Chapter Eight
They stood on the raised wooden sidewalk outside the theater, and though it was narrow, they managed to stay in a clump together, like schoolchildren on an outing.
It might have been because the gentlemen didn’t want to get their shoes ruined by the mud in the street, and the ladies wished to protect their hems, as well.
But the men had boot scrapers back at the hotel, and the ladies had sewn on hem protectors.
They were used to it by now, this was the West, after all, and the members of the Harper troupe were getting to be veterans here.
But they stayed in a cluster, apart from the other theatergoers, because they weren’t used to being in the audience and not on the stage, and perhaps even more because they weren’t used to frequenting such theaters, onstage or off.
When they filed into the little lobby and looked up the plain high stair that led to the mezzanine floor, they relaxed.
They’d heard the Tabor at Leadville was a little gem, but such a little gem couldn’t transport them to the realms of envy they’d feared.
Their theater, across the street, was no more or less than any of the other saloon theaters they’d played.
But they’d got into town a day early, so someone’s suggestion of a look-see at the Tabor tonight had been met with instant approval by all.
A coach ride around town had shown them that Leadville was a booming town with its fair share of streets of fine mansions and quality stores.
Civilization had come to it with a rush, along with its silver mines, for it boasted a half dozen newspapers and over a hundred saloons.
But most of the sprawling town was filled with those who’d made it the success it was.
A night at the theater was always preferable to any other sort of sport for most members of the troupe, but especially so here.
Because a night out on the town anywhere else would mean being surrounded by thousands of miners.
That hadn’t appealed to anyone but Lester Claxton, who never cared who he drank with, and as this tour had gone on, he had been drinking so much he’d never notice who he drank with, either.
“Coals to Newcastle, come along you red-hot thespians,” Lester quipped now as he led the troupe up the steep stair, and they laughed at his jest, until they got into the theater, and then they fell still as their faces suddenly became grave.
It was a gem. They grew silent as worshippers at a shrine as they stood in the red-carpeted aisles and gazed around themselves.
Who better than they could know the charm of the raked orchestra that spread out into a fan to the back of the hall, so that despite the several white and gold supporting pillars, everyone in the house had a good seat?
What other eyes could evaluate the impact of the rich gold swagged curtain that hung over the neat stage flanked by two huge birdcage-styled boxes?
Who but another performer could take a comfortable seat in a flocked velvet chair with cunningly wrought-iron arms, sit back, and gaze up at the domed ceiling to see the painted cherubs cavorting in the blue firmament there, and then know, from the second the orchestra struck up, that the acoustics were made for angel choirs, or at least, could make the merest whispers sound like one?
When the curtain rose, before the drama even began, there was scarcely a dry eye in Kyle Harper’s troupe—although when they saw the beautifully lit, painted backdrop, they really should have been grateful that the lights in the theaters they played were too weak to show the wrinkled, inappropriate sets they had to act before, instead of being consumed with envy and shame.
There was no sawdust on the floor. Although the audience was packed with hard-faced workingmen, most of them were sober, or if they weren’t, they didn’t keep shouting out, celebrating it.
No bar girls roved the audience, distracting them.
No, the prostitutes there were on a night out, too, so they sat the way they thought ladies would, and were even more postured than that, to drive home the point of their hard-earned leisure and elegance.
The play was well acted and well received.
There were so many dazzling changes of scenes and sets that it was hard to tell just how good the actors were— but they were.
When it was finally over, and all the encores had been called for and given, the Harper troupe applauded just like the rest of the audience.
But as they filed out again, they were the only ones on the verge of suicide.
“I’ve got a pal in the company,” one of the singers said, as they descended the stair. “There’s a party backstage and we’ve been asked in.”
It was a measure of the general despondency that no one replied, except for Maybelle, who asked dully, “Do they have any openings?” and when the answer, “Good Heavens, no, do you think I’d be here if there was?
” was given, there was utter silence among the company.
And so they left as they’d entered, together, and even if they hadn’t looked theatrical, the company would have stood out from the rest of the departing audience, since they were moving as if they were a funeral cortege caught in the midst of a Mardi Gras.
It was a good thing their hotel was next door to their own theater, because that way, Lester said when he left them, he wouldn’t have far to crawl from the saloon he was going to.
Unspoken, but loud enough in all their ears to make some of them go along with Lester, was the fact that the actors at the Leadville Tabor stayed at the best hotel in town, the Tabor Grand, next door to the theater.
But that was across the street, and so, as they now knew, in another world entirely from them.
Even Kyle’s impromptu speech about how success in Leadville would bring them greater success in Aspen didn’t lighten the mood.
His assuring them that their theater, if not the best, was far from the worst, didn’t hearten them much.
It was true it was superior to any of the city’s so called “concert halls,” which featured musical entertainment and boxing matches, as girl waiters circulated in the audience, and not so bad as some other variety theaters in town.
But that hardly mattered. They’d never even consider playing a concert hall anyway, and didn’t care about the other variety theaters now.
The truth was that “not so bad” and “better” wasn’t the same as “best.” And so even his final rallying cries about the promised land of Aspen, their planned performance there, and the opening of the Jerome hotel, only gladdened their hearts for a little while.
For as they each filed into their rooms, they knew that Aspen was weeks away, and that for now, heaven was just across the street.
“It was an eye-opener,” Peggy said as she finished undoing the many tiny buttons on the back of Hannah’s dress, and then turned so that Hannah could do the same for her. “It was that, all right. I never saw the like.”
“I have,” Hannah sighed. “But I’d forgotten.
I suppose one grows unaccustomed to luxury as quickly as one gets used to it.
There are theaters in New York just as fine—the Astors, the Morgans, and the Vanderbilts have as much money as Mr. Tabor any day.
But New York’s only a memory out here, and it’s easy to forget and be pleased with less, thinking the poor conditions you see are the best they have—if you don’t know any better.
Maybe that’s why people like to be superior about their home when they travel.
It’s more comfortable than knowing that if they’d money or position anywhere they were, there’d be nothing to feel superior about. ”
Hannah took a deep breath as she unhooked the front of her corset.
Sighing with relief as well as sorrow, she slid her long nightdress over her head so she could take off the rest of her clothes without scandalizing Peggy, and added sadly, “So it’s as well we didn’t have the chance to go to a performance at the Tabor in Denver, or I suspect most of us wouldn’t have got even this far.
I hear it’s even grander than this one. Well, but by then Mr. Tabor had met Baby Doe; he only built this theater for his vanity and his first wife. ”
“Aye, too true,” Peggy said, or something like, for she was scrubbing her face at the washbasin as she did.
Hannah waited her turn, her eyes on the window with the shade drawn against the lights of the Tabor hotel and theater, although all her thoughts were on it.
The illusion of the challenge of the West and success in that brave new world had sustained her through much.
But then, illusion always had. It had been hard to leave New York, harder now to realize she truly was exiled.
Loneliness had always been her chiefest enemy, even before her fiasco of a marriage; times like these made her wonder if the war she waged against it was worth it.
Illusion was her only ally, but now it was temporarily defeated.
And so when she heard the faint tap at the door, she reacted with as much glee as surprise, rushing to answer even if she was in her nightgown, not caring who it was—even Kyle with another rallying talk, or Lottie with another complaint, would be welcome.
But in her mood, the drunken miner or madman, the women of the troupe always worried about intruding on them in the night, would have been welcome.
But it was only little Polly Jenkins, standing on the doorstep in her flannel night robe, alone, and looking afraid.
After glancing down the hall to see if Mrs. Jenkins was there—since the only time she ever saw Polly without her mother was when she was onstage—Hannah asked quickly, “What is it Polly? Is your mama ill?”