Downstairs, somebody is bellowing a poem, a rhyme Jasper adapted from a song composed for Jenny Lind.
‘All that is monstrous, scaly, strange and queer,
Thou hast, O Jasper, brought us here,
Summoned from the womb of earliest time
Creatures wingèd, tall, foul and sublime.
Leopard girl and camel, lobster boy and bear,
Monsters spring up, the wolf loves the hare.
All brought from thy hand, O thou illustrious man,
Now Nellie Moon has joined the caravan.’
A roar of laughter, applause.
Who owns me? Nell wonders, hand slipping into the drawer. She remembers what Charlie said, that harm would come to her. She is safe, she tells herself; her life is desirable. Every day, Jasper tells the newspapers more stories about her. She reads how she was hatched from a dragon’s egg, spun from moonlight, birthed in a sea of fire and heat. The dull reality of her life – the flower farm and the sea and Charlie – has begun to fog and vanish. Even the truth of how Jasper came across her, the pain of her snatching, is overwritten, a story she cannot tell. I found her pinching stars from the heavens and extinguishing their tiny fires against her arms. He has turned her life into his own, his pen distorting her truth. She feels like a pulled flower, its roots severed.
She thinks of storming downstairs, smashing the crystal decanters against the wall, upending the table, grinding torn shreds of salmon into the rugs. Would they stare, shriek? How would they tell this story afterwards, how would they reshape it? Perhaps they would like it – everything she broke would be replaced with a quick wave of the hand, and she would merely become an anecdote, a tale about a little monster and her fit – someone who cannot be controlled or contained. She bows her head. She will not give them the satisfaction.
The drawer creaks. She touches the silks of bloomers, bonnets and ribbons. Her fingers snag on a small box. It is probably a ring, or a necklace, or money, too great to steal. She fiddles with the clasp. A pocketknife, the handle carved from mother-of-pearl. She flicks out the blade, tests it against her hand.
Before she can change her mind, she slips it into her pocket and runs back downstairs.
Stella acts as if nothing passed between them, as if the scab has already healed and Nell imagined that glimpse of sadness. The dukes and duchesses are drunk, loosened from their stiff poses, as bawdy as rakes and theatre girls. A man scorches Nell’s arm with a cigar, and Stella seizes it from his plump fist and extinguishes it in his port. Nell expects him to be angry, but he only laughs and leans closer to her. A lady draws out a monkey in a cage, and it chatters, silk leash around its neck. ‘My darling creature,’ she says. ‘Just look at his queer little face.’
When the candles are burnt to stubs, and dawn is beginning to break, Nell and Stella leave, careering down the marble staircase. ‘It’s a dream,’ Stella cries, as if she had not just sat in a small dark room and cried.
‘A dream,’ Nell echoes, and a man chases them, his shirt flapping open. He seizes Stella by the hand.
‘Away, beast!’ she cries, and he laughs, presses his lips to her hand. Nell pushes him, just gently enough that he will not take offence.
Outside, Jasper and Toby are waiting in the box seat. The man takes a bottle of champagne and smashes it against the wagon, pours it over the backs of the zebras.
‘Steady,’ Jasper says, but he laughs because the man is rich.
Toby looks at Nell, for just a flicker. She longs to reach out, to pull him down to her, to hear his fast breath against her cheek. His lips on her neck, his body curled to meet hers. She wants to knock Jasper from the seat, to ride alongside Toby and feel the gritty London air on her cheeks. But he looks away, his gaze fixed on his shoes.
‘Look at me,’ she shouts, but Stella shushes her. Just as her friend ushers her into the coach, she sees Toby give a small shake of his head.
‘Get in,’ Stella says, giving her a shove. Jasper stares at her, a grin smeared across his face. ‘And stop bawling like a fox in season. You’re drunk.’
But Nell slams her hand against the roof, smashing it as hard as she can. Toby does not want her.
‘Stop that,’ Stella says, pulling her hands down. ‘You need to forget him. And watch yourself.’
‘Why?’
‘If you’re stupid enough not to realize, I shan’t be the one to tell you.’
‘What?’
Stella shakes her head, then draws out a rattling bag. ‘Look what I snatched.’ She empties out teaspoons and porcelain paperweights and coins.
‘Why should I be careful?’
Stella ignores her. She picks up a pair of sugar tongs. ‘Look what I took,’ she says.
‘Are they silver?’
‘I snatches whatever I sees,’ Stella cries, and she puts her arm around Nell’s shoulders. ‘One day, all this silver will buy me the most magnificent troupe.’
Perhaps it is her way of overwriting her upset earlier, and Nell looks at her, decides to play along. ‘We’ll ride in on elephants,’ she says.
‘I’ll teach you the trapeze.’
‘What will we call ourselves?’
‘The Flying Sisters.’
‘And we’ll belong only to ourselves.’
They kick their feet against the padded seats of the carriage, and it is just them inside. Just them as they jolt across the city, past buildings as big and white as the moon. The knot within Nell eases, and they laugh for no reason at all.
Jasper
They thunder towards London Bridge, the wide bellies of the zebras swaying.
Look at me, Nell cried, and Jasper took in her loosened hair, the edges of tears in her eyes. There was an abandon to her that he had not seen before. He can hear her laughing inside the carriage. So often, he has found himself on the brink of visiting her in her wagon at night. And yet, there is something about her that stops him, a quality that resists being pinned down. As if by touching her, he will break her.
It is Stella he always used to visit, but he has skirted her since that night with the ring. He turns it over, the gold dulled. E. W. D. Edward William Dashwood. The bruised limbs, the cooling fingers, how he could not slip the ring over the knuckle. He reaches for his brother’s arm, squeezes it.
‘What is it?’ Toby asks, watching the zebras. ‘What’s troubling you?’
Jasper looks at his brother and finds he cannot reply.
Toby pats his arm. ‘It’s the debtor, isn’t it?’
‘I’ll pay him tomorrow.’
‘How much?’
‘A thousand pounds a week.’ Jasper tries not to notice Toby’s flinch.
‘You aren’t worried?’
‘No,’ Jasper says. He taps his foot. ‘No. My show can only rise.’
He knows they are both thinking of their father.
Jasper puts the thought from his mind. After all, he has enough, just enough, to pay the Jackal. In the morning, he will walk to Soho and hand the man the money, as he has done so many times before. The Jackal will flick through the notes, fold them into his pocket, and smile. His teeth, so small in that fleshy face, like lumps of sugar in dough. And then, that green door will close and the sky will swing down to meet him and Jasper will be safe. Safe, for a little longer.
He wraps his cloak tighter around him and feels the pistol he keeps tucked into his waistcoat. Down, across Westminster Bridge – he darts a look left, then right. They racket past cheap lodging houses, past fake gentlemen in slop-shop clothes. Gin palaces and opium dens, patrons slumped before them. The moon is pinned to the sky like a moth. His brother’s leg leans against his own.
Ahead of them, the gates part. Dawn cuts open the sky. A boy runs to meet him, a note in his hand. His face is twisted with – what? Panic? Elation?
‘What is it?’ he asks, and his heart is a weighty thing. The Jackal, he thinks – could he have mistaken the date? Could the man want more?
He takes the letter, slits it open with a pocket
knife. An unknown crest, thick paper. Neat, looping script. A squeezing in his chest.
‘What is it?’ Toby asks.
Jasper pauses, tentative, almost afraid to voice it. He coughs. ‘The Queen wants to see our show.’ He says it more loudly. ‘The Queen, Toby. The Queen!’
His brother smiles, and he is brimming with such simple joy that Jasper clasps him. He loves this man; loves him as if he were a part of him.
He leaps from the seat, dust rising. ‘Can you believe it? Can you?’ he shouts again. The vindication of knowing he was right to take out the debt – only two months ago he was playing to a small, dirty crowd of shepherds and fishermen! Risk big, win big; and he has won the fattest prize of all.
He thunders the gong, watches as his labourers and performers stumble on to the grass, half-asleep. His body is taut with excitement. They whisper between themselves, wonder what is happening, why they have been woken from their beds. He calls for bottles of wine, orders that bacon is cooked, that a goat is killed and roasted.
He paces up and down, enjoying every eye on him, the tremble in the air. ‘The Queen,’ he declares at last. ‘The Queen will attend our show.’ Performers grip each other, laugh. Chattering, cheers, Huffen Black thumping his back. A violin starts up. He holds out the letter, shakes it. ‘It will be the first show she has attended since the death of Prince Albert. My show. Our show.’
And as the sun rises and that slanted script blurs with gin and curaçao and champagne, Jasper knows, knows, that his fame is assured.
He wakes, dry-mouthed. The wallpaper swings in and out of view. Red and gold and blue. A thousand versions of his face smile back at him. He groans, sits up. He is still dressed in his boots.
The Jackal, he thinks, and staggers to his feet.
It is only then that he remembers the letter, the night of elation, the cups of spirits, how they all danced as the sun rose. The Queen is coming to his show, and yet his heart will not calm. He has the uneasy sensation that her offer will be revoked; that he dreamed it; that it was nothing more than a prank. He fumbles for the letter, reads it more carefully. The soft ply of the paper, that elegant script; it is real. Still, his pulse thunders and his throat feels half-closed. He coughs, spits phlegm into a glass.
You can’t do it.
He starts. It is a curious sensation, an unfamiliar one. Doubt. He has only ever felt that he has a right to success, to anything he desires. Is this how his brother feels? He laughs drily. Of course he can do it, he thinks, but his mind feels like a room that has not been tidied in months, the surfaces furred with dust. He rubs at his eyes. It must be the payment which is troubling him, the concern at what the Jackal might do. As soon as he’s paid the man, his worries will ease. And with that, he dresses, tweaks the tips of his moustache with tallow, and hurries through the gates of the pleasure gardens.
The Queen, he tells himself – soon he will perform before the Queen. It can scarcely be eleven o’clock, the sun not yet peaked. The Thames is the colour of tarnished pewter. All about him, butchers whet their blades and fruit sellers pierce the air with their cries. Oranges and lemons, oysters, cress cress cress – everyone fighting, jostling to make themselves seen and heard. He thinks of the woman who wanted a cushion with Nell’s face on it, and his breath thickens.
Children watch him, eyes fixed on him as if he is a fish on a line. He should not have worn his leopard-skin britches; he taps his pocket to check the notes are still there. Two children become three, become four, a tangle of gritted hair and filthy limbs. A girl raises her finger and points at him. He is used to being looked at, admired, but this is a gaze which assesses, as if he is a carcass to be carved up, a bankrupt’s house to be auctioned off. He pictures them, weighing his life in their tiny fists. How much would such a coat sell for – how much is a life worth – if they knew he carried a thousand pounds on his person, he’d be killed ten times over.
‘Away,’ he bellows, swiping his cane when a little boy dances closer, but the children only laugh.
The Queen, he tells himself. But last night’s joy seems to belong to somebody else.
There are more of them now – ten, twelve – moving like a pack of dogs. They scratch their lice-ridden heads, and he pats the fold of money. It is still there. He shouldn’t touch his pocket; it will only draw attention, but only a moment later he finds himself tapping it again.
The children nudge each other, stroke their legs as if imagining that leopard’s pelt adorning their own bodies.
There is the Jackal’s door ahead, green and freshly painted. He hastens his pace, tells himself not to run. He pictures the man opening the door, those little teeth, Jasper explaining his short breath with a curt laugh. ‘Of course I wasn’t frightened of them! I just thought I’d lead them on a merry chase –’
He knocks, sways on his heels. He will make light, too, of the risk of a late payment – ‘Though if you wish to slay one of my goats tonight, you’d be saving me a task, and I’ll never say no to a shilling.’ Soon, he will be inside, and safe.
‘He ain’t there.’
He jumps, sees the girl with the wooden-spoon baby, leaning on her crutch. ‘They don’t rise until noon, unless you’ve an appointment.’
He sighs, exasperated. Behind him, the children slouch and whisper, creep closer. He cups his hand and looks through the glass. The shutters are drawn.
He nods at the girl, and then sets off on his way. On Regent Street, he can hail a cab, shake off the children. He might even duck into a chop-house, wait an hour or so until the Jackal is awake. Children! he tells himself with a snort. Harmless little wretches – but he remembers the urchins which gathered in Balaklava, how they’d torture an injured Cossack as easily as a tadpole.
He breaks into a slight run. He can hear the patter of bare feet behind him, quick whispering. Sweat spangles his forehead. He touches the notes, then curses. They will know where to stab him, where to grab and steal. What if he didn’t sew his pocket tightly enough, and he has already dropped the notes on to the pavement? He would have noticed, surely? He taps his coat again, and the wad feels thick. More children walk towards him, as if to cut him off – he could swear they are the same urchins as before, lank-haired, scratching their fleabites. He stretches out his hand for a cab but it roars away.
And then, wheeling on to Regent Street, he almost collides with a boy wearing a board around his neck.
‘Extraordinary phenomenon! The Greatest Wonder in the World. Pearl, the Girl as White as Snow. Now Exhibiting Alive at Regent Gallery –’
It is the decision of an instant. He ducks into the shop and pays his entrance fee. The children draw to a halt, and it takes all his restraint to stop himself from flashing them a triumphant smile. Rats, he thinks. Penniless wretches.
He dusts down his jacket. It is a scant crowd, a trio of medical students lunging for each other’s noses with their calipers, a few ladies out for an afternoon. He follows them into the next room, and the girl is there, sitting on a podium. She is small even for four. Her eyes are violet-edged, her lashes white, and she wears a dress of dove feathers. It irritates him that she is arrayed like a bird – but really, she’s nothing compared to Nell and her great mechanical wings. One of the ladies prods the girl with her parasol but the child doesn’t even blink. The medical students look at her as if they are measuring her for a jar. Her eyes stammer and flicker. He realizes that she is half-blind.
He is glad he didn’t buy her. He doubts the Queen would think much of her – he remembers how she condemned the pinheaded Aztecs Maximo and Bartola as horrid little monstrosities that give one the creeps.
A thought occurs to him. What if she were to condemn Nell? But it is impossible; Nell can only delight. He pictures the Queen’s pleasure, bright with wonder, as he presents an array of marvels. His hands, hovering over the lids of imaginary silver cloches. Your Majesty, I present the Queen of the Moon and Stars.
If it wasn’t for the swarm of urchins, he would have left by now. The
girl is not particularly remarkable. A crone in a badger hat hands him a pamphlet.
‘My daughter,’ she says.
And if that were the truth, he thinks, eyeing the bashed leather of her cheeks, she’d be the wonder, sitting on that podium.
He idly flicks through the handbill. It’s the standard second-rate claptrap he usually associates with rural marvels. Birthed from a goose egg (ha! The old hag contradicted her own literature!), the result of a coupling between a dissolute lord and his pet swan – he yawns, and doesn’t even bother to cover his mouth.
If he had the energy for it, he could tell them a thing or two about display. The world is saturated with wonders, these days. Any country maid with a lump or a limp sticks herself in a room at an inn and cries out, A shilling a view. And the public are growing tired of it. They need skill, performance, too. They need a showman who can spin a proper story about them. It’s no good just to sit there on that chair being swiped at by ladies, or having your toes wrenched by children.
He is about to leave when he hears a voice he recognizes. His agent, Tebbit.
Tebbit is leading a man into the room. Leading – he leans forwards – good God, it is Winston. Jasper slips behind a folding screen. He wouldn’t be a welcome sight. A few nights ago, his labourers broke into the man’s troupe and set loose his zebras. Jasper roared with laughter when he heard the tale.
‘She’s so newly on my books I haven’t calculated her market value,’ the agent says.
Jasper smirks. Tebbit spouted the same patter a month ago. He just can’t shift her, and it’s little surprise. The child is as blank as an automaton.
‘She’s young. Malleable. Yours.’
Jasper rolls his eyes.
But Winston seems to be nodding. ‘Did you know that in some cultures they’re known as moon children? Created because their mothers gazed at the night sky for hours during their confinement? I’ve just the story that could make my name, and hers too. That could, I think, easily eclipse that dreadful hot-air girl.’
Circus of Wonders Page 17
