A Proper Lover (Ganymede Quartet Book 2) (29 page)

Everyone began talking about the girl on the swing again. Louis put forth the proposition that she was every bit as pretty as Albert’s sister Abigail, an assertion that Albert seemed uncomfortable with.

“They have similar coloring, maybe,” Albert allowed. “They’re really unlike otherwise.”

Henry only vaguely recalled Abigail on her bicycle in the park. She’d been a pretty, blue-eyed blonde with a heart-shaped face—so, actually quite like the aerialist, in fact. He didn’t recall the state of Abigail’s bosoms well enough to make that particular comparison, but he was sure Louis would be able to tell him whose were bigger, if only he cared to ask.

Now Henry’s friends were trying to recall funny lines from the comedic act.

Freddie said, “It goes like this, guys: ‘You know what the difference is between you and a horse? A horse wears shoes.’”

Wendell jumped in. “And the other guy says, ‘But I wear shoes.’”

Freddie was already laughing when he finished the joke. “So then he says, ‘Then I guess there’s no difference!’”

Although Freddie and Wendell were dying laughing, none of their friends were impressed.

“You have to deliver a joke just right,” Louis said, shaking his head, clearly feeling that his friends did not have the knack.

Freddie was determined to prove he could deliver. “Wait, what about this one? Wendell, do you remember? ‘Did you get your hair cut?’”

Wendell snorted, already overcome. “Ha! ‘No, I had my ears lowered!’”

Charles frowned and shook his head. “You guys only remember the corny ones.”

“They’re funny!” Freddie insisted. “You were all laughing; I heard you!”

The lights dimmed and everyone hastened to return to their seats.

“This had better be good,” Louis said, using the same warning tone he had earlier. “It’s going to have to be amazing to make me forget about
her
.”

“She was really good,” Henry said, trying to get into the spirit of things.

He had not been convincing. Louis gave him a sidelong look, slightly disgusted. “She was
incredible
, Henry. We’ll all try to meet her, and then you’ll see.”

The new title card announced a one-act play, and the curtains opened on a scene of a young gentleman and young lady in evening dress in a fancy parlor, their respective slaves in attendance. The premise was that these amorous young people wanted nothing better than to sit on the sofa and neck, but for various reasons their slaves wanted to keep them apart. The scene was farcical, physical and frantic, and ended with the two slaves wedged between their sulking masters on the little sofa, locked in a fervent embrace and kissing passionately in proxy.

While it perhaps had not met the high standard set by the blonde on her swing, Louis still seemed to enjoy the performance, elbowing Henry and guffawing throughout.

At last, it was time for the magician. Henry turned to glance at Martin, who was clutching Tom’s arm and whispering into his ear in an animated fashion, and Henry rather wished he hadn’t seen it.
He
wanted to be the one who shared Martin’s excitement. He wanted Martin to cling to
him
in anticipation of enjoyment. There had to be someplace they could do that sort of thing, but he didn’t know where to begin to look.

The music reached a crescendo and the curtains opened on an empty stage. The magician emerged from a cloud of roiling smoke, an elegant fellow in a tailcoat and silk hat who struck a dramatic pose near the lip of the stage. When he swept the hat from his head, his brilliantined hair was as smooth as glass. He showed them the empty interior of the hat and then proceeded to pull a snowy white rabbit out of it. He held the little rabbit in one hand by the scruff of its neck and it kicked feebly at the air as it blinked its pink eyes. He held the rabbit with both hands and then, with a tearing gesture, suddenly had two rabbits, one in each hand.

All around, the audience was erupting into bursts of excited applause.

“How did he—?” Martin asked in a thrilled whisper.

“I don’t know!” Tom whispered back, equally thrilled.

The little rabbits were then somehow recombined into one big, fat rabbit and a pretty dark-haired girl in a skimpy sequined costume and pink tights came out to collect the animal, smiling as she carried it offstage, cradled against her breast. This comely assistant was greeted with near-universal approval by the mostly male audience, and it was likely no accident that she returned to the stage in short order, posing discreetly off to the side, but still very much visible, while the magician did some tricks with colorful silk squares.

Next the assistant wheeled out a large steamer trunk, red with black trim, and the magician climbed in and the lock was fastened. The assistant climbed on top of the trunk with the help of a step-stool and took a coquettish pose, knee bent and hip cocked, holding up a curtain which hid her from the audience. Everything was completely still, with only the barest shimmer of movement across the satin of the curtain, and then, with a dramatic musical flourish, the curtain was dropped, revealing the magician in her place. The magician helped his assistant out of the trunk while the audience applauded.

The magician asked for a volunteer and many hands went in the air, free and slave alike. He selected a young woman near the front who seemed particularly excited. As the assistant brought the girl up to the stage, the magician wheeled out a camelback sofa, grand and old-fashioned, and placed this at center stage.

The magician announced his intention to hypnotize the girl and free her from the bonds of gravity. She swayed on her feet as he told her she was light as a feather and free of the bonds of gravity. She was led to the sofa and lay down and was covered with a sheet. With a few eloquent words and a wave of his hand, her sheet-covered body rose in the air to hover above his head. While the crowd applauded this amazing sight, the assistant whisked the sofa offstage.

The magician walked around and beneath the girl’s floating form, then stood back as she made a slow descent. When she’d reached the level of his waist, and accompanied by a dramatic build in the music, he pulled the sheet from her body with a grand flourish, only to reveal that she had utterly vanished.

Martin made a little noise, shocked and awed, that made Henry keenly feel his delight. How he wanted to be in Tom’s place! The crowd drew a collective amazed breath and began to clap in astonished appreciation. The magician bowed deeply, to one side of the auditorium and then the other, but the show wasn’t over yet. As the music reached yet another dramatic crescendo, there was a bang and a billow of smoke and the hypnotized girl emerged from the cloud at the rear of the stage, rubbing at her eyes and blinking in confusion. The assistant hurried to her side and seemed to be comforting and reassuring her. The magician bent over her hand once again, and then together he and the assistant led the girl to the stairs at the side of the stage and bade her farewell.

In the midst of thunderous applause, the magician took a pack of cards from inside his tailcoat and began flicking them into the audience with sharp, precise movements of his wrist. He seemed quite able to put a card into the hands of anyone he deemed worthy anywhere in the hall. Henry waved his hands like everyone else, but he wasn’t chosen. Robert was, however, as were David and Tom, who promptly gave his card to Martin.

“Oh, no, Tom, you keep it.”

“I only wanted it so I could give it to you,” Tom confided. “Go on, take it. It’ll be wasted otherwise.”

Henry seethed, but resisted the urge to intervene. He wasn’t going to deny Martin the gift.

Martin leaned forward and put his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Look, Sir. See what Tom’s given me.” He passed the card to Henry. It was a color lithograph of the handsome magician and his lissome assistant, holding between them a silk hat with a white rabbit inside. It was signed in an extravagant, looped hand across their images. The reverse side had an advertisement for a stomach remedy.

“Do you see, Sir? It’s signed.” Martin squeezed Henry’s shoulder.

“It was very kind of you to give this to Martin, Tom,” Henry said stiffly.

Tom blushed under Henry’s scrutiny. “I could see Martin wanted it more than me, Sir,” he offered bashfully. “Martin
is
my good friend, after all.”

The magician and his assistant took a great many deep bows, playing to all corners of the auditorium, and left the stage with the crowd’s enthusiasm still high.

Henry turned and said, “Next is the motion picture,” although surely Martin knew this; Henry just wanted to have some further interaction with Martin, however insubstantial.

Martin leaned forward, close enough that his breath tickled Henry’s ear. “I’m excited to see it, Sir.”

All around them, people who were jaded about motion pictures were getting up and leaving. Half of Henry’s friends were on their feet and moving toward the aisle. Robert and Charles pushed past Henry’s knees.

The motion picture started with an image of a train roaring down a track.

“I can’t see, Sir,” Martin complained.

Henry got to his feet. “Stand up and watch,” he said. “If you block someone’s view, well, they can just stand up, too.”

Much as with the Mutoscopes, the theme of motion pictures was motion. Following the train, there was a scene of Niagara Falls thundering down from a great height, then horses galloping around a track, then dancers in a ballroom. Henry kept darting glances back at Martin to see how he enjoyed this, and he seemed quite rapt.

Louis elbowed Henry. “We’ll meet you in the lobby, all right?”

“We’ll just be a few minutes,” Henry told him. “I want Martin to see all of it.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “You spoil him,” he said, though his tone suggested there wasn’t really anything wrong with this.

At the end of the row, Freddie called to Tom. “Come on, Tom. We’re leaving.”

Tom frowned, creasing his smooth brow. “I’ll see you in a minute or two, then,” he said, touching Martin’s arm.

Martin kept his eyes on the screen. “All right, Tom. I’ll be out shortly.” He reached to put his hand on Henry’s arm. “It’s amazing, isn’t it, Sir? The things people think of!”

Martin, Henry thought, was the sort of person who would think up motion pictures if they didn’t already exist. Henry was the sort of person who’d live in a cave and spend his days breaking things up with rocks if someone else hadn’t invented civilization for his benefit.

When the motion picture was over, Henry made his way to the aisle slowly, dawdling to enjoy just a few more moments alone with Martin as they each made their way along their rows to the aisle. “Did you like it? Not just the motion picture, I mean, but all of it.”

“It was wonderful, Sir,” Martin said earnestly. “I can’t stop thinking about the rabbits, Sir. How do you suppose he did that?”

Henry was at a loss. “The only explanation I can come up with is that he’s able to do actual magic. You know, witches and warlocks stuff.”

Martin snorted at this idea. “It has to have been a trick, Sir,” he mused, “but I can’t begin to guess how it was done.”

Making their way up the aisle toward the lobby, their shoulders touching, Henry said, “Do you want ice cream? I’m sure everyone is planning to go.”

Martin laughed. “Of course I do, Sir. When have I ever not wanted ice cream?”

After ice cream, Albert went home, taking Stuart with him, but everyone else went to the arcade. Henry got change for a dollar and gave Martin most of the pennies and watched as he went to play with the lung strength tester with Tom and Simon. Reluctantly, Henry turned his back on his slave and made an effort to pay attention while his friends took turns testing the strength of their punches. Henry had his turn and put in a poor effort but still came in second to Wendell.

“You usually beat me,” Wendell noted. “Are you sick or something?”

Henry shrugged, embarrassed. “I’m just tired, I guess.”

They plugged pennies into all the strength testers and then the gambling machines. Henry had no better luck with gambling games than he did with poker and lost all thirty-two pennies he had in his pocket.

“Do you need to get more pennies?” Louis asked. “Or do you want to borrow some?”

“I’m fine,” Henry said, putting his hands in his coat pockets. “I’ll just watch for a bit.”

“That’s no fun,” Louis said. “I’ll give you pennies, all right?” A bell rang on Louis’ machine and it disgorged a handful of pennies. “Here, have these.”

“No, really, I’m fine.”

Louis shrugged. “Suit yourself, then.”

Henry looked around. It was only Louis, Charles and himself, everyone else having moved on to another set of machines. “Say, I wanted to ask you something…”

“Sure. What is it?” Louis put another penny into the machine he’d just received a payout from.

“You, too, Charles.”

Charles looked up from his game. “Me, too, what?”

“I just wondered if everyone knew about what was going on with Sam.”

“Sam?” Louis said. “Oh, wait—Sam! Adam’s pitiful little guy, right?”

“Martin’s been really worried about him. He’s afraid Adam’s going to kill him.”

“Adam won’t kill him,” Louis said confidently. “There’d be a
huge
fine.”

“That’s what I said,” Henry told him, “but Martin wasn’t convinced. He asked me to get my father to do something.”

Louis scoffed at this notion. “Like
what
? Besides, your dads
hate
each other. Why would Mr. Pettibone listen to your dad about anything?”

“I told him that, too,” Henry admitted. “But I asked Father anyway, and he can’t help. Not that I was surprised.”

“Simon told me about what’s going on just this past week,” Charles admitted. “There’s nothing I can do, either, and my father refused to even consider getting involved.”

“But do you think there maybe
is
something we could do?” Henry asked. “I mean, Adam won’t listen to any of us, but do you think maybe one of
his
friends…?”

“If Adam’s mistreating Sam,” Louis said, “then Adam’s friends
must
know about it. They’re all swapping with him, after all. They’d see bruises or whatever, right? So either there’s nothing to see, or none of them care, and so they won’t help Sam anyway.” He put another coin in the slot and pulled the handle. “Sam isn’t any of our business, anyway, guys—you know this. You wouldn’t want Adam to interfere with how you treat Martin or Simon, would you?”