“I’d be happy to escort you safely home, if you should find yourself here later than the others some night again.”
“I do have a training session with Annika tomorrow evening.”
He gave a nod and backed into the shadows. “Tomorrow, then.” Spoken like a promise.
“Tomorrow.”
Despite the man in the green hat, the small fire in the materials room, the strain of keeping up, I floated through the day on a cloud of blessed hope.
10
Oh, Miss Blythe, I’m pleased to find you still here.” Mama Jo’s low voice sounded in the empty theater on Thursday as she came around the curtain from the side.
I shot up like a launched cannonball and crossed the stage to her. “Has anyone heard from Philippe Rousseau?”
Three days. It had been three days since anyone had seen him, since our walk, and I came to realize how lonely it was to trust people. Often, they did not deserve it. Not even Philippe Rousseau, way up on his pedestal.
I didn’t even care that I sounded desperate anymore, that I might be showing my hand. But then she looked at me with suspicion in her eyes, and I looked down at my feet. “We cannot possibly go on with the show if we are missing our principal dancer, and with no show we shall not be paid.” It was a horribly weak excuse.
“He’ll be back, Miss Blythe. You needn’t worry.”
“Ella, please.”
“Very well ... Ella. He tends to miss a few days of traininghere or there, but he always appears when it counts. We’ve never been without our lead for even a single performance.”
“Is he well? I feel it’s my Christian duty to—”
“I’m afraid I haven’t any idea. I’ve not heard anything.”
I blew out a helpless breath and cast a glance out at the empty stage where I’d once seen him dance. Where my mother and father had shone like stars. It was a spectacular place, even between shows, glinting with tragedy and drama and magic.
“I’ve come looking for you because I have news.”
I turned toward the pillar of elegance standing before me. “Not bad news, I hope.”
“Not at all.” Mamo Jo smiled as she pulled down and folded the tulle from the exhibit that had rented out Craven Theatre the previous week—Madame Tussaud’s remarkable wax sculptures. “Bellini is willing to give you a chance, if you work very hard, and let you try a small solo.” Her dark eyes glowed in the dimness, and she stooped to sweep up more stray tulle. “This is good. Quite good, for one as new as you.”
My chest swelled with dread and anticipation. I felt safest being invisible, but part of me longed to be seen. Especially by the family—cousins, aunts and uncles, maybe even half siblings I had never met. And myfather.
“It’s to be a very colorful Italian ballet about flowers, calledIl Fiore Danzante,and it speaks loudly to this world’s secret desire for the fantastical and romantic. All of Europe has shifted into this new style of art in many forms, except England. How tightly they cling to their classical ideals, their rigid rules, and there is simply no room for romance.” She paused to look at me directly. “You, I believe, are quite English.”
“Am I?” Rules, without room for romance. How accurate.
“Bellini says you are stiff, and I’ve never met a stifffleur.”
I heaved a sigh, shoulders sagging. “I’ve no idea how to be preciseandrelaxed. I’m doing the best I can.”
“I know, but it isn’t enough. You are not competing against dancers, but their abonnés’ pocketbooks.” She led me with armloads of tulle back into the props area backstage, where she dropped her burden off to the side. “You must have your father’s quiet charm and his partner Delphine’s liquid grace all in one, for nothing else will surpass what a generous patron’s donation can do for the dancer he’s advancing.”
Looking into her face, realization came with needled precision. “There’s never been a truly successful dancer without an abonné, has there?” It was my first glimpse of the mountain I’d set out to climb, an awareness of all I lacked.
But Mama Jo’s look, deep and penetrating, did not release me. “I did not say it could not be done, only that it never has.” She stepped closer, that lovely, warm smile erasing the chill of fear that gripped me. “And nothing great has ever been accomplished by doing a thing the same way everyone else has, ma petite. You think on that.” She walked back out to the stage and I followed her.
“There’s certainly no question of my being different from the rest.” I said this with a sigh.
“So I’ve noticed.” She arched one eyebrow and began trimming wicks. “They call you the nun, the dancer who will have no man. That alone makes you a rarity—nay, almost an eccentricity in the theater world. In all of England, perhaps.”
“I’ve no desire to become someone’s mistress.”
