He glanced up from his newspaper.
‘You have on a hat, Mrs Arroner.’
‘Yes, my dear.’
‘Are you dressed to go out?’
‘Yes, indeed I am, Mr Arroner.’
‘Are you well?’
‘I am very well.’
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Where will you go?’
‘I am going to walk to the end of the street,’ I said. ‘And when I am there, I may turn the corner and walk to the end of that street, also.’
‘Will you?’
‘If the weather continues to be fine, I shall. I shall walk up and down the street and take the air.’
He smiled over the top of the newspaper he was pretending to read. He still believed I could not tell the difference between reading and peering at the shapes of words.
‘An enchanting idea. You could perhaps call upon your mother.’
I clenched my fingers together so tightly I thought they might tear the stitching in my gloves. For months I had sent letters inviting her to visit us, and all of them had been returned. I half hoped she might come now we were in less impressive lodgings, but the letters continued to come back. I wondered if she was living a new life, one in which I had never been her daughter. I might be famous, but I hardly kept respectable company.
‘No,’ I said with a casual air, as though his words had made no impression upon me. ‘I believe I shall call upon the Cow-Horned Lady who is residing in Goverton Square. I hear she is strange as am I.’
‘Indeed, I have heard the same. It is a fine day. Very fine. You will have a long and pleasant walk. Will you, at least, return by evening?’
‘I shall,’ I whispered.
‘For we shall want you for the show. It would not be the same without you.’
‘I have never missed a performance.’
‘Of course, of course. But I do wonder if you might become enchanted by the sights you see. I fear some gentleman might tip his hat to you and you might be bewitched away from me.’
‘How could that happen?’
‘Oh, men of the world have ways to entice an innocent creature such as yourself.’
I hesitated. ‘I shall return straightway, dear husband. Be assured of my devotion. There is no need to be concerned on that account.’
I willed him to raise his eyes and meet mine with a kind glance, but he was attending to the task of reading. One affectionate word was all it would take to keep me.
‘I am not concerned. In any case, make sure they do not charge you the entry fee. Lift up your veil if they insist.’
‘I thought I might not wear it.’
He looked over the top of the paper.
‘Of course, that is your choice, Mrs Arroner. I am sure people are grown much kinder these days.’
‘I am famous,’ I hazarded. ‘I am their own Lion-Faced Girl. They have taken me to their hearts. My only dilemma will be the signing of so many autographs.’
My voice contained a tremble I hoped he did not hear.
‘Indeed, Mrs Arroner, you must take a pencil. I believe I have one you may borrow.’
I sat down on the edge of the fiddle-back chair and felt the seat sag accommodatingly beneath me: it would be comfortable to remain seated. I chewed my lip. Thought of the crowds: the line between affection and repulsion.
‘Maybe it will turn to rain after all?’ I said as though I did not care overmuch. I could just see the top of his head over the brim of the paper, his scalp gleaming through his thinning hair. ‘These are new gloves,’ I continued. ‘You gave them to me.’
He did not lower the newspaper.
‘I do so want to call upon the Cow-Horned Lady.’
‘I will purchase her carte de visite for you,’ he remarked, and then stopped, slamming the paper on to the table-top. The cups and saucers danced.
‘Mr Arroner?’
‘That’s it? Of course! Capital! I am a genius! All the best people have these new cards, even the monstrous. It is just the thing we lack, and precisely the thing we need. Imagine it.’ He wiped his palm across the air as though clearing a space on a bookshelf. ‘Who is the fairest of them all? You! Ladies, we have proof irrefutable. Your photograph taken with the only true and genuine Lion-Faced Woman. Every lady a princess by comparison. Guaranteed.’
‘You are very clever.’
‘Clever? I am a wizard! A worker of miracles! What better than to be in at the start, when the rage for these cards is new and fresh. Imagine, dear wife, your face for sale, by the hundredweight. Available for purchase, by high and low regardless.’
‘Dear Mr Arroner—’
‘She looks you in the eye! Dare you face Medusa’s glare!’
I sighed.
‘I am glad that you are happy.’
‘I am delighted.’
His face gleamed. He grinned at me.
‘I do not wish to spoil these gloves,’ I declared. ‘I shall stay here.’
‘Will you?’
The smile teetered.
‘Yes. Will you read to me from the latest news, my dear? We could spend a pleasant hour together.’
He placed the paper on to his lap.
‘I should enjoy that very much, Mrs Arroner,’ he said, folding the sheet. ‘But I have a pressing engagement – the business of men. I declare, it fatigues me greatly. I should much rather spend the morning with you.’
He looked at his watch.
‘Ah, it is almost afternoon.’ He stood, crooked his forefinger into a hook and nudged me under the chin. ‘How you would be lost and strayed without my guiding hand,’ he remarked, chuckling.
He left the room. I listened to the pleasurable creaks of the chair released from his weight.
My husband returned that evening with a new dress of green satin to set off the spun flax of my hair. One thing which had not changed was his purchasing of clothing which I thought immodest.
‘It is a little short, Mr Arroner,’ I said, for it did not reach my ankles.
‘It is what the most fashionable ladies are wearing this season,’ he protested, not looking me directly in the eye. ‘Besides, we have to keep tantalising them with the hope that you might lift up your skirts.’
He watched my eyebrows climb.
‘Which of course you will not, Mrs Arroner.’
‘I should hope not, neither,’ barked Lizzie. ‘Don’t want her diverting any of my trade up her river.’
‘Do not worry yourself, Elizabeth.’ He smiled. ‘You are our Whore of Babylon. There could never be any to touch you.’
Lizzie preened herself.
‘There’s a fair queue outside,’ said Bill.
‘This is two shows in one,’ crooned my dear Mr Arroner. ‘They come to have their pictures taken. They come to watch the pictures being taken. It is brilliance.’
There was the fraught silence of anticipation as Bill pulled back the curtain and we waited for the opening burst of applause.
‘Step up!’ bawled my husband, drilling the point of a walking stick at me. ‘Step up and take a seat! Your picture with the Lion-Faced Woman! Quick as lightning by virtue of the Collodion Wonder of the Photographic Art! One shilling only!’
They were here to stare into my magic mirror; for always I gave the same answer: You are the fairest. Even the ugliest could walk away satisfied that there was one woman more foul-featured than her.
‘Is she animal or human? Her visage cries out animal! But her manners are those of the most tenderly raised female. Which gives great satisfaction to all who venture to see her.’
There were two seats set up, and I filled only one. Lizzie had brushed and combed me till I shone like the glossy cushion I crossed my ankles on. The drop behind me was painted like a forest glade, blotted with sunshine through sharp-edged leaves.
‘Be not afraid. Be venturesome! Come, ladies, step forward!’
For all that I might work miracles for the hideous, no-one wanted to be first.
‘We all know the story of Samson a
nd the lion. Come and see this lioness made lamb-like! For out of the strong came forth sweetness, as was made clear to me by the Dean of Cologne, who travelled all the way from Germany to view this marvel! She is our Lion Princess. Our kitten, who will purr as sweet as any puss. Approach without fear!’
My husband stalked the length of the front row of chairs, and fixed on the plainest woman in the room, a woman who was fat whilst lacking any of Lizzie’s pride. She tried to squirm away from his attention, but he had her in his sights.
‘Ah! Sweet Cupid! You have stuck me with your dart!’ he mugged, clutching his breast. ‘I am slain!’
There was a ripple of mirth at the sight of my dandy-cock of a husband losing his heart to such a slab of flesh. He grasped her vast hand and lifted it to his lips.
‘Such porcelain skin! Such maidenly modesty! Oh, how I am slain by the arrows of Venus!’
The ripple became a surge of laughter.
‘Will you not step forward, dearest miss?’
‘Madam, I think!’ came the cry, and the audience hooted with delight.
‘Go on, love, up you go,’ yelled an encouraging voice.
‘Ladies and gentlemen! Is she brave enough to hold the paw of the fearsome lioness?’
‘Yes, go on, love!’
‘Do it!’
She was pushed to her feet, made to gather up her skirts and sway across the space between us. The effort of those few steps up flushed her face with tough breath. She bared her teeth, displaying gums shrunk back from grey stumps, and lowered herself puffing into the chair beside me. I flashed my row of little pearls and she glared as though she’d like to skittle them down, one by one.
I nodded, and reached out to her, palm up to show the pad, pink and safe. Her hand edged across the space between us.
‘Brave woman! Brave, brave woman!’ bellowed my husband to the delight of the crowd. ‘Ah! But will she bite? And will she bite too?’ he added, pointing the cane at me again, to greater guffaws.
‘I meant the beast, sir! Not your wife! You look nibbled enough!’
The audience cackled.
‘No,’ he continued. ‘Our lioness is as gentle as a kitten. Look how she licks her paw!’
At his signal I raised my hand obediently to my lips, to aws, and aahs, and isn’t-it-pretty.
‘Are you ready now?’ he said, half to the sack of a female by my side, half to the audience. ‘Are you ready, I said?’
‘Yes!’ came the chorus.
‘Are you ready, Mr Photographer?’
George waved from behind the great wooden box, the fancy equipment brought in as a favour from one of my husband’s many associates. I clutched at her hand and set my teeth in a rictus grin. As I counted out the long moments of the exposure the strangeness happened, reminding me of when I had touched Abel’s hand previously. I had thought that he was a fluke, that I could find my way into his inner world alone. But it seemed as though he had been the catalyst for a new skill. My fingers tasted the texture of her skin, the lines running back and forth across her palm. Gypsy-paths, my mother had called them.
I followed those paths as they led to her inmost secrets: I was singed by the heat of her tears as her son died two hours after birth; I sweated with the mortal fever of her daughter, five years before. I saw further back, to the unwelcome fumble of her father’s hands; I heard her scream and no-one come; I swilled the beer she poured into the space in her heart to drown out all memory: all of it flooded into me, scorching hotter and hotter.
At last, George cried out, ‘Done!’ and I pulled my hand away from hers, whimpering.
‘What’s its problem?’ she growled, wiping her face with a large yellow handkerchief. ‘Aren’t I good enough for it to touch? Airs and graces, that’s what I say, from dogs what don’t deserve them.’
The room swung around my head and I clutched my aching paw to my breast. Mr Arroner simpered at her side.
‘Not a dog, dear lady!’ he crooned. ‘A sweet and harmless kitten!’
‘Whatever you will,’ sniffed the woman, hoisting herself from the chair. ‘I’ll have my picture, if you please.’
‘And with our compliments!’ he cried. ‘Prepared and delivered to your door! Besides, we would not dream of requesting payment from such a kind lady as yourself.’
The walls continued to heave as she was bundled away.
‘What was that about?’ said my husband, when she was gone. ‘You will not upset our guests, my dear.’
‘No more photographs,’ I hissed. My brain was hammering against the confines of my skull.
‘There will be photographs, and plenty of them. Stop this foolishness,’ he said.
‘Then let me catch my breath.’
‘Shut up, Arroner,’ said Lizzie. ‘Look at her, she’s turning blue.’
‘How can you tell through her bloody hair?’
‘Look at her lips, you idiot.’
They pushed water down my throat, and fanned me with an advertising playbill. All I could see was my pinched face flickering back and forth before me. Is she Beauty? Is she Beast? I closed my eyes to shut out the sight of myself.
‘I said, what is the matter?’ cried my husband, to anyone who might attend to him.
Lizzie held her face close to mine. ‘Are you taken, pet?’ My eyes asked the question. ‘Taken,’ she repeated. ‘In the female way.’
I turned my head slowly from side to side. She looked dis-appointed.
‘It’s a shame,’ she muttered. ‘You might keep him longer.’
‘He does not touch me,’ I whispered into her ear. ‘Not at all.’
She hauled herself upright. ‘Well, she’s not in the family way,’ she puffed.
My husband blinked.
Presently, I was able to sit upright and drink a little from the glass of spirits that was pushed under my nose.
‘I will say again, what was all of that about?’ said my husband.
‘I could see. Things,’ I said. ‘It is the truth.’
‘See what?’ said Lizzie.
I still felt the dying child’s fever in my blood. I shivered.
‘I saw her daughter. Dead of typhoid. And her son. The poor little creature.’
‘Whose daughter?’ asked my husband. ‘Whose son? For the last time, will someone explain what is bloody well going on?’
‘That woman,’ I said. ‘The one sitting next to me. I knew what had happened to her.’
‘How could you tell?’ asked Abel, quietly.
‘It was when I took her hand in mine.’ I could not look at him, for I thought I might betray my desire to clasp him close and bury my face into his neck. ‘It was all there. I could feel the fever. Feel the sickness.’
‘Fuck me,’ gasped George. ‘She’s a palm-reader. A sodding gyppo fortune-teller.’
‘My wife is no such thing.’
‘Plain fortune-teller, then.’
The room was beginning to slow its sickening waltz. My husband peered at me.
‘Mrs Arroner, I will have you speak the truth. No trumped-up tales to get you more attention than is your due.’
‘Leave her alone,’ said Lizzie.
‘Elizabeth, my dear, I would trouble you to mind your own business. A man has the right to know if his wife is deceiving him.’
‘I am deceiving no-one,’ I gulped. ‘It is true.’
‘Pah! It is a girlish whim, I say, to puff yourself up.’
‘It is not!’
‘I am your husband, and if I say it is trickery, then it is trickery. And I shall uncover what manner of trick. Come: if you are so gifted you shall read all our hands.’
‘I am tired.’
‘A fine excuse. We are all fatigued. Lizzie, come here. You will be first.’
Lizzie pushed the broad shelf of her hand at me, placing her back to my husband and mouthing, Be careful. Go easy. I laid my palm over hers.
‘That’s not how you do it,’ squeaked Bill. ‘You look at it. That’s what gypsies do.’
&n
bsp; ‘Bill, shush,’ said Lizzie over her shoulder. ‘Our Evie isn’t a gypsy, remember?’
I felt them grow quiet. I thought of what Bill had said, and lifted away my hand and examined Lizzie’s palm. I remembered the great china hand I had seen at Bartholomew Fair with its simple lines thickly drawn. I recalled their names: the Lines of Life, Love, Fate; what faced me here was a cat’s-wool tangle. Lizzie’s palm was crossed entirely with thin red scribbles, not one line standing alone, for all were overlaid by fainter lines, and those by even fainter. The more I stared, the more I became confused: this was not what I felt when I held the woman’s hand.
I closed my eyes and laid my skin against hers: straight away I began to tingle. I saw Lizzie grown into a giantess, towering on legs of white marble and straddling a world of skinny men queuing to taste her abundance; her head falling backwards, mouth open, quim shaking with laughter, joy bubbling up and raining upon the earth.
I saw the secret truth of her: Lizzie was the fairy hill made flesh, opening up to let each man live for ever. I heard her laughing when they clambered up her; laughing when they tumbled down; laughing at the coins they left. I opened my eyes.
‘Well?’ said my husband.
‘Well, Evie love?’ said Lizzie, widening her eyes in warning. Take care what you say. Please.
‘You are a happy woman,’ I said carefully. ‘You love the dancer’s life. I hear much laughter.’
‘Is that all?’ snorted my husband.
‘That’s plenty,’ said Lizzie, patting my shoulder and mouthing Thank you.
‘Anyone could work out that nonsense,’ muttered my man. ‘It’s trickery. I shall find out. You’ll read Bill’s palm next. That’ll tell us if it’s fakery soon enough.’
‘She won’t,’ squeaked Bill. ‘It’s cursed stuff.’
‘You’ll do as I say, you little shit.’
‘I won’t,’ he whimpered.
‘You bloody will.’
There was a slap, and an answering squeal.
‘She’s too clever.’
‘We’ll see the truth or lie of that.’
‘It’s me, Bill,’ I breathed. ‘I am not going to hurt you.’
I squeezed the lad’s fingers; felt the quick beat of his blood. When his body had relaxed I laid my other hand over his, poured calmness into the fear. His skin stretched out beneath mine.
The Palace of Curiosities Page 20