by Megan Chance
Mr. DeWitt knocked sharply on the door. “Greene? It’s Sebastian DeWitt. With Mrs. Langley.”
“Come in, come in!” The voice came from the depths of the office, and it was booming and welcoming.
Mr. DeWitt opened the door and stepped aside to let me precede him, and I was face-to-face with the manager of the Regal Theater.
He was dressed rather flamboyantly, in a coat of an earthy reddish color and a satin vest of purple. His thick brown hair stood up on his head, and his mustache was waxed at the tips, and everything about him, even the way he moved, was theatrical, as if he’d been nursed not on mother’s milk but on the very essence of the stage instead.
Mr. DeWitt introduced us, and I smiled and said, “Mr. Greene, I am very pleased to meet you.”
“And I you, madam.” Mr. Greene came around the edge of the desk, nearly colliding with a dressmaker’s dummy clad in a red satin cape. He reached for my hand and made a little bow over it. “As I told your husband, Mrs. Langley, I had thought that the leading role would fit you, but now that I’ve seen you I must say I’m overwhelmed at how perfect it is! Do you not think so, DeWitt?”
“She looks the part indeed,” said Mr. DeWitt smoothly.
Mr. Greene fumbled with the papers on his desk, pulling forth a sheaf bound with a tie. “Ah, here it is.” He handed it to me. “Penelope Justis, or Revenge of the Spirit. A spectacle to end all spectacles! That is the script—well, not in its entirety, you understand, but the pages containing your lines.”
“I shall devote my evening to them,” I told him.
“Just so, just so. The rest of the company has been rehearsing for a week or so, but you should have no trouble catching up. We will need you here every morning at ten, Mrs. Langley, for the next few weeks.”
I nodded, trying to contain my excitement. “I look forward to the challenge, Mr. Greene, but I do hope you all will be kind.”
“Mrs. Langley has enthusiasm rather than experience, you realize,” Mr. DeWitt told Mr. Greene.
“Yes, of course, of course,” Mr. Greene said quickly. “Our company is delighted to host her.” He took a rather ornate watch from his pocket. “In fact, they should be gathered now for rehearsal. Will you come and meet them, Mrs. Langley?”
“Oh yes. Yes indeed.” I could hardly wait to make them my friends.
“You’ve a few hours to work with us, I hope. Time is of the essence in the theater.”
This, I had not expected. I glanced at Sebastian DeWitt, who raised a brow and said, “She’s barely looked at the script.”
Mr. Greene led the way from his office. “No matter, no matter. My dear Mrs. Langley, you shall work from the book as long as you like. As long as you know the lines by the night of our performance, I shall have no complaints.”
I nodded, and Mr. DeWitt and I followed him to the stage.
“Children! Children!” boomed Mr. Greene as we stepped upon it to see a group of people milling about. At Mr. Greene’s words, they quieted and looked up, some of them looking past him to me, their gazes curious. “Here is our most special guest, whom I mentioned to you all yesterday. Mrs. Nathan Langley, who will be playing Penelope Justis from this point on. I know you will greet her with open arms, and we will all be a merry family!”
I stepped forward. “Good morning to you all. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I’m so pleased to meet you, and I trust we shall become great friends.”
There was a pause. It was uncomfortable and puzzling; I had the distinct sense they were waiting for something. One or two of them looked to a woman with hair as dark as mine, loosely coiled at the nape of her neck, pin-straight strands escaping. She had pale skin, and she was trim and neat, clad in brown broadcloth. She met my glance; I was taken aback by the venom in her dark eyes.
“Perhaps you could be the first to welcome Mrs. Langley, Bea,” said Mr. Greene, and even on such short acquaintance, I recognized his tone; there was no brooking the request.
The woman smiled, showing even white teeth, incisors a bit too long, but her smile was about as welcoming as that of an attacking dog. She sauntered forward—saucy, no, more than that, insolent—and held out a limp hand. “Mrs. Langley. I’m Beatrice Wilkes. I’ll be playing … your servant. Marjory.”
She did not like me; that was clear, and I had no idea why. But I took her hand and smiled and said, “I saw you in Black Jack. You were Sweet Polly’s sister. You have a lovely singing voice.”
She nodded as if the compliment were no more than expected and wearying at that, and stepped back, and I saw the way she looked at Mr. Greene—again with a bit of insolence, and I wondered why he didn’t chastise her, but then the others came forward as if they’d been waiting for her to make the first overture, and I found myself overwhelmed with names and faces, some of which I remembered from Black Jack. Mr. Wheeler, for example, and Mr. Metairie, who had made such a superb villain, and Mrs. Chace, who was so corpulent it was difficult to forget her figure upon the stage. The others were kind, though more reserved than I hoped. I told myself it didn’t matter. This was only our first meeting. I would do my best to win their affection. I was confident that soon we would find ourselves gathered together after rehearsal to discuss art and philosophy over a few glasses of wine.
“Shall we begin then, children?” Mr. Greene called out. “Act one, scene one, for Mrs. Langley.”
Mr. DeWitt touched my arm and leaned close to whisper, “Courage, Mrs. Langley,” as if he knew how quickly my nervousness had bloomed again, and then he and Mr. Greene and Mr. Geary went to the table set to the side of the stage. The others spread out. Mrs. Chace sat laboriously on a riser; Mr. Metairie and the young man whose name I could not remember sat on a settee just off to the side, and Mr. Wheeler sighed and lay down on the floor near the edge of the stage, spreading out his legs and closing his eyes as if he meant to go to sleep.
“We’ll start with Penelope’s entrance, stage right, upstage,” Mr. Geary said.
The right side of the stage nearest the audience, I supposed, and I crossed to go there.
“Stage right,” Mr. Geary corrected with a gesture.
“Oh.” I paused. “It’s quite the opposite then.”
From the floor, Mr. Wheeler laughed.
“Stage directions are as you look at the audience, madam,” Mr. Geary explained patiently.
“Perhaps you should give her a primer, Lucius,” said Mrs. Wilkes. “So we aren’t all wasting our time.”
“An excellent idea,” said Mr. Greene acidly. “Perhaps you’d care to be her tutor, my dear, and show Mrs. Langley the blocking for this scene?”
Mrs. Wilkes clamped her lips together tightly. Rigidly, she pointed toward the back wall of the stage. “That is upstage, Mrs. Langley.” She marched to the spot. “We’re at the funeral of your dear sister Florence. I don’t imagine even you will find it too difficult to pretend to listen to a sermon.”
I chose to ignore her rudeness. I was determined to make this woman my friend—of all of them, I knew she and Mr. Metairie were the most talented, and therefore the most worthy of my attention. I went to where she stood and smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Wilkes.”
“And now”—Geary rapped his hand upon the table—“Townshend, the line is yours.”
The young man barely glanced up from where he sat on the settee with Mr. Metairie. “ ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to—’ ”
“It is to be a waterfall, right, Lucius?” yelled a man from behind the curtain. “Not a stream?”
“ ‘—dust,’ ” Mr. Townshend went on. “ ‘In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life.’ ”
“Not a stream,” Mr. Greene called back. “A quite large waterfall.”
“Twenty feet up good enough?”
“Mr. Townshend has given you your cue, Mrs. Langley,” Mr. Geary said above the noise. “The next line is yours.”
The next line. I fumbled with the script; the pages slipped apart, some of them falling to the floor. I bent to
retrieve them and heard Mrs. Wilkes’s loud sigh of exasperation, and she said, “Mrs. Langley, the line is: ‘My poor dear sister, struck down in the bloom of youth!’ ”
It was the way she said it, with assurance and theatrical intonations—a quite different voice from her usual—as if she’d practiced it many times, that gave me pause. I remembered what Sebastian DeWitt had said, how the company had already been rehearsing the play for some days, how my coming might offend them. Suddenly I felt uneasy.
I picked up the pages and rose. “ ‘My dear sister, struck down so young.’ ”
“ ‘My poor dear sister, struck down in the bloom of youth,’ ” Mrs. Wilkes corrected impatiently.
Mr. Galloway said, “ ‘How could my dear girl be gone?’ ”
I glanced down at the pages in my hand. I could not find the words Mr. Galloway said anywhere.
“You say: ‘How fragile she was! How well she believed Barnabus Cadsworth’s lies,’ ” Mrs. Wilkes filled in.
I looked at her. A suspicion began to grow in my mind. I tried to smile. “You know the lines so well.”
Mr. Geary threw up his hands in exasperation. “Please, Mrs. Langley—”
Mrs. Wilkes’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, of course I do. This is how I make a living, Mrs. Langley.” She spoke as if I could not hope to understand, and her contempt for me colored every syllable.
“Children!” Mr. Greene said. “Your line, Bea.”
“ ‘Miss Penny,’ ” said Mrs. Wilkes, but this time in a simpering voice—Marjory’s no doubt—“ ‘do not grieve so. She is gone to a better place.’ ”
The line dropped into silence. I glanced down again at the pages, shuffling through them. “They’re out of order. Please, if you’ll give me just a moment to right them—”
“ ‘Oh, Marjory, I pray heaven loves her as well as we have,’ ” went on Mrs. Wilkes, not missing a pause, the tempered voice she’d used before, and then she dropped again into the simpering voice, “ ‘I am sure of it, miss, and the little unborn child too.’ ” Then again to the Penelope voice, “ ‘Did he know of it, do you think? Did he know of the child he got on my sister before he abandoned her?’ ”
Miss Jenks burst into laughter. From the floor, Mr. Wheeler said, “Perhaps we should do Jekyll and Hyde next, Lucius. Bea would be sheer perfection in the role.”
“I only asked for a moment,” I said to Mrs. Wilkes. I was angry now, though I made an effort to speak politely.
“I’d hoped to get through the scene in less than two hours,” she said coolly.
Mr. DeWitt said, “Greene, perhaps it would be better to give Mrs. Langley a chance to study the script before you throw her to the wolves.”
“I had not thought the landscape so infested,” Mr. Greene said drily. “But I think DeWitt is right. Mrs. Langley, please come and sit down. Here, we have a chair just for you. As for the rest … we’ll go to act two, scene one, where Barnabus vows to take the sweet Delia as his own.”
I was more than grateful, both for Mr. DeWitt’s suggestion and to deliver myself from my proximity to Mrs. Wilkes before I lost my temper. This was not what I’d wanted or intended. I retreated to the table. When Mr. Greene turned his attention back to the rehearsal, I leaned to whisper to Mr. DeWitt, “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
He nodded. “I had told you they might not welcome you.”
“I did not imagine they would be quite so.…” I let my words trail off, alarmed to find that my eyes had filled with tears.
Mr. DeWitt’s hand covered mine, a gentle squeeze. “They’ll learn to like you as much as I do, Mrs. Langley.”
“I wonder.”
“They will,” he whispered. “Don’t let her disconcert you.” I glanced at the actors who had made my first foray among them so difficult—at Mrs. Wilkes especially, and I found myself saying quietly, “You said the company had been rehearsing this play for a week. Who had the part of Penelope before me?”
Mr. DeWitt paused. Then he said, “I think you must already know.”
He was right; I did know. It was clear that Mrs. Wilkes had had the part before me, and that she’d thought to keep it. I understood why she disliked me. I understood why she was angry, and as Sebastian DeWitt went back to his pen, I glanced up to see her staring at me, her eyes like cold little stones, and I wondered how I would ever make this up to her.
I was already at dinner when Nathan returned home that evening.
“Forgive my tardiness, my dear,” he said, pouring a glass of wine and taking roast onto his plate.
I told him, “Mr. Greene insisted I attend a rehearsal today.”
“Ah yes. The theater. I’d forgotten. How was it—as scintillating as you’d hoped?”
I took a sip of wine. “I’m afraid I stumbled a bit. I had not thought … the part of Penelope had already been given to someone else. A Mrs. Wilkes. Do you know her?”
“Mrs. Wilkes. I know of her, of course.”
“She was quite angry.”
He shrugged. “She’ll adjust, I imagine. Greene won’t tolerate it otherwise, regardless of what right she feels she has to the role.”
“What right she has to it? What do you mean?”
“DeWitt wrote it for her, I understand.”
My appetite left me completely. I put down my fork. “Mr. DeWitt wrote Penelope Justis for Beatrice Wilkes?”
Nathan glanced up. “I believe so. Is something wrong?”
“Dear God, he said nothing of that. I hadn’t realized …” I could not help my distress. “Why didn’t he tell me she was the muse he’d spoken of?”
“Why would he?” Nathan frowned. “What does it matter?”
I barely heard him. “That explains everything.”
“Everything? What happened?”
“Nothing. At least nothing that isn’t completely understandable.”
“Should I say something to Greene?”
“Please don’t. I’ll find a way to make it up to Mrs. Wilkes. Perhaps I’ll buy her a gift.”
Nathan paused in taking a bite. “I’ve heard she has a sweet tooth.”
“Oh, I think something useful instead. She can’t make much money at the Regal, and she’s certainly not a star. If I could think of a way to help her …”
Nathan made a noncommittal sound.
I picked up my wine again. Beatrice Wilkes was Sebastian DeWitt’s muse. I’d thought her the most talented of the company, but still, she was so … common. Nothing as I’d imagined the actress who’d inspired such divine words to be. Shouldn’t muses be so much more vibrant and charismatic? I saw none of that in her, but perhaps.… No sweetheart or wife, he’d told me.
Still …
As casually as I could, I said, “Are they lovers, do you think—she and Mr. DeWitt?”
Nathan said, “Oh, I hardly think so. She’s an actress, isn’t she? Aren’t they all looking for rich patrons? He can’t make enough money to interest her.”
“I must admit I’d be surprised. She doesn’t seem his sort.”
“Hmmm. Well, she must have a charm you’re blind to.”
“I suppose.”
Nathan said, “By the way, at the club today, a friend of mine expressed some interest in your theater experiment. He’d thought of trying such a thing himself. Reading seems to have started an epidemic. I told him he might watch a rehearsal.”
I blinked at the change in subject. “You should have him speak to James Reading.”
“Oh, I will. But he may wish to speak to you as well.”
“Is he important?”
Nathan smiled. “Exceedingly so.” He pulled his watch from his vest pocket and glanced at it, then pushed back his chair and rose, throwing his napkin down, leaving his dinner half-eaten. “Now you must forgive me, but I’ve an appointment. I shall be out quite late, I think. Don’t wait up.”
Chapter Fourteen
Beatrice
I was still angry when it came time to go to rehearsal the next morning, and tired as
hell because I’d been up late studying the rest of Marjory’s lines. There were fewer than I’d had as Penelope, of course, but still it took hours. By the time I went to bed, I was beginning to like the idea that I was playing the woman who put Penelope Justis into the hands of the villainous Barnabus Cadsworth, even if she didn’t mean to. Now, if only the waterfall he dropped her from was real.…
Fortunately, Nathan hadn’t shown up last night—I wasn’t sure what I would have done if he had. After the performance, I’d found the box of candy I’d left in his carriage in my dressing room, along with some American Beauty roses—pricey things, those, and lovely, even if they had no scent—but no note, which was just as well, as I didn’t want to forgive him yet, as stupid as that was, and I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. His wife had been as insufferable as I could have predicted. I’d spent the entire rehearsal wondering if she knew about me and her husband, and I’d finally decided she didn’t and toyed with the idea of telling her. Nathan hadn’t said not to tell her, though what man wanted his wife to know about his mistress? It seemed stupid on his part, actually, to put us in the same room together. It would serve him right if I told her everything. But then I remembered how Nathan had slapped me, and I didn’t want that either; I didn’t want him angrier with me than he was already. He was a rich man, and he already had Lucius on his side, and to go against him directly was suicidal. But I wanted my revenge as well—on both of the Langleys, and I didn’t need it to be explosive to be satisfying. I could be subtle enough if I tried.
When I showed up for rehearsal at ten, the scene painters were still working on the backdrop. The prompt table had been dragged out; now it was placed downstage near the footlights. There were three chairs, two of them spindly and the last one, which I recognized from Lucius’s office, I knew was meant for Mrs. Langley. There was always a chair for a star, whenever we worked with one, but seeing that chair there for her … it made me angry all over again, so when Sebastian DeWitt appeared behind me suddenly with his “Good morning, Mrs. Wilkes,” I snapped, “It’s too damn hot to be a good morning—or don’t you sweat like the rest of us?”
