As he ascended the moveable steps to the stage and turned to survey the company, she watched Aurora give him a welcoming, acknowledging, second-degree-of-warmth smile, which he returned with a nod, oddly shy for an instant. Aurora had made a good start with him at the roadhouse; maybe they were safe after all.
Regaining his showman’s poise, Mayhew stood cocksure on the forestage, chest proud and knees locked backwards in a kind of strut. His vicuña coat was magnificent. The company clustered in the front rows sat rapt, as if at a performance, Clover thought: a tableau vivante—assumption of the throne by the new king.
‘The Ackerman–Harris Company will not maintain a theatre that is not paying its way,’ Mayhew announced, a trumpet voluntary kind of opener. His hat this morning was a tan fedora, brand new or immaculately brushed. ‘Well, they can’t! I’ve been asked to sweep in, a new broom, and I can tell you now, I’ve done the job in spades. As of today, Mr. Drawbank’s services are surplus-to-requirement at this establishment.’
None of the assembled artistes had liked Drawbank, but there was general silence all the same. Houses had never been more than half full at the Parthenon—Clover had not understood till they went to Butte how sparse the audiences here in Helena had been—but things could not have been that bad?
Julius Foster Konigsburg stood and raised the question they all feared to ask: ‘And what, my dear Maestro, has become of Gentry Fox, our long-time comrade and the artistic vision behind this fanfaronade?’
‘Well, he’s gone too,’ Mayhew said. ‘But not with any stain on his noble escutcheon, as you might say, Mr. Foster.’
Julius shuddered visibly.
‘Recall that Mr. Fox was well along in years—in fact it was he who wrote to Mrs. Ackerman suggesting she have a second look at the books here—no tinge of criminal suspicion, but merely to ascertain whether full benefit of box office was being rendered.’
Satisfied, or at least muzzled, Julius settled himself again beside Sybil.
Mayhew gathered himself into a nobler pose and deepened his voice. ‘In fact, at this time I’d like to pay a tribute to our pal Mr. Gentry Fox, late of this theatre, who has gone to what we all know is bound to be a rewarding retirement off the boards, down Montreal way. A legend in modern vaudeville, who sounded the depths and the rarefied air above the clouds of theatredom; the general of many battles, often in an army of one. As they say of the great ones, he cried for the griefs of others—for himself he chuckled. A great man of the theatre, and of the world!’
And that was all the fare-thee-well Gentry got: gone and only semi-besmirched. Clover felt a stab of pity, or perhaps anger.
Turning to practicalities, Mayhew expatiated on the seismic changes to come, growing particularly lively on the subject of the Press, and of Advertising, the Key to Success in Modern Polite Vaudeville. He dropped tantalizing hints about publicity stunts and gimmicks, and urged the company to greater efforts. ‘Don’t tell me that you killed at the Palace—do it here! I’ll tell you this for free: the audience is never wrong. If a performer fails to get across, it’s the material or the manner of presentation—don’t let me hear you blaming the rubes for not getting something. This is a discriminating audience here in Helena and in all our theatres, and we play to them and respect them.’
Which Gentry never had, Clover thought. He was a dreadful snob and elitist, but it was deeply kind of him to leave their pay increase on the books—for Mayhew to assume, it turned out. They had better be worthy of their hire.
Mayhew stepped down from rhetoric and into details: ‘First off, we’ll be papering the house for the next two weeks. No more playing to empty seats. We’ll take advantage of the community friendliness here, oil the water and find you some good audiences.’
New acts would be arriving to fill out the bill that Gentry had gradually reduced. Mayhew extolled their magnificence in such a naive, hucksterish way that after a little while Clover gave up listening. Maintaining an outward appearance of attention, she secretly pictured the back of Victor’s head, the tender hollow between two tendons at his neck.
Her attention was called back when a large curtained easel rolled out, with red-tasseled drawings displayed on it, and—she gave a gasp of pleasure—a beautiful photo of Victor Saborsky. New playbills were distributed among the company as Mayhew