The challis shirtwaists had been fresh-pressed with sizing, skirt hems ironed to a knife-edge; the dressing room smelled deliciously of laundry. Mama had rigged an improvised board from their placard, two coffee cans and a towel.
‘Ge-ge-ge-ge-geh,’
Aurora sang.
‘Ke-ke-ke-ke-keh.’
‘If you need an encore …’
But Clover said, ‘We won’t, Mama, we’re just the closer. They’ll be wanting to go home as much as we want to send them.’ Which was true, of course.
The boy knocked at the door, and they were up and out in a flurry of skirts and boots, a herd of young horses rising suddenly from a field.
The Life
Gentry was not backstage, but the girls knew he must be watching. Clover breathed in through the bottom of her boots, as Gentry had said to do, determined not to look so serious.
Mattie held his hand out for their placard. Oh, the placard! The ironing board!
Bella raced down on galumphing feet, grabbed it, nearly throwing the rats’ tack into a tangle, and jumped back upstairs three at a time, to the music already beginning over the end of the pictograph reel.
Mattie marched the card onstage and set it, and the music swelled, and they were up.
They ran prancing on to the music, holding hands. Into position. The lights were brighter in this theatre. Hot onstage—and they were ready, and the piano slid into the verse.
‘Early one morning, just as the sun was rising
I heard a maid singing in the valley below
,
O, don’t deceive me, O, never leave me
,
How could you use a poor maiden so?’
In the song’s story Clover was the low-voiced singer, and Aurora the maiden. Bella—another happier maiden, unable to contain her delight at being up on the boards again. She stood by Clover as Gentry had commanded; she did not swish her skirt or fidget.
They opened their mouths like caves and let the sound flow out, running smooth to the back of the house—Aurora opened up the top of her head and opened down the bottom of her jaw, the sweetest and most dreadfully deceived of girls, wandering there back of the castle all pregnant with her apron not fitting any more. Bella almost laughed as she thought about that humped-up apron. But they were using the
more refined lyrics with only the
garlands that you pressed on my brow …
Even Mrs. Cleveland could not have objected to them.
There was a difference this evening, Aurora thought, a change clearer in the house than in themselves: the audience was relaxed, as if knowing the girls would sing well right from the start. Their act wasn’t just good in spots, it was good all through, and the back-and-forthness between them and the people was made of pleasure rather than kindness. If they kept working, they could be good like this all the time.
Then it was time for
Buffalo Gals
, where Bella could cut loose and kick up her heels, and the audience became more lively. One of her tapping heels encountered a smear of soap bubble left by the juggler, whisked out from under her, and nearly took her whooshing off the stage—but she recovered, with a windmill of arms that shook a huge laugh out of the audience, and the applause at the end was such a cascade of happiness that Bella laughed as she bowed. This was the life for her.
A Kick
‘Very—energetic,’ Gentry said, waiting in the wings when they came off. ‘My dear Bella, your poise and aplomb was never more evident than when you did
not
land in the front row after slipping. Head voice well released—it is a beginning. If you continue to give me that forward tone, I will let you do it in two, with the park backdrop, well behind the Bubbler’s soap scum.’
Aurora considered the honour. They had never yet been in two. Mama pressed Gentry’s hand and said, ‘It is like you to be careful of my girls, dear Gentry, thank you.’ And then it was all to do over again for the seven o’clock show—the waiting, the climbing up and down stairs, makeup removed and their faces cleaned, as Mama insisted, between shows.
The dressing room became a cozy snug, Sybil and Mama continuing their rambling catalogue of every gig and artiste they had played, or played with, or ever seen; Letty Swain showing Bella how the harnesses worked and roping her in to polishing brass; Clover and Aurora brushing each other’s hair a thousand counted strokes.
After the second show, in the welter of prop-setting for Julius, Gentry stopped Aurora backstage with one twisted, arthritic hand on her arm. ‘At the garlands verse, take a turn farther left to find the light. Your mama can find steps for that—
allemande, pas de bourrée
, not too lively. I’m pleased with you,’ he said. ‘Much as it pains me to say so.’
Aurora laughed, and caught the eye of the Elocutionist, passing behind Gentry just then, and no doubt hearing what Gentry had said. Kavanagh gave her a nod, a note of his eyes.
Gentry glanced over his shoulder to see who Aurora looked at. ‘But I’m putting you back in one,’ he told her, ignoring Kavanagh. ‘I’ll move the Soap Juggler back into two, so he won’t sully the apron-stage with his suds. Distance is required for that illusion; and I still can’t hear you dear girls when you are in two.’
Oh well, Aurora thought. A compliment, and then a kick to chase it. She gathered Clover and Bella, and they went down to wait the long stretch till the closer.
A Night Out
Maurice Kavanagh was served late supper at the Pioneer Restaurant, a favour granted by Mrs. Burday because she found him so romantical. When the girls and Mama trooped through the restaurant on their way to the back-hall stairs, he twisted in his seat, judging his timing to a pin, and called softly, ‘Miss! Miss!’
Aurora, trailing the others, turned and gave him a delicious smile, in honour of his brilliance and the mauveness of his soft-folding tie.
He reared his head back and eyed her with a look pleasantly askance, considering. ‘I’m a stranger here myself,’ he said.
‘Oh, so are we, Mr. Kavanagh.’
‘But so familiar with the layout of the place?’
‘We are lodging here, you see.’
‘I do see,’ he said, looking at her as a man might look at the menu at Delmonico’s, then shaking his head. ‘But I don’t see—what is to be done.’
‘What kind of a thing needs doing?’
‘Well, here am I, with an evening on my hands, and no guide to this Underworld.’
Aurora laughed. He was quite old, probably thirty. Long thick eyelids under very dark brows. He liked her extremely. Everybody did! She was beautiful, at least this one evening.
‘Will you?’
‘Will I?’
‘Be my Beatrice, lead me through at least the first circle of this Inferno of a town.’
She laughed again, but said, ‘How can I? I know it no more than you do.’
‘Accompany me and we will root out its terrors together. At least, eat supper with me,’ he said. ‘Mrs. Burday has promised a supportive meal, to restore the overextended nerves.’
In the stair-hall beyond, Mama paused by the newel post. Aurora could certainly use a good supper. If she should take the fancy of an artist as well-established as Kavanagh!—although it was not entirely clear whether he was on his way up or down. What harm could come from it when she was right here in the same building? She craned her neck back, holding the newel, and nodded to Aurora.
‘Well, if you have no other company,’ Aurora said.
She gave a hint of a bow and sat opposite him at the table, then reached her arms up and made a small show of taking off her hat. They had laid out too much on clothes when they were starting out, and after all, what was the point in a black velvet hat if you did not make use of it?
Mrs. Burday made no difficulty about bringing another plate. ‘There’s plenty, I’m sure. The potatoes is fresh fried up, the shin left over from suppertime. You’ll want a glass of milk,’ she told Aurora, making her very angry.
When supper had been disposed of, Mr. Kavanagh sat on, seeming in no hurry for his bed. It was after midnight, but he was into his stride, telling Aurora about his engagements in the legitimate theatre—his Alving in
Ghosts
, and how Belasco wanted him for Chicago, and (in a
generous nod to her sex) discoursing on the art of elocution as it pertained to females. ‘The penetrative quality of every woman’s voice may be improved,’ he told her. ‘Elocution can hardly make women orators; it cannot confer intelligence or discrimination; but it can tune that disordered instrument, the body.’
Abruptly he stopped, pulling out his watch. He stood, and commanded, ‘Come!’
Aurora gathered her coat and mantle and stabbed her hat into place, trying not to disorder her hair too badly. ‘Where?’
‘Do you care? I asked for Beatrice, and the Underworld awaits!’
Virgil led the poet through the Underworld, not Beatrice, Aurora thought, but she did not complain. They went a long way over icy paths, down empty, snow-packed streets to wherever he was going. He did not talk much, trotting her along like a prize calf to market, but at last they came to a square, brick-built house on a corner of State Street, snow cleared from its edges and gaslight gleaming from the windows, music sending fronds of spring out into the winter darkness.
‘Just a private party,’ he said at the tall black door, as he knocked. ‘Jenny won’t mind that I’ve brought you.’ Bullying through the crush of backs and arms, Maurice introduced her to a high-cheeked woman who seemed the hostess. Older than Mama and taller, almost stern-looking, in an elegant ruby silk dress, with dark coils of hair piled on her head.
‘Make this little bird welcome, Jenny. She’s dancing up at the Parthenon, she and her sisters, new to the boards but she’ll learn.’
‘A dancer! You’re in good company here, my dear, we were all dancers once—but those days are past and it is much more respectable here than formerly.’
Aurora gave her a hand, not certain this was correct, and said, ‘Aurora Avery.’
The woman laughed, but not unkindly, and took her hand, then tweaked her elbow, fingering the billowing flannel sleeve.
‘You’re a pearl, all right.’ The ruby dress split as she swayed, revealing inner slashes of pale peach-fuzz velvet. ‘Now, Maurice, you find her a cup of the punch, and tell Ricardo to fetch you the usual; if you’d rather
something stronger, my dear Miss Avery, say what you want, I’m sure he’s got every kind of liquor. We haven’t gone Temperance here, not yet!’
Aurora bobbed her head to thank her, and at Maurice’s pressure on her arm went into the shifting noisy crowd, musicians adding their own noise. Although Aurora kept drinking the punch (and found herself very thirsty) and nodding her head, she quite often had no idea what was being said to her. She felt very happy to be here, to be a woman in the world.
Maurice fell into animated argument with several different people who of course she did not know (though some of the orchestra members were familiar, moonlighting from the Parthenon); she was hard put to keep up with him as he moved from place to place. The room was smoky, hot after their cold walk to get here. Wherever
here
was. Suddenly weary, she thought of leaving, but found she could not reconstruct their route in her mind, and into the small hours, now, she would not be safe, wandering the streets to find the hotel.
She tried to be patient, but Maurice’s conversations were full of names and people she did not know, consisting of highly coloured stories that left out all details. ‘Jerry did, God-damned hound—nobody’s fault but his own, we told him that—never saw her again nor wanted to …’ in quick exchanges along the same lines with several different sets of men.
The women did not do much talking, but some were beautiful, and they wore dazzling dresses and jewellery. Aurora stood by a massive mahogany pocket door, tucked in, her punch-glass held carefully out of the way. It was delicate crystal with thistles etched upon it, and she feared to break it.
Almost Empty
Bella poured hot milk into the bread, feeling Clover’s careful eye upon her lest she scald herself or spill. Mama had taken off her boots and sunk upon the sofa, feeling every inch of her years, she said, so Bella had gone down to the kitchen to get the milk while Clover combed Mama’s hair out and rubbed her temples with a dab of
perfume to help her aching head. The scent bottle was almost empty. Papa had given it to Mama for Christmas before … all the rest of it. Bella did not like the smell. She leaned over the bowls, warm sweet bread sending a curl of comfort to her nose. Aurora’s lustreware bowl sat clean and empty on the dresser, but she’d be having something lovely downstairs, and probably cake. She was taking a very long time over supper.
Mama waved away her bowl, saying, ‘You eat mine, Bella dear. You jump around so, you need the extra.’ Clover shook her head, though, so the two girls helped Mama to sit up and Bella pressed the bowl into her hand.
‘Look how nicely Bella has made it, Mama,’ Clover said. ‘All stirred smooth for you.’
So Mama opened her eyes and exclaimed over the perfection of the mixing and how her own mama had made it for her while touring long ago, and wasn’t it lucky that they were cozy in this nice hotel. But after a spoonful or two she leaned her head on the arm of the sofa and let damp trails of tears fall down her cheeks.
Bella put the bowls on the dresser and brought the gold silk coverlet; Clover took Mama’s stockings off and tucked her feet under the warm folds. The girls let her lie quiet while they undressed themselves in silence, and got into bed.
A lively evening is often followed by a sad ending, Bella thought, staring through the darkness at the paler rectangle of the window.
A Fool
‘Hot in here,’ Kavanagh said in Aurora’s ear. She turned quickly and he gave her a loving, slow-growing smile that took in all the details of her face and hair and hat. ‘Still got that hat on? Let’s take you up—we’ll find the cloakroom or something of the sort.’