Under the Poppy (12 page)

If only she were Istvan’s true apprentice! or even Puggy’s, she could do a better job with the stagecraft than Jonathan, as willing as he is to fetch and build, he has no eye for it; he is an ear…. The idea makes her grin. Jonathan the ear of the Poppy, yes, as Puggy is the hands, as Omar is the fist, as Velma is the cooking pot. As Decca is the purse, as she and Laddie and the girls are, what, the holes…. And Mr. Rupert is the mind. An anxious mind, truly, see those furrows dug between his brows, even worse since Istvan came—and yet he is far more alive, now, his movements swifter, his eyes troubled and alight. Those two strike sparks from one another, anyone who looks can see that—

—though Decca is quick to deny it, quick and fierce and perhaps she, Lucy, ought not have said what she said yesterday, though everyone has a snapping point and the Lord knows Decca has trod hers times past counting. But still… She and Velma and Vera in the downstairs kitchen, sifting through the daily oatmeal for weevils, Vera complaining about the soldiers, they are too rough, too quick, not quick enough—until Decca, counting coal, flew down her throat:
You’ll take what walks through the door and there’s an end to it! Or try your chances on the road!
Vera crumpled into silence, Lucy flicked a weevil to the floor and, consolingly,
Oh the road’s not so bad,
with an eye to Decca,
Mr. Istvan’s told me all about it. May be he’s on his way soon anyway, and he’ll take you along if you ask him nice.

And of course Decca swallowed the bait, hands on hips and
Shut your mouth about Mr. Istvan
which gave Lucy the chance to go on, ostensibly to Vera—
May be he’ll take Mr. Rupert with him—they’re thick as thieves, those two. Why, Mr. Istvan’s the only one who can ever make him smile, have you noticed?—Ow!
as the iron ladle struck her shoulders, what a smart but worth it to see Decca brought low: so she knows, too. Of course, how could she not—though it seems hidden, still, from Omar and Puggy. But then, they are men, they pay attention only to what’s right below their noses. “May be that’s why they worry so about their pricks, eh, Miss Lucinda?” as she twirls the fascinator on her fingers, checking the spotted veiling, the pale feathers that should hang right above the lady’s eye, so: just down the hall into Istvan’s room, pop the hat on the puppet to check before she does the final stitching—

—but checked, herself, by voices from the Cell, Rupert’s voice: “—deaf as well as heedless? I told you, come and see me.”

And Istvan back, flat, no more sunny drawl: “You told me nothing of the sort.”

“I told your sister to—”

“My sister is not I, perhaps you’ve noticed.”

Your sister?
Oh she should leave, she should not listen this way, what they say together is private. She takes a step back, Rupert’s voice become a murmur, then “—offstage—your puppets from now on.” The mecs, offstage? She steps forward again.

“What? Why?”

“Because the fucking mayor’s up in arms, that’s why.” How hard Rupert sounds, a stranger’s voice almost, it gives Lucy a chill to hear it. “Your horsemanship is not admired.”

“What horsema—oh, that? That was just a little frolic—”

“Frolic enough. Leave off, I haven’t come to argue—”

“Only to, what? Give orders?” They are right beside the door now, Lucy dare not move, cannot move. “Listen, Mouse, you can’t be spooked, now’s the time we must—”

“ Must? I must keep this place intact, that’s what I must do. You’ve no idea, you don’t know—”

“Then tell me. Trust me.”

“Trust you, messire?” Not loud, but a cry, one can hear the pain of it—and now the door bangs open and she is caught, pop-eyed guilty with silly hat in hand, but Rupert barely sees her, brushing past as if he flees, Istvan bow-strung tense in the doorway, he does not see her either until she moves, he blinks, then “Ah,” the drawl halfway resumed, the smiling mask reaffixed. “Lucy-Belle. You startled me.”

She offers up the hat. “I just meant to, to see how it sits on Miss Lucinda. I didn’t mean to listen—”

“Listen?” He is barely listening himself. “Why, step in, miss, let’s have a look.… We need something better than tallow,” as the door swings shut behind them, “it’s so dark in here today.”

The crowd is mixed this evening, a decidedly segregated crush. Up front are the regulars, though thinner than most nights; the mayor is pointedly missing, and his coterie, as well as the more prominent local businessmen, publicly siding with Redgrave in the tiff. Several constables sit with this group, but whether to enjoy the show as private citizens or observe as public defenders would be hard to discern.

In back, nearer the liquor, is the military presence, not foot soldiers—though there are a few of those, their noise out of proportion to their numbers—but quieter lieutenants; Essenhigh is not among them, but men who report to him are. Omar stands watch over this crowd, Guillame beside: “Jesu,” his wary murmur, “piss and gunpowder, I don’t like how it smells in here tonight. Make a nice play, Puggy, eh? But keep the roof on.”

“Oh, we’ll be dull as ditchwater, never fear.” The showman in him sighs. “It’ll all be tits and spangles, the mecs are in their coffins, Istvan’s out on the town tonight.”

Off to one side, close to the stage but set off by a Japanese screen—fading scarlet dragons, black matchstick frame—sit Jürgen Vidor, Mr. Arrowsmith, and Rupert’s empty chair. The two men are drinking wine, have been drinking for some time, a bottle each as the dinner was slow, the show delayed, why is the show delayed? “Perhaps,” suggests Mr. Arrowsmith, “the marionettes are capricious. Or tangled in their strings?”

“I believe,” says Jürgen Vidor, “we shall see the young ladies solo this evening.” Tipping the dregs into his glass, he signals Velma for another bottle. He is resplendent tonight, slick pomade and snow-white linen, the town’s last tailor worked around the clock to finish the shapely new fawnskin waistcoat that
Sir wears so well,
said the tailor, his lips thinned with pins,
Sir is quite a handsome figure, yes;
had he said “yes”? Or “yet”? Silk cravat red as the ruby in his stickpin, a griffin’s glowing eye, red as the poppy-headdress worn by a drooping Jen who dangles, topless and unspinning, from her swing, as the curtains open with a sentimental etude: Jonathan’s playing seems to lack a certain verve, or perhaps that is just fancy, or foreboding. Surely the girls do their best, Vera and Pearl waltzing together, shedding their gowns as they go, Laddie seated at a table downstage mimicking the watchers who clap and cry out, the regulars good-humoredly, the foot soldiers with a crude impatience—“Let ’em fuck!”—that the girls, waltzing, pretend not to hear, that Jonathan tries to override with strident chords, and keep the show afloat.

Still the shouts grow louder, uglier, more confused; some of the regulars bellow back for quiet. The girls grasp one another, Laddie tips his chair as a spoon bounces off his onstage table because now they are throwing things, the soldiers: another spoon, an empty glass, a half-chewed tobacco plug, a crumpled hat catches Jennie full in the face. Omar takes a step forward, resigned to force, but Rupert quells him with an upheld palm; Rupert who has been waiting at the back of the house, smoking one cheroot from the next, one eye on the door.

Now he moves toward the loudest of the soldiers, a pair grimy and riotous, and tries courtesy first, would the two enjoy another drink? On the house? but “We came here to fuck,” the shorter one grunts, while the other takes Rupert’s measure with one glance—lean man in a fancy coat—then plucks a candle pot from the nearest table, and flings it flying toward the stage.

It lands far short, splashing burning tallow wax, as men leap aside cursing, glaring back to see which fool to fight, while Puggy, bald head sweating, springs to stamp out the fire. Jonathan’s piano is pounding, now, the girls twirl in broken circles, ready to bolt, Laddie rises to his feet but “Not to worry!” Omar cries in a ringing, falsely hearty tone, just below the stage, truncheon loose in his belt. “Ladies, keep a-dancing!” so they do, Laddie resuming his nervous seat as Rupert escorts one of the soldiers to the door, overcome by drink perhaps or perhaps a broken neck, it is hard to be sure in the tallow dimness and at any rate his comrade is uncomplaining, draped over a bottle at the back of the house as the show reaches a hasty crescendo that concludes in a tableau, the bare girls swarming over Laddie who mimes erotic glee, but they all look so happy to be heading offstage that the effect is somewhat spoiled.

The curtains close, Jonathan falls into a moment of silence in which the mutterings are clearly heard, half the crowd cheated by the tameness of the show, the other half angry at the soldiers, and “Where’s the puppets?” someone asks, loud enough to be heard by Mr. Arrowsmith, who shrugs to Jürgen Vidor, who beckons to passing Puggy wiping his head with a napkin, saying, “Your master, a moment.” It is not a request.

Mr. Arrowsmith pushes back his chair, pleading an early evening: “Please tender Mr. Bok my farewells.” Jonathan strikes up a merry barroom tune as Omar wades watchfully through the crowd, Rupert reentering just in time to pass Mr. Arrowsmith who pauses to shake his hand and murmur, “’Ware, messire. Your friend is on the boil tonight,” as he departs.

Rupert continues to the table, rubbing his forehead, to pause without sitting, half a bow as Jürgen Vidor greets him with the bottle: “A splash of the grape, Rupert?”

“Not just yet, if you please. The floor—”

“Your men are capable, they can spare you. Please take your seat.” Again it is not a request. Rupert’s hands knead against the chair back, an unconscious pressure; then he pulls out the chair and sits down.

Istvan has not visited the Gaiety Theatre before, and after brief perusal does not seem to find it particularly gay: the street-corner fiddler leading a grog-shop band, the backwoods cancan onstage, where did they find these girls? On hooks in the butcher shop? The crowd is not much more inspiring, including as it does the disgruntled mayor and his maggot of an attaché, as well as a thin sampling of the town’s more virtuous whoremongers, and the usual corset-sniffers and drummers passing through. Or perhaps it is Istvan’s own foul mood that fouls his impressions so.

“Drink, sir?” asks the barman, a whiskey that has, like most supplies in town, been affected by the climate of shortages: it tastes vaguely like lamp-oil, whale-oil, Istvan can barely swallow it down. “Care for another, sir?”

“No.”

“You’ve missed ’most the show,” the barman shrugs, “but not to worry, they’ll start up again in a tick. Freshest young ladies in town, sir, and none of them too fine not to have a nice drink afterwards with a gentleman, if you see what I mean.”

“You mean they’ll bend over for me?”

The barman’s gaze turns opaque. “That’s not what I said, sir. These young ladies are tip-top stage actresses, not sidestreet judies. You’d want to go Under the Poppy for that kind of show.”

“The Poppy? These crows aren’t fit to fatten the Poppy’s bedbugs.” Istvan thumps down the price of the whiskey as his gaze roams the room—cigar smoke and wilted green damask, the brass pots of browning ferns—searching for what? An older man, hard-faced and stoop-shouldered, catches his eye, approaches to palm the offered coin and lead the way to the stairs to the private rooms, where a coughing little maid hauls up a load of coal. Istvan helps her with the hod, dusting his hands discreetly on her skirt before he pauses at the corridor’s end, three quick raps on a door opened by Colonel Essenhigh, whose distaste is intense and instant: “You. What business have you here?”

“None of yours. Step aside.”

“I don’t take orders from a queer-loving dollmaker. Get back down the stairs before I kick you down.”

A murmur sounds from behind the colonel, laconic with command: the colonel stiffens. Istvan brushes past to make his bow—exquisite, and exquisitely polite—before General Georges, who sits at ease at a map-strewn table, jacket shed, drinking port and “Monsieur Hanzel,” says the General; again that curious smile. “Well. Greetings, young man. Arrowsmith said that you were in town.”

Between the corridor and the threshold Istvan’s voice, his carriage, have altered, gone cool and fey, fluid as mercury on a mirror; he could be in a Paris salon, a bedchamber in Brussels, he could be playing a role. “I am that, sir. Although one can’t call it much of a town.”

“And you’ve brought your puppets along with you,
les mecs
? Amusing yourself whilst you amuse the yokels?”

“I try.”

“As well as stirring the pot a bit, hmm? Adding your own seasoning to the stew.”

Istvan laughs, a silvery little chuckle. “Very well said, sir. But you overrate my poor influence.”

“You forget, I’ve seen you deployed…. Have some port,” pouring for him, the little leather cup from the General’s own flask, while Essenhigh stands rigid at the door, radiating disapproval until “Colonel,” the General says, “step out into the hall,” to stand resentful sentry to a meeting of old acquaintances, where impressions are exchanged and opinions offered—on the town, the military, the current state of the lively arts—and more drinks poured; a performance mounted and accomplished, a certain debt recalled, a local compensation proposed and accepted, to the benefit of both parties. Capping his flask, “You are a shrewd campaigner, Hanzel,” says the General approvingly. “If you should ever wish to enter the military, I would gladly sponsor a commission—”

“Alas, I lack the discipline, sir.”

Laddie’s room is tidy and pleasant, his few clothes hung neatly on pegs, a picture on the wall, framed in blue, of a white boat a-sail on a vast and sparkling sea. Laddie himself lies stretched across the bedstead, its iron lines wrought to look like curling leaves of ivy, with his wrists strapped, eyes bound blind by a strip of yellowed cotton. Above him is Jürgen Vidor, pasty and humid and “You like this?” he asks Laddie, pin in hand, then glances back over his shoulder, to make sure that Rupert is watching, Rupert who stands silent, arms-crossed, his taut back pressed against the door. He wants to rub his forehead, to try to chase the throbbing pain; he wants to go downstairs and see what the fuck passes with the soldiers and Omar, if there is breakage, wreckage, if Puggy and Decca and the girls are faring all right. Most of all he wants to be anywhere but in this room, at this moment, watching Jürgen Vidor wield his pin.