that she would wear the peau de soie from Helena: an ice-cream vision, needing only to be hemmed. The wedding was set for the Saturday before they opened, to garner the most press possible. Mayhew was busy sweet-talking editors from the eight newspapers; he had himself paged in hotels and restaurants, interrupting with messages of bogus urgency the lavish luncheons he gave. He’d installed the Très Belles Aurores in Mrs. Hillier’s, a small boarding hotel catering to respectable vaudeville, only six streets from the Starland.
The Starland itself was a plain box on 8th Avenue, not near as grand as many of the other theatres, one of a small string with theatres in Winnipeg, Brandon, Calgary and Lethbridge, and on the other side of the line, in St. Paul and Omaha. Although most were moving-picture houses, the Omaha theatre had been running vaude, and management had decided to try it in the Calgary branch. Mayhew arranged, in what seemed like a matter of hours, to helm the effort until the Muse should be ready to open in Edmonton. He seemed to have twenty irons neatly arranged at his fire, Clover thought. Twenty she knew of, probably another dozen he’d kept up his sleeve. He dashed in and out of the theatre, where rehearsals had begun; in the evenings, Mayhew squired the three girls to the other theatres in town to check the competition—never paying for a seat, so successfully had he established himself as an impresario to be given every entrée.
Mama begged off each time, saying that Mayhew’s escort was enough; she was working in secret, Clover knew, on an embroidered wedding veil for Aurora. Between the fire and two gas-lamps, she sat stitching late into the evening, a garden of white-on-white flowers growing under her silver needle. Clover had heard her murmuring a series of wishes, like spells, into the veil as she sewed: that Mayhew would treat Aurora well, that he would be kind to her sisters, that Aurora would be happy, or at least safe and well. Nothing more ambitious. She was careful not to prick her finger, saying blood on the veil would mean a wound or a broken marriage.
The girls wore their best lawn to the fashionable Bijou Theatre. They had carefully dressed their hair, but were overshadowed by the extravagance of dress and coiffure in the audience around them, let alone onstage. Made shy by the noise and crush and sheer number of people, Clover felt they were country mice as they settled into red velvet seats, lights dimming and the chatter finally lessening.
The opener was a comic, Joe Whitehead. His catch-phrase was ‘squeaky good!’ and he used it every other line; Clover whispered to Bella, ‘I miss East and Verrall, and Julius.’
What the Bijou Theatre bill did feature was beautiful girls. Even Aurora was not a candle to them; the Avery girls could barely register in the firmament of beauty there. The Eight Palace Girls, ravishing nymphs in complicated costumes, changed three times during their number—each time into rather less. Each of the eight was equally well shaped; all seemed good-natured. While music played they stood in graceful poses, altering slowly from stance to stance. Like matched ponies at a horse show, Clover thought, and just as tedious.
The Dahlia Sisters closed the first half: two very beautiful, modestly dressed girls who sang, and did not dance at all. They wore pretty gowns, but more, they seemed to glow with good nature and kindness, and Clover wanted to sit through their number again from the beginning.
December–May
Aurora asked Mayhew to take her backstage at intermission, if he was able. He laughed at the notion that anyone would try to keep him out, and they trooped down.
The Dahlia girls were even lovelier, close to. Aurora found she could not look them in the eyes for long, as if she were drinking in too much light. The fair-haired girl’s cheek was flushed with apricot; her eyes were grey or green or blue, pale brows giving an odd impression of vulnerability to her open regard. She seemed unknowable. The dark-haired girl’s sprinkling of tiny freckles could be counted, this close. Her eyes were bright and sad at the same time, perhaps some trick of birth, the lift in the upper lid coming at the exact point for tragedy. Her underlying sorrow gave a sombre quality to their songs.
Thoroughly humbled, Aurora saw that she and her sisters had been mistaken to think themselves anything out of the common run. And