Free The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott

dark-hollowed eyes outlined in soot and a short nose above a very wide, mobile mouth. She must be Eleanor Masefield, the actress in the play. She wore something wonderful, a shimmering dark blue travelling costume in dull satin, elaborately cut and trimmed, but playing second fiddle to her magnificent head.
    Jimmy the Bat jumped this time, standing almost at attention, some way off from Aurora.
    ‘Oh, I’m early,’ the apparition breathed, in a smoky whisper. She smelled of flowers.
    Aurora tried to vanish back into her corner, but the woman’s head turned gracefully and she fixed Aurora in a charming stare, with a glimmer of a laugh. Of mockery?
    ‘You were the opener! You have an ex -quisite voice, my dear.’
    Aurora found herself standing, and almost curtsying. Bah! She stood straight.
    The woman turned from Aurora, dropping her out of the clutch of her attention to find the young man.
    ‘Jimmy, good—I’ve left my fur wrap in the carriage, and it’s gone back to Bell’s Hotel. Sprint along and get it. It’s cold in here. And give me your arm up those unspeakable stairs. I shouldn’t be down here before the interval, those galloping girls will be back.’
    He bowed very slightly, a gentleman even while being a flunky. As he helped with the sweeping skirt’s exit he looked up at Aurora, a difficult expression on his face. Help! it said, and yet, Don’t worry, I’ve got her wound around my thumb! Rueful, and partly apologetic. It made Aurora quite sad to see that lowly apprentice look, but she was stilllightly vibrating from Eleanor Masefield’s electric presence. ‘Ex-quisite!’ She must find Clover to tell her.
    At the bottom of the stairs, Aurora bowed again to the rickety steps, the bow she should have given at the end of their turn. Strong beginning, strong end, doesn’t matter what happens in the middle, Mama said, and that was right. She looked up, and there was Jimmy the Bat, smiling down at her over the banister. He applauded, hands not quite touching, and threw her an invisible rose before leaping off to do Miss Masefield’s bidding.
    Then Aurora had to dash herself, because the tunnel door opened and there was Mrs. C. with her bucket, come to do the dressing-room floor. Aurora hoped she had not seen the bow.
    A Broken Spell
    They were allowed to find a seat at intermission, if they were out of makeup and costume. Bella was poring over the melodrama script she’d found tucked into the old velvet armchair in the dressing room. She and Clover leafed through it—lines underlined, cryptic notations—before returning to the first page:
IN AN ARTIST’S STUDIO
Scene: An artist’s studio in Bohemia, in the heart of New York City. A model’s throne, Stage Left, heavy draperies behind a chaise longue. A great easel dominates the room, on which stands a full-length portrait of a beautiful raven-haired woman, carrying lilies. The woman of the portrait is caught, as the curtain rises, in the act of securing a diaphanous robe around her waist—had the curtain risen an instant before, her nakedness would have been exposed .
    Nakedness! But they had to stop reading, as the lights were lowered and the music began for the Knockabout Ninepins. The Ninepins were just as startling as their audition had been, the fury of Mr. Dent ifanything more ferocious than before. Nando, hair standing out like Struwwelpeter’s, was a shock-headed boy-broom whisking around the stage upside down. Mama gave a shriek, with the audience—impossible to believe that he was not being hurt in the act, but after yesterday’s run he’d had no bruises, no scrapes. Bella winced, as he whirled up into the air at the end of that long broom, to see his hands tightening in what looked like terror. But the crowd adored it. They had merely clapped before; now they stamped their feet, and when the beautiful Mrs. Dent rose up unhurt as well, there were cries of relieved admiration from the people sitting nearby.
    Soon after the melodrama