Spider Dance (73 page)

“We mustn’t tell anyone of this,” Irene said grimly as we were under way.

“By ‘anyone’ you mean—?”

“Especially Godfrey.”

“And—?”

“Quentin. Pink. The queen of England. You did hear what they cried out, Nell?”

“No. There was this roaring in my ears. I hardly knew what I heard or did or even saw. Except that my hat pin is gone.”

“Mein Gott!
”

“Irene, are you cursing now. And why in German?”

“‘
Mein Gott
’ is what my attacker muttered when he couldn’t get the carpetbag and you started picking at him with your knitting needle.”

“It wasn’t a knitting needle. It was an embroidery scissors, and a very feeble weapon indeed. Why couldn’t you just let him have the carpetbag?”

“Because it’s Godfrey’s.”

“Godfrey could buy another one at any of these huge department stores that dot New York.”

“I don’t want Godfrey to know what has just happened, which getting him a new carpetbag would make inevitable.”

“Secrets between spouses are the devil’s workshop.”

“Nell! Do you want Quentin to know that we were assaulted by Ultramontanes on the sidewalks of New York?”

“They left. By ship.”

“Apparently not all of them. We shall never be allowed to go anywhere unescorted again if news of this brawl gets back to Godfrey or Quentin.”

I considered this, and weighed whether it was such a bad thing, or not. Unlike Irene, I didn’t thirst for independence. Then again, I’d never been denied it. Quentin might feel that his duty to protect me outweighed his duty to muzzle Nellie Bly.

I enjoyed that supposition for a few moments, then shrugged it away.

“All right,” I agreed, “but we must prepare for further attempts by the Ultramontanes, who obviously believe you have access to the lost treasure of Lola Montez.”

“Fine,” she said absently, patting inside the open carpetbag to make sure the book of Lola was still safe inside. “We’ll buy you a new hat pin, or several, of the best Spanish steel tomorrow before we sail.”

I am not the wicked woman you have been told. . . .
I have erred in life, often and again—who has not? I have been
vain, frivolous, ambitious—proud; but never vicious, never cruel,
never unkind. I appeal to a liberal press, and to the intelligent
gentlemen who control it, to aid me in my exertions to regain
the means of an honorable livelihood
.
—LOLA MONTEZ LETTER TO THE
NEW YORK HERALD
, 1852

“How did your mission go?” Godfrey asked when we returned to the hotel, hot and messed in attire, feeling as guilty as children who’d eaten the entire contents of a tea tray in the kitchen.

Yet he looked so obviously relieved, even buoyant, at the idea of leaving America that I understood why Irene didn’t want to alarm him further.

Irene opened the empty carpetbag. “Clothing delivered and much appreciated.” She had removed the book of Lola in the hansom, and put it in her skirt pocket. “Now you can have this back to fill it with the scandalously scanty number of clothes a gentleman needs to make a transatlantic crossing, compared to a lady.”

“Irene,” he said, “I’ve never seen you leave clothing behind, so can certainly offer you the use of my trunk for yours.”

He stepped aside to reveal a newly purchased trunk of the proper dimensions. Men can be so very invaluable and surprising.

“So that was your errand!” Irene embraced him rapturously. “Now we can be sure that all Nell’s fripperies won’t be crushed in transit.”

“All
my
fripperies? My dear Irene, you do me an injustice.”

“I’m not so sure, Nell.” Godfrey stepped to the desk by the door. “This arrived while you were out.”

He handed me a handsome flat fruitwood box large enough to hold silverware.

“For me?” I opened the heavy vellum envelope atop it. It contained a folded note and Alva Vanderbilt’s calling card (which was not so commercial as to feature her photograph, thank goodness). The note itself was signed by William Kissam Vanderbilt and expressed deep gratitude for saving his “most precious pearl of a daughter, Consuelo.”

Within the wooden box was a large clam-shaped box of moss-green velvet, and within that . . . Godfrey held the heavy outer box as I opened the velvet lid and stared at a black silk surface holding Alva’s diamond-and-pearl parure, a full parure of long necklace, dog collar, twin bracelets, brooch, earrings.

“Gracious! This can’t be for me.”

Irene was ogling the contents over my shoulder. “Hmmm. No doubt too modest for Alva, therefore a small loss. At least she’s a woman of her word. The diamonds are dainty, merely meant to set off the perfection of the pearls. Therefore ideal for you, Nell, since they will set off your perfect English complexion.”

“I can’t accept it.”

“I kidnapped Consuelo,” Irene said. “I can’t take a reward for that. But you showed true care for the girl, and I’m sure Mr. Vanderbilt appreciates that.”

“It is in unusually good taste for Alva Vanderbilt, from what I’ve seen.”

“Agreed,” Godfrey said heartily. “I’ve plenty of room and my new trunk deserves a worthy passenger.”

“Besides,” Irene said, then paused. She threaded her arm through Godfrey’s, so they faced me as one.

“Think how splendid the pearls will look when you’re gowned to sit at the captain’s table for dinner after a day of strolling the decks and playing deckside games.”

“Irene! Are you mad? I’ll be as sick as a seal the entire voyage.”

“Oh, Nell, that is too bad. What will we do to entertain Quentin then?” She cast large brown eyes at her beaming spouse.

“Quentin! On shipboard? With us??”

“Yes! Pink is quite occupied with this baby-buying business. Story after story in the
World
. Quentin is free, for now, anyway.”

I was speechless. I considered everything, including the weeklong voyage I dreaded to the soles of my feet, and remained . . . speechless. And Quentin would be aboard to see me in such a revolting state?! I think not. I would rather drown. I would rather stay in New York City and become a vaudeville performer: Miss Nell and Her Flying Hat Pins. I would rather go back to London and assist Sherlock Holmes in his investigations. I would rather sit on an Antarctic ice floe and commune with penguins. I would rather . . .

“We must dash out,” Irene was saying, leading her husband by the politely crooked arm. “I desperately need a quantity of hat pins and a new shirtwaist. We’ll meet again for dinner here.”

I never wanted to eat again.

They were gone before I could assemble my senses or my objections.

I sank onto our parlor sofa and tried to assemble myself at least. How could Irene allow me to be thrust into such a humiliating situation? She’d seen me in the throes of mal de mer. She couldn’t possibly believe I’d want any other living soul, even Godfrey, to see me thus.

And now, Quentin—?

While my mind erected several atrocious shipboard
scenes involving my utter humiliation and despair, some unsuspecting soul was knocking on the door to our room.

A mere hat pin would not do to skewer anyone who dared cross my path at that moment. Were it a mob of Ultramontanes, I would savage them with my bare hands . . . .

I rose and went to the door, eager to dispense my wrath on whoever dared to disturb me at the most dreadful moment of my life, when what should be joy was despair.

The door opened, however, on the very object of my concern.

“Quentin!”

“Didn’t Irene and Godfrey tell you I was coming for dinner?”

“No. And they didn’t tell me you were coming for dinner for seven more nights in a row until just now.”

He grinned, the pitiless demon. “I’m going back with you.”

“So I’ve heard.”

His head tilted sideways to study my face, which felt frozen. “You’re not pleased?”

“No! Yes! I’m glad you’re free of the toils of Nellie Bly, of course. But I shan’t see you aboard.”

“You’re . . . not staying on in New York?”

“Of course not. But I shall be unfit to be seen. I suffer horribly from seasickness.”

“Oh.” He stepped inside the room, driving me back from my inhospitable position barring the door. “I’d heard something about that”

“Heard? You can’t have heard the half of it. Irene can skip all up and down the decks and never turn a hair. I turn several shades of green at the merest waft of motion.”

“You were fine on the steamboat to Coney Island.”

“That wasn’t the Atlantic. Oh, don’t even make me think of it!”

“Nell—” He seized my wrists.

I pulled them away. I was tired of being seized for the day, even by one who made my pulses leap with a strange combination of anticipation and dread.

“Look. I’ve brought you a present.”

And from his pocket he produced a bit of folded tissue. His unwrapping fingers revealed a length of carved ivory, quite exquisite.

He held it up, a circle, not a length.

“What on earth?”

“A cure for seasickness from the Indian Ocean. A bracelet.”

“A bracelet? For me?”

“Two,” Quentin said, grinning like a street conjuror as he produced a twin to the first.

“Quite lovely, but—”

His fingers spread to fan the ivory squares wide. They were threaded on two lines of elastic. “Try them on.”

He’d taken my hand despite my objections and was slipping one bracelet over my fingers onto my wrist.

“Goodness! They snap as tight as a sleeve-band.”

“Exactly. The gentle pressure cures seasickness on the Indian Ocean. It can do no differently on the Atlantic.”

“You’re sure of this?” I asked as he installed the second bracelet on my other wrist.

“I’ve seen it work. You just wear them for the duration of the voyage.”

I frowned. “They may attract attention.”

“What do you care if you can take the air on deck and eat dinner at the captain’s table?”

“Those two activities have never been among my ambitions.”

“But I’m rather shallow and will enjoy it. I’d rather you enjoy it with me.”

I had only one thought:
What would Nellie Bly do?

“I’d be delighted,” I said.

And was.