Arthur Deneve.
“What kind of farm,” Jenny wonders aloud as she buttons her jacket, “dairy, poultry, tillage?”
“Why do you ask?” says Blanche, nettled, instead of admitting she doesn’t know. Really, why should she allow herself to be interrogated about the finer points of the arrangement? It hardly matters whether the Hoffmans keep cows or chickens; P’tit’s too young to notice. He won’t remember, any more than Blanche recalls her first years. Dairy or goddamn tillage! She hasn’t been out to the farm yet, as it happens. Madame vouches for the place and seems happy to arrange P’tit’s visits to the House of Mirrors, so much more convenient than Blanche going out to the Hoffmans’. It all works perfectly well, so who does this stranger think she is, with her prodding and probing?
The front door; that must be Ernest with the bread. “A table, messieurs-dames,” calls Arthur, and they go in for breakfast.
At San Miguel Station, the fifteenth of September stops and starts, stops and starts. Only when Blanche notices she’s twisting her neck to get her face out of a puddle of light does she realize that it’s day. And then the terror seizes her again as she remembers: Arthur tried to kill her last night. It was only the wildest stroke of luck that shielded her, a one-in-a-million chance. There’s not a mark on Blanche except a tiny graze on her cheek from flying glass. It should have been me, not poor Jenny .
“Care for a wash, Miss Blanche?” offers Mary Jane McNamara.
She looks down at her ghastly browned clothes. “Have the police—”
“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of them yet,” says Mary Jane. “Dadda had to send another telegram in case the first one went astray, and Mrs. Holt wanted to know if he was doubting her competence.” Her tone bubbles. This murder is clearly the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened in the girl’s vicinity.
Blanche remembers being fifteen: the dull, shackled sensation that life is something that happens to other people. And then one day, with no warning, it begins.
He’d fly thro’ the air with the greatest of ease ,
A daring young man on the flying trapeze .
Blanche went to see the circus, that’s all she did, a harmless way to spend a winter afternoon. And found herself gawking up at a beautiful olive-skinned man flying like a knife across the gilded ceiling. The crowd sang along to that year’s hit waltz:
He’d smile from the bar on the people below ,
And one night he smiled on my love .
She winked back at him and she shouted, “Bravo!”
As he hung by his nose up above .
Blanche hung around the stage door for hours, not caring that she was cold or that she was missing her supper, at least, or earning herself a beating. At last he came out, in street clothes and half drunk already, the lovely man; his greasepaint was meticulously wiped off but his face still held the eye. One arm slung around a lanky boy with the beginnings of a mustache. (That was Ernest; Blanche didn’t pay him much attention at first. Didn’t know how many years ago Arthur had taken this orphan on as his protégé, his circus brother.) She hung around, chattering and flirting as hard as she could, till night fell.
She came back the next day. He was a thrilling exotic to her: Arthur Pierre Louis Deneve. Twenty-two, and a man of the world; he’d read things, been places, tried everything. He boasted of being a bohemian, and Blanche didn’t even know the word, but she swore she was one too. She was fifteen, and barely had a bosom yet, but it was just as well, because circus girls needed to be as light as air, and soon Arthur was persuading his Monsieur Loyal to try her out on the Shetland pony …
But what does all that matter now? What does it prove? That Arthur was a fine piece of manhood until this summer? Until circumstances conspired to—no, let’s be honest. Until Blanche broke him. Broke his heart, his spirit. Broke the charming man Arthur seemed to be,
“What kind of farm,” Jenny wonders aloud as she buttons her jacket, “dairy, poultry, tillage?”
“Why do you ask?” says Blanche, nettled, instead of admitting she doesn’t know. Really, why should she allow herself to be interrogated about the finer points of the arrangement? It hardly matters whether the Hoffmans keep cows or chickens; P’tit’s too young to notice. He won’t remember, any more than Blanche recalls her first years. Dairy or goddamn tillage! She hasn’t been out to the farm yet, as it happens. Madame vouches for the place and seems happy to arrange P’tit’s visits to the House of Mirrors, so much more convenient than Blanche going out to the Hoffmans’. It all works perfectly well, so who does this stranger think she is, with her prodding and probing?
The front door; that must be Ernest with the bread. “A table, messieurs-dames,” calls Arthur, and they go in for breakfast.
At San Miguel Station, the fifteenth of September stops and starts, stops and starts. Only when Blanche notices she’s twisting her neck to get her face out of a puddle of light does she realize that it’s day. And then the terror seizes her again as she remembers: Arthur tried to kill her last night. It was only the wildest stroke of luck that shielded her, a one-in-a-million chance. There’s not a mark on Blanche except a tiny graze on her cheek from flying glass. It should have been me, not poor Jenny .
“Care for a wash, Miss Blanche?” offers Mary Jane McNamara.
She looks down at her ghastly browned clothes. “Have the police—”
“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of them yet,” says Mary Jane. “Dadda had to send another telegram in case the first one went astray, and Mrs. Holt wanted to know if he was doubting her competence.” Her tone bubbles. This murder is clearly the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened in the girl’s vicinity.
Blanche remembers being fifteen: the dull, shackled sensation that life is something that happens to other people. And then one day, with no warning, it begins.
He’d fly thro’ the air with the greatest of ease ,
A daring young man on the flying trapeze .
Blanche went to see the circus, that’s all she did, a harmless way to spend a winter afternoon. And found herself gawking up at a beautiful olive-skinned man flying like a knife across the gilded ceiling. The crowd sang along to that year’s hit waltz:
He’d smile from the bar on the people below ,
And one night he smiled on my love .
She winked back at him and she shouted, “Bravo!”
As he hung by his nose up above .
Blanche hung around the stage door for hours, not caring that she was cold or that she was missing her supper, at least, or earning herself a beating. At last he came out, in street clothes and half drunk already, the lovely man; his greasepaint was meticulously wiped off but his face still held the eye. One arm slung around a lanky boy with the beginnings of a mustache. (That was Ernest; Blanche didn’t pay him much attention at first. Didn’t know how many years ago Arthur had taken this orphan on as his protégé, his circus brother.) She hung around, chattering and flirting as hard as she could, till night fell.
She came back the next day. He was a thrilling exotic to her: Arthur Pierre Louis Deneve. Twenty-two, and a man of the world; he’d read things, been places, tried everything. He boasted of being a bohemian, and Blanche didn’t even know the word, but she swore she was one too. She was fifteen, and barely had a bosom yet, but it was just as well, because circus girls needed to be as light as air, and soon Arthur was persuading his Monsieur Loyal to try her out on the Shetland pony …
But what does all that matter now? What does it prove? That Arthur was a fine piece of manhood until this summer? Until circumstances conspired to—no, let’s be honest. Until Blanche broke him. Broke his heart, his spirit. Broke the charming man Arthur seemed to be,
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