Whip Smart

by Kit Brennan

  AND SO I GOT out of Spain with the clothes on my back and my peridot earbobs.

  I hailed a hansom cab and directed the driver to the Grimaldi residence. Juan was at home, and so was Concepción, both in mourning attire. The manservant admitted me to their drawing room; from my precipitous flight across Spain I’d become quite thin, and it was some moments before they recognized me. Once they had, I told them everything that had happened, particularly dwelling upon the perils inherent in trusting a Jesuit: “He killed your agent, Tristany; he told me so himself! And sent the ears! Your most trusted agent is a double agent—and a serial killer! And not only that, Prime Minister Espartero executed the generals without a trial! Diego de León and Manuel de la Concha!” The whole time, Juan frowned and looked dubious, while Concepción vibrated with anger. I cried at last, “Do you not believe me?”

  “We do,” Juan murmured. “We believe you have made a mess of things, Miss Gilbert. You must have said too much, as you always do.”

  I was furious and indignant, but gathered myself and said what I had come to say. First, that they must swear to leave my daughter alone, forever. Second, that they must release me from their service then and there, with no further association of any kind. If they refused, I said, I would be forced to go to my consulate.

  “Breathe one word of all this and you’re dead,” Juan said.

  There was no emotion in either his face or his voice. Completely terrifying.

  “I need funds to get home,” I told him, my heart in my throat. “Just enough to take me to London.”

  “You are on your own,” he replied. “We will have nothing further to do with your bungling ineptitude.”

  “Nor with whatever danger you think you have unleashed upon yourself,” said Concepción. She rang a little bell, and the manservant opened the door. “Show this person out.”

  I hesitated, then thought of Diego, of equal conditions—life is gambling, Bandita.

  “There is one final thing you should know that I know,” I said, ignoring the waiting manservant and braving both Grimaldis. “I have ascertained the source of your wealth. Muñoz had stock tips from the Spanish finance ministers, and he told a few friends.” Their eyes met and Concepción’s widened, so I pressed on: “That’s corruption. And so is what I saw your good wife doing with that same former guardsman, now royal stud at María Cristina’s mansion on the rue de Courcelles. But perhaps that, too, is simply part of your grateful thanks? Release me, and my daughter.”

  Before I quite knew what had happened, I was facing the front door from the outside. My final glimpse: Grimaldi’s formidable eyebrows raised to his hairline, his nostrils flaring and large hand lifted as if to be used in some violent way, Concepción launching into a shrill defensive action with lavish gushings of tears, then silence.

  So this was how they repaid their spies! Reptiles, the pair of them.

  I needed money. That afternoon I found a likely someone and talked myself into a new frock, ditching Juliana’s hot woolen one. My new companion bought me a one-way ticket in return for overnight favours. The coach and four left at eight o’clock in the morning. The entire way to the northern coast, I kept my eyes closed, rehearsing what I was about to do. In England, my first stop would be the Southampton consulate, hopefully to hear something from Malmesbury. I’d take the title of widow—after all, who else had such right to the claim?

  On April 14, in driving rain, I boarded the ship for the first channel crossing of the day.

  Oh, remembering this, and all that came before . . . I’m so cold, and so very, very hungry. All of the candles have burned out now; it’s been dark in here forever. Will they leave me in this room to die, the mysterious European and his Cockney thug? Is that the real plan? Am I am too tired to care?

  Finish what I started. Not too much further, and then?

  I no longer know.

  RETURN TO LONDON

  WHEN I STEPPED ASHORE, something in me couldn’t believe that I was back in England, nor the relief that I felt: another country between me and the black dog nemesis with the hopefully septic thigh—may he rot in hell. All I could think of was safety, how to acquire it, how to salvage some part of a life. Be busy, keep moving, put away sorrow until it could be digested and somehow overcome. Or at least subdued.

  It was mid-afternoon as I hastened to the Spanish consul’s office, fingers crossed that the man himself would be there and ready to listen to a woman in distress. He was. I spent several minutes finding out whatever I could about him; before long, he had revealed that he was a Cristino supporter and had been throughout the war. So I knew how to pitch it. I used my most elegant Spanish.

  “Señor, I throw myself upon your mercy. I am the widow of General Diego de León, recently executed in Madrid. Do you know about this tragic event?”

  His face blanched and he nodded, told me the news had come through that week.

  “I am destitute and have fled our country,” I said, holding back tears. I told him that before my marriage I had been a principal dancer from Seville, often playing in the capital. In order to support myself in my tragic widowhood, I would therefore once again take up my stage name, Lola Montez, and resume my work. “Will you help me?”

  “Señora, I will.”

  I was uncertain here, and murmured, “Has a letter arrived for me, by chance? I am expecting to hear from a very kind English gentleman, a member of their parliament, who knew my husband. The 3rd Earl of Malmesbury?”

  There was a letter. I ripped it open with trepidation: “Travelling from country seat, arrive 9 am April 15, to greet Señora Montez. Saludos cordiales. Malmesbury.”

  Thank Christ. My sweet chubby earl to the rescue.

  James Howard Harris was in fine form when he met me the following morning. He bustled in, gave me a quick wink from the side of his face not facing the consul, and pumped the man’s hand up and down in an enthusiastic greeting. Then he bowed over my outstretched, gloved one and kissed it delicately. “I shall be delighted to offer protection and aid with all matters necessitated by your arrival, dear señora,” he said in halting but exquisite Spanish. “My wife has extended an invitation for you to recover from your journey at Heron Court, my country seat in Hampshire. If you are ready to depart?”

  I nodded and rose, thanked the consul for his understanding and solicitude—and for the swanky meal and hotel room I’d enjoyed, presumably compliments of Spain—and then left with the busy, important member of Parliament. As soon as we were jouncing along in a cab, Howard peeled off my glove and clasped my hand.“¿Cómo te va?” He kissed me fervently with a lot of tongue and begged to hear everything. After holding myself together for so long, I admit that I fell apart a bit with the dear earl’s arms around me. I even told him about my love affair with Diego, I couldn’t help myself, and that my lover was dead. He was very understanding, and the story cooled his ardor enough for him to be able to be more comforting than raptorial.

  At Heron Court I met his aristocratic wife, who looked remarkably like a greyhound. They were a strange couple: he so round and jolly; she very long and lean. She was civil enough, and I was grateful to her for the invitation. At first I was sure she had no idea that the Spanish widow upon whom the earl had taken pity was in fact one of his former dalliances in the city. For several days, I simply slept, alone. I was so exhausted. For a few more days after that, I tried to be a better guest and give something back for the hospitality I was enjoying. Howard arranged a benefit concert for me at Heron Court, where I performed a dance to a number of Spanish ballads and sold several Spanish veils and fans to his rich opera-loving friends, wives, and daughters. (The fans were actually the earl’s, collected many years earlier on his travels—from whom, I wondered with an inward smile.) I was the grieving widow all that week—the earl kept himself in check with some difficulty, but was also enjoying his own rising excitation—and then I accompanied him by train to London. By that time his wife was anxious to see the back of me—women always know whe
n something is off—and she made it clear that Howard must return swiftly, with an unsullied bankbook. He informed me that she was keeping a close eye, now, on his expenditures.

  So, after two secretive nights of nocturnal reacquaintance in his small Parliamentary apartment—which I found quite difficult, at first, and then a kind of sorrowful consolation—and having listened carefully to the rest of my fearful adventures, Howard began to muse with me on a plan.

  “Her Majesty’s Theatre is London’s most prestigious stage, and I know the impresario, Benjamin Lumley, rather well,” he said. “How is your dancing coming along now, Eliza—or shall I say, Doña Lola?”

  I told him about my newly invented dance, based on the tarantella and, joy of joys, he announced that he had the score of the original folk dance, a souvenir of his travels.

  “I will speak with Lumley. I’m sure he’ll consent to meet with you. And after that, he won’t be able to resist you. We must get you working—you must set yourself up. I am sorry for that, but . . . Do you mind, my dear?”

  I remembered Carlota’s words, that I should waste no time in finding my own way. “No, I don’t mind. I wish it.” And I really did.

  A few days later, I met with the impresario. My raven hair, dark blue eyes, and long, shapely legs made a favourable impression, so Howard reported later.

  “He said you had something piquant and provocative about you, and so he will allow himself to be ‘taken in’—something I must let you know he very rarely does. He keeps rooms for dancers from out of town, and he’ll find a place for you there. Of course Lumley realizes that you are a complete novice—”

  “I am not!”

  “—as a dancer, but it doesn’t matter. You have something, and that something can bring in money. That’s what counts.”

  The earl rubbed his hands together energetically and beat a happy tattoo upon his thighs. “He is scheduling your stage début for the third of June, when you will dance between the acts of a gala performance of The Barber of Seville. Is that not fitting? The queen’s uncle, the ancient king of Hanover, will be there; London’s bejeweled elite are expected to attend. The tickets are rushing out the door. It will be stunning, Lola Montez! You will be stunning.”

  I screamed and ran around, jumping up and down.

  So, it was done, I had an engagement. It was to happen.

  Now I had to dance. And that’s when I realized: I’d spent so little time actually learning the basics, learning the techniques! Should I find another instructor? No, I decided, I would simply have to capitalize upon my innate enthusiasms and acrobatic body and continue to refine the dance through which I had seduced the Spanish prime minister. I called it El Oleano, a nod to the pretty, scented flowers which proliferate on the hardy oleander bush, flourishing in flinty, barren, unwelcoming ground. As I vowed to do.

  Lumley found an empty studio for me, and I began to practice in front of the enormous mirror leaning against one of the end walls. Then I hired a rehearsal pianist from the money the impresario advanced me, and began my experiments in earnest. I added embellishments, thanks to the little princess, Luisa Fernanda. Tell a story. A young girl, a nest of spiders, a frenzy . . .

  During the following weeks, word of the executions of the Spanish generals filtered into London and hit the newspapers. In my little room, I read them avidly, soaking the pages with my tears. The people had begun to turn Diego into a folk hero. His uniform—the one he and I had put to such delicious and unofficial use, now with six blood-stained bullet holes across the chest—was becoming a symbol of the government’s corruption, and some were talking of putting it on display in protest. The cigars he’d handed out to the firing squad were to be added to the display—they hadn’t been smoked; the soldiers honoured his gesture too much. Little by little, it seemed that public outrage was growing and spreading—Diego’s final political act.

  Shockingly, I also read that Grimaldi and his family were about to return to Spain so that he could take a position as statesman. Espartero’s government had toppled, partly due to the people’s disgust at the summary executions of de León and de la Concha. General Narváez, Cristina’s choice, had now taken the reins, and she’d be returning to Madrid in triumph any day now. So I risked my neck, and Diego and Manuel lost their lives, for nothing, really. For a nervous mother’s whim. A rich, powerful, twitchy mother’s whim.

  This is the way the world wags.

  I thought often of Juliana de Porris during these weeks, and badgered the earl to write to her on official parliamentary stationary, but nothing came. It was her succour, above all, which saved my life when I was most in danger of losing it, and I pray she has not been made to pay for that generosity. I have added her name to my chosen one, proudly borne: Doña Maria Dolores de Porris y Montez!

  As I rehearsed, El Oleano became an outlet for my fears and furies. The young girl enters, as if dancing gaily across a meadow of flowers, bending to sniff, and pick, and smile at the blossoms. This dance of joy section takes about five minutes, give or take my enthusiasm for the pastoral on any given day. Then, the girl discovers that she has stepped upon a spider’s nest. There are little spiders everywhere, and not only are they little spiders, but they are little tarantula spiders! The sting of a tarantula, as everyone knows, can cause spasms, convulsions, and death. And think how many have leapt up her skirts! She grabs the ends of her skirt, whirling, shakes it up and down vigorously—thus revealing more and sometimes more of her legs, though she is moving so fast that naturally it is never a lewd or scandalous display. Besides which, she is a young girl, and every honorable man knows it is morally depraved to slaver over innocent children. Just as it seems that the poor young thing is about to succumb to poisonous convulsions, the little spiders run down her legs, off into the meadow. The girl, exhausted, breathless, spies the parental spider, standing hairily on the nest. The girl rushes over to it, begins stamping—take that! And that! It is the very poetry of avenging contempt.

  And very curative.

  I think my pianist wondered what on earth he’d gotten himself in to. But then Howard would come to watch, sitting with aristocratic hands braced on his spread knees, laughing uproariously, clapping immoderately, and the musical crosspatch would shrug to himself: whatever pays the rent.

  Lumley cranked his publicity machine into action on my behalf. Malmesbury also did everything in his power: His circle of opera friends were all enjoined to purchase seats and bring others along. These friends were rich, and many of them were minor European royalty: Germans, various Saxons and Teutons, plus assorted former-barbarian toadies. One afternoon, about three weeks before the date of my début, Lumley sent along a friend of his own to watch my rehearsal. This friend was a critic from the Morning Post, who was to write me an advance piece. He was, therefore, a Very Important Person. I chatted him up, made him laugh a few times (cocking my head at the pianist to warn him to keep his eyes in his head thank you very much), and once the critic was sufficiently buttered, I danced for him.

  When Lumley arrived a few days later to see the dance for himself, he reported his press friend’s reaction: “He found you a sparklingly brilliant creature, Señora Montez, his very words. His advice, however, is that we must discourage viewers from comparing you with the classically trained French-Italian ballerinas; rather, we must insist that you are in a class by yourself, you are something that the English public has never yet seen: a bona-fide, purely Spanish, danseuse. Now let me see what we have.”

  I danced. Lumley was astonished, and went away, I think, happy.

  The next day, the earl also brought along a pal to see the rehearsal. This pal was one of the minor royalty types, a German relative of Queen Victoria’s, prince of a tiny little duchy or some such called something like Lohenstein-Abershof. His risible name was Prince Heinrich the LXXII. How do you have seventy-two male scions, all called Heinrich? Like ducks in a shooting gallery! Royalty is impossible! Listening to the silly middle-aged booby gas on about his castle and a
bout life there with the bucolic peasants, I thought the entire place sounded demented. But far be it from me to insult a man’s love. He stammered and flirted like the shy, red-headed bumbler he was, ending by inviting me to visit him in Lowerstummy-Avershoof (or whatever it was) any time, to view firsthand the life of a bachelor prince. Sounds exciting, I thought. In your dreams, freckled chum. He nearly wet himself watching my rehearsal. It was somewhat embarrassing, even for Malmesbury, who usually finds great amusement in such observational moments.

  Finally—just a few nights ago, unbelievable!—I was given access to the orchestra for several run-throughs of the dance. They, too, seemed thunderstruck; bodes well, I thought. I am something brand new!

  Then. Two nights before the début, I awoke with a startled shriek. I’d been dreaming of Emma, seen a bloody knife held to the side of her little, dark head. After that, it was impossible to sleep; all I could do was mull over what this could mean. In the morning, I hastened to the best jeweller and purchased an elaborately decorated jewel box. I went home, pulled my beloved peridot earbobs from my ears, and placed them inside: the only things I cared about which I’d managed to bring out of danger—my little girl, keep out of danger. I sent them posthaste to Aunt Cat and Uncle Herbert’s address in Durham, with Emma’s name on the outside and a note on the inside: “I hope you enjoy these for many years. I am told—I believe—that they bring luck. I think of you, my dear little one, very often, and of your dear ears. Believe me, I am yours. Aunt Eliza.”

  And as soon as I’m out of this dusty black hole of a room, away from the Cockney and the dour little European—oh God keep me safe—I will travel to Durham to see her for myself, to hug her and hold her and become part of her life. I swear it.

  It’s true, that dream had me rattled. It’s easy to be bold in the middle of the day, surrounded by life and activity and an approaching large event which is consuming your entire focus. But darkness is a different story. The priest, the hellhound—I could no longer force the fear down. Where was he? His wound, had it healed? Was it slowing him down or making him crazier? I’d heard him whimper. He would never forgive that, I thought. That night, two nights before my début—just two nights ago!—I locked my door carefully and placed a chair under the door handle. And I sat back down on the bed, shaking. Looking at the handle, studying it. Holding my trembling fingers still in my lap and thinking. I could almost imagine a whiff of cigar smoke and the stable, a hint of the warmth of Diego’s brown skin: “The only advantage you can count on is your own skill and daring, all other conditions being equal.” A twirl of the mustache. “Never let your opponent gain power, turn the crowd, cause distraction by making you angry or afraid, or he’ll destroy you utterly.” Oh, Diego. Let me love you again. “Keep your head, trust your skill and your daring, and play hard, without fear. Do you understand me now, Bandita?”