Chapter 2

The effulgent glare of the moon beamed down like the eye of God. It illuminated her path more than the evenly placed gas street lamplights girdling the sidewalks.

Elsia tugged the ends of her gloves and attempted to divest herself of the fanciful thought. Her immortal soul wasn’t in danger, was it?

Her father’s claims to the contrary echoed in her mind.

In the theater, faithless sinners with tawdry, made-up faces ran amok with coarse language and unbridled behavior. In hushed circles, whispers abound. Actors and actresses proffered their favors without prejudice to whoever desired them.

How she wished her dear friend, Sebro, had taken the journey with her. In her friend’s care, anxiety would lose its foothold on her bravery, conquered by Sebro’s blatant disregard for propriety.

“If you’re so frightened for your soul, Elsia, why are you pursuing Zelpher into the pits of hell?” Sebro’s velvety voice from three days ago sounded in her head.

“You and everyone else in Five Points knows why.”

Sebro’s cold, dark eyes had narrowed. “You’ll become as evil as I am if you’re not careful, my sweet Elsia. And I would so enjoy the company.”

A light laugh escaped her lips as she came to the corner. Leave it to Sebro, even in her absence, to calm her nerves. If her friend were here, she’d have made the journey more pleasant.

Her mirth subsided some. Had Sebro come with her, the meeting would have ended in calamity. In each other’s presence, Sebro and Zelpher squared off like soldiers in battle.

Elsia stopped in her tracks as a sudden thought entered her brain.

Had Zelpher partaken of those favors?

Her fingers curled into fists, and she hissed through her teeth. For long moments, her mind filled with half-formed images of Zelpher consuming the advances of beautiful, faceless women.

Taking in a breath, she stilled her racing heart. Zelpher would never betray her, so why allow her mind to dwell on distasteful things?

She eased the breath out of her tight chest and continued her walk.

After she left Zelpher, she had the cabman take her to the Magnetic Telegraph Company. After paying the exorbitant fee to send a telegram to her father, she secured lodgings for the night at Mrs. Carraway’s Boardinghouse for Colored Occupants on Lombard Street.

Elsia haggled vigorously with the woman before she paid another excessive charge for one night’s stay.

Sebro’s imagined voice spoke in her mind. “Is Zelpher Knight worth five dollars of your father’s hard-earned money?”

What could she say? No one in Five Points comprehended her love for Zelpher.

When she came to the corner, she paused. Mrs. Carraway had been right. The American Theatre, unlike its fashionable counterpart, The Chestnut Street Theatre above Sixth Street, catered to a different class of society.

A mass of people congregated outside the building. Dispersed amongst the throng waiting for entry were members of the various social strata of the working class — house servants, factory workers, shopkeepers, and laborers.

Many people willingly entered the depths of hell.

With a steadying huff of air, Elsia adjoined herself to the crowd. Cloying perfume competed with the aroma of unwashed bodies and garbage.

Not so different from home.

When the doors opened, a peculiar itch rippled down her back. Moisture evaded her mouth, and she swallowed to regain it.

Apollo’s warnings about respectable behavior blared in her mind. Women like her avoided these sorts of establishments. Who knew what could happen once she entered those doorways?

Apollo must be ill with worry, though the telegram would ease his fears. His dislike for Zelpher wasn’t helped by her rebellion, but he knew nothing would prevent her from seeing Zelpher again.

Elsia groaned as she paid for her ticket and entered the building.

If the American Theatre resembled hell, it was an elegant place for one’s doomed soul.

A coffeehouse at the front of the building provided the nutty aroma wafting to her nose. Some attendants broke away and headed to a cellar restaurant. She, along with others, passed through the doors.

The balconies formed a horseshoe shape supported by cast-iron columns. They overlooked the main floor seating. Gilded wooden ornaments decorated the front of the boxes, the columns, and the proscenium.

Elsia followed other colored theatergoers until she arrived at the section reserved for them. Checking the playbill, she saw there would be a Philadelphian local musical, a minstrel show, and a Shakespearean play.

Undoubtedly, Zelpher would be in the Shakespearean play.

A sense of doom crept over her. What was she doing here? She was to deliver a message and return home. Instead, she sat here in this theater, eagerness and fear warring inside her, waiting for a chance to see Zelpher performing a role of magnitude.

A male voice startled her. “Pardon me, miss. Is it your first time here?”

Elsia lifted her eyes from the playbill. A colored gentleman stood above her. She had an overall impression of thinness. Tall and lean-framed with compact shoulders. A cotton and linen suit of a gray-checked design hung loosely with a burgundy necktie stark against the white shirt.

“Yes, it is. How did you guess?”

“I told you, didn’t I?”

A rotund colored woman stepped from behind the man. Her gray cotton gown with its tight, long sleeves fit snug on her robust form. An expansive white shawl embroidered with flowers saved the garment from plainness. Her brown eyes and welcoming smile added a natural sparkle.

They exchanged introductions and as they settled into their seats, Mr. Langford asked his wife, “Why do you suppose this always happens, dear?”

“We’re the most knowledgeable about the theater. Providence demands we share that knowledge.”

“I learned some things about the theater when I arrived today,” she said with haste, lest one of them seek to educate her.

“Did you know Edwin Forrest performed here?”

Elsia’s mouth fell open. “The Edwin Forrest?”

Their heads nodded as one. “He first performed here as a lad of fourteen years.”

“Did he?” She leaned forward.

Mrs. Langford gave a pleased smirk. “Indeed. I have it on good authority—”

“Gossip,” Mr. Langford interjected.

“Authority,” the woman repeated, cutting her eyes at her husband, “that while inhaling the fumes of a rather strange gaseous material, he did a soliloquy of one of Shakespeare’s plays.”

Mr. Langford added, “That was nearly thirty years ago, long before our time.”

“Have you ever met him?”

Mrs. Langford’s smile wavered, and her gaze darted away. “Indirectly.”

Elsia gave a slight shake of her head. “What do you mean?”

“My grandmother did. She mistook him for a friend of hers.”

“How can that be when—”

The words ended as if sliced away by a knife. Her mouth formed an ‘O’ while a sinking sensation dropped in her stomach. “I believe I understand you.”

“I’m glad I don’t have to explain the circumstances to you.” Mrs. Langford patted Elsia’s hand in a friendly way. “One swallow doesn’t make summer, as they say. We can’t judge the man for something he did nearly thirty years ago.”

Perhaps, but her admiration for the great Edwin Forrest suffered a blow.

Elsia sighed. What could anyone say against it? Performing ‘blackface’ was a part of American society as much as slavery.

Commotion from the stage drew their attention and Elsia tried to dispel her distasteful thoughts. She found she couldn’t focus. Throughout the play, tension steadily tightened the skin between her shoulder blades.

How long before Zelpher came out? She wanted to see him perform.

Until then...

Her lips pressed tight into a grimace. What a mean trick to play, pretending to be colored.

Was it worse he’d fooled the old woman?

Elsia sighed. What could anyone do about it? Thomas Dartmouth Rice, known as “Daddy” Rice, blazed the trail of blackface with his portrayal of ‘Jim Crow’ as well as the song “Jump Jim Crow.” Since then, white performers had ‘blacked up’ to portray ‘the darky in his natural form’.

Her eyes drifted down to the words ‘minstrel show’. Mr. Frederick Douglass, the former slave turned abolitionist, who set white and colored ears aflame with his oratory, had scorned it. His words reverberated in her mind.

“ ... the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens.”

She gave a start as the play ended with a thunderous round of applause, grimacing when she heard the announcement for the next act.

Straightening her spine, she swallowed the bitter taste at the back of her mouth. She had never seen a minstrel show. Though she abhorred the idea on a matter of principle, she nonetheless was curious about it.

It started with the troupe of minstrels arriving onto the stage, all smothered in blackface with buffoonish expressions. Dressed in ill-fitting clothes, they danced with sinuous, limber moves in a circle, making her eyebrow arch into her forehead. Once the dance was finished, members of the troupe exchanged wisecracks and sang songs.

When they moved to the second act, one of the endmen came forward, the one known as Tambo and sat on a platform.

Elsia’s heart stopped.

She knew that face, despite the fact it was slathered in black greasepaint or burnt cork. She knew those lips, outlined to exaggerate their wonderful fullness. She knew that voice, disguised as it was.

Zelpher!

The sinking sensation turned into a hole, sucking in every other emotion except pain. As he bandied back and forth with Zip Coon, a caricature of the dandified colored man, her hands curled into fists.

What made the entire spectacle worse was the sound of the audience’s laughter as the two men verbally sparred with puns and parodied English.

How could Zelpher do this? How could he allow himself to accept a role like this? Why would he do this? When he left Five Points, he’d told her he’d become as famous as Edwin Forrest himself.