The Ladies of the Secret Circus

by Constance Sayers

  “They say four people from Washington, DC, bought second homes out here this month,” said Audrey, twirling her earring. “It’s a trend.” She met Lara’s eyes with a warning to pay attention.

  “A good one?” said Ben, shifting in his chair and touching one of the flower centerpieces. “I’m not so sure.”

  “Must be the low crime,” said Lara under her breath, seeing the opening to tease Ben.

  “Smart-ass,” said Ben, not looking at her, but grinning.

  As the waiter poured more wine, Audrey leaned in, her face illuminated by the votives. “Also, Gaston has news of the painting, don’t you?”

  “Oui,” he said. “I sent an email to Teddy Barrow.” Gaston’s tuxedo was clearly one that he owned. His normally messy hair was now secured into a smooth, low ponytail. This change from day to night looked effortless for him, like he’d donned tons of tuxedos in his life.

  “Barrow the Fourth?” Lara’s eyebrow raised. She was trying to show Audrey that she was focusing on the conversation at hand.

  Gaston chuckled. “Yes. Barrow-le-quatrième. I sent him a photo of the painting. He called from Paris this morning, waking me up from a most wonderful sleep. He is very excited.”

  “Gaston’s friend thinks a painting we had might be a real Giroux,” Lara turned to explain to Ben. She was enjoying this wine. It was a full-bodied red, and she took another sip to make sure it was as good as she’d thought.

  “Yes,” said Gaston, lowering his voice so as not to be overheard. “Barrow thinks that it might, indeed, be one of the long-thought-missing Giroux paintings—The Ladies of the Secret Circus, as they were called.”

  “The Ladies of the Secret Circus?” Lara leaned in to listen, truly interested in the conversation now. “That sounds mysterious.”

  Gaston nodded before taking a sip of wine. “It is. This entire series of paintings has been missing for more than seventy years.”

  “What is a Secret Circus exactly?” Ben seemed amused. “I gather the Rivoli Circus is not a Secret Circus?”

  “Most definitely not,” said Audrey, wiping the corners of her mouth with her cloth napkin.

  Louie Favre, the Rivoli director, perked up. “What’s this about the Secret Circus?”

  “Have you heard of it?” Audrey turned toward him.

  “Of course. Everyone in the circus world has heard of it; I’m surprised you haven’t, Audrey.” Louie Favre was a barrel of a man with a large, full mustache as thick as a paintbrush. “It’s legendary.” He swirled a glass of what looked like bourbon.

  “No,” said Audrey. “I’ve never heard of it until tonight.”

  “My friend Barrow has written quite a bit on the subject and considers himself an expert,” said Gaston, leaning toward Audrey so that he could hear Favre. “It is one of his obsessions. It’s quite something to hear him go on about it. He was rambling something about a mysterious circus that had no physical building.”

  “Oui,” said Favre. “It was rumored to have existed in Paris in the 1920s. Guests received tickets and were told where to go and voilà—a building would appear—out of nowhere.” Favre had once been the ringmaster of the Rivoli Circus, and he could tell a good story. “But”—he held out a finger—“only to the ticket holders. If the person next to you wasn’t holding a ticket, they did not see a circus in front of them at all.”

  “Sounds a bit like Willy Wonka and the golden ticket.” Ben was playing with the stem of his wineglass. While she had been excited to be here with Ben, the illusion of Todd hung heavy over the evening, dampening what would have been her first date. And is this why she’d manifested Todd? Was she secretly afraid of moving on?

  “We French are a little mad,” said Gaston with a wink.

  Lara spied one of the boys who had been talking to Margot. As he went past her table, she reached for him. “Can I ask you a question?” She was up out of her seat, the momentum of his movement taking her several steps.

  The man turned around to face her. From the smell of him, he’d had quite a few drinks. “Sure, darlin’… anything.”

  “The woman I saw you with tonight. The one in the gold dress.”

  The boy smiled and Lara could see the overlap in his front two teeth. “Margo. Yeah, I don’t know where she went to. I love those retro-looking woman, all Bettie Page.” He winked at her and Lara was nearly toppled by the whiskey on his breath. “She a friend of yours?”

  “Something like that,” said Lara.

  “I’d love to have her number.”

  Smiling, Lara started back to her table, calling over her shoulder, “I don’t think she has a phone.”

  When she turned back toward her own table, both Audrey and Ben were staring at her. Gaston was still talking and it didn’t sound like she’d missed much, but she was relieved. Someone else, drunk though he was, had seen Margot tonight. She wasn’t hallucinating.

  “It was quite the destination for the rich and famous at the time—particularly your ‘Lost Generation,’” said Gaston, still on the subject of the painting. “According to Barrow, Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Man Ray, and F. Scott Fitzgerald were all guests of Le Cirque Secret. Giroux was the only artist permitted to paint it, though, and that was significant.”

  As the dinner plates were placed and everyone focused on their surf and turf of salmon and filet, Lara considered her next question carefully. “Was it ever called the Devil’s Circus, Mr. Favre?”

  Mr. Favre met her eyes. “It was… and an accurate description of it, too, from what I’ve heard. Very bad things happened with that circus.”

  “Like what?” Ben was cutting his filet.

  “Murders,” said Favre between chews. “Men going missing.”

  “Well, that’s right up your alley,” said Audrey to Ben. “And you believe this legend, Louie?”

  “I do,” said Louie gravely. “I once knew people who had gone to it. They said it was quite a spectacle. Gruesome acts—much like the art of that time. But those who saw it said it was the most beautiful circus that had ever existed. Ah, what I wouldn’t give to have seen it.”

  From what she’d read in Cecile’s journal, Lara thought that Louie would have been a prime candidate to receive a ticket, especially if he would give anything to get one.

  “You think Cecile was part of this strange circus?” Audrey laughed. “That’s madness, Louie. You knew her. She wore khakis, for God’s sake.”

  “Perhaps not.” Gaston turned to Audrey, raising his finger. “I’m sorry, Audrey, I didn’t have a chance to tell you. When I removed the frame and turned the painting over, the title was written on the back. It did not, in fact, mention a Cecile. Instead what was written was: SYLVIE ON THE STEED. Perhaps, Audrey, your grandmother was also called Sylvie?”

  “No,” said Audrey. “Never Sylvie. Always Cecile.”

  “Then perhaps this painting is not of Cecile Cabot.”

  Audrey and Lara looked at each other. Both of them were thinking the same thing. The painting resembled Cecile. It had to be Cecile, didn’t it?

  But then Lara recalled there had been a Sylvie in Cecile’s journal. She was the trick rider and the daughter of Madame Plutard. Had they been mistaken?

  Gaston shrugged. “Barrow would love to see the painting for himself. He is suggesting we visit.” He leaned in close so that even Louie Favre could not hear. “This painting could be quite valuable. It could be worth eight or ten million dollars?”

  “Really?” Lara met her mother’s eyes. Like a lot of people who had Virginia farms, business was spotty and often funded out of old money that was drying up. Ten million dollars could change everything. She quickly considered what they could do with that sum. Quit running the station on a shoestring budget. Buy some new horses for her mother.

  “He wants us to come to Paris?”

  Audrey hesitated. “But she can’t—”

  “Paris?” This was the second time today that she was being summoned to Paris. This was no coincide
nce.

  “Change of scenery… Paris… a little art mystery for us to solve. It might be fun, non?” Gaston raised his brow.

  “Wine… almond croissants… ten million dollars.” Lara nodded. “I’m in.” She noticed that her mother had suddenly become very uncomfortable, shifting in her chair and tugging at her hair. “Are you okay, Mother?”

  “I’m fine.” Audrey looked anything but fine.

  “Bon. I will email Barrow tonight,” said Gaston.

  After dinner, the Rivoli Circus Orchestra performed in the foyer of City Hall. The expansive stairs and balcony were lined with people sipping cocktails and dancing.

  Ben and Lara were perched on the stairs watching partygoers. “Can I get you champagne?”

  “I would like that,” said Lara. She followed him down the stairs.

  He put his finger up for her to wait one minute at the bottom and Lara watched him walk to the bar.

  He returned with two glasses, and instead of handing one to her, he placed both glasses on a highboy and took her hand, leading her to the dance floor. She wrapped her arm around his neck and felt his body press against hers. Oh, how she’d wanted this night to be different. Ben was her closest confidant. Had she been confused by her feelings for him? Was she rebounding as her mother had suggested? No. Even now, dancing with him, there was a space for him. She just wasn’t sure that it would be enough for him. Even now, he looked at her expectantly.

  “You look far away tonight,” said Ben.

  She smiled. It was hard for her to hide anything from him. “I heard you’re a terrible dancer.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m a terrible waltzer and I cannot do the tango. I see you’ve been talking to Marla. She delights in telling people that I can’t dance. And quit evading the question.”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “Stop interrogating me.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  She closed her eyes. It was what Todd had said to her earlier, on the steps.

  He leaned in, and Lara could smell his aftershave. “Can I tell you something that I’ve never told you? I mean, I wanted to tell you this so many times, but I just didn’t know how to broach it.”

  “Sure.” Her cheek was nearly touching his, and she whispered into his ear.

  “It’s a shame no one saw you,” he said. “That day.” He turned his lips, and she could feel the warmth of his breath in her hair. He didn’t need to elaborate on what day he meant. She knew it was the day of her wedding. “You were breathtaking.”

  She recalled the scene as she marched out through the Gothic church doors. She pulled him close and just held him. It was such a raw admission from him. And that day was still such a wound to her that it was like a glue between them.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, more genuinely than she had ever said anything in her life. They danced that way for two songs, holding each other tightly, feeling the rhythm of each other’s breath.

  Finally, he took her hand and guided her out the door, down the steps, and up the block to her house. While she was glad to be leaving, Lara felt a weight tugging on her. She’d have to tell Ben Archer that she wasn’t ready for this. They walked in silence, his hand placed in the small of her back. When they got to her gate, she could still hear the echoes of big-band sounds coming from the gala on the street below.

  “‘Moonlight Serenade.’”

  “You know Glenn Miller?” There was more than a hint of admiration in the question.

  “I am a true Renaissance man, Lara Barnes. You aren’t the only one who knows music.” He slid his hand in hers and led her through the gate, up the stairs to the porch swing.

  “You most certainly are,” she said, taking a seat. As they swung, the band’s clarinet sound from another time competed with the sound of the breeze shuffling the leaves, the moths hitting the light, and a wind chime clinking off-key somewhere in the distance.

  “I love the sounds of summer,” she said.

  “Lawn mowers,” he added.

  “Ice in glasses.”

  In the moonlight, she could see his eyes light up. She studied his face, loving the angle and the way the moon cast shadows on him.

  “Can I tell you something?” She placed her fingers under the swing’s seat to steady herself.

  He gave her a disapproving look. After months of telling him everything, however minuscule, about Todd and her feelings, she knew the answer already.

  “I thought I saw him tonight,” she said, looking down at her dress, which was sweeping the floor with each swing. “In the crowd.”

  He was silent, then sighed. “Him?”

  “Him,” she confirmed.

  “You saw him, like, I should call Doyle and investigate it?”

  “No,” said Lara sadly. “It wasn’t real. I was mistaken.”

  “But you’d wanted to see him.” His voice fell and he leaned back on the swing, groaning. “I knew this was too soon.”

  “I’m conflicted,” said Lara. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Well, I wish you hadn’t been thinking of him tonight, but no, I’m glad you were honest with me.”

  “I thought I was over him… and ready for this. I really did.” They weren’t saying his name—Todd—as though he wielded a power over both of them that his name would intensify.

  “Oh, Lara,” he said, pulling her to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s like a bout of the flu.”

  She put her hands over her face. “I’m so sorry. I wanted this night to be different.”

  After a few moments of silence, he got up from the swing, the sudden absence of his weight sending it sideways until she put her legs out to stop it. “I should go,” he said.

  Rising, she followed him to the edge of the porch, both wanting him to go so she could be alone to process each detail from tonight and yet not wanting him to leave, because she truly loved his company. “I had a lovely time with you tonight,” she said. “I really did. It’s just going to take me some time.”

  He took her hand and drew her near.

  “Don’t give up on me,” she whispered. It had been so long since she’d touched anyone like this. “I get butterflies whenever I see you.”

  “And I with you.” He kissed her softly on the side of her head, near her temple.

  As he walked down the steps, Lara touched her neck, feeling it flushed, then placed her hand near her hairline.

  No one had ever kissed her on her temple.

  She watched him walk until he’d passed the Miltons’ hedge. A few hours earlier and he might have crossed paths with Althacazur on the same street. Ben lingered near the hedge like he was going to turn around but seemed to change his mind, and then, he was gone.

  Lara wasn’t surprised to find Audrey on her doorstep the next morning. She’d watched her mother’s face through dinner as Gaston discussed the painting and spoke of taking it to Paris to be evaluated by the historian. By the end of the dinner, she’d looked distracted and tense, tugging on her hair and adjusting a pretend crick in her neck.

  She plowed through the door holding a paper grocery bag with a baguette sticking out of it. The groceries were a ruse, of course, her mother’s way of easing into conversation over almond croissants and coffee. Hugo, Oddjob, and Moneypenny all came scampering leashless behind her, their nails clicking and sliding on the wood floors. Lara thought she heard one of them, likely Hugo because he always had to be first at everything, lose his footing on the newly polished wood and slide into the wall.

  Lara followed her through the foyer and into the kitchen. Hers was an old kitchen that likely held a lot of memories of lavish parties in the 1920s and ’40s. At the entrance to the kitchen was a door with a transom window, which Lara kept propped open, a throwback to the time when the house had a kitchen staff and no air-conditioning. Well, the house still didn’t have air-conditioning, but the kitchen staff was long gone. The wood cabinets were dramatic floor-to-ceiling, with secret nooks like bread drawers and
flour bins. Having the cabinets repainted a color called “limestone” had been one of her few splurges, along with replacing the old countertops with granite as well as updating the cabinet hardware and lighting. This was one of the finished rooms that gave Lara hope that the rest of the house could look glorious again. After refilling the water bowls, she placed them in front of the dogs, but they looked up like they expected more.

  “Haven’t you fed them?” The three were a perfect group of beggars.

  “Of course I have,” said Audrey, rustling through bags. “They know you harbor biscuits.”

  Lara opened the flour bin and pulled out the dog biscuits. They chomped loudly before settling to sun themselves in the bright morning sunlight streaming through the open windows.

  “They had the most wonderful cherries at the farmers market today.” Her mother placed various paper containers on the kitchen island that Lara had built herself. “I’m thinking pie.”

  “What did you think of the gala last night?”

  Audrey looked around. “Well, I wondered if I might find Ben Archer still here this morning.”

  “No,” she said, blushing. Lara walked over to the refrigerator and pulled open the door, grabbing half-and-half.

  “So, this little idea of Gaston’s is nuts. You aren’t actually thinking of going to Paris, are you?” Audrey braced herself dramatically on the island. “That painting is worthless, Lara. I mean, I was going to tell him myself, but…”

  There was a long silence while Lara poured two cups of coffee and slid one across the counter to her mother, like the last offering of peace before battle.

  “But you decided to start with me, instead.” Lara took a sip of her coffee. The brew was a little hot and she put it down on the counter to let it cool. “I am planning on going to Paris. If that painting is valuable, then a representative from the family should be there with it. Don’t you think? Plus, I still have an airline ticket from my honeymoon that I need to use before October. The stars are aligning.”