by Rosie Thomas
‘There’s nobody inside the barn. I made sure of it this time.’
Fury and frustration boiled up inside her as she recovered herself. She shook him again until his head wobbled.
‘Stop it. Don’t you understand what you’ve done? Sylvia was in there. You might have killed her. Didn’t you think of her for one second? Or about Neelie, or Arthur, or me?’
His milky eyes were glazed with confusion. Slowly she uncurled her fingers and pushed him away. Perhaps he really didn’t know what he was doing. Yet with Devil there seemed always to be a shard of rational cunning embedded in the depths of his rambling, disconnected being.
They stood in silence, watching the fire’s victory.
At last the hoses smothered the flames and the red chasms shrank. The pall of smoke shifted in the rising wind, turning from impenetrable black to grey. Nancy saw her father’s white hair and whiskers in a less lurid light and realised that the dawn was breaking.
A uniformed policeman and another, obviously in plain clothes, were picking their way towards them.
She grimly ordered Devil, ‘Say nothing. Not one bloody word, do you understand? I’ll speak to them.’
‘Good morning, miss. I understand these are your pre-mises?’
The plain-clothes man had hard eyes. She explained that she and her father were the theatre proprietors. One of their employees had been inside the premises, but she had been rescued and taken to hospital.
‘Where were you at the time the fire broke out?’
‘We were both at home in bed.’
‘How did you learn that the property had caught fire? By telephone, I assume?’
Nancy met his gaze. The man’s focus shifted a little, away from her eye socket.
‘We don’t have a telephone. I woke up at half past two and I saw what was happening.’
‘You saw it?’ He consulted his notes. ‘From Clerkenwell?’
‘That’s right. I am clairvoyant.’
The man almost sniggered.
Nancy never faltered. She had woken her father first, she said. Then she had raced by taxi to discover that the theatre was indeed on fire. Her father had joined her as soon as he could, she said. They had watched the blaze together from this doorway, apart from when she left his side to direct the firemen to the stage door.
‘My stage name is Zenobia Wix.’
The plain-clothes man exchanged a glance with the uniformed officer.
‘I see. Sir?’
Devil’s old face was cloudy. His mouth trembled and there were tears at the corners of his eyes.
‘Yes. That’s right. My daughter and me. Who are you?’
‘The police, sir.’
The man put away his notebook. He told Nancy curtly that he would need to speak to her again, but she should go home now and see her father back to his bed.
It was full daylight. The Palmyra was a black shell masked by lazy smoke. Nancy took Devil’s arm and walked him slowly down the Strand. A taxi appeared in the distance and she waved her hand to it. At Waterloo Street Cornelius, and Jinny if she was with him, appeared not to have stirred. Devil was unsteady on his feet so she took him up to his room, removed his outer clothes and put him to bed. He lay down meekly and let her draw the blankets over him.
Nancy took her purse and hurried back up the street to the telephone box. It took a full half-hour to establish that Sylvia was very ill, but holding her own. She leaned against the heavy door of the box until her anxiety stilled and she recovered herself enough to walk home again. She looked in on Devil and found that he was asleep. In a few moments she would have to tell Cornelius the news, and once he had absorbed it they would need to think together about the statement she had made to the police, and whether or not the Palmyra had been insured. But before any of that happened she must have a few moments alone.
In the sanctuary of her room Nancy realised she was shivering uncontrollably. She peeled off her smoke-reeking clothes and wrapped herself in Eliza’s red robe. Then she sat down and forced herself to think over the last hours.
The Uncanny had without doubt saved Sylvia Aynscoe’s life. Its final, overpowering spasm was to be welcomed, therefore. She searched within herself for further intimations, studying the arc of light through her window and inhaling the room’s smells of cold cream and bed linen mingled with the taint of smoke from her discarded clothes. That waft was freighted with the disaster, but there was nothing that was not physical. She couldn’t find the Uncanny, not even a glint of it. The cool daylight was flat and reassuring.
After a little while she stood up and went to inspect the dressing table. It was bare except for her hairbrush and a hand mirror reflecting her ravaged face.
Her gift was gone, and this time she knew without any doubt that it would never come back.
Before the end of that same drawn-out morning of bad news and shocked faces, a messenger delivered a letter. Gil wrote that he was horrified to hear about the Palmyra and begged her for a word. She was glad to reassure him but it was a full week before she could agree to see him face to face.
They met at the Bloomsbury flat. He tried at once to take her in his arms and she might easily have given way because she had, and did, and for ever would miss him with all her heart. Yet she didn’t yield, and his empty hands fell slowly to his sides. A tremor in his face was clearly visible before he regained control.
‘Celia tells me she came to see you.’
‘Yes.’
‘You saw how she is. She is like that, and often very much worse. I am taking lawyers’ advice about a divorce, Nancy. The de Laurys will do everything to oppose it, and it will take time, but at least it won’t have to follow the usual course.’
She supposed he meant that the divorce would be on the grounds of insanity and so she would not be cited. She gathered herself, feeling her backbone firm and her intention strong.
‘I’m sorry for Celia. Will Mrs Auger wait for you, do you think?’
He recoiled. This time the pain in his eyes was stark.
‘You don’t have to do this. Please don’t. I love you.’
He did love her in his way – the way of a mistress, never a wife – and she loved him as she would never in her life love another man. Sadly in the end love hadn’t been enough. Or not enough for a rich man who cared about the ways of the world. Poor Gil, she realised. He was trapped by his money and status, whereas she was at liberty to turn any way that life might lead her.
She did step forward now, taking his hands between hers and kissing his mouth.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Nancy. Oh, Nancy, my dearest dear girl.’
She forced herself to break away although it felt like a limb being wrenched off. To contain the agony she paced the room, picking up and replacing their accumulated possessions and the years of happiness they stood for.
‘We were happy, weren’t we?’
Gil was in tears. She had never seen him weeping.
‘Yes. We were happy.’
‘Do you remember Rome? And the view from the villa?’
‘I won’t ever forget.’
‘What shall we do with all these things?’ she wondered.
‘Things? What do the bloody things matter?’
There speaks money, she thought. She had carefully wrapped all the pieces of jewellery he had given her, including the cold sapphire pendant, and now she tried to hand them back.
With his cheeks wet and shining he demanded, ‘Do you want me to take back the fish bag and the straw hat as well?’
The precious gifts lay in the wardrobe, wrapped in tissue. Nancy shook her head and bit her lip to hold back her own tears.
There were no more words to offer. Placing her key on the table she held her head high and her back straight. She kissed her lover on the cheek for the last time and walked away.
She took her newest and most precious secret with her, but that was hers to keep.
The smells of heated dust and wax and sawdust were the same
, but there the only similarity between the Palmyra and the Ben Jonson ended. Backstage in this theatre the passageways were swept and free of lumber, and the light bulbs might be naked but they were all in working order. A passing stagehand led the way to Jake’s dressing room.
‘He’s in rehearsal, miss.’
‘I’ll wait.’
Jake’s dresser was a trim middle-aged man who made her a cup of tea and seated her next to the mirrors. He went back to ironing shirts and fussing with starched collars while Nancy studied the make-up jars and brushes that were arranged without even a dusting of surplus powder or a misplaced lid. The messages and telegrams and scripts and papers were neatly stacked. It was a tidy, workmanlike place without unnecessary ornament, and therefore reminiscent of Jake himself. It was Freddie who provided all the decor-ative flourishes in their life.
‘It’s very sad about the Palmyra, miss,’ the dresser said. ‘How is Miss Aynscoe getting along?’
‘Thank you. Sylvia’s recovering well.’
The little dresser had been discharged from hospital. The Wix family had sent her to recuperate at a convalescent establishment near Brighton.
Thinking back over all that had happened in the past month, Nancy regarded the fire at the Palmyra as a line drawn under the last sentence of a long narrative.
In the immediate aftermath the police had interviewed her, and Cornelius, and all the people who worked at the Palmyra. They established that Arthur had been and remained overseas, and finally they called on Devil. He played the role of a sadly forgetful old man to perfection – if a role was what it was. Enfeebled and rheumy-eyed, he deferred to Nancy in everything and concurred with her account of the night in every detail. Except for one thing. Suddenly reviving, he leaned forward in his chair and announced, ‘I followed my daughter down to the Strand by bicycle.’
Nancy studied her hands. Devil had never owned a bicycle in his life. He would have considered it a very low-grade means of transportation.
‘I see, sir. Where is the machine now?’
‘I have no idea. Perhaps you can help me with that, officer. I think I left it beside the doorway of Shepherd & Sanderson. The hatters in the Strand, you know? Some villain must have stolen it.’
He glared around in outrage, blinked, and subsided.
‘What?’ he whispered. ‘Nancy, who are these men? Don’t leave me here with them.’
The police gave up on him in the end, and on the question of arson.
Nancy and Cornelius were astonished to discover that the payments on the Palmyra’s insurance policy had been kept up by Desmond. A series of papers arrived from the insurers. There would be a forensic conclusion in due course, but it seemed likely that the fire had started with an electrical spark from the theatre’s old wiring in a spot tragically close to a slow-leaking gas pipe.
The dusty old structure had blazed up so quickly.
An insurance payout was unlikely to happen soon, but Cornelius took the view that they would get money in the end. Nancy had quietly confided the full story of that night and he considered it, resting his hands on his knees as he did when he was thinking.
‘An electrical spark and a gas leak in an old building full of flammable materials? Yes, that would send the place up like a bonfire.’
Devil said, ‘I had the wiring installed. Saw to it myself. We were one of the first to go over to the electricity, you know. After the Haymarket.’
‘Yes, Pa.’
Devil’s bewildered wanderings stopped as soon as they had better news about Sylvia. He presided over Waterloo Street from his kitchen chair, looking out at the garden during the day and with his sock-clad feet up against the warmth of the range by night. The clouds of his confusion sometimes parted to deliver needle-sharp memories of long ago although more recent events eluded him. He usually claimed no recollection of the night the theatre burned down.
‘Gone?’ he said. ‘Is that so? The old place?’
Nancy took his hand. ‘We are all still here, Pa. That’s what matters.’
When Cornelius and Jinny told him their news he said, ‘Good. It has taken you long enough.’ He pointed a finger at Nancy. ‘You next. Where is that young man of yours?’
‘Lion? I don’t think so.’ She kissed him and he slid his arm around her waist.
‘Zenobia, my Queen of the Palmyra. Born on the day of the old Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.’
Whatever else Devil forgot, he tended to remember that.
Nancy’s biggest concern now was the Palmyra staff and artists who had been thrown out of work. It was partly to seek Jake’s help that she had come to see him in his dressing room. While she waited, Nancy reread the solicitor’s letter which was the second reason for her visit.
Under the name of an important firm of City solicitors the senior partner wrote that he had some business to discuss with her, and he would be glad to see her at his offices at a date and time convenient to her. She had put it aside for a few days while she dealt with more urgent matters, and then made an appointment.
Across the expanse of his wide desk the solicitor informed her that Mr Gilbert Maitland wished to make over to her the ninety-year lease on a ground-floor property in Blooms-bury. Once the necessary paperwork had been signed, he would be able to hand over the keys. The man uncapped his gold pen and held it out to her, smiling like Father Christmas. Nancy thanked him, and asked if it would be possible to consider the matter before doing anything more. He looked startled, but he nodded and took back his pen.
‘Of course, of course,’ he soothed. ‘Take all the time you like.’
Jake arrived quietly, dressed in an old jersey and flannels. He had come straight from rehearsal and she could see that he was jigging with the after-effects of performance. His face was that of a different man, the character he had been playing. Knowing a little of what the transition felt like she kissed him and he absently patted her shoulder.
‘Just give me a minute.’
He sat down and drank tea and rubbed his face with a towel. The dressing room was scented with starch and ironed linen. Wholesome, everyday smells. After a moment Jake’s features slid back into focus. He smiled at her.
‘Shall we go straight to the nursing home? What time are we expected?’
‘Visiting hours are three to five.’
‘So we’ve got time to walk there?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
He brightened further and took his coat from his dresser.
‘Thanks, Bill. Billy knows everyone on Shaftesbury Av-enue. He tells me there’s a job in the costumes department here for Sylvia, if she wants it, just as soon as she’s well again. They’re looking for a lighting rigger as well, and maybe a props hand.’
Nancy begged the man to listen out for any other possibilities. Bill pursed his lips.
‘There will be a few changes at the Lyric, I’m told. And there’s that new show coming into the Haymarket. I saw your dad do Charlotte and the Chaperone, Miss Wix. It must have been the thousandth performance for him, but he made seem it as fresh as the first night. I thought my ma would pee herself laughing, excuse me.’
‘Thank you, Bill. I’ll tell him that.’
She shook the dresser’s hand and they talked theatre until Jake seized her arm and led her out into Shaftesbury Avenue.
A trio of girls waited at the stage door and Jake signed their autograph books as they covertly peeked at his strange companion with the eyepatch. He was wearing a scarf to protect his throat even though it was barely autumn, but as he and Nancy set off he threw his head back to admire the china-blue sky above the rooflines.
‘Thank God to be outdoors. So many darkened rooms. Another actress to kiss.’
‘There are worse jobs than being a stage and film star.’
‘Yes, ma’am, I dare say I deserved that. Come to Whistlehalt this Friday to Monday? No? Why not? What will Freddie do to me if you don’t?’
They traversed Cambridge Circus and made their way south.
&
nbsp; Nancy murmured, ‘There are some things. Things I have to deal with.’
She didn’t see his shrewd glance at her averted profile.
When they came to the florist’s stall on the corner of Long Acre Jake halted in front of the banks of blooms.
‘Roses, do you think?’
He nodded to the florist and the woman began to select crimson flowers.
‘Not all red. We must have white ones, and pink, the buds and the overblown as well, those, and those, and those … yes, all of them.’
‘Jakey,’ Nancy laughed. It took two of them to carry the enormous double bouquet over Waterloo Bridge to the nursing home.
Lizzie had given birth to her daughter in what had been a grim Victorian lying-in hospital and was now transformed into a fashionable obstetric clinic. They found her in a private room, arranged in a lace peignoir against a bank of pillows and looking as if she had just left her Mayfair hairdresser’s. Her baby lay in her arms.
‘Thank God you’re here,’ she cried. ‘I don’t want to drink champagne all on my own. Nurse, we need some glasses. And about a dozen vases. Gorgeous flowers, I must say.’
The nurse scurried off, hardly daring to glance at Jake Jones.
‘Here she is.’ Lizzie turned down a fold of shawl. ‘Jennifer Faith Eliza.’
Nancy looked down at a tiny face, beautiful and crumpled in sleep. With a spasm of love and longing she reached out a hand and ventured the tip of one finger to a rose-red cheek. It felt infinitely smoother and softer than the rose petals.
Lizzie grinned.
‘I know. A girl, a daughter. Aren’t I lucky? Ray is already besottedly in love with her.’
Head on one side Jake peered down.
‘She’s you in miniature. I can’t see the least sign of her father.’
Lizzie protested, ‘Don’t for heaven’s sake say that to him. He thinks she’s got his mother’s eyes and mouth. The poor little lamb. Have you seen Myrtle Kane? Thank you, nurse. Pour us all a glass, Jake darling?’
Nancy found a voice although it came out reedy and muffled.
‘May I?’
‘Go ahead.’ Lizzie readily exchanged the baby for a coupe of champagne. ‘Cheers.’
Nancy cradled the little creature, standing beside the window to wonder at her in the full daylight. Jennifer responded to the sun on her eyelids by kissing the air, turning her head with a tiny nuzzling movement and making a sound that Nancy might once have thought of as a kitten’s mew. Now it sounded explicitly human. This was a person, here and now, a miniature but complete new individual who was entirely herself, with a whole life ahead of her and a history yet to be written. Nancy stroked the baby’s head with its nap like the inner surface of an unworn kid glove. She wanted to whisper in the dark pink whorl of the ear, promises of love and protection for as long as she was alive to give them. As she dipped closer she caught a primitive scent that tugged at her belly and made her heart drum even harder against her ribs.