The Illusionists

‘Box office round at the front of house, ma’am. I believe there may be some seats available for this performance. Just a handful.’ He laughed at his own wit.

Eliza had no intention of negotiating with this person. She marched past the cubbyhole and into the warren of tight corridors and wooden stairways at the back of the stage. A foreign-looking man tried to push past her as Carlo had done, but she caught him by the elbow.

‘I’m looking for Mr Wix.’

‘Good luck,’ the fellow almost spat. He shook off her hand and strode to the stage door. She pushed her way deeper into the theatre. The din of stamping feet now mingled with boos and jeers. A space opened in front of her, except that space was the wrong word for this wild muddle of strewn clothing, trunks and boxes, dismembered chairs, fragments of mirror perched on ledges strewn with face powder, empty bottles, discarded boots, and half-dressed performers jostling for room to clothe themselves. From behind a screen with a broken leaf emerged the soprano who had closed the show on the night she came with Jasper and Faith. The woman adjusted her bodice as a slatternly creature tugged at her laces.

‘That will do,’ the singer snapped and pushed the dresser aside. She took a long pull at a tankard, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and set off at a tipsy angle towards the stage. From the opposite direction came a ragged shout of mocking laughter mingled with louder catcalling. Eliza was about to appeal to the nearest performer for Devil’s whereabouts when she saw him emerge from a doorway. A dishevelled girl sidled in his wake, accompanied by a faint tinkle of silvery bells.

Devil saw her and his face changed.

‘Miss Dunlop? Eliza?’

Eliza kept her head up. ‘I have an idea to discuss with you,’ she said. ‘When it is convenient.’

Before he could offer a response they became aware of silence spreading through the dressing room. Heinrich Bayer had appeared with Lucie in his arms. His face glistened with tears. The performers stood awkwardly aside to let him pass as he carried the doll to her velvet nest. Eliza went to him, putting her hand on his sleeve.

‘What is wrong? Can I help you?’ she whispered.

Heinrich leapt away from her. He began the work of folding the rubber limbs into their niches. He wept soundlessly as he leaned over to smooth the doll’s hair and kiss her forehead. Lucie’s glass eyes gazed up, void of all expression. Devil came to his side.

‘They are all fools, Heinrich. Ignorant, stupid fools. Make Lucie ready and we’ll go.’

The other performers gave up their staring and turned aside to occupy themselves as Grady burst in on them. Hands in his pockets, belly jutting, he glared at the room.

‘That was the worst of the bad. You, Bayer, and your dancing doll. Don’t trouble to come back tomorrow.’

Heinrich was trembling, but he had stopped weeping. Lines deepened in his worn face. He closed up Lucie’s trunk and fastened the catches, then positioned himself in front of it.

‘You should please pay me for tonight’s performance.’

Grady made a sound like rending fabric. ‘Not a brass farthing.’

‘We danced for your audience. It is not Lucie’s fault nor mine that they did not appreciate the artistry …’

‘Bloody artistry. Entertainment, that’s what I want. And I’m going to get it from the rest of you if I have to whip it out of you.’ The man’s sausage finger jabbed at the silent onlookers.

Devil could suppress his hatred no longer. He dived at Grady and grasping his hands round his thick neck he shook him as hard as he could although the manager’s bulk barely rocked. Behind them somebody, perhaps the coarse comic, gave a low-voiced cheer.

‘Pay him what you owe or I will kill you,’ Devil growled.

Grady’s eyes were watering. He coughed, ‘Is that what you are, Wix? A killer?’

Through the fog of his rage Devil glimpsed the dark figure again. He blinked and it was gone, drawing his strength with it. His hands fell to his sides.

‘Pay him,’ he muttered.

‘You can get out of here, as well. You and the dwarf. And stay out.’

The same voice muttered. ‘It’s them as are bringing in what audiences you do get, Mr Grady. Knock ’em out and you’re done for.’

Grady cursed. He caught sight of Eliza at Heinrich’s side.

‘Who are you?’

‘A friend of Herr Bayer’s.’

‘A living woman? Indeed? Backstage is for artistes only, madam.’

Jacko Grady adjusted his straining waistcoat and stalked away.

‘Let’s go,’ Devil muttered to Heinrich Bayer and Eliza chose to believe that she was included in the command. As they left the room there was no sign of the dishevelled girl although Eliza believed she heard an accusatory jingle.

‘Where d’you live?’ Devil demanded of Heinrich when they reached the Strand. The Swiss gave an address not far from the coffin maker’s workshop.

‘It’s a fair step, but I’ll walk back there with you,’ Devil sighed. ‘Miss Dunlop, how did you come here? May I find you a cab, perhaps?’

She gave him a look. ‘I will come with you. As a matter of fact the idea I hoped to discuss with you was originally Herr Bayer’s, so this is quite opportune.’

Devil sighed again. He was disgusted by his failure to get the better of Jacko Grady over Heinrich’s money. Getting the better of Jacko Grady was becoming as important to him as the success of Boldoni and Wix, and it was infuriating that the success of Boldoni and Wix was dependent for now on staying with Grady and the Palmyra.

Heinrich Bayer was already walking, trundling ahead of him the cart with Lucie’s trunk strapped to it, seeming too unhappy to care whether or not he was alone. He looked utterly beaten, his shabby coat overlarge for his thin body. Devil and Eliza flanked him and they moved through the late evening crowds of swells and revellers and street hawkers that surged to the steps of theatres and saloons. London seemed all glitter and celebration, with poor Heinrich Bayer the frayed figure at its brass heart.

They walked in silence, occupied with their separate thoughts. Devil’s pace was purposeful and Eliza could only reflect on the differences between this journey and the earlier stroll though Hyde Park. Jasper was forever holding back and taking her arm, asking questions as if he was trying to work his way into her head. Devil was bracingly indifferent to her presence. Eliza was excited to find herself out in these vivid streets with the crowds washing past her, not knowing where she was going or what lay in store.

Beyond St Clement Danes there were fewer people. Street lamps shone on empty stretches of cobbled road and the wheels of Lucie’s cart clattered in the sudden stillness. The dome of St Paul’s was pasted black against the sky as they turned to the north of it, skirted the heaving city within the city of the meat market, and headed deep into the warren of Clerkenwell. When they finally reached a recessed doorway Heinrich looked at them as if surprised to find that he had company. But he nudged the door open and led them down an internal alleyway to unlock another door, a low entrance leading into a darkened mews at the rear of some forbidding building. They stepped over the threshold in his wake and waited as he lit a candle.

‘Oh,’ Eliza said in astonishment.

The room was little more than a barn, but it was not a barn that either she or Devil could have imagined. It seemed as much a charnel house as a laboratory. On a bench lay the lower portion of a leg, the limp flaps of its rubber skin partially peeled back to expose bright metal rods within. On a clean square of cloth a row of silvery instruments, small tweezers, pliers and screw clamps was neatly laid out. A brass microscope occupied the end of the bench, and next to that stood a metalworker’s lathe with coils like tiny locks of metal hair littering the floor beside its clawed iron feet. A foot and a hand, each with a piston shaft protruding from the severed joint, rested on a smaller table. This much the light of the single candle revealed as Devil and Eliza silently stared around them. The recesses of the room were hidden in shadow but there was an impression of other implements, tall cupboards, and more strange work in progress.

The centre of the room, where the candle glow was brightest, was occupied by two chairs. In one sat a female doll, wide-eyed, her hands resting in her lap. Her flaxen hair was tied back from her slender neck. Her lower body was clothed in petticoats but she was naked from the waist up. Her breasts were unmodelled protrusions of pallid rubber. Next to her sat a manikin on a square pedestal, an expressionless Chinaman with a round black hat and long, drooping moustaches. With his triangular yellow face he looked like an illustration in a child’s picture book.

‘Excuse me, Miss Dunlop. My work …’ Heinrich murmured. He wrapped a shroud of cloth around the torso of the female doll.

‘I believe Miss Dunlop did mention that she is employed as an artists’ model,’ Devil put in.

Heinrich frowned, evidently distracted. The candle flame flickered.

‘We need more light,’ he said. He pressed a bell push and Eliza thought she heard a distant peal. Heinrich busied himself with Lucie’s trunk and a moment later a knock announced the arrival of a servant, in this strange room a surprisingly conventional figure in a dark dress and white apron. She brought in a lamp and placed it on the bench.

‘Good evening, Herr Bayer. Shall I light a fire? Will you be wanting some dinner?’

Eliza’s eyes met Devil’s. His eyebrows rose in black circumflexes but she could see that he was intrigued rather than repelled by this macabre place. The shadows of the room were barely dispelled by the lamp, and dread seemed to linger just out of her sight. A tremor of fear ran down her spine.

Heinrich laid Lucie on a cushioned surface that appeared to Eliza something between a bed and a catafalque. She shivered at the spectacle.

‘Yes. Some dinner,’ Heinrich said vaguely. He shook out a fine paisley shawl and let the folds drift over Lucie’s face and body. The resemblance to a catafalque was heightened.

‘Shall I lay up a table over in the house, sir?’

‘Perhaps we could stay here.’ Devil put in. ‘I think this is where our business will lie.’ He sounded quite at ease, with a purposeful note under his light tone, and Eliza wondered how he achieved this in so bizarre a setting.

Heinrich waved his hand. Whenever his attention returned to them he seemed startled to discover that he still had company.

When the servant had withdrawn Devil strolled to the bench. He picked up a watchmaker’s glass and screwed it into his eye, then examined the dismembered leg. Next he inquisitively turned the bezels of the microscope.

‘Whose place is this, Heinrich? Do you work here?’

Heinrich sat down on a stool, then jumped up again and offered the seat to Eliza.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and sat. She was beginning to feel weary.

‘I work here, yes.’

‘For whom?’ Devil persisted.

‘What? For myself, of course. My interests are not so usual. I am a maker of automata.’ He gestured towards the flaxen doll and the Chinese manikin. ‘But you know that much, Mr Wix. You are acquainted with my beautiful Lucie.’

There was a small silence.

‘I thought you were a poor man, Heinrich, like me. If you are rich, as it seems you are, why have you and Lucie danced every night for Jacko Grady and his audience of barbarians?’

Heinrich was still wearing his ruined coat, with his frayed shirt collar protruding. His boot heels were worn to wafers and he looked as if he had not eaten a meal in the last week. Eliza longed to ask the same question, but she would not have had Devil’s boldness in coming straight out with it.

Surprisingly the Swiss smiled. The deep lines in his face vanished and for a moment he looked a younger man. ‘I am not rich. My family have been watchmakers at Le Locle in Neuchatel for three generations. I am the last son. My care is not for watches, but in what I do there is the same precision. The same love for a device that is intricate, ingenious, unique. I am a craftsman, Mr Wix, not a banker. What is money?’

‘I could tell you,’ Devil said bitterly. The note in his voice made Eliza look at him with attention.

Bayer said, ‘I dance with Lucie at the Palmyra because I want the world to see her. There has to be a debut. A London debut, in your popular music hall. I hoped – expected – this would quickly lead to better things. But, sadly, it seems not. We are disappointed of course.’ He shrugged his thin shoulders. It was clear that his brilliance as an inventor was not matched by his knowledge of the world. ‘The worst of it all is the insult to Lucie. This evening, I am afraid, I was unable to hide the pain it caused me.’

Eliza was filled with sudden pity for him which only intensified her discomfort.

The servant came back with a young boy to assist her, and together they unfolded a card table and set three chairs around it. On the bench they laid out a china tureen and some covered dishes with a tray of cutlery and glassware.

‘Will there be anything else, Herr Bayer?’

‘I don’t think so, Mrs McKay. Or, wait a moment. Perhaps some wine?’

‘Thank you. Yes,’ said Devil with distinct emphasis.

A bottle was brought and uncorked. Devil and Eliza helped themselves to soup from the tureen and thick slices of ham with potatoes. The food was plain, but plentiful and good. Devil drank a glass of wine straight off. Heinrich took a few spoonfuls of soup but he soon left the table and went to the Chinaman sitting on its plinth next to the yellow-haired doll. He reached behind it, and its head suddenly flopped sideways with a gasp of exhaled air that sounded like a human sigh. Eliza jumped and her spoon clinked in the bowl. The creature’s hands rose from its lap and its head jerked upright with another hiss. The fingers flexed and its mouth opened and closed to reveal two rows of porcelain teeth.

‘You see?’ Heinrich said.

‘I do,’ Devil replied. He put down his spoon and fork in order to concentrate on the inventor.

‘He is operated by a system of compressed air cylinders, controlled from here.’ Heinrich indicated a notched drum with a handle, a simple enough mechanism that reminded Eliza of a barrel organ.

Devil remarked, ‘He’s of a size with Carlo Boldoni. But this fellow is more biddable, I’m sure. Tell me, Heinrich, what is your creature for?’

The inventor frowned. ‘I made him. His existence is sufficient reason in itself. But I thought I might have him tell ladies’ fortunes? One shilling a time. “Mr Wu knows the secrets of a woman’s heart, and will answer the questions you cannot ask.” Look at this.’ He turned a handle and one of the Chinaman’s hands drew a spool of paper from the opposite sleeve. ‘What is a fortune? You or I could invent a fine one.’ Heinrich laughed then, a creaking sound of rare usage. Eliza found that the palms of her hands were damp.

Devil’s concentration intensified and his forefinger rubbed slow circles in the green baize surface of the card table.

‘Do you play cards?’

‘I am a busy man, Mr Wix. No, I do not.’

‘Please call me Devil. If I had friends that’s how they would know me.’

Jasper is your friend, Eliza silently corrected him. Why had Devil obliterated the Hector of their shared boyhood?

‘I wonder if Jacko Grady plays cards,’ Devil mused in the softest voice. The Chinaman’s hands descended and once more lay inert in its lap as Heinrich wandered away to his bench. He took up the half leg and held it suspended by its metal arteries.

‘Have you ever heard of a false automaton?’ Devil asked.

Heinrich did not look up. These questions bored him.

‘Of course. Who has not? Even Mr Grady spoke of such a thing. But why would I be interested? They are the province of …’ There was a pause while he searched for the word. Not tricksters, or even conjurors. ‘Illusionists.’

‘Exactly.’ Devil’s smile did not reach his eyes. He poured himself another glass of wine to rinse down a large mouthful of ham and potato. Only when he had cleared his plate did he turn to Eliza.

‘Tell me, what drew you back to the elegant and acclaimed Palmyra theatre this evening, Miss Dunlop? Eliza, that is. That is how I think of you.’

He thinks of me? She only nodded. ‘How is Carlo’s poor face? I was not able to ask about the damage when I saw him earlier.’

‘Probably for the best. He would have bitten off your head, if you had done so. Yes, he is mending quite well although he complains enough. You came to the theatre to ask after him?’

‘No, not for that reason alone. As I said earlier, I have an idea. You recall the suggestion Heinrich made when we were leaving the tavern that evening? That you should perhaps have a woman in your act?’

Summoning his patience Devil nodded. ‘And you agreed with him.’

Eliza said, ‘I enjoyed the Philosophers illusion, of course. But so much gore? And to tell the truth, the play as a whole did not appeal to me in the way it would have done had there also been a female role.’

Heinrich returned to his automata. He rested his fingertips on the shoulders of the flaxen girl. ‘Nor to me,’ he agreed.

‘Ah. You would prefer a female philosopher. Really?’

Eliza looked at her surroundings. Surely nothing she could propose in such a setting would seem outlandish? ‘You are laughing at us, Mr Wix. The role would not necessarily be a philosopher. The time will come for novelty, don’t you agree? I was envisaging a more – what? – feminine scenario. A comedy, perhaps. Disappearances, clever materialisations, mistaken identity, laughter closing with a kiss.’

‘If I knew any Shakespeare I would say that is what your idea sounds like.’

‘Why not?’ Eliza laughed.

‘And who do you suggest might play this female role, Eliza?’ Devil’s mouth was curling.

‘Not Lucie. I could not agree to that. But Hilde, here,’ Heinrich cried. ‘When she is finished.’

Eliza said, ‘I am an artist, and a model. I have always dreamed of acting, and I do not think it would be such a big leap to make.’ Seeing Devil’s face she protested too quickly, ‘I’m not a fool, you know. You might at least let me try. I will even write you a comic playlet, if you like, and you can tell me what you think of it.’

‘That sounds delightful. I am obliged to you. But you are overlooking the sad fact that the Palmyra is owned and managed by Jacko Grady. I have no control over his programme, and I don’t believe your tender comic playlet will appeal to his low audiences.’

‘That is true,’ Eliza acknowledged.

‘If I were the owner and manager, it would be a different matter. A sparkling comedy of illusion? Of course. The best tricks Carlo can devise? Certainly. Maybe Heinrich might assist with the engineering of the devices? My stage would be a perfect showcase for Lucie, also. Who knows what fame she might achieve?’

A silence fell.

Between them Devil and Eliza had wiped the plates clean of the last crumbs of food, and the wine bottle was empty. Devil still traced circles on the green baize with his forefinger.

‘What is inside your Chinese fortune-teller, Heinrich?’

‘Inside him? The mechanisms, of course.’

‘Of course.’ Devil stood up. ‘It is late. You have been hospitable, Heinrich. Thank you.’

Heinrich put out his hand. ‘We don’t see many people, Lucie and I. We enjoyed our excursion the other evening with you, and Miss Dunlop and her friends. And you refused my money at the end of it, which doesn’t happen often. It was also kind of you to notice my distress tonight and to walk all the way home with us. Therefore I believe the thanks are all due to you.’ With the strange, sidelong look that Eliza attributed to shyness he shook Devil’s hand.

Once they were outside in the Clerkenwell alley Eliza realised how late it was. She was thoroughly relieved to be out of Heinrich Bayer’s domain, but the eeriness seemed to extend even to here. There was no sound, and few lights showed in the nearby tenements and warehouses. Damp clouded the air and muffled their footsteps as they hurried to the corner. Devil asked where she was going and she told him.

He said, ‘I have to go only to Holborn, but Bayswater is too far to walk. What shall we do?’

Another two turns brought them closer to Smithfield where there was still torchlight and a sullen clatter of activity around the market. A dejected hansom stood at a corner, the horse’s head hanging low and the driver dozing under his greatcoat. There was nothing for it, Eliza realised. Two cab rides in one night, and no money left over. At least she had gained a square meal, although the eeriness of Herr Bayer’s workshop had depressed her appetite.

Devil followed her thoughts. He was embarrassed that he could not even pay for the girl to ride home in safety, when he would have wished to drive her to Bayswater in his own brougham.

‘It is all very well for Bayer to say, Vat is money? as if he were royalty. It is always people who have plenty who profess their lack of interest in it. I will get some very soon, and then I will allow myself the luxury of dismissing its importance.’

Eliza thought of the afternoon’s walk through South Kensington. It seemed a long time ago.

‘Jasper was saying earlier that he intends to buy one of those fine white stucco houses with eight steps up to the front door. He will have a man in livery to open the door for him too, no doubt.’

‘My house will have ten steps. And my man will have a finer set of whiskers than Jasper’s man.’

They burst into laughter.

As they reached the hansom and Devil was holding open the door for her he asked, ‘How long have you been walking out with Jasper Button, Eliza?’

‘I am not walking out with him.’

‘I think you are.’

He handed her up the step. The sad vehicle reeked of tobacco.

‘Will you consider my idea?’ she persisted. ‘About the role?’

‘When I own the Palmyra theatre, I promise I will do so.’

‘When you own it?’

He stood back from the door, his black face hard under the brim of his bowler.

‘Yes. What else did you imagine?’

He touched his hand to his hat and the driver whipped up the old horse.

FIVE

Eliza recalled the backstage realm at the Palmyra theatre as a chaos of casually naked limbs barely concealed by dressing screens, where discarded or not yet assumed costumes gaudy with feathers and sequins hung in wait for the strutting performers. It was a swarming, hectic and self-absorbed space stinking of perspiration and gas fumes, stale beer and face paint, where a half-consumed dinner of bread and cold beef lay on a table under which a bucket of piss stood in plain view. In her waking hours she mulled over the thrillingly disreputable vigour of all this, and the trapped din of the unseen audience reverberated in her head along with the jingle of tiny bells.

But when she slept, it was different. When she slept she became one of the performers. Amongst these creatures, who like a series of violently coloured butterflies had managed the transition from humdrum world to stage glamour, she grew wings and flew, she spiralled in dances, she sank in an exaggerated curtsey to acknowledge the roar of applause.

When she woke up from her dreams, she felt dull.

To be an artists’ model had in her own estimation seemed daring, and she had certainly shocked her father and stepmother – this Eliza always found pleasant to contemplate – but now she realised that her own notions of what it was to reject proper behaviour were in themselves staid enough. Up until now she had felt fairly satisfied with the precariousness of her existence, but her spirits sank when she contemplated the stale routines of the day that actually lay ahead. A languid class in watercolour painting at the Rawlinson School did not compare with the seamy adulation she was offered in her dreams.