Massonville 1897
Ophelia tucked the hem of her skirt up into her waistband and leaned out over the staircase railing to reach the chandelier. She managed four wide sweeps at the crystals with her feather duster, then stopped so she wouldn't fall. The crystals were clean enough, and she had no desire to crack her head open on the lobby floor below. If the truth were told, she had little patience for domesticity. However, times were hard for the Venable Opera House, and Mama had been forced to let three of the maids go. The one remaining girl had her hands full cleaning the restaurant and the theater. It had been Juliet's intention to keep up the hotel herself, but lately she had been experiencing a shortness of breath that her daughter found frightening, so every morning Ophelia dispensed with her corset and stockings, dressed in her oldest skirt and shirtwaist, and sallied forth with dust rags, a mop, and a broom. When he first saw her attired that way, her brother Horatio said she was a hoyden. He'd meant to be funny, but Ophelia had not been in a frame of mind to be amused. A week earlier Mama had had to settle more of his gaming debts, and the sum had brought on another attack of breathlessness for Juliet. Instead of laughing, Ophelia had handed her brother a broom and told him to make himself useful. This had resulted in
Horatio slamming out of the opera house and not returning for three days, leaving the company without a Friar Francis for Much Ado About Nothing. Fortunately, the stage manager was up on the lines, since Horatio had missed performances before.
Mama had been upset about Ophelia's self-imposed role as a housemaid. “If it were Horatio working like a hired hand, it wouldn't matter,” she'd protested. “He only plays bit parts. But you are our leading ingénue. What if one of the hotel guests sees you scrubbing floors?”
But as Juliet spoke, her face was pale, and even the exertion of protesting seemed to tire her. For once in her life, Ophelia had ignored her. The best Juliet had been able to get from her daughter was a promise that Ophelia would try to avoid being seen as she did her chores.
Not that their current guests would have cared. Their hotel was not the fashionable place it had been when Juliet bought the opera house nineteen years earlier. Massonville's riverfront was now lined with cotton factories and warehouses, and, these days, the well-heeled travelers who had once enjoyed their hospitality stayed at the new hostelries in the center of town.
For several years Juliet had been running what was in essence a boardinghouse for traveling salesmen and minor businessmen who couldn't afford the more expensive establishments. A newly instituted breakfast at the restaurant had replaced the elegant theater suppers of yesterday, and the hotel rooms were often let out for a month or longer. The hardworking men who lodged in them rarely had the inclination or the money to see a play and probably wouldn't have known that the girl sweeping the halls had received an enthusiastic hand on her third-act exit the night before. Still, a promise was a promise, and for Mama's sake Ophelia waited to begin her labors in the lobby until breakfast was finished.
This morning, she had to work even more quickly than usual. In a couple of hours the company's new leading man would arrive at the railroad station. The carriage had already been ordered to collect him and bring him to the opera house, where he was to board in the hotel upstairs—free of charge. This was unheard-of generosity on Mama's part. She had always expected her actors to pay their own way; even Sarah Bernhardt, who had filled the opera house to capacity during her run in 1881, had been presented with a bill on her departure. It was said that the notoriously tight-fisted Madame had vowed that she would never return to Massonville.
“It didn't matter to us,” Mama had sniffed when she'd told Ophelia the story some years later. “We are a stock company. We have never depended on the caprice of stars.”
But these days, even in out-of-the-way Massonville, the public wanted to know it was watching nationally acclaimed actors. The Venable Opera House had resisted this trend, but the audiences—and the badly needed box office revenues—had fallen off as a result.
Ever resourceful, Mama had come up with a scheme. “Our company will perform here at home for six months, and for the rest of the year we'll send out our own tour with our own actors,” she'd declared.
It was not an impossible notion; the travel would increase the reputation of the Venable Opera House and give it some much-needed luster. And there was money to be made on the road. It was Mama's plan to stick to the hinterlands, where there would be little competition from the big productions coming out of New York. What she needed was an actor who was a draw. Or who could be groomed to become one. And that was why she was giving Mr. Edward Rain the valuable hotel room.
Without even seeing him! Ophelia thought. Mama is pinning all her hopes on this man and he isn't even an actor. Not a professional one, at any rate. Ophelia swept the carpeted stairs viciously, raising more dirt than she was collecting. She took a breath and forced herself to sweep more gently as she reviewed the few facts they knew about Mama's new leading man.
Edward Rain had been born in New Hampshire, of all places, and his father was a minister, of all things. After finishing his schooling, Edward had made his way to Boston, where he had eked out a living by planning social events for the wealthy and hiring himself out to give dramatic recitations at dinner parties. In his spare time he had participated in amateur theatricals. Mama had heard about him from an old friend who had seen him perform in one such production in Boston, and had written to Mama about his potential.
Mr. Rain, wrote the besotted friend, has had no acting training, save for a few months of elocution lessons. (That explained the recitations.) But believe me when I tell you, my dear Juliet, that he has a natural talent that more than overcomes that deficiency. In addition, he is extraordinarily handsome and is one of those rare men who manage to charm both the ladies and the gentlemen. He has already built a small but devoted following for himself here in Boston, and I understand it is his intention to go to New York to try his luck as a professional actor as soon as he has sufficient funds. He is bound to make a success for himself there, but as one of his many well-wishers, it is my hope that he might have a few years of seasoning before he does so. And so I have thought of you. If you have need of a leading man, allow me to recommend Mr. Rain to you.
On the strength of that letter Mama had engaged the man. And she had given him a free hotel room. And she was talking about mounting a production of Othello to tour the tank towns of the South and Midwest. For an actor she had never seen! Ophelia saw the clouds of dust flying around her and realized she was attacking the hapless carpet again.
Normally, Mama was a careful businesswoman, fair but stern, and tight with a penny. But every once in a while she would get what she called one of her “feelings” and would take a risk that stunned her daughter. The unknown Mr. Rain had inspired a “feeling.” Or maybe it was just that Mama was desperate.
The brass wall sconces hadn't been touched in weeks and were in need of polishing. Ophelia looked at the clock above the elevator. Mr. Rain's train wouldn't be arriving at the railroad station for another hour, so she had plenty of time before she and Mama had to greet him in the office. She pushed an ottoman against the wall next to the elevator, pulled off her shoes so she would not ruin the expensive upholstery, and set to work. When the front door of the lobby opened three minutes later, she was barefoot and dirty, wearing her oldest, most heavily darned shirtwaist with her skirt pulled up well above the dictates of propriety.
“Hello,” said a masculine voice that echoed gloriously around the room. Ophelia turned to see a young man framed against the open door in a shaft of sunlight. He looked like a vision in the bright light. Or a saint. Or an actor. “I'm Edward Rain,” he said.