Leading Lady (19 page)

The actress, obviously familiar with auditions, did not look crushed, but nodded and exited the stage. Taking her place on the boards was a Nadia Cooper, who had acted in
utility parts at the Royal Court until two years ago, when she was offered a more substantial role in
The Promise of May
at the Alhambra.

“Oh, let the dear girl go on, I can forgive her . . . we shall know each other better by and by. Still, it is unpleasant for me to be aware that my affection for your dear daughter is not reciprocated.”

“Not bad,” Jewel whispered to Grady, who raised eyebrows and nodded. Not
outstanding,
but they were still in the early letters of that alphabet.

“She would have to wear a wig,” Grady whispered, for the Lady Audley character was blonde, and Miss Cooper a brunette.

She would agree to balance a waterpot on her head for this part,
Jewel thought and smiled up toward the stage. “Thank you, Miss Cooper.” She did not have to remind those with whom she had worked before to leave their telephone numbers or addresses. The actress gave her and Grady a little wave and exited.

By the time they were halfway through the alphabet, Jewel was cautiously hopeful. True, the theatre no longer had the draw of Charlotte Steel, but Richard Whitmore was still quite popular and, when teamed with a skilled actress, would shine again. It was just the matter of finding one who could produce that spark, that chemistry.

“Miss Esther Newman,” Mr. Webb announced. “From act two, scene one.”

“I bumped into her on my way in,” Jewel whispered as a blonde actress stepped from the wings. “She was understudy for one of the
King Lear
daughters at the Lyceum.”

“Right hair color,” Grady whispered back.

Miss Newman took center stage, clasped a fist to her bosom and began. “Closer and closer around me seems to draw the circle, which threatens to bind me within its folds! Shall I . . .”

She paused, screwed up her forehead, bit her lip.

“Yield to his menaces,” Mr. Robbs whispered, looking up from his script.

“Shall I yield to his menaces and leave rank, wealth, and . . .”

She floundered, sent Jewel and Grady an apologetic look, then held up a silencing hand just as Mr. Robbs was opening his mouth to supply her with the words.

“ . . . position? No! My motto has, hitherto, been death or victory; and . . .”

“To that end I am fixed,” Mr. Robbs whispered after two seconds of silence.

“Thank you, Miss Newman,” Jewel said up to the stage. “Please leave your address with Mr. Webb.” She only said the latter out of compassion, for leaving out the customary request would humiliate the actress further.

Miss Newman stared out at her, opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and sniffed. “I
knew
this part this morning,” she said with wavering voice. “Ask anyone left in the greenroom—I recited it—” she sniffed again, continued—“just before I came on. It’s just that I’ve never auditioned for such an important part. I tossed and turned last night, and my nerves are a mess.”

“But of course they are, dear,” Jewel said. “Mr. Webb, will you have someone fetch Miss Newman a cup of tea in the rehearsal room?”

“And then . . .
sniff
 . . . may I be allowed to try again? Please?”

“Very well,” Jewel replied.

“Oh,
thank you!
”

Mr. Webb called offstage to Mr. Birch as the actress exited.

“She’s young. She’ll learn from this,” Jewel reminded her husband.

Grady nodded, looking on the verge of tears himself. He had watched tears flow onstage for years but never could bear to see a woman cry in earnest. But he would not try to talk her into reconsidering Miss Newman, even should her
second audition turn out to be flawless. The livelihoods of too many people were at stake to be taking a gamble with lead actors with fragile nerves.

“Muriel Pearce,” Mr. Webb announced. “Act one, scene one.”

Jewel looked up at the stage again. Was this a joke? Yet Mr. Webb was not the jesting sort, and besides, those in the company who knew of her cousin knew her as Lady Holt.

It was neither Lady Holt nor Muriel who strolled from the wing as if taking a turn in the park a second later but Lady Audley, it seemed. Jewel realized her mouth was as open as a rain barrel and closed it. In a stroke of genius, Muriel did not break character to show Mr. Robbs where to turn in his script, but addressed him as if he were George Talboys, Lady Audley’s first husband.

“I tell you, not one letter reached my hands; I thought myself deserted, and determined to make reprisals on you; I changed my name; I entered the family of a gentleman as governess to his daughters. . . .”

She looked simply stunning, in a gown of deep amethyst serge to enhance her violet eyes, the skirt elaborately trimmed with bands of black braid. Her hat, of black straw, was trimmed with black feathers, and her magnificent ash-blonde and golden waves, caught in a simple comb, rippled all the way to her narrow waist.

“ . . . and now I have gained the summit of my ambition, do you think I will be cast down by you, George Talboys? No! I will conquer you or I will die!”

Mansel Robbs watched as if transfixed, the script forgotten in his hand. But upon this cue his face fell into animation, and he took a step toward her.

“And what means will you take to conquer me? What power will you employ to silence me?”

Muriel stared back at him while the tiniest of smiles curved beneath calculating eyes. “The power of gold.”

Jewel turned to whisper to her husband, but Grady was
staring at the pair with a look of a child seeing his first Christmas tree.

“Gold!” Mr. Robbs spat. “Gold purchased by your falsehood!”

“We can’t even think of it,” Jewel leaned to whisper.

Grady blinked at her. “Definitely not,” he whispered back. But his uncertain expression belied his words.

They turned faces toward the stage again. Mr. Webb gaped at the scene from his stool. The performance went on, Jewel determining that she would stop it after the next line, and then the next, until that determination melded into a curiosity over how much of this part her cousin knew.

“Listen to me. I have fought too hard for my position to yield it up tamely.” Muriel went on. Not once did she acknowledge Jewel’s or Grady’s presence, no nervous looks. She seemed completely at ease, as if she had tread the boards all her life.

She’s Lady Audley,
Jewel realized.
A woman with a past.
No wonder the part fit her so well. Only, Muriel had not murdered anyone. At least not to her knowledge.

The scene reached its natural conclusion five minutes later, where Lady Audley pushes her former husband down a well as he stoops to draw her some water.

“Dead men tell no tales.”

Every actress Jewel had ever seen play this part exclaimed the closing lines as they were written in the script, with great gusto. Muriel simply stared down at Mansel Robbs, lying on the boards to represent the well, and murmured them in a thoughtful voice that carried easily past Jewel’s ears.

“I am free.”

Stunned silence filled the vast empty auditorium. Mr. Webb began applauding, and Mansel Robbs rose to bow at Muriel. Muriel did not even seem to see them, for still in character, she looked furtively over her shoulder, as Lady Audley would have done, and slipped into the wings.

“Jewel?” Grady said.

“She has no experience,” Jewel said, to reassure herself as well as him that what they were both thinking was unthinkable. “No one’s ever heard of her.” At least no one outside Belgravia.

“They will,” he said. “She’s a natural talent, Jewel. How many of those are we privileged to come across?”

Jewel could not deny that. In her moments on stage, Muriel had
defined
Lady Audley. “Auditions are only halfway over,” she reminded him. She just
knew
someone better would step from the wings any minute.

****

“We’re not promising you the part,” Jewel said in the office later, shrugging out of Muriel’s third embrace.
Heaven help us. How did we get into this?

She went on, her voice firm. “
If
any of our previous negotiations take a turn for the better before rehearsals begin, you could
possibly
become understudy for whomever we engage.”

“Yes, I understand,” Muriel said, violet eyes glowing like twin jewels.

“During rehearsals we work long hours,” Grady warned.

She went over to embrace him. “I’m willing.”

He smiled over her shoulder at Jewel, eased back a bit and sobered again. “And what of your little daughter?”

Muriel paused, as if the question had not occurred to her. “She has a good nanny. I’ll make time to be with her.”

“And there is one more matter which concerns me.” Jewel folded her arms, for Muriel appeared on the verge of lunging at her again. “What about your hard feelings against Bethia?”

“I love the whole world today, Jewel!” Muriel exclaimed, glowing.

“It’s not today I’m worried about. What about when Bethia is here? I’ll not have her mistreated.”

“No hard feelings,” Muriel promised. Prevented from embracing Jewel, she hugged herself.

“Now, run on,” Jewel said, clamping a gentle but insistent hand upon her cousin’s shoulder. “We’ve tons of work here.”

“When will you . . .”

“Soon, I expect. We’ve still some people to ring.”

Jewel made a beeline for the telephone when the door closed. Grady folded his arms and watched, propped against her desk, his expression more maddeningly peaceful than in weeks.

“Mrs. Patrick Campbell please.”

She did not have to give the operator an address, for one would have to live in a monastery not to have heard of one of London’s most popular actresses.

“Is the Berlin engagement still on?” Jewel asked once connected, after the conclusion of pleasantries. That was the reason Mrs. Campbell had given for turning down the part of Lady Audley, that she would be playing Ophelia in
Hamlet.
But she had reckoned there was no harm in asking.

“Why, yes,” Mrs. Campbell replied. “As a matter of fact, we’re in the midst of packing.”

“I see.”

“You’ve still not found a lead?” the actress said sympathetically.

Jewel turned her back to her husband’s serene little smile. “I’m not quite sure.”

****

The Americans made themselves at home, bringing endless cups of coffee up to dressing rooms, borrowing hairpins and ribbons from Mrs. Adams, the hairdresser, and running up to the wardrobe room to ask for the repair of occasional ripped hem and torn bit of lace. But they were good-natured and delighted to be performing in London. And
The Runaway
drew good crowds. The twenty percent from ticket sales was welcome, Jewel said when Bethia arrived for Easter break, but even more profitable was the fact that people were getting used to attending the Royal Court again. Hopefully next month these same audiences would be curious about the newly discovered lead actress—one with
a title, at that—whose portrait, with Richard Whitmore’s, was plastered on signposts all over London.

****

“Now, raise your arms to shoulder level, please?” Bethia said to that same actress in the wardrobe room during final fittings on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth of March.

Muriel complied, and Bethia stepped back a bit. The belted waist still stayed in place, very important, for it was distracting to have costumes riding up onstage.

“Thank you, Lady Holt,” Bethia said. “You may lower them.”

She had known her as Muriel since childhood but addressed her by title because everyone else did so, and she did not wish to take away from any of the respect due her. And Muriel had not corrected her.

“You’re welcome,” Muriel said in the polite, chilly voice she assumed for Bethia and the theatre servants.

Bethia took the pearl-gray gown for the last scene from the dressing table and handed it over to Mrs. Hamby, who was waiting to assist Muriel behind the dressing screen.

“This is the last costume, Lady Holt,” she said.

She did not allow her voice to slip into obsequiousness. Perhaps she could be tempted if she had a starving family depending upon her wages. But that was not the case, and she had done a lot of thinking and praying while at school the past term. While she regretted, more than anything, the impulsive and cruel letter she had sent Douglas Pearce, she had not purchased the ticket that sent him off to Canada. Cycling regrets through her mind over and over until her head ached did not change the situation one iota.

Which was not to say that she always stuck with that conviction, for guilt swept away had a habit of creeping back in.

The door opened a bit, allowing in the notes of the American orchestra tuning up for the matinee that would begin in a half hour. Richard Whitmore stuck his head through the opening. “Are we about finished here?”

“Not quite,” Bethia said and added good-naturedly, “and please remember to knock whenever the door is closed, Mr. Whitmore.”

“Sorry!” He raised eyebrows toward the screen, where only the tops of one blonde and one brunette head were visible. “I was just wondering if Lady Holt would care to join me for lunch afterwards.”

Miss Lidstone ceased basting gold braid onto a hat and sent Bethia a sage look. Most of the males in the company, even some of the Americans, were smitten by Muriel. She took their attentions in stride, as if simply her due, but did not seem to return them in any degree.

“Thank you, but I’m afraid I shall be busy all afternoon” came from behind the screen.

Mr. Whitmore cleared his throat. “Tomorrow after rehearsal? Or for breakfast before?”

“No, thank you,” Muriel replied. “Mrs. Hamby, will you fasten this?”

“Very well,” Mr. Whitmore said, flashing Bethia and Miss Lidstone a smile.

He may be a first-rate actor, Bethia thought, but he could not cover the disappointment in his olive-green eyes before the door closed.

Muriel came from behind the screen, adjusting the collar to her pearl-gray satin. She rolled her eyes at Bethia. “Men!”