Ephemia Rimaldi, page 15
Effy let Phineas help her into the wagon. The others all crammed together, so he could lay her down on something soft. Miss Mabel tucked a blanket under her chin.
Madelene looked at Effy and shrugged. “Course you get all the attention, ringmaster’s daughter, even though I’ve been locked behind bars.” But she grabbed Effy’s hand and held on tightly.
“What about the circus? What will you do now?” Effy could only croak. All her hollering had left her throat raw.
“You let me worry on that, daughter,” Phineas said into her ear. “You’ve already done more than anyone could.”
Through the layers of fog that gathered in Effy’s brain, she realized Phineas had called her daughter.
Chapter 28: One True Purpose?
Effy finished packing her embroidered bag. She left behind her performance costume, which, after all her cutting and sewing, would likely be used for rags. The gold sash: Equality for All was the last item to go inside. She fastened the bag’s clasp. Straightening her practical brown frock, she stuffed her long braid under her straw boater’s hat. When Effy opened her caravan’s door, she plopped her bag on the top step and looked around.
The big top was collapsing as circus workers removed the tent poles. The wagon carts had been closed and locked. Willy, who still hadn’t overcome his fear of heights, was raking the sawdust into piles. All the banners and gaslights and colourful flags had been removed. Effy marvelled at how quickly the circus grounds had turned back into a farmer’s field.
Leaving her bag on the step, Effy made her way to the cook’s tent, which hadn’t been taken down yet. Miss Mabel and Madam Vadoma sat on a bench and were enjoying cups of coffee. Both coffee and spare time had been rare as oranges in the circus. Madam Vadoma clapped her hands.
“Here she is, up and around, looking healthy as a lamb in spring.” Madam Vadoma smiled. “Just as I predicted.”
Effy surprised herself when she hugged Madam Vadoma. By the look of her face, Madam Vadoma was also surprised. But she hugged Effy back—fiercely.
“I’m . . . going to miss everyone so.” To Effy’s annoyance, a tear trickled down her cheek. She brushed it away.
“And us you. Without you, how will we manage to keep Phineas distracted and out of our hair?” Madam Vadoma laughed, but when she noticed Effy’s watery eyes, she patted her arm. “There now. We’ll be seeing you regularly. Most of us are just going to be in the next town with Phineas.”
Effy sniffed. “I know.” Phineas would be setting up a variety theatre. Madam Vadoma would be the mesmerist and busy herself with reading people’s minds and palms; Jacque would become the funambulist, walking tightropes across the stage; and Yolanda would still swing from a trapeze. Miss Dot, on the other hand, wished to try her hand at singing.
“Come here,” said Miss Mabel, setting her tin cup on the wood table. Effy stepped into Miss Mabel’s arms. “You know we’ll be returning this spring with Mr. Jefferson’s carnival of amusement rides,” said Miss Mabel. Her face softened. “Who wouldn’t want a wedding in a town named Bridal Falls.”
Mr. Jefferson wasn’t interested in theatre. He liked machines, and had become fascinated with a new ride called the gravity twisty-track. He was working on the startup of a newfangled roller coaster company.
Effy pulled away from Miss Mabel’s comforting arms and forced a smile. “I’ll not forget the wedding.” She turned to Madame Vadoma. “And, of course, I’ll come see the new show when it’s up and running.”
As she bid her goodbyes to the rest of the performers, she learned that when Phineas had finally paid up, he’d gained new respect by paying both the men and women equally.
It heartened Effy greatly that the women acrobats were taking up their cause of equality with their new circus, Barnum & Bailey. They’d be joining the other circus suffragists and would fight for equal pay there. Aunt Ada would never have seen that coming, but Effy’s heart swelled with hope and pride for them.
Effy’s joy dipped as she braced herself. This would be her hardest goodbye. She stopped at the elephant pen where Balally chirped a friendly greeting.
Balally reached out with her trunk. First Effy patted it, and then she reached in her pocket and handed Balally a crisp autumn apple. It was gone in a crunch.
“Effy, I haven’t told you yet.” Cuthbert hurried toward her.
“I’m guessing this is good news.” Effy smiled back. “Or are you just happy because I haven’t brought my bicycle.”
Cuthbert laughed. “There was enough money left after we booked our passage, so I can go to engineering school.”
He frowned and patted Balally’s trunk. “Of course, I won’t leave Ceylon until Uncle and Balally are settled in the elephant sanctuary, and Balally is happy with all her new elephant friends.”
Effy hugged Cuthbert goodbye. “I will miss you both more than I can ever say.” She kept swallowing but it was no good. Her throat felt too thick.
“But that’s not all the good news,” Cuthbert said brightly. “Mr. Jefferson has offered me a job in his new company when I become an engineer.”
“That’s wonderful, Cuthbert!” Effy said.
She hoped she could spend more time with her friends, but it wasn’t long before Mr. Jefferson called her over. It was time to leave. After patting Balally one more time, she swore the elephant waved goodbye.
Madelene was waiting for Effy at the caravan. “Too bad we’re leaving,” she said. Madelene looked genuinely sad. “For an uppity girl and a guttersnipe girl, we were starting to fit in here.”
No praise could have been higher. Effy hoisted her bag off the step and, lacing her arm in Madelene’s, they strode to the entrance of the circus. Phineas stood with the small group of people Effy had come to think of as her family. A horse-drawn carriage approached from a distance.
Phineas took out a pocket watch and glanced at the time. “They are prompt,” he said approvingly. Then he turned to Effy. “I am glad to see you’re finally looking fit as a fiddle.”
“Thank you, sir,” Effy said politely.
Madame Vadoma leaned over and whispered into Effy’s ear. “Aren’t you going to hug your father goodbye?”
Effy stared straight ahead. Besides helping Balally and Cuthbert, Phineas had helped everyone find work after he sold the Great Rimaldi Circus. He’d proven he was not a scoundrel or a flimflammer. Those were good things, wonderful things, but standing before him, it was as if Effy’s arms were glued to her sides. Not that it mattered—Phineas’s own arms were behind his back.
“Until spring,” said Mr. Jefferson. He stepped closer and surprised Effy with a peck on the cheek. Effy had no trouble hugging him.
“For the wedding,” Miss Mabel said again, stroking her shiny beard.
“I trust you’ll be writing me letters from your new school,” said Phineas.
Effy nodded. “Mrs. Winterbottom insists that we write weekly.”
Sofia’s mother, Mrs. Winterbottom, had been the woman in town selling off her estate. She was starting a new school. “Coeducational,” Sofia had told Effy with bubbling delight.
“Because colleges will find it harder to turn down girls when they accept boys’ applications from the same school,” Mrs. Winterbottom had explained to Phineas. The girls could be boarding students, and she’d readily offered Effy a space. Mrs. Winterbottom had told Phineas she’d be proud to have such a modern-thinking girl as Effy attend her school.
As the carriage pulled to a stop, Madelene took her own bag from her mother and stood beside Effy. “My mother told me to thank you both again for the scholarship,” she said to Effy and Phineas.
Effy had asked Phineas if her trust fund would also allow a scholarship in Aunt Ada’s name. Phineas had waggled his eyebrows and said there’d been enough money that she could sponsor a new girl every year, if that’s what she wanted. Effy was sure it was exactly what her aunt would have wished.
The carriage door opened, and Sofia tumbled out first, her blond ringlets bouncing, and her pink ribbons flying. “I knew we would be friends forever when I found that hairpin on the train,” she told Effy.
Sofia scooped Madelene’s bag from her, and a sly smile crossed her face. “Just so you know,” Sofia’s eyes flashed wickedly, “the first boys will begin school tomorrow morn ing. Who would have thought there would be so much to look forward to with school?” Madelene rolled her eyes but only for Effy to see.
Mrs. Winterbottom poked her head out of the carriage. “Sofia,” she said, with some exasperation, word about boys or you will attend that girls finishing school.”
Sofia’s eyes widened in alarm. “Not another word, Mama, I promise.” As she climbed back inside the carriage with Madelene, she said, “In that school, it’s only girls and everyone dresses like nuns.”
“Sofia,” Mrs. Winterbottom scolded.
“Goodbye, daughter,” said Phineas. He handed Effy a bouquet of flowers that he’d been holding behind his back.
White poppies: Sorrow. I’m sorry. I’ll never forget you.
Yellow roses: I’m asking for forgiveness.
Effy dropped her bag and ran into her father’s arms. “I will miss you, Poppa.”
“That’s unlikely,” her poppa said gruffly. “But I’ll hold you to that. I expect a visit every school holiday, once I set up our acts in that new theatre.”
Effy promised. Surprised to be blinking back tears, she stepped into the carriage, turned, and waved, vowing to carry forward Aunt Ada’s one true purpose. She would help blaze a path for more girls to go to college. In order to do that, she’d need to be heard, and she’d need to be loud.
And then, surely, there would be other paths to blaze—Effy would need to be loud for everyone.
Hoping Aunt Ada wouldn’t have been too disappointed, Effy realized she was never going to be a girl with one true purpose after all.
She was going to be a girl with many purposes.
Author’s Note
There was a time in Canada when only men—not women— were allowed to vote in political elections. The right to vote—and other things related to equality for women—took time and effort to achieve.
Women organized and lobbied under activists including Emily Stowe. They also joined global organizations such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. During the First World War, some women were allowed to vote. This opened the door. Canada granted women the right to vote in 1918, but their fight wasn’t over. It would take years to achieve universal suffrage where all women received voting rights.
Many of the people Effy mentions in this novel are real, historical figures. Emily Roebling, Emily Stowe and her daughter, and Clara Brett Martin, were all women of the time.
At the turn of the 20th century, circuses became strongholds for the suffragist movement, demonstrating equality for women. Female performers drove home the message that women weren’t frail, and could match and even outmatch the male performers with feats of derring-do. Circus workers were one of the earliest groups to demand equal pay for equal work.
In an earlier era, small travelling circuses regularly crossed North America to entertain family audiences. Eventually, small travelling circuses—such as the fictional one owned by Effy’s father—were under pressure to compete with larger “three ring” circuses that could present hundreds of animals and trainloads of top circus acts. The history of elephants and the early circus is heartbreaking.
With the support of the animal rights activists, many countries and cities have banned wild animal acts, including many Canadian cities. Cirque du Soleil, a Canadian entertainment company, led the way for dazzling circus entertainment that is animal free. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey are returning with human acts only. Many of Ringling’s former elephants were moved to a 135-acre sanctuary: whiteoakwildlife.org in Florida, where the elephants wander the woods and bathe in deep ponds. Balally would have loved it there.
Women in earlier times were not encouraged to be independent. Riding velocipedes, later called bicycles, was thought of as an activity only for men. The medical world had proclaimed women as too frail, and, in addition, women’s clothing was too restrictive for riding. Suffragists at the time, however, decided a bicycle was a way to set women free. For the first time, women began wearing pants in public, as skirts and petticoats would catch on pedals and gears. Women in trousers raised a lot of eyebrows, but they kept on pedalling and organizing toward equality.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my editor, Beverley Brenna, who has been a wonderful collaborator. Also, thanks to Penny Hozy for her added insight, and to everyone at Red Deer Press for the hard work and magic it took to turn my manuscript into a book. Much appreciation to my trusted early readers, Janine Cross and Ari Goelman, and thank you to Gina McMurchy-Barber, Patricia Morrison, and Mary Reid for the polish. As always, much love and appreciation to John, Alec, and Joey.
Interview with Linda Demeulemeester
This is your first historical fiction title, although you have other books that engage adventure. What inspired you to set this story in another time period?
I loved historical adventures as a younger reader, and I still do. The stories I named in the book—such as Swiss Family Robinson, Black Beauty, and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”—were all stories I discovered at ten or eleven years old. I went on to read books about ancient Egypt, Roman times, Medieval times—their backdrops as strange and fascinating as stories with fantastical settings.
For Ephemia Rimaldi, specifically, I had started a story about a curse and about a girl travelling back in time. The story didn’t work. But one section set in a circus at the turn of the century wouldn’t leave my imagination.
It became the setting of this new book.
How did you complete the research necessary for this story—by reading and taking jot notes ahead of time, or by looking into particular subjects as you went along?
I research as I go along. Let’s put it this way: when I had a job as a library clerk, I wasn’t very efficient. I couldn’t put one book back in the stacks without pulling out two others and flipping through them. The same is with research—I’d keep going and not get any writing done.
Once I knew my character, an unconventional girl for her time, I began looking into early circuses. I read a lot of magazine articles—Life and Times Magazine had published issues on circuses around this time, and I snapped them up. They were wonderful because they had firsthand accounts from interviews with circus performers—what social studies teachers call “primary sources.” There are plenty of websites about circus specifics on the Internet, which I dived into—these are called “secondary sources.”
That’s when I stumbled on the fact that the circus performers were one of the earliest groups to organize for equal pay. Not only did that give me the idea for beginning my story with a suffragist march, but it led me to read about many brave women in those earlier times.
Great historical fiction achieves two things simultaneously. It conveys a historical time and place, while making its characters engaging for today’s readers. What were you consciously doing to make sure audiences found Effy entirely appealing and relatable?
I wrote for my eleven- and twelve-year-old self, so the kernels of this story are wrapped in adventure and spiced with a hint of the unknown—is there a curse or not? Is superstition mystical or coincidental? I particularly loved stories that had to convince me . . . or even better, left it for me to decide myself.
Some writers start with a plot and create characters from there, while other writers begin with a character. How did this story unfold for you?
Ephemia Rimaldi: Circus Performer Extraordinaire began with a character that hovered in my imagination and refused to leave: a girl who thoroughly vexed her father, the ringmaster of a circus. Who was this girl? Why was she so obstinate? What shaped her to defy the attitudes of her time? I had to write about her.
In conjuring Ephemia, I wanted her inspired by strong women. Her great-aunt was fashioned after stoic and independent literary characters such as Marilla from Anne of Green Gables, and by real women of that time, Great-aunt Ada was also influenced by my own grandmother who, born on a farm on the prairies, had become an accountant and the western manager of a large company by the end of the Second World War—an accomplishment that defied a lot of norms.
I have always been intrigued by how travelling circuses from that era could show two sides: one of cruelty and one of tolerance. Ephemia has a growing awareness of the strange world she’s entered. She begins to question other lines that are drawn in her society, Animals, she discovers, are beautiful and complex. Circus people that others look down upon are no different from herself, except in opportunity. She discovers common ground with the rich girl she’s met on the train, and the aerialist from a traveller’s family, as well as the elephant handler who has come from so far away.
Is this story completely fiction, or are there any true sto ries from your family woven into its fabric?
A kernel for the circus story derives from a tale my grandmother told me. When I was a girl, my brother and I loved all her stories about the olden days. This one was about her attending the first Pacific National Exhibition parade in 1910. She was nine years old, and when an elephant turned the corner and came toward her, my grandmother fainted. Nothing in the early 20th century, certainly not pictures, had prepared her for the enormity of that majestic creature. This inspired me for the early scenes with Ephemia, when she arrives at the circus and first encounters the elephant, Balally. She comes to appreciate what an amazing creature the elephant is.
This is why she’s swiftly on board for trying to save her.
