Reserved for the Cat

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 an etoile at the Paris Opera, but as that plan fell to pieces, this was my second. Clearly this one is riskier, resting as it does on deception, and my ability to cozen these magicians. If this had fallen to pieces, I had a third, and a fourth, although neither of those were as desirable, and they did not make as much use of your dancing. I am more familiar with Britain than I am with France, so when the first plan fell apart, it was here that we needed to come.

“Did you come to France with my father?” she asked, now very interested.

In a sense. That is not important now. I am engaged in a deception with these men. It will not hold forever. I am certain that at some point they will learn the truth, but at that point you will be their great star and it will not matter. They are showmen, first and foremost; it is the show that matters. Do you take my meaning?

Ninette nodded. That was always true to a greater or lesser extent in the theater. The great stars were as much publicity and showmanship as talent, with the exception, maybe, of amazing talents like the Divine Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanor Duse. Even then . . . would they have been quite so acclaimed if they had not been so eccentric?

“Do I need to be eccentric?” she asked.

Hmm. A good question. Let me think about that. The cat hunched down over his forepaws, eyes half closed. I think, eccentric in simplicity. Elegant simplicity, not all bare feet and scarves like Isadora. But we will have plenty of time to work on that. First, let me drill you on your mythical yacht-person.

Needless to say, Ninette knew nothing about yachts. But she did know a great deal about the rich old men in fur coats who would be expected to own a yacht. Together she and Thomas concocted a plausible story for the apocryphal Nikolas. He could not be too rich, or one would expect a hue and cry about his missing state. He could not be titled either, for the same reason. So it was to be a very small yacht, something a bourgeoisie merchant would have bought to impress young dancers and singers. And Nikolas would have been Nina’s friend, but not her particular friend. She would have been ready to accept favors, but not yet ready to let him into her bed.

Over the course of the day her two rescuers found many excuses to check on her progress. Soon, she was calling the two of them by their first names.

And the cat drilled her mercilessly on her story in between times. So when they finally asked her questions, she was able to weep and cry, “Poor Nikolas! Poor old man!” in a way that left no doubt in the minds of her benefactors that she had very little emotional investment in “Nikolas,” and that in all probability he had offered this trip in order to impress her enough that she would take him as her protector.

This cheered both of them up immensely, even as they tried to comfort the weeping “Nina.” This was understandable; a dead lover was a terrible complication, but she would probably be able to put Nikolas behind her in fairly short order if he was only a “friend” from whom she had perhaps accepted a few gifts.

In the late afternoon someone from the Royal Lifeboat Service arrived, resplendent in a uniform, to talk to her about the sinking. She almost panicked, but the cat soothed her, and quietly coached her on what to say. As she sat between her two benefactors, wrapped in an elegant dressing gown, the officer remained standing, looking acutely uncomfortable.

It was not difficult at all to seem upset, because she was upset, but her visible efforts to calm herself seemed to earn her some respect from the Lifesaving Officer.