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 hours 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
