Chapter 4 #2
“Perhaps they’re unaccustomed to the flavor of brandy.”
“Plebeians,” sneered Rita, who was her mother’s daughter, and stretched out her legs. “Neither of us would have fallen for it.”
“Neither of us steal, though.”
“No. We don’t.”
“But … perhaps you might forgive them now? Now that they know that you know.”
“Perhaps.” She narrowed her eyes at the fire. “Let’s see how tomorrow goes. If they doom the show and sink my first chance at everything, I might use rat poison next time.”
FOR OPENING NIGHT, the theatre was freshly cleaned, the floors mopped, the stage swept, all the wooden armrests and backs of the seats dusted. Every work light was checked and checked again.
The solitary chandelier had been freed from its linens. It hung like a crystalline flower, remote and sparkling, above the house seats, far more sophisticated than the building deserved, Rita thought.
A fine bit of sparkle, the assistant stage manager had informed her, catching her admiring it.
It had been imported from India thirty years past by the father of the Catharine’s owner, packed up and whisked abroad right before the fall of the East India Trading Company.
It seemed an unlikely story at best, but there was no doubt the chandelier was delicate and detailed, and far more interesting than the faux-Greek murals or faux-Jacobian plasterwork.
It wasn’t a stretch to imagine it glowing in some British nabob’s ballroom in Delhi, throwing sparks across the guests.
London, Rita had begun to realize, was an enigma of a place, even more so than the countryside, or New York, or the sleepy vineyards of France.
London had ghosts upon ghosts, history stacked upon history, layered like a cake, and nothing could ever be truly discounted as truth or lie.
London was both, and would always be both.
How absurd that she had wasted all of her youth somewhere else, in some soft quiet land, when surely she was always meant to bask in this heart of radiance, in the flaring, prismed rainbows of cut crystal, ready to take her bow.
“All right, everyone, gather up,” commanded Ansel Lurie, and the people backstage made an uneven circle around him, confined by the limits of the area and the prop furniture waiting for Act Two shoved against the walls.
The audience was arriving, taking their seats.
Rita’s whole family should be out there; once she swore she heard Alfred break into his particular snorting laughter.
But otherwise everything beyond the curtains became a dull rush of sound, coughing and conversation, the dry rustling of playbills and clothing.
“It’s been a road,” her director said, his palms pressed together before his heart, “and it’s been a journey, and like it or not, we’re bloody well in the quicksand now.
” He paused as a few people chuckled. “Tonight, we rise. Tonight we are the art as well as the artists, and I want you all to remember that. The art and the artists. It’s a full house, God bless ’em, so go out there and give the people what they’ve paid for. ”
“Oy, our girl Mayme always gives ’em what they pay for, don’t you, luv?”
“Sod off, Harv.”
“That’s it, you lot,” Lurie said. “Break a leg.”
The gathering stirred, a few offering half-hearted applause. Lurie bowed his head in acknowledgment before striding off, heels clicking, tugging at his waistcoat.
Rita turned her head to follow his retreat into the darkness, her arms crossed over her chest.
Tonight, we rise. We are the art as well as the artists.
Short as it was, clipped as it was, it was a good speech. In any case, it was by far the most encouraging thing Ansel Lurie had ever said to his cast. Too bad the rotter had saved it until just before curtain.
“Places,” called the stage manager in a low voice, and Rita smoothed out her gown, inches away from the limelight that was ready to capture her in brilliance, moments away from the glorious rest of her days.
“… WHICH brINGS US to the revival of the Catharine with its winter showpiece Good Girls Stay Home.
This reviewer acknowledges the fact that it is always a challenge to bring a play ‘across the pond,’ one that certain rough-and-tumble Yankee audiences enjoyed, but which might not suit the more refined palate of we Brits.
It might even be said that to attempt the feat at all deserves a measure of praise.
“However, faint praise may prove worse than none. In this instance, your reviewer must withhold his accolades of nearly any sort. Good Girls Stay Home lays bare the worst of both worlds, crass American writing combined with crass British acting, and almost all of it misses the mark by a mile.”
Papa looked up from the article he’d been reading aloud, allowing the pages of the newspaper to fall forward along the fold. “I believe I’ll stop there.”
“No.” Rita raised her head, bleary-eyed.
She’d been propping her face in her hands over her plate of greasy sausage and tomatoes.
Bars of sunlight along the walls singed her vision; she kept having to close her eyes against it.
“No, don’t stop, please. It can’t say anything worse than what I already know. I need to hear it all.”
It was eight-thirty in the morning in Bloomsbury, and an early breakfast for her, at least. The sulfur stink of eggs and black pudding turned her stomach; the hot coffee burned all the way down her throat.
It might have had something to do with the bottle of Bordeaux she’d pilfered from the pantry late last night, after finally arriving home from the play. The stupid, stupid, disaster of a play—
Rita poked her fork against a slice of tomato, miserable. Why hadn’t she just stayed at Winter Queen, where she belonged? Why had she even tried to break free? Living in a dream was surely better than enduring stark reality.
“I liked it,” piped up Alfred, at the other end of the table.
He hoisted a forkful of fried egg, yolk dripping down the tines; Rita had to look away, concentrating on the wall again.
“I thought it was funny. Especially when that bloke tripped and fell when he went to propose to Marguerite, and that other girl laughed, and Marguerite said, Dearest Alonzo, perhaps you’ll discover your dignity in Act Three—”
“Alfred,” warned Inez from across the table, and he shoved his fork into his mouth, silently chewing.
“Indeed,” said Pauline, after a moment. “If only young boys could compose the audience every night.” She reached for a slice of toast from the rack. “Charles, dear, won’t you keep reading the review?”
“Oh? Er, I’d much rather—”
“Only perhaps skip to the end. Ahem. The … second-to-last paragraph, as I recall?”
“What?” Charles shot a look at his wife and then at Rita, still slumped in her chair.
“Right, then.” He flipped open the paper again, rattled the pages a bit, and gave a slight cough.
“Ah. Here we go. “If one might mention a single saving grace of this farce, a lone spark in the void, as it were, it would be the debut performance of Miss Rita Jolivet, the charming young actress in the role of Bessie, a stereotypical, flippant sweetheart. Yet it is clear that Miss Jolivet’s talents are far from flippant and far from stereotypical.
Her presence onstage brought beauty, focus, and delight, despite the shambles around her.
“We wish Good Girls Stay Home a speedy, merciful demise. In the same breath, we hope to see Miss Jolivet testing her mettle again under a far worthier London script and sky.”
Rita sat up slowly, blinking. Her mind was looping, spinning; she still tasted Bordeaux on the back of her tongue, and surely she’d heard wrong. “What, does it really say that?”
“It does.”
“I told you,” said Inez.
“No, I told you,” said Pauline.
Rita turned to her mother, suspicious. “Did you pay them to write that?”
“Je vous le jure, I did not. It’s The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, love; they’re rather incorruptible. Now, if it had been one of those street rags …”
“There’s a sketch,” Papa said and half-rose to offer the paper to Rita. “Not bad, considering.”
She opened the pages. There was a sketch, a hasty thing, with rough black crosshatching depicting the stage, the set, and a trio of actresses frozen in poses.
The actress center stage stood with her arms spread wide, her face upturned; the other two figures remained almost cringing in shadow.
But that center girl, with her long dark curls and winning smile, with a halo of white framing her from crown to toe, as if she literally shone—there was no question who it was meant to be.
Rita began to laugh, even though it made her head ache. She pressed her fingertips to her temple and said, “As if any of them needed an excuse to despise me more.”
“Only the bitter earthbound,” said Maman, buttering her toast, “despise a rising star.”