Chapter Twenty-Eight
Elias went back to the canape trays one last time in the hopes of pilfering one of the anchovy and parmesan tartlets, which he knew Hattie hated. He reasoned that if he ate the tartlet first and followed it with a little bakewell slice, she would never be the wiser.
“They aren’t actually related,” a nearby man with an impressive, waxed mustache said to another, shorter and clean-shaven, as he approached the tray. “What sort of siblings have different accents? Two of them are brown!”
“Well, perhaps they only share one parent,” the other man replied uncertainly. “I could have sworn I was told they were siblings.”
Elias chuckled, popping his prize in his mouth and turning to the men. “You think Willa Starling Selwyn had that many lovers, do you?”
“Oh, Lord Selwyn!” the man who seemed to have more of the facts said with horror. “Our apologies.”
“None needed,” said Elias, still amused.
“Malcolm and Libba are siblings,” he told them, pointing to the pair as they worked together to erect a heavy plinth that Libba would stand on as the alabaster statue that became a woman.
“The rest are not. We were all the baroness’s wards. She is my aunt via marriage.”
The speculative man nodded thoughtfully.
“Yes, yes, they do look alike,” he said of Libba and Malcolm, who could not have looked more different in that moment, with him ruddy and sweat sheened in his bright red-and-blue suit and her covered in talc powder and swathed in white gauze. “So you’re all orphans, then?”
Elias shook his head. “No. Some of us. Or perhaps none of us. I’m afraid you will find no consistency here.”
“Yes, so stop trying,” the other man piped in a high octave, clearly aghast. “You cannot just ask people if they are orphans!”
“Why not?” his friend returned, frowning.
Elias chuckled and passed them by, moving to the temporary seating that had been erected in the corner of the pavilion to find a good place for himself and Hattie.
“Pomegranate?” Ruby’s voice sang over the crowd. “And … cheese? Wait! Chevre!”
There was an eruption of cheers as she whipped her blindfold away with triumph and then let the guest holding out the spoon of combined flavors feed it to her, the goat cheese tinged red with the fruit juice.
Elias made a face.
It made him want another anchovy tart.
And thoughts of anchovies smothered in finely shredded parmesan were enough of a distraction that he didn’t notice his parents taking the seats behind him.
“I can’t believe we’ve never attended one of these before!” his stepfather exclaimed, startling Elias so badly, he almost dropped his bakewell slice. “What a lark! What nonsense!”
“Oh, Wallace, you have dirt on your knees,” his mother said with exasperation. “What if that pig had hit you?”
“What if it had?” his stepfather returned with amusement. “A pig and a barrister in the same week? I’d have quite a story for the lads at the club.”
Elias turned, blinking at them as his mother sighed and gave him a little shrug when their eyes met.
“Are you drunk?” he asked his stepfather, baffled.
“‘Drunk’? Never!” the man said with a giggle. “I am merry, lad. Have you tried the punch?!”
“The numbers boy is quite something,” his mother said over her husband, shifting awkwardly in her seat to draw Elias’s attention over to her. “I drew scraps of paper with three other ladies and three gentlemen drew symbols from mathematics. He assembled a total in a matter of seconds.”
“Yes, he does that,” Elias said, a little stunned that she had participated at all. “They call him ‘the Marvelous Human Abacus.’”
“He’d make a hell of a banker,” his stepfather said, waving over a servant with a tray and taking up two cucumber sandwiches.
“He does,” Elias replied. “He is. Or was. He is now a part owner in a shipping firm.”
“Shipping, is it?” said his mother with interest. “East India?”
“Something smaller,” Elias said. “I haven’t inquired.”
“That sister of his is wearing very little,” his stepfather said in half a whisper. “I’ve never seen such muscular flanks on a woman!”
“Nor should you,” his wife snapped, snatching one of the sandwiches away. “What is she? Some sort of strongwoman?”
“Probably,” said Elias, glancing at Libba, “but mostly an actress, by trade.”
“Actress!” his stepfather exclaimed in delight. “Oh, those are always most amusing women. Very liberated, you know.”
Elias sighed. “Monica’s act is my favorite,” he said, pointing to her in the crowd.
“She’s second-to-last today. She will invite the crowd to choose from a variety of textiles and odds and ends, things like wine corks and old marbles and flaps of paper and scrap, and then someone will turn the hourglass, and she will fashion a garment from them on the dress form.
Sometimes she will do two or three, depending on how much material is given to her. ”
“A paper and marble garment?” his mother said, clearly intrigued. “How long does the hourglass run?”
“Not long,” said Elias. “I have seen her fashion a cravat out of newspapers that looked neater than the starchiest linen. It is a marvel.”
“Bah, cravats,” said his stepfather through his cucumbers. “I want to see the illusionist lad at work. He made one of the pigs temporarily disappear and I thought the Irish boy was going to flog him.”
“Oh, an illusionist?” his mother said, sounding suddenly quite girlish. “Which one? Elias, which one?”
“Rhys,” he said, pointing. “The Welsh one.”
“Oh, I saw him earlier,” she said, blinking. “He’s very pretty, isn’t he?”
“I beg your pardon!” her husband bumbled, stuffing the remainder of the sandwich into his mouth.
Elias could only stare at them.
Was this the first conversation they’d ever had? The first real conversation.
“You like illusions?” he asked his mother.
She opened her fan and gave it a nervous little flutter. “Oh, I do enjoy them,” she admitted, blushing a little. “I’ve always wanted to believe in magic.”
“And you,” he said to his stepfather. “You like … pigs?”
“I like all sorts of things,” the man replied with a sniff and a sudden brightening swell of his chest. “What do you like, boy? Hm? That wife of yours? Oh, ho ho.”
“Oh, yes, your wife,” said Elias’s mother, as though realizing she’d forgotten a task. “What is her act?”
“She and Malcolm perform together,” Elias said. “They each do a prepared sketch and then take requests from the crowd. People try to stump them.”
“And are they ever successful?” his mother asked, leaning closer.
“Not that I’ve seen,” Elias replied. “Though I remember there was a bit of a fuss one year when Hattie attempted to speak Shelta to Miss Boswell with her family members present. Apparently, outsiders are not supposed to do that.”
“‘Shelta’?” his stepfather repeated. “What’s that?”
“A cant,” said Elias. “A secret language. The Parvee speak it in the caravan.”
“Ooh,” said his mother, her fan fluttering again. “Secret Traveller language, Wallace! How scandalous.”
Elias opened his mouth to correct her and then shut it again.
Perhaps, just for today, it was not worth puncturing the atmosphere.
Clouds rolled across the sun as they passed into late afternoon, with people filling up the seats around the Selwyns as the interactive displays were taken down and Libba’s troupe got into order for the performance.
“Do you see that bird with the cropped hair?” Mr. Selwyn whispered, leaning forward to nudge Elias’s shoulder. “There by the harp?”
“Yes?” said Elias, looking at Libba’s troupe member as she flung a long, blonde wig onto her head.
“I met her,” said his stepfather, with the same self-satisfaction he might have used for a feat of great difficulty. “And she’s a nun.”
Elias turned to give a skeptical look over his shoulder.
“It’s true!” he said. “Actors!”
Libba climbed up onto the podium and raised her arms, silencing everyone with much the same force of will she had used before, convincing even Wallace to withdraw and shut up.
“Pygmalion is an ancient myth,” she began. “And one that I have always loved. It was a story first told me by Willa, the woman we are gathered here today to honor. And she did so in response to a childish question that I’d asked her, the day she’d offered to take me in.”
Libba smiled, shaking her head and looking down.
The tiny crystals she had glued over each of her constellation of beauty marks flashed in the late day sun.
“I asked her who I should be to make her most happy, in gratitude for my new lot,” she said.
“And Willa told me that we should never attempt to fashion another person to our desires, for that is not the way of love. This is a story about that exact folly.
“Today, we are performing a small piece of the full theatrical production of Pygmalion. If you enjoy it, I urge you to speak to my players after the performance. You may purchase tickets to the full production in two weeks’ time at the Odalisque Playhouse on Ship Street, where we will be for the remainder of the year. ”
Elias turned to watch, resisting the urge to chuckle at the way Hattie was bustling across the pavilion with her skirts in her fists to take the seat he’d saved her next to his own.
She was panting, slumping down next to him and shaking herself. He turned, breaking his bakewell slice in half and offering her the bit with the cherry, which she accepted with a smirk.
Lem strode to the front of the stage as Libba and her players gathered around the plinth, crossing his massive, oiled arms over his chest and beginning to speak, his deep baritone echoing through the pavilion.
“Of a late summer night,” he said, “in a lonely workshop, an artist creates. He has pled with the goddess to bring him love, and instead, only the muses have answered. And so he toils, for toiling is how he eases his pain.”
The harp trilled, one of the young vagabonds stepping around Lem to bow to the crowd. The formerly golden-haired youth now somehow transformed into a distinguished older gentleman, with powdered-white hair and a mustache he certainly hadn’t had this morning.
He took up a chisel and followed the music, approaching the plinth where Libba was now hidden behind several gray sheets of fabric that had been suspended on horizontal poles. Elias thought that they really did look like a chunk of marble or granite, even here in the light.
For every strike of the chisel, one of the troupe hit a drum and a sheet fell away, revealing more of the shape of the woman hiding underneath.
Libba, Elias could see, was holding a very difficult pose, with one leg raised behind her and her arms stretched toward the heavens.
No wonder she had such strong flanks.
The actress who may or may not have also been a nun strode forward, her long, false hair glinting in the light as she paced the circumference of the workshop.
“The goddess did hear,” Lem’s voice boomed. “And she did answer. For she, like us all, was moved by the creation of beauty.”
Another sheet fell away, revealing Libba’s talc-covered hand reaching to the heavens. The goddess passed near, touching the plinth, and her fingers began to wiggle.
It drew an awed gasp from the crowd.
A violin struck a chord, adding its wail to the harp as the artist sped in his endeavors, peeling away the remainder of rock that hid his beloved in its shell, pulling Libba out until her pose was fully visible to the crowd, and still, only her hand moved.
“The goddess,” said Lem, “provides.”
And Libba opened her eyes, winning another gasp.
What followed was something of a ballet, as far as Elias could tell, with Libba stretching and languid, moving in coils on her plinth before leaping from it into the arms of the sculptor.
They followed the pulse of the music in long, controlled motions, choreographed to be somehow both passionate and stunning in their physicality.
“Elias,” Hattie whispered. “It is the silent language.”
And he nodded.
Because it was.
Libba was smiling now, though he was not sure if it was her own joy or the sculpture’s as she tangled and leapt with the other actor, chasing the crescendo and the rapid tatter of the drum.
The man grasped her about the waist and lifted her high, as though presenting her to the audience. She spread her arms and then twisted around, grasping him about the shoulders and kissing his mouth as the troupe swept in and covered them with the marble sheets, bringing the scene to a close.
There was stunned silence. And then there was applause. And the sheets fell away as the troupe emerged to take a bow.
Elias thought it might have been a perfect moment. Utterly perfect.
If not for his parents’ voices.
“Gracious,” his mother said, her voice wobbled by the rapid flap of her fan. “Did you see that kiss, Wallace?”
“I did indeed, my dear,” her husband replied meaningfully. “Actors!”