It was near dusk when Jane Kennett tucked a russet-colored shawl into her waist against the chill of the sea air and made her way back to the Heathpoole Playhouse. She had spent two days sweeping the dust and the cobwebs out of the wardrobe and arranging the dresses, and was so satisfied with her progress that she thought tonight she would play. Strolling through the deepening purple shadows, she reflected on how much she liked this lively little port town on the edge of a deep and craggy natural bay. The Fairweather company had never played here before, and she always enjoyed a change of scene.
Having taken lodgings with a ferocious seaman’s widow who did not allow men on her premises for any reason, she felt secure for the first time in weeks. Indeed, through some extra sense, Jenny felt sure her oppressors had not followed her here. For all they knew, the company had disbanded and gone its separate ways. In any event, she no longer felt the crushing presence of Crowder and his familiar, Budge, and that alone was cause for celebration. She was eager to step out again with Kit and sample whatever lusty nightlife the town had to offer.
The Hamstone facade of the Heathpoole Playhouse shone like gold in the last slanted light from the westering sun. It stood on a rise above the heart of the town, the old quayside, with its medieval Guildhall and Customs House, its vast warehouses, its taverns and an ancient church. The playhouse was situated on a little square in a more recent commercial district of shops and offices, counting-houses and residences that overlooked the quayside and the deep bay. The fiery sun was just dipping into the heath-covered hills that sheltered the far end of the bay when Jenny went round to the side entrance of the playhouse and slipped inside.
It was a proper little playhouse, despite the faint fishy odor and the dust and gloom of neglect. It was quiet inside, but she supposed Kit was off in some corner or other, totting up his inventories. It was funny to think of his youth and beauty wasted on the role of stage manager, but Kit took his duties very seriously. No one wanted to disappoint Jack; they were all determined to reward his confidence in them, however misplaced. But when she called for Kit, there was no response. She followed the little winding staircase from the street level up to the back of the stage and called again. Then she heard a bustling from up in the rafters and looked up to see Thomas Ashbrook high up on the painting bridge overlooking the backstage.
"I’m afraid Mr. Bell is not here, Mrs. Kennett," he called, leaning his hands on the railing. "He and Mr. Belair went out to see that solicitor friend of Mr. Belair’s to discuss some business with the lease."
"At this hour?" Jenny pouted. "It’s nearly dinner time."
"Wait a moment, I’m just coming down." And Ashbrook withdrew into the side shadows. He had already moved into the scene-painting room, where he appeared to feel most at home, to act as caretaker of the place at night. Presently, Jenny heard him clambering down the back stairs and then he appeared, carrying a little wicker hamper.
"Sorry to make you shout, I was just getting my things."
"Isn’t it odd they should go off at this hour?" Jenny asked.
"Mr. Belair does not believe in letting the grass grow under his feet. His friend sent word he was at home and off they went," Ashbrook shrugged. "Did you have an engagement with Mr. Bell?"
"Not exactly." Jenny sighed. "But we often . . . dine out together."
"Well," said Ashbrook, briskly, "I am but a poor substitute for Mr. Bell in every respect, but it would be my great honor to invite you to dine in with me."
"In?" Jenny echoed, puzzled but intrigued. She darted a glance around the shadowy backstage. "You mean here?"
"Even I cannot live on paint, Mrs. Kennett. There is a fireplace in the dressing room, which is very handy for simple meals. Tonight, I have . . . " and he rummaged through the little parcels in his hamper, " . . . fresh spring mackerel to grill, watercress, new potatoes, a quarter of cheese and a bottle of ale. A princely repast," he added, with a wry grin. "More than enough for two."
Jenny had not realized how ravenous she was until she was sitting by the fire in the dressing room, smelling the plump mackerel cooking on Ashbrook’s ingenious long-handled grill; he told her his father was a builder and had taught him to make all sorts of useful things with his hands. He sat on a stool before the fire and she upon the bench that abutted the staircase leading up to the stage. A clean cloth was laid on the bench beside her, on which was set out the rest of their meal, but for the three tiny new potatoes baking in the ashes. On one of the long dressing tables beneath the mirrors on the opposite wall, one of Ashbrook’s cardboard portfolios was lying open under a litter of drawings and color sketches. Of course he must come down here to work at night by the light and heat of the fire; it would be cold and dark as a tomb, upstairs.
"I never imagined you for a cook, Mr. Ashbrook," Jenny confessed as they shared their meal on the bench between them.
"When one must live a solitary life, one must do for oneself." He shrugged.
"So you have taken a vow of chastity into the bargain?"
"A vow of necessity," he replied cheerfully. "I have no prospects to offer a wife, even supposing one would have me. My work will never sell and I look forward to a lifetime of crippling poverty." He popped another crumb of cheese into his mouth.
"Then why pursue it? Your work?" Jenny asked.
"Because I cannot stop. The paintings will be painted; I can no more refrain from the process than I could choose to stop breathing. I am only their vessel, you see. A lifetime may not be long enough to give them all life, and I began late."
Jenny had heard religious converts rant in this manner and she always mistrusted them their certainty. But Mr. Ashbrook read her expression and smiled in apology, a disarming, down-to-earth smile.
"What sort of shop had you before, er, this?" Jenny ventured, nodding toward his pile of drawings.
"My father wanted me to have a trade, so I was apprenticed to a colorman in Oxford. Painting supplies and the like, you know. I learned all about oils and colors and brushes and canvas without the slightest desire to ever take up such things, myself, except in a commercial way. When my master retired, I bought his shop and supplies and did rather well for myself."
"Acquired a fiancee," Jenny reminded him.
"Yes, I’d have had quite a fine, upstanding life if the demon of Art had not got hold of me," he agreed. "After I lost my bride-to-be, I managed to work through most of my modest fortune in search of my muse, becoming at last the itinerant wretch you see before you."
Jenny laughed. "Count your blessings, Mr. Ashbrook, that you escaped from a fine, upstanding life!" She rose and wandered over to the open portfolio. “This is something much better.”
Ashbrook looked surprised. "You think so?"
Jenny nodded, glancing down at the work. "You express what most of us can only imagine. You liberate dreams." She began thumbing slowly through the fanciful images of sprites and magical beasts, unearthly landscapes and seascapes. The disappointments of his life certainly had no place in his work.
"What shall you ever do with these?" she wondered.
"Never show them, that much is clear." He laughed, wiping a corner of his mouth and coming to stand beside her. "Certainly never sell them! But I live simply enough." He, too, gazed down at his drawings, made even more otherworldly in the dancing shadows from the firelight. "Finding that place within myself where these dreams are born, that’s all that’s important to me, now. Every painting has a kind of voice, compelling me onward, crying out to be created. To be given a place in the universe. For me to be able to hear those magical voices . . . it’s worth whatever luxuries I must forfeit in the world. I would be a very poor man, indeed, without them."
It might have been the cozy, flickering light, or the ale, but Mr. Ashbrook’s talk did not sound quite as odd to Jenny as it once had. Poignant, ghostly little faces winked up at her from the depths of his sketches, half-formed creatures swam teasingly in and out of the dancing shadows, just out of sight. Out of her reach.
"Forgive me, Mrs. Kennett, I didn't mean to bore you senseless."
But Jenny only shook her head. "I heard such a voice, once," she murmured, "a voice out of a dream. On the day my son was born. There was magic in the world, then, and dreams and promise. The future beckoned as it never had before . . . or since. From his first shriek of outrage, wrenched free of me at last, and then recognition, when I fit his tiny red hand to my breast and he drank with such ferocity . . . it was as if he claimed me, knew me, as if I had always belonged to him. I felt it so fiercely in that brief, brief moment, before I grew too weak to support him, that connection to the universe. That rejoicing. That love. There is nothing in your dreams to match it, Mr. Ashbrook."
"No mere art can improve on love," Ashbrook agreed gently. "Where is your boy?"
"I grew very ill in childbed and he was given over to a wet-nurse. By the time I was sufficiently recovered, he was not mine any more."
Ashbrook frowned. "He will always be yours."
"He is every inch his father’s son. Charles Everett Crowder the Second, the darling of Nanny and governesses and grooms. He was only mine for that first moment in my arms on the day he was born."
Ashbrook was quiet for a moment. "And that was the last time you dreamed."
Jenny glanced up into his calm face, where he still stood, two or three paces apart from her, watching her with those grey-gold eyes. Then her own gaze darted back down in confusion. How had he extracted her story from her? How could she let him get close enough to see her pain?
A sudden footfall on the staircase startled them both.
"Ashbrook, whatever are you up to down there? It smells like . . . "
Kit’s voice stopped when he ducked his head below the landing and saw Jenny. "Is that you, Kennett? Heavens, I do hope I’m interrupting something scandalous."
"Mrs. Kennett came looking for you," Ashbrook volunteered, perching on the edge of the dressing table.
"And since you were off playing stage manager, I had to impose myself upon Mr. Ashbrook, who has been kind enough to bear my company for the last hour," Jenny finished up. Fixing Kit with an accusing glance, she added, "I thought we might go out."
"Out?" echoed Kit, his blue eyes brightening. "Do you mean it?"
When she nodded, he grinned.
"Why, there is the most colorful little pub I’ve found, tucked into a corner of the quayside, with the most interesting clientele . . . "
Jenny hurried to the foot of the stairs to take his proffered arm. Buoyed by the support of Kit’s familiar, sardonic presence, she turned back to Ashbrook, who was busy tidying up his drawings.
"Thank you for the meal, Mr. Ashbrook. And the company," she told him. "You’re very kind."
"Not at all, Mrs. Kennett." He smiled.
"Ye gods, he fed you into the bargain?" exclaimed Kit. "The man’s a treasure. Look here, Ashbrook, why don’t you come along with us? A dark theatre is a dreary place."
Jenny felt a ripple of alarm. Something in her did not want Thomas Ashbrook to witness one of her evenings out with Kit. But Ashbrook had only to glance into her face for an instant before he made his apologies. And she flew upstairs with Kit in a flurry of confusion and disappointment and relief.
Top: Muse of Painting, Harry Siddons Mowbray, 1892
No comments:
Post a Comment