Chapter 19

Part III

Need an earlier chapter? Check out the navigation page below:

We’re now on chapter 19 of 38. This is the latest novel of the Muldoon series (book 2). Chapter 18 concluded with Edward French’s circus adopting the latest trend in Europe— the trapeze.

Want to join the Muldoon Book Club for behind the scenes, outtakes and other interesting tidbits? You can either:

• Get a copy of The Ring and DM me so I can upgrade you for free.

• Upgrade your subscription.

---

Oxford, 1883

Edward French was right.

The trapeze act pleased the crowds more than even the ringmaster himself could have predicted. The work, once arduous and ill-paid, brought the French family and their staff more wealth than they knew what to do with. With new financial freedom came new ideas, and much to Mrs French’s disappointment, the full adoption of the new ringmaster, Ezra Fontini.

Mrs French despised the man. Edward French couldn’t do without him.

It was Ezra Fontini who caught Mrs French flicking through the collection of books in his luggage one evening. The case, a flimsy, battered thing as it was, burst open when she knocked it; once her fingers had touched the leathered skins, curiosity took hold, seducing her into flicking through the pages. The strange volumes emitted a power, so strong, and so comfortable, it prevented her from being able to even pretend she wasn’t looking. She remained where she was, feeling the shame redden her cheeks even though she could do nothing about it. “I didn’t know you had these,” she said, barely able to believe what she was seeing. The leather-bound tomes unearthed their musky scent as she turned each leaf. “Why… why do you have these?” Mrs French, puzzled as she was, looked over to him, her beautiful eyes now horrified. Horrified to realise that if lightning struck her down and took her to her sudden death there and then, she’d have witnessed more of the most frightful things in the human imagination in that moment than any respectable woman of her station would have seen in even the most long-lived of lifetimes.

She dared not take her eyes off the man standing before her, or she would have seen that her hands were trembling.

“Put them back,” he said quietly. Menacingly.

She did not like his tone, but whether it was bravery or foolishness that encouraged her to do it, she persisted. “I’m asking a straightforward question,” she said coolly, “why do you have these?”

“They’re not yours,” he said, remaining still. She quickly looked down at the hand that held the whip, white-knuckled and clenched.

“I think Mr French ought to know about these, don’t you?”

He laughed. A knowing cackle that made her blood run cold. He shook his head. “Mr French… oh he knows… but Mr French, eh…” Even the way he spoke made her skin crawl, and she felt she saw too much of the man’s tongue. “He doesn’t want you to know about these. He’ll be very upset if he finds out.”

“Stop it.”

“He’s outside right now. Put them away, or I’ll tell him.”

She blinked. Did the whip just move? Not being able to afford the luxury of taking her eyes off Fontini, she made do with the black form slithering up his arm in her peripheral vision.

“What the devil is the matter with you?” she asked, relenting and focusing her eyes on the origin of the unmistakable hiss. Fontini was holding an adder. “What—how? What are you doing?”

“I’ll tell him!” he screeched, holding up the snake, its face pointed to Mrs French. “I’ll tell him. He’ll be so angry! So very angry!”

“Stop it!”

He threw it at her, laughing as he did so, but it didn’t last. To his disappointment, she rolled away from the snake. It landed in the corner, hissing behind a trunk of her husband’s belongings. “How dare you,” she cried, a tendril of brown hair falling across her face as she marched towards him. “Stop this, now. I shall—”

“Insubordinate wench. Put them away!”

Her hand clasped her cheek desperately, feeling the tear roll over the back of it. The sting hadn’t even set, but the shock itself was enough to freeze her. Nothing came from her mouth, not even breath. Perhaps lightning did strike, and she was no more. She wondered if it left everyone numb—their brain floundering, much like a hapless fish out of the water. Dumbstruck, she didn’t move.

Fontini turned his back to her and left the tent. In his place, rushing in with the concern only a husband could express for his wife, was Edward French. “Darling! What’s happened?” He fell to one knee, his arms around her. “What’s happened? Speak to me.”

She couldn’t. The best she could do was turn her face towards his, so he could see the red mark clearly.

“Who hurt you?”

Emotion, the mistress she thought all of her sex were chained at the ankle to, finally returned. “Is this some sort of joke?” she asked, her voice wavering.

“Your hands are shaking,” he said, barely taking notice of the anger bubbling under the red flush of her skin. His touch meant nothing. It rendered nothing. She pulled away from him.

“Burn these books, or—and I swear—this night will be the last you see of me, Edward French.”

She left him alone in his tent, his mouth agape.

***

“Why won’t you come to bed any more?”

“Why do you think?”

“I am—Oh Elle—how can I express more sorrow for this?”

“It’s an act, Edward. Stop bringing it out of the ring. I don’t want it in my private life.” She continued brushing her palomino mare’s neck. The bristles glided over the hair that could have been spun gold—a beautiful horse—a breed loved by the Americans, and given to her as a birthday present by the man she loved. She brushed the glossy coat over and over again, thinking of what he would say next. Fiora, sensing the tension in the room, shuffled about under the weight of the brush. Mrs French, worrying that she was hurting one of her only friends, withdrew and turned to look at her husband once more. “Stop doing it,” she said quietly. “We are done with him. Please, say we are done with him.”

“I am sorry.”

“You scare me.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You do. Get rid of him.”

“I am sorry.”

“If you were sorry, you would have stopped years ago. I’m beginning to think that you enjoy it. You enjoy tormenting me. Tormenting us. You continue to do it. You let him work your own daughter like a dog. Fontini whipped her, Edward!”

His face darkened. “She didn’t listen.”

“She was tired, Edward. You don’t let her sleep.”

She’d made him angry. One slip and he lost his temper. Hugo had to restrain him. With his tail between his legs, Edward French had tried to make friends with his daughter, and apologise on Fontini’s behalf. He brought flowers. He even bought a new saddle for her horse. Still, she refused to speak to him.

He wanted to be angry with her, but he’d broken both their hearts, and part of him felt the punishment was warranted. Ezra Fontini, however, laughed piteously at the former hussar’s ability to let women use him as a doormat. In their discussions in the dressing room, Fontini would recount the cowardice they witnessed on the battlefield—Edward proclaimed repeatedly that he was not one of those cowards, but Fontini enjoyed playing judge and jury, and asking him to prove it. Like a child playing chess with a grandfather, Edward was no match for the foe opposite him. The exchanges left him filled with the most consuming of frustrations, and like a coiled spring, he was ready to relieve himself of the pressure.

“Your vow was to obey,” he said, his fingers pressing deeply into his wife’s wrist. Far from wincing, Mrs French retorted with her own venom.

“I promised to obey Edward French. I do not obey that repulsive con artist you play the flunkie for.”

His wife’s gaze, devoid of love and affection, he soon realised, was his worst fear. “Please,” he begged, “I will send him away.”

“Edward…” Mrs French felt her heart sinking into the fathoms below its resting place. “I cannot bear this any longer. We have… we have had this conversation. We have had this conversation many times, to the point where I shall go mad. It is more tangible than deja vu. In fact—it’s torture. We are a symphonium that plays only one tune, and I would rather lose my hearing forever, than hear it play even if only one more time.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“If it had been drink, or whores, or God forbid—gambling! I’d imagine there was someone, somewhere—perhaps even God himself—who could guide me through this hell we live in. But you… Edward.” Her lips pressed together, whitening as she fought back tears. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what to do.”

“Please don’t leave me, Elle.”

“What choice do I have?”

“You are my wife.”

“I was Edward French’s wife! It was us against the world. You and I. You, me and our daughter. I married one man, not two. I shan’t wait around, Edward. I’m not some port-girl waiting to be beaten by the hand that feeds me. I’m not some helpless dog who needs you to care for me. I know who I am. I am Ellen, and once upon a time, I was Edward French’s wife!”

“You’ll destroy me, Elle.”

“You have destroyed yourself, my love.”

“Elle, don’t leave me. You can’t leave me.”

He repeated the last sentence for hours, then days, and continued until Fontini—concerned for his own safety, noticed the lack of food and drink finding its way to Edward French, saw the threat to the future of the business—and snapped him out of it.

Mrs French, saddling up Fiora, made a final visit to her daughter’s tent. Ellen ‘Tilly Mint’ French the younger, almost eighteen years old, and as headstrong as her mother, had packed a bag of her own. Hugo waited outside with two horses.

“I am not sure about this,” the girl said, looking for a nail to chew on.

Mrs French put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “You must do what feels right to you. You don’t have to tell him anything.”

A flicker of child-like worry crossed the face that now belonged to a young woman. “But what about you?”

Mrs French, for the first time in years, smiled—an authentic, heartwarming smile that came from deep within her. “I will be absolutely fine.” So fine in fact, that Mrs French pulled out her pocket book and started writing on a slip of paper.

“What is it?” her daughter asked.

“A bank note. Five thousand pounds.”

“Mam, I—”

“A wedding present, my darling.” She kissed her stunned daughter on the cheek, and regarded her for a moment. “You supposed I didn’t know about you and Hugo?” She caught herself laughing. “What doesn’t a mother know? Tilly Mint French… You have your entire life ahead of you, and outside is a young, hard-working man who wants to marry you.”

“Oh, but what if—?”

“No.” Mrs French placed a finger on her daughter’s lips, and observed the bruising around the neck. It enraged her, with a primal desire to kill not too dissimilar to the tigress when man comes too close to the cubs. Nevertheless, she remembered her humanity and suppressed it. “This is it now, Ellen. Now go. This is no life for you. You are young. I am going home to Mold. You can go home to wherever home will be. Paris, Vienna, Geneva! Wherever your heart takes you.”

The last thing young Ellen recalled about this farewell exchange, was that she probably would like to go to Geneva above all else.

One more kiss, and Mrs French, accompanied by a hired chaperone, was heading north on the back of her faithful friend, Fiora. Her worldly possessions went with her, firmly fixed to the saddlebags. Ellen watched her mother disappear into the horizon, where the wide, green hills and sleepy hamlets of Oxfordshire kissed the blazing blue sky of the summer day.

Ellen didn’t leave her tent for some time. “Hugo,” she said, barely looking at her beau as she spoke, “I don’t want to leave before the final show has ended.”

The young Frenchman, his eyes looking down at the flyer in her hands, were heavy with regret. “He hurt you.” The man who had made them what they were at that moment—a beautiful pairing on the trapeze, portrayed by the flyer—had become the source of their fears, their misery, and their pain.

He needn’t have said anything. She knew more than anyone how much he’d hurt her, the blue and purple impressions still resting on her neck, as asymmetrical as pearls. She had tried adjusting a silk scarf several times to find a way to cover them. “Say what you will, and I know you are right… but he is my father, and, if I can help it, I would like to part on the best terms possible.”

He said nothing, and sat beside her, holding her hand in what she felt to be a reluctant gesture of agreement.

This novel is now available to order! Anybody who orders a copy of this book (and lets me know) will be offered a gift subscription for the rest of the year. Get exclusive behind the scenes bonus material, just for paid subscribers: book club discussion, commentary, notes, and what inspired me to write this story. Click the image below to get your copy. Come and join the Muldoon fan club! It’s a twice-monthly newsletter and you’re invited!