The Flower Girl

by Maggie Ford

  In the seclusion of a hansom cab bearing them back to their hotel, Theo took her hand. ‘You looked so very beautiful tonight,’ he whispered. ‘Every man’s eyes were on you.’

  Hoping the old jealousy wasn’t about to rear its head at last, she refused to reply, certainly not to demean herself in protesting any intention of drawing admiration.

  ‘You know how I feel about you, my dearest, don’t you?’ he went on.

  In the dim interior of the gently swaying vehicle, he lifted her hand to his lips, kissing each finger in turn. Now she knew the reason for the hansom – a conveyance of romance. A rattling, juddering motor taxi wouldn’t have served his purpose. Well, she wasn’t going to melt that easily after being dragged away from something she been so enjoying.

  Her hand lowered slightly, in the darkness she felt the coldness of metal being slipped on to her third finger. She glanced down and, in what little light penetrated from a street lamp they passed, saw the brittle glint of diamonds.

  As she gasped, his fingers tightened about hers. ‘I want you to be my wife, Amelia,’ he whispered. ‘Say you will, my dearest. Say you accept.’

  Astonishment made her gasp. Not herself for a second, she gave a half nod, aware that, even while with this small acknowledgment she was more or less committing herself, she wasn’t as ready for this as she had thought. There was no reason for it – she’d dreamed of being the wife of the celebrated Great Theodore, and the wealth and security that came from it. Yet now it was being presented to her, she wasn’t at all sure it was what she really wanted. But it was done. Engaged to be married. No retracting from it now.

  Theo was elated. ‘Our contract at the Metropolitan commences immediately the pantomime season ends,’ he said. ‘Just enough time, I think, to perfect the new illusions we’ve been working on.’

  He now referred to ‘our’ rather than ‘my’, ‘we’ rather than ‘I’. He had also decided to cease paying her a salary. ‘From now on you will be having an allowance,’ he told her, as though she were already his wife. He’d even made a will leaving all he had to her, waving aside any protest. ‘You are virtually my wife, but for a ring, and should anything untoward happen to me, I could not have you lose what would be rightfully your inheritance as my wife,’ he had said and would hear no more of her protests.

  ‘These new illusions must be spectacular,’ he was saying now. They really were spectacular, though even she could see that he would require two assistants for them, in time perhaps three or four. Some of the illusions looked dangerous, though he said that handled properly there was no risk. Others, known as black wash, had figures and objects appearing and vanishing within the empty space inside a frame, sometimes quite eerily.

  ‘All done with carefully balanced and manipulated mirrors,’ he told her. ‘But the procedure has to be perfect, down to the smallest detail. For these new mysteries, we must have two assistants.’

  His elation, however, was coupled with despondency. ‘Unfortunately,’ he told her, ‘so much is happening so quickly that we shall not be able to marry as soon as I would have wished. Simmons informs me that I shall be in demand throughout the spring and summer, with hardly a break, and as I wish our wedding to be the finest yet seen in London for many a year, calling for much preparation, it will have to be put off until the autumn. I am so sorry, my sweetest. I hope you can wait that long. I too shall try to do so.’

  Emma couldn’t bring herself to tell him that it did not matter to her as much as he imagined, and in a strange way brought a small sense of relief, although she couldn’t have told herself why. If this was how she felt, she told herself, then the longer it was delayed, the better. She needed more time to be sure of what he was and what she was doing.

  Two days into the New Year, as they went up to their rooms after dinner, he said casually. ‘I shall be going out for an hour or two this evening.’

  Usually he took her wherever he went, seeming loath to have her out of his sight, so she was somewhat bewildered by this. There was no reason for him to see his agent and it was rather late in the evening to be doing so.

  Curious, she paused by her door to ask, ‘Are you meeting someone, then?’ She tried to make the question casual, but grew concerned as he hesitated.

  ‘It doesn’t matter at this moment,’ he evaded, immediately changing her concern to distrust.

  ‘I’ll wait up for you,’ she said – like some old married woman – a wife sensing a husband’s deceit. She cast the thought from her. Theo had put a ring on her finger, how could she fall prey to imaginings so soon after? Yet she kept seeing visions of that girl with lips lifted to his. But it was herself she couldn’t understand: one minute this reluctance about marriage, the next filled with jealousy that his eyes could be roaming. It was stupid.

  Even so, she nodded curtly, had him kiss her offered cheek and let herself into her room without returning the kiss. Hating herself, she waited behind her closed door, her ear to it listening until she heard him go past, taking the stairs, deeming them quicker even than the cranking, if modern lift. She waited a second or two then, scrambling into a warm coat, with just enough time to push a single hatpin through her hat, she hurried down the two flights, through the foyer and into the street in time to see him striding some way ahead. At least he hadn’t hailed a cab. If he did, she was lost.

  The freezing January evening plucked at her cheeks. She had forgotten gloves or muff or even a scarf. Already she’d begun to shiver. It was a relief to see him turn the corner without noticing her, going on into Kingsway, recently named for King Edward. She got to the corner then leaped back, her heart in her mouth. Theo had come to a halt and was standing in the glow from a hotel behind him, as if waiting for someone.

  He would probably take the person inside, and after that? In her mind Emma could see the girl tripping up to him, her skirt hem, held clear of the damp pavement, revealing her ankles, see her as she reached up to kiss him, see him responding wholeheartedly. He would take her arm or even lay his hand around her narrow waist to guide her into the warmth of the hotel and some clandestine love nest. Had he been doing this since Christmas, the engagement ring he’d given her merely a blind? A man could marry and still keep a mistress, for secretive meetings often meant lovers were already married. But why bother to ask her to marry him? All sorts of things raced through Emma’s mind. Feeling sick, she drew back and waited, occasionally peeping to see if he were still there. He’d begun pacing up and down, perhaps to keep warm. Emma herself was now shivering violently from the cold.

  Emma noticed a tall, lightly built man on the other side of the road, skilfully dodging around the people thronging Kingsway and appearing to be in a tearing hurry, whereas most people were wandering and strolling as couples or in groups, which was probably why he stood out. She saw him sprint across the road, deftly avoiding the congestion of horse and motor traffic. He was coming directly towards her and Emma shrank back in dismay at being discovered lurking on the corner of this side street, perhaps taken for a beggar as he passed, she who’d once stood on kerbs and thought nothing of it.

  But the figure went by without seeing her, gazing ahead. A gush of relief almost smothered her, not because she hadn’t been seen, but that the man was Martin Page. He approached Theodore; they exchanged a word or two before going on into the hotel.

  Why should she feel so chastened as she hurried back to her hotel that Theo’s appointment hadn’t been with a female? And why so glad to see it was Martin – not relieved, glad?

  It had been strange, he and Martin sitting together at the hotel bar. Talking purely business, they’d skirted around things personal and kept to the point. He had been intrigued by Martin’s letter asking to meet him and saying that he might be needing a second assistant, one who knew well the way he worked, saving him having to train up someone new.

  Odd, how time blunts the keen edges of rage and revenge. Talking to Martin in the informal atmosphere of a hotel bar, Theo realised that he still had a ten
der spot for him. There had always been something about Page that had drawn his attention – not in the way some might interpret it, but a pleasure in looking upon the beauty of the young, the indefatigability of it, a little compensation perhaps for what he saw as his own wasted years. Martin had always been a naturally likeable person anyway, charming without effort, helpful without fawning, ever willing to see another’s side of things. Perhaps that was why he’d walked out without a fight when accused of philandering with Eleanor – an unfortunate action that made him appear all the more guilty. Had he argued his corner … But some never do.

  Walking back to his own hotel, Theodore found himself wondering, not for the first time, if he had misinterpreted what was merely friendship. But knowing Eleanor’s penchant for male attention, he’d assumed … but it was a long time ago now. All he could remember was the hurt – a terrible sense of being let down by the young man he had trusted. He wondered now, should he be blaming himself for what had happened, for leaping in without stopping to think, for allowing jealousy to control him and which he now felt had had no foundation except his own blind suspicion? Perhaps so.

  Turning into his hotel, Theodore drew a deep, decisive breath, his mind made up. These new illusions: he, Martin and Amelia would make a marvellous team – he tall and commanding; Amelia compliant, at least on stage – she could be difficult other times; Martin matching her for height and slimness. On stage, one could easily be passed off for the other, the one vanishing to reappear apparently in seconds somewhere else. Removed from the audience, lights dimmed, who would spot the swap? It would work.

  ‘I am taking you on again,’ he had announced, his hand gratefully shaken by Martin, a gesture that made him tense as memories immediately flitted into his head, departing just as suddenly as he told Martin to be at his hotel at eight the next morning.

  As Theodore mounted the two flights up to his room, his thoughts flitted through many differing emotions – excitement, misgiving, triumph, determination to put the past behind him. By the time he reached Amelia’s room he had convinced himself that he could have been wrong, might have been unfair to Martin, that Martin could have been entirely innocent of encouraging Eleanor’s leaning towards nice-looking men.

  Theodore had begun to feel good about himself. He paused at Amelia’s door, eager to tell her about his meeting. She had looked so mystified this evening, now he would enlighten her about the new act he had in mind. It would be an entirely different one, like no other in the country. It was rarely he felt this excited, and he needed to share it with her.

  Taking the key he kept to her room, he opened the door, calling her name. The room was in darkness. She was already asleep. The only light came from a winter moon flooding between drawn-back curtains. She liked the curtains open, said it made her feel less closed in, at one time so used to them never able to completely meet across a window.

  She lay on her back, one slender arm thrown above her head, visible beneath a gauze sleeve. The neck of her nightgown was open to reveal the delicate hollow of her throat and the gentle swell of her breasts. She looked so vulnerable that his heart thumped with longing, a feeling he hastily quenched. Martin would be coming here tomorrow morning and he needed to work on his new illusions, sketching them on paper, detailing movements, perfecting timings. It could take the best part of the night.

  Tomorrow he’d begin ordering what he needed. Much of it he already had, but he had to have more metal straps and bars for his levitation illusion, and all the special equipment, the mirrors, the frames, for his black wash illusions.

  He would still keep some of his old favourites like the Turkish basket illusion which Amelia did so beautifully, gracefully sinking down into the incredibly tiny mouth of the wickerwork basket, the lid she held above her sinking down on top of her, apparently impossible that she could fit even her slim, supple body inside an unbelievably tiny interior. Martin, dressed as a Turkish potentate, would trample inside it as though it were empty, the covering sheet pounded down into it too, then lifted for all to see while a sword was thrust several times with lightning speed through the wickerwork before the sheet was draped over it again, from which she would rise unscathed, her slender bare arms upheld as the sheet was whipped from her form.

  Simple trickery, the tiny basket appearing to onlookers to be round but in reality oval, enough for her to squeeze inside, but from an astounded audience it drew tremendous applause after horrified gasps at the thrusts of the sword with which he had first sliced a piece of paper cleanly in half.

  There were many such illusions and he revelled in the applause they brought. Soon his name would be spoken with awe. He was done with little tricks. The ones he had planned would cover the stage. It wouldn’t take long to retrain Martin. Had he found someone else, they would have taken weeks to train, and he didn’t have weeks. Martin had been the obvious choice and he must learn to bury the past. He and Amelia were a perfect pair, beautiful to look at, slender, lithe, almost the same height, Amelia tall and slender, and Martin topping her just by two inches, while he himself at well over six feet would tower over the pair as a magician should to complete the tableau on stage.

  Quietly, he moved away from the bed, and, closing the door behind him, went back into his own room.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  From London it was the provinces once more for several weeks, the name of the Great Theodore becoming even more well established with his amazing vanishing cabinet, his levitation acts, his mind-reading, and most of all his framed room illusion where complete suites of furniture, animals or persons would mysteriously disappear and reappear.

  By April it was back to London again, making a name for themselves afresh. Emma was finding working with Martin a pleasure, so different from when there had been only Theodore. He was someone to run to when upset, and Theodore had an immense capacity for upsetting a person if he wasn’t careful. Martin was sympathetic, understanding and gentle, and she was finding herself slowly forming a bond of friendship with him, though he was being very careful.

  She too found herself being careful of detection, hating what seemed to her almost like deceitfulness. It shouldn’t have been that way, but Martin didn’t have to say much for her to know that his clash with Theo had started from innocent friendship too. ‘I wouldn’t want to upset the apple cart again,’ was all he said, but it spoke volumes. Yet how could people work together properly without being friends?

  She had come to realise just how accomplished an assistant Martin was. Theo must have been quite lost without him, but at that time he’d been lost anyway, he and his strange attitude. She could never take her problems to him. Martin with his quiet wisdom made up for it, yet it was still Theo who took command of her, overwhelming her when making love to her so that she forgot all else. Sometimes she wondered why she did not fall pregnant by him, but surmised that she must just have been lucky so far. Work had got in the way of most things, including plans for marriage. ‘In the autumn,’ he promised her. ‘The second we have a let-up.’

  But there was no let-up. They were living in style and he was loath to spoil it. She too. At present she was having the best of both worlds. Not only would Theo frequently indulge her with any piece of jewellery that caught her eye, but she now had savings in her own account, which she wouldn’t have had a few years ago.

  One day in early May, he returned from seeing Simmons after having received an urgent message from him. Theo’s normally unimpassioned face was wreathed in a wide smile, his strong, large, regular teeth unfamiliarly stark against his trim beard.

  ‘We are going to America,’ he announced, facing their astonished expressions. ‘Jack Simmons is arranging a three-month tour of the East Coast for us.’

  Emma’s stare was apprehensive. ‘But I’ve never been abroad before.’

  Noting her tone, Theodore gave a brief bellow of a laugh. ‘There’s nothing in the word “abroad” to bite you, my dear. I have spent some time in France in the past, and I understand M
artin had been on the Continent when he was a boy.’

  ‘But America’s a long way off,’ she insisted, and saw his smile fade.

  ‘It’s not the moon, my dear!’ He could sometimes make that term of endearment seem like one of censure. She hated it when he did. ‘Many of our now top artistes have toured the United States and consequently made their name, as have many who come here – a two-way exchange. We must begin making preparations.’

  It wasn’t easy telling her mother what was in store, as her mother saw the money Emma sent coming to an end. ‘Of course it won’t,’ Emma told her. ‘I’ll be sending you a regular money order for probably a lot more than I’m giving you now.’

  ‘You’ll be so far away.’ The forlorn reply was music to Emma’s ears, proof that Mum did care.

  ‘It’s only for three months, Mum.’ She comforted her happily, hardly able to believe that she, a girl who had imagined her whole life would be one of struggle and poverty, lording it in America. It was like a dream. Where she was, and where she was going from now on, would always be the place to be. She couldn’t be happier. Better still, Martin was included in this trip. If Theo upset her, she would still have him to turn to. It was like a dream, a magic dream.

  Like a dream it had all passed so quickly. Already the middle of September and they were on their way back home, back to dull old Britain where people were staid and on coming upon anyone famous seemed afraid to acknowledge them lest they be laughed at, as withdrawn as British weather itself.

  In the States people had been so open, so ready to come forth and make themselves known, inhibition hardly recognised. In fact, Emma loved every moment of it. But it was the pace that had got her down, that and Theo’s unbounded energy. America had been tiring: New York with its bustle and its noise, fast-talking New Yorkers, loud, clamorous, often too clamorous, Theodore’s rapidly expanding act well acclaimed. And the long train journeys to places spaced as widely apart as Boston and Philadelphia, train journeys that went on for ever and diminished those of England to a mere jaunt.