The Ringmaster's Wife

by Kristy Cambron

  “Mrs. Ringling . . . I—”

  “No, no.” Mable shook her head. “No need to get up. And please, call me Mable.”

  Rosamund did as requested, settling back down on the crate with a swoop of sequined ribbons flouncing about her lap. She chewed the edge of her bottom lip as Mable sat before her.

  “I’m sure this visit is an unexpected one. In truth, I hadn’t anticipated it myself. But, well, here we are.”

  The alcove in which they sat was dim and shielded almost entirely from view.

  Rosamund had never been more grateful for the haven of anonymity. Here they could talk. Unnoticed. Watching the circus pass by beyond their hidden corner without anyone else seeing the bareback rider who was poised to receive a reprimand from Mrs. Ringling herself.

  “This is all new, you know, this location for Madison Square Garden,” Mable began, quite differently than Rosamund had expected.

  She’d expected the conversation to begin with You’re fired.

  “Yes.” She paused, uneasy. “I did hear that.”

  “The city heads got it in their minds to widen Madison Avenue some time back. My favorite part of the old building was torn down.”

  “What was your favorite part?”

  “All of it.” Mable laughed. “It was a lovely piece of Venice right here in the city. But time marches. Changes are made. Everything has to be bigger and better . . . Flashier, including the Garden. But this underground area is nice. Much larger than I’d thought.”

  The barrage of normal chitchat proved too much, and Rosamund interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut as she blurted out, “I’m so sorry, but I can’t bear it any longer. Are you here to fire me? Please tell me, and I’ll just get my things and go.”

  Rosamund cracked open one eye, feeling but an ounce of courage to do so.

  Mable appeared taken aback, both by the question and by the honesty of Rosamund’s distress so readily on display. It felt safe then to open both eyes and hope for the best.

  “Fire you? I have no call to do anything of the sort,” Mable replied. “No power to do so either. Only don’t tell that to Mr. Ringling. He’d never let me live that notion down.”

  Rosamund’s trepidation eased, her shoulders lightening with it.

  “No, I’m here for another reason.”

  “Did Mr. Keary send you?”

  Mable shook her head. “That would not be in keeping with our Mr. Keary’s nature. I expect he’d fall into a very manly swoon if he knew I was here talking to you right now.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I’ve never done this before.”

  Rosamund stared. “You’ve never . . . what?”

  “Gone backstage to talk to a performer.” Mable confirmed it with a light shake of her head. “Not once. The circus is my husband’s world, and I do not intrude upon that. I stick with the fun and just watch the shows. But I did venture down to the performance floor. Just once, years ago. I stopped by to chat with someone who was not altogether unlike you—new in his role. Figuring things out. Maybe on the verge of making a mistake or two along the way.”

  “So you’re here now because of what you saw tonight?”

  Rosamund rubbed a hand against her chin. Her performance must have been the worst in the Ringling Brothers’ history if it brought Mable all the way underground, to places she’d never thought her boots would tread.

  “No one’s given a performance that bad?”

  Mable laughed at that, a hearty chuckle that brightened her entire face.

  “Of course they have. You know, Mr. Ringling tells of a snake-charmer act they once had in the early days. A very exotic woman from the Orient. And though she was quite skilled, a python got away during her first performance and tried to have one of the dog act’s schnauzers for lunch. You can imagine the friction that caused, both with the crowd and the schnauzer.”

  “And what happened?”

  “She married one of the clowns, and their family toured with the circus for years.”

  Rosamund let loose with an easy smile. “Really?”

  “Yes. Really. I won’t pretend to know what it’s like out there in the ring. But I felt a tug on my heart after I watched you at our party this past December. It’s brought me down here now, to remind you that you weren’t acting that night. You played the piano for us, allowing music to flow from your heart. And you won over every person in that room because you swept in there like a fresh breeze, simply by being who you are.”

  “I’m not sure who I am anymore. Certainly not in that ring. Colin—”

  Mable cut off her argument with a swift interruption.

  “Please forget Mr. Keary for a moment. This has nothing to do with him. Circus boss or not, that man needs a little shaking up. If your performance jolted him, then I say good. He’ll be the better for it.”

  Rosamund nodded. Listening keenly. Noticing how Mable’s eyes twinkled ever so slightly, adding little touches of encouragement to her words.

  “It’s a common thing for a woman to doubt her place in life. Do you consider it an abhorrence to marry, to have children?”

  Just what the subject had to do with her performance that night, Rosamund hadn’t a clue. She shook her head slowly. “Of course not.”

  “And if that was what your life was—no performances, no name up in lights . . . no circus at all. Just Lady Rosamund Easling living her days as a wife and mother. Would that be enough?”

  “I never wanted my name in lights. I’d have been quite content with being a wife. A mother someday. But I wanted to choose it for myself. I think a woman’s place shouldn’t be thrust upon her. It should be her decision whom to marry, or to marry at all. And if I wanted more, that should be my decision too, shouldn’t it?”

  Mable paused. Nodded. She absently smoothed a hand over the span of ivory silk beading of her dress peeking out from the fur spread across her lap, considering the idea.

  “Yes, I agree. It should. But do you know how remarkable, how brave it is that you’ve stepped forth in spite of all that, risking everything for the reinvention of who you are?”

  It didn’t feel remarkable.

  Nor brave.

  From where Rosamund sat, her faith leap had resulted in a bump on the head, a terribly raw elbow, and a helping of pie that was both humble and bitter at the same time.

  “No. I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

  “But I think it is brave. It reminds me of a young farm girl who once left home. She was scared too, but more afraid of life passing her by than of what it might cost to step out and really live. She even carried an old cigar box around with her dreams hidden inside, planning, one day, to experience every one of them.”

  Mable pursed her lips.

  “You know, you’re not so very different from the ringmaster’s wife who sits in front of you, Rose. She’s gone from farm girl dresses to Paris couture. From a horizon of plowed fields to the seaside backdrop of Sarasota Bay. But she’s also gone from feeling discontent to finally breathing in freedom. In that way, you and I are alike.”

  For the first time, Rosamund saw the connection between them.

  And Mable was right.

  “You may not have set out to be a star, my dear, yet here you are. Under Mr. Ringling’s Big Top. Name flashing and colors flying from atop your horse. You may not have come here for the glittering life in that ring, but now you’ve got it. And so I ask you . . .” Mable leaned in, staring deep into Rosamund’s eyes. “What do you plan to do with it?”

  She produced a blush-pink, long-stemmed rose that Rosamund hadn’t noticed and twirled it in her fingertips.” I was thinking of my garden at the Cà d’Zan tonight. Did you know that we had it built long before the house was ever dreamed up?�
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  Rosamund shook her head.

  “It was called Palms Elysian then. We bought the property in 1911, and after we closed the verandas to keep pesky mosquitoes out of the house, it was the very next thing I had built. You would have still been a child then, like the young ones sitting on the straw bales tonight. Marveling at the sights and the sounds. Getting your fingers sticky with cotton candy and caramel corn.” She chuckled. “I never did like that stuff.”

  Laughter at Mable’s teasing came easy. It broke into Rosamund’s thoughts on the matter of the circus life. Of children. Of dreams and living through the outcome of decisions.

  “I had dreams. And my rose garden makes me think on them. Often.”

  Rosamund pictured a young Mable Ringling with stars glimmering in her eyes and smiled.

  The vision suited her.

  “What were your dreams?”

  “Oh, same as yours. Love. Freedom. Something up in lights—didn’t have to be my name. Just something to make the journey sparkle a little.” She leaned in, winking on the words. “And if you can look past the exterior of a dream, what’s buried deepest is always the most rewarding. My Cà d’Zan has a grand exterior. It’s playful—the way I wanted it. But if you look past the house, you’ll find that the rose garden has been tended with far more care. By my own hands, for a much longer time. So you see, it’s the journey we’re all after—not the reward.”

  “I don’t know what my dreams are anymore,” Rosamund said. “I thought I did, but then I came here and . . . everything changed.”

  “Bravo then,” Mable countered. “This building up of what we want doesn’t have to be a tearing down of who we are. It’s the worst kind of extravagance to think we’re above adversity. Isn’t that what God calls of us, to acknowledge that we are moving with this undercurrent of something that is always at work around us? Something bigger than we could ever be as just one person?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I thought my big faith leap was boarding a train at King’s Cross Station.”

  “But it wasn’t?”

  Rosamund shook her head. “I think it’s been in the days in between then and now.”

  “Rosamund, we only see what we want to see—in people, in love, and in life. It’s a choice, my dear. That’s the point of all this. You choose the face you offer the world. And it’s only behind the costumes and the masks that we can be who we truly are.”

  She extended the rose.

  Rosamund took it with gentle fingertips, clasping the stem as if it were made of the finest porcelain.

  “I think you are like this rose—beautiful, and with all the sweet potential in the world. Pink is your color, and roses are your perfume.” Mable stood. “Use them to show the world who you are.”

  CHAPTER 18

  1906

  NEW YORK CITY

  “One more step up,” Mable whispered, her hands covering John’s eyes from behind.

  He obeyed and stepped up gingerly.

  The tip of his shoe hooked on the last step and they stumbled together. He righted them with a firm grip to the rail on the back platform of their custom-built Pullman train car, saying, “Honestly, Mable. I’m going to break my back for a car I’ve seen a hundred times already.”

  She’d spent the last months designing their train car, dubbed the Wisconsin, making it their lavish home on iron wheels. If she had a mind to surprise him with the outcome of her efforts, Mable decided he’d simply have to play along—broken back or not.

  “You’ve seen it, but not like this,” she countered, despite his attempt at sourness for having to succumb to her childish games. “Not when everything’s finished just so. You’ll have to endure my notion of fun, Mr. Ringling.”

  John stepped through the mahogany-lined threshold into the observation room, the large open space where they’d entertain their on-the-road guests.

  “Okay,” Mable said as she pulled her hands away, though instinct drew them back to her mouth. She half covered her bottom lip, excitement spilling over. “Open.”

  John complied and opened his eyes, adding a tiny huff for good measure.

  There was a grand spectacle of wagons and animals outside the car windows, but it delighted Mable that John didn’t seem to notice.

  In the moment, he was effectively captured.

  He turned in a semicircle, scanning the space.

  She, too, gazed around the room, its gold-tipped ceiling, stained-glass windows, seat cushions of tufted green velvet, and rich mahogany walls all singing in unison. It was late evening, so she’d switched on all the lights for effect, and every surface appeared to have been dusted in a warm gold glow.

  John glanced down the hall that ran the length of the car, leading to the kitchen on the end.

  “The staterooms and dining room are just down there, remember? All polished and perfect, down to the very last nail.”

  Movement out the windows caught her eye, and Mable saw the great gray bodies of a line of elephants lumber past. Their eyes were level with the glass and they seemed to peek in, the electric lights casting a shadowed glow on the side of each wrinkled visage.

  The circus was preparing to head out on the road for the 1906 performance season, and there was the customary hustle-bustle about the train platform. It wasn’t a mundane sight to see a menagerie passing by outside the window. Yet John hadn’t noticed. The space inside the train car held him captive, and that felt like a win for her decorating prowess.

  “I regret that we couldn’t fit a Steinway in this room.” She pointed at the Victrola against the wall and leaned in to whisper in his ear, “But we could dance in here if we had a mind to.”

  “We could that.”

  “Well then, Mr. Ringling. You’ve had a nice long look. What say you?” She tipped her chin up. “Will it do for our travels?”

  “Will it do?” He turned, bestowing upon her a rare, full-toothed, only-for-Mable smile. “Of course it will do. You’re here in every detail. That will make the months of travel seem far less daunting.”

  “Don’t tease me. You love the road. But it’s still settled.” Mable stood to the side, acknowledging his praise with a satisfied nod. “We always travel together. I won’t push into the business of your circus world. I’ll just enjoy it as long as you promise to spend time here, in mine.”

  “After all this, I’m almost afraid to ask,” he said, settling into a brown leather armchair against the wall. “What’s your next project? I’m wondering how you’ll manage to top this.”

  Next project?

  Mable hastened to admit she hadn’t considered what would come after. She’d simply thrown herself into the goal of outfitting their travel home.

  The first day John had taken her to see his circus drifted into her mind without warning. Mable saw the young faces of those she’d sat with on the straw bales lining the ring. Children, delighted. Parents, proud. Proud that they could give their young sons and daughters a glimpse of whimsy under the Big Top.

  She remembered that first trip to the Ringlings’ circus world—the world in which she now belonged—and wondered . . .

  Were the memories of a child’s wonder in their future?

  Our next project, she thought.

  Would they add the sounds of delighted laughter and the pitter-patter of tiny feet to echo against the mahogany-lined walls of the Wisconsin?

  “Mable?”

  John’s voice snapped her back to attention.

  “What?”

  He sighed.

  “I said, are you hungry? It might be nice to have one last dinner while we’re here in New York. How does Delmonico’s sound?” He pulled the pocket watch from his vest, checking the time. “We can still make it if we hurry.”

  “Ye
s,” she breathed out, adding a light roll of her eyes. No sense in opening up a conversation they hadn’t time to delve into at the moment.

  But later, perhaps. When the train rolled and the lights were dimmed . . . When they were alone and the rest of the world was passing by outside, Mable would tell him she wanted a child of their own.

  1911

  SARASOTA, FLORIDA

  “AND THE ROSE GARDEN WILL GO RIGHT OVER THERE,” MABLE said, spreading her hand wide across the span of yard in front of their new winter home, the Palms Elysian Estate.

  She knelt and dug into the oilcloth briefcase at her feet, thumbing through fabric samples and photographs she’d collected from another one of their trips to Venice the year before.

  Mable had seen fit to drag John away from the pressing matters of business dealings littering the desk in his office and take him for a light afternoon stroll round the estate yard. And if they’d happen to stop and plot out her garden in the middle of it, that was exactly what she’d set out to accomplish for the day.

  “Ah, here it is,” she added, plucking the photograph of an Italian villa garden out of the bag to hand over to John. “Right there is where it will go. And we’ve got twenty acres to work with, so I think we can duplicate the traditional Italian wagon wheel motif. What do you think?”

  “You plan on a twenty-acre garden?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, imagining a bower of blooms exploding in color before her eyes. Lining walkways. Stretching their leaves to be kissed by the warm Florida sun. The roses were everywhere in her mind, perfuming the air with their scent and frosting the landscape in vibrancy.

  Mable stood in her bright white day dress covered with a bevy of botanical blooms, surveying the span of land at their disposal. If this was to be their winter paradise, it couldn’t be such without the one thing she knew it needed—a spectacular rose garden. One she’d tend herself. One she’d dreamed about since the day she’d become Mrs. John Ringling. And one that was necessary for her now.

  “I am amazed,” he said.