Polly grew still, poised on the doorstep, “Who’s next door?” she asked fearfully.
“I’ve no idea,” Hannah whispered, “but actresses have a bad enough name. Let’s not make it worse with late-night carousing.”
“Oh,” Polly said with relief. “I thought it was one of the troupe, or something. I’ll go. And thank you.”
“That mother,” Peggy said firmly when Hannah had closed the door, “should be shot, she should.”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said, as she climbed into her bed. “What would they do if Kyle fired them now? How would they get home? Poor Polly’s womanly charms are an inconvenience and a danger to her—but then, I suppose every unprotected woman’s are.”
Peggy put down her sewing and stared at Hannah. She wanted to refute every painful word she’d just heard, but then picked up her needle again and shook her head, because she couldn’t.
The first show went like clockwork, in that it seemed mechanical people were performing in it—or so, at least, Kyle said afterward.
“We got enough applause,” a singer heatedly rebutted him.
“They even threw coins!” another put in.
“That crowd,” Kyle said laconically from where he leaned against a table in the backstage of the saloon theater, where he held the post-performance conference, “would cheer anything they could focus on. Which wouldn’t be much. Anything would please them. We must be better than anything, so we draw audiences, not just entertain those too drunk to stagger away from the bar when the performance begins.Thatis the purpose of this tour. If I’d wanted good enough for a saloon, I wouldn’t have bothered handpicking the finest cast I could.”
Several of his performers felt his words fall like warm rain upon their parched pride, but the singer spoke up plaintively again, “It’s not our fault, since Bill and Hildy left last night and took John with them, we sound no-count as a chorus.”
“Odd,” Kyle commented. “I didn’t know that. I’d think the five of you could cope. How many does it take to make harmony? I’ve heard barbershop quartets that sounded more than adequate, why, I do believe that Mr. Handel’s greatMessiahonly requires four soloists—but then, I’m not a singer, so how should I know? What do you think, Miss Flora?” he asked his featured female singer.
Miss Flora, very well aware that if anymore of her chorus left, she might as well begin packing, too, said at once, “I thought we sounded fine. But—perhaps a bit dispirited…?”
“Ah. Just so!” Kyle said, slipping from the table he’d perched upon to stand and face them. “The key to any performance, and all; spirit. I’d hoped we’d do so well here, we’d have Aspen awaiting our arrival with bated breath,” he sighed, neglecting to mention that if they didn’t do well enough to be booked for an extra week here, he’d that much less money to pay for their room and board in the town he’d have to play before Aspen.
With the inspiring thought of even his diminished troupe eating their heads off without working for a week, he urged them, “With spirit, my friends, we can become a legend in Leadville in our own time! Why, with the amount of cheering and laughter and wild applause we could generate, to spill out from behind these swinging doors like radiant light upon the streets of town, we could make those leaving the Tabor across the street jealous of what they’d missed, and vow to visit us the very next night. No, you hadn’t thought of that, had you? I thought not,” he said as he saw the faces around him brightening, “so I suggest you do now. And that will be all I’ll ask of you for tonight.”
As they rose and gathered their things in order to leave, he added negligently, “…Except for Little Polly, if you please. And you. Miss Hannah.”
But four people remained after the others had gone: Peggy, standing a bit aside, fussing with her workbasket as though she’d a reason to, and Mrs. Jenkins, of course, as usual, took the invitation to Polly as one for herself as well.
“Only a thought,” Kyle said lightly. “No need to look so defensive, ma’am,” he added to Mrs. Jenkins, to get her chin down a notch, “but I findFauntleroya bit daunting for Miss Lottie’s repertoire, ah—please let’s keep that betwixt ourselves, ma’am, eh?” he added, with the warmest smile they’d ever seen light his dark face, to the point that Mrs. Jenkins colored in pleasure, and she looked, for an instant, like the girl her Polly was.
“AndThe Drunkard,” he mused, “though it elicits much applause, is perhaps not the happiest choice for the venues in which we presently play—or so, at least, the proprietors tell me. A man feels a bit awkward, I understand, ordering another drink, when he’s just seen a playlet in which a drunken father is responsible for the death of a little angel like our Polly, here. It is, I’ll grant, a problem,” he said on a sigh, as Hannah’s eyes widened, because she’d never seen any man in the audience do more than wipe his eyes before he’d ordered another. She’d heard bartenders say the play was better than pretzels for business. Temperance leaders might adoreThe Drunkard, but so did every drunkard, since they always thought the moral applied to every other man but the drinking man watching it, as everybody in the theater knew.
“Yes, then what are we to do? I’d thought,” Kyle said pensively, “we might substituteHer Fatal Loveror perhaps.The Bridge at Midnight. They’re dramatic, and always leave audiences sniveling. And have no tiresome English accents for Miss Lottie to get right, and no more than the usual references to drunken folly. The only problem I can foresee, is that the girl in them both is a bit older than our dear Polly—a sort of a junior ingenue, as it were. I hesitate to ask this,” he said with every evidence of embarrassment, which was remarkable really, Hannah thought, for a man who’d probably never felt that emotion, “but do you think, my dear Mrs. Jenkins, that our Polly could, ah—pad for the part?
“Pray—wait before you upbraid me,” he cried, holding up one slender hand, before Mrs. Jenkins could so much as blink, “for though the girl ought to look nubile, I promise she’d never be subjected to catcalls or whistles as Miss Lottie is, because she’d play a pure young thing merely trembling on the brink of womanhood—not wallowing in it—rather like a sprite, like the girl in the ‘Fairy’ soap advertisements. Do you see? Do you think she could—stretch for the part?”
Before Mrs. Jenkins could answer, he added confidentially, “Because one day, I shall need a new ingenue. I hope that will be many years hence, of course. But spring does turn to summer in its course, and when it does, how nice to have a new star that we’ve trained ourselves ready to step in.”
Hannah’s face was as radiant as Polly’s, while Mrs. Jenkins, a woman who knew acting, too, seemed to think, and then nodded.
“My Polly,” she said imperially, “can do anything. She is an actress. Are you not, my child?”
“Oh yes, Mama,” Polly breathed joyfully.
“And though it’s not quite the thing to say, I might add that the women in our family bloom early, and beautifully,” Mrs. Jenkins said in a lowered voice, as she pinched Polly to get her to stand straight and stop hunching her shoulders, as she’d told her to do just an hour before.
When they’d done making arrangements for getting to work on the new roles, Mrs. Jenkins and Polly left, the pair of them almost skipping to the door.
Hannah stared at Kyle when they’d gone. “You wouldn’t happen to have the room next to ours, would you?” she asked on a tremulous smile, as though she’d realized that just now, and not last night.
“I don’t need to listen at keyholes,” Kyle said with every evidence of hurt pride, since he’d actually listened with his ear to the wall. “I’ve eyes, you know. And if I’d already spied what Polly so gallantly tried to conceal, it wouldn’t be long before the gents in our audience did, since they’ve been without female companionships far longer than I have.” Then he paused, realizing that might not be true, which led him to the real reason he’d wanted Hannah present when he spoke to Mrs. Jenkins. Before he could get to it, Hannah spoke.
“Whatever the reason, thank you,” she said earnestly, her dark eyes warm with affection. “It was a kind and good thing to do for Polly.”
