‘Bit queasy these days, ain’t she?’ East asked Bella, in an interested way.
‘She’s always like that,’ Bella said, around a mouthful of brittle. East took the bag from her.
‘It’s Julius that has me worried,’ Verrall said. ‘Since—you know—since
then
, he doesn’t look after himself as he ought.’
‘He told me he’d found the cure for a hangover: continuous drunkenness. I thought that was rather good,’ East said. ‘Continuous vaudeville used to do the same for me.’
Mama had drawn as close to the fire as the chair would fit. ‘Sybil was my youth brought back,’ she said, into a little silence. ‘She always thought I was judging her, but I promise you, I was not.’
‘No, no, Mama,’ Clover said. ‘We know that.’
‘A good wife to Julius, a better wife than many.’ She fell silent again, and in a little while East and Verrall took their leave, recalling that orchestra rehearsal would come early next morning.
Bella and Clover walked Mama up to their chamber, finding Aurora already asleep there in the alcove bed. They helped Mama undress, and put her to bed. Bella crawled in beside her to keep her warm. She
smoothed Mama’s hair with a gentle hand, watching the brown curls spring back, silver threads amongst the brown. Perhaps the man who wrote that song had been patting his mother’s hair, soothing her after some sad trial.
In the darkened room she listened to Clover moving about, tidying their things and putting on her own nightdress, linens rustling as she climbed in with Aurora in the alcove bed; then silence fell complete. This was a cozy room. Winnipeg was the best city they’d been so far. If only their act went well tomorrow, Bella thought. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and begged the world, the universe, and the Almighty to let them make a great thing of it here, to find success.
Still Mrs. Mayhew
In the morning darkness, Aurora and Mama debated which numbers, in what order, and what the girls should wear. On the ‘something glad/something sad’ principle that even the dreadful Cherry Sisters obeyed, they would begin with
Buffalo Gals
, a rampageous starter that would do nicely to cover latecomers and grab the attention of the house; then the fragrant
Last Rose of Summer;
and end with
Danny Boy
. Clover took Bella through the harmony again, correcting her impatiently, while Mama ran the iron through Aurora’s hair—and then the cab was at the door.
Their dressing room was shared with the two DeWolf showgirls, massive placid beauties who stood still and revolved on platforms; their ponies (smaller girls, who danced) made friendly greetings. The room was well mirrored, only two flights up; the hanging-space allotted for their costumes was if anything too much. Mama set out their things while they ran down for orchestra call. No hitches, in this smooth-running theatre. The fly-ropes ran like clockwork, the stage was clean as a whistle. The vast house, seating nearly two thousand, was a palace of white and cream and gilt. It was the most opulent theatre they’d yet played, so Aurora was interested to notice how soon it became like every other theatre: ordinary, home. Under their leader, Bert Pike, the
orchestra boys were a cheerful bunch, famous for a long-continuing double-pinochle game. Even the backstage was warm, important in frigid January, and biscuits and tea were served behind the curtain before the matinee, a ceremony they hadn’t seen since the Empress.
Walker strolled about the stage himself, and bowed kindly to Mama. ‘Any word of Mayhew, by the by?’ he asked Aurora.
She looked up at him. ‘Would it matter, sir?’
‘Ha! Not to me, my dear,’ he said. ‘But it might to you.’
‘My understanding is that he has gone south, and will not be entering the Dominion again,’ she said, remaining very cool.
‘He mentioned an interest in Spokane,’ Walker continued, not pressing exactly.
‘I believe he did. But his affairs were considerably disordered after the ruin of the Muse, and I am not certain—’ She broke off, and then laughed. ‘To be candid, Mr. Walker, he found himself embarrassed before his creditors, and I doubt we’ll ever hear from him again.’
He took her elbow and said, ‘Well, well—you do right by the Walker, and I’ll do right by you, Miss Avery.’
‘Still Mrs. Mayhew, still,’ Mama corrected him. ‘Divorce being repugnant, and also, without Mr. Mayhew’s assistance, impossible.’
‘I intended only to use your daughter’s professional name, which I trust she has retained,’ Walker said smoothly.
Mrs. Walker had come down to greet the artistes as well, handsomely turned out in a brown walking dress with red velvet reverses; Walker introduced her to the girls and Mama.
‘No need, I’ve known Flora these twenty years, my dear,’ she said, extending her hand. ‘I’m Hattie Anderson that was,’ she said. ‘I remember you from the Hey-Go-Mad Girls—you were the loveliest thing I’d ever seen, all pale blue and cream lace.’
Mama pinked with the pleasure of being remembered, and although unable to repay the compliment, thanked Mrs. Walker with a nostalgic and flourishing curtsy.
Black-and-White Puzzle
The street in front of the theatre was crowded with carriages and cars by evening. Dressed for the first number, Clover wrapped herself in her shawl and ran outside for a breath of cold air. She heard the jingle of sleigh bells even through the jostling, jockeying street noise, and watched a red cariole sleigh drive up, the coachman bulbous in buffalo on the high front seat. He handed his passengers out onto the marble walk in front of the theatre and helped them slip out of their own buffalo robes; jewellery glittered on the ladies as they emerged from the dull brown cocoons.
For a faint instant Clover missed her butterfly wings. She had felt very graceful in those wings. Now she was a dull brown ball of misery. But must shake that off, for the performance. She made her way down under the house and up to the dressing rooms, with a brief detour to the convenience—where she discovered a streak of pink on her underclothing and let out a soft gasp of relief, staring past her knees to the solved black-and-white puzzle of the tiled floor.
‘Clover?’ Aurora’s voice came through the cubicle door.
‘I’m here,’ she answered, almost cheerfully.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes! Yes I am quite all right, I just—my visitor came. I will hurry.’ She ought not to have given way to the relief, but Aurora did not seem to notice.
Warmer, Sweeter
The house held the electric hum of a good night beginning. In the wings every rope was taut, all the hands alert. None of them with a cigar. As she checked herself, Aurora saw Bella checking—dear Bella, who could have been burned so badly, and was so brave about her poor arm and shoulder. But the music was changing. Aurora watched Bella gird herself to forget about fire and danger and just be joyful. Easy enough, on a night like this, the closest to big-time they’d yet worked in vaudeville—easy to be an opener. And there was the tune, and away they went.
‘A pretty little gal I chanced to meet
,
Oh, she was fair to see …’
Dancing behind her, Aurora thought that Bella
was
fair too—conscious of the brightness that she could command, letting it beam out to all the lovely people who had come, who were as happy to see her as she was to see them. Her heart visibly overflowing from pleasure into glee, Bella danced for her sisters and joked with them and enlisted them until they all stamped the
Buffalo Gals
stomp, and danced by the light of the moon.
The audience turned from their coat-arranging and coiffure-touching; they ceased to chatter and kiss and whisper, turned their sunflower faces up to the girls, and let themselves be carried away by nothing complicated, nothing effortful, just the enjoyable treat of a nice girl, clowning to make them laugh.
Quick change into their white dresses, and Mama had their garlands to hand—they were ready to fly back out even before the applause had stopped from
Buffalo Gals
. Aurora put out her hand and gave Clover’s a clasp, wondering about her words in the convenience—she had not thought that Clover and Victor—but, no time. They danced on with the intro to
The Last Rose of Summer
.
Offstage right, and there was Mama waiting with Clover’s tartan sash, her fiddle, Bella’s sash—those two turned smartly and went back on—and Aurora’s sash. ‘Well done,’ Mama whispered as she slipped the sash past Aurora’s glimmering hair. ‘In very good looks tonight, my dear girl!’ She gave her a kiss and Aurora walked into the light, as the low-voiced violin began its strain.
‘Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountainside …’
She had not seen him before, but as she reached the end of the second verse she looked straight into Jimmy Battle’s eyes, where he leaned against the arched entrance to a box. Since he was there, she sang
to him, giving him a gift of fitting love, however separated by time and luck and cowardice and greed—none of that mattering.
‘And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warmer, sweeter be …’
Behind the violin she could hear Clover holding the line for her, deepening down so that she could rise, and she turned the lamp of her attention on every person in the audience, letting each of them know how she loved them, and always, always would.
The room was still for that ineffable instant before the applause began. Then the orchestra struck up the Pantalon music, and the Belle Auroras were done.
C.P. Walker visited their dressing room before the intermission, to say he’d heard open sobs from the audience during that last number, and to suggest that they might better work in two, with more room for their pretty dancing; he’d push Bee Ho Gray’s set back into three.
‘And future dates along our circuit into February or March, if your schedule will suit? I’ll have my girl draw up an extension for you to sign tomorrow,’ Walker told Aurora.
With a genial wave, he left them. Aurora smiled at his little girl, who had tagged along at his coattail and waved her hand too. Her coat and leggings were of curly Persian lamb, and she wore red boots.
If I Had You
Sufficiently energized by success, Mama roused herself from her lethargy to help with the choreography for Jimmy and Aurora’s double act.
Walker had given them a new Irving Berlin,
If I Had You
—a silly, inconsequential ditty, but Berlin was the best of the Tin Pan Alley men, and Walker had an ear for the populist choice. ‘Berlin’s good for the average theatre-goer, you see—not the highbrow nor the lowbrow, but that vast intermediate bunch that is the soul of our market. Not the
high end, those overeducated twits, nor the low, subnormal, jazz end. His public is the real people, the people I want in my seats.’
Mama sent Aurora and Jimmy around the room a few times to see how they went together. His arm on Aurora’s back trembled, but they waltzed with discipline. Clover, watching, admired their upright carriage as well as their grace, and thought it fitting (but a little worrying, too) that neither smiled once. She wished Aurora could take it more lightly.
‘Yes,’ Mama said, stopping them. ‘I think—yes. Make it very clean, very plain. That chassez at the end, let’s develop that, but we’ll work it into a one-step. Smooth gliding, never lift your feet from the floor, Mr. Battle. And, Aurora my dear, hitch up your skirt six inches—we’ll make you go backwards the whole way round.’
The first time through Aurora nearly stumbled once or twice, but Jimmy caught her and Clover saw how quickly she adapted. He was a good leader: within a very few minutes Aurora relaxed to trust in his propelling. Mama insisted on military precision in the steps, declaring that the audience’s pleasure would be ruined if they allowed laxity to creep in. ‘Up on your toes the whole time, Aurora, to make the backwards runs work. Now we can add a little skip at the turn,’ she called. ‘A flirting flip with the outside leg, I think, but keep it fairy-dance, not folk—first you, Aurora.’
She did dance like a fairy, Clover thought. Her delicate ankles, her pointed shoe flung out like a narrow white petal, the tiniest sideways tilt of her head as they went round, as if she had heard, but was ignoring, a distant bell. Her relentless backwards motion was fascinating, too—Jimmy a sleek black ghost to guide her.
‘The arm a little higher than usual, Mr. Battle,’ Mama said. ‘Yes, that gives the whole a nice
I don’t care
flair that will serve very well.’ She turned back to the piano. ‘Maintaining detachment, clasp closer, I think, Mr. Battle. After the first round you should seem glued.’
They danced around the room again, and Clover was shocked to see the difference that instruction made. Jimmy’s black leg knifed right into Aurora’s white skirt; her skirt swirled and entwined him. The closeness of their lower limbs combined with the stillness of their sober
faces gave the dance a curious airy thrill, compounded when they began to twirl and Aurora’s pointed foot flicked up once, around once, and on the third swoop gave a charming waggle to the side.
‘Light, light, chest up, chin up, all easy even when it’s tricky—it’s the style of it that will carry you through,’ Mama said. ‘I must say, dear Jimmy, you were born to dance with my girl. She’s a bit of thistledown, with you to lead.’
Clover could see, when Aurora bent to refasten her shoe, that she was not feeling much like thistledown—it must be exhausting, running backwards all through the dance. But she stood up again with a smile, and as they circled the room, clasped tightly together, the twirling tightened and tensed to the point where they were simply spinning, their two feet planted as one foot, as if Aurora rode on Jimmy’s feet the way they used to dance with Papa. Swing, swing, again, a full turn in only two steps, rotating around and around full-out at the climax of the dance. Mama stopped playing but continued singing the hokey little tune, and turned to give judgement.