Reserved for the Cat

by Mercedes Lackey

  University proved as great a disappointment. His credentials were lackluster, his antecedents plebian, his wealth nonexistent, his personality composed of nothing but affectation. He managed to get into a college that housed members of the classes he thought he belonged in, and he immediately set to work proving himself a nuisance. He hung about trying to get himself invited to parties, and when he could not, whenever the chance arose, he invited himself. He tried to drink, and he hadn’t the head for it; tried to gamble and hadn’t the wealth. He couldn’t afford a horse or a motorcar, and the only possibly route to the affections of those to whose ranks he longed to aspire, that is, the road of sport, was a closed book to him. He played neither cricket nor football well enough to make the teams, and he could not even pull a decent oar. The true wealthy and titled students were unimpressed with his scribblings and poetry; those who had the wit and learning recognized it for the pathetic dross it was, and the rest laughed to scorn the notion that a “real man” could find any interest in such nonsense when there were things to shoot and things to ride, things to play and things to cheer on, things to acquire and things to display.

  Thus disappointed, Terrance returned to the maternal bosom in Blackpool to sulk on what he increasingly viewed as a “pittance.”

  He had never felt affection for anyone, not even his adoring mother. His love-sonnets were as flat as uncorked champagne. So when Nina began her work on him, it was to persuade him not that he was violently in love with the dancer, but that she was violently in love with him.

  Nina began her campaign with excellent box-seat tickets to the performance, and although under any other circumstance he would have scorned such entertainment as “too common,” this time he was persuaded. Partly because the tickets were sent, ostensibly, as a belated birthday gift from one of the few Cambridge men who had not utterly scorned him, and partly because of a rumor—entirely untrue—that the hall was going to be graced that night with the presence of the Crown Prince.

  So he went, and seated in the next box, Nina went to work. She took care to work her magic in a very subtle manner. He was one of those sorts that could not go to a performance of any kind without nibbling and drinking throughout it, and before his (fashionably late) arrival, she had gotten into his private box and carefully laid out a little buffet in miniature for his pleasure, all of it bearing the magic she intended to become a part of him.

  The magic she wove was compounded of half lust and half hallucination. It was easy enough to incite the lust; the hallucination was subtle. Terrance was made to believe that the dancer spent the greater part of her performances looking at him, winking at him, smiling at him, gazing coyly at him. By the time the evening was over, Terrance had more than half convinced himself that the dancer would be his in a moment, if he but raised his little finger and beckoned to her. He congratulated himself on his conquest, smugly. Not that he would have anything to do with so common a creature as a music-hall dancer of course but this was not a real music hall dancer, this was a ballerina, and a Russian to boot. So it was all right. Her devotion was acceptable; in fact, he considered that it was his due.

  By the end of the performance he was basking in the imagined attention he was getting, and traveled home-wards in a taxi in a state of self-congratulatory satisfaction. Of course, he did not deign to join the crowd attempting access to the dancer’s dressing-room; not only was he above that sort of plebian behavior, he had every expectation that the lady would come to him, and not the other way around. Like Charles the Second, he would summon; like Nell Gwynne, she would answer, overawed with the honor he bestowed upon her. If he chose to summon, that is. He had to be sure she was worthy of his attention.

  And so for several nights running, he made his observations. He took care never to take the same box twice, but always she somehow intuited where he was, and bestowed her flirtations on him. His mother complained mildly after the second week of this, of the expense of box seats every night, and could he at least share the box and the expense with some chums? He stared at her in fury; then the next day, in a rage, he went to the safe-deposit box at the bank, substituted her rather fine pearls for imitations, and sold the former. Thereafter there seemed to be no expense, so his mother’s nagging tongue was stilled. He told himself this was his right as the head of the household. Besides, they were to come to him eventually, and what need had she for pearls anyway? She hadn’t gone out in decades, except to funerals, and to those she properly wore jet, not pearls.

  But that awoke him to a possible difficulty. He lived at home, with his mother; he could not bring a mistress there!

  But a trifle of research on the part of the hall-boy eased his mind. The dancer had a flat of her own, with an entrance both private and discreet. So there would be no difficulty, and thankfully, no expense. The most he would need to provide would be a pretty trinket now and again, and the safe deposit box contained many tokens belonging to his mother than he imagined would be suitable.

  With all these things settled in his mind, he decided the moment had come for the summons. He wrote it on a small card that he directed the hall-boy to convey to the dancer at the theater one afternoon. Then he took himself to the establishment he had chosen for the first assignation, a restaurant considered both smart and discreet; suitable for a man of wealth and taste to meet his mistress—or one who he was about to make his mistress.

  He timed his arrival to a nicety. It would not do for her to appear at a table littered with the evidence of a long wait. He calculated how long it would take the boy to reach the theater, how long before he could deliver the note, and then, because she would, of course, fly out with the greatest speed to answer his invitation, how long it would take her to reach the establishment. He arrived there about five minutes before he reckoned she would.

  But of course he made sure to ask the headwaiter if she had possibly preceded him. Having determined to his satisfaction that she had not, he had himself seated in the intimate and secluded corner he had reserved, ordered a brandy, and sat back to wait.

  After some fifteen minutes, he was concerned. At half an hour, he was irritated. As the hands of his watch told him an hour had elapsed, he began to grow angry.

  By the time he left the place, nothing in his stomach but overpriced brandy, he was in a towering rage.

  Exactly as Nina had desired.

  “What is that?” Ninette asked Ailse, who had answered the tap at the door of the dressing room and come away with a single card in an envelope with nothing written on it. “I hope it is not another invitation to teach some poor child how to totter about on her toes. Monsieur Ciccolini already has as many pupils as he cares to take.”

  For some reason, the wealthy of Blackpool seemed to think that she had so much time on her hands that she would be overjoyed to teach their children to dance. Not with an eye to going on the stage, of course! No, the doting mothers in question had more of a vague notion of a dainty little tot in a fairy dress, flitting about on the lawn to the strains of Mendelssohn for the entertainment and admiration of garden-party guests. The normal sort of display that one trotted out on these occasions was a daughter singing or playing, or more rarely, the dramatic rendition of “The Lady of Shallot.” A dancing daughter, provided she was not yet nubile, would be a novelty. And it seemed that every good entertaining mama in Blackpool had conceived of this same novelty all at once. Ninette must come and teach the ball dance, or the ribbon dance, the hoop dance or the skirt dance.

  Fortunately, Ninette had a stock answer for this. Ailse had written it up on cards, so it was ready-made and at hand, and needed only to have name and address added.

  Dear (blank): I cannot tell you how honored I am by your invitation to teach your offspring. Alas, I fear your confidence in my ability is not matched by my competence as a teacher. I am, myself, still very much a pupil. However, I commend to your attention my own teacher, Monsieur Ciccolini, who has given me the skills you so admire. Sincerely, Nina Tchereslavsky.

&n
bsp; Ciccolini now filled as many hours as he cared to, teaching these poor things the discipline of the ballet. Of course, it would do them a world of good. Knowing they would never get beyond flitting around a garden in a fairy dress, Monsieur Ciccolini did not put them into pointe shoes or stretch the little muscles to the aching point. Instead, he gave them exercises that would make them graceful, taught them the demi-pointe steps of the “white ballets” before toe-work became commonplace, and choreographed charming little diversions that would at least not cause garden-party guests to have to stifle yawns.

  And he did so with great and abiding patience, patience that was justified by the very high fees he was charging. Nina found it all rather amusing. These women saw nothing wrong with expecting her to do the same thing for free, but Monsieur Ciccolini could command a handsome fee for his labor.

  Then again, Monsieur Ciccolini did not stand to profit as highly as she did from the upcoming grand production, Escape from the Harem. There was no doubt in Nina’s mind that she was going to be worth every farthing, but the total still dazzled.

  “’Tis not another one of those,” Ailse replied, her brow furrowed with puzzlement. “Canna make out what, exactly, this laddie wants . . . looks like he is inviting ye t’ tea, nobbut he writes like he’s invitin’ ye t’ Royal Audience.”

  Ninette took it from her, read it through, and began to laugh. “Oh my!” she chuckled. “That is exactly what it is. Have you ever heard of this fellow?” she asked, handing the card back to Ailse.

  The maid shook her head. “What with all the cards and flowers and all, a body would think ye knew every name that wasna already in the papers,” she said dubiously.

  “Exactly.” Ninette chuckled. “This is nobody, but he thinks very highly of himself. I expect that this is not tea he is inviting me to. I think this is an audition to have the honor of being his mistress. And if I pass, he will permit me if you will—”

  Ailse went scarlet, although Ninette could not tell if it was from outrage, amusement, embarrassment, or a combination of all three. Although she suspected the latter.

  “Now,” Ninette continued thoughtfully, “it might barely be possible that this is someone of great importance masquerading behind an unknown name.”

  “What?” Ailse gasped. “The Prince? Prince Edward? But—”

  “But I think it highly unlikely.” Ninette serenely counted off the reasons on her fingers. “First, the royal yacht is nowhere to be seen, nor the royal car on the rails here. Second, Prince Edward was reported by the papers yesterday to be in Monte Carlo. Thirdly, should the prince seek to hide behind an unknown name it would be the name of one of his gentlemen, and he would not send a plain-jacketed manservant with dusty shoes to deliver the note. And what is more, anyone he sent would stay for an answer, because as royalty knows, the answer might be ‘no,’ and it would not do for a Prince to be loitering even in a private room of a common chophouse.”

  Ailse breathed a sigh, half of relief, half of regret.

  “And I do not intend to answer the invitation of someone who clearly regards himself as no less than royalty who is, in fact not royalty.” She turned to the dressing room mirror. “Particularly not when we have so much work to do. If this man had even the faintest idea of what my life is like, he would issue an invitation for a late supper, after the performance, not an afternoon tea. Toss it away, Ailse.”

  “We are shooting today, Mademoiselle,” Ailse said firmly.

  “I know. Nigel is sending his automobile in an hour. And in the meanwhile, I intend to practice the solo from Giselle.” Monsieur Ciccolini had the choreography from that ballet memorized so well that he probably could have taught it had he been blinded, and although Ninette was hardly performing the classical repertoire anymore, she intended to continue to learn it. One never knew. Perhaps, one day, if only to indulge her, Nigel would stage a real ballet. She felt faintly guilty about claiming to be a ballerina, and yet never actually doing real ballet.

  With Ailse keeping careful track of time, she had just enough time to leave the studio garbed in a most peculiar costume and jump into the back of the auto before the driver became impatient.

  “Hoy!” Jonathon said, looking at her in astonishment. “I thought I was taking Mademoiselle Ninette to shoot!”

  “So you are,” Ninette replied, pushing back the boy’s cap on her head. “And this is a much more practical costume for shooting than any gown I own.”

  She had put her hair up in the ballerina’s bun, and clapped a tweed cap, purchased from a shop that sold boy’s hats, over the top of it. She wore a shirt, rather than a blouse, of very severe cut; this had been purchased from a shop that sold the sort of things that ladies who typed wore to their offices. There were no lace cuffs or frou-frous to get in the way. On her legs, Ninette wore the contraption known as a “bloomer skirt”; admittedly, she could have gotten the sort of divided skirt some ladies wore to ride or play tennis in, but from what she understood, there was going to be a great deal of clambering over rocks, and she wanted her legs as free of encumbrance as she could manage. “I wish I could have gotten boy’s trousers or even knickers to fit me,” she said wistfully. “But on such short notice, it wasn’t possible.”

  She was scarcely embarrassed, seeing as she had worn far, far less onstage for a very long time now. Jonathon’s lips quirked in a ghost of a smile.

  “Allow me to congratulate you on your good sense, mademoiselle,” he said. “There are females who would have expected me to carry them to where we are going to go.”

  Ninette sniffed scornfully. “Then you are accustomed to dealing with females who are fools,” she said. “Nigel said it would be a wild part of the coast; I took him at his word, and I dressed to suit. You and Ailse are doing me the favor of teaching me this. It would be sad if I were to play the fainting maiden now.”

  Jonathon chuckled, then turned his attention to putting the automobile in motion and sending it down the street.

  The auto trundled its way parallel to the ocean, passing the boardwalk, the beaches with their holiday families and bathing machines, all the little businesses that catered to the enterprise of sea-bathing and beach-picnicking. It was a rare day, without a cloud in the sky and without any prospect of rain. The famous electric lights that had made Blackpool a household name at the turn of the century were festooned everywhere. They passed the famous Tower, and Ninette made a private vow that when this was over, she was going to see all of these things she was missing. The Tower, the Winter Gardens, the boardwalk, the illuminations, the Opera House and all of the other theaters that Nigel competed with. The road narrowed and became more primitive, the ride a bit rougher as the macadam turned to gravel, and the beach on their left turned to rock flats.

  Finally, at a place where the worn grass showed that other people had left vehicles, Jonathon turned the auto off the track and parked it, nose facing the sea. “Here we are,” he announced.

  “So it seems. Why here?” Ninette asked.

  “Chiefly because this is where a good many people already come to practice shooting,” Jonathon said. “The local folk know this, and stay well away to avoid the odd stray bullet by a beginning marksman. This is far enough away that the sound of gunshots will not excite any interest in the holiday makers, nor is there anything of interest here for the hiker or the sea-bather. We shall be quite alone.”

  “Good!” Ninette applauded. “I should not like to be responsible for shooting someone’s ear off by accident.”

  She hopped down out of the car without waiting for Jonathon’s aid, and walked as far as the edge of the grassy area. Looking down, she saw why the local folk came here to shoot. Nature had provided a kind of perfect target range; there was just enough of a drop-off down to a beach of pebbles and a mud-flat that it was unlikely stray shots would go anywhere other than into the earth or out to sea. The beach was not the sort to invite bathers, even though it was secluded. And the scramble down and back up again could only be attempted by
the athletic.

  Of course, all of them were athletic, and as she was completely unhindered by skirts, Ninette scampered down the crude path as nimbly as a monkey.

  The end of the beach, most often used for targets, was a stack of flat-topped boulders, thoroughly pock-marked and decorated with splashes of lead. Glass shards and pottery fragments showed what figured most often as the targets, although three or four bullet-ridden, rusted tin cans showed that there were others who preferred targets that did not break when your bullets struck them.

  Jonathon had come prepared with a sort of easel and some sturdy pasteboards with the crude outline of a man on them. These he proceeded to set up without a word, then came to join the two women at the opposite end of the “shooting gallery.”

  He carefully explained the peculiarities of this pistol, then left it up to Ailse to get down to the particulars. Since there was no further call on his services, he turned his attention and his mind back to the question of just who Ninette’s enemy might be.

  Thus far, they’d had a singular lack of success in finding an Earth Master. The few that he or Nigel had found were all too old to come live in a theater in Blackpool, and even if they were so inclined, they couldn’t have borne the psychic stench of the city for very long.

  He expected Ninette to be fearful, and she certainly screwed up her face and jumped the first few times that Ailse fired the gun. But then she stepped bravely up, took the pistol in steady hands, and patiently let Ailse position her and show her how to squeeze off shots.

  They went wide of the mark, of course. That was what he had expected. But what he had not expected was how quickly she began to sight in on the target. By the time they were halfway through the box of cartridges, she was hitting the target more often than not. By the time the box was empty, she was confidently firing and hitting almost every time.