Secrets at Sea (15 page)

Then Lord Peter was before her, with a neat bow from the neck as her hand came up. He took it and bowed deeper to kiss the air above it. Oh, the elegance of that moment. How many generations had it taken to produce mice-of-title such as these?

The Duchess gestured in our direction. Lord Peter favored both Louise and me with courtly nods. I suppose we simpered, but he only had eyes for Beatrice. I nudged her. The provoking girl was picking one last flake of confetti off her front fur.

Lord Peter bowed before her. His hand came out. Louise gave her a nudge that nearly sent her sprawling. Then—somehow—Beatrice and Lord Peter were on the ballroom floor. Only the two of them while the whole mouse world watched.

Panic gripped me as he took her in his arms.

Then
—
somehow
—
Beatrice and Lord Peter were on the ballroom floor.

Could the silly girl dance? We didn't. We never had. When would we?

But as Lord Peter took one step forward, Beatrice took one step back. Her tail lashed prettily, and they were swept away upon the blue Danube. He of course never put a foot wrong as they scampered in a perfect pattern, round and round the floor. Oh, it was lovely. I wish you could have seen them. Beatrice lolled in Lord Peter's arms, keeping him at a little distance. There was something dreamy and faraway in her eyes. They were far from beady. They were simply far away.

“Honestly,” Louise murmured, “they go for her type every time.” But you had to admire Beatrice. She did not gloat, though Lord Peter was on the hook, and our whole world knew it now. There are no secrets at sea.

 

THEY DANCED AND danced until the ballroom filled up with other couples. Tails are a problem on a crowded ballroom floor, of course. But how nimble and deft everyone was, taking their cue from Lord Peter and Beatrice. The old Duchess kept time with her matchstick.

Louise and I looked on. Louise sat with ankles crossed and hands folded together as much like Camilla as she could manage. But finally she could stand it no longer. Her nose was in my ear and she was whispering moistly.

“ What are you going to tell the Duchess, Helena? Are you going to be an Assistant Mouse-in-Waiting or not? Are you going to live in the palace? The Duchess wants to know. I'm sure your two minutes are up by now,” whispered Louise, though we mice are not good with time.

I merely nodded, having come to a decision. And when the Duchess turned to me, her missing eyebrows high, I was ready. As ready as I'd ever be.

“As to my future employment, Your Royal Highness,” I said—very proper, very correct. “I will make you a deal.”

The Duchess stared. “A deal?” Her matchstick clattered to the floor. “A
deal?
”She looked nearly at me. “Is that some sort of
American
expression?”

“Yes, Duchess,” I said. “It is.”

For I had looked into the future by then. We were far from Aunt Fannie Fenimore's crystal ball. But I always look ahead anyhow. Somebody has to.

I scanned the future and saw—deep within a great gray and gold-tipped palace—a wondrous scene. There were sprays of white lily of the valley, artfully arranged, and petals of orange blossom.

I saw Beatrice there in the center of this scene, Beatrice blushing in white. And myself and Louise, tastefully attired and holding small nosegays of seasonal flowers. Bridesmaids.

And now I heard quite different music—a wedding march.

“Here's the deal, Duchess,” I said. “ I shall be honored to accept a position in your royal household if my sister can be married in a palace wedding.”

The Duchess was thunderstruck. “A palace wedding?” She gripped her front fur. Her tiara quivered. “A
palace wedding
for a bride far from royal?”

I nodded and gathered my hands. Louise liked to pass out.

The Duchess pondered, and her old eyes narrowed. “Ah well,” she breathed at last. And her breath nearly knocked both Louise and me off our spools. “I suppose something of the sort can be arranged.” While behind her, Beatrice and Lord Peter turned and turned in one waltz after another.

And wedding bells rang in my mind.

J
UST AT DAWN, tugboats nudged the great iron ship into the dock. Whistles blew, announcing our arrival. Beside Camilla's sleeping form her biggest steamer trunk yawned open. The men would be here for it very shortly. Outside, roustabouts were already . . . rousting about. Sea birds cawed. Somewhere beyond our portholes the gangplank rumbled down. Lady Augusta Drear was no doubt being carried ashore, trussed up like a parcel. Nanny Pratt was doubtless not far behind her, being packed off permanently.

Three small figures, gray as the dawn, gathered on the carpet of Camilla's cabin, nose to nose to nose. You know who. We were nearly tuckered out from the gala dinner with dancing to follow. It had gone on far into the night.

Now we had only moments to scale the trunk, up to Camilla's handkerchief drawer, for the journey on to London. The time had come once more to pack ourselves for shipping.

Louise was all aflutter the way she gets. Her tail flailed. “I wonder if I should wake Camilla? Scamper lightly across her face or something. If she oversleeps—”

“Up into the handkerchief drawer, Louise,” I said. I have to see to everything.

“You first, Beatrice.” I pointed up to the drawer. “Up you go.”

And would you believe it? The provoking girl didn't budge. She stood stock-still, rooted to the rug. “
Me?
” she said, hand on furry front. “Helena,
I'm
not going to London, England, for pity's sake, wherever it is. The idea! I am only seeing you off. I am only here to bid you a fond toodle-oo.” Her eyes popped and goggled. Her whiskers twitched. You never saw such astonishment.

Louise and I stared.

But Beatrice stared right back. “I thought it was perfectly clear,” she said maddeningly. “I'm staying on the ship.”

We liked to have turned to stone, Louise and I. The ship? Beatrice was staying on the ship? My heart sank. Where to begin with her? “ Beatrice, first of all, you are terrified of water. And far more importantly, you are to be married in a palace wedding that I have personally arranged. A
palace wedding,
Beatrice, with—”

“Nigel and I have reached an understanding,” she said, interrupting.

She looked modestly aside. Also, she would not meet my eye.

Nigel!

Those great white haunches. Those piercing ruby eyes. The commanding tail. Gorgeous whiskers. “ ' Ello, 'ello” indeed.

My eyes narrowed. “Beatrice, how did you manage that?”

She sat back and arranged her tail. “It was just the other night when I slipped away from the jewelry case. You know, the tufted one with the hatpins and—”

“Get on with it, Beatrice.”

“And I told Nigel of Lord Peter's... interest in me. I mentioned the flowers. The baby's breath. The lily of the valley.”

Ah. Once Nigel had a rival, it brought him around.

Nigel!

“But, Beatrice, you have just waltzed the night away in Lord Peter's arms. Lord Peter
Mouse Equerry,
Beatrice.”

She turned up her hands in a very annoying way. “Oh, that was easy. There was nothing to it,” she said. “I just pretended he was Nigel.”

Louise moaned.

“Beatrice,” I said reasonably, “you do understand Lord Peter's position in English society as Mouse Equerry, don't you? You grasp that one day it is entirely possible that you could be a mouse countess. A
countess,
Beatrice.”

“ Two castles,” Louise said.

Beatrice goggled at us. “But I love Nigel. And naturally Nigel loves me,” she said. “ It was love at first sight.”

With Beatrice it always is.

Outside the porthole, carts clattered. Voices called and cried. My head pounded. Time was running out. Time always is. Above us, Camilla was beginning to stir. Bedsprings creaked.

“Beatrice,” I said to my provoking sister, “ I will make you a deal.”

Beatrice blinked.

Q
UEEN VICTORIA'S DIAMOND Jubilee took place on a June day without a cloud in the sky. “Queen's weather,” as we call such days here in England.

The gilded gates of Buckingham Palace fell open that morning to the stately parade of the Queen and all her mighty court.

The gentlemen, booted and spurred, on stamping steeds. The little old Queen shaped exactly like a teapot, with white feathers in her bonnet. And with her in the open landau, Princess Helena—the human Helena, and quite a generously built woman. They were off across London to St. Paul's Cathedral to give thanks for the Queen's sixty years upon the greatest throne in human history.

Behind them in landaus of their own, drawn by white horses, came the other royal princesses. All of them nodding, nodding, to left and to right at the crowds cheering down the Mall. Oh that red and gold morning beneath the blue dome of sky, while all the world watched!

We liked to never get Her Royal Highness Princess Louise ready and downstairs into her carriage. None of her maids were any more use than Mrs. Flint's daughters back home. Lady Augusta Drear was naturally no longer in attendance. And the Princess's new lady-in-waiting, Lady Clementine Cumberbatch, didn't know where anything was. The Princess's royal suite was a perfect puzzle to her.

With everything in a muddle, the Duchess of Cheddar Gorge and I were rushed off our feet. Then at the last moment, the heel came off of one of the Princess's shoes. I had to fling myself against the button to ring for the boot boy. And the Duchess had to show me which button. Honestly, without mice, where would humans be? Their heads are in the clouds.

An Assistant Mouse-in-Waiting's work is never done. The Duchess and I were two tired mice by the time the Princess rolled out of the palace gates, behind her royal mother, into the sea of flag-waving humans. We watched from a window looking out upon the Mall, the Duchess and I. And our day had barely begun.

All the hundreds of palace staff were watching now, clustered at their windows: the Pages of the Presence and the Pages of the Backstairs. The Body Linen Laundresses and the Bedchamber Women. The Fire Lighters and Footmen, the Butlers and Under Butlers. The Chimney Sweeps. The Apothecary to the Household. Even the Rat Killer. Yes, there's an official palace Rat Killer. So useful.

A silence fell upon the palace then. No footsteps rang. No one was summoned or sent for. The palace awaited the Queen's return. Sunlight—pale, watery English sunlight—fell, almost unseen, across Princess Louise's personal drawing room. Sunbeams winked on the polished fender before the hearth. How welcome is a crackling fire on an English summer day.

Oh, you should have seen that noble chamber in all its quiet grandeur. The famous paintings on the paneled walls. The gently tinkling chandeliers. The tapestry cushions, personally worked by Princess Louise, who is artistic. Then, just at the stroke of noon, probably, there came a stirring and the occasional cheep.

The Persian carpet suddenly filled up with a murmuring multitude of mice. Out of the woodwork we came. You know how we are. Always just a whisker away, whether you know it or not.

But never so many in one place. All the palace mice, of course, and we greatly outnumber the humans. Greatly. And the mice of the better London families. Then the foreign mice visiting with their royal humans. The King of the Belgians alone was accompanied by a retinue of forty mice, and he was but one king among many. And yes, New York City mice. Vanderbilts. A major infestation. The carpet was gray with us.

There is nothing like a palace wedding to draw a fashionable crowd. And the flowers on the fender were much admired. Sprays and cascades of orange-bloom petals and lily of the valley, plucked straight from the palace greenhouse. The Duchess and I had been up half the night.

She went first, of course, the Duchess did, to her place at the front, to represent the mother of the bride. Down the aisle between the crowds she hobbled on her matchstick, wearing her rusty tiara and a caterpillar boa.

For music, the entire chorus of
The Nutcracker
began to hum the wedding march. But they were rather drowned out by a military band, blaring now from the forecourt below the windows. And so Beatrice started down the aisle to the strains of “Rule, Britannia.” She carried a burgeoning bouquet of four late violets, white ones, picked dew-fresh that very morning from a shady corner of the palace gardens.

The wedding guests made a path for her across the Persian carpet, leading to the fender before the hearth. She was a lovely bride, of course, and you know how Beatrice likes to be the center of attention. Several of the foreign mice dropped curtsies as she passed, not quite knowing whether she was royal or not.