Reserved for the Cat em-6 Read online

  “Then we wait for him, or her, to do something,” Nigel replied. “We cannot act against him, there are rules about that, and I don’t want to face someone like the Old Lion for breaking the rules. Besides, unlikely as it seems, we might get another Master in here just as a visitor to Blackpool, and it would be very unwise to launch an attack of some sort on some hapless stranger.”

  Jonathon shuddered. “The Old Lion would fry us for that.”

  “Besides, if you are clever, he will not know that you are there, or that you know what I am supposed to be,” Ninette said, after a moment of silence. “I think it would be wise to wait. No?”

  Yes.

  All eyes turned to the window, where the cat sat on the sill, although he had not been there a moment before.

  Our enemy does not know about me, either, Thomas pointed out. “Laying low,” as our American cousins would say, is the wise choice here. But be prepared, because it is possible an attack will not come from magic, at least not at first.

  Ninette stared at him.

  “Perhaps I should round up a solicitor then,” Nigel replied, half in jest.

  That might be wise, replied the cat, not at all in jest.

  10

  NINETTE stopped in astonishment at the door of her dressing room. It was full of flowers.

  She had been dancing in the performances for two weeks now, and had been acting as Jonathon’s dancer and assistant for one. Last night she had added a fourth dance to her routines, a skirt dance with special colored lights playing on it, a la Loie Fuller. Sure that had not been the occasion for all of this!

  There were bouquets of every size and color, from a little nosegay of violets on her dressing table to an enormous creation that practically required a table of its own. Her maid, Ailse McKenzie, had collected the cards and arranged them on her dressing-table. She opened each one, to see messages of admiration . . . and five different names. Well! It seemed she had a suite of admirers!

  For a moment, she felt a warm glow, and a smile passed over her lips. This was wonderful! This was exactly the sort of adulation that the etoiles enjoyed, and it was a harbinger of more substantial offerings to come. From flowers, the tributes usually rose to flowers and fruit, then flowers and chocolates, then flowers and jewelry . . . or they did, if several men were vying to become one’s benefactor. Of course, there was no telling how rich any of these men were. It was nearly summer, and flowers were not as dear now as they were in winter. She didn’t know enough to tell which were in season in England, and thus inexpensive, and which were not and thus expensive, but these extravagant floral tributes could represent the limits of extravagance of any or all of them. A starving poet could and would spend his last farthing on a bouquet for one whose looks excited his imagination. Poets and other artists were hardly the most practical of creatures. Still! It would be wonderful to have the men that had given her all these flowers crowding her dressing room after the performances, and even nicer if one of them took her out for dinner afterwards. . . .

  “I’ll be accepting visitors after the show, Ailse,” she said, slowly and carefully, for Ailse did not always understand her heavily accented English.

  “Gemmun visitors too, ma’amselle?” the girl asked.

  She nodded. The girl nodded, though Ninette thought her face showed a trace of disapproval. That was only to be expected. She had never served theater people before, and likely had no idea that the dressing room of a principle served as a kind of drawing room for the etoile. Or perhaps she did not think that Ninette should be encouraging so many men.

  Well, she would have to get used to it. Ninette reckoned that if the maid could get so accustomed to a Brownie living in the pantry that she put out a daily bowl of milk and plate of bread for it, she could get used to Ninette’s admirers, and perhaps, a benefactor. Eventually.

  Not that Ninette expected to find the sort of benefactor that La Augustine enjoyed here in this city. That was highly unlikely. It did not seem to run to rich men, or nobles with both titles and money. Nor did she expect to see such men in this sort of theater; she had never yet seen the kind of men she hoped to attract, the sort that became the protectors of etoiles.

  Or at least, they would not come here until Nigel’s real show began, if there even were such in this city.

  Then . . . well to be realistic, the ones who came would probably not be the nobles with both titles and money, nor the ones whose great-grandfathers had been both wealthy and genteel. Rich men, newly rich, with fast motorcars, who like jazz and ragtime . . . yes, perhaps. That sort had come to the opera now and again, but they tended to favor the dancers at the Moulin Rouge, and then, they did not keep any one woman for very long. Why should they? Dancers at the Moulin Rouge were not devotees of art and culture, they had simple tastes and seldom took thought for the future. A ballet dancer, an opera singer—they knew that their days were numbered on the stage, and they took thought for the future. They looked for men who would give them presents that would support them when they could no longer dance or sing—things like not just a flat, but the entire building the flat was in, or presents of money without asking where that money was going.

  The great courtesans understood this, as did their benefactors. Ninette had actually been present one day when some fanatic street preacher had accosted one of those great ladies outside the theater and chided her for her “irregular life.” “My good man,” the lady had said with a laugh, “My life is a great deal more regular than that of your wife.” And everyone had known that was true. The street preacher’s wife could never be sure of what her household allowance would be, nor when it would come. The courtesan, however, had arranged for all such things to be negotiated ahead of time by her factor—often an older female relative. She had a dress allowance, her foodstuffs were charged, her rent was paid, she had an allowance for when she entertained her own friends or went out to the theater alone, she knew that she would be taken once a year to Monte Carlo or some other holiday spot, so many times to the races, so many times to the theater, and so forth. All negotiated very carefully, nothing left to chance. The sort of men that Ninette wanted understood all this.

  The Moulin Rouge dancers—and she was far closer in position to them right now than to La Augustine—never thought of the future if they could help it; when they got presents of money, they spent it, and they would not know what to do with a building of flats except to allow all their friends to move in and stay for nothing. They were happy with the flashy jewels and champagne suppers of the bold, rich men who drove big, fast motorcars. This was the way that such men liked things. And those men were not old. Nor were they often very kind. In fact, from what little of those sorts of men Ninette had seen, she judged them to be very demanding, very arrogant, and often difficult to deal with. They wanted and what they wanted, they generally got. They also had very little regard for wants or needs not their own; they expected to be the ones being pleased, and not the ones giving pleasure. When they gave a gift, it was with the expectation that it would be displayed so that everyone would know what a fine gift they could give. They seldom took their kept women to the theater, to the opera, to places where the “respectable” might go. The lives of their women were very irregular indeed.

  She considered these things as she carefully and expertly applied her stage makeup, and as Ailse helped her into her costume. All things considered, she decided, if these were that sort of young man, she would not give any of them particular encouragement. She would accept their flowers and other gifts, but give them nothing other than the opportunity to display to each other how important they were, and to vie for her undivided attention.

  And it was always possible that these were merely romantic young men for whom sending several bouquets of flowers to a dancer was the acme of extravagance. And since she had far more in common with Manon than with Mimi, she did not propose to live on love in a garret. So she would enjoy their attention and their flattery, but give them nothing to hope for beyond that
she would allow them to give her attention and flattery.

  Besides, the audience gave her that . . .

  And with that in mind, she hurried off to the wings to give them every reason to grant it to her.

  The house was full, the holiday-makers’ season in full bloom, and it was an audience that expected to be pleased, was prepared to be pleased, and was happy to show that it was pleased. Her dances with the props, the huge skirt, and the colored lights brought oohs and ahs from the audience. Then she changed from the skirt costume to the simple long Grecian-style dress she wore for the first of Jonathon’s turns, the trick with Jonathon where she chased his dancing handkerchief. It was never quite the same twice in a row; she played the part of a young girl that Jonathon was trying to make smile. He would pull the handkerchief out of the air, make a little puppet of it and make the puppet dance. She would chase it, and it would elude her, popping in and out of a bottle to keep her from capturing it. Then she would decide to trick it, go off to the other side of the stage, and dance wonderfully intricate ballet passages cribbed from the solos from Les Sylphides, the Chopin ballet that had no plot, as opposed to the La Sylphide, which had been her triumph and downfall. The handkerchief would become curious, come closer and closer, and finally end up dancing with her. That brought delighted laughter.

  Then she ran offstage and quickly changed into her “captive slave” costume, for the trick where she appeared to be burned alive; as ever, even through her own screams, she heard the gasps of horror. It was a particularly good evening. It almost seemed to her that she could feel the audience’s pleasure, as well as hear it. She had actually shivered in the cabinet at their gasps of horror, feeling some of that horror herself.

  And when she returned to a dressing room full of more flowers, she found it also full of both passionate and impoverished young men and brash and demanding wealthier middle-aged men. And as she had expected, the older men were all the nouveau riche, motorcar-driving, ragtime-loving sort. Not the sort from which one would get proper support.

  For one moment, she almost fled, despite her earlier thoughts. She was not the great dancer she pretended to be. She was only a little creature from Paris Opera Ballet, not an etoile, a bare step up from coryphée.

  But then she steeled herself, cast her mind back to La Augustine, and sailed into the dressing room with a smile and a tinkling laugh. This, too was a performance, and she would give it her best.

  Nigel came by, looked surprised and then pleased by all the attention she was getting, then went on his way. Well, he was surely counting his receipts with great pleasure tonight. Arthur waved, and Wolf flapped his wings at her from the door, but they were clearly on their way somewhere else—home, perhaps.

  Then Jonathon appeared, and when he saw the crush, he looked absolutely black. But he did not stay either; he looked daggers at the men, then stalked off. She wondered what reason he thought he had to look so evilly at her visitors. Surely none of these men, not the shallow, showy ones with money, nor the young and romantic ones with nothing, should give him any cause to be concerned. The idea that any of these could be a magician with murderous intent was too laughable even to entertain for a moment.

  In the end, of course, she sent them all away with laughter and flattering words that sounded like promises but were not, and once she was sure they were gone, she changed to her street clothes, and set out with Ailse on foot for her flat. Through the rain. Again. Did it never stop raining here? At least the street lights were electrical, and remained on during the rain. Blackpool was allegedly famous for them.

  Dinner had been left to stay warm in the oven for her; she smelled it as soon as she opened the door. The Brownie, of course, could be counted upon to keep it from burning or drying out. It was a lovely beef dinner; the English seemed to eat a great deal of beef. She and Ailse shared it, she savoring every single bite, slowly and with infinite pleasure, thinking how like paradise this was. Only a few weeks ago she was eating the last of her cabbage soup and stale bread. Now she feasted on roast beef, new potatoes, the first of the spring asparagus, and a splendid chocolate cake to follow. She would sleep in a bed with sheets and warm blankets, and awake to tea and toast and wonderful currant jelly served to her in that same bed. Then she would stop downstairs for another breakfast of eggs and broiled tomatoes and a little sausage before going to the theater. Someone would surely take her out to luncheon, or Ailse would bring her something from the nearby theater pub. She never went without a meal now, and a good one—just as well, because she was rehearsing morning and afternoon, and performing every night. Master Ciccolini was proving a better instructor than he thought he was, for his eye was very good and caught all the little places where her balance could be improved, a turn could be made more beautiful, a line more graceful—and what was more, he knew how to position her to get those things. They were working on the choreography for the big production of Escape from the Harem in this way, bar by bar, trial and error. What she could not lift wholesale from other ballets, that is. It was hard work and she needed the good food. She had never felt better, healthier, happier in her life.

  Ailse glanced once or twice at her with curiosity, but was too good a servant to ask anything. “Food,” Ninette said into the silence, “is a kind of art. Like all arts, it can be simple, or it can be complex, but one always knows when the artist who created it is great. And great art deserves respect and attention.” She smiled. “It goes without saying that our hostess is an artist in her own kitchen. Everything she makes is as perfect as it can be.”

  “ ’Tis uncommon good, aye, m’amselle,” Ailse ventured, winning another smile from Ninette. And there was another thing. Although she had a heavy accent, and her conversation was unexpectedly sprinkled with Russian phrases, her English mysteriously improved each night. Was that the cat’s doing? It must be. She could not imagine any other way in which it could be happening so quickly.

  In short, life was wonderful, even without a rich old man to shower gifts and fine living on her. She was beginning to wonder if she really needed such a man after all. . . .

  But as Ninette went to bed, she wondered something else; what about the crowd in her dressing room had made Jonathon Hightower look so annoyed?

  Nigel’s Air Sprites fled from his office without warning, so he was not entirely surprised to see Jonathon come in wearing an expression like a thunderstorm. Nigel went on counting the receipts. “Good house tonight,” he remarked.

  “Full of idiots,” Jonathon growled. “But I suppose that is just as well. Easier to deceive idiots.”

  “They seemed to appreciate your act.”

  Jonathon frowned. “I wish she would show a little less leg.”

  It seemed a non-sequitur, but Nigel was tolerably familiar with the way that Jonathon thought. Aha. That is the way the wind blows, is it? Nigel coughed. “If I recall correctly, your last female assistant wore tights and a Merry Widow—and not much more—”

  “My last assistant was a trollop,” Jonathon all but spat. “This dancer of yours needs to be more careful. Some people seem to think that showing your legs on the stage means they’ll get to see more of those legs up close if they just bring enough flowers.”

  Ah Jonathon—the magician, so far as Nigel was aware, had been notoriously indifferent to his assistants, although it was quietly understood that being his assistant on stage meant sharing living quarters for the tour offstage. And if they objected to that, they were replaced. To Nigel’s knowledge only one or two ever had been, at least in mid-tour, and not for that reason. Jonathon’s relentless drive and his acid wit, however, had driven more than one of them to quit at the end of a season. He was rather a hard taskmaster, and his sense of humor, as Nina had discovered, was just a trifle cruel. Nigel was actually proud that she had stood up to him over that one incident. Jonathon didn’t care for shrinking violets. He respected her now.

  Respects her enough to not care for a dressing room full of potential rivals . . .

/>   “She’s a ballet dancer. They spend most of their lives half-naked. I doubt she thinks anything of it, no more than you think of spending half your life with false hair plastered on your face.” He decided to obliquely change the subject. “Has anything turned up looking to harm her?”

  Jonathon frowned at that. “That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. My sentries are uneasy. There is definitely something in the wind, but whatever it is, they haven’t been able to exactly find it. You know they have some limited ability to see into the future?”

  Nigel nodded. Fire Spirits and Water Spirits were particularly good at that, Air Spirits could, but tended to be so flighty they had trouble concentrating, and Earth Spirits were . . . well . . . very dense when it came to the future, keeping all their attention solidly in the present.

  “There is threat to her. And the origin of that threat is here, in this country. That is all they can say.” Jonathon’s frown deepened. “Do you suppose that whatever or whoever it is knows that she is being guarded?”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Nigel countered. “We daren’t underestimate this foe. Her father was powerful enough to create Thomas, and yet he lost out to this person—or persons. For all we know, there could be more than one enemy. And if there is, and they have separated, that could also cause confusion for your spirits.”

  “Curse it, you’re right,” Jonathon growled. “And curse them, too.”

  “Indeed,” Nigel replied dryly. “How dare villainous cads be as clever as the heroes?”

  Jonathon looked at him in shock for a moment... and then they both laughed.

  Once her rage cooled—and the journey to this “Blackpool” place was accomplished, not by uncomfortable train, but by luxurious steam yacht, giving her plenty of time for her temper to cool—Nina, the real Nina, had gone from livid to calculating. And she realized that there was a very good reason, an excellent reason why the imposter had chosen her identity to steal. In the girl’s place, she might have done the same.