A Respectable Actress

by Dorothy Love

  “Did you?”

  She gaped at him. “If that’s what you think, then you have no business defending me.”

  “It’s my job to ask. Even if you did intend harm, there are mitigating circumstances a jury might consider. Heat of passion, momentary loss of reason, mistaken—”

  “I’ve told you what happened. Someone must have substituted my gun for the prop. I picked it up and aimed it, as Mr. Philbrick had commanded me to do, under threat of losing my job, and it went off.”

  He sighed and consulted his pocket watch. “All right. Enough for today. I’m due at the lumber mill at ten. Mr. Dodge has some preliminary drawings of our proposed resort to show me.”

  She let out a long breath, grateful for the change of subject. “Is it worth going out in this rain?”

  He relaxed then. “It’s nearly stopped, and it isn’t far to the bluff.”

  “Amelia says the lumber operation is off to a good start.”

  “I hope so, for the sake of everyone on the island.” He started for the door. “I’m taking the steamer to Savannah this afternoon to consult with another of my clients. I’ll be back late tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll need a list of anyone you can think of who might make a good witness for your defense.”

  “I’m at a disadvantage,” she said. “I don’t know anyone in Savannah, except Fabienne and Mr. Philbrick. And I’m not so sure he thinks I’m innocent.”

  “What about others in the cast? The stage crew?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know any of them very well. People think that being famous assures one of countless friends. But I have found the opposite to be true. Whether because of envy or shyness or some other reason, people like me are often given a wide berth. And I’d been in town for only a couple of weeks for rehearsals. There wasn’t time to form strong bonds with anyone.”

  “What about those outside Savannah? Is there anyone from your days in Philadelphia or Boston?”

  India shook her head. “When Father sold our theater company, many of the actors left.”

  “Did they say why?”

  “The new owners intend to organize a tour of the West, and most of the company think it has little chance of success. Mr. Forrest, an actor of some repute, toured California a few years ago and lost quite a bit of money. Naturally, people are hesitant to embark upon so arduous a journey with so little prospect of reward.”

  “I see.”

  “And some of those in our old company blamed me for my father’s string of failures.” India shrugged. “Even if we could find them, I’m not certain I could count on their support.”

  “But surely for a lady so beloved as you, someone would rise to your defense.”

  “The manager of the hotel where Father and I lived for a time, Mr. Page, thought quite highly of my father. They often played chess in the evenings when the theater was dark. He enjoyed hearing me sing.” She paused, considering. “In New York I knew Napoleon Sarony. He owns a photography studio on Broadway that caters to the theater trade. I posed in his studio for a couple of carte de visites. Father and I often dined with him when we were in town.”

  “Give me their addresses, and I’ll write to them.” Philip stepped into the hallway and turned toward her, one hand on the doorknob. “While I’m away, try to remember anyone else who might vouch for you. And please try not to worry.”

  The door closed behind him. His footsteps faded into the silence. India sat for another half hour in the quiet of the study, watching as the rainstorm weakened to a slow drizzle that dripped from the eaves and soaked the brown winter grass. Through the murky window she caught a glimpse of wood smoke rising from the chimneys of the former slave cabins, and in the distance, the gray, wind-tossed sea.

  How could she not worry? After all, she was the one holding her own weapon when Mr. Sterling fell, though the actual event was a blur in her mind. She remembered her panic when she couldn’t find the weapon, then the weight of the gun in her hand, the sound of gunfire. But she could not remember crossing to stand next to the wounded actor, though the blood on her costume meant that surely she had.

  When the burned logs in the fireplace collapsed with a soft sigh, she left the study and went upstairs to her room to make her list of potential character witnesses. Finding no paper or pencil, she opened her door and peered into the dimly lit hallway. A series of doors opened off the gallery. Outside a door at the far end of the hall stood a pair of men’s riding boots. Clearly, that room was Philip’s. Which room was Amelia’s? Philip’s sister was rarely without pen and paper, endlessly composing long missives to her far-flung relatives. Perhaps Amelia would lend her a pen and ink and a few sheets of paper.

  India stopped before a closed door on the back side of the gallery and knocked softly. “Amelia?”

  Hearing no reply, she turned the knob. The door swung open. India sucked in a breath.

  A tester bed made up with a pale blue coverlet and six lacy pillows sat beneath one long window. Across the coverlet was draped a cranberry-red ball gown several years out of fashion. A pair of white kid shoes sat at the foot of the bed as if waiting for their owner to step into them. On the dressing table was a forest of cut-glass perfume bottles and a black lacquered jewel case coated with a fine film of dust.

  India stepped into the room and closed the door. The dull winter light illuminated a massive portrait of a young woman mounted above a black marble fireplace that had been laid with logs and kindling. The air around her seemed to thicken, stealing her breath.

  India felt cold, as if she’d stumbled upon a grave.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway. India whirled around just as the doorknob turned. Too late to make her escape, she darted behind the curtains framing the window and held her breath. Fabric rustled as someone moved about the room. In the next moment, India heard the striking of a match. The room filled with the smell of sulfur and something else. Beeswax?

  With her every muscle tensed, India remained frozen in place, taking shallow breaths through her mouth. Minutes passed before footsteps sounded on the bare plank floor. India waited, not daring to breathe until she heard the solid click of the latch as the door closed.

  Her heart hammering, she stepped from her hiding place. In the light cast by a brace of flickering candles, she saw what her eyes had missed before: a table covered with half a dozen smaller candles, each in its own red glass vase. And on the table, a Bible and a silver reliquary necklace. Clearly this room was a shrine to the woman in the portrait.

  Who was she? And who was the keeper of the flame?

  CHAPTER 8

  DECEMBER 29

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING INDIA WOKE TO THE SOUND of voices raised in song. She threw back the quilt and padded to the window. Drawing aside the curtain, she peered out. Sunshine had supplanted yesterday’s wind and rain, and now the sky was a perfect bowl of blue. Binah and Almarene were singing as they pegged the wash. Bed linens, tablecloths, and half a dozen petticoats fluttered in the breeze.

  India hurried through her morning ablutions and went downstairs.

  “There you are.” Amelia looked up from her letter writing. “Mrs. Catchpole told me to wake you an hour ago, but I thought you needed your sleep.”
<
br />   “Oh?”

  Amelia poured coffee into India’s cup. “You seem to have had a restless night.”

  India frowned. It had taken her a long while to fall asleep last night. But at last she had slept soundly. Or so she thought.

  “I heard you prowling the upstairs gallery after midnight,” Amelia said. “I’m sorry you were unable to sleep. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  India shivered at the memory of the candlelit room she’d discovered yesterday. She didn’t believe in ghosts or evil spirits. She hadn’t been the one walking the halls in the darkness. And she had not heard anything unusual in the night. But something had disturbed Amelia’s sleep.

  “Thank you, but I’m all right.”

  India wanted to know about the woman in the portrait and why the room was kept as if awaiting the return of its occupant. But she had been at Indigo Point for only a week. As accommodating as Amelia had been, Philip’s sister might not take kindly to such inquiries. India sipped her coffee and cast about for a safe topic of conversation. “The weather seems fine this morning.”

  “Yes. Quite mild for this time of year. Almarene and Binah are doing the wash. Mrs. Catchpole is in the kitchen house, figuring out what to make for supper this evening. I’ll ask her to bring you some breakfast.”

  “Please don’t disturb her preparations. I’m not really very hungry.” India smiled. “When I’m working, I rarely eat anything before eleven in the morning.”

  Amelia pushed aside her paper and pen. “If you want to talk about why you are here, I’m ready to listen. I know you are in terrible trouble.”

  “Your brother says it’s a circumstantial case, but he has made no secret of the difficulties we face in proving my innocence.”

  Amelia nodded. “I saw the newspapers Mrs. Garrison mentioned. But you don’t seem like the kind of person who would take a life. Not unless your own was threatened.”

  India finished her coffee. “You’re very kind. But I don’t think I can bear to speak of it today.”

  “Then we shan’t,” Amelia said with a determined lift of her chin. “Fan Butler invited me over to Butler’s Island this afternoon. Why don’t you come too? Her mother is the Fanny Kemble of London stage fame. I’m sure you have much in common.”

  “I know of Mrs. Kemble’s work. Some critics have compared us one to the other. And you’re kind to offer, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good company.”

  “All the more reason you ought to come. You are in need of a diversion, and word has it that Fan has agreed to become engaged to Reverend Leigh. She says he calls her ‘a fair princess who entertains with royal grace.’” Amelia smiled. “I would not have expected such romantic words from a man of the cloth. But by all accounts they are equally smitten. I’m sure today’s conversation will consist of even more romantic details. It could be quite exciting.”

  Amelia paused to help herself to more coffee. “I met the good reverend when he visited Butler’s Island last winter. He preached to Fan’s Negro workers, and they seemed quite taken with him too.” She stirred in some sugar. “It’s too bad he has returned to England. From what Fan says, the man she left in charge on Butler’s has made a mess of the accounts, and now she needs to find someone to straighten it all out.”

  India could feel her hairpins slipping, and she impatiently shoved them back into place. She would never be good at dressing her hair, even if she lived to be 110. “An engagement is always an occasion for happy conversation. And I am grateful for your invitation. But I promised your brother I would compose a list of witnesses who might speak on my behalf when the time comes. If you can provide paper and pen.”

  “Of course.” Amelia slid the items across the table. “I suppose that is more important than making a social call. I won’t be back until suppertime, but you can ask Mrs. Catchpole for something whenever you get hungry.”

  Almarene came inside with her empty laundry basket and acknowledged India with a slight nod. “You need something to eat, miss?”

  “Thank you. That would be nice.”

  The older woman bobbed her head again and tightened her knobby hands around her basket before hobbling toward the kitchen house. Half an hour later, Amelia set off for Butler’s Island in her rig, the feathers on her velvet hat quivering in the breeze.

  India ate the food Almarene brought, finished a second cup of coffee, and returned to her room. Last night she had been too unnerved to think clearly, but now she sat at the rickety escritoire in the corner of her room and wrote out more of the names she remembered, praying these witnesses would be persuasive enough to win her case.

  When the sound of hoofbeats drew her to the window sometime later, India was surprised to see that the morning had flown. She looked down and saw Philip riding into the yard. She blew on the pages to dry the ink and went downstairs just as he entered the foyer carrying a small white box tied with a gold ribbon.

  His face lit up when he saw her. “Ah, Miss Hartley. Just the one I was hoping to see.” He handed her the beribboned box. “For you. A few days late for Christmas, but better late than never.” He pulled off his riding gloves and tossed them onto a chair. “Go on. Open it.”

  India untied the ribbon and lifted the lid, releasing the tantalizing scent of raisins and spices. “A plum pudding!”

  He laughed. “Probably not the kind you’re accustomed to, but Mrs. Hammond at the bakery in Savannah did her best on short notice.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  “How about, ‘Where’s a spoon?’”

  She grinned. “Only if you join me. I’ve just realized that I haven’t eaten since this morning.”

  “No argument there. I’m famished too.”

  Together they entered the dining room. Philip motioned her to a chair. “Wait here. I’ll get plates and spoons.” He eyed the silver coffeepot sitting on the sideboard. “And more coffee?”

  “Yes, please.”

  India plopped into the chair, overcome with gratitude. She could not remember the last time anyone had brought her a present. She brushed her fingers over the box lid and thought again of the day he had rescued her from the water snake. What she wouldn’t give to have a man like Philip Sinclair by her side. But he seemed not to remember their shared embrace or the way their eyes had connected as he calmed her fright.

  In a moment he returned with Mrs. Catchpole. The housekeeper eyed India, one brow raised. “Ruining your stomach for my supper, are you?”

  India was too delighted with her unexpected gift to let the housekeeper’s disapproval upset her. “I’ll still be plenty hungry by the time Amelia returns from Butler’s Island.”

  Philip poured the coffee. “She’s gone over to see Miss Butler?”

  “Yes. She invited me, but I wanted to finish the list I promised you.”

  “You probably got the best of that bargain,” he said. “Miss Butler is toying with the notion of importing Chinese workers to farm her land, and aside from her approaching marriage, it’s her only topic of conversation these days.”

  Mrs. Catchpole set down plates, forks, a serving spoon, and linen napkins, rattling the china more than India thought necessary. “W
ill that be all, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Catchpole,” he said without looking up. He picked up the serving spoon and dug into the pudding. “This smells good.”

  “Well, if you need me, sir, you just call.”

  “I will.” Philip took a bite of the pudding and closed his eyes, and India noticed for the first time how long and thick his lashes were. Unfair, really, when her own were so much less luxuriant.

  Mrs. Catchpole clumped out to the kitchen. India took a bite of the pudding. Of course it hadn’t been aged in the traditional way, but the flavors of dried fruits and spices were perfectly balanced, and the buttery concoction practically melted on her tongue. She sighed. Pure ecstasy.

  “Well?” Philip smiled and lifted his cup.

  “Perfection. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Seeing you enjoy it is thanks enough. Heaven knows you’ve had little happiness in your life lately.” He sipped his coffee. “Last evening I went by the theater to see Mr. Philbrick. While I was waiting for him, I discovered the theater has a trap room beneath the stage.”

  “Yes. Though it wasn’t needed for Suspicion.” India scooped another bit of pudding onto her plate. “I was down there once or twice. There wasn’t room at my hotel for all Father’s things. Mr. Philbrick allowed me to store my trunk there.”

  Philip nodded. “When I asked you to tell me about the gun, you said it must have been stolen just before the curtain rose that night.”

  “Yes. I’m not overly fond of firearms, but Father insisted that I know how to use one. Some theaters attract unsavory types. But I felt safe at the Southern Palace, and I left the gun in the trunk.”

  “You’re positive.”

  “Yes. The reticule I carried that night was scarcely large enough for my calling cards and a handkerchief.”