by Rosie Thomas
Unlike her brothers, Nancy had never seen such an injury. She thought of the beggar she had seen with Gil in Piccadilly, and the other ex-servicemen who limped and hobbled through London.
Arthur said, ‘Doctors can work miracles nowadays. And it could have been worse. He could easily have been killed, you know.’
‘Arthur saved his life,’ she told them and Devil reached out to grasp his son’s hand.
‘My boy.’
She thought the Boltons owed their son’s life to Arthur’s bravery. I want to be a brave man, he had said, on the day of the Queen Mab. There was no doubt that was what he had become.
Then next afternoon Jinny came. Dressed in brown overalls and with her hair tied up in an old handkerchief she worked alongside Cornelius in the garden and when the weak afternoon light faded into twilight she took off her boots in the scullery and followed him into the kitchen.
Cornelius said, ‘I’ll do these last spuds for Nancy’s tea before she goes out to the theatre. If she’ll have anything at all, that is. You never know, nowadays.’
‘Your dad will probably eat them. You could cook him a mutton chop, maybe.’
Jinny was at the sink, soaping the garden dirt off her strong forearms. She turned to dry her hands on the tea towel and found that Cornelius had placed a glass of water for her.
‘Ta,’ she said, draining the glass. ‘Thirsty work, eh?’
He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear for her, letting his touch linger for a second. There was a scatter of freckles on her nose and cheeks.
‘Do I look a mess?’
‘No. You look as if you have been working hard.’
Jinny sighed, ‘It’s what we do in life, isn’t it?’
She did not often admit to low sprits but the devastation of Harry’s accident had affected them all.
They heard Nancy’s step on the stairs and turned together. She was ready for the theatre, her face strained with yesterday’s anxiety and with anticipation of the evening’s performance.
‘Have you got time to eat anything before you go? I’ve brought in potatoes and there’s some tinned ham and the end of the tomato pickle if you’d like.’
Tomatoes were Cornelius’s speciality. Last summer he had positioned sloping panes of glass against the back wall to form a makeshift greenhouse where the plants flourished. Jinny rinsed out her glass and placed it on the wooden drainer.
‘Maybe I’ll have something later, Neelie. But thank you.’
Nancy saw and felt somehow excluded by their joint concern. She had the sense that she stood all alone on the brink of a precipice, with Lion shrinking behind her and only Gil Maitland to steer by. Either she could turn away from him and back to plain safety, or she could step forwards.
‘Where is Pa this afternoon?’
She only asked to preserve the illusion of normality and she could tell that Cornelius was surprised by the question.
‘He’s with old Gibb in his workshop. He told you this morning. They’re building apparatus.’
‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten.’
The old man was now Devil’s most regular companion. They tinkered together in one of the stables buildings that had once housed the barge horses, and Devil muttered about the sensational new Egyptian trick that he was engineering with Gibb’s help.
‘How is Harry today?’ Jinny asked.
‘The surgeon has done what he can to repair the damage. Harry will be in hospital for a few weeks. After that, who knows?’
‘It sounds like no more soldiering,’ Jinny said at length.
‘Not for Harry, no,’ Nancy agreed.
The old clock ticked steadily and Nancy found herself staring at the heel of a loaf and scattered crumbs on the breadboard, the orangey residue of soap left on the enamel dish beside the sink and the copper water pipes rimmed with verdigris. In another moment her throat would flood with saliva and thick odours would rush at her. Delayed shock from yesterday brought the Uncanny dan-gerously close.
‘I really must be off. I don’t want to be late at the theatre.’
Cornelius nodded and Jinny gave her a brief hug. After she had gone the two of them sat at the kitchen table and shared the work of peeling potatoes.
Nancy walked to Blackfriars. The reek of freshly laid tar on the road skirting Smithfield and the thick waft from the meat market clogged her head and when she boarded a tram the press of tired people emanated gusts of sweat and cigarette smoke. In the dressing room Sylvia helped her off with her damp blouse.
‘Are you fit to go on?’
It was too early yet for most of the audience to be arriving, but Nancy imagined she could hear a murmur from the packed seats. It sounded like waves breaking.
‘Yes, I think so. May I have some tea?’
There was the pop of gas followed by a rising whistle when the kettle boiled.
‘Has Desmond been in? What’s the house tonight?’
‘Full,’ Sylvia told her.
More and more people were discovering the Palmyra seances and swelling the regular audience. Nancy had to hold dozens of stories and a cacophony of voices in her mind, recalling the webs she had already created and holding them in place as she spun new filaments. She was no longer playing to the old music-hall crowd, Devil and Eliza’s audiences, who could be happily entertained with a few crude effects sandwiched between the conjuror and the acrobats. The current audiences were austere by comparison, de-manding of the medium, and they came from all walks of life. There were rumours that even the new Duchess of York followed Spiritualism.
Sylvia worried that it was too much for her. The partygoing with Lion Stone had been one concern, although lately that had almost stopped. Sylvia was observant enough to note the change that had come over Nancy but she didn’t know the reason for it.
The call boy tapped on the door. The Palmyra was still a theatre, with its backstage rituals.
‘Ten minutes, Miss Wix.’
Nancy jumped. She must have fallen into a doze over her cup of tea. She hurried out of Eliza’s red silk wrap and into her stage dress, draping a towel over her shoulders before powdering her face at the mirror. She liked to blot out her physical features as far as possible, leaving a blank oval for others to inhabit. Once she was ready Sylvia faithfully shadowed her to the wings. She squeezed her hand before releasing her into the performance.
Here was the expectant silence. The curtains parted and the spot fell on her.
She saw him almost at once, sitting towards the rear of the stalls.
Lawrence Feather’s hair had grown long and now fell to his shoulders in grey hanks like a dishevelled prophet’s, and his once-neat clerical clothing was rusty and crumpled. There were two people with him, an almost hunchbacked man and a tiny woman, set apart from the rest of the audience by their unkempt looks. They leaned forwards in their seats, fixing their eyes on her. The scrutiny was disturbing.
As calmly as she could Nancy sat down in front of her audience.
To begin with, the seance followed its usual course.
There were the regular postulants and some hesitant new ones. She concentrated on the latter, drawing out their halting questions and listening with all her faculties. The concentration required was intense and she briefly forgot about Lawrence Feather although the shimmer of the Uncanny blurred the edges of the stage and clouded the mirrors in the wings.
It was half an hour before Feather suddenly stood up. He shouted over the rows of heads, ‘Why don’t you ac-knowledge the channel, Miss Wix? I know it’s open.’
The lighting man swung the following spot to him, as he was supposed to do.
‘I hear other voices tonight,’ she answered. She pointed to someone at random. ‘You, sir. There is someone here. Who is it wanting to speak to you?’
The man sat woodenly. She had picked a dud, and the spot obstinately held Feather in its beam.
‘The channel,’ Feather repeated. ‘She is here, isn’t she? Helena is here.’
&n
bsp; There was a crash of water so violent it was as if the wave broke over Nancy’s head. Salt wrack and engine oil gusted through her and Helena Clare spoke in a low voice.
‘He did what he shouldn’t have done.’
Nancy moistened her dry lips. ‘No, she is not here this evening. I’m sorry, and I’m sorry for your loss.’
Nancy tried to fend off Feather and the Uncanny together but the audience was rapt. There was nowhere she could steer the seance except where Feather wanted it to go. The low murmur persisted within the plates of her skull.
‘He shouldn’t have done it. I knew no better. I was hardly more than a girl.’
Suddenly, with a tremor of nausea, clear understanding dawned on her. They had been lovers. There had been inklings before, but it was only now that Nancy knew for sure why the brother and sister’s relationship had been so troubling. With the nasty truth laid bare to her it didn’t seem strange that poor Mr Clare had seemed little more than a shadow, and that Eliza had instinctively recoiled from the medium. Nancy’s reaction now was as intense as her mother’s.
‘Ask him about the boathouse.’
Feather shouted, ‘Tell the room about the locket. My sister’s locket, which I buried with her. It was a sign, the clearest and most certain sign I have ever witnessed. This medium is gifted, we all know that.’
His blazing eyes raked the stalls before he tilted his head to gaze into the wings of the gallery and the boxes.
‘See? She won’t speak. Miss Zenobia Wix will not share my sister’s presence with me. After all I have done for her.’
The man was clearly out of his senses. His companions nodded and shuffled closer as the people seated around them tried to edge away. All three of them were on their feet.
‘Ask him,’ Helena Clare begged.
Nancy tried to breathe evenly but the close air seemed to catch in her chest. Except for Feather and the two strangers the audience waited in rapt silence.
She raised her head, although she could hardly bear to look in the man’s direction. ‘Very well. Mr Feather, your sister directs me to ask you about the boathouse.’
It was as if she had darted an electric current through him. His body painfully jerked, but a wild grin stretched his mouth to expose the teeth like a skull’s.
He crooned, ‘Our boathouse? Yes. I remember every plank of it and I remember what happened there. Helena, my beloved, I’ll come to you soon enough.’
Without warning the voice faded. There was no sound, not even the vacuum of an absent sound.
‘Speak,’ Feather roared. ‘Tell me what she says.’
‘Nothing more,’ Nancy whispered.
The man spun on his heel and seemed to beckon something from the rear of the auditorium.
A small figure raced down the aisle towards the stage. No one else saw it but they instinctively drew their sleeves and collars closer because of the chill. The soaking girl ran past the orchestra pit and up the little flight of steps at the side of the stage. She dashed straight at Nancy, but there was no impact. She was gone, leaving a trail of dark spots on the boards. Even as Nancy stared they faded and vanished.
‘You see?’ Feather called, with his death’s-head smile.
So that was it. He controlled the soaking girl.
He must have sent her, all the times in the past that she had made an appearance. Nancy shuddered. The little thing was harmless; it was the notion of Feather and his manipulations that was terrifying. It seemed that he owned a spyhole that looked directly into her life.
Lawrence Feather grandly gestured to his friends. They left their seats and marched out, the woman of the couple keeping her eyes on Nancy until her head almost twisted off. Shocked murmurs began to spread through the theatre. Nancy looked into the mirrors and saw they reflected nothing but the oblique view of surprised faces. There was no shimmer, and the smells were of backstage apparatus and the faint drift of ladies’ perfumes from the front fauteuils. She uncurled her fingers one by one and raised an imperious hand.
‘Quiet, please. Now. I see an Italian city. Is it Rome?’
This time the spotlight obligingly swung and the performance resumed, and somehow she worked her way through to the end of it.
Sylvia was waiting to catch her as she stumbled offstage.
‘My poor girl. It’s all right, dear, it’s all over for today.’
The dresser led her through the wings, past stagehands who pressed against the walls to let them pass. Even Desmond was silenced. In the dressing room Sylvia helped her to a chair.
‘Shall I call Mr Wix?’
‘No, please don’t do that.’
‘Your young man, then? Wouldn’t you like him to come and keep you company?’
Nancy shook her head.
‘Just you, Sylvia. I only want you.’
That wasn’t true. Her yearning for Gil was breaking though all the stretched tissues of her life.
Sylvia drew Nancy’s head against her thin chest and rocked her.
‘I’m here, love. Don’t you worry.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Another week crept by. There were two more routine performances, with no hint of the Uncanny and nothing else that was untoward. After the third she had been back in the dressing room only just long enough to change out of her stage clothes and do up the Chinese robe before there was a knock at the door.
Nancy’s head jerked up. Was it Gil?
Sylvia opened the door to Bella and Arthur. They bundled into the room in evening clothes, flushed and bright-eyed with cocktails. Arthur caught Nancy by the lapels of the robe and kissed her on both cheeks. The ends of his clipped moustache tickled her nose.
‘Goodness, this red thing makes me think of Ma.’
‘Me too,’ Nancy said.
Bella put aside her velvet coat and evening bag, gaily chatting to Sylvia as she perched in Celia Maitland’s place on the slippery seat. This was the first time they had come backstage together to see Nancy. The two of them looked far too happy to be bearing bad news about Harry, at least.
‘No, no, he’s doing well,’ Bella assured her. ‘He’s a magnificent patient.’
Ann Gillespie told them the same thing. She was a nurse in a different ward at the hospital and she looked in on him whenever she could.
Before anything more could be said there was another knock and two more arrivals came crowding in. Lion and Jake Jones had been to a first-night party and Lion had decided he must scoop up Nancy and take her back there. There were extravagant greetings and kisses. The room was too small to hold six people and Sylvia looked displeased on Nancy’s behalf, but she said nothing and only searched for more glasses. Lion hugged Nancy briefly.
‘Hullo, old thing. How was your show? The nonsense we saw won’t run for a month, but why don’t you get dressed and come with me to the wake? Freddie is there, and Dorothy and Brian, it’ll be quite like old times.’
‘A new play and half an hour of its players afterwards was more than enough for me. I’m for Whistlehalt and bed,’ Jake said.
He took a sip of the swizzled champagne before nodding his approval. Nancy smiled across at him. Perched in a chair at the mirror, dark-suited, his elbow resting in the clutter of make-up and brushes, he looked nowadays less like an unassuming undergraduate than a senior bank employee or perhaps a prosperous dentist.
‘A party?’ she said vaguely. ‘I’m not sure I’m in the mood either.’
‘You are never in the mood,’ Lion retorted.
Arthur reached for Nancy’s nail file and tapped it against his glass.
‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.’
Lion lifted a lazy eyebrow in Nancy’s direction.
‘Bella and I have some news. We wanted my sister to be the first to hear it but you are as good as family, Jake, and Lion too, as well as Sylvia of course.’
Bella slipped her hand into his as Arthur cleared his throat.
‘General Bolton has given his consent to our engagement. Bella has agreed to
be my wife.’
Nancy leapt up and swept them into her arms.
‘Oh, that is wonderful. I am so happy for you both. Congratulations, my darlings.’
She could see how it was. Arthur was no exchange for Harry – how could he be? – yet the General surely would be pleased to see his daughter safely settled, after the blow to his only son. The old man might even recognise a debt of gratitude. Again she remembered Arthur’s fear on the day of the Queen Mab, that he might not own the courage he had assumed to be his by right. She had never felt so proud of him as she did at this minute. Eliza and Devil had been right after all to push him so hard, even out of their own orbit. Love constricted her heart and she was lost for words.
Grinning, Lion raised his glass. ‘I say, what about a toast to the happy couple?’
‘There is no happier life but in a wife,’ Jake gravely quoted. It seemed that he meant it.
They drank and Sylvia added her shy congratulations.
‘I am the luckiest fellow,’ Arthur beamed at them all.
Bella said to Nancy, ‘I love Arthur so much, and now I shall have you for a sister.’
‘When and where will the wedding be?’ Nancy asked.
Arthur said, ‘As soon as possible. I had an early word with the CO and he says if we can fix a date before the summer he could wangle a later Mesopotamia posting for me. Or wherever we are going,’ he hastily added.
Lion discreetly yawned behind his fingers. It was as if he had to demonstrate his boredom with this marriage talk. Nancy was annoyed.
Bella didn’t notice. ‘Arthur would like a town wedding, but I think my mother and father will insist on Henbury.’
This was the Boltons’ house in the country.
‘Very suitable,’ Sylvia nodded.
Harry said, ‘I would happily get married in the tomb of Tutankhamun, so long as Bella will have me. What are you doing now, Nancy? I thought Bella and I might come home with you to tell Pa and Cornelius our news.’
‘But she’s coming to a party with me,’ Lion cried.
‘I am not, Lion. Arthur, Cornelius will have been in bed for an hour and Pa might or might not be there.’