Sat, May 19 2012
| TITLE: | Rebecca Runs Away from Home |
|---|---|
| AUTHOR: | Sherry Thornburg |
| CATEGORY/TYPE: | Role Reversal Workshop |
| RATING/WARNINGS: | PG, Gen |
| MAIN CHARACTERS: | |
| DESCRIPTION: | Role Reversal Workshop Entry |
| STATUS: | Complete |
Rebecca didn’t think she had ever appreciated a fire so much. Running away from home to the theater had sounded so romantic. She had dreamed about the way it would be for months. Her name would be on everyone’s lips as the rising star of London’s gilded stage. She would be showered with praise for her acting and showered with gifts for her beauty by handsome admirers. She would wear beautiful clothes and go to beautiful parties and dance until dawn.
At least that was the dream. Gina, the woman that lived in the west cottage back home had painted a wonderful picture of her youth and how magnificent London was, and Rebecca had been enthralled. The young girl had snuck away from home more than once to listen to the retired actress tell of her former life on the stage playing Ophelia, Lady MacBeth, Juliet… Oh! It had sounded wonderful as Gina wove her stories!
But now, five days into her glorious adventure in London, having gone hungry to preserve her small purse… having been pawed by stage doormen who promised to introduce her to the stage manager but only letting her get as far as the first dressing room they could try to push her into…
That last time that had happened, Rebecca had offered a crown to the doorman for an introduction to the stage manager. The doorman eyed her coin then snatched it from her with a nod. “Come along,” he had said agreeably. He opened the back stage door for her but once inside he had escorted her into a costume closet claiming that she needed to make sure she would fit into the costume for the lead role. As innocent as Rebecca was, even she knew better than to think she would be given a role before auditioning.
“Let me out of here!” Rebecca had ordered firmly.
“After your audition,” he said looking at her like a roast goose on Christmas day. When he stepped toward her Rebecca realized her danger. She acted without thinking in the way any good country girl would act. She hauled back and blackened the man’s eye.
The shock of her attack stunned him long enough for Rebecca to make it to the door. Rebecca fumbled with the knob a little too long. He grabbed her shoulders from behind promising revenge. In response the much smaller girl twisted sending her elbow into his amble gut. His hold on her shoulders slackened for a moment. She then fully freed herself by stamping down on his toes with the heel of her sturdy walking shoes.
The man gave out a howl and started hopping up and down on his good foot. His balance wasn’t very good. On the second hop he fell over, overturning a rack of costumes. When Rebecca got the door open he was on the ground swimming in a sea of silks and gauze. The frightened girl made it to the back door and down two blocks without looking back. That experience among others made Rebecca seriously wonder if old Gina had not left out a few details of life in the big city.
Now, three days after that incident, Rebecca had regained her courage. She would try again, but this time she wouldn’t give up any of her dwindling coins.
Rebecca made her way to another one of the beautiful theaters Gina had mentioned. Gina said that the stage manager was the one to hire new actresses so her only hope was in meeting one. ‘If I can just get past this doorman... But first the fire,’ the shivering girl thought. The barrel of fire at the back stage door was presently burning old costumes and set material. Its light was all gold and red like Rebecca’s long unbound hair.
The girl had lost her hairpins her second night in London when she was attacked in the park where she had been sleeping. The city streets and alleyways she had discovered after her first night too dangerous to hazard. So Rebecca had taken to Hyde Park for the night thinking it safer. Wrapped up in her shawl, she had been in a fitful sleep dreaming about her brother Phileas and the last make-believe play they had done together back home just before their parent’s deaths. Their mother had approved her interest in the theater at first because it taught her children a love for literature. Mother had chosen the plays they had acted out back then. Sometimes she had insisted that they just do poetry.
Rebecca was jostled out of her dream of better days, awakened by someone tugging on her. It had been another woman taking refuge in the park. She was older, dressed in a dress Rebecca’s mother would have deemed far too revealing for a proper lady. But Rebecca had no time to consider her mother’s opinions on attire. The woman was trying to steal her precious shawl.
Younger and smaller than her attacker, Rebecca but fought with frenzy. She rolled away from the other woman’s grabbing hands and stood crouching, still half asleep but ready for the fight. The woman had made a second grab for her shawl but caught her braided hair instead. Rebecca cried out at the pain but fought on. She went down on her knees pulling the woman off balance then twisted to the right, sending her to the ground beside her. Once the woman was down Rebecca, victor of many tussles with her brother and cousins had kicked and pounded her until she let go of the handful of red hair she had had in an iron grip. Free again, Rebecca ran further into the woods and scampered up a tree for safety. Only after she was up the tree and safe again did she realize that she had left behind her travel bag that had contained her few possessions.
‘At least I didn’t loose my shawl and money,’ Rebecca had comforted herself. ‘What were a brush, a few hairpins and my extra day dress? I will buy new ones once I have a job in the theaters.’
Now, three days later standing by the barrel fire, Rebecca remembered her brave words and hoped they would come true. She tried to soak up as much of the heat as she could. She had not been warm in days. Her wool shawl was helpful but not near what she needed against the November chill. Rebecca once again pinned for the thick heavy cloak she had left at home. She had never considered that lodgings in London would be so expensive.
‘I didn’t plan this well at all,’ the girl thought as she stared into the fire. She had asked her brother to bring her to London to pursue her dream, but Phileas had refused. When she had persisted he had become even more against the idea. He had even forbidden her to visit Gina anymore. That had been the last straw for the headstrong Rebecca. She had waited until he left for a survey of the properties. Secreting her travel bag under her petticoats, she had taken a morning ride on her horse through the fields. Only this time she didn’t stop at the property line. She had gone on to the village and bought a train ticket to London.
‘By the time Phileas knew I was gone,’ Rebecca thought, ‘it would have been too late for him to catch up with me. I at least did that part right.’ Rebecca shut out her many bad memories and regrets returning to the here and now. With her hands warm again, she turned to the doorman. “Sir, I wish to see the stage manager,” Rebecca said politely but firmly.
“You and every other misbegotten street girl,” the man sneered.
“Virginia Roundtree sent me,” Rebecca lied crossing her fingers behind her back. “Virginia said to see the stage manager of this theater when I came to London. She said he would see me if I told him her name.”
“Virgina sent you did she?” The man said clearly not believing this dirty street urchin with the pretty red hair. “That has been hasn’t been on stage in over ten years. If you really know Virginia tell me her last part,” he ordered.
“Lady MacBeth,” Rebecca said firmly. “The play ran for four months and Mr. Verne told her she was his best Shakespearian actress ever.”
“That I did,” a voice said coming from behind Rebecca.
The girl whirled around and stood staring at its owner. The man was dressed to the nines. He had on a silk top hat, a black silk cravat, a fine cape over what she expected to be a splendid evening suit. ‘Lord! Even his shoes looked band new,’ she thought as her inspection of the older man reached his feet. He held in his hand a lacquered cane with a silver fob tip.
Her gaze headed back up to the man’s face again. He looked to be about forty. His was a kindly good face. It looked down at her in a kindly almost pitying manner. Rebecca’s pride took a hit at that but she didn’t shrink from it. With her hair down and tangled and her dress dirty from nearly a week of constant wear she probably did look a sight.
“So Virginia sent you to see me?” The man asked. “Has she a message to give her old friend?”
“You are Mr. Jules Verne… the theater owner?” Rebecca asked in awe.
“That would be me,” the handsome man said smiling.
“Oh, sir,” Rebecca said breathlessly. “Virginia said you hired actresses. I know five Shakespeare plays by heart. I could be just as good as Virginia with practice. She said I was very good. She said I would be a sensation on the stage.” Rebecca’s words tumbled out of her mouth fast, almost tripping on each other in their hurry to impress this man.
Mr. Verne raised his hand to stop the verbal barrage. “If Virginia told you that I don’t doubt it, but I’m not doing Shakespeare right now and I have hired all the actresses I need for the season.”
Rebecca’s face fell. He was going to send her away and she would have nothing. She didn’t have enough money left to buy a train ticket home. If she couldn’t get work soon she wouldn’t even have enough to buy the bit of food she had been allowing herself.
The girl couldn’t be much more than sixteen, Jules Verne assessed. How she had survived the city as long as the dirt on her dress suggested was beyond him. ‘A dreamy eyed run away,’ he was sure of it. And yet as he looked at the crest fallen little waif…
“What I do need is a costume seamstress,” Mr. Verne said gently. “If you are willing to take that job you can stay here at the theater. You can sleep in the costume closet and if you really are as good as Virginia says I’ll let you audition for next season’s plays. But for now, the seamstress’s position is all I have.”
Rebecca had spent too long in the city park to loose this chance at a roof. “Oh! Thank you sir,” she said gratefully.
“All right, and what is my newest seamstress’s name?”
“Rebecca,” she replied. And then just for a moment Rebecca hesitated. It was on her tongue to give him her proper name. ‘But what if this man was just pretending to want to hire me? What if he uses what I tell him to contact Phileas?’ Her brother would come straight to London for her the minute he knew where she was. Rebecca was rock certain of that. And he would see to it she never left the country again.
‘No,’ Rebecca decided. ‘I will not let him take me home when I have finally gotten my foot in the door.
“My name is Rebecca Fen. And I can sew sir. I sew very well in fact. I made most of my own clothes back home.”
“And where is that?” He asked.
“C… Cambridge,” the girl said.
Jules nodded to the doorman to let them both in. Jules wondered as he did it what had possessed him to offer the girl a job. In truth Jules Verne did need a seamstress for his upcoming production. His last one had up and quit on him in a temperamental fit taking her two helpers with her. He could have replaced them with any of the better-known experienced costumers just by asking, and he still intended to find another costume mistress. But this child, Virginia’s little friend, had looked so broken hearted when he said he wouldn’t hire her for the stage, he had been afraid she would cry. It wasn’t his habit to take in strays like this but the girl had touched his heart somehow. He just couldn’t bring himself to send her away.
‘I am doing that a lot lately,’ he complained. He had saved another hopeless young person from a gang of tuffs just this morning. The boy had been hopelessly out numbered and Verne just couldn’t force himself to leave the young man to his fate. And then when the starved exhausted boy had fainted, Jules had ordered his man to drive the boy to his home to recover.
‘Am I getting soft in my old age?’ He questioned.
“Well Rebecca Fen of Cambridge, come inside with me. We will get you settled into your duties right away,” Mr. Verne announced.
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