Burning Bright

  Miss Smith slowed her horse and lowered her leg. When she’d maneuvered herself back into the saddle, John Astley leaned over and kissed her hand, to more applause and laughter, and blushes from Miss Smith.

  It was then that Maisie felt the silence rippling out from the box on the other side of the ring. She peered across and saw there the one person who wasn’t clapping: From the shadows emerged the round white face of Miss Laura Devine, gazing down at Miss Smith with even more hatred than Maisie herself felt for the ingenue. Miss Devine’s face was no longer so smooth and welcoming as it had once been. Instead it was haggard, underlined with a disgusted wince, as if she had just tasted something she didn’t care for. She looked wretched.

  When Miss Devine looked up and met Maisie’s eyes, her expression did not change. They gazed at each other, until Miss Devine let herself sink back into the shadows, like the moon disappearing behind clouds.

  2

  Next door, Philip Astley was running through a list of names with John Fox. “Mr. and Mrs. De Castro. Mr. Johannot. Mr. Lawrence. Mrs. Henley. Mr. Davis. Mr. Crossman. Mr. Jeffries. Mr. Whit-more. Monsieur Richer. Mr. Sanderson.”

  “He’s coming later.”

  “Damme, Fox, I need him now! The Irish will want new songs and they’ll want ’em straightaway. I was expecting to ride with him in the coach and compose ’em then.”

  “He’s writing for a show that’s to open on the Haymarket.”

  “I don’t care if he’s writing for the King himself! I want him in that coach on the thirteenth!”

  There was silence from John Fox.

  “Any other surprises for me, Fox? Any others I should know about? Tell me now. Next you’ll be saying the carpenters have laid down their tools and become sailors.”

  John Fox cleared his throat. “We han’t got a carpenter agreed to come, sir.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Most o’ them’s got jobs elsewhere, and don’t fancy the trip. They know what it’s like.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Dublin! Have we asked everyone?”

  “All but Kellaway.”

  Maisie had been only half-listening to the conversation, but now she sat up.

  “Send Kellaway up, then.”

  “Yes, sir.” There was a pause. “You’ll want to speak to her too.”

  “Who?”

  “Her. Across the way. Can’t you see her?”

  “Ah. Yes.”

  “Does she know about Monsieur Richer?” John Fox asked.

  “No.”

  “She’ll need to know, sir. So’s they can rehearse.”

  Philip Astley sighed. “All right, I’ll talk to her after Kellaway. Get him now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s not easy being manager, Fox.”

  “I expect not, sir.”

  When her father appeared before Mr. Astley, Maisie remained as still as she could in her box, feeling guilty already for eavesdropping, before words had even been exchanged.

  “Kellaway, my good man, how are you?” Philip Astley called out, as if Thomas Kellaway were on the other side of the ring rather than standing in front of him.

  “Well enough, sir.”

  “Good, good. You still packing up the scenery?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s so much to do to get the company on the road, Kellaway. It requires an enormous amount of planning and packing, packing and planning, don’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. It be a bit like moving from Dorsetshire to London.”

  “Well, now, I suppose you’re right, Kellaway. So it’ll be easy for you this time, now you’ve had the practice.”

  “Practice for what, sir?”

  “On my word, I’m jumping ahead of myself, an’t I, Fox? I mean packing up and going to Dublin.”

  “To Dublin?”

  “You do know we’re going to Dublin, don’t you, Kellaway? After all, that’s what you’re packing the scenery for.”

  “Yes, sir, but—”

  “But what?”

  “I—I didn’t think that meant me, sir.”

  “Of course it means you! Did you think we wouldn’t need a carpenter in Dublin?”

  “I be a chairmaker, sir, not a carpenter.”

  “Not for me you’re not. Do you see any chairs around here that you’ve made, Kellaway?”

  “Besides,” Thomas Kellaway added, as if Philip Astley had not spoken, “there be carpenters in Dublin could do the job just as well.”

  “Not ones who know the scenery as you do, Kellaway. Now, what’s bothering you? I thought you’d welcome a trip to Dublin. It’s a roaring city—you’ll love it, I’m sure. And it’s milder than London in winter. Liverpool too, after. Come now, Kellaway, you wanted to get away from Dorsetshire and see a bit of the world, didn’t you? Here’s your chance. We leave in three days—that’s enough time to pack your things, eh?”

  “I—what about my family?”

  The seat creaked as Philip Astley shifted his weight. “Well, now, Kellaway, that’s tricky. We’ve to tighten our belts on the road, you see—a smaller company, with no room for extras. A wife’s extra. Even Patty don’t go to Dublin, do she, Fox? So I’m afraid it’s just you, Kellaway.”

  Maisie gasped. Luckily the men didn’t hear her.

  “But you’ll be back soon, Kellaway—it’s only till March.”

  “Tha’ be five months, sir.”

  “And you know, Kellaway, your family will be that glad to see you when you get back. Works like a tonic for Patty and me. Absence makes the heart fonder, you know.”

  “I don’t know, sir. I’ll have to talk to Anne about it an’ give you an answer tomorrow.”

  Philip Astley started to say something, but for once Thomas Kellaway interrupted him. “I have to get back to work now. Excuse me, sir.” Maisie heard the door open and her father leave.

  There was chuckling from next door. “Oh, don’t you start, Fox!”

  The chuckling continued.

  “Damme, Fox, he got the better of me, didn’t he? He actually thinks he has a choice in the matter, don’t he? But I’m the one making decisions here, not a carpenter.”

  “Shouldn’t your son be making those decisions, sir? Seeing as he’s the manager.”

  Philip Astley heaved another sigh. “You would think so, wouldn’t you, Fox? But look at him.” Maisie glanced down: John Astley was on his horse, dancing sideways across the ring while Miss Hannah Smith watched. “That’s what he does best, not sitting up here making hard decisions. Speaking of which—go and fetch Miss Devine.”

  3

  John Fox made his way around the gallery to the boxes on the other side. Though Miss Laura Devine must have seen him approaching, she did not move to meet him, or answer the door to his knock, but sat and stared across at Philip Astley. Finally John Fox answered his own knock, opening the door and entering the box, where he leaned over to whisper something in Miss Devine’s ear. He then stood in the doorway and waited.

  For a long time she did not move; nor did John Fox. At last, however, she gathered her shawl around her shoulders and stood, shaking out her skirts and patting at her dark hair, which was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, before she took the arm John Fox offered. He then escorted her around the gallery as if it were full of its usual rough customers he must protect her from. When he deposited her at Philip Astley’s box, she said, “Stay, John,” as if his gallantry might soften the blow that was to come. For she knew the blow would come. She had been expecting it for weeks.

  Maisie also knew what was to come. She and her mother had watched Miss Devine perform more slowly and clumsily at a recent show and guessed what was wrong. She knew too that John Fox’s presence would make little difference to the outcome—only, perhaps, to the manner in which it was relayed by Mr. Astley.

  “Miss Devine, welcome,” Mr. Astley said in a tone completely different from the jocularity he had used with Thomas Kellaway. “Sit down, my dear, sit here next to me. Y
ou’re looking a touch pale—don’t she, Fox? We’ll get Mrs. Connell to make you some broth. That’s what she gives me when I’m under the weather, and Patty swears by it, don’t she, Fox?”

  Neither John Fox nor Miss Devine responded to his solicitations, which made him burble on even more. “You’ve been watching the rehearsals, have you, my dear? Very exciting, the last night upon us already. And then the move to Dublin once more. On my word, how many more times will we pack up and cross the Irish Sea, eh, Fox?” He cut himself off then, as he realized this was not the most tactful thing to be saying just now.

  Indeed, Philip Astley seemed to be momentarily at a loss for words. It only lasted that moment, but it was enough for all the listeners to understand that it was a struggle for him to say what he was to say. Miss Laura Devine had been with Astley’s Circus for ten years, after all, and was—now he found the words—“like a daughter you are to me, my dear, yes, like a daughter. That’s why I know when things have changed, because I know you as well as a father knows his daughter. And things have changed, my dear, han’t they?”

  Miss Devine said nothing.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t notice, Laura?” Philip Astley asked, allowing some of his natural impatience to creep back into his voice. “Half the audience has guessed! Did you really think we wouldn’t notice you getting fatter and slower? Why, you’re making ‘Pig on a Spit’ into the real thing!”

  Maisie caught her gasp before it could ring out into the appalled silence that followed his cruel remark. It was a silence that spurred Philip Astley to fill it. “Come, now, girl, what were you thinking? How could you let that happen to you? I thought you were smarter than that.” After a pause he added more gently, “He’s not the man for you, Laura. Surely you knew that.”

  At last Miss Devine spoke, though she gave an answer to a different question. “It’s because my family’s not good enough for you, isn’t it?” she said in her soft Scottish lilt—so soft that Maisie had to lean forward almost out of her box to hear. “I expect her family’s more to your liking.”

  Miss Smith was now jogging sedately around the ring on her stallion while John Astley rode in the opposite direction; each time they passed, one handed the other a glass of wine to drink from and pass back the next time around.

  “Laura, I have never had any jurisdiction over my son’s women. That is his own affair. I don’t want to get into an argument over why he does what he does. That is for you to take up with him. My only concern is for the show and its performers. And when I see a member of the company who can no longer perform in her condi-tion, then I must take action. First of all, I have hired Monsieur Richer from Brussels to join the show.”

  There was a short silence. “Monsieur Richer is a wobbler,” Miss Devine said with disdain. “A clown on the rope.” It was true that the two slack-rope artists had very different styles. Miss Laura Devine made it a matter of honor, as well as of taste, not to wobble when she walked along the rope. Her performance was as smooth as her dark hair and pale skin.

  “When John and Miss Smith finish in the ring,” Philip Astley continued as if she had not spoken, “you are to rehearse a routine with Monsieur Richer for the final show, which will introduce his talents to the audience and prepare them for his solo return next year. For you won’t be coming with us to Dublin, Miss Devine, nor joining us when we return. I’m sorry, my dear, truly I am, but there it is. Of course, you may stay in your accommodation for another month.” Philip Astley got to his feet, clearly ready for this chat to be over, now that the meat of the matter had been laid out. “Now, I must see to a few matters. If there is anything else I can do for you,” he added as he opened the door, “you need only ask John Fox, eh, Fox?”

  He almost got away, but Miss Devine’s soft voice carried farther and with more force than might have been expected. “You seem to forget that the bairn will be your grandchild.”

  Philip Astley stopped short and made a choking noise. “Don’t you dare try that with me, girl!” he roared. “That baby will have nothing to do with the Astleys! Nothing! He’ll be no grandson of mine!”

  His unchecked voice, so accustomed to needing to carry over the noise of the show and audience, was heard in every corner of the amphitheatre. The costume girls, wrapping up bundles of clothes in a room offstage, heard it. Thomas and Jem Kellaway, building big wooden supports to sandwich pieces of scenery in between and protect them for the journey to Dublin, heard it. Mrs. Connell, counting the takings from ticket sales in the front of house, heard it. Even the circus boys, waiting outside for John Astley and Miss Hannah Smith to finish with their horses, heard it.

  Maisie heard it, and it completed a puzzle she’d been worrying at in her head—the last piece being what she’d expected but hoped wasn’t so, as it meant she really ought to hate Miss Devine too.

  Miss Hannah Smith certainly heard it. Though she continued to ride around the ring, she turned her face toward the box and stared, noticing for the first time the drama that was playing out at a level just above her head.

  John Astley alone seemed not to have noticed his father’s outburst. He was used to Philip Astley’s bellows and rarely listened to their content. As Miss Smith was still holding out her hand for the glass, he passed it to her. She was now looking elsewhere, however, and thinking elsewhere as well, so she did not grasp it, and the glass fell to the ground between them. Despite the cushioning sawdust, it smashed.

  John Astley immediately pulled up his horse. “Glass!” he shouted. A boy who had been waiting alongside to sweep up horse dung ran into the ring with his broom.

  Miss Hannah Smith did not stop her horse, however. She kept riding around the ring, whipping her head around to keep her eyes on Philip Astley and Miss Laura Devine. Indeed, she would have run down the sweeping boy if John Astley hadn’t grabbed the reins of her horse and stopped it himself. “Hannah, what’s the matter with you?” he cried. “Careful where you let your horse step—that glass could do injury!”

  Miss Smith sat on her horse and pulled her eyes from Miss Laura Devine to fix them on John Astley. She had gone very pale, and no longer displayed the pretty smile she had maintained throughout the rehearsal. Instead she looked as if she might be sick.

  John Astley stared at her, then glanced up at the box where Miss Laura Devine sat with fiery eyes and his father still huffed like a winded horse.

  Next Maisie heard something she could never have imagined issuing from Miss Hannah Smith’s mouth. “John Astley, you shit sack!” She was not as loud as Philip Astley, but loud enough for Maisie and everyone in the adjacent box to hear. The boy sweeping up the glass snorted. John Astley opened his mouth, but was unable to think of an appropriate reply. Miss Smith then jumped down from her horse and ran off, her turned-out feet making her retreat even more pathetic.

  When she was gone, John Astley glared up at the box, where Miss Laura Devine still sat, triumphant for just one moment in this bleak farce. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but the giggling boy at his feet made him think the better of dragging out the scene in public. Instead he quickly dismounted, flung the reins of both horses at the boy, straightened the sleeves of his blue coat, and hurried after Miss Smith.

  “Well, I hope you’re happy, my dear,” Philip Astley hissed. “Is that what you wanted?”

  “It is you who makes a public drama of everything,” Laura Devine replied. “You have never known how to be calm or quiet.”

  “Get out! I can’t stand the sight of you!” Though Philip Astley shouted this at her, he himself barged out of the box, calling for John Fox to follow.

  After they were gone, Miss Laura Devine continued to sit in the box, with Maisie quiet in hers next door. Her hands were trembling in her lap.

  “Come and see me a moment,” Maisie heard Miss Devine murmur, and started when she realized the command was directed at her, and that Miss Devine had seen her sitting in her box before, and would know that she had heard it all. Maisie got up and slipped into the adja
cent box, trying not to bring attention to herself—though apart from the boy, who had led off the horses and now come back to sweep up the rest of the glass and horse dung, there was no one about.

  Miss Devine did not look up at Maisie’s arrival. “Sit with me, pet” was all she said. Maisie sank into the chair that Philip Astley had not long vacated next to the slack-rope dancer; indeed, the seat was still warm. Together they looked out over the ring, which for once was quiet, but for the boy’s broom. Maisie found its even, scraping sound a comfort. She knew she did not hate Miss Devine, whatever had happened. Instead she pitied her.

  Miss Laura Devine seemed to be in a dreamy state. Perhaps she was thinking about all of the ropes she had walked along or spun around or dangled from or swung on in this ring. Or she was thinking about the extraordinary finale she would perform in three nights’ time. Or she may have been listening to her body in that silent private dialogue pregnant women sometimes have with them selves.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Devine,” Maisie said at last.

  “I’m not—not for myself. For you, perhaps. And for her.” Miss Devine nodded at the memory of Miss Hannah Smith riding in the ring. “She’ll be stuck with the worry over him and his women all her life now. I’m done with that.” She glanced at Maisie. “How old are you, Miss—”

  “Maisie. I be fifteen.”

  “No longer so innocent, then. But not yet experienced, are you?”

  Maisie wanted to protest—who on the verge of adulthood likes to be reminded of their lingering innocence?—but Miss Devine’s weary face demanded honesty. “I’ve little experience of the world,” she admitted.

  “Then let me teach you something. What you want is not worth half the value of what you’ve still got. Remember that.”

  Maisie nodded, though she did not yet understand the words. She tucked them away for later, when she would take them out and study them. “What will you do now, Miss Devine?” she asked.

  Miss Laura Devine smiled. “I am going to fly out of here, pet. That’s what I’m going to do.”