Chapter Nineteen #2
Because sometimes, when Hannah was onstage, the audience’s eyes and ears were elsewhere, as the playwright intended.
She didn’t dominate the action every moment, demanding every second of the audience’s attention; she didn’t seem to glow even when she stood silent, so that she had them glancing at her to see her reaction even when another character was speaking.
When she left the stage, the stage didn’t dim because of it; the audience could forget her now and again, when the action called for her to be forgotten.
She was in the play, but she was not the entire play, as befit a good actress.
But as never befit a great one. She was young, it was true.
And time could teach her many things. But never that.
Either it was there from the start, or it was not.
And it was not. She was good, but she was not that rarest and most wondrous thing: the stuff of stars—the sort of performer who dazzled so that she cast all others on the stage with her into the dark.
The audience didn’t seem to care, they applauded madly at the end.
Encores were taken again and again, so many roses thrust into Hannah’s arms that she took to plucking them and throwing them back at the crowd.
Kyle winced, thinking of how much they’d cost him, and Gray collected one to present to Lucy, glad he’d thought to order so many, after all.
And Blayne Darling stood applauding, every comment he caught of “She’s got her father’s eyes!
”—“She’s got his hair!” making him smile wider.
He was still grinning as he waited for the aisles to clear so he could go backstage.
His wife looked to him with worry, and then relaxed when she saw his famous, mischievous smile, and the excitement in his eyes.
Hannah had been good, and that he could bear.
But she hadn’t been great, for that he could not.
Still, the one thing she’d been that he could never be was soon borne in on him again.
“Blayne,” an actor friend of his crowed, as he pushed through the crowd to be one of the first to congratulate the new sensation’s father, “I guess we’ve seen the last of the Darling ‘Hamlet’—it’s ‘Lear’ or nothing now, eh, old chap?”
“Old friend,” “old man,” “old fellow,”—he was called all of those things and more, many times, as he had been before.
But tonight the words took on new meaning.
By the time he made his way backstage, it was as well that he was a great actor.
Because he had to congratulate everyone, and take their awe and congratulations in turn, and was used to the awe.
But it took all his art to appear to welcome the congratulations for his beautiful, young, young and talented, clever young daughter.
“Thank you, thank you,” he cried with every evidence of gladness, “and where is our bright new star?”
“Elsewhere, sir,” Kyle said, as he took his own congratulations. “She won’t be long. She’s just taking care of old business before she meets her new public.”
Kyle smiled with expectation as well as triumph.
He’d seen Gray. How could he not? Gray had been the first one backstage, and so he’d sent him to wait for her at her dressing room, to get that out of the way first. Now Kyle waited for her to be done with that interview, so she could get on with her life.
Hannah fled to her dressing room at once, running light-footed, as though the applause was thunder that was threatening her.
He was the first thing she saw when she got there, and without breaking step, she ran to him and cast herself into his arms. She stayed there, silent, hugging him as tightly as he held her, as though all the world were tugging at them, trying to pull them apart.
“I did it” she finally said, in wonder and in relief. “Gray, I did it, didn’t I?”
She looked up and saw him nod.
“You did,” he said softly. “Honey, you surely did.”
“Are you proud of me?” she asked with such shy delight in her face that his arms tightened further around her.
“Absolutely,” he said, “but I always was.”
“Still, my father was there,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder. “I saw him watching and even so, I never missed a line. I did it, Gray. I really did.”
He might have said “of course” again, or maybe he only thought it, but they stayed there, holding tight and silent, listening to the applause until it ebbed and broke into the several small sounds of a crowd of people milling together, and they remembered where they were again.
“And now? Now what do we do?” he asked, although he wished he didn’t have to. But he knew waiting for tomorrow wouldn’t change things.
She paused, her head against his chest. Then she raised it, and noticing how her face paint had got on his jacket, began to brush at it with her hands, until he grasped one and held it tight. She looked into his eyes and said, “Well, there’s a cast party…”
“No, Hannah, that’s not what I mean,” he said gravely. “I know it’s soon, but it’s not too soon. It’s now or never. Will you have me? Or have you found something more? Whatever it is, please don’t tell me you don’t know yet.”
She took a deep breath.
“I won’t” she said. “Because what more is there? You mean the applause?” She frowned.
“It’s very nice. But did you think it would replace you?
Did you think I’d find that a lot of people I don’t know clapping for me would be as good as one man I love loving me?
No, I grew up in the theater, after all, and saw it all before I could read a line of script, so I know better than that.
That was never what was delaying me. I only needed to concentrate on tonight before I decided, as I said.
And now I have. Yes, please, thank you, I will. ”
Before he could say a word or draw her close, she put a hand on his chest and looked directly into his eyes.
“You know all my problems, and if you still want me, then yes. Or rather, now, yes. Because at least now I know I’m not just all problems. It’s not because of what I did tonight.
Or because Kyle proposed to me the other night, even knowing what you do about me.
Yes, he did,” she said, grinning. “I confess that’s very nice to know.
But it’s not why, either. Or maybe they’re all the reasons why together.
It’s because I finally know I’m worth something to myself.
You see, now,” she said, raising her chin, “I can understand why you want to marry me, after all.”
“Oh, the conceit of it,” he said, laughing.
“Yes,” she said smugly, while she still had her lips free to speak.
There was nothing leisurely or tender about their kiss, even though they’d both just declared for each other, there was a desperate longing and lingering fear of separation that kept their mouths hungrily searching each other’s.
When he raised his head at last, he became aware of how heated she was, and the stage makeup she wore bore a faint, unpleasant oily scent, nothing at all like the usual floral essence he associated with her.
It reminded him of a thing that must be said at once.
While he tried to think how to phrase it, she saw how her lip rouge had stained his face, and rubbed at it with her fingertips, flushing redder than the rouge he’d worn off her cheeks.
“About your career,” he said helplessly, as she grinned despite herself at how oddly the tender tones of her cosmetics looked on his high-boned, tanned, scarred cheek, “I guess we can stay here in New York when you’ve got a part you like, but…
do you think we could spend some time back home, too?
I’ll buy you music boxes and player pianos to keep you entertained there—a whole Riverboat Calliope if you want,” he said anxiously as she grinned the wider.
“Gray,” she said seriously, though she wanted to laugh aloud at the sheer pleasure of his offer, “I told you before—I’m not an actress. No, and I never wanted to be one. I’m still not one. I just had to prove I could do it if I wanted to. And I did.”
“You did, you were great,” he said.
“No,” she said quietly, kissing the cheek she’d just scrubbed relatively clean.
“No, thank you, but I’m not. If I were great.
I’d be an actress. I was good, but that would never be enough for me.
Father’s great. I decided long ago that I’d never settle for less.
How could I?” she asked, as he appeared to protest, “…unless, of course,” she said with a sudden fearful surmise, “you want me to—that is, some men like having actress wives onstage for others to admire…”
“Lord! Such a lovely fool,” he whispered, cutting off her words to her absolute delight.
“Oh!” Kyle said with enough projection in that one exclamation to snap even their intense concentration on what they were doing. “Beg pardon, I do indeed! It’s just that we were all looking for our new star!”
They sprang apart, and looked at the crowd of people that accompanied Kyle.
“Sir,” Gray said at once, when he saw Blayne Darling in the group, “your daughter’s just consented to be my wife.”
“Indeed?” Blayne said, pleased that he’d not have to play either the outraged father or the tolerant man of the world—since he’d no idea of which one he was supposed to be here. And smiling, because Gray Dylan was as wealthy as he was influential, he asked, “When?”
“Soon as we can—before she comes to her senses and changes her mind,” Gray said, accepting his brother’s handshake and then his offer of a handkerchief, as he tried to erase the color he saw everyone smiling at on his carmine cheeks.
“Maybe even New Year’s Day, if Judge Wilson is willing?” he asked Josh.
“If your lady is, he’ll be,” Josh answered, as he saw Hannah’s smile. “Might be nice at that—a New Year’s party and a wedding…We can do it, but can we do it up right this fast, Lucy?” he asked his wife.
“It would be beyond wonderful!” Lucy Dylan cried.
“We’ll let Delia stay up to be bridesmaid—we’ll invite everyone, just everyone.
We’ve got champagne on hand already, and I can order more, and flowers; we can have the wedding before the new year or just after it.
Of course, it would depend on whether Hannah wants to be married this year or next.
That is to say, one way she could be married a year by next week, and the other she could be a newlywed for a year.
Of course, it all depends on what she says, although what a party it would be, I mean… ”
“Take a deep breath,” Kyle commanded, just as he used to do all those years ago when he’d taught her to act. And though they hadn’t spoken in nearly a decade, she immediately did as he asked. Then, on an expelled breath she said, with evident relief.
“Yes. We can do it, and I’d love to.”
Then she grew still, staring at Kyle, realizing how well that admonition worked and how it had always calmed her. Hannah grew even more still, remembering him at last.
“Oh, Kyle,” Hannah said, her eyes wide with grief, “I’m so sorry, what a way for you to find out! I never meant…”
“Indeed,” Kyle said swiftly, his dark face smooth and calm, for whatever expression had come over it, when he’d heard the news, had been as quickly erased, and no one had seen it, being intent upon the newly engaged couple.
“What better way? It’s novel, most theatrical. My congratulations. Am I invited?”
But before she could answer, he added just as smoothly, “I applaud the drama of it, of course. But what a dreary honeymoon for your bridegroom—with you on the stage here every night of it.”
Hannah’s parted lips closed. She spun around and stared at Gray.
“I never thought about it,” she confessed. “It went right out of my head. But, of course, I have to play the whole run of the revue.”
“And,” Kyle put in quietly, “it does look to be a good long one. But I’ll never be the one to ruin love’s young dream. Go along, Hannah, with your beloved. I’ll find a replacement.”
Hannah stared at him. He shrugged and smiled sadly. It was the best present he could give her, and they both knew it, and it was difficult to tell which of them was more surprised by the offer.
“No need,” Blayne Darling spoke up. As everyone turned to him, he seemed to enlarge, until everyone wondered why they’d ever looked away from him.
“There’s another Darling willing in the wings.
I’m between engagements at the moment—such, alas, is the fate of the aging thespian, I suppose,” he said coyly, as they all grinned at the ludicrous thought, as he’d intended them to do.
“Oh, I don’t mean to don a wig and play my dear daughter’s part—as if I could,” Blayne said at once, as everyone, except for Kyle and some of his cast, chuckled at that, “but now, that Father’s part in Curfew is a meaty one…
My dear sir,” he said to Kyle, “would you take one Darling in place of another? Let my Hannah have her brief engagement of another sort, as well as her honeymoon, and you—take me in her stead? The publicity might just make up for her absence, do you think?” he added with just the right touch of humility to take the foolishness from such a rhetorical question.
“My dear sir!” Kyle exclaimed, all personal pain forgotten as the aching, empty places in his hungry heart filled with another kind of profound love. “Harry, what say you?” he called to the actor who’d played the part.
The actor, knowing future victory could be snatched from the jaws of this inevitable defeat, bowed and said quite humbly, “I’d be honored to have you take the part, Blayne.”
“We’ll enlarge it, of course,” Kyle said to Blayne, who nodded and said, “Of course.” And as Kyle began to pour glad murmurs about the marvelous publicity into his inclined ear, Blayne nodded again, to signal his wife to take notes, and they strolled off to plan their revised production, leaving the company to begin toasting the success of the revue, the coming marriage, and the new year.
But for the first time that Hannah could remember, her mother didn’t follow her father immediately.
Instead, she came to Hannah’s side and kissed her cheek, and gave her hand to a bemused Gray.
As he looked down at the slender, dark-haired woman, she said in a quiet undervoice, “Congratulations, my dear. I’m Hannah’s mother, by the by.
You’ve done very well for yourself, she’s a good girl.
Ah, he looks for me! I’ll see you again, no doubt,” she murmured, before she hurried away.
There were real tears in Hannah’s eyes as she watched her go. She looked up at Gray, her eyes shining.
“Ah! Wasn’t that wonderful of her?” she asked with such sincerity that all he could do was nod and put his arm around her, silently promising her, whatever happened, a very different future from her past.