The Ringmaster's Wife (19 page)

Relief flooded into the confines of Rosamund's chest. It was a comfort to have found a genuinely welcoming face amongst a sea of strangers. She was ready to cling to it.

“You already know Owen. He runs things over here, and he'll make sure you have everything you need. He's got your training schedule, so make sure you check with him before you leave to go back to your hotel tonight. Okay?”

Rosamund took in a deep breath, offering him what she hoped was her bravest smile.

Colin turned to leave, then stopped short, something drawing him back. He leaned in and tipped up his hat, whispering so only she could hear. “It's a long way from Easling Park, isn't it?”

“And quiet docks in Sarasota,” she agreed.

“The trick is, Rose, never show them you're afraid.”

“Animals or people?”

“Both. Equally.”

She nodded.

“I'll see you later?” He returned her smile, then turned to Annaliese. “Take care of this one for me?”

“
Bien sûr
, Boss,” she confirmed in her sweet French accent, making Rosamund think of the colorful macaroon cookies Hendrick had once brought her from a Paris patisserie.

Annaliese was the epitome of colorful, sugar-sweet Parisian charm. She popped her heels together to stand at attention and issued a pert salute at their boss's retreating back.

Colin moved on to greet a group of performers who'd gathered
in front of them. Rosamund saw a flash of the same ebony hair she'd seen from the train platform at King's Cross. She didn't need to be told who they were, but asked anyway.

“Are those the flyers?”

Annaliese looked up, wrinkling her nose when she saw them.

“
Oui
. The Rossi family. See the tall man standing behind with the graying hair and mustache? That is Marvio. Their uncle. Leader of the troop. He brought them from Tivoli some years ago. They also have two cousins who left the troop after last season. They are still stars of the show, but mostly it is Bella who draws the crowds. She is quite famous for her—how do you say it in English—
mystique
?”

Mystique. Rosamund was sure she didn't know.

A cool blonde with long, slender legs and a pair of icy blue eyes sauntered up to the group. She might have been lovely, if not for the glacial air about her.

“And she's a flyer too?”

Annaliese let out a long sigh.

“
Oui
. Frances Knight. Or Frances Rossi now, but she goes by Frankie. Her
mari
is Enzo. Just there,” she whispered, pointing to a man of medium build standing off past the horse stalls. He boasted the same dark hair and Mediterranean good looks as the others. “Bella's brother. Rumor has it that Frankie's father is in prison for rum-running in Chicago, but who knows if there is any truth to that. She's one of the troop now, and they keep to themselves.”

“You don't get to know a lot about the people you work with?”

Rosamund toyed with the button on her coat, thinking how little she actually knew about anyone there, including Colin. In all the months they'd known each other, he'd not once mentioned anything about having a family or a life outside of the circus.

“
Oui
, you do, especially if you're in close quarters like we shall be. But not with the Rossi family. They stick only together.”

Rosamund watched as Bella turned to find Colin standing with the group. She seemed cool as ever, but greeted him by pressing a welcoming kiss to his cheek.

She doesn't seem to have trouble sticking to Colin,
she thought.

“
Célèbre
. Maybe one day we will be stars too.” Annaliese shrugged, a layer of longing thrown into it. “But they are today. They have a private train car and their own tents when we travel.”

“We don't get our own tents?”

Annaliese shook her head.

“Not unless you count a tent full of horses. But I traveled with a riding troop from Marseilles, so it's really no different here. You do the show.”

“I made Bella's acquaintance in England,” Rosamund whispered, thoughts trailing off as she watched the group. Colin greeted Enzo and Marvio with steady handshakes, then hurried off somewhere, disappearing into the activity before them. “We, um . . . we traveled into New York Harbor in October. Along with Colin and Ward.”

“So I have heard. Or so everyone has heard.”

“Heard what?”

“You were recruited all the way from England with your Arabian in tow. And you are replacing May Wirth,
non
? You're the next big thing around here. And whether that information is from Ward's wagging tongue”—Annaliese cocked her eyebrows and offered a dimpled smile—“or from the preparations Colin made for you both, that is tantalizing.
Potins!
”

Rosamund had taken enough French to know exactly what that was:
gossip
. And by the look on Annaliese's face, it seemed Rosamund was topic number one.

“But no one even knows me, Annaliese. What could they have to gossip about?”

Annaliese shrugged her shoulders, as if the answer was easy as pie. “You're the English Rose, and you're going to be a star. That is quite enough.”

Rosamund shook her head. Politely, but firmly.

Joining the show was one thing. Being told she'd be a star was something entirely different.

“But you mustn't worry about that now. We shall be sisters.” Annaliese bounced, pecking a kiss to Rosamund's cheek. “We have a show to give! And you, dear, need a new costume.”

“I suppose I do.”

Annaliese hooked her elbow around Rosamund's. “Yes. I will introduce you to Minnie, our costume mistress. And as the way of things in the circus, the unexpected has happened. She needs to see you to take your measurements.”

Annaliese had an almost sinister tilt to one eyebrow, like a petite detective ready to scope out her next suspect for a crime.

Rosamund almost laughed. “The unexpected?”

“Minnie designed a costume for you already—a lovely satin number. Satin and tulle in canary yellow. And you would have looked like
soleil
in the ring. Truly. Every bit of sunshine.”

“Would
have looked? You mean the costume . . . Something happened to it?”

Annaliese nodded. “I thought you knew,” she whispered, daring to look over at Bella Rossi before continuing. “More gossip. We found it hanging in the costume wagon, cut to shreds.”

1905

H
OBOKEN
, N
EW
J
ERSEY

Mable had never worn a wedding dress before, and certainly not as she walked through the halls of a sanitarium, trying to angle stiff crinolines and yards of lace around the metal wheels of hospital beds positioned as fabric traps the length of the walls.

The staff at St. Mary's Hospital bustled about in the care of their patients. Mable ignored their curious looks, holding her head high and continuing on as though it were the most common of occurrences.

“It's right here, Miss Burton. Room 24,” the nurse leading her advised.

“Thank you.”

Mable stood just outside the open door, perched in the confines of the hall.

She exhaled a breath she'd been holding since she'd stepped from John's car and crossed the threshold of the sanitarium's front doors. And of all times to find herself afflicted, she stood frozen now. Unwilling to turn around and leave, but unable to take a step forward.

The effects of influenza had forever weakened Sally's heart. No
longer able to sing, she was in and out of the sanitarium regularly. And though drinking cough syrup had been an aid to Sally's frayed sensibilities for years, she'd transitioned to find open comfort in strong drink for the many months that had followed her collapse during a set at the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel.

Now Mable's friend languished in the sanitarium, humming tunes under her breath while she stared out the window, watching the sky float by.

Meanwhile, John had breezed back into Mable's life. And he was staying. The exquisite lace dress and pompadour hairstyle she wore were evidence of that now—it was her wedding day, and her groom cared enough to make this stop on their way to the Hudson County courthouse. Yet there she was, hiding in the hallway of a busy hospital in a perfectly elegant gown, reluctant to face the possibility that the moments ahead might very well be the last she'd share with her friend.

She rapped lightly on the door.

Sally turned from the bower of winter clouds outside the window and smiled, seeing her friend in the doorway.

Mable moved to walk in.

“No,” Sally said, raising a hand to stop her. “I want to marvel at you from there. Can you spin?”

Sally's auburn hair, so rich and fiery once, hung in lifeless tendrils about her shoulders. The porcelain complexion Mable had always admired had now dimmed to a soft gray, one that colored the skin on the underside of her eyes with dark, sunken-in patches of purple. And she was terribly thin. Why, it looked as though a light wind could blow her from the surface of the bed.

Mable swallowed hard, pushing down the emotion that welled up from the confines of her chest. “Oh, what good would spinning do but make me dizzy?”

“Humor me.”

Mable sighed in mock exasperation and did as she was asked, turning in a quick pirouette on the edge of her heel.

“A thirty-year-old woman just danced like a grammar-school ballerina in your room. I hope you're happy.”

“I am. And let me guess. You're on your way to vote? Or to sit for a Gibson magazine cover shoot?”

“You know very well that if women had the vote, I'd have worn twice the amount of lace.” Mable smiled, cocking an eyebrow at her. “I'd want to dress the part—Gibson magazine cover or not.”

Sally's face warmed in a smile.

The kind that Mable had always admired about her.

“Come,” she invited, waving Mable into the room. She patted the side of her bed. “Sit with me. We'll watch the world fly by outside the window. Unless you have somewhere else more important to be today?”

Mable shook her head and edged into the room, taking slow steps that clipped her heels against the linoleum flooring.

“Nowhere more important than here. Than right now,” she answered, and swept her long skirt underneath her to sit at Sally's side. “Well, look at us. Both dressed in white.” She winked.

“White . . . Yes. There's a lot of white around here. Everywhere you look. I wish they could see fit to introduce another color . . .” Sally's voice faded away for the briefest of moments. Then she seemed revived, saying, “They say my heart is giving out, you know.”

She refused to look at Mable as she bluntly changed the subject, instead opting to twist the edges of a white cotton blanket on the bed round the tip of her index finger.

“Sally . . .” Mable sniffed, wiping her nose on a handkerchief.

“All of them say it.” Sally attempted to tease, rolling misty eyes to the ceiling. “I could have told those doctors it gave out a long
time ago. What girl can keep a ticker in her chest when it's ripped out time and time again?”

“Don't talk like this,” Mable urged. “I'll be back soon. Very soon. And we'll take another one of our walks along the pier. You'll see every color in the rainbow then. There's a Ferris wheel now—just like the one we saw at the Exposition in Chicago ages ago. Even the Marlborough has added a new wing. It's the crowning glory of the steel pier. John and I will take you to see it all.”

Sally looked like she almost believed her. “A walk on the pier would be lovely.” She closed her eyes. Shutting out pain, squeezing a tear between her beautiful long lashes. “Tell me, Mable Ringling—what will you see on your honeymoon?” she asked in an embattled whisper.

“We sail for Europe this evening.”

“And will you visit the Venetian opera house we once talked about?”

“Perhaps.” Mable nodded, licking her lips and blinking over tears that fought with her own lashes too. Even though she'd promised herself she wouldn't cry. Had promised them both she'd be strong if this was good-bye. “If I find it. I'll go there and bring you back some memories.”

“Tell me again? About the opera house. The one you saw when you walked into the Shamrock Club in Chicago?”

“Hmm.” Mable laughed. “My memory is a bit hazy, but I recall it had something to do with a stylish young stage-stealer who could sing like a lark. I was transfixed—an Ohio farm girl who walked into a Chicago club looking for a job, and instead was taken halfway round the world by a friend's gift of song.”

“Keep going,” Sally whispered, laying her head back on the pillow.

“I saw a singer—Sally was her name. Standing onstage, wearing
the finest silk this side of the Orient. In her very favorite shade of pink. And her voice? It carried up to kiss the gilding on the grand auditorium's ceiling. That girl reminded us all that having a dream is a special thing. She reminded me that it's okay to carry a cigar box around, as long as you don't live in it.”

Sally opened her eyes to gaze back at Mable. “And what do you carry in it?”

“A lifetime of memories,” Mable mouthed, having lost her battle with her tears, which had begun a trail down her cheeks. “They're what dreams become.”

“Yes. Memories. That's what you need to keep building in that cigar box of yours. Do you hear me, Mable? You will never take this for granted. You know why?”

Mable shook her head. “Why?”

“Because you found something more precious than gold,” Sally said, reaching her hand over to hold her friend's. “You found love. It's genuine and warm and everything I'd always looked for. And I know that God has shown you favor, because you prized something far more worthy than the rest of us.”