Fates and Traitors (17 page)

Though only twenty-three, experience had bestowed maturity upon him, and he immediately assumed his rightful place as head of the household. Entrusting The Farm to the care of the ever reliable Joe and Ann, Edwin closed Tudor Hall and moved his mother and younger siblings to Baltimore, renting a comfortable townhouse at 7 North High Street in their old neighborhood. But even as his family rejoiced in his return and in the restoration of all their old comforts and necessities, a frisson of resentment ran through every smile. They could not forget Edwin's prolonged neglect, nor, though they never spoke of it, could they entirely forgive him for abandoning Father on the pier in San Francisco.

Mother showered Edwin in affection and expressed sincere and abundant gratitude for his many gifts, but her condemnation of his singular, fatally disloyal act was made manifest when Edwin asked for his father's magnificent collection of costumes and theatrical props as his inheritance. He gaped, astonished, when she refused. “Why not?” he asked, a trifle sharply. “I think it's fair to say I earned them.”

“Perhaps that's true, but you've asked me too late.” Mother smiled regretfully, but Asia detected a glimmer of steel in her gaze. “I've already given them to John Wilkes.”

“But I would make far better use of them,” Edwin protested.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Only time will tell.” She waved a hand in a gesture of graceful dismissal. “As I say, you're too late. Such a decision, once made, cannot be undone, even if time and hindsight grant us the wisdom to regret it.”

Edwin inclined his head respectfully, but if his mother's rebuke wounded him, he gave little sign of it. And yet, somehow, an undefinable quality in his demeanor told Asia that he accepted his family's judgment and knew he must make amends.

Soon thereafter, Edwin embarked on tour, filling theatres and
earning rave reviews and rapturous comparisons to the great Junius Brutus Booth everywhere he went. He deliberately followed the Southern routes their father had trod, dazzling audiences at Grover's Theatre in Washington City before moving on to Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, Montgomery, and New Orleans. Asia thought it was an inspired plan to reclaim the territory where their father had enjoyed such success, and where Edwin could renew ties with theatre owners and managers he had met as his father's young valet and apprentice player.

Only after whetting the public's anticipation with his rising fame and ever more rapturous reports in the press that the celebrated Booth genius was alive and well in the heir apparent did Edwin set his sights on New York, a thespian's true testing ground, where riches and acclaim were bestowed upon the best and the brightest. “Hope for the Living Drama!” declared the playbills for his opening at the Bond Theatre on Broadway. From what Asia read in the papers, theatre critics and audiences alike agreed that Edwin deserved all the applause he could bear.

Nearly a year after Edwin's return, he at last decided that Wilkes might begin his apprenticeship. Wilkes promptly joined William Wheatley's company at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia as a supernumerary, calling himself J. B. Wilkes to avoid tarnishing the celebrated family name with his neophyte efforts. As a humble supe, nineteen-year-old Wilkes remained in the background, attired as a soldier, servant, peasant, or nobleman as the play required, his costumed presence helping to set the scene, though he had no lines to speak. He earned a mere eight dollars a week, insufficient to pay for his room at a boardinghouse near the theatre, much less the new clothes, tavern meals, brandy, and occasional train fares to Baltimore he also required. Mother paid his expenses out of the funds Edwin provided for the household, although Asia doubted her elder brother knew.

Asia realized that Wilkes had John Sleeper Clarke as well as Edwin to thank for the opportunity, unprofitable though it was. Clarke's fame as a talented comedian was growing all along the East Coast, and he had decided to further advance his career by taking on a management role at the Arch Street Theatre. It was Clarke who had convinced Wheatley to hire Wilkes—and although Asia adamantly denied it, her mother and Rosalie teased that he had acted not out of friendship to
Edwin or Wilkes, but to prove his devotion to Asia. Over the course of the year Clarke had called at the Booth residence whenever he was in Baltimore, even if Edwin was away on tour, but he could not possibly persist in the delusion that he was courting Asia, for she had not given him a single word of encouragement. She was grateful that he had found a place in his company of players for Wilkes, but gratitude was not affection. Surely Clarke was not too besotted to understand that.

For months Wilkes toiled away in bit parts in the background while Edwin filled theatres in great cities portraying the characters their father had made his own—Shylock, Pescara, Iago, Richard III—as well as Hamlet and Romeo, roles Edwin's ethereal, compelling grace enabled him to inhabit better than the legendary tragedian ever had, if the enraptured theatre critics did not exaggerate.

“I'm not jealous of our dear brother nor discouraged for myself,” Wilkes wrote home to Asia in the first week of January 1858, with his usual good cheer. “In fact, I have high hopes that this will be the year ‘J. B. Wilkes' makes audiences sit up and take notice. And the moment I make my reputation as an actor, I will take back the name our father made great.”

Soon thereafter, Wilkes wrote again with delightful news: He had been cast in speaking roles in both of the Arch Street Theatre's newest upcoming productions. They were small parts, to be sure, far beneath actors of Edwin's stature, but if Wilkes could distinguish himself with a flash of brilliance onstage—winning over the audience, earning a spontaneous burst of applause—it could speed his ascension through the ranks.

In late February, the Booth ladies traveled to Philadelphia for the opening night of
Lucretia Borgia
, for not even the reclusive Rosalie would dream of missing Wilkes's official debut. They knew Wilkes would be too busy preparing for the show to meet them at the train station in Philadelphia, but Asia was astonished to find Clarke waiting on the platform in his place, his cheeks red from cold.

“Shouldn't you be at the theatre, preparing for curtain rise?” Asia asked after he had greeted them with a stiff formality that struck her as rather ridiculous considering his long acquaintance with their family.

“I'm not in the cast,” he said, offering Asia his arm. “Our
Lucretia Borgia
is adapted from Victor Hugo's play, a melodrama set in Renaissance Venice. There's no good part in it for a comedian.”

“Surely you're wanted backstage, then.” Glancing at his crooked elbow from beneath arched eyebrows, Asia stepped gracefully aside so that it would appear that Clarke had offered to escort her mother instead, as was proper. His smile faltered slightly as he stepped closer to Mother, but he otherwise did not acknowledge his gaffe. Taking his arm, Mother fixed Asia with a look of reprimand over her shoulder as Clarke led her away.

“I don't understand how Clarke can be so amusing on the stage and so stilted off it,” Asia murmured to Rosalie as he helped their mother into a hired carriage.

“You make him nervous,” Rosalie whispered back. “Only before you is he afraid to look a fool.”

“Well, that's foolishness itself. I've known him since—” But she could say no more, because Clarke had turned to her, hand outstretched, to assist her into the carriage beside her mother.

“How is Wilkes?” Mother asked as they rode to the theatre. “I do wish we could see him before curtain rise.”

“He's doing well, Mrs. Booth.” Clarke looked quite well himself, attired in a fine black wool suit and topcoat, expertly tailored, and a black felt hat, evidently new. Edwin, who never squandered an opportunity to sing his friend's praises, had told Asia that Clarke's onstage pratfalls and comic escapades had made him a wealthy man, and his ventures in management proved that he was prudent too. Asia had merely nodded, unwilling to offend her brother but reluctant to appear to admire his friend. She was well aware that Edwin and her mother conspired as matchmakers, but to her Clarke would always remain mischievous, round-faced Sleepy from the neighborhood, a good enough fellow but hardly her heart's desire.

They arrived at the Arch Street Theatre at half past six, just as the doors were opening. Clarke escorted them past the ladies and gentlemen lined up at the box office, shivering in their cloaks and furs and chattering with anticipation while they waited to purchase their tickets: fifty cents for a seat on the main floor, fifteen for the balcony. After seeing the Booth ladies to their places on the main floor, Clarke bowed and hurried off backstage with promises to carry their good wishes to Wilkes.

The gas footlights shone, the audience took their seats, and the
quiet murmur of voices fell to an expectant hush as the orchestra struck up the melancholy strains of an old Italian melody. The curtain rose upon a festive twilight scene, a celebration of Carnival in Venice. False moonlight shone on the marble façade of a palace, its arched columns rising above the street, and upon the Grand Canal beyond it, where gondolas passed, silent and graceful. Downstage, men and women strolled by in rich clothes and painted masks, their lecherous mouths, crooked noses, and staring, empty eye sockets ominous and unsettling.

Suddenly six young cavaliers burst onto the stage—and Asia seized her mother's hand as she spotted Wilkes among them. She recognized elements of his grand costume from their father's magnificent wardrobe—the fine silk hose and velvet shoes, the snug black tunic he had worn as Hamlet.

“There never was a tale more full of horror,” one of the cavaliers declared ominously. “There never was a deed more black and damning!”

Then Wilkes stepped forward. “Aye, a dark and bloody deed,” he intoned, “perpetrated by some malicious demon, who revels in blood and crime!”

Unaware that she had been holding her breath, Asia exhaled softly and settled back into her seat. Her brother had delivered his first line well, with strength and clarity. Though he had always found learning a part an arduous labor, once he memorized something, he knew it forever—and to her enormous relief, he apparently knew this one.

Finally able to relax, Asia lost herself in the story as it unfolded amid the vibrant spectacle of Carnival. Strolling among the revelers was the duchess of Ferrara, the beautiful, powerful, and ruthless Lucretia Borgia. Clad in a low-cut gown lavishly embellished with jewels, her identity concealed behind a mask, she had come to Venice seeking her long-lost son, Gennaro, whom she had sent away as an infant twenty years before to protect him from her enemies. Wilkes portrayed Ascanio Petrucca, Gennaro's best friend and comrade in arms.

At a fatal moment, in her distraction and anguish, Lucretia allowed her mask to slip—and the cavaliers immediately recognized her. A thrill of shock and apprehension ran through the audience as the angry young soldiers surrounded her, swords drawn. She fell to her knees, weeping, tearing her hair, and begging for mercy.

“Madam,” the first cavalier snarled, leaning toward her, “I am
Maffio Orsini, brother to the duke of Gravinia, whom you caused to be stabbed in his dungeon!”

“Madam,” a second declared, drawing closer, “I am Jeppo Liveretto, brother of Liveretto Vittelli, whom your ruffians strangled while he slept!”

Then Ascanio Petrucca stepped forward. “Madam, I—” Wilkes's voice shook. “I am Pondolfo Pet— Pedolfio Pat— Pantuchio Ped— Dammit, what am I?”

The audience burst into laughter—except for the Booth ladies, who gasped in dismay.

The actress playing Lucretia knelt in supplication before the vengeful cavaliers, her climactic moment spoiled. The players carried on as if unaware of the roar of laughter washing over them—all the actors, save one. Wilkes turned to face the audience, grinned ruefully in acknowledgment of his mistake and their merriment, and joined in the laughter.

“No, John,” Asia heard her mother murmur. “Carry on, carry on.”

He could not have heard her, but he promptly fell back into character and joined the other actors as they struggled to restore the play to its proper course. But the suspenseful mood had been shattered. Through once-riveting scenes that now seemed ridiculous, the play limped toward its tragic climax and the mercifully swift drop of the curtain.

While tepid applause and laughter and impolite imitations of Wilkes's stammer rang out all around them, Asia clapped with such fierce determination that her palms smarted. The rest of the audience rose and made to depart, but Asia, her mother, and Rosalie remained in their seats as if they had every reason to expect a curtain call.

But of course none was forthcoming. “Poor John,” said Mother, rising from her seat.

“If not for that one mistake,” said Asia spiritedly, “it would have been an excellent performance.”

Rosalie too stood. “I wonder what Edwin will say.”

Asia felt a catch in her throat imagining Edwin's reaction to news of his brother's disastrous performance. Oh, poor John indeed. The gleeful viciousness of the newspaper reviews would seem a gentle rebuke compared to Edwin's wrath.

Clarke kindly said nothing of Wilkes's appalling blunder when he arrived to escort the Booth ladies to their hotel, but his expression of consternation spoke volumes. “John Wilkes looked well on the stage,” he told Asia as they parted company. “He showed moments of true talent, and he'll improve with experience. Every player has a performance like this in his past. Before you know it, this night will be no more than a memory, a comic story he'll bring out every once in a while to amuse friends and to encourage the new supes.”

Tears of gratitude sprang to Asia's eyes as she thanked him.

Later, when Wilkes finally joined them at the hotel for a late supper, his manner was chagrined, yet astonishingly sanguine. “Tomorrow night when I play Dawson in
The Gamester
, all will be forgiven,” he said. “It's a choice part, one of the villains. I've no doubt I'll win over the audience with my splendid costume.”