The Little Shadows - By Marina Endicott Page 0,113

well from childhood.

The Fabians say, for the right moment you must wait … but when the right moment comes you must strike hard. It is not that I sentimentalize the politics, or feel a patriot pull, but on the ground, in the towns I knew in Belgium and France, people are in dire need—and I am strong and wily. If I cannot help, who can?

Clover, I must enlist.

I will make my way back to London after Christmas. But before then I will find my way to you, my heart.

Clover wished she had not opened the letter. It was not real, anyway, the war—Mayhew said it would be over very soon: posturing in Europe, not to be indulged. Even thinking about it felt false and romantic. A little fanfare of tin bugles.

Bella returned from talking to the driver, strolling back along the car as it ran forward, feeling she was walking in air because she was so high-transported above the river. That would be Life, if she could ride the streetcar all day long like the driver did, and wear a nice little uniform! But girls could not be streetcar drivers or train drivers, could only prune-and-prism, pout and marry well, or be schoolteachers (which Mama had made them promise they would never be, considering how Papa was treated by the superintendents, who never appreciated his learning or his temperament); or else get out of all that and go on the boards—and marry anyway, like Aurora had.

But she herself would not marry very soon, Bella thought. The Ninepins were at the Muse this month, and she saw Nando every day, but even if she was old enough and he wanted to, his father would never let him marry. And Nando could not abandon the act, because then who would look after his mother? It was too bad that Joe Dent would not let her train for knockabout, because she thought she might do very well with it. She was as clumsy as anything, always falling down or tripping. It was good for comedy. Sadly, East and Verrall were out in Winnipeg; she missed them very much, especially since they were working on the golf sketch again, which was really about love and had many gags for her.

She snugged in beside Clover, slipping an arm around her waist, and was surprised to get a tight hug back from her. Clover tucked her letter away and pulled Bella back to sit on her knee beside Aurora, lacing fingers over Aurora’s the way they both liked. The three of them together in one seat was comforting to Bella, who had not even known she was sad—but this was a dreadfully boring life, staying in one place for so long. The air was cold over the river; she would be glad of the brisk walk to the Arlington. Where Mama would be lying tangled in the blankets on the Murphy bed, dead to the world.

Mama had taken to missing matinees lately; she drank endless cups of tea, laced with a little sherry for her throat, that wavered into a smudged nap. Clover and Bella had the bedroom to themselves; Mama often stayed in bed till they came back to make her supper, the drapes left pulled across in the parlour for an all-day twilight that seemed to ease her head. Without meaning to, Bella thought, she and Clover were keeping that from Aurora. It was just that Aurora usually went straight up to her own suite when they got home, so Clover and Bella would rouse Mama and help her put her stockings on and make herself presentable before they all had to leave again for the evening show. There wasn’t much time to rest. She had her bee-wings with her in the bag at Aurora’s feet, because she had ripped a long tear in one. Mama would have to mend it before Mayhew sent the car for them at 6:15.

The Melee

The Muse’s current bill, a short one, opened with the Novelli Brothers, tumbling twin violinists who were the antithesis of the Tusslers. Fey little men, they rolled and caracoled like two bits of chestnut-fluff on a zephyr. As the Novellis came running offstage, Clover would duck behind the curtain-leg to evade the delicate sweat that sprayed off their foreheads, arms and heaving chests. She had never seen men so watery before. They played their violins with precise joy even while tumbling. When the first twin had heard her playing Victor’s violin as he climbed