Clara felt the little man jump – could he be cutting a caper in her hand? She opened the clasp and re-attached him to the silver hoop and laid it down again in the box.
‘It’s amazing,’ she said. ‘You make such amazing things.’ She tried to inject some warmth, rather than apprehension, into her voice. And she really wanted to hear what the important news was that he so wanted to impart.
‘I’ve been collecting them for you for a while. Some I did make myself, some I came upon … here and there.’
When Clara turned over all these funny devices Tonton had attached to the hoop, they seemed to grow and to move.It was like being at the theatre, when a figure on stage, even very far away and very very small, doesn’t look so tiny; you could be sitting in the gods but as you watched the stage the dancers filled the whole field of vision and could be giants. There was a miniature wheeled blade with a handle made in the shape of a woman who seemed to be laughing as she rode on the wheel, and on the penknife a hound lying along its sheath seemed to be leaping, and a miniature spoon with its shaft made in the shape of a manikin with sapphires for eyes. They twinkled at her as she looked more closely.
‘Here,’ said Tonton, ‘let me show you something.’ Leaning over, he singled out the knife from the bunch, cut a small piece from the glazed peach, and commanded it, ‘Up now, up!’
The piece jumped into his mouth.
‘You see – they do what you say!’ cried Tonton and patted her hand. ‘Wait till we get home, petit’ chérie, and you can thank your nice kind uncle then, and give him a little kiss.’ He patted his cheek. ‘There’s another surprise waiting for you there.’
‘Are you going to marry Maman?’ There, she had said it. She shouldn’t have, but now it was too late.
Tonton was laughing, again. ‘Ha! Something like that, yes indeed. Your dear mother Eglantine and I have been talking, and making plans. But not what you think, not those plans.
‘No, first things first. You are a young lady now. You must realise that you’ve grown too tall – too elegant – and that the corps de ballet is no longer for you.’
Seeing her face, he waved a hand: ‘You must have known. You are a swan, my dear – what shall I say? – and altogether too splendid for the chorus. You’ll not be going back there. That’s a relief, isn’t it?
‘No more stage appearances for you, ma belle. Instead, you’ll be entering the best society. At my side.’
They took a cab back to the rue Marbeuf, where, ever since he first saw Clara dancing, she and her mother had lived together on the seventh storey, in the attic, five floors above the apartments Their single mansard window gave a glimpse over the river towards the Tour Eiffel, which was ablaze with the new electric lighting, picking out its scaffolding in golden pearls for Christmas.
They were going upstairs, Clara on edge, clutching the box with the mysterious silver baubles and her bouquet of white roses, and desperate to find her mother and ask her what all this meant. They reached the double doors to Tonton’s apartment, and he ushered her ahead of him. But she held back, begging him to let her go to her room upstairs.
He shook his head. ‘You have a new room now. You’ll be here with me in this apartment.’
Her mother appeared in the hall.
‘Maman!’ cried Clara, and rushed into her arms.
Eglantine stroked her head. ‘You see, chérie, you’re entering – we are entering – a different stage in our lives.’ Behind her, two workmen were carrying in a dressing table with a mirror across the hall into a room down the corridor. ‘You will have time to get used to it. Nobody’s going to force you to do anything.’
Clara clung to her mother, though she was now taller than her. She huddled, trying to make herself smaller, trying to stop this birthday from happening and plunging her into a future she had never imagined, where there would always be Tonton at her side. She wouldn’t lose herself in the music of the ballet, or dance any more at the Opéra; there were to be no more petits rats, no more friendly violinists and percussion players sawing and drumming in the pit for the dance.
She felt a special stab at the thought of the second violin, the merry young man with his lopsided smile under a shock of black hair, who used to look up at her and give her encouraging glances and always seemed to applaud her in particular when the orchestra rose to take its bow and some of them turned to the stage to salute the dancers.
Now she would never see him again.
She wanted to bolt for it through the double doors of the apartment, down into the street or up to her old little chambre. But she also wanted to throw herself on the deep wide bed in the room they were showing her into, where some workmen were adding finishing touches to the décor and the furnishings, and which looked more luxurious than anything she had even seen, except in a picture or a stage set; she wanted to haul out the outfits hanging in the wardrobe and try on the hats her mother was pointing out to her; she was still clutching the box with the curious chatelaine and its dangling treasures. She felt panic mounting. Half-laughing, half-crying, she didn’t know where to begin.
‘We’ll leave you to look for yourself, now, and we’ll have dinner together, later.’
Her mother closed the door.
Clara looked at the room, at the fancy wallpaper, the deep soft patterned carpet, the figured curtains with silky purple tassels and fringes: against a field of bright sky blue, the colour of high summer, there were scenes of pleasure and leisure, all done in pretty Chinese costumes and scenery: a man and a woman strolling by a pagoda, and a boating party approaching an island in a river with coloured lanterns hanging on the landing stage; in the park on the island, a pair of dogs were playing together and several slender dancers trailing streamers from their outstretched hands, while a band was playing on a fancy bandstand.
Beside them, another group of merry-makers out in the park were looking up and gesturing towards a young man in an air balloon, who was sailing towards them – waving.
What was he doing there? What was he calling out as he waved?
Then Clara noticed that there was a girl below him, and the young man in the gondola of the balloon was calling out to her, and while he was waving he was letting down a rope ladder to the ground.
They had never before sat down to dinner together like this, Maman, Tonton and Clara, downstairs, in his apartment. But Clara hadn’t been able to swallow down a morsel, even though Maman was very gay and bright and coaxed her. But then, when Clara said she hadn’t much appetite after going to Verlet’s, Maman was annoyed, and told her not to be capricious.
Then Clara couldn’t stop herself, she started to cry, and Maman became upset, she could see, because this first evening of their new life wasn’t going to plan.
Tonton seemed not to mind, and told Maman not to worry, the matter could wait, he had already waited a long time.
‘Are you unwell?’ Maman had asked, and Clara took her chance, gratefully, and said, ‘Yes, please may I leave you now?’
And Maman’s voice was tight and dry when she told her to go, they would talk in the morning.
That night in her strange new grown-up bed, Clara tried to fall asleep, but her body grew hot and cold by turns; she lay rigid in the dark. She couldn’t drift off for fear that Tonton on the other side of the apartment would come in, that he’d decide he’d waited long enough and Clara mustn’t be allowed caprices any more.
The night dragged on, as her forebodings weighed down on her so heavily she felt she was choking. How could she escape? How could she avoid their plans for her?
As she lay there sleeplessly she thought she heard Tonton approach; she pushed herself down deeper in the bedclothes, prickling with horror.
But the sounds in the room began to take a different form, not a door handle turning or footsteps tapping closer, but a clickety-clack and a tinkle-tinkling much nearer to her, followed by murmurs and
laughter.
‘Shushh,’ she heard. ‘Less of a racket, please. We don’t want to alert anyone.’ Then the voice whispered, closer to her ear. ‘Clara, just say the word!’ The voice was like a little bell, silvery and light. ‘We’re yours to command. Tell us what to do!’
There was a chuckle from somewhere else, and a stifled hiss. ‘You know how it is, you know how it is! “To hear is to obey” – that’s what we say!’
In this strange, dark, new room a friendly hubbub was breaking out on all sides, with giggling and smothered guffaws: something from over by the wardrobe was playing the spoons while another jingling thing beside it was dancing a jig.
‘We don’t think it’s fair. We don’t think it’s right. We aren’t at all happy with the situation. No, no, no, no, I say. Never, never, never, we say. M. de Grivegarde! Tush, he’s not the one, not for our sweet Clara, our dear Clara.’ This came with a kind of skittering, like a pair of scissors.
‘Tonton’s old. Tonton’s ugly. He should know better. He thinks he can keep ordering us about.’ There were small creaks and squeaks accompanying these murmurs, as if silver joints were moving.
‘And now he wants to do the same to you.’
‘It’s about time he knew better.’
The voices were coming nearer.
‘We’re fed up with him.’
‘We’re on your side,’ one whispered.
‘We know what you wish for,’ hissed another.
‘Strike up the music!’
‘We’re throwing a party! A party for you!’ This voice was in her ear, lower. ‘You’re coming with us. To the Isle of Lanterns – this way!’
‘This way!’
Clara sat bolt upright in her huge bed; the noises were springing up around her like the percussion section, the triangles and the finger cymbals and the drums giving her her cue. She peered into the dark of the curtained room, but the chinking and clinking and cries were coming from her dressing table, while the other sounds, the whispers and chuckles, seemed to be coming from all around her from the walls, the curtains, and the carpet, and even beside her on the bed.
As she looked, she felt a tug on her nightdress, and there, standing on the bed and starting to jump up and down was the little fat man from the champagne stopper, and he was saying, ‘I can’t wait to pop!’
‘But you have to wait,’ hissed another, shriller voice. ‘Wait till we get there – don’t start now.’
‘Come along, Clara! Get out of bed, it’s time.’
‘Hurry up, Clara, hurry up – we can’t wait! We must be off – now before day breaks.’
‘To the Isle of Lanterns!’
The cries were coming all together, the tappety-tap of dancing feet, the chinking and clinking and scurrying were growing louder and faster, and she picked up the stopper and turned it over and, while she was looking at it, yes, the tubby little man winked at her again, and sprang off her hand on to the carpet and started leaping across it like someone running in a sack race to the window, where suddenly a shaft of light broke in.
‘Hurry up, hurry up,’ came an answering tinkle from over there, and she could see now that the scissors were dancing with the penknife and the thimble with the buttonhook.
And they were all jumping into the boat on their way to the island in the river and she began to pick up the music the band was playing.
‘Come along, come along!’ The tumult was rising.
The young man in the gondola of the balloon was waving at her. ‘Clara,’ he was calling out, ‘Clara, this way! I’m letting down the ladder! Catch hold of it!’
She flew in her bare feet across the carpet towards the music and through the clatter and the cries.
The young man in the balloon was smiling at her – was he a friend? He certainly looked friendly. As she drew closer, she thought, Yes, he was familiar. Could he be the second violin? The young player with the shock of lovely black hair and the sweet lopsided smile?
Her feet were light, her head was giddy, but she felt soft little prods as she caught the rope ladder dangling from the gondola.
‘Hold on tight, Clara. I’ll pull you up!’
She put her foot on the first rung, and began to swing below the balloon. The sensation was exciting, like dancing. She was rising up, rung by rung, as he was making encouraging sounds to her, until she reached the rocking gondola of the air balloon and with a final last pull from the young man, tumbled into it.
He was smiling as he helped her to her feet again. Then he tossed out the ballast and the balloon began rising, drifting towards the island.
‘There,’ he said, ‘we’re off! At last – to the Island of Lanterns!’
The paper lanterns were glowing on the quayside, orange-gold pooling in the dark water, and Clara could see the party- goers already stepping out and making their way across the lawn towards the small knot of musicians who had already struck up for the dance. She could see now that some of her friends from the chorus of the petits rats were there, and the trombonist and the double bass player and the percussionist, all playing with glorious glee.
‘They’re all waiting for you,’ said the second violinist, and he looked at her, and was serious now.
‘This is the beginning,’ he said, and he put his hand in hers.
Red Lightning
FROM THE LOST CHRONICLE OF CENRED, KING OF MERCIA
… our pagan forebears believed, it is said, that when Hope, youngest daughter of Sky and Cloud, was turning seven, there was a party in heaven: from the four quarters of the earth, from the farthest stars and the bottom of the sea, everyone came.
But they forgot to include Hurt, their bitter cousin, in the invitation to the feast (and this was an error, and was to be the cause of much sorrow, later).
Hope’s elder sister Light, who sees far away all around in the present and deep into the future, was sitting on one side of her at the table, and on her other, capricious Chance, her aunt who loves to laugh; the atmosphere was high in expectation.
Sky gave his child Hope two flints and showed her how to strike them together till the sparks flew.
She did so, and flames flashed from them like ruby suns sparkling; these dropped to earth, a precious mineral rain glowing like spun sugar, and hid in the veins of the earth. Sky then called for a pledge from all living things as a birthday gift to his youngest daughter.
Rock promised; mud, gold, silver and copper swore to keep Hope’s garnets beautiful and safe. Cabbages and parsnips, clay and sand, the least of things promised their protection, too.
Sea Eagle took a pair of stones for her eyes and Swallow for her cap; the loathly Worm, too, chose some to ornament his scales.
In the towns and villages, lapidaries and jewellers, gem-cutters and goldsmiths, blacksmiths and armourers praised the new gemstones; and the short-sighted among them thanked heaven that their previous impairment was now useful, as they imagined ways of setting off the garnets’ beauty.
But at the birthday party in heaven, Light, Sky’s eldest daughter, eldest sister to Hope, felt a shudder pass through her. She had once dipped her finger in dragon’s blood and tasted it, and so she can see everything, now and in the future, and when she picked up her cup to drink her sister’s health, she saw the surface heaving to the thunder of battle and heard the clash of spears as weapon hit weapon and caerl overcame caerl and thane felled thane with swords and other weaponry glittering with the ruby gems set in gold.
She shuddered again and put down the cup and did not join the pledge.
Hope saw her and was frightened, ‘What is wrong?’ she asked her sister. ‘Why suddenly so sad and silent?’
Light bent her head over the cup again. Warriors were tearing the bright gold from dead men, smashing and crumpling the gold and gemstones. Again, a cold shudder passed through her.
Her father, Sky, reproached her,
‘Drink to your sister, Light, don’t give way to your envy of the gift I made her. You have had treasure as fine as garnets and you shall have other things again, once it is your turn.’
Light tried to smile, but then her forebodings began to stir once more, for Hurt has slipped herself into the throng at the child’s birthday, and in sore fury rose to curse the gemstone:
‘Blood shall be the redness of the stone, and its burden to be booty in battle.’
Hurt could not work her worst: Hope called on clay and mud and grass and rock and cabbages and parsnips, on the birds and the worms to honour their promise to her on her birthday, and they gathered up all their strength to oppose Hurt’s dark plots.
Yet all their power was still not enough to undo the powerful curse of Hurt, so then young Hope turned to Chance, her aunt who loves to laugh, and begged her to intervene. Capricious Chance stepped in with alacrity – crises are her meat and drink – and she laughed gaily as she promised:
‘Some good shall still come of this: let the treasure sleep in a field of clay and cabbages for a thousand years – or more. And then we shall see …’
Watermark
I WAS READING ROBERT Macfarlane’s essay on the ‘eeriness’ of the English landscape and how MR James had dreamed up some queer binoculars with the gift of time travel in a story called ‘A View from a Hill’, and I remembered then something else about ‘Monty’, as he was always known. When he was still a schoolboy – he was an Eton Scholar – a new organ was being installed in the chapel, and the choir stalls and wainscoting had been taken down to make room for it. Behind them, he had a glimpse of two figures, shadowy and faint, standing on trompe l’oeil stone pedestals of curly acanthus. Their hair was loose and wavy and fanned out from their bare heads, and they were dressed in long white robes. It was an apparition: virgins in paradise!
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