CHAPTER 19

Thomas was lively, pushing and prodding, so I had no trouble waking before cock crow. Five days, one hundred and twenty hours. I had asked to lie alone because my sleep was so restless, and Mrs Bleeker had moved to a camp bed in the ladies’ bedroom. Dressing in the dark, I bundled my nightgown and purse into the packed bag I pulled out from under the bed and slipped my hands inside to feel slippers, stockings, drawers, apron, spare shawl, petticoat, cake of soap, washcloth, hairpins, a tortoiseshell comb Lavinia had given me. Only these familiar textures could convince me that this was not a dream.

Franz had told me the previous night that it was time. In just a few moments he would come and knock, and then he would wait with a cab outside the servants’ entrance, and shortly afterwards I would leave the troupe forever. I allowed myself to imagine the impossible farewells: Lavinia’s peck on my cheek, Minnie’s pats on my arm, Mrs Bleeker’s rough hands drawing me to her bony bosom, and then an unbidden fancy: shaking hands with Rodnia, stiff and formal, in the stable. I could feel his leathery palm in mine, hear his gruff Godspeed, and all the time his frown, the pressure of his palm, his silent trembling, the reproach he would swallow. So you’re tractable after all, ma’am.

It was too late for that. I had made my choice. Rodnia would forget me, if indeed he had ever cared for me at all: as long as I stayed within the troupe, I was nothing but a vassal, a vestal, a vessel … a container for a child. Now I thought of Franz playing on a grand stage, heard the crowd’s roar, myself in the front row, slim-waisted and elegant in a white gown with Thomas beside me, his little feet sticking out over the chair; and afterwards, backstage in his dressing room, surrounded by flowers, how Franz would laugh and close the door and kiss me long and deep while outside the adulators knocked and knocked …

Yes, they were real, the knocks on my door. Six taps, as we had arranged. He was here. My body was all knocks and hammers, and Thomas kicked me for good measure as I ran to the door and opened it to throw myself into his arms. Then I froze, unable to move or think or feel, for the world had stopped breathing. Mrs Bleeker stood alone on the threshold, dressed but with her hair still in its night-time plait, her mouth in its grimmest slit, her umbrella in her fist.

Were we discovered? Was the elopement over before it had begun?

‘Mary Ann, come quick. We have an emergency. The General and the Commodore are bent on shooting each other dead.’

The stretch of beach, overhung by sandstone cliffs, faced out of darkness towards a dim grey sky where surely no sun would ever rise. The waves were grey ruffles, hitting the shore with petulant slaps, and a mean wind plucked at my skirts. Although this bay was within walking distance of our Sydney hotel, there were no bathing machines, no fishing boats, no native fireplaces or middens; it was as if no humans had ever been here, or would ever come again. But now there were six of us spaced out along the strand: myself and Mrs Bleeker in the middle; one tiny man and one small man on our far left; and one tiny man and one tall man on our far right. We all stood motionless, as if waiting for the clock to strike and the machinery to whirr.

Then Mrs Bleeker turned this way and that, and I was astonished to see her biting the end of her plait. ‘Come,’ she said suddenly and began to walk towards the figures on our left; floundering in the fine sand, I followed.

I should never have opened the door, I thought. I should have hidden under the bed, or jumped out the window. By now I would be in the cab with Franz, on the way to my wedding. Instead he was waiting, waiting. How long would he wait before he gave up, judged me faithless yet again, left alone to pursue his dreams with Mr Liszt? Why did I go on jumping to Mrs Bleeker’s tune? And yet I had known, with one look at her wide desperate eyes, that I had to go with her.

‘A duel,’ Mrs Bleeker had gasped to me as we had bunched up our skirts and had run — or as near to a run as I could manage — along the winding path to the beach. ‘Rodnia Nutt secretly woke me and told me, just as they left. He thought maybe I could stop it. Why me, Mary Ann? I could not even wake my husband, he has been sleeping so badly lately, I gave him a sedating draught last night and not even the Devil could stir him before noon, but I still needed help, and you were nearest, and oh, these foolish men, what will they do.’

On the sand we reached Rodnia and George, buttoned up to his white face in a coat with many flaps.

‘Mrs B, you too?’ he murmured.

Rodnia stared at me, then turned back to his brother. ‘For the last time, George.’

George shook his head. ‘It’s as Ned says: we’re at the Rubicon. Matter of honour. A gent doesn’t back off his word.’

‘Honour be blowed, we’re talking pistols,’ said Rodnia.

‘Mr Nutt, you must stop this madness,’ said Mrs Bleeker to Rodnia.

He nodded. ‘What am I going to say to Ma and Pa if …’

‘You know as well as I do, I’m as safe as houses. I’m the crack shot. The General couldn’t hit an elephant half a yard in front of him.’ Rodnia and Mrs Bleeker both began to talk at once, but George waved a dismissive arm. ‘I won’t hit him.’

‘You can’t be sure,’ said Rodnia.

George laid a hand on his arm. ‘Roddie, you always took good care of me when I was Tiny George, but I’m not so tiny now. Let me be a man.’ There was a deeper, graver edge to his voice. Rodnia stared hard into his eyes, as if looking for the cocky boy of old: then looked down, and there was now enough light in the sky for me to see that his face was a little pink.

‘Do as you will, then, only take care.’

‘Rodnia Nutt, how can you say such a thing? Will you let them get away with murder?’ Mrs Bleeker swung her umbrella like a sword.

At the same time, we heard a shout, and I turned to see Ned walking towards us from the other end of the beach.

‘What’s going on? This is no place for females.’

‘This is no place for any God-fearing person,’ said Mrs Bleeker. ‘How dare you, sir. You have put the gentlemen up to this deadly game. Just wait until I tell my husband.’

‘Don’t you worry about that. We’re here, and your husband isn’t. Besides, the gents don’t need anyone to put them up to it. They’re raring to go, and I’ll be darned if I can talk them out of it. Devil knows, I’ve tried. Ain’t that so, Commodore, you being the challenger and all?’

George was paler than ever, but he nodded.

‘But what harm has the General ever done you?’ I cried.

George was about to reply, but Ned cut in. ‘We won’t go into that. The dice is set. They will play. You’ll just have to watch until it’s over. If you’ve the stomach to watch.’ He glared at my swelling teagown.

‘Lay off her,’ growled Rodnia. ‘And if my brother gets hurt, so help me —’

‘Remember what I said to you,’ snapped Ned. ‘If you try to step in …’

‘Roddie, it’s all right,’ said George. He sounded very weary.

Mrs Bleeker rammed her umbrella into the sand, then pulled it out as if it had entered Ned’s skull. ‘Oh, you men, there is no sense in you. I will go and get the General to see reason.’ She began to march down to the solitary little figure at the other end of the beach. Should I follow her, I wondered?

Then Ned said to Rodnia: ‘Listen to your brother, wait here and keep an eye on our brave fighters while I collect the weapons,’ and I knew that Ned was the one to watch. I set my face inland.

‘Mary Ann,’ Rodnia called out behind me, his voice hoarse, urgent, but I did not turn.

Franz, please don’t go yet. Please wait for me.

Ned had headed off on a different path to the route Mrs Bleeker and I had taken to reach the beach. It wound around the overhanging sandstone cliffs and the scree at their base, then began to climb. I scrambled behind him, but soon was gasping for breath and had to stop, Thomas was so heavy. Ned kept climbing, but when he was near the top, at the steepest part, he turned and waited for me, smiling, holding out his hand. So he could be civil after all. I toiled up the path very slowly, pausing every now and then to get my breath, and finally reached for his hand with great relief. He gripped me so hard I cried out in pain.

‘Want to come? Then shut your trap, missy, and keep it shut, or by God I’ll hurl you and your brat down to the rocks.’

Now I was sure he had tried to kidnap me at Ballarat. His lazy mockery was gone; his eyes were slits, his breath rasping. This was the face of a man who would do anything to make a mint. And he had me in his grip.

I looked down and my head reeled: any fall from this height might smash my skull. He yanked my arm, one foot slipped, but I righted myself and climbed with him until we came out at the top, on a cliff edge that gave a view of the shore. The wind plucked at us with new spite.

Just behind the cliff edge was a grassy hollow where several logs of wood and a few camp chairs were arranged in rows, and on them sat some two dozen gentlemen, muffled in capes and greatcoats and deerstalker hats, facing out to sea and the beach view. Another man lounged on a shooting stick. They focused binoculars, chewed bread rolls, ham and sausage, and swigged at hip flasks. Some looked at me with mild curiosity: to them, I realised, I must seem like Ned’s assistant. I wanted to cry out to them for help, but remembered Ned’s threat and swallowed my pleas. My own fate might not matter so much, but Thomas did not deserve to have every limb broken before he was even born.

‘What ho, Davis,’ said the man on the shooting stick. ‘Where’s the action? Those little fellers look lost.’

Ned clamped his hat low on his brow with one hand and, with the other still holding me in a tight grip, he peered over the cliff edge. I followed his gaze and saw Rodnia in the middle of the beach, while George and Charlie stood at opposite ends, facing the sea. A taller figure in skirts stood with Charlie, apparently shouting and gesticulating, but we could not hear a word Mrs Bleeker said. Just as the wind blew away her words, so it seemed it would soon blow away these four puny creatures. Ned turned back to the shooting-stick man, a broad face framed in luxuriant whiskers. ‘The action will commence very soon, sir,’ he said, and the slight tremor in his voice surprised me. He cleared his throat, spoke louder. ‘Gentlemen …’ They continued to talk and laugh among themselves.

‘You’re downwind,’ said the whiskery man. ‘Get up on that tree, then they’ll hear you, and smell you too.’ He guffawed, winked at me.

Ned moved to the tree, pulling me close to his body, and began to shout. This time, he had their attention.

‘Gentlemen, you’re about to witness a unique event. A stupendous conflict between the two tiny Titans of our age. A genuine, no-holds-barred duel with pistols, between the celebrated General Tom Thumb, on the beach to your right; and to your left, his equally celebrated rival, Commodore Nutt. Who will prove the greatest little man of them all?’

As Ned shouted, he straightened up and his chest swelled. His habitual nasal whine became a deep, thrilling tone, and the men listened in total silence. Ned was a natural showman, I thought, perhaps even more than Mr Bleeker. Something, maybe the same force that had scarred his wrists, had twisted and thwarted his gift and he would never forgive the world for it.

‘What’s their quarrel?’ someone called out.

‘What’s not their quarrel? They are rivals from the cradle. They’ve always competed for attention. They can no longer bear to share a stage. See how they can’t even share a beach?’ The gentlemen peered through their binoculars and murmured. ‘And what’s more, gentlemen’ — Ned tapped the side of his nose — ‘Cupid’s arrows’ve been at work. Churchy la fem, as the Frenchies say. They courted the same little lady, and the General won. The Commodore has never recovered from his broken heart. It makes him livid, roaring.’

‘Seems awful quiet,’ said a man with binoculars to his eyes. ‘Which one did you say he was?’

‘The convulsively choleric Cain-raising Commodore is on your left. The glowering grizzly grinding-his-teeth General is on your right. But it’s not just rivalry and Cupid’s arrows that sets these Lilliputians warring against each other. No. It is a pearl of immeasurable price!’ He paused, then flung up his hand with my hand in it, so my shawl fell back from my shoulders and we both stood reaching wildly to the sky, keen children trying to attract their teacher’s attention. ‘Behold … The Busy Little Beaver! See, gentlemen, the fruit she bears! Conceived on a dark and stormy night with a diminutive partner, but no one knows who! And now her time grows near! Will it be a child in miniature, the Coming Man, to grace the General’s family tree? Or will it be a tiny Nutt on a half-shell, the Commodore’s son and heir? All will be decided on this beach! Winner takes all, loser has a fall … and never rises again!’

‘No!’ I cried. ‘None of this is true!’ But the gentlemen were laughing and leering at me and nudging each other in the ribs and making horrid gestures, and now Ned had let go of my hand and was patting me very gently on the belly with his long, nicotine-stained fingers.

When Charlie had patted me in front of the whole troupe at the ford, he had made me feel naked. Ned made me feel turned inside out, like a skinned rabbit.

I wanted to spring at him and tear his eyes out. But now the gentlemen surrounded me, peering and prodding, so that I had to cover myself with my shawl and push away their hands. Curiously it was Ned who came to my rescue.

‘Back, gentlemen, please! Don’t harm a little man’s property or there will be the devil to pay!’ Reluctantly they drew back. Ned raised his hand for silence and continued. ‘Now you understand. What you see on that beach is the calm before the storm. Soon they’ll spring at each other like panthers. But first, gentlemen, I must crave your indulgence. You’re hunting men, are you not?’

‘We hunt, we fish and we shoot,’ said the whiskered man.

‘Then you know how to approach prey. Don’t scare away the show, gents. They don’t know you’re here. You can see them but they can’t see you or hear you in this hollow. Don’t make too-loud noises. Don’t stand too near the edge of the cliff. Think of them as your native bears.’

‘We don’t hunt native bears. Lazy little beggars.’

‘Well, think of them as whatever you do hunt. I must leave you to present the mighty gladiators with their weapons. Any more bets?’

‘Twenty on the Commodore,’ said the whiskered man. ‘I like his mettle.’

‘Can’t see any mettle meself,’ said his companion. ‘Twenty on the General.’

Ned walked up and down the rows as if at church collection and packed his already chinking pockets with more coins. ‘I like your metal too, gents,’ he said. They laughed and groaned and pretended to cuff him. He paused and had a few quiet words with the whiskered man, then suddenly turned and was off down the path, leaving me alone in the circle of hunters.

The whiskered man rose from his shooting stick and offered me his arm. ‘Come, missus, you should not stand in your condition. Allow me to escort you to the best seat in the house. Make way, you rude fellows.’ He shooed away the men on the log nearest the cliff edge and seated me at the centre — oh, the relief to sit — then sat down beside me and arranged my shawl over my lap. ‘There. Nice and comfortable? Like some refreshment?’ A whiff of brandy made my head swim as a flask was passed under my nose, to snorts of suppressed laughter from behind me.

I shook my head, breathed deeply, fought off my lingering exhaustion from the climb, tried to summon Lavinia’s cool dignity. ‘Sir, I call on your honour as a gentleman. You are all here on false pretences. This duel is a wicked charade, the little people have somehow been goaded into it, and everything Mr Davis has just told you is a lie. You must act now to call the whole thing off, before anyone is hurt.’

The whiskered man gazed at me in astonishment, then began a slow clap, and some of the men around him joined in. ‘Bravo, missus, Ned has schooled you very well.’

‘But I am not part of the show …’

‘Sssh, they are about to start.’

If Franz were here, I thought, he would knock all you fellows down like ninepins and push you over the cliff. The duel would be done with, and we would laugh as we left you floundering in the sand.

The whiskery man was nudging me and pointing. Ned had returned to the beach and was walking towards Charlie’s end, carrying a long flat box. When he reached Charlie, he opened the lid, and the men murmured and craned their necks to see what was inside. Slowly Charlie lifted something out: there was a brief silvery gleam.

‘Here, Mrs … ah … Beaver, take a look,’ said the whiskered man, handing me a pair of binoculars. Charlie stood very still and stiff, holding a silver duelling pistol that seemed like Napoleon’s cannon in his hand. Ned was talking to him. Mrs Bleeker stood a way off, arms folded, shoulders slumped. Then Ned broke away and walked down to the other end of the beach, carrying his box, ready for the second presentation.

‘Fine weapons, by the look of them,’ said the neighbour on my right, a folding telescope to his eye. ‘Chequered butts. But far too big for those little fellows. Very hard to aim and fire. See, the General holds his as if it’s going to go off in his face.’

‘Ah, but the Commodore — he’s your consummate marksman,’ said the whiskered man. ‘Watch how he handles his piece. Cocks it like a military man.’ He took a bite of his sausage and grinned at me. ‘I reckon you’re going to crack a little Nutt.’

‘Ten paces, d’you reckon?’ said the man with the telescope.

‘More like twenty, with the length of their legs. And three seconds to fire.’

As I watched, Charlie placed his pistol on the sand, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, then covered his face. He took off his coat, folded it carefully, put it down and retrieved his pistol. The two little men walked slowly towards each other, their seconds at their sides, nursemaids to toddlers who might keel over in the sand. Charlie was in shirtsleeves and a new red waistcoat that I had embroidered in gold thread. George had not removed his coat, but had undone the buttons; the dark wings flapped.

Far out to sea, a sun the colour of Charlie’s old bodystocking pushed through smoky clouds, and orange-tinged gulls floated on the sulky waves. It was the Lilliputians’ most spectacular theatre yet, but there was no performance: no capering, winking, confiding looks, bits of business, moments of triumph — just the slow movements of sleepwalkers.

They met, shook hands, stood back to back, pistols loaded, cocked and raised, monstrously large. A deep sigh and shudder ran through the spectators. Then they sat forward, utterly silent. A knot from my log seat dug into my thigh. I felt imprisoned by walls of tobacco, sweat and pomade. A tern alighted in front of me, on the edge of the cliff; the wind pushed its black headfeathers into a ruffled topknot. It stared out to sea, then took off again. I wished I could lift myself up like that, fly to Franz. But now the sun was up, perhaps he would not wait any longer. Something even heavier than Thomas filled my head and limbs.

‘Come on, Commodore,’ whispered the whiskery man.

‘Go General,’ said another out loud. He was angrily shushed.

Thomas kicked. Ned Davis says that one of those men is your father, I thought. It’s all a show to him. What will happen to you if my elopement has truly failed, and if one of the little men dies? Somehow I can’t see you growing up with the widowed Lavinia, and still less as George’s son. Stay in there: you are better off floating and kicking than out on this clifftop with these creatures sniffing blood.

Now the little men began to walk away from each other, and the gentlemen counted their paces. One … Two … Three … My neighbour was biting his nails. What’s it to you, I thought, you have only money at stake. Ten … Eleven … Twelve … I could still get up, wave my arms and scream, distract them, maybe even leap from the cliff edge. But I saw how still Rodnia and Mrs Bleeker stood. They knew it was too late: the game must be played out. Eighteen … Nineteen … Twenty. Electricity crackled in my chest, down through my diaphragm and along my limbs to my fingers and toes. The duellists stopped, turned. My hair lifted on my skull.

Ned cried out, one word. Still we could not hear, but I guessed what he said. Fire.

Charlie dropped his pistol upon the ground, stood with his arms slightly out at his sides, as if wearing a too-tight jacket. George looked down. His duelling pistol was in his left hand. His right hand darted into the folds of his long coat, pulled out something, aimed, and on the clifftop we all saw the wrong weapon flash in the rising sun. Then, just as he had done on the riverbank at Baddaginnie, Rodnia sprang forward between the two little men.

In that quiet place, the shot shook the earth. All the birds were flung into the sky, screaming. Rodnia froze, clutched at his chest. But it was Charlie who fell on his back and lay still in the sand.

A ragged cheer burst from the men around me; they stood up and waved their hats. I jumped up, turned and ran past them, back along the path I had come in Ned’s grip, heedless of the steep downward slopes and treacherous slipping stones, until I skidded onto the beach and attempted a slow dreamlike run in sand towards the little knot of figures around Charlie’s body. Rodnia kneeled at Charlie’s side; George stood like a statue of a shooting man. He looked up towards the row of cheering spectators on the clifftop. ‘What’s going on?’

‘You’ve shot the General,’ said Ned. Sweat and pomade were running down his neck into his collar. He took off his bowler and patted his drooping hair.

‘It can’t be,’ said George. He looked at the pistol in his hand as if seeing it for the first time.

‘The pistols I gave you were loaded with blanks,’ said Ned. ‘Nobody knew that but me. You weren’t meant to use Widowmaker, damn your eyes.’

George put away his weapon, dropped the duelling pistol from the other hand and ran towards Charlie’s motionless body and the kneeling Rodnia. ‘Is he … is he all right?’

‘He couldn’t have suffered,’ said Rodnia, blinking rapidly and rubbing his nose with his hand.

‘Get up that cliff,’ said George, ‘and see if there’s a doctor among those fellows.’ Rodnia’s shoulders heaved. ‘Roddie! Git!’ His brother got to his feet and jogged towards the cliff.

George kneeled in his place, put his ear to the red velvet chest. ‘I can’t hear anything but his confounded pocket watch. Where’s the wound?’

‘You can’t see for the vest,’ said Ned.

George fumbled with the waistcoat buttons. ‘Charlie, don’t go … I only meant to frighten you … I aimed Widowmaker high … I can’t believe I’m such a bad shot … Don’t leave me, please, dear God, don’t …’ His clumsy fingers gave up after two buttons. He placed his head on Charlie’s stomach and sobbed.

Mrs Bleeker came forward and placed one hand on his shoulder. She gestured to me to help her, and together, very gently, we lifted George off the body. Then from somewhere inside her shawl, Mrs Bleeker produced a pair of scissors.

‘No,’ wailed George.

Ignoring him, she put the blades to the velvet and slit the waistcoat from bottom to top, peeled it back and ripped open the shirt. Charlie’s nipples and belly appeared, three hairy hills, no blood.

‘Where is the wound?’ I said.

‘Wait,’ said Mrs Bleeker. As we watched, the chest rose.

‘General?’ said Ned, very faint.

‘Charlie?’ said George.

Charlie opened his eyes and stretched his mouth into a wide open grin. Between his clenched teeth sat a silver bullet. He sat up, spat the bullet into his hand. ‘You owe me a new waistcoat,’ he said to Mrs Bleeker.

I could go now. Nobody was dead, nobody would miss me. I could find Franz. There was still time. Five days.

But then, as George gaped at him, Charlie chuckled. ‘Commodore George Washington Nutt, you must improvise faster than that. Don’t you know anything? Aren’t you even ready for your public?’

He gestured towards the cliff, where Rodnia and the gentlemen were coming in single file down the path. They gathered round, shaking hands, slapping backs, congratulating the little fellows on a capital show, and I was once again imprisoned in their circle of pomade and cigars. Charlie smiled and bowed, put his arm around George’s shoulders, and I was astonished to see George lean into his embrace. Ned began to smile and talk fast. Rodnia stood to one side, a silent shadow. Mrs Bleeker, knowing better than to interrupt a show, also retreated a few paces, holding my arm in a tight grip. The gulls, orange in the climbing sun, were coming back. The whiskery gentleman threw them a sausage and they swooped, tearing.

‘Jove, that was a fine show,’ he said to the little men. ‘And your fellow and Mrs Beaver here did a grand job of setting it up. I backed you, sir’ — he turned to George — ‘and I have made a mint.’

‘No, no,’ cried George. ‘The General was also the victor. He’s outsmarted us all. Including our fellow, who has no doubt made a mint too, eh, Ned?’ Ned smiled and smiled, eyes darting this way and that.

‘But we are betting men, sir,’ said the whiskered man. ‘How are we to tell who has won if there is no victor? I had all my money on you felling the General.’

The gentlemen frowned, glanced at each other, murmured.

‘Felling the General? Bejesus, what an idea. As if I could harm a hair on the head of my beloved Charlie, the greatest little man on earth.’

‘And as if I could harm my dear old pal George, who is like a brother to me. No, gentlemen, I fear we are shocking dissemblers, as all troupers are. Isn’t that so, Ned?’ Ned made a noise between a grunt and a wheeze, put his finger in his collar and circled his neck.

‘Never fear, gents, you’ll get your cash back with interest if you ain’t satisfied,’ cried George. ‘You must apply to Ned here, the brains behind the show. No, don’t protest, you modest fellow. It’s all down to you. Why, even Charlie and I don’t know the half of it.’

‘No indeed. Nobody knows. He led us by the nose.’

‘Say, Charlie, exactly how much d’you reckon he made?’ George prodded Ned’s jacket pocket, and Charlie prodded his other side.

‘A big haul, George. Mighty big. Let’s investigate.’ The little men pulled at Ned’s jacket.

‘Ahhhahaha,’ yelled Ned. ‘Commodore. General. Please.’

‘Gentlemen?’ Charlie beckoned to the spectators. The laughing gentlemen yanked off Ned’s jacket and turned out his pockets. Coins spilled onto the sand as George poked at Ned’s trousers.

‘Strike me lucky, Charlie, our Ned’s a walking gold mine.’

‘Let’s have a look at his seams.’

Taking their cue, the gentlemen grabbed Ned, forced him down on the sand and pulled off his boots, trousers and shirt, shook the boots upside down and flapped his garments in the wind. More coins spun and bounced, and one gentleman began to collect them in a leather bag. Charlie and George capered around Ned, crouched in his ragged drawers, his hands folded around his chest.

‘Hands up, Ned,’ George growled. Widowmaker flashed in his hand.

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ whimpered Ned.

‘I would never dare shoot the greatest little man in the world. But I might shoot you.’

Slowly Ned raised his trembling arms.

‘Oh ho, what have we here?’ cried George.

I saw it, under Ned’s right arm. A puckered pink circle. The third nipple, the Devil’s mark.

‘Ned, you dark horse,’ said Charlie. ‘You are one of us.’

I touched the webs of skin between my own fingers. Every one of us. And at once, I knew. I could see how and why he’d done it. Ned, the poor boy from Brooklyn, the secret freak. Fast talker, fast learner, brilliant troublemaker, but never rewarded with a high post in Mr Barnum’s employ. Full of poison against his betters. Capable of spinning yarns that would convince both Charlie and George that one was out to destroy the other. Goading them into a duel, not to kill each other — that was too much trouble, perhaps — but to make them look foolish and fearful, and to make himself rich.

Was it in me, then, to feel sorry for Ned? But I could feel nothing but relief and a stab of savage elation at the comeuppance of the man who had plotted to kidnap me and my child.

As George lowered Widowmaker, Ned grabbed his trousers and ran along the beach towards the tumble of rocks at the far end.

At the same time, Rodnia burst out of his trance. ‘Blackguard,’ he yelled, and set off after Ned, stumbling in the sand. The gentlemen cheered and whistled. The little men bowed. Then Charlie put on George’s coat and George put on Charlie’s slashed waistcoat. They put their arms around each other’s shoulders and passed Ned’s abandoned flask back and forth between them, talking intimately in their biggest stage voices.

‘I admired you from the moment I first saw you,’ said George. ‘I said to myself, Now I know a little man can be great.’

‘That’s big of you. You always looked up to me.’ The gentlemen laughed as if they were the soul of wit.

‘But, George, I say. If you always admired me so much, why did you try to shoot me?’

‘Charlie, I would never shoot you. I used my own pistol and I shot so I wouldn’t hit you. I wouldn’t use Ned’s pistols.’

George picked them up from where they had been abandoned on the sand, held them high, then shoved them under Charlie’s nose. ‘Handsome, eh? But the moment I held mine, I knew it was no good. The chequering on the butt isn’t deep enough. No hair trigger. Wrong shape. Wrong weight. Small arms.’

‘Bet you he got ’em from the theatre prop basket. But how did you know I would not shoot you?’

‘Charlie, you don’t have it in you, and that’s the size of it.’

‘George Nutt, you are cracked. You are the one who doesn’t have it in you. I always knew you would never shoot me, that is why I planned my little death. I have a skinful of pluck.’ He slapped his belly and crowed, and held up the bullet he had lodged between his teeth.

I guessed it was probably not the kind of bullet that would fit in either Widowmaker or Ned’s pistols, but the sporting gentlemen cheered nonetheless.

‘I have but one failing,’ Charlie continued, ‘and it is one I share with you. I believe in tall stories.’ He winked at the delighted gentlemen.

‘And no one tells a taller story,’ said George, ‘than our friend Ned.’

‘Indeed. Ned has it in him. He is full of …’

‘Milk.’

‘Enough for three bubs. What tall story about me did he feed you, George, to persuade you to challenge me?’

George’s eyes grew round as marbles. ‘Tell you later, my friend. There are ladies present.’ The gentlemen whooped, and Mrs Bleeker raised her umbrella. George continued, ‘And what tall story did he feed you, Charlie, that made you accept my challenge?’

Charlie blushed, for once without words, and I guessed it was something that would make the gentlemen whoop even more. He drew himself up. ‘We shall be short with him, George. We shall cut him down to size.’

‘I think he sighs already, out on the rocks, without his socks, with my brother giving him what for.’

‘Say, gentlemen, what do you reckon? Ned has magnanimously refunded your cash. Do you still want to call in your bets?’

They laughed, shook their heads. ‘Worth every penny,’ said one.

Charlie held out his arm to George. ‘Shall we proceed to our headquarters?’

All the way back to the hotel, as they walked arm in arm, the pistols in their box tucked under George’s arm, the gentlemen pursued them. Mrs Bleeker and I brought up the rear, unnoticed, as the men clapped, cheered, hollered, whistled. The man who had collected the money kept pushing coins into their pockets, and others pushed in notes. Draining Ned’s flask into their empty stomachs, Charlie and George sang Yankee Doodle in a rousing tenor, then switched to Cottage by the Sea in screeching falsetto. They were still singing as they reached the sleepy hotel, and their voices faded away through the doors.

And when life’s long day is closing,

Oh, how pleasant it would be,

On some faithful breast reposing,

In the cottage by the sea.

Mrs Bleeker stopped in the courtyard as I was looking around wildly for Franz. There was no sign of him.

‘Men,’ she sighed, putting everything from sorrow to venom into one word.

There was no escape. All I longed to do was to run round the hotel, searching for Franz, just a glimpse of him to reassure me that he had not left alone in pursuit of Mr Liszt. But Mrs Bleeker sat me down, ordered me to put my feet up, brought me the still-overflowing basket of costumes needing repair, threw Charlie’s ripped waistcoat on top and bustled around the parlour. ‘All mayhem has broken loose and, in your condition, you are best out of it,’ she said. ‘Poor Mrs Stratton is in tears. My husband has summoned the combatants and is giving them what I am sure is his worst dressing-down yet. Rodnia Nutt has returned, all bruises and torn clothes, and there is no sign of that appalling Ned Davis. Good riddance, I say.’

I looked up from trying to thread my needle. My eyes were blurred and my hands shook so, I kept missing the eye. ‘Is … is anyone else from the troupe missing?’

‘Good heavens, isn’t one enough? Haven’t you threaded that needle yet? Use this one, the eye is bigger … Oh yes, here is something Franz Richardson has just asked me to give you.’ Reaching over my shoulder, Mrs Bleeker dropped a small envelope in my lap. ‘Tell him no, won’t you?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

She sniffed. ‘I’ve had enough of that young man and his wants.’

I ripped open the envelope, dreading a farewell note, an avowal that he could wait no longer. I smoothed out an almost blank page, with one word on it.

Mrs Bleeker had her back turned, fiddling with her sewing machine. ‘Lord knows, we are busy enough without the pianist seeking you out to run more errands for him.’

‘It is all right, Mrs Bleeker, I will tell him no.’ I folded the paper and put it in my bodice. Tomorrow, it sang to me.