Dare to Love (10 page)

I was going to London to study with Madame Olga. There was enough money in the envelope to pay for a year of study if I was careful, if I lived in the cheapest lodgings, if I watched every penny. A year with Madame Olga would make all the difference. I was going to work and work and work, practice until I dropped from exhaustion. I was going to become the greatest ballerina in all Europe, bathed in glory, a glamorous figure imbued with a special radiance, and Brence Stephens would see me and remember and beg me to be his. One day, I vowed, the tables would be turned. I clenched my fist, filled with steely resolution. I was going to make that dream come true, and nothing on earth was going to stop me.

LONDON 1845

XI

We gathered backstage like a cluster of nervous flowers, pink, white, and red tulle skirts billowing. Sarah remarked that she felt silly as hell being a rose and added that, if rose she must be, she'd rather be a red one. White didn't suit her at all. Theresa, leaning down to tighten the ribbons of her ballet slippers, complained that all those
tours jetés
Madame expected us to do were too bloody much. She fully expected to go crashing against the brick wall on the other side of the stage and end up being crippled for life. When Jenny remarked that that might be a blessing, Theresa gave her a look that should have killed.

“What kind of crowd do we have?” Sarah wondered.

“It's a sell-out,” Theresa informed her. “Madame's productions are always a sell-out. You'd think the old witch would pay us a pound or two.”

“We do it for the experience,” Jenny said. “How many students have an opportunity to perform before a live audience a full week every month?”

“Get her,” Theresa snapped. “She's almost as bad as Mary Ellen, serious about the dance,
dedicated
. My calves are killing me, and we haven't even started yet. These dreadful slippers don't fit!”

Glancing around to make certain that Madame wasn't in sight, Sarah hurried across the empty stage to peer through the peekhole in the dusty velvet curtain. All of us were tense. The monthly ballet performances created a terrific strain on the nerves, but we realized they were invaluable experience. Madame Olga took only twenty students at a time, and only girls who had years of study behind them. Classes were held in the rehearsal hall of the theater that Madame owned, and each month she presented a new ballet, which she had choreographed herself, featuring her students. Every important producer in the world of English ballet attended these performances to scout for new talent, and over the years many of the girls had received contracts to appear with leading troupes. Half the
corps de ballet
at Convent Garden were graduates of Madame Olga's school.

Sarah looked up from the peekhole and motioned for me to join her. I hurried over, my red tulle skirt floating like gossamer petals. I knew what she was going to tell me.

“He's out there,” she whispered.

“Again?”

“Second row, center aisle, the same seat he was sitting in last night. He doesn't give up, does he?”

I touched the curtain carefully and leaned forward to peer through the tiny hole invisible to the audience out front. Anthony Duke was there, all right, sitting in the seat Sarah had indicated. He wore formal attire, black satin lapels gleaming, white tie slightly awry. A half smile played on his full lips, and his dark blue eyes seemed to dance with mischief. He sat slumped down in his seat, toying with his program, completely at ease, exuding an aura of cocky self-confidence.

The musicians were beginning to fill the pit. As Sarah and I rejoined the other dancers, I could see she wanted to question me, but fortunately Madame appeared and there was no time. Small, regal, wearing a long black gown that fell in a straight line, Madame Olga examined us with dark eyes that seemed to smoulder with criticism. Her hair was sleeked back over her skull and fastened in a tight bun. Her lips were a bright red. Diamonds and emeralds flashed at her eyes and throat. Not quite five feet tall, she was fierce and formidable, crackling with magnetism.

“Tonight, young ladies, you are roses,” she said in her thickly accented, guttural voice. “You are not fat dairy cows clumping around in a pasture. You are roses, delicate and fragile and airy.”

“I feel more like a weed,” Theresa quipped.

“What was that?” Madame growled.

“Nothing, Madame,” Theresa said sweetly.

“You are a garden of roses touched with dew, bathed in moonlight, and as the sun comes up you open your petals slowly and celebrate the new day with joy and elation.”

Sarah sighed. Madame's little talks always exasperated her.

“You are artists,” Madame continued. “You are creating an illusion of beauty. When the curtain rises, something mystical and magical will happen. You will be responsible for it. I might add that someone very important will be looking you over. One of you girls will be leaving me at the end of the week for Covent Garden. Which one has not yet been decided.”

“Marvelous,” Sarah whispered. “Just what my nerves need.”

“You haven't a prayer,” Theresa said.

“Bitch!” Sarah hissed.

Madame's eyes flashed menacingly as Regina came rushing toward us, pink skirt flying, soft blonde hair spilling from her carefully arranged topknot. Breathless, blushing, Regina smiled a nervous smile and blinked her large blue eyes. Madame threw her hands up and rolled her eyes heavenward. Regina giggled. Theresa kicked her. Jenny stepped over to pin up Regina's topknot as Madame moved her lips in silent prayer, begging for patience.

“I lost one of my slippers,” Regina explained. “I couldn't find it anywhere.”

Madame glared. “I expect perfection. Nothing less will do. You will be perfect. I will be watching you out front, and I will see all of you tomorrow morning at ten, in the rehearsal hall.”

There were several groans. But when Madame's brows shot up, and her mouth became a hard, tight line, blood red, the groans subsided immediately. Resigned glances were exchanged. A great spirit of camaraderie prevailed among Madame Olga's girls. All of us, victims of her stern tyranny, presented a united front; we were exclusive martyrs who paid dearly for the abuse she handed out.

“The music is beginning. Please, young ladies! You are not a gaggle of silly geese thinking of nothing but men and hair ribbons. You are artists! You are roses, beautiful roses, pink and white and red!”

We hurried across the stage, ballet slippers pattering with a soft, muffled sound. Sinking to the floor, we spread our skirts out and folded ourselves up, seven pink roses stage right, seven white roses stage center, six red stage left. The lights dimmed and the music of Chopin filled the auditorium, lovely, melodic, subdued. There was a rusty, metallic creak as the heavy curtain lifted and parted. We were suddenly bathed in a hazy silver-blue light. The crystal spangles scattered over our skirts sparkled like dew in the moonlight.

He was out there again tonight, the third night in a row. I had snubbed him properly the first night he approached me in front of the theater. He had merely grinned. Overhead, now, the haze of blue vanished and the silver grew brighter, melting into gold. I lifted one arm, slowly, moving it with the music. Last night he had been waiting for me again, and I had told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn't interested in his proposition, that I knew a scoundrel when I saw one and would summon a Bobby if he didn't leave me alone.

I lifted my other arm, both arms caressing the sunlight, gold melting into white, my head still bowed. He would be waiting for me tonight as well, no doubt, top hat tilted on his head, satin-lined opera cape falling from his shoulders. He would be leaning against the wall just outside the foyer, humming to himself, tapping his cane on the pavement as he watched the traffic pass up and down the street in front of the theater. His impudent blue eyes would light up as I stepped outside. That cocky grin would form on his lips. I would walk right past him, ignoring him completely.

I raised my head, slowly, slowly, shoulders down, neck a long, graceful line, and I swayed from side to side, lifting layers of red tulle, the stage a garden of roses bathed in morning sunlight, pure white light, dew sparkling. He was very good-looking. Not handsome, no. The mouth was too large, the cheekbones too broad, the nose slightly crooked as though it had been broken and reset improperly. He had the face of a wicked choir boy. He was thirty or so, I judged, tall and lean and very attractive and much too charming. Pink roses stood, swayed, and danced across the stage as the Chopin melody swelled.

I wasn't at all interested in Mr. Anthony Duke. Ballet girls were all the rage this year, and every roué in London felt he must possess one. Madame Olga's girls were not yet professionals, but they were highly prized, possibly because she kept such a close watch over us, sternly forbidding us to go out with any of the men who attended the performances. During the past year at least a dozen men had made advances to me, but I had snubbed them all. Sarah and Theresa found this amusing. The white roses were dancing now, moving around in circles with the pink, celebrating the bright white sunlight.

He was just another man-about-town, eager to have his ballet girl to squire around and show off to his friends. I didn't believe for a minute that he was connected with the theater. An entrepreneur, he called himself, formerly with Fleet Street. Knew everyone worth knowing, he claimed; wanted to make me a star. A child of twelve would hardly fall for that old chestnut. He had the looks of a natural born liar, a rogue who breezed through life on his charm, his wits, his dashing appearance. Pink and white roses circled around the red, beckoning us to rise, to celebrate the morning and savor its beauty. We swayed, red petals rising, floating, arms reaching for the sunlight.

I was lonely. I had never known such loneliness. Though I was friendly with the other dancers, I was close to none of them. I hadn't the means to associate with them outside the theater, and my pride prevented me from accepting the invitations they handed out so casually. I had no friends at all except Millie, and she kept such odd hours that I rarely saw her. It would be nice to go out to a restaurant with a man, to attend the theater with him on one of the nights when we weren't dancing. But not a man like Anthony Duke, not a rake who hung around outside theaters pursuing women who wanted nothing to do with him.

“Jesus!” Sarah hissed. “Get up, Mary Ellen!”

I looked at her, startled. The other red roses had already unfolded and were standing on tall stems, swaying as the white and pink wove in and out. Sarah floated past. Rising a good thirty seconds after the others, I whirled about, pretending it was part of the choreography, joining in step, but I was unnerved. What on earth was the matter with me? I had never done anything like that before. I was always part of the music, part of the magic, my own identity thoroughly submerged. I moved across the stage on point, bending, swaying, whirling.

I made no more errors, but all the while I was conscious of the lights, the sea of faces, the hundreds of eyes watching, of one pair in particular. The dance was supposed to be a liquid flow of expression, but tonight I was acutely aware of each step, each movement. I felt stiff and mechanical, a separate entity going through my paces with little feeling.

Red and pink roses danced offstage while the white remained to do their special interlude. I moved around a coil of rope and stood beside a stack of flats that leaned against the wall to watch. Mattie, the wardrobe woman, rushed over to hand each of us a towel, and we carefully patted away perspiration. Regina's topknot had begun to spill down again. She giggled as an irritated Theresa shoved soft blonde waves back in place and jabbed hairpins into them. I was out of breath, and every muscle in my body felt sore. For the first time I was afraid, afraid I wouldn't remember the steps when the red roses did their specialty, afraid I would blunder.

Applause filled the auditorium as the dancers in white tulle sailed offstage as though carried on air. The pink whirled on, skirts making full circles as the dancers spun on point. Sarah seized a towel from Mattie and moved over to join me, patting her face and shoulders.

“What's the matter with you tonight?”

“I … I don't know.”

“It's that man, isn't it? He's upset you.”

I shook my head. “That isn't it, Sarah. It's … it's a lot of things. I just … can't seem to concentrate.”

I had exactly ten pounds to my name. I had been extremely frugal, but after a year the money had simply vanished. I hadn't paid Mrs. Fernwood for three weeks, and I knew she wouldn't hesitate to turn me out of my room if I didn't pay up soon. For the past month I had been skipping breakfast and dinner, eating only lunch, trying to economize even more. I needed new ballet slippers. I needed a new cloak before winter. I would have to pay Madame again at the end of the month, and I simply didn't have the money.

Loneliness wasn't the worst of it. Doubts had begun to besiege me about my dancing. Madame Olga took only those students who showed great promise. I had been very promising, but after a year I was no better than I had been when I began her classes. Deep down I knew that. I worked harder than any of the others. Many an afternoon after classes were over I remained behind to practice in the deserted rehearsal hall, but it seemed to do no good. The ability was there, the technique, but that special quality was missing, the quality that set a dancer apart and enabled her to shine. Would I ever have it? Not without more hard work, and how could I continue to study with Madame Olga if …

“You look faint,” Sarah said.

“I'm all right.”

Her blue eyes were filled with genuine concern. “But Mary Ellen, this isn't like you. You—oh, you're not pregnant, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“I didn't think so. You and Jenny are about the only ones who don't have a man on the string. Something's bothering you, though. I can tell. Look, if I can help in any way—”