Clover had taken to writing to Aurora in snatches—never able to sit long enough for a whole letter. Her mind was nervous and her body could not settle. Still no news from Victor. That was to be expected in wartime, but she wanted so badly to let him know her own news. Tying her apron above the small firm bulge of the baby, she longed to tell Aurora, to ask her about the tight feeling and whether it was all right to be so terribly sleepy all day long.
Clover went to beat carpets in the garden, a useful and therapeutic occupation, but found she had to sit down on the dead grass—crouch, really—and pant for a while. It was uncomfortably animal.
Through the window she could hear Victor’s mother in her bath, quietly chanting Coué’s auto-suggestion trick, ‘Every day, in every way, I am better and better.’ It was not really allowed. Gali did not approve of other gurus. When she visited the astrologer, Madame wore a mysterious grey veil as a disguise. Clover gave a hiccuping laugh and felt the baby inside her jump, and laughed again. To keep herself from worrying about Victor, she was working on a monologue character called Madame Scrappati. Victor would not mind her using his mother’s eccentricity, even in the unlikely event that he was able to see the show.
The baby turned a somersault and kicked her hard in the ribs, and Clover determined to be more cheerful, more courageous, for its sake. Fear would hurt the baby. How brave Aurora had been, dancing right to the minute of Avery’s birth. She could do that. Getting up, she danced gently in the garden, stretching her arms out to the view of Wormwood Scrubs prison. Better and better, she sang to the baby inside her as they twirled.
Every Unspoken Wish
In Seattle, Bella got a new song by Irving Berlin, which brightened the November gloom. Pantages sent the song from San Diego in an envelope marked, BELLA AVERY ONLY, which she supposed was nice of him. Very silly, no sentimental bilge-distilling—Gentry Fox would approve. She thought of writing to tell Gentry so, but she did not have his address and he’d always liked Aurora best anyway. It was a lovely song, a girl explaining the hidden charms of her new boyfriend, and Bella knew just what to do with it: all her own surprise, a little measure of shock, a dab of relish and a bit of a laugh, more at herself than him.
‘He’s not so good in a crowd, but when you get him alone
You’d be surprised,
He doesn’t look very strong, but when you sit on his knee,
You’d be surprised!’
She was enjoying herself until she realized she was singing about Nando: ‘But in a Pullman berth, you’d be surprised!’ The song was a big hit. Rather than giving her a blue envelope for the innuendos, Kleinhardt, the manager in Oakland, put her second-to-close in her own slot and changed the handbills that very week, with a paycheque all her own as well as her third of the E&V take.
Her grouch-bag was groaning, though she sent half of everything off to Qu’Appelle. Aurora wrote to say she had opened a bank account in Indian Head for a rainy day, and had wired money to Clover, and that Bella should be sure to buy herself nice things for ordinary as well as new costumes as required. Bella did need a new dress for the number, and she had the perfect thing made up. Mama would love this dress, she thought, and she had a photo taken to send to her: demure white lace, only six inches off the ground, with pink satin shoes and sash: a wallflower’s dress, in which she could suddenly transform to a girl who has had every unspoken wish fulfilled, along with some she didn’t know how to pronounce.
Mme Scrappati
Not trusting the British audience as she did the houses back home, Clover used herself, in the role of a naive traveller new to England, to introduce her monologues. She did Mrs. O’Hara regularly, and developed others: a gawky ballerina and an aging opera singer (a very free portrait of Miss Sunderland from Gentry’s theatre). Madame Scrappati went over best—though Clover thought it would not work at home, being a portrait of a type only seen in England.
Last week I met Madame Scrappati, an eccentric lady who teaches the violin to any number of unpleasant children, walking down Portobello Market. She carried an enormous basket, and from it fished a mutton bone for a dog that came whining, a penny for every poor waif she met, and a large bar of doubtful chocolate, which she offered to me. I proposed a cup of tea instead.
Having sketched Madame Scrappati’s basket and movements, Clover transformed into Madame herself, sweeping a vast magenta velvet, marabou-edged stole about her shoulders as she turned to nestle herself, her draperies and her basket into an imaginary inglenook. Dearest! she began, in a breathy, overexcited voice: a hint of gin, polyglot phrasing, and every odd usage she was learning from the atelier.
I have had the most profound session with La Sombreuse—opening the stars to me in all their power and influence. But perhaps do not mention her to the dear Vicar, for he is not in sympathy with the esoteric wisdom. Of course you and I do not credit astrology, but one cannot help finding the accuracy quite astounding! La Sombreuse warns of a conjunction, Neptune the trickster and warlike Mars. She sees real possibility of international conflict!
And then a rapid tour through various vultures of clairvoyants and charlatans, until:
Oh, darling, I will be late for my Tarot reading: Signora Esmeralda, a genius of the mystical cards—her pack was passed down to her from Ahasuerus and Sheba, and she has the most fascinating insights … But do not tell the dear Vicar, cher amie … (Donning a grey veil, she totters off.)
It went over well, but audiences had little else to amuse them, with most male artistes gone to the Front. In Victor’s regiment there were four former variety artistes—Victor had once sent her a cartoon featuring himself, drawn by Bairnsfather: a private juggling grenades to the mixed entertainment and horror of his troopmates. ‘It was only tins of bully beef,’ Victor wrote at the bottom of the cartoon. ‘I would not care to waste a good grenade.’
Felix Quirk was the last remaining comic at the Tivoli. His withered arm was skilfully hidden, and his upper-class accent might even have been his own. He went Clover’s way after the last show, heading for Notting Hill, and walked a different route with her each evening, introducing her to London’s geography. When he changed to the Vaudeville Theatre down on the Strand, he got Clover a few weeks’ engagement there so they could continue their walks. He made a pet of her, calling her the Little Canadian. But Quirk was a more dedicated drunkard even than Julius, and Clover reserved herself a little too.
One night they came upon a line of ambulance carriages along the street. Clover asked what they were waiting for, and Felix pointed up the street to St. Pancras station, far distant. ‘Wounded soldiers returning from France,’ he said. ‘Brought in at night, so the public does not panic at their numbers.’
It took twenty minutes to walk down the line. The wounded were brought out on stretchers, and a few walking, accompanied by nursing sisters and orderlies. Their faces were the colour of the stones; the darkness kept Clover from seeing their eyes. She saw them in dreams, though, after that night.
What’s One to Do?
As he had promised, one November afternoon Dr. Graham came to see how Mama progressed, driving his open car. Beside him sat Lewis Ridgeway, so muffled up against the dust and chill that Aurora could not make out his expression.
The doctor asked after Mama; Chum collared Ridgeway and took him into his study for a chat. Aurora was glad not to have to enter into polite conversation. She and the doctor went to the sitting room, where Mama was engaged in building block towers with Avery.
Mabel came out of the kitchen, gave Dr. Graham a quick embrace, and offered tea; the doctor sat at once to help with the blocks, telling Aurora that she might go about her business. So Aurora slipped her coat on and went out, telling Aunt Elsie that a walk to the post office would do her good. Not—she told herself—avoiding Mr. Ridgeway.
The air outside had a clean, cold bite. Smoke rose in spirals from burning leaves as the townspeople cleared their gardens for the winter. Everything smelled of winter, making Aurora long for snow.
It was just past four o’clock, time to walk out and back before dark.
But she had not gone past the end of the drive before she was hailed, and turned to see Ridgeway striding after her, his long overcoat slashing through the air.
‘May I walk with you?’ he asked, wanting permission, it seemed, after their strange conversation at the schoolhouse. She looked at him. His narrow face did not show emotion easily, she thought; or perhaps he had no easy emotions.
‘If you wish,’ she said, laughing a little at her own cowardice.
He made no attempt to take her arm but suited his step to hers, and they progressed along the empty road.
‘No snow as yet,’ she said, after a silence of a few minutes.
‘No.’ He turned his head at her gambit. ‘You are not usually a conventional conversationalist, Mrs. Mayhew, and I like that.’
‘If you wish, I will keep Silence, like in the library.’
‘I hope not. But—here, have you tried the path through the copse? It is smooth and clear.’
They veered to the left and entered a little wood that stretched out from the edge of town, poplars and scrub willows. Most of the leaves had fallen, soft-cracking underfoot; an early moon showed through bare branches. She waited for him to speak, glancing at his profile as they walked. He had a defined head: strong forehead and nose, sharp jaw and chin. She found it impossible to tell where his intellect left off and his human-ness began.
‘Your husband left you?’ he asked. Abrupt, in that quiet grey place.
‘Yes.’
‘My fiancée left me,’ he said.
There was a pause. ‘Yes, I’d heard that,’ she finally said.
‘What’s one to do?’
Not an idle phrase, she thought, but a real question. He sounded still desolate.
‘I’m sure your case is quite different,’ she said, seeking to comfort him. ‘Mine had gone bust, you know, and considered my mother and sisters excess baggage. I did not know about Avery yet, so he did not desert his child—but I have no way of finding him, nor any intention of doing so.’
A relief to be able to tell all this without emotion. She had not told Uncle Chum the full story. ‘My husband was dishonest in every way,’ she said. ‘Not an honourable or admirable person. But I will find something good to remember about him, to tell my son.’
‘My—Miss Parker was honest enough,’ Ridgeway said. ‘Quite brutally so.’
‘I am sorry,’ Aurora said.
He laughed, lessening the intensity of the exchange. ‘Eloquent, in fact! But perhaps it was for the best,’ he said.
And that was all. Through the little wood, they emerged into the open and saw Uncle Chum’s Ford coming towards them, weaving its way tenderly along the ruts, to save her the walk.
‘Kind of him, but you know he very much likes a reason for an outing,’ she said. ‘Good night, Mr. Ridgeway.’ She stopped herself from saying thank you.
He said it instead. ‘Thank you. I will see you—oh, soon, I expect.’
The Ford stitched up the road to the post office. While Chum filled her in on the smallest details of Lewis Ridgeway’s antecedents and credentials, she thought about his face, so distinct in the moonlight.
Gas
The long silence was explained in letters brought for Clover and Madame by a London Territorial home on leave: Victor had been gassed at Loos. They were in his own handwriting, which Madame took as a sign. She was phlegmatic. Her astrologer had warned of catastrophe averted.
I am sorry to have kept it from you, but it was our own gas, blown back over the lines. It’s a shame you should be worried—I was convinced that it would be easier for you both if I could reassure you that I am perfectly well again, rather than sending one of the tick-cards. The headache was the worst of it, I was never as badly off as many. Their coughing was the continuo at the hospital, their yellowy-green faces floated upside down, beseeching, heads hanging off stretchers to get some relief.
The doctors bled me! I was under the misapprehension that bleeding was a medieval sort of treatment. They kept us warm with good blankets and hot-water bottles, a nice change from the trenches, and after a course of saltwater vomiting, I’m pronounced fit for light duty again. I’ll work at the hospital this month, and be back at the Front as soon as winking. If I’d been sent to hospital in England, I’d have had some sick leave. Only I can’t wish for leave when things are so desperate here. Perhaps you have heard some of it.
The Prince of Wales came to visit the Guards, tell my mother, I forgot to put it in her letter. They would not allow him near the Front, too dangerous, but he ordered his car to stop near Loos and while he was trying to get closer to the trenches to see the men, his car and driver were blown to bits.
Unable to bear leaving him in ignorance any longer, Clover wrote to Victor by return, telling him that he was to be a father. Within the week she received the warmest of letters in return, promising faithfully that he would return safe, and wishing her to take every care, as he would too, so that they could be the most fortunate and loving parents since the world was made. It was a letter in Victor’s old manner, his old poetic voice. She remembered him leaning over the edge of the Parthenon roof in Helena, shouting into the snow, ‘Children! This is your mother!’
Clover wrote immediately to Aurora and Mama (asking Aurora to gauge whether Mama would find the news distressing) and to Bella. She requested their best advice—but felt she needed none. She had passed the uncomfortable sickish part, and was feeling stronger than ever in her life.
9, 10, 11
Joyful from the Soubrettes was at the Pantages in Spokane, posing in scanty clothes as a magician’s assistant. In a happy reunion, she and Bella told all their sisters’ tales, including Mama’s stroke and Clover’s defection to England. East had tried to find Mayhew when they hit Spokane, but apparently he had not stayed in the city more than a month before he’d lit out for parts south with a dancer called Estella, or Elvira, and even in the small pond of vaudeville, nobody had heard of him since. Good riddance, Bella told Joyful.
The Soubrettes were scattered, Mercy in Australia with a theatre company, and Tempy out at the farm, where she had married a fellow who didn’t mind keeping Patience. Joyful whooped when she heard of Aurora’s baby—and now Clover’s, to come! After three or four glasses of sloe gin, Bella confided that she was quite afraid of being caught that way herself, especially now Clover was expecting too, and Joyful taught her about counting days.
‘Have you had your womanly time since?’
Bella nodded, not shy with Joyful. ‘Last week.’
Joyful nodded too. ‘You’re likely good, then. You take from then, from the first day, and count nine. Then you stay away from men—well, or give them only a French—for ten days, then you’re mostly good for eleven days. Doesn’t always work, but you can find a woman to help you. Mercy has special tea if you get a scare, if your visitor don’t come.’
Nine, ten, eleven. She could do that. Bella started to mark off the days, using a carmine stick to smudge the day she started and counting nine, ten and eleven from there each month. She crossed her fingers that Pantages would not come at a bad time. He did not like it when she was on her monthlies; she could pretend to be, as long as she was reasonable about it, and get away with a French job or only canoodling.
So really she was hardly bothered by him. It was all right. When he gave her an extra present she sent the money to Aurora and asked her to send half to Clover, for the baby.
A Blanket from the Fire
In late December Clover ran out of work, the pantomimes taking over every variety stage. It was time, anyway; she was already much bigger than Aurora had been with Avery, and could only do Mrs. O’Hara and Madame Scrappati, whose costumes were loose round the middle.
Felix Quirk sent tickets to his panto. Madame sang along with the words on the screen let down from the flies, ‘Keep the home fires burning …’ Clover sat hard as stone while the cheery patriots sang. Pat
riotism had burned out of her when Victor was gassed.
The last month went very slowly. Madame never seemed to worry about things but held that providence or the stars or Gali would provide—indeed, just before Christmas a large bank draft came from Qu’Appelle, so they had both heat and light, with plenty over for food. Although Clover had debated going to a lying-in hospital, wounded men were flooding all the wards, and she felt so well that she delayed making any arrangement. In the end, well into January, the baby was born at Galichen’s atelier—choosing to come in the middle of the night. Clover woke in a pool of water, hit by a wave of pain so shocking that she cried out for Madame, who came with spritely haste and gentle shrieks. Not daring to take time to fetch help, she wrapped Clover up and took the mountain to Mahomet the instant the wave had passed, hurrying her out to the street and down the area steps to the atelier’s kitchen.
The little girl was born on the well-scrubbed kitchen table, Madame exclaiming and Heather Jakes doing the work. Heather was a closed-faced woman. They had often met in the atelier kitchen, or crossed on the stairs, but during the long violence of the birth pains Clover came to love her. Not a talker, but her hands were sure and strong and she held Clover’s knees, from time to time giving some useful direction: ‘Hold off now, no pushing—a bit longer, but it won’t be more than you can stand.’ And because Heather Jakes had said so, it was not. But bad enough.
When the baby was born finally and Clover was lying still, holding the miraculous creature and not in pain any more, Galichen came to the kitchen to look her over, and the child. After close scrutiny he pronounced his satisfaction, gave permission for it to live, and dedicated it to the moon. Clover would have laughed, if she’d had the wind. His one magnified eye glared at her, and winked, and then he left.
The Little Shadows Page 46