Laura Schlitz - Splendors and Glooms

Grisini jerked the wagon forward. Neither he nor Lizzie Rose questioned the boy’s knowledge of the streets. Parsefall’s sense of direction was unerring. He could find his way even through fog.

The little procession passed through an alley and came out into the square. There was a large garden, surrounded on four sides by tall houses. The garden, with its bare flower beds and iron fencing, was dreary enough on a wet November day, but Lizzie Rose could imagine how pretty it might be in the springtime.

She craned her neck to look up at the houses. They were tall and stately, with columns on either side of the door. The windows were heavily draped, but the rooms beyond them looked warm and bright. Whoever lived here had money enough for fires in every room, and an army of housemaids to stoke them. Lizzie Rose tried to imagine what it would be like to live year-round in a house like this one, with ample coal in winter and a garden in the spring.

“Shall we knock at the front door?” Grisini flung out one arm as if about to declaim poetry. “Shall we ring and present ourselves to the butler? Shall we say to him, ‘The children of joy have come!’?” Grisini spread his fingers like the sticks of a fan and touched his middle finger to his breast. “Never forget that we, with our puppets and tambourines, are the children of joy! Let us go forth and bring laughter to the children of woe!”

Lizzie Rose and Parsefall exchanged looks of pure irritation. They knew very well that they would be turned away from the front door. Parsefall jerked his head toward the tradesmen’s entrance, a half flight of stairs below the pavement. Lizzie Rose gave the wagon a shove, and Parsefall darted forward so that the two of them could wrestle it down the stairs.

Never, thought Parsefall, surveying the Wintermute drawing room, had he seen a house better stocked with things to steal.

It had not been easy, getting the puppet theatre up to the drawing room. There was an outcry when it was discovered that the caravan was too wide to go through the tradesmen’s entrance, and another when the housemaids saw that the wheels were caked with filth from the London streets. Hot water and brushes were fetched so that Lizzie Rose and Parsefall could scrub the caravan clean. While the children scrubbed, Grisini paid his respects to the Wintermute servants, fawning and coaxing by turns. By the time the miniature theatre was parked at one end of the drawing room, Grisini was quite at home, and the butler invited him to take tea in the servants’ hall.

Parsefall knew what that meant. Tea meant gin and hot water; he and Lizzie Rose would have to set up the theatre by themselves. He shrugged off his jacket and turned to Lizzie Rose. She was gazing round the drawing room as if it were fairyland. “It’s very grand,” she said, almost whispering, “ain’t it?”

Parsefall eyed her askance. “You said I mustn’t say ‘ain’t.’”

“So I did.” Lizzie Rose smiled at him. “’Tain’t elegant.”

Parsefall gave a sniff of disgust and turned away. One of the things that bothered him about Lizzie Rose was the way she was kind to him when he was doing his best to irritate her. He found it unnerving. Parsefall liked things to be fair: eye for eye and tooth for tooth.

The children began to set up the theatre. The front of the caravan pulled down, covering the wheels, and the sides unfolded like shutters, adding width to the miniature stage. Lizzie Rose unrolled the canvas that hid the puppet workers from the audience. Parsefall set up the puppet rack and hung the puppets on it. Lizzie Rose unpacked the contents of the canvas sack: a set of glass chimes, a tambourine, a tin sheet for making thunder, and a small violin called a kit.

Parsefall eyed the clock on the mantel. There was plenty of time before the show. He would be able to set up perfectly — Parsefall was finicky about setting up — and still have time to steal something. He cast a furtive glance at Lizzie Rose. She had no idea what a skillful thief he was. Grisini wanted her kept in the dark.

The door opened, and a little girl came into the room. She stood aside as a maidservant in a black uniform entered with a tea tray. “Thank you, Agnes,” said the girl, and the maidservant set the tray on the table and left the room.

Parsefall stared at the little girl. He didn’t bother much about girls — it was well known that they weren’t as good as boys — but this was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She looked like a puppet of the very finest quality. Her eyes shone like blue glass, matching the color of her sash. Her ringlets were as neat as quills of black paper, and her skin was as smooth as wax. And her dress! To Parsefall, who lived in perpetual dinginess, it was blindingly, impossibly white: a frothy confection that showed plump shoulders at one end and embroidered stockings at the other. But though Miss Wintermute was beautiful, she was not graceful. She held herself stiffly and moved as if by clockwork.

She made a slight, imperious gesture toward the tea tray. “Good afternoon. How do you do?”

Parsefall jammed his hands in his pockets. Lizzie Rose spoke for them both. “We’re very well, miss. Thank you, miss.”

The little girl clasped her hands behind her back. “I’m very glad to see you. I hoped you might have tea with me.” She sounded suddenly shy. “We met in Hyde Park three weeks ago — I don’t suppose you remember?” She paused as if she hoped they would answer. “My name is Clara Wintermute.”

“I think I remember you,” Lizzie Rose said unconvincingly. Lizzie Rose was a poor liar. She didn’t get much practice.

Parsefall looked impatiently at the tea tray. There were three cups and a dish with a folded napkin in it. He wondered what was inside the napkin. Something buttery, he hoped: crumpets or muffins.

“Do you?” fluttered Clara. “I’m very glad. I admire you both so much — I wanted you to come for my birthday.” She gestured toward the table again. “Do sit down. There’s hot buttered toast in the dish — and strawberry jam.”

“We’d love tea, thank you,” Lizzie Rose said happily. “Wouldn’t we, Parsefall?”

Parsefall pulled out a chair and slumped into it. The two girls became irritatingly ladylike, murmuring courtesies about sugar and milk. Parsefall rested his elbows on the table and gnawed his toast. He knew better — Lizzie Rose was attempting to teach him table manners — but something about little Miss Wintermute made him want to be rude on a larger scale than usual. He slathered his toast with jam and sucked his fingers.

“This is ever so kind, miss.” Lizzie Rose set her teacup in the saucer. “A cup of tea is always a treat, especially on a cold day.”

Clara spoke impetuously. “Oh, please —! Won’t you call me Clara? I know I seem —” She waved a hand, indicating the ornate room around them. Her cheeks reddened.

Lizzie Rose helped her out. “My name is Elizabeth Rose Fawr. This is my brother, Parsefall.”

“’M’not her bruvver,” Parsefall corrected her around a mouthful of toast. “Me last name’s Hooke.”

“He isn’t my brother by birth,” Lizzie Rose explained, “but we have the same guardian, so I call him my brother.” Her eyes went to one of the paintings on the wall. “Are those your brothers and sisters?”

Parsefall looked at the painting. He had not examined it before, since it was much too large to steal. Now that he looked at it, it struck him as queer and therefore interesting. It was huge, with a gold frame full of swirls and little holes. Five life-size children stood together in a tangle of garden. The light suggested that it was early evening, and they had been gathering flowers. There were two girls with long golden hair. The taller of the two leaned against a broken column; the other held a small child on her lap and crowned him with a daisy chain. A boy with curly hair and laughing eyes stood next to a dark-haired girl with ringlets. It was evidently Clara Wintermute, but she looked younger in the picture, and as though she didn’t quite belong. The other children stood like deer poised for flight; the air around their bodies was faintly luminous, like mist or pale fire. Beside them, Clara looked dense and stiff: a wooden statue.