Laura Schlitz - Splendors and Glooms

Lizzie Rose shuddered. She wasn’t squeamish about many things, but she couldn’t bear the way Parsefall dug at himself when his skin was broken. He scratched himself ceaselessly, like an animal; she had once seen him eat one of his scabs. She cried, “Oh, don’t! It’s too horrid! Do stop, or you’ll start bleeding again!”

Somewhat to her surprise, he did as she asked. He reached across the table to take another sausage. “I don’t like it ’ere,” he complained. “I didn’t want to leave London, but Old Wintermute was after us, an’ you made me, so ’ere we are. But there’s nuffink for me to do ’ere, but go round and round the ’ouse and see wot there is to pinch.” He pointed to the Bible on the sofa. “I can’t read, like you can. I can’t sit an’ sew, like a girl. There ain’t no audience — there ain’t even any streets — no penny gaffs, no magic lantern, no Egyptian ’All. And it’s cold outside and me boots is thin, and I don’t see wot the old lady wants wiv all them trees. So I goes round inside the ’ouse, an’ then you start a-carryin’ on, saying that I’m worried. I ain’t worried, but strike me dead if I ain’t blue-deviled, wot wiv ’aving nuffink to do.”

Lizzie Rose leaned her elbows on the table. She knew this was not good manners, but she didn’t care. She stared at him so intently that he wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue. There were dark shadows under his eyes she hadn’t seen before. He looked pale and even ugly; every muscle in his face was tight.

She had told him that she meant to have the truth. Now she saw that the truth could not be forced out of him. The more she pressed him, the more he would lie. And he was lying. He was afraid of something; she could smell it. Whatever it was, she couldn’t protect him — not if he went on hiding from her.

An idea came into her head. She gave a little sigh and changed the subject. “The days are so long here. We ought to rehearse the puppets.”

His eyes kindled. Lizzie Rose went on cannily.

“We shall have to be quiet, because of Madama, but we ought to work on the new show, just in case there isn’t any legacy. I don’t know the new acts, not properly — and you’ll have to teach me to be a better figure worker, because I still float the puppets. Will you do that? And perhaps I could teach you skating in return.”

“We could rehearse,” Parsefall said cautiously, but his eyes had brightened. “I’ll teach you.” And as a token of goodwill, he rolled the rest of his bread into a ball and tossed it in the air for Ruby to catch.

They rehearsed in the Green Room. Parsefall tried to persuade himself that he was safe as long as it was daylight and Lizzie Rose was with him. He wanted to believe that Grisini would wait until dark before he returned to the house. But the puppet master’s words echoed in Parsefall’s ears: I can enter the house whenever I like. If you fail me, I will be obliged to hurt you.

And Parsefall had failed. He hadn’t succeeded in stealing the fire opal, and he dared not make a second attempt on the stone. Clara had warned him against it, and he couldn’t get into the old lady’s room. Since Madama’s collapse, the servants had taken turns watching over the sick woman. Parsefall racked his brain, but he could think of no way out of the dilemma. He had never learned to think ahead more than a day or two, and he was too frantic to weigh his choices.

So he rehearsed. When he was busy with the puppets, he was not afraid. Grisini and Madama were only shadows, compared to the solid little manikins on the stage. Parsefall worked tirelessly, ardently, and he saw to it that Lizzie Rose kept pace with him.

Lizzie Rose divided her time between the puppet theatre and the lake. The weather remained cold, and she went skating every afternoon. “You should come, too,” she said earnestly. “It’s good outside — so pure, with the lake and the snow and the fresh air.”

Parsefall did not love fresh air. In his experience, it was apt to be cold. He tried skating once and found it a failure. His ankles were weak, and they buckled. After that, when Lizzie Rose went skating, he retreated to the Tower Room.

There was a spyglass in the room. Using it, Parsefall could see the stone urn where Ruby was tethered. If the dog was tied up, Lizzie Rose was skating; if the long rope hung slack, Lizzie Rose was on her way back to the house. Parsefall listened for her footsteps on the back stairs. When he heard them, he unbolted the tower door and darted across the hall to the Green Room.

He was in the Green Room late one morning when he heard Lizzie Rose shouting for him. There was a note of panic in her voice. “Parsefall! Parsefall! ” The door swung open, and she burst in, gasping for breath. “Parsefall — listen — it’s dreadful — but I have to tell you —” She took a great gulp of air. “Grisini’s here.”

Parsefall felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. “’Ere? In the ’ouse? Now?”

“No. Not now. Not in the house.” Lizzie Rose flung her skates to the floor. “He’s in the gatehouse. He’s living there. I saw him —” She broke off. “Why, you knew, didn’t you?”

Parsefall widened his eyes, dramatizing his astonishment. It was a weak effort, and a belated one.

“You’ve known ever since we came here, haven’t you? That’s what’s been wrong with you! Oh, Parsefall! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He told me not to. ’E said he’d hurt you.” Parsefall’s voice cracked. He was almost afraid to look at Lizzie Rose. He lied to her so often and she always believed him. Now that he was telling her the truth, it stood to reason that she wouldn’t. But her face was transparent, revealing a series of emotions: skepticism, shock, pity, indignation.

She commanded, “Tell me what happened.”

He bent his head. He didn’t want to remember Grisini crouched over him. The carpet snagged his attention. Mossy green, with a score of other colors zigzagging through it: sallow gold and rosy brown and blue gray and black . . .

“Parsefall, tell me!”

He parried the question with one of his own. “What’d ’e say to you?”

“Nothing. He was asleep. He didn’t see me.” Lizzie Rose shuddered. “I was skating, and I was thinking about — oh, everything. I know it’s heartless to wonder what will happen after someone dies, but I was wondering what Madama might leave us in her will. I was wishing we could live close to the lake. And then I remembered the first morning we came and how we both liked the little gatehouse with the tower. So I wondered — if I asked Madama — if perhaps she might give us the gatehouse.”

Parsefall began to understand. He went to one of the chairs before the fire and sat down. Lizzie Rose shrugged off her coat and knelt by his feet, with Ruby close at hand. “I decided to look inside. I didn’t think anyone lived there, so there wouldn’t be any harm in peeking in the windows. I took off my skates and walked down to the gatehouse. The ivy’s all over the windows, but there was one window on the ground floor. . . . I looked through, and I saw Grisini! He was asleep in an armchair, as still as wax — oh, Parsefall — I thought he might be dead. I almost hoped it. But he twitched, just a little, and I knew he wasn’t.” She hugged Ruby. “I was dreadfully frightened. I ducked under the windowsill and crept away, and I didn’t run until I was past the trees. It was queer, because he was asleep, but I was so afraid!”

“I know.”

“I ran till I had a stitch in my side. I kept thinking he might be behind me. But then it came to me that Madama must have lied to us. Because if he’s living in the gatehouse, she must know, mustn’t she? And when we first met her, and we told her Grisini was gone, she didn’t seem a bit interested. And I remembered something I overheard when we came here. One of the servants said, ‘First foreigners and then riffraff.’ I was so cross that she called us riffraff, I didn’t stop to think who the foreigners might be, but she must have meant Grisini.” She took a deep breath. “How long have you known he was here?”