Christopher Priest - The Prestige

First she says the stage is in her blood as much as mine, and that although she now sees the children as her first duty she would wish to participate wholly in all my future stage endeavours. (I presume by this she means I will not be allowed foreign tours without her, so there will be no risk of another Olivia Svenson coming between us.)

At the beginning of this year, she next argues, I was at the peak of my profession, but that by default the wretched Borden is on the brink of taking my laurels. Apparently, he is continuing to perform his version of the switch illusion.

Julia then reminds me that the only reliable way I know of earning money is to perform magic, and that I have a duty to go on supporting her as well as running the family estate she has never seen and had never heard of until last week.

Finally she points out that I will not lose my inheritance by continuing to work in London, and the house and everything that goes with the estate will still be waiting for me when the time comes for retirement. Urgent matters, such as repairs, can be managed from London almost as easily as from the house.

So I have returned to Derbyshire, ostensibly to attend to matters here, but in fact I do need some time alone to think.

I cannot walk away from my responsibilities in Caldlow House. There are the tenant farmers, the household staff, the commitments my family have traditionally made to the rural council, the church, the parishioners, and so on. I find myself taking these matters seriously, so I presume they have always been flowing, unsuspected, in the blood hitherto.

But what practical use can I be in any of these functions if I am to become, as seems likely, bankrupt?

19th November 1900

What I really want is to be with Julia and my family once more, but to do so means accepting Julia's terms. Moving back to London would not be difficult, but I do feel a terrific resistance to the idea of going back on the stage.

I have been away from it for just a few weeks, but I had not realized what a burden it had all become. I remember the day, back in Colorado Springs, when the news of Henry's death belatedly reached me. I thought nothing of Henry and his humiliating but appropriate demise in Paris. What I felt was for myself, a burst of relief, genuine and uplifting relief.

I would be free at last of the mental stresses and strains associated with performing illusions. There would be an end, a thankful end, to the daily hours of practice. No more overnight stays in appalling provincial hotels or seaside lodging houses. No more tiresome train journeys. I would be free of the ceaseless attention to practical matters; making sure the props and costumes would arrive in the same places as me and at the same time, checking the backstage areas of the theatres for the best use of my props, employing and paying the staff, and a hundred other minor chores. All these had suddenly vanished from my life.

And I had also thought about Borden. There was my unshakable foe, lurking out there in the world of magic, ready to resume his campaign of pranks against me.

If I never went back I would miss none of it. I had not realized how the resentment had been growing inside me.

But Julia tempts me.

There is the happy laughter from the audience when I work a surprising effect, the radiance of the lights beaming down upon me, the friendship of the other artistes I meet in the daily round, the applause at the end of my performance. Inevitably also, the fame, the admiring glances in the street, the respectful regard of my contemporaries, the recognition in the highest areas of society. No honest man could say these mean nothing to him.

And the money. How I crave the money!

It is of course no longer a question of what I will decide, but how soon I can convince myself I must do it.

20th November 1900

To London once more by train.

21st November 1900

I am at Idmiston Villas, and I have found here a letter from Alley, the assistant to Nikola Tesla. I now transcribe it:

September 27, 1900

Mr Angier, Sir:

I don't expect you have heard but Nikola Tesla has left Colorado already, and is rumored to have moved his operation to the East, probably to New York or New Jersey. His laboratory here has been seized by his creditors, and it is currently looking for a purchaser. I have been left in the lurch, with more than a month's pay due to me.

You will wish to know, however, that in some matters Mr Tesla is a man of honor, and before our work here was completed your equipment was as instructed shipped to your workshop.

Once the apparatus has been correctly put together (I wrote the assembly instructions myself) you will find it is in complete working order, and operates exactly to the agreed technical specification. The device is self-regulating, and should continue to work without adjustment or repair for many years. All you should do is keep it clean, brighten the electrical contact points should they become dull, and in general ensure that no physical damage goes unrepaired. (Mr Tesla enclosed a set of spares for those parts which will, in the ordinary course, require replacement. All the other parts, such as the wooden struts, may be replaced from normal sources.)

I would of course be fascinated to learn what illusions you work with this extraordinary invention, because I am as you know one of your greatest admirers. Although you were not here to see it for yourself, I can testify that Snowshoes (the name of my children's pet cat) was safely transported several times by the device, but is back once more with our family as a domestic animal.

Let me say in conclusion, Sir, that I was honored to play some part, no matter how small, in building this apparatus for you.

Yours most sincerely, Fareham K. Alley, Dip. Eng.

P.S.: You were once kind enough to admire, and pretend bafflement by, the small tricks I had the temerity to show to you. Since you made such a point of demanding an explanation, perhaps you would like to know that my little illusion with the five playing-cards and the disappearing silver dollars was achieved by a combination of classic palming and a card force. I was most gratified by your response to this trick, and would be delighted to send on detailed instructions about each move in turn, should you require them. F.K.A.

As soon as I read this I hurried around to my workshop. I enquired of my neighbours there if a large package might recently have been delivered from the USA, but they knew nothing of it.

22nd November 1900

I showed Alley's letter to Julia this morning, quite forgetting that I had not yet told her about my most recent trip to the USA, and what I had done there. Of course her curiosity was aroused by it, and I then needed to explain.

"So this is where all your money has gone?" she said.

"Yes."

"And Tesla has apparently absconded, and we have only this letter to show for it?"

I assured her that Alley was trustworthy, and pointed out that he had written his letter without solicitation from me. For a while we discussed what might have happened to the package while en route to me, where it might be, and how we might recover it.

Then Julia said, "What is so special about the illusion?"

"Not the illusion itself," I replied. "It is the means by which it is achieved."

"Is Mr Borden something to do with this?"

"You have not forgotten Mr Borden, I see."

"My dear, it was Alfred Borden who drove the first wedge between us. I have had many years to reflect, and I trace everything that went wrong back to that day when he attacked me." Tears had started in her eyes, making them gleam with grief, but she spoke in quiet rage and without any trace of self-pity. "Had he not hurt me I should not have lost our first child, and the aftermath, in which I felt a great divide opening between us, would not have occurred. Your restlessness began then. Even the dear children who followed could not compensate for the cruelty and stupidity of what Borden did that day, and that the feud between you continues is proof of the outrage you too must still feel."