Rosie Thomas - Daughter of the House

Almost five years after Cornelius Nancy had arrived easily, but Arthur’s birth hardly more than a year after that had been almost as difficult as his brother’s.

Nowadays Devil propitiated his wife with expensive comforts and sea air. Accepting her reliance on new doctors and patent cures, he squandered too much time and energy on the Palmyra, arguing that otherwise the theatre could not generate the money he needed to care for his family. Devil regarded the diversions of motor cars and women as just that, and would have claimed – in the circumstances – they were nothing less than he deserved. Eliza didn’t see it the same way, and she was angry with him. All the images of herself that she had created as a young woman had been to do with strength and freedom, and now she possessed neither. She was little better than an invalid, and she had become dependent on her unreliable husband for everything.

Eliza sat upright. She squeezed her glass so tightly that it might have shattered.

‘How has this happened to me? Here I sit like a wilting girl. I’m ashamed of myself, Faith.’

‘There is no shame in what you have suffered.’

‘I am weak.’

Faith shot back at her, ‘We’re women. We’re all weak. You don’t have a monopoly on the condition.’

Faith was not usually so blunt. Eliza stuck out her glass, still miraculously intact. They were both smiling, almost girls again.

‘We’ll have to endure it, I suppose. Give me some more gin before we go down and feast on the boiled spuds.’

On the floor above Lizzie stuck her head out of Nancy’s bedroom window and – to Nancy’s astonished awe – smoked a cigarette.

‘Do you want one?’

‘ No . I mean … I don’t mind, but I don’t smoke.’

‘Terrible, isn’t it? I caught the habit from some of the girls at work and now I’m completely hooked.’

Cornelius rapped on the door and Lizzie quickly ground out the cigarette on the windowsill before tossing the end into the grey air.

Cornelius called, ‘Cook says to come now if you don’t want it cold.’

‘It was cold to start with, wasn’t it?’ Lizzie laughed.

The stage door was in a narrow alley that ran from the Strand towards the Embankment. Devil stepped inside. The doorman in his wooden cubicle passed over a sheaf of post and wished him a good evening.

‘Who won the match, sir?’

‘Eton, I’m sorry to say.’

‘Mr Arthur’ll be disappointed.’

‘That’s hardly the word.’

Devil made his way down a dark passageway lit by a single overhead bulb and up a short flight of bare wooden stairs. There was a strong smell of worn clothing, congealed grease, and mice.

The theatre owner and manager’s office had brown-painted walls and was hardly wide enough for a cluttered desk. The lighting was no better or brighter than in the corridor outside. He propped himself on a corner of the desk and quickly shuffled through the mail. It was all bills, mostly final demands, and at the bottom of the heap he found a flyer for the new show at a rival theatre. The type was blocky, modern and rather eye-catching. Devil screwed the sheet up and threw it at the wastebasket.

The backstage manager Anthony Ellis stuck his head round the door.

‘All right, Mr Wix?’

‘Hullo, Anthony. What was the house like this afternoon?’

‘Eighty-three.’

‘Christ. Tonight?’

‘Better. Might be two hundred.’

Devil nodded. The capacity of the Palmyra was two hundred and fifty. Its intimate scale made it perfect for performances of magic, although even when it was full it was an exacting task to make it pay well. There was no profit to be taken out of a thin house.

‘Thirty until the up,’ Anthony reminded him.

The stage manager withdrew. Devil heard him tread along the corridor to the door of the main dressing area. He knew every creak of the old floorboards, every scrape of a hinge and click of a switch. The other performers all made ready in one chaotic room, ducking behind screens and crowding at a single mirror. The Palmyra was not noted for its backstage luxury. All resources were lavished on the front of house.

Devil whistled as he stripped off his blazer and soft-collared shirt. He stood in his vest at a broken piece of mirror and rapidly applied a layer of make-up, then worked over the arches of his eyebrows with a dark pencil before finally reddening his lips with a crimson crayon. When he was finished he removed his starched shirt from the hanger and slipped it on, careful to keep the folds away from his painted face. He fixed his collar with an old stud and deftly tied his white butterfly.

Once he was fully costumed he stood in front of the glass again. He rubbed brilliantine through his greying hair, the gloss turning it darker. Then he briskly applied a pair of old wooden-backed hairbrushes to the sides and top.

Devil was fifty-four years old and still a notably handsome man.

By this time Anthony Ellis was coming back to call the ten. Devil walked through the skein of cramped passageways to the wings. Stagehands in shirtsleeves greeted him as he passed. From the pit he could hear the small orchestra tuning up. As he took his place behind the house curtain a stooping elderly woman hurried from a niche to brush the shoulders of his coat. Sylvia Aynscoe was the wardrobe mistress and dresser, and she had been employed at the Palmyra almost since the beginning.

‘Evening, Sylvia.’

She gave him a compressed smile before twitching the points of his collar into place. Sylvia was an old ally of Eliza’s. It was through the unobtrusive conduit of the dresser that news of everything that happened at the Palmyra found its way back to Islington.

At two minutes to the up Devil was poised on the balls of his feet like an athlete ready to sprint. He flexed his white-gloved fingers and patted the props in the concealed pockets in his coat. The rustle and chatter of the audience through the heavy green velvet drapes sounded like the sea.

The first act of the current show was a dance illusion routine. Four girls in laced satin pumps and scanty dresses of sequinned tulle softly padded to their positions behind him. The best-looking of the four, an elfin girl with a dancer’s taut body, knew better than to try to attract his attention at this tense moment. She turned her head instead to catch her reflection in one of the mirrors. A tall plume of white feathers nodded from a tiny tiara, darts of radiance flashing from the paste gems.

The orchestra struck up the national anthem and the audience rose to its feet. As soon as they had resumed their seats Devil stepped out between the tabs. The bright circle of the following spot tightened on him as he smiled into the heart of the expectant house. He was glad to see that it was better than two hundred. All the stalls were occupied and only a score of seats in the gallery were empty. Pale faces gazed down at him from two tiers of gilt-fronted boxes at the sides of the stage. He let his eyes sweep over the rows of seats.

‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the home of magic and illusion. We have a magnificent and intriguing show for you tonight.’

Devil pivoted. When he turned again a ringmaster’s whip had appeared in his hand. He cracked the whip and a mirrored ball spun on the boards at his feet; he cracked it a second time and the ball rose like a giant soap bubble and floated away.

Laughter and applause spread through his veins, lovely as warmth in winter. Even though he was pinioned in the lights he could see out to the slender pillars that were carved to resemble palm stems, and the fronds of painted plaster leaves. Gilt-framed lozenges of bright paint glimmered at him. His voice rose into the graceful cupola surmounting the auditorium. Devil thought of his theatre as a jewel box that his audience could open, only a few feet removed from the din of the Strand. He offered them opulence in exchange for the mundane world.