Chapter Fifty
CHAPTER FIFTY
T HE CHAOS WAS IMMEDIATE. E VELYN DIDN’T KNOW HOW IT HAD happened—had everyone planned for this?—but all at once, Julia whistled, and the audience, the performers, and various members of the wedding party turned on each other. Constance Alban fled the stage, gathering up her skirts in a big, unseemly heap. Her bridesmaids chased after her in scandalized horror. The coppers, who had been stationed at every exit for the purposes of crowd control, immediately sprung to action, unsheathing their clubs and waiting for their orders. Mrs. Alban spiraled into a huffy tantrum. Mr. Alban shouted at Thomas from his place in the audience, red-faced from rage. Alban’s suited goons, positioned in seats around the theater, sprang up, ready to quell this minor riot. The audience rustled their confusion. Thomas walked toward the edge of the stage—toward Evelyn—as if in a trance. Dr. Samson shuffled down the aisle to head off Mr. Alban.
In short … madness.
And in the midst of all that visual and emotional mess, darling Julia stepped forward with her usual grandiose aplomb.
“Ladies and gentlemen and other assorted characters along and beyond that duality, I am most pleased to announce a change in program!”
A roar echoed through the crowd. It must have been planned, somehow, because as soon as Julia spoke, the performers leapt into action. The orchestra oompahed to life. Julia led a song. The audience, diverted from the drama for a moment, focused their attention on the show.
This, of course, could not be allowed to stand. Dr. Samson’s interventions must not have been compelling because at Alban’s spluttering direction, his men and the officers of the law surged forward.
“Order! We will have order!”
Vaguely, Evelyn had to wonder what he thought would happen when the dust settled. Say the police were able to quell this. What then? Would they hold Thomas down and force him to marry Constance? Would they toss Evelyn out on her ear and imprison her so she would never darken Thomas’s doorstep again?
Evelyn found herself caught in the middle of it—the cheering audience all around her, the coppers pressing in from behind, the dancers marching down the aisles like a coming army, Thomas’s eyes meeting hers above it all.
It was only when Bea grabbed up her hand and started her down the aisle that Evelyn realized just how difficult actually getting to Thomas would be.
“Come on!” Bea shouted.
“Where do you think we’re going?” Evelyn asked, struggling to keep up.
“To get you to Thomas before Alban’s hit squad takes him out.”
“Might be too late for that,” Evelyn muttered, an involuntary shudder rocking through her as she realized just how many coppers there were.
Boxed in, Bea looked helplessly down the rows of audience members. Nothing that way but a row full of folks avidly taking in the spectacle. Still, without hesitation, she charged forward, forcing Evelyn to mutter pardon me s and excuse me s as they navigated their large skirts over knees and tucked-away handbags down the row.
Once free of the tangle of seated theatergoers, Bea tugged Evelyn into one of the Romanesque alcoves built into the far house left wall. Covered today with a celebratory banner, it provided the perfect dark, hidden place for the two of them to catch their breath outside of the fray.
“Oh, damn,” Bea breathed. “I was worried about this.”
“What is going on out there?” Evelyn hissed.
“We all decided this whole thing with you and Thomas was no good. Soul-rotten. So we all decided to change it. I would make sure you got here. Akio would work on Constance Alban. Dr. Samson would convince Thomas. And Jules would prepare the performers, make sure that nothing got in the way of your reunion.”
She said it as if listing out who might bring what snacks to a picnic.
Evelyn cringed as a cymbal crashed beyond their thin banner-curtain. It sounded as if someone had just crashed a human skull into the thing rather than a normal drumstick.
“ This was your grand plan?”
Bea winced. “I believe Thomas may have gone rogue. Now, if you will, let’s go this way. I think I might know of an opening—”
Throwing back the curtain, Bea slithered down through the tiniest of gaps between the wall and the seated patrons at the far side of the theater. Evelyn had no choice but to follow.
However, when they reached their halfway point, it became apparent that this would not be their ideal choice of escape. Because at the end nearest the stage stood Mr. Alban, his face uglied with rage. Evelyn backpedaled, only to find her other escape similarly blocked—this time by the coppers chasing her from the opposite direction.
The charge was led by none other than Officer Push Broom Mustache himself—the same one who once promised to destroy her.
Terror coursed through Evelyn’s bloodstream. She was trapped.
But then, over the cacophony, a slight, feminine voice reached her ears.
“Miss Cross! This way!”
The voice came from Miss Constance Alban, who had reemerged from the wings, still in her wedding gown, and waved over her father’s shoulder. Come this way . Evelyn balked.
Constance seemed insistent, but Evelyn would absolutely not be going that way. Mr. Alban looked prepared to kill her.
“Coppers! Arrest this woman!”
Constance protested. “Father, please—”
“Quiet, you useless girl! Get back on that stage. Do as you’re told.”
Of all the remarkable things Evelyn had seen today, there was none more remarkable than what came after Alban spit those words in his lovely daughter’s face. Tossing her bouquet carelessly over her shoulder, she hauled back one fisted hand and smashed it into his left eye.
The crowd went wild . And if Evelyn was being honest, she did, too.
A sensation that only increased when Constance Alban practically dove over the crowd and fell into the arms of a very portly, very plain, very, very happy man—and kissed him.
“I can’t believe it!” Evelyn cried.
“Really?” Bea smirked. “I don’t think it’s so outlandish.”
Not so outlandish? The Dancing Dozen were heading off lines of policemen in the aisles with their fabulous fan kicks. Betsy Washington blew a fistful of her magic dust in the eyes of a handful of Alban’s guards, causing them to stumble back uselessly as the glitter embedded itself into their sclera. Mrs. Alban had been scooped up by Caruso, who belted sweet nothings directly into her scandalized ears. Annie made a big show of getting caught in a policeman’s handcuffs, then freeing herself from them with her usual illusionist’s flair. Nathaniel left a tap shoe–sized kick mark on the face of at least one man who got too close to the stage—an act that received thunderous applause from the second balcony. Dr. Samson assured anyone close to him that this was part of the act—all while Natia slipped pamphlets about her various socialist causes into their unsuspecting pockets.
It was mayhem. It was anarchy. It was spectacle. It was glory. It was theater in its finest, purest form.
Through it all, Julia conducted the small army from center stage, breaking up the choruses of her song to shout marching orders at them.
And the audience, perhaps against their better judgment and all the rules of decency and decorum, ate it up with their bare hands. The entire theater had turned into a pantomime. Prim ladies loudly casting their boos against the long arm of the law and Alban and anyone else attempting to set the original wedding back to order. Stiff-mustached gentlemen waved their canes to assist the beating back of the security forces. Folks stomped their boots in time with the riotous music coming from the orchestra pit and joined their off-key voices with the familiar refrain.
Tomorrow, they would all write off the scene as a huge publicity stunt. Alban’s place as the most powerful man in Manhattan would be secure—as would his daughter’s reputation—by virtue of the fact that this whole farce had been nothing but that. A farce. The papers would have a field day regaling the masterful performance put on by Thomas Gallier’s grand Empire players and their high-society compatriots. What a lark! What a scene! What a fabulous opening!
With the path finally cleared, Evelyn made one final cross to the stage steps.
As the orchestra’s song slid into its final chorus and the audience reached the height of its emotional splendor, Mr. Alban collected himself from the bloodstain that had disappeared into the crimson carpet and hollered a hasty retreat.
There were other words thrown about as he called off his brute forces and led their exodus. You’ll regret this. I’ll have you all. You’ll never work in this town again. You’ll be ruined. Evelyn believed he meant that. But when she looked across the stage, the crowds finally parted and every other thought left her mind.
There was nothing left there but Thomas.
Before Evelyn knew it, she was running. And he was running. She thought they might collide, but as if they’d been choreographed to do so, they both skidded to a sharp halt just before they managed it.
A vague part of Evelyn’s subconscious acknowledged that the full house watched them with hushed anticipation. The orchestra traded their bawdy barroom singalong for something classical and sweeping.
She and Thomas weren’t just players in this show now.
They were the show.
But for maybe the first time in her life, Evelyn didn’t have any interest in performing.