willing to fund a new production.”

  “How clever of him.”

  “Indeed.” Nathan lapsed into silence. When we got back to my room, he watched me undress and had me put on the cloak again so I was naked beneath it, and he wouldn’t let me take down my hair, and then he took me as if he meant to punish me. But when it was over, he was laughing, as if at some private joke. I don’t think he even said good-bye before he went out the door, and I lay there in the darkness, feeling uneasy and wondering what the hell that had been about, what game we’d been playing for his pleasure, what play we’d acted that I didn’t know the script.

  Chapter Nine

  Geneva

  It was two weeks after my dinner with Sebastian DeWitt that I saw the notice in the newspaper for James Reading’s Julius Caesar at the Palace. I remembered how he had begged me to come see him. “I assume you share my love of theater.”

  When Nathan came down to breakfast, I held the newspaper out to him. “Do you remember Mr. Reading’s play?”

  He looked blank for a moment, then he glanced down at the page and said, “Oh yes.”

  “I would like to go. I promised him I would.”

  Nathan adjusted his cuff and looked thoughtful, and I waited, schooling myself. Since our talk in his office, we had circled each other cautiously. But I’d seen nothing in my husband to make me think he regretted the things he’d said. And now he did nothing to contradict them.

  “I suppose your going can harm nothing. But I’ve other commitments. Why don’t you see if DeWitt will escort you?”

  I was disappointed—not at the thought of Mr. DeWitt as an escort, but because I’d hoped Nathan would come; I wanted his company. It would be the truest measure of my sense that we were working toward reconciliation, although perhaps it was enough that he wasn’t thinking of appearances. In Chicago, I had often gone to theaters or dances without Nathan, escorted by Ambrose or one of my other friends. But this was Seattle, and there was still Stratford Mining to consider.

  “Do you think that would be wise?” I asked.

  Nathan frowned. “You don’t want to?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just thought … there are people who might find it objectionable.”

  “I’ve told you to let me worry about that. And I’ve no interest in watching Reading cavort about the stage. No one will find anything amiss unless you choose to disrobe in the box. Which I assume you won’t.”

  “Of course not.”

  A smile. “Well, thank God for that. I’ll get the tickets and send a note to DeWitt.”

  “If you’re certain.”

  “I am. Come, Ginny, how many times must I say it? Go and enjoy yourself. Take the playwright. There, at least, is someone you can talk to.”

  I did want to see Sebastian DeWitt again. I had thought of him often in the time since our dinner, and I’d invited him to lunch twice—invitations he had declined very nicely, saying that as much as he would enjoy it, his work precluded a midday break. That was something I understood. It was my own fault that I was so unengaged during the day; most people were not. I hoped he would not decline an evening engagement.

  He did not. Whether it was because his evenings were freer or because Nathan had tendered the invitation, I didn’t know. When he showed up at my door, still wearing the lamentable frock coat—I really must find him a tailor—I didn’t care what had brought him. Only that he was here.

  I could not help my smile of delight when Bonnie ushered him into the parlor. “Mr. DeWitt, I am glad you could escort me this evening.”

  His smile was arresting. “I’m happy to be of service, Mrs. Langley.” A little bow. “I believe our carriage awaits.”

  I called for my blue cloak, and there was a moment of confusion when it could not be found and I must wear the black, but that was the only thing that marred the perfection of going to the theater with Sebastian DeWitt. I warned myself to be careful—I liked him perhaps too much, and I did not want to risk my reconciliation with Nathan. Still, when I took DeWitt’s arm, I could not restrain a heady little shiver of pure joy. When he gave me a sideways glance, I laughed.

  “Is something funny?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “It’s only that I’m so glad to be going tonight.”

  “Oh yes—your love of blood and spectacle.”

  “My love of anything different from my parlor,” I corrected. “I warn you, Mr. DeWitt, tonight might be excruciating. I have no idea whether Mr. Reading can act.”

  “I can’t imagine he could be worse than other actors I’ve seen,” DeWitt said as we went outside and he helped me into the carriage.

  “Except that James Reading is no actor.”

  “Perhaps we’ll be lucky. Perhaps it’s his hidden talent.”

  I settled onto the seat. When he sat across from me, and the door closed, I said, “You say that as if everyone has one.”

  “Don’t they?”

  “I don’t think I do. Or if so, it’s hidden very, very deep.”

  “Perhaps I meant to say that everyone has a talent. In some it’s hidden. In others, it’s obvious for anyone to see.”

  “And what would mine be?”

  “Why, you’ve told me yourself. You shine a light o
n men’s vision.”

  “Ah yes.” I settled back again, smiling. “I had thought you might say I harbored a talent for embroidery.”

  “I said your talent was obvious. If you’ve one for embroidery, I’ve yet to see it.”

  “I did try a footstool cover once. Truly wretched, and uncomfortable as well. One could not put one’s foot upon it without being gouged by knots.”

  Sebastian DeWitt laughed. The passing light striped his features, bringing out the sharp planes of his face. “Remind me never to ask you to embroider my handkerchiefs.”

  “I expect you would leave that task for a wife,” I said, unable to resist probing. “Or, perhaps, a sweetheart?”

  “I’ve neither, more’s the pity.” He sounded truly dismayed.

  “I imagine it’s not for lack of opportunity.”

  “One look at my coat, and women run screaming,” he said wryly. “I can’t blame them, really. I imagine most of them prefer to eat.”

  “Then they don’t find you as charming as I do,” I said. “And they’re shortsighted as well. Your future is very bright, Mr. DeWitt. Has Penelope begun rehearsing yet?”

  “Not yet. Mrs. Bernardi is leaving the company, and Greene prefers to introduce the play with a new leading lady.”

  “Oh, I’m glad. You know, I think Mrs. Bernardi is rather … too broad. Penelope needs a greater talent.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” DeWitt agreed.

  The carriage pulled to a stop; I glanced out the window to see we were before the Palace Theater. “I suppose it’s time to discover if acting is Mr. Reading’s hidden talent.”

  The Palace had a better pedigree than the Regal, but it was not nearly as grand as Frye’s Opera House. Sebastian DeWitt was every inch the gentleman as we went up the stairs to our seats in the lower tier of boxes. I saw one or two people glance our way, no doubt noting the disparity between my gown of deep plum silk and his frayed frock coat. As we took our seats, I saw the flash of opera glasses turning toward us.