Chapter Three #2
“All of those things mean theater, and they need theater,” he said.
“Out there— somewhere beyond your eyes, are people who need you, and who are willing to pay—and well—to see you. Oh, my friends,” he said rhapsodically, “I have seen the theaters they’ve built to entice you.
As fine as any in any city I’ve seen—no, some are finer.
Tabor’s Opera House in Denver—a gem worthy of London town.
Red plush and gold curtains, a stage that an elephant could waltz upon, the audience swagged in gilt and hung with velvet, electric lights and a backstage—” He kissed his fingers to the sky, as though bereft of words to describe its wonders.
But not for long. “And the opera house in Leadville! Not to mention the new jewel in the crown of the new West—the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen…friends, they are thronged every night of the week, no matter who’s playing there, because they’re starved for us.
“Who is starved? All the people of the West you cannot see from this train. Those too wealthy to want to live on the tracks—where I believe you expect them to,” he said on a laugh as they smiled with him, “since, as you haven’t seen them, you don’t believe in them.
And others who must live in the new cities: those who run mines and refineries, and the fortunes made from them.
And all the other men and women the new prosperity has brought together.
Now, do you wish to look out the window and pine for the city you know, or accept that I’ve seen the ones you will know, the ones that breathlessly await you? ”
But now the landscape outside the train was obscured by the blackness of night, and only their own dimly reflected images could be seen, ghostlike, on the windows. The only visible reality was within the brightly lit, onrushing train.
“I think we can go over that renunciation scene again, Lottie. I’m willing if you are,” Nelson said.
“Oh yeah… Oh yes, certainly,” Lottie said, rising and taking up her script again.
Kyle smiled and watched them for a while before he ambled down the aisle and off into the next car again.
Only then did Maybelle leave off pleading for her husband not to throw their erring daughter out into the storm to say excitedly, “I didn’t know we were going to play the Wheeler! It’s the latest thing!”
“Or the Denver Tabor,” Lottie said with her eyes wide.
“But we won’t play any if we don’t get it right,” Frank said. Then he doused his radiant smile and growled, “Not another day, my beauty! The mortgage is due tomorrow—unless my payment is collected…tonight.”
Kyle stood outside the door to their compartment and smiled, before he slid the door to the adjoining car aside. He heard the silence long before he saw all the woebegone faces before him.
“What’s this?” he cried at once, striding into the car.
“My songbirds molting and my dancers wilting? Come, where is your magic, Mr. Howard? And your jests, Mr. Claxton? Or like Yorick, have you expired? Look at your long faces! Ah, I see what it is. I’ve just come from the tragedians, and they’re merry as the day is long, but then, my fellow variety stars, I know how hard it is to be gay all the time.
Such, such is the fate of the clown—you must smile, though your heart be cracked. But why ever on earth should it be?”
“We were thinking about New York,” one little dancer said softly.
“Good heavens!” Kyle cried. “How glad I am that none of you were my forefathers—or mothers!”
This time he waited until they all wore matching puzzled looks before he began to explain.
Dinner that night was a merry affair, with all the players together having such a good time of it that the other passengers were heard to observe that dining with them was as good as a play.
They worked all day in groups according to their talents, but they played each night as a theater company, ensemble, in every sense of the word.
Only three days out of New York City, and there were already two liaisons absolutely confirmed: a winsome young brunet dancer had moved into John Wills’ compartment with him, and a very young tenor seemed about to do so with Maybelle.
Mrs. Jenkins might cluck her tongue at the scandalous goings on, but only because she and Polly would be the ones evicted if he did, since there was no other solution: he shared quarters with three other male singers, so Maybelle could scarcely move in with him.
Although, as Mrs. Jenkins said spitefully, she probably would if they’d let her.
Mrs. Jenkins might look after her daughter’s morals, but there were things even Polly knew.
After all, she’d been in the theater since she could toddle.
Both Frank and Nelson seemed to be vying for a chance to supplant Hannah as Lottie’s roommate, that was, when they didn’t seem to be trying to evict Lottie so that they could secure a place in Hannah’s compartment.
Amusing as they were, flattering as it was as well, and gratifying, too—if only for the look on Lottie’s face when she saw the game they played—when dinner was done, Hannah was only too glad to rise and leave them a clear path to her pupil.
Knowing Lottie as she did, especially after sharing cramped quarters with her, she pitied whoever won.
She doubted the bliss of carnality was worth the pain of living so close to Lottie, and was actually pleased to think she might soon be ousted from her quarters.
She didn’t think she’d mind sharing a compartment with anyone else, and had it in her mind not to protest at whomever Kyle suggested—until he did, after he’d invited her to sit and take an after-dinner cordial with him.
He eyed her appreciatively. She always dressed in good taste, with a bit of theatricality to save that taste from boredom.
Tonight she wore a deep blue gown, ornamented by nothing but the shape it displayed.
Its stark simplicity was highest drama: high at the neck, tight to the waist, and bustled lightly in the back.
It was a rich, warm velvet that belied the stern fashion, and by showing up the purity of the creamy skin it encased, set a man to wondering about relative textures.
His gaze went to her hair, and without thinking of what it was he must say, he said first what he wanted to, which was as strange and disturbing a thing for him as it was for her.
“Why do you wear it in such a puritan fashion?” he asked, gazing at her tightly bound hair.
“Why…because it looks more professional so,” she answered, taken aback by his question as well as his frown.
But he was frowning at himself and his lapse and not at her, so he answered more roughly than was his usual way.
“It looks like a professional matron’s at the Tombs,” he said gruffly.
“Your profession is the theater.” He saw her hands flutter up to her hair as her eyes widened, and relented.
“You might not wish to be taken for an actress,” he said on an engaging smile, “but there’s no need to look so fierce.
You’ve lovely hair, and I should think you’d be able to appear to be whatever you wish to be taken for without such a masquerade. ”
“You may be right,” she admitted. “It’s only that as I am on my own, I don’t want to appear to be fast.”
“But you’re not alone now,” he said gently.
“You’re a member of a troupe. That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.
I’ve watched you. You’re very good with la Lesley.
Astonishing, that. It’s like waxing a dirty floor, actually, how you make her shine!
One could almost forget what lies beneath the luster. ”
She felt she should protest, but his phrasing was so apt, all she could do was to laugh and make little sounds of denial, while all the while she felt a great surge of relief because someone saw what was actually going on.
Lottie resented her as much as she needed her—which was to say, a great deal.
It wasn’t only her spite and anger that plagued Hannah, it was the way Lottie flaunted her desirability and bragged about her conquests, the more so when she realized that her haughty, mighty tutor and roommate had no beaux.
A woman without a man or the promise of one was nothing at all, in Lottie’s opinion.
And since it was such a widely held one, there was never anything for Hannah to do but fall silent when Lottie brought the matter up, which was often.
Or leave the room, if she could, when she was challenged by the nastier things in Lottie’s arsenal.
Just last night, Lottie had undressed for bed, and then for the first time, suddenly showed dismay at her usually proud and brazen display of her nakedness.
She’d gasped, making a great show of trying to cover her ample breasts with her little hands, so inadequate to the task.
Then she’d stared, wide-eyed, at Hannah, explaining that she was trying to spare her sensibilities…
or desires. All Hannah could do was gasp, before she managed to retort about preferring true Guernseys if her tastes ran to that.
But Lottie didn’t know what a Guernsey was.
In fact, as Hannah went on to rage, she’d have trouble with the word “cow.” But she was asleep by the time Hannah thought of a really good reply, so there was no satisfying revenge exacted for that bit of cruelty.
Or any others, Hannah thought sadly. The stupid, she decided, were as safe as the smug when it came to insults.
But since Hannah had vast experience with both sorts of people, she was soon asleep as well.
Kyle’s words were balm. And he knew it.