Beloved Scoundrel (6 page)

“Dreadful! It was dreadful!”

“Of course it was,” the famous showman said. “The one bright thing is that you will recover.”

“My husband? Was he hurt?” she asked.

The big man looked troubled. He said, “They haven’t told you?”

“Told me what?”

“It was a terrible accident,” he went on awkwardly, his hands clutching hers. “You must be grateful for being alive. Accept God’s will. We cannot choose our fate. I’m sorry to tell you your husband was killed.”

“David dead?” she asked in shock.

The big man nodded. “I came to Philadelphia for his funeral. He was buried yesterday.”

“Buried! David!” And then she began to wail.

Barnum hurried out and summoned a nurse and then a doctor came. They gave her a tablet and the nurse remained with her until she became more calm.

The nurse said, “The sedative will help you.”

She looked up at her with dull eyes and said, “ls he still here?”

“Mr. Barnum? Yes. He’s waiting to see if you’re all right.”

“I want to see him again,” she said.

“You’re sure?” the nurse said anxiously.

“Yes.” She closed her eyes.

Minutes passed. The floorboards of the tiny bedroom creaked and she heard the voice of P.T. Barnum say, “I’m sorry. l didn’t intend to upset you.”

She opened her eyes and studied his sad face. She said, “I had to know. Sit down.”

He sat beside her. “You know you have my sympathy.”

“I know,” she said in the same dull voice. “Did he suffer?”

“Not at all,” the big man said. “He was killed instantly. So was poor old Lester Loft.”

“Nice old man,” she remembered. “Nancy and Peter?”

“Both alive. They received very minor injuries. The seat on which you and David were sitting took the brunt of the damage in your area of the car.”

“David must have a stone,” she said. “A nice stone telling about him.”

“We’ll look after that as soon as you’re able to help in a selection,” the showman promised.

“What about the company?”

“It has already opened,” P.T. Barnum said. “Peter Cortez has taken over David’s roles and Nancy Ray is playing the parts you were doing. Business is good. People are sympathetic towards the company. The newspapers here wrote warmly of you and David and expressed sadness that they would not be able to see you both on the stage.”

She closed her eyes. Then said, “They will see me.”

“What’s that?” the big man asked.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “As soon as I’m able I want to take my place as head of the company.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” she said. “I will play opposite Peter. But I must have top billing. It must be Fanny Cornish above everything.”

P.T. Barnum nodded. “That offers no problem. I thought you might want to convalesce for a while somewhere quiet. Plan a new life.”

She said, “My new life will begin here. I want to continue what David and I began together. I will carry on for him.”

The master showman said, “I respect your courage and I understand why you want to do this. But are you sure you have the strength?”

“I will find it,” she said. “Now you can go.”

The big man stared at her humbly. Then he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re a fine woman, Fanny,” he said. “And don’t worry about the billing! I’ll make the name of Cornish known in every corner of this country! I promise you that Fanny Cornish will be a star!”

She nodded silently and the big man got up and left the room. Only then did great tears flow from her eyes and down her cheeks. She lay there weeping silently until she felt asleep.

But once she had passed this crisis and made her bold resolution to carry on she recovered rapidly. In a matter of a week she was well enough to leave the hospital. In the meanwhile Peter and Nancy had become regular visitors and kept her advised about what was happening with the company.

Peter Cortez was more considerate than she had ever believed possible. He showed none of his arrogant side towards her, becoming almost gentle in his manner. He talked of the company and its success and it was apparent he had taken a new interest in improving his own talents.

At her bedside one day, he said, “Perhaps in due time I will be half the actor David was.”

She said, “Be your own man, Peter. You have talent and to spare. It only needs cultivating. No need to compare yourself with David.”

Nancy Ray usually came alone to visit her. And on her last days in the hospital she and the golden-haired girl took strolls in the gardens behind the hospital. The fresh air and exercise did much to help bring Fanny back to health.

Strolling at her side, the petite actress told her, “We are all eager to have you back.”

Fanny gave her a wry smile. “It will mean your going down to secondary roles again.”

“I don’t mind that at all. I’m not suited to be a leading lady,” Nancy said.

“I wonder how Peter and I will manage,” Fanny mused.

“He’s working hard and drinking much less,” the other girl told her. “‘I think what happened shocked him into proper behavior.”

Fanny sighed. “I shall soon know. I expect to leave here in a day or two and be able to work the following week.”

“Mr. Barnum has engaged a nice room for you in a hotel near the theatre to make it easier,” Nancy told her.

“He has been most kind to me,” Fanny agreed. “The first thing I wish to do when I’m out of the hospital is visit David’s grave and make arrangements for a proper stone. Will you come with me?”

“Of course,” Nancy said. “I was fond of David.”

So on a bleak, sunless afternoon a week later Fanny, Nancy, and the elderly owner of a monument works trudged through the cemetery outside the city limits to the spot where David was buried. There were some trees nearby and one of them, a tall elm, gave the grave some shade.

Fanny, in black bonnet and dress, stood by the grave and took in the atmosphere of the place. At last she said, “I like the location. The trees help keep it from seeming like a cemetery.”

The old tombstone manufacturer stepped up beside her. “I quite agree, Madam,” he said in a voice with a quaver. He had once been a large man but had shrunk with age, yet he still retained his older clothing, and so nothing seemed to fit him, not even his tophat which drooped over his ears. His clothes hung from him as if they had been made for some giant of a man.

Fanny told him, “I want a column about four feet high with a stand and an open volume carved on it.”

The old man nodded. “A Bible, madam?”

“No,” she said. “A volume of Shakespeare! Make that clear!”

“The name shall be carved on it,” the old man said. “And what about the wording on the column?”

Fanny said, “
David Cornish
in large letters, with
actor
beneath and his birth and death dates. Then below them the quotation from Hamlet, “Good night, Sweet Prince!”

“I shall carry out your instructions, madam,” the old man said. “And may I suggest gray and black marble in a combination?”

“That sounds very good,” she told him.

Then she lingered alone a moment alone at the grave as Nancy and the old man moved away conversing in low tones. At this moment she felt amazingly close to David. And she now understood what her feelings of melancholy had meant, they had been a premonition of this great loss. Her sorrow was as deep as ever but she resolved to channel it into making the name of Cornish famous in the American theatre.

“I will do it, David,” she murmured. “You have my promise!”

Her next great challenge was her first rehearsal with the company. All the same faces were at the theatre to greet her with the exception of Lester Loft who had also lost his life in the railway wreck. Now it was Peter who saw her through the difficult moments of working with the company for the first time since her accident. He had taken over the role of director and he calmly and without any undue fuss guided her through the new play.

She thanked him later as he sat with her in a nearby eating place. Offering him a grateful smile across the table, she said, “You were wonderful this morning.”

The handsome, young man looked embarrassed. “Not at all. Every member of the company is on your side and when you have cooperation like that it is not difficult.”

She sipped her tea and said, “I really know so little about you, Peter. How did you come to select the theatre as a profession and what about your family?”

The elegantly dressed Peter smiled ruefully, “I’m not an interesting person.”

“I say that you are.”

He stared at his plate. “My family are of Spanish origin. They occupy a great mansion in the mission house style. It has a view of the Pacific.”

She said, “Then you are rich?”

“I shall never want for money,” he said. “But I was not happy at home. My father is dead and my mother is a woman with a cold nature. She wanted me to be a priest. When I refused, she more or less lost interest in me.”

“But you are not suited for the Church,” Fanny protested. “You love the worldly life too much!”

“I tried to convince my mother of that,” Peter said. “But I wasn’t able to. My sister, who is much like my mother in having a cold nature, married a neighbor with an evil reputation where women are concerned. I do not think they have a happy marriage.”

“So you had no reason for remaining at home.”

“No. And yet no reason to have to earn a living. I had inherited enough to live well for the rest of my life. I began to wander about and met a group of players from the East. I took a liking to them and their way of life. I asked if I could join them.”

She smiled. “And you did?”

He nodded. “Yes. I’d really found something I liked to do. It gave me a purpose in life. Then the leading man left the company to return to Chicago and I took his place. I was lucky in that I soon became popular.”

“And then you decided to come to New York?”

“It is the theatre capital of America,” he said. “I had to make my name in the East to be truly a star.”

“You are doing much better work,” she said. “You are bound to become a name.”

“What about you?” he asked with a smile. “What is your story?”

She sighed. “I was very poor. I ran away from London and worked as a domestic in the household of a titled man, Lord Palmer. I fell in love with his son, George, his eldest son and the successor to the title. The father turned me out. I managed to make my way into the theatre.”

“You were bound to with your talent.”

“It wasn’t much developed then,” she told him. “And it was only while playing in a repertory company of which David was a leading member when I discovered my long-lost father was also a member of the company. He had deserted my mother years earlier.”

“Did you forgive him?”

“Eventually, I came to be genuinely fond of him and of the theatre. My father was killed in an accident and David asked me to marry him. I refused.”

“But later changed your mind?”

“Not for a long while,” she said. “I made my name as a star in London. In the meantime George’s father had died and he had married, but we were still in love. One of his brothers liked me and the other hated me. But I still saw George who was now a member of the House of Lords.”

Peter smiled. “Ruling gentry!”

“You could call him that,” she agreed. “We were seeing each other when his wife died mysteriously. George was accused of her murder but acquitted. He wanted to marry me but he could not without making him suspect once again. In the trial the thing which had saved him was that he lacked a motive.”

“And your romance with him did not come out?”

“No,” she shook her head sadly. “The brother who favored me warned me that I should leave London for both my own sake and that of his brother. I saw this was wise. His name was Charles and he asked me to marry him and go to India. I considered it.”

“But David Cornish came back into your life again?” he prompted her.

“Yes. And I knew it was right I should marry David and forget the past. I loved the theatre as David did. He also loved me though he knew about my love for George Palmer. I could not turn away from such an understanding man. And in the short time of our marriage I came to love and respect him as a husband and as an actor.”

“A remarkable love story,” Peter said. “I’m sorry it ended badly.”

“What about you?” she asked. “Surely there has been at least one great romance in your life.”

He smiled grimly. “Long in the past. When I was too young to properly understand the meaning of love.”

“And?”

“The woman was unhappily married. When I left her for a girl of my own age she locked herself in her bedroom and shot herself.”

Fanny was shocked. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” he said. “Perhaps that is why I never took love seriously again. I became afraid of it.”

“But that is wrong!”