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The Tin Bird by Spikez_tart
 
Juggler
 
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Tin bird

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns the characters and makes the money. I right the wrongs of the Evil Writers who refused to get Buffy and Spike together where they belonged.

SPECIAL THANKS: Extra special thanks to nmcil for her inspiring banner. You can see more of her fabulous work at href = “http://www.whedonworld.com”

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Chapter 6 – Juggler


The lamplighters lit the streetlights early that evening and a blustery wind had already blown out some of the lamps. The remaining lights sputtered and failed to penetrate the sleeting rain and gloom as William walked to church to attend choir practice. He turned the collar of his coat up. The church sat on a corner, its spire and upper floors obscured by a thick, dark fog. Gas fixtures on the first floor sent muted light through the sealed, arched windows. He pulled his coat lapels closer and crossed the intersection, stepping in puddles and catching icy splashes of passing hacks and carriages.

Cecily would be at the church tonight. He might have an opportunity to speak to her in private about their future together. He planned to get matters settled as soon as possible. He planned not to think of Miss Harlan ever again.

Choir practice started a half hour ago. He was late and he didn’t much care. He was tired of being punctual. He stopped at the bottom of the front steps and listened to the sour wheezing sounds of the organ and voices struggling to be heard over the sharp wind.

In many an hour, when fear and dread,
Like evil spells have bound us,
And clouds were gathering overhead,
In many a night when waves ran high …

The song continued at a dirge pace. He backed away from the steps. He didn’t want to go in tonight. He didn’t want to go into the church which had once been a comfort and solace for him. The building would be suffocating and his damp wool suit would steam in the heat. He didn’t want to sing hymns that sounded like funeral marches and he didn’t want to meet Cecily. The church was the cornerstone of all the weights that burdened him, the rules and the traps. The church was marriage to a stiff laced woman and being punctual and never saying what he meant, but only what was polite, and sitting in a hot parlor every night for the rest of his life. The church was yards of black satin ribbon tied and tangled on everything he owned or touched.

He took the playbill out of his pocket. He should have tossed it in the fire this morning. There was no hope, no future, no escape with Miss Harlan.

After brief taste of earthly woe
For whom, by cruel torments rent …

He didn’t want to be married to Cecily. Marriage to her would only be a continuation of the chains that bound him to his mother’s hot, overstuffed parlor. No, he wanted something else, something luminous. He wanted love. Wild ... and passionate and dangerous love. Love that burned and consumed. Love that carried the promise of heartbreak and perhaps even death. He wanted to bind himself to a green-eyed girl with the voice of heaven’s own angels. But, he couldn’t. Miss Harlan would never be his girl. Cecily was his painful destiny.

Death hath no power to hurt you more…

There was still time to make the show if he hurried. There was still time to fling himself into one single night of happiness before he was chained forever to unromantic domesticity and a woman who would endure his touch for the sake of propriety.

A rich man’s private carriage pulled up in the street in front of the church. Charles Bloxham dropped out and accosted William. “Tore yourself away from your mother’s skirts this evening?”

“Please, do not speak about my mother, sir.”

Bloxham cupped his hands around his mouth, lit up a small cigar and clamped it in his teeth. He drew one foul-smelling puff before the wind and rain snuffed it out. “I have a Christmas gift for you, young man.”

William huddled into his black greatcoat and backed away. He hated the man and he suspected some trick. “I have to go.”

“What’s the hurry, William? Can’t spare a moment for an old pal?”

“You are not my friend.” There, he’d said it to Bloxham’s face. It was rude, but it was the truth. Telling the truth felt good.

Bloxham laughed. “Don’t suppose I am. Catch!” He flipped a brass coin at William.

William caught the coin and peered at it in the light from the sputtering gaslight. It was a brass token for a house of prostitution. He threw it back in Bloxham’s face. He pulled his hat over his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear Bloxham’s laughter and ran down the street.

~ ~ ~

The show had already started by the time William picked up his ticket from the matron at the box office. He slid into his seat, a good seat on the first floor, set to one side where he’d be able to see Miss Harlan perfectly. On stage, a man performed a juggling act with three balls, red, white and black, so William had time to look around.

The Augury Theatre was a fine, large hall of two stories with a bow-front stage lit by a double row of gas lights. The stage contained a piano on the left, a bass concertina on the right, with, as the program stated, vamps in principal keys, and a curtained arch in the center. The arch had been painted with gilt and hung with sangria-red velvet curtains looped up with wide black-satin sashes. In front of the stage, an orchestra played in the pit. The main floor seated several hundred people in rows of scarlet velvet chairs, split into three sections. Above the main floor, gilt private boxes pushed out of the walls, and two gilt and crystal chandeliers lit the room.

William scarcely had a chance to take in all of the room when he saw, to his astonishment, the same dark-haired man with two women that he’d seen at The Raven and at Harrods. He shrank into his seat as the man fixed his gaze on him. For a moment, the man’s eyes glowed nasty yellow and his entire face seemed contorted into a fright mask. William blinked his eyes and looked away. When he looked at the man again, his face appeared normal.

“I’m losing my mind. A man’s eyes can’t be yellow. My glasses must need adjusting or it’s some trick of the light. The light is very strange in this place.” He fixed his attention on the juggler and avoided looking in the man’s direction.

The juggler finished his act to a spattering polite applause and rude catcalls. A man came out of the wings and spoke in an exaggerated manner with a suppressed hint of cockney accent.

“… brought to our fair island from the wilds of America by showman and entrepreneur, Mr. Joseph Crowfoot, our next performer was a Sensation in the American Cities of New York, Boston and Philadelphia, she’s a voice like the cherubs in heaven and a face as lovely as the morning dew, please welcome Miss Emma Harlan …”

William sat on the edge of his seat, his fingers clenched on the chair arms. Miss Harlan was next. Would she be as pretty and her voice as lovely as he remembered?

She walked through the arch as the orchestra struck up a sad tune. The dark velvet curtains closed behind her, the house lights dimmed and she glowed in a silver white sphere of light surrounded by thick, pulsing darkness. Her dress sparkled with silver, pink, aqua and gold glass beads and clung to her figure. Her curling blonde locks, brushed down over her shoulders, made her look young and wild. She clasped her hands and turned to the right and left, and the audience roared its approval, as she started her song.

I would not die in spring time
When all is bright around,
And Fair young flowers are peeping
From out the silent ground.


She was more beautiful, her voice more clear and sweet than he’d remembered. She swayed with the lyrics and closed her eyes.

But let me die in winter,
When night hangs dark above,
And cold the snow is lying
On bosoms that we love.
Ah! May the wind at midnight,
That bloweth from the sea,
Chaunt mildly, softly, sweetly,
A requiem for me.


She pierced his heart with love and longing. What a fool he was! To think that for a moment he’d entertained the notion of only seeing her one more time before returning home to his mother and one day, to Cecily. No. He couldn’t go back there. Whatever he had to do, whatever pain he inflicted, even on his own mother, he must be with Miss Harlan, with dear Emma. She was the dangerous love that burned with pain and glowed and consumed until there was nothing left but ashes. He’d persuade Miss Harlan to run away with him this very evening. They take the mail train to Gretna Green tonight and marry in the morning. No one could stop them.

A creeping feeling, a feeling of being stared at, came over William and he glanced to the box where the strange man with the yellow eyes sat. The man was once again looking at him. The man smiled and stared until William looked away. William wished the man to the devil.

Miss Harlan sang two more songs, received the tumultuous approval of the crowd and slipped off the stage and disappeared into the shadowy wings. The orchestra played a short refrain and the main curtain came down to signal the intermission.

William jumped out of his seat and shoved his way past several other theater patrons before the house lights had been brought up in his haste to see Miss Harlan. He ran out the side exit and around the back of the theater. A small man wearing a rusty black bowler, dirty white shirt with no collar and tan and black tattersall pants checked his name against a list and sent him inside. He shuddered at the thought of dear Emma associating herself with such men.

It took several minutes to search through the crowded back area of the stage to find Miss Harlan’s dressing room. She had a tiny dressing room to herself. He tapped on the door and called out her name.

A woman of forty or more years, with dark blonde hair in a waving pompadour and a thick, but still curving body, answered the door. “So, you’re the new one. I’m Mrs. Slookey, Emma’s mother,” she said. She stood in the door, gripping the handle, looking William up and down. Her eyes took in his worn collar and the frayed edges of the front of his suit. She nodded her head and opened the door.

William fumbled with his hat. Should he introduce himself to this woman? She seemed to see every fault in his appearance and his manner, and perhaps some that he didn’t even know he possessed. “My name is William Pratt, ma’am. I’d like to see Miss Harlan, if I may.”

She backed away from the door. “Emma, gentleman caller.”

The room was small and painted in sunshine yellow. It contained a dressing table with a large oval mirror and a padded seat and a stuffed chair covered with a flowery chintz print. Brilliantly colored dresses, hats and scarves – royal blue, maroon red, purple and emerald green - were flung around the room. There wasn’t a single black ribbon to be seen.

Emma peeped out from behind a screen where she’d been changing her costume. Her face broke into a wide smile and her eyes crinkled with pleasure. “Billy, you came. Run along, mother.”

Mrs. Slookey disappeared into the hall and Emma ran out from behind the screen and launched herself into William’s arms. She wore only her chemise, corset, drawers, stockings and crimson kid boots. Garish stage paint colored her heart-shaped face pale gray and pinkish makeup smeared a thin streak down her neck. “I was afraid you might not come.”

William’s face blazed red. He’d never before been in the presence of a woman in such a state of undress. Miss Harlan’s mother said he was the new one. Had she done this sort of thing before? He refused to think about that. He didn’t care about her past. He only cared about this moment, when she was in his arms and he could smell the faint violet whiff of her cologne and the heated scent of her body. He closed his arms around her and placed his hands on the crisp cotton batiste of her chemise. He tried not to let his hands touch her skin. But, he wanted to touch her skin, all of her skin. He moved his hands to touch her bare arms and held her close. “I had to come, dear Miss Harlan.”

She touched her lips on his and they melted together in a kiss. His entire body crackled, his head grew light and his breath came in gasps. He struggled to control those terrible feelings that he’d experienced last night when he’d dreamed of her, feelings a hundred times stronger now that he held the real woman in his arms. His member grew hard and he wanted so much to press himself next to her, but he feared to upset her, perhaps even repulse her with his physical desires. To his surprise, she made the first move, hooking her leg around his back and crushing herself against his front. He touched her breast with his fingers and she didn’t move away.

After a moment, she broke their kiss and stepped out of his arms. “There isn’t much time. I have to sing again in a few minutes. Promise you’ll meet me after the show.”

It took a moment for William to gather his wits. “Where?”

She didn’t answer, but touched his face. “Are you a kind man, Billy?”

“I could always be kind to you.” He grasped her hand. “I know a beautiful girl like you could have any man she wanted and I don’t have much money, but if you could see your way clear to marry me, I would always do my best to make you happy.”

She stepped into his arms again and embraced him. “I don’t want those other men. They have money and a place in the world, its true, but they’re cold and heartless.”

“You’re full of life and beauty and music, and, and I love you. Please say yes, and make me the happiest man on earth.”

Before Emma could answer, someone knocked on the door and called “Five minutes.”

“I must get dressed. Meet me outside the back door after the show.” She rushed behind the screen. “Send my mother in when you go.”

He felt too happy to resent the dismissal and it wasn’t really proper for him to be lounging around her dressing room until they married. Mrs. Slookey came into the room and shoved him out the door before he could tell her the happy news. He waited outside to catch another glimpse of her.

A few minutes later Emma left the dressing room. She wore a scarlet velvet dress that made her blonde hair gleam and a gold-colored necklace with paste ruby stones. The rubies glistened like drops of blood against her creamy neck. She blew William a kiss as she glided to the stage.

 
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