The Kingdom of Bones

TWENTY-EIGHT

The paragraph in a corner on Chapter 2 of the Echo—“A Magazine devoted to Society, Literature and Stage in the South”—read:

Miss Mary D’Alroy, the dainty little actress who has won so many admirers here with her recitation of “Agnes Lane” and readings from the works of Mrs. Henry Wood, will give an informal reception to the ladies and children of her audience on the stage of the Academy of Music next Tuesday afternoon. The reception will take place immediately after the matinee. These functions are always attended with great relish by those who desire to shake hands and exchange a passing word with the pretty star.

Louise had used the name of Mary D’Alroy in Richmond some years before, and had resumed it on her return. As far as this part of the South was concerned, she was well on her way to becoming a respectable performer with a verifiable past—one that could be supported by local sources, at least. Elsewhere in this vast nation she’d moved under other, similarly established names.

It was still a dangerous life. A man from San Antonio had recognized her in Chicago, and she’d had to spin him a story. Almost any other profession would have been safer to follow, but she had to make a living and support two servants, and knew of no other way. She could not sew, or cook, or do any other womanly thing of practical use. And the stage offered advantages that no other kind of living could; who but a certain kind of theatrical could arrive in a new city, offer a demure demeanor and a program of high-minded readings, and within a matter of days be on first-name terms with ladies from the best families in town? The Echo’s masthead rolled together society, literature, and the stage, and so, in her chosen way of life, did Louise.

After the matinee, the audience moved out into the foyer. Those with tickets for the reception gathered in the ladies’ parlor on the balcony floor while the stage was being reset, and then were led backstage and on through the wings.

Louise was waiting on the stage, along with the chairwoman of the Richmond Women’s Club, who made a short speech of welcome. Those who had never crossed the footlights before were suitably excited and awed by the experience. Some of the children stared out into the empty auditorium, row after row of seats from the parquet all the way up to the peanut gallery, stricken by a little taste of stage fright as their imaginations peopled the house.

Louise gave thanks for the welcome, told a couple of stories from her travels, gave them an extra bit of Tennyson that she claimed had been commended to her by the poet himself, and then invited their questions. The questions were usually predictable, and her responses polished.

“What drew you to the stage?”

“Seeing Shakespeare performed when I was a little girl.”

“Did your father object to your taking up a career in the theater?”

“He was in no position to. It was he who had taken me to the Shakespeare.”

Little of this was true; she’d seen no Shakespeare until her seventeenth year, and her father had died before she ever went near a stage. Indeed, it was his death that had sent her to it. Without that, she would probably have limited her performing to playing the piano and singing in various drawing rooms until some young man of suitable prospects caved in and proposed marriage. By now, she’d have been running a household that she’d filled with her own children.

She looked at these children—scrubbed, scared, bored—and, as she often did, wondered about what she was missing. Her own child, had it lived, would have been—

But at this point, she stopped the thought in its tracks, as she always had to.

One of the women said, “Will you be staying in Richmond for long?”

“For as long as Richmond will have me,” Louise said. “Much as I love to tour the world and meet new people, it cannot compare with a home of one’s own. There was a time in my life when I thought that such things could wait, and would not matter. Now, as time goes by, I find that they matter more and more.”

They seemed happy with that. After the questions, there was fresh lemonade for the children, brought onstage by the Mute Woman, and a chance for all to meet and circulate. Louise moved through the crowd, speaking to each woman as if to a sister, and marveling at every child she was offered as if it was the heartbreaking beauty or infant genius that its mother believed it to be.

She found herself confronted by the woman who’d asked the question about her father. With her was a small ginger-haired girl of about five or six years old.

“She has a question for you,” the woman said. “But she won’t tell me what it is.”

“What’s her name?”

“Alice.”

Louise got down to the child’s level and said, “Well, Alice. Oh Alice, where art thou. That’s a lovely bonnet. What did you want to ask me?”

The girl, who was snub-nosed and freckled and seemed genuinely sweet, stared past her and spoke so softly that Louise had to tilt her head to one side in order to make out her words.

What she heard was “My daddy says an actress isn’t as good as a horse.”

“A horse?” Louise repeated, momentarily thrown and trying not to look it. And it would have stayed at that, with Louise assuming that what she’d heard was just some piece of childish whimsy, were it not for the mother’s reaction. She reddened, caught up the child’s hand, and said, “Forgive me,” before tugging her daughter away.

She took her off so quickly that the child could hardly keep up, being swung by her arm into the skirts of some of the others.

Louise straightened up and the chatter around her died down for just a moment or two, as the people closest to her sensed that something was wrong; but no one else had heard the child’s words, and Louise’s calm smile was back in place by the time she was turning to the next person.

The reception continued for another half hour. Louise signed her name—or rather, the Mary D’Alroy name—to a few copies of the program card, and fielded a few more questions like “Did you see Her Wrong Righted at the Bijou?” (“One of the disadvantages of performing is the lack of opportunities to see others perform.”) She did not see the woman with the ginger-haired child again, and supposed that they’d left early.

Louise ended the event by thanking everyone and leaving the stage, to polite applause.

As the visitors cleared, she went down to the manager’s office to sort out the division of the take. The Silent Man joined her in the wings and followed her down. There had been a fifty-cent cover charge for the reception, children free. Take out the house’s share and the cost of the refreshments, and it didn’t leave much. Louise signed for the money, then handed the purse to the Silent Man for safekeeping.

As they were leaving the manager’s office together, she said to him, “I want a good carriage. Same as the ladies are getting, or better.”

He nodded and moved off. Before he’d gone a couple of strides, she stopped him.

“Not too much better,” she cautioned.

She knew that she did not need to explain. It was necessary to make an impression, but not a vulgar one. She needed these people to see her as a natural equal, and had only a few such well-chosen properties with which to dress her character.

Back on the now-empty stage, she collected her personal pieces together. The Mute Woman had cleared and swept up, and would meet her at the carriage. From the lectern, Louise took her copy of Tennyson’s works. Tastefully bound in green with stamped gilt covers, it was a book that she had used in many a reading, whether Tennyson featured or not. She had all her pieces by heart, rather than struggle with her poor sight or appear wearing her glasses.

Raising her voice, but without looking up, she said, “Will you come forward, or hide there in the shadows until you know for sure that I’ve gone?”

Her voice rang throughout the empty theater, but no sound came in response.

“Yes, you,” she said. “In box twelve.”

Box twelve was almost at stage level, only slightly elevated from it. It was long and deep, and backed with a thick velvet curtain.

After a few moments, something moved in the shadows, and then a man of around twenty-five years stepped forward into view.

Louise said, “I believe you owe me fifty cents.”

“I engaged the box for the season,” the young man said, unembarrassed. “Does that not cover it?”

“Not if it puts no food on my table.”

He dug in his pocket and found a silver dollar. He put his other hand on the brass rail along the box’s front edge and swung himself over onto the stage, not quite as elegantly as he’d perhaps had in mind.

Louise waited as he walked toward her with the coin held out before him.

“You have change for a dollar?” he said.

She took the money from him before she said, “I’ll owe it to you. Why did you hide yourself?”

“My understanding was that the event was for the ladies and children of your audience,” he said. “I could have worn my best dress, but I don’t think I’d have fooled anyone.”

She looked him over. He was long-limbed and moved easily. He had a heavy mustache and a rather weak chin. He seemed entirely sure of himself.

She said, “Next time you want to spy on me, Mister…”

“Patenotre. Jules.”

She blanched at his pronunciation, which was a pure American rendering of the words as the eye might see them, and not a sound that any European would recognize.

“Is that supposed to be French?” she said.

“My family’s from Louisiana.”

“Well, the next time you feel the urge to spy on a woman, Louisiana, make yourself known. Nobody likes to be watched without their knowledge.”

“But you knew I was there all along.”

“Nevertheless. You intended I would not. To me, that makes it a strange business.”

“Some people thrive on strange business. What was that about a horse?”

Louise finished gathering up her books, then held them to her in a stack like a schoolmistress. She said, “I think I can guess it from her mother’s reaction. The child probably overheard her father say that actresses are no better than whores.”

The young man mused on this, not at all shocked by her forthrightness. “Do you know her father?” he said innocently.

She gave him a sideways look.

“You speak very boldly,” she said. “For one whose preference is to hide and observe.”

“Yet when I speak boldly, you do not take offense.”

She turned square on to him. “What would you have from me?” she said. “A lock of my hair? A button from my coat? My signature on your program?”

“I’d settle for a kiss,” he said.

“For fifty cents?” she said. “Now I take offense. Good day to you.”

He watched her walk across the stage, away from him and into the wings. When she got there, he called out, “When do I get to collect?”

She stopped and looked back. “Collect what?”

Again, he made a show of his innocence. “My change,” he said. “If I don’t get the kiss, I want my money.”

“Where can you usually be found, Jules Patenotre?”

“I have rooms at Murphy’s Hotel.”

“Then that is where I will find you,” she said, and left him standing on the stage.