Leading Lady (13 page)

After all greetings were exchanged, she and Guy slipped into the sitting room. They sat upon the sofa nearest the fireplace, hands clasped and her head nestled against his shoulder.

“After graduation I’ll audition for the Royal Opera House,” he said. It was known in musician circles that the London opera orchestras attracted the best metropolitan instrumental talent. “If I’m accepted—”

“
If?
” Bethia said. “That’s a foregone conclusion.”

He squeezed her hand. “Isn’t there a fable about counting chickens before they hatch? As I was saying,
if
I’m accepted, the wages won’t be outstanding during the first six months
or so. But after I’ve proven myself, I should be able to earn a good living.”

“You will,” Bethia said, for she had never known Guy to fail at anything he set his mind upon. The scholarship was proof of that, for he was the first non-Italian recipient in the history of the University of Bologna’s music department.

Turning to face her, he took both her hands in his. “Lilly . . .”

“What is it?” she asked, startled by his grim expression.

“I was hoping to have enough saved for a ring by now. I haven’t.”

It was not an easy thing for Bethia to hear. Ever since romance infused itself into their friendship, she and Guy had simply taken for granted that they would marry one day. They had waited so long. Even if an engagement ring would not bring their marriage any closer chronologically, it would be a milepost along the way, a reminder that one day they would be husband and wife.

“I don’t want an extravagant ring, Guy.”

He made no comment on that. They had discussed the matter at length, each time ending in a standoff. To Bethia it was the sentiment forged into the ring that mattered, not the costliness of the metal nor size of the gemstone.

But for Guy, a modest ring would remind people of his roots in servitude. Just like cheap clothing.

“As painful as it is for me to say this,” he went on, “it’s best we put off our formal engagement a bit longer anyway. Merely having a ring isn’t enough. I want to ask for your hand when I can prove to your father that I can support you.”

The perfect sense of what he said somewhat pierced the cloud of disappointment enveloping her. If she were a man, she told herself, she would feel exactly the same. Pride may have been a factor, but so was practicality. Birds did not start families until their nests were secure—a point Father would be certain to make, were Guy to ask for her hand before he was in a stable financial position. And Father would not count
her wages at the Royal Court as a strong enough financial foundation for a marriage.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Guy said, blue eyes begging understanding. “When I’m a successful musician, you’ll have a fine house, with every luxury you have here.”

She was opening her mouth to say that luxury was not important, but he put a finger to her lips. “Please don’t try to talk me out of that dream, Bethia. You deserve the best.”

“I already have the best,” she corrected.

“I wish that were so,” he said. His eyebrows raised. “You do understand?”

“Yes. I understand.”

He released her hands and dug into his waistcoat pocket. “I realize it’s not appropriate for me to give you any jewelry until we’re formally engaged, but surely your family won’t protest a little something from your unofficial fiancé.”

Bethia opened the narrow velvet-covered box he put into her hands. A pear-shaped stone of a variety of colors—yellow, brown, blue, gray, and white—was attached to a delicate silver chain.

“It’s barite,” Guy said. “Not expensive, but it’s mined in Bologna.”

“It’s lovely,” Bethia said, touching the stone. And she was able to put aside the final dregs of disappointment by reminding herself that mileposts came in many forms.

****

Thursday evening, Guy and his family, along with other friends and neighbors, arrived at 5 Cannonhall Road for the annual Christmas party. Jewel and Catherine and their families were up in Sheffield with Uncle James and Aunt Virginia, but Peggy Somerset and Milly Holt, former schoolmates of Catherine’s, accepted the invitations. After trips to the refreshment tables began lessening in frequency, Sarah rounded up all musicians present. Guests sang carols to the accompaniment of Guy and Peggy on violins, Danny on piano, and neighbor Mr. Brooker on the dulcimer. The celebration
continued well into the night, and as they left, everyone agreed that it had been a wonderful party.

****

Christmas morning dawned tinged with chilly anticipation, even though there were no little ones in the house to squeal over treasures in stockings. After breakfast the family walked to Christ Church, the nave so bedecked with holly that even members of the congregation seemed to be sprouting it. Gift exchanging occupied the space of afternoon before lunch, which was purposely late because of the abundance at breakfast. The parlour was fragrant with perfume as Mother and Sarah passed around bottles of Coronis and Violette de Parme for everyone to sniff. After the expected admonitions over the expense of his camera, Father arranged everyone for a photograph.

Just as everyone was gathering their gifts to put away and Mother was salvaging paper and ribbons for next year, William surprised everyone by bringing in one more gift, for Sarah—a Berliner Gramophone. Smiling, he turned the crank at the side and stepped back. A needle began moving across a cylinder, and through the large horn floated the somewhat brittle sounds of an orchestra. Soon a man’s nasal tenor began singing “The Fountain in the Park”;

They played it, and another cylinder with “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” over and over, and then again after lunch for Guy when he arrived with an apple spice cake his mother had baked. He visited with her family in the parlour, posed with her for her father’s camera, and then he and Bethia bundled up for a stroll toward Hampstead Heath, where children were already trying out new bicycles and roller skates.

“When will you leave for school?” Guy asked.

“Next Saturday,” Bethia replied, her hand resting upon the
crook of his arm. One week away. And he would be leaving in four days.

“It’s hardly fair,” he said. “You’re always the one seeing me off and meeting me.”

“Your trip takes longer. You can’t help that.”

“You’re too good for me, you know.”

“That’s what Father says.”

He looked at her, crestfallen. “Really?”

“No, not really,” she said and squeezed his arm. “He adores you, as we all do.”

Guy gave her a relieved smile. “He paid for my piano and violin lessons as a boy. I’ll never forget that. You have a remarkable family.”

“As do you,” Bethia reminded him.

“Yes.” He nodded. “But Mother’s not happy about Easter break.”

“She’ll miss you.” So would Bethia. His scholarship obligated him to embark on a fund-raising tour with the University orchestra for six weeks during his final year. But she wouldn’t wish it any other way, for this was a marvelous opportunity for him to see Europe.

“Just promise me one thing,” she said.

He lifted an eyebrow. “That I won’t set my cap for some French girl?”

“No,” she said, smiling at the notion, for he never even seemed to notice other women in that sort of way. “That when you’re in Spain, you’ll stay away from the bulls.”

“What bulls?”

“The bulls they let loose in the streets.”

“Why would you think that would even cross my mind?” he asked.

“Because Mr. Whitmore ran with them when he was your age.”

“The actor?”

Bethia nodded. “He said he only planned to watch from a
window, but that some group madness comes over hundreds of men who otherwise wouldn’t think of doing such a thing.”

Sapphire eyes merry, he said, “Then I give you my word that I’ll keep my distance from any Spanish bulls. Besides, I believe that happens sometime in July, when I’ll be safely back here at your side.”

Ten

By the time Royal Court Theatre’s
Romeo and Juliet
went into its fourth week of production in late January 1898, performances were sold out, and the drama critics in such publications as the
Strand Magazine
and the
Times
had written laudatory columns, including no less than George Bernard Shaw’s comments in
Saturday Review:

. . . the sparks between Mr. Whitmore and the beautiful Mrs. Steel are almost palatable, the costuming magnificently authentic; the settings are works of art, and the acting is so flawless that the lines float out to us as effortlessly as flower petals on breezes.

It was the break Jewel and her husband, Grady, had worked and prayed for. They woke smiling every morning and went to bed smiling every night. Messrs. Cumberland and Fry threw a huge party for cast and crew in the ballroom of the Hotel Rembrandt. Congratulations were traded like marbles in a schoolyard: the backstage crew and utility actors for the bonuses adding weight to their purses, the lead actors for what the superior reviews would do for their careers.

And then, during another sellout performance on the twenty-fifth of January, Charlotte Steel leaned over the balcony—a timber-and-papier-mâché structure that could not be discerned from authentic stone in the limelights—and threw up on Richard Whitmore’s upturned face.

The curtain closed upon a cast no less stunned than the audience. In the greenroom, a coffee cup and magazine were pulled out of understudy Daphne Lloyd’s hands, and the creases fluffed out of her gown. However much Mr. Whitmore simmered as Jewel bathed his face and hair with a wet towel, he was too professional to cause a scene that might
be heard over the six-piece orchestra’s replaying Bach’s Italian Concerto in F Major from the Capulet Ball scene. When the curtain opened again to sympathetic applause, Richard Whitmore’s performance was as brilliant as ever, in spite of the fact that he reeked, and Miss Lloyd carried her part as Juliet admirably, considering that the opportunity had literally dropped upon her from above.

Newspaper critics made no mention of this the following day, but with London boasting thirty-six theatres, that was not surprising. On the twenty-seventh the
Times
critic alluded to the spectacle with delicacy, expressing his wishes for Mrs. Steel’s full recovery from whichever ailment had stricken her.

Only, Mrs. Steel would not be recovering for at least another five months, she informed Jewel and Grady with face glowing as they visited her bedside in Mayfair. And even then, she had doubts about returning to the stage. The replacement of a leading actress in a sellout production could not be ignored by the critics for long, and the reviews descended into lukewarmness, each lamenting, in a variation of words, the same observation—that the spark between Romeo and Juliet had fizzled like coals doused with water.

Ticket sales began declining, so that by the seventh of February’s performance, eighteen percent of the seats were empty. A fog of gloom crept backstage and settled in every crevice and corner. Jewel and Grady explored the feasibility of returning the competent-but-bland Miss Lloyd back to her minor role as Juliet’s nurse. But with only three weeks remaining in production, the chances of engaging a
known
actress as Juliet’s replacement were slim to nonexistent.

Still, Jewel made some discreet calls, such as to Mabel Love, who was due to start
The Musketeers
at Her Majesty’s Theatre in nine weeks.

“I’m not a quick study,” the beautiful Miss Love confessed over tea in the parlour of her St. John’s Wood town house on the eighth of February. “And I’m afraid I’ve never played Juliet. Your production would be over before I learned my lines.”

When Jewel returned to the Royal Court, cleaners Mrs. Shore, Mrs. Ainsley, and Mr. Ryder were loitering in the corridor just outside the office. Jewel thought nothing of it, for they had the right to take pause from their hard work now and again—but when they mumbled hurried greetings and scattered, she sent a suspicious look toward the office door. It opened when she was but two feet away, and she had to step back to keep from smashing into Mr. Birch.

“I just brought coffee to calm them,” said the old man.

Jewel did not have to ask who belonged to the other part of
them.
“Thank you, Mr. Birch.”

Two men turned flushed faces toward her as she entered an office redolent of coffee and filled with an almost palatable tension. Hands wrapped about his coffee cup as if it were a walnut he were trying to crush, Mr. Whitmore sat in the chair facing Grady’s desk. “That woman is destroying my career.”

Jewel closed the door, catching a whiff of something besides coffee. She intercepted her husband’s grim little nod and said to the actor, “Mr. Whitmore, that’s simply not true. The receipts are still healthy enough.”

“And gin will ruin your career quicker than any actress will, Whitmore,” Grady said gently.

“What do you expect?” Mr. Whitmore exclaimed, handsome face flushing a deeper crimson beneath his dyed dark brown hair. “I have to play against a zombie every night! I never thought I would miss Charlotte Steel, but I would kiss every corn on her big feet if she would but return!”

“Mr. Whitmore, please.” Jewel could picture the three cleaners slipping again into the corridor and Mr. Birch cocking his ears. “Three weeks—that’s all we have left. Just bear with us.”

He uncurled a hand from the cup to shake a finger at her. “I’ve offers from other theatres, you know. I’ll not go down with this leaky ship! You find a decent leading lady for
Lady Audley’s Secret,
or—”

“We’ll find one.” Grady came around his desk and clapped
a hand upon the man’s shoulder. “But for now, we’ve barely four hours until curtain. No sense getting out in traffic just to turn around again. Have a nap in your dressing room, and I’ll send you up a proper supper in a bit.”

For a second it seemed the actor would refuse. Jewel held her breath. She let it out again when he nodded.