“Nonsense! The snake transformation isn’t going to be enough for an audience of New Yorkers. We need the big gun.” Thalia held Nutall’s gaze until her enthusiasm melted his restraint.
Nutall conceded defeat in their staring contest. “Oh, very well. The Bullet Catch it is. You will be careful.”
Delighted, Thalia pulled him onward. “I always am.”
Nutall gave her an old-fashioned look. “You never are.”
“I will be from now on, I promise.” Thalia set aside her fear of the night before. Stage magic was what she knew. Stage magic was her livelihood. She was a professional. She would give her performance every ounce of skill and determination she possessed. The audience would witness the kind of magic only a Solitaire could make.
Chapter Three
Although the Majestic Theater had just as many seats as the theater Thalia had played in Philadelphia, the performance that evening was much better attended. It had been six months since Thalia had last played New York City, but some of the stagehands remembered her.
“Hey, Lady of the Lake,” one called when he saw her. “Welcome back to the big time.”
“Oh, Ed, I’ve seen bigger,” Thalia replied sweetly.
Ed the stagehand rolled his eyes. “You’re too young for that kind of talk, Miss Cutler.”
Thalia left Ed behind as she made her way toward the dressing rooms. Although the Majestic Theater was in the Cadwallader Syndicate, not the Keith Syndicate, backstage was no different. It was full of shadows and smells—sweet greasepaint, stale sweat, cheap perfume, and even wet dog hair from one of the animal acts.
The dressing rooms at the Majestic, unlike those at some theaters, were worth the argument it took to get one. Thalia wasn’t the headliner, so there was no designated room with a star on the door for her. The rest of the cast shared the two bigger rooms, one for men and one for women. The women’s dressing room had mirrors on one wall and a screen to dress behind. It wasn’t perfect privacy, but Thalia had experienced much worse. There were theaters out on the circuit with so little thought given to the performers that Thalia had to change in her room at the boardinghouse before the show.
Behind the screen, Thalia buckled herself into the pigeon squeezer, which fitted over her corset and chemise. Once she had the doves safely stowed, she donned the white Lady of the Lake gown with its hanging sleeves. The extra fabric made it easy to produce the doves on cue without giving away their point of origin. Thalia unpinned her fair hair and combed it to fall smoothly over her shoulders and down her back. The gilt circlet of the Lady of the Lake’s crown was the finishing touch. Thalia made sure she had it on straight and pinned firmly in place before she shook out her voluminous skirts and stepped forth. A black Solitaire clog dancer in a blue dress immediately took her place behind the screen.
To put on her greasepaint, Thalia had to jostle for room in front of a well-lit mirror. Singers, dancers, and acrobats were doing the same, but Thalia held her own against them all. She finished up her face with a dot of red beside the inner corners of her eyes and put enough kohl on her light brown eyelashes to darken them to visibility.
By the time Thalia joined Nutall in the wings, she was fully in character, head high, back straight, the genuine regal Lady of the Lake with every swoop of her sleeves. She reminded herself to keep her chin up, the better to show off the line of her throat. Thalia knew she was no Lillian Russell, but she strove for that kind of elegant self-possession.
Nutall shifted his attention from the ventriloquist act onstage to Thalia. “There you are. Ready to impress them?”
Thalia gave him her widest smile. “Ready to catch a bullet.”
“Don’t even joke about it.” Nutall squared his shoulders. The ventriloquist finished up and took his bows. The pit orchestra struck up Thalia’s music. Nutall smiled back at Thalia. “Break a leg.”
* * *
Although their act was announced as the Lady of the Lake and the Siege Perilous, Nutall ignored the mistake until it was time to replace the old trick with the new. They moved through the routine dove by dove, until it was time for the big finish.
Nutall’s voice was smooth as aged brandy and as deep as London fog, pitched to reach the last row of the seats in the highest tier of the cheapest