When night comes, June entertains her with recitations by candlelight. He practices the big soliloquies with big gestures. On the rough wood wall behind him, his shadow throws out its arms. None of the children has ever been allowed to see their father perform. He wants none of them following him into the theater. But every surface in the house is stacked with playbills, clippings, gloves, wigs, and hats. No child has to go far to find Macbeth’s dagger or Hamlet’s cloak. Richard’s hump lies often on Father’s desk under his farm catalogues and a great many reminders of money owed. During the summers, when Father’s at home, he reads to them every evening. He talks about diction, inflection, rhythm. He is training them all for the thing they’ve been forbidden to do.

June has started to dream of an acting career in Philadelphia, where he knows some of the company and has been promised his chance. This is as much against his father’s wishes as his father’s own acting career was against his father’s wishes. There are other family traditions that June will eventually carry on as well, but he doesn’t know what they are yet.

Rosalie sees that June is hoping to astonish Father with his success, and she sees that he won’t. He speaks too quickly and his voice scales up when he wants to show a great emotion. This saddens her, but June will be all right.

He’s too steady to belong in this family anyway. She thinks that she will miss him dreadfully when he goes. Not that he was ever much company to her, but at least he was there.

—

Father, Mother, and little Edwin come home. They arrive late at night when no one is expecting them. Rosalie wakes to the keening of the dogs. She wraps her shawl over her nightdress and goes barefoot downstairs to fix them something to eat. Edwin is sleeping, draped over Father’s shoulder like a sack. She approaches Father, intending to kiss him, but he fends her off by handing her Edwin instead. She sees why. Her father’s face is a ruin.

What happened is something like this: Her father climbed through the window of Thomas Flynn’s room at the Planter’s Hotel in the dead of night and attacked him with a fire poker as he slept. It seems he meant to kill him. Mr. Flynn fought back. He picked up a pewter pot from a nearby table and smashed it into Father’s face, breaking his nose.

Everyone deeply regrets it all; the friendship is unaffected. Mr. Flynn is much more upset than Father. He’ll never be able to speak of it without tears. He blames himself for the blighting of Father’s career, though no one else appears to notice it’s blighted. The bookings, the big audiences, the rapturous reviews continue.

Rosalie’s father will never be handsome again, but no one minds that. What matters is his voice, which has always been the better part of his genius—melodious, capable of such shadings and subtleties. Without his voice, Father’s acting is more craft and less genius.