The Prestige (17 page)

16th April 1877

My financial sentence of death has been pronounced, made official! Henry has informed me,
through his solicitors, that my allowance is as expected to end on my twenty-first
birthday. I have the continuing right to reside in Caldlow House, but only in the rooms
already allocated to me.

I am glad in a way that he has at last said the words. Uncertainty no longer dogs me. I
have until September next year. Seventeen months in which to break this vicious circle of
failure to get work, leading to failure to become known, leading to failure to build an
audience for my skills, leading to failure to find work.

I have continued to trail my coat around the theatrical agencies, and now, from tomorrow,
I must do so with renewed resolve.

13th June 1877

Summer weather is here, but springtime has belatedly arrived for me! At last I have been
offered some work!

It is not much, some card tricks to perform at a conference of Brummagem businessmen in a
London hotel, and the fee is only half a guinea, but this is a red-letter day!

Ten shillings and sixpence! More than a week's rent for these lodgings! Riches indeed!

19th June 1877

One of the books I have studied is by a Hindoo magician called Gupta Hilel. In this he
gives advice to the illusionist whose trick goes wrong. There are several resorts Hilel
offers, and most of them are concerned with methods of distracting the audience. But he
also offers the counsel of fatalism. A magic career is full of disappointment and failure,
which must be expected and dealt with stoically.

So it is with stoicism that I record the launch of Danton's professional magical career. I
merely report that the very first trick I attempted (a simple card shift) went wrong,
immobilizing me with sheer terror and ruining the rest of my act.

I was paid off with a half-fee of five shillings and threepence, and the promoter advised
me that I should practise more before trying again. Mr Hilel also advises this.

20th June 1877

Despairing, I have decided to abandon my magical career.

14th July 1877 I have been back to Derbyshire to see Mama, and have now returned in a
darker mood of melancholy than the one that was blighting me before I left. Also there is
news that my rent is to increase to ten shillings a week from next month.

I still have just over a year before I must be able to support myself.

10th October 1877

I am in love! Her name is Drusilla MacAvoy.

15th October 1877

Too hasty by far! The MacAvoy woman was not for me. I am planning to kill myself, and if
the remainder of these pages are blank anyone who comes across this diary will know I
succeeded.

22nd December 1877

Now at last I have found the real woman in my life! I have never been so happy. Her name
is Julia Fensell, she is but two months younger than I, her hair is a glowing reddish
brown and it cascades about her face. She has blue eyes, a long straight nose, a chin with
a tiny dimple, a mouth that seems always about to smile, and ankles whose slender shape
drives me wild with love and passion! She is easily the most beautiful young woman I have
ever seen, and she says she loves me as much as I love her.

It is impossible to believe, impossible to credit my good fortune. She drives from my mind
all worries, all fears, all anger and despair and ambitions. She fills my life entirely. I
almost cannot bear to write of her, in case I again curse myself with ill-fortune!

31st December 1877

I still cannot write of Julia, or of my life in general, without trembling. The year is
ending, and tonight, at 11.00 p.m., I am joining Julia so that we might be together as the
new year begins.

Total Income for 1877: 5s 3d.

3rd January 1878

I have been seeing Julia every day since the middle of last month. She has become my
dearest, closest friend. I must write of her as objectively as possible, for my knowing
her has already set fair to change my fortune.

First let me record that since my abysmal performance at the Langham Street Hotel several
months ago I have not secured any other bookings. My confidence was low, and for a day or
two I could not summon even false optimism to get me round the agency offices. It was
during one of these melancholy tours that I first met Julia. I had seen her before, as I
saw everybody on that circuit, but her sheer beauty had made her forbidden to me. We
finally spoke to each other while being made to wait together in the outer office of one
of the agents in Great Portland Street. It was unheated, bare-boarded, drably painted,
furnished with the hardest of wooden seats. Alone with her I could not pretend not to
notice her so I plucked up my courage and spoke to her. She said she was an actress; I
said I was an illusionist. From the few bookings I soon learned she had been getting
recently, her description of herself was as theoretical as my own. We found our similar
duplicity amusing and became friends.

Julia is the first person, apart from Grierson, to whom I have shown my tricks in private.
Unlike Grierson, who always applauded anything I did, no matter how clumsy or ill
performed, Julia was critical and appreciative in more or less equal measure. She
encouraged me, but also she devastated and withered me if she found me failing. From
anyone else I should have taken this poorly, but whenever her criticism was most
merciless, words of love, or support, or constructive suggestion soon followed.

I began with simple sleight of hand involving coins, some of the first tricks I had
learned. Card tricks followed, then handkerchief tricks, hat tricks, billiard ball tricks.
Her interest spurred me on. I gradually worked my way through most of my repertoire, even
the illusions I had not yet fully mastered.

Sometimes, in her turn, Julia would recite for me; lines from the great poets, the great
playwrights, work that was always new to me. It amazed me that she could remember so much,
but she said there were techniques that were easily learned. This was Julia — half
artiste, half craftsman. Art and technique.

Soon Julia began talking to me about presentation, a subject close to my heart. Our affair
began to deepen.

Over the Christmas holiday, while the rest of London celebrated, Julia and I were alone,
chastely, in my rented lodgings, teaching each other the disciplines to which we each had
become attached. She came to me in the mornings, stayed with me through the short hours of
daylight, then soon after nightfall I would walk her back to her own lodgings in Kilburn.
I spent the evenings and nights alone, thinking of her, of the excitement she was bringing
me, of the matters of the stage to which she was introducing me.

Julia is gradually, inexorably, drawing out of me the true talent I think I have always
possessed.

12th January 1878

“Why should we not, between us, devise a magical act of a kind no one before us has ever
performed?”

This is what Julia said, the day after I wrote the entry above.

Such simple words! Such havoc on my life, one that had become settled into a cycle of
despair and depression, because we are building a mentalist act! Julia has been teaching
me her techniques of memory. I am learning the science of mnemonics, the use of memory
aids.

Julia's memory has always seemed to me extraordinary. When I first knew her, and had been
showing her some of my hard-learned card tricks, she challenged me to call out any
two-digit numbers I cared to think of, in any order at all, and to write them down
covertly. When I had filled a whole page of my notebook, she calmly recited the numbers to
me, without pause or error… and while I was still marvelling, she recited them again, this
time in reverse order!

I assumed it was magic, that she had somehow forced me into nominating numbers she had
previously memorized, or that she somehow had access to the notes that I thought I was
keeping privy. Neither of these was true, she assured me. It was no trick, and there was
no subterfuge. In direct reversal of the methods of a magician, the secret of her
performance was exactly as it seemed — she was memorizing the numbers!

Now she has revealed to me the secret of mnemonics. I am not yet as adept as her, but
already I am capable of apparent feats of memory that once I should always have doubted.

26th January 1878

We are now ready! Imagine that I am seated on a stage, my eyes blindfolded. Volunteers
from the audience have supervised the placing of the blindfold, and have satisfied
themselves that I cannot see out. Julia moves amongst the audience, taking items of their
personal property and holding them aloft for everyone, bar myself, to see.

“What do I hold?” she cries.

“It is a gentleman's wallet,” I answer.

The audience gasps.

“Now I have taken—?” says Julia.

“It is a wedding ring made of gold.”

“And it belongs to—?”

“A lady,” I declare.

(Were she to say, “
Which
belongs to—? ” I should reply, with equal conviction, “A gentleman.”)

“Here I am holding?”

“A gentleman's watch.”

And so it goes. A litany of pre-arranged questions and answers, but one which presented
with sufficient aplomb to an audience unready for the spectacle, will clearly imply
mentalist contact between the two performers.

The principle is easy, but the learning is hard. I am still new to mnemonics, and, as in
all magic, practice has to make perfect.

While the practice goes on we are able to avoid thinking about the most difficult part —
obtaining an engagement.

1st February 1878

Tomorrow night we begin! We have wasted two weeks trying to obtain a firm booking from a
theatre or hall, but this afternoon, while we walked disconsolately on Hampstead Heath,
Julia suggested we should take matters into our own hands.

Now it is midnight, and I have just returned from an evening of preliminary reconnoitre.
Julia and I visited a total of six taverns within a reasonable walking distance, and
selected the one which seemed the most likely. It is the Lamb and Child, in Kilburn High
Road, on the corner with Mill Lane. The main bar is a large, well-lit room, with a small
raised platform at one end (presently bearing a piano, which was not being played while we
were there). The tables are set out with sufficient room for Julia to move between them
while speaking to members of the audience. We did not make our intentions known to the
landlord or his staff.

Julia has returned to her lodgings, and soon I will be abed. We rehearse all day tomorrow,
then venture forth in the evening!

3rd February 1878

Between us Julia and I have counted £2 4s 9d, tossed to us in single coins by an
appreciative crowd in the Lamb and Child. There was more, but I fear some of it was
stolen, and some might have been lost when the landlord's patience with us expired and we
were removed to the street.

But we did not fail! And we have learnt a dozen lessons about how to prepare, how to
announce ourselves, how to claim attention, and even, we think, how to ingratiate
ourselves with the landlord.

Tonight we are planning to visit the Mariner's Arms in Islington, a good distance from
Kilburn, where we shall try again. Already we have made changes to our act, based on
Saturday night's experience.

4th February 1878

Only 15s 9d between us, but again what we lack in financial reward we have gained in
experience.

28th February 1878

As the month ends I can record that Julia and I have so far earned a total of £11 18s 3d
from our mentalist act, that we are exhausted by our efforts, that we are elated by our
success, that we have now made enough mistakes that we believe we know how to proceed in
future, and that already (sure sign of success!) we have heard of a rival pair performing
in the inns of south London.

Furthermore, on the 3rd of next month, I shall be performing a legitimate magical act at
Hasker's Music Hall in Ponders End; Danton is to appear seventh on the bill after a
singing trio. Julia and I have temporarily retired from our mentalist act so as to
rehearse me for this great occasion. Already it seems a rather staid booking after the
uncertain thrills of husking our act through the gin palaces of London, but it is a real
job, in a real theatre, and it is what I have worked for over all these years.

4th March 1878

Received: £3 3s 0d from Mr Hasker, who has said he would like to book me again in April.
My trick with the coloured streamers was especially popular.

12th July 1878

A departure. My wife (I have not written in this diary for some time, but Julia and I were
wed on 11th May, and now live together contentedly at my lodgings in Idmiston Villas) is
feeling that we should once again branch out. I agree. Our mentalist act, although
impressive to those who have not seen it before, is repetitive and tiring to perform, and
the behaviour of the audiences is unpredictable. I am blindfolded for much of the act so
that Julia is, to a great extent, alone in an often drunken and rowdy crowd; once, while I
sat on my chair in blindfolds, my pocket was picked.

We both feel it is time for a change, even though we have been earning money regularly. I
cannot yet make a living from the stage, and in just over two months I will receive the
last of my monthly allowances.

Theatrical bookings have in fact shown a recent improvement, and I have six of them
between now and Christmas. In readiness, and while I am still relatively solvent, I have
been investing in some large-scale illusions. My workshop (this I acquired last month) is
stocked with magical devices, from which I may at fairly short notice put together a new
and stimulating performance.

The real problem with theatrical bookings is that while they pay fairly well they provide
no continuity. Each is at the end of a blind alley. I do my act, I take my applause, I
collect my fee, but none of these ensures another booking. Even the reviews in the press
are small and grudging. For instance, after a performance at the Clapham Empire, one of my
best so far, the
Evening Star
remarked, “… and a conjuror named Dartford followed the
soubrette
.” With such pebbles of formal encouragement I am supposed to lay the path of my career!