When this avalanche ceased, Kingsley let go of his nose and began to feel at ease. Being in the dark, wrapped up and contorted with both legs bent at awkward angles and one arm extended over his head, meant that he was actually in familiar territory – for an escapologist.
He flexed his shoulders. Some impressively colourful language was nearly drowned out by a chorus of joyous barking. Taine’s Terriers, he hoped, were taking advantage of the chaos and heading for freedom. Kingsley cheered them on. Run your hardest, cousins, he thought, then grunted while he changed his position. Freedom is worth it.
He took stock of his situation – one of his Basic Principles of Escapology. To an exponent of anti-incarceration, a trap is not a trap: it is a challenge. Breaking free of restraint gave him a feeling of exultation like no other, an almost dizzying sense of his own capabilities. To this end, he’d studied locks, he’d exercised, he’d sought insights from tradesmen and showmen. He’d practised, alone in the basement of the family Bayswater home, until he could open handcuffs in the dark, free himself from ropes and slip out of manacles and shackles, even – with the assistance of his foster father’s valet – when shut in trunks or sewn into mail bags or underwater. Such escapes often left him shaking, bruised and breathless, but with a soaring spirit.
A heavy velvet curtain, tangled rope, wire and sundry theatre apparatus was, therefore, hardly a trap – it was a momentary inconvenience.
The din about him receded as he concentrated. No handcuffs this time, no weighty chains. It was simply a matter of orientating himself just so, rotating his shoulders like that, arching his back thus, twisting a little this way then that, and he could see the line of light that announced where the edge of the curtain met the stage. A slow, shuffling crawl and, quite aware that he was bound to look like an exceptionally well-appointed turtle, he poked out his head, ready to apologise for the disaster.
A slim white hand thrust at him. ‘Here. It’s best that we leave.’
It was the juggler. The young female juggler. The young female juggler with the white hair, white skin and pink eyes. The startlingly beautiful young female juggler with her long white hair, white skin and pink eyes behind the spectacles she was looking at him over.
All week, during run-throughs and rehearsals, he’d been careful not to stare at her, even when she was dressed in her stage costume, which was made of spangles and not much else. Crawling out from under a collapsed stage curtain, however, had discomposed him enough that he forgot his manners, even though she was wearing a demure ankle-length, midnight blue coat buttoned to her throat, and a smart Langtry toque on her head.
This time, he stared.
‘Yes.’ She glanced to either side. ‘I’m different from anyone you’ve ever met before and you don’t really know how to treat me. Let’s take that for granted, shall we? If we slip off right now and let everyone settle down, we might get away with it.’
She had a surprisingly strong grip. He climbed to his feet as a wire-haired terrier scampered past, barking in the sheer berserk joy of liberation. ‘Get away with what?’
‘Your bizarre performance and my dropping the curtain on you and . . .’ She waved a hand. Kingsley looked around to see that the safety curtain had indeed cut off the auditorium from the stage. In addition, most of the backdrops, sandbag counterweights and gaudy flats had fallen. Performers and stagehands were running around shouting and flinging their arms about, giving the impression of a bizarre folk dance. ‘Sundry other distractions.’
‘Distractions.’ Kingsley’s jacket and trousers were a mess. His turban had collapsed and he unwound it slowly, pocketing the brass medallion with which it had been pinned. ‘You dropped the curtain? Why?’
‘To save you.’
‘And why would you do that? Even if I needed saving, which I deny utterly.’
‘You’re my project.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
She took his hand. ‘We really should go. If Billy finds us while he’s still in a state, we’re doomed. But if we let him seethe a little, I’m sure I can talk him around.’
‘Billy? Mr Bernadetti? The stage manager?’
She gripped his elbow. ‘Billy owes me more than a few favours, but he’s liable to forget them if he’s in a temper.’
Kingsley was teetering. He saw his entire stage career vanishing before his eyes. Should he stay and see if he could talk his way out of the situation? Or should he throw in his lot with this extraordinary young woman?
‘Are you sure you can make him overlook this?’
‘I have my ways,’ she said darkly. ‘Trust me.’
He did, immediately and instinctively, at a level he suspected had something to do with his wild self. ‘Thank you, Miss . . .?’
She cocked her head. ‘You are a piece, aren’t you? I’ll wager you don’t know the names of any of the other performers.’
‘Not the ones after me on the program.’
‘Stephens. Evadne Stephens. Now, look sharp and we’ll exit, stage right. Or what remains of stage right, anyway.’
Kingsley and Evadne joined a stream of performers and crew barging towards the stage door, laughing and chattering at the unexpected turn of events. Evadne took his arm and Kingsley hunched, trying to keep his imposing stature as discreet as possible. He was grateful for the towering headdress of Madame Olivansky (‘the Bird Whistler’), just in front of him.
‘Mr Ward! Mr Ward!’
Kingsley quailed, but it was only Todd, the ancient and perennially doleful Stage Door Manager, gamely struggling towards him through the crowd with one hand thrusting an envelope above his head.
Todd reached Kingsley. He clung to him very much like a drowning man finding a life preserver, while Doran and Bedlow (‘the Merry Jokers’) pushed past, arguing about punchlines. ‘Mr Ward,’ Todd panted. ‘A letter for you.’
Evadne plucked at the old man’s sleeve, and raised an eyebrow when the ancient cloth parted under her fingers. ‘Todd,’ she said, after a momentary pause, ‘have you seen Mr Bernadetti?’
Todd’s face grew even more doleful. ‘He’s in the foyer, miss, shouting.’
‘At anyone in particular? Or is he just practising?’
‘He’s with the theatre owners, miss. They’re not happy about the way the performance has gone.’
‘Oh.’
Kingsley hardly heard this exchange. He was re- reading the letter Todd had given him, slowly. ‘I have to go to London.’
Evadne shook her head. ‘You’ll do no such thing. I’ll need you around when Billy has calmed down and I can go to work on him, which may be–’ Evadne stopped herself and scrutinised Kingsley. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s from my foster father’s valet.’ Kingsley was already planning. What time did the last train leave? He sighed. This wasn’t a good time for such a thing. ‘My foster father’s gone missing. He hasn’t been seen for weeks.’
‘Todd,’ Evadne snapped. ‘Tell Mr Bernadetti that I want to speak to him later.’
‘Yes, miss.’
Kingsley pushed towards the door, easing past a knot of stagehands, and was startled to find Evadne keeping pace with him. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, as they emerged into a narrow lane that smelled of cats, and were swept towards the lights of Alexandra Road ahead.
‘Coming with you. You’re my project, after all.’
‘What?’
‘You interest me, Kingsley Ward. Strange behaviour always does.’
A man who had been leaning against the brick wall of the theatre straightened and waved. ‘Mr Ward! I have to speak to you!’
The man was small – five feet five or six – and well dressed, with distinctive oval wire-rimmed spectacles. He had a thick moustache and Kingsley recognised him as the man in the balcony, the one who had been watching so attentively.
> ‘Sorry, sir,’ Evadne called, hustling Kingsley along, ‘we’re on a mission.’
‘A mission?’ Kingsley asked. He looked back, but the little man had disappeared, swallowed up in the tide of performers. ‘Where?’
‘The station first.’ She pushed her spectacles up on her nose. They were small and rectangular and slightly tinged blue, which Kingsley found odd. Hadn’t they been clear when she found him under the stage curtain? ‘Then we’re off to London.’
‘What?’
‘I’m coming with you. It’ll give Mr Bernadetti a chance to calm down. Then I can have a nice chat with him and get your career back on track.’
‘Because I’m your project.’
‘That’s part of it.’
‘You’re sure he’ll overlook this fiasco?’
‘Sure?’ Evadne donned a pair of blue gloves she took from the pocket of her coat, then put a finger to her very pale lips. Not as pale as her skin, Kingsley noted, but with only a ghost of rosiness, the merest blush of colour. ‘I wouldn’t say that. Certainty is the refuge of the small minded.’
‘Really?’ Kingsley rallied. This breathtaking young woman needed to know that he wasn’t entirely a dunderhead. ‘Are you sure it isn’t the capital of Siam?’
She eyed him. ‘A nice attempt at levity, in a non sequitur kind of way, and a sign you’re recovering from whatever overcame you.’ She held up a hand, interrupting him. ‘No explanations, not yet. Let me talk Billy Bernadetti around. He won’t want his dirty laundry aired and I happen to know where he keeps stuff that should never see the light of day.’
Kingsley glanced back down the lane. Artistes were still plunging out of the stage door, most of them in costume – plenty of feathers, tassels, that sort of thing. His fears were assuaged somewhat by the carnival atmosphere.
He frowned.
‘What is it?’ Evadne asked.
‘That man. The one with the spectacles. Have you seen him before?’
‘Him?’ Evadne made a face. ‘He’s been here all week, sniffing about. I thought he might be one of Maisie’s beaus.’
‘Don’t you like Maisie?’
Maisie was the most famous performer on the bill, a sweet-voiced and pretty singer who had done well in West End theatres until, Kingsley had been told by one of the more gossipy mime artists, a mysterious falling out with a certain music hall owner.
‘It’s not her. It’s her monkey.’
‘It’s a harmless pet,’ he said, and remembered how on his first rehearsal he’d barely avoided being sconed by an orange it had accidentally dropped from the fly tower. Or had it been accidental?
‘I can’t abide monkeys. They disquiet me.’
‘Monkeys? Give them a banana and they’re your friend for life.’
‘They’re too human, to my way of thinking. Made pets of or caged up, scheming and thinking vengeful thoughts.’
‘Vengeful thoughts? Really?’
‘Really.’
Kingsley looked back. The little man had gone. To see a singer about a monkey?
‘Did he look familiar to you?’
Evadne looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps.’ She shrugged. ‘Maisie’s beaus tend to be prominent men. He’s probably a politician or a lord or someone else with a lot of time on their hands. Still . . .’ She tapped her chin with a finger, then, quite obviously, put her cogitation aside. ‘The station’s this way.’
‘You know Aldershot well, do you?’
She pointed at a sign on the other side of the street. It was a small sign, shrouded in the shadows thrown by a large plane tree.
He shrugged. ‘I’ll trust you.’
‘And that, I’ll say, is an excellent beginning.’
In the carriage, Kingsley sat opposite Evadne. She studied him solemnly while her gloved hands tossed an indeterminate number of silver sixpences backward and forward.
‘You’ll do,’ she said finally, pocketing her coins.
Her announcement jerked Kingsley from brooding about his foster father. Dr Ward often left home abruptly, pursuing one of his many academic investigations, but he always left instructions. Always. He was a man who loved a list of things to do, preferably for other people. ‘I’m glad.’ Kingsley caught himself. ‘I’ll do for what?’
‘My project, remember?’ The sixpences reappeared in her hand and she absently rolled them between her fingers. ‘When you started your act I thought I’d made a poor decision, but things became far more interesting after that.’
Kingsley frowned. Perhaps this was some sort of music hall argot he was unfamiliar with. ‘Go on,’ he said, carefully.
‘That’s the way.’ She reached out and patted his hand. ‘Each season, I make it my job to take up with one of the less experienced members of the cast and befriend them. I was about to say “show them the ropes” but I hardly think that’s what’s needed in your case, is it?’
‘I know my ropes,’ he said faintly. ‘It sounds as if you’ve apprenticed me.’
She smiled. It was a cheeky smile and Kingsley could imagine himself growing to like it. ‘I’ve seen your details,’ she said, ‘and I know that I’m older than you are. From my lofty advantage of two extra months on the planet, I’m making it my responsibility to help you along.’
‘You make it sound as if you’re adopting a puppy.’
‘And what’s wrong with that? Don’t you like puppies? Clarence has a wolf-hound, you know, that he raised from a puppy. It can fetch, when it wants to.’
‘No, I do, it’s not that.’ He stopped, reviewed what Evadne had just said, and blinked. ‘Clarence?’
Evadne stopped juggling. Kingsley wasn’t sure how, but the sixpences disappeared. Then she produced a locket on the end of a silver chain that, apparently, hung from her neck. She flipped it open. ‘This is Clarence. He’s my intended.’
Kingsley had never actually heard anyone called an ‘intended’ before. ‘Congratulations. A respectable fellow, from the looks of him.’
She raised a very precise eyebrow. ‘Clarence is more than respectable. He’s well-to-do. You’d be startled if I told you his family name.’
‘I’m sure I would be.’
‘He’s studying. Brilliantly. Kings College.’
‘I see.’ Kingsley peered at the locket. ‘It looks as if you’ve torn his picture from a magazine.’
Evadne sniffed. Kingsley had never seen anyone sniff elegantly before, but Evadne achieved this difficult feat. She snapped the locket closed. ‘Clarence has featured in any number of journals of the better kind.’
‘Not as the defendant in one of the more sensational court cases, I hope.’
She ignored this. ‘I’m telling you about him so we won’t misunderstand each other. When I say that you interest me, I want it clear that it’s not like that.’
‘That?’
‘That.’
‘Oh, that!’
‘Exactly. Which doesn’t mean I’m being unfriendly. You’re not without a rough and ready charm, after all.’
Rough and ready? Charm? Kingsley was wary of Evadne’s quicksilveriness, and not quite certain how to approach her. He sensed that half her jibes were challenges, and that he’d lose her respect if he couldn’t rise to them – but the other half?
She opened her locket and peeked at it again. ‘A magazine, you say?’
‘Trim the edges a little neater next time.’
Evadne pursed her lips and snapped the locket shut with a flourish. It disappeared down her neckline, something that Kingsley hardly noticed at all.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘If I’m to make you my project, we need to have a few things clear.’
‘I, for one, would appreciate having a single thing clear.’
She flashed him a smile. ‘You’re game, at least, I
’ll grant you that.’ She composed herself. ‘Do remember, at all times, that the polite term is “albino”. Not “snowdrop”, “chalky” or “ghosty pants”. The condition can be termed achromia, if you’re feeling pedantic.’
‘I rarely feel pedantic. I occasionally feel Atlantic, but only when I’m at sea.’
She awarded an instant’s scorn to this sally, which Kingsley took as a victory, then went on. ‘How much do you know about albinism?’
‘With some trepidation that I’m presenting myself for rightful ridicule, I’ll say: “as much as the next man”.’
‘Next to nothing, then.’
‘Correct,’ Kingsley said, with the impression he’d escaped lightly. Already, he appreciated that he needed to be on his toes when talking to Evadne Stephens.
‘Then I won’t attempt to transform you into an expert straight away.’ She drummed her fingers on her knee in an interesting syncopated beat. ‘Let it be said that on top of the obvious skin and hair characteristics, achromatic people also tend to have vision problems – short-sightedness, astigmatism, things like that.’
‘Let me see if I understand this properly. You have vision problems and yet you were able to read that sign pointing to the station from yards away, at night.’
Evadne stood. She turned off the gaslights in the carriage, and her whiteness was even more ghostly in the shadows. She took off her spectacles and held them out to him. ‘Put these on.’
He gasped. It was as if the carriage were bathed in gentle sunlight. Everything was dizzyingly blurry, swooping and swelling as he moved his head, but it was a well-lit blurriness.
Evadne plucked the spectacles from his face and adjusted up the lights. She inspected the spectacles before slipping them back on.
‘That’s remarkable,’ he managed.
‘I have a number of pairs of corrective spectacles. Some are for special purposes. Others can be adjusted for varying circumstances.’ Evadne sat and patted her coat. ‘I can’t go out in the daylight without something strongly tinted. At night, though, some light enhancement is useful.’
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