Chapter Forty-Four
When Ava walked to the theatre that week, one thumb tracing a line absent-mindedly against the small pouches of lavender in her pocket, the air felt different.
The roads still teemed with carriages and carts, the sky above her still thick and grey, and yet somehow it felt as though the world had shrugged off a little of the weight it’d held before.
With Jem, she’d always felt as though there was a constant tick in her chest, a coiling fear that just one wrong move, one careless word, would cause everything to shatter.
But with Damien … it felt different. There was still that restlessness within her, but it didn’t hold the same, sharp edge it had before.
This was something softer, something sweeter, and though she didn’t know if it was love – that felt too bold a word for something so delicate – it didn’t feel like falling, either.
And so, when she stepped through the black door on Houghton Street, she was in a sunny mood.
Until she saw that the door to her mother’s dressing room was wide open. Until she saw the way Bertie looked at her, her cap askew, her pipe clamped between her teeth.
‘Miss Adams!’ she said, hurrying to step in front of her. ‘Have you seen Miss Lillian yet?’
Ava pushed past her, into the room – and her breath caught in her throat.
The clothes racks that had cluttered the leftmost wall were gone, the velvet settee her mother had loved was gone, and – oh God – the pictures. Even the pictures were gone – the portrait from her parents’ wedding day, the drawing her mother had done – they were all gone.
‘Let me fetch Miss Lillian,’ said Bertie, her heavy boots echoing on the floorboards as she retreated swiftly.
The only thing that remained was the wardrobe – and Ava opened it with shaking hands – for surely Lillian would have left this untouched. Her mother’s dresses. Her mother’s coat.
The door creaked mournfully on its hinge, and Ava stared at emptiness that sat there now – feeling her throat constrict, feeling her vision blur.
‘Ava. You’re early.’
She turned – Lillian’s dark gaze lifting to meet hers. Lillian was still in her morning robe – her copper hair sticking out at every angle; for she kept the apartment above her office – all the way up in the theatre’s attic.
‘Lillian,’ said Ava – and in that one word was everything: the loss they’d both borne after her mother’s death. The grief they shared. The sleepless nights, the brittle words, the pain of it all knotted with the pressure to stand in her mother’s shadow.
‘Where are they?’ Ava demanded, her voice low and dangerously tremulous. ‘My mother’s things.’
‘They were old,’ Lillian said with a shrug. She was leaning heavily on her cane, her red hair braided messily about her shoulder. ‘Moth-eaten.’
‘They were hers.’
‘They belonged to me. Just as everything in this theatre does. Besides, I wanted to repay your kind favour.’
‘What kind favour?’
‘Miss Fairchild,’ Lillian said, her voice low. ‘She has quit. And I understand I have you to thank for that.’
The shock of seeing her mother’s things gone had hit her like a thunderclap. This one unfolded quietly, realization spreading like a flush upon her neck.
‘I never told her to quit.’
‘No, indeed – how did Miss Fairchild put it? Ah, yes. You “inspired her” to find something of her own.’
Ava turned, speechless, to the empty room.
‘Lillian,’ she said, her voice lilting upwards sharply.
‘That still gives you no right – this was the only place. The only place—’ She had to stop herself, had to bite her tongue – for she could feel the tidal wave awaiting her behind those words, and she wouldn’t speak them here.
Wouldn’t let Lillian see how much it hurt to say them.
Because here – in this room – was the only place it felt as though her mother still existed. With her things, her dresses, and coats – her pictures upon the table.
And now …
Now Ava curled her fingernails into her palm, trying to focus on the sharp press of them against her skin, and not how tight her throat had become.
‘You loved her,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘You loved her, just as I loved her. How could you just discard all of her things?’
Lillian plucked up one of the pots from Miss Fairchild’s table, examining it. ‘Oh, I haven’t thrown them away. Not yet.’
‘Then what do you want for them? Coin? Because I’ll pay you, I’ll—’
‘You know what I want, Ava,’ said Miss Lillian, her dark eyes on her. ‘Now more than ever. I want you back on my stage.’
Ava felt her heart twist in her chest. ‘Our deal was that I would help Miss Fairchild. Train Miss Fairchild.’
Lillian’s expression flattened. ‘I think you’ve done quite enough of that.’
‘I did what you asked of me.’ The words stuck in Ava’s throat. ‘That was the deal.’
‘I’m changing the deal,’ Miss Lillian said simply, fingertips tightening around the ivory handle of her cane. ‘Come back to the stage, or not only will your brother be ruined, but your mother’s things will be, too. The choice is yours.’
‘I can’t … I couldn’t—’
Lillian watched her. ‘Come now, Ava. I know you’ve been practising.’
Ava looked up at her, eyes wide – pain curling in her chest. ‘How do you … ?’
‘Bertie,’ said Lillian, her cane wobbling as she put her full weight upon it. ‘She has her ways. So then, what do you say?’
Ava opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She had thought, of late, that she had begun to reclaim pieces of herself. But in doing so, she’d forgotten that Lillian was the one holding all of the strings.
And for all her recent courage, she still had not learned how to sever them.
‘I … I need to think,’ Ava said, her words unsteady now. Thin. ‘I need to consider it.’
‘Well, you had better think quickly,’ said Miss Lillian. ‘Because opening night is creeping upon us – and now I have no act.’