Clover fell silent again. No letter, no letter. She had not heard from Victor since the night they walked out into the country, when he did scales beneath the moon.
But on her return to Mrs. Jewett’s that evening, a small packet was waiting, sent over from the Walker. She slid a penknife along the manila and spread the packet open on the dresser, under the lamp’s light. A red silk scarf, like a cardinal’s wing—and something wrapped inside it.
She unrolled the scarf and out fell a picture postcard from Quebec, one from Montreal, and a steamship ticket for the SS Alaunia, sailing from Montreal to London, England, May 15, 1915.
On the back of the postcard depicting the port of Montreal: I love you always. You know. My mother has a house, 24 St. Quintin Avenue, I wish you could—then something scratched out, in black impatient strokes. On the back of the postcard of Quebec: Come. Please come. Attached to the ticket by a brass clip: a bank draft for fifty pounds.
Precious Prize
Settled at Mrs. Jewett’s boarding house again, Aurora would get up as if making a trip to the convenience when Bella drowsed off, then tap on Jimmy’s door and slip like a ghost down the wooden stairs to meet him in the dark back parlour. The doors slid soundlessly along the track which she had waxed with a candle stub; the heaviness of the doors matched the heaviness in her body, the ground-running depth of how badly she wanted him to drive inside her and make her climb that strange mountain again. One night she stayed in his bed almost all night, his velvety skin under hers. After Mayhew’s body she was surprised by Jimmy’s springing youth, and found a gratifying pleasure in giving him pleasure. The night sessions were driven, racing—for him too, murmuring in her ear, precious, precious. Since they did not ever make a public display, those night whispers were sweet.
She did not know what all this was doing to the baby. Now, in early March, a visible mound protruded when she took off her corset, so she stopped taking it off in anyone’s presence, including Jimmy’s. He laughed at her modesty, but was compliant. She could not lace tight any longer, the baby would not let her. Though cut in the new flowing line, the white dress was fitted enough that she could not bear to fasten the middle buttons. She made herself a bridging-piece to hold the edges together underneath the cummerbund. Clover helped her dress for the number and said not a word about it—but she had grown so silent, lately, that Aurora hardly noticed the kindness of that reserve.
As soon as the new number was ready, Walker had promised to slot the Beautiful Doll number in as his first-act closer. The Belle Auroras were resting; Walker’s notion was to let Jimmy and Aurora have the limelight to themselves for a week first, and then put the girls back on to open the second act. Manager reports had been glowing as they played the western theatres, and Aurora believed he would be true to his word.
They refined the choreography with Mama on Monday morning till Aurora was out of breath and dizzy, begging for a rest. In the afternoon, she and Jimmy went over to the Walker to show their steps to Bert Pike, the orchestra leader, before orchestra rehearsal the next morning.
‘Hallooo!’ Jimmy called, pulling open the doors to the dark auditorium. Aurora shivered—an empty theatre always spooked her. Far in the distance they heard Bert answer, then a snap and the work-lights glowed onstage. More hard metallic snaps: a row of house-lights came up, enough that they could make their way down the aisle and up the moveable stairs onto the stage.
She set their sides on the rehearsal piano and showed Bert the modifications they’d made to the lyrics; he worked through it once while they footed the steps, as one might mouth the words of a song, marking out areas on the stage they’d be able to use.
Aurora put herself into the Eaton Beauty Doll position, eyes staring and arms stiff, to let Jimmy carry her as they moved into the singing break:
‘Precious prize, close your eyes
Now we’re going to visit lovers’ paradise
Press your lips again to mine,
For love is king of everything.’
In the empty space, with only the tinny rehearsal piano, the song sounded weak, even forlorn. ‘If you ever leave me how my heart will ache …’
‘All right now,’ said Bert, and they ran for their marks as he chugged into the jaunty introduction, four chords, then one, two, three, four: step-step slide, step-step glide, sweeping farther than they’d yet been able to with this number. ‘Let me put my arms around you,’ Jimmy sang in her ear. ‘I could never live without you—’
They locked together to begin their cakewalk twirls, and because she was tired, Aurora felt the hard mass of the baby gathered into a tightening ball. She knew she ought to stop, but Bert had come in especially, and they had to start tomorrow. She eased back from Jimmy, to give herself room to breathe. When the run was done, she stiffened and posed as he went into the chorus again.
‘I want to hug you but I fear you’d break—
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you beautiful doll!’
Then the man stood still, admiring, and the doll danced. Aurora put her mind to it and held herself up through the sixteen stiff-armed twirls of her solo, and then there was only one more chorus for them to sing together, until the music ran out and she could stop. They held the final pose for a moment, and broke off to bow to Bert—and then, hearing applause from the seats, out to the house.
Thinking Walker must have come to see, Aurora went forward to the footlights and shaded her eyes to ask, ‘Were we all right? Did you like it?’
‘Very much indeed,’ came the answer, in a voice like sherry-coloured velvet.
Aurora backed away. Not Mrs. Walker. Who was it?
The woman walked down the raked aisle into the spill of light from the stage, the prow of her dress leading, furs swaying behind her. A perfectly composed face looked up from under her shadowing hat-brim, great eyes glowing and hands held out to applaud again. Eleanor Masefield.
The two onstage stood still for a moment. Her hand still in Jimmy’s, Aurora felt the contraction in his fingers, and then a second, purposeful pressure, before he let her hand drop and walked to the lip of the stage. Between two footlights he vanished; as her eyes adjusted, his silhouette reappeared.
‘You, here!’ he said, cool and detached, with an underlay of warmth that might be anger or affection. ‘What brings you to the sticks?’ His light voice almost laughed.
Beads of jet dazzled on Miss Masefield’s bodice. Jet sparked in her hat as well, and as she lifted her skirt to climb the stairs, fabulously lovely black boots appeared. She was black-rimmed and beautiful; her complicated gown was a deep ocean-going blue. She beamed suddenly, showing the impish gap between her teeth as if she were a boy, and moved forward past Jimmy to hold out a hand to Aurora. ‘Why, it’s Miss—don’t tell me—Evans. Ainsley. One of the little sisters.’
Aurora touched the outstretched hand, seeing no way not to, then reclaimed hers to pull her skirt out and drop a brief ironic curtsy. The white dress was no longer pristine and crisp, after an hour of vigorous dancing, but she stood very straight and braced herself, not knowing exactly for what.
Miss Masefield turned, hat hiding her face as a cloud obscures the moon, and held out her other hand to Jimmy. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Jimmy,’ she said, the laugh-note in her voice now.
He waited.
‘You are the only one who understands me—I’ve had to fire that cub in New York.’
Jimmy came into the circle of light, taking Eleanor’s hand, with such a concentrated gaze that Aurora felt invisible. She had faded, in her white dress, into the pale backdrop.
‘Come, lunch with me, I’m famished from the train,’ the actress said, turning abruptly, and catching sight, as she did so, of Bert Pike. ‘Oh, Bert! How lovely to see you,’ she cried. Bert gave a brief, almost rude salute, and Eleanor moved gracefully towards him, her skirt somehow flowing, although, in the latest fashion from New York, it did not touch the boards.
The luncheon invitation had quite clearly not included Aurora; she smoothe
d her hands down her white lawn frock, trying to remember how nice it once had been. Her mother’s stitches amateur, but very tiny, very loving.
Miss Masefield had placed herself theoretically out of earshot, engaging Bert in an earnest (and to Aurora’s eyes, entirely sham) exchange. Jimmy clasped Aurora quickly to him, his cheek on hers. He pressed her hand again and said, in a low voice, ‘I’d better find out what she wants.’
Asking for approval, which Aurora found cowardly.
‘I think we are quite finished,’ she said, cool in her turn. ‘If Bert needs no more.’ Bert’s face peered out from behind that cartwheel hatbrim; he gave a quick, dismissing nod.
Aurora went backstage. But she could not climb up the dressing-room stairs as yet. Her middle was clenched and unhappy, almost hot. She should not have danced so long this morning. When she heard the others leave (Eleanor Masefield’s mellifluous laugh easily floating up the aisle over the two men’s voices), Aurora went back out to the empty stage to retrieve their sides, walking through the circles of light the electrician had left on.
The footlights still glowed, and the overhead lights ghosted. Do not be afraid or lonely, she told the child inside her. The dead space will be alive again tomorrow. The house sat empty, waiting, and what a lucky girl she was to have this stage, this life. She stood staring into the black void beyond the lights, then sank down to the boards, skirt pooling around her, and pressed her hands over her eyes to black out everything.
King of Everything
Jimmy returned to the boarding house that evening after supper. He found Aurora on the window seat in the back parlour. Clover, polishing her fiddle at the piano, wrapped it in a red scarf and left the room.
Jimmy stood at the door, looking at her, and then came across the floor.
‘She wants me to go back to New York tonight. There’s a sleeper—’ He stopped, and Aurora was glad. Too much between them, and between him and Miss Masefield. ‘I can’t—I can’t miss this,’ he said. ‘It’s the Palace.’
Oh, well then.
‘New York is assured. She’s given me a contract for eighteen months. At a thousand a week.’ His mouth closed at the end of each sentence, Aurora saw. Closed, like his face. She took up a cushion on the window seat. To give him room, he would think, but really to cover her middle where she had loosed her sash.
‘I’ve come back to pack,’ he said, not sitting down.
That too, she admired: that he could be so honest.
‘I owe her a great deal. Everything.’
‘Not everything,’ Aurora said. ‘You’ve given good service, over the years.’ That was cruel, she should not have said it.
He did not flinch, he laughed. That was a bad sign. ‘You know how to wound me.’
She laughed too, almost. ‘You know better.’
He stepped to one side, and then back to face her. Unable, it seemed, to stand still. Impatient. She felt very patient, very old.
‘You know you would never—’
She wondered what he had intended to say. She looked up, but could not make her eyes focus properly on his face, to see what he meant.
‘You are always alone, even when we are most together.’
That was true. It was a fault in her, she knew it. ‘We might get to New York together,’ she said. It was all she would do, to beg.
‘In ten years! Or twelve, or never.’
‘There is something other than success.’
‘Not for me.’
‘Or a better kind of success, than riding the skirt of an old woman.’
Then he looked entirely miserable. Unfair of her. What else had she done herself? They were both cheap at the price.
‘The cab’s to come at nine,’ he said.
‘I will help you pack your things.’ She gathered her book and shawl, and went ahead of him up the stairs to his room, the third-floor front.
Everything is undone, she thought, watching him pile shirts into the leather suitcase he was so proud of. Eleanor Masefield had had it custom-made, with his initials in gilt. When he turned to the bureau, Aurora undid his mother’s silver bracelet and let it slip from her wrist down into the suitcase.
The case was packed. He set it on the floor beside his trunk, moved her back onto the bed and kissed her, and kissed her, and pushed her skirt up. In the lamp’s light his eyes were shining with tears.
‘This is what I am good at,’ Jimmy said. ‘Isn’t it?’ He rose up into her.
Then it was over and she wished she had not, not one more time. She pulled herself out from under his leg, tidied her dress as well as she could, kissed him and left the room.
The Eleventh
Clover looked up the train schedule to Montreal. To be on the ship sailing May fifteenth, she must leave Winnipeg on the twelfth. Three weeks. The eleventh would be safer. Even in May, a train could be held up by snow, going over the lakehead by Port Arthur. Or there could be trouble with the track.
Ever since Bella had demanded her own pay, Clover had got hers too. She had enough for a sleeper and meals, and Victor’s fifty pounds to spare at journey’s end. If she did not go in May, shipping might cease for the duration of the war.
Perhaps he meant her to stay with his mother, to look after her. Or if that did not work out, she was sturdy and could do many things to earn a living.
What she could not seem to do was tell her sisters, or Mama, her plans. None of them knew Victor like she did; they would think him mad, and her mad to leave. But Aurora was partnered with Jimmy and the new number would lift them into the big-time for certain, Clover thought. Bella could tag along, and there would be a baby to look after too, so that would keep Mama happy, and none of them would miss her.
The moment would come—must come—when even her sisters, who ignored the war as far as they were able, would see she had to go.
You Need That Pride
Mr. Walker agreed to see Aurora first thing in the morning, asking Dot to bring a cup of tea with an extra nod, which seemed to mean call my wife! For along with the tea, in very short order, came Mrs. Walker.
Aurora had had time to explain that she was without a partner and to offer the Belle Auroras as substitute for the first-act closing slot, which would now be empty; Walker waited for his wife to sit, and said, ‘Seems we’ve lost young Jimmy to Miss Masefield’s New York company, Hattie.’
Mrs. Walker, imposing in brown corded silk, pursed her full mouth and considered. ‘Well, that’s no bad thing in my opinion—you couldn’t marry the fellow, in your situation, and I had my doubts whether it was suitable to book the two of you, smelling of April and May and dancing so romantic, with you not even a widow. And beginning to show, my dear,’ she added, with a kindly glance that made bile rise in Aurora’s throat till she thought it must burst out into screeching.
What could she answer? It was no slander but perfectly true, and Mrs. Walker had every right to say so. She ran a polite vaudeville house and must guard its reputation.
Aurora would not look down, however, but met her eyes and refused the shame she was being so benevolently offered. ‘Therefore,’ she said, speaking low and careful, ‘you may be happier with the same pretty number performed with my youngest sister, as a child with an Eaton Beauty Doll. The dance is whimsical and charming and so is my sister, as you know, and I’m persuaded we can pull it off this very day, at the evening show at least, for Bella has watched rehearsals.’
‘You need that pride, to be a vaude artiste,’ Mrs. Walker said, approvingly. ‘To suffer through the constant trial of self and skill. You’re a nice little dancer, and so was he. I could see you making a big hit. But without him, no. Your sister in his place—no, not for us, not so soon after you’ve played.’
‘But we’ll still take the girls for that spot I’d mentioned, eh, Hat?’ Walker asked her. ‘Second-act openers, not next week but the week after?’
Prisoners in the dock must feel like this, Aurora thought.
Mrs. Walker looked sober. ‘I think w
e’ll have to wait on that, Mr. Walker,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure that without the balance of the romance we can fit in the sister act.’
‘We can do Lakmé,’ Aurora said, and could have bitten her tongue out.
Mrs. Walker gave her a firm nod. ‘A little resting time may be just what you girls need,’ she said. ‘I’ll see her out, Mr. Walker, I’m going myself.’
Sweetness in Song
Verrall passed their door on his way to rehearsal call at the Orpheum, and heard Flora’s first shrieking. He shrank against the wall and would have snuck down the stairs in a cowardly fashion, but then he heard Aurora give one cry, and then there was a smash—‘Oh lord,’ he said to himself. ‘There goes the bureau mirror. Seven years’ bad luck.’
Taking his courage in both fists, he gave a timid knock upon the door, and when nobody noticed, opened it. As he’d suspected, glass lay sprinkled across the Turkey carpet, a glittering mound on the hearth tiles where Bella was sweeping it with the little broom and coal shovel. He ought to fetch East, really.
‘Trouble?’ he asked, in as nonchalant a voice as he could manage.
‘Only the usual ruin of everything,’ Flora cried. ‘A man too weak to break with temptation!’
‘It was a thousand a week she offered,’ Aurora said mildly. She was lying flat on the bed in a tangle of sheets, wearing her outside coat and the frippery blue hat that Verrall loved. Her boots, stuck out into the room, were still wet with snow.
‘He’s gone, is he? Well, good riddance,’ said Verrall. ‘I never liked him much.’
Hiccuping over the broken glass, Bella raised her head and said, ‘No, no, it is all that nasty actress. He could not refuse a thousand a week. She is like a mother to him, you know.’
The Little Shadows Page 39
