Exit the Actress (2 page)

But at what cost? you ask. I’ll show you. Here, over your shoulder: look closely. Look again: in the dark, there, do you see? The velvet, the hush, the eyes on me? Quiet. Back away. Disappear. It is a delicate alchemy balanced on a pin, gifted with luck, defined by illusion, brittle with fragility, but so beautiful.

Ah, you patrons and saints of the theatre…. in the world at the edge of the world, where the king comes down from his mountain top to love the orange girl. Where reason and right run rampant and no one ever grows old. Where women are pirates and princes and wildflowers grow in the soul. The magical door will close behind me and then? Who will I be? But oh, I can live without the talk! The scandal, the chatter, the news today, and who went rolling in the hay. The who did what to whom and why? And how and when and by and by—the time is gone—and it is not life after all, this
talk
.

Still—it is fun. They say: I am charming. They say: I am charmed. They who? Ah yes…. I know. Just remember:
They
are very powerful. Keep on the right side of They.

I gamble at the golden table, where the air is thick with time and chance and each night hundreds of scarlet slippers wear through from dancing.

Will
you
risk? Will
you
play? If you do, if you dare: wish and wish and should you win, when it is done,
if
morning comes: sneak away, snap for luck, and bless the day.

Hurry home. Fast and faster. Pull your curtains. Bolt your door. Close your eyes and wish some more. Love your neighbour. Sweep your floor. Beware. Luck can turn in a mouse’s breath; before you notice, it is gone. So wish and wish for all your life to be kissed by bounty and freed of strife, and always, always for you and yours, joy upon joy upon joy—after all, it is all there is.

And as for our ordinary days: they are quicked with silver, bright and
brief—and if you are snug as a beetle and free as a leaf—then shout thanks to heaven and breathe relief, for: our happiness is sewn in delicate threads. Use a thimble and
sew, sew, sew.

But don’t forget, love cannot protect the lover. It will bend but it will break. For it is not enough. Be careful what you choose.

Young girls ask how did you do it? Your cheeks are so pink? Your hair is so
red
? True, you are a stage delight, your waist is slim, your tread is light—but is that
all
? After all, you are so
small
. You are so like us. So here. So wicked. And yet, he loves you so. Why?

(
Quietly.
) And the answer is always the same: I really do not know.

(
Deep curtsey. Exit the Actress stage right.
)

Isn’t it pretty? I guess I should say
“you”
rather than
“it.”
Isn’t that what one does in a journal, address it personally, like a friend, like a confidante? I am not sure of the etiquette, but I do know that
“you”
sounds precious and forced and not for me. Grumble. I dusted and rinsed this old sea chest twice before setting this book down upon it to write, and I have
still
managed to get grime on my sleeve. Rose will be cross. My sister, Rose, and I share this tiny back room above the kitchen, sparely furnished with only our narrow beds, a wobbly three-legged night table, and this damp sea chest pushed up to the draughty window. I only have a few minutes as I am waiting for Rose, who is dressing in front of the long mirror in Mother’s room. Rose is
often
in front of the mirror. Oh, another grumble, these are
not
very auspicious opening lines, nothing of the elegant, eloquent young woman I hope to be. Never mind, ink is precious, onward.

It
is
pretty: butter yellow cover, thick creamy pages, bound with pale pink thread. It was really meant for my sister, as it is her birthday today. Rose is two years older than me and is turning fourteen and ought to be better behaved, frankly.

This morning:

Rose’s friend Duncan, the stationer’s son, a tall, finely turned-out young man who looks so wrong in our cramped, damp house, was wrapping his birthday gift for Rose, this beautiful journal plus: two fluffy quills, a sleek
little penknife, and a heavy crystal inkpot, all stuffed in a stiff pink silk writing box. Too much for one box—the lid wouldn’t shut.

“So she can record her most
private
thoughts and
deepest
desires”, Duncan informed me loftily this morning, jamming the lid closed—it bulged but finally latched. We were seated on the worn rug in our tiny kitchen, working quickly to arrange Rose’s gifts before she and Mother returned from church. I worried for Duncan’s pale cream silk breeches on our gritty floor. I also worried that his gift would not be a success with Rose.

“Duncan?” I faltered. How to word this? Rose’s deepest desire was for lady’s gloves or enamel hair-combs or silk dancing slippers for her birthday—luxuries she would dearly love but cannot afford: pretty things. She has no interest in writing or reading or anything else much. If I were being unkind, I would say that Rose is only interested in beautifying Rose—but I am not
that
mean.

“Fetch over that pink ribbon, Ellen. The one edged in silver,” he said without looking up from his task. I hurried to his hamper to find the right colour while he wrapped this lumpy gift in coloured paper—also pink—Rose likes pink. I handed him the ribbon, thinking that Rose will likely prefer the wrapping to the gift, and sat down again beside him. “A
perfect
choice,” he gushed, wrestling with the paper and getting the lace of his frilly cuff tangled in the ribbon. “It will
perfectly
reflect my regard for her perfectly tender sensibilities.” I bit my lip to keep from giggling. Duncan uses the word
perfect
a lot.

“When are they due back?” he asked, looking up at the tidy oak and brass clock Mother is so proud of. Ten to eleven.

“Soon. Father Pelham gives short sermons on sunny days.”

“Lilacs or roses?” He held up generous bunches of both—good grief he came prepared.

“Lilacs.” Rose detests roses—too predictable.

Anyway, unsurprisingly, she did
not
like it, and did not take particular pains to hide it from Duncan—so rude! His face crumpled with distress when he realised his mistake. She did, however, like the new hat I gave her—grey felt wool with a wide green ribbon—the sharp, new pair of sewing scissors sent from Grandfather and Great-Aunt Margaret in Oxford, and the cake of orange blossom soap from Mother. “To get rid of the fishy smell,” I chimed in thoughtlessly, trying to enliven the gloomy air. Rose sniffed, tossed her head, and ignored me. She doesn’t like people to know that we are oyster girls and wishes I wouldn’t refer to it aloud, certainly not in front of Duncan, who works in his father’s stationery shop and smells of paper. “But people will
know
when they buy oysters from us,” I am forever pointing out. A fact she chooses not to recognise—Rose does not like to be bothered with facts.

Rose just popped her head in, having changed her thick bronze hair from the simple, and I thought elegant, twist at the back to the more fashionable clumps of heavy dangling curls on each side of her head—perhaps fashionable but certainly
not
an improvement, they look like bunches of grapes.
Heigh-ho
. She scowled when she saw my sleeve. Now Rose is ready, but Duncan, who is in the kitchen eating crusted bread with butter and jam and getting crumbs on his velvet coat, is not.

So many people: jostling and hot and very smelly. People should wash more. Still, it was a magic day, and the freshly ribboned maypole in front of Somerset House was
enormous
. By next week, it will be a soggy grey mess, but no matter. It took us ages to pick our way through the crowded streets down to the Strand, and along the way I spoke to strangers, something Rose wishes I would
not
do, sang a May Day song with Mr. Lake, the cheesemonger, and ate sugared almond comfits until I felt ill. Too ill even to eat a slice of Rose’s
frosted sugar-cake (more pink), another gift from Duncan, who danced the noisy country reels over and over again with Rose. He is forgiven for the journal and has slavishly promised to make it up to her—revolting.

Mother chose not to come, no surprise. She received her weekly wages yesterday, and I’d bet she has already spent them on drink. Remember, Ellen: patience and kindness, patience and kindness.

Note
—Must stop. Mother will be angry if she catches me wasting candles.

Grandfather, very distinguished, not looking nearly as old as I thought he would (he was after all too old to fight for the old king), and nothing of the dour disapproving figure I had feared—surprising, after all he is a man of the church and aren’t they
required
to be dour and disapproving?—has come down from Oxford, bringing with him his ancient, wheezing pug, Jeffrey. “He snuffles as he shuffles,” Rose giggled. We have not seen Grandfather since our fortunes turned to ill and we left Oxford—and I was too small at only six years to have much memory of him. Rose says she can remember tugging his beard and watching him play cards and drink cider with Father. I cannot remember Father (who Mother calls “poor Thomas of blessed memory”) at all.

Grandfather has come, he says, to guide our educations but has brought a long list of instructions from his sister, the ferocious Great-Aunt Margaret, concerning “our health and well-being,” he said vaguely. I worry about that list. Unfortunately, he has already disagreed with Mother on a number of subjects, including our hygiene, dress, and vocabulary.

“You see!” Mother shrilled. “I knew you were only coming here to criticise. You have never approved of me. You think I could have done something more for him! You think I could have found someone to help poor Thomas, but I tell you once I saw that leg, I knew…”

“But, Nora,” he said calmly. “Surely Thomas’s pension will ensure more than this?” He gestured to our dreary sitting room. “After all, he died in the war, and isn’t his widow entitled to the maximum amount? Yet his daughters…” Rose and I, sitting on the stair, held our breath.

“Yes?” challenged Mother.
Oh dear,
we knew that tone of voice. Do not push her further, or we will not have peace in the house for a week.

“They are running about London like street urchins!” Grandfather reasoned. “Why, Ellen told me that she has been wearing the same dress for a
month
! And Rose can hardly spell her name! And they both smell of fish!” Rose flinched and instinctively sniffed her fingers.

“Oysters
. Not fish.”

“Is there a difference? Is one more desirable than the other?”

Mother then launched into her familiar long litany of domestic woes.

“How am I to: clean them, clothe them, feed them, house them,
and
educate them?” she wailed. “On what? With what? There is no one to help me, now that my Thomas is gone.”

With that she sank to her knees and began to sob noisily, pulling her voluminous handkerchief from her roomy bosom. Rose and I exchanged glances.
“That’s done it.”
Once she starts, it is difficult for her to stop. Grandfather tried tactfully to suggest that she spend less on
refreshment
(too obvious) and more on books, outer clothes, underclothes, soap, and new boots, but Mother only sobbed louder and refused to listen. She will remain like this for days.

This morning, Mother had
still
not come out of her room; Grandfather stomped off to the Exchange himself and returned with three books (used); a block of lemon castle-soap; cloth for: new chemises, summer and winter drawers, and woollen skirts for us; and a new cambric handkerchief for Mother. He laid it outside her door as a peace offering.