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

surprise, the tickets have allowed Émile an unprecedented third visit. I’d prepared myself to see him, but I hadn’t anticipated the scream from her dressing room. At Father’s insistence, Madame Plutard told my sister about my pregnancy. The sound that came from the room was like the wailings of a sick animal.

August 15, 1925

Émile sat in the front row at Saturday’s performance, looking miserable.

After the show, I avoided him. As I walked back to change from my costume, I could hear Esmé’s voice coming from her dressing room. Her tone was sharp. “Get out!”

He opened the door, and I saw his face. “What has happened?”

“She is angry,” he said. “She persists that she loves me. It’s like a madness. Finally, I wrote her a letter telling her that I could not be with her and to go away. She sent me a ticket anyway, then sent the two clowns to summon me back here. I just told her to leave me alone. She is angry, as you can hear.” He motioned to the room. “She says we will regret what we’ve done.”

“What we’ve done?” I cocked my head and pulled my collar tight around my neck.

His face softened, and I knew that she’d told him about our baby. I inhaled sharply. While he should have heard it from me, the fact that my sister had felt it was her place to tell Émile my news was a betrayal. Her door was shut tight and likely locked. I thought what I would do to her if it weren’t. “I didn’t intend for you to find out this way.”

“I’m not sure you intended to tell me at all.” He winced and held his hand.

“Are you okay?” I noticed a steady stream of blood falling to the floor from his sleeve.

“Oh, I’ve cut myself, that’s all.” He motioned to Esmé’s dressing room. “There was a shard of glass near her door. I picked it up.”

I led him to my dressing room, which was two doors down, so I could tend to his hand. The cut was a small gash in his palm. I cleaned the wound and wrapped it, but I feared it was far deeper in the center. “You should have a doctor look at that.”

“Do not worry about me.” He touched me briefly on the cheek. “I should be worrying about you.”

“I’m fine.” I moved my cheek away from his hand.

“If you recall, I had suspected as much when you were sick.”

I gave a small snort.

“We can live in my apartment. It’s not big, but it will be fine for a few years.”

“I’ve told you.” I sank into my seat. “We can’t be together.”

“You need to stop thinking of Esmé and begin to think of our child,” he said. “What is your plan—to raise our child here?” He looked around the walls. “This is a place of horror. I’d been warned of the darkness here, but it seeps into your bones.”

“This is my home,” I said.

“But it will not be our child’s home.”

“Oh, Émile,” I said. There has been a growing sense of dread that I have about this pregnancy. I know that I cannot live with Émile outside the circus. I don’t know if that includes my child as well, but even if I could exist out there, with him, I know the artist’s life is solitary. I see how Hadley and Ernest Hemingway struggle with their son, Bumby. Ernest is always writing by himself at the cafés while Hadley walks Bumby alone through the Jardin du Luxembourg, the child toddling beside her. My life at the circus has been vibrant and I’ve been surrounded by performers all my life. I cannot imagine another life, even if it is with Émile.

But he looked at me so expectantly, so in love. “Cecile?”

“It sounds wonderful,” I lied.

August 23, 1925

It is hard to write this, but I need to capture every detail.

After my performance a week ago, I stopped at Montparnasse and was alarmed to see that Émile looked much as he did when I saw him on the street that one night. Once again he was pale, with the dark hollows under his eyes, but this time they were even more pronounced.

I insisted he join Sylvie and me for dinner. He ate very little, assuring me he was just distracted. Worried about him, I spent the night at his apartment. He woke, feverish. Fearing that he had caught something, he sent me back to the circus so he wouldn’t pass it on to me and the baby; the horrors of the Spanish flu still lived large in the minds of soldiers like him. While I didn’t tell him so, I was glad to be back on the other side. My leg and arm had been aching. I felt like I was coming apart; this pregnancy was already taking a toll on my body.

When I didn’t hear from Émile after three days, I insisted that Sylvie accompany me to his apartment. She was hesitant at first, but she reluctantly agreed to go. That Esmé is now shattered over him has caused Sylvie to hate him even more.

The taxi left us off about two blocks from his apartment. The summer air was stifling. At cafés, women fanned themselves and angled for chairs in the shade, the sound of jazz flowing out onto the streets. “You do not like him.”

Her hands plunged deep into her dress. “I don’t know how you could possibly like him, let alone love him. He slept with Esmé.”

“He didn’t sleep with her.” This was what Émile told me, and I believed him.

She snorted and spun in front of me in the street. “Do you really think Esmé would be this angry and possessive of him if she hadn’t slept with him?” Sighing in disgust, she walked the block in silence.

The truth of this statement made me defensive. “You haven’t been shy about conveying your opinion of him.”

We turned