Ephemia Rimaldi, page 5
“Thank you, this is delicious,” Effy said to the man in the apron, between mouthfuls.
“Don’t usually get compliments,” muttered the man. “Lately, it’s always, ‘why is there no meat?’ or ‘yer cornbread is stale.” He walled away with a smile.
As Effy sipped her second cup of cider, Madam Vadoma returned.
“So, what has that ornery buzzard decided, Vadoma?” asked Miss Mabel.
Instead of answering, Madam Vadoma said to Effy, “Phineas will allow you to stay, temporarily.”
Effy let out a sigh of relief. Temporarily was all she needed, the clung to the fact that Phineas had not cut all ties with her. He was still her legal guardian. All Effy needed was to remain in his view until he remembered his fatherly duty.
“I knew it.” Miss Mabel Smiled at Effy, “Vadoma always find a way to soften his gizzard.”
“But you must work here like everyone else,” cautioned Madam Vadoma. “Phineas won’t abide a pampered guest.”
Work—in a circus! Would Aunt Ada get no chance to rest in peace? “No disrespect, Madam Vadoma, but I am not the circus type.”
Madam Vadoma frowned. “And what type might that be?”
Effy didn’t offer Aunt Ada’s opinion: scalawags and riffraff types.
“Best not to cross the ringmaster, so we’ll find something for you to do until then,” said Miss Mabel. She stared at Effy’s fine silk dress. “Though, I’m sorely pressed as to what.”
“Perhaps you can assist me,” said Madam Vadoma. “The circus doesn’t open until tomorrow, but I’m expecting an important customer this afternoon.” She eyed Effy in a most calculating way.
“Do you have clothes that would draw less . . . attention? Something plain and dour?” asked Madam Vadoma.
“I have my black funeral dress.”
“Yes, that will be perfect.” Madam Vadoma’s accent had thickened again. “Perfect for the spirit I vill be channelling.”
What twaddle, Effy thought, but didn’t say.
Chapter 8: The Flimflam Life
Effy followed Madam Vadoma to the other side of the midway, where colourful caravans stood in several rows. Next to the half-raised big top, they stopped at the first caravan. Painted on its side were crescent moons and stars, and the word Mystic.
“My wagon is closest to the midway,” said Madam Vadoma, whose accent had, once more, evaporated. “So I can help customers before and after the show.”
“Help them? With what?”
“With easing their hearts,” said Madam Vadoma. “They come to me so I can contact their departed loved ones about unfinished business. If you want, I could try and contact your departed Aunt . . . ”
“No, thank you,” Effy said. “Just tell me what I’m here for.”
She was trying to be polite. After all, this woman had convinced that scoundrel, Phineas, to let her stay. It was Effy’s duty to show gratitude, even though she wanted no part in flimflamming innocent people.
Madam Vadoma climbed two wooden steps and opened the door to her caravan. Heavy incense filled the air. She invited Effy to join her within its murky depths. Veils embroidered with silver stars draped the walls and hung from the ceiling. In the middle of the caravan stood a small table and two chairs, and a crystal ball sat on the table.
“Change into your black dress first,” ordered Madam Vadoma. “Then you can help me set up my séance. Once the customer arrives at the ticket booth, we’ll let her wait for a bit.”
Madam Vadoma winked. “People appreciate my services more if they’re left to anticipate for a while.”
Not if Aunt Ada had been her customer, Effy thought. She had never been partial to slow service.
“You will then lead the customer in here.” Madam Vadoma busied herself checking cords tucked under the Turkish carpet, and pulling almost invisible strings dangling from hung veils.
“You appear to be a clever girl, so feed me any useful information you hear from the customer,” said Madam Vadoma. “Then I can read her better.”
Effy tried once again to like this woman. “I’m . . . not sure this is the right job for me.”
“I’m not actually giving you a choice,” Madam Vadoma said firmly.
“Very well, then perhaps you could direct me to where I could bathe before I change into my dress,” said Effy, trying to delay the inevitable. I’ve had a long and dusty walk to the circus.”
Madam Vadoma sighed. “Follow me.” She led Effy to the back of the last caravan. Behind it, a couple of sheets had been draped over the low-hanging branches of a gold-leafed maple tree. Madam Vadoma stopped at a pump at the bucket station and filled two buckets with water. Handing one bucket to Effy, she led her behind the sheets and set the second bucket on the ground.
“One bucket is to wash; one bucket is to rinse. Not a drop more.” Madam Vadoma left as Effy stared at the buckets in horror.
Effy blushed, thinking about taking off her dress when the only thing separating her from the hustle bustle of the circus was a flimsy bed sheet. She’d bathed in the kitchen in a tin tub, back on the farm, but then she’d been a little girl. Aunt Ada’s home had proper facilities, including a claw-footed bathtub. She stared at the buckets.
“Well, are you going to wash, or what?” The girl in the long underwear burst through the sheets and set down her own buckets. “I’ll be glad when the autumn coolness arrives. I hate this grimy heat when I’m swinging on the trapeze.”
Effy quickly turned her back as the girl shrugged out of her tights and shirt.
“Aren’t you the delicate pearl,” the girl scoffed.
Circus life will never be for me, Effy thought. Phineas would simply have to listen. She needed him to straighten out her finances with the family immediately. Abandoning her buckets, she carefully ducked under the sheet to protect the other girl’s modesty. Not that the girl seemed to care as she shouted, “If you aren’t using those buckets, I will.” Water splashed.
Effy hurried along the caravans in search of Phineas. Some caravans were painted green or red or purple, but one caravan, at the outermost edge of the field had a cherry-red door. The wagon was gilded with an elephant painted on the side. Above the mural, letters scrolled: The Rimaldi Circus. That caravan had to be the ringmaster’s. Effy crossed between narrow rows of wagons, but as she stepped out from the caravan next to the ringmaster’s, she quickly stepped back into the shadows. An argument was going on.
An old man and a boy stood at the steps of Phineas’s wagon. Phineas leaned from his door shouting, creature of yours is eating up all my profit!”
“Elephants have to eat,” the boy shouted back. “What do you expect?”
“I expect not to go broke,” Phineas barked. “Make sure you improve your act, so we sell more tickets, or that beast is going to be auctioned off.” Phineas went back inside, slamming the red door behind him.
“You can’t do that to her,” the boy begged through the door. “Or you will sentence Balally to a terrible fate. She deserves better.”
“It is no use, nephew,” said the old man as he turned to leave. “One elephant is not enough of an attraction anymore. I hear in Chicago, there’s a circus with three rings and twenty elephants. They all line up and dance on their feet in ballet tutus.”
The boy let out a disgusted grunt. “Uncle, my Balally is not about to dance for anyone. It is not dignified.”
“Your Balally, is it?” The uncle chuckled. “So, when did I promote you from being my water-boy?”
“You know I am more to Balally than just her water-boy.”
“I fear she is too old to go to another circus.” The uncle waited until other workers hustled past. Then he said, “Everything, including circuses, is going modern. Our days here are numbered.”
Effy shouldn’t spy. But what was going to happen to them, and why wouldn’t Phineas help?
“We must return Balally to an elephant sanctuary in Ceylon,” said the boy.
The uncle sighed. “That requires money.”
“We must sell our sapphire.” The boy slammed his fists together.
“You know that gem is cursed,” the uncle said.
“But Uncle, how can we be sure it is truly cursed?” said the boy. Effy quietly agreed.
“I’ve tried to sell the sapphire before. Once, robbers heard I was trying to sell it, and we had to flee our village. Remember the second time, the buyer was poisoned. My cousin was forced to share the inheritance, so he gave me a cursed sapphire in trickery.”
Relatives and inheritance seemed a wicked business, thought Effy.
The uncle shook his head. “We must choose very carefully what to do with that sapphire. We ourselves have proven it brings bad luck to any man who tries to profit from it.”
The boy spoke softly, sadly, but Effy moved away, even though she still burned with curiosity, Phineas appeared to be in a sour mood, Perhaps it wasn’t the best time to call on him. Instead, Effy hurried back to the bucket station where she pumped a thin stream of water, just enough to rinse her hands and face.
When she returned to Madam Vadoma’s wagon, the so-called mystic was waiting for her on the steps. “What took you so long?”
Effy shrugged into her dress, no pleasant task when her skin was sticky, and the back of her neck itched miserably under her starched collar. She scurried to the ticket booth. An older woman, also dressed in funeral black, waited in the shade and kept sighing heavily. She opened and shut a locket that hung around her neck and stared at the tiny portrait, saying, “How I miss you.”
Effy led the woman to the caravan and, as the mystic had ordered, asked her to wait a few moments. The woman once again took out her locket. Effy entered the caravan, stepping into the cloying scent of myrrh. She said in a flat voice, “You have a widow who I believe is in need of comforting words about her recently departed husband.”
Madam Vadoma smiled. “Well done.”
Effie sighed. “You’re asking me to trick a lonely widow. You’re not asking me to calculate engineering equations like Emily Roebling.”
“Are you always like this?” Madam Vadoma frowned.
Effy stared. “What do you mean?”
“You act superior, as if much is beneath you.” The mystic’s frown deepened into a scowl.
“I most certainly do not,” Effy scoffed. Which did sound superior, she supposed. What was the truth of it? “I . . . just don’t think you should cheat people out . . . of . . . ” Madam Vadoma put her hand up cutting her off.
“It’s challenging work finding comforting words to ease a grieving person’s heart,” said Madam Vadoma. “I rely on intuition-and I, and many others, believe I channel those thoughts from the next plane, the Great Beyond.”
Effy managed to bite back her opinion.
“Maybe using my gift is not as challenging as being the woman in charge of building the Brooklyn Bridge, but it is difficult enough,” snapped Madam Vadoma. “Now please bring in my customer. And when she arrives, I need you to make tapping sounds against the wall with your boot heel.”
Effy’s jaw dropped.
Madam Vadoma wagged her finger below Effy’s nose. “If I want to help the widow, she must be sure I’ve extra effect.”
Only when Effy led the woman Inside the caravan, did it occur to her that Madam Vadoma knew all about Emily Roebling, the engineer for the Brooklyn Bridge. She brooded on that as the customer sat across from the mystic.
“I see the ethereal mists gathering,” said Madam Vadoma in an eerie, distant voice. She swayed back and forth and stared into her crystal ball.
The whole crystal ball appeared cloudy to Effy, Madam Vadoma swayed harder. Effy had to admit the effect was uncanny, particularly as Madam Vadoma had draped a veil over her entire head.
In the murky light Inside the caravan, Effy barely saw the subtle twist of Madam Vadoma’s wrist as she pulled an invisible string. The woman gasped as the tablecloth swished around its edges. Then one end of the table rose off the ground.
“I hear him,” Madam Vadoma told the widow in her drifty voice, Her veiled head bobbed as If it was also attached to strings.
“He . . . he haz an important message vor youuuuu . . . ” her voice faded and then got louder as she wobbled back and forth in her chair. Madam Vadoma paused, waiting for Effy to tap her boot. “I said he has an important message for you.”
Effy couldn’t listen a moment longer while Madam Vado ma pumped twaddle and confabulation into her customer’s ears.
“He’s telling you not to use your money trying to contact him,” Effy shouted.
The woman looked up with a startled expression. Then she sniffed. “Why, that’s exactly what Horace would say. Thank you.”
After the woman left, Madam Vadoma marched Effy back to the cook wagon. Effy tried explaining. “I didn’t mean to ruin your business, but it’s wrong to take advantage of widows and the poor and . . . ”
Madam Vadoma deposited Effy on the bench, saying to Mabel, “It’s your turn. I have no use for this girl.”
Chapter 9: The Daring Young Girl on the Flying Trapeze
“I’m not sure what to do with you,” Miss Mabel said after Madam Vadoma left. She grabbed a giant wooden spoon and began stirring a cauldron of beans on the camp stove.
Cook threw in a handful of fresh-picked greens, and Miss Mabel batted him away. “No more dandelion leaves; it will make the sauce bitter.”
“When I lived on the farm, I peeled lots of vegetables and dug them up. I could help out here.” Effy held out strong fingers.
The cook placed a big mixing bowl on a wobbly stool next to the camp stove and poured in a sack of cornmeal. He cracked eggs and tossed them into the bowl. When he crooked his arm and began mixing, Miss Mabel dodged his elbow. She sighed heavily. “As you can see, two cooks in this tent are one cook too many.” The cook raised his bushy eyebrows but nodded in agreement.
“I ran my Aunt Ada’s printing press, turning out hundreds of leaflets on women’s rights. Turning those press handles was hard work.” Effy flexed her arm and pointed to a muscle.
“Well, then, perhaps you should go see Mr. Jefferson.” Mabel put her hands on her hips. “The boss-handler is a smart man who can find a fit for anyone in the circus. There’s nothing he can’t figure out.”
Miss Mabel said that last bit with a heartfelt sigh, and when she looked at Effy’s smile, she blushed. “Off with you, then. Phineas doesn’t tolerate idleness.”
Effy found the burly boss-handler supervising workers as they raised the giant canvas for the big top. Men were pounding more poles into the ground. The air was heavy with the smell of canvas and the sharp stink of kerosene that coated the outside layer to keep out the rain. Effy had heard of terrible tragedies in circuses when canvases caught on fire. This tent had four exits in case of disaster.
“Mr. Jefferson, sir, may I be of service to you?” she asked the man in the captain’s hat.
The boss-handler raised his bushy black eyebrows. “Having a hard time fitting in here, are you?” He chuckled.
Effy bristled. “I can do a lot of things, such as . . . ” she stared at the folded canvas and shrugged, “tying ropes. I can tie double hitches.”
“We could use a hand securing this pole,” said a tall, thin boy. He pointed at high scaffolding where a rope ladder dangled twenty feet from the top. “I can’t climb that rope without swinging around, and I hate goin’ under ladders. It’s terrible bad lack, and this circus has had plenty of that already.”
Mr. Jefferson scowled. “I’ll tell you what would be bad luck, Willy. If this girl falls like Humpty Dumpty and cracks her skull. Not to mention, Phineas will eat you for breakfast, and then chew me up for supper.”
“I doubt he gives a fig.” Effy said quietly.
The boss-handler gave her a thoughtful look.
“I used to climb the knotted rope that hung from the tallest tree on the farm,” said Effy. “I know a trick that will keep the ladder from swinging. “ Effy hoped she’d be able to raise her arms high enough in her stiffly starched dress. She looked down at her boots and debated whether she should climb the rope in her bare feet. No, the heel would give her purchase. She lifted her skirts above her ankle and approached the ladder.
“When you climb, you use your hands to hold and balance your weight, and then push up with your legs.” Effy grabbed the first rope rung and quickly climbed the next six.
“You’re awful fine at climbing, Miss. Why don’t you keep going and secure the pole?” said Willy, looking hopeful.
“Hold on, now.” The boss-handler gently grasped Effy’s waist and tugged her back to the ground. “Thank you, Miss Ephemia, he gets the picture.”
Mr. Jefferson jabbed a finger under Willy’s nose. “Get to work.”
“Now I have to prove to myself I can climb the ladder,” grumbled Willy. “Can’t let no girl show me up.”
“Then you’ll have a real problem.” Mr. Jefferson laughed. “In the circus, girls and ladies swing from trapezes and walk across tight ropes, same as boys and men. What will you do about that?”
Willy said nothing. He was too busy grasping the ladder rungs until his knuckles were white as his face. He let out a soft whimper as the ladder swung back and forth. Effy felt a smidge of pity. It was a long way to the top.
“You have to keep a firm grip on the next rung before you slide your feet off,” she said, “and keep your weight in the centre. That stops the rope from twisting around.”
“Sounds about right, I s’pose.” Willy held tightly and stepped onto the next rung of the ladder.
Effy whispered to Mr. Jefferson. “I think he’s really scared.”
Jefferson grabbed the ladder and steadied it. “He’ll be fine.”
