The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (ebook reader with internet browser TXT) 📗

The real Margot, however, made the circus look tame by comparison. A wild teenager who smoked and drank gin, Margot Cabot was also a great beauty. But the circus’s namesake never seemed to take to her birthright. At the age of seventeen, Margot left the circus—a turn of events that would have been funny since few people run away from the circus. She’d fallen in love with a driver on the demolition derby circuit, and nothing Cecile could say would stop her.

In the fall of 1944, after about a year on the road, things with the man she’d run off with seemed to go south. Abruptly, Margot returned to Kerrigan Falls and within the year had married Simon Webster, the founder of the Kerrigan Falls Express newspaper.

While she settled down, Margot still wasn’t “right,” often not leaving her room for days—including not eating or bathing. The logistics of these episodes were difficult for a man trying to run a daily newspaper. Simon hired nurses to coax her to eat and twice a week to throw her into the bathtub. Then, as quickly as they began, the episodes would cease and Margot would be demurely seated at the breakfast table in her silk robe, buttering her toast and sipping coffee—having returned from wherever it was her mind had gone.

She’d also come and go at the circus in those days, Cecile dreading her arrival because she was unreliable, demanding her show be included but not practicing it enough for it to be safe. On a horse, Margot was an artist. While Cecile could ride, she couldn’t hold a candle to Margot. It was as though the horse weren’t even there—as though she were interacting with a chair, not a living, pulsing creature with a mind of its own.

After five years of marriage, Margot gave birth to a daughter, Audrey, in the fall of 1950. Margot’s eccentric and impulsive nature began to get wilder and she began to exhibit odd signs, claiming to see the devil in the field. One day, Simon found her standing in the apple groves, watching the first winter snowfall in her thin nightgown and bare feet, Audrey dangling loosely in her arms, chanting a spell and saying that he had asked to see the baby. Her husband had had it by then. It was one thing to endanger herself but another to harm their young daughter. Simon called an institution to take Margot, but within a day, she’d developed a fever, dying three days later.

Cecile, who had been on the road touring, moved back and took over much of the care of Audrey, letting her manager run the circus in her absence. Le Cirque Margot continued to thrive through the 1960s when Audrey picked up trick riding like Cecile and her mother, working the shows each summer. In 1972, when Audrey made it clear that she didn’t want a life on the road, Cecile, then seventy-two years old, decided it was time to retire the show. For years, ticket sales had been lagging, since families had other forms of entertainment. The age of the circus—and Le Cirque Margot—was at an end.

Now Le Cirque Margot lived on only in memorabilia. Posters and signs with Margot’s face could be found all over Kerrigan Falls. The historical society had an entire collection of circus memorabilia as well as original Zoltan’s mustard jars.

A jolt of nostalgia for Cecile gripped her, and she grabbed the frame. Her mother was right. This painting should be with her. She’d get Gaston Boucher working on it as soon as possible.

Walking the block down from her house to Main Street, she stopped off at the Feed & Supply Coffee House, needing caffeine before a three-hour evening shift. Shortly after Lara had purchased the radio station, Caren opened Kerrigan Falls’ only coffeehouse in the old hardware store next door to 99.7 K-ROCK. Feed & Supply was one of the new businesses that thrived due to the Washington, DC, transplants who’d moved out to the country and expected things like lattes, red velvet cake, and artisanal breads.

As the bell jingled overhead, Lara noticed that things were slow for a Wednesday evening. Caren was constantly suffering local college students who ordered only a tall drip coffee and sat for four hours on a sofa just for the new Wi-Fi. From the looks of it, she had four students and a book club tonight. The book club seemed to have an assortment of cakes and drinks with whipped cream, so that was a good sign.

The old hardware store was long and narrow with wide oak planks on the floor and a tin ceiling. Caren and Lara had removed the counter from the old pharmacy that had once stood in the space now occupied by the 99.7 K-ROCK studio and lugged it on two borrowed dollies over to the coffeehouse. It was a perfect fit along the wall, and Caren displayed scones and muffins there in covered glass domes. Then they scoured thrift shops and estate sales up and down Route 29, finding old velvet sofas and vintage leather chairs. The look was like a smoking room with deep jewel tones, brown wood, and aged leather—Lara had been pleased that such a mismatch of furniture styles could blend this well.

As she paid for her drink, Lara spied a Ouija board on the coffee table—not a Parker Brothers board, but an antique one that she didn’t recognize.

“Where’d you get that?” She pointed to it.

“Isn’t it great? I’m thinking we have a séance some night after close.” Caren placed the lid on Lara’s white mocha. “A customer donated it to the shop. It doubles as a tray.”

Lara did notice the sides of the board scooped upward. “Who was it?”

“Dunno,” said Caren with a shrug. “Some blond woman. She looked familiar, though I’m not sure from where.” Caren raised her eyebrow. “Please tell me you’re not still freaked out by Ouija boards?”

“No,” said Lara, not convincing anyone.

“You’re such