Chapter Nineteen
TRISTAN KNOCKED OVER EZEKIEL’S STACK of prompt books for that week’s Shakespearean performances and complained loudly.
“If you keep making messes, I’ll delay your lunch,” Ezekiel grumbled as he collected the splayed books from the ground. Fortunately, they were bound editions, but they were delicate from multiple uses. Thomas Keene, the week’s performer, carried them from venue to venue for each new stage manager.
Displeased and impatient, Tristan strolled to the nearest chair leg and scraped his claws along its length.
“Stop that, or I’ll cut your claws!”
Tristan ignored Ezekiel, likely knowing Ezekiel would be the one to suffer most in that endeavor.
Ezekiel should have left the beast at home and made a side trip to retrieve him on the way to Longview. In apparent retribution for being locked in Ezekiel’s office, the little menace had knocked everything remotely accessible to the floor.
The door opened.
Thomas Keene, an eminent tragedian and this week’s star performer, leaned against the frame. “I found a fetching young lady searching for you in the foyer, so I brought her here. I hope you don’t mind.”
Ezekiel glanced around his disaster of an office and scowled. It was far from his usual clean and orderly space.
Tristan noticed the open door and darted between Keene’s legs.
“Oh no you don’t.” Miss Davis’s voice carried past Keene, and when the man stepped aside, she held a grumpy Tristan in her arms.
Her hair was back to a simple bun, and her dress was mud brown, but she made both look beautiful.
If her impassive expression turned into a grin as she greeted him, then she would put Aphrodite to shame.
It wasn’t anywhere near a grin when she looked up from Tristan, but he’d take the small lift of her lips as encouragement.
“Please forgive the mess. Tristan did not appreciate his time in my office.”
Her eyes traveled the room. “On the contrary, it appears he enjoyed himself immensely. Are you certain he didn’t invite other cats in to have a party during your absence?”
Keene coughed. “I see I did well in bringing Miss Davis to you. Enjoy your break. I’ll be in the greenroom when you return. We’ll need to go over those changes before the performance so they’re properly situated in my head. Have a pleasant afternoon, Miss Davis.”
When he left, she hesitated in the hallway. “I don’t think it wise to set Tristan down with the door open, but I can’t be alone with you in the office with the door shut. What should we do?”
“I’ll straighten my office later. Don’t let him go until I say to.” Ezekiel grabbed the can of sardines he’d brought for Tristan and rolled the key to open it.
Tristan yowled and squirmed in her grip, determined to get his lunch. She held tight and dodged a few angry swipes.
Ezekiel knelt by the basket, stuck the open can in the far corner, then held one side open. “Go ahead. We’ll see if this works like it did this morning.”
Tristan leaped from her arms and bound into the basket. Ezekiel shut the lid and latched it tight on both sides.
“How intelligent to use his desires to trap him without harm to yourself.” She strolled forward and fingered the string tied around two carefully installed screws. “Do the points poke through? I’d hate for Tristan to be injured.”
“As often as he’s scratched me, it would only serve him right, but no. I cut off the tips and smoothed them with putty to keep him safe.”
Appreciation and maybe even a touch of admiration brightened her gaze. “You are a good man, Mr. Beaumont.”
“Merely a selfish man who desires a free arm to escort the prettiest lady ever to grace Pike’s Opera House.
Shall we?” He extended his arm and waited.
So far it had been a toss-up on whether she’d accept such gallantry when offered.
To his immense pleasure, she delicately looped her arm around his and allowed him to guide her through the building.
In the hack, Nora once again claimed Tristan’s basket as her lap partner, only this time she did not situate herself as far as possible from Ezekiel.
They still kept a respectable and proper space between them, but it was good to know she trusted him more now than last week.
She still didn’t jump straight into conversation, and he allowed the silence she seemed to love.
He broke it after what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes. “Have you given any more consideration to Mrs. Reed’s offer?”
She blew out a slow breath. “No, not with any seriousness. Father won’t allow it, so there is no point in dreaming of it.”
But there was that hint of dreaming in her voice.
“Is there any way I might influence his decision? You have a beautiful voice, and I think it should be shared with the world.”
“Thank you, but a public life on the stage is not for me.”
“If not on the stage, what about a private life in music?” The inspiration she’d provided Sunday and yesterday had given him a few measures to toy with.
If he could gain permission for her to join him during some composing sessions, he might meet his deadline.
“Would your father be opposed to you helping me bring music to the stage?”
“I’m not sure what you mean by helping you, but I can guess he would be opposed. You underestimate his aversion to opera and music. It’s so bad that I’m banned from attending performances or singing when I might be heard. We don’t even participate in the hymns at church.”
“But you sing at the asylum, and you attended Olivette and sang at church.”
“Father doesn’t know about my lessons with Mum, and Theresa surprised me with the performance without Father’s permission. As for Sunday, it was the first time I’ve sung at church in years. Maybe ever.”
That explained why so much of her soul had poured into her demeanor and voice.
The songs of her heart had finally broken free.
Knowing her father would dam them up again raised Ezekiel’s temperature.
He could understand the ban on performances.
It wasn’t unusual for plots, costumes, or dialogue to dance back and forth over the line of propriety.
But to ban Miss Davis from singing, even in church?
No one should have that right. Someone needed to rescue Miss Davis from her silent dungeon and return her to the world where music sang in partnership with her every heartbeat.
He didn’t want to put her at odds with her father, but something had to be done.
Maybe if he better understood what led Mr. Davis to this point, Ezekiel could win the man’s favor and help him to see reason.
“He married an opera singer. What happened to make him hate music so?”
She was quiet, the weight of her answer forming rare creases in her brow.
Eventually, words came, quiet and hesitant.
“I don’t think he hates music so much as he fears what it will do to our family.
When Mum was a performer, she made some colleagues jealous .
. . and they wanted to put her in her place .
. . even if it meant harming her family. ”
Her gaze wandered away, and Miss Pelton’s words of warning came back to him. “Be gentle with her . . . She had a harrowing childhood.”
If she’d come to harm at the hands of jealous colleagues, it would explain a great deal. “You needn’t tell me anything more if you don’t wish to.”
He hoped she would, but she merely gave him a soft “thank you.” Assuming she was the daughter of Constanza Brisbane, then perhaps he could ask Graham what he knew of the circumstances surrounding the family’s disappearance.
There had been plenty of speculation, but no reason was ever publicized as to why she hadn’t returned to the stage that night.
“I know you said it unlikely your father would allow it, but I was hoping you might be interested in being my muse.”
“Your muse?”
“Yes. I’m friends with the librettist Graham Linville, and he’s commissioned me to compose the score for his newest operetta.”
She twisted toward him until her knee touched his, and Tristan yowled at the sudden shift. “You’re a stage manager and a composer of operas?”
“I compose more than operas, but yes. However, composing has been significantly more difficult since—” He stopped short of saying since he found Ma. The only person who knew, aside from Ma’s doctors, was Graham.
“Since your mum entered Longview for her melancholia?”
If he wanted her to trust him with her story, he needed to trust her with his. “Ma isn’t at Longview just for her melancholia. She purposely ingested rat poison.”
Miss Davis stifled a gasp. “Oh, Mr. Beaumont! I’m so sorry.”
He might as well get the whole story out, even if he couldn’t look her in the eye while doing so.
“She’s suffered from bouts of melancholia my whole life.
When she was happy, she filled our house with music.
When she wasn’t, it was a struggle for her to get out of bed.
I can remember many times sitting at the foot of it and doing everything I could to make her smile.
Play my violin or clarinet. Sing songs that I made up as I went.
I even performed some of the most awful skits you’re glad to never have heard.
Pa and I did everything we could to make life easier for her so she could enjoy it with us.
It got harder once Pa got sick. She started having more bad days than good.
After he died? The good days felt like lost memories.
I could never do enough. She sank lower and lower.
The only reprieve for us both came through my music.