I looked up at Minna’s reflection in the mirror, her question tearing my mind away from the “Lily problem.” It was Sunday, and apparently Minna was attending church this week. The fact that she was up before ten was a miracle in itself.
I’d been buried under layers of moss-green muslin and voile that would soon be my costume, lost in the minute stitches taking shape. “I’ve not been in a while.” I’d been rejected from my lifelong congregation upon accepting the scholarship, a life of theater, and I hadn’t decided what should become of my Sunday ritual. Was I still a Methodist if the church would not have me?
Minna pursed her untinted lips and looked at me in the mirror. “The nun, without a church?” She smiled as she brushed the lightest mask of rice powder over her skin. “You know it’s all in good fun, don’t you?”
I didn’t.
“You’re not still cross about the first night, are you? I’ve already apologized.”
She hadn’t.
Minna tipped her head, face sobering in the mirror. “Come now, toughen up.” She looked me over as an older sister would assess the injuries of her younger sister. “You’re soft as an egg without its shell. You really think mine are the harshest words you’ll hear in the theater? Someone needs to prepare you.”
I pivoted the conversation. “Where will you attend services?”
She allowed her look to linger for another few seconds. “St. Paul’s, of course. Where else is there, for one of us?”
St. Paul’s—I’d seen the place. Simple and boxy like a barn, the church just off the Strand was known as the actors’ church, welcoming those considered unsuitable by polite society.
“Philippe Rousseau attends.” She eyed me in the mirror as she unscrewed another jar.
I masked my surprise. Looked away. Why shouldn’t he, though? He was a dancer, much as the rest of them. I must stop elevating him to something different than he was. “How nice for him.” I could feel my cheeks heating and I despised them for it.
“Even when he’s feeling poorly, he seldom misses a week.”
“Is that where he’s been, recovering from some illness?” I should have thought to ask the other dancers.
Minna dipped her finger in the jar, then twisted a tendril of hair, laying it neatly against her forehead and pressing it flat, then moving on to others. “You’ve not fallen in love, have you?”
I jumped as the needle stabbed my fingertip. “Haven’t dancers a right to fall in love, either?”
She swiveled to face me, half her forehead plastered with ringlets. “Of course we do. I’ve let it happen to myself a number of times. But never with another dancer.”
I blew out a breath, dropping my sewing onto my lap. “Why ever not? It isn’t as if anyone else will have us.”
“Plenty will, just not as wives.” She reached for a jewel-crusted box and opened it tenderly, holding out the blinking, sparkling contents for me to see. “This is from my count, theComte de Chillion. I treasure these baubles, and the affection that goes along with them, mind you, but I’m not above selling the gems to keep myself fed and off the street someday.”
I hardened inside at the sight of them, wondering if his wife realized he was gifting such things to another woman.
“Men grow tired of women, whether they are married to them or not.” Her gaze was steady, eyes searching mine. “Better to flit about unattached than be tied in marriage to another dancer who can offer you nothing. That’s a doomed existence. Have you ever known a pair from the theater to make a go of it?”
Hot and cold passed over my flesh. My gaze shot to the little gold band I’d placed on my table—Mama’s ring, worn on a chain around her neck when she danced, then on her finger my entire life. Never a man to go with it, however. “Noteverytheater match is doomed, I’m sure.” I stabbed the material with my needle.
She merely raised an eyebrow with a wicked grin.
“It isn’t a curse, being in the theater.”
She set down her box and picked up a pot of grease, swirling her finger in it. “If two dancers marry, what will become of them when they advance in years? I’ve never seen a dancer last past five and thirty, even if she’s careful. They’d be forced to separate simply to survive, for a dancer’s only way of survival off the stage ... is marriage.”
My heart thudded into my throat and I swallowed. I felt I was on the cusp of discovering the truth about my parents’ past as my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness that had alwaysshadowed their story, and I began to glimpse small pieces of it.
She rose and took my hand, our faces mere inches apart. “Do whatever it takes to avoid falling in love with a dancer. Even a principal will dry up one day, and they will be forced to choose survival over love.”
It was a wretched end to the story that had bandied about in my heart all these years—a terrible reason they should be apart. Yet it seemed inescapable. I myself had felt the weight of the need for survival.
Minna went back to sticking curls to her forehead. “You should join us. St. Paul’s is a lovely congregation full of understanding people, and you’ll feel right at home.” She rose, straightening skirts that hugged her hips. “It’s where all the actors wind up in the end.”
Where they all wind up.
