A Respectable Actress (12 page)

“You don't get a second turn,” Binah said, reaching for the feather. “The feather
already said the truth.”

“Well, this is a stupid game.” The girl pushed to her feet. “I'm going home.”

The girls looked toward the door and saw India. Everyone froze.

Binah jumped up. “Miss, what you doing down here?”

“I was just out for a walk.” India stepped inside. “I heard your voices and wondered
what you were doing.”

Another of the white girls, the best dressed of the group in a pink satin frock,
folded her hands in her lap. “It's only a silly way to pass the time.”

“Because it's so dreadfully boring here,” said another, a girl wearing a small plumed
hat. “I hate this place. I wish I could run away.”

One of the other Negro girls, an angular girl with coffee-and-cream skin laughed.
“Oh? And where you gonna run to, Miss High and Mighty?”

“I don't care. Anywhere but here.”

“Well, maybe when Tommy Dawson marry you, he'll carry you clear to Atlanta. Won't
never see Indigo Point no more.”

“Fine by me.”

India smiled. “My friends and I played a similar game when we were your age. We peeled
an apple and let the peel fall, and it was supposed to form the letter of the first
name of our one true love.”

Binah's eyes widened. “Did it work?”

“I don't think so. It was just for fun.”

The girl in the velvet hat frowned. “Are you the one staying at Indigo Point with
the Sinclairs?”

“Yes.”

“Binah says you're a real theater actress.”

“Yes.”

“Miss Hartley got fancy costumes and greasepaint and ever'thing,” Binah said. “I
seen it for myself. I do up her hair sometimes.”

“Oh, you do not,” said the freckled girl. “Anybody knows a theater lady got her own
servants. My mama said so. And I reckon she ought to know. She's been to Savannah
at least three times. Once she stayed at the Pulaski Hotel. Had a bed all to herself.”

India took a seat beside Binah. “I once had someone to tend to my clothes and hair,
but she couldn't come with me here. Binah has been a great help to me.”

Binah beamed, and the other girl stuck out her tongue.

The girl in the pink dress scooted closer. “What's it like, being on the stage?”

“It's hard work. One has to remember all of the lines in the play and remember just
where to stand on the stage. Sometimes the theaters are drafty and the walls are
so thin we have to speak very loudly to be heard. But it's also a lot of fun to pretend
to be someone else and to tell a story that makes an audience feel happy. Or sad.”

The freckled girl nodded. “I was in a play once. Before the teacher up and left.
I was Pocahontas.”

“If I was in a play, I'd want to be Jo March from
Little Women
,” Pink Dress said.

“I want to be in the play too,” said the older, lighter-skinned of the Negro girls.

“You can't be in
Little Women
,” Pink Dress said. “There are no Negroes in
Little
Women
.”

India watched the girl's expression cloud, and her heart turned over. “Do you know
the most wonderful thing about being in a play? With greasepaint, it doesn't matter
whether your skin is light or dark. You can be anyone you want to be. Once, in England,
I was in a play with Sir Robert Atwood. His skin was as white as fresh-washed laundry.
But he put on the greasepaint to play a black man named Othello. And at the end of
the play, the entire audience was surprised to learn he was not a black man at all.”
She reached past Binah to place a hand on the other girl's arm. “What's your name?”

“Flora.”

“Well, Flora, if you wanted to be in
Little Women
, you certainly could be. You're
so tall and regal looking, I think I would give you the part of Jo.”

“What's regal?”

“It means you look like royalty. Like a princess.”

“Oh.” Flora beamed.

The girl in the velvet hat cocked her head. “I'm Elizabeth. Who would I be?”

India considered. “Amy perhaps. Because you have such a kind face.”

Pink Dress got to her feet. “This is silly. Because there is no theater and we haven't
any costumes and we haven't any greasepaint and we can't be actresses and that's
that.”

India was stunned to see how quickly and completely the
idea had taken hold in their
hearts. How deeply disappointed they were to realize the girl in pink was right.

“I have an idea,” India said. “The boat races are coming up in two weeks. I understand
there will be a bonfire and a picnic. Suppose we meet here every day and practice
some lines from
Little Women
. Then you could give a reading during the festivities.
It won't be the same as being in a real theater, but it might be fun.”

India watched seven pairs of eyes light up as if she had magically turned back the
calendar and Christmas had come again. And then they were all talking at once.

“Who gets to be Beth?”

“I don't want to be the one who dies.”

“Somebody dies?”

“Yes, silly. You haven't read the story?”

“Don't know how to read. I want to wear the geese paint.”

“It's ‘greasepaint,' Flora. Not ‘geese paint.' My stars! Don't you know anything?”

“I know as much as you do.”

“Where we gon' get any costumes?”

“Girls!” India clapped her hands and they quieted. “Since there are only four little
women and seven of you, we will take turns saying some of the lines. Everyone will
have a costume, and everyone who wants to can try on the greasepaint. But not until
the day of the performance, because I don't have much of it left and we can't afford
to waste it. Now tell me your names, and one at a time please.”

“I'm Susan,” said the skinny, freckled girl. She pointed to the girl in the velvet
hat. “That's Elizabeth, my sister.”

“I already said my name,” Elizabeth said.

India smiled. “So you did. Hello, Elizabeth.”

“I'm Margaret.” The quietest of the group also seemed to be the youngest. No more
than ten or eleven, India guessed. And from a family barely scraping by, judging
from her patched calico dress and scuffed shoes.

“My name is Claire,” said Pink Dress. “My papa manages the lumber mill for Mr. Dodge.”

Binah pushed forward a darker-skinned girl with mesmerizing honey-colored eyes and
the most beatific smile India had ever seen. “This Myrtilda. My cousin.”

“Hello, Myrtilda,” India said. “What a beautiful name. How old are you?”

The girl shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Yes, you do,” Binah prompted. “You be eleven come June.”

“Miss Hartley?” Claire said. “I have the whole first half of
Little Women
in my room
at home. I got it for Christmas last year. I can bring it tomorrow if you wish.”

“That would certainly save time,” India said. “Otherwise I'd have to send to Savannah
and hope to find a copy in the bookstore there.”

Claire twirled around, belling her pink skirt. “I'm so excited I could just spit!”

“Well don't spit on me.” Flora headed for the open doorway. “I got to go.”

“Me too,” Binah said. “Mama will switch me good if I stay away too long.”

Elizabeth drew a small notebook from her pocket. “What time do we come tomorrow,
miss? I must write it in my calendar.”

“Oh, of course!” her sister said. “Because you have so many things to do you can't
possibly remember them all.”

“You're only jealous because Papa gave me the calendar for Christmas and not you.”

“Jealous of a silly old notebook?”

India placed a hand on each girl's shoulder. “No quarreling. That's my first rule.
Break the rules and you won't be allowed to try on the greasepaint. Understood?”

“Yes, miss,” Elizabeth said. “But what time?”

“Can you all be here at ten?”

The girls nodded.

“All right. I'll see you tomorrow. Shall we keep this a secret, so we can surprise
everyone at the boat races?”

Margaret, the quiet one in the patched calico, beamed at India and whispered, “I
love secrets.”

“Me too,” India whispered back.

India watched as they hurried from the old hospital and disappeared along the footpath.
She set off in the opposite direction, skirting the old slave cemetery and the sharecroppers'
cabins. She reached the wooden footbridge spanning the shallow river and hurried
across, one eye out for snakes and alligators. Today the water ran fast and so clear
that she could see the rocky bottom and patches of brown fern undulating in the current.

The path grew more narrow, the trees more dense and overgrown as she approached the
charred remains of the chapel that Philip's grandfather had built. Though it was
not yet noon, a deepening gloom blotted out the sky. Beneath her feet the dead leaves
and brittle vines seemed to whisper
a warning. Gazing at the blackened bricks and
crooked chimney, India shivered. She couldn't give it a name, but she could feel
something dark and foreboding gathering there, waiting in the shifting shadows.

C
HAPTER
11

J
ANUARY
17

T
HE ENTIRE HOUSEHOLD WAS UP EARLY
,
PREPARING FOR
the boat races. Even before first
light, India heard the faint squeak of the kitchen door as Mrs. Catchpole went to gather eggs, then the voices of Almarene and Binah as they arrived for their morning chores. Soon Philip's footsteps sounded below, followed by Amelia's. The smells of bacon and coffee wafted up the stairs.

India rose, washed her face in the frigid water, and managed to fashion her hair
into an approximation of her famous coiffure. Into the large drawstring bag she often
carried to theaters, she put her hand mirror and her precious stores of greasepaint
and lip pomade, and added a few things for embellishing the girls'
Little Women
costumes—a
ruffled shirtwaist, a prim lace collar, a set of jet hair combs.

She was almost as excited as her young charges, who had spent the past two weeks
arguing over lines, worrying about their costumes, and finally, settling down to
memorize passages from Louisa May Alcott's beloved book. In the end, Flora had proved
too shy to actually take part, but she had come every day to the old hospital to
listen to her friends learn their lines.

The girls had blossomed under India's direction, growing more confident each day.
During one practice, Claire had declared her desire to become a stage actress. Elizabeth,
who wore her velvet plumed hat every day, wanted to live in Savannah and own a hat
shop. Binah's cousin Myrtilda wanted to raise horses.

India finished packing her bag and released a contented sigh. Even if none of their
dreams came true, for this one day, the girls would experience a small taste of adventure
and possibility. For India, being able to provide a glimpse of a different kind
of life was the highest calling of her art. Whatever happened when her trial opened
in two weeks' time—if she was to be denied her freedom, perhaps even her life—at
least she would have the satisfaction of knowing that she had had some small, positive
influence on these young girls.

With a final glance into the cheval mirror, she picked up her bag and cloak and went
downstairs.

“There you are.” Amelia met India at the bottom of the stairs, as if she had been
awaiting her arrival. “Just leave your things in the hallway, and Philip will pack
them into the rig. If he can find room.”

Amelia laughed, and India smiled, too, relieved to see her friend looking more like
her old self, the last vestiges of the fever finally gone.

“I hope you won't be afraid of my driving,” Amelia said, motioning India toward the
table where breakfast waited. “You'll be with me and Mrs. Catchpole in the rig. Philip
will take his horse.”

They took their places at the table. Binah appeared and
poured coffee. India winked
at her, and the girl ducked her head and smiled. India hadn't really expected the
girls to be able to keep a secret for two solid weeks, but if anyone had broken the
code of silence, India had no inkling of it. Binah looked as if she would burst if
she had to keep quiet much longer.

Philip arrived, having seen to the horses. “Good morning, India. Amelia.”

His smile made her heart turn over. This morning, in brown woolen trousers and a
matching jacket, his dark hair curling over his collar, he looked boyish and excited
about the day ahead. She searched his face, longing for the closeness of that moment
by the river, but he seemed bent on keeping her at a polite, professional distance.

He plopped into the chair opposite hers and motioned to Binah. “Some of that excellent
coffee, if you please, Binah.”

“Yessir.”

“Where's your mother this morning?” Philip buttered a biscuit.

“Back at the house, gettin' ready for the boat races. Packing up our dinner.” Binah
filled his cup and set the coffeepot down.

“You be sure and remind your mama to bring along her warmest coat, Binah. It's chilly
this morning. The cold isn't good for her rheumatism.”

“Yessir, I know it. Mama walked over here this mornin' to help Miz Catchpole fix
your dinner.”

He grinned. “Is that so? Care to tell me what we're having? I hope it's fatback and
cornpone.”

Binah giggled. “I ain't tellin', Mister Philip. You just got to come on and be surprised.”

Mrs. Catchpole loomed in the doorway. “Binah, if you have so much time on your hands
that you can stand there laughing like a complete lunatic, come on out to the kitchen
and help me pack up the beef stew and biscuits.”