“No,” he said calmly. “I don’t doubt you in the least. What I mean is, I won’t give you cause.”
I had no idea whether to believe him. But I’d made myself clear, and at the moment, I could do no more.
We tried book after book. Juliet was too obvious, he said; Constance sent the wrong message, I countered. He suggested Lavinia, but I refused to be named after a girl with her hands cut off and her tongue cut out.
Just when it seemed we’d never reach agreement, he said, “Here! I found it.”
“Okay. Tell me.”
“Arden,” he said.
“No,” I said, “that’s not right. There’s no character anywhere in Shakespeare named Arden.”
“You’re right. But you’re wrong.”
He brought the book closer to my face so I could see. The word was right there at the tip of his finger. Arden.
They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
“The first time I read this,” said Clyde, “it sounded like heaven to me.”
“‘Fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world,’” I said. “It does sound wonderful.”
“And there’s this,” he said, closing the book and showing me the tiny raised letters along the bottom of the spine, which I’d missed in the dim light: The Arden Shakespeare.
“Arden. Do you think it’s a sign?” I asked.
“I do.”
It seemed right to me somehow. “All right then.”
“All right. You have a company. You have a name. You have a manager. I think we’re in business. Only one thing left to do. Shake on it.”
“I suppose.”
He lifted his hand then hesitated, looking down. “Though you said not to touch you.”
“For a handshake, this once, I’ll make an exception.”
“Truce, Arden?” he said, and offered his hand.
“Truce,” I echoed, and shook it.
Chapter Twenty
1900
Light and Heavy Chest
As the Amazing Arden, I booked a dozen shows before I’d even performed my first. Part of it was Clyde’s hustle and his excellent connections. But part of my appeal was inherent. A female illusionist was a true curiosity. There were no others. Men were the magicians and women the assistants, and any woman on the stage was clearly being acted upon, not acting. Wives of famous magicians were often privileged to be more active assistants than the average, but they were still merely assisting. In this world, the next-best curiosity was Harry Kellar’s wife Eva, whose role in his act also included playing the cornet. Adelaide Herrmann herself had been the only true female illusionist, the only woman whose company was in her own name. And she had withdrawn from the field.
Those first weeks, I thought about her every moment, every day, wishing I had had more time with her, more guidance. But I respected her decision. She had given her youth and her looks and her husband and half her life to magic. It would be churlish to ask her to give anything more. Anything I hadn’t learned in more than three years on the road with her, I would have to figure out for myself.
In the handful of years we’d been performing as a company, the competition between stage magicians had become somewhat more fierce. It was obvious there was money in magic. Vaudeville audiences enjoyed singers and dancers, but every small-town Susie with a mouth and two legs thought she was the next Lottie Collins, and magicians were somewhat harder to come by. With fewer of us available, we could negotiate for more money, because the booking agents were gladder to have us. Neither was vaudeville the only option for a magician with a good name and reputation. Harry Kellar, whose star began burning brighter after Alexander’s death, even alternated tours on the road with much longer engagements in a single city. While I loved traveling, there was something that sounded utterly luxurious about a seven-month run at the Egyptian Hall in Philadelphia. If things went well with my act, I knew settling in was a strong possibility, but for now, I knew just as certainly I had to take to the rails again.
I couldn’t quite pick up where Adelaide had left off, not exactly, but neither was I starting from scratch. When the members of the company came to get their final pay from the office, I was there to explain what I needed from them. On the surface, for them, it was good news. They didn’t have to go looking for something new. They could stay on in the same role for the same pay, if they chose. They only had to hold on for two weeks until our debut, not far away at the Golden Garden in the Bronx. It would be easier to stay than to go.
Explaining the situation to them one by one was excruciating. Seeing the flicker in their eyes when they saw me sitting behind the desk. The distrustful way they reached out for the check Clyde handed them. And it was unpredictable, which ones would say yes and which no. Billy seemed confused and reluctant, but in the end, agreed to stay. Jack, on the other hand, didn’t even stay to hear my speech. He grabbed the check and was gone.
“We’ll find someone new,” Clyde said. “Don’t you worry.”
“I’m not worried,” I said, and I wasn’t.
I knew part of the gift Adelaide had given me was the freedom to make the act my own. We put half of the illusions in storage, especially the bulkier ones with the more complicated sets, and I said a fond good-bye for now to the picture frame of the Dancing Odalisque. I decided to part with the animals, reluctantly, because their care and feeding complicated things, and I didn’t want to be an animal act. We sold them at auction, which I didn’t attend, trusting Clyde to handle it in all aspects. I spent that afternoon with the musicians, thanking them for their service and paying them a generous farewell.
I was careful about what I kept and how to deploy it. I revised Light and Heavy Chest, planning a new presentation where larger and larger men would fail to pick it up, then smaller and smaller women would succeed. The trick was not new, but the message was. No one else dared put women above men onstage in any way. It was an outrageous statement. I hoped it would be unusual enough to begin to build my reputation. The novelty of being a woman would get audiences in the theaters once, but I needed to handle them just right once they were there.
The night of my solo debut, I trembled in the wings as I watched the audience trickle in. Even after I should have taken my position to start, I lingered with my eyes on the empty seats, praying more theatergoers would appear at the last minute.
“Arden,” Clyde said from behind me. His voice was firm but not without sympathy. “You’re not here to watch them. They’re here to watch you.”
I always fed off the energy of the crowd. I said, “I need them.”
“The only one you need is you. Curtain time. Go.”
I’d chosen a haunting flute, three notes repeated, as my cue to begin. Clyde signaled to the musician. The curtain began to slide aside, and as the third note sounded, I stepped onto the floorboards for my first appearance as the Amazing Arden.
I began with cards and coins, a few small tricks to warm my hands up, and immediately I realized that had been a mistake. The crowd occupied about two-thirds of the small theater, and without a strong start out of the gate, their early applause was polite and scattered. I feared their lack of enthusiasm would sink me.
Even worse, as I gestured to cue the two assistants who would help me with Light and Heavy Chest, only one appeared. Otis was here—dragging the chest behind him, because what else could he do?—but Billy hadn’t shown. My mind racing, I called out to the audience for a volunteer and assigned him to help Otis carry the chest out. As a result, there were several long, still moments as I struggled to get the audience member to do what a trained assistant would have done by instinct. Still, I’d chosen luckily. He followed orders well enough. And again I chose luckily when it came time to conclude the illusion. A cheerful little girl, no more than seven years old, happily bounded up to the stage and lifted the chest in her two little hands, exclaiming in the most charming soprano voice, “My word, that was easy!” It brought the house down.
A half hour into the show, I took my first breath in the wings while Jeannie stripped off one gown and quickly buttoned me into another. Then I caught sight of Billy, chatting easily with Otis, as if he hadn’t caused any trouble at all.
“You,” I said.
He turned, offering a sheepish smile.
I didn’t return it. “You’re fired.”