Austen at Sea

Eight. The Clairvoyant of Cremorne

Eight

The Clairvoyant of Cremorne

THAT SAME DAY

The New Adelphi Theatre, July 3, 1865

“Miss Stevenson? Mr. Robinson will see you now.”

Nash and Haz sat on either side of Charlotte in the empty theater auditorium, smiling their excitement at her. She stood up and flattened her skirts, Henrietta’s silver-minted sixpence clasped in one hand. The walk down the aisle toward the stage seemed to take forever, yet Fawcett Robinson did not turn an inch at Charlotte’s approach. He stared straight ahead from the center of the front row instead, both hands resting on top of the gold-mounted cane between his knees.

“And you will be playing a scene from…?” he boomed from the darkness.

“Much Ado About Nothing.”

“Ah yes, sweet Hero.”

“Beatrice, in fact.”

The famed producer lifted one eyebrow but said nothing at such a curious choice. Nash had suggested it on the train. He had not spoken much during the journey to London from Portsmouth. As Charlotte and Haz picked over the various possible roles for her audition—Juliet, Ophelia, Miranda, Cordelia—Nash had waited until almost all of Shakespeare had been exhausted before making his suggestion.

The moment he did, something went off in Charlotte like a shot. The character of Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing was Nash’s declared favorite heroine from the plays—her father had offhandedly mentioned this to her once. Whatever could Nash be up to, in wanting to see her perform it?

“That harpy?” Haz had asked Nash.

“The scene where she implores Benedick to avenge Hero,” he answered. “This is after Claudio, tricked into thinking Hero unfaithful, shames her at the wedding altar. They have moved too quickly to marry—everything might fall apart with as much haste. What is that maxime by La Rochefoucauld—‘jealousy is bred in doubt’?”

Haz had good-naturedly shrugged—so much of Nash’s conversation being over his head—while Charlotte firmly set her lips.

“Nash, I want to present myself in the best possible light.”

“Everyone expects you to play someone sweet and innocent. You want to pick an altogether different target—a different snap to the bow—to stand out as much as possible from the rest. The world is full of young and pretty faces.” He paused. “Do the unexpected.”

Charlotte and Haz had raised their eyebrows at each other while Nash turned back to the view of the South Downs passing by. But his words stayed with her. He had risen to the top of his profession at such a young age—he must know something about success.

Now standing alone on the stage of the Adelphi, lit by a single gas limelight above, Charlotte spoke to the darkness. She always felt the same rush of power wherever she acted, be it attic bedroom or shipboard saloon. The whole world was now inside her for the choosing: she was in control of it all. The words of text—the lines—were incontrovertible but sterile; the meaning was hers to decide on and bring to life. This was her singular job as an actress: to create something so truthful as to seem real.

She felt mesmerized by the darkness and the silence that was also hers to break—the audience that she alone could cast a spell over. As Charlotte’s voice echoed through the theater, she recalled the words of Denham Scott on the Girl Orator: Do you not think there is something of the mesmerist in her? And she thought about Nash in the audience and how he had responded to Louisa on the ship’s ramshackle stage, his Sydney Carton to her Lucie Manette, and the strange jealousy it had evoked in Charlotte as she watched. It had been a year of looks and teasing from Nash, and she wanted more—wanted at least as much as Louisa had experienced, real life or not. But Charlotte wasn’t allowed to ask for it. So, she vowed, she would direct her magic not at Fawcett Robinson, who from his producer’s front-row seat would be expecting it, but at Justice Thomas Nash and his always detached, observant, and unsuspecting soul:

Kill Claudio! Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What! bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,—O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.… That I had any friend who would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.…

When she was done, there was silence again. Somewhere in the darkness Haz and Nash watched, two sentinels keeping guard over her ambition, but Charlotte didn’t need them. Up there onstage, she was finally in charge of something: Her own voice and body. Her own ambitions and desires.

A declarative tapping of the cane—once, twice—sounded from the front row. The stage manager had warned her that Fawcett Robinson rarely gave comment afterward. He took the performances into himself and hoarded them there. His role in this world of theater was very different from hers, a very different kind of power. But Charlotte also knew from the manager what two distinct taps meant, and her heart surged.

Mr. Robinson stood up. “You are staying at the Grosvenor? I will send a message within the hour. Thank you, Miss Stevenson.”

And that was it. He disappeared into the darkness and Haz was running down the center aisle toward her. “Charlie, you were magnificent! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Still in a bit of a trance, her eyes met Nash’s as he reached the stage. He, too, was looking up at her differently. It felt electric as they faced each other, her looking down at him for once, the power building inside her.

“Whatever will I tell your father, when I return home with neither you nor your sister?”

But he smiled as he said it.

“I did well?” she asked. With her natural confidence, it sounded like a statement, and he continued to smile up at her.

“You know you did.”

“Was it the Beatrice you wanted?”

“I think you also know the answer to that.”

Charlotte could have grabbed on to something at that point to steady herself onstage— was Nash actually flirting with her? Thank goodness Haz wasn’t there to witness any of it. He was up onstage now himself, looking around the sets, peering in the wings. Charlotte knew he yearned to perform, and recalled how during rehearsal there had been no real attraction between them, only a pretend one. They were too much of the same mind, which made them ideal friends, each of them most comfortable in a world of high stakes. But both knew that when it came to love, Haz wanted a challenge—a trophy to win, as in sports—while Charlotte needed a man who stood on solid ground.

She took a step closer to the edge of the stage—but there would be no stumbling tonight. She felt freed by the performance and what its success meant for both her and Nash. She would not be returning to Boston; they might never see each other again. Part of her felt safe to ask for what she wanted—part of her remained in a state of reckless abandonment. All she knew was that she didn’t want any part of Nash to feel safe tonight when it came to her.

The concierge at the Grosvenor Hotel passed Charlotte a telegram and a message upon their return. The note was from Fawcett Robinson, as promised, offering Miss Stevenson a contract for the coming season as one of the New Adelphi players. The contents of the telegram, however, were a complete surprise:

NICHOLAS AND I HEADING TO LONDON STOP SHALL REUNITE WITH DENHAM FIRST THEN VISIT ON THE MORROW STOP PRESUME YOU PICKED THE OPHELIA STOP ALL MY SISTERLY LOVE H.

“What could have happened to set them off so fast?” Charlotte asked Haz, staring down at the telegram in confusion. “Could Sir Francis have passed on already? Wouldn’t Harry mention if that were so?”

Haz shrugged. “Perhaps they felt there was nothing more there to be done—and a new bride would have other, more pressing, concerns.”

Charlotte playfully smacked the side of his forearm resting next to hers on the concierge desk, keenly aware the entire time of Nash standing somewhere behind them.

“Charlie, we must celebrate your triumph today!” Haz excitedly declared. “You won’t be seeing Harry for at least another day, by the sound of it—let’s go tripping tonight! Somewhere full of fun.”

“Excuse me, sir,” the concierge politely interrupted, “but might I suggest Cremorne Gardens?” Opening a large map on the gilded marble counter, he pointed to a small green square. “There’s a dozen acres right here in Chelsea, on the banks of the Thames.”

Charlotte and Haz pored over the map as the concierge described the variety of entertainment to be found in the gardens on a pleasant summer night such as this. Boston and Philadelphia had nothing as impressive: concerts, fireworks, hot-air balloon ascents, galas, and even the occasional tightrope walk across the river—the most recent attempt having resulted in death from sixty feet and a suspension of such activity ever since. There were supper boxes and an American-style bowling saloon in the center of the gardens that served American-style drinks, a circus and theaters, medieval tournaments and marionette shows, a crystal pavilion and a giant pagoda, lit by hundreds of colored lamps, where thousands of couples could dance about the circular open floor. The concierge discreetly advised that the gardens were increasingly a meeting ground for men seeking women of “ill repute,” and was glad that Miss Stevenson would be chaperoned by no less than two gentlemen.

They spent the evening strolling about the gardens, Charlotte pretending to take in all that she saw while pretending not to notice Nash, whose irritation with Haz she finally saw through for the jealousy it surely was. After leaving Henrietta in Hanbury Street, Nick had arrived by coach at the Grosvenor in time to join the group for supper and the excursion to the gardens. He told them about the admiral’s bequest of the telescope to Henrietta but said nothing more on the matter. Charlotte was intrigued, but so much had happened to her that day, and her mind kept flitting between the audition and Nash, his sudden willingness to hint at his attraction ( for it was clear by now that he would never declare it , she stewed to herself) and her sudden change in fortune, the life behind in Boston and the life in London ahead. Charlotte knew she suffered from self-absorption at the best of times; Harry was so much more giving than her, if less outwardly passionate. But neither of them loved in halves—once someone had their heart, they had it forever. Both women were very much like their father that way.

In the center of the gardens was a tent, a sign on its outside flap promising to tell one’s fortune for a sixpence. Charlotte thought of the lucky coin still in her reticule and the success of the audition, and decided to try her luck one more time that day.

Nash dismissed the entire endeavor, but Haz was very game. He accompanied Charlotte inside the tent, and they sat down at a round, white-clothed table across from a woman draped in brightly colored scarves. It was impossible to tell her age—she appeared to have outgrown this very world. Resting on the table before her was a crystal globe on a pewter pedestal.

“The lady first.” Haz passed a brand-new sixpence across the table.

The woman smiled knowingly as she took the coin and tucked it away, then started rubbing the cloudy globe with both hands. After several seconds of suspense, she began to speak in a halting, ominous tone.

“I see much good fortune ahead… there is a crowd, an audience… oh, you are very loved—adored, even.” She shook her head in amusement at the look on Haz’s face. “It is not this man. It is another whom you know, but he resists you. Wait—I see water. Water all around. A great sea—yes! A great sea will separate you from those you love.”

Charlotte smiled to herself. It did not take a crystal ball to see that they were tourists from abroad—or that another, handsome member of her party paced the lawn outside the tent. She was determined to keep her face and features unreadable, to act the part of someone with no past.

“Yes, you will be forever separated from the one you love most.”

Charlotte shifted uneasily in her seat. They had been celebrating all evening and she had thought far too little of her father, about to lose both his daughters to London—no wonder he had always worried so! But her mind quickly turned back to the Adelphi, and Nash always near, and the desire that she was determined to act upon tonight.

“But I will have children and a family of my own?”

The fortune-teller hesitated, placed both hands on either side of the globe again, shook her head. “No, you will have a great love, but it will be all-consuming. It will require great sacrifice.” She looked Charlotte straight in the eye. “You are scared—I see that, too. You will have to ask for what you want. It is waiting for you—but you must be the one to act.”

When Charlotte and Haslett emerged from the tent, Nash stood waiting on the lawn outside. “Let me guess—you will have great fame and fortune.”

He was teasing her again, but she would have none of it. She would have all the advantage of boldness, just like a man. So she waited to catch his eye, then pushed the tip of her parasol hard into the soft lawn with both hands, gloved fingers interlaced. She made sure to expose the skin about her wrist as she did so—the one glimpse of skin on her entire body—then smiled as Nash loosened his cravat in subtle, unknowing response. But she knew.

“She said I will have anything I want—I only have to ask.”

Nash rubbed his neck at her words, Haz shot Charlotte a curious look, and Nicholas returned with another pitcher of lager for the group. Eventually they resumed their stroll through the gardens, the moonrise almost full, the fortune-teller’s words dangling in the air.

It was long past midnight when they returned to the Grosvenor, with its hundreds of rooms spread out over five floors. The men in the party were staying at one end of the first-floor corridor, Charlotte far down at the other. Somehow, silently, Nash ended up the one accompanying her safely to her door. There was that word safe again, she thought, as he followed closely behind her down the narrow passageway. The hot July air had left a stickiness to her touch, causing her to fumble with the key in the door. Still, she took her time unlocking it, just long enough to feel sure, then turned around to grasp the hastily tightened cravat and pull him to her.

She felt so much power as Nash let her—no one warned you what power over a man felt like. It was as heady as performing. He was completely at her mercy in that moment, so at her mercy that she could feel every inch of his body responding to hers— God help her if either of the Nelsons should catch sight , a far-off voice inside her said, while at the same time not caring one whit—and he made a sound as he kissed her, so low and deep, a sound that pulled her down into him in turn. And then the whole world beneath her fell away, the world that told her man knew best, man was in charge, and instead, in this one blood-rushing moment, she was in charge of him. No wonder men were scared of women.

There was a loud sobbing noise from the direction of the lift at the other end of the hallway, and Charlotte broke away from the intensity of the moment and the embrace.

“My God—Harry?”

Nash took a step back as well—Haz and Nick came bounding out of their rooms—Henrietta was running in tears down the hallway toward her.