Heiress Without a Cause

CHAPTER THREE

Madeleine strode to the front of the stage at the end of the play, maintaining Hamlet's mad, wounded air to the end. As she bowed, she reveled in the thunderous applause and hoots of appreciation from the crowd beyond the lights. The theatre was a glorious cacophony of sound, and she let it pour into her, filling the empty spaces she usually tried so hard to ignore.

Aunt Augusta would be outraged to see her before such an audience - but the bigger outrage was that this was her last performance. She knew she should make her exit, but she lingered in adoration of the crowd. Their roars, the uncouth stamping of feet, even the smell of hundreds of warm bodies undisguised by expensive perfumes - it was all so intoxicating. She finally knew why so many lower class girls gave in to the lure of the stage.

She waved a final time. The stage crew shot her dark glances from the wings; they needed to reset the props for the pantomime following the play. She sauntered offstage, never breaking character - until she found her maid waiting for her behind the curtain.

"Josephine!" Madeleine said as she embraced the woman and twirled her around in a circle. "Have you ever heard such an audience?"

Josephine sniffed and patted Madeleine on the head. She was in her fifties, the same age as Aunt Augusta, but her dark hair was almost entirely grey and her once-slim figure was now round - a travesty she blamed on the Stauntons' English cook. She and her husband Pierre had spirited Madeleine out of France at the age of nine, delivering her to Augusta while her parents went to Paris to die. While Josephine did not approve of her charge's first act of rebellion in over twenty years, she did not stop her. "If these two weeks have ended your passion for theatricals, I think it a very good thing."

Madeleine pulled her out of the way as a man wheeled out a Gypsy cart for the next set. "I promised you only two weeks, and now I will never speak of theatricals again. I will go back to being a dull spinster, and you can burn these breeches as you would like to."

She said it lightly, but from the sharp look Josephine gave her, Madeleine suspected she did not sound cheerful enough. Two weeks of freedom had whetted her appetite, not sated it.

And now that her life included chaperoning other girls as they made brilliant matches and left her sitting on the shelf, she would like it even less.

But an agreement was an agreement. With the season starting in earnest, it would be harder to maintain the illusion of illness that gave her these precious two weeks. Her career had to end now, whether she was ready to give it up or not.

She walked behind the stage, past the old painted scenes of forests and castles, to the small, closet-sized room where she stored her clothes. "Stay here, mademoiselle," Josephine said. "I will ask the door guard to find a cab."

Josephine's husband was now one of the Stauntons' coachmen and usually brought them to the theatre. But he was driving Aunt Augusta tonight, leaving Josephine and Madeleine to navigate alone. It felt foolhardy, but it had to be safer than taking another driver into their confidences.

As she waited, she ran a hand over the slightly tarnished mirror leaning drunkenly against the bare wooden wall. With her wig and men's clothes, she barely recognized herself - or perhaps it was the light of triumph in her eyes that she didn't recognize.

It didn't matter, though. While she was hard to recognize and therefore unlikely to be caught, particularly in Seven Dials, Aunt Augusta or Alex would someday catch her if she kept sneaking out. She turned away from the mirror. She was ready to go home, if only so she could mourn privately. But when Josephine returned, Madame Legrand swept into the room behind her.

"Madame Guerrier, darling, you were marvelous!" Madame exclaimed in the contrived French accent that always made Josephine roll her eyes. No one had ever seen Monsieur Legrand, and Madame was definitely not French, but Madeleine admired the woman for starting a theatre alone. Madame opened her arms wide as though to capture Madeleine - and the patrons she brought to the theatre - within her embrace. "All of London is transported!"