Theatre of Marvels

by Lianne Dillsworth

Genres: African American Women's Fiction; Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Set amid the bustle of Victorian London, an irresistible story of an ambitious young Black actress, an orphan from the slums who has finally achieved a dubious stardom as “The Great Amazonia, a savage African queen”—but everything she has fought for depends on hiding the secret of her own identity.

As an orphan in the slums of St. Giles, Zillah was determined never to become part of the notorious Blackbird gang. With nothing to rely on but her own wit, she convinces infamous producer Marcus Stratton to hire her for his variety show in nineteenth-century London. But the act Stratton has in mind for Zillah is as The Great Amazonia, "a savage queen from darkest Africa.” His drunken audience laps this up, and as Zillah’s star rises, Stratton makes clear, in no uncertain terms, that her survival depends on her true identity staying secret. This careful planning is upended when Zillah finds herself caught between the attention of a mysterious Black gentleman and Stratton’s Viscount friend, who promises her the world. When another young Black woman in Stratton's employ goes missing, Zillah realizes she’ll have to make a choice: follow her ambitions, or stay true to herself. Theatre of Marvels is a thrilling love story, a piercing commentary on a brutal racial history, and a delicious Victorian adventure.

Release date: April 12, 2022

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 320

Sample

I The African in the Audience

Go to the theatre much? No, nor me. At least not before I became an actress. I know what you’re thinking. Actress, eh? But you can keep your dirty-minded thoughts to yourself. I trod the boards and no more. Doesn’t mean I don’t have a story or two to tell, mind. Would you be kind enough to indulge me if I talked about the old days? Hard as it was back then, I can’t say that if I had my time again I’d change it.

That feeling you get before the show starts. Whether you’ve been up Drury Lane once, twice, or ten times, I reckon you’ll know it. It comes up on you as the lights go down. The fizzing in your belly conjured by cheap gin and jellied eels at a farthing a pot. Keep your eyes hard fixed on the curtain in front of you. Those red velvet folds, with their heavy gold trim. You’re so eager at the thought of the performance to come, you tell yourself you saw it move. But if you really want first peek it’s best to look to the left of the stage. Time it right and you might just see the actors looking out at you.

Not at Crillick’s Variety Theatre, though. Back in the late forties, if you’d have found yourself sitting in the stalls you would have looked in vain. Doesn’t mean we weren’t there, just that you didn’t see us: redheaded Ellen and right alongside her with the wild black curls? That would be me, Zillah. I know it’s strange to think that we watched you before you watched us, but both of us had our reasons. Each night, Ellen searched the audience for a scout, someone with the power to pluck her from the Crillick’s stage and take her to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. She fancied herself a soprano. I was more concerned about seeing what mood the punters were in—if they were at the stage of drink where they would join in a singsong or so far gone they’d turn violent and throw things at us. Every crowd was different, but there was one September night, the year the Queen was delivered of her daughter Louise, when one man in particular caught my eye.

The first thing I noticed was his hat. It stood out a mile among the flat caps and bowlers, and he had the frock coat to match. It’s not often you get a man in a topper at Crillick’s. Don’t mistake me, Marcus Crillick’s show is more than a few rungs up from a penny gaff, but the quality don’t like variety. They prefer to keep things pure. So straightaway I was suspicious. Then I clocked the colour of him.

“Him over there. What do you make of him?” I said to Ellen.

She squinted in the direction of my pointed finger.

“The African, you mean? Don’t often get one of yours in.”

He sat on the benches, three rows back, his right leg stretched out on the aisle. Even from here, peeking out behind the curtain, I could see that he was handsome and broad in the shoulders. Around him sat our usual regulars, the shop boys and navvies already half-cut and impatient for the show to start. The sour tang of their sweat was sharp on the air. Beyond them were the tables for the better sort, the clerks with women worth the price of dinner and a show. The ushers weaved around them, touting trinkets and sweetmeats, competing for the pennies in their pockets. Up above, the box where our proprietor often sat was in darkness. Crillick liked to keep an eye on what was happening in his theatre, but for the time being he was away on business in France.

Ellen, satisfied that she had the measure of the African, delivered her verdict. “Selfish bastard, I reckon. Getting above himself. No call to be wearing a hat three minutes before the curtain.”

I was glad she was talking to me again. Things had been frosty between us for a couple of weeks, ever since Crillick had made me the headline act and cut Ellen’s solo from the bill to give me more stage time. It wasn’t my fault, of course, and she knew it, but that didn’t stop her being miffed. I suppose I would’ve been too, in her position, seeing how green I’d been when I started.

I’d joined Crillick’s company nine months earlier, at the new year. Ellen had been one of the first people I’d met backstage. She was the only one to welcome me, to pass the time of day while I got to know my act. Straightaway the others hated me, and didn’t trouble to hide it. When I entered a room, they snickered behind their hands. Just a drop or two of colour was enough to make me an outcast in their eyes. But Ellen, coming from Galway as she did, knew just enough of what it was to be different to see that we could be allies. She’d been kind, and all she’d got in return for her troubles was to be demoted. She could ill afford it too, what with all her money being sent back home. I did my best to be nice as I could, let her know I wasn’t trying to displace her. We’d always had a laugh together. I didn’t want us to feel like rivals.

All this time Ellen had been straining her eyes to look at the African.

“You recognise him?” she said.

“No, why would I?”

“I only asked.”

I shouldn’t have snapped. It felt like all the Irish people in town knew one another so she probably meant nothing by it. But I didn’t know him, had never seen him before in my life. He wasn’t “one of mine” like she’d said. I had no one.

But I didn’t want me and Ellen to be on the outs anymore. I had enough battles to fight so I squeezed her shoulder to say sorry.

“He’s unsettled me is all.”

“Then tell the boys to kick him out,” Ellen said.

“I couldn’t.”

I didn’t know what it was about the African that threw me off but I didn’t want to see his evening spoiled, not on my account. Especially as I knew it must be my act that he’d come to see. Not just him, mind. When I’d started off at Crillick’s, I’d been bottom of the bill but now I was the main draw. Over time I’d seen off Aldous the magician and Guillame the mime artist, and now the Great Amazonia was the headline act. I’d even been reviewed in the Illustrated London News—“a savage spectacular,” they’d said. “Here is one Amazon that has carried all before her.” I looked out at the African in the audience. If I performed well enough to fool him, Amazonia might remind him of his homeland. If he’d ventured into Crillick’s on his own, he must’ve wanted to see her very badly. I felt an urge not to disappoint him. I wanted him to like my performance. To like me.

I didn’t know where it came from, this sudden feeling of kinship. There had been other Blacks in the crowd before, of course, but this was the first time I’d felt drawn to one. I was half-caste, white as well as Black. Moreover, I was London born and bred, while most of the other Blacks—and mainly they were men—were from somewhere else. The soldiers at the palace who played the drums at the Changing of the Guard were brought in from Africa for their musical talents. I was nothing like them, their smart uniforms bright against their dark skin. Nor was I like the sailors and former slaves that hung around the docks. Buckled and broken down, they had mostly arrived from America. Unlike them, I’d always been free.

“Here now, what’s this?” Ellen said.

We watched as one of the ushers approached the African, leaning down to whisper in his ear. The African nodded as he spoke but the look on his face was grim. The usher put a hand on his shoulder and I tensed, waiting for a shout, or a punch to be thrown, but then the African turned back toward the stage and removed his hat. Underneath, his hair was cut close and the tight curls smoothed with a shiny pomade.

“I thought it was about to get tasty there. He’s definitely not one of the regulars,” Ellen said. She was right; it was rare that a whole night at Crillick’s passed without a fight breaking out in the audience.

“You should tell Barky if you’re worried,” Ellen said. Or stop your whining, she could have added, but didn’t.

“Let him be. You can tell he’s not in the market for any trouble.”

Barky was the stage manager. He’d never talked behind my back like I knew Ellen sometimes did and, though he was careful not to show me any favouritism, of all the people at Crillick’s I trusted him the most. There was no reason for him to look out for me, but I was glad that he did. Lean and mysterious like a shadow, his greying dark hair cut convict-short, Barky took seriously his job to look after the performers. He moved quiet as a cat. I was never sure how long he had been somewhere before he announced himself. He saw himself as an uncle and liked to call us his family. I suppose we were in a way. All families row and fight and secretly hate one another, don’t they? That’s what it was like at Crillick’s. All those performers with their own high pride and jealousies. Barky always checked up on us before a show so we did not miss our cues.

Now, right on cue himself, he appeared behind us in the wings and tutted to see Ellen and me in dressing gowns and drawers.

“Come on, girls, you should be in costume by now. You know who’ll get the rollicking if you’re late.”

He made his usual noise, something between a cough and a snort. It came out when we annoyed him, which was often. The strange sound had led to his nickname but he didn’t seem to mind that that’s what we called him. It never occurred to me back then to wonder what his real name was.

“There’s a man . . .” Ellen began but trailed off when I shook my head. It felt wrong to bring the African to Barky’s attention. The stranger may have rattled me but he had done nothing wrong, and it was reassuring that he hadn’t caught Barky’s eye. If there had been anything untoward in the crowd, I knew Barky would have spotted it.

“No more dallying then,” Barky said and clapped his hands to shoo us along.

Ellen jumped to it but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the African. His head was bent over his programme now. He traced a finger down the page, studying the acts to come. Ballerinas, acrobats, a magician, and then: the Great Amazonia. Barky’s arm stole around my shoulder. From another man the gesture would have made me cringe, but all the girls felt safe with Barky. He was the only man among the theatre workers that never made lewd remarks, nor lingered while we girls got changed.

“What’s got you spooked, girl?”

I desperately wanted to tell him, but I barely understood it myself. Back then I didn’t realise that the impression this African had made on me would be the start of something lasting, that it would change the way I lived my life and how I saw myself.

“Nothing wrong with a spot of nerves,” Barky said.

He gave me a searching look, but didn’t push it. After a moment, he steered me around and gave me a gentle shove in the direction of the steps that led backstage. Ellen hadn’t bothered to wait for me.

II Making Ready to Perform

The dressing room came with the privilege of being Crillick’s headline act. It had a table, chair, and gilt-framed mirror, but for all that it was clear it had started out as a broom cupboard. It didn’t bother me that it was still used to store the props. Coming from the slums of St. Giles as I did, this amount of space all to myself could only ever be a luxury. If only you could see me now, Mother.

I’d moved in two weeks before and had insisted that Ellen share it with me. I’d even made a den in one corner for her tan-and-white spaniel, Bouncer, who featured in my act. I knew it wouldn’t make up for losing her solo but it had helped to improve things between us. I picked my way past the magician’s birdcage, the balls and batons used by the clowns, and a rope swing for the trapeze artist. It smelt of dustcloths and floor polish and the vinegar used to clean the stage.

Wooden boards known as flats and painted for all manner of backdrops were leant up against the walls. Snow-tipped mountains, foam-flecked waves, and, my new favourite, the English countryside with rolling green meadows, complete with daffodils and delicate little rosebuds. That rural greenery was a world away from St. Giles and the cramped buildings that I’d grown up among. Most of my life I’d lived in broken-down hovels with not a pane of glass between them. Rooms where the walls were held together with rags and dirt, and where a body might die and no one notice for days, let alone lay it out and say the prayers. There was a time before that, but I tried not to dwell on it too much.

After I arrived for my performance and before I was due to start getting ready to go onstage, I had taken to sitting before that countryside board and imagining myself in those meadows with Lord Vincent Woodward. I pictured him sitting alongside me, his hand twining in my hair, while he pointed out that all the land we could see was his, and would be ours when we were married. If I concentrated hard enough, I could almost feel the tickle of the soft grass against my bare legs, smell the freshness of the strands I’d pulled up in tufts, hear the sound of sparrows chirping and church bells in the distance. I’ve never been much of a believer but those bells were probably the most important part of it. The ones I heard every Sunday from St. Paul’s could be those same ones that carried on the gentle breeze in my imagined meadow. Their chimes were the sole thing that connected the place where I wanted to be with where I was now. You see, St. Giles may be where I was coming from, but I had no intention of staying. Crillick’s and the Great Amazonia were my path out of there. I’d make sure of it.

Ellen always teased that I was away with the fairies when she found me sitting there, but she had her own dreams. When I’d first started at Crillick’s, one of the very first things she’d told me was about the cousins in New York that she would go to as soon as she’d raised enough money to get her mum and sisters out of Galway. It was what had made me warm to her, that ambition to get on that burnt in me too. I judged her to be around twenty-five or so, five years older than myself. It was clear she knew her way around and, though I was streetwise enough, I saw in her someone who could help me learn the ways of the theatre. I’d not expected her to still be around, but nine months had passed since the day we met and here she still was, and talking about America less and less.

There was no time for dreaming now, though. The band had struck up, which meant that the curtain would soon rise. I strained my ears for its heavy velvet swoosh while I wriggled into the skins Amazonia wore. Ellen handed me my feathered cloak and beads. I pulled them on and sat down to chalk the soles of my feet so I wouldn’t slip on the polished boards of the stage. Bouncer had been sleeping, but now he sat up and wagged his tail, sensing that things were about to start happening.

As soon as I was dressed, Ellen helped me paint my arms and face. I sat numbly as she smeared over me the mix of grease and soot, basting my arms and legs like a stuffed goose, so my skin gleamed dark. She murmured Crillick’s instructions in a singsong while she worked—“Here you go then, blood of yer fallen enemies”—stabbing two fingers into a pot and drawing them across my cheeks to create twin pairs of dripping “tribal marks.” The stuff inside the pot was made from poppy petals and thickened to a paste with water and flour. Where did Crillick get this idea of the tribal marks anyway? Would they mean anything to the Black man who sat waiting in the audience for the show to start, or anyone else in Africa either? Ellen made one more line down the center of my forehead for good measure. The skin puckered and she dabbed her finger to my face to correct the smudge, while I stood silent. Satisfied, she stepped back and looked me over.

“You’ll do,” she said.

Growing up, I’d hated how dark I was, how an afternoon in the sunshine would make the colour in me glow. Now it turned out I was not Black enough. In order to convince as the Great Amazonia, I must be the deep, rich colour of mahogany. The darker tone combined with the natural hazel of my eyes would increase my allure. At least, that’s what Marcus Crillick had told me.

“There can’t be a hint of the East End about you. What you need to be is Black as pitch. What was your father? Let me guess. An English gent, I think? We must remove every trace of him for the act to succeed, and no one can ever know of your deception.”

My deception? It was Crillick that was paying me to do it. I’d felt the warmth rise in my cheeks and looked away so he wouldn’t see. It wasn’t embarrassment. There were more bastards than me in St. Giles and more almond-shaped eyes and thick black hair than could be explained away by God’s rich tapestry. Still, it was none of his business who my mother and father were, and anyway, what difference did it make? I had only myself to rely on now.

“Can I help you with your makeup?” I asked Ellen and pointed to the pot of burnt cork on the dressing table.

“Not with those nails.” Ellen grimaced. At Crillick’s request, she had helped me file them the previous week to wicked points. I regretted it already, used to being able to discard the things that made me Amazonia, but one of my rivals at a show on Shaftesbury Avenue had filed teeth. I drew the line at that, but Crillick’s Variety was not to be completely outdone.

“My face won’t take a minute, then I’ll do Mikey and Bob,” Ellen said.

The two men played foot soldiers to her cupbearer. Ellen never said so but I couldn’t help but wonder if they were cousins of hers, those three seemed so thick with each other.

I looked into the mirror over her shoulder at Amazonia, the woman who was me and not me. In the programme she was described as “a dangerous savage from darkest Africa” but beneath Ellen’s cunning paint I was still Zillah. Ellen turned and her pale, freckled face appeared alongside mine in the glass. Soon she too would be transformed for the performance. She and the boys who acted as my worshippers used a pot of Stein’s to blacken their hands and faces. I hated the smell of the burnt cork, but it was cheap and it worked, and for them there was no need for pretense, the black so obviously grotesque and the red smiles painted on. I didn’t like that the line between me and Amazonia was so blurred. She was a savage. I wasn’t.

“Get on with you, Zillah. I’ll be along in a minute,” Ellen said. “Now you’re the headliner, it’s not only Barky that gets blamed if you miss your cue.”