My mother has done well, was Marc’sthought.
He went up to the notice-board set beside oneof the four, pillared lamp-posts, and looked at the playbill.
TONIGHT!
Mrs. Annemarie Thedford
– New York’s Most Celebrated Actress -
in
Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra
with Edwin Forrest
America’s Finest Tragedian as Antony
etc.
Curtain at Seven O’Clock
Well, the evening promised to be more productive thanthe afternoon had been.
Marc decided to walk the dozen blocks back toThe Houston Hotel. The sight of his mother’s name in bold lettersin front of the theatre she now owned had stirred up memories,images and conversations that required his earnest attention. Hefelt that he must rework them – cautiously, tenderly – before hecame face to face with her once again. In the almost twenty-nineyears of his life, he had known her company for less than a week,had not even known of her until they had met, by chance andin difficult circumstances, eighteen months before in Toronto. Butshe was his mother. The babe that Beth was carrying would be hergrandson. With a guilty start he realized that Beth might havegiven birth already – without him.
It was thoughts like this, and the mixedemotions they raised, that caused Marc to become careless as hesauntered along the Bowery, oblivious to its attractions and thethrong of New Yorkers about him. It was only when he turned ontoHouston Street that he noticed a fellow with a battered top-hatturn the corner with him – and remembered that the selfsame top-hathad popped up once or twice before when he had paused to gazedisinterestedly into the display window of a shop. To confirm hissuspicions, Marc strode across the street, sidestepping adetermined pig and an irritated mule, and walked straight into atobacconist’s.
Once inside, he wheeled and peered back outthrough the soot-smeared glass. Top-hat paused on the sidewalkopposite the shop, and stared uncertainly in Marc’s direction.After a minute or so, the fellow bent down to adjust his bootstrap.Marc purchased a cigar, stuck it unlit between his teeth, andre-entered the street. He did not look at top-hat, but turned andmarched briskly ahead.
At Broadway, the intersection was crowdedwith shoppers, tradesmen, beggars, carts, and stray beasts ofdubious pedigree. Marc stepped into the noisy, shifting mêlée. Onreaching the opposite walk, he slipped into the shadows of thenearest doorway. Moments later, top-hat emerged, kicking at amange-ridden cur that was nipping at his left pant-cuff. Onceacross the street, he began searching among the crowd for hisquarry. He took a few steps in each direction, straining to seewhat he could amongst the constant movement of men and beasts. Atlast, he shook his head, removed his hat to reveal a hairlessskull, wiped the sweat from it with a grimy handkerchief, replacedthe hat, then turned and strode back up Broadway.
While the fellow was no gentleman – his coathad been well-used and badly cut, his boots cracked and unpolished- and certainly was not a barrister, Marc was in little doubt thatsomeone from the New York Bar Association had set him loose. Wasthat the reason Marc had been kept there so long? To give top-hat’shandlers time to find and instruct their henchman? But what motivecould they have? If Dick did have knowledge that someone ofimportance in New York wanted kept secret, Dick was now dead. Ifthat same person or persons had arranged for hisassassination, then they would already know of their success. Ifnot, word of Dick’s death had surely reached the city via Brennerand Tallman or bush telegraph. Did these people think that one ofDick’s known Toronto associates, like himself or Brodie, was privyto that dangerous knowledge? Or were they just super-cautious aboutanyone – especially an outsider – seeking information about Dickand the “scandal”?
Marc now realized that he might have beenwiser to have waylaid top-hat and got some answers to thesequestions. But he had had to be sure that he was indeed beingfollowed. And if top-hat were a mere henchman or hired tough, whatwould he know anyway? Still, he would be careful when he left thehotel after supper. The Houston’s manager had appeared friendlyenough, but Marc and Brodie had registered under their own names.Just how far did the long and hostile arm of the Tammany Societyreach here on home turf? How safe would Brodie be if he wereexposed as Dick’s ward?
There was no way to warn Brodie of this newdanger, however: at the hotel, a sealed message was handed to Marcby the porter.
Marc:
I have spent the afternoon reminiscing with CarletonBuckmaster, my closest friend at prep school. He fancies himselfquite a ‘swell’ and has agreed to take me – incognito – to theManhattan Club tonight. He has contacted several of his chums tomake up our party. I’ll report to you sometime in the weehours.
B.
Well, the evening looked to be promising forboth of them. And equally hazardous.
NINETEEN
There was no trace of his mother in the Cleopatra whodominated the gas-lit, proscenium stage of The Bowery Theatre foralmost three hours. Seated in their padded chairs under the archedceiling with its pale, subtly erotic frescoes and rendered indolentby too much late-day brandy or the best burgundy that dollars couldbuy, the prosperous patrons of America’s greatest city werenonetheless transported to ancient Egypt and its amorous exploits.Here was passion on the Roman scale of things, tempered anddomesticated by the Bard’s pentameter. The Queen of the Nile neverseemed to leave her barge. Her gilded and fiery presence projectedwell beyond the loges and balconies, just as Shakespeare’s dramaitself was wafted out to lands and languages undreamt of inElizabeth’s England. And whenever she was absent, giving the stageover to Edwin Forrest’s Antony, her soft-throated voice andimperiously tall figure shimmered in the ghostly gaslight like anafterimage. Marc had seen her do excerpts from Antony andCleopatra in Toronto, in fact had shared a small portion of thestage with her. But here the vigorous and tragic rhythms of theentire piece were played out scene by scene – in real and vividtime. The final applause was thunderous and sustained through fivecurtain calls.
Marc was about to push his way through thecrush of well-wishers towards the dressing-rooms behind the stagewhen an usher came right up to him.
“Are you Mr. Edwards?”
Marc hesitated for a second before saying, “Iam.”
“Mrs. Thedford is expectin’ you in herretiring-room. It’s got her name on the door. The man guardin’ itwill let you in.”
So somehow he had been spotted andidentified. Fair enough. She would have the ten minutes or so itwould take him to navigate through the crowd to prepare herself, ashe himself had been doing ever since he had left the BarAssociation, except for the three hours when Mary Ann Edwards,a.k.a. Annemarie Thedford, had made him believe she was an Egyptianlove-goddess.
***
Mrs. Thedford was sitting in a silk kimono ona satin-backed Queen Anne chair in her brightly lit room of state.As Marc entered, several other well-dressed men and women werebeing politely shooed out by her maid, who followed them out andquietly closed the door behind her.