Rosie Thomas - The Illusionists

They disposed themselves around the fire. Faith Shaw presided over the teapot and Heinrich Bayer released Lucie from her velvet casing, bringing forward a chair so she could join them. He placed her hands in her lap, arranged her skirts and straightened her necklace. He was more comfortable now that he could see her and be assured that she was not threatened, and his face regained its more normal degree of pallor. Eliza watched all this with her bright eyes, but when he felt her attention on him Herr Bayer stared at the floor.

Even so, it was a convivial gathering. Jasper stopped saying that he must take the ladies home or else poor Matthew would be frantic with worry.

Faith remarked, ‘He will not be worried, Jasper, because he knows that we are safe with you.’

‘We can look after ourselves,’ Eliza corrected her. ‘Besides which we have the security of this lady’s blameless company, don’t we?’

‘Lucie. Her name is Lucie,’ Heinrich insisted.

Eliza left her seat and went to take the automaton’s hand. If she was disconcerted by its lifelike appearance coupled with the cold touch of the rubber skin she gave no sign of it. ‘How do you do?’ she murmured.

Heinrich was pleased. ‘She is well, thank you. A little tired this evening. Our stage performances are always exhausting for her, and I wish the audience had been more appreciative. They were a rough crowd.’

Eliza returned to her seat. ‘Is Lucie your daughter? Perhaps a closer relationship? You dance together so beautifully.’

Devil stared. Miss Dunlop was unusual for looking like a perfectly orthodox young woman and yet being startlingly un-demure. He noticed now that Jasper Button regarded her with admiration that was tinged with possessiveness. How charming, how pleasant for Jasper, he thought.

‘Lucie is my life’s work. And also my dear companion,’ Heinrich was saying. He didn’t look at Eliza as he spoke. ‘She is the amalgam of art and artifice. Few people understand what it is to have created such a thing. I designed each mechanism that animates her, I made or contrived to have made every separate piece of her.’

‘Maybe such appreciation requires an artistic temperament? Eliza is herself an artist, you know,’ Faith put in.

Devil liked the sly, humorous mischief displayed by the two sisters.

‘I am only a student of art,’ Eliza demurred. ‘I attend classes in life drawing, sculpture, painting. Of course, I don’t have the means to pay outright for my tuition so I make payments in kind by working as a life model.’

The images generated by this information caused Devil to cough into his brandy. Jasper frowned at him.

‘You do know thomething abouth anatomy,’ Carlo agreed.

‘Shall we finish the bottle?’ Devil wondered as he stirred up the fire with the iron poker. Carlo held out his glass. Jasper looked at his pocket watch and Heinrich glanced towards Lucie. The sisters seemed perfectly at ease.

Conversation turned to the evening’s entertainment, and its strengths and shortcomings.

‘Tell us about the Philosophers illusion, Mr Wix,’ Faith said. ‘We were most impressed.’

Devil bowed. ‘I regret that I can’t reveal to you how the illusion was actually performed. No professional magician will ever reveal his secrets, even amongst friends. I was helped by Jasper’s skills, as you saw. His modelled head of Carlo is a masterpiece. And Carlo himself has certain, ah, invaluable attributes.’

Carlo spat into the wadded dressings to clear his mouth. ‘You thaw a bocth trick. It’th thimple enough but thith one can’t be performed without a dwarf to do the work. The idea and the thkill in it were mine. Devil and I made up a bit of bithineth to go with it. You get a bigger effeck on a proper thtage like tonight’th, where you’ve got muthicianth and lighth and thuchlike.’

‘But … you appeared to be tall,’ Faith put in.

The dwarf shrugged. ‘ Thtilth .’

‘I am relieved it doesn’t cause you pain to talk so much,’ Devil said to him.

‘Devil?’ Eliza softly wondered. ‘Didn’t I hear Jasper call you Hector first of all?’

‘Devil Wix is my stage name. It is … simpler to go by that in both spheres of my existence.’

‘And you and Jasper have known each other since you were boys, I believe?’

The firelight glowed on pewter dishes and the smoke-yellowed walls. From the street beneath the window came the rumble of carriage wheels.

Devil gave a brief nod. The two sisters exchanged a glance and Jasper produced his pocket watch for the last time.

‘If we are to have any hope of seeing you safely back home before midnight …’

‘It has been a fascinating evening. Thank you,’ Faith said as she politely stood up.

Jasper put her cloak round her shoulders and then performed the same service for Eliza. Carlo sat fingering his swollen jaw and Heinrich, affected by the two glasses of brandy he had drunk, silently stared into the depths of the fire.

Eliza smoothed the ruined gloves over her fingers.

‘Conjurors? Magicians? Is that what you are?’ She spoke generally but the question was addressed to Devil.

‘You would not call Herr Bayer a magician, I think. None of us would be pleased with conjuror, which sounds to me like some fellow conning for pennies on the street. I prefer illusionists ,’ he said.

Eliza put on her hat. ‘The illusionists,’ she slowly repeated.

To his surprise Devil heard himself confiding, ‘I would like to transform the Palmyra theatre into a palace of illusions. It should be the home of magical effects, of transformations and mysteries and bewitchments. It should be a place of wonderment .’

‘I think the fat man stands in the way of your dream.’

‘Not for ever.’

‘I hope not. I like the sound of your Palmyra.’

Eliza held out her hand and Devil shook it, then her sister’s.

‘Thank you for coming,’ Devil murmured to Jasper as they wished each other goodnight.

‘I wouldn’t have missed my head’s grand theatrical debut. I hope the show will be a great success.’ Jasper was a kindly man, but he couldn’t keep the doubt out of his voice.

‘No question.’

Heinrich suddenly jumped up, knocking his chair sideways and staggering somewhat before placing a reassuring hand on Lucie’s shoulder.

‘Success? Listen to me regarding this if you please. I tell you what you need to put in your act. I tell you what will make all the difference.’

‘Yes?’ Devil sighed.

‘You should have a woman in it. I have an idea for such a thing.’

‘Yes, of course. Thank you. You would be the expert on such matters.’

It was Eliza who paused in the doorway.

‘He’s right, you know,’ she said to Devil.

‘Come, my dear. We have a matinée tomorrow,’ Heinrich told Lucie.

Now that the impromptu party was over and the agony in his jaw came to the forefront, a black mood descended on Carlo. He grumbled to Devil, ‘Wonderment, did you thay? How far will the two thilling and thicthpenth we have earned thith evening go towardth wonderment ? Particularly thinth you have laid out motht of it on brandy.’

Heinrich Bayer was negotiating the doorway with the wheeled trunk. Swaying a little, he let go of the handles and reached two fingers into the pocket of his tragic coat. He held out a shilling to Devil.

‘Please take this. I wish to hear no one say that Lucie and I do not stand our treat.’

‘Put your money away,’ Devil said, against his inclinations. He turned to Carlo.

‘Give me time, my friend. Then you shall see.’