The Little Shadows (69 page)

But it was grass. She knelt beside him.

He opened his eyes. ‘I didn’t do it,’ he said.

‘No.’

She went inside and put the rifle under a pile of sheets on the top shelf of the linen closet, where the children could not reach it, and took out a blanket to wrap him in. He came with her willingly, using her instead of his forgotten crutch, and curled himself around Harriet in the bed. And finally he slept.

The Company Assembled

Early Sunday morning, Bella was due on the Regina train. Aurora could almost not imagine it, after so long. East and Verrall and a handful of musicians would come on the same train, for rehearsal—East had booked rooms at the hotel, but Mrs. Gower demanded that these be left to the musicians; Bella and the
famous East and Verrall must stay at her house. And she insisted on hosting a light fork-luncheon after the rehearsal, which Mabel warned Aurora might be anything up to roast suckling pig.

Aurora and Clover took the Ford to the station and drew up just as the train blew in. They flew up the platform to the first-class carriage as Bella fell out the door, and then Nando. Clover hugged Bella while Aurora kissed Nando, crying, ‘Bella, you might have told us!’

‘Wanted to surprise you with everything,’ Bella said, moving Clover’s arm to free her mouth. ‘We even got married! Not high-minded like you, Clover!’ She kissed Aurora and wrapped her springy arms around both of them. Nando smiled and smiled, his face pulling into an unaccustomed shape. He managed, Aurora saw, to keep one hand connected to Bella the whole time.

Then Verrall came sliding down the step. Standing on the platform his head was at the level of East’s, poking out the door. There were more embraces and exchanges of best wishes, and complaints that the children were not present to be patted and compared.

‘Later,’ Aurora promised. ‘They are to attend the concert, of course.’

‘The concert!’ East cried. ‘I had forgot what we were here for. I must catch the baggage man—’ He fled down the train, and Verrall shrugged and loped after him.

‘We’ll take a wagon,’ Verrall called back.

The Opera House was an ants’ nest of girls and women already, but Mabel had the musicians in place, tuning their assorted instruments. The man at the piano, to Aurora’s great pleasure, was Mr. Mendel, from the Empress Theatre long ago.

‘Made the switch to Pantages, years back,’ he said. ‘Never regretted it. The man’s an ape but the theatre is run like clocks and I like my boys. I think you will too.’ His wrinkled face peered over the piano and he gave out an A for the others to tune to.

The programmes had arrived from the printer, in a large flat packet which Mabel took to her prompt corner to open; the giddy girls were in Miss Peavey’s clinic, which had been turned into the chorus dressing room for the duration. A banner hung across the proscenium:
FOR OUR BOYS OVERSEAS
. It was bright red on white silk, like that of a Red Cross hospital—but never mind that, Aurora thought.

Riding a Bicycle

Bella and Nando did the visiting royalty business with the helpers, but with Bella royalty could never be completely serious—she felt a simmering, shimmering laugh under everything she did these days.

‘Oh, there’s one more thing that I forgot,’ she said to Aurora. ‘And here he is.’

The auditorium door was ajar, and in the arch stood Jimmy the Bat, posing like an advertisement for cigarettes, in a white linen motoring coat over a sylph-like suit.

It seemed to Bella, watching closely, that Aurora was holding her breath.

Jimmy walked down the rake of the main aisle. Nobody ever more graceful. At Bella’s nod the musicians started up
The Double-Glide Walk
, and Aurora laughed and moved forward to greet him.

‘Let’s dance it one more time,’ he said, reaching out a hand.

In the cleared space where the seats would be put up, they met and clung and held the pose—and then were off, circling circling, Aurora’s lily foot flicking up from time to time in the most carefree way, as if she’d done nothing in her life but dance.

Clover turned away, white-faced, probably sick with nostalgia; Bella was not so sappy. She kept a sharp eye on what those two were doing: it seemed to her that they were chiefly having a very good time. But of course that was the whole purpose of that dance, and it might not be real. What the hell, she thought, it was worth a shot—I shouldn’t be the only happy one in the family.

As the dance finished Jimmy and Aurora bowed to the musicians with a flourish. Aurora broke away, but kept hold on Jimmy’s elbow. ‘I’m winded!’ she said, loud enough for the rest to hear. ‘You are in top form, but it’s two years since I danced.’

‘Like riding a bicycle,’ Jimmy said. His every gesture, thought Bella, was easy and cool as shaved ice.

Mabel came forward to show off the programmes from the printer, with Nando’s name by Bella’s, and the dance number in place:
Miss A. Avery & Mr. Jimmy Battle: The Double-Glide Walk & Oh, You Beautiful Doll
, between Clover’s monologue and East & Verrall.

Aurora took the parchment programme.
‘Et tu
, Mabel? Bella, you’re a genius!’

There was one more task. Bella did not want to shirk the last thing she could do for Julius. Seeing Clover in a quiet corner, Bella took Aurora over to tell them together that Julius had died, keeping it very bare: ‘He’d been out of sorts for ages, and then he died—it was the drink, of course. He said to give you his dear love, Clover, and a little to spare for the beautiful Aurora.’

She buried her face in her sisters’ shoulders, both to hide his true death and for her own comfort. They could not have made it better if they had been there, after all.

You’re What?

To Clover’s surprise and relief, Victor appeared to watch her brief monologue set-up. His thin length leaning on the door frame gave her a surge of joy—she hoped it did not show in her face. He must have walked in from the farm, and he looked as if the sun had done him good. She was through in a moment, only her entrance and exit requiring cues, and ran down to stand beside him.

‘Harriet’s sleeping, and your mama is coming in with them after lunch,’ Victor said. ‘Let me watch in peace.’ He clasped her hand, kissed it, and waved her back to work.

Bella’s Flying Machine
was the big number. Nando had adapted the prop aeroplane to fit it onto this small stage. Without flies there would be some effects missing. ‘But it’ll still be a whizz-bang,’ he promised. At the run-through the propellers dropped off one by one in perfect
time, as Bella chanted mournfully, ‘He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me
not
—Oh dear …’

Another necessary modification was discovered in mid-rehearsal. While Nando cranked and adjusted, Bella filled in Clover and Aurora about their plans. ‘No point withering away outside the big-time any more—but Keith’s won’t book any act straight from the small-time now, even from Pan-time. You’ve got to have a whole new look to get in there.’

A wrench dropped out of the sky, retrieved by Nell Barr-Smith, who had designated herself Nando’s assistant.

‘The
Flying Machine
will be a step up,’ Bella said. ‘Nando has all kinds of ideas for really big-time, flying out over the audience, dropping candy bombs, you name it.’

Nando’s face appeared upside down, hanging from a wing. ‘Get me a roll of that cotton duck tape from the clinic, would you, Nell?’

‘But the thing is—’ Bella said, and then stopped.

‘The thing is, she’s not telling you the main thing,’ Nando said. ‘It puts a bit of a crimp in the Keith’s plan, for a while—I’m going to enlist.’

Clover looked at him, at Bella.

‘I’ve got to,’ Nando said, apologizing. ‘I want to go for a flyer. I figure they’ll take me. I learned how for the pictures—wing-walked and flew a bit. Best thing in the world.’

‘Hey!’

‘Excepting Bella,’ he allowed. ‘I’m going to enlist up here, Royal Flying Corps.’

Bella stared upwards. ‘It’s all butterfly, him and me,’ she told her sisters. ‘All bumble bee.’

Clover turned abruptly, and got into the wings in time. That was the place for crying, and she felt dreadfully sick as well—There, the fire bucket was waiting for her, like it had waited for Aurora in the old times.

Leaning over, retching as quietly as she could, her mind caught suddenly. Hooked like a little fish. Oh yes—oh yes, she thought. Counted back, could not remember—must have been in March, not since they left England—oh. Oh.

She straightened, and wiped her mouth with a prop-table towel.

There was no silence to keep, like last time, though. Victor was right out there in front. No need to wait to tell him; she was instantly, absolutely certain. She slipped out around the proscenium arch and climbed up to the seats where Victor sat, his head back, eyes closed.

‘You’re
what?’
he said slowly, in the gentlest voice, when she told him. His still-dreaming eyes were peaceful and he reached up to touch her face.

The Point

They ought to be heading to Mrs. Gower’s luncheon. It’s only a country concert, Aurora told herself, and laughed to see Clover up on stage muttering through her monologue one last time.

‘An encore for the concert,’ Verrall said, gliding up with music in his hand.

Aurora protested that they would not need such a thing, but he insisted. ‘Oh, believe me, you’re going to need one. Here’s just the thing: you can be Colinette with the Sea-Blue Eyes, with Bella and Clover to back you. The ladies will put an extra dollar in the soldiers’ box once they’ve had a good cry—the gents will put in five. Do it in one, then we’ll open the curtains to reveal the assembled company, all bowing again like trained seals. Lovely!’

Mendel ran through it on the piano, a trilling beginning and a peaceful, lilting tempo. It would pull up tears, Aurora thought—not a bad thing, when raising funds for a good cause.

‘But there’s one rose that dies not in Picardy
’Tis the rose that I keep in my heart …’

She called Clover and Bella up to try it through with Mendel, keeping it very simple.

‘It ought to be a tenor,’ Clover said. ‘But to sing all together again—let’s keep it!’

They walked to Mrs. Gower’s, finding the spreading house packed full of every citizen of note from Qu’Appelle and Indian Head, with a
few from Fort Qu’Appelle. Aurora stopped in front of a small shrine in the hall to show Clover the photo of Mrs. Gower’s son—a sweet face, serious and young, with the least tinge of Mrs. Gower’s popping eyes, and a faint irrepressible smile.

Their uncle found them there and told Clover about the boy.

‘Mont Sorrel,’ Chum said, putting an arm out to draw Lewis Ridgeway in as he came near. ‘He was aide-de-camp to Arthur Williams: taken prisoner, badly wounded. I knew Williams well, you know. He was an inspector in the Mounted Police before he went off to run the cavalry school. I’m told that Williams may still be alive, but rumours of war …’

‘Facts of war, this morning,’ Lewis said. ‘Two more boys from Fort Qu’Appelle killed. And word of a major offensive in July.’

Walking on, Chum and Lewis settled themselves on a sofa near Dr. Graham. The doctor sat with his head in his hands, Mabel beside him. He had delivered both the boys from Fort Qu’Appelle.

Aurora had taken Clover’s arm, and now bent her head to rest on her sister’s shoulder. ‘There’s nothing—no point, in any of it,’ she said. ‘We dance and sing, and all these boys go off and die.’

A plush bee mumbled out of the flowers on the mahogany table and floated, lost for landmarks in the indoor world.

‘Well, I don’t know why we ever thought there was a point,’ Clover said. ‘Dancing, singing, dying, that is all of it, I think.’

Victor lifted his head from the sofa. ‘You know better.’

The women turned to look at him. He had not spoken to anyone but Clover yet that day. After a moment he turned his head away slightly, and spoke again. ‘Perfecting it. Making it—realer, or less real.’

Aurora watched him struggle to find words.

‘I mean, the
point
is the point. To make the joke so perfect—’ Victor paused, eyes up on a line of reflected light dancing on the ceiling. ‘We are only pointing at the moon, but it is the moon.’

He saw Clover watching him, and lifted one hand into a sketched salute.

Aurora opened the glass door to let the bee drowse out into the garden. ‘I will go with you when you go,’ she said, leaning out into the summer day.

F
I
N
A
L
E

JULY
1, 1917

Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan

And now we have come to the act that closes the show.… Many have only waited to see the chief attraction of the evening, before hurrying off to their after-theatre supper and dance. So we spring a big ‘flash.’