Wayward Winds (24 page)

 44 
Evening at the Theater

The setting was not at all what Amanda had anticipated.

When Ramsay said the “theater,” she had assumed they would be attending the opera. Puccini's
La Bohème
was all the rage right now and was playing at the Royal Opera House. Everybody was talking about it.

But the driver kept going right past Covent Garden toward the Strand. When he stopped in front of the Vaudeville Theatre, Amanda didn't know what to think. She had never even been to this part of the theater district, much less attended a performance here. And this particular theater was not one with the best of reputations!

The somewhat questionable reputation of the theater in general had, of course, improved noticeably since the middle of Queen Victoria's time. The Strand was now a respectable part of London. Yet Amanda could not help a momentary flutter in her stomach as Ramsay offered his hand and helped her down to the sidewalk. She strongly doubted she would see any of Cousin Martha's society friends here. The bawdy posters on the billboards did little to alleviate her anxiety.

She probably should have asked what Ramsay had planned for the evening at the time of his invitation.

On second thought . . .
why
should she have?

She was a progressive young lady. What was she worried about? They had enjoyed a lovely dinner at Rules Restaurant. There was
nothing to be frightened of. She could partake of anything the world had to offer. Wasn't that why she had come to London in the first place, to escape the confining constrictions her parents had always placed upon her?

Amanda took Ramsay's arm, trying to squelch her flutter of nervousness, and they walked inside. Ramsay nodded to a few of the others in attendance as they walked through the lobby. Since only about ten minutes remained until curtain time, they went straight to their seats.

She relaxed as soon as the pit orchestra began to play. The music was lively and generated a festive and happy mood. In two or three minutes the curtain opened to a dimly lit pub scene.

The instant the drama began, Amanda found herself swept into the world being acted out on stage before her. Everything was so colorful, so loud, so boisterous, so much larger than reality.

Annie McPool, the lead character, burst loudly onstage singing a bawdy tavern ballad. She flirted sensually as much with the audience as with the bit characters clustered about her as props, half of them pretending to be drunk, the other half eyeing her with winks and grins and catcalls as she pranced and danced in and out among them. Annie's heavy makeup and painted eyes, low-cut dress, and seductive mannerisms conveyed clearly enough the nature of the establishment where she was employed.

Amanda's eyes widened in a mixture of horror and fascination. She was shocked, yet at the same time could not but be mesmerized by the risqué melodrama.

It did not take long for the men of the audience to follow the lead of the actors in the make-believe tavern. Actors and patrons alike were seduced by Annie's charms. Calls and whistles began to erupt all around, as was intended, accompanied by laughter from most of the women in attendance.

Amanda's fascination mounted. Along with it, however, came the inescapable sense that what she was being drawn into was anything but wholesome. She tried to tell herself nothing was wrong, that this was a respected theater, that she was among respectable people, and that Ramsay would never bring her anyplace she shouldn't be.

The song ended. Applause and whistles echoed. The men onstage returned to their tall foamy pints and conversation, while Annie
sauntered to the front of the stage and, taking the audience into her confidence, complained:—

“You see what I have to put up with . . . a voice like mine in a pub full of blokes like this—”

A few calls and jeers from the men on stools behind her.

“You see,” she added with significant expression, still addressing the audience, and a wave of her hand back toward her drinking customers, “they know it too—Annie McPool deserves better than the likes of them! I was born for the opera. But I waste away my days in a run-down dump like the Boar's Head.”

She turned and returned to the bar to pour more drinks for her thirsty patrons.

From stage left a man approached. He had been onstage since the rise of the curtain, but obscure and unnoticed. Now the pace slowed and the mood changed as the well-dressed and obviously sophisticated man, out of place in such an environment, introduced himself to Annie, lavishing upon her praise for her multitude of talents.

“I could not help overhearing your comment a moment ago,” said he, one Daniel Prentice by name, “that the longing of your heart is to sing in the opera. It may be that I can make that dream come true.”

It did not take long for Annie to fall in love with the dashing Prentice.

From the opening curtain, the drama became much more than a mere story. It was real, but in a way yet
more
real than anything Amanda had ever experienced in her
own
life. Visually and emotionally, she found herself drawn into the life and hopes of Annie McPool.

The second act opened in Paris, where indeed Annie McPool's dream had come true. If she did not exactly occupy a leading role in Puccini's latest at the Théâtre du Châtelet, it could truthfully be said that she had been engaged as a professional opera singer. She was an understudy, it is true, and for one of the lesser-known touring companies. But there was hope of better roles, and the company was scheduled to travel throughout the Continent. With confident optimism, Annie sang happily of her future, and of her love for Daniel Prentice, who had rescued her from pub-singing oblivion and made her the future star of the European stage. But the subtle minor strains from the orchestra pit as Prentice made his next appearance
signified to the audience what Annie herself could not yet know, that all did not bode so well as her present happiness indicated.

The curtain fell for intermission.

Ramsay and Amanda rose and began making their way out toward the lobby.

“Well, what do you think?” said Ramsay enthusiastically. “They're good, aren't they?”

“Uh . . . yes!” replied Amanda. “Yes . . . really great.”

“She's from Austria, the actress—Sadie Greenfield . . . quite famous all over the Continent.”

Throughout the intermission Amanda kept close to Ramsay while he visited and chatted with one person, then another. Everywhere they went he seemed to know everybody, though he introduced her to no one. Once or twice the conversations were hushed and guarded, though such occasions were brief. After ten or fifteen minutes they began moving back to their seats.

The curtain for the third act rose to reveal Annie McPool in a salon full of cheap furnishings. Her clothes were poor, her expression grim. It was obvious her circumstances had drastically changed. She was reading aloud a letter from a friend who was the only one who knew where she was. It told of the heartbreak of the woman's mother, ending with the suggestion that Annie return home.

Annie set the letter aside and rose. A tuneful lament followed, in which the audience learned that her former savior had taken all her money to feed his gambling habit. Annie had lost her job and was now alone and penniless and far from home. She sang that the only prospect left for her was to return to the only thing she knew, to paint her face and use her charms singing to drunks and bores and men who wanted from her what no woman should be willing to give.

As the song faded away, her lover was heard ascending the stairs to the pitiful flat. Prentice entered drunk. He had lost everything. His onetime smooth demeanor had turned coarse and rude. Annie pleaded with him to take her back where he found her. He was rough and cursed at her. Annie responded in kind. Bitter arguing . . . a loud slap across his face. The women in the audience cheered. The fight continued, now with heckling and shouts from everywhere in the theater.

Amanda glanced to her side. Ramsay was laughing with delight at the comedic tragedy. Amanda looked back toward the stage. Why
was everyone laughing? Didn't they ache for her? She wanted to
cry
for poor Annie McPool's desperate plight.

The fourth and final act opened to a bitterly cold winter in Paris. Food and warmth were scarce. Prentice had descended lower and lower, and finally had left Annie altogether. Annie came down with tuberculosis, never to return home or see her mother again. After a final doleful realization of what a fool she was to fall in love with such a cad about whom she knew nothing, Annie begged the audience, if they remembered nothing else, not to forget the voice that could have made her an opera star if only she had been discovered earlier.

Annie slumped to her ragged settee as the final notes of the song diminished to a scarcely audible level, slowly leaned her head back, then closed her eyes . . . and died as the curtain fell.

A great ovation followed. Ramsay was on his feet in an instant, clapping vigorously along with everyone around them. Amanda rose at his side, but it was with difficulty that she prevented herself from bursting into tears. It had touched her too deeply to make light of. The performance pulled emotions from her depths she had not anticipated. What at first had shocked her, in the end overwhelmed her.

Rather than moving toward the lobby, Amanda now followed Ramsay forward along the crowded aisle, through the stage door and backstage. Still numb, Amanda gaped about in awe to see many of the actors and actresses suddenly so close. The actor who had played Prentice walked past. Amanda's eyes widened and she gazed at him with something like fascinated horror. With difficulty she pulled her look away and stumbled on after Ramsay.

They arrived at the dressing room of the leading actress. Ramsay knocked lightly twice, then opened the door and walked in.

“Ramsay!” Amanda heard a familiar voice exclaim from inside. She followed him in. There stood Annie McPool, alive and well and bigger than life. If it were possible, Amanda's eyes increased to yet greater diameter to see the woman so close . . . her face, her eyes, the strong perfume, the dress which, even in the final scene from which she had just come, revealed a bit more of her chest than Amanda's cultured eyes were accustomed to.

“Sadie, you were wonderful!” said Ramsay, embracing the actress warmly. “As always, I must say.”

“Thank you—you are a dear,” she replied, kissing Ramsay lightly.

The two were obviously on familiar terms. Amanda could hardly believe her eyes. Here was a liberated woman indeed!

“I've brought you a little something from Paris,” Greenfield said. “Our troupe just finished up there two weeks ago.” She turned to her dressing table, picked up a plain brown packet, then turned around again and handed it to Ramsay.

Ramsay took the envelope without comment. “How long will you be performing in London?” he asked.

“Three weeks,” she replied.

“And then?”

“On to Berlin, and after that Vienna.”

“Well, then, perhaps I shall see you before you return to the Continent,” said Ramsay. As he said the words, he caught the actress's eyes for the merest second. He then turned to Amanda with a nod, and led the way from the dressing room and out the side entrance of the theater onto the Strand.

The cool night air jolted Amanda awake. She breathed in deeply, still overwhelmed at the range of emotions through which the past several hours had taken her.

“I'll take you straight home,” said Ramsay as they climbed into the cab. “I have a little business I must attend to before the night is over.”

Amanda's emotions were too full to mind. When she arrived back at the Pankhursts' she could not keep the feeling away that she was still living in the fantasy world she had just left.

 45 
Planting Seeds

Night fell over the northeast coast of Yorkshire. An occasional flash from the rotating combination of reflective glasses sent a blinding ray from the top of the lighthouse out into the North Sea. No ships were in peril at the moment, for the night was clear and the sea calm. But the lighthouse on Hawsker Head must be ready with its signals when the need came. These were days of darkness when the Fountain must be prepared with its proclamations of Light.

Below, in the lounge of the house with the red roof on the plateau near the edge of a steep and jagged shoreline, an earnest discussion was in progress. Secret service liaison Hartwell Barclay was speaking.

“What do you hear from
Die Schwarze Hand
?” he had just asked a newcomer who had arrived from the Continent the day before.

“Only that their numbers grow daily. They have gained much support in Russia.”

“And Austria?”

“Aehrenthal knows nothing of the ring's activities.”

“What of the Serbian government?”

“Pashich suspects something but thus far has successfully been kept in the dark. His minister in Vienna, however, is in the society.”

Barclay thought a few moments.

“It may become more and more difficult to play both sides. Meanwhile, we must keep our contacts strong both with
Die Schwarze Hand
and in Vienna.”

“Don't forget Moscow,” added a woman's voice.

Barclay turned. “Of course, Hildegard,” he said, “we shall certainly not forget Moscow. We are relying on your contacts to make sure nothing is overlooked. Do you think the Bolsheviks will make their move before the Serbs?”

“Not unless Russia collapses suddenly from within,” she replied. “I believe they will await the outcome of war, and strike when the tsar is most vulnerable.”

“Then our forecasts must continue on the basis of Russia's existing framework. Thus,” he added, now turning and glancing around at each of the others present, “we must have friends everywhere—as has been our goal from the beginning. It is impossible to predict which embassies, which parties, which coalitions, even which nations will be left standing. Nor can we predict where the holocaust will erupt. The order of Light will grow out of the collective ashes of them all. The Fountain's seeds must be planted everywhere, that out of the rubble, growth toward the Light will emerge simultaneously from England to the Urals. Then we will step forward to seize control.”

Again it fell silent.

“And speaking of the seeds being planted in England,” said Barclay, “I want this fellow Rutherford.”

As he spoke he turned toward his colleague, Dr. Morley Redmond, with an obvious expression of annoyance.

“I said from the beginning that Charles was nobody's fool,” replied the professor. “He always was a free thinker.”

“All the more reason why we need him in our camp,” remarked Lady Halifax.

A few nods went around the room. The Welshman took a long swallow from his glass of stout. The very fact that Charles Rutherford was proving to be his own man caused them to desire his allegiance all the more.

“I sense him wavering,” said Barclay. “His expression and the questions he raised at Cambridge have concerned me. I felt an antagonism toward our cause. He was extremely persistent in resisting my gaze.”

“He does not yet even know the cause. That is not fully divulged until initiation is complete.”

Barclay nodded. “The Fountain's precepts appeal to those alienated from the status quo, individuals disconnected from countries and
governments and their present courses, people looking for something, but they know not what. Such individuals are eager to give themselves to a cause, even if they are not aware of its subtleties. None of this I sense, however, in the man Rutherford. His loyalties will require more shrewdness to cultivate.”

“Why are you so intent on recruiting him?”

“Because now that he is aware of the Fountain, he could be dangerous if not one of us. He must be brought all the way in, or else destroyed. I see no middle ground in his case.”

“What do you propose?”

“Have you considered an approach through the estranged daughter?”

“An intriguing possibility—anyone else in the family, relatives, skeletons in the closet . . . anything or anyone we might find useful in that regard?”

“He has a cousin, high-up banker in London.”

“Finances are always useful.”

“That might be too high profile for our purposes. Anyone else? The pressure on him must be subtle.”

“I recently learned something interesting about the wife's younger sister,” now said Redmond. “Actually, not the sister herself, but her husband.”

“Anything we can use?” asked Barclay.

“Possibly. It's just that he and Rutherford aren't exactly on the closest of terms. The fellow is a solicitor, reasonably well thought of, and climbing rapidly.”

“Practicing where?”

“Birmingham, if my information is correct.”

“What are the man's politics, religion?”

“A good churchman, but makes no fuss of his convictions.”

“And the wife . . . the sister?”

“Goes along with her husband on most things—they're progressive types.”

“Close to Lady Rutherford?”

The man shook his head.

“Find out if either of them has any hidden grievance against Rutherford that we might exploit. What's the man's name?”

“Browne . . . well,
Wildecott
-Browne actually. He took on his wife's name. Hugh Wildecott-Browne.”