The Little Shadows - By Marina Endicott Page 0,185

a fancy to her,’ East told Verrall as they ran up the iron flights of stairs to their dressing room, Bella following like a puppy on a leash. ‘And Julius—’

‘A good name, but some nights you can’t get him onstage,’ Verrall said.

‘If we’ve got her, we’re flexible,’ East said. ‘If he’s good, we do the old hotel routine. If not, we do the golf.’ East opened the door to their dressing room and bowed her in.

Julius was in the armchair, a glass in hand. He looked up. ‘Ahh, my boys. And.’ He stared at Bella. ‘Oh no, no. No, no … I’ve had one or two over the eight, my dear,’ he said. ‘Can’t fulfill my—can’t manage—take her away, boys, don’t tempt me.’

Verrall blushed brilliantly and begged Bella to take no notice, but she found it horrible that Julius mistook her for a floozy. He’d never mistake Clover or Aurora that way, she’d bet.

East bustled about making cocoa while Verrall explained the deal.

‘Pantages is a famous highway robber. Thirty-two weeks is only to tempt us; you’ll see, the written contract will be for fourteen weeks. Six weeks to work our way out to the West Coast—then Pantages will hand us the choice of being cancelled and stranded, or taking a 25-percent cut in salary for the remaining eight weeks.’

‘But he can’t do that!’

‘He won’t do it to us,’ East boasted. ‘I’ll see to that! We’ll see our sixty weeks of work, because he likes us. And you, Pretty Baby—you’re the icing on the cake this year.’

Verrall said, ‘Pantages wants us—well, except Jay—to meet him for dinner after the show. He is generous, in his way, always ready with a bag of peanuts or—say, East, is that where you got the candy habit?’

‘Penuche?’ East asked, producing a crumpled bag.

Bella laughed and sang her chorus: ‘Oh I want a loving baby and it might as well be you, Pretty Baby of mine …’

Yawning

Uncle Chum and Aunt Elsie spent every August at their cottage at Katepwa, twenty-five miles up into the country on a long lake cut through prairie tableland. Aurora did not need more rest-cure, but thought the change might do Mama good. They drove out to the lake in Uncle Chum’s new toy, a shining bottle-green Ford motorcar. Aurora wondered again how well-off Chum was; so far she had not been able to engage him in serious discussion about paying for their board, and had abandoned the struggle.

Aunt Elsie sat with Mama, Avery between them, in the back seat; Aurora, the only one not afraid of the car, sat up front watching Uncle Chum slash the gear lever violently in all directions until something caught. She kept the laugh caught in her throat, feeling like Bella, and did not let it come streaming out.

Katepwa was a huddle of pleasant cottages set in stone-walled lots along the lakeshore. Mabel had gone up a few days before (when Dr. Graham was going to his own place) to air the cottage and lay in supplies. When the Ford pulled up, tea was waiting on the porch: a pretty table set with a white cloth, and Mabel smiling from the steps.

Mama gasped with pleasure, like her old self—Aurora felt a hard double-beat in her heart, frustrated longing to leave combined with certainty that she was doing the right thing. She wished her sisters could see Mama here. Another thing: whatever rift there had been between Mama and Uncle Chum, clearly he had no memory of it, and she was blessedly blank now too. Aurora found it a great relief that Mama had put down that heavy baggage of past grievance.

At Katepwa there was nothing to do but listen to Victrola records and play with Avery. The dollhouse kitchen was too small for more than Elsie and Mabel, and even those two spent as little time as possible on housewifely duty. The lake community visited all day, or canoed at a leisurely stroke up and down the lake. Mabel and Aurora strolled the lanes while Avery napped in the afternoon. Mabel got freckles on her nose and was distressed; Aurora told her they became her very well, and Mabel glowed, briefly.

After dinner the lake stilled, only the placid, plangent popping of fish breaking the surface. Chum did his fishing in the morning, but kept an ear open in the evening. On Saturday night, when a band came to play for the weekly dance, Chum grunted and paced down to the shore to watch the fish rise,