Spider Dance (7 page)

“Meeting unchaperoned in hotels, I mean. Of course.”

“Of course. You are right, Nell. It does seem a . . . significant step.”

“Apparently we have taken it,” I pointed out with a bit of annoyance.

He grinned at me, and I suddenly wished for distraction.

The only thing that occurred to me would involve my being even more intrepid than going on a ferris wheel ride. I would have to use the black beast crouching on a circular end table.

“May I offer you some refreshment?”

He immediately glanced at the decanter by the desk.

’Tea, I meant”

“Of course. Tea.”

I picked up the ignoble instrument and waited for a human voice to acknowledge my bold move. In very little time one did, barking “Yes?”

I ordered a tea service for two and gladly relinquished hold on the telephone, for only Irene had used it since our arrival ten days before.

’Tea.” Quentin leaned back in the sofa and smiled, closing his eyes. “It will feel just like home.”

“But you call the odd corners of the entire world home these days. Quentin.”

His eyes opened, rebuking my reminder. “That is where I work. Home is where tea is hot and sweet instead of salty, and the servers are charming English ladies instead of squatting Bedouins.”

“I thought you liked the nomadic life.”

“I do, when I want adventure. But when I want comfort . . . there is nothing like a good English tea.”

“I can’t guarantee the Astor House will come anywhere near that standard, although . . . the cooking here is actually quite agreeable.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Nell, you are learning the first lesson of the Englishman or woman abroad.”

“And that is?”

“The English can’t cook.”

“I don’t agree. And I certainly find the reputation of the French in that regard overrated.”

He just shook his head.

“So,” I asked, “what was Irene doing when you saw her and she did not see you? It is so unlike her to be oblivious.”

“She was leaving the B. Altman’s Department Store.”

“Ah. No wonder she was distracted. Now that we have resolved to stay on in America, I imagine she has decided to supplement her meager wardrobe. You know how naked Irene feels without a full repertoire of clothing to suit every occasion from walking out in gentleman’s guise to playing the belle of the ball.”

I only then realized that I had used the word “naked” in a gentleman’s presence. I felt the “radiance” acquired from working escalate into a blush that suffused my whole face.

Quentin, however, was looking down, studying the highly polished boot-toe on his casually crossed leg. “Forced to leave the stage that was her natural arena, she brings it with her, costumes, props, and all. And sometimes supernumeraries like ourselves, Nell.”

“Oh, we are not mere supernumeraries,” I said hastily as he looked up at my face again. Surely my crimson tide of embarrassment was ebbing by now. “Rather I would think of us as supporting players.”

“Well,” he said briskly, “she is playing some part today, for she was wearing an extremely plain gown of modest black.”

“Not when she left here!”

He shrugged. “I know, Nell, that her quest in this country was to find her mother, who had apparently abandoned her at a young age. Is she . . . in mourning?”

“Well, I can’t say. We did visit Green-Wood Cemetery and saw the grave of a woman who could have been Irene’s mother. There is also some question that another dead woman may possibly . . . er, have the honor. But I never thought this quest had affected Irene so deeply that she would resort to wearing mourning!”

“You and I take knowing our parents for granted.” He rose to answer a knock that had given me another start. “How can we understand what it must be like to grow up having no one to call mother or father? Ah.”

He admitted a waiter bearing a huge silver tray as if it were made of lace instead of metal. This was deposited on the cloth covering the low table set before the sofa Quentin had taken.

Quentin saw the waiter to the door and skillfully slipped him a coin for his trouble, something I would never have thought of, and never have managed without attracting great attention to what should have been a subtle gesture. Would I never become a woman of the world? That is what comes of being born a country parson’s daughter. Yet, as Quentin had just pointed out, there was comfort in knowing that, a comfort Irene had never felt.

He took my hand—another “informality” I was not certain we had agreed to—and led me around the table to sit beside him on the sofa.

“Mourning,” I repeated, pouring tea and making sure Quentin’s had two lumps of sugar. As I poured a few drops of milk into my cup, I couldn’t help thinking of bitter tears flowing. “I had no idea Irene was so affected by this quest. We really can’t believe she is the daughter of ‘the wickedest woman in New York,’ especially now another candidate has reared her, er, headstone, so to speak.”

“What do you mean, Nell?” Quentin rose and went to the brandy decanter to pour a bit into his tea.

Before I could lower my eyebrows, he’d brought the decanter to me. “A bit for flavor?”

“Will it sweeten the tea?”

“No, but it may ease your anxiety.” He poured some in without further ado. “I must tell you that Irene looked very unlike a woman in mourning when I saw her. She looked most pleased with herself. In fact, she was rushing along the avenue as if trying to catch a streetcar.”

“How puzzling. She said nothing to me before she left,
only that she had some errands and I must expect surprises.” My first sip made me rear back. “This is far more heady than beer, Quentin.”

“Brandy is for heroes, the saying goes. And heroines.”

“Then certainly not for me.” I frowned. “So that is why you came here. You had seen that Irene was out and wanted to know why she was wearing mourning attire.”

“No. I saw that she was out and, clever agent that I am, surmised that you would be here alone.”

There came another knock, only this was my heartbeat rapping at the cage of my chest.

Perversely, I longed for the intrusion of an actual knock on the door. A worldlier woman would have asked why Quentin wanted to visit me privately.

All I could do was rattle the tea things and exert all my will to keep from clearing my throat.

“Have I upset you?” he asked.

“No, but you have pointed out that our being . . . closeted here is somewhat improper.” Suddenly my throat was clear and I found my voice, which seemed to be telling me a thing or two, more than him. “Although that is a bit ridiculous, as Irene would point out were she here. I am hardly a young, marriageable female that must be safeguarded at all times, and never was.”

“I’m shocked. You mean to say that you are married?”

“No! Of course not! Never.”

“You seem quite adamant against the state.” He frowned slightly enough to indicate that he was railing me. “Then you must be about to confess that you are not female. I must confess in turn that I won’t believe you, even were you to don Irene’s walking-out clothes.”

“Of course I would claim no such thing. One cannot deny one’s gender, lowly as it is.”

“Then you must have meant that you are not young. If so, I am in desperate straits, for I am older than you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was already in the army when I first saw you
and you were a governess so young you seemed on the same footing with your charges.”

“That was years ago, Quentin. And you were startlingly youthful then too. I only meant that it’s absurd for a spinster of a certain age to feel she must answer to some nameless critic for every step she takes.”

“You did not take many steps here today, Nell. I called upon you. You merely answered the door. But I’m glad you have concluded that you . . . we . . . no longer need a chaperon.”

Strange how one can find oneself coming to a brand-new conclusion, a revelation, in fact, by the act of speaking to someone else, and hearing yourself as if for the first time.

In fact, there was no one left in my life to scandalize . . . my parson father, the ladies of the town, people who passed me in the street and knew me not at all, and never would.

And Irene was impossible to scandalize.

I took a deep breath. “I quite agree, Quentin, that we do not require a chaperon. Then why do I feel that one is in order, despite everything?”

He leaned near, so I saw the lines of his smile etched in white against his sun-darkened complexion.

“Do you know, Nell, that I take that remark as a compliment?”

Was I woman, or was I mouse? I begrudged Pink the association with Quentin that events had demanded, but when he appeared here, of his own will, I hardly knew what to do with him.

“I’m sure you deserve many compliments,” I said, “and from persons far more important than I.”

“I can think of no such person.”

Gracious. He had contrived that we sit very close together on the sofa, or somehow our positions had merged.

My heart was pounding as if a Spanish dancer had suddenly become resident. My face felt hot, my hands cold, my feet numb.

Quentin’s wonderful hazel eyes were looking deeply into
mine, and I was feeling such turbulence of emotions, knowing I had to choose whether to trust him or not, for he could as surely destroy me as delight me.

As if reading my thoughts, he took my hand.

“Nell, I ask only one question of you.”

“That’s odd. I have about a thousand for you.”

“I ask only if you feel anything for me. Anything at all.”

“Of course I do. My goodness, you are my onetime charge Allegra’s uncle. I saw you as a very young man off to war, and now, here you are a seasoned agent for the Foreign Office, sent all around the world. I am very proud of you, Quentin, and especially of how you have lived such an adventurous life in frightening times and places, and done such good service for queen and country.”

“That is the former governess speaking. I had something else in mind.”

“What could there be but my sincere admiration, and gratituder?”

“Nell,” he rebuked me.

“And . . . I do indeed feel a certain . . . camaraderie from dangers we have shared.”

“Nell.”

“And certain other . . . oh, a certain deep regard.”

I gave up, for he was staring into my eyes in such a way that I could hardly think, much less speak.

The spell was breathtaking, and I felt such panic that it seemed imperative to break it.

“Why must I list my feelings, when I know nothing of yours? It is most unequal.”

We stared at each other for what seemed like infinity.

“We are unequal,” he said finally. “I find myself drawn to you, Nell. You know that I did from the moment we met in my niece’s schoolroom, back at Berkeley Square in London. I still see the breathless girl in you, forced into service by circumstance. I want her back. I want to make her come back, to me.”

I may have been somewhat obtuse by nature and education about what transpires between men and women, but
there was no mistaking how Quentin thought he could recall that phantom of myself I had interred years ago.

“That moment is past. I am not the same.”

“But you could be. I could make you be the same.”

He lifted my hand to his lips. I felt warm breath, then flesh along them, and a thumb stroking the palm of my hand.

“Quentin, there are many other women more suitable—” Except for Nellie Bly, of course.

His lips and breath had moved to the inside of my wrist.

How I wished there were someone I could ask what this meant, and what I should do, or not do! Irene was out, of course, but I knew instantly that I could not refer this matter even to her. I wanted no other soul to know of it.

And yet . . . what did it mean? What would he do? I do? What would come of it?

How could I be again that green girl I had been for those few moments, and still protect myself from the harm another can do one for all the best reasons in the world. These moments were not new for Quentin, but they were for me. Once they were created, would the mystery and magic fade? Would I be left, like Elaine, the lily maid of Astelot, with only an abandoned image of myself in a cracked mirror?

Yet the feelings I felt, that Quentin had asked me about, were so strange and rare I couldn’t bear to let them escape.

He brought my hand to his mouth, his lips on my unfolded palm, and I knew that I was lost.

As the playing conditions improved, so did the proficiency
of the top players with the spot-stroke
.
PETER AINSWORTH,
A BRIEF HISTORY OF BILLIARDS
AND THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

F
ROM THE
C
ASE
N
OTES OF
S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES