“A bit, a bit,” Arthur said complacently. “Kept you in fresh peas, Wolf.”
But already nebulous plans were unfolding in Nigel’s fertile imagination. He remembered a production of Shakespeare—The Tempest it was—and the sensational effects managed on the stage as the curtain rose. He could do that. They could do that. “We’ll have to manage to get a shipwreck into the plot,” Nigel said aloud, causing both of them to stare at him.
“Whyever for?” Arthur said after a moment. “That would be a dreadfully expensive set to create.”
“Because we’re going to have the dancer that was saved from a shipwreck as our star turn!” Nigel shook his head at their surprise. Couldn’t they see it? It was a fine thing to capitalize on saving her in the first place, but better to remind the public of the great story in two or three months and capitalize on it all over again. “Half of our publicity is already done for us, and the locals and the holiday people alike will fill the stalls to see the ‘shipwreck girl’ saved all over again.”
“You don’t even know that she’ll stay with us,” Arthur protested mildly. “Nor that she will be in the least interested in performing in a mere musical show.”
“This is a ballet dancer, Nigel,” the parrot said, drawing himself up with great dignity and looking down his beak at the music-hall entrepreneur. “And a prima donna to boot. An artiste. She’ll be looking for a ballet company, mark my words—”
“You mark mine. First, she’s indebted to us. Second, she’s the daughter of an Elemental Master—where else would she go for people who won’t think she’s balmy for talking to a cat? Third—” he grinned. “Ballet dancers like money too. Loie Fuller wasn’t too high-nosed to appear at the Moulin Rouge. She’ll make a lot more money with us than with some ballet company.” He stood up and began to pace. “Elemental Master—that gives me an idea. We need a story with magic in it. That way we can hire old Jonathon, who has the Kung Chow act—always good to have another of the company about—”
“Kung Chow?” Wolf said in dismay. “I am not going to substitute for one of his wretched doves again! Really, Nigel, this is going too far—”
“No one is asking you to substitute for a dove, Wolf,” Nigel said, pacing faster. “We should make this a real Arabian Nights story. Shipwreck our girl in Arabia, have her taken to a harem, that way we can bring in all the variety acts as things to entertain the sultan! And have an excuse to put her in as little as we can convince her to wear. And there are plenty of girls in our chorus who wouldn’t blanch at doing a harem dance. Have her escape with the Court Magician’s help—”
“Oh good lord, why don’t you just steal the plot and music from my Abduction from the Seraglio and have done with it?” Wolf said in disgust.
“Why don’t I—Wolf! That’s brilliant!” Nigel turned towards the parrot and conductor with a smile lighting up his face. “Perfect! You adapt the music for our show, we can tout it as ‘Based on Abduction from the Seraglio by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.’ Make the print just large enough that the punters won’t notice and the high-minded will. The punters will get their nautch dances, and the high-toned will tell each other how fine it is to listen to classical music while they gawk at the nautch dances from behind their pince-nezes. It’s brilliant! I love you!” As Wolf growled in startlement, Nigel swooped him up, kissed his beak, and put him back down on his stand again.
“Brilliant! Brilliant! I’m going to go look up the libretto of this opera of yours and see what I can keep out of it. Arthur, help Wolf with some catchy lyrics. We’ll need at least one love song, of course, and one song about being homesick. And one from the sultan about making the beauty his slave for all time—” Nigel strode off, heading for the music library.
Behind him, Wolf sighed. “Well,” the parrot said in resignation. “At least I won’t have to make up any little tinkly tunes this time.”
5
NINETTE sat up in the bed, curled her arms around her knees, and listened in astonishment to the cat. Thomas posed on the foot of the bed, looking precisely as if he had always belonged there. Somehow over the last few hours he had transformed without essentially changing, from the rakish alley-prowler to a creature of great elegance.
And he had been listening to her hosts while she had been sleeping, then come back to report to her what was transpiring. “They are planning the production around me? But—but—but they have not yet seen me dance!”
You have seen what passes for a dancer in these music halls, the cat said, with a touch of arrogance. Did you not say yourself that you would make the best of them look like a pony doing tricks?
“Well, yes, but—” But these girls weren’t dancers, not really. Oh, they might have taken some lessons, but they clearly had not been trained as Ninette had been trained. Ballroom dancers with a few tricks and high kicks, and one or two of them could teeter about on their toes, but they were not trained dancers as she knew training.
And you know all of the applause-garnering turns, the passages that make people leap to their feet, yes?
Ninette considered that. Yes, she did. The thirty-two fouette-pirouettes from the Black Swan pas de deux, Kitri’s exuberant solo, full of leaps where her heel touches the back of her head from Don Quixote, the mad scene from Giselle, the character solos from Sleeping Beauty, Le Corsair, Swan Lake, all of these things. She had rehearsed them over and over again, against the day when she might actually be called upon to dance them. These were the sorts of pieces that the great dancers dismissed as “tricks” or cursed the need to perform, but that audiences adored.
I very much doubt that they will have a choreographer as such. So you will be making up your own dances. I would advise you to make them as showy as possible and steal liberally from anyone you think audiences would like. Loie Fuller, for instance. The cat sniffed derisively. By now so many have stolen from her that one more will not matter, and everyone loves seeing yards of fabric being tossed about under colored lights.
And by now, everyone in the dance world knew how Fuller manipulated her lights and silks, despite her attempts to keep such thing secret. There was even a kind of name for it, the “serpentine dance,” or “skirt dance” by which such things were advertised on playbills. That gave Ninette some ideas . . . the best thing she could do, if she was going to have a show built around her, would be to manage pieces that looked very impressive but involved short passages of flashy footwork interspersed with a great deal of stage effects. A skirt-dance would certainly fit that bill. Now, she had seen some Swiss and Finnish girls in France performing a kind of dancing-gymnastics with long ribbons, balls, hoops and clubs. She could certainly do a piece with a ribbon, and perhaps another with a hoop or a ball.
The rest she could certainly lift whole from the ballets she had learned. “If they are going to create a show around me—” she began eagerly.
Stop right there, the cat commanded, fixing her with his gaze. You are doing precisely the wrong thing. You must not be the eager one. Think of La Augustine! Would she fling herself at someone who was creating a show around her? Of course not. She would be amused. Perhaps condescending—this is only music hall, after all. Then, perhaps, she would allow herself to be interested. She would let herself be coaxed and courted and only gradually would she be persuaded. Once persuaded, of course, she would fling herself into it. La Augustine is nothing if not a professional. But she would never give the impression that it was she who was the eager one.
Ninette nodded, slowly. The cat was right, of course. As long as they believed she was what she said she was—and there was no reason not to—the coaxing should come from them. She shivered a little; this was heady stuff, and she was not at all sure she was going to be able to deal with it.
That is why you have me. The cat curled the tip of his tail around his feet and looked smug. I shall be your impresario. I brought you this far, did I not?
That was certainly true. And “this far” was impressive indeed. She thought about her last few hou
rs since waking after a refreshing sleep. First there had been the long hot bath, attended by a maid who washed, dried, and put up her hair for her, before tucking her attentively back into bed. Now she looked about herself, at the opulently appointed guestroom, at finest bed she had ever seen, at the gorgeous embroidered and rib-boned and laced nightdress that the maid had helped her into, at the remains of the wonderful breakfast on the tray beside the bed. Three kinds of eggs, ham, sausage, grilled tomatoes, beans, toast, oatmeal . . . enough for three people. She had left a great deal of it, though it troubled her to do so. She hoped it wouldn’t go to waste.
“All right, then I should be—”
Distressed. Your imaginary friend with his mythical yacht is still missing. You must ask after him, first thing, any time anyone comes in here. I doubt very much that they will trouble you for a few days. When it is clear that “all is lost” you must be sorrowful. But not too sorrowful. You must not let them think this imaginary fellow was more that just a casual friend. Tell them you need to work to get your mind off it, and allow them to find you a rehearsal pianist and a studio space. Then work. They plan to ask you if you wish to stay here, in Blackpool. They mean here for now, although, trust me, in a very short time propriety will ensure they get you an apartment of your own. Say yes, immediately, and burst into tears and say that you are all alone in the world and how kind they are.
That wouldn’t be difficult. They were kind and she was all alone except for the cat.
Eventually, about the same time that they will think you should be in your own establishment, they will broach the subject of working for them. I will be right with you; I will tell you what to say.
She frowned a little at that, because she rather thought she would not need the cat to put words in her mouth, but let it pass. So for right now, she should simply lie back and be pampered. That would not be bad. She thought fleetingly of her belongings at the boarding house, inventoried them in her mind, and reluctantly, decided they were not worth going back for. Though poor Madame would wonder what had become of her . . .
I will get your keepsakes, the cat promised. She nodded. That would do. There wasn’t a great deal she wanted; a little left of her mother’s “jewelry” consisting of a jet rosary, a jet bangle, and a silver locket, a few letters and her mother’s marriage license.
I can get those. Leave it to me. You will have to find a place to hide them, though.
That was easy enough; it would be even easier once she had a private place of her own, but for now, thanks to any number of overheard conversations and the plots of any number of sensational operas and plays. “I will ask for a Bible and paste the papers inside the cover,” she said. The jewelry would probably escape notice. The marriage license, however, would give her age away. Fortunately dancers tended to look ageless so long as they did not put on weight. She should be able to pass, easily, for being ten years older than her real age. Old enough to be the real Russian dancer.
“How did you manage to talk to these men?” she asked, finally. “I thought you could only talk to me.”
The cat grew tense. That . . . is an excellent question.
She waited, but the cat remained silent. “Well you ought to answer it then,” she said impatiently.
I am thinking. The cat washed an ear with one paw. You believe in magic by now. Yes?
It was her turn to hesitate. Did she? Real magic, not stage magic? The thing of fairy tales? How else could she be talking to a cat?
“I . . . suppose . . .”
The two gentlemen that “rescued” you are magicians. That is why I can talk to them too. There is no need to go into much detail, but talking cats are the least of the astonishing things in their world.
She stared at the cat, who began washing his other ear. “But I’m not a magician!” she protested. “Am I?”
True, you are not. But your father was. He . . . charged me with taking care of you, you know. And some things, like being able to talk to magical creatures, come with the blood.
“But I never did before!” For some reason, she felt indignant, as if this sudden ability was an imposition. “Why is it that I have not been talking to magical creatures all my life?”
They would have had to be willing to show themselves and talk to you first. Could a cat smirk? It sounded like he was smirking. They don’t display themselves before just anyone. If you are a magician, you can coax or coerce them, but if all the power you have is to speak to them, they are likely to stay in hiding. Except for the ones you would not have wanted to see. Those, I kept away.
That gave her pause, and she bit back the irritated retort about snobbery she had been about to deliver. “There are bad creatures?”
So bad, you would have spent all your life in terror.
In that case she certainly did not want to see them. “So these men are magicians?” She thought about that. The cat certainly had known, well in advance, what he was doing. He’d gotten her onto the ferry, across the Channel,. And across England to this specific town. “Did you plan for this all along?”
I have planned for this for months, among other plans. The cat hesitated a moment. I have been planning for your future for most of your life. I had hoped you would become an etoile at the Paris Opera, but as that plan fell to pieces, this was my second. Clearly this one is riskier, resting as it does on deception, and my ability to cozen these magicians. If this had fallen to pieces, I had a third, and a fourth, although neither of those were as desirable, and they did not make as much use of your dancing. I am more familiar with Britain than I am with France, so when the first plan fell apart, it was here that we needed to come.
“Did you come to France with my father?” she asked, now very interested.
In a sense. That is not important now. I am engaged in a deception with these men. It will not hold forever. I am certain that at some point they will learn the truth, but at that point you will be their great star and it will not matter. They are showmen, first and foremost; it is the show that matters. Do you take my meaning?
Ninette nodded. That was always true to a greater or lesser extent in the theater. The great stars were as much publicity and showmanship as talent, with the exception, maybe, of amazing talents like the Divine Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanor Duse. Even then . . . would they have been quite so acclaimed if they had not been so eccentric?
“Do I need to be eccentric?” she asked.
Hmm. A good question. Let me think about that. The cat hunched down over his forepaws, eyes half closed. I think, eccentric in simplicity. Elegant simplicity, not all bare feet and scarves like Isadora. But we will have plenty of time to work on that. First, let me drill you on your mythical yacht-person.
Needless to say, Ninette knew nothing about yachts. But she did know a great deal about the rich old men in fur coats who would be expected to own a yacht. Together she and Thomas concocted a plausible story for the apocryphal Nikolas. He could not be too rich, or one would expect a hue and cry about his missing state. He could not be titled either, for the same reason. So it was to be a very small yacht, something a bourgeoisie merchant would have bought to impress young dancers and singers. And Nikolas would have been Nina’s friend, but not her particular friend. She would have been ready to accept favors, but not yet ready to let him into her bed.
Over the course of the day her two rescuers found many excuses to check on her progress. Soon, she was calling the two of them by their first names.
And the cat drilled her mercilessly on her story in between times. So when they finally asked her questions, she was able to weep and cry, “Poor Nikolas! Poor old man!” in a way that left no doubt in the minds of her benefactors that she had very little emotional investment in “Nikolas,” and that in all probability he had offered this trip in order to impress her enough that she would take him as her protector.
This cheered both of them up immensely, even as they tried to comfort the weeping “Nina.” This was understandable; a dead lover was a terrible co
mplication, but she would probably be able to put Nikolas behind her in fairly short order if he was only a “friend” from whom she had perhaps accepted a few gifts.
In the late afternoon someone from the Royal Lifeboat Service arrived, resplendent in a uniform, to talk to her about the sinking. She almost panicked, but the cat soothed her, and quietly coached her on what to say. As she sat between her two benefactors, wrapped in an elegant dressing gown, the officer remained standing, looking acutely uncomfortable.
It was not difficult at all to seem upset, because she was upset, but her visible efforts to calm herself seemed to earn her some respect from the Lifesaving Officer.
“We are trying to learn where the ship might have gone down, miss,” the officer said in English.
She blinked at him. “My Eenglish, not so good,” she said, and gestured to him gracefully. “Parlez-vous francais?”
“I do,” Arthur spoke up, and turned to the officer. “I’ll be translating; sir, it’s not uncommon for Russians artists to know French, but not English.”
The officer grumbled a little about “foreigners,” but nodded. “All right then, how many were on this yacht?”
“Myself, and Nikolas, and five others,” she said carefully, coached by the cat. “It was a motor yacht. Two of the men took it in turns to steer it. There was one man who was Nikolas’ servant, and the other two did things, took care of the pretty boat, cooked, cleaned. Nikolas had just bought this yacht, and he did not know much about these things, I could tell, but he pretended that he did. I wanted to go to London, but he said, no, no, we must sail all around England that you can see all of it and then decide.”
The officer groaned. “Gentleman yachtsmen. Does she have any idea if he registered at any ports?”
When Arthur translated, she shook her head.
“Probably not then.” The officer sighed. “The name of this vessel then?”
“Yvgenia,” she replied promptly. “Nikolas was alone in the world,” she added, as the cat prompted her. “He did something with speculation . . .” She shrugged. “I never could understand it. He laughed and said that Yvgenia was the name of his mother, who was always happy to see him leave.”
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