The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

Lara frowned. “I don’t think I’m going this year.”

“Nonsense,” said Audrey. “The Rivolis will be hurt if you don’t go.”

Her mother pushed through the door and down the steps, walking around to the driver’s-side door. When she opened the back door, the dogs leapt into the backseat, Oddjob putting his paws up on the front-seat cup holder so he could get a good view of the windshield. After shutting the door, Audrey slid into the driver’s seat and lowered the passenger’s window. “Six tomorrow for the circus. No excuses.”

Lara saluted her.

Audrey slid her glasses down her nose. “And Lara.”

Lara leaned down to see her mother’s face.

“Him not coming back was always a possibility; you knew that. I’m glad to see you’re getting on with your life.”

Lara looked down at her dusty sneakers. She couldn’t help shake the feeling that she wasn’t getting the full truth from Audrey. They’d never lied to each other, but Audrey was definitely holding something back.

“And get a floor man in, will you?” Without another word, the door shut and the black Sierra Grande with the CABOT FARMS logo pulled out.

When she got back into the house, Lara stood and looked down at the painting before picking it up. The frame was small but heavy in her hands. She estimated it had to be fifteen pounds of gold or wood. The painting depicted a petite blond woman wearing a muted-aqua leotard with brown gemstones, standing on the back of a white horse. Her arms were held high in perfect balance. The horse was adorned with a matching costume of aqua feathers and looked to be in full stride. While a young Cecile’s features were clear, it was as though the artist had placed the painting out in the rain; there was a noticeable dripping effect on the oil. At first glance, it was the dual subjects of horse and rider that caught the eye, yet great care had also been taken by the painter to capture the audience’s faces in the front row. Dressed in their finest clothing, several patrons in the back rows were holding champagne flutes, their faces illuminated by the stage lighting. Midpoint in the audience, one man in particular had clearly drawn features, a shock of red hair and beard, as he pointed to the spectacle that was unfolding in front of him. The woman next to him held her head in her hands, presumably to avoid observing any fall.

While not a realistic style of painting, it wasn’t exactly modernist, either. Lara had noticed how textured it was, with the heavy brushstrokes still visible. The painting lacked the smooth, baked finishes of the artwork Lara had seen at museums in New York, Washington, and even Paris and Rome during her visits there while in college.

Lara knew the story well. Cecile Cabot had left France in September 1926 with her infant daughter, Margot. Not much was known about Margot’s father; Cecile indicated that he’d died of influenza and was a man of no real consequence. She sailed across the ocean, departing the port of Le Havre on the SS de Grasse, arriving in New York Harbor five days later. With little money, Cecile heard about work at the glass factory outside of Kerrigan Falls, landing a job on the assembly line making Zoltan’s mustard jars. She’d been working on the assembly line for six months when she applied for a job as a seamstress for Daphne Lund, wife of the factory owner, Bertrand Lund. Cecile drew some sketches of dresses for Mrs. Lund and proved an inventive seamstress, bringing Parisian flair to Daphne’s spring wardrobe. The Great Depression didn’t seem to hit the Lund family as hard as other entrepreneurs, so Cecile was kept on, designing mostly evening dresses for Mrs. Lund, traveling with her to New York searching for silks and taffetas and sewing beading into bodices. Within the year, she’d proven herself invaluable.

On a rare outing at the house with the children, Cecile had saved the Lunds’ youngest son from a runaway horse, chasing down the creature on her own horse and grabbing the boy by the belt just as the animal fled into a low patch of trees that would have surely decapitated the child. The couple had already lost two children, so Mrs. Lund was so grateful that Bertrand Lund rewarded Cecile for the heroic deed by giving her a job running his rather elaborate stables. Bertrand Lund hadn’t known his seamstress was such a keen horsewoman. Later, she purchased fifty acres from Lund and built a modest farmhouse, raising her daughter, Margot, alongside the Lund children.

In 1938, using the money she’d saved, Cecile left the employ of the Lund family and began a traveling equestrian show with her Chevrolet pickup truck and a trailer full of old horses. The horses had been a final gift from her employer and were either aging or misfits that Mr. Lund was planning on retiring or shooting. She let the word get out that she was looking to employ clowns and, later, trapeze artists, naming her enterprise Le Cirque Margot, after her daughter.

In those days, weeks before a circus arrived in towns like Charlottesville, Roanoke, Gainesville, Pensacola, Mobile, and Gaffney, posters went up using young Margot as the draw. The circus did two shows in a town—the afternoon matinee and the evening performance—before they broke down the tents and seats. Trailers doubling as ticket booths pulled up at the entrance of the “big top.” A ticket cost 75 cents; reserved seats were $1.25.

Thirteen when the circus was founded, Margot Cabot was becoming an expert horsewoman herself. Early posters in 1940 showed a teenage Margot Cabot hanging upside down on a white stallion, her right leg appearing to be the only thing connecting her to the animal’s back. The second wave of posters for the 1941 season featured Margot wearing a red leotard with a head of plumes, standing astride a white horse with the red lettering that