The First Actress Page 19

  He gave an indulgent smile, as he might with a recalcitrant child. “Sarcey had nothing laudatory to say about Sophie in his notice, did he? She’s competent, but not up to the task of Anna Damby. And de Chilly is aware of Dumas’s high regard for you. Leave it to me. You’ve proved what you can do in Athalie. The time has come for your leading role.”

  Tears filled my eyes. “Dumas will be beside himself with joy,” I whispered.

  Duquesnel inched down the bedsheet, exposing his hardness. “As I am. As you can see, Sarcey’s praise has exerted a rather salubrious effect on me.”

  Throwing myself upon him, I surrendered to his lovemaking. But as he thrust himself into me and moaned, I was not thinking of his pleasure.

  My only thought was of how I would soon astonish them even more.

  V

  Dumas’s Kean was a tragedy about the famous English actor Edmund Kean, who had died only ten years before. My role as the young woman who earns his tempestuous affection was different from any I’d played—elegant and nuanced, perfect for displaying my versatility. But on opening night, anger erupted from the Left Bank students in the audience, who’d expected, as promised by our prior announcements (an oversight that de Chilly regretted with chest-pounding laments), a performance of Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas.

  Standing in the wings in Anna Damby’s dark blue gown, I heard the rioters clashing outside, the shouts of “Hugo! Hugo!” and thumping of their fists on seatbacks as our more civilized patrons hissed at them for silence. The hammer blows that preceded the curtain failed to stifle the uproar; as the students directed their harangues toward Dumas himself, seated in pride of place in the upper box, I thought he must be mortified to be accused of usurping the revered Hugo.

  I spun to de Chilly. His bald head was dappled with sweat, his eyes wide with horror under his spectacles as he delayed the curtain’s rise. “You must do something. Before they tear this entire house apart!”

  He moaned. “What can I do?” Between his ubiquitous opening night nerves and the clamoring mob, he was about to collapse.

  “You’re the senior company manager. Go out there and threaten to call in the gendarmes. It was your decision, after all,” I said, not without spite. “You canceled Ruy Blas to avoid controversy, and now we have your much-feared revolutionaries about to storm our stage.”

  “No. We must cancel the performance. It’s the only solution. I’ll not—”

  “Cancel? After all our work? Certainly not!” Pushing past him, I strode through the curtains onto the stage, into a blast of roaring voices.

  I stood perfectly still, glaring out at faces I couldn’t see. Rabble. Muckraking louts. This was the theater, not a cheap tavern by the Sorbonne.

  “We want Hugo! Down with imperial tyranny!” someone shouted. “Hugo! Hugo!” chanted the crowd, in voices so thunderous, the very chandelier rattled overhead.

  Lifting my chin, I stepped to the footlights. Thinking this unruly crowd was fully capable of uprooting the seats to build barricades, I felt my hand quiver as I lifted it in a plea for silence—only when I looked, I saw my hand wasn’t quivering at all.

  They were just boys, insolent louts like those who’d ogled me in the Conservatoire, licking their lips and hoping I might tarry with them at the riverbank.

  “Mes amis!” I called out. Another roar made me sharpen my voice to a whiplash. “Friends, silence please.” As reluctant quiet fell, I forced out a smile. “You defend your cause for justice. Must you do so by blaming Monsieur Dumas for the absence of our esteemed Hugo? Surely we have room in our hearts in France for two master playwrights.”

  Someone laughed. I set a hand on my hip. “Now, shall I perform for you tonight or would you rather we brought in a guillotine to cut off some heads?” The laughter increased, along with a round of hearty applause. Looking into the front row, I caught sight of the dapper Sarcey, smiling cryptically up at me.

  “Sarah. Ma belle Sarah, marry me!” bellowed a swain from the crowd.

  “Propose to me later,” I cried. “After the play.”

  Reeling around, I pranced back through the curtains, where de Chilly stood openmouthed. For the first time in our association, I had left him flabbergasted.

  “Wait five minutes,” I said. “Then lift the curtain.”

  Under Duquesnel’s direction, and with advice from Dumas, who’d been so elated to hear I was playing one of his roles that he’d attended our rehearsals, I’d devised a unique portrayal of Anna Damby. Instead of the traditional victim, I transformed her into a stout-hearted muse. Having poured my very being into the role, I refused to be dissuaded by the lingering tension in the air as the curtain rose on the first act. But I felt it, even if there were no further outbursts. Dumas’s clever tale of the caprices of success managed to capture even this intemperate audience, and when I took my curtain call, the applause was effusive, with bouquets of ragged rose stems flung at my feet, their blossoms missing because, during the earlier rampage, the louts had trampled over the flowers brought by my admirers.

  The next day, Sarcey exulted in his column: “Sarah Bernhardt is a marvel—so natural in her style, innovative and unaffected. She may have tamed Kean onstage last night, but in reality, she tamed our Parisian lions.”

  De Chilly snorted when I showed him the notice. “Perhaps I owe Provost a debt.”

  To my delight, the writer George Sand, who’d been in the audience, approached the company to stage her work. She asked to meet with me in person. Now in her sixties, wreathed in a constant fog of cigarette smoke, she wore a dowdy dress, having forsaken her penchant for male attire. I found her intoxicating nevertheless, her declaration that “female ambition strikes a blow against society’s obstacles” sending shivers down my spine. Madame Sand’s ambitions had defied convention, her parade of lovers, including the composer Chopin, causing an uproar even as she forged a career in her own right. To me, she personified our modernité, where gender should pose no impediment to fulfillment.

  “I fear I might die if I don’t achieve my dream,” I told her, passionately grasping her tiny hands in mine when she came to my dressing room.

  She smiled, lighting another thin cigarette, her long-featured face showing a hint of jowls, but her dark eyes still piercingly youthful. “And what might that dream be?”

  “To become the most celebrated actress in France,” I declared. “More acclaimed than Rachel herself.”

  Until that moment, in my dressing room with my dented greasepaint tubes scattered across my scarred table and my costumes hanging like skins on hooks on the cracked wall, I’d never voiced aloud this deepest yearning that had driven me past every shoal. As soon as I did, I realized how absurd and vain it must sound.

  Madame Sand contemplated me. “You’re surely aware that in the theater, most especially in the house of your former employers of the Comédie, to seek recognition is the height of vulgarity—a degradation of one’s dedication to the craft, and of the craft itself.”

  My voice quavered as I asked her, “What would you say, madame?”

  She chuckled. “I would say that until one achieves the recognition, one will never obtain the dignity one deserves, especially if one is a woman.”

  I sagged in relief, having feared I might have offended her. She was perhaps the only woman I’d met since Mother Superior at Grandchamp whose respect I craved.

  “Moreover,” she said, “I believe you could be very celebrated. No other player on the stage has dared defy the ordained order as you do. You refuse to conform to expectation; this is why I want you to play the leads in my François le Champi and Marquis de Villemer. They are perfect for you, as I informed that toad de Chilly myself,” she added, with a gravelly laugh.

  With this coup, my future at the Odéon was assured. De Chilly agreed to renew my contract at two hundred francs a month. It was enough to pay my overdue bills, if not m
y outstanding debts, and see to my household.

  Taking a respite for the Christmas season, I rushed home to be with my son. It was there, while I basked with Maurice and Régine, that fortune finally found me.

  * * *

  It arrived with my mother—of all people. She’d bestirred herself at word of my success, brought to her salon by Dumas himself, who’d wept openly over my portrayal of his Anna Damby. Escorting sullen Régine, almost twelve now and contrary as ever, Julie entered my home and gave my crowded living room a long, appraising look. Her gaze narrowed at my dogs, chasing each other and nearly upsetting the table on which sat the cage confining my new African gray parrot, Bizibouzon—a gift from Dumas. Bizibouzon cawed, shedding feathers and dots of excrement upon half-open boxes heaped under his cage, spilling chinchilla stoles, metallic-threaded wraps, and other items—all congratulatory gifts from my admirers—which I hadn’t yet found time to acknowledge.

  “Well,” she remarked, in a tone she might have employed had she found me squatting over a firepot in a back alley. “You appear to be doing quite well for yourself.”

  “Not as well as you presume,” I replied. “These are all gifts from my public, not from suitors.”

  Her eyebrow lifted a fraction. “Is there a difference, I wonder?”

  Her apoplexy may have left her with a pronounced limp and reduced her salon to a few loyal intimates—Morny had recently died, leaving a bequest in his will for Jeanne—but Julie remained as impervious as ever. Dumas had extolled my talent to her, and she must have seen the notices of my performances by Sarcey in the newspapers, but as far as she was concerned, I was still her wayward daughter, her eternal disappointment.

  Fortunately, I was now better equipped to deflect her sting.

  While Régine played with Maurice, already on his feet and staggering about with stoic determination, obsessed by three pet turtles I’d adopted and let roam the house, Caroline served us tea. Julie eyed the silver pot with my initials as she tested the quality of the cups. “Limoges.” She lifted her gaze to me. “Expensive. Yet you persist in keeping this quaint abode, so far from the center of town.”

  “I prefer it. I’ve no need for another residence.”

  “I should think not.” She gave a tight laugh. “With this menagerie to attend.”

  I glared at her. “Must we?”

  She sipped from her cup. “As you wish. You’ve always done as you pleased.”

  I sighed. “How is Jeanne?” I said, hoping a change in subject would ease the blade of resentment between us. “I thought you would bring her with you.”

  “Whatever for? She’s with Rosine, of course, preparing for her debut.”

  My cup clattered onto its saucer. Dismay sharpened my voice as I took in her bloodless expression. “You wouldn’t dare. She’s—what? Fourteen?”

  “Nearly sixteen. And unlike some, Jeanne has a care for her mother.”

  “If you require money,” I retorted, “you need only ask.”

  She stiffened. “A mother should never have to ask.”

  Gritting my teeth at her insufferable tone, I went into my bedroom, banging my shin on my old coffin as I pulled open the bureau drawer. I deposited the envelope containing the first installment of my new salary onto her lap.

  I met her cold regard. “I don’t want Jeanne or Régine subjected to your salon. There’s no reason. I’m making more than enough to see to their upkeep.”

  She pocketed the envelope. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so hasty. You’ve had some success of late, I’ll admit, but this kind of life…it’s hardly reliable, is it? The theater is not the real world, much as you may wish it so. How many older actresses do you know?”

  “Plenty. No salon. Send Jeanne and Régine to Grandchamp, instead.”

  From behind us, betraying she had sharp ears despite her apparent obliviousness, Régine snarled, “I’m not going to some smelly convent.” Then she let out a hacking cough—an ugly sputter I didn’t like, as if whatever she had in her chest was too thick to expel.

  “Is Régine ill?” I said, alarmed not only for my sister’s sake but also because she was so close to Maurice, who’d abandoned the turtles to tug insistently at her skirts to join him on the floor. Although my son was a paragon of health, I was ever vigilant.

  Julie shrugged. “She insists on running about without shoes. She catches cold.”

  “Then she must stay here with me,” I said impulsively. “Madame G. tends to Maurice every day, and I now have Caroline. I’ll enroll Régine in the local school for the new year.” I refrained from adding that my sister desperately needed the oversight. Julie and Rosine had left her to her own devices too long; she had the demeanor of a street urchin.

  “Whatever you say.” Julie flicked her wrist, but she’d never do as I said. She might leave Régine with me because it suited her, but Jeanne was another matter. My mother had inculcated her sense of duty in my other sister, her perennial favorite, so much so that she had no compunction in offering her up to that pack of well-heeled wolves at the Opéra.

  Before I could respond, Julie reached into her discarded cloak to remove a sheaf of papers. “I almost forgot. This parcel came for you at my flat a few days ago. I have no idea why. Perhaps whoever sent it thinks you visit me more often than you do.”

  I snatched it from her. “I suppose you’ve opened it, too, though it’s addressed to me.”

  “Me? I hardly care,” she said.

  I lowered my eyes to the handwritten message scrawled across the top page:

  Chère Sarah, My Coppée wrote this and I immediately thought of you. Shall we entreat D. to let us stage it together? It is a trifle, really, but so charming!

  Your friend, Marie

  One of the Odéon’s senior sociétaires, Marie Agar was an older actress of the sort my mother claimed didn’t exist—and a kindly soul, who’d never shown me a moment of arrogance. François Coppée was her much younger lover, a civil servant, very thin and doleful, who sometimes came backstage to visit Marie, but had never said a word to me that I could recall. I would never have thought he was a writer, much less a playwright.

  Turning the page doubtfully, I found the title: Le Passant, “The Passerby.”

  Julie looked up from her tea. “Another love letter from your adoring public?”

  “A play sent by a colleague.” Though I was intrigued, I made myself set the sheaf aside as if it were of no importance.

  She waved her hand. “Far be it from me to interrupt your brilliant career.” As I hesitated, taken aback by her unusual, if sarcastic, willingness to indulge me, she said, “It’s not as if we have much more to say to each other. Don’t mind me.”

  I almost smiled. Money. She had come here only for money, and now that she had it, she was merely passing the requisite time until she could take her leave.

  Settling opposite her on my shawl-draped sofa, I read. It was indeed a trifle, as far as the plot: a troubadour in Renaissance Florence romances an aging courtesan on a moonlit terrace. The role of the courtesan was obviously intended for Marie; the seductive troubadour, Zanetto, I assumed, given my embodiment of Zachariah, was for me. While the story was hardly unique, the verse was marvelous, imbued with longing and bitter regret. The role of Zanetto, in particular, so enraptured me that I forgot my mother was still sitting there, drinking tea, until she said, “It’s getting late. I have an engagement this evening.”

  I suspected she did not, but I accompanied her to the door, where she fastened on her cape and ignored Régine and Maurice as they rolled about on the carpet with my dogs.

  “I’ll send Régine’s belongings over tomorrow. Including her shoes.” She pecked my cheeks and limped out to her carriage without a backward glance.

  I had Caroline take Maurice up for his bath, and turned my attention to Régine. My sister sat sprawled amidst the debris o
f her games with my son, plucking up her rumpled dress to reveal tattered stockings under her pantalettes. Her lace-up boots were flung aside somewhere; as she lifted her eyes to me, those strange eyes in which so little of what she felt could be read, I said, “Ma sœur, if you wish to live with me, you must go to school.”

  Régine scowled. “Why? Jeanne never goes to school.”

  “She may not, but I did.” I crouched beside her, tucking her skirts down over her knees. “I enjoyed it very much. The nuns at the convent were so kind to me; they taught me many things. How to read and write. How to draw. Even how to act. You like seeing me perform on the stage, don’t you? I first performed in a play at my school. Had I not attended, I might never have discovered that I wanted to be an actress.”

  She contemplated me, a furrow creasing her brow. “Julie says you only became an actress to defy her. She says you never cared for anyone but yourself.”

  I gave a start, not having expected these words to come out of her mouth. I realized in that moment that I’d never attempted to have an actual conversation with Régine, that in many respects, I’d treated her much as my mother did—like a feral creature who must be tolerated and subdued, lest she caused more upset than she was worth.

  “Julie doesn’t know me,” I replied quietly.

  “She doesn’t love you,” said Régine, again startling me. “Just as she doesn’t love me.”

  Abrupt tears welled up in my eyes. I blinked them back. “Does it hurt you?”

  She shrugged, looking down at her dress, her hands bunching up as if she wanted to ruck her skirts past her knees again. “Why should it? I’ve never loved her.” She returned her gaze to me. What I saw there caught my breath. For the first time, I beheld the wounded child who’d always known she was unwanted, who’d never felt a mother’s affection or care, just like me before her. I saw myself reflected in her strange haunted eyes, only the reflection was distorted, clouded by the helpless fear that Régine had converted into rage.