Page 34 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House
Mallory wasn’t normally allowed in the covered waggon.
It was for the Ballard family only; Samson, his Russian wife Katerina and their two daughters.
Well, Esfir was actually their granddaughter but to the outside world the child was Katerina’s.
But, in many ways, the circus was Mallory’s family now, because she’d learned that family could be chosen and need not be blood, and was especially thankful that this was the case because her real father had never wanted her.
Gathering up the laundry she’d come in search of, she ducked her head under the small baskets, blackened pots and bunches of dried herbs hanging from the bowed ceiling.
It was a cramped and cluttered space, but homely, with brass lanterns on the wall and two beds, one above the other, at the far end.
Far more comfortable than the bedrolls of wool and straw that most of them slept on in the large communal tent.
She suddenly knew she was being watched and thought at first that it might be Zella, returned from the village, because at three, Esfir was too little to see up into the waggon through the open door.
But as she turned, drawing her cloak further over her face, she saw a young, fair-haired girl peering in, and the Ballard women were all dark, with hair like liquorice and eyes to match.
The child darted away as soon as Mallory approached the steps and ran into the bushes, believing herself better concealed than she actually was – almost quivering behind the bare stems of the hawthorn.
She wasn’t part of the troupe so she must be a local girl.
And locals creeping around the camp was never a good thing.
‘What do you want?’ Mallory shouted, keeping her face covered. ‘Come to nose? Steal stuff? Or just have a jolly good laugh?’
Ashamed at having been caught spying, the small figure stood up and took a few steps towards her.
The child was brave, she acknowledged, but then had it been Samson stepping down from the waggon and confronting her, the girl would have run for the hills.
He was over six feet tall, with a shaved head but the bushiest mahogany-coloured beard, and muscles that made him nearly as broad as he was high.
A giant of a man, he wore a permanently fierce expression, enough to scare anyone, although the truth was, he always looked intimidating, even when he was happy.
‘Mother said there were travelling performers camped up near the cliffs.’ The young girl, who Mallory guessed was about nine or ten, had her head bowed, as though she were standing before a schoolteacher or a priest. Her voice dropped to a reverent whisper.
‘I heard her talking to our neighbour about how you were circus people: acrobats, jugglers and fortune tellers. I’ve read about such in the penny chapbooks she buys from the pedlars.
I wanted to know if you were going to perform, and wondered if you had an elephant because I’ve never seen one. I was… I was curious.’
Mallory’s tone softened. This girl wasn’t here to tease or gawp. She simply had an enquiring mind and a desire to experience things outside her undoubtedly narrow village life.
‘No elephants, I’m afraid, and we don’t put on shows in the wintertime. Our horses are exhausted and we’re here to rest, practise our acts and get everything in order for next spring, when we’ll be on the road again.’
They were a ragtag bunch – the assorted performers and hangers-on at Samson’s Circus of Astonishing Spectacles.
They numbered nearly thirty in the summer months but many of these were casual labour – men employed to help erect the tents, rustle up trade and look after the animals. They were only half that number now.
Possibly encouraged that the cloaked woman hadn’t shouted at her, the girl took a few steps closer.
‘We usually stop in November and start performing again at Easter, when the roads are easier to travel on,’ Mallory continued.
‘It’s tough going for the poor horses this time of year.
We’ll only be here for a little while, but there’s much to be done.
Samson, the owner, has a head full of ideas for new acts he wants to try out, the women will be busy mending and sewing the costumes, and the hands must make repairs to our equipment and give the waggons a lick of paint. ’
To be truthful, Mallory wasn’t sure why they’d travelled up to the barren coastal village of Thistlewick Tye at all.
It seemed an unnecessary detour to her. They could easily have remained in Oxfordshire, where they’d performed their final shows of the season.
But she’d overheard Katerina and Samson arguing about money, and it was implied that Thistlewick Tye might offer a solution to their current financial predicament.
So, the waggons had been loaded and the arduous journey undertaken.
Perhaps, she speculated, they were chasing a new act, but had asked no questions, fearful that she was the act they were replacing.
They’d camped a fair distance back from the cliffs but the other side of the common to most of the village, overlooking the endless sands of the Norfolk beaches.
Out the way of the locals but close enough to make use of their amenities and buy provisions.
From what Zella had told her after scouting around that morning, it was somewhat of a backward place, and their arrival had led to the usual mix of curiosity and fear. Both, she understood completely.
‘You won’t be putting on any shows for us?’ The young girl sounded bitterly disappointed. ‘I shan’t get to see galloping white horses and young men walking across tightropes?’
‘In Samson’s Circus of Astonishing Spectacles the tightrope walker is a young woman.
Zella is our acrobat and only seventeen years of age.
Here…’ She pointed to the side of the waggon where a couple of their handbills had been pasted to the wooden boards.
The information was out of date now as they’d lost their juggler – a double blow as he’d also played the fiddle and been the musical accompaniment to many of the acts.
Next season, Samson hoped to acquire a clown, complaining the show needed more laughs.
The girl peered up to read the information.
It was printed in a bold scarlet because Katerina insisted the extra cost of red ink would make it stand out – which it did.
The large, fancy block lettering was surrounded by smaller engravings of some of the acts.
The dramatic language was also Katerina; words such as ‘astonishing’, ‘Herculean’ and ‘Daredevil’.
Mallory had long been suspicious that the enigmatic fortune teller was not Russian at all but instead a well-educated English speaker.
To be fair, she looked the part, with her dark colouring, kohl-lined eyes and flowing headscarves.
She used words such as da and nyet, occasionally came out with the odd Russian expression and had a thick foreign accent, but Mallory had never heard her speak fluently in her alleged native tongue.
The young girl began to read the words aloud, her eyes wide with unconcealed awe.
Samson’s Circus of Astonishing Spectacles
Gasp as Samson the Herculean strongman lifts a woman with each hand and bends iron bars!
Watch aghast as the Daredevil Zella walks the tightrope!
Laugh at Rag Doll Sally – the elastic contortionist!
Witness the enigmatic Serpent Master, Hazibub, charm the deadly cobra and swallow fire!
Dare to have your destiny revealed by the mystical Russian Madame Katerina!
Be astounded by the knife juggler, stilt walker,
dazzling equestrian displays!
And gaze upon our Living Wonders:
Giraffe Woman, Little Cupid and the Toad Girl!
Admission 6d
‘And you?’ she asked. ‘What do you do in the circus? Do you swallow fire? Balance on the horses?’
Mallory tugged at her hood and let it fall to her shoulders, exposing the disfiguring lumps across her face.
‘I’m the Toad Girl.’ She shrugged.
Mallory had been quite like other children until her early adolescence when these unsightly bumps started to appear.
Admittedly, her teeth had always been rather peculiar, with an extra row behind those that people could see.
And, in recent years, she’d become painfully thin, finding blood when she used the pot.
The tumours, which were only apparent on the outside, were, she’d long suspected, also growing on the inside.
She wouldn’t make old bones. But, strangely, with the appearance of the lumps had come a life that she’d not trade for one three times as long without them.
Mallory Hornchurch was the only daughter of a Derbyshire coal miner who’d desperately wished for a son.
She was already a disappointment when her sex was announced by the midwife, and even more so when her mother passed away two days later.
It had all somehow justified her father’s naming of the small, wailing infant twenty-nine years ago, for Mallory meant ill-omened and unfortunate, and to him she was both those things.
He’d never loved her but he’d never been cruel – possibly because he was rarely home to administer frustrated blows or lash out with hurtful words.
They shared a small end-of-terrace stone cottage with her paternal grandmother, where the two women did piecework for the textile industry – embroidering small flowers on bonnets, dresses and linens – whilst her father worked long hours in the mines.
One summer, the circus came to town and he’d had the idea that his unfortunate burden of a daughter might be at once both off his hands and fare better in a place where she wasn’t the only oddity.
Perhaps there was some kindness in his actions – Mallory chose to think so.
They’d very little money and she was becoming increasingly lonely, with people giving her a wide berth as the growths started to proliferate.