Emerald Star (Hetty Feather) Read online

  ‘Why? Will I suddenly become beautiful?’

  ‘No, silly. You’re meant to see the face of your true love standing behind you,’ she said.

  ‘Well, my looking glass will be blank, because I haven’t got a true love,’ I said.

  ‘When you’re older you’ll change your mind,’ said Janet.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. I went and knelt beside her. ‘Janet, I love Jem so very much, but not in that way. He won’t ever be my sweetheart. I’m not right for him. But it’s clear as day who is.’ I took hold of her by the shoulders. ‘You are!’

  ‘I might want that, but Jem doesn’t,’ said Janet. ‘He only has eyes for you.’

  ‘Then – then I will go away,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Hetty. This is your home now. Jem would be devastated.’

  ‘Only for a little while – and you could comfort him.’

  ‘You could never leave home! What about your mother?’

  ‘Gideon is much closer to her than I am. He’s wonderful at nursing her, and old Molly could always help out.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re serious. Have you been planning this?’ asked Janet, looking shocked.

  ‘No, I’ve only just this minute realized – but I think it’s what I have to do,’ I said.

  ‘But where will you go? Back to your father?’

  I thought about Father in Monksby. I still felt great affection for him but I knew I would never make a fisher-girl – and would certainly never get on with Katherine. I might go back on a visit, but not to stay.

  I had to earn my own living. I had my memoir almost finished, apart from its ending, but in my heart I knew it was highly unlikely that it would ever be published, let alone make my fortune.

  I couldn’t go back into service because I didn’t have a character reference. I could set myself up as a seamstress, but I needed somewhere to live.

  I clutched my head, feeling as if it might burst with all the thoughts buzzing around inside. Then I heard shouts from the street – the cries of excited children.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Janet. ‘I hope it’s not my little class misbehaving! I wonder why they’re making such a noise? Should I go out and make a fierce teacher face at them, Hetty?’

  I listened and then heard the strangest sound – an odd, high-pitched, strangled roar that was somehow familiar.

  ‘What on earth’s that?’ said Janet. ‘Are they playing some kind of musical instrument?’

  ‘No – no, it’s an elephant!’ I said.

  ‘What?’ said Janet, laughing, thinking I was fooling.

  ‘It is. Oh, Janet, I think it’s the circus!’ I said, running to the window. I threw back the sash and leaned out as far as I could go.

  ‘Careful, Hetty!’ she said, hanging onto me by my petticoats. ‘Oh my goodness, it is a circus!’

  ‘It’s my circus!’ I breathed as I peered down at a great wagon painted scarlet and emerald and canary yellow. It was hard making out the curly writing on the side from this angle, but I could see enough.

  ‘It’s the great Tanglefield Travelling Circus,’ I whispered, barely able to talk. ‘And there’s Elijah the elephant – look!’

  ‘You’re right, Hetty! It comes every year. Do you remember it from when you were little?’ said Janet.

  ‘Oh yes, I remember it,’ I said. ‘I think that’s Mr Tanglefield in the great coat and boots, leading Elijah, the largest elephant in the entire world.’

  That’s how he was billed, but Elijah seemed to have shrunk a little, and was even more wrinkled about the face and belly – but still extraordinarily exotic to be plodding down our little village street. All the children ran along beside him, shrieking with excitement. A lion roared from another wagon and they all screamed, clutching each other.

  ‘Oh, there are the silver boys in their tights, though they’ve grown so, they’re not boys any more. But look, look, there’s a new tiny one . . .’

  A little girl skipped along behind them, only about five or six, in a short white dress and silver ballet slippers. She looked just like a little fairy. She had a small silver tiara sparkling in her blonde hair and carried a wand with a star on the end.

  ‘Oh, the little lamb!’ said Janet, leaning right out of the window too. ‘Surely she can’t be part of a circus act, she’s much too tiny.’

  ‘I’d have given anything to be part of the circus when I was that age,’ I said. ‘And so would Gideon. I do hope he’s watching. He loved those silver acrobats. And I loved . . . Oh please, please, let her still be part of the circus!’

  I waited impatiently while Chino the clown capered past in his ridiculous clothes, deliberately tripping over his own feet, with his sidekick Beppo scampering after him, red mouth agape. I saw a woman in a fancy dress and gasped, but it was only Flora the tightrope walker, plumper than ever, but gamely marching along twirling hoops about her wrists, making a fine show herself.

  Then, right at the end of the procession – oh, glory! – there was a woman in a short pink spangled skirt. She was riding on the back of a sprightly black horse which set off her pale pink costume and white limbs a treat. It was Madame Adeline herself, bravely powdered all over to give off a pearly gleam of youth, her long legs still shapely in her shining white tights, her bright red wig gleaming in the sunlight. She was my Madame Adeline in all her valiant glory, somehow managing to look glamorously beautiful even in the harsh daylight.

  ‘Madame Adeline!’ I called.

  My voice was too hoarse to make much noise and she urged her black horse onwards.

  ‘Madame Adeline, Madame Adeline – oh please look, Madame Adeline!’ I screamed.

  She paused and turned and looked up. I waved to her frantically. She could not really have recognized me. She probably did not even remember our two encounters – or so I thought. But she hesitated, then smiled, her crimson lips beautiful against her white teeth, and then she tapped the star decoration on the bodice of her dress.

  Little Star! She had once called me her Little Star. My heart beat so fast I felt it would burst. ‘Oh, Madame Adeline!’ I called, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  ‘Hetty, Hetty, what is it? Who is she? Do you know her?’ Janet asked in concern.

  ‘Yes, I know her. I know her very well! And she knows me!’ I said.

  Madame Adeline urged the horse onwards to catch up with the rest of the Tanglefield parade – but she turned and waved again, looking straight at me.

  ‘How do you know her? You can’t have seen her since you were four or five,’ said Janet, putting her arms around me.

  ‘I met up with her when I was ten,’ I said, still crying.

  ‘There now, Hetty. How you’re trembling! Did she come to perform at the Foundling Hospital?’

  I stopped crying and burst out laughing at this preposterous thought. Janet still had no inkling of the harsh regime at the hospital.

  ‘No, no, it was when I ran away, when Queen Victoria had her Jubilee. I found Tanglefield’s circus up on Hampstead Heath, and Madame Adeline was so kind to me. She invited me into her caravan and made me tea and listened to my story. I begged her to let me travel with the circus and be part of her performing act. I loved her so. I wished she was my mother.’

  ‘Well, I dare say you can go and see her perform tomorrow. If Jem and Gideon want to go too, I will come and sit with your mother. Oh, I’m so glad the circus has come. It’s brought the roses to your cheeks at last. You look a different girl!’

  I felt different. I could not wait until tomorrow. I flew home and told Gideon. I described the three acrobat brothers in their sparkly suits, and just for a moment fire flickered in his one good eye as he remembered.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful, Gideon? We’ll go tonight – and tomorrow – and the day after! Wait till you see the tiny girl who seems to be in the troupe. She’s so little it’s hard to believe she’s part of the circus. Wouldn’t we have loved to be in the show and perform like that! Oh to be a circus child!’